"Hail Mary Pass"

Mar 14th 2011 10:42am CST
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From The NY Times:

"Experts called the injection of seawater and neutron-absorbing boron into the site's three crippled reactors units a desperation move never attempted before in the industry. 


It amounted to sacrificing the reactors in an attempt to maintain the structural integrity of the reactor and its encasing concrete containment structure and prevent a potential uncontrolled major radiological release. Three other Fukushima Daiichi reactors had been shut down for planned work before Friday's 8.9 earthquake and were not part of the crisis.

"I would describe this measure as a Hail Mary Pass but if they succeed, there is plenty of water in the ocean and if they have the capability to pump this water in the necessary volume and at the necessary rates ... then they can stabilize the reactor," said former Energy Department official Robert Alvarez, according to press accounts of his press conference Saturday."

The End Of A Paradigm

Feb 2nd, 2011

Thomas Friedman is in Israel. From the NY Times:

"I'm meeting with a retired general at a Tel Aviv hotel. As I take my seat, he begins the conversation with: “Well, everything we thought for the last 30 years is no longer relevant."

That pretty much sums up the disorienting sense of shock and awe that the popular uprising in Egypt has inflicted on the psyche of Israel’s establishment. The peace treaty with a stable Egypt was the unspoken foundation for every geopolitical and economic policy in Israel for the last 35 years, and now it’s gone. It’s as if Americans suddenly woke up and found both Mexico and Canada plunged into turmoil on the same day.

"Everything that once anchored our world is now unmoored," remarked Mark Heller, a Tel Aviv University strategist. "And it is happening right at a moment when nuclearization of the region hangs in the air."