What's your favorite non-traditional and/or little known holiday?
Given my Finnish ancestry, I'm all about St. Urho's Day, which is today.
Question of the Day
Number of the Day
[Trigger warning for homophobia.]
$350,000: The amount of money Newt Gingrich covertly funneled to anti-gay hate groups last year.
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for rape culture; misogyny; anti-Semitism.]
I don't really understand why Jodie Foster is described, in the first few paragraphs of Stephen Galloway's Hollywood Reporter cover profile, as the "moral avatar" of American pop culture.
That's a decidedly strange term to use to describe anyone who isn't (say) a character in a Gabriel García Márquez novel, and, even if it weren't, I'm not sure Jodie Foster would immediately come to mind if I were tasked with identifying the celebrity who most embodied whatever it's meant to convey.
And if I couldn't imagine by what measure or principle Galloway came to this perplexing conclusion before I read the following passage, I was even more confounded afterwards:
As for Polanski's complicated character and the resurrection of his rape charge in the U.S., "That's not my business," she says.Of course not. Everyone knows the most responsible—and moral!—way to respond to the rape of a 13-year-old child is fastidious indifference. It's just unseemly to invade a rapist's privacy.
And, after pages of Foster waxing poignant about what a great person Mel Gibson is, and how not her business Roman Polanski's child raping habit is, all I could do was lolsob when I came to this perfect, hilarious, horrible passage:
It's striking that Foster, who's perceived as such a moral force, is forgiving of men like Polanski and Gibson who are so much less adulated than her. But it's equally striking that both have achieved the one professional goal that has eluded her: recognition as a major director.Striking. Yes.
Or something.
Quote of the Day
"We don't have the resources to keep our parks and our lakes up to the standards that the citizens of Ohio want. I think this is the best way to go."—Ohio State Rep. John Adams explaining that the only way to keep state parks up to par is to contaminate and destroy them by drilling for oil.
No, really: "A House bill introduced this week would create a panel that could open any state-owned land for oil and gas exploration to the highest bidder. The governor would appoint the five panel members."
[H/T to ThinkProgress.]
The Overton Window: Chapter Forty-Seven
[Trigger warning for torture.]
I don't even know where to begin. Which is maybe ironic since we're at the end of our tale. Honestly, a lot of what's gone on in this book bothered me. But I am finding myself exceedingly uncomfortable with this scene. Noah's torture has moved to the next phase. The make or break period, if that's an appropriate term here. Noah is wired up for electroconvulsive therapy, better known as electroshock. The "main purpose was plain: to destroy any remaining will to resist or evade, so the truth would be the only thing he'd be left capable of speaking."
I've some knowledge of the hows and whys of ECT, and if my experience can be used as reference here, let me just say, the author's whole notion of electroconvulsive therapy completely misses the mark. Not that this is a surprise, not much in this book strives for realism.
A rubber hose is jammed in Noah's mouth and "technicians administered the voltage with a jeweler's precision."
His mind, once his greatest, if least used, asset, was no longer under his control. He couldn't focus on the technicians or the pain and he'd long ago stopped wondering how much longer it would go on. All that was left were random snapshots of the past that flashed uninvited into his head.
All his defenses had left him hours before. In this state if he'd had any information to reveal he would have gladly offered it, but they were now probing for something much deeper than mere intelligence. Each time he thought there was nothing left, they found another fragile layer of his soul to peel away. In the end, when all he could see was darkness, whatever was left of him finally gave in and tried its best to surrender.
I'm not sure what "his mind, once his greatest, if least used, asset" means. Noah is, I thought, something of a PR genius, like his father. Or is he just a doofus who's excelled because of nepotism? The later doesn't seem to fit with Darthur's worldview of "it's the fit who'll survive." (See below.)
"Now, now, Noah, I think we are both finding out what kind of man you are, and I have to tell you, it's quite disappointing." He referred briefly to a sheet of notes he'd been handed. "Inconclusive. I'm sure you know, that's a word I hate more than any other. And doesn't it place a sad little period at the end of the story of a rather aimless and forgettable young life?
"While you've given us nothing that implicates you in the treachery of the preceding days, you've also said nothing to exonerate yourself to my side of the conflict. A true believer or a traitor to the cause, either one of those I could at least respect. But you're weak, aren't you? And fatally so."
