[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by RealJames

I don't share the hope many of you do for Japan to solve it's nuclear problems, I anticipate a nuclear meltdown, hopefully a uranium reactor, not the stupid plutonium one (which has a ridiculous half-life, and would render the entire eastern part of Honshu inhabitable) but I will honestly not be surprised if Tokyo becomes a ghost town.

I also completely believe that there will be a total meltdown.

However, I don`t share the belief in the media hype that it will explode and make the rest of Japan uninhabitable.
An explosion without containment WOULD cause some serious problems. But these HAVE containment, and as the control rods have been properly inserted there is a much lowered risk for criticality.
But they`re still going to melt down and make the reactors useless. Well, they`re already useless because of the seawater, but even more of a mess to clean up afterward.

People seem to forget that these reactors were designed to contain a full meltdown with minimal environmental impact. Obviously not "no impact", but NOTHING AT ALL like Chernobyl, which didn`t have anything in place to contain or reduce the effects of a meltdown.

It`s sort of like comparing a candle sitting on top of a newspaper to one in a candle holder sitting on tile floor. They both have the chance of falling over and getting their wax on things, but there is a lot less risk involved with less cleanup when it is on the tile. Chernobyl was something like the candle on the newspaper - Fukushima is like the one in the candle holder on the tile.

The electric company tried to avoid shutting down their plants entirely, which led them to the situation we're in.
They've resorted to asking the US for boron to kill radiation but this is a bandaid not a solution.

The plant shut down automatically. There was no way to continue cooling after it was shut down. How is this "avoid shutting down" the plant? It went completely offline when the shaking started.
As soon as they got pumps in there, they went to pumping seawater - something that completely ruins the entire reactor.

I honestly cannot see where there was any stalling in an attempt to keep from shutting things down. Getting things completely shut down in the reactors suffering problems was and is in the best interest of the electric company, as it means they could bring those that are not damaged back on line more quickly.

I suppose you could interpret hoping for proper cooling solution so that they didn`t have to completely destroy the reactor "stalling" - but it isn`t as if it actually used any time as they neither had the coolant nor a way to pump anything at all in even without.
It`s like being in a desert and hoping for some fresh water when there is none at all, but then settling for some muddy puddle water when you finally find one.