Nuclear Power: Viable energy or not after the Japanese disaster?

[Charlie_Phillips]

[quote=“llary”]Here is an excellent write-up and analysis from scientifically minded writers. If you can’t be bothered reading it the premise is that this latest incident is not an example of nuclear danger but a triumph of modern engineering that has kept an incredibly powerful energy source under control despite a natural disaster far beyond design limits.

I am pro nuclear power and it’s very sad that this amazing technology is more frightening to many people than driving without seatbelts or chewing binlang.[/quote]

Perhaps you haven’t bothered to read the article and based your premise on the first page. I read the whole article and his statements towards the end show that he’s a complete tool.

Examples:

The three worst affected will cost more to put right than the other ones, having been cooled with the backup-backup seawater system and lost their roofs, but the process of sorting them out will not be a lot more onerous than a normal periodic refuelling.

It has been acknowledged since the desperate seawater pumping started that the reactors are now a complete right-off and will never become re-operable.

Another thing the weekend reporters have missed was the fact that all but tiny traces of the airborne radionuclides (from the salt in the seawater coolant) were disappearing before they could even cross the street

The US Navy has just pulled the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan away after detecting radiation 100 miles out to sea.

Other workers have been injured by the hydrogen explosions and the quake/tsunami, and one killed in a crane accident, but quite frankly being a nuclear powerplant worker at Fukushima has been pretty safe compared to just being an ordinary citizen in quake-hit Japan.

It would be bad taste for me to ad a laugh my ass off icon at this point.

Keep reading the article you linked: it gets even worse.

Where’s the ostrich with his head in the sand icon???

[llary]

@Charlie Phillips

The US Navy has just pulled the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan away after detecting radiation 100 miles out to sea.

So what? If your neighbour pulls his washing in because it looks a bit cloudy it doesn’t mean there’s a typhoon coming.

Other workers have been injured by the hydrogen explosions and the quake/tsunami, and one killed in a crane accident, but quite frankly being a nuclear powerplant worker at Fukushima has been pretty safe compared to just being an ordinary citizen in quake-hit Japan.

@Charlie Phillips

It would be bad taste for me to ad a laugh my ass off icon at this point.

Please tell me exactly where the comedy is in that factually correct statement.

[Charlie_Phillips]

@llary

[quote=“Charlie Phillips”]The US Navy has just pulled the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan away after detecting radiation 100 miles out to sea.

So what? If your neighbour pulls his washing in because it looks a bit cloudy it doesn’t mean there’s a typhoon coming.[/quote]

You favorite correspondent wrote that radiation won’t even get across the street. That’s a pretty wide street.

@llary

Other workers have been injured by the hydrogen explosions and the quake/tsunami, and one killed in a crane accident, but quite frankly being a nuclear powerplant worker at Fukushima has been pretty safe compared to just being an ordinary citizen in quake-hit Japan.

@Charlie Phillips

It would be bad taste for me to ad a laugh my ass off icon at this point.

@llary

Please tell me exactly where the comedy is in that factually correct statement.

It’s a fact that more people died in the general community from the quake/tsunami, but suggesting that makes the plant a pretty place safe to work is disingenuous at best.

11 workers were injured today and there have been injuries to plant workers for the last 3 days in a row.

[llary]

@Abacus

Imagine how much better the plants would have been if they had been using the newest technology instead of designs from the 60’s (before Chernobyl and 3 mile island provided additional lessons learned the hard way). The major design flaw that was exploited in this disaster was that backup power and the backup backup power were vulnerable (essentially wiped out) to the tsunami. I find it slightly surprising that this wasn’t considered after the 2004 tsunami.

I am not an expect in nuclear reactor operations but physics 101 and basic math tells us we are talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of gallons per minute required in coolant flow for an average sized reactor running at full power. For comparison a large fire truck can pump a few thousand gallons per minute so you would need a few hundred fire trucks emptying their tanks every 2 minutes to keep up the regular cooling requirements.

[llary]

@Charlie Phillips

You favorite correspondent wrote that radiation won’t even get across the street. That’s a pretty wide street.

thereg seems to understand that there are different types of radiation. I cannot find a single news article that discusses the detected radiation in any depth beyond ‘low level radiation’.