Aimless and forgettable young life? Doesn't Noah work with his father at Doyle & Merchant as a PR executive? As I recall, Noah went to college, took up the family business, and seemed to excel at it. But now this is aimlessness? Whatever.
Then there's this weird paragraph:
Neither of Noah's eyes would open fully, and what vision he had was dim and watery. His father looked like a giant silhouette, a featureless shadow. Fragments of memories intruded, a flash from the office break room when he'd first seen Molly, but her image was replaced in his mind with the outline of seven light strokes from a felt-tip pen.
What? Feel free, if you have one, to offer up a theory on the "seven light strokes from a felt-tip pen" and what that is supposed to mean. Use drawings if it helps. It probably won't help.
You know what else won't help? A long passage of dialogue from Darthur:
"Noah, I last told you this when you were only a boy, so I doubt you'll remember. It's a rhyme I made up for you, in answer to some childish question you'd posed. I think it fitting in our present situation."
'There are men who are weak and few who are strong / There are men who are right and more who are wrong / But of all the men huddled in all the world's hives / There's but one thing that's true: It's the fit who'll survive.'
"Noah, the meek will not inherit the earth. A faint heart is as great a weakness as a feeble mind. It pains me to say it, but I'm afraid we've reached a parting of the ways."
Know what else won't help? Garbage ghostwriting:
It was then that Noah felt something beneath him, and behind him, all around him—something outside himself that he couldn't quite identify.
His father's mind, his mother's heart. What the old man had given him was all that these men could tear away, but it was her heart that they couldn't quite reach. His mother had passed it on to him, and even after her strength had lain unused and scarcely remembered for all these wasted years, it seemed that Molly Ross had somehow awakened it again.
The idea of dying wasn't nearly as frightening as he would have thought it would be. But somewhere he also knew that this wasn't how it was supposed to end. Molly had taught him the importance of living to fight another day. She hadn't been captured, she hadn't been killed. A spirit like that doesn't die so easily. He had no facts whatsoever to assure him of this, but he knew it. Maybe it was a bit of that faith that she'd spoken of.
Barf.
So, basically, Molly's ghost, or non-ghost (a spirit like that doesn't die so easily) has awakened his heart. With the lying, and the drugging and the manipulation? Huh? And, as I've mentioned previously, how is that Noah was so easily and completely brainwashed by the teabaggers? If he's so easily led, why can't Darthur bring him back? What garbage. Thankfully we're just a few paragraphs from the end of this chapter. Hang in there, kids!
Darthur tells the techs to "finish the job and then craft a story to ensure my son is remembered in a way that will bring dignity and honor to our family." Whuh? Wevs.
There was a way out of this, but Noah didn't know what it was until he heard the answer whispered at his ear, as though Molly were there right beside him. The fight would go on, she'd said, with her on the outside and him on the inside, where she'd already shown him that the deepest kind of damage could be done. And then she added one thing more:
Don't be afraid.
Barf.
"As it will be in the future," he whispered, "it was at the birth of Man."
He didn't even know if he was saying the words aloud or reciting them only in his mind. "There are only four things certain since Social Progress began." His father's hand was on the doorknob when he suddenly froze and looked back.
"What did you say?" the old man asked.
Noah continued, his voice becoming stronger. "That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire." His father had taken a few steps closer to him now. "And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire."
Arthur Gardner's usually dispassionate face, so long accustomed to the denial of emotion, could not contain his surprise.
Barf.
For those who don't remember, that's from Darthur's favorite poem. See chapter eighteen. I do love the totally not cliché bit where Darthur's "hand was on the doorknob" as Noah speaks. Ah, the tension, you could cut it with a spork! Noah, seconds from death, suddenly turns the tables.
Noah realized something else then, another thing that Molly had taught him: When you lie for a living, you sometimes can't see the truth even when it's staring you right in the face. That's a weakness that could clearly be exploited.
Oh, Noah! You cheeky monkey! You've got Darthur right where you want him, haven't you? " The fight would go on, she'd said, with her on the outside and him on the inside." Goodness, this is certainly a surprise! Okay, well, it's certainly something.
Noah felt himself fading, and he spoke again, but scarcely at a whisper. These words were meant for different ears, and wherever Molly was, he knew for certain she would hear them.
"We have it in our power," Noah said, "to begin the world over again."
Dry heave.
Okay, that wraps up this chapter. Molly hears his words, he hears hers. Maybe she really is a Jedi. I dunno. Discuss.
