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First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

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Re: First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

#21

Post by acidburnNSA »

mimixco wrote: post #15

It took 10 years to even get a robot that could get close to the fuel... and people still ask if nuclear might not be as bad as coal! The truth is that accidents like this can never be cleaned up or salvaged. It's time to move away from nuclear, as other countries have already figured out. Fortunately for us in the US, the last nuclear plant under construction today will likely be cancelled, as the last two were. The…

If you look objectively at the numbers, you'll see that nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy production we know. Even considering conservative estimates from Fukushima and Chernobyl, nuclear power has net saved over 2 million lives simply by displacing air-pollution related deaths that would have occurred had the nukes not been built.

Coal kills on the order of hundreds of thousands of people per year. Fukushima killed zero. Chernobyl directly killed 60, and caused up to 4000 early cancer deaths over the next several decades on top of a population that would get millions of cancer deaths anyway, and that's with a bizarro linear no-threshold model almost unheard of in other latent estimates.

Nuclear is also very nearly carbon free. So if you start factoring in health effects of global warming, nuclear's even better.

Re: First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

#22

Post by cgrand-net »

mimixco wrote: post #15

It took 10 years to even get a robot that could get close to the fuel... and people still ask if nuclear might not be as bad as coal! The truth is that accidents like this can never be cleaned up or salvaged. It's time to move away from nuclear, as other countries have already figured out. Fortunately for us in the US, the last nuclear plant under construction today will likely be cancelled, as the last two were. The…

> The truth is that accidents like this can never be cleaned up or salvaged.

While global warming is easily solved.

Coal or nuclear are both bad but differently. Which one is less bad depends on your risk model

Re: First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

#24

Post by toomuchtodo »

Kuinox wrote: post #18
mimixco wrote: post #15

It took 10 years to even get a robot that could get close to the fuel... and people still ask if nuclear might not be as bad as coal! The truth is that accidents like this can never be cleaned up or salvaged. It's time to move away from nuclear, as other countries have already figured out. Fortunately for us in the US, the last nuclear plant under construction today will likely be cancelled, as the last two were. The…

Yes, and move away to what ?

Solar, wind, storage. Fusion at a distance.

EDIT: "20 years from now" is still faster than any nuclear generator getting built.

Re: First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

#25

Post by aurailious »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #24
Kuinox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and move away to what ?

Solar, wind, storage. Fusion at a distance. EDIT: "20 years from now" is still faster than any nuclear generator getting built.

So a mixture of unreliable, expensive, and "20 years from now".

Re: First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

#26

Post by cpeterso »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

While I realize it was likely impractical to meltdown reactors just to develop the technology to clean them up, I find the process here pretty interesting. A lot of good engineering has gone into the effort, and the engineering challenges (and risks) of post runaway reactors has gotten a lot more data. The Chernobyl folks just entombed everything, which is a one approach, even though they can "walk up to"[1] the rema…

> melted core material would just keep melting into the ground until it "got to china"

aka "China Syndrome", just like the 1979 film:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown#China_syndrom...

Re: First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

#27

Post by tonyedgecombe »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #21
mimixco wrote: post #15

It took 10 years to even get a robot that could get close to the fuel... and people still ask if nuclear might not be as bad as coal! The truth is that accidents like this can never be cleaned up or salvaged. It's time to move away from nuclear, as other countries have already figured out. Fortunately for us in the US, the last nuclear plant under construction today will likely be cancelled, as the last two were. The…

If you look objectively at the numbers, you'll see that nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy production we know. Even considering conservative estimates from Fukushima and Chernobyl, nuclear power has net saved over 2 million lives simply by displacing air-pollution related deaths that would have occurred had the nukes not been built. Coal kills on the order of hundreds of thousands of people per year. Fukush…

We shouldn’t be burning coal either.

Re: First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

#28

Post by eecc »

Kuinox wrote: post #18
mimixco wrote: post #15

It took 10 years to even get a robot that could get close to the fuel... and people still ask if nuclear might not be as bad as coal! The truth is that accidents like this can never be cleaned up or salvaged. It's time to move away from nuclear, as other countries have already figured out. Fortunately for us in the US, the last nuclear plant under construction today will likely be cancelled, as the last two were. The…

Yes, and move away to what ?

LED lights? Highly isolated apartment buildings? Revised urban planning to accommodate a post-commuting work-life? Other energy saving technology? In EU we have a comfortable living off consumption levels that in the US would qualify as church mices' (still not enough to prevent collapse though: https://web.archive.org/web/20140913032823/http://graduatein...)

Re: First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

#29

Post by Thaxll »

mimixco wrote: post #15

It took 10 years to even get a robot that could get close to the fuel... and people still ask if nuclear might not be as bad as coal! The truth is that accidents like this can never be cleaned up or salvaged. It's time to move away from nuclear, as other countries have already figured out. Fortunately for us in the US, the last nuclear plant under construction today will likely be cancelled, as the last two were. The…

There is nothing even close to be as cheap / clean and give as much power than nuclear right now. Not every country have wind / sun / rivers to match what produces nuclear energy.

Re: First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant

#30

Post by [deleted] »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #27
acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look objectively at the numbers, you'll see that nuclear is one of the safest forms of energy production we know. Even considering conservative estimates from Fukushima and Chernobyl, nuclear power has net saved over 2 million lives simply by displacing air-pollution related deaths that would have occurred had the nukes not been built. Coal kills on the order of hundreds of thousands of people per year. Fukush…

We shouldn’t be burning coal either.

[deleted]
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