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Explosion at Fukushima Nuclear power station


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From the BBC: link

 

This does not look good, with other reactors also suffering coolant failure, Chernobyl could be dwarfed. I hope I am wrong.

 

Andy

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Oh dear. When I first saw the subject header, I wasn't too alarmed, but when I checked your link, I saw "huge explosion" and "massive blast" things took a turn for the worst.

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It appears that a meltdown has occurred at the Fukushima Dalichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan. If the explosion has not cracked the floor of the containment center then we have a Chernobyl. If it cracked we have a disaster that the world has only feared, until now.

 

Keep in mind: Radiation exposure for the average individual is 620 millirems per year, split about evenly between manmade and natural sources. The firefighters who served at the Chernobyl plant were exposed to between 80,000 and 1.6 million millirems. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that exposure to 375,000 to 500,000 millirems would be sufficient to cause death within three months for half of those exposed. Tokyo is 300km from this plant. Chernobyl has a 30 mile no enter zone to this day. Pay attention to how many millirems they say are being released PER DAY

 

The latest report from the damaged power plant indicated that exposure rates outside the plant were at about 620 millirems per hour, though it is not clear whether that report came before or after the reactor’s containment structure exploded.

 

I am getting all of my information from STRATFOR

www.stratfor.com

 

 

 

 

 

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You won't see a Chernobyl type accident because the reactors are a different safer design. see HERE

 

good find. design type was my first question. Chernobyl's design was prone to failure without strict operational discipline and that's what ultimately caused the disaster. I'm no expert but the Fukushima site is newer and the Japanese have alot of experience with buidling earthquake-proof stuff. Hopefully all the opinions in your link are right.

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You won't see a Chernobyl type accident because the reactors are a different safer design. see HERE

 

"We must remember that there are 55 reactors in Japan and this was a huge earthquake, and as a test of the resilience and robustness of nuclear plants it seems they have withstood the effects very well."

 

Uh, yeah, right. Let me jot that down.

 

Well, so far as I am concerned it is pretty much wait and see. I do think the plant workers are in a real fix, as for their own safety. Sounds like they may be taking a hit.

 

As for any real major release of radiation to the environment, I suppose the coming weeks will tell. It's not something you can keep hidden these days, at least not for long.

 

One has to ask oneself, if the core has melted and must be encased in concrete, as per the stratfor link, then what about the next earthquake? What about when sea level rises? How does this concrete get managed and stay intact for a million years?

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.... the Japanese have alot of experience with buidling earthquake-proof stuff.....

 

From what I can gather the tsunami took the generators out.

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Amazing! I've picked up more relevant information in just a few minutes here on the board than I did all day yesterday listening to the "talking heads" on the news.

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You won't see a Chernobyl type accident because the reactors are a different safer design. see HERE

 

Reassuring, thank you John

 

From the link:

"It is obviously an hydrogen explosion ... due to hydrogen igniting. If the hydrogen has ignited, then it is gone, it doesn't pose any further threat."

"The whole situation is quite serious but the actual hydrogen explosion doesn't add a great deal to it."

He said it was "most unlikely to be a major disaster" and he also did not believe there would be a full fuel meltdown.

"That would have been much more likely early yesterday in the European time. We are now 24 hours into the situation and the fuel has cooled a lot in that time and the likelihood of meltdown at this stage I would think would be very, very small."

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quote

the Japanese have alot of experience with buidling earthquake-proof stuff.

unquote

 

Sorry, no such animal! And when will man stop being so damn arrogant when it comes to them taming nature and this planet :mad:!

 

 

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Lets_Play_Two

 

Sorry, no such animal! And when will man stop being so damn arrogant when it comes to them taming nature and this planet :mad:!

 

 

I don't see where developing procedures and building structures to deal with nature is being arrogant. Seems more likely a recognition that nature is a force we have to learn to live with, we aren't trying to defeat it. Arrogant would be ignoring the risk entirely. The biggest problem is that in our very short stay here on earth we haven't found live video of what nature has been doing for 1000s of years and until a couple of hundred years ago, we in this part of the world wouldn't even know about tsunamis and earthquakes in the other half.

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yabadabapal

Im watching this very closely to Andy. They at least have started to use Sea Water to be pumped in to keep her calm for a while.

The arbitrary choosing of people at a nearby hospital for radiation tests already show significant exposure.

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yabadabapal

Quesstion to the Board!

We saw the Tsunami effect the west coast of the USA in scaled

down versions of what happened in Japan. If these Reactors

melt down, will the West Coast of the USA be exposed to some radiation due to the ocean/wind currents.

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Yes, if radiation gets into the atmosphere it will be carried over almost the entire western half of the country according to the Australian Meteorology department. There's a huge map somewhere...

 

Withdrawn, I found the map again and it seems it may have been a hoax.

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Sorry, no such animal! And when will man stop being so damn arrogant when it comes to them taming nature and this planet :mad:!

 

 

I don't see where developing procedures and building structures to deal with nature is being arrogant. Seems more likely a recognition that nature is a force we have to learn to live with, we aren't trying to defeat it. Arrogant would be ignoring the risk entirely. The biggest problem is that in our very short stay here on earth we haven't found live video of what nature has been doing for 1000s of years and until a couple of hundred years ago, we in this part of the world wouldn't even know about tsunamis and earthquakes in the other half.

