Fukushima: Myth of Safety, Reality of Geoscience 206
An anonymous reader writes "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' has published a special Fukushima issue with interesting/deep/new pieces written by leading experts on the nuclear disaster in Japan. Fukushima: The myth of safety, the reality of geoscience, which shows that in the decades after the nuclear plant was built, the authorities discovered historical records that showed Fukushima was vulnerable to a giant tsunami, but they did nothing to protect the plant. But there's a globalized twist to the issue: The Bulletin has also translated these lengthy expert analyses of the disaster into Japanese. As Bulletin editor Mindy Kay Bricker explains: 'Those in genuine need of erudite analysis are, of course, those directly affected by the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese population. Stellar coverage by Western news outlets might win awards, but what is the point if those who most deserve the information never benefit from reading it?'"
Close them all (Score:4, Funny)
No nuclear power plants can handle a tsunami.
All of them must be shut down.
Re:Close them all (Score:4, Interesting)
The problems in Fukushima had jackshit to do with tsunamis, and a lot to do with incompetence, greed and political pressure, during plan construction, during operation and, finally, during the disastrous handling of the incident after the earthquake. Those problems are universal problems that tend to plague the nuclear sector everywhere, because many view it as prestigious, there are "national security" concerns, the orders are large and a lot of money is swapped under the table in deals that cut various corners, etc.
Since fission nuclear power, if done for safely and accounted for properly, is insanely expensive to begin with, and the costs multiply many times over in the case of a nuclear fuckup, coming up with better alternatives is not a bad idea.
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Since fission nuclear power, if done for safely and accounted for properly, is insanely expensive to begin with
The funny thing is that when nuclear power was first being developed in the 1950s there was talk of unmetered billing. The electricity from nuclear would be so cheap that you would just be charged a flat rate each month.
Slightly off topic. We've all heard how as soon as fusion is developed it will solve all our energy problems but is it going to be any better? I've heard the design of a fusion reactor will be very similar to a fission reactor. There will be a nuclear core that generates heat and drives
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In short, there is nothing wrong with nuclear technology. It, of itself, is safe.
All the problems arise from the use of human beings in the design, implementation, and maintenance processes. We know that human beings are flawed in half a hundred different ways and to such an extent that there is no possibility of applying any kind of credible quality assurance to these modules. We can extrapolate from history and recognize that so long as human modules are involved in the nuclear power industry, there will
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There hasn't been a major accident in the US in decades. And worldwide the two major incidents in my lifetime were the result of negligence and incompetence. The risks are known and the US Navy has had nuclear reactors in much of its fleet for decades without problems.
The problem is one that can be solved, throwing out the industry and eliminating humans isn't going to solve the problem, and it just means that we'll have to go back to coal and oil power until we do find another replacement. Chernobyl wouldn
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Re:Close them all (Score:5, Insightful)
there is nothing wrong with nuclear technology. It, of itself, is safe.
In short, this is a very simplistic way to put it. All I am saying is that even before the issues of technology come into play, there is the issue of having a good enough social framework to ensure nuclear safety. This is the necessary condition to get right before it even makes sense to consider the technological issues of nuclear safety, and this condition is rarely satisfied even in developed countries, as the Fukushima debacle has shown beyond doubt.
The technological issues at hand aren't trivial either -- there is no such thing as "nuclear technology" per se, there are all kinds of reactors, built by all kinds of groups, connected to all kinds of control equipment and operated by various organizations with complex vendor relations, etc. Saying "it is safe" without context is rather meaningless.
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Now this post I can agree with. Well put.
And yes I am in the commercial nuclear industry. Have a strong culture of nuclear safety is of paramount importance. Everything follows from it.
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Well, my experience is probably influenced by me being too close to the two worst disasters - I happened to be within few hundred km of both Chernobyl and Fukushima when they happened, and have to bear the cost of the consequences of two nuclear disasters myself - but my observations of the way nuclear industry and regulators operates worldwide don't exactly inspire my confidence in the safe handling of technology.
Japan has always had a bad culture when it comes to nuclear safety, but the depth of Fukushima
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do you regularly get screened for cancer? not to worry you, but in the worst case scenario you could be a valuable data point, and in the best case scenario, we're all gonna be fine.
