Sensible Erection | Fukushima is a triumph for nuke power: Build more reactors now!

Monday, 14 March 2011

Fukushima is a triumph for nuke power: Build more reactors now!

quote [ Analysis Japan's nuclear powerplants have performed magnificently in the face of a disaster hugely greater than they were designed to withstand, remaining entirely safe throughout and sustaining only minor damage. The .... ]

I hate normal news....

Also a very interesting Global Warming seminar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbR0EPWgkEI&feature=player_embedded

and by very interesting I mean stuff you do not KNOW and should know

[by germanjulian@6:59pmGMT] [+10 Interesting]

Comments

maryyugo said @ 7:33pm GMT on 14th Mar
Seems to me that this story is still being written and any conclusions either way are at best premature. "Performed magnificently" may translate to "made a huge, incredibly dangerous and wildly expensive radioactive mess to clean up but thankfully (and probably barely) didn't contaminate and kill millions of people".

bruceski said @ 7:59pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
After an 8.9 earthquake one of the 55 reactors had problems shutting down, and so far there are still failsafes in place. While it is the nature of the media to only look at bad things, unless people start dying I'm inclined to say "performed magnificently" is an accurate statement. I do agree that they should get the thing cooled down before they start throwing it around, though.

v0idmagus said @ 8:26pm GMT on 14th Mar
performed magnificently in this case means graceful degradation, which is fucking awesome.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:32pm GMT on 14th Mar
ProTip: If you turn on "No Disasters" mode, the 50-year-old power plant will simply replace itself (with the usual cost, of course) instead of blowing up.

foobar said @ 10:30pm GMT on 14th Mar
Yeah, I don't think we have that box checked.

When do I get my fucking archologies?

hellboy said @ 3:49am GMT on 15th Mar
Well, let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet.

Avid said @ 7:35pm GMT on 14th Mar
Pragmatically speaking, 'triumph' would mean that people aren't scared about the situation at the reactor. It would be extremely helpful to have a well-developed PR plan for each situation in the disaster response plan. I.E. already have infographics made for each situation, layman's explanations, etc.

Unfortunately the news that everything is under control and that this all happened within the disaster response plan just isn't going to be spread as widely as the news that there were some problems to begin with. And given that these events are rare and it takes considerable expertise to even understand an overview of the events, people are going to ignorantly hold the opinion that nuclear power is an accident waiting to happen.

maryyugo said @ 7:42pm GMT on 14th Mar
"PR" connotes lying and weaseling spokesholes. Maybe what should be done is to have reliable, knowing people give calm and clear illustrated talks on what is happening. Unfortunately, they're understandably too busy and hindsight is always 20/20.

bruceski said @ 8:01pm GMT on 14th Mar
I grew up around scientists. Somebody who knows what they're talking about AND can explain it to a layman in a clear fashion is hard to find.

bruceski said @ 8:18pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
Hell, somebody who knows what they're talking about and can explain it to other scientists outside his expertise is hard to find.

f00m@nB@r said @ 9:38pm GMT on 14th Mar
That's one of the big annoyances of a science career. At least, for me

fejock said @ 1:00am GMT on 15th Mar
Hmmm. In my experience this is not the case. You can find them, and if they are good at their job they can explain it to someone of average intelligence.

However, finding such a person during the middle of a crisis is not so easy. Usually because they are dealing with the crisis.

sacrelicious said @ 8:01pm GMT on 14th Mar
"X connotes" and "X does not preclude" are to very different things. learn the difference.

happiest_sadist said @ 11:15am GMT on 15th Mar
He's not talking about X, he's talking about PR!
LURN TO REED!

sanepride said @ 7:39pm GMT on 14th Mar
See, sac? I told ya!

sacrelicious said @ 7:57pm GMT on 14th Mar
look, from a knowledgeable, objective standpoint this may indeed be a clear vindication of nuclear power. but most people are not so knowledgeable on the subject, and have a really hard time being objective about it. what this whole situation looks like to them is not "look at how well these reactors fared after a natural disaster that threatened to cause a meltdown!", but rather "OMG, THAT NATURAL DISASTER ALMOST CAUSED A MELTDOWN!"

in terms of PR, what's factually correct is not nearly as important as public perception.

sanepride said @ 8:06pm GMT on 14th Mar
Take it easy pal, I'm just kidding. It's actually kind of dumb how extremely positive this article is at this early juncture.

fejock said @ 1:01am GMT on 15th Mar
I disagree. I think it's kinda dumb how extremely negative the rest of the media is.

sanepride said @ 1:14am GMT on 15th Mar
Well it's kind of a battle of extremes. Because let's face it, trying to stake a place in the reasonable 'let's wait and see' middle is kinda boring.

maryyugo said @ 7:47pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
"These parts were then being kept cool much less effectively, and trace amounts of the caesium and iodine isotopes powering the residual heat reaction were detected in the air outside the plants. This first happened on Saturday."

