Sometimes a Pictures tells a thousand words as I documented in my Prior Diary
http://www.dailykos.com/...
sometimes a movie tells a million
So Here are a few clips to explain what's going on.
When it's all working fine, a Nuclear reactor is a complex balanced dynamically unstable device. Use control Rods to moderate flux, Boiling water at 1000 PSI, pumps, turbines, chemistry management. Failure of any one component can knock it all down but when it's good it's sort of like this
and the trained operators and managers are like that guy on Ed Sullivan. Getting it all together, making it amazing.
Now being the Japanese, they have to stop it up. They want to step it up. They want to have 6 reactors, and double dense fuel pools and a large common fuel pools and
it's sort of like this
But then you have a Richter 9 quake and a 7 meter Tsunami and Wow
and now it's a lot more like this
Everything that is happening is kind of like the Bozo the Clown Show now. Only every time a plate falls, some more radiation is spilled.
More after the break.
But then Something Happens.
http://www.jaif.or.jp/...
Water is being injected to the reactor vessel at Unit-1, given the situation that the pressure is high inside the reactor pressure vessel. TEPCO decided to decrease injection volume based on its analysis that pressure inside the containment vessel increased as a result of increasing injection volume to the reactor vessel. Core cooling function has been enhanced at Unit-1 since March 23 after the core temperature exceeded design value of 302℃ and reached almost 400℃. (11:30, March 24)