PHL SAFE FROM JAPAN NUCLEAR RADIATION / JAPAN 'CHERNOBYL' FEARED
[PHOTO FROM REUTERS - The radiation leak in Japan immediately recalls memories of accidents at the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island power stations, and how it unfolds will be a critical test for international acceptance of nuclear energy. Japan's nuclear agency said the problem at Fukushima rated a 4 on a seven-point scale of gravity, less severe than Three Mile Island, which was 5, and well short of Cherbobyl, a
full 7]
MANILA, MARCH 15, 2011 (STAR) By Helen Flores and Alexis Romero - Officials assured the public yesterday that a meltdown in Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan would not affect the Philippines.
In separate interviews, Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo and Philippine Nuclear Research Institute director Alumanda de la Rosa said Japan has facilities to stop the spread of radioactive waste.
"For the Philippines right now, there is no significant effect, but we are monitoring the situation so we can advise officials on what is the best action," De la Rosa said.
Montejo said the situation in Japan should not be compared with the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine in 1986.
"We have to distinguish that the plant in Japan is different from Chernobyl," he said. "It has a containment unit," he said.
"Even if there is meltdown, the radioactive waste is contained in reactor inside the structure."
In a worst-case scenario, any radioactive cloud from Japan will not affect the Philippines, Montejo said.
Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy does not want the government to activate the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) following the explosion of a nuclear plant in Japan.
"Filipinos can still hope for an efficient and a safer power source at cheaper cost if we can transform the BNPP into a natural gas plant," she said.
Herrera-Dy said the Japan earthquake tragedy has proven to be the strongest argument against attempts to revive the BNPP.
"Taking the side of caution is a correct move, nuclear power is not for us," she said.
Herrera-Dy said seismic activity might occur in the BNPP area and trigger threat of radiation leak since it lies near the Philippine Fault and the West Luzon Fault.
The House of Representative committee on energy must send to the legislative backburner any bill seeking to revive the BNPP, she added.
Bishop: Abandon plans to revive nuclear plant
Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez urged advocates yesterday to abandon plans to revive the BNPP.
"The explosion that occurred at a nuclear facility in Japan confirmed our fears before and until now," he said.
Catholic bishops consistently oppose proposals to revive the facility built during the Marcos administration, Iniguez said.
In a pastoral letter in February 2009, Catholic bishops recommended that the mothballed facility be dismantled.
Enrile: Assess impact of nuclear leak to Phl
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile called on President Aquino yesterday to form a special team to assess the possible impact of the nuclear leak to the country.
"The President should meet with our scientists and our experts so that we will now how the release of nuclear (elements) will affect our country on all fronts, especially our economy," he said.
"What happened in Japan will have a big blow not only in the Philippine economy, but the entire globe."
The government must take precautionary measures on the possible effect of nuclear radiation from Japan on public health, he added.
Enrile said the tragedy might affect Japanese official development assistance grants for the Philippines.
"There will surely be a slowdown in the (grant of) development assistance that they have committed to our government since they need to reconstruct their country," he said.
Products exported to Japan and the job opportunities for Filipino workers would also be affected, Enrile said. — With Paolo Romero, Christina Mendez
JAPAN 'CHERNOBYL' FEARED
By AP - [Photo is loading... A person believed to have been contaminated with radiation is carried to an ambulance at a treatment center in Nihonmatsu City in Fukushima prefecture yesterday. AP]
IWAKI – A partial meltdown was likely underway at a second nuclear reactor, a top Japanese official said yesterday, as experts feared a crisis reminiscent of Chernobyl from a nearby unit at the same facility following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that may have killed 1,000 people.
Some 170,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the area covering a radius of 20 kilometers around the plant in Fukushima near Iwaki.
Nine people have tested positive so far for radiation, according to television news reports last night.
US nuclear experts have warned that pumping seawater to cool a quake-hit Japanese nuclear reactor is an "act of desperation" that could foreshadow a Chernobyl-like disaster, referring to the 1986 accident in Ukraine.