(One more post to go, just FYI.)
Daily Dose of Cute
Cute Cat is cute.
Sophie does this EVERY TIME I walk up (or down) the stairs: She leaps onto a step and immediately rolls onto her back and looks irresistibly adorable, so I CANNOT PASS until I give her indulgent belleh rubs.
GOP war on NPR
So today there is an "emergency" meeting (3 pm EST, in room H-313 Capitol building--you can watch the meeting live here) of the House Rules Committee to discuss a bill intro'd yesterday. This bill is HR 1076, quite clearly (yet verbosely) called: "To prohibit Federal funding of National Public Radio and the use of Federal funds to acquire radio content." The bill spells it out:
(d) Federal Funds Defined-So, anyway, yes that's right. An emergency meeting to defund NPR entirely. Now, if you recall, the House passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) amendment (to fund the government through September) that defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting--which supports NPR and PBS--but the Senate defeated that. The latest CR cuts funding but does not eliminate entirely. This is new. This is an entire bill devoted to totally eliminating NPR (PBS is not affected). The person behind this bill--which has no co-sponsors--is Doug Lamborn (R-CO). Also:
(1) IN GENERAL- In this section, the term ‘Federal funds’ means, with respect to receipt by a non-Federal entity from the Federal Government, the following:
(A) Grants.
(B) Loans.
(C) Property.
(D) Cooperative agreements.
(E) Direct appropriations.
(2) GRANTS OR SUBGRANTS FROM NON-FEDERAL ENTITY- Such term also includes grants or subgrants from Federal funds made available to a non-Federal entity.
Mortensen [Catherine, spokesperson for Lamborn] added that Lamborn "will definitely" seek to include an additional amendment blocking NPR funding through 2011 in any final deal with Senate Democrats on a 2011 continuing resolution.This is, of course, retaliation for the recent "controversy" regarding a doctored video that showed Ron Schiller, former NPR exec, allegedly making "rude" statements about Tea Party people and saying things like NPR doesn't really need federal funding. Schiller had already resigned from NPR to take another job, but left immediately as a result of the fall out and Vivian Schiller (of no relation), the CEO of NPR, resigned (or for the more cynical, was ousted). All of which happened before NPR even watched all the footage:
DAVE EDWARDS: It seems like it happened quickly, but a lot happened during the course of that day. With all that was going on in Congress, with all that was going on around the country, we had to make that assessment again, and so we did.So now the GOP has rushed to have an emergency meeting to entirely defund NPR. Priorities.
FOLKENFLIK: In those first hours, executives were relying on transcripts, and the full board had not watched the full video. In the days since, the Blaze, a news aggregation site set up by Fox News's Glenn Beck, and then NPR News, found many instances in O'Keefe's shorter news-setting tape where key elements of Ron Schiller's remarks were significantly misrepresented.
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, producers of the new Deeky W. Gashlycrumb country music album, Some Dude I Met on Gays.com Just Stole My Truck.
Recommended Reading:
Anonymous at Speaker's Corner: BACK THE FUCK OFF: One woman's abortion story and why politicians need to leave women alone. [TW for termination of wanted pregnancy.]
Paul: Michelle Obama's Let's Move Campaign Is Helping Bullies [TW for fat hatred]
Resistance: The Cost of Racism
Mike: What Rich People (or Matt Damon Anyway) Do with Their Tax Cuts
rboylorn: How To Say No: The "B" side to Self-Care
Echidne: Meanwhile, in Tampa Florida, Single is a Terrible Thing for Female Politicians to Be
Andy: California Megachurch Choir Forces Members to Sign Anti-Gay Pact
Jorge: Bharma's Lost Bar
Leave your links in comments...
Go RFMA
I just received a dispatch from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force noting that US Reps Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Barney Frank (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jared Polis (D-CO), David Cicilline (D-RI) and John Conyers (D-MI) have reintroduced the Respect for Marriage Act, legislation which seeks to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Better yet:
[F]or the first time, the legislation has been introduced in the Senate where it is championed by lead sponsors Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey attended today's congressional press conferences announcing the bill.
