Japan Confirms First Radiation-Linked Death Out of Fukushima (bbc.co.uk)

Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare announced for the first time that a man employed at the Fukushima nuclear power plant died of lung cancer linked to radiation exposure. "The man, who was in his 50s, died from lung cancer that was diagnosed in 2016," reports the BBC. "Japan's government had previously agreed that radiation caused illness in four workers but this is the first acknowledged death." From the report: The Fukushima reactor suffered meltdowns after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami in March 2011. Cooling systems were wrecked at the plant on Japan's north-east coast and radioactive material leaked out. The employee who died had worked at atomic power stations since 1980 and was in charge of measuring radiation at the Fukushima No 1 plant shortly after its meltdown. He worked there at least twice after it was damaged, and had worn a face mask and protective suit, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said. After hearing opinions from a panel of radiologists and other experts, the ministry ruled that the man's family should be paid compensation.

Comments

Third, not first

[arth1]

The first two were found in the basement turbine room a few days after the accident. But if "out of Fukushima" implies "out of" as opposed to "in", sure.

Re:Third, not first

[thesupraman]

Yes, horrific isnt it.
Why dont people take this more seriously? I mean it haves the estimated 800,000 deaths a year thanks to coal power look like nothing!
I mean, 3 humans, lives snuffed out by the horror of nuclear power - and what does it give us? can anyone think of a single benefit?

We urgently need to close down ALL nuclear power! Think of the children!

Re:Third, not first

[WindBourne]

uh no. IIRC, those 2 drowned. NOT the same thing.

Re:Third, not first

[WindBourne]

Quit that.
So many idiots will take you serious.

Re:Third, not first

[jrumney]

This is the first to be officially recognized. Despite the two bodies from the basement needing days of decontamination before they could be turned over to the families for burial, the deaths were officially recorded as being due to the tsunami, and the reports said they died of bleeding from head wounds (whether that was head wounds due to being thrown around in the tsunami, or open sores due to radiation sickness is open to speculation given TEPCO's past record on disclosure).

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

150000 people die each day from any cause. Nope cannot stop that apparently.

Re:Third, not first

[PopeRatzo]

This is the first to be officially recognized.

Yes, and the official death toll from Hurricane Maria is 65.

Re:Third, not first

[iggymanz]

I'm not worried about the 6 million killed each year by sucking on paper tubes full of chemically processed leaves any more. Clearly we need to ban all power plants

Re:Third, not first

[K. S. Kyosuke]

or open sores

Hey, get your anti-open-sores propaganda out of here! Microsoft shills these days...

Re:Third, not first

[Luckyo]

You mean the ones who died to tsunami, alongside about 30.000 other people? Why not count the rest of them then?

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's not pay any attention to the suicides from growing up with single mothers who "deserve better" and abandon the bictims' fathers.

Re:Third, not first

[ShanghaiBill]

Indeed. Objecting to nukes because of safety is silly.

Objecting to nukes because of economics makes much more sense. They are far too expensive, and the cost is going up while the cost of solar, wind, and storage is falling.

Re:Third, not first

[CaffeinatedBacon]

can anyone think of a single benefit?

Godzilla.

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear requires a large investment upfront but is very cheap in the long run.

Renewables seem cheap when you compare nameplate capacity but are _extremely_ expensive once you count the 3*nameplate capacity required to get to 70% energy delivered plus the full capacity backup and fuel for the remaining 30%. Hydro and other storage simply cannot cope with the long periods of low renewables production that happen frequently.

Re:Third, not first

[blindseer]

The first two were found in the basement turbine room a few days after the accident. But if "out of Fukushima" implies "out of" as opposed to "in", sure.

Those deaths were not due to radiation. Best guess is that they sheltered there from the tsunami but the wave flooded the room and they drowned, and the radiation came later. A possible radiation link to their death would be they drowned in radioactive water, meaning that if they died from acute radiation poisoning then it only killed them sooner and would have drowned anyway. In either case it was the tsunami that killed them and any possible link to radiation in the cause of their death is ambiguous at best.

The article in on the first confirmed death from radiation that came from the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The other two deaths were not confirmed to be related to the radiation as a more likely cause is the turbine hall being flooded and they drowned.

What I find rather disturbing in all of this is that they knew of a risk of a tsunami flooding the plant but dug out several meters of dirt and rock to lower the plant closer to sea level. Some of that might have been necessary since the bed rock was eroded and unstable but they still dug deeper than many deemed necessary to make it easier to bring in building materials from ships, and to make the cooling pipes to the sea shorter (and therefore cheaper).

When issues were discovered TEPCO dragged their feet to make changes to address threats of flooding. The possibility of the diesel backup generators getting flooded was known. They still had power available from the grid to drive cooling pumps, and batteries. The triple redundant safety systems failed because no one could fathom something so large that it could take out the grid, render the generators unusable, and do so with such damage that it could not be repaired before the batteries ran dead.

This one in a million occurrence of events happened and we still saw only one confirmed death from radiation. Is nuclear power dangerous? Of course. Nuclear power is also the safest energy source we know of. Japan doesn't have a lot of options on getting electricity where they are. They don't have a lot of land for putting up solar collectors and windmills, or much for hydro power. They shipped in a lot of coal while they checked out all their reactors and this impacted air quality. Had they kept doing that then they'd see far more deaths from air pollution.

Nuclear power doesn't live in a vacuum, if it's not nuclear power then it's something far more deadly.

Re:Third, not first

[Cyberax]

A radiation sore would take at least a day to manifest. It also won't happen on a corpse.

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also not like Japan would have had natural gas, solar, and wind in the 40+ years predating the disaster. No, they would have been using coal and oil. Nuclear power in Japan saved potentially hundreds of thousands of lives over that time span by providing clean energy.

Re:Third, not first

[blindseer]

Indeed. Objecting to nukes because of safety is silly.

Objecting to nukes because of economics makes much more sense. They are far too expensive, and the cost is going up while the cost of solar, wind, and storage is falling.

I've seen the economics and here's a report that seems to get cited often:
https://www.lazard.com/media/4...

On the second page of the PDF there's a chart showing that solar is indeed quite inexpensive compared to nuclear. There is also a warning at the top of the graph that costs addressing the intermittent nature of solar and wind were not taken into account. Solar power with storage is not cheap, and neither is putting solar on rooftops. Solar power is only cheap when there is no storage (meaning reliance on things like hydro, natural gas, and internal combustion diesel engines) and when placed in large open fields close to the ground. Wind is cheap, and will likely still see some gains in getting cheaper yet, but it has problem with being intermittent as well. Wind is not considered safe enough to put near inhabited areas and, while it does not displace cropland and grazing areas like solar would, it's not something people will put on their rooftops either.

That Lazard study and articles like the following explaining the safety and resource needs of solar tells me that there is not much future in solar power.
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...

Solar is complicated, expensive, and when compared to other energy sources available to us it's really not that great on safety and CO2 output. What really kills solar, by my estimation, is the resources needed. We'd be far better off with wind, hydro, and nuclear.

If you want to make an economic case against nuclear then I'd like to see the costs from storage. If you say that the storage costs will come down in a decade to be affordable then I'm fine with waiting. The question then is, what do we do until then? Keep burning coal? I say we build nuclear power plants. The claim has been that solar and wind prices will come down with economy of scale. Would that not also be true for nuclear? Japan, South Korea, and France, all saw costs go down by standardizing their nuclear power. In the USA we kept building a bunch of reactors by the ones and threes and so costs stayed high. Stop doing that and costs go down.

Here's a couple experts in the field that did a study on the costs of storage and it's not a pretty picture they paint. The storage alone for wind and solar would cost much more than an equivalent supply of energy from nuclear power.
http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co...

The "Roadmap To Nowhere" authors make it clear that an all nuclear power grid is not ideal or perhaps even possible, they just use that as an intellectual exercise. I recognized this as well, we'll need something other than nuclear, and to me wind and hydro are far better options in nearly every case than solar. As it is now, today, solar is a bad idea. Until that changes we'll need something that's cheap, reliable, safe, low in CO2, and something we can deploy in quantity today. Solar scores poorly on all metrics.

Prove to me that solar and storage can compete and I'll change my mind.

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the measure of the problems of nuclear power death? And why is the comparison always "coal", which is dying anyway?

How about the chunk of the planet that's no longer inhabitable? How about the billions of dollars this disaster cost? How about the massive expense of nuclear power even without accidents?

Nuclear plants are closing down because of cheap natural gas in the US. They're literally not profitable anymore.

Re:Third, not first

[MrKaos]

So many idiots will take you serious.

Ignorance is a fools intelligence.

Re:Third, not first

[mvdwege]

Prove to me that solar and storage can compete and I'll change my mind.

As if. You'll just shift the goalposts some more.

Stop trying to play the reasonable man. Every topic on energy related matters you turn up to spout nuclear industry talking points. You are either a shill or a True Believer, so either way you will never change your mind publicly.

Re:Third, not first

[jrumney]

They were found three weeks after the tsunami, so there was plenty of time for radiation sores to start appearing before it eventually killed them.

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear requires a large investment upfront but is very cheap in the long run.

A nuke plant might operate for 60 years. All the waste must be safely stored. Storage is not free, and security is expensive. Some of the waste becomes safe in 30 years, but Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. That sort of kills any idea of "cheap in the long run." In the long run, the short run, any way you slice it, nuclear power is the most expensive way to generate electricity ever conceived, and will remain so.

That said, we still need nuclear power and will need it for probably 100-250 years, and we should be building more plants. But eventually, sooner than later, the entire nuclear industry must be decommissioned and mothballed, because we have safer, cleaner, greener, less complicated and less expensive ways to generate electricity.

Re:Third, not first

[MrKaos]

I mean, 3 humans, lives snuffed out by the horror of nuclear power - and what does it give us?

Well it provides employment for the homeless and workers from around the world in a high tech clean-up that proves the benevolence od the nuclear industry.

The people who enthusiastically support nuclear power now have a way to sincerely show their commitment to their cause by participating in the effort side by side with the workers who are cleaning it up.

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

You discredit your post each time that the word "nuke" is used. Then, solar power is fusion nuke, wind power is whirlwind, gaz is terrorist weaponry.

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, that is the first 3. Unfortunately, more will come and probably many will go unreported.

Now, how about instead of coal we compare to solar and production of batteries?

Re: Third, not first

[vakuona]

Some of the waste becomes safe in 30 years, but Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years.

We can dig very deep holes and put the high level waste in the ground.

