Earthquake off Japan

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah the anti Nuke hysteria is really sickening. In the last 40 years we have had, what THREE accidents? Three mile island, Chernobyl, and now this in Fukushima Japan. That is THREE in the whole history of Nuclear Energy. Please feel freel to point out any I missed, but as far as I'm concerned that is a hell of a good saftey record for power plants in general.

In fairness, one of them was really big, big enough to depopulate a medium-sized city and kill quite a few people, big enough to raise legitimate concerns. The problem is that when people raise legitimate concerns about nuclear power in some parts of the world, they won't accept an answer.

"The plant's not safe?"

"We're building it safe."

"The plant's not safe!"

"We checked, double-checked, had a regulatory agency check and double-check, and had people who hate us check. Nobody could find a problem. It's safe."

"AAAH THE PLANT'S NOT SAFE! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

There's this total disconnect between the experts and the popular discourse, more so than in almost any field of human endeavour.

As for having to change your life aims – it's happened to me twice already. It's maddening as hell, but it's not the end of the world. If you have to do it, I have no doubt you'll be able to – but don't give up on nuclear energy just yet. We need smart people in the industry. Remember you want your fusion reactor to burn with the heat of a millions suns, NOT your own anger!

I know people who know people working on fusion. On that, no promises, not soon. Maybe, Fates willing, Duchess might wind up working on one someday... but only if she plans to keep working until she's in her seventies or eighties.

Fission is a better plan to build a career around, and doesn't require you to learn plasma physics, which trust me is not fun.

Though you'll be pleased to know for the sake of your metaphors that if we ever do get one working properly on a commercial scale, it will run hotter than the core of the Sun, because we can't duplicate the pressures down there and have to make up for it by running at higher temperatures.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Ah but Broomstick you can see molasses, oil fires, coal fires, smog/soot/acid rain, etc., you can't see radiation. Hell, how long did it take from once germ theory was accepted until the majority of the populace accepted the concept and started to act accordingly*? There is the fact that most people have a hard time with more abstract concepts. Keep in mind also that the effects of radiation are also somewhat out of the norm of human experience for the most part, and that the few cases of truly catostrophic incidents with radiation have been bad. We've had a few millenia as civilized societies, and arguably much longer in less organized groupings, to deal with the idea of disease, fire, natural disasters, various mechanical means of death, etc., much less so the concept of radioactivity. Factor in a generation or two that lived under the spectre that said technology would potentially destroy the world, and we really shouldn't be terribly surprised people are fearful and uncomfortable with it still. I imagine like just about everything else that we won't embrace nuclear power generation until we recieve as a society/civilization the metaphorical kick in the rear, the costs up till then be damned.


*: It can certainly be argued that we have a fair ways to go as well, considering the ubiquitous "Employees must wash hands before returning to work." signs.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I fail to see how what happenned to the Fukishima reactors has any bearing on reactors in Switzerland, a landlocked country that can't suffer tsunamis. Or if they do get one it's so big nothing matters anymore.

Unless of course they meant "we'll puase and see what worked so well at Fukishima, so we can duplicate it here." In that case, carry on.

[Dartzap]

Fortunately, when David Cameron and Whichever-Milliband had a Commons statement earlier, the talk was all about not jumping to any conclusions and analysing for potential issues with no mention of getting rid of nuclear power plans or not building new plants. I was quite surprised, to be honest. Our mob tend to jump on bandwagons pretty sharpish.

[Broomstick]

Speaking of Fukushima - BBC reports that the seawater dump has commenced on reactor #2, so that one is now also beyond salvage. #3 is starting to show signs of an exposed core, so regretfully I anticipate they will be forced to do that same to that one as well.

But they still say that radiation levels out side the plants are within "legal levels".

They may lose all of the reactors at that location, which is bad, but it looks like the local environment will be OK and people will able to return, with no loss of life anticipated even among plant workers. So let's hope it gets no worse.

[Skgoa]

Damage assessment map of Tome by the DLR.

[Edward Yee]

They may lose all of the reactors at that location, which is bad,

Aren't there six reactors there? My understanding was that reactors 4, 5 and 6 were in "periodic inspection outage" while reactors 1, 2 and 3 had been operating.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah the anti Nuke hysteria is really sickening. In the last 40 years we have had, what THREE accidents? Three mile island, Chernobyl, and now this in Fukushima Japan. That is THREE in the whole history of Nuclear Energy. Please feel freel to point out any I missed, but as far as I'm concerned that is a hell of a good saftey record for power plants in general.

Windscale occurred in 1957 and was the first major nuclear incident, and the Soviets had a huge waste tank explosion at Mayak that same year; but both these facilities operated reactors specifically to make nuclear weapons material, not electrical power. It is a very good safety record even including those two plants, both of which had dead stupid physical design flaws. Meanwhile coal power likely kills tens of thousands of people every year through its smog and heavy metal pollution effects. But for whatever reason people will ignore that kind of invisible threat, but not radiation.

[mr friendly guy]

India has said it will review its civillian nuke plans in light of the events occurring with Japan's nuclear plants. What that means for the future is anyone's guess. China has said it will persist, so I am glad the anti nuclear scare hasn't perpetrated there. Meanwhile uranium stocks have taken a hit because of this hysteria and goodness knows when they will recover.

[Broomstick]

They may lose all of the reactors at that location, which is bad,

Aren't there six reactors there? My understanding was that reactors 4, 5 and 6 were in "periodic inspection outage" while reactors 1, 2 and 3 had been operating.

I think #5 and #6 were still under construction, but don't quote me on that. It may be that there were only three reactors actually running at the time.

