Chernobyl’s Hot Mess, “the Elephant’s Foot,” Is Still Lethal (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: Chernobyl’s Hot Mess, “the Elephant’s Foot,” Is Still Lethal (2013)

#121

Post by afterburner » Fri, Nov 28, 2014, 10:30 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #116

afterburner wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you including the effective body count due to increased greenhouse gas emissions (for coal) and cancer incidence/habitat destruction (nuclear)? Not to mention the economic damage of the incredibly expensive reactors (nuclear) and pollution (coal), which can probably be abstracted into a body count as well due to poorer health and living conditions from pollution/wasted societal resources.

> cancer incidence/habitat destruction The are both far worse for coal than for nuclear. But no matter what you include for nuclear, you won't get the numbers very high. > Not to mention the economic damage of the incredibly expensive reactors (nuclear) It's not at all clear that nuclear is any more expensive than the alternatives if you accounts for the externalized costs of e.g. the huge bodycount from the alternat…

You are assuming I am comparing nuclear to coal, or coal to nuclear...

You must be reading some pretty rosy estimates on nuclear energy compared to renewables if you think the costs make nuclear look good. And by costs I include dollars (the wastage of such having an impact on all our wellbeing as well by diverting from better solutions).

Re: Chernobyl’s Hot Mess, “the Elephant’s Foot,” Is Still Lethal (2013)

#122

Post by plikan13 » Fri, Nov 28, 2014, 11:27 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #120

plikan13 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What people never seem to understand is that the proximity of the source matters. Compare a tiny amount of radiation coming from a long distance (say the core of the earth) and a tiny amount of radiation coming from speck of decaying radioactive material released by Fukushima that is floating around in the air of your office room. You measure the radiation in the room and sure enough the radiation is very weak. You c…

Some of the potassium in your cells is radioactive and decaying right now at a rate of 4900 decays per second[0]. That's about as close as you can get to the source, and it's not a big deal. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-40#Contribution_to_n...

You ignore the fact that the radioactive potassium will be distributed more or less evenly over your body.

Secondly, and more importantly, you bring up this number of 4900 decays per second as if it means anything by itself. Those 4900 decays per second are caused by the presence of 18 milligram of Potassium-40 in your body. One of the elements released by Fukushima is Iodine-131. If you ingest 1 microgram of Iodine-131, this speck will generate 4,6 BILLION decays per second. So yeah, you're right that 4900 decays per second is not a big deal. But then you conveniently forgot the fact that the material released by Fukushima is orders of magnitude more radioactive than Potassium 40.

Re: Chernobyl’s Hot Mess, “the Elephant’s Foot,” Is Still Lethal (2013)

#123

Post by ChuckMcM » Sat, Nov 29, 2014, 12:24 AM UTC

delackner wrote: post #97

ChuckMcM wrote: post #33

I guess it is how you look at it. Much of this article has issues but one of the most glaring is this one: "Born of human error, continually generating copious heat, the Elephant’s Foot is still melting into the base of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. If it hits ground water, it could trigger another catastrophic explosion or leach radioactive material into the water nearby residents drink." One of the things this…

That all sounds very nice, but the Fukushima reactor material is still above ground and totally at risk of explosion and entry into the atmosphere if it is not continually water cooled. The cooling water has contaminated the entire nearby water system and the ocean.

All Japanese reactors have their material above ground and are at risk of at least a steam explosion if they are improperly handled. The point is that Fukishima is just as "safe" today as it was for the 20+ years of operation, just instead of producing power all of the processes are around dismantling it. Which is proceeding.

I understand the emotional fear of nuclear power, it is a scary thing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that you could be dying of radioactive poisoning right now and not know it, and all you need to do to survive is to move over 50 feet but you don't know you have to do that. So you end up dying. That is the giant knot of emotion that wraps up the fear in many cases. I've suggested to folks that have that fear, wear a dosimeter. They are very sensitive, not very expensive, and can completely clear your worry that you have some how stumbled into an unknown radiation hazard. It isn't a stupid or crazy thing to do, it just sets your mind at ease that you are not being dosed with ionizing radiation that you can't see.

Did they dump a lot of 137Cesium into the ocean? Yes they did. Was that more than was dumped by a single nuclear test in the ocean at Bikini Atoll? No it wasn't. There was a paper in Science, not long after the event about tracking the radionuclides [1].

[1] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6085/1115.summary

Re: Chernobyl’s Hot Mess, “the Elephant’s Foot,” Is Still Lethal (2013)

#124

Post by NamTaf » Sat, Nov 29, 2014, 8:10 AM UTC

mtviewdave wrote: post #112

NamTaf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't use 'common sense' and talk about how they design bombs and core reactors when you have no physics education. But hey, I'll humour you with as crude comparison as I can string together in a few minutes. This link [1] roughly compares Chernobyl to a Fat Man equivalent, which had a 21kT yield, or 0.021 MT. That's 0.003% of the total yield of all the atomic tests mankind has conducted (545MT total [2]). So…

>Please don't use 'common sense' and talk about how they design bombs and core reactors when you have no physics education. If I can step back from mrschwabe's immediate questions, I'd like to point out how problematic your attitude is, NamTaf. Nuclear power generation in the West is a political question. Which means its future is going to be decided by the average voter. The average voter is not going to have a "phy…

I'm not so convinced it's a purely political issue. I think there's equal parts of bureaucracy and technology in there too. Bureaucracy via the costs associated to run and maintain a plant, given the incredible red tape put in place, and technology in that to myk nowledge even the newest gen4 designs don't neatly and completely resolve the objections people have to them.

Are they good enough? Sure. They're good enoguh to convince anyone with an open mind. But they're not the problem. None of them are yet to the point to convince the person who is inherently against nuclear power. It's not yet at the stage where we can throw in some stuff, have it do its nuclear thing and produce energy, then do something very simple, easy, an un-fuck-upable such that there is no problematic waste at the end.

Maybe the technological aspect is political in disguise. I mean, it's easier to point at containers of nuclear waste than it is the airbourne pollutants that coal spews out. But I think you'll find that the easier solution to that problem comes from an improved technology that renders it null and void, rather than a change of political will. Particularly when semi-alternatives in the form of the various renewables exist and provide a much bigger attraction to the nuclear detractors even despite their flaws.

Re: Chernobyl’s Hot Mess, “the Elephant’s Foot,” Is Still Lethal (2013)

#125

Post by emp_zealoth » Sat, Nov 29, 2014, 5:24 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #86

Zardoz84 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fusion. Every ten years, plasma physics say that we would have fusion on the next ten years. :D

Maybe if we funded it appropriately. Actual funding has been really low: https://imgur.com/sjH5r

It is quite depressing. The other day I've been reading an article about MRAP vehicle program - Wiki said the cost was estimated to be 50 BILLION

Re: Chernobyl’s Hot Mess, “the Elephant’s Foot,” Is Still Lethal (2013)

#126

Post by glomph » Sat, Nov 29, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #115

glomph wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person you are replying to didn't say anything about Nuclear being bad. They made a point only about cost.

Consider that the cost of coal, solar, wind, hydro is under-estimated because we don't take into account the externalized environmental issues and excess deaths. If we're going to try to account for externalized costs for nuclear, we need to do it for all the others too, and the results would not be pretty.

Huh? We have a pretty good understanding of the externalised costs for these. There is no mystery for storing waste and there is a very strong understanding of how easy it is to decommission. What externalities are you talking about?