Yeah, Fukushima shows that the Nuclear Industry really applied itself to learning the lessons of safety from Chernobyl.
If someone does something incredibly stupid, like drive drunk and slam a car into a tree, what is there to learn? Don't be stupid?
What lessons were there to learn from Chernobyl? Japan didn't have reactors as unsafe as those used at Chernobyl. They didn't do stupid stuff nor were inclined to. They didn't fail to warn the public nor were inclined to.
There wasn't anything going on that was dangerous or stupid enough to where lessons from Chernobyl could have applied.
Really? - So negligence at an executive level wasn't a factor? Take the Pro and Anti arguments out of this for a moment and you'll notice that TEPCO did not install flood-proof backup generators into their reactor facilities. They did not take the available science into account and build higher sea walls. Same thinking that caused both Space shuttle disasters, "Oh we've never had a 9.0 before" so they only planned for an 8.
In Chernobyl's case they forced a Safety drill on the operators to be completed by a certain date to tick a box in a management form, in TEPCO's case they failed to invest in updating safety equipment as new information arose. So, yeah, there was dangerous and stupid thinking present at a management (Chernobyl) and executive (Fukushima) level.
The common element, they did not have procedures in place that took the operational factors into account.
At Chernobyl they didn't enable the plant controllers operational options to abort the "safety" drill as inappropriate. At Fukushima they didn't implement safety systems to mitigate an operational hazzard.
Different scenarios but in both cases operational procedures did not exist. ergo; Fukushima shows that the Nuclear Industry FAILED to apply itself to learning the lessons of safety from Chernobyl.
That's what I was getting at yesterday. Nuclear would be fine as long as it was strictly regulated by a 3rd party uninterested in profits (read: the government). And even then you'd have to worry about some asshole inspector taking kickbacks not to notice the corner cutting.
Really, one interesting way to address it would be "if your company causes a disaster, or even a near disaster, because you decided to cut costs by cutting safety corners, the entire upper management of your company goes to jail for life."
Of course, that philosophy would work well extended to all corporations, not just the nuclear industry;)
+10,000,000 insightful
Sorry, I've revised that down to +100,000 insightful.
Here's the thing: The reactors at Fukushima are ~40 years old and contain a design flaw that essentially caused this to happen. Newer designs for water boiler reactors have the water flow in via gravity feed instead of requiring manual pumps running on external power. While it's certainly possible that other problems might've caused a newer reactor to suffer potential meltdown, it's very likely that we would've never seen this occur if Fukushima Daiichi had a gravity-feed water cooling system. The takeaway should be that nuclear power plants need to be upgraded to keep up with the times, but unfortunately I think you're right, and the takeaway will be "OMG NUCLEAR BAD."
Please, get a clue. This has nothing to do with the technology of the reactor. Stopping this accident would have taken a flood proof diesel generator. Stop beating this up to say "we need new reactors". You need to stop talking and start listening to *existing* safety research and start *implementing* the design modifications that have been around for decades.
TEPCO had 40 years to install appropriate backups and seawalls based on real science. This whole disaster is a case of criminal negligence at an executive level in much the same way BP was in the gulf of mexico.
The sooner you accept that Nuclear power is a dangerous temperamental fickle ten headed hydra that wants to kill you the sooner you will have safety means that are appropriate to the operations of a nuclear reactor. Even then you don't call it safe, you say it's under observation for the next thing that can go wrong. Besides any REAL effort at making ANY new reactor design safe would start with it being UNDER GROUND so that mitigating an emergency becomes a matter of flooding the rector cavity, you'd even design it so that it could recover from an event like this and factor the decommissioning into the design.
Mitigating an accident like this would then become a matter of disassembling the reactor in a pre-built moderator housing everything with enhanced underwater industrial techniques.
Sure, there will continue to be NIMBYs. But the more real knowledge we have about nuclear power and its problems, the more comfortable people will get to nuclear power.
Yeah, Fukushima shows that the Nuclear Industry really applied itself to learning the lessons of safety from Chernobyl.
Wind and solar are pipe dreams. I don't care if I get modded down for saying that. I don't care if it goes against popular opinion, or flies in the face of all the pro-solar, pro-wind propaganda of late. And I don't care if it upsets the environmentalists.
Fucking Karma whore. You know that's *exactly* what many people here feel. I, however, will probably get modded down by all the pro-nuke-ler ignorant arrogant assholes because I'm saying there are better ways to make power WHILE A FUCKING NUCLEAR REACTOR IS IN THE PROCESS OF MELTING DOWN.
It's true. Even if you could come up with enough money to build the infrastructure to deploy and maintain the kind of huge solar and wind farms you would need all over the country/world, they'll still only cover a fraction of our present-day needs.
Bullshit. REAL renewables have yet to see any significant industrial investment and all comes down to political will. Where is your research? I bet you've got none and are just lying. So here is some I've dug up;
Nuclear power: economics and climate-protection potential uses industry and government data and finds that, globally, nuclear power is already being outpaced by better means of electricity production. It finds globally, as far back as 2006, more electricity was being produces from low-carbon and no-carbon competitors. Even without subsidies decentralised electricity generators provide almost three times the output and almost six times the capacity of nuclear power, that's kinetic vs potential energy. Energy efficiency means alone are shown to provide ten times the capacity of the nuclear industry.
Even the pro-nuclear 2003 MIT study found that every ten cents spent to buy a nuclear kilowatt hour (1 kWh) could be used to generate 1.2 - 1.7 kWh of gas fired electricity, 2.2 - 6.5 kWh of co-generation (combined heat and power) from industry or 10 kWh of energy efficiency methods.
