This was my reaction. He trolls the people, then protests getting flamed.
A follow up of, "ha ha made you look" would have been fine. My general impression is that Tyson thinks a lot, sometimes even of subjects that are not himself.
Not smart. But is it arrogant and overconfident or terrified and desperate? Obvious lie, obvious cover-up. MSNBC is mocking them. I believe re-election bids are on the line over this one.
I already suspect business as usual types are going to be surprised, ousted across the board. Folks are tired of the name calling, finger pointing, lack of accountability and cronyism, on both sides. Themes will be honesty, integrity, accountability and taking care of the folks at home. Cantor's loss is an indication of this mood. Shut up and fix it, it is broken. Get it done.
Everyone who knew a damn thing knew she was a lightweight from day one. That is the irritant to me. A PC choice that condemned a once formidable company to death. "Continuous improvement in our cost structure". Nobody is surprised by this. Compaq
How is it possible that people at his level are so abysmally stupid? How can we change the culture to prevent this?
Does not play, interact with others. Proprietary, exclusionary design is the baseline, the goal. Designed in malfunction. Proof from long ago is in iTunes. A horrendous mess of extreme levels of overweight complexity to overcome basic USB storage functionality, corral and control user's behavior. Making it simply work would have required no effort at all. The current events are at least a direct consequence of this Apple closed culture mindset.
History being a predictor, I conclude it is intentional. Proving it will be another matter.
I hear that. Imagine, oh that is a Fibson guitar, it needs Fibson cord and amp.
If USB breaks the standard, obsoletes my gear, I will look around. I have dodged Apple because of this merry go round, from the horrendous iTunes, to expensive firewire mistakes, that I did not make. It is the single reason I do not buy Apple gear, or anything with despised proprietary connectors. Never.
If USB dumps this advantage, and I am forced to change? Stupid move.
OT Rant: Woman last week, new evidently 1st gen VW Hybrid. Car would not start because the trunk was open. No joke. I did not ask her why she didn't just buy the 5th gen Prius. Some folks willingly walk into hell. Just open the door, they line up
Must not happen. Well, that is impossible, I know. That is the problem. Some hungover fellow will poke a forklift through the thing.
What aspect of coal compares to this? Reactor core materials found almost 500 km from Fukushima plant -- 40,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bq/kg -- Can travel very, very significant distances -- Hot particles found in 25% of samples from Tokyo and Fukushima http://www.fairewinds.org/hott...
Which one creates waste that will be hazardous to all biota, 20,000 years from now?
Each sides trots out stats,graphs and studies, the other call them lies. I could cite Yablonski, one million died from Chernobyl.
Another showed 40,000 excess US deaths from Chernobyl. "Experts say it was 60 or so, "prove it". Well, an inconvenient problem with all of this is we can't prove any of it. Probabilities, known and unknown variables. Probably, maybe.
which set of numbers do people effectively choose to believe? It negates the value of that argument for me.
There are no easy answers, all have issues. I am open to new ideas, but am unimpressed with the US industry, its efforts, attitufe. I have learned to not trust them. So I am far from neutral. But again, I will listen, but I have to say, "prove it".
I personally love hydro. Virtual perpetual motion, water, gravity spin a gadget. Plus, lakes. I would like to see old school grandiose work in that area. Weighing the costs/benefits to coal and nuclear? Easy decision.
US issues are many. Hanford, Los Alamos, Oak ridge, etc? The job did not get done. It is part of the legacy, fair or not. There is no facility for storing spent NPP fuel. 50, 60 years into the thing, no US place to put the fuel. They did not get it done. SFPs are dangerously full, past their design basis, and vulnerable.
Chernobyl, Fukushima. You folks may never go home. An acceptable risk? These are legit, open questions that have nothing to do with politics/ideology, or unfounded fears.
Public confidence would change, I believe, if a serious effort was made at Fuku, and attention paid as to what to do with the waste. Right now, radioactivity flows to the sea, no plan, no answers, and no real effort. In comparison, the Russians are getting it done. It took help? Fine. Internationally the industry needs to step up, to speak out to say, we got this. That is exactly what is not happeneing.
I think the industry has nobody to blame but themselves. WIPP, designed to last 15,000 years, made it to 15. What happened at Fuku?
That is not acceptable, it must not happen, period. There is no room for error.
The final fact may decide it all for folks, really it has for me. But i am trying to be open. The bad apples are not the standard, but in this game, there is no safe place for the bad apples, the industry has to simply not tolerate it. Instead, they cower together, pay lobbyists, lie, coverup, etc. They routinely sell safety short for profit. This is TEPCO. They merit the focus of attention here.
EPA allows far less than FDA. If they just quietly say they want the EPA levels to match FDA, because why should we have two sets of numbers? Skip the details and complicated reworking of the whole thing, most folks wouldn't even look up from twitter. For example, EPAs Maximum Contaminant Levels assumes regular consumption over 70 years, accepts that one in a million will die. FDAs single dose Derived Intervention Levels accepts 2 in ten thousand. If pesky calculations like this are somehow kept out of the discussion, they might get it done without too much noise. It does legislate away an expensive problem.