"were detected"? Why? Caesium and iodine should be inside fuel rods and inside the containment vessel only, no? How do they get out?

"The plant operators thus bit the bullet and fell back on yet another backup system: they injected seawater mixed with boric acid (liquid control-rod material) into the cores. This meant a fair bit of expensive damage to the two reactors, and also that the steam emitted when venting would be slightly more radioactive due to the salt and other trace chemicals in the sea water."

Sorry, not a "fair bit of expensive damage" (weasel talk). The reactors will be totally trashed. Why not just say it? I don't trust this writer. Too much squirming around.

bruceski said @ 8:05pm GMT on 14th Mar
For your second point, the damage is going to be to the pumping system. Irradiated seawater has a relatively short half-life, so it won't spread much past there. The reactor will probably be trashed from the total amount of damage, but the damage from the seawater itself would be repairable, though expensive.

maryyugo said @ 11:08pm GMT on 14th Mar
I'll take your word for it. Maybe they can sell it "slightly used" on eBay?

happiest_sadist said @ 10:56am GMT on 15th Mar

fforw said @ 8:26am GMT on 17th Mar
boric acid is a neutron poison. once you put that into your reactor it's bye bye reactor.

foobar said @ 9:16am GMT on 15th Mar
Those are created from environmental compounds effected by escaping neutrons. They aren't from inside the reactor, nor are they dangerous unless you're right there right when it happens.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 7:51pm GMT on 14th Mar
By my calculations over 98% of Japan's nuclear reactors are still doing fine after being hit by one of the worst earthquakes in recorded history.

mrcucumber said @ 9:17pm GMT on 14th Mar
That's the rub, in my opinion. Those other ones should draw attention, but they were not really in any jeopardy. A PR success would have been to say that the Fukushima plants had no change in operation, and they will be ready to supply power as soon as the grid has been repaired.

Those that argue against nuclear power will focus on the fact that the danger was still very much present. Removing danger entirely would be the only way for them to shut up. Once it hits the point where danger is possible then it's still too dangerous, and this was a prime example - twice in fact. Two reactors were this close to a full scale catastrophic event not only endangering Japan, but everything and everybody downwind. Are the consequences worth the risk, they will ask? In fact, I think this will serve alongside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl as the pillars fortifying the rallying cry against nuclear power.

It's all or nothing, black and white when it comes to arguing nuclear power and the debate will focus on that. Again.

sanepride said @ 8:03pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:5 Informative]
-1 for your apparent endorsement of Richard Muller's climate change denying hokum. Muller (a physicist btw not a climatologist) has been thoroughly debunked and discredited. No surprise that his work has been underwritten by Charles Koch. More here. And here.

atter_cob said @ 8:11pm GMT on 14th Mar
People get scared of nuclear power and say it's not worth the risk. Those people mostly work for oil companies.

If you look at the number of people who have been killed or made sick by nuclear power versus the number of people for oil then there is no comparison: oil is terrible. Toss in the environmental disasters from things like BP's oil spill or Exon Valdeese (sp?) and oil is a clear loser.

But people are stupid and easily scared. So the oil promoters tell stories about
mutants and radiation contaminating entire cities. And idiots listen.

sanepride said @ 8:26pm GMT on 14th Mar
The corporate interests often overlap. It's not really a question of one or the other, both have their particular hazards, both are ubiquitous and not going anywhere anytime soon. The key is to reduce overall usage of energy and work to develop practical renewable sources - to supplement for now and hopefully supplant in the future.

foobar said @ 10:39pm GMT on 14th Mar
No it fucking isn't.

There is no conceivable scenario where humanity uses less energy tomorrow than it does today, short of Mad Max and/or zombie apocalypses.

We need energy. Lots of it. What we need is to find (and more importantly, use) clean, safe ways to generate it, not a psuedo-spiritual myth-of-the-noble-savage bullshit.

