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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

#141

Post by asharp »

lispm wrote: post #112
juiceandjuice wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for the previous poster, but I started 'sipping the nuclear kool-aid' once I took a nuclear physics class. Of course, the class was taught over cable TV by fox news anchors funded by both GE, the DNC and the RNC. That's pretty much how the US got to be a superpower and stuff.

Did not work out too well, given the history of nuclear power plants in the US. When was the last one built? The list of cancelled nuclear power plants is impressive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_canceled_nuclear_plants...

Cancelled nuclear plants probably have more to do with public relations then actual danger.

As an example, 4,000 people died in 2007 collecting coal for power plants, oil pipelines have a habit of https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_pipel... exploding, and tankers run aground, hydroelectric dams routinely kill off migrating fish and do damage to ecosystems. Solar cells require large amounts of toxic chemicals in their production and neither solar nor wind turbines can provide baseload energy reserves simply because the sun doesn't shine at night and the wind rarely blows the amount you need it to.

At the end of the day, we only really have three options for baseload energy: You have fossil fuels, hydroelectric or nuclear power. From what I can see, we are starting to run out of viable hydroelectric plants, fossil fuels are apparently causing widespread short term and long term damage to the environment, and nuclear power has gotten a lot better over the past few decades.

It is my opinion therefore that the view that nuclear power is horribly unsafe comes from the same sort of thinking that leads to the belief that planes are unsafe vs. cars, ie. that a small number of accidents make it to the news, simply because they are uncommon as opposed to lack of news coverage on the more dangerous subject simply because people dying of it is not news.

Case in point: How many news stories do you hear about "X died from terrorism" as opposed to "X died from a heart attack?". The latter is more likely to kill you, the former is the one people are more afraid of.

Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors

#142

Post by asharp »

ANH wrote: post #83
CWuestefeld wrote: post #65

I suppose that my fears for this particular situation are mostly allayed. But I think that's only the tip of the iceberg. In the face of the world's need for energy, nuclear power is the only viable option that is available today. I wonder how much this incident is going to weigh against using that option? The power plants in operation today use technology that's quite obsolete. The design of the older plants is an h…

> ...nuclear power is the only viable option that is available today... Nuclear power in itself is unlikely to solve our energy problems. It is only a part of the solution. We will not be able to supply the world with enough energy using nuclear power alone given the length of time it takes to design, approve, build, and certify a nuclear power station. The Sun is by far our greatest source of energy. Have a look at…

You'd be surprised at how quickly people can get things done if their lives are on the line.

We have more then enough thorium in the world to deal with the world's power demands (It's about as common as lead), we have much safer reactor designs created and tested, and we have thorium designs created and tested. It's just that there is a lot of politics and public opinion is not for nuclear power, it is very much for "green" power, which makes it not politically viable to create the number of nuclear plants needed supplant say coal/oil/gas fired power stations as our main supplier of baseload power.

The major problem with solar is that the sun goes down half of the day, there isn't any viable means to move power halfway across the world and there isn't any viable means to store anywhere near the amount of energy that is required to power a civilised country overnight.

Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors

#143

Post by Natsu »

lispm wrote: post #27

Wow, 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 pos…

> Two reactors are still OUT OF CONTROL.

You may have noticed that they use defense-in-depth. Even though they were just hit by one of the biggest earthquakes ever and had several unthinkable things happen, there are still people inside the control room fixing it. If it were that "OUT OF CONTROL" that panic was required, they would have fled too.

Sure, the reactor may be expensive to clean up and it may be damaged enough that they'll retire it (it's a 40-year-old BWR design, after all), but years from now, we'll probably still be debating over exactly how much radiation was released, what sort, and whether it did anything. Just so you know, educated people will completely ignore alarming reports about radiation leakage that don't contain words like "Sievert." My professors would be remiss if I didn't.

But that's the problem with radiation. It's too invisible. Most causes of death can be seen and avoided. But radiation is invisible (except in a few weird circumstances) and it can linger in some cases, so people fear it as some kind of unavoidable, invisible poison.

Never mind the fact that it's all around us. Cosmic rays. Bananas. Background radiation is everywhere. It has been for your entire life and it's not going away.

I wonder if owning a Geiger counter would calm people down or just drive them away from Brazil nuts and potatoes? [1]

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=...

Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors

#144

Post by Natsu »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #103
lispm wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it seems to be surprising to you that there are people who did not drink the nuclear Kool-Aid. Why is that? Has your 2-party system, the influence of corporations and your declining media made you unable of critical thinking?

I can't speak for the previous poster, but I started 'sipping the nuclear kool-aid' once I took a nuclear physics class. Of course, the class was taught over cable TV by fox news anchors funded by both GE, the DNC and the RNC. That's pretty much how the US got to be a superpower and stuff.

> I can't speak for the previous poster, but I started 'sipping the nuclear kool-aid' once I took a nuclear physics class.

Same here. And I think I know why: understanding the risks puts you in control, to some degree. People are highly averse to risks they cannot control.

