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Fukushima: the Removal of Nuclear Fuel Rods From Damaged Reactor Building Begins (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Workers at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have begun removing fuel rods from a storage pool near one of the three reactors that suffered meltdowns eight years ago. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said on Monday that work had begun to remove the first of 566 used and unused fuel assemblies in reactor building No 3. The fuel rods stored in unit No 3's cooling pool were not damaged in the 2011 disaster, when a powerful earthquake and tsunami knocked out Fukushima Daiichi's backup power supply and triggered the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, 25 years earlier.
Tepco said the operation to remove the fuel rods, which are in uncovered pools, would take two years, adding that transferring them to safer ground would better protect them in the event of another catastrophic earthquake. Workers are remotely operating a crane to raise the fuel from a storage rack in the pool and place it into a protective cask. The whole process occurs underwater to prevent radiation leaks. The utility plans to repeat the procedure in the two other reactors that suffered meltdowns.
Tepco said the operation to remove the fuel rods, which are in uncovered pools, would take two years, adding that transferring them to safer ground would better protect them in the event of another catastrophic earthquake. Workers are remotely operating a crane to raise the fuel from a storage rack in the pool and place it into a protective cask. The whole process occurs underwater to prevent radiation leaks. The utility plans to repeat the procedure in the two other reactors that suffered meltdowns.
When are we going to find out that all the older reactors similar to Fukushima are shut down safely... Seriously, I have no great problem with the newer designs, but the older ones need phased out, not renewed.
The parent was posted by a troll. Obviously he's not the real BeauHD. However, when I click on his username from the desktop version of Slashdot, I get an error stating that the user doesn't exist. This prevents me from viewing his comment history, seeing his friends and foes, any stories he's submitter, or anything else done by this user account. Instead, I get text saying, "The user you requested does not exist, no matter how much you wish this might be the case."
That's an embarrassment. This bug has existed for months, at least, and Slashdot hasn't fixed it. This bug didn't exist previously. It used to be that Slashdot's source code was open sourced on SourceForge, allowing anyone to open a bug report, view the code, and suggest fixes. Is SourceForge that bad, or Slashdot's code such an embarrassment that management has decided not to release any new versions of the code?
Good lord this place has turned to shit. The editors should be embarrassed. Whipslash made so many promises to improve Slashdot, but he hasn't done a damn thing... except delete comments. What a joke...
Was very cool that they were able to image the internal state of the reactors with muon detectors. Those particles from some far away cosmic event from before the dinosaurs (in many cases) go through all that concrete, lead and come out the other side and hit detectors to provide an image of meltdown in just a couple of weeks of exposure. Amazing stuff.
to work on this.
This is some very welcome news in developments at Fukushima as the foundations of Unit 3 are damaged. Workers at Fukushima have already removed 1000 fuel rods IIRC from that reactor building due to concerns about what would happen if the building collapsed.
To get a better understanding of why its an urgent issue, a report called Nuclear Power Plant Security and Vulnerabilities explored vulnerabilities at nuclear power plants.
From that report the issue of spent fuel pool vulnerabilities warranted further study in the now declassified report Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report by the Committee on the Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage within the National Research Council. It details variations of scenarios created from vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks, however the potential outcomes are similar if they are initiated by a natural disaster.
The most sobering scenarios came from analyzing what happens from loosing the cooling water from a spent fuel pool. Spent fuel rods are kept in a pool with a constant supply of water because the water not only cools them, it moderates the neutrons so that they don't become critical. One scenario examined from loosing the cooling water was a plutonium fire that creates plutonium oxide in the smoke with reactors that are MOX fueled, such as Unit 3 was. With several hundred tons of fuel it would be the largest plutonium fire we have ever faced, it would also be in open air.
You can find information about plutonium oxidization Evaluation of source-term data for plutonium aerosolization which starts at around 500 centigrade. I think that because of the proximity to the sea, plutonium chloride would also be created.
Actions to reduce the possibility of these kinds of scenarios are simple and cost effective. Mainly by dry cask storing fuel that has cooled for 5 years and separating and dispersing spent fuel recently removed from the reactor throughout the pools of reactors that are still operating. All very practical, affordable actions for reducing this risk of reactors that are still operating.
Information about the fuel removal process and the damage to the Unit 3 spent fuel pool in Tepco's Fukushima spent fuel removal plan.
There is very little point arguing about Nuclear power from an idealistic viewpoint. To idealize that nuclear power is perfect and requires no improvements means that the nuclear industry cannot evolve legal requirements for new processes. This, according to the official report into the Fukushima accident, is the main reason the disaster occurred.
So this is a great time to commend the workers and engineers at the Fukushima plant and express gratitude for their efforts to get this disaster under control. Thank you!!!!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Yeh, damn NIMBY's causing Fukushima with their pseudo-regulatory barriers.
