Sunday, March 13, 2011

Radiation and Rubble by Amy Davidson

"How do you tell when a nuclear meltdown is occurring? Ryohei Shiomi, one of Japan’s nuclear officials, said that it was “highly possible” that there had been a partial meltdown in one of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s reactors yesterday, and one may be imminent in another reactor. How could they not know for sure? The containment shell, around the nuclear—that is, highly radioactive—part of the nuclear plant is still something of a black box at the moment. You can look at things like cesium levels in the air around it (they have been too high, indicating that something has happened) or the way pressure has been building up, but it is hard to tell just what is going on inside until it is, maybe, catastrophically too late."
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