Don't accuse people of lying when you don't understand the topic. You clearly do not understand the very big difference between fuel-melt damage and debris hitting a fuel assembly, leaving the fuel assembly bent or distorted but the fuel still perfectly intact. Essentially no damage and still safe with no release.
Extremely conservative limits kept farming restrictions in place, those limits set based on public misperception of risk and politics.
Sunlight is unsafe in a medical sense, are you as scared of it? You could live in the restricted Fukushima district during and after the accident, or have feasted on Welsh farm produced food if it were produced after Chernobyl, and your risk of cancer from the sun would still be many times the increased risk from radiation. Many people refuse to believe that because they've been fed a lifetime of fear. Your risk of cancer from many other sources would also greatly outweigh the risk from radiation from those accidents. Only the children in iodine path were really at any risk. I-131 has a short half life and is already completely diminished from both areas.
Only the existing infrastructure really isn't suit for hydrogen storage and distribution. Not the pumps, nor the tanks, nor the transports. Its cheaper an easier to convert a gas station to a charging station than a hydrogen station.
The H2 vision is based more on the thought that batteries will not get to a successful range/charge/recharge/cost balance. Batteries are progressing but not yet to that point, but close enough to re-think H2. I've never thought H2 made any sense simply due to inefficiency of the entire process. Fuel cells in general are still only niche products even after tremendous investment in development for the last 20 years. However, if cheap enough hydrogen could be produced, we would see that niche grow to a bigger portion of the market.
Its a matter of frequency. Events like Turkey Point outage are very rare, nuclear plants have shut down unexpectantly many times and its not typically a problem. Low wind output is a lot more frequent. In Germany, there's already been several times this year that wind couldn't supply 5% of demand. Its only thanks to conventional sources who are reliably ready to go that they can handle that intermittency.
Low wind does not coincide with high solar output. Yes, there are summer days with low wind, but also summer nights with low wind, and winter days with low wind. For Germany, demand is higher in winter months, so that is the baseline. Once again, it is reliable conventional sources that enable wind and solar to be used to the extent they are, along with much help from adjacent grids who also are made up of primarily conventional sources.
I assume you never buy Asian electronics? Also, as far as economy is concerned, people generally profit from lower prices of goods. If US manufacturers are not the biggest players, maybe they could try harder? It's their problem if they're uncompetitive, not the buyer's problem.
Why would you assume I never by Asian products. I do. That is completely irrelevant to my point, in fact I pointed out that the US IS very competitive in supply of content for nuclear, gas, and coal. I didn't say it was a 'buyers problem' either. Not sure how that is relevant. My points stand even with your tangential commentary.
You make it sound if needing lots of people was good for industrial progress. On the contrary, getting rid of people is the best thing you can do.
No, I said creating more jobs is a positive economic factor. In case you haven't figured it out, unemployment is not a good thing for the economic health of a nation, nor the individuals.
They didn't really have broken pebbles so much as they had dust from pebble wear. This is a known issue with pebble bed reactors, they have filter systems in the main circuit to remove that particulate. I mentioned those filters and that was a condition in my statement. The release was from a pipe which is part of the system that takes pebbles, checks and returns them to the bed. The gas in that pipe is only going to have a very small amount of contaminate at normal operation, and only a small portion of it could make it up through a vent as it is a very low pressure differential.
Note that this fuel is not like in a PWR, where fuel cladding plays a big part of fuel integrity and maintaining fuel below melting point by conducting heat and encasing the fuel. PBR fuel has no cladding. PBR fuel cannot heat to point where it is damaged and release large amounts of contaminant. It is designed so that even with no heat removal, its max temperature is below fuel melt. You can basically walk away and it will just sit there really hot but undamaged.
So, if you want to call the dust from pebble wear as 'broken fuel', then I see how you would view my point as incorrect. But pebble wear is normal and expected and designed for. It is not considered damaged fuel. And I know its kind of disturbing for some unfamiliar to imagine all of this dust circulating and needing to be under control, but in reality it is quite a small amount of dust and not highly radioactive. But it is a reason that I am not a big fan of PBRs, and much prefer prismatic gas reactors.
Unfortunately, facts, which you presented quite clearly, don't matter to many. Solar advocates will avoid talking about the real cost of energy in MWh at all costs (pun intended).
Another economic impact that gets brushed aside in national content supply and jobs. For PV, a large chunk of the initial capital cost goes straight to China or other Asian manufactures. There are some US manufacturers but they are not the biggest players. Installation jobs are low paying, and there are few ongoing maintenance jobs. Wind requires a bit more from a maintenance and on-going supply standpoint, and has pretty good local parts content.