Solar's also dangerous! What if a solar panel fell and landed on a bird, it could chop the bird in two!...
NIMBY's kill birds!
Boron (boric acid) does not prevent splitting of water (which happens at a low enough rate anyway). It's used to reliably shut down the chain reaction, boron is a great neutron poison and borated water is an easy way to deliver it into the core.
As I said, water radiolysis even at full power is generally negligible. The danger is in steam-zirconium reaction, that happens when fuel rods lose cooling and fuel temperature rises past about 800C. This is a purely chemical reaction - zirconium displaces oxygen from water, releasing hydrogen.
"So even with the bad old nuclear designs from the 50s to 70s that we currently use are better than any other energy source. " = HORSESHIT, moron! Falling off a roof is NOT A RESULT OF ANY POWER SOURCE yet is tabulated as one?
You are dumber than you ought to be given what you've invested time to know halfway. NOBODY DIED AS A RESULT OF SOLAR OR WIND POWER TECHNOLOGIES. They threaten nobody ongoing! Nuclear can't say that.
When dishonest faggots like you try to pretend the likelihood of morons falling off their roof proves industry-investment-dying nuclear power is somehow "safer" than anything else, you know you've hit rock bottom of the slag pool.
To date, 440 workers have died installing solar panels. 150 have died installing wind turbines on windmills. Do you ever get tired of being wrong? And since those sources provide fuck all worth of power, when you divide to calculate deaths by terawatt hour you get that solar kills several times more people than nuclear. But yea, do go on and give us your completely uninformed opinion and continue to insist your guesses are equal to data and years of experience in the field.
Years from now, after nuclear finally gets us off of fossil fuels, how do you think your children or grandchildren will think of environmentalists from now? I bet that years from now, historians will lump you in with anti-vaxers (pro-plaguers), flat earthers and Trumpers. All of those groups deny basic data and facts and do so in the fact of that information for years. All of those groups have leaders who know that they are wrong and only care about that sweet, sweet donation money. Do you think the folks that run environmental lobbying groups actually want a solution to climate change? Don't get in the way of that money train dear.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
You are not a nuclear engineer. You do not understand the problem with the nuclear industry is twofold, that it's got a lot of cleanup it can't afford and renewable power is cheaper, cleaner, and projects ramp up incomparably faster.
There's almost no risk associated with renewable power investment, which is why it's exploding while nuclear is shuttering. Because the cost of operating nuclear power as-is is a socialist national-grade investment need.
You either account for that up front, or you stop pretending the subsidized power is artificially cheap, but you will be made to stop lying about it here one way or another.
As if nuclear spills/leaks/meltdowns compared to the risk of falling off a roof if careless or done on a budget, you dishonest and complete fucking moron lol.
To date, 440 workers have died installing solar panels. 150 have died installing wind turbines on windmills.
Uhm..
If you think it is perfectly normal to equate self inflicted deaths with deaths caused by someone else then I feel that you need to reconsider your ethics somewhat.
Everyone has the right to not take the necessary safety precautions when their own life is on the line.
When it comes to dam construction and nuclear power plants you put other peoples lives on the line.
Driving drunk on your private road is OK, you are only risking you own life.
Driving drunk on a public road is not OK, you are putting other peoples lives at risk.
Why should THEY be dishonored when it was the TEPCO executives responsible for this mess? The engineers can only do what they have the budget to do, and unless they get funding, plans, and approval to make modifications to the plant, they are for the most part stuck following procedure. In this case both the plant and procedures were flawed for the situation that arose, but the mitigations required to have avoided the event would have required reengineering the generator locations, changing failsafe designs around the reactors, and expecting a tsunami as big as hit to happen. None of those were within the operating engineers or workers abilities to change. They could only try and hold the place together within the scenario they had been given. The fact that the whole plant didn't melt down completely in a chernobyl-like fashion, complete with an ion fountain seems pretty good in my book. It would have been better if it didn't melt down at all, but that is on the TEPCO officials who should have been saving money towards seawall improvements and earthquake reinforcements 20,30,40 years before this happened. Those reactors were so far beyond their rated lifetime it wasn't funny. And lets not forget the regional government or the Diet in these discussions. They certainly have their share of blame in not better overseeing TEPCOs operations or helping securing funding for needed improvements. But Japanese leadership is just as corrupt as American leadership toward, as the sun shifts from the East and sets in the west, towards China not Japan. Maybe it's time for Japan to give some serious thought on how to make the metaphoric sun rise from the East again.
Why not? They use mining deaths when factoring in fossil fuels. Let the installation deaths be used for stats - either there is something that needs to be addressed if it is significant, or there is nothing of significance and you can laugh at anti-solarists grasping at straws.