...Statement by Rea Carey, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force:
"It is shocking that in 21st-century America, legally married same-sex couples are being singled out and selectively denied fundamental rights by their own federal government. This is an outrage. The Respect for Marriage Act does just that — it respects and protects the rights of legally married couples to live free from this government-sanctioned discrimination. Today's introduction marks an important step toward recognizing our common humanity and ending an egregious injustice against thousands of loving, committed couples who simply want the protections, rights and responsibilities already afforded other married couples. We thank the many House and Senate members who recognize that DOMA has no place on the books and support its full, swift repeal. DOMA has only served to belittle our country's deeply held values of freedom and fairness. It has only served to hurt families, not help. This must end now."
Contact your representative and ask hir to support the Respect for Marriage Act.
I don't know what to say any more.
CNN:
The Republican National Committee is considering sanctioning the GOP presidential primary debates and then selling the broadcast rights to news outlets, two Republicans with knowledge of the idea tell CNN.
My, what an interesting idea.
Two Americas Newz
What recession? The millionaire population jumped in the U.S. by 8% last year, fueled by the stock market recovery, according to an industry report on Wednesday.
"Last year marked the second consecutive year of increases, the group said, following a 16% surge in the millionaire population in 2009."
The group said the number of "ultra high net worth" households, with a net worth of at least $5 million, jumped 8% in 2010 to 1.06 million, compared to 980,000 the prior year.
Good news everybody! More people are rich these days!
Yes. We know. That's what we've been trying to tell you.
But this time all that money is going to trickle down for realz, right? Oh, I forgot, it already has. Recession? "What recession?" :snort:
From the Annals of Post-Racial America
[Trigger warning for racism.]
My friend Tom pointed me to this post at Angry Asian Man about UCLA student Alexandra Wallace, who posted a video to YouTube in which she complained about the "hordes" of Asian students at UCLA who talk on their cell phones in the library, saying things like, "Ohhhh ching chong ling long ting tong."
Blink. Blink.
Angry Asian Man hits the nail on the head when he notes: "Granted, it's annoying as hell when people answer their phones in inappropriate places. But it's clear that this person is uncomfortable with the large population of Asian students at UCLA, and is working out her issues in the most regrettable way possible." (Emphasis original.)
That her approach was regrettable (a charitable description) was something she knew going in, hence starting her treatise with the sigh-inducing disclaimer: "So we know that I'm not the most politically correct person so don't take this offensively." But whoooooooooooooops she went ahead and did it, anyway.
Wallace has since apologized for the video, saying: "Clearly the original video posted by me was inappropriate. I cannot explain what possessed me to approach the subject as I did, and if I could undo it, I would. I'd like to offer my apology to the entire UCLA campus. For those who cannot find it within them to accept my apology, I understand."
Yep. Clearly inappropriate and inexplicable. But whoooooooooooooops she went ahead and did it, anyway.
Why might a white person do something like that? Well, I have my thoughts. The one that keeps floating to the surface is that perhaps Wallace has shared these thoughts with white/non-Asian friends, who confirmed her biases by nodding along in agreement, or even joining in a rousing round of ching-chong language mockery, or simply by conveying tacit approval with silence.
Wallace's rant has all the markers of a practiced bit of racism, and I bet what "possessed her" to post a public video is having gotten away with it before.
Just a guess.
Open Thread: Japan's Nuclear Plants
Some concerns have been raised about the information provided in this piece (the updated version of which is being hosted here) regarding the status of Japan's nuclear plants, and the possible effects of their malfunction. To be perfectly blunt, this is way the hell outside my areas of expertise, so what I'd like to do is open a discussion thread in which people who do have knowledge in this field can discuss the issue generally. (And my apologies that I was not around to mod last night; we were out to dinner for our anniversary.)
Below are a few links to get us started, and additional information is welcome. Please note the commenting guidelines at the bottom of the post.
The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum is posting updates here.
Guardian—Japan Nuclear Crisis Live Updates. I've found this to be a really useful resource.
New York Times—Latest Updates on Japan's Nuclear Crisis and Earthquake Aftermath.
New Scientist—Fukushima Latest: Radiation Around Plant Falls.
Ars Technica—Fukushima Nuclear Emergency. The latest updates are at the end of the thread.
Georneys—Interviews with a Nuclear Engineer.
New Zealand Science Media Centre—Nuclear Experts on the Latest at Fukushima.
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission—Latest News.
France's l'Authorité Sûreté Nucléaire makes a more grim assessment.
Quantum Diaries outlines one of the realities about trying to get solid info at this point: "Getting hard facts about what is going on in Fukushima Daiichi is difficult. … I've thought about trying to blog about the situation, but the reality is that I'd be behind and since we don't have all the facts, some of it would be speculation."