Coal, gas, and nuclear all have high local construction content, and employ more people with higher paying jobs on an ongoing basis. In a changing world where automation is taking over and good jobs are harder to find, employment factors into the overall economic benefit. A nuclear plant, for instance, will employ hundreds of six figure salary, educated workers, and also hundreds of higher paying craft and labor jobs. Nuclear and coal also keep a large number of support companies in business. And, they pay back a lot more in taxes via property, employment, etc than they are subsidized.
Problem is that your nuke plants are baseload and are *expected* to be up & running at all times, so shutting down just one for safety ususally means having to find a gigawatt of power somewhere else
Somewhat true, but since nuclear plants have such high capacity factors (90% in US), you don't need much spinning reserve on the grid, because its unlikely you'll lose more that one unexpectedly, and most of that 10% down time is planned. Whereas, with wind for example, you can see a drop in output in all windmills over a very large area. Just like in Germany, when sometimes they can't even supply 2% of demand. You need backup for the entire system, not just one or two plants.
The investors are irrelevant, the government support is something worth mentioning, as this is a plant that is woefully underperfoming to start with, has not fulfilled its contractual obligations for power delivery after it was operational, and is at risk of being shut down if the power contract is cancelled. This is just another setback that is going to make it that much harder for the plant to continue.
If this were nuclear or oil we'd have a fucking environmental disaster on our hands.
Actually fires happen in nuclear plants just like any other industrial facility. They rarely pose a nuclear safety risk because of the extensive systems in place to mitigate fire impact. Of course, if the fire damages any safety systems the plant would need to be shut down until repairs are complete. There have been a few serious fires that have gotten plenty of press, in all cases the plant was safety shut down using the designed features for doing so. No environmental disasters.
Someone could be moving one of them and it falls on them and they die. Done. Someone got killed.
The fact that you take an all or nothing approach when it comes to any industrial risk shows that YOU do not understand risk in the slightest.
Incidentally I'm not an expert, so I defer to experts on matters such as this, experts like the ones at TEPCO who were concerned enough that the cooling water in one of the spent fuel pools at Fukushima was boiling that they announced it to the IAEA and then moved the rods to another pool out of safety concerns. Could they have killed everyone in Japan? No. Could it have caused a problem for the locals? Not only plausible but actually rather likely, otherwise why take the risk of moving it.
There are always a risk of industrial accidents. In fact, nuclear power has the safety industrial accident record by far. There have been people killed working on renewable energy projects. That is a cop-out when we are talking about radiological risks.
But I see you have revised your statement from 'someone could get killed' to 'could cause a problem'.
The thyroid cases are well documented, and there were a lot due to susceptibility of kids. That is why I said children should be evacuated where I-131 could accumulate.
As fare as mushrooms, pigs, and cesium, yes they are taking extreme precautions but there has been no harm to those that ingested it, basically because the amounts are so small and the body does not retain cesium. There are no lies, there are facts and numbers from studies that show the real outcome was much less severe than projected, and other than the i-131 thyroid problems, there essentially was no health impact for anyone not near the plant.
I don't "approve" of any radiological release per se. But I don't worry about insignificant releases, and I do what I can to help folks understand that the risks are way overblown by the media.
I have said elsewhere here that a purposeful, illegal release should be prosecuted. But I don't see the need to make a big deal about an insignificant release 30 years ago, nor to take seriously a headline that simply tries to hyperbolize a situation that was investigated long ago.
What I know is that there are essentially no ways that a reactor of this type can release a significant amount of radioactive gas unless they are having some sort accident with fuel damage accident, which was not the case. There aren't any really highly radioactive gasses in the system. Only a small amount of contamination is circulating, and it is filtered on an ongoing basis, so even that wouldn't be significant.
From what was described, it was a simple purge gas from a pipe section. That would be an extremely small emission.
Anyone who would purposefully releases some radioactive gas without approval should be prosecuted accordingly, and evidently it was already investigated, so this isn't even news. However, seeing that radiation risk is so highly mis-understood and inflated by Joe public, this type of headline hype deserves some measured response related to the risks.
Its a shame there was so much fear induced by the media back then (and still today). Nobody needed to worry except those near Chernobyl or any children in the areas where significant I-131 could accumulate. Years of study has shown that there were no health impacts in Germany or any of the other regions far from Chernobyl. And the effects of those very near Chernobyl were much less that projected.
I'd hope we could learn from that, but there is too much misinformation to expect the general public to figure out the truth.
A purposeful release from a plant as described is something that should be prosecuted. However, that does not mean it posed any risk.
Slashdot Mirror
What percentage of Misandric tweets are from women? Why would the study not include that?
50% off is still a good deal, even if they are from women.
I think it is saying women get 50% off their misogynistic tweets, which is unfair.
Don't accuse people of lying when you don't understand the topic. You clearly do not understand the very big difference between fuel-melt damage and debris hitting a fuel assembly, leaving the fuel assembly bent or distorted but the fuel still perfectly intact. Essentially no damage and still safe with no release.