And I think Plutonium 239 can be used as reactor fuel too.

Re:Third, not first

[MrKaos]

So many idiots will take you serious.

Ignorance is a fools intelligence.

Correction: Ignorance is a fool's intelligence.

Re: Third, not first

[Freischutz]

Some of the waste becomes safe in 30 years, but Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years.

We can dig very deep holes and put the high level waste in the ground.

And I think Plutonium 239 can be used as reactor fuel too.

If that's true it is down-cycling, eventually you always end up with highly dangerous radioactive waste you'll have to stockpile for tens of thousands of years.

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

the cost of solar, wind, and storage is falling

These costs are falling, but storage is still way, way too expensive to allow us to depend on solar and wind. The world's biggest power-storage facility, in South Australia, can power the state for ... about 20 minutes. To pair with solar, you need 20 hours of storage. To pair with wind, you need days or weeks of storage, depending on how sporadic the windspeed is. Baseload power from non-renewables (or hydro) will be a requirement for the foreseeable future.

Nuclear isn't necessarily the best choice to pair with solar/wind, though. To pair with solar, you want a power source you can fire up overnight; to pair with wind, you want something you can fire up whenever the wind dies down. Nuclear (like coal) is slow to ramp up/down, so it fits poorly in this role. Gas plants do this pretty well ... but of course, they emit CO2.

On a side note, I should point out that the issues of safety and economics are interrelated. Nuclear is safe and expensive. If we loosened the regulations a bit, it could be cheaper, while remaining safer than the alternatives. But that's a political non-starter: regulations are a ratchet, only ever becoming tighter.

Re: Third, not first

[blindseer]

A nuke plant might operate for 60 years. All the waste must be safely stored. Storage is not free, and security is expensive.

A hydroelectric dam will last that long too, as will a coal fired power plant. These sites must also be kept secure. Storing the spent fuel on the same site as the nuclear power plant is common practice, meaning the storage may not be "free" but it is minimal and included in the cost of constructing and maintaining the site. If the Democrats hadn't been holding up nuclear material disposal sites like Yucca Mountain for 30 years we'd have had this problem solved. There is no storage problem but what the Democrats created.

Some of the waste becomes safe in 30 years,

Actually 30 years is the half life of some of the more dangerous isotopes. A "rule of thumb" on when this becomes safe is ten half lives, so more like 300 years.

but Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years.

First of all Pu-239 is a very valuable material for nuclear fuel and weapons, storing this as "waste" is idiotic. Second, the radiation flux is an inverse of the half life. The longer the half life the less radiation it emits in a given time period. With a half life this long it is effectively inert. It's still a heavy metal and so should be handled with care, much like one would treat lead. it's also something that is not known to blow away, dissolve in water, or otherwise move from where it's put. There's far more dangerous isotopes to deal with than Pu-239.

That sort of kills any idea of "cheap in the long run." In the long run, the short run, any way you slice it, nuclear power is the most expensive way to generate electricity ever conceived, and will remain so.

Really? Perhaps you could provide a source for that. Oh, and include the storage costs for that wind and solar, because that's going to be necessary to match load to supply.

That said, we still need nuclear power and will need it for probably 100-250 years, and we should be building more plants. But eventually, sooner than later, the entire nuclear industry must be decommissioned and mothballed, because we have safer, cleaner, greener, less complicated and less expensive ways to generate electricity.

100 years? Well, that's convenient. That's something no one reading this could ever confirm on their own. In that time we'd probably find a way to deal with all the radioactive waste we produce now and nuclear power will be powering colonies on Pluto or something.

Re: Third, not first

[Freischutz]

Nuclear requires a large investment upfront but is very cheap in the long run.

Renewables seem cheap when you compare nameplate capacity but are _extremely_ expensive once you count the 3*nameplate capacity required to get to 70% energy delivered plus the full capacity backup and fuel for the remaining 30%. Hydro and other storage simply cannot cope with the long periods of low renewables production that happen frequently.

Really? According to the EIA natural gas, solar and onshore wind all have nuclear (even advanced nuclear) beaten pretty thoroughly in terms of LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) which is: "... an economic assessment of the average total cost to build and operate a power-generating asset over its lifetime divided by the total energy output of the asset over that lifetime.". It's kind of interesting to see the relative reductions in LCOE over the last 10 years, the numbers for nuclear have dropped to be sure but it is a linear reduction that only applies to the really new advanced plants, not the legacy plants and even then only the ones that don't go into insane cost overruns. The LCOE numbers for wind, and particularly solar, by comparisons have literally fallen off a cliff.

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

They drowned responding to a nuclear emergency.

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all Pu-239 is a very valuable material for nuclear fuel and weapons, storing this as "waste" is idiotic.

Seriously? You argument pro Pu-239 is that it can be used as a weapon? I hope you are trolling, because if that's not the case you are either insane or a complete idiot.

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

He's just a buthurt Indian troll constantly feeling inferior to the Chinese. Even their Chinglish is better than his.

Re: Third, not first

[blindseer]

Seriously? You argument pro Pu-239 is that it can be used as a weapon? I hope you are trolling, because if that's not the case you are either insane or a complete idiot.

If I had not mentioned its use as a weapon then I'd be accused of lying by omission, do you want me to lie?

The emphasis should be on the use as a fuel, especially for the use in molten salt breeder reactors like LFTR-49.
https://articles.thmsr.nl/the-...

LFTR-49 will burn plutonium as fuel and in the process produce U-233, a fuel worthless for making weapons. This makes plutonium far more valuable as a fuel than as a weapon. LFTR style reactors don't produce plutonium like current solid fuel reactors do. Depending on how the LFTR manages the transuranic elements it will produce no plutonium or produce plutonium so contaminated with lighter and heavier isotopes that it would be nearly worthless for weapon production.

The only way to destroy this plutonium is in a reactor. What some politicians would like to see is "downblend and dispose". This means taking the weapon grade and reactor grade plutonium we have and mixing it with a bunch of spent fuel and other stuff to make it hard to process back out, and then drop it in a hole. A hole by the way Democrats have been denying funds to dig.

So, what do you propose we do with all this plutonium that's been piling up? And the weapons with plutonium in them?

I suggest we use it as fuel. This can mean downblending as part of turning it into fuel to discourage it being diverted into weapons. Downblending alone does not prevent this from being turned into weapons in the future, as it only makes refining more expensive, not impossible. The only way to destroy it is consume it in a reactor. While we do that we may as well produce electricity, more fuel, valuable medical isotopes, and isotopes valuable for space exploration.

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what do you propose we do with all this plutonium that's been piling up?

I guess the first step is to figure out how to stop producing it. Nuclear serves well today, but for the long run it's better to focus on the cleaner and cheaper alternatives that already are available.

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to store any nuclear fuel waste for 10,000+ years, it's a choice caused by the reprocessing ban. With reprocessing the storage requirements come down a lot.

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, solar and wind both kill more people than Nuclear power, due to the dangers of installation of those items (solar especially).

I'm sure we will improve the installation process to prevent additional deaths at some point, but it would be nice to deal with that sooner instead of later. Also important is dealing with the environmental impact of solar panel production, which is killing an untold number of Chinese.

Re:Third, not first

[jd]

Support nuclear power, or support nuclear power done right?

Anyone can do something incompetently, and TEPCO, BNFL and a few others are about as incompetent as you can get.

I do not see a valid argument there against nuclear power done right.

Now, you can argue that it can't be done right, but I expect you to prove that and you can't use the incompetence of Japan, Britain or America as proof. There are an infinite number of solutions to x+y that aren't 7, but that doesn't mean I can't find a solution where x+y=7. Find me a non-existence proof, or accept that you can't.

Re: Third, not first

[Applehu Akbar]

We can dig very deep holes and put the high level waste in the ground.

We could do that, but it would be wasting 95% of the energy in the original fuel. The long-term radiation in nuclear waste represents more exploitable energy. We need breeder reactors and isotope separation to turn it into new fuel.

Re:Third, not first

[Applehu Akbar]

The first two were found in the basement turbine room a few days after the accident. But if "out of Fukushima" implies "out of" as opposed to "in", sure.

Those two drowned in the tsunami. The safety of seawater is not at issue here.

Re:Third, not first

[Applehu Akbar]

Objecting to nukes because of economics makes much more sense. They are far too expensive, and the cost is going up while the cost of solar, wind, and storage is falling.

US costs are going up because each nuke is still a site-built science fair project that requires individual plant approval. China is building them for less, and will probably be the first country to offer factory-built modular reactors.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

How much would your next vacation cost if Boeings had to be built at each airport and then individually qualified?

Re: Third, not first

[Applehu Akbar]

Your geographic situation is different from ours. We don't have a nuclear country next door to keep our grid topped up through dark, cloudy winters.

Re:Third, not first

[Applehu Akbar]

The only renewable that can be paired with wind and solar to load-follow during their dips is hydro (and in a few select places, geothermal). In the developed world, all the available hydro has been exploited. So absent new hydro, we are slipping into the use of gas as a pairing. That represents a savings of carbon over coal, but it's still an emitter.

Re:Third, not first

[wagnerer]

Seriously? You think they were unaccounted for, trapped and living for three weeks before the radiation killed them? They'd have died from dehydration in a fraction of that time.

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we need to compare apples to apples, with solar and nuclear energy. Radiation deaths happen because of solar power *all the time*. Skin cancer is caused 90% of the time by solar UV radiation, killing millions of people every year. Some people would even say that solar power is completely radiation.

Do you think the cost of building a nuclear plant is expensive? Imagine how much it would cost to build another sun. We don't even have enough material in the solar system, and would have to source it from distant star systems, greatly adding to the expense.

And don't even start with solar being "renewable". When the sun goes out in a few billion years, who is going to renew it then?

Hence I think that we should use nuclear power, fusion if we can find a way or place, and definitely not solar energy.

I also think we should start charging solar energy producers for their externalized costs. Cancer treatments, screenings, sunscreen, etc. I've even heard reports that solar energy is the largest single contributor to global warming, vastly outstripping radioactive decay.

Join with me in the fight against solar energy!

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no alternatives that are both cleaner and cheaper, yet.

Re:Third, not first

[MrKaos]

I do not see a valid argument there against nuclear power done right.

I never offered one. What I offered was that nuclear power done right involves it taking responsibility for its failures. I offered a plan of how to do Nuclear Power right almost a decade ago, right here. It is what I call Responsible Nuclear Advocacy. I'm not anti-nuclear, I'm anti-stupid and I refuse to participate in the massive circle jerk of fanbois, Nuclear Ideologist and Nuclear Justice Worriers that play loose with fact and don't respect the handling of materials that can effectively destroy our entire race from genetic damage to the germ line of our species. Call me Pro-Human.

