Slashdot Mirror
Nebraska Nuclear Plant Flood Defenses Tested
mdsolar tips an article at the NY Times which begins:
"Pictures of the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant north of Omaha, Neb., show it encircled by the swollen waters of the Missouri River, which reached a height of nearly 1,007 feet above sea level at the plant yesterday. The plant's defenses include new steel gates and other hard barriers protecting an auxiliary building with vital reactor controls, and a water-filled berm 8 feet tall that encircles other parts of the plant. Both systems are designed to hold back floodwaters reaching 1,014 feet above sea level. Additional concrete barriers and permanent berms, more sandbags and another power line into the plant have been added. The plant was shut down in April for refueling and will remain so until the flood threat is passed. 'Today the plant is well positioned to ride out the current extreme Missouri River flooding while keeping the public safe,' Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Victor Dricks said on an agency blog this week. But a year ago, those new defenses were not in place, and the plant's hard barriers could have failed against a 1,010-foot flood, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission contends in a yearlong inspection and enforcement action against the plant's operator, the Omaha Public Power District."
you don't want to hear the truth doesn't mean the rest of us want to make it easy for you to stick your head into the sand. We are still busy trying to clean up from the last few "perfectly safe" disasters
Woot mdsolar is posting another article about nuclear power to spread more FUD!!!
OK nutcase - go find an article that paints nuclear power in a warm, rose colored blush. That's what Firehose is for. Unfortunately, nuclear power is not getting very good press and for very good reasons. The engineering isn't all that it is cracked up to be and isn't at all what it needs to be. Even with the 'new' flood guidelines, the plant in TFA is only seven feet from breaching the walls. With a billion dollar plant hanging in the balance, I'd like just a bit more breathing room.
Again, it's not the long term waste problem that's going to kill commercial nuclear power (although that is a big issue that we're not handling well). It's going to be bad engineering decisions pushed on staff because of economic considerations. Short term gain, long term pain.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yeah I wondered that myself. If I was really worried about 1010ft flood I think it better to build a boat and try and get 2 of every animal on board. And Anna Torv. That should be a good enough safeguard
PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
Two weeks ago people on the Internets here (in other forums) were talking about how the plant had basically already melted down and that Obama had ordered a news blackout of the plant to conceal mass evacuations that apparently had already begun! All of this to protect his "green jobs" initiative.
Well, guess what? I live in Omaha. There's no meltdown. No evacuation. No flooding at the site.
OPPD's official rumor control page:
http://www.oppd.com/AboutUs/22_007105
OPPD flood blog:
http://www.oppdstorminfo.blogspot.com/
OPPD's Twitter page:
http://twitter.com/#!/oppdcares
That's a bit of a bizarre measurement for river waters, no? Makes it sound at first glance that it's under 1,007 feet of water. Why not the height above the normal crest? It would make it a bit easier to visualize that's for sure.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
This one needed to be addressed. There have been reports all over the world that the reactor in question has been near melt-down since early this month and that the U.S. had a media black-out in place. Some small U.S. sites picked up the story including Salem News IIRC. Started in Pak from supposed Russian leak.
Anyhow, carry on.
This from nrc.gov: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2011/11-025.iv.pdf
Woot mdsolar is posting another article about nuclear power to spread more FUD!!!
What's so FUD about it? Sounds like they evaluated the risk a year ago, shored up protection, and it's working.
No, what will kill nuclear power will be people like you and mdsolar who are idiots and don't know the first thing about nuclear power. Oh, and the firehose is feed of submissions, not a list of all stories available on the internet. I am just curious as to why you think editors like soulskill and timothy will allow a pro-nuclear story on slashdot.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I would just like to point out that 7 feet of flooding is A LOT as the water has more and more places to go horizontally before it has to go up. Not that that a big deal, just saying it's probably a lot more margin than it sounds like, though that still may not be enough.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
When I want reliable news, I go to nation.com.pk
As I understand it, the issue in Japan was that, while the reactor scrammed automatically when the earthquake was detected, the rods still need time to cool down before they cool enough to no longer require power to cool.
How long does that cooldown process take? Or do even "cool" rods still require power to remain cool?