All of the above is correct, unfinished business that results in lost trust. These are not unfounded, irrational fears of NIMBYs wielding BANANAs. Advocates should perhaps dig deeper into how the French do things. Gov't/industry are effectively one there, perhaps the truth is on lockdown? Or are they more serious about things other than profit?
There is a major push from the trillion dollar industry, with support from this Admin, as Climate Disruption rules all. So folks should pay attention.
EPA is currently taking comments on changing the "safe" acceptable radiation levels. Environmental Standards for Uranium Fuel Cycle Facilities: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR)http://www.epa.gov/radiation/l...
Chernobyl was arguably the worst design of anything in history. But the Soviets moved, 500,000 plus people. Gorbachev says it is what broke the USSR.
Mistakes were made, but they are taking responsibility for the mess. This is what is needed for Nuke Inc. USA and Japan. Get it done. This would turn the tide of popular opinion.
I thought a glyph was like a nymph? If they pointed to that, a lot of folks would have showed up. That still may be true.
Probably someone decided that was a bad idea. Then, boom, there went the neighborhood. Folks just stopped showing up.
I consider myself a refugee from the one party state of Mass. Vermont now. Still one party, but there are more trees. Plus, a bonus, a soul still exists here in old school Vermonters, not so different from old school everywhere.
Kerry strikes me as a mediocre man. Splashed on to the scene as a impressive, whistle blowing, honest Veteran. People cared, they listened. Rewareded as Senator for life in Mass. Since then? What? Where does that experience apply?
Now this? Homeland security, TSA, info gobbling, more spy agencies than even the most ardent activist can name is correct? This is the right side of history? This man is not even a second rank intellect. He is not a serious man.
As an aside, this seems to be the hiring standard, and fatal flaw of the current admin. It explains the choice of Biden. "Dewd, that was like two years ago" on a network news program? Where did they find that asshole? Mediocrity seems to be what gets them the job. No threat to make the President look bad, in comparison. Is this the explanation?
I am open to opposing views.
Does anyone have an argument/evidence that proves me wrong? Kerry is a third rate intellect, a second rate man.
Asking the nuke industry to address its longstanding issues is not a pro coal argument. Coal's issues are not an answer to nuke problems.
So the argument is a dodge, a distraction from another reality. Threat level? Different time zones, orders of magnitude difference, an utterly laughable comparison. Playing with nuclear gadgets has resulted in the world abandoning areas the size of Delaware and three or four Rhode Islands combined, now no-go zones. Nuclear toys have created a waste more deadly than anything in nature, capable of killing all biota for hundreds of thousands of years. No comparison at all is possible.
Oh but look at all the dead people who have died. We may work that out. Why do we die? It is the way. I point to this, drinking killed the man. He was run over by a beer truck.
To answer the presented impressive numbers graphs and Power Point Presentations there is also this and that serious, statistical and scientifically based analysis that Chernobyl killed a million. Nuke fans insist that is FUD. Coal fans do the same, because the problem? Neither is provable. Both are probable. Probably. Beware of beer trucks.
Coal mining vs Uranium mining? An unattractive couple, no photos at that wedding please. Which one threatens unborn children, 26,587 years from now? We have a winner.
Open question one. Should EPA change standards on safe levels of radioactivity?
Begin by accepting science that says there is no no safe level. Proceed to the calculation of acceptable rates of excess deaths. How many will we kill?
EPA uses Maximum Contaminant Levels, 70 years of consumption, one in a million die.
FDAs single dose Derived Intervention Level standard accepts two extra cancer fatalities in 10,000.
How many folks are aware FDA numbers are orders of magnitude beyond EPA? Let's have a discussion on that, shall we? Good idea. Done!
Environmental Standards for Uranium Fuel Cycle Facilities: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) http://www.epa.gov/radiation/l...
Comments are due June 4, 2014.
It is an open question what happened at Fuku 3. Perhaps someone or something can get in there by 2025 or so and have a look around. In the meantime, radioactivity flows to the sea. How much? Trace amounts already on the US West coast, but neither FDA nor EPA are bothering to measure.
The effort to radioactivitate (sick) the Pacific Ocean is a work in progress. I would have voted to not do that. (Nukes require on the order of a million gallons per minute to cool).
Three of the current problems gifted to us by the the Safe, Reliable and Green Nuclear Industry to our largest body of water are Bioaccumulation, Hot Particles, and clumping. Big fish eat little fish, collect the stuff. Hot particles are bits of the fuel that somehow became shot all about, and clumping is the tendency of this nuke waste to gather together.
It is not evenly distributed in the water, as cream in coffee.
We are all players in the World Championship Nuclear Lottery. You probably will not consume that many hot particles. Probably, long odds on that. But they get better, the chance of Winning over time increases as radiation continues to flow to the sea.
The Master Strategists, or World Class Assholes (my view) at TEPCO have recently said, err, we don't think we can stop this, any of you folks have any ideas? That only took them three years to figure out.
Marcelo, you should fight these idiots, that is your necessary, good fight. They are to blame for this. The nuke industry should be screaming, lining up to lynch them, to get them the heck out of there, yesterday. Instead they cower together, ignore the problem, lie, and point the finger at others. NIMBYS and BANANAS and COAL and GLOBAL WARMING. Business as usual. I am not impressed.
