NRC Study Lowers Hazard Estimate For Nuke Plants

JSBiff writes "With the incident at Fukushima causing much renewed concern about the risks of nuclear power this year, the NY Times brings news that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has released the preliminary version of a safety report due out in April 2012, based upon new science about the behavior of Cesium-137. The report finds that the public health hazards of nuclear accidents at the types of reactor designs currently in common use are lower than previously thought, based upon a better understanding of the science behind earlier estimates."

Comments

Does the report also find...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that John Q Public does not operate on the logical, scientific wavelength?

Re:Does the report also find...

[BlueMikey]

And that politicians who apparently went to decent high schools and colleges and graduate schools subsequently forget any science they've learned when they realize that John Q Public not only cannot understand science, but hates people who do.

Ignorance is bliss.

TFA

[Ironchew]

TFA says that 1-2% of cesium 137 is likely to escape the core in the event of a containment breach, unlike 60% in previous estimates (Most of it dissolves in stagnant water or is deposited on the containment vessel surface). People living in a 10-mile radius would have enough time to evacuate, and cancer estimates within 10 miles went from 1 in 167 previously to 1 in 4348. A rainstorm happening during the meltdown can cause a higher dose to accumulate in small areas.

Re:TFA

[Interoperable]

It's worth noting that the panel was considering the results of the most-likely mode of failure under average conditions and not a worst-case scenario. If a reactor managed to explode and destroy the containment vessels, I'm sure their earlier estimates of the death toll would still apply.

The Fukushima accident suggests that Three-Mile-Island was actually more of a real disaster than a narrowly avoided one; a contained meltdown with some radiation release is a normal failure mode and not tremendously hazardous. On the other hand, the NRC report didn't consider less likely types of failure which could still produce much worse contamination. It's very tough to say beforehand how likely a given type of disaster is and very easy to look back in hindsight and say that there had been a disaster waiting to happen.

Sooner or later I'm sure a worst-case nuclear disaster will occur and the result will be a handful of acute radiation sickness deaths and a few million people who end up with a statistically-insignificant increase to their chances of getting cancer.

Re:TFA

[AC-x]

Sooner or later I'm sure a worst-case nuclear disaster will occur and the result will be a handful of acute radiation sickness deaths and a few million people who end up with a statistically-insignificant increase to their chances of getting cancer.

A worst case nuclear disaster has already occurred, in 1986.

Re:TFA

[CrimsonAvenger]

If a reactor managed to explode

Reactors don't explode.

Unless you pack them full of TNT or some such.

Re:TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. Reactors are in fact quite likely to explode during serious accidents. Steam explosions, hydrogen explosions (which is what happened at Fukushima), those are the sort of thing that happen to them.

Re:TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Japan actually had nuclear explosions happen in densely populated areas, twice. Nowadays, the life expectancy in Hiroshima is longer than the life expectancy anywhere in America.

It's actually very hard to get fissile material to explode like that. Just ask the North Koreans with their fizzlebomb. In particular, reactors can't explode.

Re:TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Reactors are very hot. Hot things tend to expand. Whenever a material "tries" to expands, but is contained (as within a nuclear reactor), a chance exists that the container might fail and an explosion ensue. That said, I support nuclear power since the engineers who design them take such things into consideration when designing a safe reactor.

Re:TFA

[fnj]

Oh, the Chernobyl reactor didn't explode? I'll alert the media. They've been wrong all these years. Why didn't you tell them?

Re:TFA

[symbolset]

Well, they CAN explode. Just not in that way.

Re:TFA

[danlip]

Chernobyl exploded - it was a steam explosion, not a nuclear explosion, but it was sufficient to blow apart the building and throw pieces of the core everywhere. Really much worse than a nuclear bomb, since a bomb would burn more of its fuel.

And there might have been a small nuclear explosion too - there were 2 explosions, and the second might have been nuclear, although it certain isn't clear - the wikipedia article on the Chernobyl disaster discusses this. In any case, the damn thing exploded.

Re:TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering TFA and radiation estimates, I have to say the numbers are baseless. They are baseless because they are assuming LNT (linear no threshold) model of radiation exposure. This model "predicts" incorrect data for LOW LEVEL EXPOSURES (100mS acute, 400mSv/yr). There is very little actual research done in this area and we *know* that LNT is wrong because of accidents like Chernobyl and from *decades* of radiation medicine (x-rays, CT, fluoroscopy, bone scans, radiotherapy, etc. etc.). As an example, the number of cancer cased from Chernobyl is significantly lower than expected - we should have seen a MAJOR spike in leukemia cancers within 10 years, but nothing happened, and leukemia is the most radiation sensitive cancer we know of. We know that doubling or tripling background levels does nothing as background levels vary from ~2mSv/yr to well over 10mSv/yr without any indications of increased cancer rates. Heck, people are living in areas of 100-200mSv/yr background radiation without increasing their cancer rates - on the contrary, they are supposedly claiming they are healthiest areas.

There has been 60 years of anecdotal evidence that LNT is wrong, yet there is little interest in actually building a low level radiation lab to test LNT's validity at low levels and levels below background. This research much be done otherwise the numbers present in TFA are useless. The actual numbers could be near NIL or it could be 2x their numbers. Without actual research, it is guesswork. Based on anecdotal evidence, my guess is their numbers are severely inflated.

PS. LNT was decided to be the "standard model of radiation exposure" by the UN committee in early 1950s based on results of nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and then drawing a straight line to 0. Maybe it's just me, but applying nuclear bomb data to low level radiation exposures similar to background and deducing results is fubar at best. The model only holds for acute, high level exposures. Radiation contamination is neither.

The Trouble with Reports:

[newcastlejon]

Only half the people that know about it, read it.
Only half the people that read it understand it.
Only half the people that understand it believe it.
Only half the people that believe it will agree with it.
Of those six people, maybe one will actually try and persuade others.

The rest are as jaded as me, if not more so. I admire the sentiment behind it, but alas I don't think the general populace will be won over by anything larger than a few tens of words. *sigh* If only we could curtail fear-mongering in the media without impinging on journalistic freedom.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

If the alternative is a permanent blackout, they'll find a way to have it make economic sense or they will have the government do it, and switch from capitalism to a command economy if need be.

Without energy, there is nothing. No economy, no goods, no services, no medicine, no food, no life.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[spottedkangaroo]

it would make a lot more sense if they could ever get permission to build fast breader reactors and use the nuclear "waste" as fuel in the second type of reactor.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[polar red]

nuclear power provides only a tiny amount of electric energy compared to other types, so no nuclear power does not mean a permanent blackout. In fact, wind and solar alone can provide enough electricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_power_source#European_super_grid

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[polar red]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/energy-environment/29nuke.html?pagewanted=all

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Anonymous Coward]

According to an earlier /. report which is also right (like this one,) you need only to have 9 friends to ensure that everyone will eventually come to know this immutable scientific fact. Because 10% is the magic tipping point. And they need 9 friends, and so on. So, do not despair. If you believe /. reports, your dreams will come true.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[MasterPatricko]

http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html

20% of total electricity production in the US is not a tiny amount, and is thousands of times the currently installed wind and solar capacity. It'll be many decades before they can replace nuclear.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[polar red]

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/07/renewable-power-booms-in-developing-world-as-it-tops-nuclear-in-the-us.ars

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Wonko the Sane]

Well, yes. If you block all technological advancement in one field for upwards of half a century then it won't tend to much progress. The designs for commercial nuclear power plants were based around 1950s requirements to create material for nuclear weapons programs. If energy companies were even just allowed to advance to state-of-the (1970s) - art molten salt reactor designs based around the thorium fuel cycle the economic argument would look a lot different, not to mention what might happen if the State decided to stop micromanaging energy production and allowed technology to advance on its own.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Anonymous Coward]

Try reading the things you cite. "Renewable" is not limited to solar and wind, so MasterPatricko's point is not refuted or undermined by your link. Furthermore, nuclear power production has remained relatively static in the US for political reasons.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi_Nuclear_Generating_Station

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Almost_Lost_Detroit

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Firethorn]

Review of the source of that article shows that it's misleading.

Figure 44 shows nuclear passing renewables(including hydro) for electricity production in 1974, and still in the lead today.

Figure 59 shows "renewables" leading worldwide energy production since the graph start in 1970. It's in BTUs, so includes things like burning wood.

Rereading the article, it boils down to that more is now being invested into renewable power, than nuclear power. Given that we aren't building a lot of nuclear plants, that's not surprising. Despite that, renewable power isn't trending upward significantly enough to pass nuclear anytime soon; most of the increase is in natural gas.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[cdrguru]

Sorry, but humans existed for a long, long time without electric power and we can learn to exist again in an environment where there is only a little electricity available.

The US is certainly headed in that direction. You can expect to start seeing the power companies using the tools homeowners are giving them to turn off appliances, air conditioning and just about everything else during the day and at other peak times. For the rest, you can expect to see time-dependent electric rates when it becomes idiotic to try to be running anything more than a 7-watt CFL bulb in your house at some times.

More capacity will not be built. The war on utilities has pretty much been won by the environmentalists so today even if the federal government declared instant approval without any possibility of court hearings, environmental impact studies and endless negotiations over land use it would take at least five years before new capacity came on line. We don't have five years of reserve capacity left and if we turn off the nuclear power plants (likely!) we will be in an instant capacity crisis.

