I'm not a particularly religious person. But I suddenly feel the desire to pray.

[Paradoxical]

Meltdown is almost a certainty at this point. Which under normal circumstances would be contained within the reactor pressure vessel and, most certainly, within the reactor building. This is assuming that the reactor building is still there and that the emergency cooling systems can be restored.

The building is, for all intents and purposes, gone. It now appears as though the vessel is at least partially breached. I don't believe they have been able to restore the emergency cooling system to full capacity.

Unmoderated meltdown of the reactor will, likely, eventually burn straight through the bottom of the vessel. At TMI, the melted material had several hours to breach the vessel, but did not. Depending on how long it's been since the reactor began to meltdown at the Fukushima plant, the melted material may have had days or over a week to melt through the bottom of the vessel.

Once the vessel is breached and the core continues to go uncooled, the material can eat it's way down through the earth all the way below the water table.

The problem is that NOBODY knows exactly what is happening within the core, let alone what would happen even if we knew exactly what was happening right now.

This is entirely uncharted territory. At this point, some divine intervention would be a welcome sight.



On edit: I would truly like to apologize if I was at all offensive in the past regarding my support of nuclear energy. This disaster has changed me. It has changed my opinion. Things are happening that I never thought were possible in modern nuclear technology.

[aquart]

1. Enough with the dithering maybes and almosts. It's a meltdown.

It's a meltdown. NOW WHAT?

[Paradoxical]

2. Continue dumping neutron absorbent material on it.

If the "10 million times normal levels" is accurate or becomes wide spread at the plant, it would be advisable that everyone leave immediately. Anymore than an hour under those conditions will be a death sentence. Any exposure at all is going to be life changing.

At this point, I have absolutely no idea what they should do. Like I said, this is uncharted territory.

[Mojeoux]

6. In screen writing it's called "Deus ex Macina."

When the world is saved by intervention from above, or a monkey's paw, or sacred volcano. "Back in the day," it used to be concidered a cheesy move by screen writers.


Oh save us now Deus ex Macina!

[Tunkamerica]

12. not machina?

[WinkyDink]

20. Yes. ;-)

[aquart]

7. What absorbs neutrons?

Do we have tons of it on hand?

I'm suddenly remembering that they didn't evacuate pregnant women and children beyond 20 km. Did that change? Did they get them out?

[Paradoxical]

8. Several things. But boron is probably the best option.

It was used at Chernobyl. They poured boron enriched sand on the exposed reactor.

[MrModerate]

15. Boron. Sprayed via water cannon. No promises. n/t

[Catherina]

4. I'm not mocking you Aquart. Or the OP. I'd like an answer to that too. Now what? n/t

[roguevalley]

23. OP, no apologies are necessary. this is hell on earth. Praying

is a meditation and if it helps you, go for it. I believe all the energy in the world that is good will help someone. take care. I'm sick in my soul too.

[thereismore]

3. To think that the reactors were shut down. This is just from residual heat (7%). nt

[Catherina]

5. I've felt that desire too lately, to find a bench somewhere and sit and talk to the universe

or the other day in the rain, passing by an empty church, I had the sudden desire to go in and just sit there. Rec'd

[lostnfound]

9. Why is caution such an underrated virtue??

The story from some will change over to "it's really important not to locate nuclear power plants within range of possible tsunamis or earthquakes".
Those of us who advocate CAUTION will then have to argue it all over again. It is inherently unsafe, that the what-ifs are just unacceptable. What if..terrorists attack? what if..corporate greed takes shortcuts and they ignore a crack in a pressure vessel? What if..the calculations of the designers have critical errors?

When we evolve as a society to a place where unchecked corporate greed and government lies are no longer poisoning the decisions that we make as a community, THEN we can talk about nuclear power. Until then, pro-nuke optimists should keep their fantasies to themselves and refrain from stepping into the public discourse.

