Some progress at Fukushima, but no coolant at reactors 3 and 4

By Mike Adams

There is some good news emerging in this nuclear catastrophe: TEPCO has been able to restore grid power to buildings 5 and 6, which also house enormous quantities of stored fuel. Neither of these buildings was considered the primary threat in the first place, but it is at least a hopeful sign that TEPCO might have a chance at preventing a meltdown (http://www.smh.com.au/world/headway…).

Japanese crews are now working on an attempt to restore the functionality of the pumps that circulate water to cool the fuel rods. Those pumps are reportedly working in buildings 5 and 6, but no one even knows if the pumps are functional in buildings 2, 3 or 4. (They may have been damaged in the explosions that rocked the site.)

To make matters even worse, it appears that the cooling pool in reactor No. 4 has a leak and won’t hold water. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, “The pool at reactor No.4 has the hottest spent fuel and is thought to have either holes in the pool or another leak that is allowing water to run out. It is thus imperative to cool those heat sources first.”

Japan’s government raises “safe” limit of radiation exposure

Japanese workers who have been at the forefront of all these efforts are dwindling in numbers as they’re pulled off the front lines due to excessive radiation exposure. In order to cope with this, the Japanese government simply increased the allowable dose of radiation it now considers “safe” for workers. It used to be that 100 millisieverts was considered the maximum allowable level, but Japan has now arbitrarily raised that number to 250 millisieverts for no justifiable reason. (Radiation didn’t suddenly become less dangerous overnight, unless the laws of physics suddenly changed and nobody told us about it…)

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