Why did the nuclear reactors at japan explode?

Scammon Bay

As the title states. Why did they explode?



Williamstown

The problem is they haven't exploded. The liberal media and the eco freaks have been promising us for about 2 weeks the reactors were going to explode and kill millions of people and poison the ground for millions of years. If they don't explode soon I will begin to suspect the liberal media and the eco freaks are lying to us, AGAIN. Remember when they promised us the 3 Mile Island reactor would explode, kill millions, and poison the ground for millions of years? That is all they talked about for weeks. Well, it never explode. The ground wasn't poisoned and no one was killed. Heck, no one was even seriously injured. The workers inside the plant who got the most exposure to radiation received less radiation than you get from a CAT scan or flying from New York to LA. They promised us Chernobyl would explode, kill millions and poison the ground for millions of years. It never did explode, but there was some radiation leakage. According to the experts worse case scenario was that less than 4,000 people would die from cancer caused by the radiation. And only a few years later it was safe for people to move back into the area. I expect better out of the Japanese. With all their technology surely they can get their nuclear reactor to explode. If it doesn't I will on no occasion buy another Japanese bodily structure motor car. That'll inculcate them to tease us.



Bellefonte

The Fukushima power plants didn't explode (in the atomic bomb sense--actually no nuclear power plant can do this). Some of the six did vent hydrogen (hydrogen is created when the fuel is exposed to air and overheats) from the containment vessels and the hydrogen exploded damaging the buildings' outer walls. The outer walls are not part of the containment system. This is different from Chernobyl where the poor reactor design didn't allow venting and when the pressure built up, cracked the containment vessels so the hydrogen exploded inside the containment vessels and spread nuclear fuel around the area (See the chart link below for the relative amount of radiation).If anything, the situation shows how safe nuclear power is. Consider that forty year old plants were hit with an earthquake five times the strength they were designed for and yet they still shut down safely. The generators came on like they were supposed to when grid power was cut. Then the tsunami hit and the generators were wiped out. However, the battery backup still worked for the designed eight hours. The problem happened when no new generators could be put in. Even so the problems have been minimal--media scare mongering for ratings not withstanding. Here is an informative article describing the situation:http://bravenewclimate. com/2011/03/13/fu…And here is where you find current, factual status information:http://www. iaea. org/newscenter/news/tsun…And here is a chart that helps make sense of the numbers:http://www. xkcd. com/radiation/