Richard Schiffman: The Fukushima Nuclear Plant's Slow Recovery!

Despite the Japanese PM's optimistic assessment of Fukushima, experts have new worries about the plant's recovery. In December, Japan's prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, declared that "a cold shutdown" had been achieved, and that the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was now over. "Today, we have reached a great milestone", Noda told the Japanese people in a televised address. "The reactors are stable, which should resolve one big cause of concern for us all." But Mr Noda's optimistic assessment appears to have been premature. Nuclear engineer and former power company executive Arnie Gunderson compared the prime minister's statement to President George Bush declaring "mission accomplished" on the deck of the USS Lincoln in 2003. Gunderson calls the situation at Fukushima "a long battle, far from over." Even Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which owns the Fukushima facility, says it will take another 40 years to fully decommission the reactors there, a project which poses unprecedented engineering challenges. But the company's own tests disclose a more immediate danger. Rising radiation levels within one of the reactors, the highest recorded so far, and evidence of a leak in the critical cooling system demonstrate that the situation is still far from stable. Tepco revealed at the end of March that protective water levels in the containment vessel of Reactor No 2, were far shallower than had been expected, which might mean that the uranium fuel rods there are no longer completely submerged, and are heating up. The Japan Times reported on 29 March that radiation inside the vessel has reached 73 sieverts per hour, high enough to administer a lethal dose to a human in a matter of minutes, even to disable the robotic devices which are sent regularly into the reactor to monitor what is happening there.