Blackout at Fukushima - continued peril at stricken nuclear plant
The Associated Press reports: "The operator of Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant says a power failure has left three fuel storage pools without fresh cooling water for hours. Tokyo Electric Power Co. says the blackout Monday night at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was brief at its command centre but continued for hours at three of the seven fuel storage pools and a few other facilities. TEPCO says the reactors were unaffected, and it plans to restore power to the pool cooling systems as soon as it determines the cause. It says the nuclear fuel stored in the pools will remain safe for at least four days without fresh cooling water. The March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed the plant's power and cooling systems, causing three reactor cores to melt and fuel storage pools to overheat. The plant is now using makeshift systems."
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Japan Times reports that electrical power was lost to Units 1, 3 and 4 as well as to the nuclear waste cooling pool for the common storage to all six (6) units containing more than 6000 irradiated fuel assemblies.
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Associated Press is reporting that TEPCO says that power is restored to cooling the four (4) irradiated fuel storage pools at Fukushima Daiichi Units 1, 3 and 4 and the gigantic common storage pond holding more than 6000 nuclear waste assemblies.
The power failure of the make-shift systems demonstrates that the ongoing management strategy for the castrophe remains extremely tenuous and haphazard, where a breakdown or another severe earthquake could trigger potentially larger radioactive releases than have occured to date.