Chernobyl was arguably the worst design of anything in the history of t
Many choose to ignore anything that contradicts preconceived ideas, "accepted thinking, "settled science". TEPCO was certain a tsunami was no threat. They were told about it repeatedly. Arrogance and hubris from men that are accustomed to being the smartest man in the room. This is the fatal flaw. Not the technology. The people.
Transuranics were spread far and wide. How? A very serious question. I do not take it lightly, nor listen to fool's rant. Measures of Xenon gas isotopes would decisively prove/disprove this theory due to a half life measured in hours. That information has not been released. Why?
Arnie Gundersen is no ranting, stoned hippy. He was a gung-ho Nuke industry pro, a true believer. B.A. Nuclear Engineering Cum laud from the serious and respected Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1971) . Master's degree in nuclear engineering thanks to a prestigious Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship (1972). 40 plus years nuclear power engineering experience, holds nuclear safety patent, licensed reactor operator, former nuclear industry senior vice president, managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants in the US.
There is nothing of a lightweight in the man.
Arnie found radioactivity in an office safe.(IIRC) Well, how could that happen, he properly asked, and insisted on an answer. He was fired. Became a whistleblower, they tried to destroy him. He ended up broke, but not broken, and now "out of the priesthood". He dedicated his life to increased safety. His approach is cool, calm, fact based, science. After Fukushima he decided there are no safe Nukes. Because, People.40 good years, and one very bad day.
The risks are not manageable over the long term. Odds are, something is going to break. The proof is in the results.
The google search does not yield a scientific rebuttal of his argument. Nor have you attempted to rebut the argument. Nor evidently even bothered to watch the vid? Here is the link, again http://vimeo.com/22865967
Fukushima is permanently abandoned. You say the risks are over stated. Was the evacuation an error? Inside the buildings, levels are so high that machines cannot function. Men must enter this dangerous place, risk their lives for other's mistakes, for the next 40 years. Is this an acceptable risk?
The entire industry is threatened, Germany is shutting down. 5 closed last year in the US, another 8 plans canceled. Why? They have themselves to blame. The men in the industry did not listen, called it FUD, scaremongering. They did not act, repeatedly ignored warnings, repeatedly dodged safety issues. Now Japan has 50 reactors turned off. Very expensive rusting junk.
Now here in the US, a move to lower safety standards?
To the question? Fukushima is permanently abandoned. You say the risks are over stated. Was the evacuation an error?
Marcelo, I did not manage to find links to Mr Stansbury? If he has written about this, I am interested. Thanks. And Thanks for the good discussion. These are serious issues, of great consequence.
You are answering questions I do not ask. Fukushima has GE MK I BWRs. Spent fuel pools on the fifth floor, under no containment.
Plus once a reactor is shutdown, prompt criticality is impossible. Perhaps on Gen I reactors (all retired for at least 25 years now), but not even on any of Fukushima reactors.
This is the official position, NRC. Proof of concept was in the Borax experiments, years ago.
The criticality was in the fuel pool. Not the reactor. The reactors just melted. Harmlessly, except the building is cracked, and ground water is flowing through.
Pumps down after station blackout. No coolant flow. Workers tried to access it, run water, valves did not function. Systems likely broken by earthquake. 3 levels of earthquake resistant gear, descending in toughness as one moved away from the reactor. The stuff thought to not be that important is what gave up. (NHK Documentary) Water boiled off, exposing the spent fuel rods. Hydrogen went boom, as in the others, in less than an instant, Zoom. Black mushroom cloud of volatilized spent fuel.
Check it out. If it is BS, it should be easy to debunk. So far, noone has. Instead, they call him names, say, oh well, he is a denier sort of thing. Really. Arnie's Vid http://vimeo.com/22865967
A Chernobyl like accident has a chance of happening again like one in a million.
Probabilistic Risk assessment. I love that stuff. Lets call it one in a billion. Give each employee one opportunity to completely screw up per day...
435 nukes x 10 years x 365 days x 600 employees equals...
A Billion!
So based on my billion wild ass guess, and three generally bullshit things I multipled together I came up with what? The Bullshit that there should be an accident every 10 years. Well, that turns out to be actually true, but nevemind that. The problem is, some hungover idiot is going to put a forklift through it.
So, should Japan not evacuate Fukushima? Should Putin start a Discount Homestead act for Chernobyl?
Arnie makes a point to say the prompt criticality was not a nuclear explosion. A Criticality.
Watch the vid. I have not seen, nor heard a coherent rebuttal. http://vimeo.com/22865967
Cancer? A useless argument. Who can really say what causes this or that? It is a booming cause of death since 1950. Why? Who knows? Twinkies? Coca cola, that and steak sandwiches. Alexey V. Yablokov 2006 book, says a million died from Chernobyl. Jay M. Gould , Benjamin A. Goldman did an "Excess death study". Claim 40,000 US deaths after Chernobyl.
I do not know the truth about this. But the difference of opinion, the different numbers from this scientist and that
could not be more stark. Maybe one is correct maybe this other. How do we know? i have given up on that.
Hang out at Lake Karachay for one hour. Die.
At some point, we all agree, it is possible for this stuff to kill. All agree. There is an amount that is too much.
It is Not Acceptable to have to abandon New York City. No amount of coal or fossil fuel or natural gas, or low fat artificially flavored strawberry yogurt poses this level of threat.
