>Then you did not read the papers released the last 10 years about it? Or did you?
I did, last year in fact. And Chernobyl.
And I'm not a fan boy for Nuclear, my job is to inspect plants and to think of ways they fail and how they can be made to fail. I'm hardly someone that believes what a nuclear plant operator says, I'm on the other side of the table questioning everything they say. Just because I'm not freaking out doesn't mean that I'm skeptical of the nuclear industry. And just because I'm measured in what I say does not mean that I think Nuclear power is trivially easy to do safely, I know it is not.
But just because something is hard does not mean that its impossible. As a whole, there have been very few accidents, and only one so far (Chernobyl) that had a significant release.
I'm sorry you feel that way. If you were part of all the public debates at the NRC you might feel differently. I know from personal experience the peer review that goes into every safety and security analysis, and the process is completely open to the public. So for what its worth, if you have an issue with nuclear, the NRC is an open agency, please file an allegation with the NRC and/or come to/dial into the public meetings and comment.
I will tell you that I do not work for the nuclear power industry, I work for the regulator and my job is to find things wrong with plants and to assume that bad things will happen. So I'm hardly a fan boy for nuclear.
But hey, the process is public and open and you can file a claim on any plant you want in the US with NRC, and they take those claims very seriously. So I just don't see how we can make the system more transparent, but if you have a beef the process is open, so please speak up.
The IAEA has stated regarding possible ground water contamination:
"As of 10 May, the restriction on the consumption of drinking water relating to I-131 - which had been applied since 1 April as a precautionary measure for one remaining location (the village of Iitate in Fukushima prefecture), and only for infants - was lifted."
>> primary containment appears to be intact but we won't know for some time. >No. Both unit 2 and unit 1 containment and pressure vessel have leaks.
Right, primary containment is intact, which means that the core is still protected. Leaks from water lines are not loss of primary containment, and water leaks are not as hazardous as you have been led to believe.
>> WHO has stated that there is no evidence of any significant release of radiation. >No. Material discharged from the plant from March 11 to early April was estimated between 370,000 and 630,000 terabecquerels and continues > at 154 terabecquerels per day.
No, the WHO did in fact state that. You should visit their website, its a fact.
Currently measuring shows that I-131 has been detected in three prefectures, with values ranging from 1.5 Bq/m2 to 4.5 Bq/m2. Cs-137 was detected in eight prefectures, with values ranging from 3 Bq/m2 to 44 Bq/m2. Gamma dose rate for Fukushima prefecture was 1.7 Sv/h, in all other prefectures where sources where detected, reported gamma dose rates were below 0.1 Sv/h with a decreasing trend.
>>Measured increased amounts of radiocative caesium and iodine in the vicinity of the plant, but not at dangerous levels. >No. It is at danerous levels - hence the exclusion zone.
No, the exclusion zone is not a measure of dangerous release, its to get people away in case there is a dangerous release.
> > No evidence that any uranium or plutonium has been released. > Yes there is. The explosion in Unit 3 blew pieces of fuel rod up to a mile from the site. Uranium and plutonium was vapourised and detected both in the soil in Fukushima and as far away as California.
Nonsense, neither WHO nor IAEA support your claim here. As the party making the affirmative assertion has the burden of proof, if you have a reliable source for all these claims I would be happy to retract my statement. I can find no evidence to support your assertions.
>Of course, power companies will continue to run old nuclear plants so long as the decommissioning costs are so astronomically high. > Which they always will be. Regardless of any new plants being built; regardless of any protests one way or the other.
Actually, its because they generate power that they run them. Fuel is cheap, so why shut it down if its working.
And lots of plants want to build new modern units, just look at all the applications with the NRC, or all the AP1000s going up in China.
> Now I certainly am not open to new information, so if you have data that refutes this I'm all ears.
I am open to new information, god I need to grammar check. Anyway, these are numbers I could find on pro and con website, dept of energy, etc. So from an engineers perspective, if we want to use solar and wind than the numbers have to add up.
I certainly could be wrong with my numbers, so if someone has something better I am all ears.
So lets look at this mathematically, current US power requirements are over 3,700,000 megawatts.
According to the Department of Energy, Office of Utility Technologies, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy & Electric Power Research Institute, to produce 1,000 megawatts of electrical capacity from solar requires approximately 11,000 acres of photovoltaic solar cells. So, the amount of land you need to produce all power needed by the US, via solar, is approximately 40,700,000 acres or about five times the size of New Jersey.
According to the American Wind Energy Association, you need 50,00 acres of wind turbines to produce 1,000 megawatts. So, for wind, you need an area approximately five times the size of west Virginia.
