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Should Japan Restart More Nuclear Power Plants? (thebulletin.org)
Lasrick writes: Seth Baum, executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that Japan should restart more of its nuclear reactors (the Sendai nuclear plant was restarted in August). The reason is simple, writes Baum: "Japan is now building 45 new coal power plants, but if it turned its nuclear power plants back on... it could cut coal consumption in half. And coal poses more health and climate change dangers than nuclear power."
If you're going to ask us a question, make it a poll.
Basically every option for them and their little fireball of an island chain are Bad Choices.
Still, engineered and maintained properly, with no corner cutting, they'd be better served by nuclear.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
We only get worked up about nuclear disasters because they're so unusual. Coal is a disaster in its normal operation!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Samples collected from gutters around my office (Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) already light up the Geiger counter, and the soles of shoes right after make nice images when placed on photographic film.
Oh, and before you give your opinion (e.g. "it was worth it")... I live there, and your opinion doesn't count.
It should be common sense.
We are dealing with old technology here.
Restart with new tech!
Coal the only alternative?
What about Geothermal Power ?
What about Wind Power?
What about wave power?
Japan should take the lead from Germany who replaced all their nuclear power plants with renewables following the Fukushima disaster
As someone doing a thesis on international relation and war I have looked to what the Bulletin has said about the implications of this or that technology or policy (like missile "defence"--which is totally useless in blocking first strikes and marginally useful in blocking counter-strikes, but the intention worries others. The resuly is that it effectively tells other states "We can now do a first strike on you and your weakened retaliatory strike will be neutralized. We can now launch our own attacks at leisure without fear of consequences")
Suffice to say if the people behind the countdown clock to nuclear doomsday endorse it, then it's fine.
Why is another post marked flamebait? Despite Japan's government's horrid behaviour--ignoring warnings on Fukushima leading an inspector to quit in protest before the accident and downplaying the dangers to its people--nuclear power has killed far fewer people than the coal industry, a functioning plant has less radiation than normal background radiation due to the shielding, is less radioactive than coal plants (no one thinks about it, but coal is slightly radioactive and no one thinks to put in any lead shielding), pollutes less (fewer respiratory illnesses), better for clean rain, and will help battle global warming (which will kill billions if left unchecked--migrations war, flooding of coastlines, little arable land).
What is under the sites, water? How deep, was the building foundations sunk or lowered. How deep was the original geological testing? Underground structures could have been missed in the decades old for profit rush to get the site started.
Whats the on site back up power like? Low level backup fuel tanks placed near the ocean or water? Poor placement of back up electrical systems to power the site when all normal connections fail. Can expected flooding get to all the vital sites?
The ability to cool, connect with power, keep power supplied to vital systems on site.
Communications systems with the rest of Japan and its nuclear experts 24/7 that is ready, tested, powered?
Quality and quantity of expert staff on site every shift? Who is on at night? Holidays? Do they have the decades of site skills to totally understand what needs to be done or will they have to be on call? How far away do they live? Can they be found in time if a unique situation presents itself again or many errors build up in one quick event?
What is the state of the software systems that overrides the for profit energy production during an emergency? Really quick? Kind of ok for a list of expected events? Passed an simple expected gov inspection a while ago?
How old was the old reactor? Who designed it? Upgrades in the 1980s? Who welded the tricky parts? Who tested the welds decades ago? Who is still testing the site welding? How often are the back up systems fully tested vs just looked at or tested to money saving standards?
How safe are the on site cooling pools/areas ? Can they be cooled with existing emergency systems? Is another back up system ready for cooling?
The basic new make safe costs might endanger profits. License extension paper work or upgrades and inspections?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Especially when no one can live in the fallout zone
Nuclear hits everybody, rich or poor. If you're even upper middle class you can easily avoid coal death by living in the suburbs.
:(...
The trouble I have with nukes is that everyone in the world believes in the myth of gov't inefficiency. That means sooner or later a perfectly safe gov't run nuclear plant will either get turned over to a businessman who'll cut safety until there's an accident or we'll cut funding to the safety controls in the name of 'cutting waste and pork' until there's an accident. With coal when this happens a bunch of workers I don't know die. With nukes when it happens I get cancer. Yeah, I'd like to live in a world where those workers don't die and I don't get cancer, but I don't
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And Japan lost the use of a LOT of land with one nuclear incident.
Yes!
No!
Maybe!
What was the question again...??
Speaking as someone who currently lives in Japan (for work, I'm not Japanese), I think they should. Japan has a ridiculous amount of people in a very small space - Tokyo has is only 75% as large as New York City, but has almost twice as many people. The amount of coal needed to provide enough electricity for them would absolutely pollute the area around them and render it inhabitable - and in a country where habitable land is so scarce, and with such a nice natural climate that attracts a huge amount of tourists, ruining it would not be a good idea. So long as they invest properly in their nuclear power plants and ensure they are well maintained and regulated, they have virtually no environmental impact, and they can provide absolutely insane amounts of power for a very low price. If they act cut the nuclear power like Germany did (which I think was an idiotic move, but I digress), they are going to have a very, very, very hard time supplying enough power for everyone, and if they do it in coal, that will be a disaster. I'll finish with a nice little graph: what do you think?
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
...abandoning nuclear because of things like that is like abandoning air travel...
I beg to differ. Air travel can't wipe out the whole human race. An apocalyptic nuclear event can.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
And that is why you should never vote for a Republican. They are now trying to murder children in Japan with cancer.
" or we'll cut funding to the safety controls in the name of 'cutting waste and pork' until there's an accident". Google the phrase "Starve the Beast" will ya?
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It was lack of oversight and funding combined with old tech and a profound lack of understanding of the risks due to a still very new technology.
The exact same can be said about any large organization. The difference is that at least with gov't you take a good chunk of the profit motive out. Traditionally Gov't jobs don't pay well but are safe. You get good benefits and retirement. There are folks that want to change that so they can undermine the good gov't does. Google the phrase "Starve the Beast" and maybe even "Southern Strategy".
The way I see gov't, especially central gov't is this: It's a tool. A dangerous tool. But what other tool has the raw power to stand up to a mega corp?
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Lol! Nuclear power plants are not capable of wiping out the human race. You're an idiot.,
every coal fire plant is a disaster that is occurring every single day and are continuing to affect the human race in ways we still don't fully comprehend long after everyone here is dead.
You are arguing that having two problems is the solution, instead of getting rid of both problems. Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I'm pro-nuclear (generally speaking). I live in Japan.
I don't think turning on a bunch of outdated reactors that sit on one of the most earthquake and tsunami-prone areas of the world is a good idea.
How about replacing the existing reactors with a smaller number of very modern Westinghouse AP1000s? A far better way to spend billions of dollars than the stupid 2020 Tokyo Olympics. I think this is an acceptable medium-range solution until someone demonstrates a commercial 1GW thorium plant.
Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.
I'd argue that Coal is worse, and worse in ways that we still don't fully comprehend. We understand the problems with nuclear power pretty well, including that it kills fewer people per MWh than solar.
Remember, most of the dangerous byproducts from a coal plant don't break down, and aren't all that well contained. Nuclear power waste is at least contained.
I don't read AC A human right
I beg to differ. Air travel can't wipe out the whole human race. An apocalyptic nuclear event can.
Funny about that. Air travel accidents have killed 53,000 people to date. Nuclear accidents have killed 283. And if you haven't had traveler's diarrhea, you don't know what apocalyptic means.
You seem to forget that the US dropped NUCLEAR FUCKING BOMBS on two Japanese cities only 70 odd years ago, and both are thriving cities these days.
A nuclear bomb has a mass of plutonium in the kilogram range. A nuclear reactor's fuel mass is in the 100-150 ton range. You are missing the difference between radiation and radionuclides.
What goes on for so long is the bs paranoia that is so deeply ingrained that people refuse to look at the scientific facts that low levels of radiation are not lethal
Citation please. LNT has NOT been disproved - so where is your evidence that it is?
But dont let actual facts get in the way of your cold war radiation terror..
Well I'm sure you won't have any trouble producing the facts you claim to have.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
every coal fire plant is a disaster that is occurring every single day and are continuing to affect the human race in ways we still don't fully comprehend long after everyone here is dead.
You are arguing that having two problems is the solution, instead of getting rid of both problems. Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.
No, I am arguing coal is a KNOWN far worse problem right here and now, we don't have to wait for an accident, it doesn't have some "chance" of being an issue. It has far reaching known issues and probably just as many unknown.
If you don't support nuclear power you don't support reducing carbon emissions.
Nice to see you avoid the obvious proving point of populations LIVING in high radiation levels - just keep avoiding facts why dont you..
But since you asked.
A good starting point to learn about the assumption of linear ionising radiation damage:
http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/radiation-the-no-safe-level-myth.html
But you just keep believing your reds-under-the-bed propoganda view of radiation.. because science stopped in the 50s, really it did.
For bonus points I suggest you keep working hard to stop development/deployment of new generation nuclear power, to maximise the length
of time we keep running old gen reactors, and block any attempts to minimise waste through reprocessing/breeding! yeah, thats the ticket!
The public's irrational fear of nuclear power and its irrational inaction regarding global warning is why we are fucked!
How can you make the claim that nuclear power is worse if you can't comprehend it?
I'm from Sweden, almost half of our electricity has come from hydro power and the other half from nuclear power.
Excellent I'd say.
If only they could decide to make new nuclear plants to re-use the old waste and hence get lots of more energy and easier to handle waste by doing so.
Units 1-4 used LEU fuel. Why are you concerned about plutonium?
The geek's technical and ecological arguments count for nothing if you have lost faith in those who were responsible for the safety of nuclear power both in private industry and in government.
You have no idea what you're talking about, there's so many basic errors in this post.
Then absolutely not. The reasons are many and are not new. I have also heard all the pro-nuke arguments; they are for the most part tone-deaf. When the growth & increasing efficiency of renewables is taken into consideration, their arguments just come across as willfully ignorant on the level of climate-deniers and anti-abortion mob. The conversation was settled ages ago, the pro-nuke side lost. Just let it rest already.
What magic power box do you have in mind? Coal pollutes nastily, gas pollutes less but costs more, nuclear has PR issues and some scary worst-case scenarios, renewables are very expensive.
Units 1-4 used LEU fuel. Why are you concerned about plutonium?
Unit 4 used MOX.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The first generation nuclear plants should be shut down. Fukushima was such a plant, so was Chernobyl. The cooling systems don't have enough fail-safes. Its not a question of is nuclear power safe, its a question of is a first generation plant safe? Is a second generation plant safe? When you buy a car, they make them differently and they get individual safety ratings. A ford pinto is like a first generation plant, any damage to it and its going to burst into flames. They have 4th generation plants in the works with passive cooling! Don't even get me started on why we don't have molten salt reactors or fast reactors.
I'm from Sweden, almost half of our electricity has come from hydro power and the other half from nuclear power.
Well, you guys and Finland and the world leaders in this technology. I commend your countries pragmatic approach to spent fuel containment, of which Japan has none.
Just to give other people here some context, one of the most major criticisms of Yucca Mountain was that the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility could not be applied to Yucca's geology. The reason to choose a specific geology (in addition to being seisemically stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to control the the amount of time ground water took to travel through the facility carrying radioactive isotopes, eventually, into the water table. If the amount of time it takes exceeds the decay rate of the longest lived radio-isotopes then the facility was providing defense in depth.
In addition, as a site like that would be containing pu-239, whose half life is around 25000 years, after considering the daughter products you need a geology capable of containing it for 500,000 years, which is what the original specification called for.
Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology (pdf) revealed that the passage cl-36 from atmospheric nuclear testing took less that 50 years in ground water through Yucca mountain so the reality of Yucca is it is inappropriate to contain *any* kind of radioactive products. The reason is Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash.
Feild studies have established that crystaline rocks like granite and bentonite clays can acheive this control. So far Finland is on track to be the first with an active facility with a Swedish facility also in the works.
Curiously, getting this right should be the one thing pro and anti nuclear folk should be able to agree on, if only for their own reasons. For Nuclear power to continue operating such a storage facility is essential so that new reactors can be deployed and materials removed from reactor sites. For people against Nuclear power such a facility would improve the safety of the industry as a whole by providing a place to store the materials permanently where there ingress into the environment can be controlled.
We don't see any improvements to governance, containment or anything else in Japans Nuclear industry thus very little logic in restarting it.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
And MOX has a relatively low proportion of plutonium coupled with a very high ignition temperature. It probably wouldn't catch fire.
I'd argue that Coal is worse, and worse in ways that we still don't fully comprehend. Remember, most of the dangerous byproducts from a coal plant don't break down, and aren't all that well contained.
You're not going to get an argument from me that coal is bad. It is a shit industry, they don't want to change and you already know my opinions, based in knowledge of the appropriate bills, how and why the nuclear industry is still, like all of us, beholden to coal and oil.
You also know that I think Nuclear *could* be better if we could get past all of the people who think they are supporting it, but in reality are preventing it from evolving a safety culture. It needs to be divorced from private industry's profit motivation and moved into the domain of government where it can be managed with the same type of safety culture that exists in military installations.
Based on the available evidence from the official report, I doubt Japan could make the appropriate regulatory changes that would support a safe restart of the industry. Same situation, it's not the technology so much as the entities running it.
We understand the problems with nuclear power pretty well, including that it kills fewer people per MWh than solar.
Well, I think you need to read my comments about IAEA and WHO however I see that it has already been modded down, perhaps the facts are a little too confrontational. It doesn't matter - the real conversation about Nuclear power is always at -1 here at /.
