Sounds like the "Chernobyl option," wherein they just drop a ton of concrete and boron on the plant from above, is more likely today than it was a few days ago.

This can't end well. It's been apparent for several days that it is beyond any ability to control what is happening.

If helicopters can't fly over a radioactive plume to dump water, who're they going to get to drop concrete and boron? Japan isn't the USSR. Suicide volunteers? No jokes, this is serious.

On a positive note, the AP is reporting that the effort to restore electricity to the plant is nearing completion. They are hoping that once the power lines leading to the plant are repaired they'll be able to bring the cooling systems back online.

Mr Grumpy - Ever hear of the kamikase? I am sure the emperor could persuade a few to follow in their footsteps.

Exposure!
Not only is the radiation being exposed, but the naked truth of how dangerous and unsafe these plants are, is now being exposed as well.

Are people still willing to gamble that despite dangers, despite not having an adequate solution for the dangerous wastes, that somehow all will be OK?

The picture doesn't look good with corporations at the wheel where profits trump human considerations.

Who thinks this way?

We no longer can allow decision makers taking a gamble with the health of all living things on our planet.

Not only did many of the helicopter pilots who borated water on the Chernobyl reactor die from radiation exposure, they later discovered that hardly any of the water actually made it into the reactor. The radiation eventually stopped on its own as the molten core material combined with sand that acted as a biological shield around and formed glass. I don't believe that these reactors have sand around them.

Jim Karlock - Man of Science - calling me out for my cheap scare tactics:

Bill McDonald: There's a reason Chernobyl is still basically an abandoned city. If the same number of people had died there because of coal, at least we could go back.

JK: Pardon me, 400 times as many people die from coal EVERY YEAR as died from Chernobly. And quit comparing a primitive reactors WITHOUT CONTAINMENT to our newer safer designs. It’s a cheap scare tactic.

Jim,
How are your containment vessels and these newer safer designs working for you now? Would you care to revise your B.S. statement?
Thanks.

Bill McDonald:
Unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a city of Chernobyl. I think you meant Pripyat (Припять).

This whole situation reminds me of the old, old joke, about the cat on the roof. There is no cat, and grandma has died.
The political folks here in OR keep blathering about how there is no danger...I wonder when they will tell us that the cat has died...
It is not going to end well for any of us.

How many children will be asking some hard questions to their parents and grandma and grandpa about their role in participating or not participating to intervene?

Native Americans were said to have made decisions by thinking out to the seventh generation. Then the white man came along and trashed all that.

Mr. Grumpy,
Here's the Internet version:
Chernobyl or Chornobyl (Ukrainian: Чорнобиль, pronounced [tʃɔrˈnɔbɪlʲ]) is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city used to be the administrative center of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932.

The city was evacuated in 1986 due to the Chernobyl disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located 14.5 kilometers (9 miles) north-northwest. The power plant was within Chernobyl Raion (District), but the city was not the residence of the power plant workers. When the power plant was under construction, Prypiat, a city larger and closer to the power plant, had been built as home for the power plant workers."

BTW, check out some of the haunting photos from the abandoned areas around Chernobyl. Profound.

I would think restoration of electric power to the plant would require, as would bringing the plant back into operation, people on site. From now on, that's going to be, at best, very risky and difficult. I understand they are looking for older volunteers.

If I'm living near the Aliso Viejo plant (think San Clemente), my water front property can't look too great now.

Bill McDonald: Jim,
How are your containment vessels and these newer safer designs working for you now? Would you care to revise your B.S. statement?
JK: What B.S. statement?
* Did the containment vessels fail yet?
* Did any members of the public get exposed yet (beyond the amounts you get from living in Denver)?
BTW:
* Do many times more people die every year from coal than from nuclear?
* Is there any energy source without deaths associated with it?
* How do those deaths balance against the deaths adverted by using energy? (Hint living in a cave heated by wood fires, hunting & foot transport is very deadly - smoke, crawlies, insects, carnivores)

BTW, how many have died so far in this incident:
a. From the quake
b. From the Tsunami.
c. From the power plants?

