Still not looking good for Godzilla vs Mothra, I’m afraid. And those zombie ninja cheerleader strumpets we fantasized about, roaming the countryside fighting crime, eating brains, and pleasuring mostly middle-age male sci-fi enthusiasts? Not gonna happen. World Nuclear News:
The UK government’s chief independent scientific advisor has told the British Embassy in Tokyo that radiation fears from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant are a “sideshow” compared with the general devastation caused by the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck on 11 March.
Speaking from London in a teleconference on 15 March to the embassy, chief scientific officer John Beddington said that the only people likely to receive doses of radiation that could damage their health are the on-site workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. He said that the general population outside of the 20 kilometre evacuation zone should not be concerned about contamination.
Beddington said that the current situation was that “the Japanese are trying to keep the reactors cool by pumping sea water that will keep the temperature down; that’s their first line of defence.” He added, “Up to now that’s been working reasonably well.” He noted that when the pressure within the containment vessel increases to a high level, workers release a mixture of steam and hydrogen into the atmosphere. This, he said, contains “really quite modest amounts of radioactive material.”
So. No online reactor containment breaches despite a 9.0 earthquake, a number of strong aftershocks, and a tsunami. And a number of lessons learned about storage of spent rods, and perhaps about blackout electricity generation, that we can use going forward to make nuclear energy even safer.
At least for now, with the situation stabilizing, what we have is a level 5 incident. Just like Three Mile Island. Which killed tens of thousands, poisoned millions more, and left a vast expanse of east coast real estate uninhabitable for decades. worked as containment should.
Hope you all got your iodine pills.
Again: a 9.0 earthquake. A tsunami. An erupting volcano, for Chrissakes! And the result, we’re now learning, is no breach of any of the online reactors.
So the lesson to take away from this is that we’re to abandon nuclear energy? Really?
We’re doomed.
Also this.
So… no zombies?
Heh. I was just tweaking my post to note that when I came back and read your comment, Darth.
I learned I probably should have some iodine pills around. I’m not that far from the El Diablo nuke plant, as the
crowradiation flies.No? Ah, darn.
Although you can bet that there is a hentai* of it somewhere.
o_O
.
*Or, for the more pedantic pervs out there, seijin manga.
And those zombie ninja cheerleader strumpets we fantasized about, roaming the countryside fighting crime, eating brains, and pleasuring mostly middle-age male sci-fi enthusiasts? Not gonna happen.
It should happen and therefor it will happen.
Si se puede, neocon! I have hope that the contamination levels and the proven effects of radiation will change!
I have a friend on Facebook who believes that nukes are unsafe as a result of this. I gave her the analogy of a plane flying through a thunderstorm, being buffeted by freak 100+ mph winds, pelted by hail, and struck by lightning. Through it all, the pilot lands the plane in the ocean where there are 20 foot swells. Water starts leaking slowly through one of the plane’s windows.
Does this make flying unsafe? Should everyone quit using planes/air travel as a result of this?
She told me that nuclear power, because it’s not safe (her words, no evidence offered) then she’s not interested. I didn’t respond; there are some folks you just can’t reach.
As a side note, I was promised this would be worse than Chernobyl.
When will people realize the media is playing them like a cheap fiddle? They don’t appear to mind.
I’ve seen Beddington on BBC News a few times this week, and he’s definitely a breath of fresh air. Tends to characterize the situation as serious, but distinguishes between the potential for catastrophe versus the situation as it currently stands. Most refreshingly, he reminds his interviewers to keep a sense of perspective regarding the terrible devastation and suffering that’s wholly unrelated to the efforts at the plant.
I think the Royal Society should be very proud.
On a related note, I’ve been told by a very reliable source that in his private life, Sir John has a terrible temper, a substance abuse problem that’s way out of hand, and has a number of restraining orders against him for terrorizing members of the Society who don’t share his views on genetically-modified crops.
My favorite bit of hysterical media coverage:
ABC: “look at that big green thingie inside the remains of reactor number 3!” (Sometimes the remember to tell you that it’s the fucking building and not the reactor itself) ” Here’s a file photo of the big green thingie. This big green thingie inside reactor number three is what we’re all, the whole world, all of us, concerned about!”
It’s the damn fuel reloading crane.
Some of you may remember that my first job out of college was with a scientific firm called Radiation Management Corp. an organization responsible for providing service to workers for safety, especially testing them for any exposure and contamination of radioactive particles. I drove a Whole Body Counting truck from reactor to reactor, especially in late March of 1979, leaving leaving the Yankee Reactor in Connecticut to travel to .. Three Mile Island, allowing me to spend weekends at my Philadelphia apartment.
I showed up on a Monday (the 29th, I think) driving from Philly to the front gate … to be stopped by one of the senior rad techs monitoring the entrance.
Wha?
He told me I was not allowed to go to the testing truck, which was sitting on some open land right next to the fence some yards outside the reactors. He babbled that there was “a bad leak of radiation from reactor #2.” When I asked how bad, he looked at me with a stricken, wide eyed face and said, “Bad!” Thus started my 3 month adventure at Three Mile Island, which began badly as I had left the truck key at my apartment and couldn’t move the truck … despite the overwhelming need to do so.The head of Health Physics at the p0lant came to see me and ripped me a new asshole over the circumstances.
Needless to say that period was one of the most important circumstances of my life and the experience makes me cringe when reading about the Japanese kurfuffle. This is way, way worse than what happened at TMI, which was screwball enough to give me nightmares. The fact that they haven’t officially lost containment completely despite three reactor blowups is mind boggling.