--
$tar -xvf
But, but, how can you trust the official page of the power companies? Don't you know that they all conspire to hide the truth about how evil electricity actually is while simultaneously using the profits they reap from us poor, victimized sheeple to purchase gallons of children's tears to wash their baby seal skinned boots in?
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
" The engineering isn't all that it is cracked up to be "
what the hell do you base that on? Fukashima with stood 10 times bigger earthquakes, and tsunami, and the island dropping 1 meter.
Again new designs of nuclear plants do not have a long term waste problem. Also, they can burn older waste we currently have.
I don't even think you know how little nuclear waste we have, how it's stored, or even the classifications of nuclear waste and what they mean.
You are an ignorant person whose ignorance spread FUD.
", the plant in TFA is only seven feet from breaching the walls."
so? how much more VOLUME would they need to get that extra 7 feet? THAT"S the correct question. It could be 6 inches from the top, but id it would take 1000 trillion gallons to get there, it doesn't matter.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They won't, because they don't want to.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's going to be bad engineering decisions pushed on staff because of economic considerations.
Well, unfortunately all of the good engineering decisions, like shutting down plants before their designed lifetime suggests and replacing them with new ones, have been blocked by public hysteria along the lines of, "No new nuclear anything ever!!!!!"
So, yeah, great thing that "wisdom of the masses."
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
The aquadams are cool. And they were probably filled by using the plant's own electricity to pump the water's own water from the river's own river to negate the flood's flooding ability.
Nuclear power FTW!
Explain.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yep. Doesn't worry me in the least.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Or corporations.
I am not anti-nuclear, but corporations have a history of scrimping on engineering and safety when they can.
Personally, I'd like to see the US start building Thorium reactor to be maintained and ran by the government. remove the bonus, shareholders, board and all the profit motivation.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't see how saying the "above sea level" water height is useful at all. Maybe to make the article sound scarier? When I sell my house I should market it as "able to withstand floods of up to 5000 ft above sea level!".
Also, a trickle over a berm or barrier is far less water than the 10-ft instant flood at Fukushima. I'm sure a simple sump pump would be adequate to remove water and keep most systems operating at full capacity...except that the plant is SHUT DOWN. As in NOT REACTING.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
If your house is at 1006 feet above sea level, you want to know the water's getting to 1007. Just saying "it's a 7 foot flood" without saying the baseline is pointless. And in a flood, a few inches makes a big difference. One more course of sandbags can be the difference between zero loss and total loss.
That didn't happen at Fukushima, either. They lost both grid power and their internal diesel generators.
Nuke plants should have bicycle-powered pumps as a third source of coolant flow.
Those are the only kind of boots that fit the reptilians, what do you want them to do?
Yeah, it's the evil "corporations". Individual actors or small businesses totally don't have such a history, right?
While I expect they have the flood thing handled, what gives me pause is when I looked up how many nuclear sites there are (440 roughly) and how many major disasters have occurred (chernoble, TMI and now Fukishima). So a quick calculation says if I have a plant within a few miles of me, there is roughly a 1% chance in a typical lifetime that my home will be un-inhabitable for the next 100 years or so. I'm not a big pro or anti nuke guy. Actually I was sort of positive on them until I considered the probabilities. I mean, some people may be NIMBY about turbines, but man, I am definitely NIMBY for a nuke plant now.
But that is the forecast - 5-7 feet rise this summer.
Besides, TFA says that the original state of the plant was only good for 1008 above sea level - it is now at 1007 and rising - that is the thrust of the article. They were not prepared and may still not be.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
So, do you know anyone who actually knows how high above sea-level their house is? Other than people who live along the beach, I mean....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"people on the Internets" have said a lot of things. Who cares? I didn't read that the plant had meted down and I have been following this closely.
I am as assured by OPPD's public face as I am by TEPCO.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
hmmm. I didn't see any pictures on that NY Times page.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Granted, I understand that most people here would view a newspaper in Pakistan as not the most credible source for news, but I believe this newspaper to be a credible one, and they do not appear to be in the business of conspiracy theories.
