Currently, the main reason nuclear "planets" are not being built is not government regulation, but the fact that no insurance company will write a policy for a nuclear plant.
And Wall St is reluctant to invest as existing science reveals there is no net energy return with Nuclear power. The ROI is in securing subsidies and funding.
Either that or there will have to be a law absolving the energy providers of any liability in the case of an accident.
That is the function of the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act. The Nuclear industry would not be able to exist without the protections the P-A act afford as investors won't expose themselves to that level of liability. The 2005 U.S energy bill provided another $13 billion dollars worth of subsidies to 2021 and re-authorised the Price-Anderson Act to underwrite the Nuclear industry with $600 Billion of Taxpayer money and closer to a trillion dollars if you factor the huge amount of land you are going to lose from a single accident.
Until the pencil pushers at insurance companies decide that nuclear plants are safe enough to insure, there won't be new plants built.
I'm not saying the plants aren't safe, the insurance companies are.
Actuaries and Risk Assessors are professionals in the insurance industry assesing risk. Their assessment of the Nuclear Industry is that they won't insure it without the Price-Anderson Act based on the evidence and facts available. They're not 'against' Nuclear power, they're just paid to asses the risks, professionally.
It was originally set to expire in 1967 once the industry had proved itself safe. The continued existence of the Price-Anderson act illustrates that professional risk assessors consider the risks involved in the Nuclear Industry too high to be financially viable.
Better still, sysadmins need to get unionized...Until they do organize, they're not going to be treated as well as waste disposal workers (garbage men).
Like it or not now this decision has been made it sets a world wide precedent. Until IT professionals recognise that collaboratively we are the best people to formulate the legal structure of the industry and how laws should be interpreted someone will always be dictating them to us.
Simply put this situation, like many others, is an end product of our own inaction. We either control or be controlled.
Chernobyl had No containment building at all. Russia used to say that their reactors where so safe that there was no need of containment buildings. Truth was that was cheaper.
You may not be aware but PBMR reactors are proposed to be built without a concrete containment building for exactly that reason. Concrete and steel are the largest input cost to building reactors.
Pebble bed reactors are very different from Chernobyl. Pebble bed reactors are thermally stable.
PBMR have radically different failure mods from BWRs. The most fatal failure modes are at the end of the reactors lifespan when they start to leak and air gets *into* the system. Perhaps you don't know that the fuel kernels are coated in graphite and then gas cooled. Air leaking into the system allows the graphite to ignite. Exclusion zones are reduced with this reactor allowing populations to be closer to the facility.
Also the there are no PBMRs yet in service. So why bring them up at all since it is a clear red herring.
You said;
Chernobyl. That plant was a disaster from stop to bottom. It is a design that would never have been built in the West and never run the way that it was in the USSR.
Then why has Energy Sec Chu save(ed)s PBMR Pebble Bed Project unless it is a possibility as a US facility.
Also the AP-1000 is totally different design from Chernobyl as well in every way. The new containment building has passed all reviews and is the result of decades of operating experience.
That's quite an amusing statement considering the background of the AP-1000. The AP-1000 incorporates none of the design changes, that would make nuclear power reactors less vulnerable to sabotage, recommended 25 years ago by an NRC chartered an industry panel. The AP-1000 incorporates none of the EPR design enhancements which appears to be the safest and most secure design among new reactor designs for PWR. Whilst the AP-1000 does go some way to reducing the complexity of the reactor it does introduce new base design issues. If new failure mode modelling is to be of any use for Nuclear plant then we should have seen the identification of new ASP's in existing reactors. What we see instead is evidenced by the Davis-Besse Plant, that identification of failure-mode's can only be of any use if management is prepared to take a step back and act on the potential for failure. Clearly, maintaining the plant's income stream trumps safety and failure mode analysis is ignored if it means downtime for the plant.
AP-1000 is a rehash of the Standard Westinghouse Nuclear Utility Power Plant (SNUPPs) examples of which are installed at Wolf Creek and Callaway, you will note in the picture the uncanny resemblence to the AP-1000 design (and similar capacity).
And nobody died at TMI because of all the safety systems involved. In fact at TMI almost every error that could be made was and there was no deaths.
At TMI large amounts of contamination were released beyond Nuclear Industry assurances. The gamma radiation monitors on the top of the auxiliary building were not designed to measure such high concentrations and they went off the scale when the accident *began*, the release of contamination went on for several *days*. Estimates were based on thermoluscent dosimeters on the fence and Alpha and Beta emissions weren't even measured.
TMI-2 was designed with thicker containment than most other reactors so it was resistant to an aircraft crash. Even that suffered from voids that collapsed in the containment building. We were *lucky* it wasn't worse.
Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of Nuclear Physics at the City University of New York, was quoted to say of TMI
"It appears that every few mont
I think I heard about this, but I haven't read it.
Do yourself a favor it's a awesome read, and I mean that in the sense of the word awe.
In the book bear postulates it in the terms 'wolves' and 'sheep' - guess which one we are. The wolves hunting and the sheep chained to their gravity well bleating their radio spectrum out into the universe. The third category is known as 'The Law'.
From the way our "civilisation" treats aboriginals it seems in our nature and it's in nature so I don't know why we should expect it to be any different out in the galaxy. Wolves didn't even know when they wiped out a civilisation. Their ordinance was intelligent enough to wander into the rf bubble of a civilisation find it's source and destroy it and there is something very credible about what Bear suggests.
It's another of the many reasons to get off this rock and start organising ourselves into the solar system at the very least.
Not really since people living downwind of coal fired power plants receive more radiation than people living downwind of nuclear powered plants.
Well considering we are talking about *groundwater* contamination with radioactive isotopes "downwind" is not really relevant.
Any yes I am leaving out those that lived near Chernobyl. That plant was a disaster from stop to bottom. It is a design that would never have been built in the West and never run the way that it was in the USSR.
Well PBMR have similar containment structures proposed and the AP-1000 design has a ratio of containment volume to thermal power below that of today's PWRs, which increases the risk of containment over-pressurization and failure in event of a severe accident.
Bring up Chernobyl went talking about western nuclear power plants is as out of place and clueless as bring up the Titanic as a reason to not take a Caribbean cruise or the Hindenburg as a reason to not fly on a 767.
Systemic failures occurred at Three Mile Island, what's the difference as long as humans are involved in the process.
So, now that we have an idea of just how bad different levels of radiation exposure are, what about these tritium leaks that have got certain people so upset? The highest reading that these monitoring wells have read was 2.45 microcuries / liter. This translates into roughly 425 mRem / year (assuming it was not diluted). 425 mRem is substantially higher than the current NRC limits, but still much too low to present a health hazard.
Tritium is biologically mutagenic *because* it's a low energy emitter. This characteristic makes readily absorbed by surrounding cells. The available evidence from studies conducted journal a list of effects.
Here is a list of some scientific studies on the effects of tritium, with references, in case there is any doubt regarding Triated water's effect on living beings. From those works;
Tritium can be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through skin. Eating food containing 3H can be even more damaging than drinking 3H bound in water. Consequently, an estimated radiation dose based only on ingestion of tritiated water may underestimate the health effects if the person has also consumed food contaminated with tritium. (Komatsu)
Studies indicate that lower doses of tritium can cause more cell death (Dobson, 1976), mutations (Ito) and chromosome damage (Hori) per dose than higher tritium doses. Tritium can impart damage which is two or more times greater per dose than either x-rays or gamma rays.
(Straume) (Dobson, 1976) There is no evidence of a threshold for damage from 3H exposure; even the smallest amount of tritium can have negative health impacts. (Dobson, 1974) Organically bound tritium (tritium bound in animal or plant tissue) can stay in the body for 10 years or more.
It's often said "of all the elements in nuclear waste tritium is one of the more harmless ones" and while it's more benign than most other radioactive effluents it's toxicity should not be under-estimated.
Tritium can cause mutations, tumors and cell death. (Rytomaa) Tritiated water is associated with significantly decreased weight of brain and genital tract organs in mice (Torok) and can cause irreversible loss of female germ cells in both mice and monkeys even at low concentrations. (Dobson, 1979) (Laskey) Tritium from tritiated water can become incorporated into DNA, the molecular basis of heredity for living organisms. DNA is especially sensitive to radiation. (Hori) A cell's exposure to tritium bound in DNA can be even more toxic than its exposure to tritium in water. (Straume)(Carr)
First, as an isotope of hydrogen (the cell's most ubiquitous element), tritium can be incorporated into essentially all portions of the living machinery; and it is not innocuous -- deaths have occurred in industry from occupational overexposure. R. Lowry Dobson, MD, PhD. (1979)
References;
Komatsu, K and Okumura, Y. Radiation Dose to Mouse Liver Cells from Ingestion of Tritiated Food or Water. Health Physics. 58. 5:625-629. 1990.
Dobson, RL. The Toxicity of Tritium. International Atomic Energy Agency symposium, Vienna: Biological Implications of Radionuclides Released from Nuclear Industries v. 1: 203. 1979.
