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Something to be aware of: The fact that a radioactive material "is around forever" also implies that it is not very radioactive. You can't make a material that is both intensely radioactive and stays around forever, because it's the radioactivity itself that makes it go away.
I plead ignorance. Why does a nuclear power station need an external power source? Obviously there is a good reason, but my sleep deprived brain can't fathom it.
However, the shutdown nuclear reactor still requires power to maintain proper cooling. The reactor core itself is at an incredibly high temperature and it continues to generate heat as the fission byproducts undergo radioactive decay. Generally only active cooling is sufficient to maintain a sufficient rate of cooling for used reactor fuel, that requires a continuous flow of coolant which requires a power source.
I plead ignorance. Why does a nuclear power station need an external power source? Obviously there is a good reason, but my sleep deprived brain can't fathom it.
There is lots of information online. Why not start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_safety#Failure_modes_of...
Something to be aware of: The fact that a radioactive material "is around forever" also implies that it is not very radioactive. You can't make a material that is both intensely radioactive and stays around forever, because it's the radioactivity itself that makes it go away.
I went to a reactor at INL and their rods were just chilling outside of the reactor, about 50 feet from the controls. Of course, they were highly enriched uranium, so average half life was over a billion years (some was U-238)
With a 24,000 year half life, Pu-239 is sort of on the border of being fairly dangerous, and it decays with an alpha particle, which is good from the standpoint of ionizing radiation but not so good if you are drinking it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm no "atomic troll" and radioactive contamination at Fukushima is potentially a significant problem. But the detected plutonium levels are almost insignificant compared to the detected Cs-137 contamination (whose half-life is 30 years, not months): http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/im... (Pu) http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfil... (Cs-137) The activity of Cs-137 is o…
Since day 1, I've been reading things like "Unless something catastrophic and unexpected happens, things are ok." The problem is, catastrophic and unexpected things keep happening. I find the whole thing really depressing, as I think long-term, nuclear power is the best source of energy. But how do you implement it properly? That I don't know.
This disaster has caused me to revisit my concerns regarding nuclear energy. # One of the most challenging technologies ever developed, is under the control of politicians and bankers. A recipe in itself for technical disaster. # Public concerns, under this regime, end up being counter-productive. "No new nukes" means extending the life of the oldest, most vulnerable technology. # Human society has demonstrated no st…
Jumbo jet crashes are similarly dramatic and noteworthy, yet air travel remains one of the safest forms of transportation available, by a significant margin. Is the same bias for flashy and scary events happening with nuclear power?
Fukushima and Chernobyl are notable, but so is the failure of Fujinuma Dam (also due to the Tohoku earthquake), and the failure of Banqiao dam, and the Texas City disaster.
So far the record of the non-Soviet civilian nuclear power industry compares favorably with that of other industries and power sources, even including extrapolating some rather severe further evolutions of the Fukushima reactor disaster factored in.
Now I'm starting to get worried. This has been up for 2 hours, and typically the "atomic trolls" would have at least 5-6 comments up about how all of this is nothing to worry about. So I guess this is truly bad.
I've been following the pro and anti nuke arguments here and I have found them quite useful. I might not agree with the pro-nuclear arguments but they've given me a better idea of what realistic and unrealistic fears around nukes are.
For example, claims that truly minute amount of plutonium can automatically cause cancer seem distinctly over-done. See the wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium
On the other hand, I recall the article which talked about how a reactor melt-down couldn't break containment structure because "This structure is designed, built and tested for one single purpose: To contain, indefinitely, a complete core meltdown". Well, given that an escaped-meltdown is currently considered plausible-if-not-likely, it seems there's a difference what something is designed to do and what a human-built artifact is capable of doing.
http://mitnse.com/2011/03/13/modified-version-of-original-po...
And point of this is we're at the point that ... some large of folks confidently said we could never get to... Yes, things quieter now but it does seem like there's more reason to worry...
Nuclear radiation is "natural" in the sense that's around everywhere. Given that the world's a large place, the reactor won't pollute the entire that much. Now, making significant area around the plant uninhabitable for a long time? That's looking much more likely and that's not a cost that anyone is going to see as small.
We have water giving off 1 Seivert(1,000 mSv)/hour at the plant and apparently this water is building up. Look at xkcd chart and see where that rates...
Something to be aware of: The fact that a radioactive material "is around forever" also implies that it is not very radioactive. You can't make a material that is both intensely radioactive and stays around forever, because it's the radioactivity itself that makes it go away.
IIRC, isn't it also, chemically, extremely toxic?
Some interesting insights into the culture of Japan (and corporations both Japanese and American). Is there a way we could help that would be more amenable to the Japanese culture and way of handling things? Saving face is an important aspect of Asian cultures and if we are truly trying to help them on humanitarian grounds, we should try to become more effective rather than bemoan the fact that they have pride in the…
I think that if you tell them that rescue teams (or nuclear scientists) are en-route, it's wouldn't be seen as piss-poor communication on your behalf, but a unconditional act of friendship. Asking them if they want help will most likely get a "no".
I think you may also need to have already made connections with the right people.