âoeIf youâ(TM)re still living under the delusion that the TSA is just restricted to airports then think again. A joint VIPR âoesecurity exerciseâ involving military personnel has Transportation Security Administration workers covering 5,000 miles and three states, illustrating once again how the TSA is turning into a literal occupying army for domestic repression in America."
"But, with an already documented 35% increase in the infant mortality rate for American mothers living in the western coastal regions of the US caused by radiation blowing onto them from Japan being ignored by these people there doesnâ(TM)t seem to be much hope for them."
No they aren't paranoid, they just think the TSA is an occupying military force *cough splutter laugh* and that infant mortality is secretly up 35% in the US.
Not paranoid at all.
I desperately hope I was missing your sarcasm.
By "with stood", do you mean it is still visible? Because I don't think that having melt throughs at three reactors, loss of cooling of the spent fool ponds, and huge amounts of radiation leaking into the ocean due to leaks from the external water desperately being applied to be "with stood".
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
Woot mdsolar is posting another article about nuclear power to spread more FUD!!!
I can understand slashdot taking lame submissions from techie magazines and such; presumably they're getting something for it, whether it's cash or (more likely) simple referrals and linkbacks.
But why this crap? Mdsolar is known here. He's just a guy with a bent agenda. He's made it clear in his comments that he won't take correction, and ignores any facts that don't fit his ideology. What does slashdot get from taking his dreck? Do they just want the flurry of posters calling out the submission as nonsense?
There have been reports all over the world that the reactor in question has been near melt-down since early this month and that the U.S. had a media black-out in place.
Source? Oh, right, media black-out. The absence of confirmation is clear proof.
It's how engineers speak, in absolute, Globally discrete values, not localized relative ones. Well, except the ocassional NASA engineer, and we know how it turns out for them.
Sea level is used so everyone is on the exact same page.
Three feet over flood stage at location A maybe 9 feet above flood at Location B, just a few miles down stream. 1010 feet above sea level however will be 1010 feet above sea level anywhere on the globe.
Our local rivers and lake operate at 216 feet above sea level normally, and at 247 feet you hit flood stage and it starts going over the spill way bypass.
No, I didn't have to go look that up, I already knew it as I boat on that resevoir rather often so I know it's numbers so I know what to expect when go out there during spring flooding or late summer dry spells, and which boat ramps will still work... Which are also marked by high and low altitude relative to MSL.
You can't measure it relative to anything else and have a meaning that's useful.
Pretty much all measurements of bodies of water are measured relative to MSL, Mean Sea Level.
As long as you know YOUR altitude above MSL, you know where you stand. Rather than 6 feet above normal at Joes Ferry Bridge, which is only useful if you know where the bridge is, how it's elevation relates to yours, and what they are considering 'normal'
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
No, actually they didn't ... Until the goverment started fining the ever living shit out of them about a year ago ... Had this happened last summer, the plants barriers would already be underwater and it's still rising.
I'm not anti nuke, I'm pro actually, but had they not have been spanked hard over the last year, they'd be in trouble.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Google Earth is your friend. So is the Army Corps of Engineers. Who have a lot of rivers to deal with, so letting them work in absolute units makes their days easier.
I wonder about the soil turning to soup and oozing up under the water berm if this goes on for months. Will they hoist the fire truck over there and attach a mud pump or what?
Maybe not Bicycle per-say but I did think after Fukishima that they should have a giant gear and clutch system somewhere.
Tear apart your nearest semi-truck, rip out its drive shaft and weld it in. Assuming the clutch wasn't knocked out (or assuming you couldn't beat it with sledge hammers until it engages) it seems like an easier fix than getting particular electrical systems to talk to one another.
Sometimes a mechanical solution seems like it would be the best most warranted solution just as a final last failsafe.
soulskill posted this completely pro-nuke and idiotic thing about a thorium reactor: http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/02/1330245/Thorium-the-Next-Nuclear-Fuel The last one never worked right and had a hugely expensive clean up. You are just being silly complaining about the editors. Better to complain about the NYT paywall....
