Riedquat

That is not at all clear, and the readings do not suggest that (at least not the ones I've heard about). As I've said all along, there's always the possibility that something might happen that'll result in that being the case, but it hasn't yet. There have been some reports of detections of one of the more problematic caesium isotopes, but widepsread and at dangerous levels? Not that I've heard, so I'm interested to know what you think makes it's so clear. People may well not return but that'll be because they don't want to live near a nuclear power station that's wrecked itself, in an area that's been devastated by a tsunami, not because the land is too badly contaminated.

What they said was that the additional heat from various byproducts of the fission process has largely gone after 10 days as they've mostly decayed by then. I don't recall anyone saying that used fuel is kept in cooled pools just for something to look at. But after 10 days or so the heat situation is much less critical (everything else being equal). The chances of meltdown are vastly reduced, so what they were saying is that if it could all be kept safe until then the cooling problem would be much reduced. What happened is that it couldn't be kept safe until then. Not spent fuel, but the heat from lumps of plutonium has been used as a power source, most notably in spacecraft sent into the outer solar system (solar panels get too ineffective when you go much further out than Mars). I think the USSR in particular also used them on land to power remote equipment.

No idea, I just know that distilled water is used in nuclear reactors. It's not unimaginable that having something else in the water might be useful in the current situation, but that's a complete guess.

Distilled water is usually used because it only gets very slightly activated itself by high levels of radioactivity (primarily from neutron bombardment I think).

Starting to wobble due to the reluctant landlord (who admittedly I've got a good deal from) wanting to sell, and I don't want to keep moving (I'd have to move at least once; I couldn't afford the place I'm renting at the price he's likely to ask for it, or even at the price he's likely to sell it for at the moment).

As long as they don't only want people who's knowledge of methods and technology is somewhat more recent than Victorian... Some of the places I've been in go as far back as Elizabethan, and quite impressive considering (a tunnel that's a few hundred yards long to reach an open area underground where space for a 20' diameter water wheel was dug out, for example). I know a couple of people who have worked in Australian mines, and it doesn't sound like a bad thing to do for a couple of years.

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What mines? I'd quite like to work down the mines (well, not coal mines, I find lead / copper / etc. much more interesting). As it is I have to resort to poking around disused ones, sometimes working unpaid to dig through falls and prop them back up. The only working mine (now closed) I've ever been in was an iron mine, and an absolutely fascininating place if you don't mind coming out orange.

It sounds like water got inside their protective clothing. That sounds like a bit of a cockup. Hope they recover.

First thing you've said that I agree with. But it's just government doing its job there - make sure that the wealthy don't lose any of it.

Who said anything about actually wanting to? It just wouldn't bother me to live there any more than anywhere else picked at random, once everything is back fully under control. The main reason I wouldn't want to is, as I said, because I don't want to move half way around the world. If you can't manage a comment without an insult then don't bother making one at all.

No, because as I said I've no desire whatsoever to move sticks to the other side of the world anyway, so I wouldn't take that bet if it was for living somewhere really nice where no-one is trying to say that there's any risk. I'm certainly not going to turn my life around for 5 grand.

Yep, I seem to be the only one who doesn't get why people are so keen to blow out of proportion anything when radiation is involved. The one sensible thing you've said is that it's not all over, and is still critical (it just hasn't changed enough for the media to keep interest; they even seem to have started getting bored with Libya now). It still has the potential to go very nasty. But if it does not, and things get no worse than they currently are, I would happily put money on it being perfectly safe to live in the evacuated area in a year's time, if not sooner, and would be happy to live there myself if it wasn't for the fact I've no interest in upping sticks to the other side of the world anyway. As for bad or worse than Chernobyl? Get a grip.

Real world? What, the one where the land isn't deadly to set foot on for the next few tens of thousands of years? None of those things you have posted suggest long-term contamination, which is what we were discussing. They principally concentrate on iodine, which usually seems to mean I-131 in this context, which is definitely worth avoiding but decays to harmlessness in a timescale of weeks (half life 8 days). Also, you've posted a whole load of mostly "Government says...", never the best source for an objective assessment of the situation. Tell me why something is a thing to worry about, without resorting to an almost random "it could mean..." The only one in your list that I find particularly bothering is the smoke.

There aren't any simple comparisons you can make, so I wouldn't, and base what I think upon all the information I've heard, not just "explosions at a nuclear power station."

There not being widespread high levels of contamination from dangerous isotopes is not "mere theory". It is not sensible to make such a direct comparison between the two simply because they are both explosions in nuclear power stations. That's gross over-simplification.

Ah, so it's as simple as "An explosion at one nuclear power station in the past had that effect therefore any other explosion (no matter what exploded where, and no matter what differences there are in the design of the power stations) is similar and will have a similar effect." That's about as sensible as knowing that people have died in car crashes and assuming that there'll be a corpse in a car in a ditch. I'd somehow managed to miss that. Not good.

No. What evidence is there at all of sufficient contamination from long-lived isotopes to prevent return? You're assuming a worse-case scenario without any reason to do so.

And that prevents them from returning home how, exactly? It does if there's been dangerous contamination of the surrounding area from sufficiently long-lived isotopes. Has there been? Are you taking into account the particulars of this situation, or simply sticking to a "nuclear accident == permanently (to all intents and purposes) uninhabitable" without looking at the facts? You might be right but at present there's no evidence to suggest that you are.

I thought the only confirmed death was a crane operator, and that was as a direct result of the quake. I agree with you on the total energy extraction process. Deaths per kwH seems to be the sensible way of comparing the direct risk, and permament displacement per kwH would be a useful statistic too. The problem is that large-impact but infrequent events don't add up to giving very reliable statistics unless they come from a technology that's been established and unchanged for a very long time (i.e. so there have been enough events despite the infrequency).

I've not heard anything to suggest that they stand little chance of ever returning home.

Because the economic disaster is a necessary step in fixing the problems. It would ultimately be beneficial. Even if there wasn't, so what? For some things going badly wrong looks quite likely, for others it doesn't. Being a doomsayer is sometimes the rational position. Er, no. Nowhere have I once suggested that. Or do you say that because I'm not over-cautious to the point of paranoia? I never complain about government transparency or otherwise because they're never a source of information I take particular heed of. I prefer to listen to people where there's some evidence that they actually know what they're talking about.

And where's the evidence that they have been covering anything up? Do you seriously think that the water supply has had a little bit of contamination in it from day 1? Situations change, you know. You're exactly the type who seems to look forward to any bad news with glee.

Slash and burn business at its finest.

Leaders often do, but I'm not sure if that's fair towards the experts. Experts tend to get rounded on for describing things as they currently are, and by a press that can't grasp the idea that saying "X is most likely to happen" isn't the same as "X will happen," and that knowing something isn't the same as knowing everything, which unfortunately gets those who know nothing going. Also, try looking at what they actually say instead of how the media interprets what they say.