Potential Nuclear Disaster as Radiation Levels Rise; "Way Past Three Mile Island"; Major World Indices an Ocean of Red;Nikkei -12.5%,US Futures -2.5%

Major stock market indices are getting clobbered late Monday evening (Tuesday afternoon in Tokyo) in the wake of more reactor fears in Japan.

“It’s way past Three Mile Island already,” said Frank von Hippel, a physicist and professor at Princeton. “The biggest risk now is that the core really melts down and you have a steam explosion.”

The New York Times reports Japan Faces Potential Nuclear Disaster as Radiation Levels Rise

Japan’s nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday, after an explosion at one crippled reactor damaged its crucial steel containment structure and a fire at another reactor spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to official statements and industry executives informed about the developments.

After an emergency cabinet meeting, the Japanese government told people living within 30 kilometers, about 18 miles, of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to stay indoors, keep their windows closed and stop using air-conditioning.

Officials said emergency efforts to pump seawater into three stricken reactors at the plant were continuing, but that most of the 800 workers at the Daiichi facility had been told to leave to avoid exposure to unhealthy levels of radiation at the plant. They said 50 workers would remain at the plant to pump seawater into three reactors and fight the fire at the fourth reactor.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan briefly addressed the nation on television at 11 a.m., pleading for calm as engineers struggled to bring the damaged reactors under control.

Mr. Kan said that radiation had spread from the crippled reactors and there was “a very high risk” of further leakages.

Some outside industry executives were skeptical of official Japanese accounts of what was happening at Daiichi. One executive with extensive contacts among Japanese nuclear industry and government officials said the situation had in fact spiraled out of control and that all plant workers would almost certainly need to leave the plant to avoid excessive exposure to radioactive leaks.

If all workers do in fact leave the plant, the nuclear fuel in all three reactors is likely to meltdown, which would lead to wholesale releases of radioactive material — by far the largest accident of its kind since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago.

Even if a full meltdown is averted, Japanese officials have been facing unpalatable options. One was to continue flooding the reactors and venting the resulting steam, while hoping that the prevailing winds, which have headed across the Pacific, did not turn south toward Tokyo or west, across northern Japan to the Korean Peninsula. The other was to hope that the worst of the overheating was over, and that with the passage of a few more days the nuclear cores would cool enough to essentially entomb the radioactivity inside the plants, which clearly will never be used again. Both approaches carried huge risks.

“It’s way past Three Mile Island already,” said Frank von Hippel, a physicist and professor at Princeton. “The biggest risk now is that the core really melts down and you have a steam explosion.”

Adding to the complexity of the situation was that reactor No. 3 reactor uses a special mix of nuclear fuel known as MOX fuel. MOX is considered contentious because it is made with reprocessed plutonium and uranium oxides. Any radioactive plume from that fuel would be more dangerous than ordinary nuclear fuel, experts say, because inhaling plutonium even in very small quantities is considered lethal.

Major World Indices an Ocean of Red



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Mike "Mish" Shedlock
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