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Fukushima

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Re: Fukushima

#61

Post by xg15 »

brc wrote: post #49
ggreer wrote: post #17

I found the pictures fascinating, but the accompanying text marred my enjoyment. Considering the circumstances of the Fukushima disaster, the anti-nuclear sentiment really irked me. The Tōhoku earthquake & tsunami killed close to 20,000 people. The author completely ignored those victims. Instead, he focused on Fukushima, which will cause around 150 deaths from cancers. For every tragedy created by Fukushima, there a…

And that's before you compare death/injury per Mw produced. On that measure Solar power is more dangerous than nuclear given how many people die falling off roofs while installing or maintaining solar panels.

Really! And if you look at the illness/milliwatt scale, you can see that even the human metabolism itself is more dangerous than nuclear power. The fears are clearly overblown!

Re: Fukushima

#62

Post by gus_massa »

fridek wrote: post #22
chinathrow wrote: post #16

"Seven years ago I ended my first documentary on Chernobyl with these words: „An immense experience, not comparable to anything else. Silence, lack of cries, laughter, tears and only the wind answers. Prypiat is a huge lesson for our generation.” Have we learnt anything since then?" That makes one think.

We have learnt to not put reactors on top of the water tanks, and to not shutdown all safety systems to see if the plant explodes.

I agree. I'd like to add: don't use graphite as a moderator, because it can burn in case of a fire.

Chernobyl had many known design problems ever before it exploded. It's misleading to imply that it was consider a good design before.

There is a comment with more details from pdkl95

>> Chernobyl

> The RBMC design was always known to be an absolutely terrible idea because it's use of graphite as a moderator that required active cooling, creating an inherently unsafe positive void coefficient[1].

Read the complete comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10257459

Re: Fukushima

#63

Post by gggmaster »

ptaipale wrote: post #26
struct wrote: post #14

One thing that grabs my attention is that the radiation levels in the contaminated zones are much lower than I thought they'd be. For context, the limit for a radiation worker in the US is 50 mSv. Obviously, I guess it depends on the radioactive isotopes released and what kind of radiation they release, but I'm still impressed.

Another funny anecdote about Fukushima was that people evacuated the area of elevated radiation and left Japan to what was "home", for instance in the case of my countrymen, Finland. The end result: they left an area of lesser radiation to an area where there is more radiation (the natural background radiation here is higher than the elevated levels were in Japan). And when doing so, they took an airplane where the i…

Maybe there are other things to concern about, such as a discredited government, peer pressure, etc.

Re: Fukushima

#64

Post by masklinn »

inatreecrown wrote: post #44
DangerousPie wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. You seem to suggest that the fact that Fukushima was not adequately prepared for this tsunami was human failure, presumably because they should have expected such a tsunami to occur. If this is the case, then you can just as well argue that it was human failure that the towns in the affected areas flooded because of the tsunami. After all, if they expected such a tsunami to occur they could/should have bu…

Do you prefer to live by the sea or by the nuclear plant?

¿por qué no los todos?

Re: Fukushima

#65

Post by rwmj »

kenesom1 wrote: post #54

The worst case scenario for a nuclear plant accident is millions of casualties and the long-term contamination of major population centers. 152 of the world's 211 nuclear power plants have more than 1 million people residing within 75 km. A plant in India has 16 million living within that radius. Fallout could be dispersed over an area thousands of miles wide. The worst case scenario for an accident at a solar power…

Making solar panels produces no pollution whatsoever? Will redirecting 100$ trillion of world output to a big make-work project produce no side-effects or drop in development levels at all?

Re: Fukushima

#66

Post by pdkl95 »

facepalm wrote: post #47
pdkl95 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the option to use less energy Do you wash your clothes by hand, with water heated from solar? No? Then why are you suggesting that most of the women in the world should continue spending their lives doing such menial activity? This idea that we need to use less energy is one of the most short-sighted examples of western cultural privilege that I've ever seen. The amount of energy the average person has available to…

Most energy is used for heating, transport, and so on. Your washing machine is not under threat. And I did not suggest any of the things you say. It's all in your head, which went on a rampage triggered by the words "save energy". All I said it is an option. I didn't say you have to take it.

I never said anything about my washing machine. Maybe you should try to watching that talk by Hans Rosling that I linked to.

Who are you to say that using less energy is an option, when you have the luxury of heating and energy-expensive transportation, and most of the world doesn't yet have the energy to wash their clothes?

Re: Fukushima

#67

Post by 7952 »

DangerousPie wrote: post #38
inatreecrown wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get the facts straight: Fukushima is human failure. In the accident the neccecary cooling could not be supplied. As a result, people will die of cancer from the radiation. The tsunami is not human failure, and to say that living by the sea is human failure is another discussion completely.

I disagree. You seem to suggest that the fact that Fukushima was not adequately prepared for this tsunami was human failure, presumably because they should have expected such a tsunami to occur. If this is the case, then you can just as well argue that it was human failure that the towns in the affected areas flooded because of the tsunami. After all, if they expected such a tsunami to occur they could/should have bu…

It doesn't actually make much difference if you consider it to be human or not. All future nuclear stations will add it to their massively long list of safety considerations. I think that is something that people miss in an argument like this. Due to the complexity of the operations it is very expensive and difficult to guarantee safety. Moreover, it is very hard for anyone outisde the industry to reason effectively about those safety issue. Ironcially this is exactly the problem we have with coal. It looks safe, but has unexepected consequences that are frightfully difficult and expensive to address. Simplicity is very much a feature and nuclear power in its current form lacks it.

Re: Fukushima

#68

Post by simoncion »

mackwic wrote: post #60
simoncion wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that nuclear power is base-load power, not peaking power. Infrastructure is something of a passing interest of mine. :) Last I checked, the majority of the US's power comes from coal-fired power plants. If there was the political will and public understanding, we could likely replace pretty much all of that with nuclear plants, reserving coal-fired, or oil-fired (or pumped-storage hydro, or flywheel storage, o…

Well, I have to say I don't know the US infrastructure enough to have a bold opinion, but I know heavy infrastructure like these often have a sound design respectively to their constraints (which can be absurd). The European power grid is very tight and well-meshed, this is why we can let our nuclear power plant and sell electricity to Switzerland, Germany or Netherlands or buy it. I guess it's not as well interconne…

I think that the US either has a national power grid, or has one for the West and East halves of the country. Obviously, throwing power across the whole damn continent is far less efficient than just throwing it across a state.

I've -very recently- heard people making the claim that Texas has its own grid, but that's news to me. Maybe the situation in Texas is that they have all the power gen capacity that they need within the state, and are also hooked into the national grid. shrug

> I know heavy infrastructure like these often have a sound design respectively to their constraints (which can be absurd).

Anti-nuke hysteria is toxic to sound planning and design. :(

Re: Fukushima

#69

Post by Kiro »

> As in the Chernobyl case, it was a human, not technology, that was mainly responsible for the disaster.

Isn't there a difference between causing and preventing?

Re: Fukushima

#70

Post by ptaipale »

gggmaster wrote: post #63
ptaipale wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another funny anecdote about Fukushima was that people evacuated the area of elevated radiation and left Japan to what was "home", for instance in the case of my countrymen, Finland. The end result: they left an area of lesser radiation to an area where there is more radiation (the natural background radiation here is higher than the elevated levels were in Japan). And when doing so, they took an airplane where the i…

Maybe there are other things to concern about, such as a discredited government, peer pressure, etc.

Of course. And media hype, particularly social media rumors, combined with scientific illiteracy.
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