One thing to remember is that there will be an enormous amount of contaminated stuff that will have to be moved. The only way I can think of from that location (as opposed to TMI which sent out 100’s of trucks and many rail shipments to WA. state) is going to be by securing a large cargo vessel in the sea and load it as well as possible with stuff that needs to be put … somewhere.
Do I wish I could help? Hell no!
I didn’t respond; there are some folks you just can’t reach.
My standby response usually follows this script:
Friend: I could never support nuclear power.
Squid: Why not?
Friend: Nukes are just so dangerous.
Squid: They’re kinda scary, but compared to other means of generating power, they’re not so bad.
Friend: Nuh-uh! They’re totally dangerous. They’ll kill us all!
Squid: Nonsense. Anybody who understands what’s going on can tell you that modern generating facilities are safer than you can imagine.
Friend: I don’t care what you say. They’re deadly!
Squid: Describe to me how the process of beta decay works.
Friend: What?
Squid: Describe to me how the process of beta decay works.
Friend: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Squid: Exactly.
Former Friend: …
Okay, so no Godzilla or Mothra, but how about Gamera? That huge turtle is a friend to Teh Children™.
Ernst:
Your experience with ABC was eerily familiar to me in 1979 with Walter Cronkite. I would work a day in the off site emergency center, hear some positive results, go back to the hotel, and look at Cronkite telling me what a potential disaster day it was today. What’s clear is that nothing has changed today from 1979. While they have better technology, the overwhelming ignorance of reactors continues to shine like a smoke bomb.
Saw a dude driving a Japanese Rice Rocket complete with fart can yesterday. Had a little stuffed animal of Gamera hanging from his rear bumper about 6 inches above the ground. I’m still not sure if he was commenting on the current situation or was just down on furries, turtles, or children.
Is it true that the Japanese are trying to hire Helen Thomas as a spokesperson for radiation and explosions?
Call me!
I used to be anti-nuke when I was young and dumb, but once I learned more about it, I changed my mind. It’s really the most sensible energy source available right now. Sure, it can be dangerous, but all energy production involves dangerous activities.
There are newer reactor designs that are much safer, and don’t involve the production of large amounts of plutonium (which is more of a political danger as it can be used to make bombs). It’s too bad we won’t see any of these deployed until after the collapse of this country, and maybe not even then.
“Does this make flying unsafe? Should everyone quit using planes/air travel as a result of this?”
Well, to be fair, a plane crashing in the ocean doesn’t have the possibility if poisoning a few million people down wind.
I’ve always thought, and this situation in Japan doesn’t contradict, that the weak link in nuclear power is what to do with the radioactive waste. I don’t know why they don’t encapsulate it and shoot it to the moon, but there’s lots I don’t know.
I’m for nuclear power plants here, especially since they already exist all over the world, but there are legitimate concerns I think shouldn’t be dismissed lightly.
those zombie ninja cheerleader strumpets we fantasized about, roaming the countryside fighting crime, eating brains, and pleasuring mostly middle-age male sci-fi enthusiasts? Not gonna happen.
Pleasuring mostly middle-age male sci-fi enthusiasts before they eat their brains, Jeff.
It’s what creates the dramatic tension in this Roger Corbinesque mash-up.
LBascom, I don’t disagree with the fact that nuclear radiation can be dangerous.
But, the fact that this reactor (using 20+ year old construction methods/design and 20+ year old reactor technology) survived an earthquake 8X stronger than what it was designed to withstand (plus all of the aftershocks) AND then withstood a tsunami AND still hasn’t killed a few million people ought to make nuclear power more attractive.
It’s the damn fuel reloading crane.
They don’t know shit about shit. They majored in Creative Writing or whatever. (NTTAWWT) Their field of expertise should be fucking Fiction. They make stuff up – in a way that seems quite compelling to the masses, at least.
On any number of technical subjects, anyone with a clue can see 45 seconds in by the way they discuss issues they haven’t any even a shred of a conceptual understanding of what the hell they’re talking about.
I can’t tell you how many interviews I’ve seen that can only be explained by the assumption that the reporter believed when all the computers in the world read “00” in their CMOS, they’d fizz smoke like some android out of the original Star Trek muttering “does not compute” and then explode.
Which tells you, immediately, they haven’t the foggiest idea how that box on their desk even works, or what is even remotely possible as science-fiction vs. what is just outright ridiculous.
I agree. And I submit that a good start toward discussing legitimate concerns is removing the hysterics and misinformation that makes up the majority of the noise. All that does is help the enviro’s agenda. Which is reliably anti-human.
So, no Zombie-chans? Bummer, man.
Nobody can squeal out “braaaaains!” like a zombie-chan…
There is a elevated, but still small risk for the nuclear plant workers. There is a slight risk for people in the immediate vicinity of the plants. But so far no cases of radiation sickness (at least that have been reported), the event is being classified as a “5” which is the same as TMI, which also has not demonstrated any sickness to the general public over the last 30+ years.
Either it was 1980 or 81 that I was a young SAHM living in Redondo Beach. My then husband worked at Toyota in Torrance and, with one car in the famiy, I drove him to work several times a week so I could use the car.
There’s a refinery in the area that we drove past every day. Indeed, when the main road was clogged with traffic, there was a road that ran behind the refinery that was open to the public but much less traveled. I took the shortcut often.
There was an accident one night at the refinery, resulting in a huge fireball that danced across the road – encountering and crisping the most unlucky of a single driver at the time.
Tragic, but I didn’t stop driving the road and the refinery is still there.
There is no such thing as a risk-free life.
The newer, and more modern Fukushima Dai-ini power plant right next door went through its emergency shutdown without any trouble, yet, oddly (or maybe not), no mention of it is in any of the news reports. Why is that?