Hori, TA and Nakai, S. Unusual Dose-Response of Chromosome Aberrations Induced in Human Lymphocytes by Very Low Dose Exposures to Tritium. Mutation Research. 50: 101-110. 1978.
Straume, T and Carsten, AL.Tritium Radiobiology and Relative Biological Effectiveness. Health Physics. 65 (6):657-672; 1993. [This special issue of Health Physics is entirely devoted to Tritium]
Laskey, JW, et al. Some Effects of Lifetime Parental Exposure to Low Levels of Tritium on the F2 Generation. Radiation Research.56:171-179. 1973.
Rytomaa, T, et al. Radiotoxicity of Tritium-Labelled Molecules. International Atomic Energy Agency symposium,Vienna: Biological Implications of Radionuclides Released from Nuclear Industries v. 1: 339. 1979.
When working for a big three letter IT company I was tasked to design and implement HW/SW asset tracking system. It's a complex task and my team grew to include about 4 programmers. We automated much of the process as it is the only reliable way to gather the data. In time it also read data from other asset and configuration systems like Zenworks, TCM, TLM and even Citrix (though that was an odd fit).
After I left I decided that it would be a good idea for an Open Source project. I encapsulated and refined what I learned in the database design and XML (DTDs and XSDs) for data shredders and publishers to make data collection a modular approach and have pretty much finished that stage.
Unfortunately I am yet to implement the GUI as I am still deciding how I will approach it. In my commercial project, previously, we implemented the GUI in a web based PHP which was ok - but had limitations (requiring many stored procedures). I was thinking of using Java for the GUI as a way to spend some more time in Java and gain some experience there (I'm coming from a C background). I've been looking into Hibernate, Spring and Jakata Struts but must confess I am a total noob in these areas and don't even know what sort of pitfalls I'm about to get myself into. I've even considered EXTjs but I think I prefer the Java approach, so if anyone can offer the benefit of their experience here that would be great.
I know my designs are solid as I have used the approach before and I may have an employer who will sponsor me to write the UI as they want/need exactly this software. I didn't really think there would be enough interest in it to have a slashdot story. Lastly I'm trying to figure a funky name - I just don't think a shortened version of Asset Manager - though funny - would cut it;-)
I'll get around to writing a decent response to your post some time tomorrow evening - too busy today though there are 2 minor points I'd like to clarify first-
I was waiting for your reply. I saw your comment here in this thread and just thought I'd wind up our conversation.
Why do you lump the nuclear weapons industry in with the nuclear energy industry?
Simply because they are so intrinsically linked. Nuclear power makes a lot of material available for processing into Nuclear weapons. If it wasn't then the world wouldn't have a problem with Iran or North Korea having Nuclear power.
You seem to assign an extremely high negative weighting to anything even slightly radioactive.
Radioactive isotopes, through bio-accumulation inevitably make it into the Food chain. I've made some comments in this discussion that may clarify the relationship.
If you read the links I sent you you will understand why the science increasingly reveals that Nuclear power produces no Net energy gain. Accidents like Chernobyl take it from pointless to foolhardy.
Well it can be best summed up by this 2004 quote of Dr Michael Fernex formerly of the University of Basel who worked for the WHO;
"Six years ago we tried to have a conference. The proceedings were never published. This is because in this matter the organisations at the UN are subordinate to the IAEA. Since 1986 the WHO did nothing about studying Chernobyl. It's a pity. The interdiction to publish which fell upon the WHO conference came from the IAEA. The IAEA blocked the proceedings; the truth would have been a disaster for the nuclear industry"
So you can see the difference between theory and practice, I've provided you with the actual text of the agreement.
and an allegation about "slow agonising death" for which of course you have no evidence whatsoever.
"The international experts have estimated that radiation could cause up to about 4000 eventual deaths among the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations, i.e., emergency workers from 1986-1987, evacuees and residents of the most contaminated areas. This number contains both the known radiation-induced cancer and leukaemia deaths"
Imagine, based on the actual evidence I've provided you, what the WHO may have been able to uncover had they been allowed to actually reveal the actual truth of the disaster. The Guardian however points out that the IAEA is ignoring the evidence of the volume of deaths occurring as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, so it's unlikely that you will examine them fairly either, of course if no one is actually collecting the data how can it be presented?
The UNICEF report "Human consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident" summarised it neatly;
"Life expectancy for men in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, for example, is some ten years less that Sri Lanka, which is one of the twenty poorest countries in the world and is in the middle of a long drawn out war"
Maybe dying of cancer just isn't what you class as a "slow and agonising death".
Time is on the side of truth.
