Japan Widens Evacuation Zone Around Fukushima

mdsolar writes "Japan has started the first evacuations of homes outside a government exclusion zone after the earthquake and tsunami crippled one of the country's nuclear power plants. 5100 people are being relocated to public housing, hotels and other facilities in nearby cities."

Comments

Nuke power

[M. Baranczak]

If the Japanese can't do this shit safely, then who can?

Re:Nuke power

[Flipstylee]

Anyone else apparently, that plant was due for replacement/shutdown many years ago.

Re:Nuke power

[Microlith]

Obviously it is impossible, which is why we have yearly meltdowns and hundreds of huge exclusion zones around the wo...

Wait a second. We don't. It seems that, unlke oil or coal, the total number of major disasters is way lower on the nuke side.

It's too bad we can't actually build the newer, safer designs. People might protest. It reminds me of the protests when the Cassini probe was launched, all because it had a plutonium RTG on it.

Re:Nuke power

[mellon]

We can't build the newer, safer designes for two reasons. The first is that the nuclear industry, by which I mean both the operators and the regulators, have utterly failed to be honest and diligent. By this I mean that they generally do their best to try to paint a happy face on any problem that may come up, rather than saying "here's what's bad about this, and here's what we're doing about it." Consequently, each time something genuinely bad happens, public trust is further undermined. And they do their best to find the cheapest possible solution to any problem, rather than actually trying to solve it, because if they had to actually solve it, it might be cheaper to simply shut down the plant.

The root of this problem is that nuclear, like solar, is not actually economically competitive with carbon sources. We'd like to stop using carbon sources of energy, but it's difficult because it's cheaper (partially because we never count the cost of the externalities). The difference between nuclear and solar is that in the case of nuclear, there's a temptation to cheap out on safety so as to make it more economically feasible, or to simply not account for externalities, like the cost of exclusion zones when a serious accident like the ones at Chernobyl and Fukushima happens.

So the point is not that nuclear is inherently unsafe, or inherently a bad idea, but rather that the economics of nuclear power tend to increase risk, not decrease it, and that what is being risked is an outcome like the ones in Fukushima and Chernobyl.

Re:Nuke power

[Waffle Iron]

Anyone else apparently, that plant was due for replacement/shutdown many years ago.

Every time there's a nuke plant disaster, some people argue that the particular situation is a special case that can be safely ignored. Undoubtedly, the same arguments will pop up the next time there's a major accident, sabotage or attack (which will undoubtedly be yet another special case).

Re:Nuke power

[PNutts]

Nuclear energy is quite cheap once the plant is up and running they can be run indefinitely with proper maintenance.

Fukushima Dai-ichi's energy was cheap until 3/11/2011 and it was properly maintained as much as any of them. Also, the Titanic was a great ship that provided excellent transportation until halfway across the Atlantic.

Re:Nuke power

[Python]

The Soviets sucked. But lets review the three power reactor accidents that have presented any potential or actual risk to the public and lets see how those accidents shook out:

1) Chernobyl: A soviet designed reactor with no containment that had a steam explosion because the operators were not trained for the experiment they were running, and they lost control of the reactor by disabling all the safety systems and doing things all the other reactors in the USSR said no to. No shock there that it had a steam explosion. (Operator error, design flaw)
2) Three Mile Island: A faulty pressure relief valve on the PWRs pressurizer and a bad design for the indicator, plus poor location of the indicators on the back of a panel, no release but core damage. (Operator error, design flaw)
3) Fukushima: a Tsunami induced beyond design basis accident, where the Units survived the earthquake and apparently the safety systems were working until the Tsunami took out the Diesel generators knocking all but the RCIC safety system out. (Beyond DBA)

Effects:

1) Chernobyl: Core Damage and exposure plus release plus fire. Worst case accident. Expected because the soviets just didnt give a fuck, they built a faulty reactor, had no containment and they blew it up with faulty procedures and an arrogant approach to Nuclear engineering. Big shocker to no one that they had a loss of containment accident and killed a lot of people trying to bring it under control. Classic Soviet Engineering Fuckup.

Actual Measurable Effects: Unit destroyed, lots of deaths of personnel involved in controlling the accident. Area contaminated, but effects have been much less over time than expected, tours are available of the area now. Worst case loss of control accident.

