Nuclear Emergency Declared At 2 Plants In Japan 752
Hugh Pickens writes "CBC reports that Japan has declared a state of emergency and called for mass evacuations near two nuclear power plants following cooling systems failures that led to radiation escaping from a reactor at one location. The emergency declarations, which include five reactors at the two plants, followed Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake off the country's northeast coast. In a troubling announcement, Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official Ryohei Shiomi said a monitoring device outside the plant detected radiation that is eight times higher than normal and an evacuation zone has been expanded from three kilometres around the plant to 10 kilometres."
I've done this before! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've done this before! (Score:5, Funny)
On the plus side, the forest arcology unlocked eleven years ago.
Re: (Score:3)
We won't get those until 2050! .
Its 2061 now. Fusion is always 50 years away.
Re:I've done this before! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've done this before! (Score:4, Interesting)
No, blame us, for letting Big Oil get in the way.
Democracy without wisdom is nothing but mob-rule.
Re:I've done this before! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's just that there are so many fools nowadays that don't appear to notice or care (or may even be proud of it), so much so that just having "common sense" alone makes you wise in comparison.
Wisdom is the ability to respond correctly to the entire situation - which does not necessarily mean strictly providing the correct answer to a question. In contrast intelligence is the ability to provide the right answers (or questions), to questions.
For example: take the "Judgement of Solomon" story where two women claimed to be mother of a child.
Intelligence nowadays would mean doing a DNA test to prove who was the biological mother of the child.
Solomon's method determined who would be a better mother for the child.
Common sense now would be to do the DNA tests - since it is more likely to survive a legal challenge later. What would Solomon do now? I don't know I'm no Solomon
Re: (Score:3)
Solomon's answer was the best answer available for the time. He didn't have DNA tests. So that wasn't an option. the only option he had was to see the child had the most caring parents he could. Also legal challenge is also a relatively new concept too. at least on time scales of solomon.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've done this before! (Score:4, Interesting)
"Is fusion available yet?" http://pesn.com/2011/03/07/9501782_Cold_Fusion_Steams_Ahead_at_Worlds_Oldest_University/ [pesn.com]
The real deal?
Its worse and I reported that half an hour earlier (Score:3, Informative)
NHK (Score:5, Informative)
Since most foreign media just use NHK news, here is the link to their english website:
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/index.html [nhk.or.jp]
I am in japan and following this very closely
Re: (Score:3)
No, i am safe (400km away) from all direct effects, but if the plant blows and the wind turns the story might be different. But ill now go and try to buy iodine tablets. I do not plan to move.
Re:NHK (Score:4, Funny)
I knew the Japanese had some clever shopping inventions, but wow, telekinesis!
Re: (Score:3)
The most accurate information you can get on earthquakes in Japan, listed by time and strength from hundreds (or thousands) of sensor station:
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/ [jma.go.jp]
and tsunamis
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/tsunami/ [jma.go.jp]
I personally felt (400km away) the shock, two or three aftershocks and the nakano quake in the morning. Over this distance i would only feel a quake > 4 at the center (japanese scale).
at this place the primary shock was categorized to be 4 at my workplace which does not even make me get up
discrepancy (Score:5, Informative)
There's a lot of misinformation flying around.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12721498 [bbc.co.uk] [bbc.co.uk] (watch the movie)
Steam was released on purpose.
Based on just this discrepancy between the BBC and the CBC articles, /. might be a bit careful on it's reporting right now...
Everyone's getting excited over the nuclear plants, and ignoring the thousands that are still are dying due to just water. Why is radiation so much scarier? Water kills faster. /rant.
Re:discrepancy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:discrepancy (Score:4, Informative)
ie "27,000 liters of water, including water stored for firefighting, was being pumped into the reactor via makeshift pumps and other means in order to raise the water level above the reactor's nuclear fuel," at Fukushima Daiichi.
Its seems if they can get diesel-powered generators online, it might be ok, if not, the internal damage will add up fast.
Explosion (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Explosion (Score:4, Informative)
Video of the explosion and ensuing steam cloud: http://youtu.be/DHfR_wybvw0 [youtu.be]
NHK World is reporting serious emissions (Score:5, Informative)
The outer walls of the Reactor 1 building have partially blown off, leaving only what looks like a steel frame. NHK is saying that a sensor within 5km of the plant is detecting radiation levels approaching 1015 microsieverts - that is apparently a year's worth of radiation exposure each hour.
People in the danger zones are being told to cover faces with wet towels, avoid eating vegetables and other fresh foods, and refrain from drinking tap water. Things seem to be happening quickly.
Re:NHK World is reporting serious emissions (Score:5, Insightful)
1015 microsieverts - that is apparently a year's worth of radiation exposure each hour
Or 30 bananas [wikipedia.org]...
Re: (Score:3)
1015 microsieverts - that is apparently a year's worth of radiation exposure each hour
Or 30 bananas [wikipedia.org]...
30 bananas every hour is 1 banana every 2 minutes. That's a lot of banana's. While the accumulated radiation from those bananas would probably be pretty benign, I think you'd still be dead pretty quickly :)
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, but it's a 30 bananas per day, for a whole year. :) But thanks, didn't know about BED before, and although personally I am somewhat opposed to nuclear energy, I always end up arguing with nutjobs about this and this will certainly help me with this.
Re: (Score:3)
That Wikipedia page is terribly confusing. It first says a banana equivalent dose is the dose of radiation from eating a single banana. Then it says a banana equivalent dose is the radiation exposure from eating a banana every day for a year. Vastly different things.
