RapierFugue
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ORIGINAL: angelikaJ
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CNN now reports that the ...
I did find this amusing, in a "good grief, are you kidding me?!" type way ... from CNN's web site:
"If the effort to cool the nuclear fuel inside the reactor fails completely -- a scenario experts who have spoken to CNN say is unlikely -- the resulting release of radiation could cause enormous damage to the plant or release radiation into the atmosphere or water. That could lead to widespread cancer and other health problems, experts say."
It's the worst, absolutely the worst, form of "journalism". They might as well have said "if a meteor from space collides with the earth in the next week, which experts say is highly unlikely, then all life on earth could end!". I'm surprised they don't have a section that says "if Godzilla returns to Tokyo the loss of life could be dramatic!".
The hyperbole really doesn't help matters; currently, reactor 1 may have suffered a partial meltdown, but due to the damage they can't say for sure. The other 2 reactors are not currently in a state of meltdown. Reactor 1 has suffered an explosion in its roof structure which has vented some radioactive material, though not enough to represent a significant threat to life, or so it is currently thought. Fuel rod integrity in reactors 2 and 3 appears ok, and continued venting of gas should prevent further explosions, at the cost of releasing some more (short half-life) radioactive material into the atmosphere.
Turning to the wider implications; as someone said earlier in this thread, the US consumes way more energy than it should (a quarter of all global energy), and until there's a truly integrated, global effort to reduce energy consumption, and not just the kind of tinkering at the edges of things like the Kyoto Protocol (which the US did not sign up for in any case), then nuclear remains the only large-scale solution at present.
Unfortunately, it is simply not possible to make nuclear reactors which are earthquake proof; earthquake resistant, yes, but not proof.
So, the bottom line is, stop using so much energy (through things like having petrol prices a third of Europe, as just one example), or understand that, sooner or later, a global-scale nuclear event is going to take place. It may not be this one, but it will happen, the only question currently being when, not if.
In the meantime, Japan's nuclear industry appears to be reverting to type, i.e. to cover up details and release as little information as possible, which only makes matters worse. This article on the BBC's web site is a tad more balanced than the CNN one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12723092
"However, according to World Nuclear News, an industry newsletter, this caused pressure in the containment vessel to rise to twice the intended operating level, so the decision was taken to vent some of this into the atmosphere.
In principle, this should contain only short-lived radioactive isotopes such as nitrogen-16 produced through the water's exposure to the core. Venting this would be likely to produce short-lived gamma-ray activity - which has, reportedly, been detected.
One factor that has yet to be explained is the apparent detection of radioactive isotopes of caesium.
This is produced during the nuclear reaction, and should be confined within the reactor core.
If it has been detected outside the plant, that could imply that the core has begun to disintegrate.
"If any of the fuel rods have been compromised, there would be evidence of a small amount of radioisotopes in the atmosphere [such as] radio-caesium and radio-iodine," says Paddy Regan, professor of nuclear physics at the UK's University of Surrey.
"The amount that you measure would tell you to what degree the fuel rods have been compromised."
It is an important question - but as yet, unanswered.
In fact, the whole incident so far contains more questions than answers.
Parallels with Three Mile Island and Chernobyl suggest that while some answers will materialise soon, it may takes months, even years, for the full picture to emerge.
How that happens depends in large part on the approach taken by Tepco and Japan's nuclear authorities.
As with its counterparts in many other countries, Japan's nuclear industry has not exactly been renowned for openness and transparency. Tepco itself has been implicated in a series of cover-ups down the years. In 2002, the chairman and four other executives resigned, suspected of having falsified safety records at Tepco power stations. Further examples of falsification were identified in 2006 and 2007.
In the longer term, Fukushima Daiichi raises several more very big questions, inside and outside Japan. Given that this is not the first time a Japanese nuclear station has been hit by earthquake damage, is it wise to build such stations along the east coast, given that such a seismically active zone lies just offshore? And given that Three Mile Island effectively shut down the construction of civilian nuclear reactors in the US for 30 years, what impact is Fukushima Daiichi likely to have in an era when many countries, not least the UK, are looking to re-enter the nuclear industry?"
Don't have nightmares :) But do start moderating your energy consumption, assuming you give a fuck - if you're not intending to have children the chances are you'll be able to live out most or all of your life before something really huge happens, so the choice is an individual one.
Personally I think it's time to party like it's 1999 ;)
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RE: Living in a nuclear world? Nuclear Plant Explosions... - 
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