As for killing less than solar, I think it is clear that that is a contrived situation.
Nuclear power waste is at least contained.
It's a core problem of the nuclear industry around the world that needs to be solved of which I have already commented on.
Incidentally, I will post the last part of our previous discussion on EPR vs AP1000 for you later as you asked me to answer some specific things which I was too tired to answer. I could be related to what we are discussing here.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
In Japanese, ãfãf©ãfãfãf©ãfãfãf©
Japan should build more nukes and invade Honolulu again
Wind power has actually become cheaper than coal or gas. And we've just ordered solar panels for our house that will pay themselves back in less than 10 years, without subsidies of any kind.
But I still agree we need more nuclear power for when the wind is not blowing and the sun isn't shining. And theres only so much land we can use for wind turbines. Instead of extending the life of old nuclear plants (which then blow up, like Fukushima), we should be building new ones that are more efficient and safe. Not "safer" but actually "safe". Yes, they do exist, but we're hardly building any because "nucular is dangerous". So we keep extending the older ones. Way to go.
Thanks for the link, I didn't see anything there that disproves LNT, care to provide one that supports your statement?
But you just keep believing your reds-under-the-bed propoganda view of radiation.. because science stopped in the 50s, really it did.
There is no need to get emotional, I'd prefer to stick with the science myself. You are *still* missing the difference between radiation and radionuclides, the difference between internal and external exposure to radionuclides.
For bonus points I suggest you keep working hard to stop development/deployment of new generation nuclear power, to maximise the length of time we keep running old gen reactors, and block any attempts to minimise waste through reprocessing/breeding! yeah, thats the ticket!
breeding eh? I see you have a long way to go before you understand the issues. Right now you think I am anti nuclear, yet you don't even know what a burner reactor is.
Before you start ad-homing the shit out of me, why don't you check out some of my other posts and see if I've supported my opinion with fact. It's a complex industry and you may have some good points to share which will mean we both learn something. I'm not being an asshole to you, I'm just asking you to support your claim if you can.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Okay, let's state clearly the argument being made by opponents of the coal plant re-starts too, just so we are all clear.
Firstly, the claim about building 45 new coal plants is nonsense. Most of that number appears to be replacements for existing plants. This is the same lie used to claim that Germany is building extra coal plants - it isn't, it's closing old ones faster than the new, more efficient ones open.
Japan sees coal as a temporary measure. It was 24% of capacity before 2011, and the plan is to have it at 26%by 2030. The debate now is over how much of the ~14% that was covered by nuclear will be replaced with coal, restarted nuclear, renewables and energy saving. The government has set the goal of an additional 2% coal, but with a reduction in emissions through newer, cleaner plants.
Opponents of nuclear power in Japan point out that many plants have been found to be inadequately protected after Fukushima. Previously unknown geological faults have been found right under some plants. Poor maintenance, previously undiscovered damage from the earthquake, and extremely high costs. As an alternative they suggest the development of renewable energy.
An extra 14% renewable energy is not a particularly lofty goal. Japan leads the world with battery technology for storage. Geographic distribution, geothermal and the like all increase the capacity factor. They argue that rather than spend vast amounts of money restarting nuclear plants, it should be spent on renewable energy. Japan would benefit from being able to develop and export the technology, and there are fully costed plans to get the capacity needed.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
" It probably wouldn't catch fire."
And even if it did, it's not a major problem to put out. Lots of fires are too hot to put out with water. You just smother them with sand, etc instead.
And MOX has a relatively low proportion of plutonium coupled with a very high ignition temperature. It probably wouldn't catch fire.
Well it's probably not worth risking the extinction of humanity finding out then is it. Luckily, the people who make the decisions about such things agree with me and we won't have to find out.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
So a plutonium fire would destroy the planet? How?
Learn to love Alaska
I think the OX part of MOX pretty much guarantees it doesn't have an ignition temperature at all unless you're a fan of fluorine atmospheres :)
At one point, people did try metallic actinide fuel. Even at the time it was considered to be a really dumbass idea and that was strongly confirmed by the subsequent events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
SJW n. One who posts facts.
A nuclear bomb has a mass of plutonium in the kilogram range. A nuclear reactor's fuel mass is in the 100-150 ton range. You are missing the difference between radiation and radionuclides.
Little Boy---the first bomb dropped---had 64 Kg of enriched uranium fuel. That's pretty comparable to the nuclear powerplant fuel charge you're thinking of.
Citation please. LNT has NOT been disproved - so where is your evidence that it is?
It's also not been proved they are lethal. You don't get to be a null hypothesis just by being more popular.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is one of the few sane statements that I saw on /. on this subject ever - mod points for the wise here please!
ok lets state this clearly for you. EVEN the cleanest most modern coal plant is thousands of times more polluting than a nuclear plant. This isn't questionable, or ifs or buts, the only scenario the two can be compared is in a nuclear disaster. 2% increase in coal will mean the deaths of 10's of thousands of people, it will be polluting millions and millions of tons of toxins into the environment and atmosphere. If instead of building those new cleaner coal plants they built modern nuclear with high levels of safety they would generate massive amounts of clean low risk power, they would save 10's if not 100's of thousands of lives over the lifetime of the plant and they would MASSIVELY cut emissions across the country.
An apocalyptic nuclear event can.
I'm sure it could. Now I'm awaiting your hypothesis on how one could occur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Indeed, thanks for reminding me.
I think the OX part of MOX pretty much guarantees it doesn't have an ignition temperature at all unless you're a fan of fluorine atmospheres :)
I'm curious about how you think this would behave. We already know that the fuel in that configuration was producing hydrogen as the water levels reduced in the reactor even with the control rods in place. With 30-40 years of spent fuel in the spent fuel pools, that's roughly 5-6 times as much fuel mass than the core. So in absence of anything to moderate such a fuel mass how are you suggesting it would behave?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The risk of a new accident is at least proportional to the number of active power plants.
And we haven't seen the worst accident yet. So no. Don't do it!
Why do you think that TEPCO worked so hard to remove the fuel rods from the structure that is failing. What do you think would happen to plutonium fuel rods in a spent fuel pool without water surrounding them to moderate neutron activity had the structure collapsed?
Nothing spectacular --- MOX or no MOX.
Circumstances of Unit #4 fuel pool was the biggest money-making lecture bonanza for Arnie Gundersen and Harvey Wasserman, two disingenuous prophets of nuclear doom whose popularity peaked in 2013. I am sorry to see that your scenario is directly taken from their playbook. Wasserman it was who doubled down on TEPCO's offloading of fuel for his bread and butter, saying âoeWe are now within two months of what may be humankindâ(TM)s most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.â Even then the experts could see that aside from a few places where debris had fallen into the pool there was nothing even remotely resembling the dangers espoused by these two men. To make matters worse the Japanese press picked up their remarks verbatim without even attempting to verify the physics, then the wussy American press echoed the stories as if their Japanese colleagues were 'reliable sources' and also failed to interview experts. Web sites like enenews serve up this crap again every day as if it's still fresh or has an ounce of merit. That's their bread and butter.