"They use mining deaths when factoring in fossil fuels" - Who does? The risk to THE PUBLIC is what we're talking about, mining deaths are nothing. Nuclear disasters potentially affect THE ENTIRE SOCIETY.
Solar panels being installed by literally anyone, anywhere are no more dangerous than any other roof work and demonstrably less than many. It's just stupid and dishonest to pretend "solar power" was causing the deaths there.
Propagandist shit from a constant propagandist, sfcat.
The way you pepper "faggot" throughout your text shows that you're just recycling text and arguements that you don't understand in order to troll and crapflood. Try again. Or better yet, just go away.
We've been lucky we only have a few ongoing distasters. The obvious trouble with nuclear is ramp-up and ramp-down. TCO until safer and cleaner processes are created seems not favourable. Humans simply have no way to account for hundreds of years of waste disposal or half-life of 10K years. The biggest trouble with better and cleaner nuclear is weaponization though, proliferation of such designs would mean guaranteed end of the human lifeform.
How many have died as a result from the radiation released by Fukushima? There have been some death's during the cleanup because people have fallen off high ledges, buried in gravel etc... So from your point of view we should not count them... So then we have 0 death's after the second worst nuclear disaster, that was caused by building in a tsunami/earthquake danged zone and not following the recommendations on building requirements. If they would have built it a bit more inland that would have been a lot safer.
Chernobyl - Idiotic, and untrained, humans that bypassed the all safety systems and realised it was running out of control at the last minute, but at that point it was already too late.. here we have a few thousands of people that died..
Solar - Sure it's a nice addition, but will never be able to provide enough power for the world.... Releases quite a bit of toxic pollutants during production and recycling. (and we would have to produce a shitload to produce a fraction of the world's energy-consumption.)
Wind - Sure it's a nice addition, but will never be able to provide enough power for the world... Requires a very built out grid since you have to place these quite a bit apart for good production. Affects wild-life and also produce noise-pollution all around it... Quite a large area around it is not suitable for living any more... Perhaps sea-based wild-farms can help a bit, but building at sea and maintaining it will cost both in used fossil fuel and human lives.
Hydro - have killed many more people than nuclear ever has for less power produced. Does also release quite a bit of CO2.
Geothermal - Sure it's a nice addition, but cannot be expanded to provide enough power for the world. (Not even a theoretical possibility)
Extra benefits - produces a lot of extra heat that can be used for central heating.
Coal power - kills around 3 million people in the world *every year*. Spews out a shitload of CO2.
Extra benefits - produces a lot of extra heat that can be used for central heating.
Nuclear - No CO2 neutral, new designs could be used to reduce the amount of waste we already have, and still produce power, and fully remove the risk of a meltdown. Kills fewer people. No environmental impact around it. Does cost quite a bit to build the current versions, but that could drop quite a bit with newer ones.. Technology can be shared without risking nuclear weapon proliferation.
Extra benefits - produces a lot of extra heat that can be used for central heating. Produces quite needed radioactive isotopes needed by hospitals and for research.
* typed with auto-spell enabled... try to see past any weird sentences.
But you have to mine for the metals and other things that go into solar/wind etc... You have pollution released during mining and production/recycling of these... and you need a shitload of them to be able to provide a small amount of the worlds energy. Not to mention pollution from production/recycling for the needed batteries.
I'm not against safety regulation, but i'm against non-scientific ways to prevent nuclear-plants from being built and secured, and there is a shitload of this going on..
Nuclear is probably the only way if we want to reduce the amount of CO2 we release per year while not reducing our energy-needs.
Way to spin this you idiot.
The post you are responding to didn't say the industry should be deregulated at all, they said that the current regulations are incomparable with the state of the art of nuclear design.
Politicians often make such stupid rules. Rules that stifle innovation and the adoption of new technologies. The NRCC is similar, in that they have developed a set of regulations based on technologies from the 1950's and have made it harder to adopt safer alternatives. This is clearly true of the regulatory structure today.
However, the "problem" with nuclear power today is more the public relations issue that comes with all the regulations and the price of alternative like Natural Gas. Who wants to take the risk and engage the PR fight? With Natural Gas being so abundant and priced so low, nuclear power isn't worth the risk. In fact, it's natural gas that's killing off nuclear power as we know it now.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You must be new here....
Not sure about solar panels. Building and maintaining a windmill and accidents associated with windmills should not be ignored. Especially if you people count every death as caused by burning coal and gasoline even if there is no proof of that. It is just a matter of using the same methods or else you cannot compare things. You can compare apples and pears if you use a firm method of comparison - shape, taste, color, texture etc. You can compare these. You can compare price. You just take comparable measurements that have been done in well defined way so that anybody can repeat these. If so then number of deaths coal or nuclear caused shall be compared also with people that fell off the windmill while working in engine console. But in times of postmodernist science you do not need to do that, right?
"Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima" by James Mahaffey is another enlightening source on what and why goes and could go wrong.
By this reasoning we should all be buying super-cheap consumer items produced by political prisoners in repressive countries....
Oh.
This report should show you EXACTLY why we dont go all in on nuclear. We dont even have a long term plan for storing the fucking waste. How do you build a storage facility that is intended to last 10,000 years??? FYI, our civilization is only about 6,500 years old.
Good-bye
I only have a little information on this whole Fukushima-Daiichi decommissioning process, but the "Ichi-F" manga by Kazuto Tatsuta (pseudonym) helped me get some perspective on the whole situation. The cleanup seems really well organized (at the time it was depicted) and TEPCO appeared to take every precaution with their workers.
Yes, I also know it could be manufactured propaganda, but it seems truthful to me. Judge for yourselves.
> Especially if you people count every death as caused by burning coal and gasoline
Go ahead, prove gasoline is safe: park your car in a closed garage and and start the engine.
In fact, it's natural gas that's killing off nuclear power as we know it now.
... and revenge is coming as grid battery storage is killing off natural gas peaker plants due to batteries having faster response times and lower cost. The energy coming from nuclear and renewables.
Also distributed battery storage will benefit nuclear power such as electric vehicles during the night as the off-peak baseload level will increase.
To date, 440 workers have died installing solar panels. 150 have died installing wind turbines on windmills.
Next up a discussion of the safest vehicle ever - the Space Shuttle.
Of course, that assessment depends on whether you use total distance travelled, or deaths per launch.
So is it 14 deaths for 537,114,016 miles travelled, 14 deaths for 833 total riders, or 14 deaths for 135 flights?
I really think that deaths is a rather silly metric for people to try to defend nuclear power generation safety. You can't get any agreement on total deaths, should deaths in the supply chain be counted?
It's probably better to look at the physical effects that occur when a nuclear power plant decides to spew it's contents.
Which effects suddenly look a lot different than if a wind tower or solar panel fails.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So what's the long term plan to store the heavy metals and the byproducts from solar panel production?
To date, 440 workers have died installing solar panels. 150 have died installing wind turbines on windmills.
Of course, that assessment depends on whether you use total distance travelled, or deaths per launch.
So is it 14 deaths for 537,114,016 miles travelled, 14 deaths for 833 total riders, or 14 deaths for 135 flights?
Next up a discussion of the safest vehicle ever - the Space Shuttle.
You are misleading with a bad analogy.
A Space Shuttle is used to get stuff to an orbit. So the correct metric is number of deaths per kg delivered to the given orbit. Trying to count it per mile travelled is completely stupid because travelling around Earth is not the goal of Space Shuttle.
On the other side, counting number of death per kWh is the correct metric in energy production area. The goal of a power plant is to produce energy. So we must count it per kWh.
Of course it depends. You can bend statistics to mean what you want them to which is why we look at the primary purpose of an activity.
The space shuttle's primary purpose was not to commute, it's to get something somewhere so deaths per person / equipment would be a suitable metric. Quite unlike say powerplants which we don't build just for shits and giggles, but rather to generate power.
But sure we don't like deaths. Let's play with your metrics. A nuclear plant spewing its contents have devastated a small amount of land in a couple of countries. Most other power sources are in the process of devastating the planet, or in the case of coal and oil have devastated far more physical land through mining and through various accidents from tailings storage than nuclear has, oh and let's not forget the people killed and the environment made unlivable through hydro both in normal operation and when it goes wrong.
I hope you remember "metric shopping" when you think about solar and wind during a windstill night.
But common, this is lame. Let's go full penis measuring. Why not go for individual structures measured, or number of birds killed in flight, or number of annoyed janitors brushing dust off PV panels. I mean the only thing we can really agree on is that whatever narrative "the other side" is using is a shitty metric.
By the way my post contained more words than yours so clearly it's the better post too.
You are wrong. They died because they fell while installing solar panels or wind turbines. If they would not install them they would live. The reason they are dead is solar and wind energy.
Just to be clear, this is just cleaning up [part of] the mess that was lying around before the disaster. This is making absolutely zero progress on the actual cleanup, it's just cleaning up things that should have been cleaned up long ago.
Spent fuel rods lying around in pools is proof positive that nuclear is bullshit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We only store nuclear waste because it's valuable. Once it has been idle for about 5 years (and usually spent fuel is left onsite, often in the reactor, for that time) it's just run-of-the-mill industrial waste. Not something to be taken lightly, but no heroic measures are required either.
"Superfund" sites of all kinds are generally caused by carelessness (or deliberate cheapness) onsite when the waste is produced. Reactor designs that make it easy to get those first 5 years right are a good thing.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
LOL...