Wind power is already whooping nuclear ass. Back in 2004 it globally outpaced nuclear by six times in annual capacity. With short lead times, farmer friendly, rapid technological development I suspect this will grow after the fukushima disaster.
America is blessed with so much wind and sun power you don't even need nuke-ler bower, so why don't people like you have the imagination to utilise this resources that ends your dependency on oil and nuclear.
Oh sure, ask any American if they support solar/wind and they'll say "Yes." But try rephrasing it as "Would you support a 50% income tax increase to pay for investments in solar/wind infrastructure?"
Ask them if they would like a Fukushima style disaster near them with a General Electric reactor commonly installed around the U.S. I bet there is some hidden failure mode waiting in any one of those reactors - Just as the japanese have recently discovered. Tell them they can save money on CHP and then ask them if nuke is a viable alternative when an electricity company will rent their land to put up wind power - and they can still have their crops or cows.
But the more I look at the issue, and the kinds of numbers involved, the more I don't see how it's ever going to be practical (not until the coal runs out anyway).
Please surprise me and share your valuable research with us. Show me the numbers and I'll do some real research.
And that's not even getting into the issue of countries and areas that don't get enough unobstructed sunlight and wind. What's going to happen to them in this utopia?
Reeeaally, altruism is a motivator now, as if. What a serious load of Bullshit you have produced. I bet you feel good getting that load out, karma whore. You pro-nuclear idiots have hit a new low *WHILE* a meltdown is occuring you trumpet the lie for all to hear, fucking pathetic. It's one thing
Ironically, this whole crisis was caused because they did precisely that—the reactors shut down automatically for safety reasons, and then they had no power with which to keep the pumps running because the diesel generators were underwater. Had pretty much any one those reactors not automatically scrammed, it is likely that things would be in better shape than they are now.
And what folks should take away from all this is that reactors should auto-scram only when they detect a coolant leak, not because of an earthquake that merely might cause a coolant leak. Or at least that's what should happen for older reactors like these that require active cooling in a scrammed state.
Well no. had the reactor been at power with control rods out it's probable that they would not have been able to shut the reactor down and had a run away scenario, meltdown and explosion sooner. The reactor facility did exactly what it should have done.
No, scratch that. The takeaway should be that reactors that require active cooling in a scrammed state are fundamentally unsafe in a seismic zone and should be replaced with newer reactors as soon as possible.
This had nothing to do with the reactor technology and everything to do with implementing the proper safeguards, planning and engineering for such a catastrophe. They should have been planning for a 15 earthquake and a tsunami twice the size of this one. They didn't and this is the result.
Possibly even worse, but much simpler: An enemy of Japan, i.e., North Korea, taking advantage of the relative lack of security around the plant or off the shore of Sendai, finishes off the containment of one or more of the reactors using light artillery. The situation that has been mildly contaminating food and water suddenly wipes out Tokyo. (The fact that this hasn't happened actually raises my impression of North Korea.)
I'm fairly certain the N.Koreans would have a hard time getting past the USS Ronald Reagan to execute that plan - which would basically be an act of war that would bring the full force of the US military on them. I'm sure China would also be upset about having some of the fall out on their territory.
But what I do know is that GP didn't allege any facts which would lead someone to conclude that TEPCO acted unreasonably, but still expected the reader to imply that this proved TEPCO acted unreasonably.
The fact is in my previous response to you, underground flood proof back up generators on site. As this unfolds the geological science available, plenty of available funding, the design of the cooling pool seals and refueling mechanism for the General Electric reactor and 40 years to do the work my doubt is subsiding that this is anything less than a matter of criminal negligence.
When that didn't work out and it was clear that they had absolutely no other option, TEPCO began pumping seawater in. They did everything they could to avoid writing the reactors off.
And that's unreasonable because...?
... they accepted the risk of not installing flood proof backup generators as insurance against such an event. Their risk was the capital loss of the reactor installation. Instead they upped the risk by not using the seawater option to contaminating part of Japan with fallout, a meltdown *and* the capital loss of the reactor installation.
One incompetent act after another. For profit nuclear power is just not a viable option.
What I find ironic is that by blasting stuff into the sun, we might just be able to 'push it over that hill' in a manner that won't be an issue for literally billions of years.
It's so radioactive in space there is practically nothing we would be able to do that would change it in any significant way, even just an orbit that lasted some billions of years.
More valuable though would be to use the stuff we use in reactors, spent fuel, as fuel for space craft flying around the solar system.
Could we possibly produce enough stuff from this planet that we actually effect the sun in any meaning full way? In terms of scale it seems like we might just be able to get away with blasting our refuse into the sun and not see any significant consequences.
Short answer first question) is no, unfortunately the actual mass we would need to lift out of our gravity well is staggering. It could not be done with rockets and more than likely you would have to use a space elevator or the like.
And it doesn't help that the boss is essentially hiding out in his pillow fort instead of working to try to coordinate the effort, be a public punching bag, or doing anything better than hiding. Fuck at this point taking the warriors way out and killing himself would be a boon to TEPCO and Japan.....
No it would not it would be yet another disaster for safety. These people need to face the music so we can discover *exactly* what went wrong in the decision making process so that the same mistakes are never repeated again.
Not sure why you feel that way. These reactors have been through a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami, but still there's not a single death due to direct exposure to radiation. If anything, this demonstrates how safe nuclear power it.
Wide eyed and insane looking he grabbed the anti-nuke protester, shook him violently pointing at the smouldering mass that used to be Fukushima, "SEE I TOLD YOU, IT'S PERFECTLY SAFE SSSAAAFFEEEE!!!!!!"