I’ve always thought, and this situation in Japan doesn’t contradict, that the weak link in nuclear power is what to do with the radioactive waste. I don’t know why they don’t encapsulate it and shoot it to the moon, but there’s lots I don’t know.
The waste is significantly less than any other way of generating power. e=mc2.
You take a coal or oil plant, you’ve got them burning through 50 railcars and 9000 metric tons of coal a day, with millions of tons of waste product per year – granted, that’s mostly gas. CO2, NO2, etc. CO2 is not bad, the NOx is scrubbed out, etc.
You take a nuke plant – they load the fuel on a single fork lift. Once every 6 months – the fuel that’s delivered on a fork lasts YEARS, but they stagger the replacement of the rods. A single fork lift’s worth of material burns for years.
Other countries – that don’t have their head up their asses – aren’t gonna be just chucking the spent fuel rods in a mountain. As you can see from them causing water to boil off in containment, there’s still a shitload of energy in them! There’s technology developing to continue to generate power with what is currently considered ‘waste’ product. The waste is a goddamn goldmine, considering all things that might be possible with it.
And at the end of the day, a single site like Yucca Mountain could accept all the waste from all the nuke power needed to run the whole damn country for god knows how long, if people would stop being irrational pussies. Yucca Mountain is the ONLY nuke-waste storage site in the WHOLE COUNTRY, the only one needed (or rather, 1 is needed, put it anywhere), and finally…. not being used at all.
All the waste right now is still stored on the site of the nuke plants. We haven’t put it anywhere, yet, and after all the time using it, it still hasn’t yet become critical to find a place to put it quite yet. Cuz it’s not THAT hard to contain and there ain’t really much!
I’ve always thought…that the weak link in nuclear power is what to do with the radioactive waste. I don’t know why they don’t encapsulate it and shoot it to the moon, but there’s lots I don’t know.
I’m not sure how many are aware of the old Larry Niven article, “Yet Another Modest Proposal: The Roentgen Standard.” I believe it was written in 1985; a classic, and well worth reading (or re-reading) today.
An excerpt:
It gets weird from there.
(Incidentally, “Think of it as evolution in action” has been a staple of my personal philosophy since 1990. Those Darwin Awards people are Johnnie-come-latelys.)
Excellent intro.
It happened around the time of World War I. The Director of Research for Standard Oil was told, “There’s all this goo left over when we refine oil. It’s terrible stuff. It ruins the landscape, and covering it with dirt only gets the dirt gooey. Find something to do with it.”
So he created the plastics industry.
He turned useless, offensive goo into wealth.
The same thing will happen with those fuel rods. For god’s sake, they’re hot as all hell (hotter than burning coal) and stay that way for years and years. Does that sound useless? There’s other things to do with them too.
Not just the plastics, but gasoline itself started off as a waste product left over from refining kerosene and whatnot. Then they figgured out the crap they were throwing away worked better than the kerosene.
Well, see here, because something has gone wrong once with nuclear power, that means we have to stop using it right now, and never try again. Unlike socialism, which we are going to keep trying until there is no more room to pile the corpses.
Okay, mongo, that one got me laughing.
“There is no such thing as a risk-free life”
True, perfection is impossible to achieve on this planet. That’s the argument for thinking long and hard before investing heavily in something that is low risk, but potentially catastrophic in failure.
Like I said, my problem is the waste. If we build a hundred reactors, we will generate a whole lot more radioactive waste with the inadequate procedures for storage I’m uncomfortable with now. I was being factious about the moon, who knows, maybe we will find a way to extract all the energy from spent rods, making them harmless. It just seems to me a degree of the same blindness the “alternative energy” crowd exhibits. Minimizing the risks (or using relative terms) in the zeal for something perceived to be the answer to all our problems.
Again, I’m for more nuclear energy, but honestly, I’m more comfortable with going big with coal.
Scary weather notwithstanding.
Oh, I posted before seeing #28 (refresh first dumbass!). Hang on…
Like I said. Try to picture a mile’s worth of railcars filled with thousands of metric tons of coal. Now think about going through that much raw material, every single day.
Now think of what fits on a forklift – something the size of a pallet – lasting 5 years (and being hardly ‘spent’ by the end of it).
So long as it’s actively kicking out tons of radiation, there’s tons of power to be harnessed from it. Burying it is stupid. Effective, but inefficient.
Those “hundreds” of reactors will honestly, probably not produce anywhere near as much nuclear waste as you expect.
Think about it a bit please.
In bulk terms, it’s very very small. Exponentially more effecient than any chemical method. And the globe is HUGE… and containment isn’t that tricky. Even containment that has to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis is doable. But burried in a mountain is really a piece of cake.
So long as we don’t let the BANANAs (Like NIMBYs, but Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) shitting bricks stop us because we burried the radioactivity that dun come from earth back into whence it came, in bulk terms, we’re not going to have problems with too vast quantities being too vast to manage. The stuff is small.
Worst comes to worst shoot the shit to the moon afterall. It’s like with lead fishing weights – they want them banned because lead is bad for the environment or something. Where do you think the lead came from? Only a portion of the fishing weights wind up being lost – many stay in tackle boxes. If we can’t make anything out of lead, we won’t mine lead, and 100% stays in the damn ground. If it’s so terrible for the environment shouldn’t we want to dig all of it out? ;)
Bury the nuke waste in the uranium mine FFS. It’s already radioactive.
Lots of funny trouble a while back because peoples el-cheapo granite countertops are RADIOACTIVE. Some warm to the touch. Because radioactive elements occur naturally in granite veins. Granite mined from the wrong place is liable to have radioactive materials in it.
Bury it there! It’s already radioactive. Whole granite mountain ranges full of radioactives already. Or put it in old lead mines! Lots of places are already radioactive. The stuff came from the ground. We dug it up.
