Quote - There are big differences between Chernobyl and Fukushisma.

Chernobyl was one nuclear reactor located in the URSS, it was a Russian product and Russians were Communist in those days, Communists always lie and Russia has always crapy products.

Fukushima is a plant with six nuclear reactors. It are an American GE product and Japan and the US are Capitalists countries, paladins of the truth and their products are the best and always use the top technology.

Besides these differences, the rest is the same and you have at least four Chernobyls. The earthquake damaged the plant, the reactors were not stopped because the control central was not operational due the earthquake's damage. The reactors run out of control and sufferered a partial meltdown until the control was restored in a partial and precarious way. The part of the rods that melted fell to the bottom of the container creating a blob above the critical mass and so the fission goes on and cannot be controlled anymore and it will continue until all fissionable material is exhausted or the blob is exploded int not critical pieces. The critical blob didn't explode as a nuclear bomb because the uranium and plutonium has a very low degree of enrichment, but it can burn for years.

You can disagree with all that I am saying, but use pure logic and common sense and examine the known facts:

• Minutes after the earquake Japan raised a nuclear alarm in five reactors. Fukushima has six reactors and something very bad must happened with five reactors.

• When you shut down a nuclear reactor the fission stop within microseconds. The power or heat drops in the act to 6%. This 6% is not due fission that doesn't exist anymore, it is due radioactive decay that also drops quickly, within one hour is 0.4% and a day later is 0.2% droping in a exponential way. You can find this in any physics textbook, and not what the tales circulating in the media.

• And have passed some weeks since the earthquake, time enought to nothing be hot if the reactor was shut down.

• The combustible rods are not fixed and welded to the container. The rods can be removed and changed by new rods plenty of combustible. When a rod is exhausted you replace it with a fresh new one without any big problem and without thurning down the reactor for some years. You also can insert a rod for creating isotops and alter remove it when is full of them.

• If a nuclear reactor has some problem you remove the rods and take them to a safe place.

• If the pool with used rods had a problem, why they didn't remove the rods from the pool instead of trying to cool the pool? Don't tell that it were very hot, you can move melted iron/steel from one part to other in a steel plant without any problem.

• Why there were injecting borum acid in the reactors? Borum acid is not used to cool nothing, borum has the property of absorving neutrons and so, stop the fission. Stop which fission if the reactor was shut down ?

• A nuclear reactor is used to generate electric power, it has a generator. If there is heat enough and steam enough the generator can produce all the electricity you need without the need o kilometers long cable to bring electricity to the reactor. And if the steam circuit was not more operational due the damage, bringing a kilometers long electric cable will solve nothing because it is not workin anymore.

• But if the reactors were not stopped, the rods melted and are under fission today the scenario is rather different. The fission is not anymore under control, cannot be controlled, it generate a lot heat and a lot of radiation. The released heat is damaging all what was not damaged, the heat source is now located in a part where the reactor was not designed to handle this heat, so the cooling process is not very effective and how many months or years you will have to continue cooling?

 

For me what should have to be done is: In the moment that the earthquake damaged the reactors and the nuclear alaram was raised, take the decision. The reactors are lost and without control and so isolated it from the population, retire as many combustible rods as possible, take it to a save place and burry the recators in sand and concrete. The fission can continue burning inside the concrete block for years, but all the radiation will be confined inside the concrete block without creating any damage to the surrounding population and all the world.

If they have done this the population would be saved, but....

• The company and their insvertors would have total loss, nothing would be able to save and recover meaning a loss of many billions.

• The world would know that nuclear plants are not so secure and that is not green energy.

• There are many nuclear plants around the world with the same design, design proved nothing secure. Not good for GE and their investors.

• Great damage to the plans of creating of new carbon free "green" nuclear plants.

• And much more.....

WOW! That is some of the most uninformed ranting I have heard in a while. First off this disater has noting to do with Socialist/Capitalist politics. If the Japanese were Communists, the earthquake would have been just as devistating! A 9.0 earthquke would level any modern city in the world, but the Japanese have had to deal with earthquakes and are the Subject Matter Experts in the field of building in an earthquake zone.

The next part may come as a shock, but I will try to break it to you gently...Governments lie. Its what they do, they get elected by the people by lieing to them and then they continue to lie to keep their jobs. It is an ugly fact of life.

You seem to be hung up on the idea that there are six reactors at this plant, that is no unusuall at all. Many plants have multipule reactors, it is a space saving issue. The Japanese have a limited amount of it, so they combine several plants into one footprint, not a part of the problem. You also make it sound like the Japanese overrode safety protocols to keep the reactors operating, that is also incorrect. When the power failed the system automaticaly shifted to the back-up generators, which were unfortunately also damaged by the quake.

With a quake of that size, you are pretty much going to get knocked to the ground and will have to wait it out until you can pick yourself back up after it is over.

You keep wanting to compare this to Chernobyl, although both are accidents they are not similar enough to use as a comparasion. Chernobyl's explosion ruptured the core containment vessel and exposed the core when it blew parts of itself all over the surrounding countryside. Fukushisma has had some explosions but they have yet had a core breach of Chernobl's magnitude. Fukushisma's problem stems from a loss of power to circulate coolant through the recator vessals which created a preasure build up that caused an explosion of the main structure, not the containment vessel.

You are talking aobut melted cores and runaway reactions, once freash water can be restored and circulating these "runaway reactions" will become moot. Then it will be a clean-up of enormous undertaking.

You spout off facts that you gleam for the net or from books but you do not know how to use these facts other than to sow confussion and fear. Nuclear energy is not the boogie man that you and other Green factions are saying. Yes there is an issue with the waste by-product, but there is also a waste by product from using fossil fuels but all the greenies still drive their SUV's to rallies.

If you are going to go off on some politically motivated rant, at least make sure that you learn you facts a little better. Right now you are no better than the talking heads that are sittin in their sudio's on the East Coast of the U.S. telling all of the West Coast Sheeple who will listen to them that they need to go out and buy DECON kits and Potasium Iodine pills.