I don't know if this makes me a voyeur or not, but I can't stop watching news shows about the nuclear crisis in Japan. Om my frikkin' fission. Worse than 3 Mile Island, but not quite as bad as Chernobyl. This is historic. This is also dramatic - not in the silly overwrought meaning of the term, like teenagers and gender relations - but in the sense of the natural drama of life and death; this is the drama of Shakespeare. I'm not explaining this well, but I'm not explaining well at the moment. Consider those 50 workers who are putting their lives, not 'putting', giving their lives to work inside those 4 reactors that are melting. Amazing. They are heroes.
I'm also watching because my uncle works at a nuclear power plant for a couple months every year, so you could say I'm a little interested in them. And their safety. Just a little.
Anyway, here are some links in case you're interested: (First two taken from the BBC.)
This slide show summarizes what's happened so far at the plant.
What's wrong now:
"If you are in any doubt as to what this means, it is that in the company's view, it is possible that enough fissile uranium is present in the cooling pond in enough density to form a critical mass - meaning that a nuclear fission chain reaction could start."
Allthingsnuclear.org is a bit more technical than BBC, but don't get discouraged; push through the (rather long) posts. They're good at explaining all the terms that the news people are just throwing around. The one on reactor core cooling, for example.
2 comments:
When I heard of the workers who are trying to contain the plant even though they're going to get radiation poisoning immediately reminded me of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan wherein Spock dies from radiation in order to save the whole ship from exploding. Sad when I watched to movie, no less sad now that it's really happening.
That's what it reminded me of, too. Very Japanese.
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