Sue contributed a link to an informative article about Japan’s Radiation Emergency Medical Assistance Team. My pride requires me to highlight this:

“When they went there, they were very much surprised because there was no electricity, no water supply,”

They weren’t the only ones. The REMAT had more of a WORMy view than a TEPCO one. How can you lack power and coolant at a nuke plant and not scream bloody murder 24/7? My mind still boggles.

The radiation damage so far?

…the worker received only a modest dose of radiation, as did three workers who were later exposed to contaminated water. Akashi says that for his staff, Fukushima has actually been a relatively minor incident. The team has seen much worse at radiation accidents in Thailand and Panama

Those three workers are almost certainly the “beta burn” folks. The ones who ignored their radiation alarms to keep working, remember. Thanks for a most interesting report, Sue.

And midwest bill finds the Fox report on a “potential” criticality event. The quotes are there because 1) my poor poor eyes couldn’t resolve the concern, 2) audio is messed up on both the computer and the networked T.V.–which will get a look  mañana.

Given 1) and 2), then there must be 3) wait, what?!  We’re seriously discussing flashing Cherenkov radiation?  In a fission reactor? 

First and foremost, criticality is not necessary for the “blue light special”.  Check out those Wiki pics, seriously.  Wait, here:

I’ve seen lots of Cherenkov during fuel offloading.  It’s gorgeous.  These pictures doesn’t do it justice.  And it was from beta decay, not fission.  By definition, we don’t continue to run the reactors during “outages”.  Nor would I care to work such a job. 

Let’s consider “flashing” Cherenkov as a study in optics, first.  Beta decay Cherenkov is emerging from unstill water, reflecting off surfaces in some cadence of the water’s movement, finally emerging from within roiling steam and vapor.   Those of you who can actually see what’s going on, is that possible? 

Because if a heap of fissile materials within unpressurized water is undergoing a successive series of massive supercriticalities…a whole lot of other crap would be going on.  Stuff that, IMHO, would be hard to miss.  Punctuated bursts–if not explosions–of steam leaps to mind.  

Yes, of course I consider the possibility that maybe the fuel isn’t underwater.  While producing pulses of Cherenkov light.  From fission.

That’s one to reject out of hand.  The possibility of an optical illusion that gives residual underwater Cherenkov the appearance of flashing, we’ll keep in mind.

That some poor forgotten Blue Flashy Light Thingee is signaling for help, let’s not discount.

Oh, P.S–Charlie added a comment over there.  Did the Fox journalist really use the word “fusion”?

If so, we should definitely wait for someone with more authority to chime in. 

Perhaps Snooki.