So when you say 30 bananas, you mean the equivalent dose of eating 30 bananas every day for a year, right? 30 bananas != 30 banana equivalent doses.
Since the average American eats 75 bananas a year, I don't think we have much concept of what
Explosion (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Please MOD PARENT UP.
This looks like quite serious explosion, especially occurring on a nuclear power plant. It would be difficult to imagine that any sort of functioning cooling is operating on that reactor anymore.
Let's just hope that it was an ancillary building, structure or unit that suffered the explosion and not an actual core explosion. This is really the type of things that nightmares are made of, especially for the Japanese people. If this is an actual core breach then I'd be checking the prevai
Re: (Score:3)
Notably, that's not earthquake damage. I don't doubt that the chain of events leading up to the explosion was caused by the earthquake, but it required the reactor to be of a type which is even capable of melting down in the first place. My first thought on seeing the article was a leak \due to actual structural damage from the earthquake, but this is something else - an inherently risky reactor design and a failsafe not operating. It looks like basically the same thing as what happened at Three Mile Island
There's video (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There's video (Score:4, Informative)
Evacuation radius expanded again, now to 20km. (Score:3, Interesting)
Just announced on the NHK channel.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ [nhk.or.jp]
Actual Information (Score:3, Informative)
Tokyo Electric Power Company is providing regular updates with real information:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html [tepco.co.jp]
It appears the news services are reporting from a parallel universe where things are completely different.
Re:Actual Information (Score:4, Interesting)
If history has taught us anything about nuclear power plant catastrophes, it's that the people responsible for the mess can be counted upon to lie repeatedly and often about what's going on. In fact, that's exactly what has been going on in this case. First it's, "Everything is under control." Then, "OK. We're having some problems, but there is no danger to the public and no radiation leakage." Then, "OK, we leaked a small amount of radioactive steam, but the public is not in any danger. The closest of you may want to move away, though." etc....
It's like they're reading from the same script the PR guys at TMI used.
And the public should trust the pronouncements of the Nuclear Energy Industry, about the "safety" of nuclear energy, why, exactly?
Why it exploded (Score:5, Informative)
It will take the media and Japan a while to circle around to what caused the explosion, so I'll explain it now.
The explosion you see in the videos aligns perfectly with the Fukushima Daiichi No.1 reactor building seen here [wikimedia.org] (forth square building from the left.)
The BBC has provided this incredible before/after photo [bbcimg.co.uk] where you can actually see the reactor building structure with the walls removed by the explosion: the metal framework is still intact.
The exact same thing happened with TMI-2 in 1979. The hydrogen burn occurred inside the containment dome. The Fukushima reactor doesn't have such a dome, so the hydrogen accumulated in the reactor building.
What happens next (Score:5, Informative)
Hydrogen burn isn't a very energetic event, which is why the Reactor Building framework is still intact. This means the Reactor Vessel is still intact and bolted upright to the floor with the damaged core inside. The RV and the steel containment around it is a very robust container, much stronger than the framework of the building.
All cooling apparatus is gone. If the detonation didn't disable it the fire will. So total core melt is almost certain.
TMI-2 melted 50% of the core which pooled at the bottom of the RV. The RV did not rupture despite the intense heat. It is possible this RV may also not rupture, especially if any cooling can be applied to the outer surface. If so then widespread intense contamination may be avoided.
If the RV does rupture then we'll have molten corium pooling on the concrete floor uncovered before God and everyone. All bets are off at that point.
FYI the reactor is a GE Mark I BWR with steel containment. Details here [uiuc.edu](PDF). A very old, before-mandatory-concrete-containment-dome system.
Re:What happens next (Score:5, Interesting)
Simply put, this reactor design (especially without the containment dome) is less safe than Three Mile Island. We (the world at large) really need to modernize our nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, that's going to require building new reactors - we can't practically afford the loss of generating capacity to take the existing ones off the grid that long - and there is, as always, a ridiculous amount of opposition, largely from luddites who wouldn't know a molten salt reactor from a bomb shelter.
Re:What happens next (Score:4, Informative)
If the RV does rupture then we'll have molten corium pooling on the concrete floor uncovered before God and everyone. All bets are off at that point.
I'm hopeful that won't happen. The uranium fuel inside the reactor is a ceramic- you know, the type of material with very poor heat conduction. The steel RV has much better heat conduction, and flooding the primary containment (another pressure vessel between the RV and the outside rectangular building) should be a successful strategy.
Now, it may sound strange that the heat source in a massive heat engine has poor heat conduction, but it is the case. It takes a very specific geometry to both reach criticality (criticality = stable power generation in Nuke terms) and remove heat via the coolant.
Obviously there's not much in the way of coolant left, and the geometry is (ahem) 'suspect' at this point. However, the decay heat will continue to decrease as days go by, and little nuclear heat should be generated in a disorganized pile of molten ceramic. The bottom of the RV should hold.
(I am not a nuclear physicist, but I know a lot about making nuclear power)
On nuclear physics..... (Score:4, Informative)
If you've got a question, son, just go ahead and ask it. There's no need to be a snarky little jackass.
Now, more folks know a large amount about nuclear power without being a D.O.P.E. (Doctor Of Pile Engineering), but apparently you can't fathom such a thing. I'll try to help you out.
The comment about not being a nuclear physicist relates to not being certain about nuclear power generation in a disorganized pile of uranium in the bottom of a reactor vessel.
What I do know, however, is that for a nuclear chain reaction to occur, you need neutrons splitting off of uranium, and then those neutrons need to cause fission of other uranium atoms.
