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Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#91

Post by Bootvis »

samatman wrote: post #82
veidr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there was a culture that had a centuries-old tradition of committing painful ritual suicide to atone for failures... I would totally trust those guys to safely run a nuclear plant...

The idea is really old . In the Code of Hammurabi, a builder whose building collapses and kills someone is killed. If the building kills a son, the son of the builder is killed. Simply having it around as a cultural trope ain't gonna do it. I'm talking about a voluntary pledge that assumes the force of law. Turn it around: if an engineer thinks he can build a perfectly safe nuclear plant, why shouldn't he pledge his…

I guess you missed the joke that Japan has this culture somewhat. In my western mind it is something that samuria do.

Regardless, reading up on the Code of Hammurabi is interesting :)

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#92

Post by reirob »

Symmetry wrote: post #60
Symmetry wrote: post #37

Have we gotten to the point where the Fukushima disaster has caused as many deaths as an equivalent megawattage of coal powerplants operating over Fukushima's lifetime would have?

Ok, so the lifetime output of the plant is 188 GW-years. Most estimates for the expected cancer deaths due to radiation are around 120. The evacuation itself caused 46 deaths due to disruption in medical care and suicide. That means that Fukushima had .88 deaths per GWyr. That's 1/3 the death rate of coal according to an EU study, but twice the death rate of coal according to another study that looked at a different…

I guess this does not include all the radiation that we are still going to have, for decades and possible bigger damages yet to come: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6232104

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#93

Post by eliasmacpherson »

samatman wrote: post #82
veidr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there was a culture that had a centuries-old tradition of committing painful ritual suicide to atone for failures... I would totally trust those guys to safely run a nuclear plant...

The idea is really old . In the Code of Hammurabi, a builder whose building collapses and kills someone is killed. If the building kills a son, the son of the builder is killed. Simply having it around as a cultural trope ain't gonna do it. I'm talking about a voluntary pledge that assumes the force of law. Turn it around: if an engineer thinks he can build a perfectly safe nuclear plant, why shouldn't he pledge his…

it's a ridiculous suggestion because 1) the workers at nuclear plants already risk their lives to help out when it's out of control

2) nuclear is so expensive to clean up that they run for decades after the initial design, presumably many of the initial designers are dead, and every incremental change should involve a suicide pact?

Remuneration for such an undertaking would have to go up by a large multiple to make such work attractive.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#94

Post by lignuist »

pdonis wrote: post #77
lignuist wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect something between slightly higher levels of radiation in fish (which might sum up if you eat it and might "surprisingly" lead to cancer) and an apocalyptic disaster that affects every creature on earth if TEPCO fucks up anything with the large number of fuel rods, which are still stored at Fukushima.

Um, let's try to keep things in perspective, please. This is very bad for the people that are near the plant, no question. But in global terms, the total amount of contaminated water that could potentially leak is miniscule. The Pacific Ocean is really, really big. The article says that 400 metric tons of contaminated water are being added every day. Let's say that leakage rate goes on for 5 years. That's about a mil…

> but since there are four reactors at risk at Fukushima, we would expect the global effects to be about four times the global effect of Chernobyl.

Fukushima stores a lot more fuel than Chernobyl did. It's not just four times Chernobyl.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/amount-radioactive-fuel-fuk...

Also the Soviets reacted pretty fast in comparison to TEPCO and made sure, that a lot of the material did not escape, while TEPCO doesn't seem to be very competent in this regard...

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#95

Post by samatman »

ghostDancer wrote: post #86
samatman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of one thing, and no one will swallow it in our society: The engineers who work on nuclear plants must pledge their lives for its safety, and ritually kill themselves in the event of an incident. I'm perfectly serious, in that it's within the human experience and it would work. I also suspect our world society can't wrap its head around that kind of medieval pact, and I'm not even sure I want to live in t…

I think it will be more effective if you put the politicians in power or the owners to live next to them, i can assure you there will be no lack of money for building and maintenance of the nuclear plants.

Owners? Oh no. If I'm taking a pledge to kill myself over a pile of thorium, the profit from that energy belongs to me and mine. We are heroes of society. There are no owners.