Right now that's hydro-electric where possible, nuclear where not. Arguing for anything else is really just a proxy vote for coal.

krimz said @ 11:31pm GMT on 14th Mar
A not so inconsequential part of today's energy usage can be chalked up to losses caused by the inefficient energy distribution network and also to pure squandering (Standby electronics uses 8-10% of Sweden's total power consumption and I'm pretty sure the figure is higher in the US.)

krimz said @ 11:32pm GMT on 14th Mar
* uses = stands for

azazel said @ 11:39pm GMT on 14th Mar
Care to cite a source on those figures?

krimz said @ 11:58pm GMT on 14th Mar
Sorry I remembered it wrong, it's 2% of the country's total consumption.

http://www.energinyheter.se/2010/12/svenskarnas-energif-rbrukning-kartlagd

It was part of a course assignment so the figures are a bit hazy. I think the UK reported 7% of its total power consumption.

Here are the figures for the US:
http://standby.lbl.gov/

sanepride said @ 1:13am GMT on 15th Mar
Sure, demand will certainly rise in the developing world - but how much energy does a typical American, Canadian, or Japanese use compared to a typical Ghanian? Why exactly does some dude need to be barreling down the highway doing 90 mph in his giant Chevy Suburban? What I'm talking about is conservation and sensible use of energy.
And yes, we do obviously need to find clean, safe ways to generate it. That includes solar, wind, geothermal, and other de-centralized methods - as I say, to supplement. I'm not ruling out nuclear, but I would characterize it as cleaner and possibly safer than fossil fuels. Absolutely clean and safe? No.

incpenners said @ 1:28am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:-5 Troll]
I flat out reject the premise that you or anyone has any authority to decide who gets to use what in terms of energy or anything else.

This is the purpose of your global warming hoax-- to seize and ration and control distribution of energy.

Fuck that, and fuck your authoritarian bullshit.

If you think people should live without, you go first.

sanepride said @ 2:46am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1]
That's an interesting point of view.
Would you care to elaborate?

Quenadian said @ 3:59am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:-1 Insightful]
I wish that you had some kind of redeeming quality, because I really dislike disliking you so very much.

Krutz said @ 4:27am GMT on 15th Mar
Good news everyone! If your energy source creates stuff the EPA thinks is toxic, Penners has volunteered to let you bury it in his backyard, or as he's calling it, his "Freedom Dump!"

midden said @ 2:22pm GMT on 15th Mar [Score:-2]
In fact, I have reduced my energy consumption by nearly half over the last three years: I've moved my business to my home to eliminate most of my commuting, I've super-insulated my house, lowered my heating and raised my cooling settings, use space heaters and coolers, installed a programmable thermostat, switched to fluorescent as bulbs burn out, gotten rid of CRT monitors, reduced my lawn cutting area by about 2/3rds, grow a significant fraction of my own vegetables, go to a community clothes-swap with my wife twice a year, and probably a few other things that aren't coming to me at the moment. This Fall I'll be building a solar hot air heater to supplement the heating of my shop, and depending on how that works, another for the house. And I'm no hippie-tree-hugger (not that there's any thing wrong with that). I've just chosen to become conscious and proactive in reducing my energy consumption.

I'm not living without by any means, but I certainly can and do live with a lot less, especially when it comes to energy. If most people chose to do these things, it would make a huge difference. But I'm not forcing anyone. However, I do have a few friends who've noticed, and have started taking action, themselves. As Martha Stewart says, "and that's a good thing."

Krutz said @ 4:21pm GMT on 15th Mar [Score:-3]
If I may ask, how do space heaters help? Are they electric or kerosene?

Is it so you can heat one or two rooms in a the house while letting the rest of the domicile stay cooler?

midden said @ 4:52pm GMT on 15th Mar [Score:-3]
Yes, exactly. No point heating the whole house to comfort level when there are only people in one or two rooms. Space heaters, electric in my case, are not necessarily the most efficient way to heat, but the overall reduction in power use is significant. If our house was a little bigger, a zoned heating system would make sense.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 12:02am GMT on 19th Mar [Score:-3 Insightful]
I flat out reject the premise that you or anyone has any authority to decide who gets to use what in terms of energy or anything else.

So you're in favor of forcing all energy producers and distributors to give free energy to the public, then? If you allow them to charge money for it, then you're effectively giving them the authority to decide who gets to use what in terms of energy.

In fact, your inclusion of "or anything else" at the end means that this principle should apply to manufactured goods as well. Let's do away with money altogether--from each according to his ability, to each according to his need! Glad to know that you've joined our ranks, comrade incpenners.

foobar said @ 9:19am GMT on 15th Mar
Do you want to be that American, Canadian, or Japanese person, or do you want to be the Ghanian?