The next nuke down the river is still operating at full capacity. But many roads have been cut by the flood and there may not be an adequate escape plan should there be an accident. Should we only be looking at what the flood does to the nuke or is the way it affects the surrounding infrastructure important as well?
One article.
Another.
The story from the plant operator
The root cause of Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt - especially in this case is the lack of information. The reactor is apparently on level 4 alert (accident with local consequences - this alone should have made the news at least in Nebraska), has had a fire, has had a no-fly zone extended over it since June 6 - the reason given is "the flooding". The first I heard of this was on June 17th - stumbled across it by chance while looking up information on nuclear plants and was suspicious of it (Russian source so WTF would they know was my first thought). Found lots of youtube stuff, people screaming "why haven't we been told". It has only recently hit slashdot and mainstream news - this has been going on since June 6 (the fire was June 7).
Knowledge stops FUD and builds confidence, the authorities should have at least informed people instead of people calling in ("by the hundreds" as on shock jock put it) and complaining that something is wrong.
Instead of being "condescending", it would help the nuclear cause if facts were given to counter the shock jocks - before they get a foot hold.
It wasn't until June 17 that the plant operator actually deemed to give any information (the answers look a little shaky imo - the water level does not constitute an accident with local consequences). I hope they are truthful because this should have been a story of conservative precautions - see, FUD is working - I doubt them.
BM3
Really? Have you watched the news lately? They never say "The flood crested at 1007 feet above sea level", they say "The flood has crested at 7 feet. That is 3 feet above flood stage."
Using sea level as a reference for localized flooding in the interior of the continent is pointless. The reason is obvious when one considers the fact that the surface of the continent is not smooth nor regular. Omaha, NE is at about 1000 feet above sea level. Nashville is about 580 feet above sea level. Death Valley is BELOW sea level. A flood that crests at 1001 feet above sea level is minor in Omaha and utterly catastrophic in Nashville. And, doesn't even register in Salt Lake City.
It is positively idiotic to use sea level as a reference, which is why the only people who do it are those being disingenuous. From news organization, to emergency management organizations, to the Army Corps of Engineers, to people stacking sandbags, all people seriously involved in a flood refer to the height of a flood in relation to localized normal levels.
You are right that a few inches can make a difference in a flood. That is why people don't reference a standard that has no bearing on their current situation and location.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
all floors in nuclear power plants are posted by elevation. there isnt a 'first floor' 'second floor' 'basement'.
Really? So, find me a video of the Army Corps of Engineers discussing a flood in an interior state and referring to the flood height in feet above sea level. Hell, find me a report on a flood that uses feet above sea level that doesn't involve a city at or near sea level.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
get away with changing the subject in order to avoid answering embarrassing questions. why should I let a supposed adult do the same?
a main generator of a NPP (and any other large base load plant) cannot handle small or transient loads. when you lose offsite power, you have no load, and the generator has to shut down, otherwise you could damage the generator or destroy the turbine catastrophically. equate it to riding a bike. if you are going 20 mph on a bike in first gear and you are pedaling as fast as you can it is very unstable. (there isnt enough load for the energy your legs are producing). if you are in 6th gear you'll be fine because there's enough load to counter what your legs are trying to put in. anyways...this is why there are at least 2 qualified AC circuits plus at least 2 diesel systems per plant.
I respond well to well reasoned arguments. Blind loyalty to nuclear power and crap about uranium in coal ash does not count as reasoning.
What about water (or mud) under the berm? This flood seems like it wants to stay around all summer. Could be a problem if the soil saturates and then becomes soup.
I agree with that, the whole cost-cutting thing really is stupid and short-sighted.
Honestly though, we have power plants that are 30-60 years old and are full of highly dangerous material, and we've had a handful of accidents. I think that's a tribute to the engineering of the time. I don't see why we can't build plants just as good, if not better. It should be highly criminal to do otherwise.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
where do you suppose TFA got its data? would anyone other than the CoE pay any attention to sea level in Minot, North Dakota?
or you could google for it. i did. it's all over the summaries of the links:
http://www.google.com/search?q=corps+of+engineers+flood+feet+sea+level
You claimed soulskill would never post a pro-nuke article. You were wrong. Why do you want to censor slashdot?
