Fukushima Fiasco: Tepco's Risky Removal of Radioactive Fuel Could Set Off Uncontrolled Chain Reaction; Emergency Delay Invoked

Mike Adams * Natural News

(NaturalNews) The Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced it is delaying the relocation of fuel rods from its crippled plant reactors. Work was originally scheduled to begin today due to the fact that fuel rods remain highly vulnerable in the damaged storage pools. Right now, Fukushima is just one earthquake or tidal wave away from structural collapse, causing a catastrophic release of radioactive fuel directly into the atmosphere.

Moving the fuel rods a wildly risky proposition, as the fuel rods must be extricated from their operating matrix containing coolant water and control rods that “smother” runaway nuclear reactions. Absent these safeguards, the removal and transport of fuel rods is inherently hazardous.

“New video footage from a robot has revealed new leaks within the damaged reactors meaning the rods now can’t be taken out as planned,” reports Euronews. “One of the fuel assemblies was damaged as far back as 1982 when it was mishandled during a transfer and is bent out of shape.”

Euronews goes on to quote Kazuaki Matsui, the executive director of Japan’s Institute of Applied Energy as saying “It’s very difficult to remove a spent rod because parts of the wall and the bottom of the reactor are all melted. We’ve never had to deal with this before so that adds to the complication.”
 

Fuel rod removal may set off runaway meltdown reaction that’s open to the air

Arnie Gunderson of Fairewinds confirms this activity is extremely risky:

[Fuel rod removal] is fraught with danger, including the possibility of a large release of radiation if a fuel assembly breaks, gets stuck or gets too close to an adjacent bundle. That could lead to a worse disaster than the March 2011 nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant, the world’s most serious since Chernobyl in 1986.

All that is required for a runaway nuclear meltdown is for one of the fuel rods to be dropped or accidentally placed too close to other fuel rods. Removing these fuel rods safely is a lot like trying to play the game “Surgery” via a remote-controlled robot, under water, in a murky haze filled with twisted pieces of metal.

In other words, it’s almost impossible to pull this off without error.
 

Tepco isn’t a name that inspires confidence

Keep in mind that this fuel rod extraction and relocation operation is being carried out by Tepco, a company that has already demonstrated stunning incompetence, corruption and deception in the way it has handled the Fukushima situation so far.

Yet Tepco is seeking to move thousands of fuel rods without damaging, dropping, breaking or misplacing a single one. The odds against this happening without incident are astronomical. You’d have better luck playing a drunken game of Russian Roulette with 5 out of 6 chambers loaded (instead of just one).

read more at Natural News:

http://www.naturalnews.com/042952_Fukushima_fuel_rods_inadvertent_criticality.html#ixzz2l1RU5h4w