Natural Gas is *cheap*. It's actually Cheaper than any other source out there if you look at the entire life cycle costs of the plant. That kind of throws a wrench in your fantasy land view of the electrical generation world. Nuclear plants are being killed off by the lower cost of NG, even for base load.
It just makes sense (and cents) to use the cheapest source for power. Natural gas is that source and thanks to fracking, will continue to be the cheapest source for decades, barring regulatory changes.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The risk to THE PUBLIC is what we're talking about, mining deaths are nothing.
Read that again. What sort of unpeople are you happily shipping to the death camps? It's the working class, isn't it. You're looking for power generation that only kills the working class, right? Because they are "nothing"?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Well,
I mean.. if it's radioactive enough to be dangerous, it could still be used for fuel. Go far enough down the line with reprocessing and that waste goes from having a half-life of 10,000 years down to about 100.
Thank you Jimmy Carter.
I'm calling BS on this..
IF you look at the total life cycle cost of various industrial sources of electrical energy, Natural Gas is the cheapest. The only way renewables compete is though tax breaks, carbon surcharges, subsidies and accounting slight of hand (where they conveniently *forget* to include the total life cycle costs). https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/a... does a better job.
Renewables do NOT win on numbers. Never have and it's unlikely they ever will in my lifetime if you do a full cost accounting.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
To date, 440 workers have died installing solar panels. 150 have died installing wind turbines on windmills.
Of course, that assessment depends on whether you use total distance travelled, or deaths per launch.
So is it 14 deaths for 537,114,016 miles travelled, 14 deaths for 833 total riders, or 14 deaths for 135 flights?
Next up a discussion of the safest vehicle ever - the Space Shuttle.
You are misleading with a bad analogy.
This is not an analogy, and was never meant to be an analogy. it is how data can be misconstrued. I was asking specifically which data set the poster wanted to use. It's just like airline miles. Very safe by miles flown, but if you have a crash, you're gonna die unless you get really lucky.
A Space Shuttle is used to get stuff to an orbit. So the correct metric is number of deaths per kg delivered to the given orbit.
Tell us about Columbia. It got everything to orbit quite nicely Not back to earth. Seriously my friend, your calling my example a bad analogy, while completely dismissing what happens to peopel when their vehicle disintegrates after any thing in the weight delivered to orbit is rather distressing.
Trying to count it per mile travelled is completely stupid because travelling around Earth is not the goal of Space Shuttle.
I'm not the one claiming per mile is the proper metric. Take it up with airline industry apologists.
On the other side, counting number of death per kWh is the correct metric in energy production area. The goal of a power plant is to produce energy. So we must count it per kWh.
What do we do when the costs are not merely death?
You show the exact reason why people do not trust the rabid pro nuc people. I only point out that your arrogance and dismissing of any of those people who might not march in lockstep as stupid is just another reason why they trust Pro nuc activities like they would trust Jerry Sandusky to babysit their prepubescent son. Good luck, tell everyone they are stupid and that you know that everything is safe.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'm with you on needing to get off of carbon and needing to use nuclear to get there. But our current production reactors suck. The default unattended state is one that displaces hundreds or thousands of people for 10,000 years. There are plenty of good designs that are safer than what we have, which is great. However, when they DO work as designed, they produce a waste product that will last longer than the written word has existed. There is no plan to manage this waste other than let it pile up at the place it is made. Many of these sites are not geographically stable, certainly won't be for 10,000 years. Some are even near the ocean which can contaminate vast swaths of the planet over time if a leak were to occur. Environmentalists now are rightly concerned about these problems which do not have a good solution. It is exceedingly difficult to put this kind of waste somewhere where it won't be bothered for 10,000 years. The pyramids are only 4,500 years old and they've been found, gutted, studied, destroyed, etc, despite clear written warnings not to disturb the contents. We can't say for certain there will even be a scientifically minded society a thousand years from now, nevermind 10,000 years from now. Even if the language could be read, it could sound just like the frantic hand waving curse placed on the pharaoh's tomb and won't be taken seriously.
Nuclear.. The ore literally leaps out of the ground with no damage due to mining and refines itself. It is so magical.
You have to mine a metal for nuclear power too.
And for pressure vessels, containment, etc.
You are incorrect and your numbers are a decade old. Gas is only even competative because it's are record low prices of ~$2/mbtu. Historic prices for gas are triple that.
Wind generated power is already cheaper than the average natural gas price generated power without subsidy. And at the rate both Wind and PV solar are dropping in price both will be cheaper than gas generated power (using average gas prices not spot lows) when both subsidies expire in 2024.
And of course gas prices aren't stable, they can fluctuate quite a bit. Though we may have an oversupply of natural gas at the moment which has driven gas prices to record lows, the export terminals that are constructed and under construction are sure to reverse the trend and $6/mbtu gas is probably right around the corner.
