We shouldn't be surprised to see that Tokyo Power and Electric Company (TEPCO) puts its own interest before that of the public, nor shocked to discover that Japan's government has an all-to-cozy relationship with TEPCO, and neither is it cynical to assume that the United States is not also unduly influenced by corporate interests.

Perhaps this is why the worst nuclear accident in history is also the most under-reported story in history. It is simply not in TEPCO's, Japan's, or the United States' financial interest to acknowledge that Fukushima, located in a nation that has third largest economy on Earth, can threaten the underpinning of the entire industrialized world.

Japan has two unsolved problems that can do just that: first, how to dispose of hundreds of tons of highly radioactive water that accumulate daily at Fukushima, and second, how to decommission that city's four tsunami-ravaged nuclear reactors.

It took TEPCO two-and-half years to finally admit that 300 tons of highly radioactive water have been flowing into the Pacific every day since the beginning of the nuclear disaster. And if that company has not been fully forthright, it certainly is overly conservative about the amount of poisoned water making its way into the ocean.

TEPCO's estimate of 300 tons falls far short of the real amount of hazardous waste reaching the Pacific. The numbers tell a different story.

About 1,000 tons of groundwater from the surrounding hills flows into the area of the four nuclear plants every day. Of this amount, 400 tons flows into the basements of the reactors and comes out irradiated. Another 300 tons becomes contaminated elsewhere on its journey to the Pacific. And lastly, TEPCO says it pumps 400 tons daily into the crippled reactors to cool them and captures and stores 300 tons.

Putting all the pluses and minuses together we come up with 800 tons of toxic water flowing daily into the Pacific not TEPCO's oft-cited figure of 300 tons. TEPCO has recently revised its estimate to 400 tons, but that's still far short of 800 tons.

Then TEPCO faces the dilemma of storing the 300 tons of radioactive water it captures every day. The company uses storage tanks that have a capacity of 1,000 tons. At this rate of storage TEPCO fills one tank every 3.3 days.

In 24 days it fills seven tanks. But it takes 24 days to manufacture just one tank. That's roughly a shortage of 6 tanks every 24 days. TEPCO may have no alternative but to discharge this unstored radioactive water, roughly 6,000 tons, into the ocean.

Starting December TEPCO will not have enough tanks. But even if there were enough tanks, the 1,060 tanks already on site have taken up all available space.

At this point, staunching the rivulet of radioactive water pouring into the Pacific every day and the inability of TEPCO to store only a fraction---if any---of this water appear to be unsolved problems for Japan and for the United States.

Japan's second unsolved problem is how to decommission and dismantle the four ruined nuclear plants.

The short-term problem is the location and retrieval of three ferociously hot cores that have burned through their steel reactors, the concrete floor of the buildings, and are somewhere underground. The depth and position of the lava-like masses are not known. What is known is that they pose an imminent threat to a freshwater aquifer that services 35 million people in Tokyo and the metropolitan area.

The long-term problem is the removal of 11,000 fuel assemblies scattered about the site and the decontamination of the four nuclear facilities. That's expected to take 40 years.

Many are calling for an international A-team, a top-level association of nuclear experts and engineers to solve what is increasingly acknowledged to be a global menace.

But what if there are no answers only an array of conflicting opinions? Suppose the discharge of toxic water into the Pacific cannot be completely arrested, the melted cores are irretrievable in their entirety, and the 40-year decontamination period is just another figure pulled out of a hat by TEPCO revealing only ignorance of the problem rather than an accurate appraisal?

What then?

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA