Posted on 03/12/2011 7:46:44 AM PST by SteveH
Factbox: Experts on explosion at Japan nuclear plant
March 12, 2011
(Reuters) – Radiation was leaking from an unstable nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, the Japanese government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility following a massive earthquake.
The development has led to fears of a disastrous meltdown. Here are comments from experts about what might have happened.
PROF PADDY REGAN, PROFESSOR OF NUCLEAR PHYSICS AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY
"It looks as if the coolant pumps had initially stopped working. They shut down automatically when the reactor shuts down, but there is a backup system running off a diesel generator -- it looks as though that's the bit that failed.
"As a result there is no way of pumping heat out of the reactor, so it has to cool naturally. If the reactor gets too hot, in principle this means the fuel rods can melt - but it looks unlikely this has happened to any great extent in this case.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Once again, Reuters is wasting our time.
Those analysts seem to know more what they were talking about than the talking heads and reporters who’ve been covering this.
These commentators are experts.
They make it appear there is no hope foe mankind because of this tragic accident and that "those in charge are being silent about and won't talk to them about".
So what blew up, Paddy?
It’s hard to get intelligent info with all the hype. Thanks for posting this.
When major real-time events are happening in the world, CNN and Reuters consistently offer best coverage, simply because they have more contacts on the ground.
such a great comment.
Thanks for posting - good perspective from experts. Most of what’s being reported in the MSM is overblown and often incorrect.
Bump
Assuming the reactor containment vessel holds, far from being evidence of the dangers of nuclear power, it can be held up as an example of how safe WESTERN nuclear reactors built in the 1970s are/were.
Of course modern reactors with far more operational safety features and earthquake proofing are even MORE safe than the one in Japan that survived the fifth largest earthquake in recorded human history.
Well, they ARE rats after all...
Sadly, that won't make a difference to the anti-nuclear crowd.
On the positive side, it keeps the international media preoccupied while the Japanese go about the grunt work of salvaging what’s left out of this awful mess.
On the negative side, it will bring in a whole other layer of bureaucracy and it may kill a few hundred more people and take a few square miles of territory off the map of habitable Japan, which includes a North-South road that might or might not have been useful in transporting supplies from the less affected south to the North-East.
- any explosion at a nuclear power plant is not good,
- the situation is not at all under control,
- expand the evacuation zone and prepare for a meltdown,
- Al Qaeda is likely taking notes.
Well, it would be safer if the power plants were coal fired, but the enviomentalists nixed that. As it would have been simple to clean up and stop a blown out oil well on land, intead of five miles out to sea.
Perhaps for the sake of the planet, we should ban enviromentalists?
I heard somewhere and I hope it is true that reactor core pressure is decreasing, which means that the situation amy be stabilizing. I think the operational issues boil down (pun not intended) to why the diesel backup generators failed all at once. That has less to do with nuclear fission and radiation, and more to do with maintenance and possibly design of ancillary non-nuclear equipment IMHO.
So what blew up, Paddy?
That’s what I wanna know.
Thanks SteveH,great info:)
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