I'll re-post my decade old post:

I think that the odds are short that we will *have* to control the radioisotope inventory we have and that the necessity to do so will be an infrastructure project so large it will change the very nature of the worlds economy. In the same way our generation is facing a carbon legacy from previous generations, future generations will face a radioistope legacy that they will be forced to solve.

Right now peer reviewed science shows us that the current Nuclear power industry does not provide a Net Energy return simply because of the energetic inputs from mining and the energetic inputs to decommission the reactor.

I support the development of a reactor that addresses the issue of 70,000 tons of Pu-239 currently stored in reactor sites around America, simply because it's irresponsible for our generation to foist this issue onto later generations.

Unfortunately, because there is no geologically sound Nuclear waste dump in operation it's totally inappropriate to discuss building a new reactor facility until a proper containment facility is available. Yucca mountain is not a suitable site because it is made of pumice and geologically active evidenced by recent aftershocks of 5.6 within ten miles of a repository that is supposed to be geologically stable for at least 500000 years. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste, and long term corrosion data on C22 (the material to contain the Pu-239 and mitigate the ingress of water - yet another Yucca problem) is just not available.

We need something made of granite. A human made structure with the potential to last 10000 years, so it has to be an engineering project of that scale, because the logistical problems of transferring the 70000 odd tons of Pu239 to the "waste repository" (in reality - containment facility) are so involved that you want to get it right the first time and only do it once.

Even doing that, just the infrastructure project will probably take 30 years to complete, but there is more to it than that.

I was a big fan of the Integral Fast Reactor, and in a way I still am. But the reality is 3rd and 4th generation reactors are a pipe dream because our material science is not advanced enough yet to produce a reactor design that will last thousands of years. If you are going to build reactors then do it properly and build a Terra-watt scale nuclear reactor facility the belly of a massive granite mountain with an attached waste facility that chomps up all your remaining plutonium or end all commercial nuclear activity altogether. As for the PBMR this reactor has some serious design flaws that, upon a closer examination of the design, makes them no better than RBMK as they age, especially when you are talking about a reactor design that lasts a inadequate 4-5 decades.

Nuclear power is energy intensive *after* the energy has been produced simply because our technology - especially material sciences - are not adequate to produce a Nuclear reactor (preferably a IFR style but sa

Re: Third, not first

[jwhyche]

We need breeder reactors and isotope separation to turn it into new fuel.

Can't have it. Freaking hippies lose their shit every time you bring it up.

Re:Third, not first

[Zorpheus]

That still does not make it a radiation-linked death. It may be linked to the nuclear accident, but not to the radiation.

Re:Third, not first

[Zorpheus]

Decontamination would not have been possible if they were exposed to radiation levels that killed so quickly

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

We need breeder reactors and isotope separation to turn it into new fuel.

Can't have it. Freaking hippies lose their shit every time you bring it up.

If by "freaking hippies" you mean rational scientists, then I agree. Most, if not all, toxic substances are rationally and best dealt with my making them more dilute, not the other way around!

Re:Third, not first

[DerekLyons]

Objecting to nukes because of economics makes much more sense. They are far too expensive, and the cost is going up while the cost of solar, wind, and storage is falling.

In a world where the only metric of value is cost - that would be a reasonable statement. We don't live in such a world.

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps those freaking hippies have done the sums, and know it is just not economical, no matter what your wet dream is.

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

Intensity of radioactivity is linked directly with half life and mass. By processing "waste" in reactors which can burn it, you're both lowering mass and lengthening half life, making it far less dangerous. Well processed waste can be vitrified in glass to prevent leaching, then stored in salt mines, boreholes, or even just dropped into an ocean trench with essentially zero risk. And since the mass of totally used waste is so low, you don't actually need to store that much. If we actually used Yucca mountain it would store everything we produced for a long, long time.

For the below, I'm talking about highly processed waste. We don't do much of this because most current reactors are extremely old designs which can't burn fuel to the level I describe:
Waste is a solved problem. You're worried about it as if it's drums of glowing boiling liquid that'll be around for 100,000 years and will eventually break free of the container. In reality it's a solid block of cold material that's moderately radioactive alone, and safe to be around when enclosed in a steel cask. It won't hurt anyone unless they break a chunk off and eat it.

Re:Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

The "cost" is also highly skewed by misinformed policy, with heavy subsidies and incentives not available to nuclear, which are the main reason it is struggling in the market. Unlike changing the laws of physics, this is a situation that can be corrected, and reactor cost can be decreased with experience and new technologies.

With that addressed, we should be mindful of the material inputs of various sources. These also impose direct environmental costs in terms of mining and refining, and increase cost of decommissioning and recycling. Not only is the land area for nuclear minimal, it is also tens of times more resource efficient at producing energy. Using less resources can also be leveraged into a more rapid scaling of installation, which could help greatly.

Re: Third, not first

[angel'o'sphere]

If Fukushima would have been a Plutonium breeding/burning reactor, half of Japan would now be completely uninhabitable

So much to your "Freaking Hippies" analogy. Would you really like 50 million shintoists-ists invade your country and spread their unholy religion?

Re: Third, not first

[angel'o'sphere]

If your wind plant does not produce nameplate or more power, you have placed it at the wrong place.
And that you knew before. How one comes to the idiotic idea that you have to take nameplate times 3 is beyond me.
E.G. without storage, it does not matter how much solar power you install. At night the sun is down, obviously.

Hydro and other storage simply cannot cope with the long periods of low renewables production that happen frequently.
Strange that this is not happening in the countries that have lots of renewables, like Denmark and Germany.

Re:Third, not first

[angel'o'sphere]

In the developed world, all the available hydro has been exploited.
That is nonsense. Switzerland is more or less empty, so is Austria and USA e.g. has close to zero river flow plants. I bet in Germany we easy can build a few terrawatt, if we needed.

Re:Third, not first

[angel'o'sphere]

The focus is on "official".

Japan just apoligized to have 100dreds of vietnamese "guest workers" working unprotected at the Fukushima site for "educational purpose". Most of them will die over the next 10 or 20 years ...

Re:Third, not first

[Applehu Akbar]

Now try to get permission in those places to build some of these. In Germany, really?

Re:Third, not first

[angel'o'sphere]

Sure why not?

There is no big opposition against building a dam in the mountains, what would be the damn point of that?

Switzerland is planning to become the "storage hub" for all Europe over the next decades.

Re: Third, not first

[Anonymous Coward]

The longer the half life, the less radioactive the material is.

Re: Third, not first

[jwhyche]

So much to your "Freaking Hippies" analogy. Would you really like 50 million shintoists-ists invade your country and spread their unholy religion?

Humm... Are you asking if I would rather have 50 million Shintoists or the 50 million fundamentalist Christians I already have? Let me show the Japanese where to park....

Re: Third, not first

[angel'o'sphere]

I was more joking about those idiots who claim Europe is overun by millions of islamists.
Anoying that no one yet has modded me +5 funny ...

Re: Third, not first

[jwhyche]

I think you missed that joke by about 8046.72 km. I give you a 'A' for effort. I often wind up being modded a troll instead of the +5 funny so I feel your pain. I will just like to think that I have superior senses of humor than them. Doesn't make it true, but I like to think that.

Re: Third, not first

[angel'o'sphere]

There is a german saying: Humor ist, wenn man trotzdem lacht.
You can not really translate that to english. Try your luck with google :)

Re: Third, not first

[cheesybagel]

The so called cost advantage of natural gas gas fades away if you get the natural gas by LNG tanker instead of pipeline. Plus natural gas prices are highly variable both seasonally and yearly. Compare the price of it on winter to summer for example. This is not the case with nuclear power.

Re: Third, not first

[cheesybagel]

Both have large coal power plants as backup. Quite "clean" uh? The Germans even burn lignite, i.e. brown coal. Which is even dirtier.

Re:Third, not first

[cheesybagel]

The lead-bismuth fast reactors are quite safe. In fact they are too safe. If you shut down the power it solidifies the reactor.

Re:Third, not first

[MrKaos]

The lead-bismuth fast reactors are quite safe. In fact they are too safe. If you shut down the power it solidifies the reactor.

Do you have a link for the one you are referring to? It is one of two reactor technologies that appear interesting. However it is not just about the reactor it is about integration of facilities and their viability is directly attached to the expected service life of the reactor which relates back to materials technology.

The design of any of these facilities would take a systemic view with the reactor as just one part. However we can't have these discussion because in the Nuclear Ideologist's eyes nuclear is already perfect, which it isn't. They don't accept that it presents a clear threat to the human genome that needs to be handled with respect for the radioisotope products that are created. They don't care about if it is safe, has an energy return, can de-weaponize DU, how the reactors is disposed of, how it handles transuranics - any nuclear, even shit nuclear is ok and anyone who tries to be reasonable about it is labeled and then treated like they don't know what they're talking about.

Their ideology prevents them from even seeing the problems that have to be solved with nuclear. It's stupid.

Re: Third, not first

[RockDoctor]

Ignore the freaking hippies.

Re:Third, not first

[cheesybagel]

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.world-nuclear-news....
https://aris.iaea.org/PDF/BRES...

I just got these links from looking around. TBH the most economical reactors right now are Generation III reactors like the AP1000. Because the price of uranium is still cheap. The fast reactors will become important once we want to use the spent fuel from Generation II/III reactors to generate more power or to better burn up available uranium fuel.

Re: Third, not first

[angel'o'sphere]

First of all: we don't have backup. You don't need that in an European interconnected grid.
Secondly, lignite is not particular dirty. Since the late 1970s Germany scrubs the exhaust from its coal plants, just like most first world nations.

People talking about energy related topics should stop taking 30 - 50 year old facts for granted. The energy world has changed greatly.

Re: Third, not first

[Mr D from 63]

And maybe you should stop fabricating things;

https://slashdot.org/comments....

I am still waiting for you to admit you completely made this up. But you seem to be avoiding that.

Re:Third, not first

[MrKaos]

The issue is not the fuel, it is the disposal of the reactor at the end of its service life. You have to think of the entire Industrial nuclear process from end to end to design the nuclear industry properly.

Re: Third, not first

[MrKaos]

And maybe you should stop fabricating things; https://slashdot.org/comments.... I am still waiting for you to admit you completely made this up. But you seem to be avoiding that.

