Re: [tlug] How much of radiations measured in Central Tokyo?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephenjturnbull@example.com>]

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 7:03 AM, Shawn Brown <big.coffee.lover@example.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>> And competent nuclear scientists are confident that even a full-on
>> core meltdown would be appropriately contained.

Josh, be careful.  As pointed out in the threads on morgsatlarge's blog,
most of those competent nuclear scientists are employed by or get
scholarships or research funds from the nuclear power industry.  I don't
question their honesty or competence, but it's very possible to be 100%
honest, very competent, and very biased.

> Yeah but for a while there many people were saying it could not be
> contained due to damage in the containment vessel.  That damage was
> presumed to be the source of the radiation leak.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt.  *Uckfay* those people for opening their amnday
mouths.  Talk about the possibility, OK.  That *needs* to be done.  But
*presuming* damage to the containment vessel is just artingfay upwind from
the gentlefolk.  I'm sorry for the pig-latin, but this loose talk from
the clueless
infuriates me.

Of course it is theoretically possible to crack any container.  But cracking the
containers used for well-designed nuclear reactors is very very hard.  That's
been proved amply in Fukushima.  That quake was so strong it drove a wall
of water taller than you are all the way to Los Angeles.  There are something
on the order of 10 reactor cores in the two power plants at Iwaki; none of them
lost containment as far as we know at this point.

Think about it for a second.  There are provisions for injecting coolants and
venting the containers; it is *a priori* most likely that the
radioactives escaped
in the process of that activity and in temporary failures of their sealing
mechanisms due to the explosions and other shocks.  *Ex post* evidence
says that the very high counts (a long baseball throw from the 1 sievert
level that's a serious health issue) were instantaneous, and lowered quickly.

In the sense that *any* radiation escaped, there was a failure of containment.
That's *very* serious business, and that's why the government has set such
stringent limits on the amount of radiation that can be detected before making
a formal report to the regulatory agencies.  But those levels indicate
"something
abnormal," *not* a health risk or an immediate catastrophe in the making.

There's still a possibility of a loss of containment, either already and not yet
detected, or in the future.  But it's really not worth worrying about,
compared to
the very real risk of aftershocks.