Japanese Court Rules Against Restarting Ohi Reactors

AmiMoJo writes: "A Japanese court has ordered the operator of the Ohi nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture, central Japan, not to restart two of its reactors, citing inadequate safety measures. The plant's No. 3 and 4 reactors were halted for regular inspections last September. Local residents filed a lawsuit asking that the reactors be kept offline. They said an estimate of possible tremors is too small, and that the reactors lack backup cooling systems. The operator, Kansai Electric Power Company, has insisted that no safety problems exist."

Comments

A coincidence? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

First this and now Godzilla is on the rampage again.

Re:A coincidence? I think not.

[marcello_dl]

I'd only like to add that Ohi means Ouch in Italian, and that the reactor who blew up in chernobyl was number four, and 4 is a bad luck number in Japan. Watch those temp dials guys, don't pull a Simpson.

Re:A coincidence? I think not.

[GameboyRMH]

I thought 4 was only a bad luck number in China, because the word for '4' sounds like the word for 'death.'

Re:A coincidence? I think not.

[Jmc23]

True about China.

Now, do you have any clue how 4 and death are pronounced in Japan?

Re:A coincidence? I think not.

[marcello_dl]

IIRC in japanese sudden unexpected death is pronounced "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuk", which sounds indeed a bit like four.

Did you know that 17 is bad luck around here for the same reason? 17, in latin numerals XVII, anagram of VIXI, which means "I lived", therefore "I am dead".

Re:A coincidence? I think not.

[STRICQ]

Shi. Which is why yon is used as a replacement in many cases.

Re:A coincidence? I think not.

[Jmc23]

ah, you've forgotten about the silent 'u' in japan.

By seppuku, it's pronounced kimochi ii.

Re:A coincidence? I think not.

[Jmc23]

Yoni is definitely better than shit :)

Re:A coincidence? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is correct. It's considered "bad luck" in Japan as well. Hospitals may skip the 4th floor in their numbering, etc. as nobody wants to be on the "death" floor. It just doesn't sound good.

Godzilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wanting a nuclear power plant to have adequate safety features isnt't unreasonable especially after what happen a some years ago

Re:Godzilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

That failure took the combined effort of one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded AND a massive tsunami. Even if the safety measures in place were deemed 'adequate' they would never be able to stop that. The safety measures in place have worked fine in that country for the better part of a century, this is overreacting on the grandest scale.

Re:Godzilla!

[oh_my_080980980]

The earthquake took the plant off-line not the Tsunami. That model of nuclear reactor had a known safety defect which the manufacturer was too cheap to fix. Stop bullshitting for an industry with a horrible safety track record.

Re:Godzilla!

[imikem]

How many people has the nuclear power industry killed exactly? For extra credit, compare against coal which has had to pick up the missing supply in Japan.

Re:Godzilla!

[knightghost]

Once-a-century disasters are something to plan for. There was a host of badly designed pump systems - and business processes. It's not unreasonable to fix them given the cost of their expected failure.

Re:Godzilla!

[Mr D from 63]

The earthquake took the plant off-line not the Tsunami.

The plant safely began shutdown when the earthquake occurred. Damage that cause failure was entirely due to the Tsunami. Other reactors nearby that experienced the same earthquake but were not hit by Tsunami, shut down safely, as designed, without incident. The plants and safety systems were not designed to operate through a tsunami hit, and hence, the inevitable outcome when the tsunami hit. Shame on Japan for siting those plants in a Tsunami zone with inadequate protection and design.

Those who blame the earthquake for the safety systems failures are either ignorant, or outright and intentionally misleading. Which are you?

Re:Godzilla!

[ShanghaiBill]

How many people has the nuclear power industry killed exactly?

If you include Chernobyl, it has killed quite a few.

compare against coal which has had to pick up the missing supply in Japan.

Sure, but nobody is seriously proposing coal as a long term solution. Japan is an island nation in the tradewind belt. All major cities are close to both mountain ridges and offshore sites that would be ideal for wind turbines. So what happens when the wind stops? I have been to Hokkaido, and it never stops.

Re:Godzilla!

[chmod a x mojo]

The major thing leading up to the meltdowns was human error, both in the emergency generator rooms / power conduits not being waterproofed, and the decisions regarding what to do with the reactors during an emergency situation. There were other plants that had gotten swamped, but did not suffer meltdowns, all due to waterproofing the emergency generator rooms; If I remember correctly one plant that was swamped and survived had quite literally finished the waterproofing only a few weeks prior.

Not only that, but the reactors most likely could have been saved even after the tsunami hit. The problem was the operators ( rightly, or wrongly ) were too afraid to depressurize the reactor vessels so passive low pressure emergency cooling measures could operate, these would have lasted long enough to get pumps and / or generators on site. This decision not to depressurize was due to public fear of "wah, small amounts of short lived Iodine and and noble radio gasses would escape with the steam" mentality and lead directly ( unknown at the time. the operator actions were quite reasonable and understandable - it is only hindsight that tells us what the best action should have been ) to the larger scale and broader spectrum radio-isotope release.
 

Re:Godzilla!

