This scenario would explain the high radiation levels that have been measured in different parts of the reactor building, despite the use of air-filtering equipment that was meant to decontaminate the air and bring down radiation levels before workers entered the building on Monday to survey the situation.īanri Kaieda, head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, told reporters that the meltdown was sufficiently serious that “it will require a review of TEPCO’s schedule for bringing the plant under control.” The revised plan is to be announced on May 17. The bad news is that TEPCO suspects that the molten fuel damaged the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel, allowing radioactive water to leak out of the pressure vessel and into the building. The good news is that there appears to have been enough water at the bottom of the reactor's pressure vessel to cool the molten fuel, given that the temperature remains relatively stable between 100 degrees C and 120 degrees C. 1 reactor building earlier this week to adjust a water gauge in the reactor vessel and other instruments the resulting data showed that the water level in the reactor vessel had fallen below the fuel rods leaving them at least partially exposed.Ī TEPCO official told the press on Thursday that its seems likely the fuel rods have at least partially melted “and fallen to the bottom of the reactor. TEPCO apparently learned about the meltdown early on Thursday. A government minister said the situation was serious enough that TEPCO's " roadmap," the schedule that aims to bring the plant to a cold shutdown in less than nine months, would have to be reviewed. 1 reactor's containment vessel-a preliminary step to installing a new cooling system for the damaged reactor-to an untimely halt. The discovery brought plans to flood the No. 1 reactor of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant reactor have suffered at least a partial meltdown, Tokyo Electric Power Co. For more details on how Fukushima Dai-1's nuclear reactors work and what has gone wrong so far, see our explainer. This is part of IEEE Spectrum's ongoing coverage of Japan's earthquake and nuclear emergency. Editor's Note: J ohn Boyd is an IEEE Spectrum contributor reporting from Kawasaki, Japan.
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