And maybe you should just stop being an asshole by trying to minimize the actuality of the situation.

The particulate matter in question is Plutonium Oxide, which is an inhalant. Once anyone breathes that into their lungs, isn't getting it out. An alpha emitter lodged in the lungs would be a factor in lung cancer however no one has really considered it from either the toxicity stand point where it may increase the incidents of pneumonia.

"Non-related issue" sounds a lot like Nuclear Industry propaganda to me. You're minimizing the death of this man for political purposes, it is pretty disgusting. You should have more respect for the people who have to work there and the risk they take doing the necessary work of cleaning up after TEPCO's criminal negligence.

If anyone is likely to be unlucky enough to breathe Plutonium oxide into their lungs it is going to be someone who works there. More so if the person breaths in enough of it close enough together to start bouncing neutrons around with the reaction moderated by their lungs.

We are just the beginning of this tragic act of criminal negligence, we have decades, hundreds of years to go. All the while the Nuclear Industry's propaganda elements cover up the reality of their complacent incompetence so that people like you can claim the moral high-ground to argue about something you demonstrate you cannot comprehend, will not comprehend.

Your willful ignorance, still harping on external whilst ignoring internal radiation exposure. Willfully ignoring the difference between radiation and the radio-isotope that emits it.

People like you will be forgotten as the dithering bumbling idiocrats who helped prevent the people of the world figuring out what is going on at Fukushima and doing something about it as an international community. The opportunity to effectively mitigate the disaster slips further into the past as we let the same incompetence who caused the disaster manage the recovery.

While you play the role of the useful idiot lapping up all the Nuclear Industry PR so you can get your hit of "Being Right".

Such a cheap shill you are.

there will be more

[WindBourne]

However, this was the worst accident and it required ppl to go in due to screw-ups. So, yeah, there will be more.
This is why we need SMRs, or 4th gen reactors, that will not have these issues.
Problem is, that 3rd gen reactors continue to be built. Worst, we have given the tech for 3rd gen to China and they, with their quality, are now building those reactors.

Re:there will be more

[CrimsonAvenger]

However, this was the worst accident and it required ppl to go in due to screw-ups. So, yeah, there will be more.

Yep. So, after SEVEN YEARS, we've had one (1) death as a result of a massive tsunami hitting a nuclear power plant. That's almost as many deaths as occurred commuting to work today where I live...

If everyday life were only a hundred times deadlier than nuclear power has shown itself over the decades, we'd be living in paradise!

Alas, that word "nuclear" continues to magnify the death toll to an unsustainable level!

Re:there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

Even so, more people die from fossil-fueled particulate pollution every single day than have in the entire history of nuclear power. There is no alternative with perfect safety, and an objective examination of the numbers reveals that nuclear remains the safest energy source.

I'm not going to worry about China's construction quality. Even in the event of accidents, the threat of radiation has been vastly overstated, and the flawed hypothesis used to terrify people of even the tiniest amounts of radiation was built on a scientific fraud. Growing coal combustion is the threat people should be concerned about.

China is also seriously pursuing a number of 4th gen reactors, in a true all-of-the-above approach to clean energy. We are in this mess because the "greens" preferred coal over nuclear, and delayed the transition by many decades.

Re:there will be more

[RevDisk]

Historically, solar is 5x more lethal than nuclear power. If you include Chernobyl.
If you count US only, solar is roughly 4000x more lethal than nuclear.

In the US, apparently coal is 100,000x more lethal than nuclear power. And 50x less lethal than hydro.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...


Nukes get more press because radiation is scary as it is invisible. Invisible threats are more unnerving than ones we're familiar with. Pools killing thousands per year? Meh. It's a pool. People falling off roofs? Well, it happens. And in more proper fairness, it can make an area dangerous for a lengthy amount of time. It's probably not a good idea to explain coal plants put out significantly more radiation than nuclear plants.

Hilariously, according to old USAF buddy, a certain airborne radiation monitoring planes could and did navigate based off radiation plumes from coal plants.

Re:there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

However, this was the worst accident and it required ppl to go in due to screw-ups. So, yeah, there will be more.

Yep. So, after SEVEN YEARS, we've had one (1) death as a result of a massive tsunami hitting a nuclear power plant. That's almost as many deaths as occurred commuting to work today where I live...

If everyday life were only a hundred times deadlier than nuclear power has shown itself over the decades, we'd be living in paradise!

Alas, that word "nuclear" continues to magnify the death toll to an unsustainable level!

Here I thought it was the radiation that every one is scared of. Silly me.

Re:there will be more

[Luckyo]

This was a second gen reactor that took an earthquake that was a hundred times worse than one it was set up to outlive, and outlived it. Then it got hit by tsunami that basically annihilated the infrastructure in the entire region, and killed something around 15.000-30.000 people. We still don't know how many actually died, because local registries that held records of how many people actually lived in those regions were destroyed in the tsunami alongside people, and Japan has highly localized citizen registry. So the only deaths we know of are the ones that were held in registries that survived the tsunami.

This is the first radiation linked death out of that entire accident. I think it's safe to make a claim that even old reactors are safe from radiation's lethality standpoint when lethality of the entire event is considered, especially considering that nearby units 5 and 6 were in fixable condition with only minor damage, and were shut down for political reasons.

So the real problem is corruption in companies that save money on seawalls in tsunami areas and ignore warnings about it.

Re:there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

Got a source for those poor quality Chinese reactors?
Or just more anti-China fearmongering?

asking for a friend...

I thought you wanted China to transition from coal to nuclear?

Re:there will be more

[semper_statisticum]

Invisible threats are more unnerving than ones we're familiar with. Pools killing thousands per year? Meh. It's a pool. People falling off roofs? Well, it happens.

I think the correct response is to have nuclear power kill more people. Then everything will be normalized.

Re:there will be more

[WindBourne]

Hey, I am a fan of Nukes, but I think that we need to continue R&Ding the reactor designs. By now, all the ones being built should have been on 4th gen, if not 5th, should be failproof, and have little waste. NuScale comes to mind. The reason we are still building 3rd gens is due to all the far left idiots that allow fear to replace logic/intelligence.
As to the deaths in Chernobyl and Fukishima, it would be a lie to say that there were none. But, interestingly, it is still far less than what Coal does. Heck, just look at China, India, etc. Hell, look at America either from the 60s, OR look at us know but in different spectrum. Most of the pollution that the west has removed was visible. I will say that our current coal regs that filtered out lead and mercury, actually removed a lot of other pollution. Still, there is plenty emitted.

Re:there will be more

[WindBourne]

Corruption in companies is always the bigger issues.
But even here, we see that CHina has SERIOUS issues with QA on building the western plants that they insisted on doing. That was stupid on both of those companies. Oddly, if CHina has issues with those reactors, they will probably blame the western companies, rather than their own lousy workmanship. They should have allowed either the Japanese or South Koreans to do the work.

BTW, as to Fukishima, the company had several choices. Build the wall higher as GE wanted, OR add generators further away from the reactors, and higher on the hill. Either solution would have solved this. BUT, MBA's always get in the way.

Re:there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

OR add generators further away from the reactors, and higher on the hill. Either solution would have solved this.

They did this. They also had generators on standby ready to be flown in if needed. (and flew them in) But the superior Japanese, being the same clever Japanese you love so much, didn't plan for the only reason to move the reactors up the hill in the first place, flooding. Flooding would require the electrical systems to not also be flooded in the same flood. Obviously to everyone else they ended up useless and underwater.

They should have allowed either the Japanese

Why would anyone want the obviously incompetent Japanese anywhere near a reactor?

Why must you bring China into every topic you post about? How is China relevant to a Japanese reactor in Japan having serious design weaknesses?
Did China cause the Tsunami?
Build the reactor?
Run the reactor?
Have anything to do with disaster mitigation?
Have anything to do with the emergency response?
Anything to do with the cleanup?
Does China have anything at all to do with this?

Re:there will be more

[blindseer]

There is R&D happening on nuclear power, just not so much in the USA.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/r...

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has a reputation as a capable regulator with many decades of experience in safe nuclear plant design review and operations oversight. It also has a process that is amenable to technologies that use nontraditional fuels and coolants.

Sweden, the original home of LeadCold, has similar remote areas and a capable regulator, but it is currently lead by a government that doesn't support nuclear energy development.

As Senator Murkowski made clear during Governor Perry's confirmation hearing to become the new Secretary of Energy, Alaska has communities with similar power needs. Unfortunately, the U.S. NRC has not yet implemented an acceptable process for reviewing nuclear reactor designs that use coolants other than water.

If people in the USA want to see more nuclear power then vote, and vote for people and political parties that support nuclear power. I've read the party platform documents from both the Democratic and Republican national committees. In the Democrat platform I recall seeing the word "nuclear" only once, and that was in reference to nuclear weapons. The Republican platform nuclear power was mentioned as one of many ways to achieve cleaner air and energy independence. I also remember a debate between McCain and Obama when they were running for POTUS. Obama made some happy mouth noises about research but McCain said we need to start building nuclear power. It's quite clear where the support lies among politicians, vote accordingly. Perhaps the two parties have had their stance on nuclear power evolve since I last looked but recent events tell me it's unlikely there's been a big change. This isn't the "far left" opposing nuclear power, this opposition is far more widespread than that.

We can throw a bunch of money at nuclear power research but nothing can provide funding and experience like private industry actually building real and actual reactors. The argument for wind and solar subsidies was made on the same premise, that nothing drives development of a technology like shipping product.

I'd like to see fourth generation nuclear reactors being built too. Seeing more third generation nuclear would please me greatly though. We aren't going to see fifth generation nuclear power, almost by definition, until fourth generation reactors have reached some kind of maturity. Again, nothing can mature a technology like shipping product. I believe that there is a lot of life in third generation nuclear yet, as it is quite safe and offers means to slow the production of nuclear waste and perhaps even consume some of the waste we already have.

Re:there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

Nukes get more press because radiation is scary as it is invisible.

There is also a big difference between self inflicted harm and something caused by others.

The deaths in solar mainly comes from falling down while installing them, something that could have been avoided if the person falling down had taken reasonable safety precautions.
If the deaths had been due to clumsy people dropping solar panels on uninvolved people on the ground it would have been another matter.

It is the same thing with the outrage regarding guns. No-one really cares about the self-inflicted stuff like regular suicide or suicide by cop. It is the cases where someone leaves a gun around so their angsty teenager can take it to school and shoot a couple of classmates that people get upset about.

You have the freedom to endanger yourself and if you want to risk your life because it is your life and you have the right to throw it away if you want to.
If you on the other hand screw up at the nuclear power plant then people who don't have a say in when to play fast and loose gets screwed over.

Re:there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read the party platform documents from both the Democratic and Republican national committees.

The Republicans are in power, they aren't building nuclear power plants or even considering it.

Maybe you should stop reading what they claim and start reading what they do.
It is possible to lie with words, but not with actions.
That is why it has been irresponsible to vote Republican for the last 50 years.

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

People falling off roofs? Well, it happens.

Maybe we could just have solar installers wear proper safety gear.

It's probably not a good idea to explain coal plants put out significantly more radiation than nuclear plants.

Please do, I'd be interested in how you explain that whilst including all of the facts.

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

The argument for wind and solar subsidies was made on the same premise, that nothing drives development of a technology like shipping product.

What subsidies for wind and solar? From the 2005 U.S Energy Policy Act.

Solar and wind are covered under SEC.812, the two combined get one section . They have to raise 20% of their own funding for research and %50 of their own funding for Commercial with no other appropriations under the Energy Act. Instead they have to seek funding through the Small Business Act.

As opposed to Nuclear that has twenty five sections dedicated to it (SEC. 600 onwards), with funding allocations in various sections. Let's see:

$1662000000 from 2005-2020, that's the first section with 25 to go and nuclear already tramples solar and wind funding.
$10,000,000,000 in PERSONAL indemnities.
$500,000,000 indemnity for accident outside the US
One for EBR fans and sodium reactor fans $16,000,000 to destroy the technology - but keep blaming the Nimbys and greenies
$100,000,000 for *demonstration* hydrogen producing reactor That no one has utilized to replace oil
$500,000,000 to cover regulatory delays and another $250,000,000 for delays in the first 180 days PER CONTRACT

Solar and wind get nothing compared to this gross form of corporate welfare. Everything from R&D to commercial operations are covered and the US government bends over backwards to ensure nuclear power gets everything it needs.

That means Solar and Wind investments are being made on the basis that they make good business sense. If Solar and wind got the same generous funding that nuclear got it would see much greater advances.

You know all this already and are just pushing your false reality again.

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

Hey, I am a fan of Nukes, but I think that we need to continue R&Ding the reactor designs.

What about developing some expertise on handling Nuclear waste? That doesn't seem to be a big spending area.

By now, all the ones being built should have been on 4th gen, if not 5th, should be failproof, and have little waste.

Well talk to the oil and coal industry and go and learn about IFR.

NuScale comes to mind.

Stupid idea, stupid concept, poorly thought out.

The reason we are still building 3rd gens is due to all the far left idiots that allow fear to replace logic/intelligence.

It has nothing to do with the defunding of the nuclear research programs by Clinton and Bush? That oil money buys a lot of lobbying. Were you to employ logic and intelligence you might find the story is a little different from the rhetoric.

As to the deaths in Chernobyl and Fukishima, it would be a lie to say that there were none.

Sure would be. However it hasn't stopped the nuclear industry from trying to minimize how many there are.

But, interestingly, it is still far less than what Coal does. Heck, just look at China, India, etc. Hell, look at America either from the 60s, OR look at us know but in different spectrum. Most of the pollution that the west has removed was visible. I will say that our current coal regs that filtered out lead and mercury, actually removed a lot of other pollution. Still, there is plenty emitted.

So why don't we have a highly advanced program that handles nuclear waste instead of it piling up at reactor sites around the world?

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

This was a second gen reactor that took an earthquake that was a hundred times worse than one it was set up to outlive, and outlived it.

All the Fukushima reactors were rated to 600Gal and the site itself only experienced 150Gal.

So the real problem is corruption in companies that save money on seawalls in tsunami areas and ignore warnings about it.

Indeed, the thing that caused these reactors to explode was the criminal negligence of the TEPCO board.

Re:there will be more

[blindseer]

On a per kWh produced basis the subsidies for solar power is far greater.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

Look at the pie chart here on where the USA gets it's electricity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

You'll see that nuclear provides nearly 20% of our electricity. Wind less than 6%. Solar is producing so little energy that it doesn't even get broken out separately, and is just "other". Biomass produced more electricity than solar, and that's mostly just coal plants "greenwashing" their operation by mixing in some sawdust and wood chips in with the coal so they can claim to be "green".

Whatever little is spent on solar makes a large difference on the subsidies per kWh since the output from solar is so small. If you scroll down that Wikipedia page some more you will find that solar makes up about 2% of installed capacity and nuclear makes up about 10% of installed capacity. Again, nuclear produces 20% of the electricity but solar is less than 1%. To replace a single 1 GW nuclear power reactor we would need to have 4 GW of solar power capacity.

The US federal government has been subsidizing solar power for decades with very little to show for it. You think nuclear power is getting corporate welfare? Look at solar. There wouldn't be a solar power industry if the federal government hadn't been propping it up all this time.

You know all this already and are just pushing your false reality again.

Yep, just "fake news" from us nuclear power advocates. If solar power made such great business sense then why demand the subsidies? I'll find that solar power advocates rarely lie about anything, just as what you posted appears to be true. What happens with great regularity is the lie by omission. By telling only half the story, giving all the "pros" and none of the "cons", solar power looks pretty good. It's easy to reveal the half truths though.

I used to tear into wind too for their subsidies but it looks like we are actually seeing some return on that investment. I'd like to see the wind subsidies go away, as I would for all energy subsidies, but it's solar that is not giving much for even the little it gets in "corporate welfare".

It's been getting real hard to portray nuclear power as unsafe in recent years. Calling it "dirty" is getting real hard as well. Now it seems that people rely on half truths of the costs of nuclear power. How long will it take for the truth on that to become clear? Then what argument can be made to not build more nuclear power?

Re:there will be more

[blindseer]

The Republicans are in power, they aren't building nuclear power plants or even considering it.

The NRC has been dominated by Democrat appointed commissioners for at least 8 years, and Trump's appointments didn't get on the commission immediately after he got into office. Just how quickly do you think that they can issue licenses and ramp up on construction after 40 years of sitting on their thumbs? Give it time.

Maybe you should stop reading what they claim and start reading what they do.
It is possible to lie with words, but not with actions.
That is why it has been irresponsible to vote Republican for the last 50 years.

Well, the Republicans have been in power for nearly 2 year now and we are seeing some of the lowest unemployment, huge growth in the economy, and reductions in taxes. That's just a few off the top of my head. If that's what "irresponsible" looks like then I want more.

Re:there will be more

[blindseer]

So why don't we have a highly advanced program that handles nuclear waste instead of it piling up at reactor sites around the world?

Because Democrats.

The Democrats prevented the processing of old weapon cores into fuel for nuclear reactors meaning the USA did not hold up it's end of the deal with Russia to reduce stockpiles of plutonium. USA had a deal with Japan on dealing with their stockpiles of plutonium and so now Japan has waste piling up. The Democrats held up the Yucca Mountain disposal site since 1987, so our waste is piling up at home. Democrats in the USA are why we have waste piling up at reactor sites all over the world.

Re:there will be more

[RevDisk]

First hand collected scientific data.

I collected data with a calibrated geiger counter and wrote a paper on it. Admittedly in High School. I grew up near Three Mile Island. By "near", I mean, I could literally see it every day. Naturally, it was kinda mentioned in school quite a few times. One of the projects was literally going to the location where the the damaged reactor was removed, near the live reactor, across the river at the visitor/training center. I also included data points from my house. Radiation was near background. Close enough it was within the error of margin of a pretty decent geiger counter. Even within literal stone's throw from the worst civil nuclear incident in American history.

Because I wanted to do something bit different, I also included data from a coal plant and an incinerator down the river a couple miles. Incinerator was less radioactive than a smoke alarm. New facility, they filter the hell out of the output and check for that sort of thing. In case someone tosses a load of smoke alarms in their trash, as one example they mentioned. Coal plant was older and put off (from memory, so give me a bit of leeway) roughly between 3x and 5x background downwind. This was due to uranium and thorium traces in the coal. Very very tiny amounts. But builds up when you're burning a lot of coal. I didn't do an extremely through pattern, it was every quarter mile of a road for like two miles. Coal plant verified, and explained it was within allowed levels and they do have radiation monitors to shut things down if it went too high. There was actually a lot of cooperation between the local coal plants and TMI out of necessity as coal plants in the area can set off extremely sensitive internal alarms at TMI.

I probably realize I sound overly enthusiastic about nuclear power, but having grown up nearing the radiation alarms being tested every noon on Saturday for several years, I'm well aware of the potential risk.

The USAF ref I made was Constant Phoenix. Buddy of mine I know was formerly a pilot of it. His job was to fly through a nuclear weapon plume. Mostly they flew downwind from countries being suspected of developing rogue nuclear weapons. Obviously NK, but other countries as well. US coal plants were better than most back in his day, and better now. Other countries do not filter NEARLY as well, and shot out insane amount of uranium and thorium into the air in fly ash plumes. Obviously an aircraft designed to find signs of underground nuclear testing could see it, as it was designed for that specific purpose. So, they could and did navigate using it.

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

For people interested in the facts that support the numbers in my previous post 2005 US Energy Policy Act.

You may find more Nuclear subsidies in SEC 600. onwards because I haven't included all of them. There is just enough references to make the point.

Re:there will be more

[Applehu Akbar]

But we can't exclude Trump as a problem here. There is no subject more contentious than energy and climate, but the only thing that everyone in the debate agrees on is that the worst alternative would be coal.

So guess which energy choice Trump glommed onto as his favorite toy from the toybox?

Re:there will be more

[wagnerer]

Vote to allow reprocessing. Every other country recycles their fuel. The rationale for not doing it ourselves (the biggest of which is that no one else would do what we decided not to do) is not really valid anymore.

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

On a per kWh produced basis the subsidies for solar power is far greater.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

The thing you are missing is that the allocations are from the tax code and if you follow the chain of documents of where that is defined it leads back to SEC.1703 of 2005 US Energy Policy Act">2005 US Energy Policy Act. That made the provision for the ARRA Act that provided the additional subsidies not provided for in the Energy Policy ACT. A program that created a lot of jobs around the US for electricians and tradesmen. Subsidies that have already ended in 2016.

Also what is not mentioned is that Solar and Wind had 10 times the growth of Nuclear power. It also fails to mention - if you hadn't gone through the Policy act *BEFORE* reading the EIA report that Nuclear Power gets an input tax credit per kilowatt hour. NP also gets another source of funding that is not in the criteria of the EIA document in the form of contract construction delay subsidies.

So the Forbes article is based on an obsolete notion because the subsides ended 2 years ago and aren't part of core Energy policy according to the Act.

Look at the pie chart here on where the USA gets it's electricity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

.

What is missing here is the mass of concrete used in base of the wind generators will be reused for the next generation of wind technology as they are being set up where the wind is. The Nacelle will be upgraded and the base re-used. The up front establishment of a new industry will have those costs the same way Nuclear Power does.

What differs is that the steel in the Nuclear plant can't be re-used as it is radio-activated. The concrete can't be used without a massive energetic cost.

Come to think of it using Uranium mine tailings as concrete bases for Wind Turbines might be a really good way of disposing of the Uranium mine tailings in a constructive way. Build more wind to clean up the nuclear industry.

I'll also say, I don't object to funding the research of nuclear reactors, what I object to is the flat out raiding of the ratepayers to keep the current failing nuclear power industry as a means for oil and coal interests to further rob taxpayers. At least the limited solar and wind subsidies are ending up in the pockets of ordinary people.

Re:there will be more

[Luckyo]

Fukushima plant as a whole was rated for 7 magnitude earthquake. It took 9, survived it, and got destroyed by tsunami, not earthquake.

This disinformation campaign against nuclear is getting tiring, with same talking points that were literally debunked weeks after the tsunami still being repeated ad nauseam by religious zealots.

P.S. Reactors didn't explode. What did explode was upper floors of the already destroyed containement buildings, many days after tsunami, because TEPCO was so incompetent, they didn't know how to address the initial damage correctly.

Re:there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

So why don't we have a highly advanced program that handles nuclear waste instead of it piling up at reactor sites around the world?

A moronic treaty signed by the USA and USSR that prohibited using certain elements as fuel. It still stops all signitors of the non-proliferation treaty from using Plutonium and a handful of other elements as fuel because weaponization.

Re:there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

But we can't exclude Trump as a problem here. There is no subject more contentious than energy and climate, but the only thing that everyone in the debate agrees on is that the worst alternative would be coal.

Not true.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx

Energy, pollution, and environment barely register. Gun control rates higher as a national concern, and that barely registers as well.

So guess which energy choice Trump glommed onto as his favorite toy from the toybox?

He glommed onto the energy source that's been under constant attack for the last decade, provides nearly 1/3rd of our electrical power needs, provides many jobs, and therefore if this attack continued we'd have a national security problem. The economy is on people's minds.

Concern over pollution and climate are luxuries. People don't care about what the temperature might be in 100 years if they don't have enough to eat today. First, get people jobs. Second, find them better energy sources.

If you want people to abandon coal then it must be based on natural market forces, not government handouts. Make wind and solar cheaper in every way than coal and people will buy it. Subsidies only hide the true cost, create corporate welfare, promote dissatisfaction with the government because of higher taxes, and inevitably create a bubble that will pop when (not if) the subsidies end.

Trump isn't promoting coal as much as just getting out of its way. People flock to it because it is cheap, plentiful, and reliable. You make wind and solar as cheap, plentiful, and reliable as coal then coal will disappear all on its own.

Re:there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

Yep. So, after SEVEN YEARS, we've had one (1) death as a result of a massive tsunami hitting a nuclear power plant. That's almost as many deaths as occurred commuting to work today where I live...
We have one official death, and hundreds of unofficial ones. Cases where the family got a big paycheck and a terminal ill worker volunteered to clean up. Japan news regularly brings up that topic.

Re:there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

I think it's safe to make a claim that even old reactors are safe from radiation's lethality standpoint when lethality of the entire event is considered
If you can run away quick enough.

If the people had stayed the majourity would be dead or dying.

Re:there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

As we know since a while after the tsunami: Either solution would have solved this. , no. The cooling system inside the reactors was destroyed by the quake.

Re:there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

P.S. Reactors didn't explode.
P.S. it did. After the hydrogen explosions (that is what you mention) there were several melt downs causing steam explosions, why don't you look at a picture of the site?

Re:there will be more

[Luckyo]

And then you realised that people have been working there the whole time. Such as this particular person.

Re:there will be more

[Luckyo]

I see the "Germany controls wind" angeloshpere is back with full on mental retardation. Have you tried actually reading the sentence you're replying to in its entirety yet? It would help, since it addresses your complaint and pre-empts it in its entirety.

Re:there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

Most people work with safety gear, hundreds of "guest workers" worked without gear.
You are extremely uninformed about the topic.

Why don't you go to youtube and watch a few documenetaries about it?

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

Fukushima plant as a whole was rated for 7 magnitude earthquake. It took 9, survived it, and got destroyed by tsunami, not earthquake.

Measurements for seismic tolerance of Nuclear Reactors is expressed in Ground Acceleration, or Gal. Since you are unable to even communicate on this subject using appropriate measures it is unlikely that you have based your opinion on fact.

This disinformation campaign against nuclear is getting tiring,

The only disinformation campaign occurring is Nuclear Ideology based on ignorance of the subject.

with same talking points that were literally debunked weeks after the tsunami still being repeated ad nauseam by religious zealots.

Funded by the Japanese Government, page 27 from the official report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission refers to ground acceleration the facility experienced in Gal.

P.S. Reactors didn't explode. What did explode was upper floors of the already destroyed containement buildings, many days after tsunami,

So what you are saying is the reactor facility exploded. You are drawing a somewhat pedantic distinction between the reactor exploding and the reactor facility exploding, however I can agree it is a correct distinction to make.

because TEPCO was so incompetent, they didn't know how to address the initial damage correctly.

Since we are being pedantic what caused the reactor facility to explode according to the report was a multitude of errors and willful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11 and serious deficiencies in the response to the accident by TEPCO, regulators and the government.

More importantly what the report highlights is the disaster was caused by the mindset that supported the negligence behind this disaster, the belief system that supported the errors in judgement that caused the facility to explode.

This is the mindset of Nuclear Ideologists.

Re:there will be more

[Luckyo]

>Measurements for seismic tolerance of Nuclear Reactors is expressed in Ground Acceleration, or Gal. Since you are unable to even communicate on this subject using appropriate measures it is unlikely that you have based your opinion on fact.

And measurements for entirety of the system are in magnitudes. If you can't read, and decide to be a mindless pedant on others noting that your pedantry is pointless, that's on you.

Hint: there's a whole lot to the system in addition to pressure vessel. Much of it is not even near the reactor. And no one gives a fuck if you reactor lives through something that its entire backup power system doesn't. Citation: the very event we're talking about.

>You are drawing a somewhat pedantic distinction between the reactor exploding and the reactor facility exploding, however I can agree it is a correct distinction to make.

Reactor is that pressure vessel and its immediate support systems that when they fail, you get actual nuclear event where nuclear materiel is ejected from the core. I.e. Chernobyl.

Not making this distinction shows lack of understanding of what nuclear power plants are and how they function. This is not pedantry in any way, because differential is highly relevant to the discussion of "dying from radiation related causes". Pedantry would be your pretending that tolerances for pressure vessel are somehow relevant to tolerances for the entire system, which is what was actually relevant in actual catastrophic event.

Citation is the same again. The very event we're discussing. No one actually cares that in the end, entire reactor system weathered the magnitude 9. But it did, even though it wasn't built for it.

>This is the mindset of Nuclear Ideologists.

So now, "Nuclear Ideologists" who are responsible for delivering these warnings are also responsible for not mitigating the impact of anti-nuclear zealots in Japan who blocked any modernisation nuclear power plants on ideological grounds and the culture of silence at TEPCO? Nice Kafka trap. I genuinely applaud how you managed to take the only people who were actually warning about real dangers, and make them the scapegoat in the name of your zealotry.

Re:there will be more

[Luckyo]

Of course they did. The entire thing was literally about utilizing yakuza to employ the unemployables for repairs.

And even so, this is literally the first death because of it. It's so nice when you argue against yourself. Quite a consistent thread for you, due to lack of even cursory understanding of the topic of power generation. A common thread of green zealots such as yourself, after all, why would you study heresy in detail? It's dangerous for your immortal soul!

Re: there will be more

[WindBourne]

Total BS. It was loss of electricity to run the pumps. This is an active system, unlike nuscale and others. Immediately after the earthquake, the active reactors automatically shut down their sustained fission reactions. However, the tsunami disabled the emergency generators that would have provided power to control and operate the pumps necessary to cool the reactors. The insufficient cooling led to three nuclear meltdowns, hydrogen-air explosions, and the release of radioactive material in Units 1, 2 and 3 from 12 March to 15 March. Loss of cooling also raised concerns over the recently loaded spent fuel pool of Reactor 4, which increased in temperature on 15 March due to the decay heat from the freshly added spent fuel rods but did not boil down to exposure.[8

Re: there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, admitted Japanese incompetence.
Strange that you still insist China get Japan to build it's nukes.

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

That's one of the funniest nuclear fanboi rants I've seen in a while.

Re:there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

due to lack of even cursory understanding of the topic of power generation.
Actually I'm a kind of expert for power generation, and distribution.

Re: there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

Why don't you google a bit more?
The flew in replacement genertors.
The ersatz generators could not cool the plants?
Why? Because the pipining system was destroyed by the quake.

This is all actually old news, we know that since shortly after the final desaster.

Re:there will be more

[Luckyo]

Your admission of defeat is duly noted.

Re:there will be more

[Luckyo]

Yes, I know that you consider yourself one. You already stated that Germany controls wind.

Re:there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

I did not state that Germany controls wind, you did.
Are you on drugs?

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

You delusional comments aren't exactly high on my to do list. Your needs aren't special. You can wait until I stop laughing.

Or you can continue to demonstrate your lack of impulse control, fine by me either way.

Re:there will be more

[cheesybagel]

There was a moratorium in China where work was basically stopped for 2 years after Fukushima to reevaluate the reactor designs. Then they required changes to the original designs. That's the cause of the 3 year delay. Also the Chinese first AP1000 and the first Chinese EPR reactor should become fully operational this year:
http://www.world-nuclear-news....
http://www.world-nuclear-news....

The first AP1000 reactor is delivering 100% power to the electric grid while the first EPR reactor is connected to the grid and has finished its first criticality test and will begin power up tests soon.

Re: there will be more

[WindBourne]

you might want to reread what happened.

Re: there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't all the generators that they had as backups, flew in as backups, and floated in on barges work then?

Re: there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

That is an age old post that never got fixed.

