Meltdown.

May 12, 2011 5:06 PM

Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima plant.
posted by - (16 comments total)

So, it's a full meltdown, and the concern now is to make sure the corite doesn't melt through the core and seep into the groundwater?

Wow. This is pretty awful if I understand it right.
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:12 PM on May 12, 2011

"The situation (in the core) hasn't changed since (early in the crisis), and the fuel rods are being cooled by water continuously being injected into the core," nuclear official Takashi Sakurai said.
posted by empath at 5:13 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's no active meltdown. It melted. Past tense. Right now the pressure vessel temperature is reported as just over 100 degrees. This news is important because it points to 1. leaks in the pressure vessel and 2. more difficult disassembly of the reactor.
posted by introp at 5:15 PM on May 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm confident nuclear engineers will have this situation under control in a decade or two.
posted by humanfont at 5:16 PM on May 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

Don't worry; George Monbiot will be here any minute to reassure us.
posted by Papaver somniferum at 5:17 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

So, it's a full meltdown, and the concern now is to make sure the corite doesn't melt through the core and seep into the groundwater?

If it was gonna happen, it would have happened weeks ago. It already melted down. It's not going to melt down any more than it already has. A nuclear meltdown isn't always apocalyptic.
posted by empath at 5:19 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

The bit in the Telegraph article about the radioactivity they're finding in the seaweed just before the harvest is pretty scary.
posted by immlass at 5:21 PM on May 12, 2011

I once read the TV Guide summary of The China Syndrome and I have every right to assume the absolute worst when it comes to technology I can't hope to understand.
posted by 2bucksplus at 5:22 PM on May 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

If I read this right, they've basically confirmed what was already the theory a couple of days after the quake, when they found the water was more, er, isotopy than expected?
posted by hattifattener at 5:23 PM on May 12, 2011

There's no active meltdown. It melted. Past tense.

This. Sensationalism rule #253: keep your verb tenses vague to lead people into inferring that they should PANIC, NOW! Or in this post, avoid verbs altogether.
posted by zardoz at 5:24 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

For more background, see previously.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:26 PM on May 12, 2011

This is a false statement from the Telegraph article:

Engineers from the Tokyo Electric Power company (Tepco) entered the No.1 reactor at the end of last week for the first time and saw the top five feet or so of the core's 13ft-long fuel rods had been exposed to the air and melted down.

No one "saw" anything. Nobody knows what the true state of the fuel is inside the reactor vessel (there is no way to get in at this time).
posted by KokuRyu at 5:28 PM on May 12, 2011

I once read the TV Guide summary of The China Syndrome and I have every right to assume the absolute worst when it comes to technology I can't hope to understand.

I once read a smug, patronizing comment on the internet and I have every right to assume that anyone suggesting we've been lied to for months is a fear-mongering fruitcake.
posted by Papaver somniferum at 5:30 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

The fact that Fukushima was not another Chernobyl is a credit to good engineering and safety precautions. But, of course, that doesn't make for alarmist news stories.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:31 PM on May 12, 2011

This admittance goes against every assurance TEPCO has handed the world in the midst of Japan's nuclear crisis—that the situation was bad, but that with emergency work, the plant would be mostly stable, and could be safely shutdown within the year. The worry now, beyond the fact that the damage to the reactor is far worse than imagined, is that a hole in the facility will lead incredibly contaminated water leak out like a faucet. A scalding, radioactive faucet.

The NPR coverage of the early aftermath of the incident depicted the Japanese as generally trusting of the authorities to report the damage truthfully.

Wonder if this will mark a shift in that cultural attitude.
posted by Trurl at 5:33 PM on May 12, 2011

As written, this is needlessly alarmist. I suggest something like 'nuclear meltdown confirmed at...'
posted by anigbrowl at 5:35 PM on May 12, 2011