Which do you think the Ghanian wants to be?

sanepride said @ 5:47pm GMT on 15th Mar
You're missing my point. Some people use a lot more energy than they need. Some need to use more. It is possible to find some balance, despite what penners might think of this concept.

foobar said @ 9:02pm GMT on 15th Mar
Sure, but your example of waste (the giant car) isn't a question of electricity, it's of fossil fuels.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 12:04am GMT on 19th Mar
Where do you think (most of) the electricity comes from?

azazel said @ 8:28pm GMT on 14th Mar
Exxon Valdez.

maryyugo said @ 8:55pm GMT on 14th Mar
"People get scared of nuclear power and say it's not worth the risk. Those people mostly work for oil companies."

Oh, nonsense. Paranoid conspiracy bullpuckey. Who do *you* work for? The psychic network?

"If you look at the number of people who have been killed or made sick by nuclear power versus the number of people for oil then there is no comparison..."

That's true but highly misleading. First, there's far more oil in use than nuclear power. Second, it's much more widely extracted and distributed, all of which leads to exposure that causes injury and death. Most people only see nuclear power plants from a long distance.

Second, the problems with nuclear power aren't what it has already done. It's what it *might* do. Current reactors are inherently dangerous. They don't shut off quickly and they're subject to failure modes that end up leaving tons of highly radioactive crap that will be that way for centuries. Case in point: Chernobyl. It's *still* not certain that the containment "sarcophagus" is safe. More on that here.

I understand that reactors in the West have secure containment vessels unlike those in Russia. That limits the damage to people but, in the event of a complete core meltdown, still can create a very long lasting and extremely expensive local mess that needs to be guarded for centuries. And further mistakes can indeed result in substantial radioactivity being released which is almost impossible for people down wind to escape. In summary, it's the *potential* for overwhelming disaster that people are concerned about with respect to nuclear power.

Poopooing those concerns is no way to overcome them and get approval to build new reactors. To do that, you have to make inherently safe designs and implement them properly. Then, you have to maintain exceedingly high training and review standards for the crews that run them. Finally, you have to convince the average person you really did that. Lots of luck.

maryyugo said @ 8:57pm GMT on 14th Mar
woops. the second "second" should be "third".

skoob666 said @ 9:51pm GMT on 14th Mar
Hey Mary, did you know various oil companies produce more unaccounted for radioactive waste than the entire nuclear industry combined?

http://www.epa.gov/radtown/drilling-waste.html

Krutz said @ 10:03pm GMT on 14th Mar
In a way, that doesn't negate his/her point; energy companies aren't the best managers of the environment, and do try to put off or avoid due diligence when it comes to the waste products they put out. They'll also bail on a plant if profit becomes an issue.

Krutz said @ 10:03pm GMT on 14th Mar
Crap. That link should be this.

skoob666 said @ 10:09pm GMT on 14th Mar
My point is people (in my mind anyways) are providing false equivalences about nuclear safety. What's happening in Japan is very bad and my heart goes out to them, but people aren't maintaining a real perspective on how much safer the nuclear industry really is compared to what the world is currently running on, errll.

Krutz said @ 10:23pm GMT on 14th Mar
Nuclear safety doesn't have that bad a track record, comparatively. It's the waste involved and the current subsidies needed to build the plants.

And perhaps you can illuminate this a bit: In a lot of threads like this, someone usually posts a link to a newer design of plant that supposedly recycles its fuel or manages to produce waste that's less radioactive than a glow-in-the-dark watch from the 1930's. Are there such things, or are they still pretty much theoretical?

M'self, I want a nice big breakthrough in fusion, but then again, I'm a big fan of helium balloons, so I could be biased.

foobar said @ 10:50pm GMT on 14th Mar
The waste is one of the best parts of nuclear power generation. The alternative (coal), constantly spews it's waste out into the atmosphere, where as nuclear waste is compact and easy to contain.

CO₂ does far more damage, but no one made movies about it turning ants into giant killing machines, so the public isn't superstitious about it.

cache22 said @ 1:21am GMT on 15th Mar
Al Gore made that movie, but no one watched it.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 10:07pm GMT on 14th Mar
To be fair, though, there are a lot more oil plants than nuclear plants. How do the figures look for total waste produced per unit of power provided?

Krutz said @ 10:25pm GMT on 14th Mar
I also like to see total costs per unit of power provided, including environmental impacts. And no, that's not me picking on nuclear; coal has some amazingly toxic effects, especially if scrubbers that reduce the output to nanoparticles is involved.

maryyugo said @ 10:36pm GMT on 14th Mar
You and several others keep making the same mistake. It's not about past performance. It's about the size and gravity of a potential future disaster. Even including TMI and Chernobyl, nuclear power has a decent record in terms of loss of human life and health compared to other sources of energy.

