Not really wrong, but quite untrusting of the officials in charge of this one. Their final judgment on whether or not it was a failed thermocouple or something else was based on the fact the plant hadn't gone critical yet!
They're doing it by the seat of the pants ~ not with hard, cold logic and reason based on a full understanding of the processes they're herding like cats.
One report a year ago (based on TEPCO data) said there may well be 600,000 spent fuel rods AT THIS SITE underneath the reactors.
I guess that was a smart thing to do ~ so that when they get a meltdown....... well, maybe that doesn't go critical either!
I'm adding you to a thread where the topic is EARTHQUAKES and how we might well be able to build earthquake proof facilities ~ by making them INVISIBLE to wave forms generated by earthquakes. Thought you might like to see what the mathematicians and geologists are coming up with.
Do you know what “critical” means, from a reactor physics viewpoint, in a chain-reacting system? From the moment these reactors shut down, which happened immediately upon sensing of the seismic event, there has been absolutely no credible evidence to indicate that they have been anything other than subcritical (i.e., shut down from the aspect of neutron multiplication). The neutron monitors have shown no evidence of criticality, and many of these are extremely sensitive, down into the range of 1E-9 % of full power.