The doomsday scenarios rely on some miraculous condition where all convection was blocked and all bundles are somehow pushed together and reach the 900C-2500C sustained temperatures required for ignition and meltdown. It is like announcing that a wildfire is likely to melt a steel building and having the newspapers pick up the story.
Leslie Corrice documented the unfounded hysteria centered on #4 In almost any other branch of science there would have been an immediate and severe blowback of ridicule, but in matters pertaining to nuclear energy the press seems to feel there is no such things as journalist 'thin ice'. Doom porn sells.
it would be, IN FACT, an extinction level event
So ease your worries. Give TEPCO a pat on the back for a successful and uneventful fuel offload. If you were so worried about this why cannot we hear the jubilation in your voice?
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Coal emits the life giving gas CO2. It does not pose a climate change danger. Burn it!
It's not the MOX that generates hydrogen: that's chemically stable. The metallic zirconium cladding of the fuel rods reacts with water (well steam) to make zirconium oxide and hudrogen gas.
The MOX itself is chemically very inert (uranium and plutonium are quite reactive) on the general scale of inertness and exceptionally unlikely to come into contact with anything which will cause it to burn.
Looking up some chemical data (unless I've misremembered how to use it), you might juuuust be able to get a weak thermite like reaction going between metallic zirconium and uranium oxide (not plutonium), but it would need an immense temerature to get it started (you'd already be screwed if the fuel got that hot) and would require them to be very finely powdered and mixed very thoroughly.
Other than that, you're looking at things like magnesium metal (just), or metallic sodium and potassium. Or, if you'd prefer to attack oxygen rather than the metal you could for fluorine (probably not spectacular without excessive effort) or it's much more entertaining derivative, chlorine trifluoride.
Note that the latter is hypergolic with glass and burns asbestos vigorously, so if you want to dump MOX pellets into it and film the result, please by my guest, and don't forget to post them to youtube :)
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No, it can't. Stop being ridiculous. Chernobyl was about as bad as a nuclear accident could get, and it was bad, but it didn't come close to wiping out the human race. Hell, it didn't even wipe out the population of the city of Chernobyl, although it did make the city largely uninhabitable.
You are missing the difference between nuclear bomb material and nuclear reactor fuel. Fuel in a nuclear reactor is of much lesser purity and cannot cause a nuclear explosion. The most that can happen is a chemical explosion and fire--in other words, what happened at Chernobyl. That that was a disaster that indeed caused deaths but overall wasn't even all that devastating even just to Ukraine, let alone the world at large.
That's not accurate at all. A power plant does indeed contain vastly more radiation than a bomb does. A typical power reactor produces as much energy and fissions as a nuclear bomb every 6 hours.
As for LNT - LNT is not a theory, and is not something to be proven or disproven. LNT is an assumption we make with regards to how we handle radiation safety. There is no scientific study or evidence showing any correlation between low level radioactivity exposures and increase in cancer rates. If there is any effect, it is too low and its effects too similar to other cancer to be able to make any distinction about the cause.
But we still have to have backup coal and gas plants in standby ready for when the wind gets too weak or too strong. Wind does not eliminate the need for fossil fuel plants. And we always need fossil fuel plants at night. This is inefficient because the plants run only during a portion of te day. You have to factor this into your renewable energy costs.
It's too dangerous. Nuclear reactors release dangerous radioactive waste that remains dangerous for billions of years. They should also stop using fossil fuels. They release dangerous gasses that can not be scrubbed from the atmosphere, cause global climate change, and cause cancer. They should also stop using fire. Fire releases dangerous heat that can burn innocent children. They also should stop using automobiles. Automobiles are dangerous 3000 lb death machines hurtling down roads at 60 mph. They should also try to eliminate births. If you never live you can not die.s We live in an unstable world, that is guaranteed to kill you if you live long enough. To think parents are bringing kids into this world knowing full well they are bound to die is deplorable, and represents the height child abuse and selfishness on the part of the parents.
I am a liberal and I support creating a dead lifeless world free from man made climate change. All dreams of endeavor and progress will die. We must stop nuclear power now. The dream of cheap unlimited energy is a republican ploy designed to kill black people. Nuclear power is just too dangerous for life.
Ok, I see where the confusion is, I've led you to believe it's all about aircraft impacts however that is not the main issue. Aircraft resistance is a consequence of what the real issue is.
Thermal Containment ratio which is the amount of concrete compared to the energy in the reactor at anyone time. So it doesn't matter if a reactor dome can tank an aircraft, what matters is if it can tank the reactor that it contains. I was referring to TMI because it has the *highest* Thermal Containment ratio of reactors as a consequence of it being in a flight path.
This means that TMI has the highest possibility for containing a reactor explosion such as what occurred in Fukushima. Reduce the amount of concrete below the amount of thermal energy in the reactor and you may as well not have a concrete dome at all. It just makes people feel better. AP1000's thermal containment ratio is below that of the reactor (IIRC) and certainly much less than TMI.
I'm critical of information from the manufacturers of reactors. I've never heard a company say bad things about their products and I don't expect reactor manufacturers to be any different. Independent studies and law are generally more reliable. Westinghouse want to sell nuclear reactors.
That new reactors should be underground is the first and there are about 30 other recommendations like control room design and implementation of EPR like features. If you want the watered down version, and no, AP-1000 has none of them.
AP1000 has a lot of problems because new features introduce new failure modes. Of the math regarding CDF that you quoted the NRC had this to say in SECY-05-0227 FINAL RULE — AP1000 DESIGN CERTIFICATION: The applicant’s estimates of risk do not account for uncertainties either in the CDF or in the offsite radiation exposures resulting from a core damage event. The uncertainties in both of these key elements are fairly large because key safety features of the AP1000 design are unique and their reliability has been evaluated through analysis and testing programs rather than operating experience. In addition, the estimates of CDF and offsite exposures do not account for the added risk from earthquakes. - however they approved it anyway.
Challenge your assumptions here Firethorn, AP-1000 is not a good design.
Whilst you say these containment buildings sneer at plane impacts, well, EPR builds *another* concrete building around that one, has four separate buildings to control radio-isotopes in the event of an accident and, a core catcher, which isn't present in the AP-1000 at all. EPR is also resistant to impacts from *Military* aircraft. Powerful and good, but not cheap.
Do I talk about why AP-1000 is crap? Corrosion is the biggest issue from my understanding and the reduced accessibility to inspect key parts of the reactor. CDF has little to do with what volu
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Leaving aside possible wondertech like thorium and LENR to the slavering fanboizen, there are still viable options for Japan to make their own power.
