Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure the Japanese have robots capable of it, they are the best in the world at that.
Well not any robot will do in high radiation environment, since radiation tends to fry their circuits... They tried it in Chernobyl but it didn't really work, so they had to use humans to do it. Every soldier got to run in, move an item, run out and be dismissed from this nuclear cleanup duty, due to irradiation received in this one try.
Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
81–90 of 97 posts
Re: Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
but that kind of hubristic "we can calculate the probabilities of all failure modes" thinking is one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of nuclear. Would you be more comfortable with "we can't estimate the probabilities of all failure modes"? I am sure that all engineers involved in planning the failure-handling systems know that those "calculations of probabilities" are only estimates based on some assumptions. I thin…
Doesn't seem to extend beyond energy production. For instance, tell people all about the dangers in chicken mcnuggets, or smoking, or a sedentery lifestyle, and they don't get very excited at all. Even if you quote statistics. Certainly they never go as far as voting against chicken farms. Its got to be the theoretical nature of nuclear power generation that has something to do with it. Its invisible, unfathomable an…
Re: Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
#83I don't know much about nuclear reactors. To my untrained ear, what Cringely says sounds fairly reasonable. But then, having read a bunch of articles of his linked in the past on computer hardware and software, which I do know something about, I find that what he writes usually falls into one of two categories: (1) stuff that's obvious to anyone who knows what they're talking about and are paying any attention at all…
Its hard to imagine he was actually on the same committee as the people who wrote the report. His explanation had elements that mirrored the report. For instance, there was a particular warning light discussed in both. But what function the light served in the plant, its behavior during the crisis, the operators' response to it, or its overall role in the incident, on these Crigley was dead wrong.
I suspect he got assigned to the president's commission for political reasons, or because he was a 'public media personality,' but that he actually contributed nothing. He remembers an indicator light because he sat there dumbfounded in the meeting where the smart people on the committee discussed it. He then incorporated that into his incredibly child-like and incorrect mental model of what happened.
Suffice to say, regardless of his experience on the TMI president's commission, his understanding of nuclear power is even more comically incorrect than his understanding of computers.
Re: Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
#84The total nuclear production of energy in Japan is 47GW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country
Nuclear is 28.9% of Japan's energy source (same Wikipedia-article as above).
It doesn't add up. Where does the number 20% come from? 2% is closer to the truth.
Re: Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't seem to extend beyond energy production. For instance, tell people all about the dangers in chicken mcnuggets, or smoking, or a sedentery lifestyle, and they don't get very excited at all. Even if you quote statistics. Certainly they never go as far as voting against chicken farms. Its got to be the theoretical nature of nuclear power generation that has something to do with it. Its invisible, unfathomable an…
Chicken mcnuggets, tobacco smoke, and sedentery lifestyles are not members of the set of "things that can cause arable land to become permanently uninhabitable". Nuclear accidents are in that set and that is why the public is (rightly) concerned about them.
Re: Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone's under the impression that the US Navy is capable of doing whatever they want, whenever they want. In actuality, it took a very long time for US-Japanese relations to get to the point where the Navy would be able to station a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, at the fleet activities base in Yokosuka. Prior to that, only the conventional carriers Midway, Independence and Kitty Hawk…
So you are saying that Clinton lied? He was quoting Hillary Clinton, a source that should generally be above all suspicions.
Re: Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chicken mcnuggets, tobacco smoke, and sedentery lifestyles are not members of the set of "things that can cause arable land to become permanently uninhabitable". Nuclear accidents are in that set and that is why the public is (rightly) concerned about them.
Nuclear accidents are not members of the set of "things that are at all likely to actually hurt you or anybody you know". Sedentary lifestyles and tobacco smoke are in that set, but they lack the novelty and sensationalism that gives nuclear accidents their cachet.
Re: Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
#88I suspect the decision to use sea water to cool the reactor means that they have decided to write off the plant. It was 40 years old anyway and nearing the end of it's service life.
the end of its service life was this month! http://www.icjt.org/plants/uni/a/uni194a.html
Re: Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
#89How has no one pointed out there was never any coolant delivered and Hilary Clinton did in fact misspeak? It renders this article a bit moot.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/11/japan-quake-nuclea... "US did NOT deliver coolant to Japan nuclear reactor"
"Ultimately, however, Japan did not need assistance from the United States but Clinton did not appear to have been updated before she made her public remarks."
Re: Cringley: Japan may have just permanently lost 20% of its electricity supply
#90> Hillary isn’t the kind of person to choose the wrong words How has no one pointed out there was never any coolant delivered and Hilary Clinton did in fact misspeak? It renders this article a bit moot. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/11/japan-quake-nuclea... "US did NOT deliver coolant to Japan nuclear reactor" "Ultimately, however, Japan did not need assistance from the United States but Clinton did not appe…