[color=#FF0000]Moderator Note[/color]: Post split from [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/current-news-and-info-on-post-quake-nuclear-problems/63631/16
And another good argument against the building of nuclear power plants…
Not really … just a sign that safety measures were not taken or bad maintenance of safety systems … auto shut down, off grid power (back-up) didn’t work sufficiently …
Not really … just a sign that safety measures were not taken or bad maintenance of safety systems … auto shut down, off grid power (back-up) didn’t work sufficiently …[/quote]
Let’s argue while nature is busy putting us into our place - industrialisation has gone way off what is sustainable and safe as humans have been trying to outsmart nature (melting down nuclear power plants are just one small part of the problem). We are part of nature, however, and we can’t change the laws that govern our reality - human-made chemicals dumped into the air and water, human-made radioacticity leaking into the biosphere, human-induced burning up of large amounts of coal and oil, top soil depletion and desertification world wide, human-caused deforestation, overpopulation - things are going to get worse as the shit hitting the fan rains back on us. A natural disaster shows up all the cracks in the system…
Hmmm- so statistically, rooftop solar panels may be more deadly per unit of energy produced than nuclear power plants- who am I to questions the stats. The author, however, is claiming that Chernobyl is safer than rooftop solar panels, which is a nonsensical statement and kind of makes me want to disregard the article completely.
Take good care installing your rooftop solar panel, don’t do it when you are drunk or high, and you will be fine. Any deaths that occur when installing a solar panel are due to human error and lack of care and attention, rather than the inherent risks in solar power.
You also might care to read some articles about the health risks of living close to a nuclear power station. For instance, the increase risk of cancers for people living close to Sellafield processing plant in the UK. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Cancer_risks
I sympathize with the comment concerning spoons and cutlery - but i’ll leave that aside for moment and look at the presented argument, which reminds me of this one that i’ve heard many years ago: in terms of drowning deaths, the by far most commonly implicated substance is water, so let us eliminate that from our lives. 
And, by the way, per km (or mile) of distance traveled, cars are much more deadly than planes, as someone else has shown. And on it goes: useless statistics (= lies couched in figures) can convince the insufficiently educated of almost anything. Not considering that the presented statistical data only narrowly looks at an assumed death rate (what are the sources for those data, anyway?) and does not consider that the harm coming from nuclear fallout is in a completely different category than the harm derived from someone falling off a roof. But i am not surprised about such statistics: i know that there are people who put financial profits before the well-being of humans and the rest of the ecosystem, and it suits their agenda to make up lies of that sort.
Now i am glad we don’t have to challenge your arguments any longer since you have completely dismantled your credibility with the above. 
Though the stats comparing historical deaths between solar power and nuclear power are interesting enough, I think what is more pertinent at the moment is any stats comparing deaths resulting from a solar power catastrophe and a nuclear power catastrophe, because that has been what we’ve been most concerned about at the moment.
I used to work at a plant that processed radium and uranium, decontamination and dismantling of the buildings and surroundings.
I worked with and moved around depleted uranium, sludge (the left-over ‘waste’ from the depleting process) … changed huge banks of purifying filters (radio-active) monthly, that kept the buildings in negative pressure … etc. Been twice inside a total body counter … measuring the total radiation my body has had during my work in the facility …
Radiation has no panicking effect on me … although it’s dangerous … and we should be careful …
Thanks for all your helpful info, Belgian Pie.
It sounds like it will be mostly contained in that area of Japan. While I feel for them, the world will go on.
To say the least.
These reactors are done. kaput.
water purity is to a nuclear reactor vessel as air purity is to a class 10,000 white room. Although, to be fair, you can always clean a white room. A nuclear reactor has a little problem of ‘insanely high radiation’ to deal with! LOCAs (Loss Of Coolant Accidents) almost always spell the end for a reactor.
From a person who considers himself an expert in the field of nuclear power and nuclear recycling, I find this accident to be the true test of a modern reactor failure. Unfortunately the layman likes to point to Chernobyl when arguing the danger of nuclear power, but in fact the comparison is not accurate and not fair to an industry that boasts the safest operating record of any industry in the world. Chernobyl was a reckless and catastrophic failure of a very poorly designed soviet nuclear reactor. Not only was there no secondery or tertiary containment systems, the reactor was engineered ‘fail-deadly’ where the failure of the system snowballed into a deadly explosion.
I am adamently pro-solar, pro-wind, and pro-alt , but, our world is fueled in Terawatts, a number so high that alternatives just don’t have the capacity nor the ability to supply. Our worlds population is scheduled to reach 10 billion people over the next 40 years, solar panels and wind turbines are great, but expensive, and only available to the richest and most capable. In the USA, all small scale solar is simply a luxury of the rich and/or determined environmentalist. Without government subsidy, none of it is fiscally competitive.