All energy is dangerous to extract and kills people when it's made available. But the potential for wrecking an entire country and poisoning a good part of a continent for hundreds of years is solely that of nuclear power. That's why people are rightfully afraid of it.

foobar said @ 10:52pm GMT on 14th Mar
Coal power plants don't have a potential for future disaster. It's fucking guaranteed.

maryyugo said @ 11:07pm GMT on 14th Mar
So if that's true, we should add to that potential for disaster with nuclear power plants?

foobar said @ 11:18pm GMT on 14th Mar
More nuclear means less coal.

skoob666 said @ 11:35pm GMT on 14th Mar
Nuclear power has more or less weathered a fucking 9.0 earthquake followed almost immeadiately by a 30 ft tsunami and still hasn't had a meltdown. The actual natural disaster has killed far FAR more people than anything that will happen with Fukushima. So far Fukushima has killed exactly ONE guy that we know of. ONE, and that was a fucking crane accident. What's it going to take to convince you?

By contrast, Coal and Mining have already killed 5 people this year and it's only half way through March.

http://www.msha.gov/fatals/fab.htm

Let's hope we don't have another Virginia style mine explosion too, which in all likely hood, is going to happen.

I don't think I even need to mention the loss of life the Gulf spill caused.

Building some more nuclear power plants makes far too much sense for my retarded ass society to embrace.

bruceski said @ 12:09am GMT on 15th Mar
*cough*Industrial Revolution*cough*

skoob666 said @ 12:13am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
Ooooo, that sounds bad, here have some of this Cocaine and a Tapeworm egg.

balzac said @ 11:26pm GMT on 14th Mar
Not to mention coal mining is one of the filthiest industries around.

Mountaintop removal mining is awful.

sanepride said @ 8:14pm GMT on 14th Mar
So gj, you shilling for the nuke or fossil fuel industries or both?
Funny, I thought Germans has a reputation for being 'green'.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:34pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
It doesn't get much greener than nuclear power.

Chop-Logik said @ 8:38pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]

I only use fair-trade, organic, free-range vegan uranium.

Chop-Logik said @ 8:42pm GMT on 14th Mar
Dang, I missed an opportunity to 'shop some Wayfarers on him!

Chop-Logik said @ 8:50pm GMT on 14th Mar

Better.

f00m@nB@r said @ 11:24pm GMT on 14th Mar
If only he had a fixie, he could ride out of that mess.

Anti-fuites said @ 8:42pm GMT on 14th Mar
Actually I think it glows more blue than green, but that's a battle I gave up a long time ago. Movies and comics win this round.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 9:27pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Informative]
Could be due to confusion between Cerenkov radiation (blue, and pretty much the light equivalent of a sonic boom, which is pretty awesome) and fluorescence (usually greenish, and most people would have more familiarity with this one).

This Straight Dope column should help clear things up for those who are still confused.

azazel said @ 9:22am GMT on 15th Mar
Damn i love straight dope.

damnit said @ 8:15pm GMT on 14th Mar
Bully get's Zangief-ed

gunthar said @ 8:37pm GMT on 14th Mar
i have seen 2 videos with this literally being dubbed over with zangief. unfortunately, they've been tos'd

gunthar said @ 9:36pm GMT on 14th Mar
looks like this has been tos'd too!

welp,

scojam said @ 9:45pm GMT on 14th Mar
Probably seized as evidence for the trial. Damn and I wanted to send it to a friend who was chubby and was picked on in school.

damnit said @ 10:18pm GMT on 14th Mar
get while it still here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CP-XU6EiEM&feature=related

sensibleb said @ 11:25pm GMT on 14th Mar
Wow. That's aw(ful/some).

f00m@nB@r said @ 8:37pm GMT on 14th Mar
Int. Atomic Energy Agency on the crisis

De_Wr0ng said @ 8:48pm GMT on 14th Mar
c/o tubaman via facebook.

maryyugo said @ 8:58pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1]
Perhaps we should wait to see the denouement and analysis of the whole mess before we jump to concussions?

J-Loser said @ 9:35pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
Your reasonableness blows me away.

badgerbaiter said @ 10:44pm GMT on 14th Mar
She prefers fox fear at all times

maryyugo said @ 9:09pm GMT on 14th Mar
In case anyone has forgotten:

http://wn.com/Chernobyl_after_the_disaster

skoob666 said @ 10:18pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1]
Yeah we just totally fucking forgot that the Russians had their fiasco too. Man, if it wasn't for you Mary I bet people wouldn't remember to wipe their ass when they shit.