However, these neutrons from a fission event are traveling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, and at such speeds, they are unlikely to cause fission of another uranium atom. These neutrons need to be slowed to a 'thermal' state (near the kinetic energy of, say, water in an operating reactor) in order to cause the next fission event.
This is where the water comes in. The neutrons are slowed by the water to a thermal state, and in such a state, they are likely to cause the fission of another uranium atom, creating power and continuing the nuclear chain reaction.
When you've got a mass of molten uranium in the bottom of a pressure vessel, you don't have water in between the uranium atoms, so you can't slow down the neutrons to cause the next chain event.
Now, as to the heat conduction angle, normally the ratio of surface area to mass is high in normal geometry. A fuel pellet is about the size of a pencil eraser, a fuel rod is a stack of these in zircaloy cladding, and a fuel assembly is a cluster of these rods with space in between them (for the water to slow down the neutrons and carry heat away for power production.)
Now if you've got a molten pool of this stuff, the surface area vs the mass ratio is much lower. This means that heat removal (which is done with surface area) is degraded. As a consequence, the fuel heats up incredibly (until the decay heat falls off), but relatively little sensible heat is transferred to the steel reactor vessel- which can conduct heat away from the uranium pool at the bottom rapidly, especially if they flood the primary containment structure.
I have not, however, ran sophisticated computer simulations to these ends, nor am I qualified to perform a back of the envelope calculations to the same effect.
I am, however, intimately familiar with the normal and emergency operating parameters of a certain pressurized water reactor, and many of the physical principles are similar to that of the boiling water reactor in question. As such, I can compare the likely conditions in this reactor with the normal and emergency operating conditions in the reactor that I am familiar with, and make reasonably credible predictions- certainly moreso than you, or 95% of the stuff you've read so far.
But hey, there's no PHD in nuclear physics after my name. How could I possibly know anything relevant?
One thing about wind power (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing about wind power. In the event of an earthquake, a terrorist attack, a greedy company cutting corners like BP, incompetence or human error nobody needs to worry about the breeze getting out.
Re:One thing about wind power (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, wind speed wouldn't increase in all areas of a grid (NA or Europe) at the same time, would it?
Wouldn't windspeed increases in one area be balanced by decreases in another?
If the Japanese can't do it (Score:4, Insightful)
If people as disciplined and conscientious as the Japanese can't do nuclear power safely, what chance do we have. Would you want a company like BP running a nuclear power plant or building one?
Re:If the Japanese can't do it (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is the outdated reactor designs. This is essentially the exact same failure as at Three Mile Island, although the Japanese appear to have omitted the containment dome that made TMI such a tempest in a teacup (almost no radiation actually leaked at TMI, due to the dome, but it looks like the Japanese reactors are already leaking significant amounts of radiation). The TMI accident was 32 years ago. Its design was 10 years old even then.
Ironically, the anti-nuclear proponents are their own worst enemies if they actually want to prevent things like this. The demand for power isn't going away, but installing newer plants, which would be of the modern and inherently safe designs, would allow the old ones to be decommissioned or at least overhauled. Instead, between a near-ban on new construction (in the US at least, I'm not sure about Japan) and an increasing energy demand that is already taxing our current grid at times (again, in the US, especially on the west coast), we simply can't afford to take the older plants offline.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:If the Japanese can't do it (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironically, the anti-nuclear proponents are their own worst enemies if they actually want to prevent things like this. The demand for power isn't going away...
I don't think that's a reasonable characterization. What we have here is an unproductive stalemate, where the anti-nuclear movement has succeeded in making nuclear power generation politically unpopular, but their preferred solution (increased energy efficiency) is even more unpopular, and decades of cheap petroleum since the 1980s has made breaking the stalemate not worth anyone's while.
What's going to happen is that oil prices will continue to rise, but in a chaotic fashion, and with practical plug-in hybrids coming on the market every time we have a spike they'll become more popular, even though the spike (as in the current one) is meaningless in the long term. The result is that a significant number new nuclear power plants are an inevitability starting some time in the next decade.
That's just political realism.
As I point out elsewhere, conflict can be a good thing for creativity. The interesting new reactor designs are a result of addressing the more reasonable concerns of anti-nuclear activists. That's a good thing, although it has led to some bad feelings. All the legitimate concerns of the anti-nuclear movement haven't been fully addressed, but I think enough progress has been made to start building new plants on these designs.
I favor a measured approach in developing new nuclear technology. If we went on a crash problem to solve our energy problems (as some suggested in 2008), we'd be getting lots of new reactors with this same proven but obsolete design. In a couple decades we'd have a huge number of technological white elephants on our hands. What we should do is invest in building a small number of plants using two different approaches, so as to gain experience with them. That won't exacerbate the as yet unsolved problems of nuclear power unduly (e.g. waste disposal), and if one of the approaches is a bust it's not the end of the world. As we prepare to commit more to nuclear power, we can improve the grid, which will also incent an increase in sustainable sources such as wind and new technologies such as solar thermal.
What I'd like to see is greater dependency on electricity and greater diversity in the electricity supply, spreading the environmental impact and economic risks over multiple energy sources, and fostering competition over greater geographical areas.
BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) (Score:3)
Why does the world still continue to operate (and even build) BWRs? They're a very poor, cheap design. I believe a new one is being built in the USA just now.
There is no secondary cooling circuit, so active steam goes through the turbines. That means that the turbine halls are radioactive to begin with.
