You are on the money. I appreciate that you are helping to inform the confused. The only thing that should be added is that although all melt downs are serious the severity varies greatly from incident to incident. Chernoble meltdown was armageddon causing damage a thousand miles away, in contrast, the one near me at 3 mile island was very limited and caused very little to no damage outside the plant.

Nuclear business is a serious business with lots of dirty risks even though it looks very clean most of the time.

Radio isotopes are very valuable for medical diagnostics and cancer treatment and also for various kind of Radiography.

Millions of these radioactive sources are produced as by product even in very small reactor. Fuel reprocessing thus has such multiple range out come.

Not everywhere such disasters are expected. However if they happen as there is a chance for it to happen then obviously such accidents look very dirty and cause serious problem for years to come.

Nuclear power is a show of strength. Many countries like to have it and even risk war with big nations.

It is not simple to understand why some nation is bent on having nuclear power while they have abundant of other natural resources. Perhaps both Government and people are crazy in such countries and wastage of power is just enormous.

Thorium is a fast breeder reactor fuel. It is first a blanket material and then real fuel.

Lets make certain we keep things in perspective. Some "expert" on the TV stated that if you ate the contaminated spinach every day for one year, it would be the equivalent to having 10 X-rays. So this contamination is on a continuous scale and they really do not know that there is a specific break point where it is dangerous to the body. They just do everything possible to keep it extremely low and so far that is true for everyone except those workers struggling within the plant. They are really, most likely, giving any longevity they might have had over to resolving the issue. Great people!

"Meltdown" is a term that is poorly defined as the media uses it. The media reports almost seem designed to cause panic in the public, and the word "meltdown" got caught up in that.

Radiation detection on the west coast is in the same category--media hype. Their "radiation detected" seems to mean anything, even just barely above background. The radiation levels in Japan, outside the plant, are quite low. The limits are set so low that it is easy to exceed them! The USA does not have to worry at all.

How does "cold fusion" enter the picture; it seems to me to be totally unrelated.

Radiation outside may look low but Radioactivity may enter body through food chain or by inhaling and can deposit in bone and tissue and can become serious thing as only 1 micro gram inhaled activity of Plutonium is at best permissible for the body in entire life time. Closer the radiation source is greater damage it can do. Inside the body it is going to be the worst kind.

People were seen cooking food on the road and perhaps they may be getting contaminated food also. Canned food that was packed of on earlier date should be OK. picking agriculture or milk from live stock is bad. I think contamination is very limited as it has not caused any serious international alarm yet. Radiological people were seen scanning people for Radiation contamination so they are doing their job properly. They are not leaving things to chances as people are picking material from scrap all over.

I think more problem is that they have no place in which they can immediately move in all these affected people and give them shelter, food, and care for sanitation. They are all in the open now.

Please check out the site: www.hiroshimasymdrome.com/fukushima-accident-updates.html.

It reports (March 20 update) that contaminated crops are no problem at all. First, the contamination is extremely low level. Second, it is an extremely fine (invisible) dust externally deposited on the crops, and can simply be washed off.

Radioactive nuclides dissolved in water is also so low level that drinking it will cause no problem. However, the contaminated water can be put through filters to easily remove the contamination.

Fine radioactive dust?

If washed off then it goes into soil and water and again in food chain. As I said only micro grams level are critical and these water and soil contamination going to be problem. How serious is the problem will be known after we get some data. Short lived isotopes will nearly disappear in few weeks.

"Meltdown" is that term whcih defines the critical point separating our insatiable quest for unlimited energy from our inherent fear of being held accountable for our desires.

Meltdown was quite deadly in the mid-20th century. Despite politically-motivated attempts to forestall future meltdowns, sadly, neither engineering nor science could find a way to do anything but enhance the potential for the destruction caused by future meltdowns.

Then, there was the nuke...

Just kidding? Fission was FatBoy; fusion is the H-bomb, triggered by fission, but only limited once initiated by what, cooling ponds, control rods, or CO2 injection? Experts aside, fission is nuclear child's play, and "meltdown" is essentially an attitude problem in the sandbox society therein.

Be forewarned.

BUT before losing sleep over the latest eMail/web/iPhone/WFTE report of a "plume" - before betting the farm on the latest eMailed ameliorations thereof - please see the "clarification" at http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/fallout.asp and either sleep-tight or wring your hands, your choice.

Would cold fusion be an approach to controlling this "situation?" What situation had you in mind, that of unlimited demand for energy consumption within the constraint of infallible safety of enery production? Do you mean that implausible situation?

Or could you mean the "situation" of millions of humans in what had just weeks ago been an advanced civilization, now displaced, hungry, cold, fearful, disconnected for probably the first time in their lives from any other lives than those they could only see and thus become, what - frightened and somehow "meltdown" disconnected - all because of an earthquake and a tsunami which also incidentally affected some nuclear power plants?

To which do you refer? Which meltdown elicits your immediate concern?

1. Are you warm, fed, sheltered, electrified - yeah, well, maybe electrified is obvious but my point might not be only because of my own inability to beseech you to LISTEN UP?

2. Or is it the meltdown disproving "modern" society's presumption of unlimited consumption with minimal consequence that concerns you?

Cold fusion, my posterior orifice. Once perfected, there will be an extra-galactical glitch that dooms that "solution" to, well, whatever...

Be an OPTIMIST.

Think "glass half full."

Shop only the best sales; drink bottled water; turn on the lights when you get home; put out the trash but make sure to call in the cat; click on the tube but NEVER, no not EVER, CONSIDER WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE TO DO IF you had to consider what was meant by the sorry little phrase "melt-down."

Think nothing of it. THINK NOTHING OF meteors, ELE's, my God, what if...

I hope that you are referring to Seabrook power plant in NH. I toured it the day before fueling started. In general I was very impressed by the redundant safety features and the integrity of construction. The piping supports were all designed for extreme earth quake conditionds (I lived in NH for a decade and never heard of an earthquake past or present). The wall penetrations were also as safe as humanly possible. Since I am an engineer and have specified these types of things for industrial and commercial buildings I was impressed by how far these were beyond anything that I have ever seen before. I believe that I was informed that the building could withstand the impact of the largest existing commercial jet as well as the fastest military fighter plane. I was saddened that the PSNH had to go banckrupt to build it, purly because of the Boston lawyers to make a killing opposing its construction. I still believe that no new reactors were built after this not because of 3 Mile Island, but beacuse of what lawyers did here.

The unit I worked at was Waterford 3. It doesn't have the usual cooling towers you see at most plants becuase they use water from the Mississipi river for cooling.

I worked for the engineering management company and had the opportunity to see all units. I was also impressed by all the safety features and this was over 25 years ago. I can't help but think that since then, as techonology has advanced, that some of the original systems have been upgraded to current standards.