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Skip Hawley
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I read that at Los Alamos they cooled plutonium and then dissolved it with sulphuric acid - would this work at Fukashima? Could the Fukashima nuclear cores be turned into liquid and then pumped out?
I would expect that Pu or Pu compound (at Los Alamos) was dissolved in some apparatus that contained the Pu solution in a vessel. The Fukushima units are huge volumes of not only U and Pu, but other transuranics, e.g., Np, Am, Cm, and fission products. The fuel may have melted or otherwise chemically reacted with seawater, so part of the fuel maybe in the form of rubble, part would be particulates, and some is in solution, or may have migrated into the cement/concrete. Attempting to dissolve the volume in the containment vessel would be problematic, and could actually increase the contamination locally.I read that at Los Alamos they cooled plutonium and then dissolved it with sulphuric acid - would this work at Fukashima? Could the Fukashima nuclear cores be turned into liquid and then pumped out?