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I keep seeing folks claim that human society isn't capable of responsibly handling
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there is nothing wrong with nuclear technology. It, of itself, is safe.
In short, this is a very simplistic way to put it.
Yes, this is a very simplistic assertion. But it is also very useful to posit this to get it out of the way. Because until the fatal problems with human failings are solved, there is no need to discuss the much simpler problems of the science, engineering, and technology.
As so many who seem to object to GP post keep pointing out, Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the Fermi fast breeder reactor failure, the incident at Hanford where control rods were blown out of the core with such force that they w
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—Immanuel Kant
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All the problems arise from the use of human beings in the design, implementation, and maintenance processes.
The problems aren't humans, but the systems in which they have to work. Just like any mechanical or computer competent, humans tend to fail from time to time and just like with any other failure you can prevent that from causing catastrophic failure by building redundancy and checks into the system. Those redundancies and checks of cause have to be forced by regulation, as nobody is building them in when they can save a bit of money leaving them out.
Huh? (Score:2)
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Nope...still FUD.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
As though that makes them something we can't use? Everything comes with risk. Building cities on coasts where people live has risks. Having people live near a fault line than can have a magnitude 9 earthquake isn't a great plan either, shall we evacuate all of the Japanese islands? All electrical generation causes problems, hydroelectric completely changes ecosystems, Wind Turbines kill piles of birds and, if you have enough of them, shoddy construction will lead to breakage and other damage, coal spews all sorts of toxic crap in the air, which kills people, mining for coal kills people. Solar uses a wonderful soup of toxic chemicals which will have to be disposed of, and need to be extracted. Natural gas is again, less than pleasant from extraction.
So unless you want to go back to a per-electrical area with infant mortality measured in the range of 70 or 80 percent, and huge portions of planet being unsafe to inhabit without fire etc. you're going to have to take risks. Fukushima is, at best, a 30 year old reactor, based on a 40 year old design. If people refuse to have new reactors built you're going to be stuck with old, more dangerous technology.
The earthquake and tsunami killed 16 000 people (with 4000 still missing). To put that in american terms thats more than 5x a sept 11th, and on a per capita basis more than 10x. Thus far the reactor has seriously burned 2, and the explosions etc have wounded 37.
Yes, there's a big area that is an exclusion zone, but there's a big area that's uninhabitable due to flooding too. On the scale of things that go wrong in the world Fukushima Daiichi is relatively boring, it's a useful learning experience for experts, and nuclear policy makers so they can, you know... do better. But that's about it.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Everything comes with risk.
Yes, but the consequences of a major nuclear accident are far more serious, wide ranging and long lasting than other forms of energy. That has to be considered when evaluating risk.
Building cities on coasts where people live has risks. Having people live near a fault line than can have a magnitude 9 earthquake isn't a great plan either, shall we evacuate all of the Japanese islands?
Actually Japan did pretty well when you consider that one of the biggest ever earthquakes did very little damage. The resulting tsunami was something unexpected, and that is where the real danger is: the unknown.
hydroelectric completely changes ecosystems
Only if you do it wrong.
Wind Turbines kill piles of birds
Myth.
Solar uses a wonderful soup of toxic chemicals
Not any more, and fully organic solar cells are on the way. Plus photovoltaic isn't the best option for large scale generation, solar thermal is. Works 24/7 in any weather and requires only water and salt.
So unless you want to go back to a per-electrical area with infant mortality measured in the range of 70 or 80 percent, and huge portions of planet being unsafe to inhabit without fire etc. you're going to have to take risks
How much do you want to bet that Germany and Japan are not like that in 10 or 20 years time?
Thus far the reactor has seriously burned 2, and the explosions etc have wounded 37.
Take a look at the cost of dealing with it, or the fact that large amounts of crops are now contaminated and unsaleable, or that vast amounts of top-soil will need to be decontaminated or replaced. Tourism is suffering badly on the whole country too. No one is arguing that the direct health effects from the disaster do not appear to be too serious, but the economic and social costs are.
