Further Reading

Saturday, 28 May 2011

Nuclear Crisis in Japan

Evidence is growing that the March 11 earthquake itself caused major damage to the Fukushima Daiichi reactors even before the accompanying tsunami knocked out offsite power and ensured the subsequent meltdowns.
According to Keiji Miyazaki, professor emeritus of nuclear reactor engineering at Osaka University, the earthquake likely damaged the high pressure coolant injection system, part of the emergency core cooling system at Unit 3 (as we reported below, it already has been believed that Unit 1 suffered severe damage from the earthquake). This system is supposed to work to cool the reactor even if power is lost, but at Unit 3, it didn't. A review of pressure readings at Unit 3 indicate that there likely was a major steam leak that ultimately led to the speedy meltdown there...read more>>>...