[imikem]

I'd prefer not to include Chernobyl since it was literally a catastrophe waiting to happen. A reactor with no containment building, really? Nothing like that ever got built outside the Soviet bloc. Even if included, deaths per gigawatt hour from nuclear barely amount to a rounding error when compared to fossil fuel.

I'd say as things are, coal is just as long term a solution in Japan as the nuclear plants. There just aren't that many workable alternatives. Natgas plants perhaps, but recent investigation suggests that methane leaks in production and distribution are probably enough to render greenhouse gas emissions similar in magnitude to coal. Nuclear power has risks of course. Unfortunately the world has magnified those risks a great deal by collective failure to deploy newer and safer reactor technologies. Case in point: Fukushima Daiichi. Generation I plants with known serious failure modes. There's no earthly reason Gen I plants should still be in operation. For comparison, how many businesses are depending on 1960 era computer systems, and how many people drive 1960 cars as primary transportation?

Apportioning the blame for this, in my opinion divides roughly in thirds between corporate sloth/greed, government fecklessness and societal ignorance/paranoia.

Re:Godzilla!

[Mr D from 63]

What the operators were forced to deal with after the Tsunami is not nearly as relevent and the fact that the Tsunami left the plant with no emergency power and water intrusion quickly disabled and remaining systems that were battery backed. This was the case because the plant, nor its safety systems, were designed to withstand the Tsunami.

After the tusami, operators indeed were left with such a deteriorated situation that they were forced to make decisions that they should have never had to make to start with.

If my tires are rated for maximum 50 mph, and I'm going 90 mph and lose control, and I tried to swerve and wind up hitting a tree, the problem was not that I swerved the wrong way, the problem was that I put the vehicle in situation it was not designed to safety handle.

Re:Godzilla!

[Russ1642]

"the largest earthquake ever recorded" is well within the realm of possibility in Japan.

Re:Godzilla!

[chmod a x mojo]

What the operators were forced to deal with after the Tsunami is not nearly as relevent and the fact that the Tsunami left the plant with no emergency power and water intrusion quickly disabled and remaining systems that were battery backed. This was the case because the plant, nor its safety systems, were designed to withstand the Tsunami.

Actually it is quite relevant. The plant could have been saved, and large scale radio-isotope release could have been avoided in the condition the plant was in after the tsunami. The low pressure emergency cooling was not affected by the tsunami, it was not used due to public fear of radiation, and the requirement that some radio-gasses would needs be released when the vessels are depressurized.
Does that mean the operators made the "wrong" choices? We can't know with 100% certainty, but all indications are ( and scientifically backed up in several published papers ) that it would have been the better idea to depressurize the vessels and use the several days worth of passive decay heat capacity of the spent fuel pools and suppression rings that is the backup built in for just this type of emergency. Gravity fed coolant was on hand, the LOC accident then would not have occurred and the fuel would not have melted. The net result would have been significantly reduced amounts of radio-isotopes released ( and all of them gone within ~1 week at most ) and no need for long term evacuation and cleanup.

If my tires are rated for maximum 50 mph, and I'm going 90 mph and lose control, and I tried to swerve and wind up hitting a tree, the problem was not that I swerved the wrong way, the problem was that I put the vehicle in situation it was not designed to safety handle.

It's actually more like you blew your tire while going 55 because your speedometer was slightly off, and saw two fields: one empty but appears to be behind a steep ditch and the other with a few trees in it but has a very shallow ditch. You steered towards the field with the shallower ditch due to fearing rolling the vehicle when encountering the steep ditch.
You ended up hitting one of the trees in the field, but later found out that the ditch in the empty field was just as shallow as the one bordering the field with the trees.

At the time you made the "right" decision. Looking back at it with better data, you made the wrong decision; the empty field would have been much better.

Re:Godzilla!

[nojayuk]

Actually the Japanese are burning more LNG with some extra coal to replace some of their nuclear generating capacity. In the 12 months up to March 2013 TEPCO burned 23 million tonnes of LNG and 7 million tonnes of coal to generate electricity, in comparison in the same period ending March 2011, just after the earthquake and tsunami they burned 19.5 million tonnes of LNG and 3.5 million tonnes of coal. LNG has twice the energy of coal tonne for tonne.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/news...

As for coal as a long-term solution the Germans plan to be still generating at least 40% of their electricity from coal and lignite by 2050. That seems quite long-term to me. I doubt very much the US will have stopped mining coal in South Dakota and West Virginia to burn in power stations by then either. The Japanese don't have any significant amounts of native coal left to burn, no oil and no gas so they have to import it. Uranium is cheap, their nuclear generating plants are still in place ready to restart and their balance of payments are in the crapper for the 22nd month in a row mostly due to buying carbon instead.

Re:Godzilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

and the back up generators for the cooling system were taken out by the TSUNAMI. Do your research before trying to be an arrogant asshole.

Re:Godzilla!

[Mr D from 63]

The operator action is only relevant when judging the efforts to save the plant after the major damage that was done by a tsunami that the plant was not designed to handle in the first place. Had the plant been able to withstand the tsunami without such severe damage, then operators would have not had any problems continuing the shutdown.