One of the strengths of renewable energy is the lack of an input cost, once the facility is constructed the power generated will only be a function of the capital installation costs and maintenance, there is no fuel input cost. So that super cheap wind power built today will be even cheaper in 25 years when the construction costs are amortized out.
By the way my post contained more words than yours so clearly it's the better post too.
Well, that goes without saying. 8^)
I know I piss off a lot of people in here with being a Cassandra about nuc power generation. I'm not really anti-nuc power. But many of the pro nuc people need a kick in the ass to allow reality to set in.
Anti nuc people are not necessarily stupid. Accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima happened. The common element between each was hubris. It might be sobering to think that without the hubris of the guy in charge of the reactor that fateful evening, the RBMK reactors might still be running today. Without the terrible siting decision and the insane decision to build seawalls that were lower than Tsunami that were 100 percent certain to happen, the Fukushima reactor complex would probably be running just fine today (I say probably because there was some question whether the earthquake cracked the containment structure.
People are the weak factor, and hubris is the instrument of failure.
We can argue about metrics all day long. But when these things go kablooey (technical term) they make a helluva mess, and take land that people can make use of and support an economy with without of the picture for a long time.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Wind and solar are cheap only because they can rely on the grid as a storage. That will not work when they represent a large fraction of all energy production.
YOU DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS. Renewables are the only way to reduce c02 in the next 50 years unless you have TRILLIONS TO DONATE, SOCIALIST BENEFACTOR? PAY UP OR SHUT UP MORON.
Nuclear is probably the only way if we want to reduce the amount of CO2 we release per year while not reducing our energy-needs.
Unfortunately, this: one need not like fission (it gives me the creeps) but the above observation simply can't be argued with.
Yes, but uranium mining is an automated process (by necessity), and AFAIK none of that process involves leaving uranium ore lying around to contaminate runoff.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Xcell energy last summer received competitive bids for 25 year energy supply contracts for Solar and Wind Plus storage that was lower than gas, coal and all other forms of energy.
The Wind + storage bids were at ~3cents/kwh, significantly less than the ~4cents/kwh than a modern combined stage gas generator bid. Solar with storage was nearly the same cost at natural gas. And again, that cost is fixed one constructed and is not dependent on an input fuel cost.
>Nuclear disasters potentially affect THE ENTIRE SOCIETY
They don't. Please remember that during the cold war, the US and Russia were exploding test bombs left and right and it was no big deal. Some of those bombs even fizzed, and just dropped a ton of nuclear material in the ocean. Whoops, but nobody died. There are nuclear submarines that have imploded, just sitting on the sea floor with exposed cores. Oh well, not worth the trouble to recover though. Chernobyl was probably the worst possible reactor your could design. It was practically built to explode and cause maximum damage. And it did, to much worry and little effect. Sure, the general area is uninhabitable, but a few miles out and it's fine. It hurt some people living near by, and killed workers sent in by sociopathic leaders to shovel material out.
Fukushima barely registers compared to the above. Two workers died, but if they were standing outside they would have died just as well along with the the other 16,000 dead from the tsunami. It's been an economic disaster for the Japanese government. They're paying for the negligence as they rightfully should.
But THE ENTIRE SOCIETY!!?!?
Not so much. Every nuclear accident has been a roughly localized issue. People love to go on about how the nuclear material can be detected at a 1 part per billion across the ocean, but good gravy, it's meaningless as far as health impact. You're still getting a far higher radiation dose from eating a banana than eating a Japan sourced Pacific tuna. Watch the mercury though!
The truth about nuclear, is it's the safest energy source we can deploy at a large scale. Only hydro and geothermal surpass it, and of course they can't be utilized everywhere.
And almost every death counted in the deaths per TWh figure for nuclear are industrial accident deaths. Like falling off a ladder, or getting roasted by high pressure steam out of a cracked pipe (the same stuff that happens at any other power plant). These things don't happen often because nuclear power workers are highly trained and use PPE. Nobody can afford to have these people work on residential roofs, so you get some guy who was never shown how to use a harness.
Nuclear plant workers aren't walking into work and getting bathed in radiation. Most of them receive far less radiation in the plant than they would just standing outside. Most of them receive far less radiation than a guy who travels transcontinental once a month for business and spends a few hours less protected by the magnetosphere than normal.
Oh? Perhaps you should do some research first.
I'm not saying that the drawbacks of solar outweigh the benefits, but their is a pollution problem in the manufacture and disposal of solar panels, and some of those products don't degrade, since their toxicity is due to them being heavy metals. If nuclear is held to the standard that we need a long term plan to store its waste, shouldn't solar meet the same standard?
The way you pepper "faggot" throughout your text shows that you're just recycling text and arguements that you don't understand in order to troll and crapflood. Try again. Or better yet, just go away.
Right. But you replied to the wrong comment, Cmdln.