As I said now several times: we meanwhile know that the cooling system itself was broken. Hence the replacement diesel generators, that replaced the ones destroyed by the tsunami, could not cool the plant.

That actually is a no brainer. Why should replacement generators not work when the cooling system is fine?

Re: there will be more

[WindBourne]

Fine. Give us a real link that shows that the cooling system was broke. Even in wiki, it says otherwise.

Re: there will be more

[Mr D from 63]

Fine. Give us a real link that shows that the cooling system was broke. Even in wiki, it says otherwise.

angel'o'sphere won't give you a link. He fabricates stuff and then never backs it up. He just hopes nobody calls him out. I'm still waiting on him to explain his lie about the lung cancer hot spot.

Re: there will be more

[angel'o'sphere]

A few month a go someone, perhaps ShanghaiBill, gave a nice link about it on /.

But I have never bookmarked it, and I don't know with which keywords to search it. I'm sure if you actually were interested in the topic you allreay had found it.

Re: there will be more

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't the cooling system work if it wasn't broken and there were working generators available?

Re:there will be more

[MrKaos]

>Measurements for seismic tolerance of Nuclear Reactors is expressed in Ground Acceleration, or Gal. Since you are unable to even communicate on this subject using appropriate measures it is unlikely that you have based your opinion on fact.

And measurements for entirety of the system are in magnitudes.

No.

According to the NRC "Regulatory Guide for Reviewing Seismic Design of Nuclear Power Reactor Facilities" design basis earthquakes and operating basis earthquakes are measured in ground acceleration (Gal), ground velocity and ground displacement. In addition, the entirety of the system is not measured, different parts of the Reactor called S, B and C class facilities are weighted differently and certain ones must have higher tolerances for Ground Acceleration.

It's an understandable mistake you are making as you become familiar with the anti-seismic design characteristics of nuclear reactors, however, you are wrong.

If you can't read, and decide to be a mindless pedant on others noting that your pedantry is pointless, that's on you.

The NRC seems to think details are important or they wouldn't have three different classes of facilities engineered to handle different levels of ground acceleration.

Hint: there's a whole lot to the system in addition to pressure vessel. Much of it is not even near the reactor. And no one gives a fuck if you reactor lives through something that its entire backup power system doesn't. Citation: the very event we're talking about.

You mean like S,B and C grade facilities? And how Fukushima's "backup power system" meant one of these classes were in contravention of the design criteria. Which class was it and why is it important? Can you tell me? No.

>You are drawing a somewhat pedantic distinction between the reactor exploding and the reactor facility exploding, however I can agree it is a correct distinction to make.

Reactor is that pressure vessel and its immediate support systems that when they fail, you get actual nuclear event where nuclear materiel is ejected from the core. I.e. Chernobyl.

Material was ejected from the pressure vessel, through the bottom of the reactor. It was a known issue with that generation reactor, which is why the criteria existed, which is why Fukushima was an INES 7, which is why you are stating the obvious and trying to covertly claim that Fukushima didn't eject radio-isotopes, which it did. Most of it is still going into the ocean.

Not making this distinction shows lack of understanding of what nuclear power plants are and how they function. This is not pedantry in any way, because differential is highly relevant to the discussion of "dying from radiation related causes". Pedantry would be your pretending that tolerances for pressure vessel are somehow relevant to tolerances for the entire system, which is what was actually relevant in actual catastrophic event.

If you actually understood what you were talking about you would know that the entire disaster was predictable, the exact internal presssure of these reactors before failure and leaking is well known. As is the result of the failure and Fukushima failed *exactly* how it was predicted those plants would fail if design criteria wasn't adhered to. Even the explosion was predicted, though the energy of it suggests there may have been illegal activity occuring wrt fuel storage. Can you tell me the pressure or who established those criteria? No. The reason you don't know is because it was the pressure vessel *itself* exceeding its design basis as found by the American Society for Mechanical Engineers. The reactor was producing Hydrogen however there are a few other distinctions I understand that I don't think you do.

I understand that a General Electric Nuclear reactor of that design requires a constant supply of power due to the nature of th

So let's add up the 2011 earthquake damage:

[Anonymous Coward]

As a direct result of the earthquake, Japan's "National Police Agency has confirmed 15,896 deaths,[202] 6,157 injured,[203] and 2,537 people missing." source

And now there's this guy.

And yet, the stupid old powerplant is all that anyone pictures when we think about the disaster. I'm sure there was a poorly secured beam somewhere that killed more people than did this poorly designed and brutally battered nuclear powerplant from 1967.

Re:So let's add up the 2011 earthquake damage:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you understand that you are wrong in your estimation of what people in general care about. The death of one worker is nothing, to anybody.

Fukushima is interesting from a historical perspective, is all. Shows how excellent engineering can be compromised by stupid penny-pinching.

Re:So let's add up the 2011 earthquake damage:

[TeknoHog]

I also recall reports that thousands are dead because of the panic and rush of evacuation af Fukushima. IOW, the fear of radiation kills a lot more people than radiation itself. Meanwhile here in Finland, there are populated areas where the background radiation is stronger than some of the Fukushima evacuation areas. Still, people here have similarly irrational fear of radiation as everywhere else.

Robots

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish the robots had worked better, so that men didn't have to go into the plant.

No no no!

[thesupraman]

Did you not GET the memo?
We are required to be horrified, incensed, and reactionary to a death due to nuclear power.

Those 30,000 people who died form the tsunami, well, its really just natural causes, right? right?
Same for the massive property destruction, the families torn apart! None of that comes CLOSE to a single death due to the man made satan of nuclear power!

What we need is MORE reports of ANY form of radiation measurement, because ALL RADIATION KILLS.
We should check every basement! every banana!
This radiation is directly caused by mankind intentionally destroying the lovely natural Gaia we evolved in harmony with!

It MUST be STOPPED!

Instead we should burn lovely natural warming sweet delicious coal. Ok, so there is a little radiation release from that, but its nice NATURAL radiation, and anyway, the lung cancer is usually from the carcinogens in the soot, so it doesn't count! thats NATURAL cancer!

Re: No no no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop thinking coal. Coal will go away as soon Trump steps down from presidency. Think solar and batteries. No need for money burning, extremely harzadous unless hyper careful Nuclear.

Re:No no no!

[AmiMoJo]

The only time I've heard this kind of rant is from people like you complaining about it. TFA it's calmly noting a significant milestone in the saga of the Fukushima disaster, so where are you getting it from?

Re:No no no!

[Anonymous Coward]

We are required to be horrified, incensed, and reactionary to a death due to nuclear power.

Well, that AND the extremely high costs of nuclear. BTW, did you see the ROI of the Fukushima plant? Nuclear is safe and "cheap" provided you spend generously on safeguards and deity help you if mother nature or incompetence provide to f*ck it all up.

Re:No no no!

[Anonymous Coward]

The only time I've heard this kind of rant is from people like you complaining about it.

Well, the only I've heard your kind of condescending dismissal of other people's opinions as "rants" is from people like YOU.

where are you getting it from?

Maybe from the OP of this thread, who was trying to add to the body count to nuclear power? Or maybe he's seen other posts by people like you who, again, denigrate opposing opinions as "rants"?

Re:No no no!

[jd]

I know you're trying to write satirically (you need practice, btw) but it's worth pointing out that the tsunami is ultimately the cause of both disasters. That if the TEPCO officials responsible for securing the coastline had done a proper job, then there would have been no deaths from the tsunami (although possibly the earthquake) and no nuclear accident.

There is only one disaster here, not two, and it has nothing to do with either nuclear power or the tsunami. It has to do with a defective sea defense.

There will always be problems, but if you put in the proper safeguards, those problems need never be anything more than minor inconveniences. If there is ever a problem that is not a minor inconvenience, it is because those responsible for setting up the safeguards were a bunch of useless bloody loonies. B Ark material.

Re:No no no!

[wagnerer]

ROTFL. Give me a few milligrams for saccharin over a few mg of natural cyanide to the bloodstream.

Re:No no no!

[Luckyo]

What's the ROI on the rest of the region? Do compare apples to apples.

Re:No no no!

[angel'o'sphere]

It has to do with a defective sea defense.
You can build a high enough dike around a facility. The water will just flow around the dike then.

But you could not reasonably put an high enough dike around an island. A dike will just make the water rise higher, until it goes over the top. However it likely will prevent it to let flood to far into the hinterland.

What you can do and should do, is having buildings that can withstand the flood. With a safe zone on the roof and the upper levels.
Escape routes for humans.
Dikes directing the water away from towns to the fields.
Emergency procedures to warn the population in time. E.g. SMS based and warning lights on posts along the coast. More precisely on street lights and traffic lights.
Elevated save points that can harbour a few 1000 people.

You also could teach people some common sense ... the news about the quake was hours old when the Tsunami hit.

You're hatred of China is very strong

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bring China into this?
Is your hatred that extreme? Currently there are 5 mentions of the word China on the whole page(more obviously counting this post), all of them are in direct response to you.

Is it just troll bait to bring people out against you and make you look like the victim?

China is doing exactly the things you claim you want them to do.
Build nuclear
Reduce coal
Export nuclear instead of coal.
But you still have to take a swipe at them. What for? Karma whoring because you know the majority are as anti-China as you?

Re:Got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, the non-nuclear deaths for Tsunami 2011 is ~20,000. The argument remains the same.

You jest, but...

[Bonker]

You jest, but at this point, I think we'd get a lot more out of shuttering all our coal-based power-plants than yanking tobacco.

Most of the boomer smokers, many of whom took 'Tobacco is good for you' to their graves, are dead. Folks who smoke *today* don't only know they have it coming, but they've been told all about it by their doctors, teachers, and television for most if not all their lives. They're doing it to themselves and they know it.

What we need to address that problem is more education and recovery programs for tobacco addicts, just like with any other terribly addictive drug. (Opiate crisis deniers, I'm lookin' at you here.) Smokers need help. Blanket bans and kneejerks won't accomplish much.

While Nuclear plants need a hell of a lot more scrutiny than they're getting (Fukushima Daichi was a lot worse than it had to be because folks at Tokyo Electric Power Co were cuttin' corners to maximize personal profits -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...), they are, in general, ANGELS compared to the Coal industry.

