JAPAN'S NUCLEAR MELTDOWN & INTERNAT'L ATOMIC ENERGY'S INCOMPETENCE
MANILA, MARCH 17, 2011 (TIMES) BY TONY LOPEZ - Japan's nuclear meltdown and IAEA's incompetence
The world should act with concern, if not rage, at the incompetence and seeming complicity of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with Japanese officials and officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) in keeping the world ignorant, if not misinformed, on what's really going on at Okuma, Fukushima where six—yes, six—nuclear reactors are in trouble. TEPCO operates the six beachfront reactors in just one place, in Fukushima, in northeast Japan, near the epicenter of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11.
The earthquake forced the automatic shutdown of three reactors—No. 1, 2, and 3. A fourth, No. 4, was already shut down before the quake, for refueling. All four developed fires within four days of the earthquake. A fifth, No. 5, was losing coolant yesterday, meaning, it too could explode. The worst situation is No. 4 which has been hit by two fires—with the melting of its spent nuclear fuel which is unprotected by containment, meaning it spews deadly radiation directly into the air.
Yet, you won't know how serious the situation is reading the IAEA website. There is very little information there to tell you what's going on.
The March 11 temblor struck at 2:46 p.m, cutting off power in northeast Japan. Within an hour after that, the tsunami arrived. The wall of water inundated the generators being used by the power plants as a source of emergency power to pump water into the reactors, which are cooled by water. Later, the generators gave up. Power source shifted to the emergency batteries. Later, the batteries also ran out.
The water in the reactors boiled and evaporated, exposing the nuclear fuel, which then overheated and released radioactive elements into their containment vessel or dome. Then radioactivity began to destroy the containment vessel, resulting in radiation leakage into the atmosphere.
It is not clear from the cryptic reports by TEPCO to the IAEA in Vienna how and when the sequence of events took place that eventually led to a partial meltdown which if uncontrolled would lead to total meltdown—the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being detonated and releasing fatal radiation into the air.
TEPCO didn't inform IAEA promptly and even if it did, the information was so cryptic and misleading you don't get an idea what was really going on to anticipate and prepare for succeeding developments. Also, the IAEA itself does not release information on time. If you checked its website yesterday, the latest entry is March 15, 22:30 UTC.
The IAEA kept using different time standards, depending on its mood. First, it was using Japanese time. Then it shifted to Central Europe Time (CET). Lately, it has been using UTC. The use of different time standards I suspect is deliberate so you don't find out what the IAEA knew and when did it know it. CET is +1 GMT. Japan time is +9 GMT. If it is 5 a.m. in Vienna Wednesday, it is 1 p.m. in Tokyo, Wednesday. Tokyo is ahead of Vienna by eight hours.
Yet, the IAEA is a UN agency. Its head is a Japanese, Yukia Amano. This is like being in a basketball game where the referee belongs to the home team. IAEA's function basically is "safeguards"—guardian of safety of the people against abuse, misuse and violations of the proper use of nuclear energy.
In Fukushima, four nuclear reactors—Units 1, 2, 3, and 4, —were critically damaged. Three of the four had automatically shut down, with the quake. The fourth, Reactor 4, developed fires in its spent fuel pool on March 15 and March 16. Because it was spent fuel, it was not in a containment, opening the possibility for a major leak of radioactive elements. By March 15, the 30-km radius around the reactors was declared a no-fly zone. A fifth reactor, nearby No. 5, was at this writing losing its coolant and its power comes from a generator being used by Unit No. 6.
In effect, you have six nuclear plants—No 1 to 6—in trouble. The Fukushima nuclear situation has deteriorated with each passing day.
Unit 1, 2 and 3 were victims of hydrogen explosions. Unit 4, shut down before the earthquake, caught fire, after its spent fuel rods overheated. It caught fire again early yesterday morning, March 16.
The roof of Reactor 1 went off due to an explosion Friday, March 11. Reactor 3 caught fire, also due to a hydrogen explosion on March 14, 11:01 a.m. Japan time, injuring six people and spewing potentially deadly amounts of radioactive material.
Reactor No. 2 was badly damaged by a hydrogen explosion at 6:20 a.m. Japan time, March 15. Unit 2 experienced decreasing coolant levels in its reactor core. Officials began to inject sea water to cool the reactor.
The spent fuel storage pond of Reactor No. 4 caught fire at 4:50 CET (Central European Time) March 15, releasing reactivity into the atmosphere. Reactor 2 and 3 had seen containment breaches exposing their fuels.
If the fuel becomes uncovered for long periods, the fuel rods start to melt, resulting in a situation like Chernobyl because molten fuel eats into the containment or suppression chamber, releasing deadly radioactive materials into the air. In that situation, things get out of control. A nuclear crisis ensues.
At 11 a.m. Wednesday, March 15, Prime Minister Naoto Kan admitted radiation had spread from the crippled reactors and "there was a very high risk" of further leakage.
Even after a shutdown, nuclear fuel needs to be cooled. IAEA was first informed of 9.0 magnitude earthquake at 8:15 a.m. CET.
At 17:55 CET, March 11, IAEA was told that Japanese authorities had ordered the evacuation of residents within a 3-km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. People within a 10-km radius were told to stay indoor.
At 20:30 CET, March 11, 16 hours after it happened, IAEA was told the earthquake and tsunami had cut off the supply of off-site power to the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
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