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Nuclear Emergency Declared At 2 Plants In Japan
Hugh Pickens writes "CBC reports that Japan has declared a state of emergency and called for mass evacuations near two nuclear power plants following cooling systems failures that led to radiation escaping from a reactor at one location. The emergency declarations, which include five reactors at the two plants, followed Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake off the country's northeast coast. In a troubling announcement, Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official Ryohei Shiomi said a monitoring device outside the plant detected radiation that is eight times higher than normal and an evacuation zone has been expanded from three kilometres around the plant to 10 kilometres."
Yes, and if the (unlikely) worst happens and a baboon turns into a massive black hole, the current recession is child's play. What a dumb argument.
Nuclear power plants are safe. Not perfectly safe. Not zero risk. But they kill a hell of a lot fewer people than coal, the usual alternative. The worst-case scenario for this nuclear power plant is bad, but not out of proportion to other problems this exceptionally large earthquake has caused.
Have you seen pictures of Japan? Oil refineries have literally, actually, factually blown up, releasing who-knows-what into the atmosphere and water. People are freaking out because a nuclear power plant has released small amounts of harmful radiation and might release moderate amounts. With plenty of warning.
The story here is not that a power plant was damaged and might release toxic material. It's that everyone is going bugnuts crazy about that when entire towns are inundated and/or on fire.
they'll want you there more than ever, feel free to spend extra
The reactors won't impact the global economy appreciably - it's *highly* unlikely that anything is going to blow up, anyhow. It's sounding like they had a partial scram, with primary coolant system failure afterwards.
Nuclear power *is* safe. You're seeing a disaster the scale of which is nearly unimaginable, and appropriate action is being taken. You don't fix these things overnight.
Learn about Photography Basics.
How many people died from the Japanese nuclear accident? Zero, so far. How many will die? Donno, but probably 0. How many died in America's worst nuclear accident ever (3 mile island)? Zero.
Now let's see... how many anti-nuclear hippies died from doing too much LSD or ketamine or whatever it is they do? Probably thousands. How many people died in coal mine accidents? Beyond count. How many died building hydroelectric dams, which are very "green"? A lot, 112 for just for one dam (Hoover).
In a few months, once the influx of foreign rescue workers has abated, you'll see hotel/etc prices plummet. So you should be able to save money. (If that feels machiavellian, remember, you're adding money to a tourist industry that has just been shot in the face. So swing by New Zealand and northern Queensland on your way home.)
((All assuming these nukes don't kablooey.))
(((Headline on local news: "Japan launches monster rescue effort". You know it's bad when even the monsters...)))
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
The chances of the reactor blowing up are next to zero. The biggest problem will be either a core breech(aka melting through the core chamber), or a slow uncontrolled cooling of the control rods because of damage by them being too hot. However considering that the CBC article is hours old already, and they've been slow venting, and finally have the ability to turn the pumps back on to get water into the chamber it should be controllable unless something happens again.
Now, let this be a lesson to anti-nuke nuts. Most reactors built within the last decade or two have two redundant systems for moving water. Steam, or mechanical. This series of reactors doesn't. You know why? Because in Japan, anything that could possibly at all, maybe related to nuclear, or radiation makes environmentalists go batshit crazy.
But it doesn't help that the reactors were built to withstand at least a 9.0 and it was hit by a 9.1, and I've heard it may be revised again as high as 9.4.
Om, nomnomnom...
Statistically the number of people who die prematurely due to power production using coal is roughly 40,000/year(ok this is an national resources defense council number but the science is good). This includes people dieing in mines due to collapses explosions, people dieing prematurely due to working in a mine their entire life(lung cancer), but most importantly people dieing prematurely due to the increased risk of cancer of living near a coal plant. The number for nuclear is 0. For that matter the total number of premature deaths due to radiation in the population surrounding Chernobyl was roughly 40,000. So as many people in the US are dieing yearly due to coal production as died in total due to the only significant release of radioactivity to the public in the history of civilian nuclear power in 60 years.
People are freaking out because a nuclear power plant has released small amounts of harmful radiation and might release moderate amounts.
No, not people. The news media. Of everything going on in Japan this is what they are focusing on. I'm mildly disgusted at the news coverage all in all. The primary coverage initially was the effect on the stock market, and now it is nothing but these reactors. Far, far more environmental damage is being done by all matter of other noxious things burning and leaking. Oh, and I'm pretty sure people are dead, dying, entrapped, homeless, etc, already. Yet the focus is on what *might* happen with a nuclear reactor, as if the thing is going to go up like a thermonuclear bomb.
Better known as 318230.
I want a MANLY power plant that can create a 30-100 km dead zone of mutants and a death plume that has a global reach.
OK, but why do you think coal is so manly?
Well, it does, but the scenario is very different.