Dur dee dur because we already did? This reactor is fucking old. Did you know trucks crash spilling everything they're carrying sometimes? We should really modernize them, huh? There will always be some sort of a problem that can happen. When it does and its no big, and we go on to stop building reactors until they are all "fixed" is exactly like halting manufacturing of trucks after every accident. In no way does that mean we will never again work to improve the safety of reactors or procedures around them. It just means keep it in perspective. Its already better than the alternatives.
Yeah, wow - must be a real engineering challenge to retrofit a flood proof diesel back-up generator on the site.
And this is exactly why we have this problem in the first place. Sad but true. Newer reactor designs don't have this problem. These reactors were designed fifty years ago and built forty years ago. The problem doesn't exist in newer designs. Yet these designs exist because anti-nukers actively prevent them being built. Which means designs which typically are certified for twenty years, are still running thirty, forty, and fifty years after being built because anti-nukers making it all but impossible for them to be shutdown without a replacement. And since you can't built a replacement because of anti-nukers, we have problems like these.
In a nut shell, anti-nukers are the cause of shit like this. Literally, if you killed all anti-nukers tomorrow, the world would be a better, safer, cleaner place.
Wow, just wow. You are a serious pro-nuke fanboi aren't you. Suddenly the physics or reactor operation changes because of a newer reactor design and it's all the anti-nukkers fault that Fukushima blew up??? WTF?
If you are such a expert in nuclear power what is an ASP, an LER and a BDI? How does an ASP lead to a LER and identify a BDI. What is the relevance of a BDI to a new reactor? Come on any self respecting pro-nukker should know the answer right now, or are you admitting you actually don't know what you are talking about.
I suggest you educate yourself as you have reinforced the fact that people, such as yourself, are actually ignorant self aggrandizing troll. I think the best thing about your posts is they characterise you as someone wide-eyed, mad looking, pointing at Fukushima saying "see, it's all the anti-nukkers fault!!, IT"S PERFECTLY SAFE, SSSAAAAFFFEEE!!!!!"
This very fact is something I've been attempting to hammer home hard here. The reality is, anti-nukers have effectively created self fulfilling prophecy by actively preventing newer, safer reactors and literally mandating certification extension.
I think the point you are missing is there are severe structural issues around support infrastructure required for the nuclear industry, namely geologically stable spent fuel containment. You are blaming anti-nuclear folk for a lack of modern reactors but I don't see pro-nuclear folk lobbying for the containment facilities that would allow it to occur.
This is highlighted at Fukushima by the significant spent fuel containment problem at the site. There 1600 million callories per hour of heating capacity in the spent fuel stored at just one of the reactor facilities (number 4). That's enough to boil away the roughly 1300 hundred tons of water in those cooling pools away in less than 3 days.
Anti-nukers are very successful as scaremongering, but the reality is, they are the primary cause of tens of thousands of needless deaths every year and are actively pushing to ensure ever higher energy prices. Because baseload can't expand, we're forced to grow based on much more expensive peak load technologies.
There isn't an anti-nuker alive who isn't living in the middle of the woods, who doesn't deserve our loathing and disgust.
You're trying to shift the blame when the same can be said for pro-nukers who lulled people into a sense of security about the apparent "safety" of nuclear power. This has nothing to do with implementing new reactor technology and everything to do with not implementing adequate safeguards in the first place, namely flood proof back-up diesel generators on-site. I don't see pro-nukers out there lobbying for safety of the plants to be improved, I see them doing what you are doing, shifting the blame and not taking responsibility.
What is newsworthy is that the containment units withstood a 9.0 quake which is many orders of magnitude greater than the design specified. That is impressive and only underscores just how safe nuclear power is.
What it underscores is that no matter how well designed it is it cannot be operated safely.
In the coming months we are going to see much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands of how flood proof diesel generators were not retrofitted to the reactor facility. Despite having 40 years to do it, geological science available as a reason why, plenty of funding and a strong motivation in terms of surrounding population, it was never done, yet you claim nuclear power is safe.
Windscale (1957, Level 5), Three Mile Island (1979, level 4), Chernobyl (1986, level 7) and Fukushima (2011, Level 5) are all examples of how nuclear designs have proven they cannot be operated safely by humans. Yet while radionuclide contamination occured from all of these facilities, you claim nuclear power is safe .
Ordinary people, firefighters and plant workers, have had to expose themselves to unknown toxic levels of radioactive isotopes to bring about the outcome you claim makes "nuclear power safe". It's more than likely that these people will get radiation sickness and some will die. Yet, prematurely, before the accident has even played out, before we even know how many people have been affected, you open your big, uninformed, arrogant fanboi mouth and claim nuclear power is safe.
I don't see any mad scramble to retrofit tsunami proof backup generators to all the generation one General Electric Nuclear reactors operating in the coastal areas of the United States. How many of them are in earthquake zones? You claim there is a lesson for the future but the warnings have been there for decades still not being listened to because people, like you, even while three nuclear reactors sit smoldering pumping unknown quantities of radioactive isotopes into the environment and cooling pools with several hundred tons of pu-239 exposed because the design of the reactor was overloaded due to sheer negligence, continue to claim Nuclear power is safe.
You are clearly delusional.
Until the stupid, uninformed, arrogant, mentally lazy pro-nuclear fanbois do their research, understand the actual limitations of the technology, the actual risks and accept responsibility, your voice will become more and more irrelevant. Which is a shame because I personally feel that if you accept the risks of an enterprise you are one step closer to mitigating the risks. Make no doubt, this whole Fukushima disaster is the fault of all the pro-nuclear fanbois out there who lulled people into a sense of security about nuclear power and consumed the energy of those who tried to lobby for improvement that would make a earthquake and tsunami irrelevant.
