RE: The nuclear situation in Japan is getting worse, experts worry about other plants in seismic zones
The situation may look worst, but it can't escalate to a level 7.
These reactors are built using thick steel vessels containing the
fuel and that's a better design than used in Chernobyl. Once they
stopped the reactions, the rods have to cool down, otherwise the
water around them will keep being vaporized and on contact with
the zircon containers hydrogen is created, raising the risk of new
explosions. I believe they should have released the initial vapor
earlier and assumed the radiation damages to the environment,
instead of trying to contain it and lose control.
One thing we can't lose from our perspectives is that the design
used there in Japan are from US and the lacking of a secondary
cooling system is the ultimate culprit of building up pressure in
the water boiling system. Germans or French reactors use at
least two cooling set of valves. Independently of how this sad
episode ends up, we'll need to review our designing and make
like building inspectors require when we renew something in our
houses... that we update it to the most current code. We'll have to
bite the bullet and pay the price of renewing old nuclear plants we
still need.
Yes, I agree, everybody in the international community should
join forces and do the best each of us can for helping Japan now.
If we can't go and help physically, at least we all can make some
cash donation and make easy for those working in the scene to
provide the supplies the population need. In Sendai alone, there
are over 200K people living in shelters and their daily challenge
is to get water and food.