The problem we are seeing here is failure of post-trip cooling. This implies a lot of things wrong with the design and possibly maintenance and operation, and I'm sure the full details of what went wrong will be made available to the public after the investigation.
I feel very sorry for the Japanese and everyone else in Japan just now. The best we can hope now is that the lessons learned from this disaster will give the world better and safer nuclear power stations. We need them to survive and prosper as a species.
Number 1 containment is intact (Score:4, Insightful)
Just saw an official press conference on Japanese TV. The containment vessel is intact. The concrete shell was damaged by a hydrogen explosion. Boric acid is being used as a neutron poison. It's not pretty, but it looks still to be under control.
You have to put this in perspective. We just survived one of the biggest earthquakes ever. Hundreds were killed by horrific tsunamis. tens of thousands are homeless in winter conditions. And yet the hysteria in the western media is over a power plant that is still contained. A bit of perspective please.
Damn it (Score:4, Insightful)
Oil - Coal - Nuclear (Score:4, Insightful)
Just to put this all into perspective for those claiming doom and gloom regarding nuclear power --
How many oil disasters have there been in the past decade? (Spills, refinery fires, etc.)
How many people died?
How many in Japan due to the quake?
How old were the facilities?
How many coal disasters have there been in the last decade?
How many people died?
How many in coal disasters in Japan due to the quake?
How old were the facilities?
How many nuclear disasters were there? How old were the facilities?
Right... so when we look at nuclear power, it's still the safest. They're built with the most oversight, foresight, and regulation AND it took the largest earthquake in recorded Japanese history to damage the 40 year old reactor-- which still likely won't go into meltdown. And there's been plenty of time to evacuate everyone just in case it does.
Do we get ANY of that luxury with oil or coal?
(Note: I use oil, coal, and nuclear energy in this comparison because they are the energy sources that can be created just about anywhere. Geothermal, wind, water, and solar require very specific placements.)
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and if the (unlikely) worst happens and a baboon turns into a massive black hole, the current recession is child's play. What a dumb argument.
Nuclear power plants are safe. Not perfectly safe. Not zero risk. But they kill a hell of a lot fewer people than coal, the usual alternative. The worst-case scenario for this nuclear power plant is bad, but not out of proportion to other problems this exceptionally large earthquake has caused.
Have you seen pictures of Japan? Oil refineries have literally, actually, factually blown up, releasing who-knows-what into the atmosphere and water. People are freaking out because a nuclear power plant has released small amounts of harmful radiation and might release moderate amounts. With plenty of warning.
The story here is not that a power plant was damaged and might release toxic material. It's that everyone is going bugnuts crazy about that when entire towns are inundated and/or on fire.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:5, Insightful)
People are freaking out because a nuclear power plant has released small amounts of harmful radiation and might release moderate amounts.
No, not people. The news media. Of everything going on in Japan this is what they are focusing on. I'm mildly disgusted at the news coverage all in all. The primary coverage initially was the effect on the stock market, and now it is nothing but these reactors. Far, far more environmental damage is being done by all matter of other noxious things burning and leaking. Oh, and I'm pretty sure people are dead, dying, entrapped, homeless, etc, already. Yet the focus is on what *might* happen with a nuclear reactor, as if the thing is going to go up like a thermonuclear bomb.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:5, Insightful)
You know that you have other options than to watch american media news on the Internet, right ? My recommendation is to get your news from two countries with somewhat opposing political agendas ... it's amazing how the same events have completely different interpretation from one side of the border to the other. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.
BBC just lost all credibility for me... (Score:4, Informative)
When they've burst out with the 88.000 (eighty-eight-thousand) people missing in Japan, which they've supposedly picked up from Kyodo news agency.
Which then got copy/pasted all over the internet by every damn blogger and news agency out there. So now, it gets parroted around like it is a fact. [m24digital.com]
It turns out... it was a typo. Or a mistranslation. Or a googling error [google.com] considering that some reports mention it as 110.000 missing.
BREAKING NEWS: Death toll from Japan quake rises to 110, 350 missing: police Note ... 200-300 bodies found in Sendai after quake, 88 others killed ...
See? Right there. "110, 350 missing"!
*headdesk*
And here I thought that one would actually have to know how to read if one wanted to be a BBC journalist.
FFS... 88000 people can't go "missing" in such a short time. It's technically impossible. Why?!
Well, besides the fact that 88000 people take up quite a lot of space and someone would pretty fucking soon notice them and proclaim them dead or found (identified or not) - you can't really know that there are 88000 people missing unless you can actually account for 88000 names. Or at least 88000 bodies.
And it takes a bit longer than 24 hours to compile a list of 88000 actual humans.
Let's say that it takes 5 minutes for a person to fill out a "missing persons" form, and for someone else to input that into a database.
If the reports were coming in non-stop from 100 locations that would make it 4400 minutes just to gather all the reports ( 88000 reports divided by 100 locations times 5 minutes i.e. (88000/100)*5 ).
That comes out to about 3 days of non-stop report gathering alone.
It would actually take about 10 times that, at least.
There simply was not enough time yet to gather that kind of actual data.
And again... If you know of 88000 actual people (Name, date of birth, address etc.) that are missing - just look for a really big pile of people somewhere. [youtube.com]
Pretty sure you'll find a lot of them there.
Well... unless there were aliens involved. Then all bets are off.
Except the one with the time it would take to compile a list of 88000 names and addresses.
Re: (Score:3)
"See? Right there. "110, 350 missing"!"
I see 110 dead and 350 missing.