OK, I’m cool with what I said.
I’m no expert, but maybe you’ll be interested in the impression of someone pretty ignorant of the field, but knows that stuff has a ridiculous half life where it’s dangerous, and shit happens.
Probably not though…
There is a difference in what we dig from the ground and what is used in a reactor though.
But, but, but BANANAs are radioactive!1eleventy!1!!
I demand that all of you ignore Entropy’s logic and reason.
Miasmal VAPORS! slink-slithering along, invisibly insinuating themselves inside of you, upsetting the HUMORS and leaving exposed to THE EVIL EYE!
Oh wait.
Wrong Irrational fears.
RAY–DEE-AY-SHUN is the DEVIL’S WORK!
REPENT! THE END IS NIGH!
There is a difference in what we dig from the ground and what is used in a reactor though.
Yes, it’s effectively concentrated. But what we haven’t dug from the ground, there is lots, lots, lots, lots, lots more of to radiate than what we’re putting back. Upon being exposed to it in the wrong place, it won’t kill you any less dead.
Who’s going to go a mile under Yucca mountain who doesn’t deserve a darwin award? How is that going to ‘go wrong’?
Also, the half lives aren’t realistically as absurd as they’re made out to be in terms of how long it’s dangerous.
They claimed no one would be able to live and nothing would grow in Nagasaki for a thousand years.
Like… next spring dude. In that case, it’s slightly different – it’s just dispersion and dillution. But still.
Like I said.. worst comes to worst, the stuff is compact and small enough that shooting it into space is an option, so I really don’t get the worry.
The biggest concern with shooting it into space (besides being ridiculously expensive, assuming we’re still using NASA) is the risk of the Nuke Waste Shuttle going all Challenger over Tampa Bay. That would be bad, mmmkay.
As I understand it Lee, it’s the stuff with the infinitesimally short half-life that will scare you shitless (literally, right before it kills you).
“And at the end of the day, a single site like Yucca Mountain could accept all the waste from all the nuke power needed to run the whole damn country for god knows how long”
You’re probably right, but we’re talking about stockpiling more and more enriched plutonium at central site. That has concerns of it’s own. But also, you have the stuff at all the various nuke plants, and you have to get the stuff transported to Yucca Mt.
“Like I said. Try to picture a mile’s worth of railcars filled with thousands of metric tons of coal. Now think about going through that much raw material, every single day.
I like it, maybe I could get a job with a mine. Or the railroad.
Modern coal plants have advanced just as nuke plants have. They have scrubbers that work.
“Worst comes to worst shoot the shit to the moon afterall”
And hopefully the rocket won’t fall over and explode, or otherwise fail to reach space.
Also, how is the spent nuclear fuel we’re talking about putting back into the ground here any different from all those Nickel-metal hydrides we’re going to have to do something with?
Those off us
specialapparatchik enough to still be able to drive our own vehicles in Obama’s AMERIKA, that is.Hell, I don’t even know what to do with my squiggly light bulb when it quits working…
A gripping and detailed Japanese production about the current issues with the reactors. As told by nuclear boy. Subtitled for your reading pleasure.
Why can’t they just chunk the junk into the nearest lava flow? I’m serious. The problem is a meltdown, right? Just speed up the process.
Tossing in a greenie virgin (assuming one can be found), too… bonus!
And how come the disposal of those pesky batteries in electric cars (not to mention cell phones etc) ain’t causing any stink? The EMTs won’t even use the jaws of life for you if you wreck your Smart Car.
I think part of Entropy’s point that’s being missed is that these thousands of tons of coal leave behind thousands of tons of coal ash, which is — wait for it! — mildly radioactive. So take your pick: a few grams of really toxic goo, or several tons of not-as-toxic ash. TANSTAAFL.
The French, who I don’t consider experts on much outside of wine, cheese, and sneering condescension, have this nuclear power thing dialed in better than anybody in the world. If anyone is interested in seeing how reactor design, fuel reprocessing, and waste disposal are done by real professionals, I recommend plugging “France Nuclear Power” or “France Nuclear Waste Disposal” into your favorite non-evil search engine and perusing the first page or two of results. A word of warning, though: if you can read 1,000 words on technical processes without falling asleep, you might be in possession of certain genetic traits leading to a predisposition to engineering. If this is the case, professional medical attention should be sought promptly.
You’re probably right, but we’re talking about stockpiling more and more enriched plutonium at central site. That has concerns of it’s own. But also, you have the stuff at all the various nuke plants, and you have to get the stuff transported to Yucca Mt.
So the other option is to go the other way and dillute it. Just mill it up into tiny infinitesimal pieces and sprinkle it into lake Michigan or something.
No seriously! LOFL. OK, maybe not Michigan (MBY), put it in Afghanistan (NIMBY).
It’s all about exposure. Time matters, how much stuff matters. Dilluted enough, it’s harmless. Background radiation which is everywhere anyway.
I’ve nothing at all against coal… but I don’t want to have to use coal only because nukes are off the table. If coal can compete with nukes, let it compete.
I’m not down on coal plants… Like I said, the CO2 is harmless, the NOx is scrubbed, etc. etc. But nuke plants are better. I think so, at least. Let them compete and see what you get, see what’s actually best.
Since DAY 1 nukes have been hyperbolized. I think it was Einstein himself that tried to claim any nuclear fission whatsoever would set off a chain reaction of all the fissable material on the planet and litterly turn the Earth into a giant planet-bomb. I think cuz he was getting all sissy and butthurt like Nobel did when he realized someone might splode some shit but good.
