Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> The Fukushima nuclear plant is missing 600 tons of highly radioactive, > melted uranium. That is no exaggeration. Google it. > > Yup, way over a million pounds. A small warhead requires around 50 pounds. > That's a different isotope. That's U-235. There are not a million pounds of U-235 in basement of the plant, and what there is mixed in with U-238. You can't just walk in and take the U-235. For one thing, you would be dead in a few minutes. For another, you need massive separation plants which have not be built in decades, because nuclear bombs use Pu, not U. For instance, the W54 warhead weighed 50 pounds and was deployed until 1975 > by the US. Thus there is the equivalent of 20,000+ warheads - depending on > how much fertile U is converted to fissile Plutonium... > Again, you can't take the Pu because it is mixed in with U-235 and many other radioactive elements, and you would need a giant factory to separate out the Pu. This accident caused many problems, but weapons proliferation is not among them. The stuff is 100% theft-proof. It would be far harder to steal than the Pu deployed in U.S. and Russian warheads. > and this ad hoc arsenal is an unknown distance under the site ... > No, it is right there. Except for the material blown into the air and the surroundings by the hydrogen explosions, and the material being washed into the ocean by groundwater. > melting its way down relentlessly . . . > It is NOT melting down anywhere. The temperature stabilized soon after the accident. It is being washed out by groundwater, which the ice wall was supposed to stop. Japanese press reports are unclear about how well the wall is working. > The full China Syndrome breach never happened at Chernobyl. > Actually, it was worse. More than 90 of the radioactive materials were blown into the sky, and the fine powder circled the globe several times before settling out with rain and weather. The sarcophagus closed the barn door long after the horse left. > Nor did radioactivity ever increase drastically over time. > Radioactivity did not increase from Chernobyl because the radioactive material was dispersed world-wide, mainly to northern Europe. It has increased at Fukushima only because the walls crumbled and groundwater washed the material out into areas where it can be detected. > Even if the total damage in Ukraine was overestimated and constituted > "fear-mongering" by the tree-huggers, the same does not apply to Fukushima > which could be much worse. > Not if the groundwater problem can be fixed. That remains to be seen. - Jed
