[LINK] Radiation

[Robin Whittle]

Thanks Janet for the link to http://mitnse.com.  This has a
non-logarithmic chart of the decay heat for the three reactors.

I will add a link from http://www.firstpr.com.au/jncrisis/ - where I now
have links to wind and IR satellite image information, such as:

  http://www.jma.go.jp/en/amedas/205.html?elementCode=1
  http://www.jma.go.jp/en/gms/smallc.html?area=0&mode=JST

Can anyone point to other sites where this crisis is being discussed
with any degree of insight, or with reliable technical information.

Tom (Koltai), you criticised me for stating my opinion without
qualification - that the situation is out of control.  Yet you advanced
no argument as to why it is under control, or what your criteria of
"under control" is.

What would it take for you to admit that things were out of control?

Do you have no understanding of, or belief in, the real risk of meltdown
and massive radiation release?  Do you need to see multiple HD video
reports of people falling sick and dying from radiation poisoning before
you admit that this is a serious and perhaps disastrous crisis?

Andy Farkas likewise.  What is your criteria for deciding that we should
consider the situation to be one of "doom and gloom"?

Specifically, both of you, what further developments would have to occur
before you admitted that the concerns that I and many other have
expressed in recent days were in fact realistic, and that your criticism
of the expression of these concerns was unreasonable?

You are not alone in what I consider to be an extraordinarily avoidant
and irresponsible attitude to a situation with clear and obvious dangers.

The whole design of reactors is intended to prevent everything which has
so far happened - for very good reason.  *Everything* has gone wrong so
far (with the vital exception that Mother Nature has generally had the
wind blowing out to sea).

If you look at the decay heat chart at:

  http://mitnse.com/2011/03/16/what-is-decay-heat/

you can see that the fuel in these reactors is going to generating
megawatts of heat for weeks to come.  Now there is no-one is at the site
to run the petrol/diesel driven fire-pumps which have been used in
recent days, for the last-ditch approach of evaporative cooling.

How do you suppose that the situation is "under control" to the extent
that the fuel will in fact be kept cool enough not to melt and coalesce
into a much more dangerous and radioactively emitting liquid mass, with
consequent risk of a fission explosion or at least melting through the
reactor vessel into the now wide-open "secondary containment" building?

I have encountered and I think understood some pretty odd aspects of
human psychology.  However this attitude you and quite a few others
share - of increasingly bold and unrealistic denial of the seriousness
of the situation as it becomes much more serious, day-by-day - has me
completely puzzled.

Tom, you argued against me communicating to others my concerns and
trying to provide information such as at:

  http://www.firstpr.com.au/jncrisis/

If you have specific reasons for thinking any of this is unreliable,
unrealistic or whatever, please let me know.

At what point does your optimism allow for warning people of dangers and
attempting to explain to them what is going on?  This is particularly
important since the Japanese government has released so little
information, not even a diagram of the reactors.

Regarding optimism, to the point of habitually shying away from anything
"negative" because it is supposedly bad for people, or at least more
trouble than it is worth, do you have any thoughts on this book?

  Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World
  by Barbara Ehrenreich

I would argue that optimism, unrealistic thinking or whatever is the
root cause of this crisis and any disaster which it turns into.  The act
of building the reactor on a tsunami-prone coast, with wiring, switching
gear, control systems and motors in the basement, is the cause of this
problem.  If the plants had been designed to work properly when the
entirely predictable tsunami hit, everything would be OK.

How is your thinking any different from the thinking which caused the
plants to be designed, built and run as they have been?


  - Robin