"So what's the long term plan to store the heavy metals and the byproducts from solar panel production?
Those byproducts don't exist, moron."
Perhaps you should bother to educate yourself before spouting off like a fool.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/m...
https://www.cleanenergywire.or...
https://principia-scientific.o...
https://spectrum.ieee.org/gree...
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
I bet that years from now, historians will lump you in with anti-vaxers (pro-plaguers), flat earthers and Trumpers.
I'll take that bet regarding Trumpers.
I'll also offer my own bet that historians wont care that much about Trump/Trumpers, but one small point of interest will be the sensationalized media coverage (i.e., comey hearing hype, russian collusion, etc.). Basically all that "we gottem now" stuff that never materialized and caused people to lose trust in a lot of media sources (like clickbait does).
You are incorrect and your numbers are a decade old.
Did you even LOOK at the study? It's based on numbers from 2018 and projects an industrial scale power plant's cost per megawatt hour that goes into service in 2022 or later. My numbers are NOT out of date or a decade old. They are from last year.
Also, there is a HUGE difference between "scheduled" and "unscheduled" power generation here too. IF you have to store power generated by say solar panels to get you though the night (because solar is NOT scheduled capacity) then it goes from just more expensive to WAY overpriced. Unscheduled resources are useful only as long as you need the power when they provide it, if you have to store power, you just added huge levels of expense to convert that unscheduled resource into one you can schedule.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
BS...Receiving competitive bids on some hair brained idea is one thing.. Actually BUILDING it is quite another.
I dare say they didn't find a viable builder who could do what you claim for anything more than a tiny fraction of their customer's usage and Xcell will be turning a lot of natural gas into electrical power even if they build this thing.
So... Do you have a citation to make here? I'd love to see which idiots think they can do this at that price and how they got to their numbers. Somehow I get the feeling they left a whole bunch of costs out of their calculations or are depending on subsidies and tax abatements to make up the difference, but without seeing their bid, all we have is your opinion of it.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You write "the water not only cools them, it moderates the neutrons so that they don't become critical." This makes no sense. Moderating materials increase the potential for criticality.
In a nuclear reactor, "moderation" is the process of slowing rapid neutrons (emitted by fission) so they are more likely to be absorbed by a fissile nucleus.
Graphite and heavy water are pure moderators; they slow neutrons without absorbing any significant amount. Light water moderates, but also absorbs, requiring some careful design to ensure that the water heating and expanding (or boiling) doesn't create unstable positive feedback.
P.S. a free copy of that report may be found at Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage.
The Fukishima cleanup cost 187 billion Dollars and counting.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Solar - Sure it's a nice addition, but will never be able to provide enough power for the world.... Releases quite a bit of toxic pollutants during production and recycling. (and we would have to produce a shitload to produce a fraction of the world's energy-consumption.)
Solar + grid tie + better battery tech + natural gas, including power plants + much better insulation required, and if need be subsidized + more public transport and trains. Well all that combined is my guess. Sure you still get co2 with natural gas, but you get less, so might be okay for now. While I'm not against modern nuclear, so far its just seems to be incredibly expensive, one way, or another.
My quick numbers for solar were like 100W per square foot. Even if that is high, the potential is certainly there...
All byproducts, stay in the factory ...
So: no there are no byproducts to be disposed off. Solar panels are made from silicon dioxyde. Then doted with those "byproducts".
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Perhaps you simply should read how solar panels are made instead of spreading your FUD?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I hate to slap you on this, but I'm in the process of installing a solar system right now. With my typical power usage, it wouldn't be cost effective without the tax incentive that I'll get for installing it. My system is rather small since I don't use a lot of power, but it's going to cost me 12K after tax incentives. During the expected lifetime of the system, I would have used about 16K worth of electricity. The pre-rebate cost is 18K. Now, there's the argument of electricity getting more expensive, but then at the same time, the money I'm spending on the system could have been invested and it doesn't take much of a return to beat the increase in cost of electricity.
How do you measure the ROI when returns are 'hippy chick pussy'?
I'll accept their are additional costs...lies will have to be told, hippy pussy will have to be washed. Duh!
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I installed a 9.5KV solar system in 2017. My ROIC (return on invested capital) is running 9.25% with the tax credits and 5.25% without. Both are far better returns then I could get putting the money in the bank or long term deposits. As power cost increases over the years to follow my return will increase. At my current rate of return my system will be paid for in 10 years and I have a 25 year warranty on the panels.
The only thing that would beat that return is investing in the market with significant additional risk.
There's nothing more silly than calling competitive open bidding for power purchase contracts a hair brained idea.
You clearly don't understand either the power market, competitive commercial bidding or how any of this works. Either that or you are a communist who hates the free market. Take your pick.
Congrats on conflating workers who voluntarilly choose to work in risky jobs for money with members of the public who have little choice in being exposed to pollution. They arent in the same category.
