Another Quake/Tsumami - or whatever you want to call it

[tw]

Long before 3 Mile Island, the US had suffered other nuclear events. One was a breeder reactor failure at Fermi One. Located between Chicago and Detroit.

Many have tried to make a breeder reactor work. Everyone has failed. Japan's attempt not just a failure. It has created another nuclear emergency ongoing since last August.

Japan cornered the market for world plutonium. This reactor is made even worse because cooling uses sodium that becomes explosive when in contact with water. And must be hot enough to remain in a molten state.

From the NY Times of 17 June 2011:

Japan Strains to Fix a Reactor Damaged Before Quake
The Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor ... has been in a precarious state of shutdown since a 3.3-ton device crashed into the reactor's inner vessel, cutting off access to the plutonium and uranium fuel rods at its core. ...

The plant, a $12 billion project, has a history of safety lapses. It was shuttered for 14 years after a devastating fire in 1995, one of Japan's most serious nuclear accidents before the crisis this year at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Prefecture and city officials found that the operator had tampered with video images of the fire to hide the scale of the disaster. A top manager at the plant recently committed suicide, on the day that Japan's atomic energy agency announced the cost of efforts to recover the device. And, like several other nuclear reactors, Monju lies on an active fault. ...

Under a government plan, Japan would use technology developed at Monju to commercialize fast-breeder reactors by 2050.

That would have made Japan a world leader in nuclear fuel production. Most (about 98%) of fuel inside reactor rods goes untapped. Remains sufficiently enriched to make a crude atomic bomb. In America, this stuff is stored in pools at each reactor. Breeders are a solution to recycling used fuel.

Japan has promised that the spent nuclear fuel — which remains highly radioactive for years — will not be stored permanently on site, but used as fresh fuel for the nuclear fuel cycle.

Giving up on any part of the fuel cycle would mean the government would have to find communities willing to become the final resting ground for the spent fuel.

... Instead of water, which is used in commercial nuclear reactors, the prototype reactor uses 1,600 tons of liquid sodium to cool its fuel, a hazardous material that reacts fiercely with water and air. The presence of an estimated 1.4 tons of highly toxic plutonium fuel at the reactor makes it more dangerous than light-water reactors, which use mainly uranium fuel ...
Workers face other dangers in fixing the plant. The reactor contains argon gas, which helps keep the sodium from burning but is a dangerous asphyxiant in confined spaces. ...

Defined is what will be tried next week.