Slashdot Mirror
Fukushima Finally Reaches Cold Shutdown
mvdwege writes "The BBC reports that the reactors at Fukushima have reached cold shutdown, meaning they no longer need active cooling to stay at safe temperatures. Plans can now be made to start the cleanup of the site. Unfortunately, TEPCO has also admitted not all problems were out in the open until now; an estimated 45 cubic meters of contaminated water have leaked out of cracks in the foundation of a treatment plant."
Sky did not fall, Japan is not irradiated wasteland, Fallout is still just a game.
authorities can't be trusted??? mighty wide brush you're painting with, and I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Conservative who is wary of anyone who runs for public office, so for me to say that is pretty substantial... what constitutes an "authority" in your mind, and why are they incapable of being trusted in a crisis? Who else would be better in this circumstance, private enterprise? /I can't believe I have to put it this way, but this is one of those times when a centralized government is absolutely needed to fix a problem
It's not possible the cracks were opened up by the, what was it, 9.0 magnitude earthquake, the 45 foot wall of water that came ashore shortly after that, and all of the 7+ magnitude aftershocks?
thank you, I guess, for pointing out that earthquakes and tsunamis do indeed suck and destroy stuff. People will just get compensations and move on to somewhere else. There were definately WORSE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster) disasters than this and It is worth taking for what it is. Also there are areas that are intentionaly and knowingly made into deserts/toxic lakes or whatever, and it's no disaster at all... so... 12 miles radius is not that big of a chunk to ward off and let smolder in ruins, wouldn't be the biggest or out of proportion dead-zone of the world.
Meanwhile, half a million people are homeless, about twenty thousand are dead. And all everybody cares to talk about is that some nuclear reactors weren't safe enough (through neglect of safety updates during the last three decades) to withstand a tsunami. If you criticize TEPCO for neglecting tsunami protection, why don't you criticize the whole Japanese government for neglecting tsunami protection along all of the coast?
Containment has almost nothing to do with cold shutdown.
Cold shutdown is defined as a fissionable material no longer requiring active cooling to remain at a stable temperature. This indicates that whatever fission may still be occurring in the nuclear material (whether it breached containment or not) it is in such small and sporadic amounts as to not be a concern to restart itself and continue melting through containment or into the open air.
Please back the truck of panic up.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
hope some people can finally take a breather, it's only been... 9 months...
1) A 12 mile radius exclusion zone (& larger radius which people will avoid) is huge in a small country like Japan. Do you really think that Japanese people have chosen to have among the highest population density in the world even though they have a bunch of unused land?
When we consider how common Fukushima's reactor design is, and how reluctant power companies are to invest in new reactors, despite proven safety problems with their design, a disaster like this seems almost inevitable.
2) American nuclear workers carry dosimeters and are closely monitored. Children operate in a very different environment. Children are more susceptible to problems than adults, since they are still developing. I doubt that a nuclear plant would allow a worker to bring their child with them as they are exposed to radiation.
3) The loss of so much electricity in the Tokyo area has caused shortages in many components crucial to Japanese and global commerce. There is nothing innovative about turning off the air conditioning in an unplanned 30% loss of power. There is something deeply honorable about it though.
Summary: Large scale electric generation will always have drawbacks, but it's foolish to ignore their potential for destruction. As far as I know, the only part of Japan that 6 months after the Tsunami is uninhabitable by humans surrounds Fukushima.
I don't oppose nuclear power, but when the risks are ignored or downplayed (like in your post and in TEPCO's policies) a nuclear disaster is inevitable. And when people notice that you've been downplaying the risks, their unlikely to trust the industry to build new reactors, even though they improve safety.
What a relief! I wonder when they'll start moving people back into Fukushima Prefecture.
Fukushima prefecture is 14500 km2 and 2M inhabitants less than 8% of the territory and 3.5% of population have been evacuated.
I can't wait to sink my teeth into some Fukushima vegetables and I know you feel the same way
Most of the japanese would be perfectly OK eating food from Fukushima prefecture without fear-mongering idiots scaring a gullible population with occasional radiations level in food lower than one would find in a simple banana or brazil nut.
When do you suppose that 12 mile radius exclusion zone will be lifted? This decade or next?
Exclusion will be lifted next year for all areas with less than 20mSv/y of radiations level, that's more 80% of the evacuated area. Also half the radiations are due to Cs-134 with a half-life of 2 years. That mean all zones will be available in less than a decade, including municipalities like Namie or Iitate.
Now that we've decided that the maximum radiation dosage for a Japanese child is the same as an American nuclear worker, it's only a matter of time before they play in the shadow of Fukushima again!
There's a big difference between what you are allowed to receive every years during your carreer and a maximum environmental exposure that could hypothetically only happen one year. I'm sure the inhabitants of Ramsar who live with a natural radioactivity level of more than 100mSv/y would be laughing a lot at this.
And let's not forget how much better Tokyo is with 30% less electricity.
Yeah sure I wonder how any other energy production facilities would have fared facing the same earthquake and tsunami. Do you really think the Japanese government will be dumb enough to replace nuclear plants with tenth os thousands of off-shore tsunami-proof windmills ...
http://www.transparency.org
I think you misunderstand my position (or, rather, I haven't explained it clearly enough...) I'm not saying that in general the competition generated from an appropriately regulated free market is bad - quite the opposite - I'm addressing the generalization by the post I was replying to that says "authority" can't be trusted in a crisis, whatever that's supposed to mean. "The authority" could be government, owners of the company, contractors slated to do the cleanup, volunteers, or those wild monkeys they let loose to track radiation with - I have no idea what the coward meant. Yeah, people generally are incompetent in anything they have no training in. That's why we call the trained ones "authorities" in their fields.
How about the fact that rather than address radiation making its way into food and water, they merely raised the allowable amount of radiation in food and water?
This might blow your mind... but often policy makers have to juggle multiple and conflicting priorities at the same time.
In the case of the Japanese Crisis you had a country devastated by an enormous disaster with people freezing in makeshift shelters with inadequate food and water.
Now you could say "sorry everyone you don't get to eat today." Or you can say "Here is some food that's irradiated above what in a normal situation we would expect but over a short period of time is a better alternative than hunger and malnutrition."
BMOC: Containment has almost nothing to do with cold shutdown.
According to TEPCO, it does:
TEPCO: Definition of "Cold Shutdown Condition": ... Release of radioactive materials from PCV is under control and public radiation exposure by additional release is being significantly held down.
(Roadmap towards Restoration from the Accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, 17 Nov 2011, Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters, Government-TEPCO Integrated Response Office)
TEPCO *is* changing the standard definition of "cold shutdown" somewhat. Now, they have *added* a containment requirement, so they're not really loosening any standards. Of course, normally "cold shutdown" doesn't include a containment requirement because normally the reactor vessel isn't breached.
zeigerpuppy has a point in that "cold shutdown" normally implies a state of normal control. Cold shutdown typically means the reactor is stopped, doesn't need active cooling, and can be safely opened for maintenance. Fuku is still an active disaster site.
I'm not advocating panic (what's the sense in that?), but fair criticism of TEPCO is, I think, well-deserved.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.