In the 90's when oil was cheap, the iter project (a new fusion reactor) was too expensive and nobody wanted to pay. Make it cheaper, make it smaller. So the design became more modest (for lack of a better word). Early 00's, the iraq war was on. France was against So out of spite, the US sided with japan as host country, rather than with France as expected. This blocked approval of the build site for several years. Late 00's, oil is at record prices and the a build site (Cadarache in France) is finally selected. With a question attached (or so I heard from people within my field), if we pay more can you speed up the process? Yeah right, unfortunately science and engineering does not always work that way (mythical man month). Some things just require time. Until iter, the development of fusion went faster than the development of computer hardware. This delay of about ten years for financial and political reasons will come back to haunt us. Blame your governments for being cheap and petty. Blame your governments that we won't have fusion in time to save our sorry asses.
You know that you have other options than to watch american media news on the Internet, right ? My recommendation is to get your news from two countries with somewhat opposing political agendas ... it's amazing how the same events have completely different interpretation from one side of the border to the other. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.
1015 microsieverts - that is apparently a year's worth of radiation exposure each hour
Or 30 bananas...
One thing about wind power. In the event of an earthquake, a terrorist attack, a greedy company cutting corners like BP, incompetence or human error nobody needs to worry about the breeze getting out.
If people as disciplined and conscientious as the Japanese can't do nuclear power safely, what chance do we have. Would you want a company like BP running a nuclear power plant or building one?
Just saw an official press conference on Japanese TV. The containment vessel is intact. The concrete shell was damaged by a hydrogen explosion. Boric acid is being used as a neutron poison. It's not pretty, but it looks still to be under control.
You have to put this in perspective. We just survived one of the biggest earthquakes ever. Hundreds were killed by horrific tsunamis. tens of thousands are homeless in winter conditions. And yet the hysteria in the western media is over a power plant that is still contained. A bit of perspective please.
They only become so because they are staffed with a lot of people that know how incredibly dangerous they are and work hard to prevent accidents.
It's actually idiots like the above that push the fluffy "safe" "clean" image of nuclear power that are counterproductive and holding the entire civilian nuclear industry back. Heavy industry of all kinds is full of incredibly dangerous shit and none of it becomes any less dangerous by pretending the problem has gone away - in fact the opposite happens and people die. Why do these idiots think nuclear is different and run by magic puppies or something?
All of the current leading edge advances in civilian nuclear power are due to knowing how dangerous everything is and taking big steps to reduce that danger. That's a hell of a lot better than the total idiocy of trying to pretend there never was a problem in the first place.
In this story it's about some incredibly dangerous technology being treated with the respect and preparation it deserves resulting in the successful completion of a disaster plan. If the "nuclear is totally safe" idiocy was applied then there would be no disaster plan and most likely another element to the disaster.
The Moorlocks have to work incredibly fucking hard for the stupid Eloi to keep their stupid mindset of a "safe" world.
Yeah, right. Only CO2, H2O, and heat...and SO2. and NOx. and particulate matter. hydrocarbons. Mercury.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
As you will well know, the trouble with nuclear power plants is that when they fail, they fail spectacularly. Just saying there have been 0 deaths lately is not saying much if you've just narrowly escaped a meltdown. And we know what will happen if even a *partial* meltdown happens: Chernobyl. It's then not just the initial meltdown, it's a large area that is rendered uninhabitable for a very very long time. Imagine one of those clouds going over a multi-million city and you know that the whole death count of the tsunami is just *nothing* compared to the fall out.
That and the nuclear waste, which seems to be an unsolved problem that is just silently ignored, we just store it indefinitely in locations meant for "temporary storage" and presto. Look at the way the Fins (very down to earth people) are trying to do to get rid of it. And that is just for a small part of their own nuclear waste. And Germany, where they stored the trash in a salt mine and now have to dig up the leaking containers. These are the countries that actually have the money to do things like that. I'll not go into the situation in Russia, because that just makes me sick to the stomach.
I'm all for safe nuclear energy. Saying that the current power plants are anything near the safety required is simply nonsense. Neither coal or nuclear energy is currently at a level where it can produce clean, safe energy at this time.
A 40 year old reactor that was poorly maintained/upgraded fails in mag 9.2 earthquake and has probably ended any possibility of new plants being built in the united states for at least 20 years. Not only could this kill or injure a large amount of people but it's a setback for the only realistic option we had to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and global CO2 reduction. Sadly this will be reported as a failure of the technology and not the people that maintain it.
In an area as densely populated such as Japan, it is not impossible for 88000 people to go missing in a major catastrophic event like a major earthquake and a following tsunami, which can literally sweep buildings away, especially when you factor in when the earthquake occured, and the tsunami swept in. Missing means status unknown, and the earthquake and tsunami have damaged enough infrastructure that any chance of a proper headcount will be weeks or even months away. The current reported Missing People figure is from families/relatives etc that have reported them as missing.