Cause: Experiment coupled with Operator Error/Arrogance. Soviet reactor design was unstable at low power, Night shift was untrained for the experiment that they were told to run. Plant tried to run experiment during the day, but was told to stop due to Brown Outs and passed this on to the junior night shift. Shift lost control of reactor, steam explosion took the lid off the uncontained reactor. Because Soviet reactors were designed to be refueled while running it had no containment and the rest is history. No one builds reactors like this except the Soviets, so this kind of accident can not occur with non-soviet designed reactors.

2) TMI: Core damage, no known release. It scared a lot of people at the time because it wasn't clear, at the time, what was wrong or what the effects were. Communication was poor and people understandably were panicked. No known release was measured, and a number of studies have looked into this. Increased rates of cancer were not detected, but its possible it did occur. Unfortunately, at the time the accident occurred the movie China Syndrome came out and this may have also had some impact on public perception of this accident.

Actual measurable effects: Core Damaged, Unit unusable, No deaths, no known direct health effects although there is some debate from residents on this point. Scientific studies so far have concluded that if there was any release (and there is no evidence of , it did not have any impact on public health and safety. The material than ended up the aux building did not contain solids at room temp, so any release was likely xenon (and maybe some argon or krypton), and possibly some radioactive iodine. Data at the time of the accident indicates that the release was less than 2 mrem, or 1/40th the natural dose for residents of a high altitude city. In short, not above background levels and no evidence of I-131 or C-137 in mammalian milk in the surrounding areas. So, the actual effects were scary sounding, but not anything that would have adverse impacts on health.

Cause: The Babcock and Wilcox valve indicated it was closed if the solenoid was de-energized, not when it was actually closed. It stuck open, and the indicators said it was closed. There were sensors on th

Re:Nuke power

[Rising Ape]

How many oil plant and coal plant explosions did we have in recent years?

You don't need explosions for those to harm people. Air pollution, mining incidents, global warming... if all the consequences of coal were piled into a single, per-decade event it would be an appalling accident, far worse than Fukushima.

Re:Nuke power

[edxwelch]

"Nobody died"
This is the tired old logic of the nuclear appologist.
Only count the deaths. Ignore the fact that some of the health effects like cancer and birth defects take years to become evident. And ignore the fact that the huge swaiths of land has become uninhabital and that the groundwater has become poisened.
Oh yes, then the idiotic chest x-ray comparison.
Chest x-ray is external radiation, but people living near Fukusima are in danger because of internal radiation (ingesting radioactive isotopes from air, dust, food, etc.)

Re:Nuke power

[RoFLKOPTr]

To your logic: the fact that in a majour catastrophe nobody died, does not make the technology causing that catastrophe safe. The opposite is true: if the technology would be save the catastrophe would not have happend.

It wasn't a catastrophe. It was an accident. Nuclear power is not safe in the same definition that almost EVERYTHING we do is not safe. Are cars safe? Nearly 40,000 people die every year in car accidents, let alone the tens of thousands more that are severely injured. Are planes safe? Planes are the safest method of efficient long-range travel in existance, but 1,000 people still die every year. And there are thousands of aviation accidents that don't actually cause any harm... I think earlier you called those "catastrophes". There are thousands of aviation catastrophes every year, resulting in about 1,000 deaths per year.

Let's try some risk-benefit analysis. There are about 140,000,000 automobiles in the United States. Let's just estimate that means 140,000,000 people drive frequently given that most people who own a car drive every day and some households have only one car for several people while some households may have several cars for one person. 40,000 automobile-related deaths per year means that approximately 0.0003% of those served by the automobile industry die because of it each year. Nuclear power accounts for about 20% of all power generation in the United States. Given a population of 307,000,000, I think we can safely approximate that around 61,400,000 people are served by nuclear power in the United States. 3 deaths in the history of nuclear power in the United States (3 people died in an accident at the Nuclear Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls on January 3, 1961) means that less than 0.00000005% of people served by the nuclear power industry have ever died because of it. We see 45 deaths per year directly attributed to coal power which produces energy for 150,000,000 people giving us a death rate of 0.0000003% per year, let alone all the wild speculation by the environazis trying to attribute every lung-related death in coal power areas to the coal emissions and we see numbers claimed to be sometimes approaching 10,000 deaths per year. That's all bullshit, of course, but that's what people claim. The fact is that nobody can claim any more deaths in the United States due to nuclear power than those three that died during the technology's infancy, because there is no environmental impact with which to attribute random numbers to.

The media oversensationalizes every little thing that ever happens, and you have been sucked in. Everything we do is dangerous. I suggest you stay inside wrapped in a warm blanket for the rest of your life because that's the only way you'll ever protect yourself from injury. Be careful not to stub your toe on your bedroom door on the way to the kitchen.