Nuclear winter, yadda yadda yadda. The reality of nuclear power has never lived up to the hype. Niponjin zombies being just the latest example. The soviets really worked a psychological number on us.
I’m more inclined to put the waste deep in the earth. Launching into space/moon/sun does have a pretty glaring flaw in the case of an accident. It would disperse the radioactive material over a HUGE (multiple continent spanning) area.
And how come the disposal of those pesky batteries in electric cars (not to mention cell phones etc) ain’t causing any stink?
It is. Lead and acid are about the mildest things you’ll find in batteries. There just aren’t that many 5-15 year old smart cars yet… if they catch on, you’ll see ;)
Big issue. There’s some of that already making noise in California the last few years. Turns out the battery waste is probably worse the deal with than all those petrol emmissions were to start with. Which means it must be Tuesday or something.
Or one of those days ending in “y”.
Actually, any number of potentially lethal materials are shipped all over the United States everyday, mostly without incident.
I’m more worried about Anhydrous-Ammonia cars derailing than I am about a car full of spent atomic fuel (which is already moving around, by the way).
And I’ve never wasted a second worrying about a train de-railment in my back yard.
“So take your pick: a few grams of really toxic goo, or several tons of not-as-toxic ash.”
Seems earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires are harder on nuclear cooling ponds than ash heaps. I could be wrong.
It would disperse the radioactive material over a HUGE (multiple continent spanning) area.
No see, that’s good.
That means it’s harmless then.
You want it to spread out as much as possible as quickly as possible and just disperse and become diluted to nothing, basically. Normal background levels.
At least you do, if it does that. If it just stretches a bit but stays lethally concentrated then you wish it hadn’t stretched.
But realistically? Yes, I know – I said as much before anyone else – Nuke Waste Shuttle going Challenger is bad news, m’kay. But at the same time, while it would be an UTTER DISASTER and HYPERVELOCITY shit would liquify the fan… depending on the height?
I doubt it would hurt anyone at all. LOL.
That’s why the bunny rabbits were frolicking in Hiroshima and the grass was growing not but a season after the bombs dropped, when they were ‘supposed’ to be completely sterile for 1000 years. Which is pretty ridiculous to predict, really. Open to the environment, it mostly dispersed and was never heard from again.
And that’s a good thing. You want it to wander off and bugger away. As I understand it, there’s still some problems with the coconuts on Bikini because of the specifics of what they were blowing up there. And yet… not enough to kill the coconuts.
Try this out:
Stephanie, we’ll use the jaws of life. We LOVE using the jaws of life. But if you’re in an electric car, we’re going to go REAL slow. If your electric car is in water, we’re not coming near you.
For a smart car, we wouldn’t even need the jaws. A good pocket knife and some elbow grease will get that sucker popped open like a tin can in about 30 seconds.
Seems earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires are harder on nuclear cooling ponds
Cooling ponds are cooling ponds. That is not intended to be permanent disposal. It’s storage.
A mile under Yucca Mountain you don’t care if the shit boils.
It’s a tsunami and an earthquake. Extreme circumstance. Those things happen… and they killed WAY more people than the nukes did.
Like right now, it looks like Tsunami 50,000 – Nuke Plant 0.
If you’re getting hit with “earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires” I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it sounds like a bunch of people are dead any way you slice it.
If a couple of people happen to die in automobile accidents in the middle of the tsunami, it doesn’t mean you need to ban cars in tsunami areas because of the potentially unsafe driving conditions tsunamis create.
Everything is unsafe in a tsunami.
I understand what you’re afraid of… It’s just that I understand it’s not going to happen, really. Even if the thing HAD gone meltdown, I think the tsunami would still have it beat by multiples. And it didn’t go meltdown anyway – not even in the tsunami.
Tsunami – 50000, Nuke plant – 0.
Chernobyl DID go meltdown, and despite media reports and studies with ‘estimates’ in the hundreds of thousands, it killed like 2200 people in the final analysis. Or something like that. Look it up. I’m on my way out the door.
Chernobyl – it’s sad, it’s tragic, it’s horrible, but honestly it’s pedestrian. It’s Tuesday. It wishes it could be a fraction as lethal as mozarella cheese.
I think, honestly, this stuff you’re picturing in your head about how the tsunami causes the nuke plant to go all Neutron Bomb and kill 5 million instead of 50,000, it’s like worrying that the computers will become self-aware and revolt.
Sure, the odds of that are small… but is Freecell and internet pron really worth making all of humanity slaves to their cold and logical steel robot masters? They’ll use our eye-jelly to lubricate their servos and gears man!
Just ain’t gonna happen.
Amazingly, even the Soviet-engineered disaster at Chernobyl in 1986 can be directly blamed for the deaths of no more than the 31 people inside the plant who died in the explosion. Although news reports generally claimed a few thousand people died as a result of Chernobyl — far fewer than the tens of thousands initially predicted — that hasn’t been confirmed by studies.
Oh. Well ok there you go – I was high as all hell with my 2200 guess.
Please note that one DID melt.
“I’m more worried about Anhydrous-Ammonia cars derailing than I am about a car full of spent atomic fuel (which is already moving around, by the way).”
True, but we are talking about greatly expanding out nuclear capabilities, right? I just wish there were better answers to the problems (as my ignorant ass sees them)associated with that. No matter how you frame it, the reality is, expanded use means expanded risk with a very unforgiving endeavor.
I’m willing to build more nuke plants, I just don’t think they are the perfect answer. I’m all about a diversified portfolio, with petroleum and coal as the anchor.
Til all that green energy comes online anyway…
“Cooling ponds are cooling ponds. That is not intended to be permanent disposal. It’s storage.
Yes. Yes, it is.