Can you point us to the actual article from which you are quoting?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
FFS... 88000 people can't go "missing" in such a short time. It's technically impossible. Why?! Well, besides the fact that 88000 people take up quite a lot of space and someone would pretty fucking soon notice them and proclaim them dead or found (identified or not) - you can't really know that there are 88000 people missing unless you can actually account for 88000 names. Or at least 88000 bodies.
While I agree with the gist of what you're saying about the lack of verification and fact-checking, I do think you lack vision with this part.
I am in a UK town 3 miles across, its population is listed around 49'000. If two such towns were suddenly obliterated by a 10m high wave, 98'000 missing would likely be a lowball estimate.
Re:BBC just lost all credibility for me... (Score:5, Insightful)
In an area as densely populated such as Japan, it is not impossible for 88000 people to go missing in a major catastrophic event like a major earthquake and a following tsunami, which can literally sweep buildings away, especially when you factor in when the earthquake occured, and the tsunami swept in. Missing means status unknown, and the earthquake and tsunami have damaged enough infrastructure that any chance of a proper headcount will be weeks or even months away. The current reported Missing People figure is from families/relatives etc that have reported them as missing.
As it was, it hit during the afternoon, so there were a lot of people out in traffic etc also, which causes further problems, but several small towns have been completely demolished by the tsunami, and they are VERY hard to reach due to the damage that has been caused, with roads severely damaged, fields turned to thick layers of watery mud etc
Before you write another post like that, engage your brain, and actually think things through. And keep in mind what I said: Missing means Status Unknown. It can be as simple as simply not being able to communicate, due to any communications infrastructure being swept away.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:4, Interesting)
Moreso, the 60s vintage GE Mark I BWR is the culprit here. It's a design with serious safety shortcomings. IMHO all those reactors should have been decommissioned by now. They are not any sort of an indicator of how safe the up-to-date designs are. They are a similar safety disaster as cars of the same vintage. You wouldn't want to drive a 60s vintage Chevy [youtube.com] as your daily commute car. The poor handling on recovery from the ramps [youtube.com] is outright scary. Never mind what happens in a wreck. That's a solid car analogy right there ;)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The story here is not that a power plant was damaged and might release toxic material. It's that everyone is going bugnuts crazy about that when entire towns are inundated and/or on fire.
The story is actually about explosions in one nuclear power plant, residents warned to stay indoors, turn off air conditioners, not to drink the tap water. If they have to go outside, to cover up completely, wear a mask and cover their face with a wet towel. Radiation released per hour is more than the recommended limit for humans per year. Obligatory link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/12/3162450.htm [abc.net.au]
Re: (Score:3)
"Nuclear power plants are safe. Not perfectly safe. Not zero risk."
Then why can't they get any insurance?
Convince the insurance industry so they'll insure the reactors, then I'll gladly concede that point.
If I get reimbursed for my real estate to go live somewhere else I'd be ok with the risk.
As it is now, _I_ have to cover the risk. I'm not amused.
Luddites are dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
They only become so because they are staffed with a lot of people that know how incredibly dangerous they are and work hard to prevent accidents.
It's actually idiots like the above that push the fluffy "safe" "clean" image of nuclear power that are counterproductive and holding the entire civilian nuclear industry back. Heavy industry of all kinds is full of incredibly dangerous shit and none of it becomes any less dangerous by pretending the problem has gone away - in fact the opposite happens and people die. Why do these idiots think nuclear is different and run by magic puppies or something?
All of the current leading edge advances in civilian nuclear power are due to knowing how dangerous everything is and taking big steps to reduce that danger. That's a hell of a lot better than the total idiocy of trying to pretend there never was a problem in the first place.
In this story it's about some incredibly dangerous technology being treated with the respect and preparation it deserves resulting in the successful completion of a disaster plan. If the "nuclear is totally safe" idiocy was applied then there would be no disaster plan and most likely another element to the disaster.
The Moorlocks have to work incredibly fucking hard for the stupid Eloi to keep their stupid mindset of a "safe" world.
Re: (Score:3)
Nuclear on the other hand when something goes wrong thers no putting it off and everyone dies slow painfull deaths and the land is useless for centerys.
Why would that happen? It hasn't happened in Chernobyl, for example. The land is already being used as a wildlife refuge and there weren't many deaths in the first place.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:4, Insightful)
The reactors won't impact the global economy appreciably - it's *highly* unlikely that anything is going to blow up, anyhow. It's sounding like they had a partial scram, with primary coolant system failure afterwards.
Nuclear power *is* safe. You're seeing a disaster the scale of which is nearly unimaginable, and appropriate action is being taken. You don't fix these things overnight.
Re: (Score:3)
Modern nuclear power is safe, but we didn't put containment domes on modern reactors for nothing.
In retrospect that reactor should have been replaced years ago in a country like Japan.
Re: (Score:3)
That is not correct, RBMK type reactors were built without any containment.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:5, Informative)
If you really want to know, here's the press releases from TEPCO [tepco.co.jp] which runs the plants. It's far more informative and far less alarmist than most of the reports going around. Yes, they are evacuating. Yes, there has been some unknown level of radiation leakage, but we don't know how bad it is just yet.
Those who want to review how the safety mechanisms of a BWR work should read this [wikipedia.org].
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:5, Insightful)
Now let's see... how many anti-nuclear hippies died from doing too much LSD or ketamine or whatever it is they do? Probably thousands. How many people died in coal mine accidents? Beyond count. How many died building hydroelectric dams, which are very "green"? A lot, 112 for just for one dam (Hoover).
