Now that I have your attention...

It is my spring break this week and what a week it has been.  We were instructed to step away from our blogs for a week and relax over break, but I just can't take being silent anymore.  I was tempted to do some writing earlier this week, but I figured being caustic and bitter is not a good way to get people to listen.  I had to get my own emergency cooling systems working as well before I delved into any commenting (as some people on facebook would probably agree).

Lets just say that this week has been eventful enough that I now have enough material to write for the rest of the semester.  One thing that I can say is that the week has not been filled with facts, but it has been filled with plenty of attention to the industry.  Whether it is a good thing or not?  Most people would say that this will be the death of the nuclear industry.  I am way to optimistic for that kind of behavior.  I want to go out on a limb and say that maybe this disaster will be good for getting the public on our side if we play our cards right.

I can't go on without saying that my thoughts and prayers are with the Japanese people at this time.  They are undergoing one of the worst natural disasters that recorded human history has ever seen, and I don't think that we yet fully comprehend the extend of the damage done by the earthquake and tsunami.  It is going to be a long road of hardship and tragedy, but if anybody has enough pride to get back up from this, it is the Japanese people.  I hope I speak with the country when I say that we are here to do anything we can in aiding them.

I don't really want to sit here and tell you about the technical details of the situation in Japan.  It has been an interesting media situation over the last few days though in the way that they are showing their true weakness when it comes to technical reporting.  I have never heard so much miss use of technical terms and gross interpretations of technical data.  It hurts to watch and has resulted in a large bruise on my forehead as I have been banging my head against the wall since last Friday night.  I don't believe for a second though that all the misinformation being reported though is a result of a lack of technical ability in the mass media staff.  There are so many colorful pictures and vast quantities of informative material suitable for a layperson out there that it is almost silly.  We must remember that this is an industry that has faced an uphill battle with the general public from the beginning.  They have been creating material to depict accurate information for a long time.

So why do we get all this bad information about "nuclear meltdowns" and "concentrated radiation releases"?  I think the only accurate explanation is that the information we receive is just the mass media showing its bias and it ability to fear monger.  I thought the media was blowing it out of proportion over the weekend with the initial coverage of the situation.  Well, my perspective changed Monday morning when the media A crew took hold of the reigns again.  Watching Peter Jennings, Matt Lauer, and Meredith Vieira Monday was enough to almost make me begin writing out my last will and testament.  Personally, I don't think that I can respect what these folks say on any issue in the future given their efforts over the last week on the Fukushima incident.

Again, I don't want to over run you here with technical information about the situation at the plant in Fukushima, though I will probably do a future post doing just that.  If you are interested in more of the technical side of what is going on, I urge you to check out a wonderfully done article at the Brave New Climate site.  This is the best article on the situation that I have seen to date.  I do want to say one thing to you though concerning the technical side.  It is important to understand the containment vessels for the reactors when talking about a nuclear incident.  I encourage you to not take my word for it, but to do your own research on what a containment vessel is and how it works.  Quite fascinating and genius in my opinion.  They really show that nuclear engineers are thinking of the worst case scenarios when the reactors are designed, but of course you don't hear about this in the news. 

Anyway, what the containment vessel is designed to do in the case a meltdown is stop the fuel from inducing the so called "China syndrome."  In other words, we don't want the fuel to melt away through the ground.  So we place several layers to stop the meltdown.  The first layer of the containment vessel under the reactor is designed to catch and separate the molten core material.  Separating the material reduces the neutron flux in the material and stops fission from taking place.  The next layer is composed largely of Boron which stops the reaction entirely.  Not the reaction has stopped and the fuel has been spread out so that it will cool, meaning that it will no longer melt through the ground.  The fuel simply slumps to the bottom of the containment vessel, never coming close to even the inner steel lining of the vessel.  In the case of Fukushima, the reactor has been shut down for days and thus the meltdown would not be a full power meltdown like the vessels are designed to take.  The meltdown would thus be easily contained without ever releasing any of the molten core into the environment.  If the vessel is breached like some are saying has happened at one of the reactors at Fukushima, we are still not releasing the core into the environment.  A crack in the vessel will mainly just allow some radioactive water vapor out or at worst a small amount of particulates.  The molten core would be contained at the bottom of the vessel, which was not the case for Chernobyl which had no containment vessel.  I just put this out has "what if" type of statement as I personally don't see the six inches of steel lining the core and the meters of concrete surrounding that being breached by small hydrogen explosions.  Only time will tell though...

That is enough rambling on that though.  Coming back to my point, you are probably perplexed as to how I could possibly think that this could be a good thing for the industry.  I mean, it has given a platform for anti-nuclear activists to stand up and shout from and so far the main stream media has done a good job at supporting their efforts.  Being the optimist that I am though, I can't believe that the general public is so naive as to blindly believe what they hear.

We are living in the information age.  What we hear on the news can be instantly proven wrong with a few clicks on the computer.  Real experts are allowed to comment 24 hours a day and the debate can take place in real time.  There is a lot of information out there to sort through, but it is there.  So what is the news on Fukushima doing?  It is causing people to look for information on nuclear power!  My dad has raised me on the philosophy that "bad publicity is better than no publicity."  Does the information that people are being inundated with have to be accurate?  Absolutely not!  It is driving people to learn though, which is impossible to do in a stagnant situation.  I have been working on the blog for half a semester now and I am finding that getting a hold on someone's interest is darn near impossible when the subject is technical.  Unfortunately, a disaster is really good at doing just that.

I know that the public's interest on a disaster is about as long as that of the Tsetse fly and that people's interest will move on from the subject long before the reactors at Fukushima are under control, but for the time being, the industry has an education opportunity.  I mean, why are you reading this now?  Were you near as interested in modern nuclear reactor safety last week?  My guess for most people is that you didn't care near as much last week whether you were for or against nuclear power.  Now the general public is out their researching what it is and how they are safe.  I am sure a lot of people against nuclear power will just sink further into their positions, but there are those that will learn the facts of the debate and that is what is valuable.  Then again as my good friend Andrew Bacino likes to tell me, "Bringing facts to political debate is like bringing a knife to a gun fight."