Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#121

Post by kgarten » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:31 PM UTC

mixmax wrote: post #45

I have a personal theory, that I haven't really been able to confirm or deny. Here it is. After Hiroshima and during the cold war nuclear energy was associated with death and destruction. Hiroshima for obvious reasons, and the cold war because the population of the western world was constantly reminded how The Soviet Union had thousands of missiles with nuclear bombs pointing at us, ready to go. Western governments u…

just watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Eternity_(film) for a start ... (it can silently kill even in generations).

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#122

Post by blablabla123 » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:35 PM UTC

mixmax wrote: post #45

I have a personal theory, that I haven't really been able to confirm or deny. Here it is. After Hiroshima and during the cold war nuclear energy was associated with death and destruction. Hiroshima for obvious reasons, and the cold war because the population of the western world was constantly reminded how The Soviet Union had thousands of missiles with nuclear bombs pointing at us, ready to go. Western governments u…

>It's the energy source that has the fewest deaths per MWH produced

Source?

I want to remind that the nuclear material needs to be mined somewhere. I never worked in a Uranium mine but it's probably not the healthiest job in the world. Then the material needs to be transported, transported a long way. During this way it gets enriched, used, cooled down. Maybe even re-enriched, used, some part get stuck in walls, pipes ("contamination") etc. At some point it gets stored, somewhere in the ground. During this long way radiation and material gets emitted. Nuclear dust is cancerogenous for the lungs, radiation in general is suspected of boosting leucemia rates.

But the worst part in my opinion is this: NO insurance company in the world will insure a nuclear power plant.

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#123

Post by mpyne » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:36 PM UTC

peterpathname wrote: post #108

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fear prevents development of safe nuclear reactors. Irrational, yes?

safe reactors certainly do exist : on paper. I'm old enough to remember chernobyl. at the time, we were assured it was a dodgy old design, and that they future models would be foolproof. Then fukushima, and we started hearing the same soothing stories of fantasy designs that could never cause such havoc. Ever since day one, this industry has over-promised and under-delivered. Remember "power too cheap to meter"? It's…

Well 4 nuclear plants were affected at Fukushima, 3 of which had been operational and melted down, the 4th had used fuel cells right near exploding gantries... and zero deaths, zero illnesses.

This is a stark, stark constrast to Chernobyl (which was a Soviet weapons production design quickly converted for power generation use with very little, if any, regard for passive safety principles) and should if anything reinforce what people were saying about the uniqueness of Chernobyl.

The Fukushima plants were the "dodgy old designs", by the way. Fukushima Dai-Ni's 2 operational reactors were hit by the same tsunami, only a few km down the same shoreline from the afflicted reactors, and both achieved safe shutdown... they were of a slightly less old dodgy design.

The design improvements are not fantasy. They've already happened, have been around for years, but no one builds them but India and China.

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#124

Post by altcognito » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:37 PM UTC

reitzensteinm wrote: post #33

onli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always love it when coal is used as a comparision. Because: Coal isn't the alternative, solar and wind are Furthermore: Nuclear energy has a fairly high CO2 output, if you count it all together. So this argument against coal is itself an argument against nuclear energy. Most importantly: We can't manage nuclear waste. There is just no feasible scenario which makes sure for future generations that the nuclear waste…

It's disingenuous to call "solar and wind" an alternative on the same level as nuclear and coal. For one thing, it's an incomplete alternative; it needs to be paired with some form of country scale battery for when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. This is covered in the excellent book Without Hot Air[1] which breaks down power usage and generation potential (using UK figures), primarily to discuss we…

> it needs to be paired with some form of country scale battery

This isn't true, as distributed power networks are actually preferable. I'd much rather have uninterrupted power supply at the home than try and rely on an entire network to provide it for me.

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#125

Post by kgarten » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:37 PM UTC

kmm wrote: post #118

elorant wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about nuclear waste though? You end up with some tons of radioactive material which you have to store in high-security underground facilities with the hope that in some time in the future humanity will find a way to dispose it in a safer way.

