Who says the cores are all still contained? I'm hearing this morning (our time) that the fuel rods in reactor 4 at Fukushima are completely exposed.
On a broader note, the earthquake was never the biggest problem, it was some distance off shore and all Japanese reactors can deal with them OK anyway. The problem is making sure back up cooling systems are safe from large tsunamis generated by off-shore quakes like the one on Friday (which are inevitable along much of the Japanese coast at some point.) In this regard the Japanese have made a basic error in not putting the back-up pumps on the same high ground as they put the reactors themselves.
Nutter!http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12773427
RE. "the only way of doing that is by not building it in the first place": they could have built them on the west coast, otherwise known as "the coast that doesn't have one of the most active plate boundaries on earth just offshore". To suggest that a large tsunami and the consequences is outside of the reasonable design criteria given the location is disengineous at best I'd say. (I'm not anti nuclear power btw - this is going to be a fucking disaster for the climate, given the way policy throughout the west, and increasingly in the rotw, is driven by ill informed public opinion) Given their location I think it's well out of line that these plants were given license extensions (more modern nukes use the residual heat in the core after shutdown to power the neccessary cooling rather than relying on an external electricity source. Though wouldn't have made any diff to the issues with the cooling ponds)
In a culture where millions read mindless drivel about boring celebrities
As I understand it, unit 4 was undergoing maintenance atthe time, and as such, the fuel rods were NOT in the RPV, but stored in cooling ponds, which there appears to be a problem with. IE exposed to the atmosphere, ie BAD.
To suggest that a large tsunami and the consequences is outside of the reasonable design criteria given the location is disengineous at best I'd say.
Given their location I think it's well out of line that these plants were given license extensions (more modern nukes use the residual heat in the core after shutdown to power the neccessary cooling rather than relying on an external electricity source. Though wouldn't have made any diff to the issues with the cooling ponds)
This could go spectacularly wrong:
Muslamic-tastic!Holy shit do people like that actually exist???You couldn't make it up
Muslamic-tastic!
this man clearly never went/failed at his education, i would have thought they would have got someone with a bit more brain power to talk..
No doubt there was a well versed and fluent ringleader hanging around
Quote from: aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB on March 21, 2011, 06:31:44 pmMuslamic-tastic! I would have thought they would have got someone with a bit more brain power to talk..