i don't want to scare people but the situation is a lot lot worse than anyone so far has indicated (I worked in the nuclear industry for 5 years as an engineer). There are 6 BWR reactors at Fukushima and all of the more or less have problems. there are also 6 spent fuel pools each with up to 20 years of used uranium and plutonium fuel. Radiation levels are already so high that even coming near the scene will eventually kill you. The logical conclusion is that all this fuel will sooner or later meltdown (fuel in the dry ponds will go recritical due to them being over packed and dry). This is going to make Chernobyl look like a fart in a bathtub. Note that you have one of the worlds biggest metropolises (Tokyo) right next door, and one of the worlds most populated countries (China) within a stones throw. When the fuel starts going off for real i think we are looking at a global event.
Some very serious questions need to be asked of the Japanese amongst those
1) Why did they continue using a design that is known to be dangerous, doubly so considering its location on the coast near the most active fault line, they had had several warnings from the IAEA, why did they add more redundancy in a concerted effort to increase safety before this accident.
2) Why has the reaction has been so poor, electricity should have been restored to fukushima as a priority. Now it is a case of too little too late. This is probably due to the Japanese tradition of trying to "Save face" not acknowlegding the extremely serious nature of ths problem.
3) Too much used fuel stored on site, reactors and pools all too close together.
Some very serious questions need to be asked of the Japanese amongst those
1) Why did they continue using a design that is known to be dangerous, doubly so considering its location on the coast near the most active fault line, they had had several warnings from the IAEA, why did they add more redundancy in a concerted effort to increase safety before this accident.
2) Why has the reaction has been so poor, electricity should have been restored to fukushima as a priority. Now it is a case of too little too late. This is probably due to the Japanese tradition of trying to "Save face" not acknowlegding the extremely serious nature of ths problem.
3) Too much used fuel stored on site, reactors and pools all too close together.