Right now solar accounts for about 640 megawatts of power, and wind about 35000. The current bulk requirements are over 3,700,000 megawatts, so wind and solar are neither significant sources currently nor are they viable given the amount of land they both require, with current technology. Unless there is a significant change in technology, I just dont see how thats feasible.
Hydro, Coal, Gas, Oil and Nuclear are sources we have today that produce significant amounts of power, which is why we use them. Hoover Dam produces 2080 megawatts, and a single Westinghouse PWR produces over 1,000 megawatts of power. So even if solar and wind were everything that we want them to be, the numbers just don't add up.
Now I certainly am not open to new information, so if you have data that refutes this I'm all ears. This is probably why both liberal and conservative governments keep going back to fossil, hydro and nuclear as part of their energy strategies.
> Regarding reliability: you know, you have a hugh grid. There is always sun or wind somewhere on the grid. > Right now you are depending on oil/coal or what ever from foreign countries. > With wind you would only rely on your country and/or your neighbours.
Intriguing idea, first let me dispel the notion that there is a word grid, there is not. So even though the sun may be shining in Germany, that power grid is not connected to the US grid and vice versa, so no you can't say that the sun is always shining somewhere from an electrical grid perspective, it is not.
So no, thats not possible right now. It is an interesting idea, could you tie all the grids together and would it be both reliable and economically feasible. My two cents, which isn't worth much, reliability would be an issue possibly an insurmountable one, but its not impossible I suppose (bearing straits maybe). The later though, I just dont see how you could do that without massive costs.
My point was that fly ash is radioactive and that the amount of radiation produced from coal plants exceeds that from a Nuclear Plant. A coal plant produces fly ash that contains 100 times more ionizing radiation than a nuclear plant producing the same power.
If you thought I was saying we're all gonna die, you missed my point. Exposure near a coal plant is significantly higher than near a Nuclear Plant. The point is to recognize the cumulative effects of non-nuclear sources of ionizing radiation versus the catastrophic effects of a complete loss of containment at a Nuclear Power plant. The former is happening now globally, and its increasing, the later is very rare and localized. So if people want to reduce their exposure to ionizing radition, nuclear isn't the source, its medical testing, the sun, to much lesser extent coal (maybe 5% in industrialized nations), etc. etc.
If opposition to nuclear is based on a desire to reduce exposure to ionizing radition, then you should start elsewhere. Ionizing radiation is not coming from Nuclear power, or even accidents, your exposure is coming from lots of other seemingly "safe" sources all around us and when people trot out coal as somehow being safer from a radiation perspective its important to recognize that it too is a source, and that Nuclear is a tiny fraction.
> "Release probable, but not known completely at this time"
Yes, as in its probable that it occurred and that we do not know completely at this time. I realize you have complete omnipotence, but the rest of us mere mortals can only work with the data we have and right now. And that data shows the only known releases have been non-health threatening. Did a health significant release occur, not known at this time but it is probable. So far the data shows that has not occurred.
But sure, go ahead and keep beating that drum of ignorance and fear and pretend that you know everything.
I don't believe it, this is what I do for a living. I know what happened, I understand the BW PWR used, I studied the accident and I am a Nuclear Engineer. Please educate yourself and read the DOE and NRC studies, and maybe listen to some actual Nuclear Engineers and stop believing everything you read on the Internet.
>I quibble with the "no evidence of any significant release of radiation" quote for Fukushima
I did say significant (not no release, I'm a Nuclear Engineer too!).:-)
So yes, there certainly should have been noble gas releases, and probably C-131 radioisotopes. Possibly others with cladding damage, but its hard to know all the facts at Fukushima right now (we sent people, and the Japanese have not been really that cooperative), including release so I agree that a release of some radiation occurred. We can messure that, but the amounts so far appear to present no threat to public health and safety, hence the use of the words "significant release of radiation". Thats why I mentioned the WHO quote, they seem like the best non-nuclear source, so it seems reasonable they probably aren't trying to spin it and there conclusion was no threat to health at this point.
As an aside, going back on GE BWR training I would have expected some release of nobles and C-131. Until we have cold shutdown and we can all study the events its all just inference at this point, so this could all change.
>Three incidents like you describe above, over thirty-two years, is a pretty darned good safety record, with the > 440+ commercial power reactors around the world. Why does nuclear have a bad rap? > One possibility is it stems from fear [anengineerindc.com] since it all started with a few mushroom clouds, >but whatever the reason, it seems awfully visceral.