Nuclear power is the only clean energy source that has the ability to produce the Terawatt quantities of energy with a near zero carbon footprint and a safety record that makes all other significant energy sources look like death traps. Many of the power plants in the world are aging and considered to be Generation 1 type BWR’s and PWR’s. Nuclear engineeres and designers are up to Generation 4 or 5 now, seeing almost none of their designs built due to a combination of cheap fossil fuels and irrational public fear about safety.
What is happening in Japan is as close to a worse case scenario as it gets. All of the failures that have led to this are the fault of Japan , this includes the corporations, the engineers, the designers and the government regulators. when you engineer something, you need to take into account all possible natural phenomenon and all possible variables that could trigger a failure. A LOCA is the single most dangerous accident that can occur in a nuclear reactor, and as far as I’m concerned, this event has been a disappointment, but, in their defense, even things that are engineered well do fail, the key in this situation is that they, so far, have ‘failed safe’. From what I have read, the ‘fail safe’ approach has worked, releases of slightly radioactive steam to the surrounding environment is not good, but the health hazard is marginal at best. I’d also like to commend the engineers, operators, and personnel (all civilians) who have stayed in place to stymie the disaster. This commitment to duty is the reason that most nuclear power plants are staffed by ex-nuclear navy personnel. These workers are being exposed to irregularly high levels of radiation, all in an effort to protect the surrounding public.
[quote=“YuLi”]I sympathize with the comment concerning spoons and cutlery - but I’ll leave that aside for moment and look at the presented argument, which reminds me of this one that I’ve heard many years ago: in terms of drowning deaths, the by far most commonly implicated substance is water, so let us eliminate that from our lives. And, by the way, per km (or mile) of distance traveled, cars are much more deadly than planes, as someone else has shown. And on it goes: useless statistics (= lies couched in figures) can convince the insufficiently educated of almost anything. Not considering that the presented statistical data only narrowly looks at an assumed death rate (what are the sources for those data, anyway?) and does not consider that the harm coming from nuclear fallout is in a completely different category than the harm derived from someone falling off a roof. But I am not surprised about such statistics: I know that there are people who put financial profits before the well-being of humans and the rest of the ecosystem, and it suits their agenda to make up lies of that sort.
[quote]achdizzy1099 wrote:
Scared? I’m only scared of human ignorance. Even if all 5 reactors melted down and their radioactive contents strewn to the environment, You (and me) here in Taiwan would be just fine.[/quote]
Now I am glad we don’t have to challenge your arguments any longer since you have completely dismantled your credibility with the above. [/quote]
There are no lies in these statistics. Nuclear power is the safest form of energy production, bar none. Airplanes are the safest form of long distance travel, and yes, 10 times more people are killed by falling coconuts each year than in shark attacks. These are facts to help us asses risk.
My point in all of this, besides my adamant pro-nuclear stance, is that sensationalism and fear of ‘catastrophe’ has caused my home country to abandon this clean form of energy in exchange for coal, oil, and NG. The latter three kill hundreds of people each year in their direct pursuit (mining, oil rig explosions, refinery explosions), pollute the environment with toxins that cause cancer and other diseases and pollute our natural beauty (oil spills, smog, soot, mine runoff). While science repeatedly produces reports almost unarguable linking our ‘smoke stack’ carbon emissions to human deaths, these are accepted because there is no ‘catastrophe’ to link to it.
I never stand by and keep quiet when so may numb-skulls try to propagate the fallacy that Chernobyl was an ‘epic’ catastrophe of the 20th century. I point out that fewer people have died both during and since this event than just one year’s worth of coal mining casualties. Significant radiation levels from the Chernobyl event were only spread a few hundred miles northward and westward of the site, and no one talks about exposure concerns beyond eastern Poland and some other neighboring Northeast Europe Soviet satellites. The truth is that humans and other animals have tremendous natural mechanisms for dealing with radiation exposure, and because of this, the true damage from the Chernobyl event has not been in deaths by radiation, but rather death from carbon carbon contamination.
To summerize my stance:
STOP BEING SCARED!
fear drives illogical reason, and behind all fear is a puppet master looking to profit on your insecurity. This argument applies to so much more than just energy debate, but the title of the thread is “Are you scared…?” I’m here to tell you that everything you think you’re scared of with regards to nuclear power is really just a red herring for the real danger, that carbon stuff that is slowly culminating into a global disaster. For this, you have my permission to be scared!