The truth of the matter is that cancer takes years to incubate, thus premature deaths and birth defects will manifest over time. After this generation, the next generation and long after this disaster has passed into lore it will still be well within the toxic half-life of radioactive isotopes such as cesium 137, strontium 90 and plutonium 239.
The reality is that direct exposure killed less than a hundred
The reality is the genetic abnormalities and diseases caused by this accident are generations away and unlikely to be seen by anyone alive today. direct exposure will occur as long as there is a food chain to absorb these isotopes and people to eat that food.
Nuclear Power just isn't as dangerous as the images of an A-bomb denotation would suggest.
Of course, it's much worse. An A bomb may release more radiation in the form of gamma radiation but much less material in terms of radioactive isotopes than a nuclear reactor - especially in these circumstances.
You "point" doesn't stand because you never made one.
Perhaps you just missed it. Hopefully the information presented here will help you understand it.
You're working from an invalid assumption here. I wouldn't expect the core to contain more than a few grams of plutonium, as any plutonium produced during operation will fission almost immediately. The bulk of the released material is in the form of short-lived fission products and uranium oxides.
Actually, as I pointed out, the reactor was due to be refueled and several tons of plutonium was present, additionally RBMK was the descendant of a reactor type designed to produce plutonium. With the core way outside of it's operating characteristics in highly unusual circumstances and it's known that the power output of the reactor jumped to some enormous thermal figure, your assumption appears to be that every thing ejected from that core was just "not a big deal".
In reality we don't actually know what radioactive isotope products were created during the runaway process prior to the reactor exploding. We know from decommissioning Chalk River that "Unidentified Deposits" amongst others like Cobalt 55 and Iron 90 are present in a reactor core so there is now way of knowing how much plutonium, amongst other elements, were created in those final few minutes. In the range of tens of grams of plutonium - very unlikely. In the range of tons of plutonium - very likely.
Plutonium is dangerous because the body incorporates it into the bone structure, and it has a half-life long enough to bioaccumulate but short enough to emit significant radiation. However, as noted above, the Chernobyl reactor didn't contain much, if any, plutonium.
Yes, I stand corrected on the volume of plutonium based on the nature of the reactor. The figure was half a ton plutonium released into the environment. Thats 500,000,000,000 doses of carcinogens, if uniformly distributed around the globe it would be enough to kill everybody on the planet several times. Since my approach was to conservatively estimate the dosage released and acquired cancers, I think the point still stands.
But lets go back to your original assertion;
But it's not thousands dead. It's 56.
Ok lets examine where this figure came from. 1959 the International Atomic Energy Agency signed and agreement with the World Health Organisation preventing them WHO from researching health consequences emanating from military and civilian atomic activities. It even prevents WHO from issuing warnings to exposed populations.
Don't you find it unusual that the World Health Organisation is subordinate to the International Atomic Energy Agency in a health related matter? The IAEA seems to have no interest in WHO research into AIDs or smallpox or other non-radiation related disease like Swine or Avian flu. The *reality* is it's easier for the IAEA to control information and peoples perceptions to prevent the true nature of the disaster ever being known. The IAEA interdiction prevents WHO from publishing or researching the extent of the disaster so you can say 56 people died and close your eyes to the terrifying truth that 10's of thousands of people have died and are dying slow, mostly agonising, deaths.
Died over what time period?
Over this time period, of course. The concept you, and many others, have not yet seemed to grasp about this accident is that it is not over...
Well rather than responding to Mr AC I'll respond to you and let see if we can break this down with some reasoned discourse.
Lets start here:
But it isn't many thousands.
The BBC interviewed a group who represent workers who cleaned up the Chernobyl accident. Whilst 30 workers died immediately, 15000 relief workers died and 50,0000 workers were left invalid. Ukraine's Health Ministry estimates that 3.5 million people, over a third of them children, have suffered illness as a result of the contamination, and the incidence of some cancers is 10 times the national average.
To get many thousands, which some studies do, what you have to do is say "Radiation is deadly, anyone who is exposed and dies, died of the radiation" and then "X years later, many thousands of people are dead" and conclude "Many thousands of people died from the radiation".
Except that it's the radioactive isotopes that were released into the environment that are radiation emitters. This demonstrates Mr AC has a very poor understanding of what it is that was actually *dangerous* about Chernobyl, bio-accumulation. Radioactive *isotopes* that escape into the environment analogue other elements when presented to a metabolism in the food chain. Take plutonium for example, it analogues iron when presented to a human metabolism, as high energy alpha emitter in the body it is extremely toxic.
What is plain to see is that many *thousands* of people are displaying signs symptomatic of radiation poisoning from being exposed from the radioactive isotopes released by Chernobyl. Can you understand the consequences of the accident are still unfolding and will be doing so for many decades to come?
