Nuclear reactors at Japan?s Fukushima are more damaged, dangerous than thought

High radiation in Japan reactor Sky News ? Fatally high radiation levels are still being recorded in one of Japan?s crippled nuclear reactors, which doesn?t have enough water to cool its fuel.

A tool equipped with a tiny video camera, a thermometer, a dosimeter and a water gauge was used to assess damage inside the No 2 reactor?s containment chamber on Tuesday for the second time since the tsunami swept into the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant a year ago.

The data collected showed the damage from the disaster is so severe, the plant operator will have to develop special equipment and technology to tolerate the harsh environment and decommission the plant, a process expected to last decades.

The other two reactors that had meltdowns could be in even worse shape. The No 2 reactor is the only one plant workers have been able to closely examine so far.

Tuesday?s examination with an industrial endoscope detected radiation levels up to 10 times the fatal dose inside the chamber. Plant officials previously said more than half of the melted fuel has breached the core and dropped to the floor of the primary containment vessel, some of it splashing against the wall or the floor.

Particles from melted fuel have probably sent radiation levels up to a dangerously high 70 sieverts per hour inside the container, said Junichi Matsumoto, spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co. The figure far exceeds the highest level previously detected, 10 sieverts per hour, which was detected around an exhaust duct shared by No 1 and 2 units last year.

?It?s extremely high,? he said, adding that an endoscope would last only 14 hours in those conditions. ?We have to develop equipment that can tolerate high radiation? when locating and removing melted fuel during the decommissioning. More?

Radioactive Iodine from Fukushima Found in California Kelp
By Marla Cone,scientificamerican ? LONG BEACH, Calif. ? Kelp off Southern California was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes a month after Japan?s Fukushima accident, a sign that the spilled radiation reached the state?s urban coastline, according to a new scientific study.

Scientists from California State University, Long Beach tested giant kelp collected in the ocean off Orange County and other locations after the March, 2011 accident, and detected radioactive iodine, which was released from the damaged nuclear reactor.

The largest concentration was about 250-fold higher than levels found in kelp before the accident.

?Basically we saw it in all the California kelp blades we sampled,? said Steven Manley, a Cal State Long Beach biology professor who specializes in kelp.

The radioactivity had no known effects on the giant kelp, or on fish and other marine life, and it was undetectable a month later. More?

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