While I agree with the general alarm about spent fuel storage, the beat up of SFP#4 is getting exceedingly tiresome and probably of negative effect to those who would like to get rational messages across. Exposure of the pool (to rain?)is not in and of itself anything but symbolic of destruction. The roof and walls [...]

On the matter of the Fukushima NRC 50 mile evacuation, Jatzco and his staff/information were wrong. The congressional testimony relied not on facts but on hearsay. You will find how uncertain the testimony is if you read the minutes of the NRC’s staff meetings which are just sad in terms of lack of content and [...]

Sampling of current alarm about #4 SFP is like suddenly getting stuck in a traffic jam which is a memory of an accident that occurred long time ago. The alarm does not really ring all that true. While there is a whole lot of fuel there, I’m not all that convinced that the people who [...]

Bothered by the proliferation of the concept of profiling as it relates to the case everyone is talking about. Racial profiling is an institutional thing and is descriptive of something that is not as innocuous as the term profiling suggests. I can live with institutions being accused of profiling instead of prejudice/bigotry/hate, but to talk about [...]

Sodium cooling is scary with anything other than motor car exhaust valves. Monju is apparently one of those facilities and is a breeder reactor to boot. Only recently did they manage to fish out a piece of hardware (crane?) that they accidentally dropped in, so it’s been off-line. My understanding is that water is not [...]

The program has yet to air in Oz, so I can’t comment on it’s faults. However to read the one-two punch as anything like a freak accident excuse/propaganda by nuclear apologists is more paranoia than reality. Off shore quakes and tsunami are part and parcel of the same disaster as demonstrated throughout the northeast of [...]

There does not appear to be yet a PDF available of the report. The Japanese and non-Japanese press are all over the place with regard to interpreting what it means. There appears however very little beyond what is known from concurrent reporting. And it is very disappointing that they could not get Tepco employees to [...]

I don’t believe Jaczko can be trusted given his previous alarmist/false testimony about the condition of #3 spent fuel pool at Fukushima immediately following the disaster. Someone with such a loose notion of objective truth isn’t useful regardless what position he may be perceived to favor. The notion that he is more safety oriented than [...]

If not insider trading, then how about a simple conspiracy to defraud? It couldn’t have been a win-win for everyone so who got screwed?

Inadequate tsunami preparation is result of not learning from history. The fact that history is more like on 500-1000 year cycle for big tsunami may or may not excuse it. If you are seriously suggesting that cost was weighed against a likely event and frugality won, you are sadly mistaken as to understanding fundamentals of [...]

The financial situation in Japan has zero to do with whether or not the reactors were maintained in safe manner or whether they were designed safely. The reactors predate any recent financial situations and in fact were planned built and for most part operated in boom times. A better point may be that the reactors [...]

Unit 1 is apparently different from Units 2 & 3. They’ve all had venting issues in varying degrees. Some venting issues, which I’m tired of hearing now, are political and sensational in nature. There was a storm of stuff in Japan about dry venting of not, which should be academic once the roof is blown [...]

I do judge science, engineering, information on how it’s presented and by whom. Flack or not, informed or uninformed, serious or un-serious, ax to grind or no ax. If it happens that I’ve been watching the background stuff that eventually comes out as most of the news reported without necessarily believing or better yet understanding [...]

It’s good to see an update every now and then. I’m bit loathe to comment given all the debris strewn about. There are a few significant things recently worthy of note. The Kan government has officially pronounced very clearly that the Fukushima issue is one of failure of a national policy. Even given the ease [...]

The big concrete pump (62 meter reach)is now called the elephant and the smaller (58 meter reach) on called the giraffe. There is apparently another (52 meter reach) called the zebra. The two big ones are apparently there for use and zebra’s been retired.

And it appears that the reactor bldg #4 first reported to have 20cm depth of water ignored the floor beneath the one step that someone was talking about so is now 5 meters of water of indeterminate origin.

I believe the biggest problem with bringing in American design as is was that the DG’s were not standard voltages for the industry (construction and whatnut) for Japan, but rather for the USA. This caused quite a large problem when trying to find replacement.