Apparently youve never heard of uranium tailings.
This is not an analogy, and was never meant to be an analogy.
You're comparing your hypothetical metric of travel safety with his metric of energy production safety in order to prove a point about how "data can be misconstrued". https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%20analogy
It's just like airline miles. Very safe by miles flown, but if you have a crash, you're gonna die unless you get really lucky.
Are you suggesting that airline travel is not the safest form? If you need to go somewhere 300 miles away, the plane will get you there with less chance of death. This is statistical fact.
What do we do when the costs are not merely death?
Come up with statistics that take into account whatever other cost you're considering? If you can articulate and categorize these other costs we may be able to objectively compare energy production with the new metric.
You show the exact reason why people do not trust the rabid pro nuc people.
You'll probably never be able to admit this to yourself, but you fit in perfectly with the dumb NIMBY crowd that keeps us from having nice things. You haven't come up with a single coherent argument. I can only hope that somewhere, deep in your subconscious probably, you feel at least a little bit bad about holding back the human race.
This is not an analogy, and was never meant to be an analogy.
You're comparing your hypothetical metric of travel safety with his metric of energy production safety in order to prove a point about how "data can be misconstrued". https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%20analogy
It's just like airline miles. Very safe by miles flown, but if you have a crash, you're gonna die unless you get really lucky.
Are you suggesting that airline travel is not the safest form? If you need to go somewhere 300 miles away, the plane will get you there with less chance of death. This is statistical fact.
This is getting like arguing with a sack of weasels. This is exactly how stats can be lies If we take say, Chernobyl as metric, your stats should prove that there was no damage , or that it was not relevant even if there was a little bit of inconsequential damage that cause no one any problems. Of course, that is a trap, so you don't have to answer.
When in fact, a reactor that is sitting there, quietly generating power is just about as green as you can get. Have a picnic in the grass growing just outside the containment building. But if and when an accident happens, it makes a helluva mess. But the more rabid pro-nuc kooks just ignore the mess, and move to whatever stat they think makes people forget the damage done.
What do we do when the costs are not merely death?
Come up with statistics that take into account whatever other cost you're considering? If you can articulate and categorize these other costs we may be able to objectively compare energy production with the new metric.
Land that is removed from use. When this happens, money is lost. Evacuating people. They aren't dead, but it costs a lot of money. Reparations for lost property. Remediation costs. Chernobyl's replacement sarcophagus cost 2.35 Billion Euros. 5 percent of the Ukraine budget and 6 percent of the Belarus budget is going to reparations to 7 million people. 330,000 people were kicked out of their homes and property, and resettled elsewhere. The exclusion zone removed a lot of land from production. I'm not sure that we can figure out the initial cost in the panic that ensued right after it happened.
But here's the rub. Why does the Price Anderson Liability indeminification act exist? Seems like the safest mode of power production shouldn't need my tax dollars to clean up the accidents that some think won't happen.
Funny - in a world where the Government bails you out because otherwise you couldn't get insurance that y'all bawl and whine and complain about the terrible insufferable NIMBY's and how mean they are to you because of regulations. Itr's unfair!
You show the exact reason why people do not trust the rabid pro nuc people.
You'll probably never be able to admit this to yourself, but you fit in perfectly with the dumb NIMBY crowd that keeps us from having nice things. You haven't come up with a single coherent argument. I can only hope that somewhere, deep in your subconscious probably, you feel at least a little bit bad about holding back the human race.
Yeah - I only spent a fair amount of my career working with NucE's, and a little bit of time in a reactor environment - for what that is worth. Also funny how we're all pro nuc power, but think that people like you don't realize that you are the exact reason why people don't trust you and your ilk. Someone doesn't agree with you, and you quickly descend into insults. You think that you have some sort of superior intelligence, and that everyone else is dumb. You simply reject anything that isn't in your narrative.
When in fact, you are merely seeing your reflection in a mirror.
This is all sim
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Politicians often make such stupid rules. Rules that stifle innovation and the adoption of new technologies. The NRCC is similar, in that they have developed a set of regulations based on technologies from the 1950's and have made it harder to adopt safer alternatives. This is clearly true of the regulatory structure today.
To understand how the regulatory structure of the NRC works, you have get the legal name correct. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission works with industry to develop legal requirements for Nuclear plant operation that improves the safety of the plants. They examine things like basis design issues and develop a regulatory framework that make safety improvements a legal requirement.
This is why Fukushima was criminal negligence. Rules like that don't stifle innovation, they create it, as the legal frame work contains the operating experiences from all reactor facilities that new design requirements are based on. Innovation happens before the plant is built everything after is building whatever safety lessons are learned.
Fukushima proves that the nuclear industry failed to learn from the Chernobyl accident.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.