The NRC chair will be inspecting both flood affected plants on Monday: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304569504576406163159603654.html Perhaps there is something to fear. The situation is uncertain and doubts about the safety of nuclear power are justified.
Read the thread. It's been established several times - mean sea level is the standard unit of measurement for level used by the plants, the NRC, and the Army Corps of Engineers. It's purpose is to supply an easily understandable common ground for technical use of the information. This doesn't mean just water level - internal floors in the plants are also designated by height above sea level.
Oh you anti-nuke people are friggin stupid.
I live in Omaha, 11 blocks from the river, about 20 miles south of the plant, and am not concerned in the slightest about the OPPD nuke plant causing issues. I get far more radiation every day from the coal-fired generator plant about five miles away. I like that even less. With the insane amount of water in the river right now, even if it did breach the spent fuel pools (fool pools as another poster mistakenly said), the radioactive material would be so diluted within seconds that it would have less radioactivity that your standard concrete block wall.
Go worry somewhere else, you big pussies. The amount of deaths caused by all the nuclear accidents ever is insignificant compared to the lung cancer deaths resulting from the radioactivity released by coal-burning that we all breathe every day.
I live in Alliance Nebraska and the 1.5 mile long coal trains give off visible coal dust all the time. There are 10 trains that run though town daily plus the local train depot. So the dust in the air from these trains are FAR MORE DANGEROUS than any nuclear powerplant, I am more afraid of the pollution from the train's diesel engines and coal dust than any nuke plant. Too bad people are morons about nuclear power.
You are using the WRONG term to make your point: "Publicly Owned" means that there are stockholders; anyone from the public can buy their stock.
However, OPPD is a privately-owned company, although you can invest with them by buying OPPD bonds. See http://www.oppd.com/InvestorsFinance/index.htm for more info.
Just like the confusion caused by the term "non-profit company" - the only thing that means is that they cannot be "publicly owned", which is a confusing term simply meaning that publicly-traded stocks cannot be sold for a non-profit. But they are allowed to make what the common person would call "profit", but just not have stockholders that profit from the non-profit organization. It just means that any money that exceeds total expenses does not have to be shared with stock holders, instead they can put it towards buying a bigger building, put it in a bank account, paying their employees more, or, as usually happens, giving monster bonuses to the top dogs of the "non-profit" so they can get their new Porsche for the year. Don't be fooled into thinking that a non-profit is a "everything at cost" organization.
You've been sold a large pack of lies by the media, time to start waking up and seeing thru the illusion. Fuck guys, I'm only a GED student and I know this stuff. What's your excuse?
No, OPPD is owned by the state of Nebraska. From their web page (http://www.oppd.com/AboutUs/Company/22_000593):
On Dec. 2, 1946, the state legislature created the Omaha Public Power District, a political subdivision of the State of Nebraska, which acquired the properties operated by the Nebraska Power Company.
They sell bonds to borrow money as do many other government agencies.
Amen brother! I grew up in Kearney, blocks from the busiest rails in the world (At least the country, not fully sure on that), Lost several friends and relatives to odd cancers. (Does the same line go through Alliance? I'm not sure to tell the truth, but I've been there and there's a lot of tracks there too.)
Huh, interesting. I did not realize that. You have indeed taught me something, thank you. I always thought the "Public" part of the name was because it provided power to the public.
But, I became myopic while trying to make my point about "Publically Owned" companies. So we both get to share half a point on that one. :)
Dammit, I can look out my window now and see the OPPD building from here. But that still doesn't make me right, just embarrassed about what I thought was true about OPPD. Big duh for me...
Yeah: "nuclear power plant working perfectly fine as planned" doesn't make the news.
You know, as the majority of them do, year after year, decade after decade. It's just not very exciting, you know? Not like Three-Mile Island, or Chernobyl, or Fukushima? Except, of course, that Three-Mile Island didn't blow up and hurt nobody, Chernobyl blew up (because of a chemical reaction) and hurt a few hundred to few thousand people and is rabidly turning into a de facto natural reservoir, Fukushima has this far not hurt anybody, while coal power (the alternative) kills 100,000+ people a year and nobody bats an eyelash.