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:4, Informative)
Although I agree with your general assessment. In regard to dying from doing too much LSD, I think that is a quite low probability given its relatively high LD50 compared to what is usually taken. Information gleaned from an overview of the Wikipedia entry and its sources (along with Erowid) suggest no documented deaths linked to LSD usage alone.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:5, Informative)
LSD is effectively non-toxic in humans. People occasionally do stupid things while on LSD that result in death, but keep in mind that people also do stupid things while excited, agitated, or depressed.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:4, Interesting)
No need to resort to ad hominem. Even an objective comparison of safety supports nuclear over green technologies.
There have been zero deaths in the U.S. associated with commercial nuclear power generation. Wind has already killed at least 13 people [wind-works.org] in the U.S. Solar has a huge problem in that roofing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. [aol.com] If you're imagining every house in the U.S. with solar panels mounted on the roof, you should expect probably about 100 more roofer deaths per year from installing and maintaining them. In terms of direct deaths (i.e. excluding mining and pollution), hydro actually turns out to be the most dangerous power source worldwide due to deaths from dam failures.
Over it's 50+ year history worldwide, in terms of deaths per amount of energy generated [nextbigfuture.com], nuclear power is the safest form of power generation man has ever invented. Yes that includes Chernobyl (a reactor design not used outside of the former USSR). If you accept the high estimate of number of expected cancer deaths from Chernobyl, it's about 4x safer than wind (the safest green technology). If you accept the low estimate, it's 125x safer than wind.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:4, Insightful)
As you will well know, the trouble with nuclear power plants is that when they fail, they fail spectacularly. Just saying there have been 0 deaths lately is not saying much if you've just narrowly escaped a meltdown. And we know what will happen if even a *partial* meltdown happens: Chernobyl. It's then not just the initial meltdown, it's a large area that is rendered uninhabitable for a very very long time. Imagine one of those clouds going over a multi-million city and you know that the whole death count of the tsunami is just *nothing* compared to the fall out.
That and the nuclear waste, which seems to be an unsolved problem that is just silently ignored, we just store it indefinitely in locations meant for "temporary storage" and presto. Look at the way the Fins (very down to earth people) are trying to do to get rid of it. And that is just for a small part of their own nuclear waste. And Germany, where they stored the trash in a salt mine and now have to dig up the leaking containers. These are the countries that actually have the money to do things like that. I'll not go into the situation in Russia, because that just makes me sick to the stomach.
I'm all for safe nuclear energy. Saying that the current power plants are anything near the safety required is simply nonsense. Neither coal or nuclear energy is currently at a level where it can produce clean, safe energy at this time.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:4, Funny)
Captain "Piece of jewellery worn on a necklace"?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:5, Insightful)
The chances of the reactor blowing up are next to zero. The biggest problem will be either a core breech(aka melting through the core chamber), or a slow uncontrolled cooling of the control rods because of damage by them being too hot. However considering that the CBC article is hours old already, and they've been slow venting, and finally have the ability to turn the pumps back on to get water into the chamber it should be controllable unless something happens again.
Now, let this be a lesson to anti-nuke nuts. Most reactors built within the last decade or two have two redundant systems for moving water. Steam, or mechanical. This series of reactors doesn't. You know why? Because in Japan, anything that could possibly at all, maybe related to nuclear, or radiation makes environmentalists go batshit crazy.
But it doesn't help that the reactors were built to withstand at least a 9.0 and it was hit by a 9.1, and I've heard it may be revised again as high as 9.4.
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I'd estimate the chances of the pressure vessel having blown up slightly higher than 0 at the moment.
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>>Wonder how many of the usual "Nuclear Energy is cheap, safe, clean and does the dishes AND the laundry" posts we get today.
I'm more concerned with the terrible track record of reportage on the subject. The news is already reporting that there is 1000x times normal radiation in the town. (http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-nuclear-plant-2011-3) with my friends on Facebook writing posts about Godzilla and whatnot.
It's 1000x normal *inside the containment building*, which is exactly what those th
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If it takes one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded to knock a nuclear plant over, I think we're still relatively in the clear. Oil refineries seem to go pop the moment someone sets a firework off too close to one (and that smoke isn't exactly clean you know)- and do you want to know what's happened to the Japanese sewage processing system? Coal power plants throw out more carcinogenic toxins in a regular working day than those plants have since this disaster- and that sewage gets routinely dumped in t
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Or who have died from the radiation emitted by coal fired power plants.
Re:So much for the safety of nuclear energy (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, right. Only CO2, H2O, and heat...and SO2. and NOx. and particulate matter. hydrocarbons. Mercury. [ucsusa.org]
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>>cheap - not really; subsidies are usually needed. but then, subsidies are needed for practically all power generation that isn't coal or gas.
Nuclear has the lowest subsidy rate of any green technology (including 'clean' coal and gas). Normal coal and gas aren't generally subsidized at the power plant level.
I've posted the subsidy rates for various sources of energy on here before. IIRC, it's something like 10-20% for nuclear, vs. 40-50% for other green technologies.
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It was verified as a hydrogen explosion, not a reactor overpressure rupture.
Re:Dont mean to sound selfish (Score:5, Insightful)
they'll want you there more than ever, feel free to spend extra
Re:Dont mean to sound selfish (Score:5, Insightful)
In a few months, once the influx of foreign rescue workers has abated, you'll see hotel/etc prices plummet. So you should be able to save money. (If that feels machiavellian, remember, you're adding money to a tourist industry that has just been shot in the face. So swing by New Zealand and northern Queensland on your way home.)
