John R. Carroll wrote:
Steve W. wrote:
John R. Carroll wrote:

The AP1000 is a very good design by all accounts. China is going
full bore with these things but they bought hardware and the
technology. The emergency cooling is sort of a self licking ice cream
cone.

I don't know how many reactors the Japanese are going to lose but
it's at least two so far.
Both are old but still, that's a lot of money to waste on a concrete
land mark.
I just read that they will be venting to the atmosphere for a
considerable period of time.
Possibly as long as a year - which seems a bit overstated - but
people are going to be unable to go home until the mess is buttoned
up. This is going to be an ongoing saga.

The Bank of Japan dumped more than eighty billion dollars into the
Japanese economy this morning.
That's real money.

By WILLIAM TUCKER

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.

Mr. Markey is a little behind the times.
The AP1000 design has been certified and approved.
At least I remember reading recently that it had been.


Since when do FACTS matter to the anti-nuke, anti-wind, anti-oil
drilling, anti-gun bunch...

Much better to come out screaming and get those sound bites about the
doom and gloom and determine what happened from a couple pictures
instead of actually asking about what actually happened.
Note just how many anti-nuke people on this group jumped up and started
saying "see what did WE tell you, look how bad those nukes are"
Instead of actually READING and listening to the facts about what is
happening and what is likely to occur, you have people screaming
"MELTDOWN, MELTDOWN the world is going to end." "It's going to be a
Chernobyl sized disaster."
Of course these same people only real education about nuclear power
comes from the TV or "news stories".

I have quite a few friend in the industry, one of whom was one of the
designers on the AP1000. A few more are high level operations and
containment designers. For the most part they are ALL saying that there
has NOT been enough information given yet for people who are not
actually on site to determine the level of damage.


--
Steve W.