Arnold Gundersen On Fukushima Nuclear Radiation Update Part 3

http://www.emfnews.org/products.html Arnold Gundersen On Fukushima Nuclear Radiation Update Well, the nuclear fuel is placed into the nuclear reactor, and as long as the water is in there, everything is fine. But like when you overcook spaghetti, what happens? It can form a blob on the bottom of your pressure cooker. That is what happened at Fukushima. The decay products created enough heat to boil off all the water, the nuclear fuel collapsed, the pasta broke, and is now a blob at the bottom of the nuclear reactor. That happened in about 6-8 hours on Fukushima I and perhaps as long as 10 hours on Fukushima II & III.

So the first phase of this accident is called a meltdown. That is when the pasta collapses and lays in the bottom of the pressure cooker. That is when the nuclear fuel melts and lays in the bottom of the nuclear reactor. Phase one is a meltdown.

The second step in the process is something called a melt-through. Now we are at a point where we have got a blob of nuclear fuel at the bottom of the nuclear reactor vessel. TEPCO is saying that the nuclear reactor vessel is about 8 inches thick, about 30 centimeters thick, and that is enough to hold the nuclear fuel for quite a long time. I do not think that part of TEPCO's analysis is right. I have talked about it before, but on a boiling water reactor, there are over 60 holes in the bottom of the reactor for the control rods to go in and out. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has already identified that it is likely that the nuclear fuel did not have to melt through the 8 inches of steel, but instead could do an end run around that and shoot out holes at the bottom of the reactor.

So almost like soft ice cream falling out of a dispenser, it is like hot nuclear fuel pouring out of these holes on the bottom of the reactor. That phase is called a melt-through. Probably within a day of the beginning of the Fukushima accident, we were in the phase where nuclear fuel was melting through the nuclear pressure vessel.

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