((All assuming these nukes don't kablooey.))
(((Headline on local news: "Japan launches monster rescue effort". You know it's bad when even the monsters...)))
Re:Dont mean to sound selfish (Score:5, Informative)
What could have happened that the reactor didn't scram?
No, all reactors properly shutdown with fail safes. The problem is, their reactors require active cooling which is something modern reactor designs specifically avoid for exactly these reasons. The problem is, just because the reactor has shutdown does mean the heat instantly goes away nor does it mean the core immediately stops creating heat. Their reactor designs require electric pumps to circulate coolant. When the reactor went down from the quake, their emergency generators started up. Those ran for about an hour until the tsunami reached the plant. The water, from what I've read, got into the generators and caused all of them to shutdown at the same time. The reactor's fail safes then fell back on a large battery bank. The batteries can't last for too long and from what I understand, power only a small subject of coolant pumps. As a result, the core temperature has continued to rise and a lot of water has evaporated. This is why they are working to get replacement batteries until they can get new generators online.
As a result of the heat, a lot of hydrogen formed and caused a massive explosion at one of the plants. Again, from what I've read, the explosion was external to the core's containment. As such, actual containment has not been lost. In order to address building coolant pressures from the rising temperatures, they've been forced to vent filtered yet radiative coolant.
Last I've heard, one worker has died from the explosion and a second was injured. Likewise, they are preparing to issue iodine to the surround population. Seems some of what has been vented is a radioactive form of iodine. Thusly, when the population ingests a non-radioactive source, its prevents absorption of yet additional iodine, including the radioactive iodine which has been released.
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Fact is globally there are thousands of people dying every _hour_. It helps none of them if we cried and mourned all the time.
Us earning and spending money like normal has a higher chance of helping Japan (unless we are working in a dubious/bad industry). And I'm sure they would welcome donations and other direct help (careful of scammers though).
If a nuclear station goes "chernobyl", I'd say don't go. But otherwise,
Re:Nukes is for real men. (Score:4, Insightful)
I want a MANLY power plant that can create a 30-100 km dead zone of mutants and a death plume that has a global reach.
OK, but why do you think coal is so manly?
Re:Meltdown? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it does, but the scenario is very different.
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Humans are notoriously bad at estimating real risk.
We're afraid of flying in airplanes, while we cheerfully get in our cars for the drive in rush-hour traffic.
Nuclear power has risks, indeed, but aside from pie-in-the-sky fantasies about renewables that simply are either unproven or nowhere near competitive, the fact is that all power-generation systems have dangers.
Humanity needs power, and lots of it.
The successful effort by the left to derail nuclear power through much of the 1980s and 1990s led to the e
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Do you drive cars designed in the 60s in Germany? Would you drive them if the engines were merely upgraded to modern, less-polluting versions? No? Why? Because those things were mostly unsafe deathtraps, with piss-poor handling. The reactor in question is at beast an early 60s vintage design that came online in 1971. It's a textbook safety engineering fuckup. Why do you mix politics into this discussion? You have an old, fucked-up design that should have been offline by now. End of story. Do you judge the s
Re:How biosconcentration of radionuclides work (Score:4, Informative)
You do know humans have radioactive isotopes in us without nuclear power or coal plants right?
You do know that 1 millionth of a gram of plutonium is a carcinogenic dose in the human body, it analogues iron when presented to a human metabolism, as high energy alpha emitter in the body it is extremely toxic. From World Nuclear Association's website on the Chernobyl disaster [world-nuclear.org] ;
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.
So please don't try to convince me that I can have pu-239 in me without a nuclear plant.
Radioactive decay has been occurring in humans since the first one was born in Africa.
Please don't be ridiculous, you know very well we are talking about radioactive isotope emissions from the nuclear industry. You focus on the reactors only instead of the entire industrial process over which radioactive isotope emission is inevitable. These are the types of radioactive isotopes that eventually end up bio-concentrating;
Those radioactive isotope emissions have been going on since the nuclear industry began, so which of them would you prefer to be decaying in your body.
Tens of thousands of humans die a year from natural Radon while deaths from nuclear accidents number in the single digits a year.
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.
Because of the weather conditions it was known that emissions from TMI travelled a long way and were measured in Albany, NY. Joeseph Hendrie (former chairman of the NRC) was quoted (at the time) "We are operating almost totally in the in the blind, [Governor Thornburgh's] information is ambiguous, mine is non-existent and - I don't know - it's like a couple of blind men staggering aroun
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You're close: this was a substandard US reactor design. It doesn't really matter who does the bad job at designing, if the job was done wrong then it's done wrong. Somehow people forget that there must be quite a few of those Mark I BWRs out there still running. They have known flaws. To top it off, the reactor manufacturer (GE) colluded with operators of the Japanese plant in question and have a disturbing track record of lying through their teeth [cnic.jp] (mirror here [waybackmachine.org]).
Re:Thorium (Score:5, Interesting)
Though desirable, Thorium isn't even necessary; most any modern reactor design is passively safe. Read up on the Molten Salt Reactor [wikipedia.org] for one example: the reactors run at atmospheric pressure, with no active cooling necessary. The reaction naturally stops if it gets too hot, and you can literally walk away at any time. As an added benefit, they can consume other reactors waste as fuel, obviating any further mining for the next century, and the waste they produce is much smaller it quantity and far shorter lived.
The anti-nuclear comments on that site are truly depressing, as are the ignorant responses to your own post. Coal has, and continues to kill far more people than Nuclear, both from mining, as well as respiratory diseases and cancer. Coal is not clean by any measure; it has put an immense amount of radioactivity and heavy metals into our environment--far more than nuclear.
