Japan nuclear crisis: Suddenly, light at the end of the tunnel?

If the Japanese workers can get the power and lights back on and restore enough pumping capacity to get enough seawater into the reactors and spent fuel pools, temperatures at these units would be back within safe limits in a few hours, according to Japanese officials.

Given all that has happened, they just cannot predict when that moment will occur.

“We have experienced a very huge disaster that has caused very large damage at a nuclear power generation plant on a scale that we had not expected,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency in Japan.

Once temperatures have stabilized, the next big step will be determining the extent of damage within the containment buildings, some of which have themselves been damaged by hydrogen gas explosions.

Damage to reactor fuel

At least some reactor fuel has been damaged. That is something on which most experts agree. But whether the damage can be repaired, or whether the reactors must be permanently shielded in some manner, is another question.

“Once power is restored, we’ll have some idea whether [Japanese officials] can get this under control or whether we are heading toward entombment,” writes Jeffrey Lewis, Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, on his “ArmsControlWonk” blog.

And the next worrisome development in the unfolding nuclear crisis may be contamination in Japan’s food supply.

Traces of radiation have tainted vegetables grown on farms in the region and milk from cows that were fed contaminated plants.

The Japanese government has already banned sales of raw milk, spinach, and canola from prefectures in a swath from the Fukushima plant south toward Tokyo.

The Geneva-based World Health Organization says that Japan must act quickly to stop sales and shipment of affected food because ingested radiation can accumulate in the body and thus poses greater long-term health risks than radioactive particles floating in the air.

“They’re going to have to take some decisions quickly in Japan to shut down and stop food being used completely from zones which they feel might be affected,” World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl told the Associated Press on Monday.

Japan nuclear crisis: A timeline of key events

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