It will be a choice between the home refrigerator running during the day or the computer at the office. It will be a choice between being able to work late in the evening or other people watching TV, cooking and cleaning their homes.

Sure, it will be difficult for some and likely mean the end of home air conditioning in much of the US. But we've only had air conditioning since the 1930s. Lots of old folks will likely die from heat stroke and such, but they wouldn't have lived anyway before the 1930s. But the important thing to remember is that recognizable humans has been around for 40,000 years or more and nobody had air conditioning or electric light except in the last 100 years or so.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[pixelpusher220]

what might happen if the State decided to stop micromanaging energy production and allowed technology to advance on its own.

When the power source in question is capable of rendering 100 mile radius uninhabitable for decades....sorry I want micromanagement.

Now, solar/wind on the other hand don't do a damned thing when they fail. They might fall over and hit you but once they have failed they are completely inert and can be cleaned up right after the storm.

To be fair, I like Thorium as a reactor fuel, but my understanding of Thorium is the tech isn't yet there; i.e. keeping corrosive radioactive salts contained with no maintenance (closed systems) is still problematic.

In any event, it still has a fuel cost that renewable sources don't.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Anonymous Coward]

There's been no barrier to technologically advancing the types of remediation and containment necessary to partner with these technologies, and what have we learned? Mushrooms are the best remediation technique and we still can't store the stuff safely. This is the most dangerous kind of technological optimism... one that burdens all future generations with vigilance for the dangers we leave behind deciding to employ tech we can't manage safely. Just amassing thousands of tons of waste in lead caskets is hardly "management", it's irresponsible, as is the cherry-picked science that says this whole scenario is "safe".

If the hidden costs of nuclear were presented, like the actual carbon costs in construction and decommissioning, as well as what still remains the largest lobby in Washington, the scales would tip away from this massively dangerous and unnecessary technology. It is hardly surprising to find the NRC covering their arses this way.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[lgw]

All power is "renewable" on one time scale and "exhaustable" on another. It's really about "Red Team Power" and "Blue Team Power", and we need to stop playing that game.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[lgw]

The US is certainly headed in that direction. You can expect to start seeing the power companies using the tools homeowners are giving them to turn off appliances, air conditioning and just about everything else during the day and at other peak times. For the rest, you can expect to see time-dependent electric rates when it becomes idiotic to try to be running anything more than a 7-watt CFL bulb in your house at some times.

More capacity will not be built. The war on utilities has pretty much been won by the environmentalists so today even if the federal government declared instant approval without any possibility of court hearings, environmental impact studies and endless negotiations over land use it would take at least five years before new capacity came on line. We don't have five years of reserve capacity left and if we turn off the nuclear power plants (likely!) we will be in an instant capacity crisis.

Sure, in California, where PG&E seriously considered building a power plant in orbit to avoid the NIMBY problem, but gave up because they'd need a city block somewhere to receive the power, and so back to NIMBY. Meanwhile, Texas has its own power grid, and is doing fine.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[lgw]

When the power source in question is capable of rendering 100 mile radius uninhabitable for decades....sorry I want micromanagement.

Coal is vastly more dangerous than nuclear. The real world problems are far worse - US nuclear power never killed anyone (except during plant construction), but coal miners still die relatively young. And mine fires have actually made 100s of square miles uninhabitable, while the worst-realistic-case risk from a nuclear plant is far smaller.

Please step away from "scary-scary-nukular-scary".

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[spottedkangaroo]

So we get one try and when it doesn't work, oh well, let's keep burning coal and burying otherwise usable fuels? Yes, nuclear is dangerous, but I bet even the japanese use more and more of it in the future. You have to get electricity from somewhere and throwing away fuel that was only 1% spent doesn't make any sense to me.

The fact is, there would be more of these reactors if the government would allow fuel reprocessing -- Carter shutdown that program for reasons unclear to me. Was it because he was afraid of developing rich plutoniums? Was he afraid of nuclear in general? I don't really know, but nobody has reversed that decision either -- they just make too much sense. If you're going to have nuclear at all, it doesn't make sense to stop with the slow reactions and then throw away what's left. None of the original designs expected that. They expected to then later reprocess the "spent" fuels to make fuels for the faster reactors.

So it's not fair to say nuclear isn't cost effective. If you cut off the program at the knees, of course it's hard to make it work. I'm not addressing at all the problems with meltdowns, environmental carnage, and initial cost overruns with the first few reactors. Nuclear has plenty of problems, and I'm not sure it's wise at all. I'm leaning toward yes, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere near it.

All I'm saying is that if we worked up the nerve to build these things (lol 70' towers of liquid sodium, not in my backyard); then it would be a lot more cost effective, and storing the "waste" would be less of a problem.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[pixelpusher220]

Coal is not dangerous from a 'failure' perspective. It is dangerous from an operational perspective. It is *possible* to run a clean coal operation, prohibitively expensive, but possible.

Nuclear is not possible to contain in a 'failure', by definition because things have failed you don't have control. Without control, the entire area is no longer safe.

Some failures are and have been contained, but others haven't. So you can't guarantee that it can be contained. Hence you can't say it's 'safer' than coal.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Vancorps]

The former residents of Centralia Pennsylvania might beg to differ. Their town has been uninhabitable since the 60s, the toxic air has killed many. Coal mining is very dangerous and has killed far more people than all nuclear accidents combined.

There are certainly nuclear designs that are far less prone to failure, the fact that many stations have been running for 40 years without major incident is proof that the old designs with known problems are still safer than the current approach to coal.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[lgw]

What kind of nonsense is that? Try living in coal country for a while - coal kills, and there's no such thing as a clean coal mine. And you clearly don't understand the failure mode of coal mining, either.

The only nuclear disaster that wasn't contained was Chernobyl, where there was no containment dome - they didn't even try. And that was a pretty small disaster, in term os casualties, relative to "communist engineering failures" worldwide.

How do you wan't to measure "safety"? By whose science-fiction novel is scarier, or by actual death and injury rates?

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[pixelpusher220]

sigh, Centralia is 1.6 sq km. Hardly comparable to 31,000 sq miles...

Even if you're comparing the apples of mining to oranges of plant operation...

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[pixelpusher220]

To your point about safety. Fukashima was 'safe', they didn't consider it was *possible* to have the magnitude of event that happened.

Which is my point, you can't plan for failure, because things have failed. You can try and mitigate and redundancy you're way to some percentage, but it is not and never will be 100% safe.

Coal simply does not have these types of failure conditions. It has operational issues, which you can plan for adequately. We certainly haven't, but you *can*. Nuclear cannot be made 100% safe, ever. And when a 1% chance means relocating 100,000 people? I say that's not feasible.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[slick7]

Nuclear power sucks. It's like a boat, just a hole in the water that you keep shoveling money into.
The big question is, what is the true state of energy development? You will never get a straight answer from the utility companies, the government people cannot or will not divulge what they know. We can put men on the moon, look at every planet in the solar system, look at distant planetary systems and ascertain probable life bearing planets, yet we're stuck with fossil fuels owned by people without a lick of sense.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[pixelpusher220]

Centralia is 1.6 sq mi. Compared with 31,000 sq miles that Fukashima has fouled.

Did I ever say coal was 'good'? nope, I simply said it does not have the failure issues that nuclear does. If you think a coal plant failing is remotely close to a nuclear plant failing, logic won't sway you I'm sure.

Mining is bad, I agree. You know what? You have to mine uranium too. What's your point again? I"m in favor of renewable so there's nothing of the sort for fuel.

The only nuclear disaster that wasn't contained was Chernobyl

Which was a human event with no safety systems. Note the human part, if humans are involved in design, construction or operation, there will be failures. We are not infallible. When there are failures at nuclear plants it is *possible* that you have vast areas uninhabitable.

Fukashima was considered 'safe' prior to this event. How many more 'safe' events are we going to have hmmm?

How do you wan't to measure "safety"? By whose science-fiction novel is scarier, or by actual death and injury rates?

Well for starters I don't compare failure scenarios to operational ones...

Coal has significant operational issues I don't deny that. But you can mitigate those with enough money, stack scrubbers etc. We haven't done this and so coal causes many deaths world wide. That is not the same as being unable to contain something like a nuclear accident.

Coal bad != nuclear good

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Vancorps]

China is the world's largest user of coal and I think they would beg to differ. 100,000 people even in Japan were not permanently relocated. You are correct that nuclear will never be 100% safe, neither will coal, neither will any power generation method that is on any appreciable scale. People were evacuated from the areas surrounding Fukashima not because it was unsafe to be there but specifically because they weren't sure and until they were sure it was better safe than sorry.

Also, given that they did know this was a risk and failed to adequately account for that risk since they raised the backup generators, they just didn't raise them at that plant enough unlike most of the others. In modern designs power is also not required which was the big problem with using older designs.

Using examples of old methods of doing things and calling them unsafe when newer methods exist with 40 years more engineering behind them and you have to be pretty disingenuous to say that it is unsafe especially given the track record. In the entire history of nuclear power in the U.S. there has never been any reason to call it unsafe. When procedures aren't followed you end up with problems, imagine that? By that logic we should ban drilling for oil because it's not safe! In the last year more people died from coal and oil than have died in all of the history of nuclear power except maybe if you include the atomic bombs in the history of nuclear power.

