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Fukushima

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Re: Fukushima

#201

Post by svedlin »

ifdefdebug wrote: post #152
kenesom1 wrote: post #54

The worst case scenario for a nuclear plant accident is millions of casualties and the long-term contamination of major population centers. 152 of the world's 211 nuclear power plants have more than 1 million people residing within 75 km. A plant in India has 16 million living within that radius. Fallout could be dispersed over an area thousands of miles wide. The worst case scenario for an accident at a solar power…

Just up voted this to balance down votes. It's a shame to down vote something just because you dislike an opinion.

Downvotes are often attached to inconvenient truths.

The safety of nuclear power is based mainly on wishful thinking. It's the classic folly of chasing short-term cost savings and ignoring long-tail risks.

Re: Fukushima

#202

Post by e12e »

ggreer wrote: post #188
e12e wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would appear that the limit is similar - the "red zone" is for "(> 50 mSv/y)" (note "more than") -- and the sign at the end "Leaving the zone" reads 4.9 mSV/h. That'd be about 42.000 mSV/year -- if we assume constant dose. Or put it another way -- stay an hour and you're at the (safe) limit of exposure for a year. As for all the comments on how nuclear isn't all that dangerous -- how much do we really know about peop…

The numbers in your first paragraph are off by a factor of 1,000. The signs are in microsieverts per hour, not millisieverts. Only the author's peak reading of 6.8µSv/h would have exceeded the maximum for radiation workers, and only if he stood in that spot for a whole year. Even then, it would still be below the lowest dosage that is clearly linked to increased cancer risk (100mSv/year).

You're right of course. I didn't realize that was a greek letter on the sign in the photo.

Still, ~43[1] mSv/year is pretty close to the "safe" limit (and it makes sense to set a safety limit well below what can be documented as being harmful) -- and that's just from irradiation. Who knows the effect of breathing in pollen, never mind eating local produce, over a period of ~50 years?

Are there different safety levels for children/infants? If the 50mSv/year is set for workers, I assume they're for adults?

[1] I accidentally dropped a significant digit when rounding off too. It comes to ~42924.0, not ~49...

Re: Fukushima

#203

Post by [deleted] »

benihana wrote: post #52
etangent wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pro-nuclear, but the above comment is incredibly, maddeningly stupid. It's so amazingly stupid that I don't know where to begin. The hidden assumption that there was an actual alternative to MAD? That the USG used radiation fear-mongering to shove MAD down our throats? That the USSR didn't use propaganda? That radiation isn't a big deal? That radiation only stays around for 30 years (a common mistake is to assum…

Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[deleted]

Re: Fukushima

#204

Post by ggreer »

[deleted] wrote: post #203
benihana wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[deleted]

Please stop.

Re: Fukushima

#207

Post by pdkl95 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #193
pdkl95 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Presumably then controlling population growth I take it you still haven't seen that TED talk. A key point Hans Rosling makes (which he expands upon in greater detail in several of his other talks). In this talk, he explains ... there are two things that can increase the energy use. First, population growth. Second, economic growth. Population growth will mainly occur among the poorest people here because they have…

> You may not have noticed, but China hasn't been very successful at legislating population growth. The one-child policy was a targeted a population of around 1.2 billion in 2000. Actually population in 2000 was about 1.262 billion. I may not like the methods used by China, but calling it not very successful seems somewhat questionable. > Meanwhile, some areas have slowed their population growth. Like, say, China, wh…

I probably should have stated it more precisely, but that's more or less my point. China has made some impressive changes in the last few decades, with a lot more people having access to energy and the lifestyle improvements that it brings.

Without the ability to utilize energy, the China's population would be a lot further off from the 1.2B target. We still see this in some regions, as the one-child policy is harder to enforce the further you get from the metropolitan areas.

It's still a huge country with a lot of variation, of course, and I'm generalizing a lot.

Re: Fukushima

#208

Post by pdkl95 »

facepalm wrote: post #197
pdkl95 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Presumably then controlling population growth I take it you still haven't seen that TED talk. A key point Hans Rosling makes (which he expands upon in greater detail in several of his other talks). In this talk, he explains ... there are two things that can increase the energy use. First, population growth. Second, economic growth. Population growth will mainly occur among the poorest people here because they have…

I don't understand what you are trying to say. My point was that energy can be saved. I guess I tend to think more abstract than you. For example, population could be reduced by dropping a nuclear bomb - boom, energy saved. (I'm too lazy to go into details of population control here...). That's of course not the solution I propose, it just abstractly proves the point that energy can be saved. In fact, as you mention…

> population could be reduced by dropping a nuclear bomb

Some of us are trying to discuss solutions, not fantasies of genocide.

> All I said is that saving energy is another option

And I'm saying the only reason you say that is because you're living an incredibly privileged life. For most of the world, "less energy usage" means hard decisions like if they have enough food to eat. For someone who claims to think abstractly, you seem to have a serious problem thinking about energy from any other point of view than what is presumably your own ethnocentric perspective.

> And you seem to have missed that washing machines are not the major factor in power consumption that you make it out to be.

Do you know how I can tell you still haven't watched Hans Rosling's explanation of this problem?

Washing machines (and related basic-standard-of-living technology) is probably going to account for about 1/3 or 1/2 of the increase in energy usage of the world in the next several decades. Energy expensive technologies (e.g. airplanes) are not relevant, because only a small number of people will gain access to the necessary wealth in the same time period.

To be very explicit, the energy saving that are possible - which should still be done - form the tiny number of people with enough privilege to regularly pay to waste energy is tiny.

> they couldn't get by with less

Go watch that video. Look really hard at what it's like to waste your days washing your cloths instead of, say, getting an education.

What specific energy use is being wasted? What "optional" thing should they stop doing?

What, exactly, should most of the women in the world (who are currently in this situation) do to reduce their energy use?

Assuming you are not a terrible personj that says they should have to stay living in poverty or simply be bombed (your other "option"), where specifically should these people - that is, the 3-4 billion people currently living under these conditions get their energy? (there are only 3 options: nuclear, coal/gas, or "they don't get to enjoy an industrialized lifestyle")

Hopefully, answering these questions should reveal to you why "lower energy use" is not an alternative.

> People will simply use all the energy they can get

That may be true for you, but you shouldn't project your beliefs onto others.

Re: Fukushima

#209

Post by svedlin »

kenesom1 wrote: post #186
pdeuchler wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, it's being downvoted for blatant falsehoods like: "Today's nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe. Most that are in operation depend on active cooling systems to prevent a meltdown."

80% of the world's nuclear fleet are in fact light water reactors - like Fukushima - which require continuous cooling and a constant source of power. Even the latest passive safety proposals like liquid fluoride thorium reactors don't conclusively solve the fundamental problem of overheating after a cooling system failure [1]. [1] http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2010/6/not-so-fa...

Only 15 plants in operation have gen-3 passive cooling features and these systems are hardly fail safe.

http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/docu...

Re: Fukushima

#210

Post by losvedir »

mikekchar wrote: post #128
Kankuro wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess he was talking about higher walls around the (few) nuclear plants, not the whole country. That would not make the country "a jail where the only place I can see the ocean is from on top of a mountain".

The water will just go around the wall. I think people don't quite understand the logistics involved. You have this massive wave travelling at 300 km/h. The seawall will break up the wave, but you have to have it long enough to prevent the water from reaching the bits that you want to protect before it retreats (often 20-30 minutes later). Do a google search for "tetrapod japan images" to see what the beaches around…

Why can't you just build the wall to encircle the power plant? Why does it have to span the whole island?
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