On the Brink of a Meltdown

[Rick Rowlands]

Oh so now I have exposed you for who you truly are! You want the rest of us to stop using coal and nuclear energy while YOU continue to enjoy its benefits!  You are the classic liberal, do as I say, not as I do!

Buy some candles now Denny boy!

[irishbobcat]

And Ricky and Dan think this is all Ok and there's no problem with Nuke Power......

Grow up and get real you two neo-cons.....

take off your rose-colored radiarion glasses......

[Rick Rowlands]

Radiation down at Japan nuke plant after blast
APNews

Japan's government spokesman says the metal container sheltering a nuclear reactor was not affected by an explosion that destroyed the building it's in.

Yukio Edano says the radiation around the plant did not rise after the blast but instead is decreasing. He added that pressure in the reactor was also decreasing.

Pressure and heat have been building at the nuclear reactor since an earthquake and tsunami Friday caused its cooling system to fail.

An explosion Saturday blew out the walls of the building housing the reactor. The government has ordered people within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the plant in Fukushima to evacuate the area.

[irishbobcat]

Rick:

1. You are not reasonable.....you call people who still live in Y-Town as subhumans

2. Come to my house and rip out my electricity? That sir, is a threat.....and if you do, I will beat you

like a dirty rug.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk6q4stRY8Q

[Rick Rowlands]

The Amish heat their houses with wood.  Dennis, what would the quality of the environment be with forty thousand wood fires going at once in Youngstown?  How many houses would burn down when we all have to go back to lighting with candles?

Why can't you for once just explain to us how you would provide the country's electricity and energy needs without coal and nuclear?  PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU, EXPLAIN IT TO ME SO THAT I MAY UNDERSTAND.  I am a reasonable man.  if you have a plan that replaces coal and nuclear, kilowatt for kilowatt, with renewables and does so at a comparable price I may just come to your side and support you. 

If you don't I'm coming to your house and ripping your electric meter from its socket, as that electric you are using was produced by coal (Sammis, Cardinal, Niles) and nuclear (Davis Besse, Shippensport). Lead by example!

[irishbobcat]

SENDAI, Japan -- An explosion at a nuclear power station tore down the walls of one building Saturday as smoke poured out and Japanese officials said they feared the reactor could melt down following the failure of its cooling system in a powerful earthquake and tsunami.

It was not clear if the damaged building housed the reactor. Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers were injured but details were not immediately available.

Footage on Japanese TV showed that the walls of one building had crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame standing. Puffs of smoke were spewing out of the plant.

"We are now trying to analyze what is behind the explosion," said government spokesman Yukio Edano, stressing that people should quickly evacuate a six-mile (10-kilometer) radius. "We ask everyone to take action to secure safety."

The trouble began at the plant's Unit 1 after Friday's massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it spawned knocked out power there. The disaster has killed hundreds of people and devastated the country's northeastern coast, where rescuers began slowly arriving Saturday.

The toll of destruction was still not known more than 24 hours after the quake since washed-out roads and shut airports have hindered access to the area. An untold number of bodies were believed to be buried in the rubble and debris.

The official death toll stood at 413, while 784 people were missing and 1,128 injured. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicenter. Local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed.

Adding to worries was the fate of nuclear power plants in the region. Japan has declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability.

The most troubled one is facing meltdown, officials have said.

Story continues below
AdvertisementPressure has been building up in the reactor – it's now twice the normal level – and Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told reporters Saturday that the plant was venting "radioactive vapors." Officials said they were measuring radiation levels in the area.

The reactor in trouble has already leaked some radiation: Operators have detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room

[jay]

Some type of explosion took place at one of the reactors in Japan.  The evacuation zone around the reactor has been expanded to 15 miles.  According to the news reporting agencies,  the possibility of a meltdown still exists.

[irishbobcat]

Have a Green and Nuke-Free Weekend, Dan....

[Dan Moadus]

See?

[irishbobcat]

The Amish don't glow Green like you want to Dan.....

You are a pro-nuke disaster waiting to happen............

