Rather being on the front page of every major
publication, the common citizen barely hears of Fukushima. Two and a half years
later, this crisis is still alive, and some believe, far from a permanent
resolution. Struggling to gain control over the escalading leak situation,
TEPCO has recently acknowledged for the first time that groundwater was
carrying radioactive isotopes into the ocean. Tell us something we don’t know
already! A rise in groundwater is a result of TEPCO trying to pump water
beneath the reactors underground in attempt to cool the fusion cores believed
to be sunken bellow. As a result this water must go somewhere; unfortunately it
is finding seems to the nearby ocean at a more exceeding pace originally induced
by the structural damage on the reactors.
Within the last month in a half, Japan has committed
to constructing a 300 million dollar “Ice Wall” around the site, in an attempt
to barricade all cores and radioactive waste alike. It is great to see an
attempt to suffocate the spill, but scientists and engineers believe this is an
unrealistic solution.
Ken
Buesseler has recently denied the notion of this wall being a long term
solution saying “There are some
engineering proposals to try and divert the water, or block the water. It’s
very hard to dam a river because it’s going to go around the dam or over the
dam. They’re having the same problems between the reactors and the ocean, and
now they’re talking about even larger engineering structures. One kilometer ice
dams, freezing the soil essentially to divert water around the site. That might
reduce the total number of tanks you’d need, it doesn’t necessarily stop the
leaks at all because they still would be applying water to cool those reactors”
Ken
Buesseler, Senior Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
THE SCARY REALITY
Most importantly
engineers must pacify this deadly leak. Alarmingly the last two and a half
years has resulted in 83,000 evacuees still unable to return home. Even more
alarming is the estimated 300 tons of contaminated water that is flowing into
the ocean every day. 300 Tons! Obviously this is an immediate and devastating
concern. It gets worse. Potentially the worst has yet to come.
Three reactor cores are missing, meaning
they are believed to have sunk deep beneath the ground below.
Radiated water has been leaking from the
plant in mass quantities for 2.5 years at a pace of roughly 300 tons a day.
With the attempted cooling of the cores underground the flow of radioactive
water has been increased…
Eleven thousand spent nuclear fuel rods,
perhaps the most dangerous things ever created by humans, are stored at the
plant and need to be removed, 1,533 of those are in a very precarious and
dangerous position. Each of these three could result in dramatic radiation
events, unlike any radiation exposure humans have ever experienced. If the
extraction where to go wrong, an apocalyptic like event would possibly ensue. Roughly
40 million citizens would have to be evacuated from nearby Tokyo.
KAITLYNN AND JOE TAKE ACTION
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