“If you’re getting hit with “earthquakes, tsunamis, and fires” I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it sounds like a bunch of people are dead any way you slice it.”
True. The land won’t be uninhabitable for a hundred years.
“I understand what you’re afraid of… It’s just that I understand it’s not going to happen, really”
I’m skeptical about those kinds of declarative statements.
“Chernobyl DID go meltdown, and despite media reports and studies with ‘estimates’ in the hundreds of thousands, it killed like 2200 people in the final analysis.”
Anybody live there now? Russia’s got lots of room. Japan not so much.
“I think, honestly, this stuff you’re picturing in your head about how the tsunami causes the nuke plant to go all Neutron Bomb and kill 5 million instead of 50,000, it’s like worrying that the computers will become self-aware and revolt.”
Well, I”m not exactly picturing that in my head, just how fucking lucky those poor bastards are that they don’t have to abandon their island altogether.
And I eye my computer suspiciously every time it boots up…
I’m kidding about the computer, but really, I think there may be a Churchill standard in Japan now. Never have so many owed so much to so few…
I don’t know how those helicopter pilots dumping water on the cooling ponds fit their huge balls in the cockpit.
Holy Shit! It really is time to go down into the basement and breath the radon!
Have a good weekend all.
I’m fleeing with the kids to grandma’s to escape from the nuclear hysteriation!
People who are concerned about nuclear materials being transported around via rail or truck or what have you. Consider that they are transported in these.
True. The land won’t be uninhabitable for a hundred years.
Bascom, look, you’re listening to me, but you just don’t believe me.
This won’t happen. It won’t. Lots of people, even some scientists, think along those lines… but it’s just bunk. And they’ve fed you a shitload of bunk and hyperbole along the years about the nature of nukes. It ain’t gonna be no 100 years. Probably 1 year.
And Chernobyl killed 31 people. And the “exclusion zone” is really quite tiny.
But meh… if you don’t believe me you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can say.
Never have so many owed so much to so few…
Chernobyl melted and it killed 31 people… As sad as that is, it’s not “so many”.
abandon their island altogether.
No, they’re not lucky they don’t have to do that. That is preposterous… that would not happen even if all 4 plants melt down.
It would be bad and it would suck but nothing near the scale of what you seem to think.
You’re not remotely realistic with your risk portion of the risk assessment.
You’re stuck on what you “know” (and probably have known most of your life) about nukes and not believing what is actually true, if you look at real numbers from real events and the science of it.
Alot of your information and everything you’ve ever heard about nukes, that’s fed your opinion of them, has come from guys like Carl Sagan who predicted that the Gulf War would cause a sort of mini-‘nuclear winter’ due to all the convetional explosions, that would drop global average temperate a few whole degrees with innumerable damages resulting.
Just total bunk from a guy who had a good mind for science but who never let his science get in the way of his enviroweenie/peacnik hippy politics.
And that sort of science that reinforces the narrative is pushed through the pop culture, in ridiculously exagerated “Day After Tommorow” type nuke movies and radioactive monsters and zombies, and by agenda-driven inistitutions like the media who, as card carrying members of the new left, have swallowed lethal doses of feral 3rd generation soviet agitprop they sold us hoping to win the nuclear arms race.
Um… it ate my comment? WTF did it go?
I prepared properly: I rewatched “A Boy and his Dog” on Netflix.
How very odd. Is there like a moderation thing, and the comment system flagged it for pending approval or something?
I tried to post a second time and it gave me this “Duplicate comment detected; it looks like you’ve already said that” message screen.
And yet, the comment, she is invisible.
i liked the train crashes
make sure you can see the post in preview?
True. The land won’t be uninhabitable for a hundred years.
Bascom, look, you’re listening to me, but you just don’t believe me.
This won’t happen. It won’t. It ain’t gonna be no 100 years. Probably 1 year.
And Chernobyl killed 31 people. And the “exclusion zone” is really quite tiny.
But meh… if you don’t believe me you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can say.
abandon their island altogether.
No, they’re not lucky they don’t have to do that. That is preposterous… that would not happen even if all 4 plants melt down.
It would be bad and it would suck but nothing near the scale of what you seem to think.
You’re not remotely realistic with your risk portion of the risk assessment.
You’re stuck on what you “know” (and probably have known most of your life) about nukes and not believing what is actually true, if you look at real numbers from real events and the science of it.
Alot of your information and everything you’ve ever heard about nukes, that’s fed your opinion of them, has come from guys like Carl Sagan who predicted that the Gulf War would cause a sort of mini-‘nuclear winter’ due to all the convetional explosions, that would drop global average temperate a few whole degrees with innumerable damages resulting.
Just total bunk from a guy who had a good mind for science but who never let his science get in the way of his enviroweenie/peacnik hippy politics.
And that sort of science that reinforces the narrative is pushed through the pop culture, in ridiculously exagerated “Day After Tommorow” type nuke movies and radioactive monsters and zombies, and by agenda-driven inistitutions like the media who, as card carrying members of the new left, have swallowed lethal doses of feral 3rd generation soviet agitprop they sold us hoping to win the nuclear arms race.
Cuz you can’t hug your children with nuclear arms and all.
OK… it’s now eaten a 2nd one. I don’t know what gives.
I think it’s catching a word or something and filtering out my posts. Cuz THESE posts are showing up just fine… but cut/pasting a portion of my first comment and trying again… i get more disappearing comment.
i’ve had the same problem posting a link it didn’t like.
Hummm, the internet is experiencing glitches. Makes you think, huh? ;-)
the fcc probably doesn’t like what you said/sarc
“you’re listening to me, but you just don’t believe me.”
