cornonacob .. sure, no problem, why would I have a problem?

It's not as bad as all the fearmongerers make out, never is. I'm not scared of it, nor are my kids, because I do not fill them with silly rubbish, I teach them science, not fear.

I'd prefer it if they built the nuc plant 5 miles from where I live in Australia though.

My Japanese is terrible.

At least then all the ecowhackos would move somewhere else, which would be so worth it to have all that energy, and no one complaining.

You could leave too, and then the rest of us could sail into the next century as we progress.

We'd probably come up with a vehicle engine with like, thousands of horsepower, from highly developed electrical engines, with no thought to limiting our usage.

It would be so cool to have bucketloads of Nuclear Energy, just awesome! Everyone could have MONSTER TV screen. Heat your house, water, your garden if you like, with electricity.

While elsewhere, you would be waiting for a windy day so your radio might work for a little while, or maybe peddle your bike to make the genny give up some of your precious energy, before it craps out and you're unable to fix it or build a new one.

Imagine if we have not been caldicotted, where we'd be now, what sort of reactors we'd have .. but of course, we will always have those who want to limit progress, to deny us a bright future, won't we?

Ah the possibilities .. hey, why not have a state in Australia where we could all go and live, with Nuc power, and you all could go somewhere where there is none, and we'd agree, nay, insist, that we never sell you any.

See what your kids think when you have "renewables" and we have Nuc.

cornonacob

No probs, but I have a counter question for you. Would you be prepared to raise a family five kilometres from an oil refinery, bearing in mind that - to my surprise - a major fire has been raging at a huge oil refinery in Japan, pouring thousands of tonnes of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere and its hardly rated a mention in the media.

Instead the nuclear stuff, which should rate far below the oil refinery fire at Chiba in terms of actual danger and long term consequences, gets all the press. go figure..

Tom, there is some reassuring stuff in your article but it does not provide much information or promote any real understanding of the issues.

We have come to expect that sections of the media and OLO members of the public will engage in utterly irrational and ill informed rhetoric.

This is a serious incident; the authorities in Japan are either unable or unwilling to provided detailed assessments on the actual situation or the risks. This provides many with the opportunity to “fill in the void” with their favorite nightmares.

You well know that there are processes and procedures to deal with this situation and we all hope they are being applied however, you might at the very least have mentioned some of the key “misinterpretations” and even deliberate “untruths” being peddled.

“The Helicopters are dropping sea water on the reactors”?

Supported by repetitive video and media commentary, who could fail to believe this? As you well know, this was done firstly to increase the water shield in the cooling ponds to reduce dose rates and secondly to effect “wash down” to allow engineers to work in a safer environment. Nothing to do with cooling the reactors which are in any event, sealed in containment vessels. All Navy ships are likewise equipped with precisely this “salt water wash down” system when operating in “radiation contaminated” scenarios.

“Smoke, steam and fires” Yes there has been. Firstly, from the explosive Hydrogen gas emitted by the “venting” process which caused so much damage to the buildings cladding and ancillary infrastructure (mostly inconvenient and cosmetic). Much of the residual “smoke” is caused by oil fires from the auxiliary diesel generator fuel. Which also explains why the generators could not be quickly restarted as the fuel was contaminated by sea water.

Melt Down”. Whilst some damage may have occurred to fuel rods and/or the zirconium cladding in the early stages, under normal (forced shutdown) circumstances these would be removed, replaced and the reactor restarted. “Melt down” is an emotive word associated with “Explosive Reactions” which irrationally strikes dread into an ill informed public.

TBC.

Continued;

Whilst serious on any level, this simply means anything between damaged cladding of the rods to a full melt down where “corium” melts into the base of the containment vessel. Nor do any of these scenarios imply “explosions”. These reactors shut down automatically when the earthquake struck; there is simply not enough remaining energy in the reactor cores to generate enough heat to cause further core damage. The temperature required for this is 1,500 degrees centigrade. There is not enough energy left in this system.

“Contamination” You did well in explaining the products of U-235 and went some way to reducing the “fears” associated with cesium and iodine 131. What you failed to explain was where these contaminants originated. Venting the containment vessel emits these because other particles are heavier and do not get vented. In addition, one of the cooling ponds leaked as a result of the earthquake, thus the salt water from helicopter quenching became contaminated and uncontained. It therefore leaked into the sea. (Iodine and cesium contamination). Not from the reactor containment vessels but from the cooling ponds.

“Containment Vessel Failure”.

“Some Units May Have Cracked”

Really? So are you now going to explain if this has happened? Why it might have happened, is it the outer concrete? is it the steel containment? What indications are there? What the consequences might be, and more critically, what is the difference between such a possible crack and taking the “lid off” the containment vessel to remove the rods for normal maintenance? If you have contacts in the nuclear power generation industry you should use them before writing your article.

Some might suggest that you are actually making the public more alarmed, because of your omissions.

If you do think it is “too early to make any informed judgment”. I would agree. In the meantime you are little different to those who are alarmist and ill informed, in the absence of fact, you speculate.

Spindoc - I don't disagree with a word you say but the authorities in Japan are only partially to blame. Once one journalist says or writes "meltdown" then every other journalist involved has to say "meltdown". If he or she doesn't then the editors or sub editors put it in for them, as part of the process of "correcting" and "improving" the copy.

There is a cultural tendency in journalism to gravitate to the worst possible explanation and maintain fictions.. such as the water being used for cooling, as they are understandable fictions.

If you try talking sense in a newsroom (I didn't try) during the emergency, they just look at you. Nuclear power is obviously dangerous and this just confirms what they knew all along - so they will tell you. Appeals to sense and reason after the event are far more likely to make headway.

This is not a balanced article.Even the Japanese Prime Minister is very alarmed.One reactor is spewing out plutonium.It only yakes one millionth of a gram of Plutonium to kill you.It is not the amount of back ground radiation that is dangerous but the nature if it.

Fukushima by any measure is a disaster.It is many times larger than Chernobyl and is no where near under control.