Enformable |
Posted: 06 Aug 2014 05:57 AM
PDT
For the last three and a half
years, TEPCO engineers have been working to better characterize the state of
the melted nuclear fuel in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors.
Now those officials believe
that most of the melted nuclear fuel in the Unit 3 reactor melted through the
reactor pressure vessel and collected at the bottom of the containment.
Before, engineers believed that
some volume of fuel was still inside of the reactor, but now that understanding
has changed.
TEPCO also updated its estimate
of the time of fuel damage and exit from the pressure vessel. According
to TEPCO officials, now they believe that the meltdown at the Unit 3 reactor
began around 05:30 AM on the morning of March 13th – 5 hours
earlier than TEPCO previously assumed, and that most of the fuel melted and
escaped from the reactor pressure vessel into the containment vessel by the
morning of March 14th.
These updates will force TEPCO
to adjust its decommissioning schedule and plans, as the increased volume of
melted nuclear fuel outside of the reactor pressure vessel will make
decommissioning efforts much more difficult and costly.
The post TEPCO says
Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 meltdown worse than estimated
appeared first on Enformable.
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