Hosono Says Fukushima Plant Is in ‘Equivalent of Cold Shutdown’ via Bloomberg Businessweek

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) — Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s crippled reactors in Fukushima are in a state “equivalent to cold shutdown” even though the definition would be different in the case of an undamaged plant, Goshi Hosono, the minister in charge of responding to the disaster, said today.

“We understand that there is a difference between the cold shutdown state for a normal nuclear reactor and the state of cold shutdown that we have achieved at Fukushima Dai-Ichi,” Hosono told reporters in Tokyo. “The goal is to have nuclear fuel where it is kept in a cold state and to ensure that radioactive materials are not emitted. That is the whole point of the cooling system that we have in place.”

The government on Dec. 16 announced Tokyo Electric had achieved the milestone, which has been disputed because some scientists have argued that cold shutdown doesn’t apply to melted reactors.

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One Response to Hosono Says Fukushima Plant Is in ‘Equivalent of Cold Shutdown’ via Bloomberg Businessweek

  1. unspokenhermit says:

    What about the MOX fuel reactor #3 that blew up with chunks of fuel rod found 2 kilometres away?
    Is that one in cold shut down?

    I just stumbled upon this study detailing high altitude radioactive contamination from Fukushima. It uses TEPCO and MEXT emission data to develop dispersion models of the radiation. If the models are correct the concentrations of contamination at upper altitudes are orders of magnitude higher than the concentrations at near ground levels.

    http://www.datapoke.org/blog/8/study-modeling-fukushima-npp-radioactive-contamination-dispersion-utilizing-chino-m-et-al-source-terms/

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