The solution to the problem is to either design the plant to withstand the tsunami, or don't put it where it will be hit by a tsunami. The solution is not to expect the operators to make the right decision when they don't have the needed functional systems to do their job correctly. You stated

The low pressure emergency cooling was not affected by the tsunami

This is absolutely false. While there may have been some functionality of the system left after the tsunami, it was not designed to operate under those conditions and it those limited functions were not available for very long, and therefore was not effectively operable is any reasonable sense. Not to mention all the other systems and redundancies that were no longer available. That is not fault of the operator or any decision they made. It is entirely, 100%, the result of being hit by a tsunami that the plant, nor its individual safety systems, was designed to handle.

Re:Godzilla!

[chmod a x mojo]

This is absolutely false. While there may have been some functionality of the system left after the tsunami, it was not designed to operate under those conditions and it those limited functions were not available for very long, and therefore was not effectively operable is any reasonable sense.

You should review your sources, there are several factual errors in play here.
1: The low pressure emergency cooling was not damaged, it was fully functional but not used. The emergency coolant was available, and the heat sinks were also available. No external power would have been needed, these systems are gravity fed and designed as a last redundancy for situations where every other option failed. The reason this system was not used was mainly fear of radio-gas release and point 2.
2: it is the fault of the operators for every decision they made. They made the decision to blindly trust what they should have know were ( potentially, and in this case literally ) compromised sensor units and did not due any physical checks. I don't have the papers in front of me, but I believe it was unit #1 that actually melted first due to a stuck valve ( maintenance issues, not tsunami issues) and not dumping steam to the suppression ring and subsequently boiling dry within 6 hours. This should have been noticed if there had been physical checks of the systems. Sensors also indicated water levels that where meters higher than actual, again physical checks(temps and volumes of steam blow-off) and some simple math would have shown closer to true estimates - Decay heat should have been roughly 10-12% of full power generation, and the known volume of water in the vessel + loops can tell you the kJ's of heat being put into the water by how much water was being turned to steam / hour and at least estimates of how much water SHOULD be in the condensers VS how much water really WAS in the condensers. The first real reactors we had used less instrumentation to run than what they had available.
3: There are also other logical fallacies in your argument: You can never make anything "proof" against another force, only resistant. If something is not "proof" against the other force it shouldn't be built? We should never build anything then, we can't make it large space object impact proof.
As for the Fukushima daiichi plant, it was quite resistant to the tsunami, the reactors + reactor buildings themselves did not sustain significant damage until the actual meltdown and hydrogen explosions. It was only the emergency generators that really weren't up to snuff ( and there WAS power available from units 5-6 which had functional generators, just no easy way to route cable to units 1-4 through the muck and debris ) Again see points one and two for how this could, and in an ideal situation should, have been able to prevent the catastrophe.

Does this mean that there could / should have been more done? Of course more should have been done, both France and India sent out reports to the whole nuclear community detailing swamped emergency generator rooms over a decade prior to the Tohoku-Oki event, the very reason most other plants had waterproofed their generator rooms and survived relatively unscathed. I said specifically that this was part of the human error in the disaster.
  I can't comment on the plant being built on higher ground because I don't know the reasons why the particular place it was built had been chosen, but higher seawalls may have helped, but may not have. As far as my research has shown, for this area of Japan this was a freak occurrence. There was some evidence that other areas on the coast had seen tsunami events this large, but nothing concrete until data from this tsunami actually correlated to suspected paleo-tsunami evidence. Maybe we will find out that this magnitude event does impact the coast there more often, in that case it is true it should not have been built there; but that is using post fact data.

Re:Godzilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you include Chernobyl, it has killed quite a few.

According to Wikipedia 60 deaths were caused by Chernobyl.

Re:Godzilla!

[Mr D from 63]

^You cannot operate injection without power. All power was quickly lost. It doesn't matter if the piping is intact. The system is not operable without power.

Regardless, the entire condition was outside of the plant design basis. You have to understand that simple concept.

Yes, its possible had the operators acted differently to mitigate the tsunami damage, the fuel melt may have been prevented. But that is not a cause. There reason the operators did not have the proper instrumentation to deal with a post tsunami wipe-out, is because the plant was not designed to cope with that event.

Had the plant been designed to cope with that event, emergency power sources would have been located in safe areas with protected feeds. Safety equipment would have been located above tsunami levels, and the plant would have had any extra needed instrumentation to perform the necessary operations during that event.

BTW, you can prove that a structure can withstand a force. It is quite easy and common.

Re:Godzilla!

[chmod a x mojo]

I'm sorry, but you don't seem to understand the passive low pressure emergency core cooling on the BWR 3/4 systems.

As I said numerous times, depressurize the vessel and the passive gravity fed cooling works for up to days. The emergency coolant, that again was available, is located above the vessel. As long as the vessel is depressurized coolant can flow into the vessel at near the same rate as steam is bled off into the spent fuel pools dumping heat. Both the coolant and the fuel pools being used as a heatsink can be replenished with simple external hosing. The depressurization and steam bleed would release some radio gasses, mostly noble gasses ( 135-Xe for the first ~6-8 hours or so, some Kr isotopes ETC ) and Iodine. Heavier elements would tend to stay put inside the vessel.