Re:Nuke power

[thermopile]

A fantastic summary, but I quibble with the "no evidence of any significant release of radiation" quote for Fukushima. Two months ago, I would have said it was impossible for a reactor in Japan to contaminate the drinking water in Tokyo, but that's exactly what happened. To the detriment of the industry (and I'm a nuclear engineer), there was a significant release of radiation.

That said, in the grand scheme of things, it has not presented a harm to the general public that is greater than other risks: look at the poor folks in the spillways of the Mississippi. Or the coal ash spill from the coal-fired plant in Kingston, TN.

Three incidents like you describe above, over thirty-two years, is a pretty darned good safety record, with the 440+ commercial power reactors around the world. Why does nuclear have a bad rap? One possibility is it stems from fear since it all started with a few mushroom clouds, but whatever the reason, it seems awfully visceral.

Re:Nuke power

[angel'o'sphere]

You are making the same mistak everyone else is doing here in the discussion.

Car accidents have nothing to do with power plants. My they be nuclear or solar.

Coal mining has nothing to do with power plants.
Be they coal plants or nuclear plants.

You whole posting makes no sense. But it is typical for the way how people in our society believe to make "logical conclusions".

Your risk-benefit analysis holds only so long until we have a really bad accident (or until the true numbers of death in Chernobyl are released).

So it is completely pointless ... I dont get why that is so hard to see.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Nuke power

[Python]

Agreed. I've actually got a Nuclear Engineer education and studied TMI, its an example of a contained accident. No release. TMI is an example that shows conclusively that the defense in depth used in nuclear reactors worked despite the mistakes made by the operators and despite the flaw in the BW PORV.

So yes, it is nonsense to use TMI as an example of how nuclear power is unsafe. TMI proved that even when everything failed, it was still possible to stop the accident.

Chernobyl, however, is a great example of how not to build and operate a reactor. That accident proves what happens when you dont have defense in depth, when you dont have good procedures, when you dont have containment, when you put poorly trained operators on the night shift and let your good operators go home to enjoy May Day. It also says you shouldnt experiment with big power reactors to find out what happens when things go wrong. That was classic communist thinking, screw the peasants its all for the greater good. Chernobyl is a textbook case of what can happen when you bypass all your procedures, disable your safety systems and build an unsafe reactor.

So if you want to use something as an example of how nuclear power can be done poorly and unsafely, use Chernobyl. If you want to make the argument that when everything goes wrong, nothing bad happens, sure bring up TMI.

And if you want to look ignorant, bring up TMI as an example of an accident that hurt people around actual Nuclear engineers and scientists.

Re:Nuke power

[angel'o'sphere]

The way for solar is not photovoltaic (which only works if there is sun/daylight) but thermal. It is easy to store enough heat over daytime to continue producing energy over night.

Wind and Solar are only "expensive" in terms of construction costs.

If we had started with them like 40 years ago, they would run them on maintenance costs: which means they cost close to zero.

Regarding reliability: you know, you have a hugh grid. There is always sun or wind somewhere on the grid. Right now you are depending on oil/coal or what ever from foreign countries. With wind you would only rely on your country and/or your neighbours.

angel'o'sphere

Re:Nuke power

[anagama]

How is it NOT a failure of engineering for the earthquake and tsunami threat to be minimized? History and tsunami stones pointed to real dangers that would lead one to think it is retarded to put generators that require fire, and for which water is a fatal enemy, at sea level. You cannot dismiss Fukushima because it wasn't designed for the event -- the earthquake and tsunami are an indictment of the engineering, not a reason to excuse the engineering.

Re:Nuke power

[Sir_Lewk]

If you disregard reality, you are beyond hope.

Re:Nuke power

[Python]

> If you believe that, you are beyond hope.

I don't believe it, this is what I do for a living. I know what happened, I understand the BW PWR used, I studied the accident and I am a Nuclear Engineer. Please educate yourself and read the DOE and NRC studies, and maybe listen to some actual Nuclear Engineers and stop believing everything you read on the Internet.

Re:Nuke power

[SquirrelDeth]

The spill you are referring to was 47 kilo's not liters. There was also a 800 liter spill and a 7,000 liter a day spill that lasted over a month that was pumped into the Ottawa river. They need a new plant and since they take a while to build sooner is better than latter. If the plant gets shut down for good how many years would it take to start producing isotopes again? As for perspective why shouldn't people drive 50 year old cars that pollute like a bastard and leak oil once in a while?