My thanks to SKM and Aphra_Behn for helping me put together these links.
Commenting Guidelines: There is sure to be disagreement in this thread, but let's keep it civil. That means no accusations of bad faith, and take care in citing sources with context. New commenters, please note that the Commenting Policy and Feminism 101 section are required reading before commenting.
More on the MLK Day Bomber
[Trigger warning for racism; anti-Semitism; terrorism.]
In January, an undetonated backpack bomb was found along the parade route of a Martin Luther King Day event in Spokane, Washington. Predictably, the suspect in the attempted bombing, Kevin Harpham, is a white supremacist.
And he was so active on white supremacist websites that he was known to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups:
According to the Law Center, in 2004 Kevin Harpham posted, "I can't wait till the day I snap," on the Vanguard News Network online forums, a white supremacist site.He's been on their radar screen for years, despite not even being a significant player in organized white supremacy.
"Who was the person during WW2 that said something like (sic). Those who say you can't win a war by bombing have never tried," another posting purportedly by Harpham read, according to the Law Center.
On the Vanguard website, which advertises itself as "No Jews. Just Right," Harpham posted over 1,000 comments, according to the Law Center.
Although the posts did not carry Harpham's name directly, Law Center officials said they had come to know him by his writing, and recognized his work as it appeared on line.
"He'd been on our radar screen for some years," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "He wasn't a major character but we were aware of him."
...A bomb squad rendered the device inert. Officials called the situation an instance "of domestic terrorism" that could have caused "mass casualties."
But, by all means, let's keep having Congressional hearings about Muslims.
Question of the Day
Melissa gave me the idea.
What are you celebrating today?
Big or small, something global or something within your home, why do you want to throw confetti today?
What's Happening in the Affected Japanese Reactors
NOTE FROM LISS: Please head to this thread for further discussion.
CaitieCat's note: Shaker Jenny1 sent me this incredibly informative and clear explanation of the situation in re: the Japanese nuclear plants currently experiencing some unhappiness after the earthquake/tsunami combo. The teal-deer version is basically what I posted last night; this goes into things much more deeply, and from someone much better informed than my laywoman's understanding. The following is entirely the work of People Who Are Not Me.
ETA: Providing an updated version of this, with information added over the weekend, MIT is now hosting that updated doc.
Along with reliable sources such as the IAEA and WNN updates, there is an incredible amount of misinformation and hyperbole flying around the internet and media right now about the Fukushima nuclear reactor situation. In the BNC post Discussion Thread - Japanese nuclear reactors and the 11 March 2011 earthquake (and in the many comments that attend the top post), a lot of technical detail is provided, as well as regular updates. But what about a lay person's summary? How do most people get a grasp on what is happening, why, and what the consequences will be?
Below is a summary on the situation prepared by Dr Josef Oehmen, a research scientist at MIT, in Boston. He is a PhD scientist, whose father has extensive experience in Germany's nuclear industry. This was first posted by Jason Morgan earlier this evening. It is very important that this information be widely understood.
Please also take the time to read this: An informed public is key to acceptance of nuclear energy - it has never been more relevant than now.
-----------
I am writing this text (Mar 12) to give you some peace of mind regarding some of the troubles in Japan, that is the safety of Japan's nuclear reactors. Up front, the situation is serious, but under control. And this text is long! But you will know more about nuclear power plants after reading it than all the journalists on this planet put together.
There was and will not be any significant release of radioactivity.
By "significant" I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on - say - a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background radiation. I have been reading every news release on the incident since the earthquake. There has not been one single (!) report that was accurate and free of errors (and part of that problem is also a weakness in the Japanese crisis communication). By "not free of errors" I do not refer to tendentious anti-nuclear journalism - that is quite normal these days. By "not free of errors" I mean blatant errors regarding physics and natural law, as well as gross misinterpretation of facts, evincing an obvious lack of fundamental and basic understanding of the way nuclear reactors are built and operated. I have read a 3-page report on CNN where every single paragraph contained an error.
We will have to cover some fundamentals before we get into what is going on.
Construction of the Fukushima nuclear power plants
The plants at Fukushima are so called Boiling Water Reactors, or BWR for short. Boiling Water Reactors are similar to pressure cookers. The nuclear fuel heats water, the water boils and creates steam, the steam then drives turbines that create the electricity, and the steam is then cooled and condensed back to water, and the water sent back to be heated by the nuclear fuel. The pressure cooker operates at about 250 °C.
