[LINK] Radiation

[Robin Whittle]

Tom, I think you are wildly uninformed and completely irrational about
the dangers inherent in a meltdown or the Japanese situation.  You wrote:

> What multi-reactor meltdown ?
> Have the containment domes been breached ?

Yes.  Look at the pictures - they are not domes.  I have pictures and
diagrams at my page:

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

and the media is full of these photos and diagrams.

Two or three of the secondary containment buildings have been breached.
 Meltdowns occur through the bottom of the reactor vessel into the
secondary containment, which is designed to contain them - but that
won't work for units 2 or 3, and probably won't work for unit 1 either.

> Ahhh, yes, you have probably been reading some of the journalism stuff.

Yes - do you have any other suggestions?  You should read it too.  If
you have complaints about its accuracy, then please give the details and
a more accurate account, with non-journalist-contaminated primary sources.

> Well most of it, unfortunately, is apparently wrong.

> Supposition and philosophical whatif scenario debate has no business
> being sold as news. It destroys economies and creates extremely negative
> emotions amongst the persons living in the area.

Ah . . . negative emotions and economic damage.  The horror!!!


> Would it be a nuclear melt-down in Japan that probably won't kill even
> one person ?

More than one reactor worker has been killed already.

Tom - you are way out of touch and I won't debate this stuff with you
further.  Please read up on what is actually happening, rather than
unfairly criticise better informed people who are quite reasonably
discussing their concerns on this list.

Jan, they can't fix the fuel rods in soil or concrete, because they are
continually producing heat.  That would melt the soil, rock or concrete
and the rods themselves, leading to radioactive emissions and possibly
concentration of melted fuel, which may start a more vigorous fission
reaction.

  http://mitnse.com/2011/03/16/what-is-decay-heat/
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_heat

Fortunately they now have workers back on the site - heroic workers, I
think, considering the near-certainty of high radiation exposure.  They
attempted dropping water from helicopters, but it looks like a failure,
since the water was dropped from moving helicopters at a high altitude
and little of it got inside what remains of the buildings.

  - Robin