http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iLfgLMDfRUPJifxp_sqEvksfqvbg?docId=36f330d4141d4841a8396367f0e57607
Begin quote:
As officials scrambled to determine the source of the radioactive water, chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano repeated Monday that the contaminated water in Unit 2 appeared to be due to a temporary partial meltdown of the reactor core.end quote.
Though I am a little surprised that the partial meltdown is occuring in Reactor number 2 in order to have 100,000 times normal radiation in the water it makes sense that there has been at least a partial meltdown for radiation to be this high.
However, all information up until now was indicating that the 100,000 times higher reading was in the plutonium reactor (#3) not the uranium reactor(#2). So, did number 2 have a partial meltdown or did number 3? Or is it both?
1 comment:
Hello Fred,
There were initial meltdowns at units 1,2,3 and 4 in the cooling pool (which contained active rods, not just spent rods). This is what (indirectly) blew the roofs.
I'm interpreting "temporary partial meltdown" to mean that ANOTHER meltdown has occurred. This can happen because water acts as a moderator to enhance fission reactions if they get started. (this was supposed to be suppressed by boron). So a fission reaction can turn its self on and off several times. This happened in the Tokai Criticality accident. See my latest blog entry:
quakerad.blogspot.com
Regards,
-Chris Mc.
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