Thursday, March 24, 2011

Black Smoke At Fukushima Reactor 3

On Wednesday black smoke was billowing from Fukushima Reactor 3 where a hydrogen explosion had badly damaged the outer building of the plant and where a partial meltdown is suspected. Fukushima 3 is the reactor using the plutonium MOX fuel and where the black smoke led to the evacuation of emergency workers yesterday.

Multiple Dangers of MOX Fuel Rods
The mixed oxide fuel rods used in the compromised number three reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi complex contain enough plutonium to threaten public health with the possibility of inhalation of airborne plutonium particles. The compromised fuel rods supplied to the Tokyo Electric Company by the French firm AREVA.

Plutonium is at its most dangerous when it is inhaled and gets into the lungs. The effect on the human body is to vastly increase the chance of developing fatal cancers. Masashi Goto, a reactor researcher and designer for Toshiba, told the Foreign Correspondents Club in Toyko the mixed oxide (MOX) fuel used in unit 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility uses plutonium, which is “much more toxic than the fuel used in the other reactors.”

Goto said that the MOX also has a lower melting point than the other reactor fuels. The Fukushima facility began using MOX fuel in September 2010, becoming the third plant in Japan to do so, according to MOX supplier AREVA.
Dcbureau.org

When we talk about radiation, there are two types of radiation: Natural radiation created by nature and there is man made radiation. Plutonium - produced in nuclear reactors - the basic ingredient of a nuclear bomb, is a highly radio toxic element that is all but non-existent in nature. As nuclear reactor fuel becomes irradiated plutonium is a product of that reaction. From Greenpeace: Basics of a nuclear bomb

The MOX fuels being exported around the world come from the French company AREVA, which reprocess weapons grade plutonium [recycling of used nuclear fuel] to add to fuel rods for use in nuclear plants. So, if I understand this correctly... humans created plutonium for use in atomic nuclear bombs. Also, nuclear plants using uranium are continually creating plutonium endlessly. However, there already exists enough weapons grade plutonium to destroy the entire world many times over.

I imagine these industries have discovered that they are inside a dark plutonium circle of their own making. The first important thing intelligence would tell them is cut it off, stop what you are doing, there is no way out of this other than stop doing it. Rather than realise they have to stop what they are doing, someone decides to create the next dark circle. Reprocess the deadly stockpile of man-made plutonium and re-use it in the nuclear reactors.

The second dark plutonium circle is deadlier that the first. The process of creating the mixed-oxide-fuel creates more waste and in the event of a nuclear disaster the dangers from plutonium in the environment are many times greater than the dangers from the release of radioactive contamination from uranium nuclear fuel. AREVA In America [Natural Resources DC Bureau]

Cadarache is the nuclear research center for nuclear power research and development in Europe, situated in the South of France. For some reason the plutonium process seems to require that its location is in a geological 'seismic hazard' area. The Cadarache site lies on the fault of Aix-en-Provence - Durance , the most active in France and near another fault - that of Trévaresse of EW, which generated the most severe earthquake ever recorded in France: The earthquake of 1909 in Provence.

The Provence earthquake of 11 June, 1909 released a magnitude 6.2 earthquake and created extensive damage and destruction across an area of South Eastern France, including Provence and the towns of Show-de-Provence, Vernègues, Lambesc, Saint-Cannat and Rognes in massive Trévaresse. According to the Nuclear Safety Authority six of the center's facilities do not comply with current earthquake standards.

Even without earthquakes there have been ongoing problems at 'Centre de Cadarache'... In March 1994, an explosion was classified as a level 2 nuclear incident. In November 2004, there was a fire at the plant. In November 2006, there was a level 2 plant failure in the processing of MOX fuel pellets. October 2008, fire. October 2009, a level 2 incident which is still under review.

Contamination assessment:
Man made radioactive plutonium has a life of half a million years.