Sigh...

For a pretty darn good over view see https://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/

Quick Review:

Nuclear Fuel Assemblies are square arrays (3 x 3 or 4 x 4 for a total of 9 or 16 rods) of individual fuel rods, each of which contains many individual ceramic pellets (cylinders ~ 0.25in dia and ~ 0.5in tall). Four of these are arranged around a movable control rod for a full up assembly.

What's melting are the rods which contain the fuel pellets. They know this based on the isotopes which have been sampled when they vent gasses. The fuel pellets, which contain the actual nuclear fuel and the most hazardous waste products, are still intact.

The reactors are trashed and will never operate again.

What remains is a time consuming, expensive, pain in the ass clean up and demolition job.

The msm has to whip up as much hysteria and fear right now because that is all most people will remember. A year from now and the final analysis and report will only be read by industry experts and professional engineers.Google will direct searchers to newspaper reports not scientific papers unless you carefully specify your search parameters.

But..but...but.....SCREAMING that "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" sells so much better.

I watched Wolf Blitzer this weekend pleading, imploring, and basically begging the Japanese US ambassador to please please PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DECLARE THAT THERE IS A MELTDOWN!!!!! for at least 15 minutes. Despite a 'meltdown' not being what he seemed to think a meltdown is, he just wouldn't let up. I honestly think they're waiting for the plant to slump into a liquid blob before it vanishes into a giant hole in the sea.

No wonder this guy is an ambassador, he was calm, polite, and never gave the fool a sound bite beyond the rational explanation on what they were doing to get the situation under control. Plus he's got a british accent, which was just a bit weird to us Yanks.

I suspect that the quake and the tsunami damaged those reactors more than first realized, and we're seeing the results now.

Unfortunately, due to the geography, the locations chosen were pretty much all that is available. A pity this gives so much ammo to the anti-nuke crowd,unjustified as it is. We'll see fallout in this country from this disaster, and I don't mean stray radiation.

So get ready.

Bananas!

You can go to wattsupwiththat and read about the Banana Equivalent Dose for yourself. Like I said, bananas!

"Was it wrong to build a series of atomic reactors so close to the ocean?"

Of course not. The reactors are on the east coast; prevailing winds are from the west. If the worst happens, the radiation becomes California's problem. I, for one, can't think of a more deserving place. Perhaps we can send Nancy Pelosi back to her district with a Geiger counter.

Because California is just a stone's throw away from Japan...

Ummm, Michael, the article says "may have melted". It's a little MSM to say "confirmation of 'melting' rods" in your title, don't you think?

Barry, Wolf and the rest of MSM intelligentsia are all having a meltdown trying not to let this crisis go to waste.

"Fuel rods at the reactor may have melted after becoming fully exposed" - within the reactor/containers, for a few minutes.

Easy for me to read: triumph for nuke power -
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/print.html

More technical -
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/

@upsetoldguy, yes you are correct, a person who eats a banana a day for a year will have far greater exposure to radiation (from trace amounts of radioactive potassium 40 isotope in the banana) than the workers at the Fukushima plant have received so far.

The important context that is always missing from these scare stories is just how low the government sets maximum contaminant levels (MCL's) and permissible exposure levels (PEL's).

A decade ago, junkscience.com's Steven Milloy tested Ben & Jerry's ice cream and discovered dioxin levels at 200 times the MCL for dioxin allowed by the EPA in effluent waste water.

I'm not necessarily saying that it's bad to have MCL's this low, but we need to remember that even if measured levels of a toxin "exceed what the EPA considers safe" they can still be negligibly small.

completely false headline ...

nothing has been confirmed ...

And now?

Still so sanguine? I'd. Suggest. Not.

Don't let the facts get in the way of the opinion of the original poster's talking points. . .

Now, a fourth reactor in peril; "probability" of CHernobyl style meltdown, according to Japan television, live at 11:45 pm EDT.

Sheesh.

I studied nuclear engineering (although I am now in the aerospace engineering business) and what strikes me is the incredible overblown reports about the reactors, when something like 100,000 people are likely to end up dead or seriously injured from the results of the quake and tsunami. At most a few people will have a slightly increased chance of cancer at some point as the result of the reactor problems.

The newest updates seem a little more disturbing.

I think all the media outlets are missing the real story. There was a huge earthquake and tsunami that devestated the entire country of Japan and all we talk about is "may, could, might". The people are on the verge of disease from dirt and filth. I would like to have the media get back to the story. ww