Any person who adheres to the principles of responsible nuclear advocacy will admit that no matter how necessary they feel Nuclear power may be, it is a risky enterprise that requires constant vigilance, constant improvement refinement and observation if it is to be operated safely. They would lobby for it to occur - are you listening, pro-nuclear fanboi slashdotter?
The idiotic, arrogant, stupid, pathetic and failure prone thinking of a pro-nuclear fanbois argument looks like they banging a nail into a wall with a hand grenade while turning to their guests saying "it's perfectly safe, it's never gone off before" and wondering why everybody is scrambling to get out of the room.
Don't take it personally, I'll probably get modded down for saying this but it's not just you. I'm directing it at all the delusional pro-nuclear fanbois here who constantly berate those who lobby for the kind of improvement the nuclear industry *requires* to actually make it safe.
Huh. So you say they dumped water all over the radioactive disaster with helicopters, firetrucks, a big concrete pump truck, and now the basement of the reactor is filled with radioactive water?
You are missing the point. Simply put, the water in the basement is from the cooling pools containing the spent fuel. This was the initiator of the disaster, the cooling water was low enough so that hydrogen production began - it should never have happened. This is what caused the explosions. Now that more data is becoming available coupled with what is known about how this generation of reactor facilities are designed it's possible to formulate a theory about how this whole disaster actually happened.
The information I've gathered suggests that not only was this disaster avoidable it's complete criminal negligence that it happened. The failures TEPCO have made are inexcusable. The earthquake and Tsunami are irrelevant.
In the mean time, it's been remarkably entertaining to to watch and read all of the comments made in the absence of any real data. That the short lived radioactive isotopes are so short lived that they shouldn't be around long enough to cause any harm and the long lived ones are not radioactive enough to be a problem even if they are toxic and even then it's not as bad as the coal industry. You pro-nuclear fanbois have been drinking that nuclear industry kool aid, big time. I wonder what it is about nuclear power that causes such a large collective drop in IQ points. I encourage you to keep going, your collective arrogance, ignorance and inability to accept nuclear power as any other than flawless clean and perfect makes any argument you make irrelevant. As long as you pro-nuclear fanbois continue your crusade for nuclear power the end of it is absolutely assured.
The *reality* is this is a Level 5 Nuclear Disaster. That means it's a disaster with wider consequences and it's still happening, despite the fact that the news cycle isn't following it any more.
Every indication to do is you are factually incorrect. Either you're an idiot or a troll. The fact you posted anonymously indicates its either or more likely both. The buildings easily survived the quakes and failed from numerous hydrogen explosions as a result of failed cooling.
The AC may be an AC because they are moderating. You are making an assumption. Your reasoning is circular and flawed, aside for being wrong.
The containment failed because the cooling failed because the backup generators were not engineered to withstand a tsunami after 9.0 earthquake. The engineering was not good enough and could have been retro fitted at *any* time during the 40 odd years of the plants operation based on the geological science available. No part of this was an accident, despite the excuses of an earthquake and tsunami, what it is is criminal negligence. This whole disaster was as avoidable as Chernobyl, it's just that the incompetence happened somewhere else in the organisation. Clearly TEPCO were unwilling to spend the money to ensure the survivability of the plant in the most extreme situation, proving again that profit trumps safety when it comes to the nuclear industry. The consequences, aside for the capital loss of the reactors, will likely be Japans immediate economic recovery plus the long term costs to clean up the mess.
You argue semantics on the basis that the post wasn't pedantic enough to overcome your assumptions. The bottom line is "The containment did not withstand 9.0 earthquake.", that's the simple essence of what has happened.
To the sound of a business model in death throes. One day we will hear the death rattle, the conciliatory tones of the record industry industry executives saying they were too aggressive, should of adapted sooner and that they are changing the way they do business so it's of benefit to the consumer.
There is no such thing as "being contaminated by radiation", unless you're talking about neutron activation and that really only happens within a reactor. Stuff gets contaminated by other stuff that happens to fission and radiate. Neither alpha, beta nor gamma radiation can contaminate anything by itself.
You are talking about radiation exposure. A radionuclide is an emitter of radiation and there is also radionuclide exposure via ingestion. Your body can uptake radionuclide(s) via respirable dust, direct consumption in water and through bioaccumulation. For example a millionth of a gram of plutonium - an alpha emitter, ingested, is a fatal dose.
The issue with exposure of this nature is that it happens over much longer periods of time, as you mention, when the radionuclide decays into a daughter product. These daughter products can also be toxic and the decay continues through this cycle. As they go through this cycle, if they are in the environment eventually they make it into the food chain and into ground water. As Cancer has a gestation period in the years (usually 6 years) it's almost impossible to detect the source of the contamination. It's this characteristic of a nuclear accident than pans out very slowly many years after the accident as it takes time for the radionuclide to move through the food chain.
So in all this talk of "radiation contamination", we need to know all of the following several things for it to have any fucking meaning in the first place:
1. What are the contaminating radionuclide(s), what are their proportions, and what are their half lives.
2. What kinds of radiation are released, and which ones are dangerous (if there's plenty of alpha but nothing else, you're fine as long as you don't eat it, for example, even if the level of alpha radiation is "whoa red zone").
3. How easy are the contaminants to remove (some shit just washes with water, you know).
4. What was the mode of contamination, and thus what's contaminated (is it floating dust in the air, is it dust on the ground, is it food, water, what?).
The "readings" by themselves are useless unless you know all of the above.
