RobertEarl,
Because you are not a scientist, and don't know the scientific truth; you "think" that Arnie was correct.
However, real scientists that know the Physics know that Arnie was "blowing smoke". Arnie has been wrong at every turn as FBaggins has also said. Arnie told us that the Unit 3 spent fuel pool had to be empty, because he said the explosion started at the bottom of the empty pool and the vertical walls of the pool were what channeled the debris upwards to form the stem of the mushroom cloud.
That's just PLAIN WRONG. We now have the pictures courtesy of FBaggins, and they show fuel assemblies anchored in their docks, and that they are submerged in water. NONE of that is consistent with what Arnie stated. He said we had a dry pool with disassembled fuel assemblies so that the individual fuel cylinders were exposed. He said that dry pool was full of hydrogen, the hydrogen exploded, the hydrogen explosion imploded those exposed fuel cylinders, that caused a nuclear explosion, the nuclear explosion was focused by the vertical sides of the empty pool to cause the stem of the mushroom cloud.
ALL that is Arnie Gundersen's claims; and ALL of it, 100% is WRONG. We have the evidence in that picture.
Do you know real science when you hear / see it? The stuff that Arnie stated, that I paraphrased above is not science. It's ALL WRONG.
As the pro-nukes have explained, the plant lost power due to the tsunami taking out the backup diesel generators and their fuel tanks. The core overheated due to lack of cooling. When that happens the zirconium that makes up the tubes that contain the uranium-dioxide ceramic fuel pellets overheats and oxidizes in the presence of water. The hot zirconium literally "steals" the oxygen atom from the water molecule to make zirconium oxide. When you take the oxygen atom away from the water molecule, H2O; that leaves H2, hydrogen gas. The operators were venting the coolant system to the boxy reactor building, and from there outside via those tall exhaust stacks. However, because of the hydrogen being produced in the core by the oxidation of zirconium; that hydrogen built up to explosive levels in the boxy reactor building. A spark from a closing electric switch or something ignited the hydrogen in that building and you got an explosion. That explosion blew mostly structural material, with some radioactive material that was vented to the building with the hydrogen. However, most of the radioactive releases came from venting the reactor coolant system to the atmosphere.
That explains everything scientifically, the explosion, and the fallout that CTBTO analyzed.
The core is probably in a similar state to the Three Mile Island core, and we got a good look at that about 3 years after the accident. It remains to be seen how anxious the Japanese are to get in there.
If you have any remaining questions, just ask, and I can give you the correct scientific answer, and not the garbage that comes from Arnie.
PamW
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