Had Fukushima been any other type of power station the consequences would not be so severe. You could argue that people are being over cautious, but when it comes to their health and the health of their families people are always going to be very conservative., especially when there are viable alternatives.
Yes, there's a big area that is an exclusion zone, but there's a big area that's uninhabitable due to flooding too.
Only the areas right on the coast had some flooding, most of the exclusion zone is otherwise perfectly safe and habitable.
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Nope, your just another opinionated person that spews shit about stuff they have never studied in depth. Like most, you are not dumb, quite the contrary. But because you are presumably smart in your area of expertise, you think you are an expert in another highly technical field.
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I don't know what your purported expertise is, and you will excuse me if I take it as I take any anonymous claim to expertise on Internet boards, that is, very lightly.
What I am talking about is not the technology of nuclear power, but rather the management of the said technology. Do you have anything from my original comment that you disagree with, or are you going to keep asking us to believe you because you claim expertise and throw "FUD" around? I can back my claims of incompetence, greed and political
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"The problems in Fukushima had jackshit to do with tsunamis, and a lot to do with incompetence, greed and political pressure, during plan construction, during operation and, finally, during the disastrous handling of the incident after the earthquake. Those problems are universal problems that tend to plague the nuclear sector everywhere, because many view it as prestigious, there are "national security" concerns, the orders are large and a lot of money is swapped under the table in deals that cut various c
Re:Close them all (Score:4, Insightful)
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Forgive the snark - but this isn't a courtroom, so his opinion isn't worth as mush as your's might be, but how about telling us why we are perfectly safe, rather than cute comments about other people who "spew shit".
So tell us, What exactly is the FUD?
Before you declare me one of the great unwashed, allw me to say the we are on the cusp of a choice. Greatly expand the use of nuclear power, or ret
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Well this confirms it.
Big waves are bad for nuke plants;
All must be shut down.
FT(haiku)FY
SNPP needs to be shut down or at least sector 7g (Score:2)
SNPP needs to be shut down or at least sector 7g.
Experts? (Score:3, Insightful)
Experts? They don't know anything. Everyone knows the definitive word is with the armchair commentators here on Slashdot!
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TFS isn't much better:
leading experts
According to whom? In my cat's opinion I am a leading expert.
This is what peer reviewed journals are for, and even then you have to wait years while others do their own studies and check each assertion carefully. People don't want to wait for that though.
Responsible nuclear power is fine. (Score:2)
I'm not
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the company should be punished
FTFY: The individuals who profited, aka shareholders.
However, this will not happen in these days of public risk and private profit.
CC.
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Private companies have proven over and over again, that they do not take public safety as a serious issue, until it's too late.
at the risk of sounding like a neo-con libertarian tea partier, governments haven't exactly been too good at this. as i recall, the Pripyat facility was run by the government.
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If you're going to run a nuclear reactor, you are definitely going to make all of the money back from building it, and a mountain of profits over the lifetime of the plant.
Hmm... then what's the reason for the massive goverment subsidies poured into every single commercial nuclear plant ever built? How come these large injections of capital are never returned? You'd think plant builders would be grateful for all the billions government already poured into hammering out all the R&D... but they also always seem to take the subsidies anyway. Just seems... odd... Most businessess that make mountains of profits give some kind of return on investment other than astronomical cle
The major lessons (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a reason to be worried about nuclear power. This shows that bad things can happen when political decisions override science engineering or when bad engineers don't do a good job.. At the end of the day, what you want can't override nature. Nature doesn't care about politics. This is true with many different technologies
At this point, more people die from coal related problems every year than nuclear power. One interesting metric to compare power types is to look at deaths per a terawatt hour. http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html [nextbigfuture.com]. By this metric, nuclear power is one of the safest forms of power out there. The primary reasons that nuclear power stands out to people is because a) it associated with nuclear weapons which makes it scary b) it is a more advanced technology which makes it seem more risky and unnatural c) when something does go wrong is goes wrong in a spectacular fashion. This last is probably the most important- humans react to how much they hear about disasters not how likely they are to impact them. This is why people are afraid of airplane crashes and shark attacks more than car crashes and heart attacks.