[quote=“reefdiver”]
[quote]achdizzy1099 wrote:
For starters this event is no where near a Chernobyl type disaster. Second, the reactor is 2000km away from Taiwan.[/quote]
Countries much further away than 2,000 km from Chernobyl were affected by the disaster.[/quote]
Radiation from any nuclear event is typically measurable all over the world. I mentioned in an earlier post that we still are exposed to legacy contamination from the atmospheric nuclear tests during the Cold War. For Chernobyl though, areas of reasonable concern regarding contamination are quite close to the reactor site. Sure the wind carried traces of core material westward, but the extent of the risk was marginal and no one considers it to have ‘endangered’ the population.
[quote=“reefdiver”]
Hmmm- so statistically, rooftop solar panels may be more deadly per unit of energy produced than nuclear power plants- who am I to questions the stats. The author, however, is claiming that Chernobyl is safer than rooftop solar panels, which is a nonsensical statement and kind of makes me want to disregard the article completely.
Take good care installing your rooftop solar panel, don’t do it when you are drunk or high, and you will be fine. Any deaths that occur when installing a solar panel are due to human error and lack of care and attention, rather than the inherent risks in solar power. [/quote]
I don’t understand how you can dismiss statistics about death? The article is doing the same thing i am trying to do, get people like you to stop focusing on sensationalism and look at the facts. Nuclear power is so safe that 10 times more people die in the solar power industry trying to bring you the same unit of energy than that of the nuclear industry. Your assessment of safety is based on irrational fear of ‘catastrophe’ that has been pushed quite well by those making money burning carbon.
I prefer to stay annonymous, but I can assure that nuclear energy is my field of expertise and I am well aware of the poor environmental records linked to Sellafield, Hanford, Oak Ridge, Rocky Flats and Savanah River Site (to name a few). Radiation is dangerous. ‘Haste Makes Waste’ applies quite well in all of these facilities. It is not fair to compare the reckless disregard various countries’ military used during the Cold War arms race to the safety and caution used in modern nuclear power and the ANFC. There has been significant radiation leakage at all of these sites mentioned, all of it was reckless and done in the name of Cold War fear. Much has been done to make things right in these cases. It should not be used as a ‘nail in the coffin’ for nuclear technology that so many try to insist.
If you think Sellafield or Hanford were bad, check out what the russians did at their nuclear facilities. Chelyabinsk-65 Seversk Krasnoyarsk
T
Great post, Archdizzy.
I agree with most of Archidizzy’s points, but there are problems with nuclear energy that need to be addressed; that is, of course, the waste. The only expert I met was a retired Hanford scientist (I’m from Washington) and he said we don’t understand what is going on with the waste. I wish I could go into more detail, but I’m not a physicist/chemist.
This is not a matter of statistics it’s a matter of irreversible damage done to the environment. How many people died because of Chernobyl is unknown. How many people still have to die because of it is unknown as well.
If you are not scared feel free to move to Fukushima. The real estate will be very affordable now.
On TV some kind of expert said a CT scan will be a 100 times more radiation.
If someone can not grasp the difference between, a temporary exposure to radiation and the contamination with radioactive substances, he/she should go an clean windows instead.
When your body absorbs radioactive substances, they will stay there and emit, in the direct surroundings of a few millimeter, a 100 times the radiation of a CT scan and this for many years.
Also, the type of radiation will include alfa, beta, and gamma rays. The gamma rays can’t even penetrate a newspaper but can blind you.
Nuclear power is madness and nothing else. It’s there to keep the power production centralized so big cooperations can keep their power over the human race.
This is not a matter of statistics it’s a matter of irreversible damage done to the environment. How many people died because of Chernobyl is unknown. How many people still have to die because of it is unknown as well.
If you are not scared feel free to move to Fukushima. The real estate will be very affordable now.
On TV some kind of expert said a CT scan will be a 100 times more radiation.
If someone can not grasp the difference between, a temporary exposure to radiation and the contamination with radioactive substances, he/she should go an clean windows instead.
When your body absorbs radioactive substances, they will stay there and emit, in the direct surroundings of a few millimeter, a 100 times the radiation of a CT scan and this for many years.
Also, the type of radiation will include alfa, beta, and gamma rays. The gamma rays can’t even penetrate a newspaper but can blind you.
Nuclear power is madness and nothing else. It’s there to keep the power production centralized so big cooperations can keep their power over the human race.[/quote]
I think the best way to get your point across is to give us some reliable sources. Stuff published by respected scholars, not websites or environmentalist magazines.
This is not a matter of statistics it’s a matter of irreversible damage done to the environment. How many people died because of Chernobyl is unknown. How many people still have to die because of it is unknown as well.
If you are not scared feel free to move to Fukushima. The real estate will be very affordable now.
On TV some kind of expert said a CT scan will be a 100 times more radiation.
