Published: October 22nd, 2011 at 5:12 pm ET
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“Fairewinds’ Chief Engineer Arnie Gundersen testifies to the NRC Petition Review Board detailing why the 23 BWR Mark 1 nuclear power plants should be shut down following the accidents at Fukushima. True wisdom means knowing when to modify something and knowing when to stop. Sometimes, all the King’s horses and all the King’s men should not try to put Humpty Dumpty together again,” states the Fairewinds website’s description for this video that was filmed on Oct. 7.
At 3:15 in [Transcript Excerpt]:
“Control rods enter through holes in bottom of reactor vessel. This presents a myriad of opportunities for melted core material to leak directly out of the reactor onto the containment floor. I believe this is exactly what occurred at Fukushima.”
SOURCE: Post Fukushima: All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men
Post Fukushima: All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men… from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
Published: October 22nd, 2011 at 5:12 pm ET
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sending...
Mr. Gundersen,….with an ‘e’,….Out of the park, concise, tempered, magnificent! Thank you, thank you. Future generation shall thank you Sir.
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Yes! And the Committee was QUIET THIS TIME!! Yeah!
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They said “thank you mr gundersen” they thought “f’ you mr gundersen”
Their actions will speak for them now.
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Absolutely correct, their actions will speak for them. Let’s hope they speak truly, for once.
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Yes, everyone seemed respectful, this time ..
Thank You, Arnie Gunderson !!
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According to Arnie:
—>Since 1994, there hasn’t been a commissioner that wasn’t vetted by the Nuclear Energy Institute.
—>He firmly believes a million additional cancers in Japan in next 20 years due to Fukushima incident
—>He says in the next 5 years: increase in thyroid and lung cancers. In about ten years you’ll begin to see the organ cancers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yQQt3k2NeYI
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Thanks for the link to the second half of that interview–I don’t think that part is posted here yet.
That’s a really interesting discussion. AG has really provided some great information over the past few days.
I just wish we could get more people to pay attention to all of the political/financial aspects of the nuclear industry in America–if people understood all of this, no one (outside of the industry and its political lackeys) would support it.
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[You're welcome but credit goes to desert_lady who posted it a few days ago in the discussion forum (where things tend to get "lost" in all the links)]
As far as your comment, as usual, Iam335, you are spot on!
And here are more points from Arnie:
>Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) carries a lot of political weight.
>Sen. Pete Domenici — met with chairman of NRC at the time and “she said he forced her to speed up licensing because he threatened to cut the budget in half.” (Sen. Domenici brags about that in his book.)
>Sellafield stopping Mox plant.
>Arnie firmly believes a million additional cancers in Japan in next 20 years due to Fukushima incident. He’s concerned this won’t be properly recorded due to government and industry pressures (downplaying)…saw that at TMI and Chernobyl. Difference is now we have the internet.
>Next 5 years, increase in thyroid and lung cancers. In about ten years you’ll begin to see the organ cancers.
>Cost is $20 billion for new nuclear plant and when it breaks it breaks for good. Nuclear is not cheap.
>Nuclear priesthood may still want nuclear, but…
>Wall Street and Main Street don’t want nuclear power.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yQQt3k2NeYI
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Arnie also said it all started because of the weapons program, and Dr. Caldicott said this:
http://enenews.com/all-countries-nuclear-reactors-nuclear-bomb-factories-includes-syria-saudia-arabia-iran-pakistan-nuclear-power-camouflage-nuclear-weapons-video-part-ii
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I just hope all the kings horses and men aren’t too arrogant and money hungry to make a mistake again.
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Anyone seen TG lately? I’m kinda worried about her.
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She made a post or two yesterday, if I’m not mistaken. I sense she is busy with the other sites as well. She’s here, like Heart,…just don’t always post-I think.
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Thanks SJ.
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**Incredibly, Prime Minister Noda and his administration have unilaterally decided to lead Japan down the path toward another nuclear tragedy.
In a Sept. 23 speech he delivered to a high-level United Nations meeting on nuclear safety and security, Noda made it clear that his administration is prioritizing nuclear power, both as a source of domestic electricity and as an export industry.
“Japan is determined to raise the safety of nuclear power generation to the highest level in the world,” he said, adding, “Japan stands ready to respond to the interest of countries seeking to use nuclear power generation.”**
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fe20111023sh.html
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Posted at HP
Some real good people there (minus the trolls)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/30/japan-earthquake-2011-gov_n_989682.html
Outnow is always a EDUCATIONAL READ.
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Words to be weighed in the balance with previous actions.
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“I just hope all the kings horses and men aren’t too arrogant and money hungry to make a mistake again.”
Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world
19 October 2011 by Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie
“The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company’s operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.
The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world’s large blue chip and manufacturing firms – the “real” economy – representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.