I mean, the news is a joke. They talk about "radiation" but appear to have no idea how it's even measured. The news anchors don't seem to know what a Sievert is, nor why knowing that kind of stuff is important.

Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors

#145

Post by asharp »

SeoxyS wrote: post #109
illumen wrote: post #15

The writer is not an expert on earth quakes. Making such a bold claim that nothing can go wrong is plainly false. Just because they are an expert in one area, does not mean they are an expert in all areas. There are already a number of people being treated for radiation poisoning. They have already admitted that there have been radiation releases above safe levels. I feel sorry for the engineers working so hard to fi…

Let's use the smarter, more innovative, and safer energy solutions available today. Let's leave these 50's and 60's era shitty technology behind. Oh, and what do you suggest? In the US, for example, we've just about dammed every river that can be dammed, and solar and wind are too expensive for wide scale deployments. The only real alternative we have to the 20% of our energy which comes from nuclear would be to add…

The problem with solar is that they require large amounts of resources to produce but also that they also produce the wrong type of power.

To give you an example, think of a way to run a large aluminium smelter overnight using just solar cells. There isn't any sun shining, so you arn't getting any power in. You need to somehow store enough energy to run the plant overnight, and do it in a form that can actually be produced, isn't absurdly expensive and isn't utterly dangerous.

And at the end of that, you need enough solar cells to produce enough power so that your countries economy doesn't stop in the first spat of bad weather.

I do agree with your point, however. Fossil fuels cause too much damage to the environment for them to be viable long term.

The only question is how do we go about replacing them, with the current political state of the issue?

Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors

#146

Post by Natsu »

illumen wrote: post #58
cracki wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did the earthquake kill thousands, or did the total failure of a nuclear power plant kill them? a tsunami can kill just as many people as an earth quake. the subsequent deaths due to a destroyed power plant are another matter. from the article I get the impression that nuclear plants are built to withstand a lot of abuse and fuckups. i see no reason to shy away from nuclear power. their power producing companies will…

This is a company that has been caught falsifying safety reports, and had resignations because of it. I would not trust them to choose in the interest of everyone - but instead in the interest of the company.

> This is a company that has been caught falsifying safety reports, and had resignations because of it.

That's highly encouraging. That means that caught the people falsifying the reports and that they fired them.

If they had a "perfect" record, I would be incredibly worried.

Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors

#147

Post by asharp »

mpyne wrote: post #100
neutronicus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Range of Betas in air (I believe at 1 MeV) is 12 feet. These aren't alphas here, they'll make it into living tissue.

Tritium betas are about 0.005 MeV, not 1.000, and can penetrate only 6mm of air. The only real threat from tritium is ingestion where you don't have air or dead skin layer to block them, but even then they would have to be present in vast, vast quantities to receive appreciable dose from them.

What is nicer is that your body naturally replaces most of its water every few days, so you arn't stuck like you would be with say sr-90 trying very hard to embed itself in your bones :(

Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors

#148

Post by ck2 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #52
ck2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing some documentation http://www.southernstudies.org/images/sitepieces/wing_tmi_ca...

I don't know what the population density is, from your graph, it sure looks like Three Mile Island prevented a bunch of cancer. (Assuming of course you want to infer causality from one picture.) Look at all that dark green - those are areas with 50% less cancer than would be expected. The wikipedia article suggests the science is very mixed, and there is no conclusive evidence one way or the other. http://en.wikipedi…

The red areas almost look like where the wind would carry a radioactive plume. Why do you believe it would go towards the green area and disperse in a uniformed way?

Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors

#149

Post by lispm »

evgen wrote: post #135
lispm wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal-fired plants were not mentioned by me as an alternative or as desirable. Please stop that. I see that you are confused when somebody has not the view of the nuclear industry. You are brainwashed by the corporations. Even thinking that there are alternatives that are not coal seems to be not possible.

It does not matter what you happen to think are good alternatives or are desirable, because those of us who live in the real world have to deal with "what is", not "what could/should be." For base electric load in the US you really have three options: nuclear, coal, gas. One produces a lot of radioactive toxic waste over the course of normal operations, one produces lots of CO2, and the other is nuclear.

When will the US start with alternatives then? Never? How about some energy saving???

Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors

#150

Post by lispm »

etherael wrote: post #133
lispm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reactor 3 at the first Fukushima plant is not just using Uranium. It uses MOX fuel. So what the author ('expert???') wrote is already useless, he does not even know what the reactors are using as fuel. Japan Today: http://www.japantoday.com/category/technology/view/mox-fuel-... From August last year: MOX fuel loaded into Tokyo Electric's old Fukushima reactor Sunday 22nd August, 05:36 AM JST FUKUSHIMA — Tokyo Ele…

Slightly off topic but not really question; Is there a defined term for the observation of continuous streams of information tailored to fit a particular popular ideology thus contributing to increased skepticism of said information?

Technocrats?
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