Japan nuclear situation

[Rainbow Moonlight]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html

"Nuclear fuel at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant began melting just five hours after Japan’s March 11 earthquake, a Japanese nuclear engineer told a panel of U.S. scientists Thursday.

About 11 hours later, all of the uranium fuel in the facility’s unit 1 reactor had slumped to the bottom of its inner containment vessel, boring a hole through a thick steel lining, the University of Tokyo’s Naoto Sekimura told a committee of the National Academy of Sciences. ...At a second meeting Thursday related to the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, a U.S. Energy Department official warned that the nuclear facility still faces grave danger.

John E. Kelly, deputy assistant secretary for nuclear reactor technologies, said that protective components at the facility could crack because of high salt levels. There “is still a concern about more massive failure” of steel in the “lower head,” an important part of the containment system, Kelly told an NRC advisory committee. About 100 to 200 tons of salt left by the emergency pumping of salt water to cool the reactors are probably corroding the containment components. ...A high-level team of investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Japan this week to begin a 10-day investigation of the crisis."

The least the Japanese people are owed by their government and by Tepco is the truth.

[lisa jones]

Ms Rainbow .. I would think the global community is owed the truth given the fact that the Japanese are dumping their nuclear issues into the ocean.

[Rainbow Moonlight]

That too. Particualrly neighbouring countries.

[donniedarko]

Any country that sells out of Geiger counters is fucked.

[Rainbow Moonlight]

Yeah heard on radio yesterday that the companies makign them are facign demand that has quintupled and can't meet it. A lot of people staying there though who ar ejust there to work and are not Japanese.

[Jovial Monk]

Yet chemical pollution is probably an even bigger danger.

Google “fukushina chemical pollution”

[boxy]

Any country that sells out of Geiger counters is fucked.

Do you really think that our mob panic instinct is a good way to judge a situtation like this?

[The Artist formerly known as Sappho]

"At a second meeting Thursday related to the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, a U.S. Energy Department official warned that the nuclear facility still faces grave danger."

Grave danger is correct. There is serious talk about a 'melt through' which is the worst possible nuclear scenario. If it melts through to the water table - Kaboom! Apparently, the only thing that can stop the nuclear reaction is sending a nuclear bomb after the material melting through - Kaboom!

It has changed my views on nuclear power. I don't believe that we should be following this path until we have more fail safes and solutions should the inevitable happen. Back to the drawing board for the scientists to resolve the 'melt through' scenario.

[boxy]

If it melts through to the water table - Kaboom! Apparently, the only thing that can stop the nuclear reaction is sending a nuclear bomb after the material melting through - Kaboom!

WTF?

[The Artist formerly known as Sappho]

If it melts through to the water table - Kaboom! Apparently, the only thing that can stop the nuclear reaction is sending a nuclear bomb after the material melting through - Kaboom!

WTF?

On the other hand, it could cause a geyser spewing forth radioactive steam.