When it comes to radionuclide contamination it's also handy to know what element it analogues. Knowing that plutonium presents to the body as iron or that strontium 90 presents as calcium identify your susceptibility to cancers in different parts of the body, if you suspect exposure. For example around Fukushima it's iodine supplements to children because cesium (137, 138) presents as iodine. This would make children who ingest that radioactive isotope susceptible to Thyroid cancer.
This is why it is important to get the information with what is happening with the reactors. The science has to be done to gather samples of respirable dust, soil and ground water samples to understand the actual threat.This is especially true with reactor 3 that is powered with MOX and is significantly more toxic that the other three U-235 powered reactors. Additionally the reactor "activates" elements in the reactor creating things like Iron 90 and Cobalt 55 so knowing the exact state of this reactor is key to understanding just what the level of toxicity has been released.
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Yeah, Fukushima shows that the Nuclear Industry really applied itself to learning the lessons of safety from Chernobyl.
If someone does something incredibly stupid, like drive drunk and slam a car into a tree, what is there to learn? Don't be stupid? What lessons were there to learn from Chernobyl? Japan didn't have reactors as unsafe as those used at Chernobyl. They didn't do stupid stuff nor were inclined to. They didn't fail to warn the public nor were inclined to. There wasn't anything going on that was dangerous or stupid enough to where lessons from Chernobyl could have applied.
Really? - So negligence at an executive level wasn't a factor? Take the Pro and Anti arguments out of this for a moment and you'll notice that TEPCO did not install flood-proof backup generators into their reactor facilities. They did not take the available science into account and build higher sea walls. Same thinking that caused both Space shuttle disasters, "Oh we've never had a 9.0 before" so they only planned for an 8.
In Chernobyl's case they forced a Safety drill on the operators to be completed by a certain date to tick a box in a management form, in TEPCO's case they failed to invest in updating safety equipment as new information arose. So, yeah, there was dangerous and stupid thinking present at a management (Chernobyl) and executive (Fukushima) level.
The common element, they did not have procedures in place that took the operational factors into account. At Chernobyl they didn't enable the plant controllers operational options to abort the "safety" drill as inappropriate. At Fukushima they didn't implement safety systems to mitigate an operational hazzard.
Different scenarios but in both cases operational procedures did not exist. ergo; Fukushima shows that the Nuclear Industry FAILED to apply itself to learning the lessons of safety from Chernobyl.
That's what I was getting at yesterday. Nuclear would be fine as long as it was strictly regulated by a 3rd party uninterested in profits (read: the government). And even then you'd have to worry about some asshole inspector taking kickbacks not to notice the corner cutting.
Really, one interesting way to address it would be "if your company causes a disaster, or even a near disaster, because you decided to cut costs by cutting safety corners, the entire upper management of your company goes to jail for life."
Of course, that philosophy would work well extended to all corporations, not just the nuclear industry ;)
+10,000,000 insightful
Sorry, I've revised that down to +100,000 insightful.
Here's the thing: The reactors at Fukushima are ~40 years old and contain a design flaw that essentially caused this to happen. Newer designs for water boiler reactors have the water flow in via gravity feed instead of requiring manual pumps running on external power. While it's certainly possible that other problems might've caused a newer reactor to suffer potential meltdown, it's very likely that we would've never seen this occur if Fukushima Daiichi had a gravity-feed water cooling system. The takeaway should be that nuclear power plants need to be upgraded to keep up with the times, but unfortunately I think you're right, and the takeaway will be "OMG NUCLEAR BAD."
Please, get a clue. This has nothing to do with the technology of the reactor. Stopping this accident would have taken a flood proof diesel generator. Stop beating this up to say "we need new reactors". You need to stop talking and start listening to *existing* safety research and start *implementing* the design modifications that have been around for decades.
TEPCO had 40 years to install appropriate backups and seawalls based on real science. This whole disaster is a case of criminal negligence at an executive level in much the same way BP was in the gulf of mexico.
The sooner you accept that Nuclear power is a dangerous temperamental fickle ten headed hydra that wants to kill you the sooner you will have safety means that are appropriate to the operations of a nuclear reactor. Even then you don't call it safe, you say it's under observation for the next thing that can go wrong. Besides any REAL effort at making ANY new reactor design safe would start with it being UNDER GROUND so that mitigating an emergency becomes a matter of flooding the rector cavity, you'd even design it so that it could recover from an event like this and factor the decommissioning into the design.
Mitigating an accident like this would then become a matter of disassembling the reactor in a pre-built moderator housing everything with enhanced underwater industrial techniques.
And in fact was commissioned 6 years before Chernobyl. Chernobyl is still state of the art, who knew.
Well Three Mile Island (TMI-2) was state of the art when it melted down. it was only in operation for 3 months.
Sure, there will continue to be NIMBYs. But the more real knowledge we have about nuclear power and its problems, the more comfortable people will get to nuclear power.
Yeah, Fukushima shows that the Nuclear Industry really applied itself to learning the lessons of safety from Chernobyl.
Wind and solar are pipe dreams. I don't care if I get modded down for saying that. I don't care if it goes against popular opinion, or flies in the face of all the pro-solar, pro-wind propaganda of late. And I don't care if it upsets the environmentalists.
Fucking Karma whore. You know that's *exactly* what many people here feel. I, however, will probably get modded down by all the pro-nuke-ler ignorant arrogant assholes because I'm saying there are better ways to make power WHILE A FUCKING NUCLEAR REACTOR IS IN THE PROCESS OF MELTING DOWN.