If someone can not grasp the difference between, a temporary exposure to radiation and the contamination with radioactive substances, he/she should go an clean windows instead.
When your body absorbs radioactive substances, they will stay there and emit, in the direct surroundings of a few millimeter, a 100 times the radiation of a CT scan and this for many years.
Also, the type of radiation will include alfa, beta, and gamma rays. The gamma rays can’t even penetrate a newspaper but can blind you.
Nuclear power is madness and nothing else. It’s there to keep the power production centralized so big cooperations can keep their power over the human race.[/quote]
I think the best way to get your point across is to give us some reliable sources. Stuff published by respected scholars, not websites or environmentalist magazines.[/quote]
I can’t find any scholars right now to make my point. I only did one experiment myself.
Two subjects
A: turned on a 500w light source and read the newspaper
B: turned on a50w light bulb and chewed on it then swallowed it.
A is fine and had no damage.
B broke one of his teeth and most importantly burned his tongue.
“Modern humans” will have to learn to live with less energy.
Except that the proof that it is “clean energy” cannot be delivered until many 100,000 years into the future.
That is an unprovable assertion, in spite of the statistics - to prove that point you would have to include the unknowable future: nuclear energy systems produce radioactive waste, and the safe storage of that waste not only requires a lot of planning - this has been and is being done - but the implementation of, and adherence to, that planning for hundreds of thousands of years - and that is a totally unrealistic assumption, thus all that logic falls on its face for lack of a realistic foundation.
You are overstating this point: fear is a natural reaction that helps sentient beings avoid danger. That fear is sometimes being exploited is unfortunately true, in that you are correct. But humans have been and are still taking the unmeasurable risk of introducing ever-growing amounts of nuclear material into the biosphere, and it is perfectly natural/ reasonable/ logical to be afraid of the possible consequences of these actions. Nuclear material is by its very nature anti-life, and it does not belong into the biosphere.
About Cherbobyl:
While you are unable to prove the assertion that “no one considers it to have endangered” anybody, i can prove the opposite.
Because they are not taking into account all the necessary facts - in fact, they can’t, since specifically in regards to nuclear energy, many facts (including everything related to the future of nuclear waste) are not known (unknowable).
Conflicts and arms races are rather the norm than the exception for our species, so how can anybody sanely assume that nuclear waste will be safeguarded for hundreds of thousands of years? Those projections into the future are based on nothing more than wishful thinking, and all your statistics and all talk about “safety” and “clean energy” is like the proverbial hot air. You don’t need to be specialist to recognize THAT.
I haven’t thought much about this issue, but…Achdizzy1099 post was one-sided and far too simple. His use of stats isn’t compelling, either.The posts about radiation exposure just don’t make any sense. I suppose I should go wash windows 
Yuli, as always, brought up some interesting and convincing ideas. Personally, I don’t think the solution is so black and white, though, as nuclear plants are used all over the world. Short-term goals should be aimed at how to reduce the risk of potential nuclear disasters, including issues with waste. Ideological debates won’t get us anywhere. Right now, though, I’m just worried about the people in Japan and other affected areas.
Here’s a link to a decent article. It’s still hard to tell anything from it, though. edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiap … .reactors/
From that information it would look like the Onagawa spokesperson is the one trying to cover something up…
The questions remain: Why should i trust those who operate nuclear power plants? Why should i trust those who tell me nuclear energy is safe?
[quote=“Chuanzao El Ale Destroyer”]This article, from Scientific American, made me feel better.
scientificamerican.com/artic … ore&page=2[/quote]
UM…It said the design is a lot more fragile than TMI (Three Mile Island, I assume, though a bloody scientist shouldn’t be using locally undefined acronyms in this context)
i.e. Its not as good as Three Mile Island.
Three Mile Island. The one that suffered a partial core meltdown. On a sunny, non-seismic, tsunami-free day.
He then said it would probably suffer a core meltdown, and if it did, the containment would very probably fail.
Can you give an example of something that would have made you feel worse?
For calibration purposes.
I guess people need something to panic about every once in awhile.
the Nuclear threat doesn’t concern me at all right now but I’ll continue to watch it. All of the containment structures are intact according to the latest news and imo they are being overly cautious (and rightly so) with what is reported as a last ditch effort (a poor choice of words imo) to cool the reactors. My biggest concern is still the initial damage and devastation the earthquake and tsunami caused.
[quote=“Abacus”]I guess people need something to panic about every once in awhile.
[/quote]
I don’t think I feel a need to panic, in fact, in common with most of humanity, I have difficulty overcoming my myopic inertia, denial and apathy.
But if I did feel a need to panic, multiple melting nuclear reactors would fulfill that need admirably.