Our world is not even vaguely ready for any of this.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#96

Post by ChuckMcM »

I can't say I'm a Lewis Page fan, but his coverage on the Register [1] added an interesting insight which was that contamination in the water was resulting in primarily beta radiation, not gamma radiation. I know the folks who are reporting this, the "World Nuclear Industry Status Report" [2] are not exactly unbiased. Read through other reports they have on their web site and they don't seem to be coming at the debate from a particularly balanced perspective.

In general though I find it hard to read coverage of nuclear power, gun control, and civil liberties these days given the very strident positions. It feels to me like walking in a room of people screaming at each other.

[1] "OMG! New 'CRISIS DISASTER' at Fukushima! Oh wait, it's nothing. Again" -- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/21/omg_new_crisis_disas...

[2] http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#97

Post by consultant23522 »

I can't imagine why anyone is surprised by this. The people in the know will never tell us the true depth of the problems with the economy right now, the floor of the gulf is absolutely destroyed from being covered in oil, etc. A conspiracy theorist sized dose of cynicism when reading the news is about the only way to get any sort of reality out of it.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#98

Post by stonemetal »

samatman wrote: post #50
jre wrote: post #16

I think there are similarities between the nuclear power debate and the GMO debate. In both case, I think it's stupid to be fundamentally opposed to the technology/research itself. But in both case, the industry is so fucked up (lies, too close ties with control authority, ...) that I don't trust them at all. It seems to me this is partially a failure of our current economic system, where the incentives for the indus…

I can think of one thing, and no one will swallow it in our society: The engineers who work on nuclear plants must pledge their lives for its safety, and ritually kill themselves in the event of an incident. I'm perfectly serious, in that it's within the human experience and it would work. I also suspect our world society can't wrap its head around that kind of medieval pact, and I'm not even sure I want to live in t…

Nuclear power plants are too big to be built and run by one person. While I might be willing to make the pledge for my own work why should I die because the knucklehead in the next cube makes a mistake, or an operator does something stupid, or a plane crashes into the reactor, or terrorist blow up the plant? There are just too many what ifs that are not within any single person's control.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#99

Post by rangibaby »

api wrote: post #63
DennisP wrote: post #55

Although it's possible this is really bad, I'm surprised by the lack of skepticism in this discussion so far. Mycle Snyder is described as an "independent consultant," with no mention of scientific or engineering credentials. There are quite a few people who make a living as consultants by exaggerating nuclear dangers. The article also didn't give any numbers at all. How much radioactivity are we talking about here?…

Nearly every Fukushima mega-scare story I've encountered seems to go back to Arnie Gunderson, who is a professional anti-nuclear consultant. At the same time, I see a near information blackout from other authorities. There just doesn't seem to be much good information on this one way or the other. Radiation is very easy to detect. If there's a serious leak, people outside Japan could see it. Where is this data?

I take some reassurance that the anti-nuclear guys say we're fucked and pro-nuclear guys say nuclear is still the safest. That means the truth is probably somewhere in the middle ;-)

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#100

Post by pdonis »

bengrunfeld wrote: post #85
pdonis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, let's try to keep things in perspective, please. This is very bad for the people that are near the plant, no question. But in global terms, the total amount of contaminated water that could potentially leak is miniscule. The Pacific Ocean is really, really big. The article says that 400 metric tons of contaminated water are being added every day. Let's say that leakage rate goes on for 5 years. That's about a mil…

Right, but isn't radioactive water like cordial, you only need a small amount to change a much larger body of water? Ton for ton, I can see your point of how it's only a drop in the ocean, but if that drop is highly radioactive and spreads in the currents, wouldn't that be enough to cause serious damage?

isn't radioactive water like cordial, you only need a small amount to change a much larger body of water?

I'm not sure what you mean here. Radioactive water is just water with some radioactive atoms dissolved in it. The total number of radioactive atoms in the million tons of radioactive water is fixed; they don't multiply. (In fact the number gradually decreases as the radioactive atoms decay.)

if that drop is highly radioactive and spreads in the currents, wouldn't that be enough to cause serious damage?

It will get diluted as it spreads; that was my point. The waters off the coast where Fukushima is are certainly not safe to fish in right now; but that's because the radioactivity is concentrated in a much smaller volume of water.

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