Ive asked my Nuclear Fusion expert mate on this article and others, waiting to hear back and Ill post his response. He is currently working at the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological engineering at a US University, so I figure he'll know a thing or two.
Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
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Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#22Excellent writeup. I've been telling people this all day, but it's great to have a PhD confirm it. BTW, with Chernobyl the control rods were not able to be inserted all the way, which is one of the main reasons it was so bad - the chain reaction never stopped, and the heat just kept building up.
It would be better if his PhD or his research were in a domain anywhere close to what he is talking about. Also, it would be better if the information he has where not only what is said in the news... People knowing what they talk about are really, really scared about the nuclear situation in Japan right now.
His PhD is in risk management and one or two of his publications are in waste disposal. I would rate his ability to accurately assess the risks inherent in the situation far higher than I would those of the news agencies.
As for the people that know what they're talking about, remember that you and the news organizations you're listening through are biased to make radioactivity scary stuff. For all we we know, our reflexes are giving their calm, everything-is-completely-under-control statements a disproportionately alarming cast.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#23He says that even in the case of a total meltdown (which hopefully will not happen in Fukushima) we will be save because everything will be contained in the third containment. What I don't get is how cooling is supposed to happen in this case. I think they still would have to pump sea water into the containment which would then get contaminated not only by neutron activation but also with Uranium, Cesium, Iodine etc.…
You filter out the other elements, and release the water. Water pretty much can't get radioactive. (For more than a few minutes.) The longest radioactive oxygen you can make in a reactor has a half life of 26 seconds. For hydrogen, deuterium is not radioactive, and tritium can't be made in a light water reactor. So water effectively can't get radioactive.
That's why I wrote "get contaminated not only by neutron activation but also with Uranium, Cesium, Iodine". I doubt that in the current situation there would be the necessary facilities to filter out those elements, but I would be interested in having more information on this.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#24Excellent writeup. I've been telling people this all day, but it's great to have a PhD confirm it. BTW, with Chernobyl the control rods were not able to be inserted all the way, which is one of the main reasons it was so bad - the chain reaction never stopped, and the heat just kept building up.
While the article was a decent read, he is not an expert in this field. His work is in Supply Chain/Management http://lean.mit.edu/about/lai-structure/faculty-researchers-... Where does he get his expertise in nuclear reactors? According to the article, his father. "He is a PhD Scientist, whose father has extensive experience in Germany’s nuclear industry"
I agree, his expertise is not fully covering this field. But I think he's still far better informed than most voices we get to hear these days.
In Germany it took green-activists a couple of hours to organize nationwide protests. Politicians with no knowledge about physics beyond spelling "meltdown" are immediatly taking advantage of this situation.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#25Excellent writeup. I've been telling people this all day, but it's great to have a PhD confirm it. BTW, with Chernobyl the control rods were not able to be inserted all the way, which is one of the main reasons it was so bad - the chain reaction never stopped, and the heat just kept building up.
Also Chernobyl uses graphite as a moderator instead of water. I.e. the chain reaction continued even after the water boiled away.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#26With all that coastline Japan should be investing more in tidal power generation and forget once and for all about nuclear power, too high the risk for earthquakes and tsunamis happening again even at worse scale.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#27Wow, such a denial of reality. 'in control'? If anything I saw in the last hours, the thing is not in control. Diesel generators failed, a building exploded, core meltdowns going on, restoring of electricity failed, seawater used for cooling (how were they pumping it and are the pumps powerful enough to provide cooling over a longer period of time like days). Valves are not working, measurement of pressure is not possible, there are fears of another explosion.
Two reactors are still OUT OF CONTROL.
One of them is even using Plutonium in its fuel. German news about that: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/0,1518,750668,00....
Whether the containment will work as designed is unknown.
Fukushima II, the other plant has cooling problems, too.
Now there has been an alarm of higher radiation at the Onagawa plant.
German source: http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,750637,00.html
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#28In theory we should be more worried about the ash radiation from our coal plants (which releases a lot more, in an unregulated manner, and makes me wonder sometimes if it's a trigger for the increase in cancer in industrialized nations). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_station#Radio... it is estimated that during 1982, US coal burning released 155 times as much uncontrolled radioactivity into the atmos…
That’s because hardly any radioactivity was released into the atmosphere during the Three Mile Island incident. It was mostly harmless.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#29i like it when scientists say "the situation is under control" after the roof was bombed off.
You should have read the article which explains why this explosion wasn't nearly as dangerous as it seemed to be.
it's the first post on his blog and we are certain he is no lobbyist. citing foreign experts you happen to know personally somehow is commonly used in popular science literature.
a catastrophe not as bad as chernobyl can still be pretty bad.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
While the article was a decent read, he is not an expert in this field. His work is in Supply Chain/Management http://lean.mit.edu/about/lai-structure/faculty-researchers-... Where does he get his expertise in nuclear reactors? According to the article, his father. "He is a PhD Scientist, whose father has extensive experience in Germany’s nuclear industry"
I agree, his expertise is not fully covering this field. But I think he's still far better informed than most voices we get to hear these days. In Germany it took green-activists a couple of hours to organize nationwide protests. Politicians with no knowledge about physics beyond spelling "meltdown" are immediatly taking advantage of this situation.
On the one hand, our fear responses undoubtedly helped us survive when we had to worry about running away from big things with teeth. On the other hand, it also means that uninformed, power-hungry idiots like to boost their career by destroying things that would make life better for everybody.