Unfortunately, few people are likely to pay attention to this. We are already seeing the fallout as Germany and other European countries turn away from nuclear power. France right now is being surprisingly calm in continuing to use it. Unfortunately, there's some indications that this issue is also making people more worried about fusion power. There's been a long-running problem with scientifically ignorant environmentalists who don't understand the difference between fission and fusion. A lot of them have tried to protest fusion research in the past and Greenpeace has an anti-fusion stance. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/22/fusion_greenpeace_no/ [theregister.co.uk]. The whole situation sucks.
Re:The major lessons (Score:4, Insightful)
This story that coal kills more people than nuclear is rather misleading. The issue is much more complicated than simply counting deaths --- though, of course, coal is no nice energy source at all.
The problem with nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima is that they leave large portions of land unusable for millenia. (besides having the risk of killing lots of people too.) The effects are not just to the poor people who work on those plants (just as the poor miners) but that they leave a severe risk of exposure for many generations to come. The cost of maintaining those patches of land unusable are very large. Much larger costs than even those needed to keep an undamaged power plant secure beyond its productive life; this is already so high that no private company wants to do it without support from large government subsidies (besides they are all helped by not being help legally liable for any accident).
So, even though coal has indeed killed many people, that is not to say that nuclear is not a very large problem to society. In my opinion larger than coal. To support this, find out how much it costs to insure a nuclear power plant, versus how much it costs to insure a coal mine.
Before anyone says that we need some form of energy so we must to take up these risks, let me say:
* direct solar source
* increase in efficiency of use
* and please keep the population down.
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"but that they leave a severe risk of exposure for many generations to come."
You didn't study logarithimic mathmatics in school did you?
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Plutonium spent fuel has a huge half-life, apply your logarithms to it and check for how long it has to be kept. Strontium, which is extremely toxic as it is absorbed into bones (same chemistry as calcium) has a very long half life too. Even Cesium is 30 years, so it will be around for much longer than that.
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Yes, and that huge half-life implies that it breaks down very, very slowly. You do understand, don't you, that with the exception of Uranium, long half-lives mean a low level of radiation and those isotopes that are highly radioactive have very short half-lives? (Why Uranium is a special case will be left as an exercise for the reader.)
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>This story that coal kills more people than nuclear is rather misleading.
If you mean that coal doesn't kill more people then nuclear, then it's not misleading, you're just wrong.
If you mean that the story overestimates the extent by which it does, then it may be misleading.
if you mean that the story underestimates the extent by which it does, then it may also be misleading.
Nuclear is unsafe only if you don't make it safe. The means to make it safe are simple acts of design and maintenance. Coal is not
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Nuclear is unsafe only if you don't make it safe
Bingo! We don't make it safe. And when we have problems, we either blame it on the press, or tell people that they are stupid, and make up excuses fro the accident.
A big hint to the pro-nuc's (which I am one) is that the accident at Fukishima is not a nuclear fault. This isn't an excuse - it's a fact. It is the fault of a stupid decision about tsunami heights - there have been several tsunami that would easily top their walls. Then their emergency generator plan was criminally inadequate. Locating the
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We can design to contain that energy density. Will we?
How much are you willing to pay for your energy?
The economics of energy are all messed up. Coal kills a lot of people, but the price is largely unaffected because it happens in poor countries or to a few people down a mine, not to random voters. Nuclear is heavily subsidised, not least because until recently there was no alternative to meet our energy needs. Plus the consequences of an accident can be very expensive, so only a government can effective insure the operators against them. Wind and solar are ch
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We pay one way or the other. What was the cost of Chernobyl? What will be the cost of Fukushima? Because when one of these plants goes south, there are monetary issues, and there are political ones.
That was my point. The true cost of nuclear is pretty high, especially if there is an accident. You are agreeing with me, but somehow you got the wrong end of the stick.
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Chernobyl is already usable right now (and in fact people live there and it's heavily forested), it's simply pointless to take the risk in a country that does not lack space.
Also, a radioactive material that's still present a thousand years after in significant quantities would need to have a half-life of at least a century, which in turn means it produces so little radiation per
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That only works so far before the laws of physics come calling.