A meltdown refers to a very serious collapse of a power plant's systems and its ability to manage temperatures. A complete meltdown would release uranium and dangerous byproducts into the environment that can pose serious health risks.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters that a partial meltdown in Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant is "highly possible."
"Because it's inside the reactor, we cannot directly check it but we are taking measures on the assumption of the possible partial meltdown," he said.
Japan dealt with the nuclear threat as it struggled to determine the scope of the twin disasters last Friday, when an 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the most powerful in its recorded history, was followed by a tsunami that ravaged its northeastern coast with breathtaking speed and power.
The official count of the dead was 763, but the government said the figure could far exceed 1,000. Media reports said some 10,000 people were missing or unaccounted for.
Unit 3 is one of the three working reactors at the Fukushima plant that were damaged, losing the cooling functions necessary to keep the fuel rods working properly. The other unit in trouble is called Unit 1. The facility's Unit 2 has not been affected.
On Saturday, an explosion destroyed the walls of Unit 1 as operators desperately tried to prevent it from overheating and melting down.
Edano said cooling operation at Unit 1 was going smoothly after seawater was pumped in. He expressed hope that it would keep the plant under control.
Operators released slightly radioactive air from Unit 3 yesterday, while injecting water into it as an effort to reduce pressure and temperature to save the reactor from a possible meltdown, Edano said.
He said radiation levels briefly rose above legal limits, but have since declined significantly. Also, fuel rods were exposed briefly, indicating that coolant water didn't cover the rods for some time. That would contribute further to raising the temperature in the reactor vessel.
Nuclear power experts in the US believe pumping seawater to cool a reactor is an "act of desperation" that could foreshadow a similar disaster that happened in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine in 1986.
In a conference call with reporters last Saturday, they also predicted that regardless of the outcome at the Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant crisis, the accident would seriously damage the nuclear power revival.
"The situation has become desperate enough that they apparently don't have the capability to deliver fresh water or plain water to cool the reactor and stabilize it, and now, in an act of desperation, are having to resort to diverting and using sea water," said Robert Alvarez, who works on nuclear disarmament at the Institute for Policy Studies.
"I would describe this measure as a 'Hail Mary' pass," added Alvarez, using American football slang for a final effort to win the game as time expires.
Workers at the nuclear plant doused the reactor with seawater after the quake knocked out the power supply to the cooling system.
The reactor has been shut down but the concern is the heat in the core, which can melt if it is not cooled.
Physicist Ken Bergeron said if the core melted through the reactor vessel it could flow onto the floor of the containment building. If that happens, the structure would likely fail.
"The containment building at this plant is certainly stronger than that at Chernobyl but a lot less strong than at Three Mile Island, so time will tell," he said.
In 1979, a partial core meltdown occurred at the Three Mile island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.
Peter Bradford, former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said that if the cooling attempts failed, "at that point it's a Chernobyl-like situation where you start dumping in sand and cement."
Joseph Cirincione, the head of the Ploughshares Fund, told CNN that the presence of radioactive cesium in the atmosphere after the plant was vented indicated that a partial meltdown was under way.
"That told the operators that the fuel rods had been exposed, that the water level had dropped below the fuel rods and the fuel rods were starting to burn, releasing cesium," he said.
The releases of iodine and cesium "imply some kind of core problem," Thomas Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington, told The New York Times.
Japan's nuclear safety agency rated the Fukushima accident at four on the International Nuclear Event Scale from 0 to 7. The Three Mile Island accident was rated five while Chernobyl was a seven.
The government declared an atomic emergency and said thousands of people living within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the plant should leave after an explosion at the nuclear plant last Saturday.
Paul Gunter of the US organization Beyond Nuclear told Fox News that the evacuation zone might be too small: "If that containment is lost... this will spread a tremendous amount of radioactivity, and it will then be borne on the weather."
The NRC said it had sent two experts—experts in boiling water nuclear reactors who are part of a broader US aid team— to the disaster zone.
World Nuclear Association spokesman Ian Hore-Lacy told CBS News, however, that the threat of a full meltdown is minimal.
"That possibility is remote at the best of times and is diminishing by the hour as the fuel gets cooler and generates less heat," he said.
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