Extremely conservative limits kept farming restrictions in place, those limits set based on public misperception of risk and politics.
Sunlight is unsafe in a medical sense, are you as scared of it? You could live in the restricted Fukushima district during and after the accident, or have feasted on Welsh farm produced food if it were produced after Chernobyl, and your risk of cancer from the sun would still be many times the increased risk from radiation. Many people refuse to believe that because they've been fed a lifetime of fear. Your risk of cancer from many other sources would also greatly outweigh the risk from radiation from those accidents. Only the children in iodine path were really at any risk. I-131 has a short half life and is already completely diminished from both areas.
Only the existing infrastructure really isn't suit for hydrogen storage and distribution. Not the pumps, nor the tanks, nor the transports. Its cheaper an easier to convert a gas station to a charging station than a hydrogen station.
The H2 vision is based more on the thought that batteries will not get to a successful range/charge/recharge/cost balance. Batteries are progressing but not yet to that point, but close enough to re-think H2. I've never thought H2 made any sense simply due to inefficiency of the entire process. Fuel cells in general are still only niche products even after tremendous investment in development for the last 20 years. However, if cheap enough hydrogen could be produced, we would see that niche grow to a bigger portion of the market.
What's to stop people from creating their own hydrogen at home? Even running the conversion on solar power.
Nothing except cost.
Its a matter of frequency. Events like Turkey Point outage are very rare, nuclear plants have shut down unexpectantly many times and its not typically a problem. Low wind output is a lot more frequent. In Germany, there's already been several times this year that wind couldn't supply 5% of demand. Its only thanks to conventional sources who are reliably ready to go that they can handle that intermittency.
Low wind does not coincide with high solar output. Yes, there are summer days with low wind, but also summer nights with low wind, and winter days with low wind. For Germany, demand is higher in winter months, so that is the baseline. Once again, it is reliable conventional sources that enable wind and solar to be used to the extent they are, along with much help from adjacent grids who also are made up of primarily conventional sources.
Its irrelevant when there are already more Y people than there are X jobs. Don't you C?
You have just a plethora of irrelevant points and comments, don't you?.... please continue. I am amused.
I assume you never buy Asian electronics? Also, as far as economy is concerned, people generally profit from lower prices of goods. If US manufacturers are not the biggest players, maybe they could try harder? It's their problem if they're uncompetitive, not the buyer's problem.
Why would you assume I never by Asian products. I do. That is completely irrelevant to my point, in fact I pointed out that the US IS very competitive in supply of content for nuclear, gas, and coal. I didn't say it was a 'buyers problem' either. Not sure how that is relevant. My points stand even with your tangential commentary.
You make it sound if needing lots of people was good for industrial progress. On the contrary, getting rid of people is the best thing you can do.
No, I said creating more jobs is a positive economic factor. In case you haven't figured it out, unemployment is not a good thing for the economic health of a nation, nor the individuals.
So, you view generating electricity as 'make work'. I think users of electricity would disagree that it has no value.
They didn't really have broken pebbles so much as they had dust from pebble wear. This is a known issue with pebble bed reactors, they have filter systems in the main circuit to remove that particulate. I mentioned those filters and that was a condition in my statement. The release was from a pipe which is part of the system that takes pebbles, checks and returns them to the bed. The gas in that pipe is only going to have a very small amount of contaminate at normal operation, and only a small portion of it could make it up through a vent as it is a very low pressure differential. Note that this fuel is not like in a PWR, where fuel cladding plays a big part of fuel integrity and maintaining fuel below melting point by conducting heat and encasing the fuel. PBR fuel has no cladding. PBR fuel cannot heat to point where it is damaged and release large amounts of contaminant. It is designed so that even with no heat removal, its max temperature is below fuel melt. You can basically walk away and it will just sit there really hot but undamaged. So, if you want to call the dust from pebble wear as 'broken fuel', then I see how you would view my point as incorrect. But pebble wear is normal and expected and designed for. It is not considered damaged fuel. And I know its kind of disturbing for some unfamiliar to imagine all of this dust circulating and needing to be under control, but in reality it is quite a small amount of dust and not highly radioactive. But it is a reason that I am not a big fan of PBRs, and much prefer prismatic gas reactors.
Unfortunately, facts, which you presented quite clearly, don't matter to many. Solar advocates will avoid talking about the real cost of energy in MWh at all costs (pun intended).
Another economic impact that gets brushed aside in national content supply and jobs. For PV, a large chunk of the initial capital cost goes straight to China or other Asian manufactures. There are some US manufacturers but they are not the biggest players. Installation jobs are low paying, and there are few ongoing maintenance jobs. Wind requires a bit more from a maintenance and on-going supply standpoint, and has pretty good local parts content.