Hold on, I did find a military news site that described how extremely low radiation (what kind and exactly how low?) was only detected because the nuclear powered ship has very sensitive radiation monitoring equipment to detect any problems with the ship’s own reactor.

[Charlie_Phillips]

@llary

[quote=“Charlie Phillips”]You favorite correspondent wrote that radiation won’t even get across the street. That’s a pretty wide street.

thereg seems to understand that there are different types of radiation. I cannot find a single news article that discusses the detected radiation in any depth beyond ‘low level radiation’.

Hold on, I did find a military news site that described how extremely low radiation (what kind and exactly how low?) was only detected because the nuclear powered ship has very sensitive radiation monitoring equipment to detect any problems with the ship’s own reactor.[/quote]

I found a news site that says this:

[quote]“There is no nuclear accident or incident in the Japan’s Fukushima plants. It is a well planned emergency preparedness programme which the nuclear operators of the Tokyo Electric Power company are carrying out to contain the residual heat after the plants had an automatic shutdown following a major earthquake,” said S K Jain, the Chairman and Managing Director of Nuclear Power Corporation.[/quote] dailypioneer.com/324441/No-n … perts.html

Doesn’t give me much faith in ‘experts’ though.

[tommy525]

usatoday.com/money/industrie … call_N.htm

This disaster in Japan has the ability to make 3 mile island and chernobyl look like a walk in the park. And nobody is really sure what happens when the mass of fuel unites into one unstoppable mass. IF a huge steel vessel and an 8 foot thick containment structure can not stop it, what on earth can ? And it can take centuries for that mass to slowly decay and lose its heat. I really do not think that they know. I dont know, which is ok, but do we know that they know? I think we know that they dont know.

Im not scared that I dont know, but I sure am scared that they dont know .

OK enough already!

But… Where the flock is Urodacus !

[Ryan_the_third]

also an atomic bomb needs an extremely sophisticated charge around the core to work… its completely different (this is the reason why terrorists are mostly expected to use dirty bombs… because its easier for them to aquire some nuclear material and to strap it to some C4 than for them to actually get a complete high quality atomic bomb)
think meltdown: no explosive power but a shitload of radiation
high quality atomic bomb: huge explosive power and destruction but the better it is the smaller the amount of radiation left
dirty bomb is somewhere in between as its an explosion but this explosion mostly serves to spread the radiation.

sry for the crappy explanation and the bad english i am tired

[tommy525]

Yeah we are not talking bout an explosive bomb like an A bomb, but radiation polluting a big stretch of real estate and the fact that TOkyo is not that far away and that city has what 30 million people?

Lets take a moment to think about the people working at those plants to save us right now. Those people, some of them have actually died in the explosions must surely know they are going to die an early death even if they survive this incident. They are exposed to tremendous radioactivity.

There was a Russian reactor worker who became famous as a martyr because he did all he could to save Chernobyl and knew full well he was exposing himself to radiation that is going to kill him in short order.

Those few now risking their lives (perhaps even giving their lives) to save us are Huge Heros with balls of steel.

[Ducked]

[quote=“tommy525”]http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2011-03-14-japan-nuclear-crisis-a-wake-up-call_N.htm

I really do not think that they know. I don’t know, which is ok, but do we know that they know? I think we know that they dont know.[/quote]

I think we know they knew this shit could hit this fan.

We knew it too. It would be rather hard not to.

We have here a device that requires continuous, active, high volume cooling or it blows up/melts down/burns, (releasing a lot of radiation), even after its been correctly shut down. Same applies to its stored spent fuel.

You don’t have to be a nuclear physicist (in fact it probably helps if you’re not) to recognise that as inherently unsafe.

More specifically, these particular devices have been known for some time as especially shitty reactors. As that Scientific American article that the OP unaccountably found reassuring stated, their containment is weak and will not withstand a meltdown.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fukushima-core&page=

This one

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/14/nuclearpower-energy?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

quotes the US Atomic Energy Commission as stating “as early as 1972 that the General Electric reactors, which did away with the traditional large containment domes, were more vulnerable to explosion and more vulnerable to the release of radiation if a meltdown occurred.”

