This blog gives a good, credible overview of past, present and future hazards, assuming the Japanese government will continue to fail to protect its people from ongoing or increasing radiation exposure:
[...] “In the last couple of days a new danger has reared its head with the release of a new study from the European Geosciences Union which issues the warning that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reservation is at increased risk of suffering a big earthquake epicentered essentially right underneath it, and that rising groundwater is an ominous sign that it could come very soon.”
[...] “Therefore, much attention should be paid to the FNPP (Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant) seismic safety in the near future.”
“Given that the most destroyed units (3 and 4) at Daiichi are precariously leaning and appear to be sinking into the ground, the obvious question becomes “what, exactly, could be done to strengthen “seismic safety” before the predicted next ‘Big One’ hits?” Remember that unit 4′s spent fuel pool is crammed full of its entire core and ~30 years’ worth of extremely nasty spent fuel assemblies. And has suffered at least two fires (that we know of). The pool itself was shored up last summer by workers who are most likely no longer with us, but it still leaks like a sieve and there appears to be no way to remove any of the fuel stored in it.”
The article also refers to the high temperatures at reactor 2 measured in recent days, contradicting earlier “cold shut down” announcements.
Read all at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/15/1065089/-Scientists-Big-One-Building-Beneath-Fukushima
March 6, 2012 at 10:14 pm
If disaster strikes Fukushima a second time it could be the end of Japan, not to mention the wider consequences. Absolutely every resource needs to be mobilised to get the spent fuel out, or at least stabilise it. A 40-year plan is just not good enough. Look at the extraordinary efforts that were made in the wake of Chernobyl. Many lives were squandered by poor planning and inadequate protection, but at least they got under the reactor and prevented the fuel from going straight down. In the year since this disaster started, much more could have been done. Too much emphasis has been placed on managing the crisis from a PR perspective and not enough from an engineering perspective. Robots could have been designed in this time. A massive bathtub could perhaps have been started around and even under the reactor buildings, a bathtub capable of being flooded with cooling water. We build supertankers to carry oil, after all ! Yes, it’s a tall order. But it is necessary if Japan and the world are going to survive this. Simply to repeat the mantra of ‘cold shutdown’ is to stick one’s head in the sand.