Been mulling this over for much of the night. This morning there doesn't seem to be much more factual info to factor in. The newspapers are full of inept attempts by reporters to correlate info that they're not familiar with (not surprising) and if the situation wasn't so potentially tragic it would be very amusing.

Some have already pointed out above that this "accident in process" cannot repeat what happened to the Chernobyl reactor in 1986 and they are correct. The key differences include at Chernobyl the use of charcoal bricks to moderate the fission process and the lack of a containment vessel. When Chernobyl experienced meltdown and there was a hydrogen explosion the charcoal caught fire and its smoke was the source of a highly radioactive plume that spread worldwide for days. If there had been a containment vessel and a containment dome such as we have in nuclear plants in the States it's possible that a whole lot less radiation would have escaped into the environment; some would still have had to be released as pressure built up in the dome, as was done at Three Mile Island after its partial meltdown in 1979.

By the way one CNN "expert" last evening claimed that the malfunctioning Three Mile Island reactor was repaired and brought back on line. No, that never happened. Unit 2 was too badly damaged and contaminated to resume operations. It's sister Unit 1 however continued to operate.

Evidently the reactor containment vessel is still intact at Fukushima, despite the destruction of the building surrounding it during the spectacular hydrogen explosion yesterday morning, or so it's claimed by the nuclear industry spokesmen in Japan.

I'll be very surprised if there is not a second hydrogen explosion soon at one of the two other reactors in the Fukushima complex that were experiencing the same kind of cooling pump failure as the unit whose building exploded, unless the Japanese are more successful with auxiliary generators on-site to reactivate the cooling pumps.

No one knows how successful pumping saltwater in and around the reactor containment vessel will be, which is supposed to be happening now at Unit 1. That's never been tried before. One wonders what they plan to do with the huge volume of radioactive waste water created, other than pour it back into the sea...not to mention the clouds of radioactive steam created...

No one really knows what will happen if the fuel rods at Unit 1 do completely melt down. In the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, the melt ate its way through the reactor containment vessel, swirled around the floor, and then ate its way back in! Not many people ever read the follow-up report that was published a year later. It seems unlikely that the melt would behave like a critical mass highly compressed in a bomb's containment, which also needs to be triggered by an explosion to achieve its classic nuclear explosion. That's the good news in what will be a very troubling 24 hours.

Oh, and there is the other nearby Fukushima complex where some of the reactors are also experiencing similar loss of coolant problems. Again, too much to focus on. I need more coffee.

Oh, and with regard to iodide tablets. The time to take them to protect your thyroid is before you are exposed to radioactive iodide, not after. That way the thyroid will no longer have the capacity to absorb the radioactive iodide. It's also true that too much non-radioactive iodide can make you very ill. Check on-line for the proper dosage.

Charley Noble