To get a useful number...
Followed by the most absolutely disgraceful treatment of people who actually were there to clean up the mess. Only an AC could post such a callous justification.
The other way to get "many thousands" of dead is even more disingenuous. You pick a number out of the air (say, 0.01%) and then multiply that by all causes of death that we believe may be related to radiation exposure. Then, because these illnesses are fairly common, and the world is a big place, you say "thus, so-and-such many people around the world died because of fallout from Chernobyl". Which is completely unprovable and arbitrary.
The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind.
5% of a 160 ton Nuclear reactor core that was about to be refueled - let's call it 100 tons, that's 5 tons of radioactive core into the atmosphere. At conservative estimates thats 5000,000,000,000 fatal doses. If we accept that an extremely conservative estimate of 1% of this makes it into the food chain via bio-accumulation and of that a conservative estimate of 1% of people are exposed and a conservative 1% of those exposed actually get some sort of fatal cancer that's 5,000,000 fatalities.
In reality this disaster will continue, at conservative estimates, for many decades killing more and more people. Of course you have the rather convenient position that many of these countries are too poor to measure these fatalities so the true number of how many millions Chernobyl actually killed will never really be know.
I mean NASA is seriously fucked up at this point in time. Every time they try and do something the rug is pulled out from under them. I know it's cynical but when I was growing up watching all this I really thought space would be accessible to a greater portion of the population than you can count in less than a minute.
It's seriously fucking disappointing and I just can't even read this stuff from NASA anymore cause it's more of the same 'were gonna do this we're gonna do that' blah blah blah.
NASA has gone from being a 'can do' organisation to a 'gonna do' organisation.
Slashdot Mirror
Whooooooooooooooooooosh!
Doesn't explain why WW2 night fighter pilots didn't turn orange.
And Wall St is reluctant to invest as existing science reveals there is no net energy return with Nuclear power. The ROI is in securing subsidies and funding.
That is the function of the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act. The Nuclear industry would not be able to exist without the protections the P-A act afford as investors won't expose themselves to that level of liability. The 2005 U.S energy bill provided another $13 billion dollars worth of subsidies to 2021 and re-authorised the Price-Anderson Act to underwrite the Nuclear industry with $600 Billion of Taxpayer money and closer to a trillion dollars if you factor the huge amount of land you are going to lose from a single accident.
Actuaries and Risk Assessors are professionals in the insurance industry assesing risk. Their assessment of the Nuclear Industry is that they won't insure it without the Price-Anderson Act based on the evidence and facts available. They're not 'against' Nuclear power, they're just paid to asses the risks, professionally.
It was originally set to expire in 1967 once the industry had proved itself safe. The continued existence of the Price-Anderson act illustrates that professional risk assessors consider the risks involved in the Nuclear Industry too high to be financially viable.
Like it or not now this decision has been made it sets a world wide precedent. Until IT professionals recognise that collaboratively we are the best people to formulate the legal structure of the industry and how laws should be interpreted someone will always be dictating them to us.
Simply put this situation, like many others, is an end product of our own inaction. We either control or be controlled.
You may not be aware but PBMR reactors are proposed to be built without a concrete containment building for exactly that reason. Concrete and steel are the largest input cost to building reactors.
PBMR have radically different failure mods from BWRs. The most fatal failure modes are at the end of the reactors lifespan when they start to leak and air gets *into* the system. Perhaps you don't know that the fuel kernels are coated in graphite and then gas cooled. Air leaking into the system allows the graphite to ignite. Exclusion zones are reduced with this reactor allowing populations to be closer to the facility.
You said; Chernobyl. That plant was a disaster from stop to bottom. It is a design that would never have been built in the West and never run the way that it was in the USSR. Then why has Energy Sec Chu save(ed)s PBMR Pebble Bed Project unless it is a possibility as a US facility.
That's quite an amusing statement considering the background of the AP-1000. The AP-1000 incorporates none of the design changes, that would make nuclear power reactors less vulnerable to sabotage, recommended 25 years ago by an NRC chartered an industry panel. The AP-1000 incorporates none of the EPR design enhancements which appears to be the safest and most secure design among new reactor designs for PWR. Whilst the AP-1000 does go some way to reducing the complexity of the reactor it does introduce new base design issues. If new failure mode modelling is to be of any use for Nuclear plant then we should have seen the identification of new ASP's in existing reactors. What we see instead is evidenced by the Davis-Besse Plant, that identification of failure-mode's can only be of any use if management is prepared to take a step back and act on the potential for failure. Clearly, maintaining the plant's income stream trumps safety and failure mode analysis is ignored if it means downtime for the plant.
