Update on Reactors

With the news of the rapture taking over headlines , the japan crisis has taken a bit of the back seat in the last few days and may be staying there until Octoer 21 (the day Harold Camping has predicted the world to end). You can say that is going to be headline news with his now two previous failures and with a third back pocket prediction the Japense Government and all those helping with the Fukishima crisis now have a chance to get as much done as they can with the spot light going to be off them for the next five months. So here are "quiet updates" on the plant. The fuel rods on units 2 and 3 may have melted in the early few days of the crisis.  Fuel in 3 of the 6 reactors leaked after the tsunami knocking out the cooling systems leading to raditaion being leaked into the atmosphere.  The plant now is still leaking but in lower levels after the accident and officials aim to have the plant in a cold shutdown to stop all raditation leaks by as late as January. An image released Tuesday also suggests that Units 2 & 3's fuel rods melted as well.  Unit 4 had no Fuel rods at the time but workers still struggle to keep the plant cool.  Units 5 & 6 have been in a cold shutdown since late March.

Japan extends no safe zone to 20 km

Japan officials decided to prohibited citizens from going no closer then 20 km of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Thursday. This would be to control evacuees with the fear of radition leaks. The prime minister Naoto Kan hada 35 minute meeting with Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato. The topic of the meeting was for Sato to upgrade the current evacuation insturctions for civilions that comes close to the no entry ban. This will come into affect at midnight tonight local time.      April 21

The Due Date is Nine Months

The doctor has a full and normal nine month terms for the baby to be born. This is also the case for the crippled giant the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. To get the power plant under control it will take about nine months. Tokyo Eletric Power the (TEPCO) the team that will carry out the work say they wil do it in two stages. The first stage will take about three months and that is the progress of reducing radiation levels steadily. The second stage will take around six months which will see the managing releases of radioactive material as well as substantially reducing radiation levels.

The industry says that this is rated as a level seven disaster, rated the same as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which is the worlds worst nuclear accident.

To have successfuly complete stage one , the team must insure that they do not cause hydrogen explosions at the no. 1 and no. 3 reactors. Also they have to make sure not to let some of the 20,000 tons of highly radioactive water in reactor no. 2 doesnt seep into the plant.

Another Leak Found

The Kyodo News is reporting that another nuclear power plant has fuel rod leak that is a radioactive substance. This plant is the Tsuruga nuclear powerplant. The Fukui prefuctural government reported a rise in the level of radioactive substances in coolant water. The Japan Atomatic Power Company is the operator of the plant and said that they will manually shut down the No.2 reactor of the plant to examine its primary cooling system. Therev is no true report the those levels could affect the nearby enviornment.
According to Japan Atomic, 4.2 becquerels of iodine-133 and 3,900 becquerels of xenon gas were detected per cubic centimetre, up from 2.1 and 5.2 becquerels, respectively, during previous measurements conducted last Tuesday.