Wednesday, July 11, 2012

High Radiation in Fukushima Reactor 3 Torus Room Zaps Robot - Lethal Doses at Unit 3?


Ex-SKF Robot "Survey Runner" Lost in High Radiation Reactor 3 Torus Room at Fukushima I Nuke Plant

[Excrpted] On the second job since its debut in April surveying the Reactor 2 Torus Room, the robot Survey Runner became inoperable inside the Reactor 3 Torus Room. TEPCO says the radiation levels inside the Torus Room are just too high to retrieve the robot. The maximum radiation recorded by the robot before it became inoperable was 360 millisieverts/hour...."

Read the story at Ex-SKF.

SIGNIFICANCE OF UNIT 3?

How Much Fuel was in reactor 3 spent fuel pool? According to this report, there were 3,450 assemblies in each pool in March of 2010. 700 fuel assemblies are generated each year so there may have been more assemblies than 3,450 in the unit 3 pool.

How much Mox fuel was in the reactor? One source suggests that unit 3’s reactor core contained a range of 164 to 32 mox assemblies.[i] The low-end estimate of 32 mox assemblies is from France’s Areva, which provided the fuel for unit 3. As the French Fukushima 3/11 Watchdog group points out, the low-end estimate of 32 mox assemblies translates into 5.5 tons of fuel containing more than 300 kg of plutonium: “300 kg is therefore equivalent to 300 billion lethal doses.” [ii]




[i]               Fukushima 311 Watchdogs. MOX fuel-Corium-Plutonium in Fukushima Daiichi, http://www.fukushima311watchdogs.org/biblio/9/Mox%20fuel-corium-plutonium%20in%20Fukushima%20Daiichi.pdf.


Integrity Inspection of Dry Storage Casks and Spent Fuels at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. November 16, 2010. http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/6-1_powerpoint.pdf


1 comment:

  1. That's a little puzzling that the only radiation "deaths" Tepco admits to is a pair of robots. And this last one was supposedly fitted with much stronger shielding.

    I think Tepco has lost some workers to radiation fatalities. But they won't admit it because it will stir up the public.

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