Yeah I agree. I think you have it right, mushroom clouds and nuclear weapons. That and general ignorance of how power reactors work coupled with a general misunderstanding of the health effects of ionizing radiation, and that we are all exposed to it all day long. As Arthur C. Clarke said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
I wonder if we still called them something else, like "atomic steam generator plants" instead of "Nuclear Power Reactors" if people would be less irrationally afraid of them.
Agreed. I've actually got a Nuclear Engineer education and studied TMI, its an example of a contained accident. No release. TMI is an example that shows conclusively that the defense in depth used in nuclear reactors worked despite the mistakes made by the operators and despite the flaw in the BW PORV.
So yes, it is nonsense to use TMI as an example of how nuclear power is unsafe. TMI proved that even when everything failed, it was still possible to stop the accident.
Chernobyl, however, is a great example of how not to build and operate a reactor. That accident proves what happens when you dont have defense in depth, when you dont have good procedures, when you dont have containment, when you put poorly trained operators on the night shift and let your good operators go home to enjoy May Day. It also says you shouldnt experiment with big power reactors to find out what happens when things go wrong. That was classic communist thinking, screw the peasants its all for the greater good. Chernobyl is a textbook case of what can happen when you bypass all your procedures, disable your safety systems and build an unsafe reactor.
So if you want to use something as an example of how nuclear power can be done poorly and unsafely, use Chernobyl. If you want to make the argument that when everything goes wrong, nothing bad happens, sure bring up TMI.
And if you want to look ignorant, bring up TMI as an example of an accident that hurt people around actual Nuclear engineers and scientists.
> The difference is, when I Nuke Plant goes, the area is fucked for thousands of years.
No, if you have total loss of containment you have certain areas that are unhealthy, not "fucked for thousands of years". That type of accident can not happen with a western style reactor, such as the one at Fukushima. And even when you do have a total loss of containment, such as at Chernobyl, the effects turned out to be less than what was originally projected.
And you don't have that kind of accident at Fukushima, its not a release accident! The reactor had a cooling accident, not a loss of containment accident. Sheesh.
Wind is not cheap, nor is solar. The only cheaper source of power compare to Nuclear is hydro. Wind and Solar are actually very expensive and unreliable, solar only works if theres sunlight (so no power at night, overcast, snow storms, etc.) and wind of course only works if there is wind, and there isnt enough of either to meet the power needs of the world. Sea wave is also not as cheap as either hydro or Nuclear, and it presents impact to the marine environment and only about 1/5th of the possible power could be captured with current technology.
Both wind and solar are delightful, but there are red herrings, they do not solve the power problem as they can not create enough power (and only at certain times). Wave generation is interesting, but it too suffers from inconsistent power generation yield, its not capable of producing enough power and its inconsistent. At most wave generation is considered to be able to produce maybe 5-10% of the total power needs of the US, so if it works its not a solution.
> Oil and coal plants don't explode that much, no.
Thats splitting the hair, coal plants and oil plants absolutely have explosions and people die all the time. Coal dust is terrifyingly explosive, just google around a little and you'll see that coal dust explosions are unfortunately very common. Usually only a few people die, but plants themselves have been leveed such as the Kleen Energy Systems gas plant in 2010 that was almost destroyed.
You should expect any combustible fuel plant to have explosion hazards.
Coal pants also release Thorium and Uranium which is a byproduct of coal composition, and is the largest source of radioactive release worldwide. Coal plants produce radiative waste and dump it into the air all day long, Nuclear Power plants do not.
Exactly. Fear mongering amount Nuclear power is actually making people less safe because we can't build modern designs. Not to mention that coal burning releases massive amounts of radiation (I'm not trying to be sarcastic, it does). So ironically, you get less radiation exposure near a nuclear power plant than you do near a coal plant. In fact, coal is the major source of radiation release world wide, it releases thorium and uranium - neither of which have been released by either TMI or Fukushima!
The Earthquake was apparently not the cause of the Fukushima accident, the safety systems and pumps were working after the Earthquake and the control rods were in. The Tsunami apparently is the cause, we know it took out the diesels and you absolutely have to have those with an older design that doesnt use passive cooling. Without that you cant do anything about the decay heat (well, you can with portable units, but the Japanese choose not to have those) and you get the current problem. The Japanese also didn't apply any of the upgrades other GE BWR users had, so they had a very old Mark 1 design. Those upgrades would have survived the Earthquake, but unless the Japanese did something to better prepare the site for the Tsunami (such as portable generators and pumps or a higher Tsunami wall) they would have likely still lost the Diesels.
Modern reactors, like the AP1000 (and others too), use passive cooling in accidents and dont require power. So, hypothetically, if Fukushima was a modern reactor this accident would not have occurred. The Tsunami would have been irrelevant, the passive cooling would have kept working.