Yes, its possible had the operators acted differently to mitigate the tsunami damage, the fuel melt may have been prevented. But that is not a cause. There reason the operators did not have the proper instrumentation to deal with a post tsunami wipe-out, is because the plant was not designed to cope with that event.

No, they had all the instrumentation needed. All they really needed was thermometers and volume estimation + maybe a calculator. Instead, being afraid of public outcry over radiation release they chose to trust complex instrument that require precise calibration that had just undergone 4+ minutes of heavy vibrations and then, in parts at least, flooding. See the passive cooling that was available to them, but unused due to fear of public outcry. The plant was capable of coping with the event, it was chosen not to, or at least chosen to cope in the way they had originally thought would result in little to no radiation being released. Unfortunately that was the wrong choice now that we know more from looking back on the disaster.

 

Had the plant been designed to cope with that event, emergency power sources would have been located in safe areas with protected feeds. Safety equipment would have been located above tsunami levels, and the plant would have had any extra needed instrumentation to perform the necessary operations during that event.

BTW, you can prove that a structure can withstand a force. It is quite easy and common.

The first part of this quote is what I said was lumped into human error, several times already as a matter of fact. And they had all the instrumentation and everything needed to cope, see the above arguments as for why they chose the way they did. As for the second part:
The magnitude of the event was unprecedented, as I said. As to "proving something can withstand a force", that is not what you said. You said ANY force, the plant in question was designed to withstand the biggest tsunami that data said was probable (9m seawalls, plant being located higher than the 9m seawalls, ETC).

Re:Godzilla!

[Mr D from 63]

But you don't seem to understand. The whole plant was completely outside of its design basis. Regardless of what was still intact, the massive damage to the plant, infrastructure, and loss of power left the operators with too much to deal with and uncertainty about what to trust or do. They were put in a position that never would have happened if 1) the tsunami did not hit or 2) the plant was designed to withstand a tsunami.

That fact that anything of use was left intact after the tsunami was a matter of luck, not design and not operator action. That operators were not equipped procedurally to handle such a situation is not surprising in the least, particularly when power was quickly lost and associated instrumentation. Regardless of what is actually available, expecting them to properly operate a plant that has experienced an event so far out of its design basis is not acceptable. You must design a plant so that operators are not put in that position for any postulated event. The tsunami was quite easily postulated. The plant was improperly allow to exist at that site. That is the root cause.

Re:Godzilla!

[chmod a x mojo]

Well, this is the point I disagree on for several reasons:

1: The plant actually was designed to specifications of the largest projected tsunami and / or earthquake - the reason it had 9 meter seawalls and survived the earthquake with no damage. The non-waterproofed stuff was a major mistake as seen by water getting past the seawalls ( as well as the France / India reactors a decade prior that had similar issues and basically told Japan to fix these major flaws). While it was partially luck that some of the buildings had been undamaged, much more was preserved because of good design. The reactor buildings themselves, for example, were undamaged. The violence of this particular tsunami was not predicted, even by the seismologists who study the Japan trench; they didn't think it could capable of building enough stress to cause such a large megathrust and resulting tsunami as large as it did.

2: Actually the procedures for this type of emergency cooling ( including venting of radio-isotopes upon vessel pressure release ) is standard emergency procedures and trained extensively for. They basically ignored their emergency training and tried to do anything possible to avoid venting any radiation, which eventually failed.

3: We may have to agree to disagree, I have actually written a paper on the tsunami and its results at Fukushima ( as yet not complete enough to publish, feel free to write your own to refute it when it is ) so my viewpoints are pretty well set in stone from the data I have. If you can come up with some hard data and arguments in your cases favor I will certainly listen to them and adjust my views accordingly.

4: this is why I love slashdot, the occasional actual technical discussion between all the frosty piss and goatse AC trolling.

Re:Godzilla!

[LordLimecat]

Its fair criticism though, given how many people died from radiation poisoning at Fukushima.

Re:Godzilla!

[LordLimecat]

Nuclear has one of the BEST safety record of any power source by mWh, honestly

Nuclear power in the last 100 years has killed fewer people (all inclusive) than die in mining accidents in a decade. Fewer people have died from anything nuclear (including Hiroshima and Nagasaki), ever, than have died in hydroelectric dam disasters.

And lets not go into "long term health effects". You dont want to know the numbers for lung disease from miners, or from a dam failure (Its Oregon Trail all over again: YOU HAVE DIED OF DYSENTERY).

Solar and wind stack up nicely, except for the whole "they cant do base load" and "solar is horribly expensive" and "energy storage is hard" problems. So pick your poison: a nuclear power source that has statistically insignificant deaths (except Chernobyl -- 6000 deaths est.), or one that kills ~50 miners in the US and nearly 1000 globally every year-- and has nasty particulates to boot.

Re:Godzilla!

[LordLimecat]

If you include Chernobyl, it has killed quite a few.