This is it. Well stated. The problem today is young people are being taught what to think, not how to think. Mr Shakes his spear and Chaucer are negated for sexual and race politics.
Say this and that, these are the acceptable opinions. Shout down and attack those who dare to disagree.
So of course, they have no respect. Their wise elders fill them with bullshit, that they are expected to repeat. They know this. It is time for them to speak out about this.
I will check it out. Good work there. The difference between what folks say is striking. This one says Chernobyl killed 60 or so, that one, a million. We are blessed to have all this information, this great tool, our struggle is to know what is true.
1986, word leaked out about Chernobyl. They were lying, trying to cover it up. Weatherman on TV talked about the passing air, the clouds, it is there, in the clouds, in the air over my head. He advised, if it rained, do not go outside.
It rained. Radoiactive rain. That was my moment of decision on the matter.
Chernobyl, Fukushima are an unacceptable. Leave your home with the clothes on your back, never return. Then, as soon as possible, get rid of the clothing. Tech can only be as good as the people. Repeatedly, the industry folds safety concerns for economic reasons, Japan and here. They lie. Japan lied, is still lying. There are three people I trust on the matter, Arnie Gunderson, Bob Alvarez and Dave Lockbaum. I should note that none of those three trusts them either. Listen to them, listen to their words, their arguments.
Gunderson called every aspect of Fukushima from the first month. Contradicting all the official, and expert statements at the time. Meltdowns, containment lost, radioactivity from groundwater to the sea. Tepco over their head, a management firm, not engineers. Spent fuel found all around. The amount of radioactivity far higher than stated.
And, that unit three was a prompt criticality. Yup. Black mushroom cloud, volatilized fuel. The world has not caught up with that, yet. NRC says it never happened, can't happen. I would be interested to hear your input. http://vimeo.com/22865967
The United States, due to the cold war escapade, our gift for spending Ten Trillion dollars, Ten Million Million dollars,
for that we have an area the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, reeking with the stuff. Crap from the Manhattan Project is still a problem. They do not take care of business, they do not get it done. Then, they lie. There are virtually no variations from this.
Alvin Weinberg, a notable exception, a great and good man. Yanosuke Hirai of the Onagawa NPP. Closer to the quake center, a larger tsunami, instead of folks having to flee in terror, it became a sanctuary from the cold. MR Hirai is credited with that. He is described as a stern, old school man who was not to be contradicted. Alas, there seem to be few like those two great and good men.
It would be significantly better if it all of this stuff actually was not that dangerous. But, as should be clear by now, I do not trust them, it is too convenient. I immediately reject it as an effort to legislate the problem away. Hey, nobody can prove they got cancer from it, right? Japan has raised the "safe" level, cut off payments to folks and said, Okay, move back home now.
I am not neutral in the matter, I do not trust them. I am listening. But I will be damned, going forward? It will Not be business as usual. Past performance forces me to no other position than to say to the industry, to advocates, prove it. Get it done. Deal honestly with the existing issues, then talk to me about more, better newer, whatever. But until then? The answer is a definitive and unqualified No.
Marcelo, it is good to speak with you, my name is Jimmy. You keep at it, be one that listens to both sides, because both have serious people, worthy of our attention.
EPA is currently soliciting public comment on a potential change. www.regulations.gov under Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OAR–2013–0689.
Environmental Standards for Uranium Fuel Cycle Facilities: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR)http://www.epa.gov/radiation/l...
EPA establishes certain generally applicable environmental standards to protect human health and the environment from radioactive materials. Issued in 1977, “Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Nuclear Power Operations” (40 CFR 190) limit the radiation releases and doses to the public from the normal operations of nuclear power plants and other uranium fuel cycle facilities—the facilities involved in the manufacture and use of uranium fuel for generating electrical power.
mac, you are a student in this field, IIRC? What do the folks from within that circle think? Who has run the numbers on this, where did the "40%" come from? Thanks.
France's large nuclear program goes back to 1973, Middle East BS, the "oil shock." Most of its electricity came from oil burners. They had a choice of being dependent on foreign oil, or nuclear.
Decommissioning costs are an issue there, too. Brennellis is at 20X estimates, still going. Over the next ten years 22 of France's 58 reactors will turn 40. Funding is insufficient, as here.
The problems are different, but all involve dollars. France politically could maybe pull off rate increases, but in the current US environment? Trouble. Not just NIMBYs wielding BANANAS. Closed five last year for economic reasons, canceled another 8. Natural gas is killing them. So much oil is being shipped from Canada, Detroit has cars sitting and waiting for available trains. Nukes need 600 people to run a plant, others get by with 100. They are stuck with large inventories of spent fuel, resisting the move to cask storage, as they are well aware stashing it "temporarily" in the parking lot will become the defacto storage solution. There is no place to put it. There are zero dollars in private money for new stuff, which start at 10 billion, and 10 years before a payback.
Exelon's Nuclear Matters lobby org has just drafted Carol Browner to hellp legislate the thing back in their favor. Efforts include getting rid of solar and wind subsidies, getting themselves considered as "renewable" (New York) and pushing to receive some sort of credit for being "reliable". The effort to squash renewables will likely cause some conflicts their "green" selling point.
In this environment, nobody wants to talk about pre-existing troublesome expenses.
