Japan nuclear reactors?

Ottawa

Why can't we just throw a giant ice cube in there. I mean, it's gunna melt, but the water will still be cold. And cool down the reactor.



Moorhead

It's an interesting idea, although the ice would melt very quickly the water may remain cool long enough for more sea-water pumped into it. Or liquid nitrogen being dumped on the reactors is another interesting idea. But it would take a lot regardless, everything that can be done is being done and with the United States and South Korea both sending help to neutralize the threat there would most likely be no need for a massive block of ice. But again, very interesting idea.



Hickory Valley

I think you can actually cause problems by cooling it down too quickly. One of the concerns with chernobyl was that the nuclear magma from the molten reactor core would come in contact with ground water. If that had happened it would have contaminated the ground water over a large area. There was also roughly a 10% chance that the direct contact with water would cause a nuclear chain reaction and turn most of Europe into a nuclear fallout zone (uninhabitable). Reactor cores have a lot more stuff in them than the Hiroshima bomb did. A nuclear chain reaction in a nuclear plant is absolutely devastating. Chernobyl was a mox reactor, which means that it has plutonium and uranium in its core. Mox reactors can produce more energy and pollution if they leak. Reactors generally don't leak and most if not all reactors are designed a lot better than Chernobyl was. We learned a lot from that disaster. btw. anyone who tells you only 50 people died from chernobyl is either wrong or lieing. No one knows exactly how many people died because of Chernobyl but I've seen figures as high as 1 million. The original soviet report said 50, but that was a lie. It could have been a lot worse. The Soviets that gave their lives to prevent the worst case from happening are heroes. Some are still alive, but none of them are uneffected from the high levels of radiation they were exposed to. All this said, we know a lot about how to deal with nuclear power plant disasters. Chernobyl would have turned the world into a much different place if we didn't. The soviets dropped sandbags, boric acid and lead on the magma to contain the contamination. They dug out a section under the power plant and filled it with concrete to prevent the magma from entering the water supply. They built a sarcophagus around the plant to reduce how much radiation escaped the plant into the atmosphere.



Lakeview North

They are doing something similar to that. However the water instantly turns to steam faster than they can put more water in.



Germantown

Tell me where you are gonna find a giant 500 ton block of ice that can be transported 5,000+miles across the ocean. It would take A LOT of ice to cool down a massive atomic reactor.



Westwood

5000 degrees ice would last 10 seconds



Pearisburg

nah that wont work, you need more like a giant slurpee to cool that down.



Brookfield

not that easy



Waldo

http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=CD2LRROpph0



Amazonia

um....how is that possible. i know ur trying to help but we have to think more realisticly.