Breaking News - Nuclear power plant exploded

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20110312/twl-japan-confirms-nuclear-plant-explosi-41f21e0.html

And there are still more of them in danger of meltdown:DOH:

 

Holy mackerell. That is not good. Not good at all. Let's hope we don't have another Chernobyl.

 

They are saying the reactor is not damaged, but they still can't cool it.

 

That implies that they can't shut it down. If I remember my school days correctly, there are two things that control the temperature of a nuclear reactor. One is the rate of the reaction, which is controlled by placing boron rods in between the fuel rods, thus slowing the reaction, the other is the coolant. If they can't get coolant round it quickly enough, they should shut the reactor down by lowering the boron rods. When Chernobyl went up in smoke, the problem they had was that they couldn't shut the reactor down because they couldn't insert the boron rods due to a component failure. Newer reactors have a failsafe, whereby it takes energy to hold the control rods out of the way, so cutting power completely to that circuit just makes them fall into place. I guess it really depends on the age of the design of the reactor, but if its 40 years old the chances are it doesn't have the latest failsafes. Lets hope they get it under control. Chernobyl seems like a distant memory now, but for those in the region it is still a major issue to this day. A vast area has been declared unsafe due to radiation levels, and there are still kids being born with all sorts of problems due to radiation poisoning of their parents, not to mention all the lives lost at the time.