Krutz said @ 10:26pm GMT on 14th Mar
There are those who would argue that Chernobyl was totally worth it for inspiring the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series.

skoob666 said @ 11:38pm GMT on 14th Mar
Downmodding me aint gonna change the fact you're just trying to be a reactionary dipshit.

maryyugo said @ 11:48pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:-1 Flamebait]
Brilliant verbiage. Reactionary dipshit. I'm going to have to remember the faultless logic of that dazzling repartee.

skoob666 said @ 11:54pm GMT on 14th Mar
Still don't change what ya is.

maryyugo said @ 12:31am GMT on 15th Mar
What you are speaks for itself. Keep writing. Get deeper.

CompletelyIrrelevant said @ 9:09am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Underrated]
Bend over, I'll get...

I can't, it's too easy.

Wait... feck >.<

*bends over* I'm too easy

f00m@nB@r said @ 9:36pm GMT on 14th Mar
Japan has raised alert level of this event to 5 out of 7 -- Chernobyl being a 7.

http://m.gizmodo.com/5781818/japan-raises-nuclear-event-alert-level-to-5

tom the fish said @ 9:49pm GMT on 14th Mar
Yeah, this isn't Chernobyl. I wish the foreign press would chill out. My family is freaking out and i have to calm them down.

tom the fish said @ 9:55pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
The worst thing about this disaster is the poor people hit by the tsunami up North. Please save your concern and energy for helping them. I feel guilty reassuring people I'm fine and going about relatively normal days while people less than200 miles away are suffering more than I can comprehend.

maryyugo said @ 10:32pm GMT on 14th Mar
Sorry Tom but this could become like Chernobyl unfortunately. Apparently a great deal of highly radioactive and biologically dangerous spent fuel material is kept at the reactor site and needs to be continuously cooled. The status of those "spent fuel pools" has not been sufficiently discussed.

For details, see this Christian Science Monitor article (page 2) link.

badgerbaiter said @ 10:47pm GMT on 14th Mar
Did you read his point?
There are real people really suffering right now...
They deserve more respect right now.

maryyugo said @ 11:49pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
And "respect", whatever that idiocy means in this context, helps them exactly how? Say compared to money, aid, effort, donations, work?

skoob666 said @ 11:58pm GMT on 14th Mar
You're just a delicious ball of empathy aren't you.

maryyugo said @ 12:33am GMT on 15th Mar
Shouldn't you be fapping?

tom the fish said @ 11:45pm GMT on 14th Mar

I'm sorry, but it seems to me quite a few people want me to die in a horrible nuclear accident to prove a point or the sell a few more newspapers. It's making me less-than-tactful right now.

maryyugo said @ 11:52pm GMT on 14th Mar
No problem. Luckily, those people who want ... whatever... don't have any ability to influence what happens and with luck, nothing irreversible will happen to the plants and the areas around them. But the risk inherent in building plants like Fukushima the way they're designed and with the storage pools and near the ocean just became a bit more evident with hindsight.

cache22 said @ 1:28am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
If it wasn't near the ocean it would be a lot harder to pump all that emergency sea water in to cool the core before it went critical.

benjamander said @ 4:03pm GMT on 15th Mar
Did you know that nuclear plants are almost always built near large bodies of water?

Barnabas_Truman said @ 12:05am GMT on 19th Mar
Did you know that dihydrogen monoxide is a dangerous chemical that is often used as a coolant in nuclear power plants?

EPT said @ 1:41am GMT on 19th Mar
I hear that in Japan they're currently experimenting with C-dihydrogen monoxide, a much less clean variant.

bruceski said @ 12:12am GMT on 15th Mar
Chernobyl was running at full power when the coolant ran out, and had no containment. This situation could become worse than it currently is, but it COULD NOT become like Chernobyl.

kylemcBitch said @ 6:46pm GMT on 15th Mar
Chernobyl was not running at full power, actually. They were attempting to test a situation where there was a loss of power to see if the winding down turbines had the power to continue operating the coolant pumps for the 65 seconds it took for the diesel generators to come online. The plant was at low power, I think 30 megawatts was where it was at before it spiked to 80gigawatts due to the SCRAM procedure dropping the graphite tips further than they should go.

blibblob said @ 2:04am GMT on 15th Mar
Oh man, the Christian Science Monitor. Such a beacon of impartiality, insight and reasonableness, how can anyone possibly deny their view?!

