[Lamplighter]

So many euphemisms in just one little article...

NY Times
HIROKO TABUCHI
November 10, 2013

Removing Fuel Rods Poses New Risks at Crippled Nuclear Plant in Japan

In the next 10 days, the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company
is set to start the delicate and risky task of using a crane to remove the fuel assemblies from the pool,...

Just 36 men will carry out the tense operation to move the fuel to safer storage;
they will work in groups of six in two-hour shifts throughout the day for months.
A separate team will work overnight to clear any debris inside the pool that
might cause the fuel to jam when a crane tries to lift it out, possibly causing damage.<snip>

The fuel rods must remain immersed in water to block the gamma radiation they emit
and allow workers to be in the area, and to prevent the rods from overheating.
An accident could expose the rods and — in a worst-case scenario, some experts say —
allow them to release radioactive materials beyond the plant.<snip>

“There are potentially very big risks involved,” Shunichi Tanaka,
the head of Japan’s nuclear regulator, said last week.
“Each assembly must be handled very carefully.”<snip>

“If they drop the rods, will the situation be easily contained,
or do we need to worry about a more dangerous chain of events?” Mr. Kawai said.
“There are just too many variables involved to say for sure.”<snip>

Lake H. Barrett, a former United States Department of Energy official
who was in charge of removing fuel from a stricken reactor after an accident
at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, <snip> said he believed that
the risks in removing the fuel from the Reactor No. 4 pool at Fukushima were small
and that a significant release of radioactive material was highly unlikely.

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