Nuclear Disaster in Slow Motion

If past nuclear disasters (Three Mile Island and Chernobyl) are any guide, we should expect this news story to be unfolding and changing for weeks, months, even years.

A couple of observations in comparison to those past disasters:

1)  It will likely take weeks or even months to get these reactors into a stable, unchanging state (say, no more risk of explosion, for example).  The latest news stories say that workers have to abandon the most damaged reactor.  If radiation levels are that high, there will not be any safe way for anyone to approach to implement containment, repair, or additional emergency measures.  Will helicopter tankers be brought in?  Other extreme measures?  In any case, there aren't any quick fixes for the conditions that have developed.

2) If there is a breach of containment and a large radiation release, we'll all be watching the plume travel around the world for weeks.  The fallout plume from Chernobyl traveled around the world in a few weeks, leaving radioactive cesium-137 and other isotopes everywhere.  The amounts were minimal in most places, but measurable, and they caused mass anxiety, to say the least.  I still don't see the radiation releases in this case getting to be as bad as Chernobyl, but even at the current levels, we'll be hearing about the fallout reaching the US...

3) It will likely be years before the full extent of the damage is known and understood.  In the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, it took until 1986 until a meltdown was actually confirmed.  It took that long to safely enter the reactor core with a remote-operated camera to actually figure it out.  Things have advanced a lot since then, but we may not have a straight answer on the status of these reactor cores for a long time.

So, get ready for the long haul!  Yikes.