[The Yosemite Bear]

...they went into denial?

"Nooo! The Sun is NATURAL I tells ya! It has nothing to do with nucular power"

Yeah, never heard that one before.

yup, part of the fun of living in a National Park is you can't spit without hitting a Teeper, a Greenpeacer, a commie, a hippie, a dealer, or some authoritarian type.

how come there hasn't been an outright bit of open warfare I don't know (but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that everyone's all either drunk or stoned.)

[Tribun]

Guess what, the news ticker just reported that according to witnesses, now reactor 2 has suffered an explosion. However, it doesn't really make me wonder that it happens to this specific power plant, since it practically is the oldest in Japan, suffering from the severe corruption within Tepco and bad maintainance.

[Sea Skimmer]

The news tickers are saying no.2 has suffered an explosion, and the pressure suppressor (basically a giant condenser) at the bottom of the plant may have been damaged. If true that is the first known damage to actual reactor components.

[Patrick Degan]

I fail to see how what happenned to the Fukishima reactors has any bearing on reactors in Switzerland, a landlocked country that can't suffer tsunamis. Or if they do get one it's so big nothing matters anymore.

You're using that pesky logic of yours. Logic has nothing to say about the fact that NOOKULUR IZ TEH EEEVULZ. After all, Greenpeace say so.

I'm afraid we're going to have to expect a lot of that sort of silliness in the next few months. Logic can do little against a floodtide of emotion and irrationality.

[Sea Skimmer]

Aren't there six reactors there? My understanding was that reactors 4, 5 and 6 were in "periodic inspection outage" while reactors 1, 2 and 3 had been operating.

Yes, 4, 5 and 6 were not operating when the quake hit. However after a disaster of this scale, and considering the age of the plants I very highly doubt that the Japanese will choose to extensively upgrade the safety systems on 4-5-6 to allow them to return to service. Some pretty serious money would be needed just to repair the all the damaged auxiliaries at this plant without any upgrades at all. Some of the other Japanese reactors which share this basic design may also have lives shortened, but they can't afford to ditch all the Mk1 BWRs at once. They just wont have any power if they do that for years. The rolling blackout situation is pretty serious already.

[erik_t]

It seems not unlikely to me that any BWRs on the Western Japanese coast would remain in operation rather longer; I don't think the geology on that side is suited to tsunami formation.

[Big Orange]

There's been a third more serious explosion but I still concur that the widespread knee jerk reaction against nuclear power is rather silly and as scary as the images look, they seemed to have had no explosions involving the actual nuclear material, but instead the machinery, conduits, and vessels containing water/steam (hydrogen explosions), and the power stations involved are pretty elderly (with Tokyo Electric Power Co. coming across as British Petrolium-ish), so there should be less danger with more modern and better operated nuclear power plants.

[Sea Skimmer]

It seems not unlikely to me that any BWRs on the Western Japanese coast would remain in operation rather longer; I don't think the geology on that side is suited to tsunami formation.

It will depend on what the damage to these reactors really is; at times the Japanese power company whatever its called has said they thought that actual piping might be leaking in the reactor and be the reason why they've been so hard to cool. Now reports say that they think the explosion at no.2 actually did damage the reactor piping, but radiation is still contained though at this point, by only one barrier. This GE reactor design was designed to be cheap and the design was so cheap it was more or less banned in the US in 1972, that isn't a good sign. Most GE BWRs of this type apparently do have a proper concrete dome over them.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Radiation levels peaked at the site after the explosion in Daiichi No.2 to 0.8217 rem (8.217 mSv) but rapidly began to fall again, and have not yet stabilized again. That dose can be fatal after 500 hours of exposure. The containment vessel as a note, is 8 inch thick high strength steel and there is a concrete, steel reinforced outer later beyond it.

[CaptHawkeye]

Personally I think the most sickening thing about the whole nuclear incident is how people are taking advantage of one of the biggest natural disasters in history to peddle an agenda.

Besides that, it still doesn't make any sense. In the past 60 years nuclear power has probably been responsible for less than 100 deaths. Oil has caused freaking wars and has led to the deaths of many thousands of people at least. That's not a problem though of course not. Nuclear power uses them big words like "isotope" and "uranium" and why try to understand something when you can just be afraid of it instead?

[Broomstick]

There really is a parallel between aviation and nuclear energy - both are the safest in their category, yet people fear them more than any other mode of transportation/power generation.

[montypython]

There really is a parallel between aviation and nuclear energy - both are the safest in their category, yet people fear them more than any other mode of transportation/power generation.

I guess the issue of perceived control along with comprehensibility magnifies fears much more than something more understandable and controllable (even if it kills more people, e.g driving or natural gas).

[Big Orange]

When air travel or nuclear power goes wrong on occasion, it goes wrong in a visually spectacular manner, and it worries us more on a irrational, visceral level.

[Mayabird]

I suspect it's the whole thing about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, and people are apparently terrified of magic. Unfortunately, we apparently started hitting that with producing electricity for general use and it's only gotten worse since.

[CaptHawkeye]

It's not like nuclear power isn't dangerous but hey, society wants cheap energy. Unless most of the people on the planet suddenly decide to live like the Amish tomorrow, then they're just going to have to get used to the fact that they're literally playing with fire.

Fukushima is apparently only getting worse, but it seems to have a lot to do with a shitty plant design and bad management on TEPCO's part. If anything of a Chernobyl level happens at that plant it's more a testament to another shitty reactor design and a bygone age of nuclear power. In which case, Japan's nuclear power infrastructure needs an overhaul.

It would be ideal to replace older reactors with safer ones, but good luck getting that past the lobbyists.