To make that clear, it is NOT the wind or solar power environmental groups that are able to aid in the event of disaster, but heavy duty 24-7 365 days nuclear force that has the power to bring hell to the enemy and aid and comfort to our allies.
Posted on 03/13/2011 7:16:37 PM PDT by grundle
The containment structures appear to be working, and the latest reactor designs aren't vulnerable to the coolant problem at issue here.
Even while thousands of people are reported dead or missing, whole neighborhoods lie in ruins, and gas and oil fires rage out of control, press coverage of the Japanese earthquake has quickly settled on the troubles at two nuclear reactors as the center of the catastrophe.
Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass.), a longtime opponent of nuclear power, has warned of "another Chernobyl" and predicted "the same thing could happen here." In response, he has called for an immediate suspension of licensing procedures for the Westinghouse AP1000, a "Generation III" reactor that has been laboring through design review at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for seven years.
None of this amounts to "another Chernobyl." The Chernobyl reactor had two crucial design flaws. First, it used graphite (carbon) instead of water to "moderate" the neutrons, which makes possible the nuclear reaction. The graphite caught fire in April 1986 and burned for four days. Water does not catch fire.
Second, Chernobyl had no containment structure. When the graphite caught fire, it spouted a plume of radioactive smoke that spread across the globe. A containment structure would have both smothered the fire and contained the radioactivity.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The liberals are already using this to work against nuclear development in this country.
Never let a crisis go to waste, say great thinkers such as Rahm Emmanuel.
And it won’t matter if the reactors are under control, and the worst is averted. The liberals and their useful idiots in Hollywood and the MSM will say, gee, look how close we came to disaster, etc. etc. They will say, gee, look how dangerous nuclear power is, we can’t risk it, etc.
Rats never let a crisis go to waste.
Never mind the liberals, go back and read through the comments by hysterical Freepers over the last couple of days.
Thanks for posting this. It's something I've been trying to get across since yesterday but outlined in much greater detail.
MSM, libs, and RATS, the great purveyors of crap science
I had the unfortunate experience of having to watch CNN most of the day yesterday (at the in-law’s).
It was Meltdown, Meltdown, Meltdown for them.
Then.. they brought in an expert explaining that it wasn’t really all that bad, and it was like they were disappointed. Then went back to their Meltdown-sky-is-falling-reporting.
Fox News has been no better. If you can stomach it, watch the interview Chris Wallace did this morning with some hare-brained nuclear “expert”. It’s enough to make you puke.
Fox keeps dragging out that guy, Joe Cirincione, an anti-nuclear weapons guy who heads up www.plowshares.org.
Either Fox is too stupid to realize that this guy is playing them for his 15 minutes of fame & donations or the Fox management agrees with the liberal mantra “No Nukes” (weapons or powerplants).
I really can’t say that I watch that either, and thanks for the heads up.
Everyone is so scared of Nuclear power. It was so obvious what was going to happen, after they announced these plants were affected.
Excellent summary of the situation.
Remember all the hysteria during and following 3 mile island?
Yet there were no deaths and no injuries and thirty some odd years later, no sign of long term health problems.
All that doesn’t matter - the environuts and the left will use this to ABORT nuclear power again, just as it was being reborn.
It is really pissing me off. I still believe conservatives have more commonsense than liberals, but the hysteria you see even here is appalling.
I understand there is reason for concern, but it seems as though there are Freepers who jump from thread to thread deliberately trying to get people worked up.
I think it is stupid and senseless. Trying to educate some of them is nearly useless. Many times they don’t even bother to reply back, just leave the thread and go find another one to get hysterical in.
It is disturbing. Many of them don’t have a clue about anything radiation related, but fly all over the Internet looking for stuff.
I liken it to someone who has a health problem, and they look on the Internet for information.
To make that clear, it is NOT the wind or solar power environmental groups that are able to aid in the event of disaster, but heavy duty 24-7 365 days nuclear force that has the power to bring hell to the enemy and aid and comfort to our allies.
Interesting point about the news coverage. There’s been plenty of coverage of the devastation but the media does seem to be particularly fascinated with the nuclear problem.
It’s more than possible that Obama ... with his hatred of any kind of reliable energy ... will latch onto this with support from environmentalist wackos to try to stop nuclear power.
On the bright side, there may be a new market in the horse and buggy industry.
And do you know what the Japanese are going to do with this disaster?
They are going to design new nuclear plants to withstand 9 point earthquakes, even though they have never had one this strong until now.
They have the best nuclear engineers on the planet in terms of overall quality. Our best may be better than their best. But their average is far wider and better than our average.
Do you know why they will be building new nuclear power plants? Because there is no viable alternative and they know it.
While you have to love all of this out-of-country wisdom and knowledge, this means nothing!
Only those on site know what is happening and what might happen. The rest of us are waiting and hoping...
All of those who say this somehow proves that nuclear power is “too dangerous” should consider the following: Riding on a bullet train, during a quake and tsunami, has killed hundreds. Just sitting on your sofa at home during a tsunami, is dangerous and has killed maybe thousands. Driving in your car, during a large earthquake and within a tsunami, is dangerous. Doing anything at all during a 9.1 quake, and then being in a 10-meter-high tsunami, is dangerous. Of all the causes of loss of life, I won’t be the least surprised to learn that, in the aftermath, the cause of the LEAST loss of life in Japan is radiation sickness, arising from nuclear releases as a result of the meltdowns, if meltdowns even happen. Chernobyl killed something like 30-40 people. My guess, and a pessimistic guess at that, is maybe the radiation will kill 5 people. The same toll as from a single family swept in their car out to sea. But we won’t be hearing about how driving is just too dangerous to consider, as a result of natural disasters like these. But, oddly, we will be hearing, and indeed have been hearing, that nuclear power is just too dangerous to consider, as a result of natural disasters like this one. Which is insanity.
It's been interesting, that's for sure. And a little scary.
Markey has always been a rectal aperture.
The government of Ukraine estimates that about eight thousand people were killed by Chernobyl. Others say that estimate is low.
But there is are major differences between what happened at the Fukushima reactors and Chernobyl. Like Three Mile Island, the Fukushima reactors were shut down. All control rods are in the core and there is no chain reaction, only the decay heat.
At Chernobyl, the night crew running the safety test mistakenly withdrew all control rods out of the reactor core based on the false readings showing dangerously low power output. That caused a full out chain reaction and the resulting heat explosion.
At Fukushima, like Three Mile Island, the core is melting somewhat. But there is no chain reaction and the fuel rods are simply overheating during the decay phase because there is not enough cooling water. This is a serious nuclear accident. But it is nothing like Chernobyl.
It would be funny if it was an isolated incident. Widespread ignorance of our general population is a greater disaster than any reactor meltdown.
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