I'll admit, coal feels safer, it's easier to control, it's something you can hold in your hands even if you shouldn't, and its safer to transport, in reality though it's still difficult to control and causes way more radiation to be released while operating normally as opposed to a nuclear power plant.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[pixelpusher220]

100,000 people even in Japan were not permanently relocated.

You mean everybody is allowed to go home now? Sources please... They were decidedly *not* concerned with safety since the US had a bigger exclusion zone than the Japanese did. It was politics playing its role. They finally had to admit that multiple reactors had full containment breach through the bottom. That's not 'safe' by any stretch.

You are correct that nuclear will never be 100% safe, neither will coal, neither will any power generation method that is on any appreciable scale.

What 'safety' issues exist with solar and wind? Again, coal has operational issues but not failure issues. You can plan for the former, you can at best mitigate the latter.

By that logic we should ban drilling for oil because it's not safe!

And I've said that very thing. Most specifically deep water drilling because we simply can't contain a problem when it happens. 160+ 'failure' scenarios for the blowout preventers! seriously, 160 ways they can fail when they are the last line of defense. Yet we're still using the same design even now post Deepwater Horizon.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[techno-vampire]

You mean everybody is allowed to go home now?
Not yet, AFAIK, no. But just because they haven't gone home yet doesn't mean that they've been relocated permanently. And, you're saying, over and over, that just because an old reactor failed during a pair of natural disasters that were far worse than anything it was designed for (It survived the earthquake, you know, even though that was much worse than it was built to survive.) all reactors, regardless of where they're built or how they're designed are automatically unsafe. I honestly can't understand people who "reason" like that.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[pixelpusher220]

I said decades, which is pretty darned permanent. Could new people move back, probably, but you still have to relocate 100,000 people. What's the economic cost of that?

just because an old reactor failed during a pair of natural disasters that were far worse than anything it was designed for

So it was 'safe' right up until it wasn't? what's your point? My point is that it can't ever be 'safe' enough because there will always be something you haven't planned for.

And yes every situation has *something* that isn't planned for. The difference with nuclear is the effect of that failure. And we're seeing it can be downright catastrophic with no ability to mitigate.

This thread took off when somebody wished there was less micromanagement in nuclear industry.

Do you really want BP running a nuclear plant with George W Bush doing oversight?

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[techno-vampire]

So it was 'safe' right up until it wasn't? what's your point?
My point is that it was much safer than anybody thought it would be, even when it was hit by not one, but two disasters outside its design limits. And, no matter how much you weep and wail about how unsafe it is, not one, single, solitary person outside the facility has been shown to be affected by radiation leaking from Fukushima Daiichi. Not only that, the only workers affected have merely received their year's quota of radiation and can't work there for a while. Compare that to the number of people killed every year in accidents at coal fired plants.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[pixelpusher220]

Not only that, the only workers affected have merely received their year's quota of radiation and can't work there for a while.

They received much more than one year's dose, which is why they raised the allowed dosage by 500%.

The reactors are still emitting fatal doses of radiation to this very day. 10 sieverts per hour was the max on the readers and it was pegged.

Here's a handy radiation dosage chart. They are well into the bottom right of the scale.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[RockDoctor]

All power is "renewable" on one time scale and "exhaustable" on another.

Your scheme for "renewing" nuclear fuels is ... ?

BTW, I do understand "breeder" technologies. If you want to bring them up as "renewed" fuels, then I'll be glad to demolish the proposition.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Aighearach]

So since one day the sun will burn out and die, the score is the same in the end?

You Nihilists are like existentialists with no life. Get a life, you'll decide something means something, even if you insist it is arbitrary.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[vpkvpk]

I think the problems with that build wouldn't translate directly to USA. Biggest of the problems have been using Portuguese engineers and eastern European construction guys to do the project. People in the work site doesn't even speak same language. Also Areva has been too greedy in cost cutting and didn't account that Finnish nuclear watchdog actually checks the quality of the construction work, so they had to redo work which would have been cheaper to do correctly from the start. As such I would say it's failure in capitalism more than failure in nuclear power that the plant is late and over budget.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[polar red]

As such I would say it's failure in capitalism more than failure in nuclear power that the plant is late and over budget.

communistic nuclear power isn't better ...

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Talderas]

So there's only 96 people that know about it?

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[tp1024]

Coal has significant operational issues I don't deny that. But you can mitigate those with enough money, stack scrubbers etc

Except for the holes in the ground - and in your argument.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[HungryHobo]

"Your scheme for "renewing" nuclear fuels is ... ?"

You wait for another supernova.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[The Master Control P]

To say one cannot plan for failure is absurd. That's like saying that we should never build cars because we can never build one that will save you from all possible failure modes. No, we design them to alert you to non-disaster failures (warning lights) and implement means of dealing with disastrous failure, both expected and unexpected (airbags in collision zones, seat belts, crush zones).

In reality, you look at the system and determine how it can fail: Collisions {read ended, head-on, t-boned, sideswiped, ...}, mechanical failure {pump failures, belt failures, tire failure}, electrical failure {bad battery, bad alternator, blown fuses}, etc. Then determine a set of precautions that will mitigate these failures (crumple zones, warning lights, roll cages, etc). It's the same way with nuclear power. There's only so many ways a reactor system can malfunction and a whole lot of smart people spend a lot of time thinking about them, and in the event something completely unexpected happens the containment dome/building is the last ditch means of stopping the large-scale release of radioactivity.

As to Fukushima: There have been about 5 fatalities, none of them relating to radiation. Two operators received a radiation dose (entirely their own fault for not following safety procedures) at the lowest end of that which causes any actual biological effects if given all at once.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[HungryHobo]

coal vs nuclear is like croad travel vs air travel.

coal kills vastly more people all the time but it only makes the local news or doesn't make the news at all. one more case of lung cancer isn't international news much like a couple of people dying in a car crash rarely makes the international news.

nuclear is vastly safer on average but in the incredibly rare case that it fails it makes international headlines for weeks. Even if people aren't killed any failure makes the international headlines much like how any big plane crash makes international news.

you're far more likely to die driving to the airport and you're far more likely to die from the emissions of a nearby coal plant than in a nuclear accident yet people are more afraid of flying and more afraid of nuclear because of the spectacle.

nuclear is extremely safe even counting worst case failures like Chernobyl if you look at it per terawatt and it's not unique in terms of making land unusable for decades or longer.

Personally I value lives more than land and the size of exclusion zones gradually shrink after an accident.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Andy Dodd]

The one issue there is - US power reactor designs weren't designed for weapons purposes. There has historically been a fairly clear division between civilian and military nuclear reactors in this country. However, while designs have evolved significantly in terms of safety since the old clunkers at Fukushima, those designs have only been built internationally. All of the failure modes experienced at Fukushima have ALREADY been addressed in modern designs such as the ESBWR and AP1000.

This is in stark contrast to Chernobyl - in Russia, the division between civilian power generation and military weapons generation was less clear. While I don't believe Chernobyl's reactor was used for weapons generation, it was designed to allow that - and that design choice led to significant compromises in safety. The RBMK is a fundamentally unstable and dangerous reactor design, and I believe the only graphite-moderated water-cooled reactor design ever used for power generation. (Magnox reactors in the UK were graphite-moderated gas-cooled AND were that way to facilitate weapons production, and I think they have all been decommissioned in favor of safer designs.)

I have mixed feelings on some of the breeder reactors. They clearly solve our fuel problems, but have unique engineering issues that could prove to be significant safety challenges. (Sodium = nasty...)

Another place I hope to see more development is in subcritical reactors and hybrid fission/fusion reactors. I think we'd be a LOT farther with fusion power if there weren't so much focus on a "purist" approach of fusion only, instead using fusion as a neutron source to drive a subcritical fission reactor. One of the nice things about fusion-sourced neutrons is that they can actually directly fission U-238, so you could run such a hybrid reactor using depleted uranium or spent fuel from traditional reactors.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Andy Dodd]

1) Modern nuclear plants have vast improvements in safety compared to the old clunkers in Fukushima. Judging nuclear safety based on Chernobyl and Fukushima is like judging modern highway safety based on highway safety in the 1970s including how well Ford Pintos handled getting rear-ended.
2) The disaster that triggered Fukushima killed at least 26,000 people outright and wiped entire towns off of the map. That's significantly more than the entire tally of deaths from the full history of nuclear power generation. The actual number of people sickened by Fukushima is a tiny fraction of the death toll of the disaster required to trigger it. If one of the oldest reactors on the planet performed as it did in such a disaster, imagine what a reactor with modernized safety could do in an area that ISN'T near a megathrust fault.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[RockDoctor]

Ah ... I'll not hold my breath then?

We'd need to be a type-II or type-III civilisation to consider this practical (using the whole power output form a star, or from a galaxy).

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[elrous0]

Sorry, but humans existed for a long, long time, with a much smaller population in much more rural/agrarian settings, without electric power

FTFY

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Wonko the Sane]

I have mixed feelings on some of the breeder reactors. They clearly solve our fuel problems, but have unique engineering issues that could prove to be significant safety challenges. (Sodium = nasty...)

Search for the Google TechTalk videos about LFTR and you'll see that the use of hazardous coolants like sodium is not required for a molten salt reactor.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[lgw]

As I said, it's all a matter of time scale. We have such a terribly short term view of things, and make so many bad decisions as a result.

