Earlier quoted context omitted.
As of yet, no one was killed during the nuclear incident.
Weren't some engineers already killed during the explosion?
The one death reported so far was when the earthquake hit and he got crushed by a crane.
Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
151–160 of 190 posts
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's use the smarter, more innovative, and safer energy solutions available today. Let's leave these 50's and 60's era shitty technology behind. Oh, and what do you suggest? In the US, for example, we've just about dammed every river that can be dammed, and solar and wind are too expensive for wide scale deployments. The only real alternative we have to the 20% of our energy which comes from nuclear would be to add…
The problem with solar is that they require large amounts of resources to produce but also that they also produce the wrong type of power. To give you an example, think of a way to run a large aluminium smelter overnight using just solar cells. There isn't any sun shining, so you arn't getting any power in. You need to somehow store enough energy to run the plant overnight, and do it in a form that can actually be pr…
> Wrong type of power.
I don't think you explained this. It seems as though you're just arguing about the cost of batteries, not a certain "type" of power. (what types of power are there, anyways? I only know of one: electricity. There are many different ways to generate it though..)
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
solar and wind are too expensive for wide scale deployments. No, they aren't. And the only reason nuclear is considered "cheap" is that the costs of accidents and waste disposal are methodically underestimated. Oh, and another thing: Uranium fuel is a quite limited resource as well...
Thorium isn't.
Yes, but major development is still needed to make such reactors safe and viable.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reactor 3 at the first Fukushima plant is not just using Uranium. It uses MOX fuel. So what the author ('expert???') wrote is already useless, he does not even know what the reactors are using as fuel. Japan Today: http://www.japantoday.com/category/technology/view/mox-fuel-... From August last year: MOX fuel loaded into Tokyo Electric's old Fukushima reactor Sunday 22nd August, 05:36 AM JST FUKUSHIMA — Tokyo Ele…
Slightly off topic but not really question; Is there a defined term for the observation of continuous streams of information tailored to fit a particular popular ideology thus contributing to increased skepticism of said information?
I would say propaganda, but it does not always lead to increased scepticism unfortunately.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thorium isn't.
Yes, but major development is still needed to make such reactors safe and viable.
Sure. Major investment and infrastructure improvements are needed to make its alternatives viable too.
EDIT: I should note that even the above is somewhat irrelevant to my original point, which was simply that one cannot dismiss nuclear power as a whole simply because one type of fuel supply is "limited".
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's use the smarter, more innovative, and safer energy solutions available today. Let's leave these 50's and 60's era shitty technology behind. Oh, and what do you suggest? In the US, for example, we've just about dammed every river that can be dammed, and solar and wind are too expensive for wide scale deployments. The only real alternative we have to the 20% of our energy which comes from nuclear would be to add…
The problem with solar is that they require large amounts of resources to produce but also that they also produce the wrong type of power. To give you an example, think of a way to run a large aluminium smelter overnight using just solar cells. There isn't any sun shining, so you arn't getting any power in. You need to somehow store enough energy to run the plant overnight, and do it in a form that can actually be pr…
Photovoltaics are indeed not very cost efficient right now, but solar thermal[1] is a much more mature, cheaper technology. It's also easier to store large amounts of heat than to store electricity.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#157This is not completely relevant to the current topic, but I was wondering if any video exists of the inside of a nuclear reactor. What does it look like when it's running? A brief search on Youtube could not locate anything.
dunno about actual run-of-the-mill daily cycle but I've seen the reactor at K-State run a couple-dollar pulse. It looked about like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgNwtepP-6M For the day to day operation it just looked like a big pool of distilled water with a ton of pipes running around in it.
The Cherenkov radiation in that video is worth a watch if you haven't seen it before. Apparently the water contains the radiation. The effect is from the electrons passing through the water faster than the speed of light could be in the water.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
While the article was a decent read, he is not an expert in this field. His work is in Supply Chain/Management http://lean.mit.edu/about/lai-structure/faculty-researchers-... Where does he get his expertise in nuclear reactors? According to the article, his father. "He is a PhD Scientist, whose father has extensive experience in Germany’s nuclear industry"
I agree, his expertise is not fully covering this field. But I think he's still far better informed than most voices we get to hear these days. In Germany it took green-activists a couple of hours to organize nationwide protests. Politicians with no knowledge about physics beyond spelling "meltdown" are immediatly taking advantage of this situation.
Actually that protest was planned some months ago. It just became so popular because of the recent events.
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason people build power stations is that density of energy matters, not just quantity. Sure, we can replace our current energy sources with solar + wind + wave. What fraction of coastline needs to be covered with wave-driven generators, and what fraction of Earth's land area needs to be covered with solar or wind farms to get to our current energy generation levels? Last I saw the numbers for the US they weren'…
2/3rds of the earth is covered with water, Nothing would prevent putting solar on the oceans surface. And why would we cover land with panels, when we have rooftops that cover triple the area required to generate the base line you cite? Already, flexible rooftop material exist that serves a dual purpose of protecting the home, and producing power. Every problem you cite can be solved readily. Put even a 100th of the…
Suppose you could engineer structures large enough to float enough solar panels on the ocean. How do you transport the energy to where it's needed? How do you clean the panels from bird shit?
Re: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors
#160It was very interesting to read the wikipedia page for INES. Turns out we never heard about the most serious incidents except Cernobyl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Sca...
Interesting also that in the INES pdf on that site, the requirement for INES4 is at least one death from radiation. Perhaps the declaration of INES level four was in error, or the requirement is not strict. Another interesting link just found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accide...
It looks to me like, on the wikipedia article at least, it's an "or" condition - probably the "Minor release of radioactive material unlikely to result in implementation of planned countermeasures other than local food controls." is what's triggering a level 4 event.