Re:Thorium (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Thorium (Score:5, Informative)
Except you're completley missing what caused the damage. The damage you can see in the videos was not caused by the earthquake. It was caused by the reactor losing coolant, running too hot, producing hydrogen gas from the fuel essentially burning, and that gas exploding. As others have pointed out, this is exactly what happened at Three Mile Island, although TMI had an extra containment dome which the Japanese reactors lack, which is resulting in higher radiation leakage than TMI experienced.
Now, consider something lime a molten salt reactor. A modern reactor doesn't care if the coolant/heat exchanger cycle shuts down, as this earthquake appears to have caused. Heating up the coolant naturally slows down the reaction. Additionally, the coolant doesn't boil off, so the fuel is never exposed to oxygen or hydrogen. Combustion is impossible. At the very first step of the problem, the chain of events that leads to a loss of containment is cut. This is a monster of a quake, and yet it would have had no significant effect aside from the reactor safely reducing itself to minimal power (generating heat as quickly as it naturally dissipates) when the heat exchange cycle stopped.
Re:just dont get it (Score:4, Informative)
Because it's immaterial. They would need to shut it down perhaps a week before cooling was lost. A BWR that has been shut down will generate enough heat to violently self-destruct for at least a day or two, and enough heat to sustain internal damage perhaps for a week, IIRC.
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"NPR's Jon Hamilton tells us was NOT a nuclear explosion." Thanks, moron. Nuclear plant trouble is scary enough without intentionally lying to the public.
Unclench your asshole, you're being ridiculous. Consider the intelligence of the average NPR listener, it might be slightly above baseline, which means they're probably about qualified to find their genitals (hint: your hands stop there) and possibly tie their shoes, but they may still be depending on Velcro(tm). Telling [stupid] people that it's not a nuclear explosion is a good thing to do.
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He is not suggesting that there be no nuclear power stations, he is suggesting that it is better to operate plants that have better failure modes than water reactors like the one in this article.
Also, we should stop building coal plants. A little bit dangerous waste that we can see is in fact far better than enormous amounts of invisible waste.
Re:Opportunity costs (Score:5, Interesting)
Ribbon generators and windbelts can, in arrays, compete with solar panels.
See, this is your problem. They don't need to compete with solar panels. They need to compete against coal and nuclear. They can't. True, there are oil and coal subsidies, but there are also wind and solar subsidies. You also have to figure in the cost of a massive power grid upgrade, which is not cheap.
All factored in, if you put a high value on environmental and cost issues, then nuke is the way to go.
Re:Opportunity costs (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been zero deaths in the U.S. associated with commercial nuclear power generation despite it producing nearly 20% of our electricity. Wind has already killed at least 13 people [wind-works.org] in the U.S. despite producing less than 1% of our electricity. All of these have been maintenance workers (the only non-maintenance death was a skydiver in Germany who flew into a turbine). So the quip about a wind turbine at sea collapsing is beside the point since that wouldn't have stopped any of these deaths. In fact I suspect it would have caused more deaths since transferring from a boat rocking in ocean swells to a stationary platform isn't exactly the safest thing to do.
Solar has a huge problem in that roofing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. [aol.com]. If you're imagining every house in the U.S. with solar panels mounted on the roof, you should expect probably about 100 more roofer deaths per year from installing and maintaining them. In terms of direct deaths (i.e. excluding mining and pollution), hydro actually turns out to be the most dangerous power source worldwide due to deaths from dam failures.
Over it's 50+ year history worldwide, in terms of deaths per unit of energy generated [nextbigfuture.com], nuclear power is the safest form of power generation man has ever invented. Yes that includes Chernobyl (a reactor design not used outside of the former USSR). If you accept the high estimate of number of expected cancer deaths from Chernobyl, it's about 4x safer than wind (the safest green technology). If you accept the low estimate, it's 125x safer than wind.
How about pollution? What most people don't realize about nuclear is that it's an incredibly concentrated power source. How much spent fuel (high-level nuclear waste, like we're trying to bury in Nevada) do you think would be produced to power a typical U.S. home for 30 years? A bit less than 10 kg, about a half liter's worth. To power the same home with solar, you'd need about 30-50 square meters of panels, and the panels have an expected lifespan of about 25-30 years. One small water bottle's worth of waste, vs 30-50 square meters of solar panels. Nuclear in the U.S. generates about 20% of our electricity, and produces ~2000 tons of spent fuel a year. That's about enough to fill one tractor trailer. One tractor trailer-full of high-level waste to provide 1/5th of the entire country's electricity for an entire year. And it's not spewed into the atmosphere like coal, it's not spread all over towns and the countryside like solar or wind. It's neatly contained in concentrated form within the nuclear plant. And all this is not even factoring in the waste reduction that can be achieved with reprocessing.
How about compared to wind? The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant which is the cause of the problem today has an overall generating capacity of 3596 MW. How big a wind farm would you need to replace it? The largest wind farm in the U.S. is Roscoe Wind Farm [wikipedia.org]. 781.5 MW peak capacity, 627 turbines, covering 400 km^2. Note however that that's peak capacity - how much electricity the farm generates under ideal conditions if each turbine is running at maximum power and efficiency. In practice, the average power generation from wind farms has been about 20%-25% of peak. Be generous and go with the high 25%. So 627 turbines and 400 km^2 gives you 195.4 MW of power on average. To replace Fuku