Be sure to read Jack’s link to the NYT in a previous article. As they say : some people will do anything to save the earth. Except study science.

BTW, what energy sources do you recommend we rely on (with death rates please)?

Thanks
JK

I stand corrected! Ain't the internet grand?

Still, Pripyat, being the larger and closer, is the place usually mentioned in articles and documentaries. And there are some creepy documentaries out there about Pripyat, both in English and Russian. Spooky.

BTW, I’m not saying a bigger disaster is impossible, I’m just saying that YOU don’t know and are widely speculating a worst case.

Since the population has been moved out of the area, even a repeat of Chernobyl would not hurt a lot of people. That NYT article said even Chernobyl would not have hurt very many people had the Russians stopped people from consuming local milk - the problem was not direct radiation exposure.

Thanks
JK

The problem here is that this nuclear disaster is happening in a country that is absolutely crippled by the earthquake. Drinking milk? Hell, there are thousands who will soon be scrounging for water.

Actually, I have been promised that a shipment from Tokyo scheduled for Friday WILL ship on time.

Thanks
JK

That won't be true a week from now. It is hitting the fan, my friend.

A story for our times:

A man goes to the top of a 20 story building and claims he can jump off, no parachute or any supporting system and survive. He going to demonstrate this to the world.

His friends entreat him to give it up but the world is watching. On every floor, people are watching out of the window. He runs to the edge and jumps off.

Down on the 10th floor, the horrified people see him zoom by, and as he does he is heard to say:

"So far, so good".

Bill, I support your aim to get JK to eat his words, and he should, (just learn how to say, "my bad, I was wrong, I'll try to listen more before I speak next time"), but Bill, expecting him to start to care for community and integrate with people is not going to start happening just for being shown how offensive he is Big Time. The same as Larson and Limbaugh and O'Reilly and Beck and Palin and Gingrich and Bush!t4brains, et al., are never never going to learn to be decent healthful humans just by having to eat their words and hear they harm living people most of the time with their antisocial hates.

For instance: Limbaugh Laughs In The Face Of Human Suffering, Media Matters .ORG, March 16, 2011.

JK you can ignore, Bill, since he's not selfishly profiteering in the public's airwaves and limited broadcast spectrum.

The deceivers saying JK's same 'don't-worry-don't-worry' nonsense, 'vote for nuke electricity' who ARE broadcasting in the public's airwaves (as Jack is talking about) and failing their responsibility for the privilege: those rightwing retrogressive rut-brains we shouldn't ignore.

If JK asking to learn about recommended energy generation is the teachable moment, and/or if this whole nuclear catastrophy in Japan is a teachable moment for youngsters, then the best answer to teach is: Homemade electricity. Make your own, at your house or on your street. Don't rent any residence that doesn't provide making its own electricity. If windmills and solar panels and other generating equipment do not make extravagant amounts of electricity where you live, then reduce the amount you use accordingly.

The isolated greedy 'celebrity' ugly Americans today might think to study what happened to the leading greedy 'celebrity' royal French in 1792 when the peasants got enough sick and tired of the inhumanity of those who wrongly governing did injustices and deprived the general well-fare and abhored domestic tranquility.

I am soooo eager for our soldiers to come home and call out the rightwing supremacists (both Republicans and Democrats), especially the overpaid know-nothing on-air broadcasters, and say, "All right, where are the LIARS saying the words that mass murder is necessary to get to guzzle more petroleum, and where are the LIARS who sent us there saying for everyone to hate and fear fellow humans? Come out come out, stand up, whoever had the antisocial shut-brain shaking terrified inside."

Tenskwatawa: Bill, I support your aim to get JK to eat his words, and he should,
JK: Whatever way this turns out, you are clearly assuming the worst possible case. I’m not saying it can’t go terribly wrong, just that we haven’t seen the evidence yet. (And, yes I DO ignore everything coming from the Union of Concerned Scientists and other green propaganda corporations.)

