On Photograph editing and Nuclear Accidents

Set about completing the selection and editing of the photographs that I took at Mr Thrussel's business, Siga Electronics, on Wednesday, despite it being a Saturday. This on account of travelling to London tomorrow,to assist two travellers from Germany on their visit to the International Food and Drink Exhibition.

The labour was not onerous but did consume much time in the repeated cycles of selecting, cropping, contrast optimisation and fine tuning of the saturation of individual colours in each of the 120 images. Wrote a short article expounding the diversity of applications and locations of Mr Thrussel's company's products.

Was alarmed to hear that there had been an explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi 1 power plant after the Tsunami. The British Broadcasting Corporation reporters making much of the potential for dire consequences. However, upon researching nuclear accidents on the World Wide Web, I came upon a very informed article by the World Nuclear Association (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html) on the safety of such reactors.

It revealed that the danger posed by Western Nuclear Power Plant accidents is far less than propounded. There are several levels of physical containment; even when a meltdown occurs, it tends to self contain the radioactive material in the molten sludge. With the notorious Three Mile Island accident, the meltdown by a full half of the core proceeded a mere 15mm towards China, rather than tunneling through the centre of the earth as feared in the so called "China Syndrome". For those doommongers crying "Chernoby!", they should note that the old Russian reactors lacked the level of containment utilised in the West; this allowing the explosive distribution of radioactive contamination.

As the day progressed, the lesser hazard appeared to fit the Fukushima Daiichi 1 accident. However, the hacks were now directing their attention to a second reactor where cooling has also failed.

This was out of all proportion, compared to the emerging news that one small Japanese estuarine town, Minamisanriku, had literally disappeared from the face of the Earth and 10000 people were missing. A true tragedy.

Milton basked in balmy sunshine today, in marked contrast to the unfortunate Scots who, in the far North, are struggling with blizzards and snowdrifts.