Tuesday, May 17, 2011

More reactor shutdown news

Since the quake, 35 of Japan's 54 reactors have been temporarily shut down for safety inspections. Perhaps even more will need to be closed for inspection in the future. The general public has become very concerned about reactor safety and there is growing interest that nuclear energy be discontinued completely.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company has just revised their plans for bringing the Fukushima reactors under control. Their goal is still to have things to a cold shut down within 9 months, but they've had to change their tactics. There has been news that reactor 1's pressure vessel has been damaged by melting fuel and is causing the leaking of highly contaminated water into the containment chamber. And from there it is leaking into other areas. There's more talk about cleaning and recirculating the water back into the reactor so less water has to be disposed of.

Also, they're getting a lot more robots into action.

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