Slashdot Mirror
This was my reaction. He trolls the people, then protests getting flamed. A follow up of, "ha ha made you look" would have been fine. My general impression is that Tyson thinks a lot, sometimes even of subjects that are not himself.
Not smart. But is it arrogant and overconfident or terrified and desperate? Obvious lie, obvious cover-up. MSNBC is mocking them. I believe re-election bids are on the line over this one. I already suspect business as usual types are going to be surprised, ousted across the board. Folks are tired of the name calling, finger pointing, lack of accountability and cronyism, on both sides. Themes will be honesty, integrity, accountability and taking care of the folks at home. Cantor's loss is an indication of this mood. Shut up and fix it, it is broken. Get it done.
Everyone who knew a damn thing knew she was a lightweight from day one. That is the irritant to me. A PC choice that condemned a once formidable company to death. "Continuous improvement in our cost structure". Nobody is surprised by this. Compaq How is it possible that people at his level are so abysmally stupid? How can we change the culture to prevent this?
To raise cash, Fiat has decide to sell Tesla Dartboards. Buyers have the choice of an image of Elon Musk, or the Model S.
A "cultural blind spot"? Innocent mistake? No.
Does not play, interact with others. Proprietary, exclusionary design is the baseline, the goal. Designed in malfunction. Proof from long ago is in iTunes. A horrendous mess of extreme levels of overweight complexity to overcome basic USB storage functionality, corral and control user's behavior. Making it simply work would have required no effort at all. The current events are at least a direct consequence of this Apple closed culture mindset.
History being a predictor, I conclude it is intentional. Proving it will be another matter.
I hear that. Imagine, oh that is a Fibson guitar, it needs Fibson cord and amp. If USB breaks the standard, obsoletes my gear, I will look around. I have dodged Apple because of this merry go round, from the horrendous iTunes, to expensive firewire mistakes, that I did not make. It is the single reason I do not buy Apple gear, or anything with despised proprietary connectors. Never.
If USB dumps this advantage, and I am forced to change? Stupid move.
OT Rant: Woman last week, new evidently 1st gen VW Hybrid. Car would not start because the trunk was open. No joke. I did not ask her why she didn't just buy the 5th gen Prius. Some folks willingly walk into hell. Just open the door, they line up
Must not happen. Well, that is impossible, I know. That is the problem. Some hungover fellow will poke a forklift through the thing.
What aspect of coal compares to this? Reactor core materials found almost 500 km from Fukushima plant -- 40,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bq/kg -- Can travel very, very significant distances -- Hot particles found in 25% of samples from Tokyo and Fukushima http://www.fairewinds.org/hott...
Which one creates waste that will be hazardous to all biota, 20,000 years from now?
Each sides trots out stats,graphs and studies, the other call them lies. I could cite Yablonski, one million died from Chernobyl. Another showed 40,000 excess US deaths from Chernobyl. "Experts say it was 60 or so, "prove it". Well, an inconvenient problem with all of this is we can't prove any of it. Probabilities, known and unknown variables. Probably, maybe.
which set of numbers do people effectively choose to believe? It negates the value of that argument for me.
There are no easy answers, all have issues. I am open to new ideas, but am unimpressed with the US industry, its efforts, attitufe. I have learned to not trust them. So I am far from neutral. But again, I will listen, but I have to say, "prove it".
I personally love hydro. Virtual perpetual motion, water, gravity spin a gadget. Plus, lakes. I would like to see old school grandiose work in that area. Weighing the costs/benefits to coal and nuclear? Easy decision.
US issues are many. Hanford, Los Alamos, Oak ridge, etc? The job did not get done. It is part of the legacy, fair or not. There is no facility for storing spent NPP fuel. 50, 60 years into the thing, no US place to put the fuel. They did not get it done. SFPs are dangerously full, past their design basis, and vulnerable.
Chernobyl, Fukushima. You folks may never go home. An acceptable risk? These are legit, open questions that have nothing to do with politics/ideology, or unfounded fears.
Public confidence would change, I believe, if a serious effort was made at Fuku, and attention paid as to what to do with the waste. Right now, radioactivity flows to the sea, no plan, no answers, and no real effort. In comparison, the Russians are getting it done. It took help? Fine. Internationally the industry needs to step up, to speak out to say, we got this. That is exactly what is not happeneing.
I think the industry has nobody to blame but themselves. WIPP, designed to last 15,000 years, made it to 15. What happened at Fuku? That is not acceptable, it must not happen, period. There is no room for error.
The final fact may decide it all for folks, really it has for me. But i am trying to be open. The bad apples are not the standard, but in this game, there is no safe place for the bad apples, the industry has to simply not tolerate it. Instead, they cower together, pay lobbyists, lie, coverup, etc. They routinely sell safety short for profit. This is TEPCO. They merit the focus of attention here.
EPA allows far less than FDA. If they just quietly say they want the EPA levels to match FDA, because why should we have two sets of numbers? Skip the details and complicated reworking of the whole thing, most folks wouldn't even look up from twitter. For example, EPAs Maximum Contaminant Levels assumes regular consumption over 70 years, accepts that one in a million will die. FDAs single dose Derived Intervention Levels accepts 2 in ten thousand. If pesky calculations like this are somehow kept out of the discussion, they might get it done without too much noise. It does legislate away an expensive problem.