Yes, even TMI. TMI was a contained accident that had no adverse impact on the health and safety of the public. So yes, even when things get totally cocked up it turns out its hard to have a Nuclear accident, with a western designed reactor, that actually causes harm to the public. So far that has not happened, including Fukushima.
The Soviets sucked. But lets review the three power reactor accidents that have presented any potential or actual risk to the public and lets see how those accidents shook out:
1) Chernobyl: A soviet designed reactor with no containment that had a steam explosion because the operators were not trained for the experiment they were running, and they lost control of the reactor by disabling all the safety systems and doing things all the other reactors in the USSR said no to. No shock there that it had a steam explosion. (Operator error, design flaw) 2) Three Mile Island: A faulty pressure relief valve on the PWRs pressurizer and a bad design for the indicator, plus poor location of the indicators on the back of a panel, no release but core damage. (Operator error, design flaw) 3) Fukushima: a Tsunami induced beyond design basis accident, where the Units survived the earthquake and apparently the safety systems were working until the Tsunami took out the Diesel generators knocking all but the RCIC safety system out. (Beyond DBA)
Effects:
1) Chernobyl: Core Damage and exposure plus release plus fire. Worst case accident. Expected because the soviets just didnt give a fuck, they built a faulty reactor, had no containment and they blew it up with faulty procedures and an arrogant approach to Nuclear engineering. Big shocker to no one that they had a loss of containment accident and killed a lot of people trying to bring it under control. Classic Soviet Engineering Fuckup.
Actual Measurable Effects: Unit destroyed, lots of deaths of personnel involved in controlling the accident. Area contaminated, but effects have been much less over time than expected, tours are available of the area now. Worst case loss of control accident.
Cause: Experiment coupled with Operator Error/Arrogance. Soviet reactor design was unstable at low power, Night shift was untrained for the experiment that they were told to run. Plant tried to run experiment during the day, but was told to stop due to Brown Outs and passed this on to the junior night shift. Shift lost control of reactor, steam explosion took the lid off the uncontained reactor. Because Soviet reactors were designed to be refueled while running it had no containment and the rest is history. No one builds reactors like this except the Soviets, so this kind of accident can not occur with non-soviet designed reactors.
2) TMI: Core damage, no known release. It scared a lot of people at the time because it wasn't clear, at the time, what was wrong or what the effects were. Communication was poor and people understandably were panicked. No known release was measured, and a number of studies have looked into this. Increased rates of cancer were not detected, but its possible it did occur. Unfortunately, at the time the accident occurred the movie China Syndrome came out and this may have also had some impact on public perception of this accident.
Actual measurable effects: Core Damaged, Unit unusable, No deaths, no known direct health effects although there is some debate from residents on this point. Scientific studies so far have concluded that if there was any release (and there is no evidence of , it did not have any impact on public health and safety. The material than ended up the aux building did not contain solids at room temp, so any release was likely xenon (and maybe some argon or krypton), and possibly some radioactive iodine. Data at the time of the accident indicates that the release was less than 2 mrem, or 1/40th the natural dose for residents of a high altitude city. In short, not above background levels and no evidence of I-131 or C-137 in mammalian milk in the surrounding areas. So, the actual effects were scary sounding, but not anything that would have adverse impacts on health.
Cause: The Babcock and Wilcox valve indicated it was closed if the solenoid was de-energized, not when it was actually closed. It stuck open, and the indicators said it was closed. There were sensors on th
Thats easy, there have been three reactor accidents for power reactors that have any significance, so lets leave those three countries out, which means these countries are operating Nuclear Power plants just fine:
Argentina
Armenia
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
China
Croatia
Czech Republic
Finland
France
Germany
Hungary
India
South Korea
Mexico
Netherlands
Pakistan
Romania
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Ukraine
United Kingdom
And they haven't had accidents. And the Japanese are hardly leaders in Nucleaer Power. Unit 1 was an ancient Mark 1 GE BWR without upgrades that the Japanese refused to do like everyone else, pure arrogance on their part. You can't extrapolate in some racist manner that because the Japanse make nice cars that they are leaders in all technology, this was an ancient unit that actually worked after the Earthquake. It was the Tsunami that took out the diesel generators, and even then it didn't damage the units themselves. The Japanese didn't bother to listen to anyone else when told they should have portable generators and pumps to deal with a large loss of equipment at the site. This happened because of arrogance, not because of engineering.
Slashdot Mirror
>Then you did not read the papers released the last 10 years about it? Or did you?
