Melt downs: TEPCo sandbagging, with Zeolite

Tokyo Electric Power Company will try a new weapon against radiation spreading in the Pacific Ocean; sandbags.  They already tried steel and silt fencing, now they will use sandbags full of zeolite.

Zeolite is an aluminosilicate mineral, used in commercial absorbents.  It’s hoped it will absorb some of the high levels of radiation in the water.

The difficulties never stop.  Now analysis by the Atomic Energy Society says fuel rods have melted in reactors 1 and 3.  The rods dropped small pellets into the cooling water as they melted.  The pellets have built up at the bottom of the vessel.  There is concern that a large buildup of melted fuel could become a molten mass and damage the vessel, leaking huge amounts of radioactive material.

One evidence of damaged vessels is plutonium.  For the third time plutonium contamination has been found around Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.