Krutz said @ 4:30am GMT on 15th Mar
Psst. For some reason, the Christian Science Monitor is usually a pretty good news source. Fuck if I know how that happened, but there you go.

lilmookieesquire said @ 11:42pm GMT on 14th Mar
Ya. My gf's family basically evicted her from Tokyo and are telling her to wear face masks and hats because of rumors or "the radiation in Tokyo".

You'd think that CNN has a reporter wearing a radiation suit standing inside the containment shell "reporting the inside scoop that Tokyo is too afraid to tell you".

f00m@nB@r said @ 11:54pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
Tinfoil hats?

maryyugo said @ 9:50pm GMT on 14th Mar
More potential trouble at Fukushima. They keep the spent fuel from the previous refuel cycle in a pool nearby. The integrity of the cooling water for that pool is apparently unknown (or has not been reported).

This seems to be a collection of intensely radioactive material that can get loose. So-called secondary containment in these older reactors is not as robust as in modern ones so... well... read the article...

... at this link (PDF file).

thatoneguywiththehair said @ 1:30am GMT on 15th Mar
apparently unknown (or has not been reported)

Perhaps we should wait to see the denouement and analysis of the whole mess before we jump to concussions?

maryyugo said @ 10:53pm GMT on 14th Mar
And for anyone who cares:

The Lesson of Three Mile Island (Mother Earth News).

maryyugo said @ 11:04pm GMT on 14th Mar
And here is what it took to clean up the partial (and relatively small) meltdown at TMI:

"he TMI-2 Cleanup

The cleanup of the damaged nuclear reactor system at TMI-2 took nearly 12 years and cost approximately US$973 million. The cleanup was uniquely challenging technically and radiologically. Plant surfaces had to be decontaminated. Water used and stored during the cleanup had to be processed. And about 100 tonnes of damaged uranium fuel had to be removed from the reactor vessel -- all without hazard to cleanup workers or the public.

A cleanup plan was developed and carried out safely and successfully by a team of more than 1000 skilled workers. It began in August 1979, with the first shipments of accident-generated low-level radiological waste to Richland, Washington. In the cleanup's closing phases, in 1991, final measurements were taken of the fuel remaining in inaccessible parts of the reactor vessel. Approximately one percent of the fuel and debris remains in the vessel. Also in 1991, the last remaining water was pumped from the TMI-2 reactor. The cleanup ended in December 1993, when Unit 2 received a license from the NRC to enter Post Defueling Monitored Storage (PDMS).

Early in the cleanup, Unit 2 was completely severed from any connection to TMI Unit 1. TMI-2 today is in long-term monitored storage. No further use of the nuclear part of the plant is anticipated. Ventilation and rainwater systems are monitored. Equipment necessary to keep the plant in safe long-term storage is maintained.

Defueling the TMI-2 reactor vessel was the heart of the cleanup. The damaged fuel remained underwater throughout the defueling. In October 1985, after nearly six years of preparations, workers standing on a platform atop the reactor and manipulating long-handled tools began lifting the fuel into canisters that hung beneath the platform. In all, 342 fuel canisters were shipped safely for long-term storage at the Idaho National Laboratory, a program that was completed in April 1990.

TMI-2 cleanup operations produced over 10.6 megalitres of accident-generated water that was processed, stored and ultimately evaporated safely.

In February 1991, the TMI-2 Cleanup Program was named by the National Society of Professional Engineers as one of the top engineering achievements in the U.S. completed during 1990. "

From http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf36.html

I'm not the biggest history buff but some of this stuff is pretty startling to read. Why wouldn't the clean up of Fukushima be at least as time consuming and expensive as TMI? And yeah, it's too early to know for sure.

skoob666 said @ 11:56pm GMT on 14th Mar
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/107161-bps-oil-spill-cost-tops-3-billion

King of the Hill said @ 10:57pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:2 Insightful]
You know... All the hyped articles with the "Melt Down" buzzword and now US Senators saying we should review our stance on nuclear power... FUCK THEM.

We have dozens of plants in the US that have already survived seismic events over time.

If anything, there should be a rabid call for new plants... Plants built using the latest seismic dampening designs and fail safe systems. Ironically, the new nuke plants are more efficient, and have far higher output than the relics that are currently in use... Therefore, we can have safer plants, and potentially LESS plants due to higher output... Making our chances of serious nuclear accident in the future far reduced.

Hopefully, logic wins and the 24/7 headlines of impending melt down lose.

sanepride said @ 11:28pm GMT on 14th Mar [Score:1 Underrated]
I'd say it's more appropriate to try to resist hype on either side and be dubious of rabid calls for anything.