When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.”
cont…
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Errr sorry andy, I take back what I commented on as this is an INTERESTING well thought out article that gets to the bottom of the problem we are all facing here!! Well done andy and Deborah!! Big up!! Oh and sorry about this cos I was angry about what is happening to the nearly quarter of a million children in the fukushima area alone! Hope you understand mate!!
http://enenews.com/london-professor-weve-stop-sorts-reports-coming-intl-conference-warns-talk-fukushima-health-effects-be-harmful/comment-page-1#comment-125838
heres the full list from 2007
The Top 50 of the 147 Superconnected Companies
1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc
27. Invesco plc
28. Allianz SE
29. TIAA
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
31. Aviva plc
32. Schroders plc
33. Dodge & Cox
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*
35. Sun Life Financial Inc
36. Standard Life plc
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc
39. The Depository Trust Company
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
41. ING Groep NV
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon
46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company
cont…
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* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used.
“So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.”
http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/320-80/7993-focus-the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world
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TROLLS…come on people.
Now’s your TIME TO SHINE!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/30/japan-earthquake-2011-gov_n_989682.html
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What is concerted political power but 147 mostly banks colluding by acting together on common interests: maintaining a gluttonous lifestyle of extravagance while the rest of us beg for low wage jobs and freeze all winter? Nuclear power has yet to make electricity an affordable heating alternative and it never will with existing technology.
I’m all for FREE market capitalism, but a little jail time and redistribution of the wealth is in order for every executive on that list! And our complacent corporatized government needs to be scrapped and rebuilt just like our power plants.
Defund the military and begin decomissioning all NPPs cause Arnie is so much more RIGHT than any slicko bankster or politician or CEO or federal agency agent drug and gun trafficker, both with his expert knowledge and INTEGRITY AND HONESTY and REAL CONCERN FOR HUMAN HEALTH.
Thank you Mr. Gundersen for putting the NRC on a skewer at a slow roast here. Your argument is so valid, so common sense and elegantly simple…
that we will know for sure if the government refuses to act on this that they have forfeited the right to govern the safety and health of the American public
*(which was never bestowed upon them by the U.S. Constitution in the first place!!!)
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Free Enterprise. Another lie. The only free enterprise system we have in probably the world ( correct me if I’m wrong ) is unfortunately the illegal drug trade. Nuclear Power Big Banks and others all get preferential treatment by government and its called corporate welfare. If your not big business you are caught up with a myriad of red tape paperwork and taxes. Just try to walk around downtown with a cooler full of beer to sell…. Right now in my neck of the woods “carbon offsets” are being paid from education system to big corporations in effect money earmarked for kids education being funneled to big business so government can say they are “carbon neutral”.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Public+sector+carbon+offsets+subsidize+businesses/5070414/story.html
Like calling nuclear “green”. Looks like the Fukushima nuclear disaster has decimated a fishing and agricultural industry. Too many lies.
People are starting to wake up.
And finally yes I’m Canadian and yes we export uranium but not from the province I live in. There is a moratorium on uranium mining even though I believe there is lots in the mountains nobody wants it to be mined, thank God for the Granola and Pot hippy crowd and we have plenty of hydro electric available so I am lucky to be living in a somewhat nuclear free zone but something smells fishy….http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/10/21/bc-boss-uranium-mine.html
God Bless. To the Athiests among us Live well and Prosper
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Mark said “The only free enterprise system we have in probably the world (correct me if I’m wrong) is unfortunately the illegal drug trade.”
I’m correcting you cuz you’re wrong ;D The illegal drug trade (surprise!) is also government-sponsored. (btw free enterprise doesn’t exist beyond a local level, it’s all manipulated) Catherine Austin Fitts got the inside scoop as assistant HUD secretary. She has more info on how the FED.GOV works and how the banks work and how major corporations work than anyone I’ve ever read. Her work is amazing, forceful, life-changing. Here is a link to most of her written articles– http://www.scoop.co.nz/features/RealDeal.html
Scroll down to 2002 and read her series of articles “Narco-Dollars For Beginners: How The Money Works In The Illicit Drug Trade”. She says drug money is what is keeping the economy afloat. Wall St. depends on it, the big banks launder it KNOWINGLY, the CIA imports it in their own planes, it comes across the border openly, while our sons and daughters in the US military proudly guard the opium fields in Afghanistan and keep Columbia in confusion to protect the flow of cocaine. The FED.GOV and the banks and majority of corporations *ARE* the Mafia and they will kill or silence anyone who troubles them.
Daniel Hopsicker lived near Venice, FL and found out its tiny airport was a hotbed of illegal govt activity including training Mohammed Atta…
http://www.danielhopsicker.tv/
Reporter Gary Webb first reported on the CIA importing cocaine into L.A. in 1996, complete with documents http://www.lycaeum.org/drugwar/DARKALLIANCE/
My take: If we REALLY want to stop the ‘tapeworm’ including the nuclear industry, we MUST PULL OUR MONEY OUT OF THE BIG BANKS (Catherine’s #1 advice), buy food locally, start an entire new economy NOT BASED ON WAR or war products. I call it The Peace Economy. WE CAN DO THIS, PEOPLE.
