Some Perspective On The Japan Earthquake

[shaunbhoy]

Only because of knee-jerk reactions in the media and people with an ideological aversion to nuclear power because of their association with nuclear weapons (idiots). Britain should get on with building more reactors now.

What I think we will find is the even if the fuel rods do melt, they will be contained within the containment vessel. The 50 operators left at the plant will suffer no more or no less incidence of cancer than the rest of the population.

The reactors (which were at the end of their lives anyway) are knackered and will require a few zeroes to cleanup. The fact that they shutdown properly and didn't explode (Chernobyl like) is a testament to the nuclear industry safety and engineering standards.

To compare the very professional behaviour of the Japanese operators to the idiots who covered up and caused Chernobyl to explode is naive at best.

+1

[Sysman]

Inteesting read unril I read this

The instant response — scramming the reactors — happened exactly as planned and, instantly, removed the Apocalyptic Nightmare Scenarios from the table



Oh really ?

I have an update on that. From the author's link to a so called expert Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors (see quote below), that post has been moved to the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering who are hopefully providing more knowledgeable input.

Background to the original post here on Jason’s Blog and the current version at mitnse.com by Josef Oehmen, who really was the author

I am a mechanical engineer and research scientist at MIT. I am not a nuclear engineer or scientist, or affiliated with Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, so please feel free to question my competence. The text is based on an email that I send to family and friends in Japan the night of March 12. It was posted on this blog by my cousin Jason, went viral and has been equally popular with people who hate it and love it ever since. It aimed at explaining the events surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi-1 reactor. Great lengths of the text are dedicated to explaining how the reactor works, what the different types of radiation sources are, and what safety features have been implemented. I then continue to describe how these safety features were operated to secure the reactor. To the extent that I could, I have verified this information with experts in the field, while the responsibility for any errors remains with me. The version on mitnse.com is the most accurate, and as you can tell in many parts different to the version that appeared here on Jason’s blog. This post is not keeping track of or explaining events after Mar 12. Events kept developing, and many people keep sharing their discovery with me that one is always smarter after the fact.