It’s not a matter of believing you, it’s a matter of I’m talking about nuclear energy in general, and the idea of greatly expanding it, not the situation in Japan in particular. I agree, the situation in Japan is over-hyped and not likely to amount to but a small challenge in relation to the total disaster.
My point is, I believe we are lucky that the situation in Japan isn’t worse, and if there are many, many more nuke plants, another situation is more likely to arise where we won’t be so lucky.
And like I’ve been saying, when you get unlucky with enriched plutonium, it’s a really bad day.
Hummm, the internet is experiencing glitches. Makes you think, huh? ;-)
Naw, I tempt fate and curse the gods.
4 full simultaneous reactor meltdowns of the greatest magnitude would NOT no way in hell make the whole Island uninhabitable for any length of time.
Science and reality says NO; so you may not have it even if it pleased you to.
I could tell you, and you’ll listen to me, but you just wouldn’t believe me.
Just a damn annoying computer glitch that interrupted my ranting.
you’re listening to me, but you just don’t believe me.
Wait WTF? You can see that?????
What the hell?! Now they’re BOTH there. Inserted as number and everything (none of the numbers were even missing before).
Wooooh…ghost in the machine.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
It’s not a matter of believing you, it’s a matter of I’m talking about nuclear energy in general, and the idea of greatly expanding it, not the situation in Japan in particular.
OK, one way I can read that, it is true. I don’t know how you mean it, but if you mean it in the sense of not just a WHOLE LOT of EXISTING nuke technology (cuz it just don’t do that shit), but in a sense of that eventually producing NEW nuke technology that’s even better that I’ll want to fuck with a whole lot.
And we can’t say what might or might not happen as we absolutely can’t have any idea of what that may be until we DO IT.
Which to me, is but one more reason to do it.
To me, it is true like it is true that it’s a theoretically possible long shot CERN will create a micro black hole that will escape and eventually engulf the earth, or a strangelet particle that will set of a chain quark reaction.
Or a future Windows Operating System will have a glitch in the copyright protection software that causes the computer to become sentient with homocidal rage.
Or a natural strain of influenza that only infects birds will suddenly and randomly genetically mutate and evolve into a T-Virus human pandemic that turns the entire population into zombies.
And then shit really escalates fast and someone blows up the fabric of reality, or some twisted nerd with a time machine goes back and shoots himself before he loads his gun and creates a temporal paradox just because he’s depressed his girlfriend’s fucking around on him.
I’ve only read that in stories and honestly even if it does happen, based on my study of the stories, I’m pretty sure I, and enough people to please me, will survive it so fuck it, roll the die.
I’m gonna shoot me some zombies.
One problem with current nuke waste is that it really should be re-processed because, volume wise, most of the waste is still good stuff. I think the reprocessing problem is political in that the actual waste resulting from the re-processing will be much more concentrated and much more immediately deadly. I believe plutonium is the resultant that isn’t used for power generation, but I’m not sure. Perhaps a certain level of plutonium in the fuel rods keeps the reaction from occurring as desired, I don’t know. Maybe Entropy knows and can tell us the technical details.
However, if that’s what bothers people, note that there are other nuke plant designs that don’t result in as much plutonium. Companies like General Atomic are always working on new reactor designs.
We need energy, and nukes are the best way to get it right now. Fusion as a power source is always 20 years away.
What I was trying to say is that I understand that nuclear waste is really a lot of good stuff with a little bad stuff mixed in, and the bad stuff inhibits the good stuff from doing what it’s supposed to. The bad stuff builds up over time as the fuel is used, but one can get the bad stuff out and leave mostly good stuff.
Here, good and bad refer to the ability to use it for power generation.
I am not a physicist, nor do I play one on teevee.
Entropy posted on 3/18 @ 7:08 pm
Gee, I’ve never heard such a imaginative admonishment of playing the “what if” game!
I get it.
Just be sure you’re not playing the game yourself with the “eventually producing NEW nuke technology”
gambit.
Hey, half the scientists on the teevee just say what I’m saying, it’s just that they’re the ones who get cut to commercial and shuffled off stage left and not asked back.
I’m no nuclear technician. On the technical details about reprocessing the stuff to use, I cannot say I know anything particular.
But I do know the technology to use these ‘spent’ rods and get more life in them exists today, already. No one is using it in the US – which is entirely predictable, because of the political – we haven’t built a nuclear facility in 20 years and under regulations it takes 20 years and millions of dollars just to get the paperwork to build one and some enviroweenie leftists with a lawsuit and a court or legislator with a rider on a bill can torpedo it at any time in the process.
The chinese I believe, claim to be constructing some plants right now. They also claim they’ll soon be starting on a thorium (I think it was) reactor. Whether that’s bunk or not, I can’t say.
But we can use them right now, but you can’t engineer anything new.
And that regulations cripple innovation. You can’t engineer anything better. Even in coal plants, you can’t really fuck with the scrubbers and exhaust or the steam stack, even to make it better, more efficient and cheaper, because it has to meet regulation.
I fundementally know that they can’t be useless for energy generation when they’re kicking out that kind of heat. They can’t be. Toss em in a fucking closed loop steam turbine, they need to be cooled anyway. And they do other cool shit – they spew out all sorts of exotic isotypes and rare elements. It’s purely an ‘efficiency’ thing. The reason I put little quotes around ‘spent’, that is.
note that there are other nuke plant designs that don’t result in as much plutonium.
From wiki:
Thorium, as well as uranium and plutonium, can be used as fuel in a nuclear reactor. A thorium fuel cycle offers several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle including much greater abundance on Earth, superior physical and nuclear properties of the fuel, enhanced proliferation resistance, and reduced nuclear waste production. Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), has worked on developing the use of thorium as a cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors. Rubbia states that a tonne of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal.[14] One of the early pioneers of the technology was U.S. physicist Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, who helped develop a working nuclear plant using liquid fuel in the 1960s.