* 31 immediate deaths, 6000 long term estimated. The zone of "dangerous health effects" is a LOT lower than you think it is, when you pull up the actual dosages and affected areas.
  * 50 miners die in the US every year, 1000 globally. There are 4000 cases of black lung in the US every single year.
  * Dam failures happen every couple of years, and routinely kill 100+ people. The worst of them-- Bangqiao Dam (China, 1975) killed an estimated 171,000 people.

Do we maybe want to take a deep breath, get a firm grasp on reality, and stop with the hysterics?

Re:Godzilla!

[rubycodez]

41 directly attributable deaths, but four of those from helicopter crash. Worst reactor disaster in the history of mankind and that's a tiny number. Industrial accidents with fertilizer have killed hundreds at a time

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

Re:Godzilla!

[Mr D from 63]

A wall to prevent a tsunami from hitting the plant is not the same as designing the plant itself to withstand a tsunami. The failure was that they underestimated the size of a tsunami that could hit that area even though there was clear evidence that, even though unlikely, such a massive tsunami could happen. Interestingly, there were other towns on the cost with higher tsunami walls. But they didn't assume a tsunami would ever get past the wall and hit the plant, therefore they didn't feel the need to design the plant to withstand it. For example, the emergency diesel generator buildings were directly exposed to any tsunami that might breach the wall, on ground elevation.

I don't disagree with your point that operators maybe could have performed better under the circumstance, and maybe even violated something they were trained to do, but if the operators are in a position that one erroneous course of action leads to melting fuel then there is a bigger problem. Design basis of plants includes the ability to remain safe even with operator error. There should be multiple safeguards in place and functional even after a major event. If you are down to part of one train of a heat removal system being the only thing that can keep the plant safe, then you are way past the point where the design has failed to cope with the event.

Fortunately, due to good seismic design, which was included in the design basis, a lot of things held together. But it wasn't enough.

Be careful about the 'waterproofing' you refer to. You really can't waterproof a plant. You need to know the specific intention of the waterproofing. It was more likely to prevent internal flooding from a pipe break, or some other water intrusion, rather than being engulfed by a tsunami. If the EDG vents are below the flood level, you've already failed in design, no amount of waterproofing will help. If someone leaves a door open, flooding can still occur.

Don't put nuclear plants where they can be hit by a tsunami. It is well known at which points along the coast tsunamis bulge. Coves or bays like where Fukushima plants are located are one of those high wave areas. Only a short distance away, there are places where a tsunami can't build up nearly as much.

That's it for me. Thanks for the discussion. Good night.

Re:Godzilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd prefer not to include Chernobyl since it was literally a catastrophe waiting to happen. A reactor with no containment building, really? Nothing like that ever got built outside the Soviet bloc.

So you prefer to exclude data that doesn't support your argument, because..... well, it doesn't suit you?

You do understand that "containment buildings" are generally only designed to to provide a very minimal level of actual containment. It would have been a hell of a containment that would have survived Chernobyl 4's core excursion. The buildings housing the Mark I BWRs, for example, were (mostly) retrofitted with a valve that dumps everything (albeit filtered) to the outside if the pressure gets too high. "Too high" isn't actually very high as it turns out.

And look at the new Westinghouse AP1000 - that also doesn't have a containment that can handle the kinds of pressures that come to bear in the kind of beyond-design-basis situation that you actually really need containment.

Containment is a concept that exists to make nuclear power seem safe (beyond coping with minor leaks), rather than make it actually safe. If a major failure occurs, the containment will fail.

I'm not saying nuclear power is not a good option, but the current designs are crap and the risks have been downplayed by the industry and its regulators because the cost of building genuinely safe plants is way beyond being affordable.

Re:Godzilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

you haven't waited long enough for the slow-grow cancers, and the population most likely to get them has been scattered across a huge geographic area and isn't being systematically studied. so shut up about "no cancer deaths from chernobyl" since by happenstance and design, we'll never be allowed to find out.

Re:Godzilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you. TEPCO had been warned for years about design flaws in the reactor, cooling systems (including the emergency systems), and the seawall height and did nothing.

Design flaws and greed caused this massive failure. The tsunami was the proximate cause of the accident, but the accident went out of control due to bad design.

Re:Godzilla!

[Richard_at_work]

A reactor with no containment building, really? Nothing like that ever got built outside the Soviet bloc.

Really? Most UK reactors don't have containment buildings... Infact, every UK reactor hall I've visited has had huge windows.

Re:Godzilla!

[imikem]

Hence my last paragraph, stating "There's no earthly reason Gen I plants should still be in operation."

Nuclear power has significant risks. So does every other power source we have identified to this point. Those risks range from radioisotope pollution (nuclear, coal ash), to greenhouse gases and particulates (burning hydrocarbons), massive flooding (hydro), to risks of grid instability (solar, wind), technology availability risks (carbon capture, power storage, fusion), etc.

We can argue about the relative merits until doomsday, but my considered opinion is that of the risks involved, greenhouse gas emissions are by far the greatest and need to be addressed with the according urgency. I believe we need everything else to have a fighting chance at success in this.

Re:Godzilla!

