Over the past several days, it seems like there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation being floated regarding what's happening with the troubled nuclear Fukushima nuclear plants in Japan. As developments warrant, I'll try to clarify things a bit, in as non-technical terms as possible.
By way of credentialing myself, I'm an Institute for Nuclear Power Operations-certified systems engineer in GE Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs), and worked for over 20 years in the industry with a large architect engineering (A/E) firm and an electric company with a nuclear portfolio. I've worked directly at four BWR plants, including one similar to the Fukushima plants. Ok, with that out of the way...
Disclaimer - Information being released by the plant owner (Tokyo Electric Power Company), the Japanese government oversight agency (NISA), reactor design company (GE Hitachi) has been scant. I assume this is because they're busy trying to gain control of a bad situation.
Having spent time in the industry, and having been exposed to the public relations apparatus of the industry, I have very little faith in the limited information that is being released. The bottom line: take everything you read or hear about the events at the Fukushima plants with a grain of salt. There is a lot of anecdotal information that leads to some obvious conclusions, but there is very little hard data that allows even someone with my experience to fully understand what's going on. If someone on TV says the reactor core is melting out of the bottom of the reactor vessel, don't believe them. If someone on TV says there are flowers blooming and everything's peachy in the nuclear world, don't believe them, either. More after the jump.