The nuclear fuel is uranium oxide. Uranium oxide is a ceramic with a very high melting point of about 3000°C. The fuel is manufactured in pellets (think little cylinders the size of Lego bricks). Those pieces are then put into a long tube made of Zircaloy with a melting point of 2200°C, and sealed tight. The assembly is called a fuel rod. These fuel rods are then put together to form larger packages, and a number of these packages are then put into the reactor. All these packages together are referred to as "the core".
The Zircaloy casing is the first containment. It separates the radioactive fuel from the rest of the world.
The core is then placed in the "pressure vessels". That is the pressure cooker we talked about before. The pressure vessel is the second containment. This is one sturdy piece of a pot, designed to safely contain the core for temperatures of several hundred °C. That covers the scenarios where cooling can be restored at some point.
The entire "hardware" of the nuclear reactor - the pressure vessel and all pipes, pumps, and coolant (water) reserves - are then encased in the third containment. The third containment is a hermetically (airtight) sealed and very thick bubble of the strongest steel. The third containment is designed, built and tested for one single purpose: To contain, indefinitely, a complete core meltdown. For that purpose, a large and thick concrete basin is cast under the pressure vessel (the second containment), which is filled with graphite, all inside the third containment. This is the so-called "core catcher". If the core melts and the pressure vessel bursts (and eventually melts), it will catch the molten fuel and everything else. It is built in such a way that the nuclear fuel will be spread out, so it can cool down.
This third containment is then surrounded by the reactor building. The reactor building is an outer shell that is supposed to keep the weather out, but nothing in (this is the part that was damaged in the explosion, but more to that later).
Fundamentals of nuclear reactions
The uranium fuel generates heat by nuclear fission. Big uranium atoms are split into smaller atoms. That generates heat plus neutrons (one of the particles that forms an atom). When the neutron hits another uranium atom, that splits, generating more neutrons and so on. That is called the nuclear chain reaction.
Now, just packing a lot of fuel rods next to each other would quickly lead to overheating, and after about 45 minutes, to a melting of the fuel rods. It is worth mentioning at this point that the nuclear fuel in a reactor can *never* cause a nuclear explosion like that produced by a nuclear bomb. Building a nuclear bomb is actually quite difficult - ask Iran!
In Chernobyl, the explosion was caused by excessive pressure buildup, hydrogen explosion and rupture of all containments, propelling molten core material into the environment (a "dirty bomb"). Why that did not and will not happen in Japan, further below.
In order to control the nuclear chain reaction, the reactor operators use so-called "control rods". The control rods absorb the neutrons and kill the chain reaction instantaneously. A nuclear reactor is built in such a way that when operating normally, you take out all the control rods. The coolant water then takes away the heat (and converts it into steam and electricity) at the same rate as the core produces it. And you have a lot of leeway around the standard operating point of 250°C.
The challenge is that after inserting the rods and stopping the chain reaction, the core still keeps producing heat. The uranium "stopped" the chain reaction. But a number of intermediate radioactive elements are created by the uranium during its fission process, most notably cesium and iodine isotopes, i.e., radioactive versions of these elements that will eventually split up into smaller atoms and not be radioactive anymore. Those elements keep decaying and producing heat. Because they are not regenerated any longer from the uranium (the uranium stopped decaying after the control rods were put in), they get less and less, and so the core cools down over a matter of days, until those intermediate radioactive elements are used up.
This residual heat is what is causing the headaches right now.
So the first "type" of radioactive material is the uranium in the fuel rods, plus the intermediate radioactive elements that the uranium splits into, also inside the fuel rod (cesium and iodine).
There is a second type of radioactive material created outside the fuel rods. The main difference up front: those radioactive materials have a very short half-life, which means that they decay very fast, and split into non-radioactive materials. And by fast, I mean seconds.
So if these radioactive materials are released into the environment, yes, radioactivity was released, but no, it is not dangerous, at all. Why? By the time you spelled "R-A-D-I-O-N-U-C-L-I-D-E", they will be harmless, because they will have split up into nonradioactive elements. Those radioactive elements are N-16, the radioactive isotope (or version) of nitrogen (air). The others are noble gases such as xenon. But where do they come from? When the uranium splits, it generates a neutron (see above). Most of these neutrons will hit other uranium atoms and keep the nuclear chain reaction going. But some will leave the fuel rod and hit the water molecules, or the air that is in the water. Thus a non-radioactive element could "capture" the neutron. It becomes radioactive. As described above, it will quickly (within seconds) again get rid of the neutron, and return to its former beautiful self.
