Japan Meltdown

I've been wanting to ask this of someone who knows. The reactor design was that the cooling system would run off the power from the external grid except in emergency when it would run off emergency batteries and then the diesel generators were supposed to kick in. Only problem, the generators got swamped by the  tsunami - leading to this crisis.

Seems like stupid design to me. Why couldn't the design include power for the cooling be run straight from power generated by the core? plenty of power there - just tap a little for cooling.

I mean, I guess GE never predicted this particular catastrophic scenario, but they were still stupid to not include maximal redundancy.

The reactors went into emergency shutdown when the quake hit.

I'm not sure if any energy can be drawn from them then.

I believe the emergency generators kicked in, then were ruined by the tsunami.

Had the generators been placed high instead of low--atop the reactor structures for example-- then the cooling systems could have maintained the reactors as per design.

At least this is what I have gleaned from reading the various reports.

In 6 months, we will start hearing how nuclear energy is completely safe again and the proliferation will continue. The power of the almighty corporate dollar controls. All we can do is sit back and wait to become victims. Three Mile Island, Cherynobil and now Japan.

son