As it was, it hit during the afternoon, so there were a lot of people out in traffic etc also, which causes further problems, but several small towns have been completely demolished by the tsunami, and they are VERY hard to reach due to the damage that has been caused, with roads severely damaged, fields turned to thick layers of watery mud etc
Before you write another post like that, engage your brain, and actually think things through. And keep in mind what I said: Missing means Status Unknown. It can be as simple as simply not being able to communicate, due to any communications infrastructure being swept away.
Just to put this all into perspective for those claiming doom and gloom regarding nuclear power --
How many oil disasters have there been in the past decade? (Spills, refinery fires, etc.)
How many people died?
How many in Japan due to the quake?
How old were the facilities?
How many coal disasters have there been in the last decade?
How many people died?
How many in coal disasters in Japan due to the quake?
How old were the facilities?
How many nuclear disasters were there? How old were the facilities?
Right... so when we look at nuclear power, it's still the safest. They're built with the most oversight, foresight, and regulation AND it took the largest earthquake in recorded Japanese history to damage the 40 year old reactor-- which still likely won't go into meltdown. And there's been plenty of time to evacuate everyone just in case it does.
Do we get ANY of that luxury with oil or coal?
(Note: I use oil, coal, and nuclear energy in this comparison because they are the energy sources that can be created just about anywhere. Geothermal, wind, water, and solar require very specific placements.)
Nobody's claiming the situation isn't already extremely bad. But a meltdown would still make it so much worse - it is not within the capacity of the world's economy to clean up the fallout of such an event, and Japan sure can't afford to have a large part of its land be useless wasteland.
Yes, people are misusing that event to further their own anti nuclear agenda. Distasteful, definitely, but that doesn't mean that the news' focus on the situation is out of proportion.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
I posted part of this already, but it's buried near the bottom due to the GP being downrated. Every time there's a nuclear accident, the anti-nuclear people come out in droves yelling about the "dangers" of nuclear power. If you want to talk about perspective, danger, and opportunity costs, here's the low-down:
There have been zero deaths in the U.S. associated with commercial nuclear power generation despite it producing nearly 20% of our electricity. Wind has already killed at least 13 people in the U.S. despite producing less than 1% of our electricity. All of these have been maintenance workers (the only non-maintenance death was a skydiver in Germany who flew into a turbine). So the quip about a wind turbine at sea collapsing is beside the point since that wouldn't have stopped any of these deaths. In fact I suspect it would have caused more deaths since transferring from a boat rocking in ocean swells to a stationary platform isn't exactly the safest thing to do.
Solar has a huge problem in that roofing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S.. If you're imagining every house in the U.S. with solar panels mounted on the roof, you should expect probably about 100 more roofer deaths per year from installing and maintaining them. In terms of direct deaths (i.e. excluding mining and pollution), hydro actually turns out to be the most dangerous power source worldwide due to deaths from dam failures.
Over it's 50+ year history worldwide, in terms of deaths per unit of energy generated, nuclear power is the safest form of power generation man has ever invented. Yes that includes Chernobyl (a reactor design not used outside of the former USSR). If you accept the high estimate of number of expected cancer deaths from Chernobyl, it's about 4x safer than wind (the safest green technology). If you accept the low estimate, it's 125x safer than wind.
How about pollution? What most people don't realize about nuclear is that it's an incredibly concentrated power source. How much spent fuel (high-level nuclear waste, like we're trying to bury in Nevada) do you think would be produced to power a typical U.S. home for 30 years? A bit less than 10 kg, about a half liter's worth. To power the same home with solar, you'd need about 30-50 square meters of panels, and the panels have an expected lifespan of about 25-30 years. One small water bottle's worth of waste, vs 30-50 square meters of solar panels. Nuclear in the U.S. generates about 20% of our electricity, and produces ~2000 tons of spent fuel a year. That's about enough to fill one tractor trailer. One tractor trailer-full of high-level waste to provide 1/5th of the entire country's electricity for an entire year. And it's not spewed into the atmosphere like coal, it's not spread all over towns and the countryside like solar or wind. It's neatly contained in concentrated form within the nuclear plant. And all this is not even factoring in the waste reduction that can be achieved with reprocessing.
How about compared to wind? The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant which is the cause of the problem today has an overall generating capacity of 3596 MW. How big a wind farm would you need to replace it? The largest wind farm in the U.S. is Roscoe Wind Farm. 781.5 MW peak capacity, 627 turbines, covering 400 km^2. Note however that that's peak capacity - how much electricity the farm generates under ideal conditions if each turbine is running at maximum power and efficiency. In practice, the average power generation from wind farms has been about 20%-25% of peak. Be generous and go with the high 25%. So 627 turbines and 400 km^2 gives you 195.4 MW of power on average. To replace Fuku