0.3% of the energy that falls in the Sahara in a day could power all of western Europe for a year. With solar thermal that is very doable. If it helps you can think of the sun as a nuclear reactor.
On the other hand nuclear waste needs to be refined, transported and stored safely for a long time. Sorry, but those are the laws of physics.
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You don't need 0.3% coverage because that is for an entire year. The infrastructure issues are resolvable, and are seen as a good way to invest in Africa. I don't know where you got solar panels from, I specifically said solar thermal. Mirrors are very cheap to produce and require very little maintenance.
Re:The major lessons (Score:5, Informative)
Wind turbines suffering blade failures and ice throws have killed many people, more per MWh generated than nuclear has. Consequently, France has established 500 m exclusion zones [caithnesswindfarms.co.uk] around wind turbines, where people are prohibited from entering. Germany has a 600 m exclusion zone. For a given amount of average MW generated, the area of this mandated exclusion zone for wind farms far exceeds the evacuation zone caused by the Fukushima accident. You can reduce the size of the exclusion zone by putting turbines closer together, but it's still far worse than nuclear.
The Fukushima plant had a nominal production capacity of 4696 MW. Multiplied by nuclear's average 90% capacity factor and that's 4226 MW average for the year. It currently has a 20 km evacuation zone, and let's ignore that roughly half of that zone extends over the sea. A 20 km radius encompasses an area of 1257 km^2. So the evacuation zone (which is by no means permanent, nor likely to be permanent) works out to 0.297 km^2 per MW average.
The largest wind farm in Europe is Whitelee Wind farm [wikipedia.org] in Scotland. It has a nominal generating capacity of 322 MW. Onshore wind typically has a 20%-25% capacity factor, but Scotland's winds are strong and consistent, yielding an average capacity factor around 40%. So that's 128.8 MW average for the year. The farm covers 55 km^2 [cskills.org] in a 13x8 km rectangle. Add a half km exclusion zone around the periphery and you get a total area of 76 km^2. So its exclusion zone works out to 0.590 km^2 per MW on average.
So just the regular operation of the largest wind farm in Europe renders about twice as much land uninhabitable as the second-worst nuclear accident in history, MW for MW. Hydroelectric dams create a lake behind them, rendering that land uninhabitable. Itaipu dam [wikipedia.org] has a 1350 km^2 reservoir. It generates 91.6 TWh annually, which works out to 10449 MW on average, for an uninhabitable area of 0.129 km^2 per MW average. Solar (pretty much the most expensive power source) actually fares well by this metric. At 125 W/m^2 and a 15% capacity factor, it weighs in at a featherweight 0.053 km^2 per MW on average.
But wait, we looked at pretty much the worst case for nuclear, while looking at average or better-than-average cases for other technologies. What happens if you look at nuclear on average? After all, the vast majority of nuclear plants have operated safely for decades. The world's nuclear capaicty is 351 GW. The evacuation zones around Fukushima (20 km) and Chernobyl (30 km) work out to 4084 km^2. The average land area rendered uninhabitable by nuclear works out to 0.012 km^2 per MW on average. In other words, nuclear is the technology which renders the least amount of land uninhabitable per MW generated. If you replaced all nuclear power with solar, you'd render 4.6x as much land area as Fukushima + Chernobyl uninhabitable. Hydro would be 11x as much. And wind about 51x as much land area uninhabitable (about 100x for a more typical wind far than Whitelee).
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> Germany has a 600 m exclusion zone.
As I live in Germany I would be especially interested in a reference for this. Please.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2421220&cid=37362382 [slashdot.org]
> I quick read of your linked article suggests that only France has the 500m exclusion zone, and it seems unclear to me whether this refers only to buildings. Certainly where I live in central Germany I have not seen 500m exclusion zones: even many roads are that close !!
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>>Tailings from a coal mine (unless they slip into a school) are considerably safer than anything from a uranium mine. /snort
"On Feb. 26, 1972, a slurry dam gave way at the Buffalo Mining Company in Logan County, W.V., releasing a giant wave of thick, murky water, choked with chemicals, coal refuse, rocks and dirt. According to the official accident report, 132 million gallons of slurry suddenly flooded the Buffalo Creek Valley floor, destroying or partially destroying 17 communities. 125 people were
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The problem with nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima is that they leave large portions of land unusable for millenia. (besides having the risk of killing lots of people too.)
