Posted on 03/16/2011 8:39:36 AM PDT by tcrlaf
Reuter's Breaking Headline only at this time...
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>>Your phraseology suggests a meltdown could somehow turn into an uncontrolled chain reaction, implying the core could be a nuclear bomb<<
No, that is not what I implied.
Yep that’s one of them...forboding isn’t it? Imagine these Japanese workers fighting the fight of their life in that enviornment. No matter the outcome of this...these guys are heros for the stamina and great courage against this.
40 yrs I read. They were apparently given an extension just two weeks before this happening. Were marked for shutdown and closure prior.
The thing is that they would bleed pressure off from the containment vessel. That’s what almost all of the radiation released from Three mile Island was about, keeping pressure in the containment vessel down.
If the containment vessel is cracked, there would be no pressure buildup. so you would have fumes going right into the air, but no risk of explosion.
What happened at Chernobyl was that the reactor exploded from just the sort of pressure problem you’re describing, almost before the reactor operators realized they had a big accident on their hands.
Thanks for the defense. :-)
And tape it very securely, so Günther stays under containment.
Another good source of iodine is seaweed. Go to a store and buy some dried seaweed. The kind used for suchi is generally available, but other types are also sold. Eat as much of that as you wish.
I AM NOT A NUCLEAR ENGINEER. THE FOLLOWING IS A SPECUALTION BY AN AMTEUR.
The problem is that we’d need a diagram of how the reactor equipment is laid out in those buildings before we could even speculate. That cloud coming off of there looks ominous.
“I dunno, just makes sense to me that this has the potential to become catastrophic just working it through my simple mind.”
Yes, just as it makes sense to the simple minds of journalists and their sheepish, gawking audience, to whom radioactivity is like ice-nine from “Cat’s Cradle.” Any little drop, I guess, is supposed to permeate the entire globe and threaten life as we know it. Excuse me if I don’t buy it. Radiation is not the bogeyman we’ve built it up to be.
For the record, Chernobyl did not have our contemporary containment system, and the stuff dispersed into our world freely. Yet according to reasonable estimates, no more than 4,000 died over the course of decades. Granted, Japan is more densely populated. However, we’ve just witnessed a series of disasters that killed an estimated 10,000+ souls. Can’t we talk about that? No big deal. They were killed by God, not man’s nuclear hubris. We must talk endlessly about what might—but probably won’t—happen, so long as it can be blamed on science, politics, capitalism, or whatever.
Those workers are going back in, BTW.
“No time to answer the phone.”
“Hi! This is Buh-Barry. I can’t come to the phone right now, so leave your message after the beep, and I’ll get back to you.” Beep
“No, that is not what I implied”
Whatever you meant to imply, I was talking about what your phraseology implied. And I think it bears repeating that what most casual news viewers (aka armchair alarmists) imagine when they hear the blah, blah, blahs of science is a giant mushroom cloud and the vaporization of good portion of Japan’s population.
It’s always possible that the containment vessels have been damaged by the quake. But that is unlikely.
“Nobody ever said that the ‘container’ can still contain it without that.”
Yes they did. That’s its point. Not to merely “buy time,” which would be pathetic enough to confirm the worst hyperbole of the anti-nuke crowd.
“Guess why the are so desperate to cool it?
Do you think they do this just for fun?”
Don’t be cute. I don’t need to explain why you’d want to forestall a complete meltdown even if you were confident the material would be contained.
Or he knows something and someone told him to shut up. Nowadays, it is becoming harder to take anything for granted.
nothing,
The Situation at [the whole universe] is “effectively out of control”
I had 3 McDoubles for a late lunch.
“It’s always possible that the containment vessels have been damaged by the quake. But that is unlikely.”
Possible, yes. But there’s no clear evidence to suggest they were. Why are so many people willing to believe things are as bad as they can be? I guess because one of the biggest earthquakes of recorded history and a giant tsunami just are interesting enough. We haven’t had our climax yet.
are = aren’t
“Who gives a rip about 9.0 earthquakes, tsunami or out of control nuclear reactor meltdowns in the USA’s largest trading partner. Its all about the brackets! The brackets! Whooooooooo!”
“As long as the people have their bread, and their curcus’s... “
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