"The early warning about the reactor design was reinforced in 1986 when Harold Denton, then the top safety official at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), warned of a high risk of failure of the mark one containment system.

“Mark one containment, especially being smaller with lower design pressure, in spite of the suppression pool… you’ll find something like a 90% probability of that containment failing,”

They knew. We knew.

What did we do?

[spaint]

@tommy525

The problem HERE is that the fuel rods have melted at least partially into one big inseparable mass that is basically ALIVE. It has the ability to “eat through” the 4 to 8 feet of concrete floor in little time and basically it has in theory the ability to eat down to the earths core where it will join the magma.

Wow. All the way to the core!

[quote=“Ducked”]
They knew. We knew.

What did we do?[/quote]

Well, lobbyists and governments ensured that our greed for energy was fed by 40 year-old reactors and dirty coal, instead of allowing for the construction of cleaner, safer nuclear power plants.

[quote=“Icon”]
If you want toOK, ask yourselves the hard questions, taking, say, Chernobyl as reference [/quote]

No. I won’t take Chernobyl as a reference.

The first thing we heard about Chernobyl was radioactivity in Scandinavia. The Soviet government kept quiet and evacuations were slow and after-the-fact, unlike this pre-emptive evacuation. The reactor design used graphite as a cooling system, ensuring the radioactive ash could be spouted into the atmosphere… a million things were different about Chernobyl to this situation, and I still don’t think it’s time to panic like this.

If and when radioactive particles are spewed into the environment in a non-dispersed fashion, I’ll be lining up for iodine tablets with the rest of you.

[olm]

@spaint

The reactor design used graphite as a cooling system

Moderator, not cooling…

[spaint]

@olm

[quote=“spaint”]The reactor design used graphite as a cooling system

Moderator, not cooling…[/quote]

Thank you.

[Belgian_Pie]

Well, lobbyists and governments ensured that our greed for energy was fed by 40 year-old reactors and dirty coal, instead of allowing for the construction of cleaner, safer nuclear power plants.

Just call it greed … higher profits …

[StefanMuc]

@Icon

What was the circumference affected by the explosion at Chernobyl? What radius was left uninhabitable? Up to where was radiation a problem and for how long?

In 1986 they evacuated 30 km around Chernobyl, but that was extended later on. Today the size of the exclusion zone is 4.300 km².

Due to economic hardships some people have returned to the exclusion zone (probably not legally) it’s unclear how much they are affected by radiation since many are/were old people. In principle though the zone is still uninhabitable. There is a “zone 3” around the exclusion zone - there are definitely health effects, e.g. most children suffer from deficiencies of the immune system. For them allergies and lung infections are frequent, cancer rates don’t appear to be significantly higher. Apparently since the fall of the soviet union officials and scientists are very open about the effects of radiation in Chernobyl. They readily provide information, and access by foreign scientists is possible.

(Got all this from the German article on Wikipedia - it had a “good article in another language” mark.)

[nemesis]

I’m really worried about marine life in the North Pacific Ocean, as well. What happens to everything living there, especially as the radiation moves up the food chain? This is going to have profound effects, even if it doesn’t directly affect us here, and I suspect a lot will change. Worst of all, people will probably be more likely to use nonrenewable resources because they’ll decide that a couple of poorly managed nuclear plants means the lot are unsafe. Definitely we need to improve safety measures, but to eliminate nuclear power? Seems like overkill in my opinion.

[Hamletintaiwan]

@nemesis

Worst of all, people will probably be more likely to use nonrenewable resources because they’ll decide that a couple of poorly managed nuclear plants means the lot are unsafe. Definitely we need to improve safety measures, but to eliminate nuclear power? Seems like overkill in my opinion.

Since when is uranium a renewable resource?
Please explain.
I think I’ve got a lack of education on this matter.

[nemesis]

@Hamletintaiwan

[quote=“nemesis”]Worst of all, people will probably be more likely to use nonrenewable resources because they’ll decide that a couple of poorly managed nuclear plants means the lot are unsafe. Definitely we need to improve safety measures, but to eliminate nuclear power? Seems like overkill in my opinion.

