Perhaps people should give some consideration to this. The leakage of the reactors that have melted down day by day flows into the Pacific Ocean. Since they are not even sure how far the cores have sunk into the earth is one issue.

Plus after this many years if they felt it was technically possible to either contain or recover them would be one thing. At this point I seriously doubt they have a solution and may never have one. To me in a few years if not solved it might mean cultures that fish the pacific as a food supply might have to give it up. This may be the lesser of two evils.

The one issue that is getting little press. Is the spent fuel that is contained in a pool five or six stories up. They have attempted to shore that badly damaged structure up.

There are several problems it seems. They are unable to remove the spent fuel apparently. The actual ground under that building is deteriorating. If an earthquake where to happen and could. The structure could collapse.

Now what many may not know is spent fuel bundles contacting each other burst into flame until they are a certain age. If the whole pile burnt. North America would not be habitable.

I even think the survivability rate would be of very short duration once the cloud arrived. To me it may have been and still is a good ideal to perhaps not dwell on this with the general north American public.

It is reasoned that the only salvation would be for those that escaped to the southern hemisphere very quickly. Now getting closer to 400 million North American people out into the southerm hemisphere quick enough. Could not happen.

If this risk is true. There are over 500 nuclear plants in the world. Man should do a serious rethink. In my mind we have become capable of exterminating our specis without war being involved.

The Russian reactor accident was so bad in reality that no new reactors where built for thirty years. I never remember the death toll of that accident posted in other than fairly low figures. Unofficial claims are almost a million people will have died or will die as a result though. I kind of suspected the stopping of new reactor construction had to be based on more than the general information fed to the public.

The potential of the Japanese situation makes the Russian one look like nothing at all. Already more radiation has gotten into the pacific than the total output of the central European one. With no ending in site. It has already been six years now since the Japanese event and the radioactive water is just rising and flowing over the frozen soil barrier. You also have to consider when the hot ores burn their way down to grown water. There will be at a minumin a radioactive steam release unless there is an eruption.

It getting hard to ferret out some effects of modern science plus attempting to get some accurate numbers. For example there have been over two thousand bomb tests since Hiroshima. Some scientists credit a side effect of that causing 58 million cancer cases worldwide.

I hope a lot of the quiet information is accurate rather than sensational in nature or just guessing.

To me man has to make decisions he is not prepared to do. It is becoming fairly obvious that otherwise he risks the possibility of a world that humans cannot exist on.

Japan feels lucky that they did not lose their whole country. Yet the risk of that is not certain at this point still. If those spent fuel rods burnt the northern hemisphere could be uninhabitable. And there are still more than 500 of these potential power plant liabilities out there. Over a hundred in north America alone. Tokyo has twenty million people and there is higher background radiation there now. No dosage in reality is safe if prolonged.

Then you have the nuclear industry out there always saying the reactors are totally safe. Accidents just cannot happen. Forget about the many close calls that have occurred as well as the two very serious events so far. Three mile island was almost much more serious as well.

Man may not have a way otherwise to generate the large amount of electricity required otherwise in any way that does not have issues. Odds are either Japans issue may or may not become more serious. I doubt it will ever go away totally.

The problem is the chances of yet another one not going up in a harmful fashion has to be a matter of just when. It has already become a planning expression of the land areas that will be lost.

In some projected cases whole countries. Personally I think it is wrong to keep the public poorly informed. The Japanese company that owns those reactors lied extensively as well even to their own government. I doubt you would expect much better in any country.

For those that are fixated about the importance of politics. This kind of post can be a distraction. I find it quite a sobering issue although I do not dwell on it.

The atomic energy commissions real function is to promote the use of fusion generated power. They have to know the real risks. I think the stakes are so high they never talk about them.

That pile of spent rods may have gotten removed by now on thinking about it more. Yet they were there a few years ago is certain. . Had the containment collapsed we probably would not be posting anymore in north America.

They distracted attention from the worse possible outcome pretty much. Maybe again a warning may have created a panic? What is obvious is they are not being honest about these issues. Perhaps developing all the hydro sites possible and some conservation would be a better risk in the long haul. There are far too many nuclear reactors located too close to large cities anyways. Yet there is no really safe difference if there is enough release of radioactivity.

Those fuel rods burning would have been thousands of times worse than what has already happened. Why would the designers locate a storage pool that high other than consideration of it being swamped with salt water at that location? Yet they put the back up electrical generators in the basement. All these design issues are getting by the regulators and that facility was not even really that old. If the designers in hindsight are missing the easy stuff perhaps it is a universal issue. What else have they missed? Will we find out a few more of them?