Slashdot Mirror
NRC Releases Audio of Fukushima Disaster
mdsolar writes "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today released transcripts and audio recordings made at the NRC Operations Center during last year's meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. The release of these audio recordings comes at the request of the public radio program 'BURN: An Energy Journal,' and its host Alex Chadwick. The recordings show the inside workings of the U.S. government's highest level efforts to understand and deal with the unfolding nuclear crisis as the reactors meltdown. In the course of a week, the NRC is repeatedly alarmed that the situation may turn even more catastrophic. The NRC emergency staff discusses what to do — and what the consequences may be — as it learns that reactor containment safeguards are failing, and that spent fuel pools are boiling away their cooling water, and in one case perhaps catching fire."
remember back when the incident first started and people were screaming on forums/slashdot that the reactor was fine, meltdown won't happen, "STFU luddites", etc? Good times... good times.
Here's the audio transcript while being burnt by radioactive shit ..
Stop the pain!!!
Most of the comments on the linked site are pretty critical, here's a typical post:
rfordwm - Feb 21, 2012:
What's the controversy here? This is a US regulatory agency who regulates US reactors, and the hubbub is that they weren't aware of each detail of events that were going on in Japan? Besides it not being in their job description to keep track of Japanese reactors, I don't think the first reaction of the Japanese was "Call the American nuclear regulators! Otherwise they might have to follow events on CNN!"
If this were the Japanese nuclear regulators, then I'd be worried.
I was hoping to hear Japanese at the plant: "Nani?.........Nanka atta no?... CHIKUSHOU! KUSO! SHIMATTA! CHI!
Another anti-nuclear energy posting from mdsolar. Color me surprised.
Then you should be worried because the Japanese nuclear regulators weren't any better informed.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Some sort of remix of this recording will appear on the top100 charts in the us inside of 30 days. Probably within the week. I wish we could make it a /. contest of some sort.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
-1 funny :)
^^^^ This The regulators here(Japan) were uninformed before the accident, because they have chosen to look the other way for a long time. And they were uninformed during the accident for a number of reasons, broken infrastructure, Face saving, butt rescuing, political games etc etc.
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
I read the article but it just has a Soundcloud (whatever the fuck that is) browser player that will not play for me. Anybody have links to the audio files themselves?
Oh and kudos to Slashdot for posting another story that links to some synopsis without the actual data the story is about.
The problem were the safeguards that failed to exist in the first place. Enough emergency generators, sufficient distance between those to ward off common cause failure (you may notice research going on in that area for decades in nuclear power), filtered containment vents (aka safety valves, as you would find them in any pressure cooker) and passive autocatalytic recombiners to prevent hydrogen explosions, no matter if the vents work or not (as they also vent the hydrogen from both the containment and the building). And that's before considering such things as reinforcing the condensation chambers that were found to be too weak (and fixed) decades ago.
Japan, at least with regard to nuclear power, is anything but a modern country. That's part of the result of losing two decades of economic development.
but I could have sworn somebody said: "Gojiraaa!"
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I know, the shear arrogance is almost unbelievable and I'm sure harrassing the Japanese for information didn't help them in any way.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
its that Slashdot so regularly posts his stories which leads me to believe that there is someone on the staff who is either friends of or supports the same beliefs.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
"Run! The canary is mutating!"
Bob.
The controversy is that many of the Nuclear reactors in operation in the U.S are the G.E Mk 1, that Fukushima was. Even the Hitachi and Toshiba reactors are copies of the GE Mk 1.
The second part of the controversy is that the spent fuel cooling pools in the US are much more heavily loaded with pu-239 than Fukushima is/was.
The third part of the controversy is that U.S operators are at least as bad as the Japanese counterparts.
I've observed that most people on slashdot don't want their belief systems about Nuclear power challenged. People who do are modded into oblivion. The fact remains that the U.S is at least as vulnerable to these accidents because it has many of these types of reactors *still* in operation itself. Coupled with the spent fuel density in many U.S reactor installation's cooling pools and you have a recipe for disaster that rivals the Japanese situation.
Unfortunately the lack of observable consensus between those for (pro) and against (anti) Nuclear power leaves the situation deadlocked against any pragmatic solution to the actual situation. Any form of, what I term "Responsible Nuclear Advocacy" is judged by both parties as against "their" argument when, in reality, if you observe both sides from afar you discover that while the end goal of both sides differ, the means to achieving it is the same: A geologically sound spent fuel facility in granite - built like the Rocky Mountains NORAD military facility (which is an ideal place).
