Hello. I’m here to update with two articles, in separate posts, that sum up the Fukushima as it’s being reported in the mainstream press. The first is a Reuters piece. The second will be a Washington post piece. This is a bit more optimistic. The Wa Po piece asks more questions — efc
By Gerard Wynn
LONDON (Reuters) – The risk of a major radiation leak in Japan is subsiding as stricken nuclear reactors cool, but there will be major clean-up costs and three reactors will probably be written off, experts said on Monday.
A massive earthquake and tsunami on Friday knocked out cooling systems at a nuclear plant in Fukushima, eastern Japan, triggering a race to flood reactor cores with seawater and stop radioactive uranium fuel from melting and leaking out.
A natural decaying process means that the amount of heat the fuel produces has fallen dramatically, by more than 90 percent, experts said on Monday.
That reduced the chance of serious damage, especially after workers flooded the three worst-affected reactors with seawater.
“The longer it goes on, the better the situation,” said Robin Grimes, director of the Center for Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College London, asked about the chances of a breach of the steel core, or “pressure vessel,” that contains the fuel.
All affected power plants, including the one in Fukushima, stopped generating power automatically when the quake struck.