This second "type" of radiation is very important when we talk about the radioactivity being released into the environment later on.
What happened at Fukushima
I will try to summarize the main facts. The earthquake that hit Japan was 7 times more powerful than the worst earthquake the nuclear power plant was built for (the Richter scale works logarithmically; the difference between the 8.2 that the plants were built for and the 8.9 that happened is 7 times, not 0.7). So the first hooray for Japanese engineering, everything held up.
When the earthquake hit with 8.9, the nuclear reactors all went into automatic shutdown. Within seconds after the earthquake started, the control rods had been inserted into the core, and the nuclear chain reaction of the uranium stopped. At that point, the cooling system has to carry away the residual heat. The residual heat load is about 3% of the heat load under normal operating conditions.
The earthquake destroyed the external power supply of the nuclear reactor. That is one of the most serious accidents for a nuclear power plant, and accordingly, a "plant blackout" receives a lot of attention when designing backup systems. The power is needed to keep the coolant pumps working - since the power plant has been shut down, it cannot produce any electricity by itself any more.
Things were going well for an hour. One set of multiple sets of emergency diesel power generators kicked in and provided the electricity that was needed. Then the tsunami came, much bigger than people had expected when building the power plant (see above, factor 7). The tsunami took out all the multiple sets of backup diesel generators.
When designing a nuclear power plant, engineers follow a philosophy called "Defense in Depth". That means that you first build everything to withstand the worst catastrophe you can imagine, and then design the plant in such a way that it can still handle one system failure (that you thought could never happen) after the other. A tsunami taking out all backup power in one swift strike is such a scenario. The last line of defense is putting everything into the third containment (see above), which will keep everything - whatever the mess, control rods in or out, core molten or not - inside the reactor.
When the diesel generators were gone, the reactor operators switched to emergency battery power. The batteries were designed as one of the backups to the backups, to provide power for cooling the core for eight hours - and they did.
Within that eight hours, another power source had to be found and connected to the power plant: the power grid was down due to the earthquake, and the on-site diesel generators were destroyed by the tsunami, so mobile diesel generators were trucked in.
This is where things started to go seriously wrong. The external power generators could not be connected to the power plant (the plugs did not fit). So after the batteries ran out, the residual heat could not be carried away any more.
At this point the plant operators begin to follow emergency procedures that are in place for a "loss of cooling event". It is again a step along the "Depth in Defense" lines. The power to the cooling systems should never have failed completely, but it did, so they "retreat" to the next line of defense. All of this, however shocking it seems to us, is part of the day-to-day training you go through as an operator, right through to managing a core meltdown.
It was at this stage that people started to talk about core meltdown. Because at the end of the day, if cooling cannot be restored, the core will eventually melt (after hours or days), and the last line of defense, the core catcher and third containment, would come into play.
But the goal at this stage was to manage the core while it was heating up, and ensure that the first containment (the Zircaloy tubes that contain the nuclear fuel), as well as the second containment (our pressure cooker) remain intact and operational for as long as possible, to give the engineers time to fix the cooling systems.
Because cooling the core is such a big deal, the reactor has a number of cooling systems, each in multiple versions (the reactor water cleanup system, the decay heat removal, the reactor core isolation cooling, the standby liquid cooling system, and the emergency core cooling system). Which one failed when, or did not fail, is not clear at this point in time.
So imagine our pressure cooker on the stove, heat on low, but on. The operators use whatever cooling system capacity they have to get rid of as much heat as possible, but the pressure starts building up. The priority now is to maintain integrity of the first containment (keep temperature of the fuel rods below 2200°C), as well as the second containment, the pressure cooker. In order to maintain the integrity of the pressure cooker (the second containment), the pressure has to be released from time to time. Because the ability to do that in an emergency is so important, the reactor has eleven pressure release valves. The operators now started venting steam from time to time to control the pressure. The temperature at this stage was about 550°C.
This is when the reports about "radiation leakage" starting coming in. I believe I explained above why venting the steam is theoretically the same as releasing radiation into the environment, but why it was and is not dangerous. The radioactive nitrogen as well as the noble gases do not pose a threat to human health.
