No meltDOWN happened, which is what I insisted upon after you claimed there were multiple of them.

The mystery of where the "five deaths" idea came from remains. This blogger saw it being reported in the Telegraph and asked the same thing I did: why aren't these deaths reported in the official reports?

[aside] tw is his own parody, really. not really cricket. [/aside]

I was listening to a podcast of Public Radio International from Canada where a specialist was explaining why newer plants have passive systems where electomagnets keep control rods from dropping into the reactor and why even newer plants have electromagnets keeping valves closed that could flood areas with coolant. All of these systems are activated by the absence of electricity.

It seems like such a simple idea, I wonder why noone thought of it 20-30 years ago when some of these older plants were built.

Oh, I vastly prefer the American soldier to you, tw.

And the more I can do to make tw -- owing to his anti-values -- ever the more rabid, the better I am doing for the Republic.

I'm voting against that useless socialist Obama again, you know. Liked doing it so much the first time, being after all so much over the sort of upper-two-digits IQ required to make voting for the Democrat the attractive choice, that I vote for politicians that I believe have wisdom. That pointedly excludes practically all the candidates the Dem Party puts up.

So where did hydrogen come from? When Zircaloy rod cladding melts, an explosive hydrogen is created. Zirconium dioxide means hydrogen can exist in explosive concentrations. Both inside the containment vessel. And in those storage ponds. Same explosion happened in Three Mile Island when those rods melted.

American officials believe one storage pond was all but dry. Therefore rods in those ponds also melted. Hydrogen released - as in what then caused explosions in three reactor buildings. Of course, the official release from TEPCO denies all this. And then in the news conference, the reporter asked, "Where did the hydrogen come from?" TEPCO management said, "We'll get back to you on that." Because TEPCO denied fuel rods melted - the official line that also could not explain the hydrogen.

Completely meltdown as in what American officials were telling the Japanese on Tuesday. And then said they will soon have to send people into the reactor to save it - and then die. On Tuesday, those statements finally got the Japanese attention. And is why some TEPCO employees were replaced by JSDF people.

TEPCO is finally admitting that damage to at least one reactor is so great that it must be scrapped. The actual number is probably three. But the official information that UT is reading were denying any plants were permenantly damaged. TEPCO also refused to release temperature and pressure numbers that show what they should have done when to avert rod melting.

Fuel rods have melted. Nobody can inspect them to confirm it. But the chemistry, temperatures, and rods not covered in water says fuel rods have melted.

Future melting has been averted. After blunt words from American (and other) experts and other actions (ie all Americans were advised to leave), TEPCO finally did what was necessary to have water flowing in all plants (except maybe reactor 3). Among the statements that finally got TEPCO's attention were recommendations to prepare to bury at least one reactor in sand and concrete. TEPCO management was shocked. TEPCO management was denying their problem that severe. Which is the official information that UT is reading.

For five days, TEPCO denied any problem was serious. That rods could have melted. So the official releases denied rod melting. And did not explain where hydrogen came from.

Nuclear incidents explained for Japanese school kids:

Tokyo's water supply hosed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12825342

The news does not seem to be improving much from day to day.

We are just learning symptoms of how bad it was many days ago. We know dangerous amounts of radiation were being emitted long ago when TEPCO was singing, "Don't worry; Be happy". TEPCO only started to address problems about Wednesday - about five days after the earthquake. Long after rods had or were exposed and melting.

Most of that radiation that came from inside the containment vessel is Cesium and Iodine. Iodine has a half life (if I remember) of about a week. Meaning that radioactive material should be mostly gone in a month.

The problem. Radioactive materials appear to cause seriously diminished mental abilities in infants and fetuses. Those low dosages may be that hazardous to that minority.

Due to radiation leaks, work to restore power in days is taking at least a week. Too much radiation is outside the plants. Hundreds were said to have exceeded their maximum dosage levels long ago when TEPCO was denying these leaks. Eventually 1400 workers were removed leaving only the fearless fifty. In order to prevent worse radiation problems, many workers along with JSDF soldiers and others were brought back to be exposed to radiation levels that limit work to maybe two hours per day.

It is not worse than last week. But last week, they were preaching "no problem" propaganda. Obviously were lying or were in total denial. This week, they are admitting how bad things had become last week. Which means things would have been so much worse had not third parties (ie US government) not read to them a "be prepared to start sending people in to their death" predictions. It could be that much worse. Which says how much has finally been accomplished now that TEPCO management admitted the seriousness of their problem.

Radiation risk is as bad as Americans were saying and TEPCO was denying. Another US carrier (George Washington) has left Tokyo harbor to avoid being contaminated. Fukushima reactors were leaking that much radiation last week when TEPCO was claiming all rods were safe, cool, and covered in water. If true, then those hydrogen explosions never happened. Resulting radiation is only now become apparent. At only unhealthy and not deadly levels. It almost was so much worse. It is now so much better than what would have happened if TEPCO had remained in denial.

On NPR this morning - three workers have been sent to the hospital with radiation poisoning. They were working in knee deep water, hooking up the electricity. The water was radioactive.

You'd think they'd be wearing some kind of lead clothing or something - anything to protect them from radiation.

I don't mean to be rude, but, um...aren't they supposed to be smarter than the average bear? Sorry if that's waisis.

I heard a bit of that on the radio. I think they said those workers got exposed to 150 mSv, which on this handy radiation chart is the equivalent of 3 years maximum permitted dosage for workers at a nuke plant and is more than enough to be clearly linked to an increased cancer risk.

Yabbut, water + electricity? If the radiation don't get you the kajillion volts will?