AP-1000 is a rehash of the Standard Westinghouse Nuclear Utility Power Plant (SNUPPs) examples of which are installed at Wolf Creek and Callaway, you will note in the picture the uncanny resemblence to the AP-1000 design (and similar capacity).
At TMI large amounts of contamination were released beyond Nuclear Industry assurances. The gamma radiation monitors on the top of the auxiliary building were not designed to measure such high concentrations and they went off the scale when the accident *began*, the release of contamination went on for several *days*. Estimates were based on thermoluscent dosimeters on the fence and Alpha and Beta emissions weren't even measured.
TMI-2 was designed with thicker containment than most other reactors so it was resistant to an aircraft crash. Even that suffered from voids that collapsed in the containment building. We were *lucky* it wasn't worse.
Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of Nuclear Physics at the City University of New York, was quoted to say of TMI "It appears that every few mont
Kinda ironic that Murphy found it in the wrong place.
What about Identica as an alternative to Twitter. The wiki lists some interesting features.
Much like ourselves...
Do yourself a favor it's a awesome read, and I mean that in the sense of the word awe.
In the book bear postulates it in the terms 'wolves' and 'sheep' - guess which one we are. The wolves hunting and the sheep chained to their gravity well bleating their radio spectrum out into the universe. The third category is known as 'The Law'.
From the way our "civilisation" treats aboriginals it seems in our nature and it's in nature so I don't know why we should expect it to be any different out in the galaxy. Wolves didn't even know when they wiped out a civilisation. Their ordinance was intelligent enough to wander into the rf bubble of a civilisation find it's source and destroy it and there is something very credible about what Bear suggests.
It's another of the many reasons to get off this rock and start organising ourselves into the solar system at the very least.
Indeed, thanks for pointing that out. The sentence should have read;
This characteristic makes the radiation readily absorbed by surrounding cells.
Ignorance is bliss.
Wow, even the official report into Chernobyl had 56 people die, in actuality many more did.
What about a probe of the Nuclear Industry, I'm sure it's got many more dirty little secrets hidden. We could uncover theirs as well.
Compared to what? Coal? Because that's the only energy source Nuclear Power is "comparably clean" to.
Well considering we are talking about *groundwater* contamination with radioactive isotopes "downwind" is not really relevant.
Well PBMR have similar containment structures proposed and the AP-1000 design has a ratio of containment volume to thermal power below that of today's PWRs, which increases the risk of containment over-pressurization and failure in event of a severe accident.
Systemic failures occurred at Three Mile Island, what's the difference as long as humans are involved in the process.
Thank you for your feed back.
Tritium is biologically mutagenic *because* it's a low energy emitter. This characteristic makes readily absorbed by surrounding cells. The available evidence from studies conducted journal a list of effects.
Here is a list of some scientific studies on the effects of tritium, with references, in case there is any doubt regarding Triated water's effect on living beings. From those works;
Tritium can be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through skin. Eating food containing 3H can be even more damaging than drinking 3H bound in water. Consequently, an estimated radiation dose based only on ingestion of tritiated water may underestimate the health effects if the person has also consumed food contaminated with tritium. (Komatsu)
Studies indicate that lower doses of tritium can cause more cell death (Dobson, 1976), mutations (Ito) and chromosome damage (Hori) per dose than higher tritium doses. Tritium can impart damage which is two or more times greater per dose than either x-rays or gamma rays.
(Straume) (Dobson, 1976) There is no evidence of a threshold for damage from 3H exposure; even the smallest amount of tritium can have negative health impacts. (Dobson, 1974) Organically bound tritium (tritium bound in animal or plant tissue) can stay in the body for 10 years or more.
It's often said "of all the elements in nuclear waste tritium is one of the more harmless ones" and while it's more benign than most other radioactive effluents it's toxicity should not be under-estimated.
Tritium can cause mutations, tumors and cell death. (Rytomaa) Tritiated water is associated with significantly decreased weight of brain and genital tract organs in mice (Torok) and can cause irreversible loss of female germ cells in both mice and monkeys even at low concentrations. (Dobson, 1979) (Laskey) Tritium from tritiated water can become incorporated into DNA, the molecular basis of heredity for living organisms. DNA is especially sensitive to radiation. (Hori) A cell's exposure to tritium bound in DNA can be even more toxic than its exposure to tritium in water. (Straume)(Carr)
First, as an isotope of hydrogen (the cell's most ubiquitous element), tritium can be incorporated into essentially all portions of the living machinery; and it is not innocuous -- deaths have occurred in industry from occupational overexposure. R. Lowry Dobson, MD, PhD. (1979)
References;
When working for a big three letter IT company I was tasked to design and implement HW/SW asset tracking system. It's a complex task and my team grew to include about 4 programmers. We automated much of the process as it is the only reliable way to gather the data. In time it also read data from other asset and configuration systems like Zenworks, TCM, TLM and even Citrix (though that was an odd fit).
