Three Decades and Twelve Billion Dollars to Scrap 4 of the 6 Fukushima Reactors... Really!?

According to the CBC news that is what it's going to take to shut down four of the TEPCO nuclear reactors in Japan. Also they wish to restart reactors 5 & 6 but don't think they can sway the public to allow them to do that. :shk:

Radiation leaking into seawater from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear complex has reached its highest level yet, prompting officials to declare that four reactors will be scrapped.

"We have no choice," Tsunehisa Katsumata, chair of Tokyo Electric Power Company, known as TEPCO, said as he told a news conference Wednesday that Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 at the plant will be scrapped.

"So what that means is they're going to keep cooling them down and when they're sufficiently cool, they'll have to remove the highly toxic radioactive material and store it safely and demolish the reactors," CBC reporter Craig Dale said in an interview.

France will send in two nuclear experts and the U.S. will send robots to examine the reactor rods and fuel pools. The whole process could take three decades and cost upwards of $12 billion US and then there is the question of what to do with reactors 5 and 6.

Source

The Government of Japan wants to scrap all 6 of them which would increase both the time it will take to scrap them all and exceed the 12 billion.

There is no mention in the story of when they'll actually be able to stop the leakage so I'm guessing it's somewhere in that 3 decade window.

Is this the best way to deal with this? I thought they would just bury them like what was done at Chernobyl. Maybe they can't just bury them?

Japan's food exports are declining because company's don't want the possibility of importing contaminated food. I don't blame any country for doing this (it's what I would do). Makes one wonder just how much sea-life has been contaminated. Currently the radiation in the waters around the plant are 3,355 times the safety standard.

Meanwhile they'll just keep throwing water at the reactors as radiation makes it's way into the soil, sea, and tap-water.

reply to post by AeonStorm


AeonStorm,

I'm no nuclear engineer, but I'm guessing the reason they cannot entomb them is due to the fact that the bottom of the containment vessel has been breached. This must mean the highly radioactive material is seeping into the ground as we speak.

Methinks this is far more serious than they are telling us, but I'm pretty sure everybody would agree with that assessment.

Thanks for posting. Star & Flag.

Peace.

reply to post by AeonStorm


"One major problem, said Murray E. Jennex, an associate professor at San Diego State University with 20 years of experience in examining nuclear containment structures, was that all the water the Japanese were spraying had soaked important machinery like generators and pumps, further hampering efforts to restore the reactors’ electricity supply. The use of helicopters in the first week to drop water on the rectors from above was especially ineffective in hitting the target and may have done more harm than good, he said.

“They dumped water all over the place,” he said. “They keep on generating more contamination. That’s the consequence of doing it. They got water on things that shouldn’t be wet.”

SOURCE: www.nytimes.com...

But don't worry, folks, all is well. They know what they're doing. Everything people were 'fear-mongering' (MYSELF included) two weeks ago seems to have been ALL coming true. So tell me now... what's next???

Oh, and didnt I see on the news earlier that there was smoke coming from one of the Daini reactors??? Can anyone link to that???

It kills me,I used to think Nuclear power was a good thing,still do if you could find a responsible Alien to run it>They don't know and can't know...It's unprecedented,and about as big an experiment as the bp fiasco that is ALSO ongoing.I read so much and hear so much speculation,but nobody really knows at this point...All I can say at this point is any scenario that calls for years to resolve this,no matter how scary the proposition,rings true in my ears.
On another note thanks to everybody following posting and contributing..I love this site,I'll see if I can contibute in any way..thanks op,I will be following along hoping this doesn't play out as badly as many (including myself)think it will....Peace

lets just get our best aircraft and launch these things into space

Yes and while we are at it send the bulk of the fed with the radioactive material...Oh yeah we have to make bp pay!

reply to post by AeonStorm


It's an estimate derived during an ongoing situation. If it's accurate, so what? If anything, it may be vastly underplaying what is actually happening (institutional depictions of fact are generally conservative).

Really it's all speculation anyway...can't wait to see how this turns out...or maybe I can..

if the chinese had sent in a couple million men this mess would have already been cleaned up.
its not like they care about human life anyways

wheres the chinese when you need them

reply to post by gougitousakusha


that would bring new meaning to little green men

4th thread on this