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Its funny your take on it Desert Lady. All I know is here in Vancouver, it is obvious drugs are part of our economy. Yeah Canadian troops die in Afghanistan while here in Vancouver, “Afghan Grey” pure heroin is sold kitty corner to the Vancouver Police Station. Clearly when you see so many “L” (learner) stickers on the back of Ferrari’s Benz and the like, schoolgirls snorting coke in the washroom of the evening job, telephone soliciting, more chance of being busted for a beer then smoking a joint. Oh talk about pot laws forget about whats on the books here in Vancouver. Personally know someone who had firetrucks at his grow op and did have plants taken away but kept all his equipment and not get charged even though the commercial property was in his name. Later on he set up a grow op in his one bedroom apartment. As he had the whole bedroom budding people complained and so the police eventually took about a hundred plants of varying sizes but let him keep his equipment and his dried product about an ounce.
So I think in BC’s case one of the best economies in Canada they are not going to interfere with the drug trade too much.
Same in other locales I suppose.
But your other point we should divorce ourselves from their economic engine and make something new. Local economies, the family, decentralization. We are exporting our pollution to China who stock our Wallmarts, Home Depot etc. However we can’t divorce ourselves from the politics for it seems that is the only way to stop nuclear power.
God Bless
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Very interesting discussion. And great links DLady. Thanks.
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The YAKUZA/tepco relationship
The japanese mafia has a long history of recruiting poor people to work in high radiation areas for tepco
http://www.youtube.com/user/koizuka77#p/u/0/VRo9JG5uW8Q
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By “japanese mafia I assume you mean Yakuza? They have a unique form of extortion, Instead of harassing small businesses, the yakuza harasses a stockholders’ meeting of a larger corporation. They simply scare the ordinary stockholder with the presence of yakuza operatives, who obtain the right to attend the meeting by a small purchase of stock. This has been going on in Japan since the late 19th century. See “Sokaiya”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokaiya
&
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza#Japan
Could be possible the Yakuza are really the ones calling the shots at Tepco.
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Now this video is what I call a slap in the face.
Well done, Mr Gundersen. Thank you.
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As usual, he did a great job. I just hope they listened, and that they will do the right thing.
Risk To Great
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Yes WSP,…I pray they listen too. Did anyone else notice the “Bummer tone” a little, when Mr. Gundersen was announced? It sounded to me,..the way I get introduced,…Ok,…here’s Jill Clarkson,…go ahead please,….briefly,…(Oh crap!)
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Relationship between Yakuza gangs and TEPCO has become the closer for the accident. Video w/subtitles
http://www.youtube.com/user/koizuka77#p/u/0/VRo9JG5uW8Q
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Oops! Sorry selfsovereign. I didn’t notice you had posted.
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Heads up. Fire at Swedish nuclear plant (turbine building).
Fire extuingished, unclear when reactor will be operational again.
http://www.kxnet.com/custom404.asp?404;http://www.kxnet.com/news/860415.asp
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Saw that. OIL LEAK. That spells trouble altho they say EVERYTHING IS A-OK. Right.
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Steel’s basic allowable stress varies with temperature. A516, plate a common steel used in the fabrication of pressure vessels, has the following allowable stresses:
100 °F 23300 psi
200 °F 23300 psi
300°F 22500 psi
400°F 21700 psi
500°F 20500 psi
600°F 18700 psi
650°F 18400 psi
700°F 18300 psi
750°F 14700 psi
800°F 12000 psi
850°F 9200 psi
The stress that can be developed in the steel determines the amount of loading on the shell and head of the vessel. The reactors at Fuku failed long before the steel reached its melting temperature. If the corium is at a temperature of 2500°F then the vessel would have failed somewhere around 850°F. When I say failed I mean a catastrophic collapse. The head which is about 12 inches thick is probably at the bottom of the containment vessel. These are enormous heavy vessels. I’m not sure why TEPCO was so worried about the corium melting through the vessel. The steel collapsed long before the melting temperature.
Engineers tend to forget about the relationship between stress and temperature.
Concrete’s stress level varies with temperature. So the corium didn’t melt though the containment vessel, the concrete failed long before the melting temperature reached melting.
Add to to this the chlorides-from salt water-that were injected to cool the reactor and you have a recipe for disaster. Chlorides, temperature and steel do not mix.
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Very interesting thought! Thanks for posting!
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100+
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I think this is what happened to the twin towers. A36 which is structural grade material and not as good as the pressure vessel plate reached its temperature limit and the weight above collapse the steel.
