Secret Squirrel On Japan's Emerging Nuclear Emergency.

Secret Squirrel has noticed the massive problems in Japan caused by the earthquakes which have severely damaged several of Japan's nuclear plants.Is nuclear energy safe? Well, There is, or was, Chernobyl\Prypat,Three Mile Island, and others, and,yes, there is Japan. Should Japan have and keep nuclear plants,sitting as it is
on many shifting tectonic plates? Japan is in disaster, it is a natural disaster, it staggers from disaster to disaster,periodically,decades in between, due to the earthquakes.Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, perched on top of several converging tectonic plates.Geological instability causes around 1,000 tremors in the country each year, although many of these go undetected by the public.Every time they do strike they are a reminder that it is long overdue "a Big One",and now, they've had one,and will have yet more, as earthquakes are known to bring many happy returns.Japan falls in Seismic Zone V, the very high-risk zone for seismic activity and generated tsunamis they create(Japan's earthquakes occur at the coast and under the sea).

Now, with what has happened in Japan nobody can say that nuclear power is safe and clean. Look at Japan's "safely built" reactors at present.........not so safe it seems. Could they be built safer? No, not in light of what has occurred. Should the reactors be decommissioned, the damaged ones? Yes. Should the others also be decommissioned,?Yes. Indeed they supply 30% of Japan's energy needs, but that 30% must be filled in another manner.As it was,before 1968, that figure was at 0%,and there were no worries about each being a Chernobyl,no worries of radiation caused sickness,offspring deformed oddities etc due to radiation leakages from malfunctioning or exploding, or exploded,nuclear plants.Sadly, extremely unwisely, Japan placed it's energy requirement fulfillment on nuclear energy, most definitely, as now with most of it's nuclear plants shut down, it must go in to rolling black out mode, seemingly not being able to generate enough electrical energy to meet the demands
of Japan, needs which before the advent and now evident dependency on nuclear energy, were filled by other means, such as thermal.Did you know all a nuclear reactor does(besides emit massive quantities of radiation, and explode),is,quite simply, to heat,as in boil,water, converting it to steam, that in turning, turning a steam turbine which drives a generator, to generate electricity.It's a highly dangerous way of ridiculously simply boiling water. There are alternatives to the nuclear problem now revealed, improved thermal plants, geothermal plants(Japan sits on a vast resource of volcanic activity),improved pump storage electrical generation facilities,for example.But Japan unwisely started to go with a dependency on the unstable,unwise, nuclear alternative.

Presently Japanese efforts to prevent a nuclear meltdown by flooding reactors with seawater are a last-ditch attempt,to prevent meltdown, but authorities claim that does not mean that a nuclear tragedy is imminent even though cooling pumps and systems are failing and not working,radioactive vapours being vented,and containment facilities exploding and such, experts said Sunday.

At the Daiichi plant in Fukushima,at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, all of the three reactors -- Nos. 1,2 and 3 -- are at risk for meltdown because of the powerful earthquake and tsunami that struck on Friday.An explosion caused by hydrogen buildup Saturday blew the roof off a concrete building housing the plant's No. 1 reactor, but the reactor and its containment system were not damaged in the explosion. Officials said the No. 3 reactor would also likely withstand a similar blast, noting that workers had already released gas from the building to try to prevent an explosion,it didn't work,it did the same thing, and was then followed by number 2 as well.At the Tokai reactors, the number 2 reactor
suffered a stopped cooling pump.Meanwhile, a state of emergency has been declared at Onagawa plant, where Japanese authorities say radioactivity readings have gone over allowed levels.

Reactors are having saltwater and boron(Boric Acid),being pumped in in efforts to cool them,there have been partial meltdowns.US nuclear experts have warned that pumping seawater to cool a quake-hit Japanese nuclear reactor is an “act of desperation” that could foreshadow a Chernobyl-like disaster, referring to the 1986 accident in Ukraine."If they are (using seawater), it's because they have no other choice," said James Walsh, a research associate at the security studies program at MIT. "The last thing you want to do is pump seawater and boron into a reactor."
The salt and boron will corrode the reactor, he said."Essentially, they are saving the white flag and saying, 'This plant is done,' " Walsh said. "This is a last-ditch mechanism to try to prevent overheating and to prevent a partial or full meltdown."Physicist Ken Bergeron said if the core melted through the reactor vessel it could flow onto the floor of the containment building. If that happens, the structure would likely fail.“ The containment building at this plant is certainly stronger than that at Chernobyl but a lot less strong than at Three Mile Island, so time will tell,” he said.At a another plant, in Onogawa, excessive radiation levels also were recorded.

Fifty six plants exist in Japan, and approximately 15 to be built,supposedly built for disasters such as occurred, but obviously, so very not.It's also obvious that it is unwise for Japan to have nuclear reactors,period, as Japan is,was, and always has been,very heavily earthquake prone,and they will bring Japan very many, happy returns.Anyone still favour nuclear options?