Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Wednesday that its new estimate shows that all the fuel rods in reactor 3 at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant apparently melted down and fell onto the bottom of the containment vessel.
In November 2011, the company had said it believed only about 63 percent of reactor 3′s fuel core had melted.
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The revised estimate is based on the finding that an emergency cooling system, known as HPCI, of reactor 3 stopped working six hour earlier than previously thought, and that the meltdown had also started more than five hours earlier.
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While the new analysis announced on Wednesday, based on temperature, pressure and other data, shows that all the fuel had melted down to the containment vessel, Tepco has a more optimistic view.“We think some fuel still remains at the core part based on the actual plant data,” said Shinichi Kawamura, a Tepco spokesman, during a news conference.
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