Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Photos 6

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) President Masataka Shimizu speaks during a visit to the Nuclear Disaster Countermeasures Office in Fukushima, northern Japan, April 11, 2011, one month after the devastating earthquake and tsunami. Japan said on Monday it may extend some parts of an evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, operated by TEPCO, if tests show high radiation outside the area, imposed after an earthquake and tsunami sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) employees hold a news conference regarding the situation of their Fukushima Daiichi and Daini Nuclear Power Plants, after a strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 hit the area, at Fukushima Prefecture's disaster countermeasures office in Fukushima, northern Japan April 11, 2011, one month after the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Japan's ambassador to Germany Takahiro Shinyo shows a graphic of readings at monitoring points out of the Fukushima nuclear power plant during a news conference about the situation in his country after last month's earthquake and tsunami, in the Japanese embassy in Berlin, April 11, 2011.

Floating silt fence to block the spread of contaminated water from Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) Co.'s crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is pictured at the complex of the nuclear plant in Fukushima, northern Japan April 10, 2011 in this handout released by TEPCO April 11, 2011, one month after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami battered Japan's northeast coast. (Tokyo Electric Power)

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) shows the damaged reactor building of Unit 4, left, of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images.

Honeywell MAV: http://www51.honeywell.com/aero/common/documents/myaerospacecatalog-documents/Defense_Brochures/T-Hawk_MAV.pdf

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) shows the damaged reactor building of Unit 3 of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images.

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) shows the reactor building of Unit 2, center, of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images. (Tokyo Electric Power Co.)

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) shows reactor buildings of Unit 2, left, and Unit 1, right, of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images. (Tokyo Electric Power Co.)

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) shows the damaged reactor building of Unit 1 of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images. (Tokyo Electric Power Co.)

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) shows the damaged reactor building of Unit 3 of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images.

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) shows the damaged reactor building of Unit 3 of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images.

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) shows the damaged reactor building of Unit 4 of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images.

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) shows the damaged reactor building of Unit 4 of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images.

This Sunday, April 10 image taken by T-Hawk drone aircraft and released by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) showing area north and uphill from the reactors of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The American drone aircraft T-Hawk made by Honeywell was used by TEPCO to inspect hard-to-access areas of the plant. The drone can be operated from six miles (10 kilometers) away and transmit video and still images.

The area above prior to the earthquake, rotated 90-degrees.

In this Sunday, April 10, 2011 photo released on Monday, April 11, 2011 by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), workers in protective suits watch monitors as they operate remote-controlled rubble removing equipment to clear debris in the compound of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The nuclear complex is still leaking radiation after its cooling systems were knocked out by the March 11 tsunami.

In this Sunday, April 10, 2011 photo released on Monday, April 11, 2011 by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), a remote-controlled rubble removing equipment is operated to clear debris in the compound of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The nuclear complex is still leaking radiation after its cooling systems were knocked out by the March 11 tsunami, and the government Monday urged even more people living around the complex to leave within a month, citing concerns about long-term health risks from radiation as the crisis wears on. EDITORIAL USE ONLY.

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 6, 2011 and released on Sunday, April 10, 2011 by Tokyo Electric Power Co., debris is scattered in the compound of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 6, 2011 and released on Sunday, April 10, 2011 by Tokyo Electric Power Co., workers remove debris inside the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

In this photo taken on Wednesday, April 6, 2011 and released on Sunday, April 10, 2011 by Tokyo Electric Power Co., an unmanned transporter carries debris inside the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

Plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel rods are placed in a storage pool at the No. 3 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northern Japan, in this picture taken August 21, 2010. Operators of the earthquake-crippled nuclear plant in Japan again deployed military helicopters on March 17, 2011, in a bid to douse overheating reactors, as U.S. officials warned of the rising risk of a catastrophic radiation leak from spent fuel rods. A 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11.

Related: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/us/11mox.html [Excerpts] One of the stricken Japanese reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant uses the mox fuel. And while there has been no evidence of dangerous radiation from plutonium in Japan, the situation there is volatile, and nuclear experts worry that a widespread release of radioactive material could increase cancer deaths. Against that backdrop, the South Carolina project has been thrown on the defensive, with would-be buyers distancing themselves and critics questioning its health risks and its ability to keep the plutonium out of terrorists’ hands. The most likely customer, the Tennessee Valley Authority, has been in discussions with the federal Department of Energy about using mox to replace a third of the regular uranium fuel in several reactors — a far greater concentration than at the stricken Japanese reactor, Fukushima Daiichi’s Unit No. 3, where 6 percent of the core is made out of mox. But the T.V.A. now says it will delay any decision until officials can see how the mox performed at Fukushima Daiichi, including how hot the fuel became and how badly it was damaged. “We are studying the ongoing events in Japan very closely,” said Ray Golden, a spokesman for the utility.  ... The Japanese government has followed the recycling path, despite citizens’ protests about possible safety risks. In the wake of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, officials at Areva, which supplied the mox fuel for Reactor No. 3 there, are cautioning against drawing hasty conclusions. “Mox was not the cause of that accident, and the consequences of it have not been impacted by mox,” said David Jones, a vice president at Areva, which has been providing on-the-ground assistance in Japan. There is no clear evidence that plutonium has been released by the mox-loaded Japanese reactor; small traces found at the site could have come from other sources or from the site’s other reactors. But Reactor No. 3 is one of three at Fukushima Daiichi that are judged to have undergone at least partial meltdowns, and experts are debating whether high radiation readings beneath the reactor vessels indicate that they have begun to leak. It would take full meltdowns, high heat and the rupture of a reactor’s containment vessel to loft substantial plutonium into the air. The dangers vary depending on the chain of events that led to the accident and the concentration of mox in the reactor core. Even so, studies show that a nuclear meltdown and containment failure in a reactor that holds mox would result in more cancer deaths than one in a reactor fueled only with uranium.

Workers demolish a decommissioned nuclear reactor during the cleanup operations at the Western hemisphere's most contaminated nuclear site in Hanford, Washington state on March 21, 2011. It sounded like a good idea at the time. Racing to build an atomic bomb during World War II, US authorities sealed off a pristine desert and created the first-ever plutonium reactor. Sixty-eight years later, Hanford remains off limits. Not because of weapons work, which has long ago ceased, but because it is the Western hemisphere's most contaminated nuclear site with 53 million gallons (200 million liters) of radioactive waste stored in aging tanks. With billions of dollars a year invested in cleanup, there is little palpable fear among residents here in the northwestern state of Washington. Some 12,000 people work at Hanford, which at 586 square miles (1,518 square kilometers) is twice the size of Singapore. http://cryptome.org/eyeball/hanford/hanford-eyeball.htm