You do realize that "the fourt-biggest earthquake in human history hitting a nuclear plant might have cause a leak that may or may not cause any harm to anyone" is not exactly a deal-brealer, right? Especially when the plant has delivered who-knows-how-many terawatt-hours already?
No, it's the short-term hysteria of idiots. That's going to doom us all to either climate change or to "green" (energy-deprived) future or both.
Oh well. At leat I don't have children to subject to the Green Hell.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The problem has been the cost. No one will invest in nuclear power because half the projects default. They just get into cost overruns and that is it. The NRC will approve a power plant anywhere at anytime but you can't get a bank to lend.
So, what you're saying is that, no matter what it says, you won't read any article which mdsolar links to, and anything which doesn't fit your view of the world must be FUD?
The first is the fallacy of Ad Hominem, while the second is the error of Confirmation Bias.
I'm basically pro-nuclear, but as a nuclear supporters, I think it's important for nuclear supporters to be the nuclear industry's biggest critics. Nuclear power can only be a good thing for mankind and the rest of the environment if we have a healthy respect for the dangers it holds for us, and if we always hold the nuclear industry to the highest levels of accountability.
If we're not going to do that, then I don't want nuclear power, because we're not yet evolved enough as a species to do it safely over the long term (hundreds, even thousands of years).
Only when we can be brutally honest, calling a spade a spade, and have a high level of transparency in the regulation of the nuclear plants, can we hope to have a safe nuclear industry.
I do not know whether the current high of 1014 feet is high enough or not. I readily admit I do not have the expertise. What I do see from that article is that the experts at the NRC who *should* have the expertise, had to force the power co to improve their flood defenses, and it appears it's a dam good thing they did (hey, did you see what I did there?), and that they did it just in the nick of time.
I'm not so much afraid of nuclear power, as afraid of an industry that fights every safety requirement right up till the moment they're proven wrong.
If the plant designs are such that they can't be made both safe *and* affordable at the same time, then those designs are fundamentally flawed, and need to be resigned to the dustbin of history, replaced by newer designs which can be both safe and affordable.
Yep. The engineering isn't all that hot. Engineering decisions to leave the generators vulnerable to flooding. Engineering decisions to continue running a reactor well past design life. Engineering decisions to ignore new geologic data suggesting that both earthquake risks and tsunami risks were higher than originally thought. Engineering decisions to not upgrade the hydrogen containment / escape devices.
Between Fukashima and Monju, the Japanese nuclear industry seems to have some long term, pervasive, structural problems.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Fukushima reactor #4 was shut down and still caused big problems"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_heat#Power_reactors_in_shutdown
Read up on decay heat; there's a huge difference between "shut down an hour ago" and "shut down a month ago".
I'm not in Nebraska so I don't have any first hand dealings with them. A lot of "publicly owned" or "non-profit" entities seem to be operated for the benefit of the management, not the public. It would be interesting to compare how OPPD works compared to, say, Pacific Gas and Electric (they cover Northern California), which is a for-profit utility owned by stockholders (but regulated as a utility). We used to like to call them Pigs Greed and Extortion.
No, what is really killing nuclear power is the cost and the fact that it can't be built (at least in the US) without government subsidies. When you include the lifetime costs nuclear is one of the more costly ways to generate electricity.
There were no melt throughs at Fukashima, there were melt downs of the core but these all were contained. See the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I do, 487 feet.
It might take 10 semi engines to drive the necessary generating power.
Yeah: "nuclear power plant working perfectly fine as planned" doesn't make the news.
You know, as the majority of them do, year after year, decade after decade.
There are plenty of nuclear failures all the time, but of course they are not publicized. America reactors are known to contain unreported defects. Meanwhile areas around threatened reactors in the USA have been declared no-fly zones. You don't do this unless it's actually dangerous, or you have something to hide, or both. You know, like when they declared the entire gulf to be a no-fly zone in an attempt to hide the extent of the devastation... and of the spraying of dispersants, which occurred at a level vastly above what it should be. No-fly zones are for hiding malfeasance, barring long-running ones above airports and test sites.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No, of course not. If there are failures, it means nuclear power is unsafe, and if there aren't any failures, it means that they are kept secret. Perfect logic.