After I left I decided that it would be a good idea for an Open Source project. I encapsulated and refined what I learned in the database design and XML (DTDs and XSDs) for data shredders and publishers to make data collection a modular approach and have pretty much finished that stage.
Unfortunately I am yet to implement the GUI as I am still deciding how I will approach it. In my commercial project, previously, we implemented the GUI in a web based PHP which was ok - but had limitations (requiring many stored procedures). I was thinking of using Java for the GUI as a way to spend some more time in Java and gain some experience there (I'm coming from a C background). I've been looking into Hibernate, Spring and Jakata Struts but must confess I am a total noob in these areas and don't even know what sort of pitfalls I'm about to get myself into. I've even considered EXTjs but I think I prefer the Java approach, so if anyone can offer the benefit of their experience here that would be great.
I know my designs are solid as I have used the approach before and I may have an employer who will sponsor me to write the UI as they want/need exactly this software. I didn't really think there would be enough interest in it to have a slashdot story. Lastly I'm trying to figure a funky name - I just don't think a shortened version of Asset Manager - though funny - would cut it ;-)
I was waiting for your reply. I saw your comment here in this thread and just thought I'd wind up our conversation.
Simply because they are so intrinsically linked. Nuclear power makes a lot of material available for processing into Nuclear weapons. If it wasn't then the world wouldn't have a problem with Iran or North Korea having Nuclear power.
Radioactive isotopes, through bio-accumulation inevitably make it into the Food chain. I've made some comments in this discussion that may clarify the relationship.
If you read the links I sent you you will understand why the science increasingly reveals that Nuclear power produces no Net energy gain. Accidents like Chernobyl take it from pointless to foolhardy.
The search for terrestrial intelligence proves to be as elusive.
Well it can be best summed up by this 2004 quote of Dr Michael Fernex formerly of the University of Basel who worked for the WHO;
"Six years ago we tried to have a conference. The proceedings were never published. This is because in this matter the organisations at the UN are subordinate to the IAEA. Since 1986 the WHO did nothing about studying Chernobyl. It's a pity. The interdiction to publish which fell upon the WHO conference came from the IAEA. The IAEA blocked the proceedings; the truth would have been a disaster for the nuclear industry"
So you can see the difference between theory and practice, I've provided you with the actual text of the agreement.
Oh you don't have to believe me. Even the hamstrung report from the World Health Organisation said;
"The international experts have estimated that radiation could cause up to about 4000 eventual deaths among the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations, i.e., emergency workers from 1986-1987, evacuees and residents of the most contaminated areas. This number contains both the known radiation-induced cancer and leukaemia deaths"
Imagine, based on the actual evidence I've provided you, what the WHO may have been able to uncover had they been allowed to actually reveal the actual truth of the disaster. The Guardian however points out that the IAEA is ignoring the evidence of the volume of deaths occurring as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, so it's unlikely that you will examine them fairly either, of course if no one is actually collecting the data how can it be presented?
The UNICEF report "Human consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident" summarised it neatly;
"Life expectancy for men in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, for example, is some ten years less that Sri Lanka, which is one of the twenty poorest countries in the world and is in the middle of a long drawn out war"
Maybe dying of cancer just isn't what you class as a "slow and agonising death".
The truth of the matter is that cancer takes years to incubate, thus premature deaths and birth defects will manifest over time. After this generation, the next generation and long after this disaster has passed into lore it will still be well within the toxic half-life of radioactive isotopes such as cesium 137, strontium 90 and plutonium 239.
The reality is the genetic abnormalities and diseases caused by this accident are generations away and unlikely to be seen by anyone alive today. direct exposure will occur as long as there is a food chain to absorb these isotopes and people to eat that food.
Of course, it's much worse. An A bomb may release more radiation in the form of gamma radiation but much less material in terms of radioactive isotopes than a nuclear reactor - especially in these circumstances.
Perhaps you just missed it. Hopefully the information presented here will help you understand it.
Actually, as I pointed out, the reactor was due to be refueled and several tons of plutonium was present, additionally RBMK was the descendant of a reactor type designed to produce plutonium. With the core way outside of it's operating characteristics in highly unusual circumstances and it's known that the power output of the reactor jumped to some enormous thermal figure, your assumption appears to be that every thing ejected from that core was just "not a big deal".