All of the above is correct, unfinished business that results in lost trust. These are not unfounded, irrational fears of NIMBYs wielding BANANAs. Advocates should perhaps dig deeper into how the French do things. Gov't/industry are effectively one there, perhaps the truth is on lockdown? Or are they more serious about things other than profit?
There is a major push from the trillion dollar industry, with support from this Admin, as Climate Disruption rules all. So folks should pay attention.
EPA is currently taking comments on changing the "safe" acceptable radiation levels. Environmental Standards for Uranium Fuel Cycle Facilities: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) http://www.epa.gov/radiation/l...
Comments are due by June 4, 2014
Chernobyl was arguably the worst design of anything in history. But the Soviets moved, 500,000 plus people. Gorbachev says it is what broke the USSR. Mistakes were made, but they are taking responsibility for the mess. This is what is needed for Nuke Inc. USA and Japan. Get it done. This would turn the tide of popular opinion.
I thought a glyph was like a nymph? If they pointed to that, a lot of folks would have showed up. That still may be true. Probably someone decided that was a bad idea. Then, boom, there went the neighborhood. Folks just stopped showing up.
Fortunately, California appears to have discover the Pacific Ocean. There is hope.
Fortunately, neither EPA nor FDA are measuring it, nor talking about it. They must agree with you.
I consider myself a refugee from the one party state of Mass. Vermont now. Still one party, but there are more trees. Plus, a bonus, a soul still exists here in old school Vermonters, not so different from old school everywhere.
Kerry strikes me as a mediocre man. Splashed on to the scene as a impressive, whistle blowing, honest Veteran. People cared, they listened. Rewareded as Senator for life in Mass. Since then? What? Where does that experience apply?
Now this? Homeland security, TSA, info gobbling, more spy agencies than even the most ardent activist can name is correct? This is the right side of history? This man is not even a second rank intellect. He is not a serious man.
As an aside, this seems to be the hiring standard, and fatal flaw of the current admin. It explains the choice of Biden. "Dewd, that was like two years ago" on a network news program? Where did they find that asshole? Mediocrity seems to be what gets them the job. No threat to make the President look bad, in comparison. Is this the explanation?
I am open to opposing views.
Does anyone have an argument/evidence that proves me wrong? Kerry is a third rate intellect, a second rate man.
Asking the nuke industry to address its longstanding issues is not a pro coal argument. Coal's issues are not an answer to nuke problems.
So the argument is a dodge, a distraction from another reality. Threat level? Different time zones, orders of magnitude difference, an utterly laughable comparison. Playing with nuclear gadgets has resulted in the world abandoning areas the size of Delaware and three or four Rhode Islands combined, now no-go zones. Nuclear toys have created a waste more deadly than anything in nature, capable of killing all biota for hundreds of thousands of years. No comparison at all is possible.
Oh but look at all the dead people who have died. We may work that out. Why do we die? It is the way. I point to this, drinking killed the man. He was run over by a beer truck.
To answer the presented impressive numbers graphs and Power Point Presentations there is also this and that serious, statistical and scientifically based analysis that Chernobyl killed a million. Nuke fans insist that is FUD. Coal fans do the same, because the problem? Neither is provable. Both are probable. Probably. Beware of beer trucks.
Coal mining vs Uranium mining? An unattractive couple, no photos at that wedding please. Which one threatens unborn children, 26,587 years from now? We have a winner.
Open question one. Should EPA change standards on safe levels of radioactivity? Begin by accepting science that says there is no no safe level. Proceed to the calculation of acceptable rates of excess deaths. How many will we kill?
EPA uses Maximum Contaminant Levels, 70 years of consumption, one in a million die.
FDAs single dose Derived Intervention Level standard accepts two extra cancer fatalities in 10,000.
How many folks are aware FDA numbers are orders of magnitude beyond EPA? Let's have a discussion on that, shall we? Good idea. Done!
Environmental Standards for Uranium Fuel Cycle Facilities: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) http://www.epa.gov/radiation/l...
Comments are due June 4, 2014.
It is an open question what happened at Fuku 3. Perhaps someone or something can get in there by 2025 or so and have a look around. In the meantime, radioactivity flows to the sea. How much? Trace amounts already on the US West coast, but neither FDA nor EPA are bothering to measure.
The effort to radioactivitate (sick) the Pacific Ocean is a work in progress. I would have voted to not do that. (Nukes require on the order of a million gallons per minute to cool).
Three of the current problems gifted to us by the the Safe, Reliable and Green Nuclear Industry to our largest body of water are Bioaccumulation, Hot Particles, and clumping. Big fish eat little fish, collect the stuff. Hot particles are bits of the fuel that somehow became shot all about, and clumping is the tendency of this nuke waste to gather together. It is not evenly distributed in the water, as cream in coffee.
We are all players in the World Championship Nuclear Lottery. You probably will not consume that many hot particles. Probably, long odds on that. But they get better, the chance of Winning over time increases as radiation continues to flow to the sea.
The Master Strategists, or World Class Assholes (my view) at TEPCO have recently said, err, we don't think we can stop this, any of you folks have any ideas? That only took them three years to figure out.
