The nuclear facility is still in danger of meltdown, and although apparently Hillary Clinton said the US military delivered "coolant" the US military says it didn't, although it's ready to help. But it's a stupid thing to say because coolant isn't the problem, a lack of power is the problem.

I know y'all were just waiting for me to jump in. Cooling is the problem at this point. Matt Wald has a pretty good explanation in the NYT.

Here's a (relatively) short version. The reactor automatically shut down, i.e., all the rods dropped, when the earthquake happened. That will keep the reaction from becoming self-sustaining. Then the diesel generators (usually two per unit) were knocked out by the tsunami. However, the fuel is still generating heat. The heat is removed with circulating coolant, essentially highly purified water with some additives to make it a better moderator and to help preserve the plumbing. That coolant is normally circulated either with offsite power or the diesels.

Without power, the cooling water can circulate for a couple of hours using pumps run by steam pressure. There will be battery power for a couple more hours. After that, the heat will be high enough for the cooling water to flash to steam and a "meltdown," which is actually just melting the cladding on the fuel pellets, can occur. There is so far no indication that containment, which is a highly reinforced concrete dome 10 feet thick at the bottom, has been compromised, and it was built for a worse quake than this.

If all these measures fail, inside containment will be a radioactive and very expensive mess, but it's very unlikely radiation will escape containment. The reactor at Three Mile Island melted big time, but there was no measurable release outside the plant boundary. They may vent some steam to keep the containment pressure down, but that's done through filters.

The reason they'd add cooling water is because they're probably losing some to steam. They'd prefer to get cooling water from another plant, because if you dump plain water in there, the reactor will have to be shut down for months. I'm sure they're moving batteries and other power there.

TEPCO has damage at its fossil plants too, so I hope the can get the nukes back up quickly, because they're looking at a severe power shortage now.

Thanks, Ginger. That's helpful.

Thank you, Ginger. I actually was waiting for you.

TEPCO has damage at its fossil plants too, so I hope the can get the nukes back up quickly, because they're looking at a severe power shortage now.

Like that poor Gal doesn't have ENOUGH goin' on...

On a totally frivolous note, Batman on an Elephant: [link]

ETA: Maybe this came from here. It's from a tumblr page I don't remember bookmarking (or even looking at).

For the obsessive among you, here are two good links: [link] [link]

They've gotten portable power units to Fukushima Daiichi, but apparently it was without power for a couple of hours, so they've got some heat and steam build up, but cooling water and controlled venting should take that down.

Thanks for the info, Ginger.

Thank you, Ginger. I actually was waiting for you.

I was, too. So thank you.

Liese, honey, go take a nap.

Liese, do what the good people say.

Work got...worse. Doing acceptance testing and something is horribly wrong and no one can explain it. I had to leave (and frankly was theeees close to stabbing the computer and no really being able to focus anymore,) but I brought the laptop home hoping to run some more test. But some of the processes are not up (despite being last told they were up) and that means I can't run the tests. And we were planning on installing on Monday. Hafuckingha.

Dev keeps insisting "but it didn't happen in test!" Well, boofuckinghoo, looky here, it's happening! In the test environment!

So I'm stymied. And really really sick of friday drama.