Greenpeace has zero credibility concerning nuclear power, and frankly anything else either nowadays. Don't bother linking there; they've been caught lying too many times. Even their own founder thinks they've gone nuts.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
And yet, oddly, this doesn't seem to cause any drama. Strange. It's almost like they were... safe.
Almost, but not quite. Remember how we treated DDT or thalidomide before we admitted they were evil?
Meanwhile areas around threatened reactors in the USA have been declared no-fly zones. You don't do this unless it's actually dangerous, or you have something to hide, or both.
Or you think some nut might be planning to ram an airplane into the plant. Which seems more likely than someone trying to hide what goes on under a roof from airplanes.
Nobody said anything about airplanes figuring out what went on under a roof, but since you don't know what you're talking about you jumped straight there. I'm talking about atmospheric monitoring. Have a nice day in lackofimaginationland.
You know, like when they declared the entire gulf to be a no-fly zone in an attempt to hide the extent of the devastation... and of the spraying of dispersants, which occurred at a level vastly above what it should be. No-fly zones are for hiding malfeasance, barring long-running ones above airports and test sites.
And this has to do with nuclear power exactly what?
You're not really this dumb, right? You're just trying to make it look like I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about? The point was to prove that our government uses no-fly zones to hide malfeasance, and I did this thing.
Apart from, you know, us not needing oil so badly if we relied more on nuclear power, so the entire Gulf oil spill might not have happened.
False dichotomy between nuclear and nothing. When you have a valid point to make, then make it. Until then, why don't you try a little harder?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"The plant was shut down in April for refueling and will remain so until the flood threat is passed."
They aren't evil, they are potentially dangerous chemicals, and both are still being used.
Atmospheric monitoring? And, pray tell, what did these supposedly monitor that couldn't be more easily monitored from the ground?
This, from someone who named himself after Tubgirl?
No, that appearance is entirely your own doing.
There are numerous potential uses for no-fly zones, and you've done exactly nothing to prove these nuclear no-fly zones were about hiding malfeasance.
Okay: if you want to keep using energy - and that means staying alive, not just keeping the lights on - that energy needs to be generated somehow. The two alternatives now and in the foreseeable future are nuclear power and fossil fuels. Refuse to use nuclear, and you need more fossils, increasing the chances that's there an accident related to them.
Now did I express myself clearly enough?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You do know that much of the cost is caused by over-regulation and challenges by anti-nuclear people. Please provide a source for your claim. And, make it a reputable one.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8565020/Nuclear-fuel-has-melted-through-base-of-Fukushima-plant.html
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
When the technology has the capability of rendering tens to hundreds of square miles uninhabitable in the case of a major malfunction I'd rather err on the side of over-regulation.
Fortuitously here is a recent analysis of why the nuclear industry hasn't built any new plants since the 1970's. It's not peer reviewed but it does reference authoritative sources.
I'm not your stalker :) DaveV0.1952
If you're getting your news filtered through the brain of a journalist just pulled off stories of cats in trees to report on Fukashima you suffer from their inability to understand the technologies involved. The first lines of your link are: "The nuclear fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant has melted through the base of the pressure vessels and is pooling in the outer containment vessels, according to a report by the Japanese government.". The "outer containment vessel" the "journalist" referred to is part of the pressure vessel. The fuel is still in the pressure vessels so there have been melt-downs but no melt-throughs.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Talk about a classic straw man.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
island dropping 1 meter.
Not picking on you in particular but I don't buy that. If Japan really did drop 1m then vast areas would be under water right now. The tsunami was a wave that rushed in and then back out again, and beaches are pretty much were they were before.
Similarly the idea that the whole place moved 8m horizontally doesn't seem to stack up because in the days afterwards I was able to get an accurate position from the GPS in my phone. I don't recall my friends having to update their sat-nav software either. The margin of error for my phone's GPS is claimed to be 5m BTW, but I find usually it is 2m.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Much of your post appears to be business decisions, not necessarily engineering decisions.