In reality we don't actually know what radioactive isotope products were created during the runaway process prior to the reactor exploding. We know from decommissioning Chalk River that "Unidentified Deposits" amongst others like Cobalt 55 and Iron 90 are present in a reactor core so there is now way of knowing how much plutonium, amongst other elements, were created in those final few minutes. In the range of tens of grams of plutonium - very unlikely. In the range of tons of plutonium - very likely.
Yes, I stand corrected on the volume of plutonium based on the nature of the reactor. The figure was half a ton plutonium released into the environment. Thats 500,000,000,000 doses of carcinogens, if uniformly distributed around the globe it would be enough to kill everybody on the planet several times. Since my approach was to conservatively estimate the dosage released and acquired cancers, I think the point still stands.
But lets go back to your original assertion;
Ok lets examine where this figure came from. 1959 the International Atomic Energy Agency signed and agreement with the World Health Organisation preventing them WHO from researching health consequences emanating from military and civilian atomic activities. It even prevents WHO from issuing warnings to exposed populations.
Don't you find it unusual that the World Health Organisation is subordinate to the International Atomic Energy Agency in a health related matter? The IAEA seems to have no interest in WHO research into AIDs or smallpox or other non-radiation related disease like Swine or Avian flu. The *reality* is it's easier for the IAEA to control information and peoples perceptions to prevent the true nature of the disaster ever being known. The IAEA interdiction prevents WHO from publishing or researching the extent of the disaster so you can say 56 people died and close your eyes to the terrifying truth that 10's of thousands of people have died and are dying slow, mostly agonising, deaths.
Over this time period, of course. The concept you, and many others, have not yet seemed to grasp about this accident is that it is not over...
Chernobyl is still happening.
Well rather than responding to Mr AC I'll respond to you and let see if we can break this down with some reasoned discourse.
Lets start here:
The BBC interviewed a group who represent workers who cleaned up the Chernobyl accident. Whilst 30 workers died immediately, 15000 relief workers died and 50,0000 workers were left invalid. Ukraine's Health Ministry estimates that 3.5 million people, over a third of them children, have suffered illness as a result of the contamination, and the incidence of some cancers is 10 times the national average.
Except that it's the radioactive isotopes that were released into the environment that are radiation emitters. This demonstrates Mr AC has a very poor understanding of what it is that was actually *dangerous* about Chernobyl, bio-accumulation. Radioactive *isotopes* that escape into the environment analogue other elements when presented to a metabolism in the food chain. Take plutonium for example, it analogues iron when presented to a human metabolism, as high energy alpha emitter in the body it is extremely toxic.
What is plain to see is that many *thousands* of people are displaying signs symptomatic of radiation poisoning from being exposed from the radioactive isotopes released by Chernobyl. Can you understand the consequences of the accident are still unfolding and will be doing so for many decades to come?
Followed by the most absolutely disgraceful treatment of people who actually were there to clean up the mess. Only an AC could post such a callous justification.
Ok lets examine these facts. 1 millionth of a gram of plutonium is a carcinogenic dose in the human body. From World Nuclear Association's website on the Chernobyl disaster ;
5% of a 160 ton Nuclear reactor core that was about to be refueled - let's call it 100 tons, that's 5 tons of radioactive core into the atmosphere. At conservative estimates thats 5000,000,000,000 fatal doses. If we accept that an extremely conservative estimate of 1% of this makes it into the food chain via bio-accumulation and of that a conservative estimate of 1% of people are exposed and a conservative 1% of those exposed actually get some sort of fatal cancer that's 5,000,000 fatalities.
In reality this disaster will continue, at conservative estimates, for many decades killing more and more people. Of course you have the rather convenient position that many of these countries are too poor to measure these fatalities so the true number of how many millions Chernobyl actually killed will never really be know.
I mean NASA is seriously fucked up at this point in time. Every time they try and do something the rug is pulled out from under them. I know it's cynical but when I was growing up watching all this I really thought space would be accessible to a greater portion of the population than you can count in less than a minute.
It's seriously fucking disappointing and I just can't even read this stuff from NASA anymore cause it's more of the same 'were gonna do this we're gonna do that' blah blah blah.
NASA has gone from being a 'can do' organisation to a 'gonna do' organisation.
You've found the answer, let's nuke *the whole world* so the local ecologies will be much better off!
Well I'm sure thats reassuring for the many thousands of people who died trying to stop the disaster getting any further out of control.
Considering it's a disaster that is still unfolding - does it really matter?