Coal and nuclear are indeed Bad Choices, but tidal and geothermal are achievable today. They just have to start looking at accomplishing the real goal - assuring a sustainable domestic power supply, not declaring allegiance to a technological fetish - and it's totally doable.
I'm reminded of Elon Musk building the impossible car and the impossible spaceship... just stop listening to the naysayers, the coal and nuke shills and *build it!* The Japanese are an industrious and co-operative culture, they don't have to accept second-rate tech ultimately based on a perceived superiority of western ideas. They could do geothermal and tidal better than nearly anyone!
If nations were run by engineers instead of politicians, the US and Canada would have a power infrastructure based on distributed agricultural methane generation and delivery, India would be going hell-bent for thorium reactors, and Iceland and Japan would be geothermal and tidal. A good engineer leverages the strengths of the existing environment to improve the lives of people, but most politicians hire flim-flam artists and techno-fetishists based on who can lie to the them the most convincingly, and end up degrading the world the rest of us have to live in.
I realize this sounds weird and paranoid, but from years of experience on Slashdot, I have gotten the strong impression that there is some kind of pro-nuclear lobbying going on on this site. Articles with a pro-nuclear tone, well formulated posts critical of nuclear energy being modded down rather insistently...
But of course there is the possibility that its the Slashdot crowd itself who is on average very pro-nuclear, giving this kind of impression.
I am pro-nuclear and I go out of my way to use my mod points whenever I get them to mod down anti-nuclear posts. It isn't a conspiracy I just think the anti-nuclear crowd are dangerous fools and idiot technophobes that are endangering everyone on the planet and unless you are offering a real alternative then you are part of the problem.
A simple exercise (actually not so simple it turns out):
Compare the toxins released from a large radioactive accident (pick Chernobyl, higher than Fukushima), and compare it to the yearly toxins released by a normally working, average coal plant running for 60 years. Imagine you want to kill as many people as possible, LD50 style, with the 'effluent', and it were possible to partition the doses to do so. Ignore coal mine accidents. Ignore coal plant accidents. Ignore coal slurry accidents. Ignore the fact the coal toxins don't have a half-life. Ignore the fact that in modern plants Chernobyl levels of release are impossible. How do they compare?
My back of the envelope calculations show that roughly 1 Chernobyl = 4-10 Coal plants (given equal power). If ALL of the waste from a nuclear plant was burned and tossed in the air 6 months after coming from the reactor, the effect would be roughly 10 - 100 coal plants. If you were to take all the nuclear waste and dump in right next to the plant in the ocean or lake, it would be closer to 10.
We would have needed more than 50 Chernobyl's by now for nuclear to be as dangerous as coal is.
Also, given that MEASURED rates of cancer increase near coal plants have been around 10%, which is about the expected rate of cancer increase if the areas around Fukushima were NOT evacuated, and given all we've ignored in favour of coal power, maybe the ratio is closer to 1:1 for major nuclear accident to normally functioning coal plant.
The needed data is hard to come by, and take awhile to compile, but I would love to see other people's numbers on this. It is quite possible I've missed something important.
Japan would benefit from being able to develop and export the technology
This is a bad joke. Seriously. Most of the US solar panel manufacturing industry has collapsed after a brief government subsidized start-up and the subsequent undermining of that market with cheaper Chinese manufacturing (based on overpopulation causing cheap wages, lax environmental standards with strip mining and coal powered manufacturing without pollution controls).
The same was said to sell Solar and Wind development in the US and Germany and is argued with every other industrialized nation... nobody besides China is going to be exporting anything. Producing Solar panels is a dirty business that is far too expensive in countries that care about their environment or the health and wages of their workers.
simply not true. Germany is a net exporter of energy. It's just that due to network synchronization within Europe, you often have the case that Germany is importing energy in its western parts from France while at the same exporting Energy into Eastern countries. But if you sum everything up, Germany is an exporter of energy... see e.g. http://energytransition.de/2013/11/german-power-is-coal-for-export/
With consideration to the Pacific plate and how active that has become over the last couple months it should be mandated to use thorium in 'high risk' areas, then again Keshe seems to have a solution that he will be releasing on the 26th but we'll have to see if that actually pans out or if the guy doesn't get himself whacked.
And build large-scale solar and wind farms on the radioactive remnants of its other reactors.
That was the question for the coal-using Japanese, correct?
They should also convert 100 percent of their existing coal plants to cogeneration, doubling energy output and reducing emissions.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The first generation nuclear plants should be shut down. Fukushima was such a plant, so was Chernobyl.
You do realize that Chernobyl was a RBMK type reactor and Fukushima used BWR technology. Completely different operating envelopes and failure modes. The only similarities between the two are: 1. They both produced power from controlled nuclear fission chain reactions. 2. They both heated water to transfer energy from the reactor core to the generator turbines. 3. They both had major (INES level 7) accidents.
I submit that what's already there in the general area of Yucca Mountain, completely uncontained in holes in the ground, is more of a danger than encapsulated waste would ever be.
Go to Google Earth. Search term: "sedan crater". Scan south. See that lunar landscape of craters? Every one of those is a crater from a nuclear weapon test, every one lined with fission products and the unburned percentage of Pu239 from each bomb.
You're not going to get an argument from me that coal is bad. It is a shit industry, they don't want to change and you already know my opinions, based in knowledge of the appropriate bills, how and why the nuclear industry is still, like all of us, beholden to coal and oil.
I think you need to lay off the oil-nuclear conspiracy theories. And yes, that's what I'd relate them as. Nuclear has historically been a baseload electrical power source, with Oil only being used for emergency power(including at nuclear plants) in most areas. In the previous thread where you posted more on this, I was seriously off-put by your allegations.
'Coal' opposing nuclear is more understandable, but it's important to remember that coal isn't a single entity - and they're actually more in bed with each other than being opponents. A lot of coal power plant owners also own interests in nuclear.
You also know that I think Nuclear *could* be better if we could get past all of the people who think they are supporting it, but in reality are preventing it from evolving a safety culture. It needs to be divorced from private industry's profit motivation and moved into the domain of government where it can be managed with the same type of safety culture that exists in military installations.
You do realize that 1/3 of the major nuclear disasters was from a government controlled nuclear plant? If you go below 'catastrophic' and look at the behavior of government controlled plants, you'll find that their record is actually much worse than the commercial plants. That includes the USA and USSR.
Consider that for commercial plants that an accident means lost money, huge amounts of it. There's plenty of incentives to be safe.
Also, I've worked on military installations. 'Safety Culture'? We're not really any better than private industry. Also, consider that the USA hasn't had a major disaster since TMI, which is when we went through and drastically increased safety requirements, instituting drastically altered safety protocols. Defense in depth, automatic safety systems, etc...