[stoatwblr]

Even when you do include Chernobyl, nuclear is the safest of the lot

People die each year falling off roofs whilst installing solar and wind has killed a surprising number of installation/maintenance techs. The numbers are even higher if you include road crashes travelling from depot to operational site (with or without the start/end of work commute).

If the other energy industries had to comply with the same safety standards as nuclear they'd be shut down overnight - and that's even with the "lax standards" that operators apply to old gen1 plants.

On the topic of 1960s computers, you'd be surprised how many major banks are still runnning 40-year old mainframes because the legacy code works and noone remains who understands it enough to migrate to newer systems.

Re:Godzilla!

[stoatwblr]

The containment buildings are there to contain the nuclear fuel if it manages to melt through the bottom of the steam reactor vessel, not to contain gas pressure. Older-style buildings which are designed for that are speherical steel spheres accessed through airlocks for a reason.

The buidling overpressure from ignition of accumulated hydrogen which blew the roof off was a direct result of attempts to retain gasses in contravention of the operating manual, which says "vent that stuff" - it goes pretty much straight up anyway and the gasses only had trace amounts of radioactives, with a very short halflife measured in minutes. (The buildings were close to bursting in any case)

The containment systems worked as designed. They broke when someone tried to push them beyond their design capabilities in a misguided attempt to prevent the release of minor radioactive components and as a result made the problem much much worse.

BWRs are intrinsically crap. Water is highly reactive at high temperature and pressure (even at room temperature it's sometimes known as the universal solvent) - and a high pressure environment is intrinsically dangerous - plus they simply don't run hot enough to be efficient(*) or provide the kinds of heat many industrial processes need.

(*) Efficiency is a function of delta-T over the heat engine. With high (1100C+) input temperatures one can do away with the need for heatsinking to large bodies of water and derating output during hot weather in favour of simple air cooling, which in turn means the plants can be sited in safer positions than near rivers/lakes/sea - and with such high temperatures one can also directly smelt metals, make glass or operate kilns - currently highly carbon intensive activities.

Re:Godzilla!

[stoatwblr]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were (and are) intensively studied for cancer and the general conclusion is that the slow-grow cancer fear is vastly overblown.

Current rates in both cities are 1-3% above background levels (ie, statistically irrelevant)

Minamata has had much larger long-term effects.

If radiation was as big a threat as is often made out, air crews worldwide would be dying young in statistically significant numbers. Low doses aren't cumulative.

If Chernobyl was going to cause lots of extra cancers, they'd already be starting to occur. (There are some amongst former inhabitants of the area but the rate isn't statistically different to people living anywhere else)

"Doubling the risk of cancer" ofen means the odds go from 1 in 100,000 to 2 in 100,000. That's not much but dressing it the other way lacks drama.

Please go back under your bridge.

Re:Godzilla!

[rubycodez]

for something that happened in 1986? why yes, we've waited long enough to notice the three legged children, the massive increase in thyroid cancer, the...oh wait, none of that is happening. you are funny.

Re: Godzilla!

[Anonymous Coward]

No it is you who don't understand. he says that the plant was not designed to handle 10+m tsunamy, fine - what you said, but the plant WAS designed to handle BEYOND DESIGNED EMERGENCIES, and that is the passive cooling system. the operators were aware of being in beyond designed emergency, and of the passive cooling system. but because of being afraid of minor release associated with PCS use, chose not to use it, which in hindsite led to hydrogen explosion. the guy is right and your logic is backwards: you cannot design anything to withstand everything, instead you provide means to circumvent unforseen situations. this had been done on Fukushima. the operators made best decision they could operating in DESIGNED unforseen emergency, not the least guided by PR fears instead of rational logic - just what you are doing - and the decision was wrong. to break it to you in simple car analogy, cars can't be designed to expect a bear fly into your windshield, for these reasons engineers put in seatbelts. if you didn't fasten them bs you thought your girlfriend would think it's uncool, then you may die.

Ohi! Ohi!

[Anonymous Coward]

A new state in the Union?

Re:Ohi! Ohi!

[riverat1]

Isn't that a city in California?

Wait, that's spelled Ojai. Nevermind.

Experts versus Idiots

[bluefoxlucid]

In this corner, we have the experts who have stake to lie to you.

In this corner, we have a bunch of local idiots being baited by some agenda-driven journalist who is likely to twist facts and probably doesn't understand nuclear safety anyway, so probably thinks non-issues are terrifying while making serious issues out of other things he knows are non-issues.

Who will prevail?!

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[AmiMoJo]

Idiots you say? TEPCO lied and lied about the safety of their plants and what they were doing during the disaster. Who would trust a nuclear power company in Japan these days? It's not like the operators of this plant have been completely transparent.

If you put your trust in them and then things went bad in the next major earthquake wouldn't you look like a chump... Maybe Japan just isn't the best place to build these things.

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[Mr D from 63]

On one hand, Kansai Electric is paying for the sins of TEPCO.

On the other hand, the weakness in the regulatory authority is central to Japan's citizen's overall mistrust, and much work still needs to be done to repair it.

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[bluefoxlucid]

You are whining because you don't trust a nuclear company with commercial interest.