Wow, you have absolutely no idea whats going on in the area around Chernobyl do you?
You need to learn the difference between FUD and reality, and add to that the time thats lapsed since Chernobyl and the fact that it was until recently (last year?) an active power plant. Or the fact that while the area was evacuated, all indications and tests of the area now show it to be normal and you'd be unlikely to know anything happened if you weren't told. See just because you're afraid of something doesn't mean it
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I did clearly say that coal is dreadful, and that I do not support the deaths that it causes. It is terrible. However nuclear fission is much worse on a global view, from a risk perspective.
Ask any insurance company if they would even consider insuring a nuclear power plant... that is a huge statement made by market forces. (and they insure some pretty insane stuff, for huge premiums, of course -- but not nuclear)
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3. yeah, population control measures will fly... seriously... what are you thinking??
they did say "please"...
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Thats one way to look at it. Other way is "This shows that bad things can happen _because_ political decisions override science engineering".
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Coal-related death is not socially disruptive.
Humans have all sorts of accepted casualties, usually those which the system is evolved to process. I
Death is not a problem. We ALL die. DISRUPTIVE death is a problem.
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This isn't a reason to be worried about nuclear power. This shows that bad things can happen when political decisions override science engineering or when bad engineers don't do a good job.
How well an energy source performs in a variety of political environments from well funded enlightened governance up to civil war and social breakdown needs to be considered when evaluating an energy source. Blaming politics doesn't cut it, some energy sources are much more sensitive to bad political environments - nuclea
It's a dead issue in the USA anyway (Score:2)
Sadly that's the entire history of the civilian nuclear industry.
Almost every time something has been put forward which will improve safety (eg. thorium reactor project) or deal with nuclear waste (eg. synrock) it has been vehemently opposed for political reasons. Saying that safety can be improved is seen as a criticism that the status quo is not good enough, and there is a lot of money riding on maintaining the existing gravy
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This isn't a reason to be worried about nuclear power. This shows that bad things can happen when political decisions override science engineering or when bad engineers don't do a good job.
This is the exact reason that we should worry about nuclear power. As an engineer, I know that politics and price are generally involved in making engineering decisions.
- All engineers make mistakes. I'm sure that there were many good engineers involved with Fukushima.
- Software programmers make mistakes.
- Natural disasters happen.
- Corruption happens.
- Builders make mistakes and swap parts for cheaper parts to save money.
- Lack of oversight happens.
- Maintenance gets cut to save money.
- Safety measures get
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There's been a long-running problem with scientifically ignorant environmentalists who don't understand the difference between fission and fusion. A lot of them have tried to protest fusion research in the past and Greenpeace has an anti-fusion stance
Yes, and there has been a long running problem with people who think renewables won't work, or only work when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. That is despite the fact that there are already large scale projects demonstrating that they do work. Basically both sides are as bad as either other for rubbishing the competition.
Overall nuclear is pretty safe, but frankly I don't trust the people running it not to cut corners or put profit before safety. There is a long history of people doing that, desp
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This isn't a reason to be worried about nuclear power. This shows that bad things can happen when political decisions override science engineering or when bad engineers don't do a good job.
Yes, those are things that happen in the real world, things that therefore make nuclear power undesirable. If it weren't for bad politics, or bad engineering, then I would be 100% behind nuclear power. Unfortunately, both abound. Further, the geniuses of today will be dead tomorrow and there is no guarantee that the people who slide into their chairs will not be idiots, assholes, or idiot assholes.
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Gravity fed backup cooling systems.
Standard equipment on newer versions of GE reactors. Retrofit rejected by the Japanese as unnecessary.
Poor Japanese... (Score:2, Troll)
... too stupid to read English journals, or analyze their own disasters rigorously and tell their population.
Seriously, is this "Mindy Kay Bricker" person coming off like a racist to anybody else?
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Can much of the Japanese population read English?