Some countries are now investing in research to build thorium-based nuclear reactors. In May 2010, researchers from Ben-Gurion University in Israel and Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, received a three-year Energy Independence Partnership Grant to collaborate on the development of a self-sustainable fuel cycle for light water reactors.[15] According to the Israeli nuclear engineer, Eugene Shwageraus, their goal is a self-sustaining reactor, “meaning one that will produce and consume about the same amounts of fuel,” which is not possible with uranium. He states, “the better choice is thorium, whose nuclear properties offer considerable flexibility in the reactor core design.” Some experts believe that the energy stored in the earth’s thorium reserves is greater than what is available from all other fossil and nuclear fuels combined.[15]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#List_of_thorium-fueled_reactors
Got an email today from a local Organic Food shop. Typically they are a big newsletter type thing, with handy recipies, coupons, listing of current specials. Not this time. Just a simple message, same page size as the other ones, in giant bold type, letting people know about the availability of IODINE.
Ugh.
Fusion as a power source is always 20 years away.
Well fusion bombs require fission bomb explosions to ignite them.
Fundementally, there’s two ways to get more power, use more material in more reactors (the thorium approach), or just make the shit fission/fuse faster in the number of reactors you have.
So you can build bigger ones, or more ones.
Or more bigger ones.
Bottom line: I want cheap power. Besides being cheap power, it literally powers our economy.
And for other aspects in science and engineering, more power makes more shit possible, and cheaper power makes more shit feasible.
Just a simple message, same page size as the other ones, in giant bold type, letting people know about the availability of IODINE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ2vZPuU25E
I’m shocked Entropy that you’re not on board with *New Power*. What with it’s windmills, solar panels and extended blackouts.
No, I want a power source that creates black holes, not black outs.
You can look at that ‘green’ shit in terms of e=mc2 too. I read a great article on that, wish I could find it.
But, with regard to the fork truck and the 9000 metric tons of coal in a mile of rail cars… And also, force = mass * velocity.
The mass of wind is miniscule, the velocity of water is generally slow.
To generate the same amount of power, vs. a forklift every 5 years, vs. 50 rail road cars topped up a day, you’d need a wind farm that was 60,000 acres. It’s not possible with ethanol – we don’t have enough arible farmland to power the country on corn, even if we covered all of it – and the numbers are great for tidal generators either. And that’s without considering any of the other complexities of application – dead birds gumming turbines, failure, maintenance, dead fish for tidal dams, storm damage, the energy requirements of the farms and the polution they emit and the chemicals for fertilizer they require to keep the land pumping corn and pesticides…
Solar power also only has so much density and requires square footage covered with expensive panels.
PS Hydrogen fuel cells are f’n glorified batteries.
Even that former greenpeace founder guy admitted he was basically being an ignorant commie simp back in the 60’s and nuke power is basically the cleanest, most efficient, cheapest, coolest shit around.
Solar power, if what I’ve read recently, located near a tsunami zone, would be more catastrophic than the location of the Fu-reactors cause of the lead used in solar panels. Can’t remember where I read it, but it stuck with me. Til the discussion of the fishing lures… now I’m fuck-it-all if I know the truth.
That’s the problem… too many sources with too many varying approaches – and all with agendas that are less than pristine.
It’s not even so much the destruction of a solar panel and the environmental damage it would do. And it takes a LOT less than a tsunami to break a solar panel. It’s the construction side of them too. Lots of processing, lots of rare earth elements (which are often extracted in non-environmentaly friendly ways, not to mention the human rights abuses that take place in the countries where these elements are found). It’s hardly “clean” energy.
People often don’t think of a lot of things in a dust-to-dust capacity. The complete cycle of assembly, the product’s lifetime/support/resource use, and final disassembly need to be taken into account. Its like how a Humvee’s total dust-to-dust lifecycle makes it more environmentally friendly than a hybrid.
A video time-line of the events at Fukushima Daiichi by NHK the Japanese Public Broadcasting System.
Alright, lets see here…
Entropy, its really a single tractor trailer of fuel every 2 years, with 1/3 of the fuel in the core replaced every 2 years. Still, a far cry from an entire trainload of coal PER DAY.
Bascom – no, the spent fuel pools are NOT meant for permanent storage. When a plant is decommissioned there is no option for “leave fuel in pool for all time”.
Dry cask storage is incredibly stout, safe, and conducive to travel and long term storage. Each cask holds about 60 fuel bundles and when it comes time for dry cask storage, plants start with the oldest, coldest fuel, usually 30 years old. It goes in a steal canister that is welded shut and backfilled with 7 atmospheres of helium. Then that canister is stored in a concrete cask. These casks have been tested in train crash conditions and they survive with barely a scratch. In other words, as Entropy notes, if we started shipping casks to Yucca Mountain and there was a train crash, the last thing on that train you need to worry about is a spent nuclear fuel shipping cask. The funny thing about Yucca is that it was chosen for a reason. The rock in Yucca Mountain is impenetrable by water. Nothing buried there will ever get out save for an extinction level event like a meteor strike or planet ending seismic event. There simply is no rational basis upon which to oppose its use.
And as far as “massively expanding nuclear”, that simply is not true. There are currently 104 operating reactors in the US. An aggressive program for new plants might yield 30 new plants over the next 20 years. Like Entropy is telling you, the actual amount of spent fuel is minuscule and adding 30 plants would be an imperceptible increase considering what we have now is a 40 year backlog from over a hundred plants. A good working number would be somewhere around a 1% increase per year. And that doesn’t take into account the potential for re-processing or dual-use.