Monday, March 14, 2011
bad wednesday for nukes in japan...
after my last blog entry, lots of bad, scary information came to light, 2 more reactors ended up with more problems than the first two.Notably, the presence of spent fuel rods onsite and old flaws in the mark 1 containment system led to my greater concern, particularly after more hydrogen explosions damaged the surrounding area.
According to wikipedia, after a fire at reactor 4, hourly radiation reached 100 000 μSv. That's a big number. A scary, bad, number. But not a (rapidly) deadly number. Reactor unit 3 reached 400,000 μSv. Why people are reporting micro (10^-6)rather than milla (10^-3) bothers me,
Years ago, I wrote about the dangers of running nuclear plants past their design life. Now, with accident cascading into accident, the operators are tiring and making mistakes, and all seems grim in Japan to constrain meltdowns in several plants.
My heart goes out to those attempting repairs. Things may turn for the worse as it gets tougher to spend time at the site, safely.
Update: Wednesday 8AM MDT
I'd written this blog entry on monday, actually, thinking it was tuesday in the US and wednesday in Japan. Shows how much sleep I've been getting.
Labels: japan quake, nuclear energy
¶ 11:19 PM