I did, last year in fact. And Chernobyl.
And I'm not a fan boy for Nuclear, my job is to inspect plants and to think of ways they fail and how they can be made to fail. I'm hardly someone that believes what a nuclear plant operator says, I'm on the other side of the table questioning everything they say. Just because I'm not freaking out doesn't mean that I'm skeptical of the nuclear industry. And just because I'm measured in what I say does not mean that I think Nuclear power is trivially easy to do safely, I know it is not.
But just because something is hard does not mean that its impossible. As a whole, there have been very few accidents, and only one so far (Chernobyl) that had a significant release.
Gamera.
I'm sorry you feel that way. If you were part of all the public debates at the NRC you might feel differently. I know from personal experience the peer review that goes into every safety and security analysis, and the process is completely open to the public. So for what its worth, if you have an issue with nuclear, the NRC is an open agency, please file an allegation with the NRC and/or come to/dial into the public meetings and comment.
I didn't suggest that you should.
I will tell you that I do not work for the nuclear power industry, I work for the regulator and my job is to find things wrong with plants and to assume that bad things will happen. So I'm hardly a fan boy for nuclear.
But hey, the process is public and open and you can file a claim on any plant you want in the US with NRC, and they take those claims very seriously. So I just don't see how we can make the system more transparent, but if you have a beef the process is open, so please speak up.
The IAEA has stated regarding possible ground water contamination:
"As of 10 May, the restriction on the consumption of drinking water relating to I-131 - which had been applied since 1 April as a precautionary measure for one remaining location (the village of Iitate in Fukushima prefecture), and only for infants - was lifted."
>> primary containment appears to be intact but we won't know for some time.
>No. Both unit 2 and unit 1 containment and pressure vessel have leaks.
Right, primary containment is intact, which means that the core is still protected. Leaks from water lines are not loss of primary containment, and water leaks are not as hazardous as you have been led to believe.
>> WHO has stated that there is no evidence of any significant release of radiation.
>No. Material discharged from the plant from March 11 to early April was estimated between 370,000 and 630,000 terabecquerels and continues
> at 154 terabecquerels per day.
No, the WHO did in fact state that. You should visit their website, its a fact.
Currently measuring shows that I-131 has been detected in three prefectures, with values ranging from 1.5 Bq/m2 to 4.5 Bq/m2. Cs-137 was detected in eight prefectures, with values ranging from 3 Bq/m2 to 44 Bq/m2. Gamma dose rate for Fukushima prefecture was 1.7 Sv/h, in all other prefectures where sources where detected, reported gamma dose rates were below 0.1 Sv/h with a decreasing trend.
>>Measured increased amounts of radiocative caesium and iodine in the vicinity of the plant, but not at dangerous levels.
>No. It is at danerous levels - hence the exclusion zone.
No, the exclusion zone is not a measure of dangerous release, its to get people away in case there is a dangerous release.
> > No evidence that any uranium or plutonium has been released.
> Yes there is. The explosion in Unit 3 blew pieces of fuel rod up to a mile from the site. Uranium and plutonium was vapourised and detected both in the soil in Fukushima and as far away as California.
Nonsense, neither WHO nor IAEA support your claim here. As the party making the affirmative assertion has the burden of proof, if you have a reliable source for all these claims I would be happy to retract my statement. I can find no evidence to support your assertions.
>Of course, power companies will continue to run old nuclear plants so long as the decommissioning costs are so astronomically high.
> Which they always will be. Regardless of any new plants being built; regardless of any protests one way or the other.
Actually, its because they generate power that they run them. Fuel is cheap, so why shut it down if its working.
And lots of plants want to build new modern units, just look at all the applications with the NRC, or all the AP1000s going up in China.
> Now I certainly am not open to new information, so if you have data that refutes this I'm all ears.
I am open to new information, god I need to grammar check. Anyway, these are numbers I could find on pro and con website, dept of energy, etc. So from an engineers perspective, if we want to use solar and wind than the numbers have to add up.
I certainly could be wrong with my numbers, so if someone has something better I am all ears.
So lets look at this mathematically, current US power requirements are over 3,700,000 megawatts.
According to the Department of Energy, Office of Utility Technologies, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy & Electric Power Research Institute, to produce 1,000 megawatts of electrical capacity from solar requires approximately 11,000 acres of photovoltaic solar cells. So, the amount of land you need to produce all power needed by the US, via solar, is approximately 40,700,000 acres or about five times the size of New Jersey.
According to the American Wind Energy Association, you need 50,00 acres of wind turbines to produce 1,000 megawatts. So, for wind, you need an area approximately five times the size of west Virginia.
