Amazing Fukushima pics show difficulty of task despite electricity

[HamdenRice]

Someone at Dailykos posted a link to this Telegraph UK photo essay of some of the first pictures from inside the Fukushima reactor.

I'm sure we're all relieved that electricity is being restored at the plant, but this photo essay shows that it is not a matter of just throwing a switch and turning the pumps back on. The electricity will help with lighting and power tools and things like that, but the systems that run the reactors are not likely to be working. Notice how terrible the working conditions are for the Fukushima 50 -- trying to restore power, read plans, operate machinery while covered in radioactive shielding jump suits and gloves.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...plant.html

Also, if you want to get a sense of the level of destruction of the equipment from the hydrogen blasts, check out the seventh and eight pictures in the essay. That's the environment in which they are trying to cool reactors and spent fuel pools.

There was a really interesting post by someone at DailyKos a few days ago by a guy who worked at a decommissioned nuclear plant and explained what it's like to work in a highly contaminated environment. Sorry I don't have the link but he said that of an 8 hour shift almost all of it is spent suiting up, being decontaminated and unsuiting. The actual work is limited by each worker's radioactivity exposure limit, and to paraphrase, he said that after all the suiting up etc., you are told, "go in, flip this switch, turn this valve and leave." Then the next person does the next task, and the next person the next task and so on. In normal decommissioning all of these tasks are figured out, queued up, and listed ahead of time, but at Fukushima, a lot of this is being improvised by engineers on the scene trying to figure out what to do.

[yowzayowzayowza]

We're not outa the woods til they can reliably cool those fuel rods. Thx for the update.

[yowzayowzayowza]

Far from outa the woods:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81073.html

Quote:Kan gives no answer about when Japan's nuclear crisis may end
TOKYO, March 25, Kyodo

Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Friday left open what the Japanese people and the international community most want to know -- whether the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant would be brought under control anytime soon -- effectively saying only that the government is putting all its efforts into preventing the situation from worsening.

In a news conference two weeks after the deadly quake and tsunami in northeastern Japan, Kan explained that the government is now concentrating its efforts on the nuclear crisis, caused by the twin natural disasters, and relief and reconstruction measures.

But he said the situation at the nuclear plant, experiencing radiation leaks and other serious problems, ''still does not warrant optimism.''

As of Friday, the death toll in the largest natural catastrophe in postwar Japan topped 10,000, and more than 17,000 remain missing, according to the National Police Agency.

==Kyodo