– “Nothing like this has ever been attempted” — Yale Professor: “All of humanity will be threatened for 1000s of years” if rods in Unit 4 pool touch and have nuclear reaction during removal process — Tepco: “Not clear” if fuel is already damaged (ENENews, Oct 27, 2013):
South China Morning Post, Oct. 27, 2013:
- Nothing remotely similar has been attempted before and while everyone – nuclear experts, government officials, environmental groups and the public – agrees that the rods [in the Unit 4 pool] must be moved to more secure storage,
- [I]t is feared that any error of judgment could lead to a massive release of radiation into the atmosphere
- Unit 4 at the plant contains an alarming 10 times as much caesium-137 as was at Chernobyl, experts say
- [A] spokesman for Tepco […] admitted, however, that it was not clear whether any of the rods were damaged or if debris in the pool would complicate the recovery effort.
Charles Perrow, a professor emeritus at Yale University
- [He’s] made even more strident warnings
- “Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable [and] would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo”
- “[Then] the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years”