3/10/11 Hawaii Tsunami Warning

[JERRY2KONE]

Everything to do with nuclear power generation has a shelf life so to speak. Plutonium/uranium once put into reactive mode will generate heat for a certain amount of time. That length of time will depend on the demands placed on it throughout its useful life. Even after the rods are no longer useful for generating heat for steam power systems they still have a reactive state for many many years, and are quite capable of generating significant amounts of heat. these rods can create enough heat to be a problem for a very very long time. The spent rods now in these storage ponds around the world will last longer than you or I will live on this Earth.

So in a sense yes they will cool down, but not in our lifetime. Reading up on Nuclear energy can be quite interesting and informitive. One of the major problems with using nuclear fuel is that our civilization does know how to get rid of the spent fuel rods. They are piling up very quickly and are being stored in storage ponds much like the one at this reactor site, which is now one of the serious concerns for leakage into the soil and seawater there. So no they will not just coold down on there own where we will not have to worry about them. How long ago was the Chernobyl disaster, and that meltdown is still pumping out contamination. That is why there is a huge dead zone around the area(10 sq miles or something like that). This problem in Japan has to be dealt with by man now, one way or another. There is no easy out in this situation, and we cannot just ignore it either or the damage will spread into a mcuh larger area.

[PBO]

Originally Posted by JERRY2KONE

This problem in Japan has to be dealt with by man now, one way or another. There is no easy out in this situation, and we cannot just ignore it either or the damage will spread into a mcuh larger area.

Absolutely. Nuclear situations need to be priority number 1 & shouldn't be considered the country of origin problem. If the situation deteriorates & contamination is widespread, it then affects a significant number of countries & their populations

It will also be interesting to see how this 'event' will influence the global power strategies & local economies

[JERRY2KONE]

Did you see the whistle blowers report from the nuclear design specialist guys who quit during the construction of these plants in the 70's? He was hired as kind of a QA inspector to advise Japan on the construction. He tried to tell them about flaws in the designs when it was being built, and no one would listen to him, because it would have cost GE too much for them to fix the problems. One of them was where these storage ponds weregoing to be built. I did not realize it until today that these spent nuclear rods were being stored in a swiming pool size pond on the 5th floor above the reactor. It was designed this way for ease of moving the rods in and out of the reactor. Makes sense right? Except that if there was a problem with the ponds cooling system that it would escalate into a smaller meltdown that would inevitably involve the reactor itself. How stupid was that. Now they have spent rods in a meltdown condition hanging over the already crippled reactor cores. What a bunch of morons.

I also just saw an interview with Hilery Cliton regarding evacuation of Americans from Japan. She was asked directly three times if it was going to happen. She would only say that the situation was being watched very closely and if our professionals on the ground advised to do so that it will be done, but NOT YET. We have litterally thousands of Americans working and living in Japan with their families like Lito. US Navy, US Airforce, US Marines, US Army, Gov contractors, Department of State, and over a dozen other Gov agencies. This is going to be interesting.