Coal, gas, and nuclear all have high local construction content, and employ more people with higher paying jobs on an ongoing basis. In a changing world where automation is taking over and good jobs are harder to find, employment factors into the overall economic benefit. A nuclear plant, for instance, will employ hundreds of six figure salary, educated workers, and also hundreds of higher paying craft and labor jobs. Nuclear and coal also keep a large number of support companies in business. And, they pay back a lot more in taxes via property, employment, etc than they are subsidized.
Problem is that your nuke plants are baseload and are *expected* to be up & running at all times, so shutting down just one for safety ususally means having to find a gigawatt of power somewhere else
Somewhat true, but since nuclear plants have such high capacity factors (90% in US), you don't need much spinning reserve on the grid, because its unlikely you'll lose more that one unexpectedly, and most of that 10% down time is planned. Whereas, with wind for example, you can see a drop in output in all windmills over a very large area. Just like in Germany, when sometimes they can't even supply 2% of demand. You need backup for the entire system, not just one or two plants.
The investors are irrelevant, the government support is something worth mentioning, as this is a plant that is woefully underperfoming to start with, has not fulfilled its contractual obligations for power delivery after it was operational, and is at risk of being shut down if the power contract is cancelled. This is just another setback that is going to make it that much harder for the plant to continue.
If this were nuclear or oil we'd have a fucking environmental disaster on our hands.
Actually fires happen in nuclear plants just like any other industrial facility. They rarely pose a nuclear safety risk because of the extensive systems in place to mitigate fire impact. Of course, if the fire damages any safety systems the plant would need to be shut down until repairs are complete. There have been a few serious fires that have gotten plenty of press, in all cases the plant was safety shut down using the designed features for doing so. No environmental disasters.
If you use the term unsafe and you don't mean human health and safety, then you should clarify in the future.
This incident was not a pebble break. They did have some broken pebbles during operation, it was a test reactor and stuff happens.
No, it was not damaged fuel, it was stuck fuel. The integrity of the fuel was never compromised, and there was never heat removal issue.
Someone could be moving one of them and it falls on them and they die. Done. Someone got killed.
The fact that you take an all or nothing approach when it comes to any industrial risk shows that YOU do not understand risk in the slightest.
Incidentally I'm not an expert, so I defer to experts on matters such as this, experts like the ones at TEPCO who were concerned enough that the cooling water in one of the spent fuel pools at Fukushima was boiling that they announced it to the IAEA and then moved the rods to another pool out of safety concerns. Could they have killed everyone in Japan? No. Could it have caused a problem for the locals? Not only plausible but actually rather likely, otherwise why take the risk of moving it.
There are always a risk of industrial accidents. In fact, nuclear power has the safety industrial accident record by far. There have been people killed working on renewable energy projects. That is a cop-out when we are talking about radiological risks.
But I see you have revised your statement from 'someone could get killed' to 'could cause a problem'.
The thyroid cases are well documented, and there were a lot due to susceptibility of kids. That is why I said children should be evacuated where I-131 could accumulate.
As fare as mushrooms, pigs, and cesium, yes they are taking extreme precautions but there has been no harm to those that ingested it, basically because the amounts are so small and the body does not retain cesium. There are no lies, there are facts and numbers from studies that show the real outcome was much less severe than projected, and other than the i-131 thyroid problems, there essentially was no health impact for anyone not near the plant.
I don't "approve" of any radiological release per se. But I don't worry about insignificant releases, and I do what I can to help folks understand that the risks are way overblown by the media.
I have said elsewhere here that a purposeful, illegal release should be prosecuted. But I don't see the need to make a big deal about an insignificant release 30 years ago, nor to take seriously a headline that simply tries to hyperbolize a situation that was investigated long ago.
What I know is that there are essentially no ways that a reactor of this type can release a significant amount of radioactive gas unless they are having some sort accident with fuel damage accident, which was not the case. There aren't any really highly radioactive gasses in the system. Only a small amount of contamination is circulating, and it is filtered on an ongoing basis, so even that wouldn't be significant.
From what was described, it was a simple purge gas from a pipe section. That would be an extremely small emission.
Anyone who would purposefully releases some radioactive gas without approval should be prosecuted accordingly, and evidently it was already investigated, so this isn't even news. However, seeing that radiation risk is so highly mis-understood and inflated by Joe public, this type of headline hype deserves some measured response related to the risks.
Its a shame there was so much fear induced by the media back then (and still today). Nobody needed to worry except those near Chernobyl or any children in the areas where significant I-131 could accumulate. Years of study has shown that there were no health impacts in Germany or any of the other regions far from Chernobyl. And the effects of those very near Chernobyl were much less that projected.
I'd hope we could learn from that, but there is too much misinformation to expect the general public to figure out the truth.
A purposeful release from a plant as described is something that should be prosecuted. However, that does not mean it posed any risk.