Massive earthquake smashes Japan, Sony and other developers offer updates

[SvennoJ]

Khuutra said:

SvennoJ said:

No the damage is mostly due to the tsunami which reached inland in a couple of places. Most of the earthquake damage is near the epicenter. Friends of ours do have a lot of mess to clean up inside but the building is fine. The news just shows the worst over and over again.

The rest of the country has plenty of problems though, all harbors on the east coast are likely wiped out, electricity is falling out and food and fuel supplies are getting low.

One thing I don't get is why would a country that has a very painful experience with nucleair fallout and a long history of massive earthquakes build a nucleair reactor near a populated area?

Why would any country anyway, Canada has one near Toronto. Why not put those things somewhere where nobody lives.

Support, maintenance, and energy transferance are going to be a lot easier when the reactor is closer to where people live - at least, I imagine that's the case.

Yup that's my guess too, in the end money is more important. Hydro-electric dams can be build in remote areas, just as geothermal power plants. But it's cheaper to be closer to exisiting infrastructure when you have a choice. Although if it was in a remote area it might have been a lot more difficult to send in emergency cooling equipment. (yet those should be on site if money was not a factor)

I found this an interesting read of the subject, it takes a long time to 'turn off' a reactor. http://theenergycollective.com/nathantemple/53384/how-shutdown-and-core-cooling-japanese-reactors-likely-functions