Comments on: Stating The Obvious

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 05:46:20 +0000

In reply to Badtux.

We must have posted at the same time, Badtux.

They keep talking about the Iodine-131 levels which is well and good, but I have more concern about the cesium isotopes with half-lives in years, not days. We have detected the Iodine in Florida, but they have detected cesium and xenon in Nevada, and that is definitely not good.

Almost everything I come up with to cool those suckers, will generally do it too quickly and will probably crack the container or the pipes.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 04:51:42 +0000

The problem with concrete, Suzan, is that it is a special type that is used, and the reactor cannot be hot or it won’t set properly. Further, you need to know that the reactor still has concrete underneath it, and you can’t determine that at current levels of heat and radioactivity. This isn’t a trip to the hardware store and add water – it requires people who know what they are doing. That would seem to be an extremely rare thing in Japan. I would prefer three to six inches of lead over an initial concrete cap, followed by another cap of concrete. but the lead requires a cool reactor.

They have already been caught doing that, Hipparchia, so I expect there will be monitoring on that possibility, and not by the people currently involved.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 04:50:07 +0000

Yeppers, the Soviet option. Dunk the reactor in the Marinas trench, voila. And if the sealife there starts growing multiple heads, well, just learn to love fish head soup, yo. 😈

– Badtux the Snarky Penguin

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:55:45 +0000

…and what are they going to do with all of the radioactive water?

it’s a big ocean out there….

By: Suzan

Suzan — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:42:45 +0000

And didn’t we already hear that concrete is not the way to go?