Since when is uranium a renewable resource?
Please explain.
I think I’ve got a lack of education on this matter.[/quote]

It’s not, and I shouldn’t have implied that. Apologies. That being said, uranium is quite abundant and a little goes a long way, unlike our lovely stashes of fossil fuels, which tend to be reappropriated in the atmosphere, earthlings’ lungs and oil tycoons’ wallets. Nuclear energy is far from perfect, but in terms of carbon footprints, when properly managed, it’s preferable to traditional energy sources (namely the burning of fossil fuels), and until safer forms of natural energy can be harvested in more feasible amounts, it seems like the best option. Naturally, this is untrue if the carbon footprint is replaced by a lethal, radioactive glowing one. Just an opinion.

[Hamletintaiwan]

@nemesis

[quote=“Hamletintaiwan”][quote=“nemesis”]Worst of all, people will probably be more likely to use nonrenewable resources because they’ll decide that a couple of poorly managed nuclear plants means the lot are unsafe. Definitely we need to improve safety measures, but to eliminate nuclear power? Seems like overkill in my opinion.

Since when is uranium a renewable resource?
Please explain.
I think I’ve got a lack of education on this matter.[/quote]

It’s not, and I shouldn’t have implied that. Apologies. That being said, uranium is quite abundant and a little goes a long way, unlike our lovely stashes of fossil fuels, which tend to be reappropriated in the atmosphere, earthlings’ lungs and oil tycoons’ wallets. Nuclear energy is far from perfect, but in terms of carbon footprints, when properly managed, it’s preferable to traditional energy sources (namely the burning of fossil fuels), and until safer forms of natural energy can be harvested in more feasible amounts, it seems like the best option. Naturally, this is untrue if the carbon footprint is replaced by a lethal, radioactive glowing one. Just an opinion. [/quote]

The thing is that in Germany for example, the renewable energy is/was booming. Now the government of Merkel and co put the Nuclear lobby in direct confrontation with just that new emerging industry.
So communities that made investments into renewable energy, which is more expensive, are loosing money, hold back their plans, or completely drop it at all.
If you don’t replace the nuclear power-plants with renewable energy only, you are right.
Still, if you take all expenses including the storage of the radioactive waste products for many generations into account,
then nuclear power is not cheap and it’s a crime on future generations. Why should they have to take care of our garbage?

[achdizzy1099]

[quote=“Hamletintaiwan”]The thing is that in Germany for example, the renewable energy is/was booming. Now the government of Merkel and co put the Nuclear lobby in direct confrontation with just that new emerging industry.
So communities that made investments into renewable energy, which is more expensive, are losing money, hold back their plans, or completely drop it at all.
If you don’t replace the nuclear power-plants with renewable energy only, you are right.
Still, if you take all expenses including the storage of the radioactive waste products for many generations into account,
then nuclear power is not cheap and it’s a crime on future generations. Why should they have to take care of our garbage?[/quote]

This is the kind of ‘pussy footing’ attitude that has kept the carbon train a rollin’ for the past 40 years in my home country. America has 200 years worth of coal and god knows how much Natural Gas. Then there is the oil shale of Canada. With all those billionaires and their lobbyists in Washington, only a solid proven winner stands a chance to knock them from their thrown. But the ‘concern about the future’ has done nothing but allow billions of tons of CO2 and acidic gases to pollute our planet. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of the carbon soot that blankets my roof deck each month.

Humans are dead set on burning all the easy energy they can get their hands on an that is that. One of the many reasons I got out of the nuclear energy business; too damn depressing. The difference between what a modern reactor will look like and the dinosaurs that have half melted down in Japan is like comparing James Dean’s 55’ Porsche Spider to Fernando Alonso’s F-1 Ferrari. Sure they both had 4 wheels and an engine, but times have changed as have the technologies. The worst part is, if America isn’t burning all the easy and cheap oil, than some other country will, and probobly with less regard for air quailty and efficiency. a-hem China a hem

A true damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

T