More practically, the only reason we store spent reactor fuel (past the first few years) is that it can be renewed via a breeder reactor and used again.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[lgw]

If we have a little vision, we'll survive the Sun burning out. Stars are renewable on that time scale. Eventually it all goes dark, of course, but that's a heck of an eventually.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Dog-Cow]

Basically you're saying it's better to kill 10s of thousands every single year than to maybe, if things go more horribly wrong than any engineer could imagine, kill a few hundred once in 40 years?

Your view of the world is so warped that you quite likely can see your ass without bending over.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[rocket rancher]

A lot more than air conditioning and heat-stroke deaths are at stake. Humans indeed existed without electrical power for a long time -- in isolated, agrarian communities, or indeed, as roving bands of hunter-gatherers. Once humanity started to build larger, more dense communities that all changed. Advances in power generation and storage energy density haven't quite kept up with population density, though, so that is where we need to be focusing our efforts. Standing there like you are and cursing the coming darkness is not the solution -- figuring out how to generate some candlepower without having to schlep the energy across a continent is a much better use of our mental resource.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not meant to be taken literally and you know it. Next time you feel like being intentionally obtuse to get a rise out of someone try to be a bit more subtle about it.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[RockDoctor]

More practically, the only reason we store spent reactor fuel (past the first few years) is that it can be renewed via a breeder reactor and used again.

The only reason. Nothing to do with having a stock of highly unpleasant nucleides for making weaponry - conventional nukes or dirty bombs?

Oh to be so young and uncynical!

Oh, hang on, what's this in today's headlines? Oh, nothing terribly suspicious.

Sort of thing I might have done in my youth, except for the bit about asking for a license.

Re:The Trouble with Reports:

[lgw]

Originally it was for the making of nukes, but we've been net-decomissioning nukes since Reagan (plus the modern fusion-pumped-fission bombs are much more material-efficient than the 50s nukes).

Nuke plants?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate trees as much as the next guy, but I don't think we should start a war with them..

So, which is it??

[madhatter256]

Fist Cesium 137 was very dangerous, but now "new" science dictates it's safe....

It's like going to the tire shop with a flat tire and having them say it's perfectly fine....

Re:So, which is it??

[gstrickler]

137Cs is dangerous, however, the amount you're likely to be exposed to after a reactor meltdown is significantly lower than previously thought.

Re:So, which is it??

[Anonymous Coward]

No one said it was safe. This report indicates that the vast majority of Cesium in a plant would remain in said plant in the event of a catastrophic meltdown.

Re:So, which is it??

[symbolset]

And it makes a great marinade for steaks and rib roasts!

Re:So, which is it??

[symbolset]

In Fukushima it wound up in the food chain fairly immediately. They were fortunate as the prevailing winds blow offshore, and the deliberate dumping of contaminated water went into a very big Pacific ocean - but large swaths of island were impacted anyway.

In the US it's a different story. Downwind from just about everywhere is the highly populated Eastern seaboard. In the middle of America the only way to dump that water is to put it into a tributary of the Mississipi.

Re:So, which is it??

[gtomorrow]

In the middle of America the only way to dump that water is to put it into a tributary of the Mississipi.

JESUS CHRIST, don't give them any more ideas!!!

Few will hear this

[Gonoff]

It will not get in the tabloids because lack of fear does not sell newspapers.

It will not get in most of the adult newspapers because it win't fit the editorial stance that is either anti-technology because "green is good" or anti state control because they are so right wing they could only be seen as mainstream in the USA. Few people really want nuclear power run like Monty Burns one...

This does not leave many other sources of information that "normal" people (not like the /. crowd) will hear.

Re:Few will hear this

[Dachannien]

Few people really want nuclear power run like Monty Burns one...

I'd say that was a pretty efficient operation. You didn't even have to type in "Y-E-S" every time you wanted to vent off some gas to prevent an explosion.

isn't it great?

[rubycodez]

we now know so much more about these 1 in 10,000 years types of meltdowns, because we've been so fortunate to get over 40,000 years worth in less than 50 years. Like winning the mega-millions lottery again and again and again.

Re:isn't it great?

[Rising Ape]

There've been nearly 15,000 reactor-years of operation worldwide, not 50 years. So "one in ten thousand years" is a bit off, but not spectacularly.

Re:isn't it great?

[HiThere]

Yes, but even though I *know* the they mean "reactor-years" in the same way as man-years, when they just say years I automatically read it as chronological years. And that's the proper way to read it. They say it that way because that's how they want you to read it.

If they wanted you to understand reactor-years, that's what they'd say. They don't. They want you to think of it as a lot safer than it really is. Which is why I distrust their "revised report". It *may* actually be more accurate, but they may also be playing this same kind of word game. (Or, of course, they could be lying, but I generally exclude that when I know that they could effectively mislead you by just playing word games.)

So. There's a chance that the report is honest. But internal evidence leads one to suspect that they have an agenda of convincing people that things are safer than they really are. How much should I trust them?

I understand their argument, and it would be reasonable if these were people that were trustworthy. They demonstrably aren't. So is it a true report being issued by untrustworthy people, or is it untrustworthy people trying to mislead me again?

Whatever. I don't want nuclear plants, even nominally safe ones, built around me because the area is riddled with active earthquake faults. The last time they built a plant around here they built it below a cliff on an active fault. Somehow this left me with a lot of distrust for them. They had to shut it down before they put the fuel in, but we're still paying for it on the electric bill. No more of that, please.
And what's worse the company was informed of the problem before they started construction. But they didn't care. It wasn't until a site inspection by an independent evaluator was forced by the state...which wasn't until LOTS of money was sunk into the project...that they even admitted that they had a problem.

I'll consider trusting nuclear plants when they stop requiring that the government exempt them from damage caused if they have an accident. Even then past history is going to make me very skeptical of them. It's not the plants themselves, it's the organizations that run them that are the problem. But it's such a VERY large problem.

Re:isn't it great?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but even though I *know* the they mean "reactor-years" in the same way as man-years, when they just say years I automatically read it as chronological years. And that's the proper way to read it. They say it that way because that's how they want you to read it.

If they wanted you to understand reactor-years, that's what they'd say. They don't. They want you to think of it as a lot safer than it really is. Which is why I distrust their "revised report". It *may* actually be more accurate, but they may also be playing this same kind of word game. (Or, of course, they could be lying, but I generally exclude that when I know that they could effectively mislead you by just playing word games.

..or they expect the main percentage of people that read it know it means reactor years and not chronological years. This is a governing body, not a newspaper that has to peddle to the lowest common denominator. The language doesn't have to include translations when everyone knows it.

Re:isn't it great?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but even though I *know* the they mean "reactor-years" in the same way as man-years, when they just say years I automatically read it as chronological years. And that's the proper way to read it. They say it that way because that's how they want you to read it.

If they wanted you to understand reactor-years, that's what they'd say. They don't. They want you to think of it as a lot safer than it really is.

Trouble with your scare-mongering is that I don't live 10 miles from all the nuke plants in the world, I live 10 miles from one nuke plant. So unless the fates really have it in for me, reactor-years (or plant-years, if there's multiple reactors at the plant) is the correct tool for assessing my risk. You, on the other hand, want me to behave as if every time any plant anywhere on Earth fails and some people get cancer 5 years early, that I'll be the one harmed -- you want me to think of it as a lot riskier than it really is.

I'll consider trusting nuclear plants when they stop requiring that the government exempt them from damage caused if they have an accident. Even then past history is going to make me very skeptical of them. It's not the plants themselves, it's the organizations that run them that are the problem. But it's such a VERY large problem.

Fine, I'll consider trusting coal plants when they stop requiring that the government exempt them from the damage caused every single freaking day as normal business.

You can't point at a problem with the whole industry (socializing harm while privatizing reward), use that to repudiate a single segment rather than the whole industry, and expect anyone to take it as a serious argument.

Re:isn't it great?

[rubycodez]

Was being sarcastic because I'm pissed at carelessness, stupidity and greed that caused all the major accidents to date. But to be serious, we're talking about stats from something called the Rasmussen Study, which gave that number, and then said nine out of ten of those events would NOT have radiation emissions of consequence. But that major meltdown with release would be 1 in 100,000 per reactor-year of operation. That's actually kind of scary, we'd better put these gen II turds out of commission.

Re:isn't it great?

[serviscope_minor]

Yes, but even though I *know* the they mean "reactor-years" in the same way as man-years, when they just say years I automatically read it as chronological years.

I don't.

They say it that way because that's how they want you to read it.

I doubt that. It's the same use of the words "100 year storm" which is considerd fit for consumption for the general public and widely used.

How much should I trust them?

Don't trust them at all. Examine the statistics. Decide for yourself.

Would you prefer the technology that is 10 times better than the next best in terms of deaths per joule, or not?

Re:isn't it great?

[HiThere]

Fine, I'll consider trusting coal plants when they stop requiring that the government exempt them from the damage caused every single freaking day as normal business.

An excellent point, and one that I agree with. For the same reason I *don't* trust coal plants, and prefer solar, geothermal, wind, etc. And I definitely don't trust plans to put the CO2 back underground without chemically altering it to a solid. I look at those plans and stand amazed that anyone can seriously consider them. We aren't putting the CO2 back under an unbroken cap of rock, as we need to drill through any such in order to get it down there. I expect that it's storage that's probably good for a few decades, or maybe a century or two.

