{"id":35686,"date":"2011-03-14T05:57:02","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T10:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=35686"},"modified":"2011-03-14T09:59:42","modified_gmt":"2011-03-14T14:59:42","slug":"ny-times-reporting-two-partial-core-melts-at-fukushima","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/ny-times-reporting-two-partial-core-melts-at-fukushima\/","title":{"rendered":"NY Times reporting two partial core melts at Fukushima"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note — here is a similar article from the Washington Post<\/a>. They report: “The detection of the highly radioactive elements cesium-137 and iodine-131 outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant heralds the beginning of an ecological and human tragedy. The open question is whether it will be limited, serious or catastrophic. The two radioactive isotopes can mean only one thing: Two or more of the reactor cores are badly damaged and at least partially melted down.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Fukushima plant before the quake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The New York Times<\/em> this morning is reporting that partial core meltdowns probably occurred at Fukushima 1 and 3, and it’s being reported elsewhere that the same kind of cooling system trouble is now underway at Unit-2. From what I am reading these are all reactors located on the same site, notably, all designed by General Electric (creators of the exploding dioxin safety device, the PCB electrical transformer). The article seems to be a fairly comprehensive — if understated — summary on the situation, including descriptions of the uncertainty factors. Here is the link<\/strong><\/a>. There is a good basic video in with that article — it’s the one titled “Japan’s Nuclear Woes.”<\/p>\n

I recognize this situation is frightening to those who have never experienced an environmental disaster and even to those who have. Some sources are reporting that yesterday’s explosion in Unit-3 knocked out cooling systems in Unit-2 (which was not previously involved, to my knowledge), my sense based on the facts and intuition is that the Japanese will be able to bring this under control with only partial meltdowns rather than ‘China syndrome’ type of total core melts. There is a big difference. In a partial core melt, the containment stays more or less intact and most of the radiation stays inside the unit. <\/p>\n

In a total melt the uranium or mixture of uranium and plutonium breaches containment entirely and drops to the water table, where it explodes. This creates both a much larger underground plume and an airborne one. It’s true that both are happening now, but on a scale that is more likely to be mostly local. However, the extent of the situation is just coming to light, and a lot that we don’t know about has happened in these three fast days.<\/p>\n

I marvel at the statements of some news sites such as, “Don’t worry, that was only a hydrogen explosion.” I know it may sound like I’m saying, “Don’t worry, that was just a partial meltdown,” which is sort of true. A partial meltdown is better than a total one. I am more interested in how the ‘safety’ considerations of engineers turned out to be just about all wrong — such as placing the switching station from main to backup power under the ground, assuming sea walls could hold back…a tsunami. So in a sense we are in a worst-case scenario where all the safety plans failed, and where there is a chain reaction of events.<\/p>\n

We are not out of the woods yet. As Rachel Maddow explained in her broadcast Friday<\/strong><\/a> (if you watch no other TV, I strongly suggest you tune into Maddow weeknights at 9 on MSNBC), nuclear power is all a game of keeping control over something that is always about to run out of control. That is where we stand today, only the marvelous technology that is designed to keep that control ain’t there, and engineers have to resort to pumping seawater and dumping borax onto the cores because nothing else will keep the temperature down. I assure you that was not in the business plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note — here is a similar article from the Washington Post. They report: “The detection of the highly radioactive elements cesium-137 and iodine-131 outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant heralds the beginning of an ecological and human tragedy. The open question is whether it will be limited, serious or catastrophic. The two radioactive isotopes can … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}