In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
Mark wrote:
On Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:26:58 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Mark wrote:
On Wed, 6 Apr 2011 03:52:52 -0700 (PDT), Bolted
wrote:

On Apr 6, 10:10 am, "dennis@home" wrote:
"Bolted" wrote in message

...

The reactors shut down properly immediately the primary shockwaves from
the earthquake was
detected.
Properly? Doesn't seem to be working that properly now, unless you
really shut your eyes and ears and mind at tsunami +x hours (where x
varies by reactor).
They shut down, they would have gone critical a few minutes after the
tsunami if they had not.
I don't call reactors which have melted part of their cores and which
are being cooled on an open circuit putting out extremely radioactive
water into the plant and the wider environment, reactors which have
been shut down properly.

Call me obtuse if you like.
I suspect there is still a lot we don't yet know about this. If
things are OK why is the IAEA trying to pursuade Japan to widen the
exclusion zone?
pressure from the renewables lobby of course.
If that's the case then they are fools to bow to political pressure.
Any unnecessary "measures" taken will help strengthen any claims that
Nuclear power is "too" dangerous.
OTOH maybe there is more to this incident than we have been told and
it is a wise precaution.

On the faint excuse that things might theoretically get worse.

Which is the basic excuse used by every single anti-nuclear
campaigner when faced with the facts that, in every case, they in
fact, don't.
I am waiting until all the facts emerge (if they ever do) before
drawing conclusions.

Most of the facts have emerged.

That's why media coverage is stopping. Facts are boring. What-ifs,
especially scary nuclear what-ifs, are far more exciting.

The facts are that loss of coolant flow to four reactors means they
have cracked and or damaged rods inside, but thats OK because they are
staying cool enough and contained enough to finally be OK to dispose of

Not quite. One of the reactors was fuelled with MOX, and I hope the
cooling pond with that fuel isn't the one that caught fire. One of
reactors 1 to 4 was shut down last December and the fuel is all in the
cooling pond. An uncooled pond may be more dangerous than an uncooled
reactor, since the latter is at least contained, even if it melts down
because the fuel will be collected under the primary containment where
there is a pile of boron to moderate it. The only moderation in a
cooling pond is water (without any salt in it !).
one torus has probably blown, and thats NOT so good, because fuel rod
material has leaked out.

some tanks cracked and all tanks lost water, which is a bit of an
issue, but now they ore or less have the water back in, those are
stable.

The pull back zone is consistent with what has happened, and a lot
extra for safety. Further pull back is really a question of whether
something else could in theory still happen that was a bit worse. The
japs dont think it can, the IAEA think it's possible.



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