When will you ever wake up and smell the roses, Dan?

Oh wait, they'll be destroyed by nuke fallout before you get to them......

[Dan Moadus]

Luckily, people like Dennis have little chance of ever becoming decision makers. Their lunacy is recognized long before they achieve power. And it's a good thing, because if they were ever given control, we'd all be living like the Amish.

[irishbobcat]

TOKYO — Japan declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability in the aftermath of Friday's powerful earthquake. Thousands of residents were evacuated as workers struggled to get the reactors under control to prevent meltdowns.

Some 3,000 people within two miles (three kilometers) of the plant were urged to leave their homes, but the evacuation zone was more than tripled to 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) after authorities detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.

The government declared a state of emergency at the Daiichi unit — the first at a nuclear plant in Japan's history. But hours later, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the six-reactor Daiichi site, announced that it had lost cooling ability at a second reactor there and three units at its nearby Fukushima Daini site.

The government quickly declared states of emergency for those units, too, and thousands of residents near Fukushima Daini also were told to leave.

Japan's nuclear safety agency said the situation was most dire at Fukushima Daiichi's Unit 1, where pressure had risen to twice what is consider the normal level. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that diesel generators that normally would have kept cooling systems running at Fukushima Daiichi had been disabled by tsunami flooding.

Officials at the Daiichi facility began venting radioactive vapors from the unit to relieve pressure inside the reactor case. The loss of electricity had delayed that effort for several hours.

Plant workers there labored to cool down the reactor core, but there was no prospect for immediate success. They were temporarily cooling the reactor with a secondary system, but it wasn't working as well as the primary one, according to Yuji Kakizaki, an official at the Japanese nuclear safety agency.

TEPCO said the boiling water reactors shut down at about 2:46 p.m. local time following the earthquake due to the loss of offsite power and the malfunction of one of two off-site power systems. That triggered emergency diesel generators to startup and provide backup power for plant systems.

About an hour after the plant shut down, however, the emergency diesel generators stopped, leaving the units with no power for important cooling functions.

The race to restore the reactors' cooling systems before the radioactive fuel was damaged sent ripples of concern across Pacific, where scientists on both sides of the U.S. debate over the safety of nuclear power acknowledged that the company was facing a serious situation.

Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, which opposes nuclear energy, told msnbc.com that TEPCO was facing a potential catastrophe.

'It's just as bad as it sounds'

"It's just as bad as it sounds," he said. "What they have not been able to do is restore cooling of the radioactive core to prevent overheating and that's causing a variety of problems, including a rise in temperature and pressure with the containment (buildings).

"What's critical is, are they able to restore cooling and prevent fuel damage? If the fuel starts to get damaged, eventually it will melt through the reactor vessel and drop to the floor of the containment building," raising the odds that highly radioactive materials could be released into the environment.

[irishbobcat]

Dan and Ricky will only be truely satisfied when we all glow in the dark.....

The situation in Japan is serious....and if an earthquake of Japan's magnitude hit
California the 2 nuke reactors there could spread radiation across the entire US
if they were damaged enough to have a meltdown.....

NUKE POWER IS NOT SAFE>>>>>>>> No matter how you slice it or dice it.....

Dan and Ricky are out in right field on this issue......in fact, they are 2 neo-cons out playing in
'
right field all alone on a lot of issues.....(along with Shrimpybutt....)

[Rick Rowlands]

What better, more safer ways?  the only other fuel that can match nuclear power in cost and constant power output is coal, and you don't like that either.  What about hydroelectric?  Not enough rivers around for that and even some of the dams that are in place the environmentalists want to have removed to restore the river to its "natural state".  I guess that only leaves solar and wind, and all I have to say about that is that night falls and the wind dies.

I really hate to think that environmentalists are so idealistic that they have shelved their cognitive ability to reason, but it appears that they have.  every viable source of energy they shoot down, and every source of energy they champion isn't up to the task.   So really what IS the environmentalists' solution? 

[Dan Moadus]

Here we go! The Luddites will start coming out of the woodwork.