Marcelo, you should fight these idiots, that is your necessary, good fight. They are to blame for this. The nuke industry should be screaming, lining up to lynch them, to get them the heck out of there, yesterday. Instead they cower together, ignore the problem, lie, and point the finger at others. NIMBYS and BANANAS and COAL and GLOBAL WARMING. Business as usual. I am not impressed.
Chernobyl was arguably the worst design of anything in the history of t
Many choose to ignore anything that contradicts preconceived ideas, "accepted thinking, "settled science". TEPCO was certain a tsunami was no threat. They were told about it repeatedly. Arrogance and hubris from men that are accustomed to being the smartest man in the room. This is the fatal flaw. Not the technology. The people.
Transuranics were spread far and wide. How? A very serious question. I do not take it lightly, nor listen to fool's rant. Measures of Xenon gas isotopes would decisively prove/disprove this theory due to a half life measured in hours. That information has not been released. Why?
Arnie Gundersen is no ranting, stoned hippy. He was a gung-ho Nuke industry pro, a true believer. B.A. Nuclear Engineering Cum laud from the serious and respected Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1971) . Master's degree in nuclear engineering thanks to a prestigious Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship (1972). 40 plus years nuclear power engineering experience, holds nuclear safety patent, licensed reactor operator, former nuclear industry senior vice president, managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants in the US.
There is nothing of a lightweight in the man.
Arnie found radioactivity in an office safe.(IIRC) Well, how could that happen, he properly asked, and insisted on an answer. He was fired. Became a whistleblower, they tried to destroy him. He ended up broke, but not broken, and now "out of the priesthood". He dedicated his life to increased safety. His approach is cool, calm, fact based, science. After Fukushima he decided there are no safe Nukes. Because, People.40 good years, and one very bad day. The risks are not manageable over the long term. Odds are, something is going to break. The proof is in the results.
Here, many links about finding fuel bits http://www.zerohedge.com/contr...
google of prompt criticality Fukushima https://www.google.com/#q=prom....
The google search does not yield a scientific rebuttal of his argument. Nor have you attempted to rebut the argument. Nor evidently even bothered to watch the vid? Here is the link, again http://vimeo.com/22865967
Fukushima is permanently abandoned. You say the risks are over stated. Was the evacuation an error? Inside the buildings, levels are so high that machines cannot function. Men must enter this dangerous place, risk their lives for other's mistakes, for the next 40 years. Is this an acceptable risk?
The entire industry is threatened, Germany is shutting down. 5 closed last year in the US, another 8 plans canceled. Why? They have themselves to blame. The men in the industry did not listen, called it FUD, scaremongering. They did not act, repeatedly ignored warnings, repeatedly dodged safety issues. Now Japan has 50 reactors turned off. Very expensive rusting junk.
Now here in the US, a move to lower safety standards?
To the question? Fukushima is permanently abandoned. You say the risks are over stated. Was the evacuation an error?
Marcelo, I did not manage to find links to Mr Stansbury? If he has written about this, I am interested. Thanks. And Thanks for the good discussion. These are serious issues, of great consequence.
Plus once a reactor is shutdown, prompt criticality is impossible. Perhaps on Gen I reactors (all retired for at least 25 years now), but not even on any of Fukushima reactors.
This is the official position, NRC. Proof of concept was in the Borax experiments, years ago. The criticality was in the fuel pool. Not the reactor. The reactors just melted. Harmlessly, except the building is cracked, and ground water is flowing through.
Pumps down after station blackout. No coolant flow. Workers tried to access it, run water, valves did not function. Systems likely broken by earthquake. 3 levels of earthquake resistant gear, descending in toughness as one moved away from the reactor. The stuff thought to not be that important is what gave up. (NHK Documentary) Water boiled off, exposing the spent fuel rods. Hydrogen went boom, as in the others, in less than an instant, Zoom. Black mushroom cloud of volatilized spent fuel.
Check it out. If it is BS, it should be easy to debunk. So far, noone has. Instead, they call him names, say, oh well, he is a denier sort of thing. Really. Arnie's Vid http://vimeo.com/22865967
A Chernobyl like accident has a chance of happening again like one in a million.
Probabilistic Risk assessment. I love that stuff. Lets call it one in a billion. Give each employee one opportunity to completely screw up per day...
435 nukes x 10 years x 365 days x 600 employees equals...
A Billion!
So based on my billion wild ass guess, and three generally bullshit things I multipled together I came up with what? The Bullshit that there should be an accident every 10 years. Well, that turns out to be actually true, but nevemind that. The problem is, some hungover idiot is going to put a forklift through it.
So, should Japan not evacuate Fukushima? Should Putin start a Discount Homestead act for Chernobyl?
Heh.
Cancer? A useless argument. Who can really say what causes this or that? It is a booming cause of death since 1950. Why? Who knows? Twinkies? Coca cola, that and steak sandwiches. Alexey V. Yablokov 2006 book, says a million died from Chernobyl. Jay M. Gould , Benjamin A. Goldman did an "Excess death study". Claim 40,000 US deaths after Chernobyl.
I do not know the truth about this. But the difference of opinion, the different numbers from this scientist and that could not be more stark. Maybe one is correct maybe this other. How do we know? i have given up on that.
Hang out at Lake Karachay for one hour. Die. At some point, we all agree, it is possible for this stuff to kill. All agree. There is an amount that is too much.