Right now solar accounts for about 640 megawatts of power, and wind about 35000. The current bulk requirements are over 3,700,000 megawatts, so wind and solar are neither significant sources currently nor are they viable given the amount of land they both require, with current technology. Unless there is a significant change in technology, I just dont see how thats feasible.
Hydro, Coal, Gas, Oil and Nuclear are sources we have today that produce significant amounts of power, which is why we use them. Hoover Dam produces 2080 megawatts, and a single Westinghouse PWR produces over 1,000 megawatts of power. So even if solar and wind were everything that we want them to be, the numbers just don't add up.
Now I certainly am not open to new information, so if you have data that refutes this I'm all ears. This is probably why both liberal and conservative governments keep going back to fossil, hydro and nuclear as part of their energy strategies.
> Regarding reliability: you know, you have a hugh grid. There is always sun or wind somewhere on the grid.
> Right now you are depending on oil/coal or what ever from foreign countries.
> With wind you would only rely on your country and/or your neighbours.
Intriguing idea, first let me dispel the notion that there is a word grid, there is not. So even though the sun may be shining in Germany, that power grid is not connected to the US grid and vice versa, so no you can't say that the sun is always shining somewhere from an electrical grid perspective, it is not.
So no, thats not possible right now. It is an interesting idea, could you tie all the grids together and would it be both reliable and economically feasible. My two cents, which isn't worth much, reliability would be an issue possibly an insurmountable one, but its not impossible I suppose (bearing straits maybe). The later though, I just dont see how you could do that without massive costs.
My point was that fly ash is radioactive and that the amount of radiation produced from coal plants exceeds that from a Nuclear Plant. A coal plant produces fly ash that contains 100 times more ionizing radiation than a nuclear plant producing the same power.
If you thought I was saying we're all gonna die, you missed my point. Exposure near a coal plant is significantly higher than near a Nuclear Plant. The point is to recognize the cumulative effects of non-nuclear sources of ionizing radiation versus the catastrophic effects of a complete loss of containment at a Nuclear Power plant. The former is happening now globally, and its increasing, the later is very rare and localized. So if people want to reduce their exposure to ionizing radition, nuclear isn't the source, its medical testing, the sun, to much lesser extent coal (maybe 5% in industrialized nations), etc. etc.
If opposition to nuclear is based on a desire to reduce exposure to ionizing radition, then you should start elsewhere. Ionizing radiation is not coming from Nuclear power, or even accidents, your exposure is coming from lots of other seemingly "safe" sources all around us and when people trot out coal as somehow being safer from a radiation perspective its important to recognize that it too is a source, and that Nuclear is a tiny fraction.
> "Release probable, but not known completely at this time"
Yes, as in its probable that it occurred and that we do not know completely at this time. I realize you have complete omnipotence, but the rest of us mere mortals can only work with the data we have and right now. And that data shows the only known releases have been non-health threatening. Did a health significant release occur, not known at this time but it is probable. So far the data shows that has not occurred.
But sure, go ahead and keep beating that drum of ignorance and fear and pretend that you know everything.
> If you believe that, you are beyond hope.
I don't believe it, this is what I do for a living. I know what happened, I understand the BW PWR used, I studied the accident and I am a Nuclear Engineer. Please educate yourself and read the DOE and NRC studies, and maybe listen to some actual Nuclear Engineers and stop believing everything you read on the Internet.
>I quibble with the "no evidence of any significant release of radiation" quote for Fukushima
I did say significant (not no release, I'm a Nuclear Engineer too!). :-)
So yes, there certainly should have been noble gas releases, and probably C-131 radioisotopes. Possibly others with cladding damage, but its hard to know all the facts at Fukushima right now (we sent people, and the Japanese have not been really that cooperative), including release so I agree that a release of some radiation occurred. We can messure that, but the amounts so far appear to present no threat to public health and safety, hence the use of the words "significant release of radiation". Thats why I mentioned the WHO quote, they seem like the best non-nuclear source, so it seems reasonable they probably aren't trying to spin it and there conclusion was no threat to health at this point.
As an aside, going back on GE BWR training I would have expected some release of nobles and C-131. Until we have cold shutdown and we can all study the events its all just inference at this point, so this could all change.
>Three incidents like you describe above, over thirty-two years, is a pretty darned good safety record, with the
> 440+ commercial power reactors around the world. Why does nuclear have a bad rap?
> One possibility is it stems from fear [anengineerindc.com] since it all started with a few mushroom clouds,
>but whatever the reason, it seems awfully visceral.
