what do you think will happen to the nuclear plant in Japan, should we worry?

Question: what do you think will happen to the nuclear plant in Japan, should we worry?
- Keywords:
  explode,
  japan,
  nuclear,
  plant,
  worry
Asked by jas1 to Mark, David, Luna, Melanie, Probash on 18 Mar 2011 in Categories: Your Research. This question was also asked by mmsp, artielovesmatt, virtnack, fireexit234, gaangstaas, samandalfie, coreyanddaz, dr1ft3r, theknightsthatsayni.
- Mark Vesey answered on 16 Mar 2011:
  
  At the moment I’m not sure anyone knows exactly what will happen and I’m not really in a position to comment as Sellafield Ltd don’t operate nuclear reactors – our tasks focus on nuclear decommissioning and reprocessing. A lot of people are doing their very best to make sure the best possible outcome can be achieved. The situation is very complicated and, as with most things in science, trying to comment on something or predict what will happen without all the facts and evidence is almost impossible, only those at the site have the full picture and even the reports in the news can’t convey exactly what is happening at a high level of technical detail.
  
  Unfortunately worrying never really helps anything – the situation is out of our control but is with those best qualified to deal with it, so hope for a safe outcome and hope that the people of Japan will overcome the almost incomprehensible situation they now face as a result of the earthquake, Tsunami and current problems with the Nuclear reactors.
- Luna Munoz answered on 16 Mar 2011:
  
  I’m not too worried, but I’ll let the other scientists address this question.
- David Pyle answered on 17 Mar 2011:
  
  We should certainly keep a close eye on it, but I still think that even the worst case scenario will not approach what happened at Chernobyl 25 years ago. At Chernobyl, the graphite core caught fire, and was responsible for lofting a huge plume of radioactivity high into the atmosphere. The Japanese reactor design is apparently quite different, so that even in the case of ‘meltdown’ most of the radioactive materials should not be dispersed into the atmosphere, but should sink into a deeper part of the ‘containment’ system. The other thing to note is that prevailing winds tend to blow across the Pacific ocean, so that as long as the radioactive steam plumes remain small, the threat to the region immediately outside the exclusion zone is also small.
- Melanie Stefan answered on 18 Mar 2011:
  
  The worst seems to be over and it looks like the situation is under control now. Fingers crossed!