OTOH, we *don't* have enough of the plants that I can trust. So your point stands. But it stands on a weak foundation. Yes, we have to continue to build unsafe plants. But we should minimize the number of them that we build. And the government should limit the amount that it is willing to indemnify the companies against damages that they cause in accidents. And we can best minimize the number of unsafe plants by building safe plants as feasible. I prefer solar, but wind has reasonable adherents. So do geothermal and tide plants. (Geothermal only works in some places, ditto for tide engines. But there are places where they are optimal.) Each of these has its problems, but none of them cause widespread damage. (The solar plant that seems to me most promising involves using mirrors to melt salts in an insulated container, so that heat can be extracted over a period of less than sunny days. Clearly this would work better in the Mojave Desert or in the Sahara than in Maine or Germany. This means we probably continue to need centralized power generation and long distance transport of power. Unfortunate. Solar cells are getting better, and so is battery technology, so it may be that these won't be permanent requirements, but I'm talking about things that can be done with only development, no research needed.)

Re:isn't it great?

[HiThere]

The data have been fudged. There are many minor incidents that are never reported, so the don't appear in the records. There have been safety violations that have gone unfixed for years. Were they important? I have no way of judging.

Also plants are in the process of being re-licensed which have known safety problems, which are beyond their design life, and to operate at levels of power beyond what was specified for their safe operation when they were new. Some of them are the same model as that used in Fukishima. (Which the Japanese were readying for retirement as obsolete.) AFAIK the plants haven't yet been re-licensed, but it is apparently expected that they will be.

As for the "100 year storm", yes, everyone understands that this means a storm that occurs in the area once in 100 years. (This is generally a lie, but that's what it means anyway.) But storms have only a local effect.

I happen to live in an area that is marked on the map as flooded once every 100 years. It's clearly wrong. Perhaps engineering has changed the terrain (it has). Perhaps for other reasons. At this point I'd call it a "flooded once in 1000 year" area, but I really doubt that it will remain significantly unchanged for even 100 years. In the last 100 years a creek has been rechanneled, catchbasins have been reshaped. Etc. So in the biggest rainstorm in the last 40 years, the street was less than tennis shoe high in water. (It's on a hillside, though not on a cliff. And the houses on either side of the street are at least a foot above the street. On the side that I live on they are about 15 feet above the street.) I think that at one point there was a creek that ran down where the street is now.

So what does a "100 year storm" mean? The area isn't at all like what it was 100 years ago. And I doubt that it will be more similar in the next 100 years. That's locally. More generally, 100 years ago there weren't weather measurements being taken around here. The area was forested (an oak forest, mainly). So the temperatures were different. The evaporation rates were different. And the weather patterns were different.

If weather models were accurate enough it might mean "a storm that has a chance of 1 in 100 of occurring next year.", or exactly 10 years from now. Or something like that. But they aren't that accurate.

So if a 100 year storm doesn't refer to conditions on the ground, and doesn't refer to weather patterns, what does it refer to? What it really means is only "This is an extremely unusual storm in its intensity, and I want to sound precise." (They're probably a bit more precise in their meaning that that, but it's hard to be sure.)

Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[unity100]

After this :

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/06/20/1540233/AP-Investigation-Concludes-US-Nuke-Regulators-Weakening-Safety-Rules

and this :

http://www.myweathertech.com/2011/07/03/leaked-emails-reveal-government-conspiracy-to-downplay-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/

and this :

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/05/19/confirmed-epa-rigged-radnet-japan-nuclear-radiation-monitoring-equipment-report-levels-nuclear-fallout-22823/

is it ANY surprise that an official government committee said 'nuclear is less dangerous than you think' ?

despicable. the fact that they think they can still fool people, is appalling. the fact that there could be people who would believe them, is dumbfounding.

these people should be outcast from society. they are public enemies.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[roman_mir]

No, the real outcasts of society are those, who are trying to hold economic and technological development of society back, from allowing that sort of development to help the society to become more wealthy and affluent by having more and cheaper and safer energy sources, and nuclear is that type of source.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh... The first was about cases being made for engineering limits being changed over the course of years. Nobody was surprised. Typically hyperbolic writeup.

The second was about British government PR campaign to contain uneducated hysteria about nuclear power generation. Yes, particularly important when you're looking to build a plant. Typical overstatement by press and (worse) /. summary. Zomg... it's a conspiracy... they're trying to kill us. Let's deal with facts for once, eh?

The third simply pointed out, with another ridiculously hyperbolic headline, the detectors hadn't been properly maintained in years. They (obviously) went and calibrated them when Fukushima happened... per the article. That calibration meant the readings went down. Per the article. Wow... another "conspiracy" to kill us with nuke plants headline... color me surprised.

Really... I could find bullshit FUD about nuclear power all day too. What I care about are facts.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[dave562]

and nuclear COULD BE that type of source.

FTFY

Without open and honest dialogue about the realities of the risks inherent with nuclear, and what must be done to mitigate them, nuclear will never be a viable option. The people who would conceal the risks and continually lower the safety standards are the societal outcasts. They are more focused on saving money and increasing profits than they are on running things safely and responsibly.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[roman_mir]

Saving money and increasing profits is the only right way to go about building more nuclear capacity. Their safety records are already excellent, regardless of which metric you are using, be it death per gigawatt or release of carbon or any other polluting emissions per gigawatt.

Figuring out how to make nuclear energy more profitable and cheap is what we need in the long run.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is holding back cheap power bad for the economy but bad for the environment even without taking coal or CO2 into the equation. Cheap power would make it more economical to recycle and break down wastes. Cheap power would help us clean up polluted lakes and rivers because the major costs is pumping the water to filter it.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[scarboni888]

If it really were so cheap and safe it could get private insurance. But since it can't it's not.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[cdrguru]

Holding back cheap electric power makes tremendous sense in some circles.

Think about it for a moment. If electricity was limited and there was only enough for a few lights at home and the refrigerator we wouldn't have to worry about coal pollution, coal mining, light pollution (no more streetlights!) or many of the problems we face today. There would probably be less electricity for commercial purposes, so instead of using a computer there would be 10-20 clerks with mechanical calculators. Full employment once again!

Most of the pollution would be gone in a decade or two. You wouldn't drive a car if the gas pump had to be hand cranked and there were no traffic lights, just policemen on every corner directing traffic. There would be more horses and plenty of work for people cleaning up after them. People wouldn't have cell phones because the solar cell chargers would be for TVs, radios and lights in the evenings. Going on a cruise might be really nice because they would have lights and games 24x7.

Just think what Las Vegas would be like by candlelight and gas lamps.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a creationist and a climate change denier. This is proven by the fact that you think exactly like them; any science contradicting what you "know" to be true must be false and/or made up by conspirators.

Now get your sorry ass back to Kansas and burn some more books.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[CrimsonAvenger]

There would be more horses and plenty of work for people cleaning up after them.

That would bring back Tetanus as a big killer, what with all that horse manure laying around.

It should be noted that tetanus from horse manure has probably caused more deaths than have nuclear reactors. Or nuclear bombs, for that matter.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear is obviously not safer (unless your are unable to do basic exponential math).

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[unity100]

Their safety records are already excellent, regardless of which metric you are using,

ill tell you which metric they are using - continually decreasing metrics.

did you even read the first link i posted there, fool ?

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear energy is like Free Market (tm): it sounds nice on paper when a few naive idealists talk about it. As soon as it's confronted with reality however, corruption and greed take over and the whole thing goes to hell.

If you consider one of the above to be the saviour of mankind, you're either blindly naive or have a vested interest that would allow you to exploit others.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[roman_mir]

you are a troll, so behave like one.

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if these debates happened several thousand years ago. I can already hear the defeatists of the past:
"Bronze is fine, those iron fanatics are just wasting valuable clay and valuable coal to try to smelt iron while perfectly good old bronze cater to all of our need"

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[lennier]

The people who would conceal the risks and continually lower the safety standards are the societal outcasts.

If only they were. I think the words you're looking for are "the rich, powerful and corrupt societal elite, who in a sane and well-ordered world would instead be societal outcasts."

Re:Surprisee, surprisee. Industry whoring.

[dave562]

You're right. The problem is that we have laws to protect the powerful from physical violence. I'm not a big fan of mob rule or general lawlessness. Yet if the people who make the decisions that lead to things like nuclear meltdowns were subject to an ass whopping, they would think twice about making decisions based on greed. Once a person has had to deal with a few broken bones, they tend to develop an appreciation for the body and just how precious good health really is.

Oil and Coal Are Safe!

[BlueMikey]

Sincerely,

Politician Who Accepts Gobs of Money from Oil and Coal Companies


(Who wants blue skies anyway?)

Please indicate when linking to NYT paywall

[TwobyTwo]

This /. posting does indicate that what's linked is a NYT article, but it fails to remind that following the link costs you one of your 20 free NYT accesses/month. It would be helpful if the posting were updated with a [paywall] marking, or some such, after the link. Otherwise, thanks for the interesting post!

Re:Please indicate when linking to NYT paywall

[gstrickler]

It's not a paywall. You can read the article for free for at least 7 days after it's published. Even if if requires an NYT account (it doesn't appear to), you can get a free NYT account. And since almost no one reads /. articles over 3 days old, the 7 day window is plenty for the 99+% of readers who will see this.

Re:Please indicate when linking to NYT paywall

[molo]

You know you can just clear your nytimes.com cookies to have them forget about the 20 articles you already read, right?

