Sunday, March 20, 2011

We don't want it to Blow up

Ever since I found out that Reactor number 3 at Fukushima is different than all the reactors in that it is reprocessing fuel from nuclear weapons which includes plutonium and is therefore a more experimental reactor than the rest, as an intuitive I have had a very bad feeling about reactor number 3 at Fukushima. Tonight on "60 Minutes" on CBS my fears were confirmed by a U.S. Nuclear expert in Japan. I cannot quote exactly what she said. However, the way she said what she said implied that "We are in such uncharted territory right now that literally no one on earth knows what can or will happen there." When she said this the reporter sort of put words in her mouth like, "Are you afraid it could blow up?" or something like that. And she looked very scared and didn't want to commit but as she nodded her head she said, "We don't even want to think like that." Which said to me what I had intuited all along, which is we may see number three turn into a nuclear explosion if it is not handled properly because number three is nuclear weapons grade plutonium and a meltdown there could set it off. As an intuitive we still have a 25% to 50% chance of a nuclear explosion at that plant. With electricity there now the percentage of a nuclear explosion is moving downward every day that other reactors are brought more under control. By next week I believe the chances for a nuclear explosion will be down below about 25% as long as there are no aftershocks above 7.0 or greater with or without a tsunami. We still aren't completely out of the woods and with radiation already in Tokyo tap water, likely tap water over most of Japan will be problematic for years because of this nuclear event and likely the ocean will be even worse because of Fukushima's location right on the ocean. So sea life will be greatly affected on the Eastern Side of Japan at the very least for 10s of years and more than likely 100s of years.

The other really interesting thing  is that this U.S. expert said the U.S. government said to Japan on Tuesday that unless they let the U.S. Government help that likely the Japanese workers were going to start dying from radiation. Or more succinctly, "Japanese workers were going to have to die to save their country from this facility unless the U.S. was brought on board." So, at this point after Tuesday the U.S. Government radiation team was actually brought on board to help solve the problems there at Fukushima.

This is the "60 Minutes" segment I watched:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7360240n&tag=contentMain;contentAux

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