Red Alert: Japan Warns of Possible Nuclear
Meltdown<http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110312-red-alert-japan-warns-possible-nuclear-meltdown>
March 12, 2011 | 0619 GMT
 [image: North Korean Artillery Attack on a Southern Island]

Japanese officials are cautioning that a nuclear meltdown may occur at the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant near the town of Okuma. According to
Japan�s Jiji Press, some of the reactor�s nuclear fuel rods were briefly
exposed to the air after the reactor�s water levels dropped through
evaporation. A fire engine is currently pumping water into the reactor and
the water levels are recovering, according to an operator of the Tokyo
Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the plant. A TEPCO spokesman said
the company believes the reactor is not melting down or cracking and that
workers are currently attempting to raise the water level.

If a meltdown takes place � essentially the core of the reactor overheating
and damaging the fuel rods themselves � it would be the first since the
Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and the Three Mile Island incident in 1979.

The Fukushima Daiichi power plant was shut
down<http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110311-japanese-nuclear-plant-damaged-earthquake>automatically
on March 11 due to the magnitude
8.9 earthquake that hit
Japan<http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110311-earthquake-rocks-japan-generate-tsunami>.
The on-site diesel backup generators also shut down about an hour after the
event, leaving the reactors without power and thus without the ability to
cool down the core. Japanese officials were operating the cooling system via
battery power and were flying in batteries by helicopter to keep the
temperature regulated.

An unchecked rise in temperature could cause the core to essentially turn
into a molten mass that could burn through the reactor vessel. This may lead
to a release of an unchecked amount of radiation into the containment
building that surrounds the reactor. This building could be breached if
enough pressure builds, or, in this case, if the containment building was
already breached through the earlier effects of the earthquake.

At the moment, it would appear that Japanese authorities are still trying to
contain the reaction inside the reactor. That indicates that the core has
not completely melted and that the reaction has not yet gotten out of hand.
However, the situation could quickly become uncontrollable and the added
water being pumped into the reactor could rapidly evaporate if the
temperatures rise too quickly to be cooled off.
regards

-- 
roger w
 From Proverbs:
Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: a
servant who becomes king ...
----------------------------------------------------------
Explore printed work at: http://www.prliving.ca/
View the growing list of video work at:
http://www.prpeak.com/articles/2010/11/29/multimedia/video/doc4c62e5f80d228504902172.txt