11/14/2011 Are Fukushima Reactors 5 and 6 In Trouble Also?

Source: Washington's Blog
Date: 11/14/2011

Are All 6 Fukushima Reactors In Trouble?

Everyone knows that Fukushima reactors 1-3 have melted down, and the fuel pool at reactor 4 is ruined.
But reactors 5 and 6 have been almost entirely ignored since the earthquake because – we were assured – the reactors were in controlled shutdown prior to the earthquake, and so all was safe.
However, there are rumors of problems.

9/13/2011 Solar flare could unleash nuclear holocaust across planet Earth, forcing hundreds of nuclear power plants into total meltdowns

Source: Natural News
Date: 9/13/2011
by: Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) Forget about the 2012 Mayan calendar, comet Elenin or the Rapture. The real threat to human civilization is far more mundane, and it's right in front of our noses. If Fukushima has taught us anything, it's that just one runaway meltdown of fissionable nuclear material can have wide-ranging and potentially devastating consequences for life on Earth. To date, Fukushima has already released 168 times the total radiation released from the Hiroshima nuclear bomb detonated in 1945, and the Fukushima catastrophe is now undeniably the worst nuclear disaster in the history of human civilization.
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8/17/2011 U.S. Knew Within Days that Fukushima Had Melted Down

Source: Washington's Blog
Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2011

I noted in May that that International Atomic Energy Agency knew within weeks of the Japanese earthquake that the reactors had melted down ... but the public was not told for a month and a half.
I pointed out in June:

As the prestigious scientific journal Nature notes:

Shortly after a massive tsunami struck the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 11 March, an unmanned monitoring station on the outskirts of Takasaki, Japan, logged a rise in radiation levels. Within 72 hours, scientists had analysed samples taken from the air and transmitted their analysis to Vienna, Austria — the headquarters of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), an international body set up to monitor nuclear weapons tests.
It was just the start of a flood of data collected about the accident by the CTBTO's global network of 63 radiation monitoring stations. In the following weeks, the data were shared with governments around the world, but not with academics or the public.

The attempted cover up of the severity of the Fukushima disaster is nothing new. Governments have been covering up nuclear meltdowns for 50 years, and the basic design for nuclear reactors was not chosen for safety, but because it worked on Navy submarines ... and produced plutonium for the military.

(Indeed, the government's response to every crisis appears to be to try to cover it up; and see this.)

Today, Yomiuri Shinbun reports (Google translation) that the U.S. knew within days that Fukushima had melted down:

The subject of evacuating the US citizens was raised in the early hours on March 16 (local time). The US ... already knew about the unusually high temperature of the reactors from the Global Hawk data, and determined that “the fuel has already melted”.

***

The US high-ranking officials wanted to evacuate the US citizens [Tokyo] but the local officials including Maher objected, as “it would severely undermine the US-Japan alliance”

(The Global Hawk is an unmanned aerial aircraft).

8/9/2011 Fukushima Update–Information Suppressed, Health Unmonitored

Source: The Paltry Sapien
Date: August 9, 2011
by: Matthew Payne

A Child of Chernobyl'; Is the Japanese Government Ensuring the Same for Fukushima Kids?

First off, it should be noted the number of meltdowns at Fukushima may be four, not three.  It seems that Reactor Three experienced a second meltdown after TEPCo failed to keep the core covered ten days after the first meltdown.  This is hardly simply an academic argument since if the core did meltdown twice, it is quite likely TEPCo is measuring its temperature incorrectly and thus will be unable to reach “cold shutdown” quickly.
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8/8/2011 Japan Witheld Nuclear Meltdown Simulation Showing 18,000 Deaths And 55 Mile Dead Zone

Source: Alexander Higgins Blog
Date: August 8, 2011 at 12:46 pm

Japan Withheld A Nuclear Meltdown Simulation Showing 18,000 Deaths From Acute Radiation Poisoning And 55 Mile Uninhabitable Radius Due To Fears It Would Damage The Nuclear Industry.
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1979? | Atomic Meltdown U.S.A.

Source: "Unit 4" via YouTube
Date: 1979?