In the past, US companies have exposed us to dangerous chemicals. US plastic manufacturers used BPA for plastic. We are banning BPA in the US; polycarbonate now uses BPS, which carries the same toxicity concerns but leeches in much greater concentrations. That means our BPA-Free polycarbonate is more toxic than BPA polycarbonate; BPA polycarbonate is roughly harmless.

Yes, it's trivially easy for small activists to create false fears in the minds of idiots who are at odds with professionals who know what they're doing. The professionals may be lying; but you're still an idiot if you don't actually understand what problems you're imagining up. For the professionals, it's clear: they're either lying to you or they're not. For you, it's hit-or-miss: you're screaming about something that's either a concern or it isn't, but it sounds scary in either case.

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[oh_my_080980980]

"BPA polycarbonate is roughly harmless. "

Define roughly harmless? Want to ask an Endocrinologist? The idiot is you who tries to defend these actions as "roughly harmless."

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[bluefoxlucid]

Toxicology involves dosage level. The level of BPA leeched from polycarbonate is below the toxic threshold as currently understood; while the level of BPS leeched is a *lot* higher than the toxic threshold. Toxic effects of BPS polycarbonate are much more likely and more severe than BPA polycarbonate simply because of the higher dosage--both chemicals have roughly the same toxicity.

So yes. Your new BPA-Free baby bottles are effectively identical to your old BPA baby bottles, if we added a mega-dose of extra BPA to it. That's what the American people fought for: more poisonous polycarbonate.

I keep telling people polypropylene is a superior material, but nobody listens.

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[AmiMoJo]

That's the thing, they do understand the risks very well. There are known fault lines near the plant. Independent studies have suggested that the can produce earthquakes larger than the plant was designed to handle. We know that the quake itself damaged the emergency cooling system at Fukushima. Just like Fukushima, Ohi doesn't have a backup emergency cooling system.

So, the key question is can the Ohi operators be believed when they say that the improvements they have made can withstand these earthquakes and that the cooling system won't fail.

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is....we can't trust the manufacturers and should just shoot them all.

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Japan just isn't the best place to build these things.

1. No oil
2. No gas
3. No coal
4. No choice

Japan will either get to grips with its dependence on *local* energy sources, like nuclear (and solar/wind to augment it), or it will just stagnate further while blowing its entire foreign reserve competing for ever dwindling fossil fuels.

And then what?

So yes, idiots with an agenda that equates nuclear weapons with nuclear power.

TEPCO lied and lied about the safety of their plants and what they were doing during the disaster.

TEPCO didn't "lie" to you. TEPCO is just a victim of Japanese culture where the elders are not to be questioned before the disaster. Tsunamis? Those don't exist in Japan! Right? And during the disaster, it was just reporting what it knew - which frankly is not much it could know anyway. If you think TEPCO were trying to hide things, then there is an alien corpse I can sell you.

As to Japanese culture, it's the similar culture that crashed a plane onto San Francisco runway

http://www.reuters.com/article...

Might as well start raving that pilots lied to passengers too.

So in summary, either fix the Japanese culture of yes-man or its fucked. And if Japan does not start building new nuclear plants to decrease reliance on external energy sources, well, then it's fucked anyway.

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[WillAffleckUW]

And yet the sun and the wind work in Japan as well as anywhere else.

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/poisonedwaters/

Re:Experts versus Idiots

[imikem]

And yet the sun and the wind work in Japan as well as anywhere else.

You misspelled "intermittently" there.

No problem

[tomhath]

Japan has started to exploit the many Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas trapped in methane hydrates. Clearly that's a better alternative than restarting a power plant that's been operating safely for decades.

Re:No problem

[GameboyRMH]

Actually it would be a good idea to use up methane clathrates, to prevent this from ever happening:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:No problem

[Anonymous Coward]

just remember "nucrear powah is noto safeu!" is all it takes to make people question something providing clean safe energy.

Re:No problem

[iggymanz]

the third sentence of that article says "this is now thought unlikely"

Re:No problem

[oh_my_080980980]

Clearly people never read:

"The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission found the nuclear disaster was "manmade" and that its direct causes were all foreseeable. The report also found that the plant was incapable of withstanding the earthquake and tsunami. TEPCO, regulators Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and NSC and the government body promoting the nuclear power industry (METI), all failed to meet the most basic safety requirements, such as assessing the probability of damage, preparing for containing collateral damage from such a disaster, and developing evacuation plans.[21][22] A separate study by Stanford researchers found that Japanese plants operated by the largest utility companies were particularly unprotected against potential tsunamis.[7]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Re:No problem

[Anonymous Coward]

which is why it's safe in theory - not in practice.

Re:No problem

[GameboyRMH]

Not the whole effect, but the hypothesis of a sudden runaway release...at least that's good news.

Re:No problem

[Anonymous Coward]

which is why it's safe in theory - not in practice.

Ok, how about tell us ONE thing that is safe in practice?

Re:No problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Was the company able to handle the problem or did the government have come in to help.

BPA/BPS isn't the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Other issues are irrelevant and a distraction from the issue at hand.