It's true. Even if you could come up with enough money to build the infrastructure to deploy and maintain the kind of huge solar and wind farms you would need all over the country/world, they'll still only cover a fraction of our present-day needs.
Bullshit. REAL renewables have yet to see any significant industrial investment and all comes down to political will. Where is your research? I bet you've got none and are just lying. So here is some I've dug up;
Nuclear power: economics and climate-protection potential uses industry and government data and finds that, globally, nuclear power is already being outpaced by better means of electricity production. It finds globally, as far back as 2006, more electricity was being produces from low-carbon and no-carbon competitors. Even without subsidies decentralised electricity generators provide almost three times the output and almost six times the capacity of nuclear power, that's kinetic vs potential energy. Energy efficiency means alone are shown to provide ten times the capacity of the nuclear industry.
Even the pro-nuclear 2003 MIT study found that every ten cents spent to buy a nuclear kilowatt hour (1 kWh) could be used to generate 1.2 - 1.7 kWh of gas fired electricity, 2.2 - 6.5 kWh of co-generation (combined heat and power) from industry or 10 kWh of energy efficiency methods.
Wind power is already whooping nuclear ass. Back in 2004 it globally outpaced nuclear by six times in annual capacity. With short lead times, farmer friendly, rapid technological development I suspect this will grow after the fukushima disaster.
America is blessed with so much wind and sun power you don't even need nuke-ler bower, so why don't people like you have the imagination to utilise this resources that ends your dependency on oil and nuclear.
Oh sure, ask any American if they support solar/wind and they'll say "Yes." But try rephrasing it as "Would you support a 50% income tax increase to pay for investments in solar/wind infrastructure?"
Ask them if they would like a Fukushima style disaster near them with a General Electric reactor commonly installed around the U.S. I bet there is some hidden failure mode waiting in any one of those reactors - Just as the japanese have recently discovered. Tell them they can save money on CHP and then ask them if nuke is a viable alternative when an electricity company will rent their land to put up wind power - and they can still have their crops or cows.
But the more I look at the issue, and the kinds of numbers involved, the more I don't see how it's ever going to be practical (not until the coal runs out anyway).
Please surprise me and share your valuable research with us. Show me the numbers and I'll do some real research.
And that's not even getting into the issue of countries and areas that don't get enough unobstructed sunlight and wind. What's going to happen to them in this utopia?
Reeeaally, altruism is a motivator now, as if. What a serious load of Bullshit you have produced. I bet you feel good getting that load out, karma whore. You pro-nuclear idiots have hit a new low *WHILE* a meltdown is occuring you trumpet the lie for all to hear, fucking pathetic. It's one thing
>From the article, it seems that Japan had based its tsunami predictions on historical records, instead of predictions from Plate Tectonic Theory.
An excellent and informative post, thank you.
Ironically, this whole crisis was caused because they did precisely that—the reactors shut down automatically for safety reasons, and then they had no power with which to keep the pumps running because the diesel generators were underwater. Had pretty much any one those reactors not automatically scrammed, it is likely that things would be in better shape than they are now.
And what folks should take away from all this is that reactors should auto-scram only when they detect a coolant leak, not because of an earthquake that merely might cause a coolant leak. Or at least that's what should happen for older reactors like these that require active cooling in a scrammed state.
Well no. had the reactor been at power with control rods out it's probable that they would not have been able to shut the reactor down and had a run away scenario, meltdown and explosion sooner. The reactor facility did exactly what it should have done.
No, scratch that. The takeaway should be that reactors that require active cooling in a scrammed state are fundamentally unsafe in a seismic zone and should be replaced with newer reactors as soon as possible.
This had nothing to do with the reactor technology and everything to do with implementing the proper safeguards, planning and engineering for such a catastrophe. They should have been planning for a 15 earthquake and a tsunami twice the size of this one. They didn't and this is the result.
it's being a dick on a massive scale.
and thats really close to being an asshole.
Possibly even worse, but much simpler: An enemy of Japan, i.e., North Korea, taking advantage of the relative lack of security around the plant or off the shore of Sendai, finishes off the containment of one or more of the reactors using light artillery. The situation that has been mildly contaminating food and water suddenly wipes out Tokyo. (The fact that this hasn't happened actually raises my impression of North Korea.)
I'm fairly certain the N.Koreans would have a hard time getting past the USS Ronald Reagan to execute that plan - which would basically be an act of war that would bring the full force of the US military on them. I'm sure China would also be upset about having some of the fall out on their territory.
But what I do know is that GP didn't allege any facts which would lead someone to conclude that TEPCO acted unreasonably, but still expected the reader to imply that this proved TEPCO acted unreasonably.
The fact is in my previous response to you, underground flood proof back up generators on site. As this unfolds the geological science available, plenty of available funding, the design of the cooling pool seals and refueling mechanism for the General Electric reactor and 40 years to do the work my doubt is subsiding that this is anything less than a matter of criminal negligence.
When that didn't work out and it was clear that they had absolutely no other option, TEPCO began pumping seawater in. They did everything they could to avoid writing the reactors off.
And that's unreasonable because...?
... they accepted the risk of not installing flood proof backup generators as insurance against such an event. Their risk was the capital loss of the reactor installation. Instead they upped the risk by not using the seawater option to contaminating part of Japan with fallout, a meltdown *and* the capital loss of the reactor installation.
One incompetent act after another. For profit nuclear power is just not a viable option.
What I find ironic is that by blasting stuff into the sun, we might just be able to 'push it over that hill' in a manner that won't be an issue for literally billions of years.
It's so radioactive in space there is practically nothing we would be able to do that would change it in any significant way, even just an orbit that lasted some billions of years.