Obviously no nuclear plants in the US have endured an event even close to comparable to this one, which is admittedly an extraordinary one. Once the situations in Japan are resolved - which right now they most certainly are NOT - we can take a close look at exactly what happened and proceed from there.

Massive earthquakes and tsunamis aside, the fact is that nuclear power plants require a huge initial investment and take years to build and put online. There is also still the issue of waste disposal and the mining, import and production of fissile materials, not to mention security issues. Nuclear power may provide one option to greenhouse gas-emitting power generation, but it is not a trouble-free panacea.

ComposerNate said @ 1:21am GMT on 15th Mar
I keep waiting for Japan to send in the robots.

danshyu said @ 5:16am GMT on 15th Mar
They're more focused in making their robots to walk on 2 legs than actually doing anything useful.

I say we put some treds on them and send them in, now!

ComposerNate said @ 9:45am GMT on 15th Mar
No, I'm pretty sure I want them jogging and doing squats. We can wait, as necessary.

randomaction said @ 1:17pm GMT on 18th Mar [Score:1 Funny]
Hopefully, logic wins and the 24/7 headlines of impending melt down lose.

Hahah. fucking noob.

sanepride said @ 12:09am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:2]
Yet another new explosion reported at Fukushima Daiichi.

Goddamnit it sure is hard to stay calm and herald the "triumph" of nuclear power when things keep 'sploding.

maryyugo said @ 12:31am GMT on 15th Mar
LA Times article about this latest explosion.

fejock said @ 12:57am GMT on 15th Mar
"A buildup of hydrogen gas causes another explosion, destroying the outer shell of a reactor at the quake-damaged Fukushima No. 1 plant. The blast comes after the pumping of seawater stalled, exposing the fuel rods to air and increasing the risk of radiation being released. Death toll continues to rise as 2,000 bodies are found in a single province."

Hmmm... if I didn't know better I might conclude that the death toll has something to do with the "nuclear crisis".

f00m@nB@r said @ 2:09am GMT on 15th Mar
That's some crappy editing.

happiest_sadist said @ 10:59am GMT on 15th Mar
To be fair, it might also have something to do with the "massive fucking earthquake".
It's only been a few days. There will be a lot more bodies found.
Typing that last sentence has made me very sad.

kdog2112 said @ 2:15am GMT on 15th Mar
Who's Fault is it?

lilmookieesquire said @ 2:44am GMT on 15th Mar
It's nothing to crack jokes about!

pleaides said @ 3:31am GMT on 15th Mar
Easy mookie, we're all a bit shaken up.

Naruki said @ 3:33am GMT on 15th Mar
Simmer down, don't overreactor.

danshyu said @ 5:06am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
Nuclear is a stop gap before we have an efficient solar energy source. I hope this incident doesn't start a huge step back to coal.

happiest_sadist said @ 11:12am GMT on 15th Mar [Score:1 Interesting]
We do have an efficient solar energy source. It's called "The Sun."

I'm kidding, but many folks I know who could afford the initial investment of a photovoltaic array (20-35.000 USD or so) ten years ago are very happy with their decision. It has turned out to be a lot more efficient for them than buying grid power (and in at least one case, grid power wasn't even an option- solar wins vs. diesel generator, for him.)

Sure, the conversion of sunlight into electricity is pretty "inefficient"- that is to say, only about 20% or so. But you don't have to dig the sunlight out of the ground- and compared to a generator of almost any other type, PV arrays require very little maintenance.

IMO the greatest barrier to solar adoption (and by solar I mean PV, leaving aside the many other solar technologies in use) is the initial investment. Basically, if you own a house, you will pay at least 20% of the value of the house for a PV array of sufficient size to power the house. It will take about 10 years to recoup this investment, at which time one or more PV panels, the inverter, or some wiring might have conked out. You can't depend on getting the value of the system back should you decide (or be forced) to sell the house. So it's a big, scary step even for folks who can afford the initial nut.

So yeah, it would be nice if we had 65% efficient solar panels that cost $10/KW. Unfortunately we are far from that place now.

Viking_Biochemist said @ 5:19am GMT on 15th Mar
You don't get caesium 137 and iodine 131, or radiation levels approaching those needed to cause acute radiation sickness in an hour, outside a reactor with functioning core containment.

This sort of sensationalist chest beating is looking increasingly foolish as events unfold.

IllCom said @ 11:14am GMT on 15th Mar
fuck!

Barnabas_Truman said @ 12:07am GMT on 19th Mar
Not if you were the last IllCom on earth!