-molo

Re:Please indicate when linking to NYT paywall

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn off javascript and cookies. Should work fine.

Re:Please indicate when linking to NYT paywall

[TwobyTwo]

Umm. I think it's univerally acknowledged to be a paywall. In fact the New York Times itself refers to it as a paywall. <irony>Um, following that link I just gave will itself count against your NYT paywall limit</irony> What is true is that you get up to 20 articles free each month, but clicking on a link such as the one on nuclear safety counts against your 20. Where did you see the free for 7 days? My clear understanding is that it's 20 free per month (modulo some weirdness about trying to make links from social networking sites free...though the detailed rules for that aren't documented as far as I know.)

Regarding moto's point about cookies: yes, I'm aware that deleting cookies can reset your count, at least in some cases, but I presume that doing so violates the permissions provided by the NYT on use of the content. Granted, slashdot readers are more likely than others to know how to do stuff like this, and maybe or maybe not some of them consider it appropriate, but one of the bad things about the paywall is that at least for novice users or those experts who choose not to cheat, just doing something as "innocent" as clicking a link can wind up eating through your monthly quota. YMMV.

Re:Please indicate when linking to NYT paywall

[molo]

Hi, the name is molo.

As for "cheating", I gave them a HTTP request. They decided to answer it with an article. No cheating involved.

Cheers.
-molo

Total Meltdown

[Anonymous Coward]

I can still score a total meltdown in less than 30 seconds.
Beat that!

http://esa21.kennesaw.edu/activities/nukeenergy/nuke.htm

No trust

[Anonymous Coward]

for a report generated by industry lapdogs...

I'm constantly amazed at the number of nuclear apologists on slashdot. C'mon guys, that technology is half a century old! Am I the only one who sees the irony in geeks being so resistant to new technology (though I suspect half the accounts on here are astroturfers)? Look to the future in renewables.

Re:No trust

[Colourspace]

Show me the sums that truly show re-newables in a good light, I will listen. No-one can, other than 'ideology sums'. I'd love to think otherwise, but I still have faith in nuclear for now. Really the 'best' alternative we at this moment in time as we buy time is for truly greener solutions.

Re:No trust

[symbolset]

Well since you asked... http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/aeo/electricity_generation.html

Re:No trust

[Falconhell]

Yeh and those same apologists will quote this sort of rubbish to try and "prove" nuke is safe.
And those same folks will say that climate scientists are corrupt, and cant be trusted, whereas nuke scinetists who are directly employed by their indusrty are to be believed.

Funny about that eh? Nuke fans get the message, most people dont want nuclear plants near them and that is NOt going to
change. Lets get on with other forms of energy, not piss around with a thouroughly discredited nuke industry.

Re:No trust

[Rising Ape]

Renewables are even older, so what's your point?

Re:No trust

[The Master Control P]

Of all the arguments I've ever seen against nuclear power, "Durr, it was invented 50 years ago" is quite possibly the stupidest. In most cases the claims involved at least make some connection to reality if you interpert generously. But there's just no way to read this retarded appeal to novelty, however favorably or disfavorably, that even makes sense.

Yes, nuclear power was commercialized in the 1960s... And? So were integrated circuits and color TV, dumbass.

Does this include cost?

[gweihir]

Like the astronomical cost required for a cleanup and that can for example negatively impact the economy with all the negative health effect that causes?

Events of this type and impact magnitude always need to have all their negative impact looked at in a holistic fashion. Everything else is just lying with statistics.

That was very quick!

[Idou]

I am amazed that they were able to gather such specifics so quickly from the Fukushima accident when apparently even the Japanese government still seems to be clueless to the extent of cesium contamination (though, they continue to give out low-ball estimates that do not align with observations in the field . . .). Oh, or maybe this does NOT include lessons learned from Fukushima? Then why the peculiar timing? Perhaps this is just more industry damage control through PR efforts?

In that case, I am not too interested. I would much rather listen to professors with the balls to yell at the Diet of Japan than looking a the industry/regulators give each other reach arounds . . .

Re:That was very quick!

[EdZ]

that do not align with observations in the field

Observations by who? Measurements published by NISA and the IAEA (and freely available), or from 'independent' observers. Observers who often don't know the first thing about taking accurate measurements, haven't calibrated their equipment (or more commonly, don't even know it needs to be calibrated), have built their own detectors by blindly following plans on the internet, or all three. I'm all for community monitoring from competent amateurs, but I'd take any aggregate data from them with several metric tons of salt.

Re:That was very quick!

[Idou]

Alright, yes, we should just let the "experts" take care of things, since they NEVER make mistakes. Oh, and this is way too complicated for average citizens . . . readings at 20 meters should be just as accurate as at 1 meter.

No properties are selling within a 100 mile radius of the plant. You, being enlightened, should profit by buying cheap land from the stupid masses at a discount. You can start by buying my house. Though, I have yet to receive an offer from your ilk. Must have something to do with spewing BS without any consequence does not equate to an actual economic decision.

Re:That was very quick!

[JSBiff]

Real Estate prices have everything to do with mass fear among the populace, and prove nothing about the actual risks or hazards of living in the area. Real Estate is about A) Perceptions, and B) Economy (e.g. can anyone *afford* to buy a house, even if they want to).

Your argument doesn't actually address the science in the report. It's just a statement of your lack of belief in the ability of any expert, ever, to make a correct determination based upon science. So, experts sometimes make mistakes, but that doesn't mean the NRC has made a mistake in this case. It doesn't mean the people running the radiation monitoring in Japan *actually* did make any mistakes.

As for that article you linked to, it appears to me to be a very, very poor example of journalism, that takes one small fact - TEPCO said that an emergency venting happened one day, but it actually happened the previous day, and makes a big deal out of that. It also declares about the venting, "It is an event that has a huge impact on the environment outside a nuclear power plant." However, it provides no source or basis for that claim. How do they know it will have a huge impact on the environment outside the plant? Wouldn't it be important to know just what type of radioactive material was in the steam which was vented, how much of it, etc? Wouldn't you need to know how much that radioactive material dispersed, and how long its half-life is?

I'm sorry if I don't believe every poorly backed up alarmist hit-piece in the media that claims that every little thing that happens at a nuclear plant is a terrible, terrible disaster that is being covered up by the government and industry.

I can't buy your house as I don't live in Japan and have no plans at all to move to Japan, but I will say this - I would be comfortable living within 10 miles of a nuclear plant, and would even be comfortable going to live in an area like the area around Fukushima which has only been (in most parts - IIRC there is one small area where the contamination, for some reason, ended up being much more concentrated than most of the other areas), lightly contaminated by a relatively small quantity of radioactive materials.

Re:That was very quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

This report wasn't about Fukushima, had been started long before the Fukushima incident, and still isn't yet "final". Fukushima, however, does validate the estimates the report makes -- showing that a worst case scenario for a Light Water Reactor (LWR) can be relatively mild, as long as you don't die from a heart attack listing to media hype.

Far more people die every day directly traceable to the Oil, Gas and Coal industries than have ever died from the nuclear power industry, and even safer nuclear reactors are possible -- just look up liquid-fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) and Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs).

Re:That was very quick!

[Talderas]

How much land?
What's the asking price?
How many neighbors are also looking to sell their land?
Are they asking for comparable prices?

Fukushima Death Toll Approaches Zero

[bxwatso]

The Fukushima plants were hit with a heavy earthquake. The ground they sat upon was lowered by something like 6 - 11 feet. The power lines that could have powered the coolant pumps were destroyed. A tsunami flooded the site and fouled the backup generators. The containment buildings exploded. The containment vessels cracked. On top of all that, the reactors are based on 40 year old designs.

This is about as bad of scenario as one could imagine, yet there were no public deaths. That sounds to me like nuclear power is in fact safe and robust, and the worst case scenario is bad but not catastrophic.

Re:Fukushima Death Toll Approaches Zero

[formfeed]

The Fukushima plants were hit with a heavy earthquake. ....

This is about as bad of scenario as one could imagine, yet there were no public deaths.

No, no public deaths. Most deaths will be private. And slow enough that it will be impossible to prove that the cancer was caused by the Fukushima accident and not by carcinogenic food additives, pollution, or background radiation (e.g. previous nuclear tests) - All of them cancer sources previously labeled insignificant by the industry, their paid stooges, and some stools on /. who call anyone who questions their 19yo wisdom an unscientific troll.

Re:Fukushima Death Toll Approaches Zero

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and asbestos doesn't kill either!
It's crazy how Fukushima real estate is so cheap now.

Re:Fukushima Death Toll Approaches Zero

[bxwatso]

What I meant by private deaths is that some of the workers at the plant may have exposed themselves to a lot of radation while trying to resolve the crisis. They may die an early death.

Since everyone dies, it is truly hard to say what the cause of death was decades after an event. Japan is a nation of smokers, and that is proven to be unhealthy. I can tell you do not like corporations (whatever 'the industry' is that does all these bad things), but one thing is clear: life expectancy has about doubled since these various corporate evils were introduced.

Re:Fukushima Death Toll Approaches Zero

[Anonymous Coward]

Most deaths will be private. And slow enough that it will be impossible to prove that the cancer was caused by the Fukushima accident...