Well, I think you need to read my comments about IAEA and WHO [slashdot.org] however I see that it has already been modded down, perhaps the facts are a little too confrontational. It doesn't matter - the real conversation about Nuclear power is always at -1 here at /.
Looked at that post. First, your citation as to the hazards of DU consists solely of a heart-string tugging google image search. In short, at best you have some coorelation there, but also a lot of images of birth defects that have nothing to do with Iraq, photoshopped images, fakes, and normal birth defects that happen in any population, especially when nutrition isn't that great and pre-natal care is relatively primitive. And you complained about me posting a yahoo news link?
Your second reference, which you claim supports a death toll of ~980k, doesn't say so at all. I see references of 4,000-93,000, the latter by greenpeace, which I've read as having problems since they pushed out most of their more scientific members.
What I could find of your higher figure, I see a number of issues that make me rate it as 'uncredible'. Consider global warming research - there are still papers written and published that deny it's existence, they're just not credible. To be blunt, it seems that they're counting 'all cancers' where another cause, such as smoking, isn't identified.
As for killing less than solar, I think it is clear that that is a contrived situation.
Contrived, how? Dead is dead, whether it's by radiation leak, lung cancer fr
I don't read AC A human right
No. If the Headline is a question, the response is an obvious "No."
In this case, it's a really obvious "No."
aaaaaaa
...abandoning nuclear because of things like that is like abandoning air travel...
I beg to differ. Air travel can't wipe out the whole human race. An apocalyptic nuclear event can.
Well, it would be a pretty unimpressive apocalypse if it didn't.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
A nuclear bomb has a mass of plutonium in the kilogram range. A nuclear reactor's fuel mass is in the 100-150 ton range. You are missing the difference between radiation and radionuclides.
But almost none of that escapes the plant even for a nasty event like Chernobyl. So comparing the mass of fuel doesn't matter.
Ok, I see where the confusion is, I've led you to believe it's all about aircraft impacts however that is not the main issue. Aircraft resistance is a consequence of what the real issue is.
Ah! Took you long enough. ;) From the very beginning I was saying that 'all' reactor domes can tank being hit by an aircraft due to their strength, required in order to contain the pressure from the reactor in a worst case scenario. You kept talking about aircraft.
So, yes, it does matter whether the dome can tank it's own reactor, that's the primary design consideration, after all. However, I'll break away from you at 'thermal containment ratio', because the issue is quite a bit more complicated than merely throwing more concrete at the problem.
Ask yourself WHY the dome needs to contain so much pressure. The answer boils down to heat(snerk). If you can reduce the amount of heat produced, that reduces the pressure. If you can dispose of more heat, the pressure is reduced. AP1000, from my reading, does a lot to increase passive cooling in a worst case scenario, and it starts out at about 60% of the heat production of an EPR, being a smaller reactor. It's a bit like an internal combustion engine - a small one can easily use air cooling, like most motorcycle engines. Get over a certain size and you need water cooling.
I'd also be careful - are you arguing against the current or original AP1000 design? The DOE told them the dome they wanted was inadequate, so they went back and beefed it up. The beefed up dome passed scrutiney.
This means that TMI has the highest possibility for containing a reactor explosion such as what occurred in Fukushima. Reduce the amount of concrete below the amount of thermal energy in the reactor and you may as well not have a concrete dome at all. It just makes people feel better. AP1000's thermal containment ratio is below that of the reactor (IIRC) and certainly much less than TMI.
I'd double check how recent your source is. Also, Fukushima's domes exploded not because of heat, but because of actual explosion - under high heat situations there's a catalytic response with zirconium cladding which cracks the water in the dome into hydrogen and oxygen. Which built up, was eventually sparked off, causing explosions. In the previous thread I brought up hydrogen recombiners for this reason. The AP1000 addresses hydrogen production in this document, where they have hydrogen igniters to ensure that the hydrogen is burned off before it reaches explosive concentrations, in areas away from the containment structure.
All US reactors were required to have hydrogen management systems even before Fukushima. They all got checked again afterwards.
I'm critical of information from the manufacturers of reactors. I've never heard a company say bad things about their products and I don't expect reactor manufacturers to be any different. Independent studies and law are generally more reliable. Westinghouse want to sell nuclear reactors.
That's fine, but in that case at least come up with a independent review of the saftey systems that identifies specific problems.
That new reactors should be underground is the first and there are about 30 other recommendations like control room design and implementation of EPR like features. If you want the watered down version [nrc.gov], and no, AP-1000 has none of them.
EPR reactors aren't built underground either, that sounds like a rather silly requirement actually. Being underground makes reaching the reactor more difficult in case of an incident.
AP1000 has a lot of problems because new features introduce new failure modes.
Which shouldn't be an automatic failure, unless we want to NEVER improve anything.
I don't read AC A human right
An extra 14% renewable is a fucking hugely lofty goal. you don't seem to have any concept of just how big that is. As for Germany, it isn't a ridiculous claim, yes they built new modern efficient coal, but why? because they made a huge mistake in renewables where it now makes up a large portion of the market and is an inconsistent supply. This means Germany now has huge amounts of coal burning plants that quite often aren't even needed, but they have to sit there burning coal for the times when wind and solar can't cope with load (which is often). German prices have gone through the roof, if anything Germany is an example of how to completely and totally fuck up on renewables.
you must have massively high electricity prices or subsidies for solar to pay back in less than 10 years. In most places at best you get is close to break even for the life of the panels and the warm fuzzy feeling that you killed slightly less of the environment in having them (only slightly as the production of them is horrendeous bad for the environment).
With consideration to the Pacific plate and how active that has become over the last couple months
It's probably as active as it normally is over the past 100 million years. And it's worth noting that Japan has already shown that nuclear plants can be placed near seismically active areas. You just need to have the proper safeguards in place.
From what I understand Fukushima was compliant on safeguards and ... Just saying.
We know more now than then. It wouldn't be compliant now.
Do you do not understand this? You are not supposed to mod down posts just because you disagree with them. If you do, post a counterargument. If you can't, maybe you're wrong. This is why Slashdot needs a moderate the moderators system.
If for real, put your money where your mouth is. Go and live in Chernobyl or Fukushima.
They are not building extra coal capacity though, they are just replacing existing plants. The narrative that they are building extra coal capacity instead of nuclear is false, they are simply running what they have at closer to maximum capacity with a view to winding them back down by 2030.
So the question remains, with so they try to re-start their nuclear reactors by 2030 or do they replace them with something else. The disaster happened, it can't be undone so the use of coal in the short term is inevitable. Can't just re-start those reactors too, inspections have shown that there was damage and previously unknown but serious problems at the plants. It's not even a choice.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Electricity is pretty expensive in Belgium, that's true.
That's not accurate at all.