More valuable though would be to use the stuff we use in reactors, spent fuel, as fuel for space craft flying around the solar system.
Could we possibly produce enough stuff from this planet that we actually effect the sun in any meaning full way? In terms of scale it seems like we might just be able to get away with blasting our refuse into the sun and not see any significant consequences.
Short answer first question) is no, unfortunately the actual mass we would need to lift out of our gravity well is staggering. It could not be done with rockets and more than likely you would have to use a space elevator or the like.
And it doesn't help that the boss is essentially hiding out in his pillow fort instead of working to try to coordinate the effort, be a public punching bag, or doing anything better than hiding. Fuck at this point taking the warriors way out and killing himself would be a boon to TEPCO and Japan.....
No it would not it would be yet another disaster for safety. These people need to face the music so we can discover *exactly* what went wrong in the decision making process so that the same mistakes are never repeated again.
Yeah I'm a zealot for wanting safely ran nuclear reactors. You're saying there are no unsafe reactors in the U.S.? Speaking of zealots...
palo verde, *shiver*
Not sure why you feel that way. These reactors have been through a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami, but still there's not a single death due to direct exposure to radiation. If anything, this demonstrates how safe nuclear power it.
Wide eyed and insane looking he grabbed the anti-nuke protester, shook him violently pointing at the smouldering mass that used to be Fukushima, "SEE I TOLD YOU, IT'S PERFECTLY SAFE SSSAAAFFEEEE!!!!!!"
Dur dee dur because we already did? This reactor is fucking old. Did you know trucks crash spilling everything they're carrying sometimes? We should really modernize them, huh? There will always be some sort of a problem that can happen. When it does and its no big, and we go on to stop building reactors until they are all "fixed" is exactly like halting manufacturing of trucks after every accident. In no way does that mean we will never again work to improve the safety of reactors or procedures around them. It just means keep it in perspective. Its already better than the alternatives.
Yeah, wow - must be a real engineering challenge to retrofit a flood proof diesel back-up generator on the site.
Wow, just wow. You are a serious pro-nuke fanboi aren't you. Suddenly the physics or reactor operation changes because of a newer reactor design and it's all the anti-nukkers fault that Fukushima blew up??? WTF?
If you are such a expert in nuclear power what is an ASP, an LER and a BDI? How does an ASP lead to a LER and identify a BDI. What is the relevance of a BDI to a new reactor? Come on any self respecting pro-nukker should know the answer right now, or are you admitting you actually don't know what you are talking about.
I suggest you educate yourself as you have reinforced the fact that people, such as yourself, are actually ignorant self aggrandizing troll. I think the best thing about your posts is they characterise you as someone wide-eyed, mad looking, pointing at Fukushima saying "see, it's all the anti-nukkers fault!!, IT"S PERFECTLY SAFE, SSSAAAAFFFEEE!!!!!"
I think the point you are missing is there are severe structural issues around support infrastructure required for the nuclear industry, namely geologically stable spent fuel containment. You are blaming anti-nuclear folk for a lack of modern reactors but I don't see pro-nuclear folk lobbying for the containment facilities that would allow it to occur.
This is highlighted at Fukushima by the significant spent fuel containment problem at the site. There 1600 million callories per hour of heating capacity in the spent fuel stored at just one of the reactor facilities (number 4). That's enough to boil away the roughly 1300 hundred tons of water in those cooling pools away in less than 3 days.
You're trying to shift the blame when the same can be said for pro-nukers who lulled people into a sense of security about the apparent "safety" of nuclear power. This has nothing to do with implementing new reactor technology and everything to do with not implementing adequate safeguards in the first place, namely flood proof back-up diesel generators on-site. I don't see pro-nukers out there lobbying for safety of the plants to be improved, I see them doing what you are doing, shifting the blame and not taking responsibility.
What it underscores is that no matter how well designed it is it cannot be operated safely.
In the coming months we are going to see much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands of how flood proof diesel generators were not retrofitted to the reactor facility. Despite having 40 years to do it, geological science available as a reason why, plenty of funding and a strong motivation in terms of surrounding population, it was never done, yet you claim nuclear power is safe.
Windscale (1957, Level 5), Three Mile Island (1979, level 4), Chernobyl (1986, level 7) and Fukushima (2011, Level 5) are all examples of how nuclear designs have proven they cannot be operated safely by humans. Yet while radionuclide contamination occured from all of these facilities, you claim nuclear power is safe .
Ordinary people, firefighters and plant workers, have had to expose themselves to unknown toxic levels of radioactive isotopes to bring about the outcome you claim makes "nuclear power safe". It's more than likely that these people will get radiation sickness and some will die. Yet, prematurely, before the accident has even played out, before we even know how many people have been affected, you open your big, uninformed, arrogant fanboi mouth and claim nuclear power is safe.
I don't see any mad scramble to retrofit tsunami proof backup generators to all the generation one General Electric Nuclear reactors operating in the coastal areas of the United States. How many of them are in earthquake zones? You claim there is a lesson for the future but the warnings have been there for decades still not being listened to because people, like you, even while three nuclear reactors sit smoldering pumping unknown quantities of radioactive isotopes into the environment and cooling pools with several hundred tons of pu-239 exposed because the design of the reactor was overloaded due to sheer negligence, continue to claim Nuclear power is safe.
You are clearly delusional.
Until the stupid, uninformed, arrogant, mentally lazy pro-nuclear fanbois do their research, understand the actual limitations of the technology, the actual risks and accept responsibility, your voice will become more and more irrelevant. Which is a shame because I personally feel that if you accept the risks of an enterprise you are one step closer to mitigating the risks. Make no doubt, this whole Fukushima disaster is the fault of all the pro-nuclear fanbois out there who lulled people into a sense of security about nuclear power and consumed the energy of those who tried to lobby for improvement that would make a earthquake and tsunami irrelevant.
