General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This Fukushima Steam- are there any good sources? [View all]RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Y'know when you go outside when it's cold and you can see your breath? That is technically: water vapor. Sometimes you don't see it. Yep, sometimes there is so little water vapor in the air that your breath just gets absorbed. Poof! When the air is saturated with water vapor, your breath does not get rapidly absorbed and you can see it.
Ok, that's your water vapor lesson.
Now, Tepco has admitted to steam/water vapor rising from #3. It has been rising all along, but the atmosphere absorbed most of it before the camera could see it rising. I have seen it rising many times on the cam.
Why it is steaming so much? The melted core. It melted back in 3/11 and is still hot, still melting. When water gets close the water turns into vapor and if the air is just right it creates clouds of vapor. Usually it is very hard to see the vapor. Usually.
As to the story that "Fukushima could blow any minute!!" Well, it could. Nobody really knows what will happen. Heck, not everyone even knows what did happen. The only people coming up with what DID happen are all nuclear pros who Tepco hasn't gotten to yet.
Some might even show up and trash me for the quote above: "Fukushima could blow any minute".. Readers will note that 3 years ago those same people were pretty much the same who were saying "Nukes are totally safe. They can't blow up. Except for the dumb Russian reactors, hahaha". So, take their trash talk with a grain of salt. But not Fukushima plutonium salt, I hope. That stuff will kill you.
So..... nothing has changed much except that there are more people than ever looking at Fukushima. Just recently, Japan let the US take some kind of official role. What that role is no one is sure. But our Secretary of Energy, recently appointed by Obama, went over there and told them, and us, and everyone, in no uncertain terms: "This is an international crisis". So, finally we are in and on the case. That is one reason I think that Tepco issued their mea culpa: Steam is rising.
Tepco steam Link, in Japanese, get bing to translate:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu-news/2013/1233248_5304.html