Probably.
Do people often prefer to digest information in their native language?
Yes.
Can Japanese scientists rigorously analyze their own disasters?
Probably.
Does it often help to have independent sets of eyeballs analyzing a problem in a scientific field when those eyeballs belong to people who are experts i
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No. Only to you because you are a bitter ass.
Still No Deaths From Radiation (Score:5, Informative)
And still zero deaths attributable from the disaster due to radiation.
Did you know that in March--the same month as Fukishima--that a worker at an aging US power plant, scheduled to be closed and currently down for maintenance, was killed in an explosion? But it wasn't a nuclear plant (it was coal) so no one cared. The company's been fined, but no government is committing to shutting down 100% of its coal plants.
And yeah, it's still too early to detect any increase in cancer rates, but by the six-month mark, Chernobyl had killed about 300 people via acute radiation sickness, so I don't see how anyone can claim this either IS worse than Chernobyl or WILL BE worse. 300 versus zero.
Re:Still No Deaths From Radiation (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose you would think that's a great point, if you also think that nothing's wrong with smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a day while eating a diet entirely composed of Big Macs is perfectly healthy because it wouldn't kill anyone within six months....
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read it again and you'll find this:
"And yeah, it's still too early to detect any increase in cancer rates" ...maybe read it again AFTER wiping the special sauce off your glasses (man, how does it even get there?).
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Well that remains to be seen. The Japanese population is currently eating last year's rice crop. The current year's harvest post Fukishima will not be on the market till next year. For what it is worth, the food regulation process in Japan mandates that any food that contains radioactive traces must be labeled as such. If the radioactivity has migrated via the underground water tables it may have contaminated many of this year's crops. IF Japan loses a significant portion of this year's rice crop which they
Re:Still No Deaths From Radiation (Score:4, Insightful)
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1000 sq, Km?
Citation needed.
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OMG you just cited the Daily Mail. How desperate can you be?
Anyway, they have banned people from living in that zone, which is bad, but a long way from banning anyone from entering.
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OMG you just cited the Daily Mail. How desperate can you be?
Ummm... what is that supposed to mean? You're clearly trying to imply something, but I honestly don't know what. Anyway, it was just the first hit that came up in a Google search for "fukushima uninhabitable area". If you prefer a different news source, I'm sure you can find lots of them with very little difficulty. This story was reported by almost every major news agency in the world.
Anyway, they have banned people from living in that zone, which is bad, but a long way from banning anyone from entering.
Absolutely false. From the article: "Japan has banned people from entering within 20 km (12 miles) of the Fukushima pla
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Sir – Here's a comparison Is Japan's nuclear disaster âoeon parâ with Chernobyl? [stackexchange.com] that you (and others) may find interestig.
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Those 300 people were basically exposed to high radiation while the disaster happened. You dont know what will happen over time since radiation unless it is a really high dosage can take up to 10-20 years to develop serious diseases. (Unless you are a child then things might just take a handful of years)
The cancer/death rate among children will be the first we will see increase in the upcoming years.
Believe me I live in an area which was exposed 2000 kilometers away from Tchernobyl with radioactive rain, an
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Btw. speaking of long term consequences, there recently was a testing of wild boar in southern germany. And the meat tested still was way over the radiation limits. The reason for that simply was that the area of southern germany was washed heavily with radioactive rain, and the soil which hosts the radioactivity simply is in layers where truffels grow. So go figure what the wild pork eat and how they got contaminated.
Although the dosage if radioactive content you will get by eating such a pork wont kill yo
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No need to get a reactor in your backyard, just move to japan near Fukushima.
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Exactly! No deaths! Nuclear Power is dangerous and can kill you which puts it in the same category as breathing and eating. The question isn't is it dangerous: the question is, how dangerous is it.
Air travel is dangerous. Plane crashes kill people spectacularly and when something goes wrong it's a media field day, but thanks to tireless championing by the industry with definitive statistics backing them up, most people know air travel is extremely safe.
Nuclear power is in a similar predicament. When so
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cool. i'll trust you then. you asked, after all.
i trust everyone who asked me, ever since watching Terminator 2. it was sad he had to be lowered into molten steel in the end.
