Michio Kaku: Hanging by Your Fingernails - The Fukushima Meltdown

04-11-2011 • bigthink.com

The situation at Fukushima is relatively stable now... in the same way that you are stable if you hang by your fingernails off a cliff, and your fingernails begin to break one by one. As I mentioned before, the accident so far in Fukushima is progressing in three acts. The first act was the earthquake and tsunami, which immediately wiped out all emergency cooling systems simultaneously at all three reactors and all hell has broken loose. Act II was the enormous damage done to the cores of these three reactors. With the loss of cooling water, temperatures began to rise rapidly, causing the hydrogen gas explosions and fuel melting. We know that about 70% of Unit 1's core was damaged, and that 33% of Unit 2's core was also damaged. All computer simulations done by various laboratories all show the same thing—that we came perilously close to a full scale metldown at all three reactors, including a spent fuel pond accident in Unit 4. Against the wishes the utility, the Japanese government ordered flushing the entire reactors with seawater, which temporarily halted the accident from progressing to a full blown tragedy. This stabilized the accident, at present, from going into free fall (but reduced the three reactors to pieces of junk.) Meanwhile, radiation keeps flowing out of the reactors and into food, agricultural products, the oceans, the soil, etc. Now we are entering Act III. With the cores covered with seawater and fresh water, the workers are desperately trying to hit rock bottom, so they can begin recovery operations. Unfortunately, we have not yet reached the bottom. Leaks of radiation are being found everywhere.