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is unnecessary in civil cases in the U.S., only in criminal cases. If the incidence of a type of cancer caused by radiation exposure more than doubles, then it's more likely than not that the Fukushima accident caused it. Other potential mitigating factors aside, such a "preponderance of the evidence" would be enough to win a complaint in civil court in the U.S. I don't know about in Japan, though.

Re:Fukushima Death Toll Approaches Zero

[iksbob]

I can tell you do not like corporations (whatever 'the industry' is that does all these bad things)

It's a phenomenon that results from the very definition of a capitalist economy. Businesses are created and motivated by the opportunity for profit. Profit is the business's revenue less their expenses. If a business can reduce their expenses, their profit increases. If protecting the public has an expense tied to it (as it generally does), not protecting the public will increase profits. The same is true of protecting workers. While free market forces would presumably push away workers and consumers if conditions were bad enough, a great deal of injury and injustice would be wrought before those reactionary forces could take effect. The only way to be proactive is to force businesses to maintain a certain level of respect for their workers and the public in general via environmental and safety regulations.

Re:Fukushima Death Toll Approaches Zero

[Anonymous Coward]

not by carcinogenic food additives, pollution, or background radiation (e.g. previous nuclear tests) - All of them cancer sources previously labeled insignificant by the industry, their paid stooges, and some stools on /. who call anyone who questions their 19yo wisdom an unscientific troll.

So... not caused by Fukushima, then?

Perhaps the troll protest too much?

Re:Fukushima Death Toll Approaches Zero

[49152]

I agree completely with your conclusion, but this statement is misleading:

"background radiation (e.g. previous nuclear tests)"

Only about 3% of the background radiation originates from man made sources like medical radiation, nuclear testings and power stations.

Almost all of it is from naturally occurring sources like radioactive minerals in the earth crusts, the sun or cosmic rays.

Re:Fukushima Death Toll Approaches Zero

[Anonymous Coward]

Fukushima was nowhere near as bad as it could easily have been. A few of the lucky breaks:

- Key people made the right calls, when a different person would have made the wrong one. The PM deployed suitable threats to stop the operators abandoning the plant. The plant manager disobeyed orders to stop cooling with seawater.
- The plant wasn't hit by another really destructive quake or tsunami after the reactors had melted down. (Touch wood.)
- During nearly all the worst emissions, the wind was blowing out across the Pacific.

On the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

While the health hazard of a nuclear leak might be less than previously thought, unfortunately the likelihood of nuclear accidents is much higher than previously thought. Net result: we're screwed more than we thought.

Nuclear is Dead

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former Navy nuke who has long been a proponent of nuclear power as a clean and safe (if done right) form of energy. I feel that it is the best form for us to use to transition from fossil fuels until we find real alternative sources of power. Until the beginning of this year, it seemed that many people, including several environmentalists disturbed by climate change, were beginning to agree and that there was a chance that nuclear power could become a major source of energy in the US and other parts of the world.

However, Fukushima has effectively ended whatever chance nuclear power had of becoming more widespread. It was hard enough arguing against a major screw-up that released minuscule amounts of radiation over thirty years ago, or a major problem at a type of reactor that was not used for power generation in the West; the memory of Fukushima will be impossible to overcome.

Re:Nuclear is Dead

[symbolset]

I think we're better off with geothermal. It's like nuclear in that it uses a heatsource to heat a medium that conducts heat, and flashes to drive a turbine. Unlike nuclear instead of highly toxic nuclear fuel that generates even more toxic waste we have no plan to be permanently rid of, it uses an even more scientific space-age technology to heat the water commonly referred to as "a deep hole in the ground". As an added benefit, it's hard to steal a hole in the ground when you're done with it.

Re:Nuclear is Dead

[korean.ian]

Isn't the problem with geothermal that there are very few spots where it is feasible to create said "hole in the ground"?

Re:Nuclear is Dead

[symbolset]

Not really, no. Some are just better than others.

Re:Nuclear is Dead

[korean.ian]

The more I read about geothermal, the less I like it. Economically optimal locations are few in number and tend to be located far from population centres. As I continued to read, thoughts of of how the process of drilling could contribute to earthquakes, landslides and other forms of natural "disasters" ran through my head. Lo and behold:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=geothermal-drilling-earthquakes
Now I Know the editors over at scientific american are a bunch of marxist hippies (most likely bearded), but still, it does make one pause for a minute.

Re:Nuclear is Dead

[drinkypoo]

I live near The Geysers, the world's largest geothermal field, which has a power plant on. Arsenic and other toxics come up from the earth. This happens at an increased rate because we have increased venting, and we inject water (actually, primary-treated sewage) into the ground to keep it going, potentially loosening deposits which would otherwise remain static.

Before they came up with a sequestration strategy for these deposits (which are pressure-washed off the turbine blades -- interestingly the turbines are made by Halliburton, I make sure to give the driver the finger whenever I see new ones coming in) they put them into drums and buried them in a field. Then we started having calves born with two heads and suchlike. The field was declared a superfund site. The fix was to dig up the drums and re-bury them on site with a rubber liner, so that's going to eventually fail and we will have another superfund site on the same site! Assuming they still exist by then.

You're going to like this even better: the current strategy for sequestering the toxics is to wash the turbines over the same concrete pit they've always used, and to let the water evaporate off, and then to simply cap the pit with concrete. This has been done repeatedly to the point where the site now hosts a layer cake of toxics and concrete. No less than five fault lines come together here and the entire county is a volcano field. Nothing so seismically sensitive with such penalty for failure should ever be built here. When the pit fills up, they raise the walls and repeat the process.

Geothermal energy is another one of those ideas that sounds good until you actually get going and learn that there are serious problems to be accounted for. The powerplant at The Geysers has been over budget and under projected production for its entire life cycle.

It may well be that geothermal power can be safe and clean, but we are apparently not capable of doing it that way in the USA.

I think we'd have been better off starting to put in solar in the 1960s. It would have paid off the energy cost of its production in less than a decade back then. Today it can do it in less than three years if you use thin film. It is staggeringly stupid that we do not have massive PV solar plants. They should be funded by the government and installed at cost for the benefit of the country, but that runs contrary to everything we truly believe in here in this country; primarily that some rich fucks should get richer every time we do anything.

Re:Nuclear is Dead

[symbolset]

The Geysers is a relic. Geothermal heat has been commercially exploited there since 1852, and by natives for thousands of years before that as hot baths. It was first tapped for electricity 1960, the first commercial geothermal electricity plant in the US.

It's one of the cheapest powerplants in the world per KWh. (Well, whatever - many plants in a 30sq mi area). It's a dry steam plant. They do need to upgrade to modern binary cycle, where everything that comes up from the ground goes back into the ground - a closed cycle. They could get much more efficiency this way and eliminate the need for so much injection because binary cycle plants recover energy from a much lower temperature delta. They're probably not doing it yet because it's not yet the least expensive option at this site, but that's not the fault of modern geothermal power. I understand the upgrade is planned. The Geyser's site is almost unique, and I could not have been talking about this mode of geothermal energy for other people because other people don't have this rich resource.

WRT arsenic, arsenic is a valuable industrial chemical. No doubt someone will mine that arsenic and concrete sandwich one day. Per equivalent energy output coal produces far more arsenic in addition to more harmful things - and nuclear produces far more. I assure you that a few tons of arsenic are easier rendered inert and nontoxic than the mass of nuclear fuel that would be required to produce the same power. The Geysers powers 60% of the homes between Sacramento and the Oregon border - power for 1.1 million people.

The plants I was talking about don't use thermal resources located so close to the surface that increasing venting is an issue. That entire area has been venting toxic gases and fluids from beneath the ground for a hundred million years. That's what made it such a fertile field for early geothermal work. It was low-hanging fruit in a day when we lacked the tech to drill so deep and exploit the energy beneath our feet everywhere. There's a reason you don't drink the water in the hot spring.

As to anecdotal evidence of two-headed calves and such, against the region's natural output I'm doubtful that the powerplants made a significant environmental impact. Perhaps you have links to a study? For the general case it's neither here nor there because as I said, active geothermal regions aren't required for the modern Enhanced Geothermal Systems so those issues aren't present and if they were, the toxins would be put back where they came from.

PV is a grand idea. I support it wholeheartedly. I look forward to the day when a PV cell can generate more energy in its lifecycle than the energy required to produce it, install and maintain it, and recycle it. Hopefully by then they won't be made of the exact same chemicals you're complaining about. One day when PV achieves perhaps 30% efficiency and becomes as cheap as paint we'll all be able to unhook from the grid - or even power the grid with our excess.

Since this is going longish I may as well go the extra few feet and solve the whole problem. We wouldn't need so much power if we weren't wasting so much. Much power goes to heating and cooling homes - and much of that can be alleviated with insulation and roofs (and maybe walls) that are white where it's hot and black where it's cold. A roof that changes shade according to the desired temperature in the home would be a greater energy savings than PV cells. We have thermally color-changing paints, so this shouldn't be a big deal. Our electronics need to drop in power, and they are doing so now that we're moving to LCD TVs and ARM processors, lighting is moving to LED so that issue may go away without other action. Particularly with LED there is some good work to be done. The last big modern home energy sink is heating water. I do love my hot water. Hot water on tap is the hallmark of civilization. If you have some back issues of Mother Earth News from the 1980s they have many solutions to this problem, mos

Re:Nuclear is Dead

[drinkypoo]

As to anecdotal evidence of two-headed calves and such, against the region's natural output I'm doubtful that the powerplants made a significant environmental impact.

