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Worse & Worse — Why Now?
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Worse & Worse

by Bryan

CNN reports that number 2 has exploded, no doubt as a result of hydrogen build up, like 1 & 3, and now there is a fire in number 4.

The radiation level is rising, so all but 50 emergency personnel have been evacuated.

2 comments

1 Badtux { 03.15.11 at 11:14 am }

The fire got put out, it was apparently unrelated to anything nuclear.

The interesting thing is that despite the deranged response by Larry-san, Curly-san, and Moe-san, the chances of anything other than some radioactive steam with short-lived isotopes is slim and getting slimmer with every minute as the reactors cool down. The worst case scenario would be the fuel rods themselves catching on fire and belching smoke containing all sorts of nasty isotopes, similar to the Windscale incident in the UK, but it appears that’s not going to happen here, probably because unlike Chernobyl there’s no graphite to catch on fire and there’s a containment vessel to keep air away from the fuel rods. The situation is clearly dangerous for anybody near the plants, but I’m not looking for radiation warnings here in the Bay Area, because by the time any steam from the plants wafted over here the relatively light and short-lived particles would have decayed to the point where simply standing out in the sun would expose me to more radiation.

Be careful with that CNN. CNN is known to cause cancer of the credulity meter. Their science reporting in particular is atrocious, even Fox News would be embarrassed. Opinions of the shape of the earth differ….

BTW, one of your fellow Floridians in Orlando responded to slow service in Denny’s by firing his gun. Good thing the server wasn’t packing, or we coulda had the Gunfight at the Denny’s Salad Bar in Orlando! Okay, doesn’t have quite the cachet of “Gunfight at the OK Corral”, but hey, modern times, right?

– Badtux the Snarky Penguin

2 Bryan { 03.15.11 at 12:47 pm }

Uh, the fire was at a spent fuel rod pool that isn’t in any kind of containment and did release a significant amount of radioactive particles. While watching the reactors explode, no one was watching the fuel rod pools.

There was a second explosion at number 2, and some are saying that the containment has been breached, but they aren’t sure.

Well, they will know in the Aleutians in a couple of days as that’s the way the wind is blowing.