Tenskwatawa: Bill, expecting him to start to care for community and integrate with people is not going to start happening just for being shown how offensive he is Big Time.
JK: Are you saying I care less about people than you? You are one that wants electricity price to skyrocket, breaking low income people. See next item.

Tenskwatawa: the best answer to teach is: Homemade electricity. Make your own, at your house or on your street. . . . If windmills and solar panels and other generating equipment do not make extravagant amounts of electricity where you live, then reduce the amount you use accordingly.
JK: Do your realize that you are asking people to spend ten times more for electricity? Just to satisfy your green/political/religious agenda.

You are actually suggesting energy so expensive that low income people will have to choose between heat and food. How are low income people going to pay for your scheme? Or are you going to let them freeze in the dark? And you said I don’t care!

Tenskwatawa: The isolated greedy 'celebrity' ugly Americans today might think to study what happened to the leading greedy 'celebrity' royal French in 1792 when the peasants got enough sick and tired of the inhumanity of those who wrongly governing did injustices and deprived the general well-fare and abhored domestic tranquility.
JK: There it is - the veiled death threat from the peace loving progressive.

Tenskwatawa: "All right, where are the LIARS saying the words that mass murder is necessary to get to guzzle more petroleum,
JK: We need to use domestic oil and dump imports. All we have to do is get the greenies to quit blocking oil exploration and quit blocking coal to oil plants. Are you willing to do your part and advocate for more domestic oil production?

Tenskwatawa: Come out come out, stand up, whoever had the antisocial shut-brain shaking terrified inside."
JK: There it is again - another threat from the peace loving progressive.

Here are some credible sources of information from a friend:
iaea.org/press/ (Be sure to check out their radiation dose chart)
.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Second_fire_reported_at_unit_4_1603111.html
jaif.or.jp/english/

BTW, Tenskwatawa, do you have a real name?
BTW2, have you ever taken a hard science class beyond high school?

Thanks
JK

JK:
"I DO ignore everything coming from the Union of Concerned Scientists"

JK
"BTW2, have you ever taken a hard science class beyond high school?"

Too funny for words.

Starbuck:
JK:
"I DO ignore everything coming from the Union of Concerned Scientists"
JK
"BTW2, have you ever taken a hard science class beyond high school?"

Too funny for words.
JK: You don't have a clue how much that tells us about you. Sad.

Thanks
JK

Here is a video by a real scientist, with a real PhD degreee. I guarantee you will learn something profound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8BQpciw8suk

thanks
JK

A note about "creating your own electricity":

The solar panels that you'd like to install at your house, so that you can be "green" and create your own juice? It is cost-effective (somewhat) to do this because the panels were manufactured using nuclear power at a factory in China.

Also: you can thank your Prius for driving you around all nice and eco-green-like, because it was engineered and it's parts built using nuclear power from Japan.

That nice flat-panel display that you're browsing this blog on? Manufactured with nuclear power from China, Japan, or South Korea.

Just a bit of global perspective for you.

A snippet from a talk and now I am to disregard what?

Read the exchange below the video.

The fact is (Karl Popper) that scientific determinism has been falsified, and that goes for both the proponents and opponents. No creditable projections in the matter can be any more than probabilities, the fuzziness of which increases with the projection in time.

Reminds me of Schrodinger's Cat, except in the macro world.

There are far too many assumptions and surmises concerning weather data previous to even crude instrumentation and recording of the applicable parameters. Guessing by tree ring is as likely to support one side or the other, and throwing one's PhD's weight around doesn't do a thing for me. I worked around many, many PhD's and witnessed the hottest arguments ever as a peer to peer discussion of state of the art situations to put heavy stock in one side or the other, especially when the winning side was always the group leader.

Tenskwatawa:I am soooo eager for our soldiers to come home and call out the rightwing supremacists (both Republicans and Democrats), ....

Question:What shape will these soldiers be in when they get back? How many will have post traumatic stress disorder?