Helicopters Dump Water on Japan Nuclear Plant Fuel Rods

Helicopters are dumping water on a reactor at the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station, aiming to cool exposed fuel rods that may be spewing radiation, while the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to connect a power line to start damaged cooling systems later today, officials said.
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said today there is a possibility of no water at the No. 4 reactor spent fuel cooling pool. The agency has detected no smoke or steam rising from the reactor, spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.
Tokyo Electric’s failure to end the threat of radiation from the Fukushima plant has prompted governments including the U.K. and Germany to advise their citizens to consider leaving Tokyo. The crisis has wiped 2.26 trillion yen ($29 billion) off Tepco’s market value since the March 11 quake, subsequent tsunami and a series of explosions and fires devastated the 40- year-old power station.
All water in the No. 4 reactor’s spent-fuel pond has drained, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko told a congressional panel in Washington yesterday. Fuel rods stored in three reactors at the Tokyo Electric plant are exposed and releasing radiation, Yukiya Amano, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in Vienna before departing for Tokyo. The plant has six reactors, three of which have been damaged by explosions following the March 11 quake.
Helicopters are also being used to determine radiation readings, water levels in the pool and damage to the reactors, Tepco spokesman Kaoru Yoshida told reporters in Tokyo today. Technicians were unable to inspect the facilities because of high levels of radiation. Water may also be sprayed from a water cannon used by the National Police for riot control.

Radiation Levels

The United Nations’ nuclear agency plans an emergency meeting on the crisis. Japan faces a “serious situation,” Amano said before departing for talks with authorities today.
“Radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures,” Jaczko told U.S. lawmakers.
Workers at Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, are struggling to prevent a nuclear meltdown at the complex, 135 miles (220 kilometers) north of Tokyo. The No. 2 reactor’s containment vessel may have been breached, Tepco official Masahisa Otsuku said yesterday.
“We haven’t been able to get any of the latest data at any spent fuel pools,” Otsuku said. “We don’t have the latest water levels, temperatures, none of the latest information for any of the four reactors.”

Power Line

Tepco said it’s building a power line to the Dai-Ichi plant’s cooling systems, which were knocked out by the quake, but was unable to say when the cable would be completed.
The failure of backup generators used to pump cooling water caused explosions in at least three of structures surrounding the station’s reactors, as well as a fire in a pond containing spent fuel rods.
Temperatures in the spent-fuel cooling pools of the shuttered No. 5 and No. 6 reactors were rising to as high as 63 degrees Celsius (145 degrees Fahrenheit) at 2 p.m. yesterday, said Tsuyoshi Makigami, head of nuclear maintenance at Tepco. Water levels at the pools at the inactive reactor Nos. 4, 5 and 6, dropped by about 2 meters, exposing the fuel rods, Amano said.
Exposed to air, the fuel bundles could chemically react with moisture, catch fire and spread radiation into the atmosphere, said Edwin Lyman, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Pool Water

“Spent fuel is pretty hot and so it is stored under water to keep it cool,” said Kelley, who worked for 30 years at the U.S. Energy Department. “If the water leaks or boils away, then the fuel is exposed,” then after burning, the uranium corrodes and releases cesium, contaminating the area, he said.
The NRC’s Jaczko said radiation at the Japanese site is fluctuating and at peak levels “would be lethal within a fairly short period of time.”
He told reporters later that the information came from NRC staff that were dispatched to Japan to help with the response and have been in contact with industry officials there. Jaczko’s assessment prompted the U.S. to recommend American citizens living within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the plant evacuate or take shelter indoors as a precaution against possible radiation exposure. That exceeded the Japanese government’s recommendation of a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone.
There have been more than 450 aftershocks since the magnitude-9 temblor left hundreds of thousands stranded and without power, with disruptions to food and water supplies. The Japanese government has dispatched 100,000 troops to the northeastern region.
The official death toll at 8 a.m. Tokyo time was 4,314 people, with 8,606 missing, the National Police Agency said. The tsunami and fears of a meltdown at the plant forced 451,059 people from their homes.
Eleven of Japan’s 54 reactors have been operating for 35 years or more. Two of those rank among the 10 oldest operating units in the world, according to the World Nuclear Association.