Re:Nuke power

[Rising Ape]

The meltdown "boom" is a much vaster explosion, spewing radioactive material over a wide area.

Except that won't happen, and I don't know where you got that from. The molten fuel is extremely unlikely to have the correct geometry to go critical, since it needs to have a moderator present as well. The intact core is close to the maximally reactive configuration, and a molten core is unlikely to spontaneously assemble itself into a lattice of fuel + water. Criticality in a meltdown may be a concern for fast reactors, but these aren't fast reactors. Even then, it wouldn't be a massive blast like the hydrogen explosions - but the heat released could cause the containment to fail so it would be a problem, yes.

TEPCO has ruined nuclear power for decades

[Animats]

Much of this is TEPCO's fault, and specifically the fault of their CEO, Masataka Shimizu. A few weeks after the hydrogen explosions, it came out that the CEO had ruled that only he could authorize any release of radioactive material, including venting hydrogen to the atmosphere to avoid an explosion.

When that decision needed to be made, the CEO was not present when wanted. When the earthquake occurred, he happened to be in another part of Japan and had trouble getting to TEPCO HQ. But there was no backup plan if the CEO was unavailable. Nobody took over and made the decision. (In the US, policy is that the on-site plant manager can make that decision.)

The CEO wasn't seen in public for weeks after the disaster. He was rumored to have fled the country, that he'd committed suicide, or that he was in a hospital. The Prime Minister of Japan personally went over to TEPCO headquarters to demand answers and action. Even that didn't help, and his office had to directly take over management of the disaster.

Masataka Shimizu is still CEO of TEPCO.

Japan used to have a tradition of seppuku in such situations.

Re:TEPCO has ruined nuclear power for decades

[SharpFang]

Less of a blind respect to authority.
A western employee of the power plant would say "Fuck the CEO if he's not available - I'm venting it."
In Japan, loyalty and obedience is worth more than "doing the right thing".

Re:Slashdot on nukes?

[Mindcontrolled]

No, they probably are not paid, I give you that. They are useful idiots. For every poster that is actually engaging into a discussion, I can give you ten who just spam the site with the usual lies like "coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste". What I find most fascinating is the fact that in the nuclear threads, suddenly stuff like global warming and peak oil is real and nuclear power is our salvation. In every other thread, those two things are usually made up by a global conspiracy of socialist scientists and/or Al Gore for the sole purpose of grabbing your hard earned and well deserved money.

How many years are we supposed to wait?

[hoboroadie]

Patience, friend, the catastrophe you seek will occur. The closest man's creations have come to achieving longevity measurable in geologic time is our creation of fissionable material. Those poisons will outlive the pyramids.

Now, now...

[creat3d]

Everybody calm down, if you knew anything about nuclear power you'd know that it's only a worst-case scenario to... oh wait, we've had all the worst cases happen already. But don't worry, it's safer than you think!!1one!

Re:Japaneese Slavutych?

[drinkypoo]

Now I wonder how would the counterpart in Japan look like, if Japan chooses a similar solution.

The problem is, they're not exactly swimming in land in Japan. (They're swimming in radioactivity.) They'd have to build it on the side of a mountain or something. Seriously though, the best option is to expatriate as rapidly as possible. Spend some of their money while it's worth something to secure some land for their citizens in some other nation and send them packing. Whole towns are now flooded at high tide since the 'quake. Japan is facing a chronic land shortage.

All this comes off as insensitive I'm sure, and I'm sorry, but it doesn't make sense to build anything in Japan any more. I'd be talking real seriously with Brazil. They already have lots of Japanese and surely they could benefit from lots more. The Japanese are very serious about protecting the environment in their own country, so it might actually improve their environmental conditions to import them all.

Re:Slashdot on nukes?

[bky1701]

"In every other thread, those two things are usually made up by a global conspiracy of socialist scientists and/or Al Gore for the sole purpose of grabbing your hard earned and well deserved money."

Uhh, no. I think you're confusing slashdot with Fox News. Easy mistake to make.

Seems to me like you can't deal with the fact there might be people of different opinions on slashdot, and want to use that to demean anyone you disagree with. Like the GP said, basically, but worse.

Re:Perspective is a funny thing . . .

[plover]

Seriously? You're comparing having to move your house to saving my wife's life, and the lives of the other people saved by those radioisotopes? Jeez, I'm so very sorry for the terrible inconvenience. Let me get right on that perspective changing.