Yes it is. Go look it up online. The bomb was astonishingly inefficient and had very low burnup so it had a vast amount of fuel relative to the yield.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
lol, sand, moron.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
YOU say "hosts=bad" (but they add security, speed, & reliability) & bitch on admin privelege to UPDATE vs. threats:
"So, have you figured out why privilege escalation is a bad thing" - by Coren22 on Tuesday September 22, 2015 @05:15PM (#50577809)
Hypocrite - You use admin priv admitting it
&
How else can I programmatically update hosts minus it in Windows?
---
"Of course it requires elevation to write to the hosts file" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:35PM (#50585879)
You FINALLY later admit there's no other way!
FACT:
Even MalwareBytes AntiMalware (best one) DEMANDS you use admin privelege (you saying it's "bad" too?) it can't do its job fully otherwise, like many security tools do!
---
Aryeh Goretsky NOD32/ESET says hosts = good security-> http://it.slashdot.org/comment...
Oliver Day (Symantec) does-> http://www.securityfocus.com/c...
MalwareBytes' hpHosts hosts & recommends my APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit-> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...
---
* HOW MANY SECURITY PROS DO I NEED TO KNOCK THE CHOCOLATE OUTTA YOU?
---
Those security pros INCLUDE me: I work w/ guys from malwarebytes' hpHosts on a regular basis!
I've professionally worked for decades as a combined domain-wide network admin & software engineer since 1994 (Even showing you HOW to migrate a hosts across an enterprise-> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... )
I've also been securing computers + WRITING GUIDES using CIS Tool (who took fixes from me http://slashdot.org/comments.p... - bonus) http://www.bing.com/search?q=%...
You told me you learn from guides?
I write good ones that MILLIONS USE & was PAID FOR IT http://pcpitstop.com/news/winn...
+ WARES TO PROTECT USERS that are endorsed & hosted by security pros -> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...
You did all that? No!
(& that's ONLY a SMALL part of what I could put out...)
APK
P.S.=> You're all TALK -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... & a "ne'er-do-well" as far as security...apk
No, it's not. That's like saying a freight train emits fewer emissions than a lawnmower just because it is more efficient. The amount of radionuclides depends only on the total number of fissions. A nuclear power reactor fissions as many atoms as a bomb does every ~6 hours, and runs continuously for years. The total number of curies contained is far greater.
The old 70's designs that require massive amounts of water to keep the reactors cool seem to be an old and almost flawed design. If any of the water jacket plumbing fails you have a meltdown. I say there are more modern salt plug reactors that are more safe that we need to roll out all over the world. Right now Nuclear is the cleanest power out there. It's crazy that we are not using it more. It seem political that we are not. I say decom all the old style reactors and roll out modern designs and of course don't run any reactors on earthquake faults, near the ocean and any place that can compromise the integrity of the reactor....
Paul E. Bahre
The amount of radionuclides depends only on the total number of fissions.
Nope. By reason of U235 already being a radionucleotide. The bomb was 97% radionucleotide do start with. Even if he had failed to go off, it would have distributed 64Kg of radionucleotides via conventional explosives.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
In good news, solar technology continues to improve - but coal burning is about as efficient as it can be made.
Look, if I can't convince you that 5% of 100 tons is a larger number than 97% of 64 kg, or that 3 gigawatts over 4 years (3.8*10^17 J) is more than 1 megaton (4.2*10^15 J), I just don't know what to tell you. You're either a troll or a moron, and either way there is no further discussion.
I think a more modern reactor design / more research seem more useful and a better approach ..
http://phys.org/news/2014-08-n...
http://www.triplepundit.com/sp...
https://www.eskimo.com/~nanook...
Just get going :)
I think a more modern reactor design / more research seem more useful and a better approach ..
http://phys.org/news/2014-08-n...
http://www.triplepundit.com/sp...
https://www.eskimo.com/~nanook...
Just get going :)
Of course Swedish parliament sadly has treated the environmentalist anti-nationalist well-fare party as some sort of center-party everyone can agree to rule with even though they are the most extreme ones after the communists. So as such we have shitty hippie stuff such as wind-power, rotten grass, rotten sea-.. uhm.. tubeanimals, energy from trees and other stupid things which won't be able to compete and won't be as efficient as say solar-power anyway so why bother?
The animals supposedly brought up phosphor and nitrogen from the sea and as such could be used as a fertilizer, that's OK I guess but I'd prefer they used plants rather than animals if they are brought up just to rot them and make energy out of them. These animals supposedly undevelop/destroy part of their "brain" once they have fixed themselves somewhere but still.
I hate these anti-progress idiots ("economical growth is bad - it ruins the environment!", Sweden have some other complete utter ridiculous leftard idiots, "who cares that mass-immigration cost money? It's irrelevant, one just need to raise taxes!", yeah, because money come from nowhere and the government / all states are just stupid who don't increase taxes. In the end it would be nice if these idiots understood that you can only share what you've produced and if the immigrants suck at producing something of value then you'd have less worth to share.)
Also white-genocide and so on. 1 800 migrants / day, 10 000+ / week, this for a country with less than 10 million people and about 8 million Swedish born and well, I don't know how many Swedes, 6 million?
Ignoring the publics irrational fear of Nuclear reactors they actually could be much safer. All the "old-school" (1st generation) water cooled reactors should have been shut down and replaced by Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) / Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs) years ago.
MSR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
LFTR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor
Backup gas plants. You can't put coal in standby - it can take days to turn them on or off. Coal is for baseload. Gas can change power output in seconds though, which is exactly what it's used for. Except in the UK, where we've been NIMBYing power stations for years until things got so bad we had to resort to using gas for baseload, which is expensive.
2005 Energy Act Sec 600 onward. You will need to read the entire section on Nuclear law and funding to understand the interrelationships. It is quite a fascinating read.
Also the repelation of Public Utilities Companies Holding Act, 1929 in the same bill.
The companies proposing them is on the public record.
Baseload is a grid function.
Why? It's just business. It might be immoral but it isn't illegal and that's a lot of money up for grabs. That is the epitome of capitalism. Personally, I think it's genius. Power plants are just machines, after all.
It's very strange that the funding allocations for producing hydrogen from reactors hasn't been utilized, I'd imagine that would be quite a profitable business.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
This is your argument for nuclear power?
Well perhaps you think we should repeal the Price-Anderson act then?
I'm refering to Admiral Rickover's Naval Reactor program, which ironically I found out about when I was reading the Columbia Accident Investigation. They are the types of minds we need running the nuclear industry. To put into some perspective, they put 5000 people onto studying the Columbia shuttle accident to improve *their* safety standards. So I am refering to something specific and it was Rickover's creation.
And let's hope that continues. I must tell you I am exceptionally pleased that SONGS has closed down.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Well let's examine that correlation. That DU is used as munitions in Iraq is common knowledge.
