Japan

[Klaus]

Get your iodine tablets! Hopefully, this isn't the case as it's a extreme what if prediction.

[Ender]

It probably won't be serious enough to affect us, but this is more serious than Japan is leading everyone to believe, I can guarantee you that. Knowing a bit about how Nuclear plants work, the fact that the reactors are reaching temperatures hot enough to create hydrogen explosions from the seawater that they are trying to pump through it to cool it is a pretty telling sign that a meltdown is imminent.

Those plants have newer safeguards and containment, but probably aren't totally fail safe in extreme situations. Could be bad.

[Klaus]

I agree the government is not telling the entire truth. Hopefully, our Aircraft carriers can be of some help.

I saw this on Reuters:

The Japanese accident rated a 4 on an international scale of severity that goes from one to seven -- Chernobyl was worst at 7 and Three Mile Island was a 5.

Three Mile Island involved a partial meltdown but it was contained in the reactor. The Japanese are working to do the same thing here -- a meltdown won't spell a health disaster if it is contained within the reactor.

by Alister.Doyle at 11:24 AM

[Ender]

Latest report says the rods are probably melting, which doesn't surprise me given the explosions. So technically it is a meltdown. It will only have catastrophic consequences though if the containment fails, which they say right now is intact.

[Klaus]

The U.S. nuclear regulatory commission says the Japanese government has formally asked the U.S. for help with cooling nuclear reactors

Took long enough.

[Ender]

I bet one of the guys I went to school with would be part of helping them... he went into the Navy after college to run a nuclear reactor on a submarine.

[Dath]

Going to shrink Japan's habitable land mass in half if it goes at the rate it seems to be. The global concern that I have with it is how it will affect ocean waters/marine life as radioactive particles will no doubt be pretty heavily distributed into the ocean if a full meltdown occured.

Chernobyl's radiation affected most of Europe, but not to any severe levels outside of the contaminated zone, so I don't believe that there is a whole lot to fear in that regard in America.

[Klaus]

[Jomama]

Fukushima Nuclear Accident – a simple and accurate explanation

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/1...e-explanation/

[Jomama]

That map is likely bullshit..

Originally Posted by Australian Radiation Services
DISCLAIMER: Australian Radiation Services is aware of information about radioactive contamination being spread from the Japanese nuclear reactor incident released under the ARS logo and name. We wish to be clear that this information has not originated from ARS and as such distance ourselves from any such misinformation.

The map looks fishy even from a first glance. It was not issued with any warning, link to a regulatory organization, or press release. It was not vetted by any organization. Instead it contains the logo of "Australian Radiation Services".

A simple search on the internet reveals that this is a small private company in Australia which offers clients services in dealing with legal compliance and radiation monitoring. As fas as I could tell, the handful of employees working here have no expertise in climatology, which would be needed to determine wind strength and other factors necessary to model weather patterns.

Neither would they be expected to have any idea of what state the reactors were in (which was not already a part of the public domain). After all they are not a government regulatory agency!

Lastly, simply googling the numbers would reveal to anyone that they are preposterously high. The total dose per person in a defined area of Europe with closest proximity to the more-serious Chernobyl explosion was predicted to be 0.5 Rads over a period of three weeks of exposure.

The map circulating over the internet showed a ballpark number that was 6,000 times more serious that Chernobyl without any given time-period.

No, what probably happened was some conceited bastard with a lot of time on his hands photoshopped the map from a a screenshot of a Google map and added the Australian Radiation Services logo. All he or she needed to do was to tweet it or post it.