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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WTH? United States Sent Undisclosed Nuclear Weapons Package To Japan 5 days before Hiroshima Memorial
http://enformable.com/2011/10/united-states-sent-undisclosed-nuclear-weapon-package-to-japan-5-days-before-hiroshima-atomic-bomb-memorial/
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Perhaps the 35,000 pounds of uranium is meant for the remaining MOX fuel reactors in Japan. Business as usual moves along by sheer inertia, accidents be damned.
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I wonder who gets to spend all that money the U.S. makes selling dirty nukes to all our allies. All i know is it ain’t me, and it doesn’t appear to have landed in our treasury either, otherwise we wouldn’t be trillions in debt!! More theft and tyranny obviously.
And anyone in Japan who thinks they need one more fissionable element on their tiny fragile island must be getting a big fat piece of the cake as well.
Thanks for your great links, Whoopie, as always.
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New tweet – Get a load of this crap! http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ2011102315544
“TEPCO officials likely concluded that there was no need to spend time and money because of an overconfidence that a loss of electricity sources would never occur,”
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High concentrations of radioactive cesium have been found in plankton from the sea near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Researchers from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology collected plankton in waters up to 60 kilometers from the coast of Iwaki City in July. They found 669 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium in animal plankton from waters 3 kilometers offshore.
They say a wide range of fish feed on animal plankton and that the contamination could accumulate in the food chain and have a more serious impact when it gets into relatively large fish.
The research group’s leader, Professor Takashi Ishimaru, says the plankton were so heavily contaminated because sea currents continuously carried contaminated water southward from the nuclear plant. He says detailed studies are needed to determine how long the effect on fish will continue.
Source:
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/15_08.html
I guess it’s time to finally give up my canned tuna from Thailand!
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Not surprising, but good to see the numbers.
Truth is moving along in the right direction, at last.
We are not out of the woods, though.
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Well, back on topic, this article makes me ponder further the China Syndrome…according to Wikipedia,
In 1971, in the article Thoughts on Nuclear Plumbing, former Manhattan Project (1942–1946) nuclear physicist Ralph Lapp used the term “China syndrome” to describe a possible burn-through, after a loss of coolant accident, of the nuclear fuel rods and core components melting the containment structures, and the subsequent escape of radioactive material(s) into the atmosphere and environment; the hypothesis derived from a 1967 report by a group of nuclear physicists, headed by W. K. Ergen.[6]
Unit #2 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered serious damage during the disaster in 2011. The containment and pressure vessels of unit #2 were seriously damaged and most of the cooling water pumped into unit #2 quickly leaked out. TEPCO eventually announced that unit #2 had experienced a fuel meltdown and melt-through. On September 20, 2011, Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, estimated that the nuclear fuel rods may be 12 meters deep under ground at reactor 1-3.
Then some pro-Nuke dingbat adds this…
The idea that the molten fuel would melt the earth’s crust, let alone reach China, is obviously nonsensical, intended as a joke.[8][2]
How the hell can any nuclear scientist say that with any certainty since it’s just not happened yet and the Atomic Boyz merely scratched the surface of nuclear R&D before ejaculating the stuff all over the places where MY food was growing and MY lungs were breathing! Ahhhhh!
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Chernobyl is still smoldering 25 years later so really as Fukushima is a unique first time melt through no one knows for sure what really will happen. But if nuclear material is heavier then earths crust and it continues fissioning enough to stay molten who knows how deep it could go over time. Maybe that would be natures way of healing and blob will be assimilated by earths core. Probably not in our lifetimes.
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I’m still in for the blobs settling due to producing an hard annealed layer of surrounding rock due to the extreme heat.
Fresh water will still get into hot cracks in the surrounding hard layers and will boil off or flow seawards.
There is still a risk of explosion but we should remember that the pressure is least above, rather than adjacent to or below. the corium, so a first suck guess would be pressure relief by upwards explosion rather than drilling down.
Call for more expert analysis! I’m just making a reasoned guess.
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I gave some melting points in a previous post.
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I was reading that the earth had her own nuclear reactors going millions of years ago and that they were postulating Fukushima would become like those. I agree that earth can eat it for breakfast and we do not have the ability to kill her but we can make this planet uninhabitable for humans and other mammals.
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Hola beam, you probably mean the Okla natural reactor in Gabon, which has been “on and off” for ca. 150.000 years.
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Okla, YUP.
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http://gallery.spaceman.ca/v/interests/chernobyl/65813_cropped.jpg.html
And this is what corium looks like as it drills down ever so slowly into the earth’s core, yes, it could be swallowed up, we’re overdue as a species for a “best-case scenario”
Good point though not in our lifetimes…the fallout’s more of an immediate danger…
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Sorry, CORIUM looks like this (that was just “slag”)
http://gallery.spaceman.ca/v/interests/chernobyl/image003.jpg.html
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