Komsomolskaya Pravda: “Kiriyenko discusses explosions at Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant”
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has invited the Japanese national judo team to come for training in Russia.
On March 15, Putin demanded a complete report on the Russian nuclear sector from the Energy Ministry, Rosatom, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
"We must be ready to act in any scenario," Putin explained.
Although Russian nuclear power plants are not located in quake-prone areas, the current state of the nuclear sector and its development prospects need to be assessed.
The concerned departments have one month to submit their reports.
The situation in Japan remains complicated. The prime minister therefore claimed that hydrocarbon production projects in Russia's Far East need to be expedited. "We must do everything in our power to provide assistance to Japan in every possible manner," Putin said.
"I have suggested inviting the Japanese national judo team to come here with their families for a training camp," he added.
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Rosatom, who was present at the meeting, briefed Putin on his department's assessment of the Japanese nuclear incidents based on official Japanese and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports and the experience of Russia's nuclear physicists.
The following is a summary of Rosatom's findings:
1. The plant had three operational reactors at the moment of the earthquake and tsunami. Three more reactors were cooled and were being repaired at that moment. All six reactors may present a danger. Each reactor at the Fukushima 1 plant has an airtight protective enclosure, rests on a foundation, and is encased in an airtight reinforced concrete structure, as well as the reactor building itself.
2. The earthquake caused a power outage, and the subsequent tsunami destroyed the servo-drives of emergency diesel generators. Consequently, the cooling system stopped receiving water. Storage batteries, which can operate continuously for seven-eight hours, were switched on. However, the water supply was not restored due to unspecified complications.
3. Part of the rods not covered by water began melting down. Temperatures began to rise. Zirconium and steam caused a steam-zirconium reaction and hydrogen emissions. Although the personnel opened the valves so that excessive pressure would not rip the reactor body apart, the first and third reactors exploded.
4. The explosion at the first reactor damaged both the upper section of the building and the reactor body. But the first reactor's protective enclosure remained intact. Steam and various radioactive isotopes, mostly iodine-131, with a half-life of eight days, were emitted into the atmosphere.
5. Clouds that formed after the explosions are drifting in the direction of Tokyo. Their radiation levels are estimated at a relatively low 400 micro-roentgens per hour. The same levels can be registered inside an airliner. Several hours later, 40 micro-roentgens per hour were posted in Tokyo, exceeding normal background radiation only two times over. Any granite embankment emits around the same amount of radiation.
6. The situation proved worse at the second reactor, where a valve for feeding water inside the reactor body became jammed. The core melted down, burned through the reactor body and was trapped by the protective enclosure. This threatens a subsequent meltdown, as a result of which the radioactive substance may burn its way deeper into the ground. The second reactor is currently spewing highly radioactive gases.
7. The three reactors that were shut down for repairs may also present a threat. When a reactor is being repaired, its pool is filled with water, and fuel is reloaded there from the reactor core. In effect, all fuel rods are located inside the reactor pool, rather than the reactor itself. The cold rods have a temperature of 30-40 degrees Celsius and need to be continually sprayed with water. For an unknown reason, no water was fed into the reactors. Consequently, the reactor pools dried up. The upper fuel rod sections began melting, and a situation similar to that at the operational first, second, and third reactors was repeated. Hydrogen exploded in the fourth reactor. Temperatures continue to rise in the fifth and sixth reactors. Japanese side offer no explanation for its failure to cool them off.
8. Russian specialists believe that, unless the Japanese specialists are concealing information, no nuclear explosion is possible at the Fukushima plant.
Maxim Volodin