Yeah I agree. I think you have it right, mushroom clouds and nuclear weapons. That and general ignorance of how power reactors work coupled with a general misunderstanding of the health effects of ionizing radiation, and that we are all exposed to it all day long. As Arthur C. Clarke said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
I wonder if we still called them something else, like "atomic steam generator plants" instead of "Nuclear Power Reactors" if people would be less irrationally afraid of them.
Agreed. I've actually got a Nuclear Engineer education and studied TMI, its an example of a contained accident. No release. TMI is an example that shows conclusively that the defense in depth used in nuclear reactors worked despite the mistakes made by the operators and despite the flaw in the BW PORV.
So yes, it is nonsense to use TMI as an example of how nuclear power is unsafe. TMI proved that even when everything failed, it was still possible to stop the accident.
Chernobyl, however, is a great example of how not to build and operate a reactor. That accident proves what happens when you dont have defense in depth, when you dont have good procedures, when you dont have containment, when you put poorly trained operators on the night shift and let your good operators go home to enjoy May Day. It also says you shouldnt experiment with big power reactors to find out what happens when things go wrong. That was classic communist thinking, screw the peasants its all for the greater good. Chernobyl is a textbook case of what can happen when you bypass all your procedures, disable your safety systems and build an unsafe reactor.
So if you want to use something as an example of how nuclear power can be done poorly and unsafely, use Chernobyl. If you want to make the argument that when everything goes wrong, nothing bad happens, sure bring up TMI.
And if you want to look ignorant, bring up TMI as an example of an accident that hurt people around actual Nuclear engineers and scientists.
> The difference is, when I Nuke Plant goes, the area is fucked for thousands of years.
No, if you have total loss of containment you have certain areas that are unhealthy, not "fucked for thousands of years". That type of accident can not happen with a western style reactor, such as the one at Fukushima. And even when you do have a total loss of containment, such as at Chernobyl, the effects turned out to be less than what was originally projected.
And you don't have that kind of accident at Fukushima, its not a release accident! The reactor had a cooling accident, not a loss of containment accident. Sheesh.
Wind is not cheap, nor is solar. The only cheaper source of power compare to Nuclear is hydro. Wind and Solar are actually very expensive and unreliable, solar only works if theres sunlight (so no power at night, overcast, snow storms, etc.) and wind of course only works if there is wind, and there isnt enough of either to meet the power needs of the world. Sea wave is also not as cheap as either hydro or Nuclear, and it presents impact to the marine environment and only about 1/5th of the possible power could be captured with current technology.
Both wind and solar are delightful, but there are red herrings, they do not solve the power problem as they can not create enough power (and only at certain times). Wave generation is interesting, but it too suffers from inconsistent power generation yield, its not capable of producing enough power and its inconsistent. At most wave generation is considered to be able to produce maybe 5-10% of the total power needs of the US, so if it works its not a solution.
> Oil and coal plants don't explode that much, no.
Thats splitting the hair, coal plants and oil plants absolutely have explosions and people die all the time. Coal dust is terrifyingly explosive, just google around a little and you'll see that coal dust explosions are unfortunately very common. Usually only a few people die, but plants themselves have been leveed such as the Kleen Energy Systems gas plant in 2010 that was almost destroyed.
You should expect any combustible fuel plant to have explosion hazards.
Coal pants also release Thorium and Uranium which is a byproduct of coal composition, and is the largest source of radioactive release worldwide. Coal plants produce radiative waste and dump it into the air all day long, Nuclear Power plants do not.
Exactly. Fear mongering amount Nuclear power is actually making people less safe because we can't build modern designs. Not to mention that coal burning releases massive amounts of radiation (I'm not trying to be sarcastic, it does). So ironically, you get less radiation exposure near a nuclear power plant than you do near a coal plant. In fact, coal is the major source of radiation release world wide, it releases thorium and uranium - neither of which have been released by either TMI or Fukushima!
The Earthquake was apparently not the cause of the Fukushima accident, the safety systems and pumps were working after the Earthquake and the control rods were in. The Tsunami apparently is the cause, we know it took out the diesels and you absolutely have to have those with an older design that doesnt use passive cooling. Without that you cant do anything about the decay heat (well, you can with portable units, but the Japanese choose not to have those) and you get the current problem. The Japanese also didn't apply any of the upgrades other GE BWR users had, so they had a very old Mark 1 design. Those upgrades would have survived the Earthquake, but unless the Japanese did something to better prepare the site for the Tsunami (such as portable generators and pumps or a higher Tsunami wall) they would have likely still lost the Diesels.