For individuals, coal work is pretty damn deadly all on its own. Besides the twenty-odd thousand deaths from Black Lung (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalworker%27s_pneumoconiosis) each year, there are thousands of accidental deaths around the world in coal mines. We're actually a low point as safety regulations and technology advances. China is a pretty poor example compared to the U.S., which actually stays in the double digits these days. In 2013, the last year China has on public record, there were more than a thousand accidental deaths in coal mines. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_in_China#2013)

For communities, Coal Seam Fires are pretty damn serious problems, making whole towns uninhabitable. Coal fires dump 40 tons of mercury into the atmosphere, yearly, and are responsible for 3% of the worlds total CO2 emissions. They are, of course, almost, but not always triggered and/or made worse by mining. Imagine that!
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_seam_fire)

For the world as a whole, one of the major producers of CO2 emissions are hydrocarbon-/fossil fuel-burning electrical power plants. In the U.S., a little less than a third (28%) of our total CO2 emissions are from generating electricity. (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions) Additionally, about a third of our power is generated by Coal, and another third is generated by other fossil-fuel hydrocarbons including Natural Gas and Petroleum. (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)

Happily, the amount of renewable energy generated is growing and the amount of fossil-fuel energy is dropping. It's not enough, though. Nowhere NEAR enough.

If we just *bam* shut down all coal power-plants, (or better yet, Natural Gas plants too) and dealt with the economics of the situation, we'd take a massive bite out of our greenhouse gas emissions. I think the U.S. and most of Europe could do it as a whole, but that it may not be in the 'industrializing' world. We can hope that China manages. They talk a big gain, but, well, we know what kind of game China actually plays.

tl;dr: Global Warming is going to get a WHOLE lot worse before it gets better, and shutting down all our coal production would help a lot, and not just in that area.

Re:You jest, but...

[gnick]

They're doing it to themselves and they know it.

If you can show me an equally effective way to get the pot off my breath, then I'm all ears and I'll happily give them up. But driving while your breath smells like pot is illegal and I'm convinced people can't smell the cannabis under the tobacco.

Re: You jest, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Garlic.

Chew it.

Re: You jest, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions of new goal jobs thanks to Trump already.
#maga
Only losers don't have coal jobs anymore.

Take your blinders off and have another read.

[Anonymous Coward]

All from your own link...

There is some publicly available information about the problems suffered in China with the AP1000s, including continual design changes by Westinghouse. The reactor coolant pumps and the squib valves, which are essential to prevent accidents, have been particularly problematic, for example.
Still, China is expected to be the first country to complete construction of AP1000 and EPR designs, a scenario it did not expect or want. The government is required to develop and demonstrate test procedures for bringing the plants into service, which could take up to a year. These test procedures are developed by vendors and generally standardized, although national safety regulators must approve them and can add specific requirements.

So nobody else has ever done a better job...

Since 2013, China has turned its attention to nuclear export markets, offering apparently strong advantages over its competitors. The Chinese government can call on all the resources of China to offer a package of equipment, construction expertise, finance, and training that none of its rivals, even Russia, can match. Unlike its competitors, it also has a huge amount of recent construction experience allowing it to supply cheap, good quality equipment. Its attempt to build reactors in the U.K. is an important element to this strategy; convincing an experienced user of nuclear power that a Chinese plant is worth investing in is a strong endorsement of their technology.

Did you just skim the headline and assumed it would say what you wanted it to say?

You just have to try and push your anti-China slant everywhere.

Baseload

[aepervius]

You have got to compare comparable values. Until we get a fix for the storage problem, solar, wind, are offload only. Storage is STILL a problem as you can't without huge continual investment have battery which can sustain power for days. That leaves very few baseload energy generations : hydro (pretty much tapped out at least in 1st world countries) geothermo (pretty much only volcanic area) , tide (experimental and unused) carbon based (coal/gas/oil and arguably waste burning) and nuclear. If you SOLVE the storage problem then you will be revered. But at the moment all solutions we have (mechanical storage pumping water, electro storage with battery, chemical storage of power), none are really usable on massive scale. And that is WHY in spite of so many possibility of renewable, people still go for carbon/nuclear for baseload.

TL;DR : renewable are intermittent generation power and thus unusable as baseload. The storage problem is not yet solved.

Re:Baseload

[Anonymous Coward]

A minor correction of a common misconception: tidal is still an intermittent source, which is evident when you consider that tides are periodic. At least they are predictable, but do peak four times a day, which may or may not be coincident with demand.

Maintaining underwater systems is also a challenge with corrosion and fouling, and though they may be out of sight, they do have a substantial environmental footprint. All of the renewables do, because of their diffuse nature requiring massive collection infrastructure.

Re:Baseload

[angel'o'sphere]

are offload only.
What is that supposed to mean?

That leaves very few baseload energy generations
Baseload is aline on a graph. It does not care if it is generated by 24/7/365 plant at 95% or by a intermittent solar plant or wind plant.
Load following plants have to follow demand either around demand change or demand change + renewable change, who cares?

Unless you produce significantly more power than your base load line, you have no need or use for big storage.

blindseer - slashdot's Nuclear Narcissist

[MrKaos]

Nuclear power doesn't live in a vacuum, if it's not nuclear power then it's something far more deadly.

Most of the Nuclear Ideologists I've seen pale in comparison to the false reality you constantly push, mere fanbois and useful idiots. If you aren't being paid for your shilling, you should be.

Blindseer, you are indeed a Nuclear Narcissist.

Re:blindseer - slashdot's Nuclear Narcissist

[blindseer]

Where have I lied? How about instead of attacking the messenger you debate the message.

Here's just one of many places showing nuclear power to be safe. Go see figure 3.
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...

Re:blindseer - slashdot's Nuclear Narcissist

[jd]

Even solar is ultimately nuclear power. So is wind power. So is geothermal, as the heat from the core is from radioactive isotopes.

Fusion is better than fission, but even fission can be improved upon - yes, waste is highly radioactive, which means there's energy that you're not tapping. Besides which, the temperature you run the core and the isotopes you subject to fission (and how pure they are - nuclear fuel is 95-98% stuff that you don't want in there and which becomes the seriously problematic waste) will determine what waste you get. You have total control over these parameters. It's not the fault of the underlying technology that industry chooses to use stupid values for these parameters.

Coal, gas and oil are always stupid. There's nothing you can do to improve on them.

Ideally, we'd switch to fusion as that doesn't involve dumping toxic sludge across the planet in an effort to get rare earths. Fusion is entirely possible, but we've spent less money in the last 50 years on developing it than we've spent on subsidies for coal in just the last year alone.

Put those subsidies into fusion instead, THEN tell me in 10 years time that it can't be done. As long as people prefer to dump crap over the environment with coal, and to give trillions in subsidies to coal bosses for their new luxury car fleet, you won't see fusion working. As soon as they're willing to spend the money on the work, it'll happen.

BILL IS A MORON - THERE IS NO SAFE LONG TERM STORE

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill lies daily. There is no safe long term storage site yet, even as the faggot blathers AGAIN.

How do you prove that?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you prove that a particular cancer was caused by a particular thing? I know we are aware of several statistical risk factors, but we also know that correlation does not imply causation. TFA does not say how they proved that the cancer was caused by Fukushima radiation. In fact, TFA does say that he wore appropriate PPE, which would minimize the risk.

Re:This time they nuked themselves

[Mr D from 63]

This death is not medically attributed to Fukushima. It is simply the result of a legal requirement that all cancers in workers who worked at Fukushima and got a certain level of exposure be attributed to Fukushima so that they cover medical costs. Its a social/cultural thing they do,

‘Safety regulators say workers can be safely exposed to up to 50 millisieverts a year, but if a worker with an accumulated 100 millisieverts develops an illness after five years of exposure, that can be ruled an occupational injury. According to an expert cited by the Mainichi Shimbun, a daily newspaper, the man had been exposed to 74 millisieverts at the Fukushima plant since the accident.’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... ... ipad-share1

Medical science tells us that such a cancer is highly unlikely to be caused by exposures at these levels. There is a huge body of science to back this up.

Too easy to fool the media. Does anybody even think about the details.

The social problem

[Max_W]

There are simple effective measures which could solve the energy related issues including nuclear power-stations' safety. For example, introducing the compulsory office dressing code when temperature is higher than +25C, - business shorts, sandals, a shirt with short sleeves, no-tie.

Or allowing to dry laundry outdoors at dedicated spaces. Or limiting the heated/air-conditioned area of an apartment by 50 square meters per person in the architecture/construction code.

The weight of a personal car could be limited by say 1300 kg. We are trying to solve a social problem by technical means, but it is impossible. Human greed and vanity exceed even nuclear power.

long term study!

[Anonymous Coward]

cancer from radiation?
pshaw! nothing some chemo and MEOR radiation cannot fix: it is a well-known fact that radiation CURES cancer!

Re:This time they nuked themselves

[angel'o'sphere]

Medical science tells us that such a cancer is highly unlikely to be caused by exposures at these levels. There is a huge body of science to back this up.
Medical science tells us that the "level" is completely irrelevant if you inhale radioactive materials, especially plutonium. As he got lung cancer, Plutonium is a bit unlikely unless he got a very high dose.

If you had bothered to read the article: his lung has hot spots of radiation. He died to lung cancer ... go figure, you are really an idiot.

Re: This time they nuked themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Plutonium is more than highly unlikely, that plant is fueled with uranium.

Cradle to grave...

[Anonymous Coward]

A post above listed deaths from the coal industry, "cradle to grave," starting with mining and ending with decommissioning.
You can make the same list with nuclear power, or solar panels using a variety of mined metals, and so on.
In other words, if you point out the dangers of coal mining, it's only fair to point out the dangers of uranium mining, or arsenic mining, or chopping wood to make a waterwheel. Then on can make a "truer' safety comparison.
The winner (safest): conservation!

Re:This time they nuked themselves

[Mr D from 63]

If you had bothered to read the article: his lung has hot spots of radiation.

This is false. Did you make this up yourself or are you repeating something someone else fabricated? Cite your source if so.

Re:This time they nuked themselves

[Mr D from 63]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

Re:This time they nuked themselves

[Mr D from 63]

If you had bothered to read the article: his lung has hot spots of radiation.

I see you are still avoiding explaining why you fabricated this totally false statement and posted it. At least admit you made it up.

Re:This time they nuked themselves

[RockDoctor]

Does anybody even think about the details.

No. Next question?

Re:This time they nuked themselves

[angel'o'sphere]

No I did not make anything up, they mentioned the x-ray images, did they not?

Re:This time they nuked themselves

[Mr D from 63]

You fabricated the statement that "his lung has hot spots of radiation."

That was your lie, it is there for all to see. You are trying to change what you said because you know you've been caught making things up.

Just admit you made it up and I'll leave you alone.