Here is a nostalgic Sunday Cinema feature, courtesy of Ray from Glowing Conversations. This news report from "Unit 4" news documents the Sodium Reactor Experiment (S.R.E.) meltdown at the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory (S.S.F.L) in 1959 that was kept secret for 20 years.

Part 1


Part 2

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku makes a surprise guest appearance 3 minutes 50 seconds in to this segment, as he discusses the dangerous consequences had an uncontrolled reaction continued at the SSFL (Santa Susanna Field Laboratory) SRE (Sodium Reactor Experiment).

Part 3


It appears that the Japanese are trying to restart a contemporary sodium cooled reactor: the Monju fast-breeder reactor in Tsuruga, Japan. This reactor has been out of commission due to heavy equipment falling in to the reactor core, which happened before the Japan earthquake. There have been other safety problems prior to this including a 1995 fire caused by leaked sodium coolant, which was deemed one of Japan's worst nuclear accidents.  Protesters have resisted the Monju project since the 1970's.  Fast-breeder reactors have the advantage of greater efficiency in utilizing a higher percentage of nuclear fuel. However, since this particular reactor uses liquid sodium for cooling there is the danger that the sodium can ignite or explode if it happens to accidentally leak out in to open air (as in 1995) or contacts water.

6/8/2011 JST | 'Melt-through' at Fukushima? / Govt report to IAEA suggests situation worse than meltdown

Source: Daily Yomiuri
Date: Jun. 8, 2011 JST
by: The Yomiuri Shimbun

Nuclear fuel in three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has possibly melted through pressure vessels and accumulated at the bottom of outer containment vessels, according to a government report obtained Tuesday by The Yomiuri Shimbun.
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6/7/2011 | Months Later CNN Picks up on Late Admission by TEPCO and the Japanese Government of 3 Meltdowns at Fukushima and Radiation Dangers

Source: CNN via MoxNews
Date: 6/7/2011 upload date

Better late than never I suppose, but obviously the true seriousness of the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been concealed for months, with information being withheld from the public by both TEPCO and the Japanese government. Finally CNN has Arnie Gundersen on to discuss the very real and serious dangers of radiation, including "hot particles".

Watch on YouTube

6/3/2011 | Exclusive Arnie Gundersen Interview: The Dangers of Fukushima Are Worse and Longer-lived Than We Think

Source: Chris Martenson
Date: Friday, June 3, 2011, 3:54 pm
by: Adam

"I have said it's worse than Chernobyl and I’ll stand by that. There was an enormous amount of radiation given out in the first two to three weeks of the event. And add the wind blowing in-land. It could very well have brought the nation of Japan to its knees. I mean, there is so much contamination that luckily wound up in the Pacific Ocean as compared to across the nation of Japan - it could have cut Japan in half. But now the winds have turned, so they are heading to the south toward Tokyo and now my concern and my advice to friends that if there is a severe aftershock and the Unit 4 building collapses, leave. We are well beyond where any science has ever gone at that point and nuclear fuel lying on the ground and getting hot is not a condition that anyone has ever analyzed."
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5/31/2011 | (VIDEO) Japanese PM's Assistant Quit Because He Didn't Want His Children Exposed To More Radiation

Source: CNN
Date: 5/31/2011 upload date by MOXNEWSdotCOM

Click here for interview video

Dr. Michio Kaku confirms what observant people have suspected from the outset of the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in mid-March of 2011 (the earthquake and tsunami occurred on 3/11/2011 with a radiation leak being reported on reactor 1 and 3 km/2 mile evacuation radius via news wire services like Bloomberg): all three reactors have had full core meltdowns. According to Dr. Kaku, dumping sea water in to the reactors prevented a worse situation which would have rendered the entirety of Northern Japan unlivable. Another interesting point Dr. Kaku highlights is that one of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's advisers (Senior Nuclear Adviser Toshiso Kosako) quit in protest to the dose limit being raised which would allow school children to endure radiation levels twenty times higher (20 milliSieverts/year) than the previous limit, which is the same dosage allowed in one year for adult nuclear workers (as set by the International Commission on Radiation Protection). Since the initial accident in March, TEPCO and the Japanese government have not been forthcoming (the word "coverup" fits) with information about the nuclear accident and the mainstream media apparently (according to Dr. Kaku) under-reported the critical nature of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