At some stage during this venting, the explosion occurred. The explosion took place outside of the third containment (our "last line of defense"), and the reactor building. Remember that the reactor building has no function in keeping the radioactivity contained. It is not entirely clear yet what has happened, but this is the likely scenario: The operators decided to vent the steam from the pressure vessel not directly into the environment, but into the space between the third containment and the reactor building (to give the radioactivity in the steam more time to subside). The problem is that at the high temperatures that the core had reached at this stage, water molecules can "disassociate" into oxygen and hydrogen - an explosive mixture. And it did explode, outside the third containment, damaging the reactor building around. It was that sort of explosion, but inside the pressure vessel (because it was badly designed and not managed properly by the operators) that led to the explosion of Chernobyl. This was never a risk at Fukushima. The problem of hydrogen-oxygen formation is one of the biggies when you design a power plant (if you are not Soviet, that is), so the reactor is built and operated in a way that this cannot happen inside the containment. It happened outside - which was not intended but a recognized possible scenario, and OK, because it did not pose a risk for the containment.
So the pressure was under control, as steam was vented. Now, if you keep boiling your pot, the problem is that the water level will keep falling and falling. The core is covered by several meters of water in order to allow for some time to pass (hours, days) before it gets exposed. Once the rods start to be exposed at the top, the exposed parts will reach the critical temperature of 2200 °C after about 45 minutes. This is when the first containment, the Zircaloy tube, would fail.
And this started to happen. The cooling could not be restored before there was some (very limited, but still) damage to the casing of some of the fuel. The nuclear material itself was still intact, but the surrounding Zircaloy shell had started melting. What happened now is that some of the byproducts of the uranium decay - radioactive cesium and iodine - started to mix with the steam. The big problem, uranium, was still under control, because the uranium oxide rods were good until 3000 °C. It is confirmed that a very small amount of cesium and iodine was measured in the steam that was released into the atmosphere.
It seems this was the "go signal" for a major plan B. The small amounts of cesium that were measured told the operators that the first containment on one of the rods somewhere was about to fail. Plan A had been to restore one of the regular cooling systems to the core; why that failed is unclear. One plausible explanation is that the tsunami also took away and/or polluted all the clean water needed for the regular cooling systems.
The water used in the cooling system is very clean, demineralized (like distilled) water. The reason to use pure water is the above mentioned activation by the neutrons from the uranium: pure water does not get activated much, so stays practically radiation-free. Dirt or salt in the water will absorb the neutrons more quickly, becoming more radioactive. This has no effect whatsoever on the core - it does not care what it is cooled by. But it makes life more difficult for the operators and mechanics when they have to deal with activated (i.e., slightly radioactive) water.
But plan A had failed - cooling systems down or additional clean water unavailable - so plan B came into effect. This is what it looks like happened:
In order to prevent a core meltdown, the operators started to use sea water to cool the core. I am not quite sure if they flooded our pressure cooker with it (the second containment), or if they flooded the third containment, immersing the pressure cooker. But that is not relevant for us.
The point is that the nuclear fuel has now been cooled down. Because the chain reaction has been stopped a long time ago, there is only very little residual heat being produced now. The large amount of cooling water that has been used is sufficient to take up that heat. Because it is a lot of water, the core does not produce sufficient heat any more to produce any significant pressure. Also, boric acid has been added to the seawater. Boric acid acts as a "liquid control rod". Whatever decay is still going on, the boron will capture the neutrons and further speed up the cooling down of the core.
The plant came close to a core meltdown. Here is the worst-case scenario that was avoided: If the seawater could not have been used for treatment, the operators would have continued to vent the water steam to avoid pressure buildup. The third containment would then have been completely sealed to allow the core meltdown to happen without releasing radioactive material. After the meltdown, there would have been a waiting period for the intermediate radioactive materials to decay inside the reactor, and for all the radioactive particles to settle on surfaces inside the containment. The cooling system would have been restored eventually, and the molten core cooled to a manageable temperature. The containment would have been cleaned up on the inside. Then the messy job of removing the molten core from the containment would have begun, packing the (now solid again) fuel bit by bit into transportation containers to be shipped to processing plants. Depending on the damage, the block of the plant would then either be repaired or dismantled.
Now, where does that leave us?
1 Shaker Jenny is herself a nuclear engineer, so this has the Seal of the Truly Informed on it. :)
X-posted at my own blog, Twice Immigrant
