Japan (catch all)

[anonamatic]

I think it's probably a wise precaution. Unlike the hysteria surrounding potential CONUS fallout, there is some sense to this. The Japanese 12 mile evacuation zone is too damned small, and both the power company and their government are not performing very well dealing with these problems. Having dealt directly with the Japanese government, this does not surprise me any. Weaseling, misdirection, and lying are pretty much their normal way of doing business. This can be seen both in the track record of the power company, and the constant state of near failure their government operates under. Those are their results, not my opinions. They're likely to keep having a lot of meetings, and keep doing too little.

The odds that there will be a meltdown of sufficient temperatures that the resultant gases reach superheated temperatures are extremely low, to the point of not being a very credible scenario. That is what it would take to generate dry particulate matter in the upper reaches of the atmosphere that could in turn potentially generate trans-oceanic fallout. Those sorts of temperatures are usually only achieved via a nuclear detonation.

Radioactive particulate matter escaping right now, and potentially in the future is doing so carried in steam. It's already wet, it's not dry matter, and it's heavy matter too. These are complex heavy molecules that are already wet, and are more than less likely to attract further condensation. Which means that it's very unlikely that they're going to dry out, magically float higher, and cause the easily paniced masses on the US west coast any trouble.

It does however mean that there's some serious potential for toxic ground fog to develop, and localized toxic rainfall. I say localized because even caught up in a rain storm, these are the first things that get rained out, not the last. Rain storms are cyclical, think about those thunderstorm models every weather report you've ever seen trot out during the summer. Storms are constantly replentishing themselves, until they lose sources of moisture, lose energy, lose material that acts to facilitate condensation, and stop. In this case, the steam acts as a comparatively low level (compared to the `we just poured out a cup of the Sun' levels of heat) gas in the atmosphere, and the particulate matter acts to seed condensation. This is material that wants to sink. Since it's primarily in steam, or in steamy smoke, it loses it's thermal energy very quickly. So the threat is localized, it will stay local, and none of the surrounding countries are at any great risk at this point. Some of the modeling that's out there in the press right now is based off of figures & data related to nuclear detonations, not comparatively cold and wet smoldering fires. These are obviously flawed models, but it's an easy communications based mistake to make when someone is asking you what would happen if the radioactive material did get that high, and not how would it get there, or if it was even possible.

However, people in Japan are, and if we're going to help, it makes a heck of a lot of sense to free servicemembers up to only have to worry about themselves, their own safety, and their mission. If I had family within 300 miles of those plants, I would evacuate them.

All of what I've said is my own opinion, and I'd certainly welcome any data based contradictions to it. I want to see these problems solved, and I don't want to contribute to the witless fear mongering that's pervading the press. I might remind SmallWars readers that you all are all too familiar with just how much the press is full of crap. This instance is no different than the litany of profit driven narrative lying that you've already become quite sadly used to seeing.