It is Not Acceptable to have to abandon New York City. No amount of coal or fossil fuel or natural gas, or low fat artificially flavored strawberry yogurt poses this level of threat.
That is my bottom line.
Say this and that, these are the acceptable opinions. Shout down and attack those who dare to disagree.
So of course, they have no respect. Their wise elders fill them with bullshit, that they are expected to repeat. They know this. It is time for them to speak out about this.
I will check it out. Good work there. The difference between what folks say is striking. This one says Chernobyl killed 60 or so, that one, a million. We are blessed to have all this information, this great tool, our struggle is to know what is true.
1986, word leaked out about Chernobyl. They were lying, trying to cover it up. Weatherman on TV talked about the passing air, the clouds, it is there, in the clouds, in the air over my head. He advised, if it rained, do not go outside.
It rained. Radoiactive rain. That was my moment of decision on the matter.
Chernobyl, Fukushima are an unacceptable. Leave your home with the clothes on your back, never return. Then, as soon as possible, get rid of the clothing. Tech can only be as good as the people. Repeatedly, the industry folds safety concerns for economic reasons, Japan and here. They lie. Japan lied, is still lying. There are three people I trust on the matter, Arnie Gunderson, Bob Alvarez and Dave Lockbaum. I should note that none of those three trusts them either. Listen to them, listen to their words, their arguments.
Gunderson called every aspect of Fukushima from the first month. Contradicting all the official, and expert statements at the time. Meltdowns, containment lost, radioactivity from groundwater to the sea. Tepco over their head, a management firm, not engineers. Spent fuel found all around. The amount of radioactivity far higher than stated.
And, that unit three was a prompt criticality. Yup. Black mushroom cloud, volatilized fuel. The world has not caught up with that, yet. NRC says it never happened, can't happen. I would be interested to hear your input. http://vimeo.com/22865967
The United States, due to the cold war escapade, our gift for spending Ten Trillion dollars, Ten Million Million dollars, for that we have an area the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, reeking with the stuff. Crap from the Manhattan Project is still a problem. They do not take care of business, they do not get it done. Then, they lie. There are virtually no variations from this.
Alvin Weinberg, a notable exception, a great and good man. Yanosuke Hirai of the Onagawa NPP. Closer to the quake center, a larger tsunami, instead of folks having to flee in terror, it became a sanctuary from the cold. MR Hirai is credited with that. He is described as a stern, old school man who was not to be contradicted. Alas, there seem to be few like those two great and good men.
It would be significantly better if it all of this stuff actually was not that dangerous. But, as should be clear by now, I do not trust them, it is too convenient. I immediately reject it as an effort to legislate the problem away. Hey, nobody can prove they got cancer from it, right? Japan has raised the "safe" level, cut off payments to folks and said, Okay, move back home now.
I am not neutral in the matter, I do not trust them. I am listening. But I will be damned, going forward? It will Not be business as usual. Past performance forces me to no other position than to say to the industry, to advocates, prove it. Get it done. Deal honestly with the existing issues, then talk to me about more, better newer, whatever. But until then? The answer is a definitive and unqualified No.
Marcelo, it is good to speak with you, my name is Jimmy. You keep at it, be one that listens to both sides, because both have serious people, worthy of our attention.
Later.
Environmental Standards for Uranium Fuel Cycle Facilities: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) http://www.epa.gov/radiation/l...
EPA establishes certain generally applicable environmental standards to protect human health and the environment from radioactive materials. Issued in 1977, “Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Nuclear Power Operations” (40 CFR 190) limit the radiation releases and doses to the public from the normal operations of nuclear power plants and other uranium fuel cycle facilities—the facilities involved in the manufacture and use of uranium fuel for generating electrical power.
mac, you are a student in this field, IIRC? What do the folks from within that circle think? Who has run the numbers on this, where did the "40%" come from? Thanks.
France's large nuclear program goes back to 1973, Middle East BS, the "oil shock." Most of its electricity came from oil burners. They had a choice of being dependent on foreign oil, or nuclear. Decommissioning costs are an issue there, too. Brennellis is at 20X estimates, still going. Over the next ten years 22 of France's 58 reactors will turn 40. Funding is insufficient, as here.
The problems are different, but all involve dollars. France politically could maybe pull off rate increases, but in the current US environment? Trouble. Not just NIMBYs wielding BANANAS. Closed five last year for economic reasons, canceled another 8. Natural gas is killing them. So much oil is being shipped from Canada, Detroit has cars sitting and waiting for available trains. Nukes need 600 people to run a plant, others get by with 100. They are stuck with large inventories of spent fuel, resisting the move to cask storage, as they are well aware stashing it "temporarily" in the parking lot will become the defacto storage solution. There is no place to put it. There are zero dollars in private money for new stuff, which start at 10 billion, and 10 years before a payback.
Exelon's Nuclear Matters lobby org has just drafted Carol Browner to hellp legislate the thing back in their favor. Efforts include getting rid of solar and wind subsidies, getting themselves considered as "renewable" (New York) and pushing to receive some sort of credit for being "reliable". The effort to squash renewables will likely cause some conflicts their "green" selling point.
In this environment, nobody wants to talk about pre-existing troublesome expenses.