[tavalon]

18. I was a fence sitter

Even into last week, I was saying that if we are going to continue to build nuclear plants, they need to be off fault lines and the ring of fire. But I'm done with that. No more nukes. Figure out how to safely mothball the ones that exist now and start figuring out worldwide wind, water and solar methods to create energy. Expect that the day of easy and relatively cheap energy are over.

[intaglio]

10. Thanks for your honesty n/t

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ebayfool]

13. Someone sees the light & you show your ass?

Way to encourage people to lose the blinders. I'm glad to see the OP come around, but you could stand to get off that high horse you're riding ... the altitude is affecting you, I think.

"I don't accept your apology. Too bad you can't be forced to live near Fukushima."

Yep. Total class there.

[ebayfool]

14. Rec'd & it's refreshing to see a DUer that doesn't cling to ...

a position, no matter what the evidence shows them. Doesn't happen often enough anymore around here, & it's to be commended not used as a cudgel (as below). Thanks for the honesty on rethinking your position, & openness in acknowledging it & apologizing - it's not a wasted effort.


(and you haven't remotely as abrasive as some I've seen posting on both sides of this issue! now I've gone abrasive myself - some posters do that to ya!)

[MoonRiver]

16. 2012?

:nuke:

[Chris_Texas]

17. A forty year old plant is not exactly "modern"

[Ilsa]

19. I have a lot of respect for those who are willing to change their opinion

based on new evidence. It's a sign of reasonableness and maturity.

I've always been somewhat supportive nuclear energy plants where I live, but we dont live in an earthquake-prone area. But at this point I'm willing to say "so what" because I don't trust the companies that build them or the government that inspects them. I fully expect them to contaminate our ground water at some point.

[marions ghost]

21. maybe you can

persuade other supporters to change their minds. No matter how bad it gets there will still be those insisting that nuclear is safe.

NOW can intelligent people see that this is just not worth the risk? You give me hope, Paradoxical, that others can come to the same realization.

The much-maligned nuclear opponents are suddenly vindicated--but there is no joy in it.

Praying would be in order.

[Chris_Texas]

22. As a supporter I am the last person to claim nuclear is "safe"

But then, that's not the standard. I am willing to settle for best available. When these plants were designed, "new fangled' jet passenger aircraft were still regularly falling out of the sky and America was still dreaming of sending men to the moon as a plan to one-up the evil Russians. It was built back when most homes still did not have a color TV, engineers used something called a slide-rule for tricky problems, seat belts in cars were an expensive option, and it was considered acceptable to drive around while drinking a beer.

It was then hit by the most powerful earthquake in Japan's history, and a tsunami that in places topped fifty freaking feet high.

It's amazing that it held up as well as it did.

Even more amazing is that the same people who have done their best to block every innovation and safety improvement, the guys screaming the loudest that we cannot build replacements or fix the plants we have now, have the audacity to point at the nuclear industry as the culprit.

[roguevalley]

24. I believe if you own one of these fuckers and you build it and

you as an official support it, you need to live next door to it. If we want to make sure that the bastards who make, support and build these do it to the best possible degree, make them live next to it.

[Rex]

25. I remember when this first happened and you

thought this could never happen (meltdown), I believed you since my understanding of the situation is not a good as yours...now you have me worried.

[athena]

26. I was also on the fence

until I read this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/weekinreview/20chernobyl.html?hpw

Most people think that Chernobyl is a problem of the past. It is not. An area the size of Switzerland is now uninhabitable in the Ukraine, and it will remain so for at least 300 years. Having resided for the past couple of years in Switzerland, which has four nuclear reactors of its own and is neighbor to several French reactors, I find this extremely disturbing. Having also been to Japan, I hate to think that a portion of that beautiful country may be destroyed for centuries.

As the article states, the problem "does not exist on a human time frame." We can't risk rendering large swaths of the earth uninhabitable for 15 generations.

A fusion reactor does not have the dangers of a fission reactor. It cannot not melt down and does not produce dangerous waste. That is where we should focus our efforts and funding. Building more fission-powered plants just because it's cheap is irresponsible.