Japan

There has been much furor over the natural disaster in Japan. If the news reports were to be believed Japan would become the next Atlantis, submerged in the depths and lost to humanity forever.

One of the biggest stories is their nuclear reactors ZOMG!!!!eleventy!!!! ARE!!! MELTING!!! DOWN!!!!

My reaction was "Eh, why don't they just scram the reactors and be done with it?"

The answer turns out to be "They did, and the danger, while present, is small." The reaction has been shut down, now the issues are due to cooling as the residual heat bleeds off.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever cracked open a Japanese car motor or dealt with any Japanese engineers. They over-engineer everything, and they have a contingency plan for every eventuality. That's why it was so mysterious to me why everyone is in such a tizzy about the nuclear reactors.

The answer of course is the whole "Nuclear" word.

It should be noted that it is impossible for this type of reactor to "go Chernobyl" because of it's design. In fact, the worst thing that could happen to this reactor has in fact happened. Four of the cores have lost cooling water and are now molten balls of slag. The cooling water is needed to get rid of the residual heat as the reaction dies down. No cooling water means meltdown, which does not mean explosion, it just means those cores are now permanently out of commission.

Here's the report. Bottom line, it's bad but everything is under control. You may now all relax.

HT: Larry Correia on Facebook

UPDATE: Jackboot over at The Rott, who was one of those weird blackshoe guys what lived amongst the glowy things "down below" and was far removed from us normal aviation-type guys that populated the sunny climes of the flight deck, puts us some knowledge. His take: chill the f'k out already, ignore the blow-dryed teewee peoples and worry more about the poor folks caught without shelter due to the earthquake and tsunami. It's Ma Nature who's the bitch here, not the nuke plants.