In the case of TEPCO, TEPCO has a history of lying about the safety of its reactors and the management can't be trusted to run a ramen stand much less a nuclear reactor. So it doesn't matter what experts say, TEPCO specifically is not to be trusted. And even if they are telling the truth today, they can always change their minds.

Re:BPA/BPS isn't the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is that groups of people are dumb panicky animals. At least TEPCO could be correct if they wanted to, a mob of people who base their science knowledge on movies don't have that possibility.

Re:BPA/BPS isn't the issue

[stoatwblr]

"TEPCO has a history of lying about the safety of its reactors and the management can't be trusted to run a ramen stand much less a nuclear reactor. So it doesn't matter what experts say,"

TEPCO engineers are OK, if isolated from management. The problem is that in Japan's highly hierarchical militaristic culture they will not break ranks if ordered to do something stupid by management. It's the same culture which has co-pilots regularly sit quietly by whilst pilots crash aircraft instead of intervening to countermand stupid decisions.

Fukushima was saved by a senior engineer who finally said "fuck this shit" and got on with saving the thing instead of listening to management with no engineering experience who were telling him what to do.

The best thing which could be done is to break the cozy relationship that Japan's nuclear inspectorate has with the plant management, but it needs to be understood that BWR reactors are potential steam bombs and unsafe by design, no matter how many mitigation measures are put in place.

Just place solar and wind farms in the rad zone

[WillAffleckUW]

Godzilla only want prime nuclear energy.

Simple lying about safety

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not an issue about science or movies it's about TEPCO and their history of lying about safety. They simply can't be trusted to be correct.

You've missed 9/10 of the problem

[dbIII]

Add a pile of shortcuts and fuckups to the effect of that tsunami and you've got the real story. Add in a lot of misinformation and overt covering up to that chain of failures and you've got the second story about why little is taken on trust in Japan with that issue now.

Nuclear Power, not cheap, never safe, insanity!

[cboslin]

Having read through all the comments so far, I could not help but laugh.

The only reason for Nuclear power is weapons, period. Once you come to that conclusion, once you follow the money, its easy to understand why the plants are not being shutdown.

Nulcear power is not cheap.
If the government did not insure them, they would not get built. Depleted Uranium weapons cost millions per shell, a very profitable business.
Even if a company could justify the cost and build them, there is no way to store the radioactive waste.
How much does re-casking cost? How many reading this understand that the current casks (old nuclear waste) have a life of only 100 years, and in reality start cracking and releasing radiation after only 50 years. Have you ever looked at satellite and or pictures of planes and counted the number of casks in each state of the USA? How much does it cost to re-cask? Did you figure in this cost? For how long?
Even if you take isotopes that have a half life of 240,000 years and just focus on say Cesium 137 (massive amounts released in both Chernobyl and Fukushima) which has a half life of 30 years. It takes a minimum of 10 half lifes to get 'close' to inert (near background radiation before the disaster/spill) 10 half lifes X 30 years = 300 years. Re-casking the waste, assuming it could be contained, its not in Fukushima nor can it be, every 50 years (when it starts cracking) costs how much per cask? That's at least 6 times for Fukushima. Still think its cheaper...than you are not being realistic.
Now consider that scientists went back to Chernobyl in year 29 and measured that the levels of Cesium 137 had not dropped by half as expected. Every half life the radiation should drop by half...but in Chernobyl it has not.

Within the first week of the Fukushima disaster/spill it was reported that not only does the technology NOT exist to stop the Cesium leaks and make the reactors safe, that no company would possess the technology for the next 10 years. Until they can check the leaks, remember all the water being sprayed on to cool is highly Cesium 137 laced and radioactive and what can not be contained, leaks into the ocean, the Cesium 137 being leaked into the environment will do so unabated. Think of that, for the next 10 years...

If you counter that there is no radiation in the containment area, that is not a good thing. It only means that its in the ground water already. Its leaking into the ocean, its being sucked up in the trees, bushes and folliage, Cesium laden pollen, yummy, not.

A normal geiger counter does not register Cesium-137. You need a special dectector designed to register radioactive Cesium-137.
Cesium-137 gets asorbed by the heart muscle.
Baby doctors from Ohio to Pensylvania reported an increase in the holes in hearts of infants, post Fukushima.
Plants that pull up Cesium-137 laden ground waters release the pollen into the air that re-impacts areas previously cleaned.
Pine Trees on mountains high enough for the pollen to get pulled up to the upper atmosphere, not just through evaporation, have been tested and their pine cones have been found to be laden with Cesium-137.
It takes only 48 hours for anything that gets into the jet stream in Japan to find its way to North America and get rained down.
This will occur for the next 10 years, or longer until a method of containment is invented, remember it does not exist today. Nor will it exist in the next 8 years. How much water are they spraying, where are they holding it for 300+ years? Their not holding it for that long...well there you go.
Radioactive debris has already started to reach the West coast of North America.
Everything in the food chain will get its share of Cesium-137, just as some fish are high in mercury, the same rules and principals apply. Bigger feeders eat smaller feeders that eat yet smaller feeders, some of which are bottom feeders. There is no escaping Cesium-137 exposure in the future.