It was a superfund site, I've given you all you need to know to find out more. We have had several here because we also have a cinnabar mine and a borax lake. But it will be clearly indicated.

PV is a grand idea. I support it wholeheartedly. I look forward to the day when a PV cell can generate more energy in its lifecycle than the energy required to produce it, install and maintain it, and recycle it.

So you're looking forward to the 1970s?

Yes, just like in Fukushima . . .

[Idou]

Safer and cheaper . . . the residents are so overjoyed by their new found wealth that they are literally killing themselves to rejoice.

If you want nuclear technology, first build a proper system to protect and compensate those negatively impacted by the limitations of institutional governance and oversight. You can start by compensating my family and myself. Otherwise, STFU.

Re:Yes, just like in Fukushima . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, sell opponents of nuclear power in to slavery and give the proceeds to their victims. We would all be running on generation IV-V reactors if not for their obstructionist hysteric bullshit. The reason Fukushima happened was because Boiling Water Reactors are an inherently flawed and poorly thought out design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor#Lead-cooled_fast_reactor_.28LFR.29

Thorium Fuel Cycle, Pebble Bed, Traveling Wave. Take your pick. If it wasn't for retards we would all be living on the Starship Enterprise by now.

Re:Yes, just like in Fukushima . . .

[danlip]

No, if it wasn't for the opponents they would just be building cheaper boiling water reactors with fewer safety precautions, and dumping the nuclear waste in the river. Because they really don't give a shit about anything but making money, and designing a new reactor costs money, safety precautions cost money, disposing of waste properly costs money. The captains of industry have been fucking over the little guys for much longer than nuclear power has existed, and they aren't going to magically stop because of the invisible hand of the free market. The only thing that keeps them in line is government regulation and the threats of lawsuits, and the only thing that keeps the government regulators in line is lots of protests and activism.

Yes there are much better reactor designs, and yes we need them desperately, but selling the nuclear opponents into slavery will not get us there.

Re:Yes, just like in Fukushima . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't so fucking expensive to build new plants due to the anti-nuclear side there's no way they'd still be running that ancient powerplant. Basically the nuclear fear-mongering laid the foundation for Fukushima to happen.

Re:Yes, just like in Fukushima . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people died from the natural disaster itself?
How many people died from the Fukushima reactors? (Answer = 0)
How many people died from food poisoning from eating organic cucumbers at the same time? Dozens.

The truth is that even if you had a nuclear reactor in your back-yard, you'd have far more to fear from your weekly shopping. And if a catastrophic natural disaster did cause an issue, it's going to be the natural disaster that will kill you or take away your livelihood.

Just like the air-lines are much safer today, so is nuclear energy. They're already learning from Fukushima so that even it cannot happen again. This is evident in some of the reports commissioned this year of US nuclear plants for preparedness against similar disasters.

Re:Yes, just like in Fukushima . . .

[drinkypoo]

How many people died from the Fukushima reactors? (Answer = 0)

Nuclear deaths are typically slow ones. Those people haven't died (well, maybe one) but they are now developing cancers they wouldn't have otherwise developed. It will take some time for them to die in agony. Or they will simply commit suicide and it will be covered up -- credible estimates suggest that Japan's actual suicide rate is three times what the nation reports, electing to classify most suicides as accidental death.

Re:Yes, just like in Fukushima . . .

[The Master Control P]

So I assume you can provide some form of evidence that anyone in Japan is dying as a result of Fukushima? Other than the guy who died of heatstroke, and the couple of guys in reactor 1 during the first hydrogen explosion, that is.

Please note that heart attacks and strokes due to fearmongering hysteria don't count.

Re:Yes, just like in Fukushima . . .

[The Master Control P]

Except that a total of a few hundred people - those working directly on the site to deal with the disaster - have been exposed amounts of radiation associated with anything whatsoever, and that only when received at once instead of over months. A grand total of 400-500 square km northwest of Fukushima continues to have radiation levels meaningfully above background levels; The cleanup will not be cheap, but it will be done eventually. They've already begun testing pressure washing of exterior surfaces as a means of removing contamination from buildings. Nature herself has already begun doing some of the work, flushing contamination downriver and out to sea (or sedimentation plant as the case may be).

It's becoming painfully obvious that the doomsayers blew their wads over nothing yet again, and as more and more time passes the margin for effects shrinks more and more.

Based on what real life experimentation?

[Idou]

The Fukushima experiment is still ongoing and will take at least 20 years before the first set of results come in. I think the conclusions from the report are a bit premature and the timing is quite suspicious.

Re:Based on what real life experimentation?

[murpup]

The study was started 6 years ago in the aftermath of 9/11 and the trouble the agency had communicating reactor accident risks for things like terrorist attacks and plane crashes. No conspiracy theory. The draft report was FOIA'd by UCS and shared with NYT, otherwise you wouldn't be seeing it until next year some time.

Yes, I work for the NRC, but my comments are my own and not affiliated with the agency in any way. Just meant to shed some light on the issue.

The Airplane Mechanic Test

[Anonymous Coward]

In the "good old days", airplane mechanics had to go on the test flight of aircraft they had serviced or rated airworthy.
The whole EPA, and their families, ought to live and work on terrain up to 1/4 below the maximum level they rate as "safe". Or "acceptable". On the bright side, doctors could monitor their families' health for vindication and research.

Cheap power?

[symbolset]

Before you call nuclear power cheap you have to come up with a plan and a cost for the whole lifecycle of a nuclear plant - including disposal of the spent fuel. Otherwise you don't know what you spent for the power you got. Since there is no plan to dispose if the spent fuel, there can be no costing associated with it. So we really have no idea how much this power actually costs yet. Cheap nuclear power is a myth.

Producing spent fuel with no plan to be permanently rid of it is simply irresponsible.

Re:Cheap power?

[Anonymous Coward]

The plan was called "fast breeders". Of course, since they would have removed the favorite arguments of anti nuclear activists, these were fought by the ecologists.

Re:Cheap power?

[symbolset]

Whatever. The plan failed. What it was and how it failed is irrelevant. There is no plan to be rid of the spent fuel now. Until there's a reliable plan for disposing of the waste, producing spent fuel is irresponsible.

Re:Cheap power?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there is a plan, ignore ecomorons and start building fast breeders.

dont bullshit

[unity100]

there wasnt any nuclear opponents until 1960s. and they were STILL holding back safety precautions by reducing safety standards even then.

moron. wake up to this fact - when there are profits involved, corporations do anything. it is cognitively stupid to expect a corporation to care about your life over their profits. time and time again, this was proven, yet you still talk like a fool.

Risk

[Ruliz Galaxor]

Risk = Probability x expected loss

If expected loss is not (nearly) 0, you need to manage probability as well. So while the hazard (expected loss) may be less than estimated before, it says nothing about the probability. And in my opinion it is the probability in nuclear plants that is the issue.

This is of course besides the question what a "lower hazard estimate" means. A lower hazard estimate can still be pretty high.

And then this happens

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/02/japan-nuclear

inform yourselves

[anonieuweling]

E.g. see the info at http://fairewinds.com/updates

The NRC is slow, weak and not well informed.

Nice, but in the end . . .

[Idou]

You can buy real estate without living in it. And my EXACT POINT is that the populace is being blamed for overreacting, which means there is a mid to long term investment opportunity if you believe so (difference between market price and expected price). So, like so much of your ilk, your ideas are worth 10 minutes of your time, but not your money or economic actions. 10 miles from the plant? . . . you are so full of shit. Go peddle your BS somewhere else you clueless troll.

Put your money where your mouth is . . .

[Idou]

Current technology can only clean an area to a certain point (even that is too costly to properly do), but not to a level you would actually want children to be exposed to. "Nature" takes around 5 half-lives . . . But more importantly, how many assets around Fukushima do YOU currently own!? Nice to yell out "doomsayer" from the comfort of 1000s km? You like ridiculing the Japanese parents who are concerned that their kids are being exposed to nuclear worker level radiation? IMHO, people like you should be committing suicide, not the victims of your ignorant and dangerous views.

Alright . . .

[Idou]

How much land have you bought around Fukushima, you fucking troll!? You think it is so safe, where is your fucking proof that you actually believe your own fucking bullshit?! Your views amount to you BSing on the web occasionally and then abandoning Fukushima, just like Chernobyl was abandoned by the industry years ago. You want to debate with the experts on the fact that radioactive contamination from Fukushima will cause an increase rate of cancer, be my guest, but do it some fucking other place, you looney.

Re:Alright . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

He hasn't bought land around Fukushima, and this proves that people are dying.

There are only two reasons you could have said that with a straight face:
1. You are literally retarded.
2. You are actively trying to discredit the idea you're pretending to advance.

Those are your ONLY possible choices. Any other response on your part, including nothing, is an irrevocable confession that the answer is "both".

Translation:

[Idou]

We delayed doing anything about the terrorism risk for 6 years, since we were really stumped and way too busy trying to push the industry agenda. Then we were taking our sweet time and Fukushima happened, so we quickly put out some BS to offset the horrible truth being revealed everyday about the disaster.

Yes, I can admit that I work for the NRC, since all our astroturfing is outsourced to India. Yes, I think I believe our own bullshit, but I would NEVER do something substantial like purchasing land around Chernobyl or Fukushima. Those people are truly fucked.