Any person who adheres to the principles of responsible nuclear advocacy will admit that no matter how necessary they feel Nuclear power may be, it is a risky enterprise that requires constant vigilance, constant improvement refinement and observation if it is to be operated safely. They would lobby for it to occur - are you listening, pro-nuclear fanboi slashdotter?
The idiotic, arrogant, stupid, pathetic and failure prone thinking of a pro-nuclear fanbois argument looks like they banging a nail into a wall with a hand grenade while turning to their guests saying "it's perfectly safe, it's never gone off before" and wondering why everybody is scrambling to get out of the room.
Don't take it personally, I'll probably get modded down for saying this but it's not just you. I'm directing it at all the delusional pro-nuclear fanbois here who constantly berate those who lobby for the kind of improvement the nuclear industry *requires* to actually make it safe.
Huh. So you say they dumped water all over the radioactive disaster with helicopters, firetrucks, a big concrete pump truck, and now the basement of the reactor is filled with radioactive water?
You are missing the point. Simply put, the water in the basement is from the cooling pools containing the spent fuel. This was the initiator of the disaster, the cooling water was low enough so that hydrogen production began - it should never have happened. This is what caused the explosions. Now that more data is becoming available coupled with what is known about how this generation of reactor facilities are designed it's possible to formulate a theory about how this whole disaster actually happened.
The information I've gathered suggests that not only was this disaster avoidable it's complete criminal negligence that it happened. The failures TEPCO have made are inexcusable. The earthquake and Tsunami are irrelevant.
In the mean time, it's been remarkably entertaining to to watch and read all of the comments made in the absence of any real data. That the short lived radioactive isotopes are so short lived that they shouldn't be around long enough to cause any harm and the long lived ones are not radioactive enough to be a problem even if they are toxic and even then it's not as bad as the coal industry. You pro-nuclear fanbois have been drinking that nuclear industry kool aid, big time. I wonder what it is about nuclear power that causes such a large collective drop in IQ points. I encourage you to keep going, your collective arrogance, ignorance and inability to accept nuclear power as any other than flawless clean and perfect makes any argument you make irrelevant. As long as you pro-nuclear fanbois continue your crusade for nuclear power the end of it is absolutely assured.
The *reality* is this is a Level 5 Nuclear Disaster. That means it's a disaster with wider consequences and it's still happening, despite the fact that the news cycle isn't following it any more.
The AC may be an AC because they are moderating. You are making an assumption. Your reasoning is circular and flawed, aside for being wrong.
The containment failed because the cooling failed because the backup generators were not engineered to withstand a tsunami after 9.0 earthquake. The engineering was not good enough and could have been retro fitted at *any* time during the 40 odd years of the plants operation based on the geological science available. No part of this was an accident, despite the excuses of an earthquake and tsunami, what it is is criminal negligence. This whole disaster was as avoidable as Chernobyl, it's just that the incompetence happened somewhere else in the organisation. Clearly TEPCO were unwilling to spend the money to ensure the survivability of the plant in the most extreme situation, proving again that profit trumps safety when it comes to the nuclear industry. The consequences, aside for the capital loss of the reactors, will likely be Japans immediate economic recovery plus the long term costs to clean up the mess.
You argue semantics on the basis that the post wasn't pedantic enough to overcome your assumptions. The bottom line is "The containment did not withstand 9.0 earthquake.", that's the simple essence of what has happened.
To the sound of a business model in death throes. One day we will hear the death rattle, the conciliatory tones of the record industry industry executives saying they were too aggressive, should of adapted sooner and that they are changing the way they do business so it's of benefit to the consumer.
I'm not sure why running on MOX is an issue
In a word, Toxicity. The plutonium in the fuel makes any radionuclide release much more toxic to human physiology.
You are talking about radiation exposure. A radionuclide is an emitter of radiation and there is also radionuclide exposure via ingestion. Your body can uptake radionuclide(s) via respirable dust, direct consumption in water and through bioaccumulation. For example a millionth of a gram of plutonium - an alpha emitter, ingested, is a fatal dose.
The issue with exposure of this nature is that it happens over much longer periods of time, as you mention, when the radionuclide decays into a daughter product. These daughter products can also be toxic and the decay continues through this cycle. As they go through this cycle, if they are in the environment eventually they make it into the food chain and into ground water. As Cancer has a gestation period in the years (usually 6 years) it's almost impossible to detect the source of the contamination. It's this characteristic of a nuclear accident than pans out very slowly many years after the accident as it takes time for the radionuclide to move through the food chain.
When it comes to radionuclide contamination it's also handy to know what element it analogues. Knowing that plutonium presents to the body as iron or that strontium 90 presents as calcium identify your susceptibility to cancers in different parts of the body, if you suspect exposure. For example around Fukushima it's iodine supplements to children because cesium (137, 138) presents as iodine. This would make children who ingest that radioactive isotope susceptible to Thyroid cancer.
This is why it is important to get the information with what is happening with the reactors. The science has to be done to gather samples of respirable dust, soil and ground water samples to understand the actual threat.This is especially true with reactor 3 that is powered with MOX and is significantly more toxic that the other three U-235 powered reactors. Additionally the reactor "activates" elements in the reactor creating things like Iron 90 and Cobalt 55 so knowing the exact state of this reactor is key to understanding just what the level of toxicity has been released.
The sooner we see those pictures the better.