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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'

#161

Post by cobrausn »

kenster07 wrote: post #159
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…

Why is it fundamentally stupid to be opposed to it? Nuclear power in its current form presents tremendous, potentially country-altering downside when things (can and will) go wrong. Is this really the best humanity has got -- the side effect of a decades-old weapons program?

Is this really the best humanity has got -- The side effect of a decades-old weapons program?

You are asking the question this way hoping someone has a better answer - they don't. Nuclear is our best option for making clean and reliable power that will get us to that next best option. Some of the new designs out there are quite amazing feats of engineering.

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

#162

Post by kenster07 »

cobrausn wrote: post #161
kenster07 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it fundamentally stupid to be opposed to it? Nuclear power in its current form presents tremendous, potentially country-altering downside when things (can and will) go wrong. Is this really the best humanity has got -- the side effect of a decades-old weapons program?

Is this really the best humanity has got -- The side effect of a decades-old weapons program? You are asking the question this way hoping someone has a better answer - they don't. Nuclear is our best option for making clean and reliable power that will get us to that next best option. Some of the new designs out there are quite amazing feats of engineering.

A Google search would disagree with your assertion.

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

#163

Post by pnathan »

veidr wrote: post #2

I'm so fucking sick of this. This level of ass-clownery makes Japan look so bad, and so diminishes its national prestige in the world, that it's almost like when Bush the junior was president of the USA. Yes, TEPCO is a private company. But it reflects on Japan the same way it would if the US government just left BP and Halliburton to decide entirely for themselves how to clean up the New Horizon oil rig disaster, wi…

I agree that TEPCO is not earning itself any medals, and the Japanese government is not earning medals in terms of checking TEPCO's foolery.

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

#164

Post by cobrausn »

kenster07 wrote: post #162
cobrausn wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really the best humanity has got -- The side effect of a decades-old weapons program? You are asking the question this way hoping someone has a better answer - they don't. Nuclear is our best option for making clean and reliable power that will get us to that next best option. Some of the new designs out there are quite amazing feats of engineering.

A Google search would disagree with your assertion.

I too can search google and come up with results that say what I want. Care to go into detail about these proven technologies that can power the world and replace our dependence on oil?

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

#165

Post by indefatigable »

kenster07 wrote: post #162
cobrausn wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really the best humanity has got -- The side effect of a decades-old weapons program? You are asking the question this way hoping someone has a better answer - they don't. Nuclear is our best option for making clean and reliable power that will get us to that next best option. Some of the new designs out there are quite amazing feats of engineering.

A Google search would disagree with your assertion.

Your opinions are provided by PageRank? Good to know.

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

#166

Post by WalterBright »

pdonis wrote: post #140
lenkite wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> behind a seawall that was overcome by the tsunami. They made a 20 ft sea-wall. I guess nobody thought it would be overrun. I suspect now any future seawalls will be made with a good factory of safety.

I guess nobody thought it would be overrun. But why would you even take that risk? Not to mention that tsunamis can easily reach 100 feet in wave height; I'm not sure you could build a seawall that could keep one out.

It would be easier to put the generators in bunkers and harden them.

Besides, it was pretty clear to me reading the sequence of events at Fukushima that there was entirely too little thought given to backup decoupling - there was too much of a zipper effect of one failure leading to another.

I'm not a lay person on this - I worked for 3 years on airliner designs, and much of that is finding ways to deal with failure cases. The nuke industry could learn a lot by consulting with airframe engineers.

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

#167

Post by beefman »

It's really sad and frightening for me to see such hysteria in the media and even in the comments here. I want to address all of it, but it's not possible even to make a dent. But I can offer the following numbers:

  Fukushima release to groundwater
   TEPCO estimate, August 2013
     0.024 PBq (
And here's a picture of the leak http://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20130820/14/noraneko-okayam...

The highest seawater activity level I've ever seen reported is 650 Bq/L Cs-137. If it weren't for the salt, I'd drink it all week long.

Edit: Ongoing Fukushima coverage can't really be made interesting, but Leslie Corrice[1] and Will Davis[2] do a good job.

[1] http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com [2] http://atomicpowerreview.blogspot.com

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

#168

Post by WalterBright »

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…

If you desire to punish the engineers for making mistakes, what will happen is you'll develop a culture of denial and coverup of any problems.

In the various projects I've worked on, I've seen that happen first hand. What works better for the quality of the product is to have a collaborative, open process about finding bugs, fixing them, and rewarding people for having a quality result.

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

#169

Post by mikeash »

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…

You have to be careful, because if you make the punishment too harsh, you'll scare away a lot of competent people, but attract a lot of useless morons who think everything they do is golden.

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

#170

Post by Snowda »

I remember back when the earthquake hit we were in the engineering lab at university and we were gathered around one of the workstations watching YouTube video's of the even half way around the world. We were shocked but we were fairly confident that their government had a handle on the situation. They are an earthquake prone country after all, they surely planned for this. My roommate was a transfer studying English and had a few friends from South Korea and Japan. They were going to a pub and I came along for the ride. I will never forget that night.

1. One of his friends got a phone call telling him his best friend was missing. He left and I never saw the guy again, I don't know what happened to his friend. This made the situation really feel real to me. Not just something just happening on TV.

2. While talking to a Japanese guy there (who I knew well and had a history of being BRUTALLY honest about his own country) said straight up: "This is worse than the government is admitting". Even before problems with Fukushima were announced he said this. I was dumbstruck by how the people could truly not believe their own government in any of the slightest and how despite this the Government perpetually wants to pretend everything is fine to keep the populous calm. As time has gone on I only further believe him on this fact. And I believe that it is still worse than they are currently admitting.

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