Martin,

Thank you for posting this. I have been (and continue to be) appalled by the significant misinformation presented by the press and on line. I am glad someone had the time to present the truth. I hope to see wide distribution of this discussion.


Respectfully,

Jerry

I too am grateful for this link.

The words about a "catch basin" design at the bottom are reassuring that a hot molten uranium slag going to the bottom has been designed for to spread it out and keep it from going critical.

BTW- the word critical means that the nuclear fission reaction is self-sustaining. Sub-critical means it's dying off, supercritical means it's building up.
To startup a reactor you have to take it from sub-critical to critical then just a little tiny bit supercritical in order to get the fission rate up to where it's making power.

So don't fear "supercriticality" unless it's uncontrolled.

Martin ... excellent link! Finally we have some clarity on what is happening. Maybe the Japanese Gov't should just hire this professor from MIT to do their daily press releases. It really wouldn't be a bad idea.

other Pete

Nice link and good explanation.

Thanks Martin, very informative link. Every wannabe nuclear physicist (of which there is a rather astonishing number of these last few days) should read this article..

As Fukushima reactor No 2 explodes, then this statement is patently incorrect.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843

The original linked article and news is from March 12th. The info in the link you gave is from today (14 March 2011 Last updated at 21:35 ET), thusly the statement on March 12th, at that time was patently correct...

Japanese officials now reporting that the spent fuel in the pond (after boiling dry) in Reactor No 4 has now caught fire.

http://www.cnn.com/