It's actually easier for most people to maintain a certain level of apathy towards the situation so they can remain untroubled by events and not challenge their "ism" and I don't blame them because it's a horrendously complex subject. It encapsulates not only an understanding of physics, but engineering, governance and regulation, political constructs, economics and legislation, medicine and, of course, the Nuclear Industry itself.
I started off as undecided (well slightly pro) but determined to learn more and as I did became increasingly fascinated by this wonderful but also terrifying technology, after all, it's related to the atomic bomb. I encourage everyone who argues for Nuclear Power to really get an understanding of this technology. How much energy does mining take, what is the toxicity of mine tailings, what are the consequences of uranium enrichment and the relation to du weapons and the effect of CFC114 on the environment, how reactors are designed and their operational life cycle how basis design issues affect reactor operations (which lead to accidents like Fukushima AND Chernobyl) and, most importantly why dealing with spent fuel containment (and maintaining it in the U.S) is the most pressing issue that the faces humanity.
Simply put, I have long felt that it is up to our generation to deal with the issue of spent fuel containment if we are going to receive the benefits of the energy that Nuclear fuel provides. These reactors have life spans that are measured in decades, while it's "spent" fuel is toxic to life for thousands of years. We have a responsibility to future human generation to deal with this issue permanently. If we can't solve this, the simplest problem facing the Nuclear industry (spent fuel containment) then how can we ever expect to develop better reactor technology (that I completely support), when we are simply rendering the technology pointless. What actual right do we have to this technology if we are too short sighted to see such far reaching consequences.
I don't care if I'm modded down, I have always spoken to the truth of the Nuclear present and this argument has always been treated too flippantly on slashdot. The truth about the Nuclear industry gets modded down here because the truth about it introduces discomfiture that challenges the established dogma of the Nuclear industry and no one wants
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
1) Yes, the USA are in many (though not all) regards just as vulnerable as Japan was. There were some improvements in American plants (like hardened, but unfiltered, containment vents, reinforced condensation chambers, hydrogen igniters (of doubtful value if you ask me) etc.), but certainly not enough in terms of redundant power supply and especially the lack of filters. None of which are discussed in mainstream media for political (and entirely wrong headed) reasons - either to avoid the cost of implementing additional safety measures or to avoid talking about their existence. (Which is the case in Germany, where the media are now entirely anti-nuclear - to the point that the fact that laws were issued a quarter of a century past to install filtered containment vents and catalyzers for hydrogen hasn't been mentioned in any of the larger media during the past year, while pretending that the behaviour of nuclear reactors is entirely unpredictable.)
... and you can switch them both off and on!)
2) The main problem of spent fuel storage is that spent fuel must be reprocessed before any responsible storage is at all possible - an impossible suggestion in the ever paranoid USA. Unreprocessed fuel is a mixture of Uranium (which is neglible compared to either tailings or "natural uranium" in the earth, which is Uranium mixed with tailings), fission products (which decay below the level of the tailings within 200-300 years) and activation products. Activation products from moderated reactors are mostly plutonium, which is responsible for projected storage times of 10k to 1mio years depending upon whom you ask. In short, it is impossible to store activation products in a waste dump in any responsible way whatsoever.
3) Activation products can be split and turned into fission products with fast neutron reactors. This is a straightforward process that consists of switching the reactor on and letting the neutrons do their work. (It depends on neutron cross sections and the neutronicity of the reactor, but it is only slightly more complicated than this.) Those reactors are not new. They are technology over a decade older than Sputnik. (The reactor "Clementine" was build and finished in 1946.) The Russians used lead-cooled fast fission reactors to power their Alfa submarines (of "Hunt for Red October" fame), they also still run the BN-600 (sodium cooled) reactor and have been doing so for decades. The Americans ran the EBR-II for over 30 years until it was shut down by the clinton administration in 1994. (Along with most nuclear research.) The French build and ran the 300MW Phoenix and 1650MW Super-Phoenix plant. (The latter shut down in 1998 IIRC because power was supposed to be too expensive: 4-6ct/kWh. Cheaper than any of todays renewables
That's the greatest misconception of them all - we're not talking about hypothetical processes using newfangled, untested, unpredictable technology. This is really old stuff, it just needs doing.
Actually, storage may not be the best option. Transportation of spent fuel to a central site is sure to lead to accidents. A mobile transmutation facility may be a better option. If we think of nuclear energy as energy that must be repaid to unmake the waste, a sort of deficit spending situation, then the picture of what nuclear energy is may be clearer.
