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Fukushima

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171–180 of 227 posts

Re: Fukushima

#171

Post by xigency »

rmatz wrote: post #102

Being Japanese, that picture of blackboard in abandoned school 1/3 of the way through the post alone almost made me cry. Single picture tells more stories than thousand words. 4 years since it happened, almost no major Japanese media talks about Fukushima any more, so please share this to anywhere so it gets more attentions.

I can't speak much for the small towns in the immediate vicinity of the reactor, but living in Aizu directly after the disaster, life goes on in places like Fukushima市 and Koriyama and Iwaki, with a really positive attitude, too.

Re: Fukushima

#172

Post by WalterBright »

curtis wrote: post #164
WalterBright wrote: post #161

With a few minor and cheap design modifications, the Fukushima disaster could have been prevented. The nuke industry could learn a lot from the aviation industry about making unsafe things safe. The details are different, but the principles are the same.

Even in the very safe world of commercial aviation, aircraft crash much more frequently than nuclear reactors melt down. That slows down the rate of institutional learning. Of course commercial aviation has killed far more people than the nuclear power industry, anyway. Addendum: I should say that I actually agree with you, I just wanted to point out that the dynamics of the two industries are quite different.

The principle behind airliner design is no single failure can cause the loss of the airliner. This principle was not applied to Fukushima's design nor the Deepwater Horizon's design.

For example, the backup generators could have been protected from the seawater inundation rather easily.

Re: Fukushima

#173

Post by xigency »

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…

This article isn't about the tsunami. If it were, it would probably be called 'Sendai', not 'Fukushima'.

  The Tōhoku earthquake & tsunami killed close to 20,000 people. The author completely ignored those victims.
It's an incredibly callous attitude to tell people not to care about something. I know people who live there (Fukushima and Koriyama) and I can and will continue to care about them.

Re: Fukushima

#174

Post by pdeuchler »

elektromekatron wrote: post #170
pdeuchler wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that excerpt is ridiculous, looking for an emotional hook where one doesn't exist. Humans were not responsible, a major earthquake and tsunami were responsible. Few structures of any kind would stand up to that.

The structure stood up fine, we know how to build for that, it was the placement of the air fed diesel generators in a floodable basement that screwed Fukashima.

Structure was probably the wrong word, I meant more the plant as a whole. I think my point still remains... it would be a very rare structure that wouldn't have a design flaw exposed by such a large earthquake/tsunami one-two punch.

Re: Fukushima

#175

Post by webXL »

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…

> cost $100 trillion (money which would be spent anyway on non-renewable energy infrastructure)

For every dollar diverted from non-renewable infrastructure spending, can you produce the same amount of energy? My guess is that it's not possible; certainly not without a lot of price disruptions and/or mass subsidies. But I do like the idea of savings that come from spending less on security.

Re: Fukushima

#176

Post by xigency »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #162
ifdefdebug wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People overcame the tragedies created by the earthquake disaster. They grieved their dead and rebuilt their towns. Now life is going on - outside the Fukushima area. The Fukushima disaster is not going away anytime soon. About 100,000 people lost everything, no rebuilding in sight. Former house owners are still living in containers. Radioactive water is entering the environment since then. In 30 years, maybe someone…

>I doubt that figure of 150 deaths will hold then. Why?

It's certainly different if you know one of those people.

Re: Fukushima

#177

Post by kup0 »

Many great photos of this and other locations. Got intrigued in this site looking at photos and essays for quite a while. I appreciate seeing photos from less-visited areas.

Re: Fukushima

#178

Post by xigency »

fixermark wrote: post #153
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.

There are two fallacies people are often susceptible to: 1) They don't factor in the value of "background" material and over-emphasize the foreground. 2) They feel that in a "natural" state, they are in control of their fate (Azimov had much to say on this one, and the ending of "I, Robot" is quite illuminating). Fukushima did not go as well as it hypothetically could. And yes, the nuclear contamination is a disaster…

For the record, the TEPCO plant in Fukushima prefecture provided power to Tokyo, Japan.

Re: Fukushima

#179

Post by xigency »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #41
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…

In ten years there will still be thinkpieces and photo essays about the disaster of fukushima while the tianjin disaster will end up as a footnote. Despite one being clearly an exclusively human caused disaster and causing a much vaster loss of life. But fire and explosions we are much more familiar, even comfortable, with as causes of death and injury than creepy, invisible, insidious radiation.

I think you and many other posters or readers are missing the point of this photo editorial. This isn't the disaster olympics. There are people who still live here, and thousands of people who used to live here who were largely farmers and forced to find new homes.

The reason this will be discussed 10 years from now is because there will still be people actively affected 10 years from now. And probably just papers from Tohoku anyway.

And finally, the reason you don't hear issues from China being discussed all that often is because of their national policy and attitudes.

Re: Fukushima

#180

Post by Abraln »

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…

As someone who grew up in Florida, I would never want to live live anywhere near the beach, and frankly, I never had much sympathy for those who lost their beachfront houses to hurricanes, especially when they rebuilt them in the same spot just afterwards.
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