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Suppresed Video of Japanese Reactor Sodium Leak
James Hardine writes "Following an announcement this week that the infamous Japanese Monju fast-breeder nuclear reactor would be re-opened with a new plutonium core, Wikileaks has released suppressed video footage of the disaster that led to its closure in 1995. The video shows men in silver 'space suits' exploring the reactor in which sodium compounds hang from the air ducts like icicles. Unlike conventional reactors, fast-breeder reactors, which 'breed' plutonium, use sodium rather than water as a coolant. This type of coolant creates a potentially hazardous situation as sodium is highly corrosive and reacts violently with both water and air. Government officials at first played down the extent of damage at the reactor and denied the existence of a videotape showing the sodium spill. The deputy general manager, Shigeo Nishimura, 49, jumped to his death the day after a news conference at which he and other officials revealed the extent of the cover-up. His family is currently suing the government at Japan's High Court."
I have long been saying life would be more interesting if we had more six-eyed fish and flipper kids walking around.
No sig for you!!
You do understand that as far as the Japanese are concerned "much stricter safety requirement" mean not trying to fix it with a hammer for more than an hour before asking someone higher in the hierarchy.
They can make simple things right. But operating a nuclear powerplant is still out of the reach of their rice-farmer level corporate mentality.
THEY have a long history of nuclear accident where the trigger was someone acting like a total redneck for no understandable reason. Tokaimura was one of the great example of how far this can go http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~meshkati/tefall99/toki.html
A great example of the corporate mentality of Japan is the Toyota Formula One team. A budget of half a billion a year so they can get their cars on the back of the grid usually. Simply because the entire organisation is run by committee.
I couldn't help thinking while watching that video "I wonder if this is viral marketing for Cloverfield?"
The problem is the increase of nuclear waste material if a resurgence if nuclear power should occur. U-238 has a half life of 4.46 billion years, while the fissile U-235 still has a half life of more than 700 million years.
Have a look at the "Nuclear fuel cycle" and you'll see that it is in effect not a cycle at all, but a process in which at the end we have to dig up more and more holes to put the waste material into and hope it stays there to the end of time. So we got highly concentrated radioactive material dug into the earth. Who is to guarantee that coming generations maybe in 100, maybe in 10000 years will not accidentally be exposed to it and suffer from it?
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.