Who is Shima? (Score:2)
Nuclear power apologists keep missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't so much whether the plants themselves can be designed to be safe, sited in safe areas, built safely or operated safely; it's whether we can trust the people who are involved not to take kickbacks or falsify records because they're too lazy to x-ray all the pipe welds or be bullied by politicians or miss what turn out to be obvious problems. And the it's not so much the body count after an accident as the resultant loss in credibility of the systems themselves. Not many of us want to live next to a nuclar plant for very good reasons: the consequences of a problem are devastating and the people running them keep lying to us.
Other power generation facilities lie about things too but they don't require that everyone living within 40 miles of them abandon everything and run... and not come back for a century or two.
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That's an advantage for nuclear, not a disadvantage. What you say about safety is true for all power plants. Coal plants, wind turbines, and hydroelectric da
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Political aspects of Nuclear power (Score:2)
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it's whether we can trust the people
You had me at "whether we can trust ... people"
I wish everyone was of the quality of the gung ho bravery of the stereotypical NASA astronaut, with the intellect of the Rhode scholar... and raised in the mid-west and having a sort of a innocent bafflement of evil or corruption or falsehood. And from what anyone can tell, the Japanese have a far superior sense of morality than any other modern people (low crime rates, no looting... all the cash and valuables found that has been turned in), but even within t
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You can only use "I don't want to live next to a nuclear plant" as an argument against nuclear if you wo
This just underscores what I have been saying (Score:5, Insightful)
for years.
Use modern reactors, and the government should build and operate them. remove profit gained from skimping on safety and EOL procedures.
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Who does the government hire to build them then? Government contractors and employees are more likely to skip safety procedures (see the BP oil rig disaster and just about any other environmental disaster out there) for profit or out of laziness. They also know they can't get fired or reap any consequences so why would they care?
What we need is companies that want to be liable when stuff goes wrong. Companies need to be liable for their coal plants and liable for their nuclear plants. Right now our taxes th
A PhD Told Me (Score:2, Interesting)
..that nuclear reactors are complex systems, and therefore subject to chaotic behavior.. further, the culture of security does not breed increased response to threats, quite the opposite. Long periods of stable energy and profits lead predictably to cozy relationships with regulators and "asleep at the wheel" operators.. industry-wide! This was someone with no political axe in hand, simply advanced training in physics..
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..that nuclear reactors are complex systems, and therefore subject to chaotic behavior.. further, the culture of security does not breed increased response to threats, quite the opposite. Long periods of stable energy and profits lead predictably to cozy relationships with regulators and "asleep at the wheel" operators.. industry-wide! This was someone with no political axe in hand, simply advanced training in physics..
Well said.
Tsunami: not sure anything could have helped (Score:2)
I lived in three of the areas hardest hit: Ishinomaki, Northeast Sendai, and Fu
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"Internet morons"
Irony.
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the radiation levels considered "safe" are set using the "lowest level reasonably achievable" not using the "highest known safe levels". The difference between them over 4 orders of magnitude between them.
If all industries used the same limits as nuclear energy you couldn't get your chest X-ray, let alone MRI scan made.
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According to Huffington Post & Bob Cavnar [huffingtonpost.com] it isn't likely. Think about that. A very left leaning publication and the expert that most left leaning sources went to during the crisis are saying this isn't really a likely scenario. And he provides some plausible explanations for the oil.
And still criticizes BP for not providing video of the site to diffuse the internet rumors, so he's hardly in BP pocket on this.
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Following your link, I find that the danger is being "ingored".
Personally, I tend to discount "alternative media" that can't spell. Makes me wonder what else they can't do correctly.
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Tokyo is being evacuated also.
I live in Tokyo. No one is being evacuated. No one has ever been evacuated from here as far as I know, even during the crisis. The blog post you linked, as well as the Al Jazeera broadcast within it, talks about a citizens' group who is trying to tell the government that we need to evacuate.
During the crisis, many other countries "suggested" that their nationals fly back. And some countries had their embassies fly their people out, free of charge. If that's the "evacuation of Tokyo" you're talking ab