Three years since that incident in Japan, there's this:
To be precise, three reactors had outright meltdowns or, more correctly, melt-throughs. One, Reactor No. 4, broke beyond repair and posed further catastrophe. Two others simply stopped dead. Within hours, one of the melt-throughs exploded, spewing lethal radioactive waste into the air, soil, underground water veins and, steadily, into the Pacific. Some eighteen thousand and five hundred souls died that cold March day. Many of the dead remain missing even now.
Nice juxtaposition there. Nuke plants broken, 18500 people dead. 'Course, the body count where actual nuclear power plants were involved was, if memory, serves, one: a worker hit by falling debris.
Onward!
Why were the spent rods—so many of them—stored on top of the reactors? Who at General Electric was responsible for that design innovation? Was it conceived for expediency, to save money, or from an attitude of utter hubris against the force of nature?
Or maybe... just maybe... the short-term storage pools were placed right next to the top of the reactor (where the used fuel comes out) to minimize handling and exposure of fresh, high-level waste...? Nah. Too implausible. Must be some nefarious reason.
During all that time, invisible odorless particles with unspeakable consequences have been descending over the region every time rain or snow falls.
ZOMG! Radioactive COOTIES! Wait, is this the H. P. Lovecraft memorial writing competition?
Man! This whole thing needs a righteous fisking by someone who really speaks nuke power and isn't trying to eat his lunch. Maybe I'll refer it to the W.O.R.M.
Update: W.O.R.M. sighting!
Afterthought: Hoover doesn't usally publish stuff that sucks like this. I think that's normally left to the Electrolux Foundation.
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