Earthquake & Tsunami in Japan Thread

[welsummerchicks]

THE MEDIA IS WRONG.

They blew a rod - a cooling rod - they're called safety rods. They are boron, scram rods. You drop them by gravity or drive them down, and they are like throwing a blanket on a fire. One of them got partly lmelted. That isn't good but they know what to do about that.

THAT IS NOT NOT A CORE AND IT IS NOT A MELTDOWN.

They don't even get the difference between 'melt' and 'meltdown'.

You WANT to melt stuff to PREVENT a meltdown, in the sense that if something gets hot there is a system to soak that up. You WANT your safety systems to act and they are INTENDED to get fried in very specific ways - they are like crumple zones in a car accident.

The problem is that the media doesn't know anything about nuclear power and they are totally mixing everything up.

They don't know the difference between a control rod, a safety rod, a containment system and a core!!!!

My SO is not at all happy that nuclear plants are built in earthquake zones, and he's not at all happy that our US regulations are so crappy, neither am I, but let's not start a mass hysteria and say something is happening that is NOT happening.

When the generators got flooded they put on their backups - THOSE got flooded. So they brought up battery backup, they put their control rods down, water in, they are 100% on the job. And I think they are going to hold this thing.

 

[Ec_Prokta]

Thank you very much, Welsummer.

 

[welsummerchicks]

I'm just glad it's them taking care of it instead of us.

I knew one of the guys who went into report Three Mile Island - he said the whole thing started because this guy had such a huge belly he couldn't see some of the guages....

One of the reasons the hysteria started was someone said there were people in hospital that were testing positive for radiation. I think I will wait to see what that is about - that can be due to equipment failures in hospital - reading badges that are very sensitive, or just - people are talking and get excited and start mis-hearing things and repeating what they thought they heard...

 

[rockinpaints]

I am watching it on CNN as I type, how sad!

 

[hikerchick]

Quote:
How is it that you know this? Are the Japanses agencies somehow contacting you?

 

[welsummerchicks]

No, I am sitting here with a guy who has a Phd in Nuclear engineering and he speaks Japanese, and he is listening to what they say and explaining to me exactly WHICH words and technical terms the media is misunderstanding.

I am not saying any of this is GOOD. Right around that plant things are going to suck. The people working in the plant, I feel VERY sorry for. There are several hot buildings and that is not good.

Building nuclear reactors on the pacific rim of fire is stupid. Building nuclear reactors at all is probably stupid, given how bad we are at regulation maintenance.

BUT...He is also looking at the videos of the building explosion and is familiar with how that plant is designed. He knows that plant - all those guys do - they study all the plants in the world during both education and training.

They study every accident - everything. He wrote his PhD thesis on safety issues.

One of the guys who came on a few minutes ago and was practically having a fit that there is a total core meltdown in process, is now back on, saying 'now there's a difference between 'melt' and 'meltdown'', which is his weak*** way of trying to apologize for being wrong, and my SO just laughed and said, 'You jerk', to him....

LOL. Welcome to my world.

 

[DuckLady]

To those who were with the spirit of the thread, thank you.

To those who derailed it.
Thanks.