New Radioactive releases from Reactor #2 soon

...All right, then, SOMEBODY tell me: WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE?

Here's the situation: You've got whatever remains of a nuclear reactor, in unknown condition but certainly cnot doing all that great, and leaking water like a sieve -- water that is, ultimately, ending up in the Pacific Ocean, potentially poisoning AT LEAST three continents' food supplies, as well as their populations,naturally. And to this point NO ONE can get close enough to the damned thing to ascertain where the leaks are, or whether they can be repaired, or, even, whether there's ANYTHING LEFT in the reactor needing actual cooling -- because the building, the ONLY one among the "critical four" that's in any way still actually RECOGNIZEABLE AS a building, BTW, in an ironic little double-edged twist -- is so full of steam and radioactivity that not even the robots can get in there long enough to accomplish much of anything, besides going blind and getting dosed to no benefit whatsoever.

So that leaves them with a choice: Do SOMETHING to remove the steam and radioactivity from the air, thereby allowing an actual reconnoiter and potentially some eventual efforts to bring the situation in Reactor 2 into focus, or... Do NOTHING. BTW, the ONLY way they're EVER going to be able to put a system in place to scrub the air in Building 2, the way they did in Building 1, is if they can FIRST lower the 99.9%-plus humidity; if they don't, all that's going to happen is, they'll get several workers dosed installing the air-purification system for no good reason, 'cause it'll break down almost as fast as they get it installed. Get it?

Let's remember, too: They originally thought the steam was coming from the Building 2 Spent Fuel Pool, so they installed a new heat-exchanging recirculating cooling system to lower the humidity in the Building and allow the air-purifying equipment to be set up... and it WORKED. The SPF temperature dropped by half inside of a couple days... but the Building's humidity was UNCHANGED. And THAT's when they discovered that the water filling up the basement of Building 2, in addition to being just about the most radiologically lethal material EVER TESTED, was just about BOILING, itself.

...Anyone care to speculate about what could be in the basement of Building 2 that might be capable of heating a couple dozen thousand tons of standing water to seventy or seventy-five degrees Celsius or so, and KEEP IT THAT HOT, for a period of MONTHS? ...'Cause I'd be willing to bet it's NOT the heating element in some coffee maker that was turned on when the tsunami came rolling in.

So -- You've got a Reactor whose reactor CORE may very well be at the bottom of that building, and no one can get inside. What do YOU suggest they do? Wait for the core to melt through the concrete sub-floor? Or FLUSH THE DAMN AIR OUT, FAST and try to send folks in who MIGJT actually be able to figure out just what the Hell is going in in there?

There ARE NO "GOOD" OPTIONS here, people. Sometimes in this world, you have to just hold your nose and choose the option that stinks LESS. If you've got a better idea than flushing the bad air out of Building 2 and getting people in there as fast as possible, fantastic, and I'd love to hear all about it; but I'd actually rather you call TEPCO and tell THEM, so they can get cracking. But if you're waiting for Scotty to show up with his transporter that will beam the whole Goddamn plant off-planet, I hate to tell ya, but you're shit out of luck, pal. Real-world problems, sadly, can only be countered by real-world solutions, and ofttimes, though we are loathe to admit it, those solutions are JUST AS MESSY as the problems that demand them; even worse, on occasion. It is, I regret to say, a less than perfect world.

And as far as being outraged that TEPCO would coordinate this presumed release with advantageous wind conditions: Grow up, people. You mean to tell me that they should TRY TO INCREASE THEIR OWN EXPOSURE? Why? Because they DESERVE it?!? Are you seriously telling me that if the situation were reversed -- say, an East Coast U.S. nuclear plant had to dump air in a similar circumstance -- we WOULDN'T wait for a favorable wind to do the same? That we'd INTNTIONALLY INCREASE OUR OWN POPULATION'S LEVEL PF RADIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION? WHY WOULD ANYONE *EVER* DO THAT?!?

Let's also remember: The greater the contamination is to the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, the more difficult it is to get ANYTHING accomplished there; the higher the doses ate for workers, the less time people can be deployed on-site, the closer the entire area comes to being UNFIT FOR HUMAN OCCUPATION FOR *ANY* LEMHTH OF TIME. Want to guess what happens if and when the plant must be PERMANENTLY ABANDONED due to absolutely LETHAL levels of radioactivity? Also, consider this: The greater the level of contamination is to the area SURROUNDING Fukushima, the FEWER OPTIONS THEY HAVE to bring in equipment and personnel. Any way you slice it, allowing this venting to happen, and OUT TO SEA, is the very BEST option for not only reducing the impact of this release, in the near term anyway, on human populations, but to have any hope at all of mitigating whatever's going on at Unit 2. Or, even, ASSESSING THE CONDITION of Unit 2.

I'm sick of people complaining and offering NOTHING up in return other than endless conspiracy theories and whimpering about how unfair this all is. Yes, THIS SUCKS, and NOTHING WILL EVER BE QUITE THE SAME AGAIN. That's REALITY. Yes: TEPCO's so-called "management" of this crisis has been inadequate, deceptive, and borderline amoral. Perhaps even worse than that: Flirting with suicidal, even genocidal. But this ISN'T one of their many, many mistakes, missteps and misdirections. It is a terrible solution; but the best of the very limited, outrageously nasty options now available to them.

People, we are going to have to cultivate a tougher mentality if we are to successfully negotiate this period. This is not "Star Trek". There are NO neat, pretty solutions to this problem, no technobabble resolution or omnipotent alien Savior coming to wash it all clean and give us a chuck on the shoulder. There is no supersecret military project that will negate the nightmarish effects of this disaster, no doomsday plan that the Government can pull out of a drawer, sign into effect and implement that will put everything back together again, no superhero team in tights that will absorb what's coming. We are on our own, with limited resources, few choices, and only the vaguest understanding of what we're up against.

And the sooner we ACCEPT THIS, and the extreme likelihood of what comes next -- more cancers, birth defects, and other exotic illnesses; the widespread long-term contamination of the Pacific Ocean and its resources, food and otherwise; the wholesale evacuation of much of Japan, to name just a few of the more obvious -- the better we'll be able to deal with this new reality, and the farther ahead of the curve we'll be.

This is NOT the end, folks. It IS the end of the world we knew. It's not the first time something like this has happened: The Great Plague, the Dark Ages, the fall of the Roman Empire... The Flood. Heck, even in the last century: The Great Depression, two World Wars, the Cold War, 9/11. We adjust. We adapt. We survive. And, eventually, we thrive.

But there will be casualties along the way. There always are.

Wishing on a star won't change the world. We have to play the hand we've been dealt... that we dealt ourselves.

Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas

Can we get a best guess of what contaminants will be headed our way?