I asked top spent-fuel pools expert Mr. Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Energy, for an explanation of the potential impact of the 11,421 rods.

Originally posted by PageAlaCearl
The title comes from Akio Matsumura's site here: akiomatsumura.com... the title is the same as the article that is the source. If you would like the title changed contact Akio Matsumura @ akiomatsumura.com...

If your waiting for TEPCO to tell you everything is going to S*** your gonna be waiting a while and hopefully your not in Japan as waiting for TEPCO to tell you things are bad will be a death sentence to those in Japan near Fukashima that stay.

Reactor buildings will not collapse even if earthquake with the same scale as that of Tohoku - Pacific Ocean Earthquake occurs again.

At 11:04 pm on April 1, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake centered in the coast of Fukushima Prefecture occurred. Hama-dori of Fukusihma Prefecture registerd intensity 5 lower on the Japanese seismic (intensity) scale of 7. No abnormalities were detected at facilities for water injection into the reactors, nitrogen gas injection, cooling of spent fuel pool, and the treatment of highly contaminated water at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

They all operate normally after the quake. As for the degree of the shake of the reactor buildings, Unit 6's reactor building's foundation registered 40.7 gal in horizontal direction and 19.4 gal in vertical direction. We, TEPCO, evaluates earthquake-proof safety by developing Design Basis Earthquake Ground Motion Ss as large-scale quake which would possibly occur in future.

For example, the degree of shake of Unit 6's reactor building's foundation against the Design Basis Earthquake Ground Motion is 448 gal in horizontal direction and 415 gal in vertical direction (, which is around 10 times large in horizontal way and around 20 times large in vertical way compared with the quake occurred on April 1, 2012). We assess that the level of this Design Basis Earthquake Ground Motion is almost same as the one recorded for the Tohoku - Pacific Ocean Earthquake.

Based on the Motion, we simulated the damaged situation of the current reactor buildings of Unit 1 to 4, having implemented quake response analysis for the reactor buildings as well as equipments and pipes which are important in terms of safety. As a result, we confirmed that there are no negative signal, such as shear/ twist of quake-proof walls of buildings, the fact that the stress of facilities/ piping lowers the standard value, and the fact that buildings collapse and facilities/ piping lose their functions.

Originally posted by Juanxlink
reply to post by Human0815

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Your blindness really astonishes me, but each its own, enjoy your FUBAR japan...

Professor Hayakawa went to Koriyama City in Fukushima Prefecture and walked in Kaiseiyama Park right near the City Hall. Compared to his walk in Edogawa-ku, Tokyo on the previous day, the radiation levels in Koriyama City is markedly higher (no surprise).

• Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl

• Several pools are 100 feet above the ground and are completely open to the atmosphere because the reactor buildings were demolished by explosions. The pools could possibly topple or collapse from structural damage coupled with another powerful earthquake.

• The loss of water exposing the spent fuel will result in overheating and can cause melting and ignite its zirconium metal cladding resulting in a fire that could deposit large amounts of radioactive materials over hundreds, if not thousands of miles.

This was not lost on Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who after visiting the site on April 6, wrote to Japan's U.S. ambassador, Ichiro Fujusaki, that "loss of containment in any of these pools... could result an even larger release of radiation than the nuclear accident."

April 20, 2012

Mounting troubles at Japan’s hobbled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant now pose a real threat to human survival. If the area in which Unit 4 is struck by another 7.0 magnitude earthquake, there’s a 70 percent chance that “the entire fuel pool structure will collapse” and massive doses of lethal nuclear radiation will be released into the atmosphere. The disaster would release approximately “134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at Chernobyl as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP).” Experts believe that the amounts are sufficient to “destroy the world environment and our civilization”, which makes containment “an issue of human survival.” (“The Greatest Single Threat to Humanity: Fuel Pool Number 4″, Washington’s blog)

There is no way to overstate the media’s complicity in concealing critical information about the tragedy that is presently unfolding at Fukushima. If there is another earthquake, the media will certainly be every bit as responsible as the government officials who saw the danger, but chose to do nothing.

If an earthquake hits and undermines the pool, the coolant will exit the pool, the rods will melt and radioactive plumes will rise into the atmosphere. Koide explained that the rods could not be safely removed from the existing pool because “if you hoist them up in the air, huge amount of radiation will come out from the spent fuel and people nearby will die.”

One of the journalists on “Morning Bird” asked Koide what would happen if the Unit was struck by another earthquake?

Koide answered, “That will be the end.”

“The end,” the journalist asked, visibly shaken?

“The end,” Koide repeated emphatically.