It's properties, DU is pyrophoric, which means it ignites when used as a projectile and burns into a ceramic ash. As it decays it undergoes spontaneous combustion as it increases it's radioactive emissions ten or so times momentarily. It's ash is an inhalant but IIRC it is also water soluble. Oh, and it can cause some quite nasty birth defects. That's probably not common knowledge, if you want to check it out.
Indeed, it represents a remarkable co-incidence, I'm sure they are not related.
Who would you suggest is the most credible source of information we can rely on for information coming out of Iraq?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Is it because they only speak Slavic languages and that they are scientists from the Ukraine that the body of their work is not credible? Or is it because we only speak english? Or is it because Chernobyl is in their country?
Because I have given you a link to a book they wrote. That is what they claim. Is there a specific criticism of these four Ukrainian scientist's work?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
IAEA - WHO relationship is what I was referring you to in my post, not everything else by the way. If you want to see credibility in the future of the nuclear industry you have to examine:
the IAEA's founding papers "The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity through the world."
I'll draw your attention to the interdiction clause (12.40) the IAEA has over the WHO drawn up on 28 May 1959, at the 12th World Health Assembly:
"Whenever either organisation [the WHO or the IAEA] proposes to initiate a programme or activity on a subject in which the other organisation has or may have a substantial interest, the first party shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement"
This is the core legal argument you have to consider when evaluating *any* information from the WHO when they report on Nuclear matter. Are you telling me that these organizations are going to act outside their charter? Are you telling me that they will not behave in the way they are designed to legally behave?
How can WHO reporting on these matters be considered 'credible' with these restrictions on the science they produce on matters Nuclear. Why is that more credible than 4 Slavic scientists from the Ukrain going, 'yeah dude, this is what happens when a Nuclear Reactor blows up in your backyard'.
As I said before, Ask yourself how likely it is for us to get reliable health science if the world's peak health organisation has it's science related to Nuclear matter vetted by the orgainsation responsible for promoting nuclear power.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
So then why aren't you considering the energetic inputs of the Nuclear industry? The Nuclear Industry in it's current form will not end our reliance on fossil fuels because of the energetic input to extract and enrich the fuel in the first place. And we are *yet* to incurr the energy debt for dimantling the existing reactors, or are they to be left they for some other generation to clean up. How does that make our generation any better than those who left us with a carbon legacy to deal with? They will have a radionuclide legacy to deal with.
I see it as the choice of two Nuclear reactors series that contain elements toxic to the human genome and whether our need for electricity overrides our responsibility for the DNA of future human beings. Personally, I don't think it does.
I think the choice of either of these reactors is a failure that will keep up bound to the coal industry and that for Nuclear to evolve it will need to engineer the energy expenditure out of it's support processes.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Sorry, this is a rewrite-accidentally hit cancel.
The IAEA isn't the WHO. There are numerous organizations and studies out there, the thing is that the Ukraine study is an extreme outlier - and thus unlikely to be 'closer to correct' than the range of other studies. Personally, I figure it's somewhere below Greenpeace's and above the IAEA's.
One serious confounding factor for any such studies is that chemical carcinogens substantially rose over the same time period, and that's hard to control for as well.
I'm sure you can agree that getting accurate scientific information on human health and the distribution of radionuclides is important enough to not have any political agendas interfering with it's work.
That's the thing, why do we need to know this when the goal is to not release in the first place? That's part of the deal with pointing out the dome. US nuclear reactors, reactors in the rest of the semi-sane world, are all pre-enclosed into containment structures far superior to the sarcophagus.
The reason I hit this so hard and often is that, as we saw with Fukushima, even in a 'worst case' situation you see far less in the way of releases. As such, Chernobyl is actually a pretty bad example for when it comes to radioactive release, because the most likely types of radioactive materials to be released, and the amounts therein, are substantially different.
As such, engineering to make sure stuff isn't released in the first place is a better safety investment than nailing down the cancer statistics for low exposure radiation.
I don't read AC A human right
Is it because they only speak Slavic languages and that they are scientists from the Ukraine that the body of their work is not credible? Or is it because we only speak english? Or is it because Chernobyl is in their country?
Nope, it's because their figure is an extreme outlier from other studies.
I don't read AC A human right
'yeah dude, this is what happens when a Nuclear Reactor blows up in your backyard'.
Well they were such good Soviets!
More like when a nuclear reactor, completely missing a containment dome, you know, what you were complaining was too thin on the AP1000. Chernobyl's reactor didn't have one, at all. I've never said that there shouldn't be a dome. The other failures were numerous and extremely negligent.
Agreed, I am aware of it. Whenever you hear someone talking about how good PBMRs are, this is what they are trying to convince you is 'Walk away safe'
Timeline: TMI was the first major disaster. Radiation release was ultimately minor, the dome did it's duty. Results: Ruined reactor that hung around decades before it was cool enough to clean up, but the dome, again, did it's duty. Basically no casualties. Resulted in an incredible amount of change in the safety system of the USA.
Also unlucky and lucky coincidences, but yes, in general I agree with you there. Still should not have happened, failed to yield any return on the construction (three months old) but it was still made hot enough so that it has to be disassembled with radio-isotopes in mind.
Don't design confusing control systems. Some radio-isotope contamination but in general contained.
A few too many risky things going on now though (IMO)
Then Chernobyl happened. A reactor with a positive void co-efficient(and you should know what this is), graphite moderated, no containment dome, with many safety features turned off and/or disabled for 'testing' that was, at the least, 'ill advised'.
Couldn't agree more, a culture that produced a bunch of boneheads bumbling procedures and ticking management boxes whilst loosing sight of what they were doing and what the stakes were. Hey, let's shut down the safety systems and Xenon poison the reactor during a drill and a shift change in the middle of the night while no one is around to watch the reactor
Apparently a guy ran through the reactor room to see the control rod heads jumping in and out of the reactor head. Talk about adrenaline overdrive.
I mean, fuck, totally unnecessary and forgetting the whole reason that they were there. Just stupid.
Fukushima - again, domes did their job. They should have had hydrogen systems, but didn't. Should of had the generators in better places. Still, it took a tsunami strike to cause it have a disaster.
Well, this is clearly criminal negligence on the part of the operator. Just as bad as the Soviet administration, several safety systems that should have been there, weren't. Safety costs money. Money is shareholder return.
That model reactor had several BDIs that were exposed in the construction of that plant. For the want of spending a couple of hundred million on a sea wall and generators in a place where they could not be flooded.
We don't know the state of the reactor core or the containment, so I am going to wait and see on that. This is another reason we should have daily monitoring and publishing of this data as knowledge as it puts everything on the table and we wouldn't have all these emotive arguments. We'd just point to the radio-isotopes released and model the state of the reactor.
Media black-outs don't do a lot to foster trust in the NI.
And we haven't discussed Windscale or the plethora of other NI contaminated sites and accidents that occur.
These are all teaching us something about how arrogant we are with the way we handle these materials. That we need to lift our game and evolve the whole industry.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.