5/26/2011 | Large scale melt predicted at units 2 and 3

Source: WNN (World Nuclear News)
Date: 26 May 2011

Computer analysis of reactor damage at Fukushima Daiichi has indicated more serious fuel melt has probably occurred than previously thought at units 2 and 3.
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5/25/2011 | Tepco: Newly Discovered Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Radiation Leaks May Exceed Chernobyl Levels

Source: Alexander Higgins Blog
Date: May 25, 2011 at 5:28 am
by: Alexander Higgins

Tepco says newly identified leaks of radiation leaks from the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor may have been leaking radiation exceeding Chernobyl levels.

As I previously reported, the American media finally acknowledged TEPCO’s press release that nuclear meltdown had occurred in 3 reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
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5/24/2011 JST | Fukushima plant's Nos. 2, 3 reactors also suffered meltdown: TEPCO

Source: Japan Today
Date: Tuesday 24th May, 12:00 PM JST

TOKYO — The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex said Tuesday that meltdowns are assumed to have occurred in the cores of the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors in addition to the meltdown already confirmed at the No. 1 reactor, but stressed that it believes the melted fuel is being kept cool at the bottom of the pressure vessels.
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5/16/2011 | Was Fukushima a China Syndrome?

Source: Time Ecocentric Blog
Date: Monday, May 16, 2011 at 2:00 pm
by: Eben Harrell

The China Syndrome refers to a scenario in which a molten nuclear reactor core could could fission its way through its containment vessel, melt through the basement of the power plant and down into the earth. While a molten reactor core wouldn't burn "all the way through to China" it could enter the soil and water table and cause huge contamination in the crops and drinking water around the power plant. It's a nightmare scenario,the stuff of movies. And it might just have happened at Fukushima.
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5/13/2011 | It’s Official: Fukushima Hit With Full-Blown Nuclear Meltdown

Source: GIZMODO (Australia)
Date: May 13, 2011 at 7:07 AM
by: Sam Biddle


The flow of bad news (and radiation) out of Fukushima’s reactors has diminished to a trickle over the past several weeks, as rescue work has proceeded. Not today. TEPCO’s admitted for the first time that Fukushima experienced a full meltdown.
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5/13/2011 | Fukushima - One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems

Source: Fairewinds Associates
Date: May 13, 2011

Fukushima - One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Gundersen says Fukushima's gaseous and liquid releases continue unabated. With a meltdown at Unit 1, Unit 4 leaning and facing possible collapse, several units contaminating ground water, and area school children outside the exclusion zone receiving adult occupational radiation doses, the situation continues to worsen. TEPCO needs a cohesive plan and international support to protect against world-wide contamination.

5/12/2011 | TEPCO Admits Fukushima in Meltdown, Worst Case Scenario 5/12/11

Source: NHK world
Date: May 12, 2011 JST


No.1 reactor is in a "meltdown" state

Tokyo Electric Power Company says the No.1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is believed to be in a state of "meltdown".

The utility company said on Thursday that most of the fuel rods are likely to have melted and fallen to the bottom of the reactor. Earlier in the day, it found that the coolant water in the reactor is at a level which would completely expose nuclear fuel rods if they were in their normal position.

The company believes the melted fuel has cooled down, judging from the reactor's surface temperature.

But it suspects the meltdown created a hole or holes in the bottom of the reactor causing water to leak into the containment vessel.

It also suspects the water is leaking into the reactor building.

The company is planning to fully fill the containment vessel with water by increasing the amount injected.

The company says, however, it must review the plan in light of the latest finding.

Friday, May 13, 2011 05:21 +0900 (JST)

5/12/2011 | Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown, Exposed Fuel Rods; Media Shrugs

Source: Prisonplanet.com
Date: May 12, 2011
by: Paul Joseph Watson
TEPCO has been lying all along about the severity of the crisis
Despite the bombshell revelation that fuel rods at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant have been fully exposed since the early days of the disaster, that reactor number 1 is officially in meltdown, along with news that reactor 4 is on the verge of collapse, the corporate media is largely disinterested in the story amidst continued fearmongering about terror attacks and endless coverage of the Bin Laden carnival act.
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