Nuclear waste is stored very, very deep and secure. I cannot imagine future humans having the technology to open these up, without knowing what is in there. Either we lose all of our knowledge and no soul will ever see that site, or we stay an advanced civilization and we are warned of the dangers before opening the nuclear waste facilities. Don't forget that uranium is found naturally in the ground, in geologically…

In Germany half is currently stored in an old salt mine which is at risk of water breaking in (in a region with seismic activity) ... the other half sits in bright daylight under tin roofs (not my definition of very very deep ... :)

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#126

Post by mpyne » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:37 PM UTC

justatdotin wrote: post #93

scheeko wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely more than that. Chernobyl had a great impact on people's idea of nuclear. Also its damage, when occurring, is done in a spectacular way by something invisible. Radiation poisoning is dramatic, horrific and you can't see, smell or feel. That scares the living hell out of most people and the fact that is statistically unlikely becomes irrelevant as soon as it becomes an irrational fear. There are things tha…

I think another parameter is the intergenerational teratogenic impacts: Radiation fades your genes.

Good thing no life forms are exposed to radiation such as UV, cosmic rays, or naturally-occuring radioactive elements such as Carbon-14, Potassium-40, or Uranium then, we'd be screwed after only a few generations! Oh, wait...

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#127

Post by mpyne » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:39 PM UTC

juandopazo wrote: post #117

colinshark wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of radioactive waste... Let's put it this way: In exchange for clean, constant, domestically sourced, almost unlimited energy for an entire year, each person must dispose of or store their waste, which is the size of... A pill of aspirin. You could just put it in a little lead jar. That's all the waste. The alternative is fossil fuel waste, which would be... 10 tons of CO2 (volume = 5 American houses) whi…

> The alternative is fossil fuel waste You make it sounds as if there were no other alternative.

For baseload power? There effectively isn't. Renewable energy generation requires a substantial investment in energy storage systems if you don't have thermal power generation (such as nuclear or fossil-fueled plants), as having rolling blackouts just because the wind unexpectedly isn't blowing as hard is not good for business.

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#128

Post by altcognito » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

mixmax wrote: post #45

I have a personal theory, that I haven't really been able to confirm or deny. Here it is. After Hiroshima and during the cold war nuclear energy was associated with death and destruction. Hiroshima for obvious reasons, and the cold war because the population of the western world was constantly reminded how The Soviet Union had thousands of missiles with nuclear bombs pointing at us, ready to go. Western governments u…

I have a much simpler theory. Everytime an "event" occurs, nuclear scientists tell us, everything is ok, it is all handled, and then shortly thereafter, leaks are discovered to be worse than reported, handling of waste is done very poorly, or things just implode, as they did in Fukishama.

http://www.king5.com/news/investigators/Hanford-no-ENRAF-nuc...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/asia/tepco-says-wate...

Stop looking for elaborate answers. As a "lay" person, my impression is that their credibility is completely shot.

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#129

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:48 PM UTC

mje__ wrote: post #39

onli wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at germany. Alternative energy doesn't have to be used that little. On a worldwide scale, it is even a different thing. You can't simply replace coal with nuclear energy worldwide, even if you were absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is safe when properly used and you have a concept for the nuclear waste produced like shooting it into space. Because many countries are just too instable, poor and iniffecient…

I think you'll find that Germany isn't replacing nuclear power, just buying it from outside their borders instead of generating it themselves [1]. [1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/greenwashing-af...

[deleted]

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#130

Post by Xylakant » Wed, Jun 05, 2013, 2:49 PM UTC

anon1385 wrote: post #38

onli wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at germany. Alternative energy doesn't have to be used that little. On a worldwide scale, it is even a different thing. You can't simply replace coal with nuclear energy worldwide, even if you were absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is safe when properly used and you have a concept for the nuclear waste produced like shooting it into space. Because many countries are just too instable, poor and iniffecient…

>Look at germany. In Germany, where they are shutting down their nuclear power plants, more than 80% of the shut down nuclear power has been replaced with coal power plants,[26] which release 100 times as much radiation as a nuclear power plant of the same wattage In 2012, member firms of the Verband der Industriellen Energie- und Kraftwirtschaft (VIK) reported power failures of several seconds duration, combined wit…

See, none of the plants that were shut down so far has been shut down due to the plan to phase out nuclear power. End 2011 all of germanys nuclear plant were switched off - either due to scheduled maintenance or due to (minor) accidents. The plan is so slowly fade out nuclear power over the next decade - so any short term fluke has to be regarded as what it is - a short term and pretty normal fluctuation in local power production, something that the european grid was built to handle.