Modern reactors, like the AP1000 (and others too), use passive cooling in accidents and dont require power. So, hypothetically, if Fukushima was a modern reactor this accident would not have occurred. The Tsunami would have been irrelevant, the passive cooling would have kept working.
Yes, even TMI. TMI was a contained accident that had no adverse impact on the health and safety of the public. So yes, even when things get totally cocked up it turns out its hard to have a Nuclear accident, with a western designed reactor, that actually causes harm to the public. So far that has not happened, including Fukushima.
The Soviets sucked. But lets review the three power reactor accidents that have presented any potential or actual risk to the public and lets see how those accidents shook out:
1) Chernobyl: A soviet designed reactor with no containment that had a steam explosion because the operators were not trained for the experiment they were running, and they lost control of the reactor by disabling all the safety systems and doing things all the other reactors in the USSR said no to. No shock there that it had a steam explosion. (Operator error, design flaw)
2) Three Mile Island: A faulty pressure relief valve on the PWRs pressurizer and a bad design for the indicator, plus poor location of the indicators on the back of a panel, no release but core damage. (Operator error, design flaw)
3) Fukushima: a Tsunami induced beyond design basis accident, where the Units survived the earthquake and apparently the safety systems were working until the Tsunami took out the Diesel generators knocking all but the RCIC safety system out. (Beyond DBA)
Effects:
1) Chernobyl: Core Damage and exposure plus release plus fire. Worst case accident. Expected because the soviets just didnt give a fuck, they built a faulty reactor, had no containment and they blew it up with faulty procedures and an arrogant approach to Nuclear engineering. Big shocker to no one that they had a loss of containment accident and killed a lot of people trying to bring it under control. Classic Soviet Engineering Fuckup.
Actual Measurable Effects: Unit destroyed, lots of deaths of personnel involved in controlling the accident. Area contaminated, but effects have been much less over time than expected, tours are available of the area now. Worst case loss of control accident.
Cause: Experiment coupled with Operator Error/Arrogance. Soviet reactor design was unstable at low power, Night shift was untrained for the experiment that they were told to run. Plant tried to run experiment during the day, but was told to stop due to Brown Outs and passed this on to the junior night shift. Shift lost control of reactor, steam explosion took the lid off the uncontained reactor. Because Soviet reactors were designed to be refueled while running it had no containment and the rest is history. No one builds reactors like this except the Soviets, so this kind of accident can not occur with non-soviet designed reactors.
2) TMI: Core damage, no known release. It scared a lot of people at the time because it wasn't clear, at the time, what was wrong or what the effects were. Communication was poor and people understandably were panicked. No known release was measured, and a number of studies have looked into this. Increased rates of cancer were not detected, but its possible it did occur. Unfortunately, at the time the accident occurred the movie China Syndrome came out and this may have also had some impact on public perception of this accident.
Actual measurable effects: Core Damaged, Unit unusable, No deaths, no known direct health effects although there is some debate from residents on this point. Scientific studies so far have concluded that if there was any release (and there is no evidence of , it did not have any impact on public health and safety. The material than ended up the aux building did not contain solids at room temp, so any release was likely xenon (and maybe some argon or krypton), and possibly some radioactive iodine. Data at the time of the accident indicates that the release was less than 2 mrem, or 1/40th the natural dose for residents of a high altitude city. In short, not above background levels and no evidence of I-131 or C-137 in mammalian milk in the surrounding areas. So, the actual effects were scary sounding, but not anything that would have adverse impacts on health.
Cause: The Babcock and Wilcox valve indicated it was closed if the solenoid was de-energized, not when it was actually closed. It stuck open, and the indicators said it was closed. There were sensors on th
Thats easy, there have been three reactor accidents for power reactors that have any significance, so lets leave those three countries out, which means these countries are operating Nuclear Power plants just fine: Argentina Armenia Belgium Brazil Bulgaria Canada China Croatia Czech Republic Finland France Germany Hungary India South Korea Mexico Netherlands Pakistan Romania Slovenia South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Ukraine United Kingdom And they haven't had accidents. And the Japanese are hardly leaders in Nucleaer Power. Unit 1 was an ancient Mark 1 GE BWR without upgrades that the Japanese refused to do like everyone else, pure arrogance on their part. You can't extrapolate in some racist manner that because the Japanse make nice cars that they are leaders in all technology, this was an ancient unit that actually worked after the Earthquake. It was the Tsunami that took out the diesel generators, and even then it didn't damage the units themselves. The Japanese didn't bother to listen to anyone else when told they should have portable generators and pumps to deal with a large loss of equipment at the site. This happened because of arrogance, not because of engineering.
Yep, no impact so far to amazon.com. Did they not start DDOSing amazon yet?