Actually, storage may not be the best option. Transportation of spent fuel to a central site is sure to lead to accidents. A mobile transmutation facility may be a better option. If we think of nuclear energy as energy that must be repaid to unmake the waste, a sort of deficit spending situation, then the picture of what nuclear energy is may be clearer.
Have you examined the work of Dr Phillip Smith, Nuclear Physicist and Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen (MSc)? They talk of the absence of a "Net energy return" of Nuclear power.
Have you considered any approaches to reducing pu-239 stores near nuclear reactors?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The energy returned on energy invested is pretty low for nuclear power even ignoring the waste clean up. Using centrifuges in the fuel processing can help, but with only about 75 years of uranium left, the whole slug of gas diffusion processed materials from weapons production makes the overall process low quality in energy terms.
Accelerators can break down plutonium so that is a zeroth order approach. We can expect an overshoot in solar panel production and excess energy available after fossil fuels and nuclear power are eliminated. Already nanosolar has an energy payback time of under eight months. http://www.nanosolar.com/company/about-us so repaying the nuclear energy debt should not be too difficult.
No need to convince me about solar and other alternatives, they're the only logical and practical energy selection for the next 50 -100 years. To me wind power with it's modular and rapid technology development cycle makes a superior return to nuclear. Solar thermal looks like the industrial level option to replace coal.
At issue though is also the decommissioning of the reactors which is a highly energy intensive operation to do safely. I'm fairly certain accelerators would be too. Do you have any links I could examine with more information. I'd like to compare the energetic expenditure of the Accelerator to an infrastructure plan and storage.
The last point is a political issue. The Nuclear cowboys (pro-nuclear, nuclear fanbois) need to have a common rallying point with anti nuclear that they can support otherwise I fear we will never see any progress on this issue.
It's still quite valuable material, and I sense they would lobby against that fiercely because the current generation of Nuclear cowboys treat radionuclides like baby poo 'unfortunate if it leaks into the environment, but no big deal'. Clearly they do not understand the mutagenic properties of the material and how hazardous it is to life systems.
Solar, wind, tidal and geo-thermal are the future and where I see more investment happening because they make money, nuclear costs money.
I'd be surprised if there is 75 years supply left, certainly not in soft ore extraction - perhaps hard ore extraction but that eats into the energy return equation even more. Unless there is a serious advancement in materials technology I think we are unlikely to see any significant advance in reactor technology that makes it economical.
The deployment of AP1000s is no more than a hack. Thermal containment ratios are lower than previous generation reactors and the changes made to the systems, whilst simplifying the reactor, are made to make a reactor installation cheaper. Meanwhile oil companies are plundering the tax incentives for building reactors for there own fudicial reasoning.
The discussions of Nuclear I conduct is because I don't believe future generation need to have any more costs imposed on them than we already have. I am more interested in the business prospect of solar power now and how I can make that available, now. I personally think that creating a solid solar and wind power technology base is the best answer to ending the nuclear industry in its current form. I'd be very interested in contacting you outside the realm of /. if that is acceptable to you.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I argue about Nuclear power because I feel I have an obligation to future generations to do something to raise awareness of the problems the Nuclear Industry has so we can deal with the issues. Maybe in a hundred or so years we may have developed better materials technology to advance it, but right now I believe it's important to contain as much as possible in a granite facility. Granite because it contains groundwater penetration of radionucides.
This was the original approach by the DOE 'Defense in Depth' (from memory) it was called and yes, it's an energetic infrastructure project that takes 30 years to set up. Spent fuel containment so even if we fail as a society, we don't, very, very slowly, wipe out humanity. Right now what I see is a bunch of people I refer to as NIMG for Not In My Generation. They want to have their energy party and leave it to some other generation to have to sort out the problem while they make it a bigger problem.
I am deeply interested in developing solar and alternative energy technology and I just wonder from your posts if that is what you do or are you commercialising it? If I've embarrassed you I'm sorry, but you do seem very difficult to engage with in conversation outside of your journal. I barely have enough time to read slashdot. let alone peoples journals.
I find it difficult to believe that we don't already have enough energy from the sun to run society without coal and nuclear, just not enough imagination. I'm seeing leaps in solar and wind technology and wonder if the technologies will (as a collective of technologies) be able to displace coal and nuclear, respectively. I see what you are doing and I applaud your efforts. I am playing a small part in it as well.
Thank you for your posts.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Sorry I did not respond earlier. The solar business I was involved in was a rental model. It had a large growth potential but needed a prosperous economy to work because retaining ownership of the equipment led to certain tax offsets that investment banks could use against other business interests. When tax liabilities fell generally across the economy owing to low profits, the business model fell apart. The company is still going, but in a very limited area, not nationally as planned.