 

Striving isn't arrogant, thinking that you can, completely and with confidence may be arrogant. When applied to the decision to build a moderate risk structure, fine. When applied to the decision to build a high risk structure, such as nuclear facility, perhaps a different risk analysis is appropriate.

 

If I can be 90% confident of surviving a 100 year earthquake, maybe that is fine for a house. If I can be 90% confident of surviving a 100 year earthquake maybe that is not acceptable for a nuclear power plant. Building in the face of such odds might be viewed as reckless. When are the odds good enough for something capable of wreaking the havoc a nuclear power plant might wreak?

 

First I suppose we must identify the specific risks of the plant in question (failure modes, worst case scenarios, estimates of impacts to people and environment, etc). Then maybe we could begin to formulate tolerance statement.

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Quesstion to the Board!

We saw the Tsunami effect the west coast of the USA in scaled

down versions of what happened in Japan. If these Reactors

melt down, will the West Coast of the USA be exposed to some radiation due to the ocean/wind currents.

 

I don't think there is a simple answer to this question. If gasses or particles are released to air, then my understanding is that the trade winds would bring that our way. However, there might be, depending on just what was released, deposition, dispersion, and dilution. Whether this would pose any appreciable risk to Hawaii, Alaska or the lower 48 would depend on many factors: What was released, how much, weather, etc.

 

Recall that open era testing was around for quite a while.

 

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Lets_Play_Two

 

Sorry, no such animal! And when will man stop being so damn arrogant when it comes to them taming nature and this planet :mad:!

 

 

I don't see where developing procedures and building structures to deal with nature is being arrogant. Seems more likely a recognition that nature is a force we have to learn to live with, we aren't trying to defeat it. Arrogant would be ignoring the risk entirely. The biggest problem is that in our very short stay here on earth we haven't found live video of what nature has been doing for 1000s of years and until a couple of hundred years ago, we in this part of the world wouldn't even know about tsunamis and earthquakes in the other half.

 

Striving isn't arrogant, thinking that you can, completely and with confidence may be arrogant. When applied to the decision to build a moderate risk structure, fine. When applied to the decision to build a high risk structure, such as nuclear facility, perhaps a different risk analysis is appropriate.

 

If I can be 90% confident of surviving a 100 year earthquake, maybe that is fine for a house. If I can be 90% confident of surviving a 100 year earthquake maybe that is not acceptable for a nuclear power plant. Building in the face of such odds might be viewed as reckless. When are the odds good enough for something capable of wreaking the havoc a nuclear power plant might wreak?

 

First I suppose we must identify the specific risks of the plant in question (failure modes, worst case scenarios, estimates of impacts to people and environment, etc). Then maybe we could begin to formulate tolerance statement.

 

Don't forget the alternative to risk taking as part of the equation. Japan does not have the natural resources. Doesn't this fit into the risk equation? of course we could just give it all back to nature and not attempt to progress. I wonder what the populace thought when fires started to pollute the air?

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My faith in STRATFOR was tested and I failed it. It appears, sadly, that they had it right all along.

 

Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said March 12 that the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core, Japanese daily Nikkei reported. This statement seemed somewhat at odds with Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano’s comments earlier March 12, in which he said "the walls of the building containing the reactor were destroyed, meaning that the metal container encasing the reactor did not explode."

 

 

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yabadabapal

Whats tripping me is that as I read 10 different news publications on the same issue, Im getting 10 different

slants and facts on the issue.

CNN and the LA Times are failures in news reporting as they

want those headlines to bring the fish in. You would think in times like these, we could find a source to trust. But this is big business for the press.

Heres 3 ways of telling the same story using Headlines.

 

CNN-'We see the possibility of a meltdown'

 

LA Times - Meltdown may be occurring at nuclear plant, Japanese official says

 

New York Times - Japan Floods Nuclear Reactor Crippled by Quake in Effort to Avert Meltdown

 

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Sorry, no such animal! And when will man stop being so damn arrogant when it comes to them taming nature and this planet :mad:!

 

 

I don't see where developing procedures and building structures to deal with nature is being arrogant. Seems more likely a recognition that nature is a force we have to learn to live with, we aren't trying to defeat it. Arrogant would be ignoring the risk entirely. The biggest problem is that in our very short stay here on earth we haven't found live video of what nature has been doing for 1000s of years and until a couple of hundred years ago, we in this part of the world wouldn't even know about tsunamis and earthquakes in the other half.

 

Striving isn't arrogant, thinking that you can, completely and with confidence may be arrogant. When applied to the decision to build a moderate risk structure, fine. When applied to the decision to build a high risk structure, such as nuclear facility, perhaps a different risk analysis is appropriate.

 

If I can be 90% confident of surviving a 100 year earthquake, maybe that is fine for a house. If I can be 90% confident of surviving a 100 year earthquake maybe that is not acceptable for a nuclear power plant. Building in the face of such odds might be viewed as reckless. When are the odds good enough for something capable of wreaking the havoc a nuclear power plant might wreak?

 

First I suppose we must identify the specific risks of the plant in question (failure modes, worst case scenarios, estimates of impacts to people and environment, etc). Then maybe we could begin to formulate tolerance statement.

 

Don't forget the alternative to risk taking as part of the equation. Japan does not have the natural resources. Doesn't this fit into the risk equation? of course we could just give it all back to nature and not attempt to progress. I wonder what the populace thought when fires started to pollute the air?

 

Of course, in formulating a rational strategy one must weigh the benefits and risks of a number of alternatives and choose the best one. Absolutely.

 

The problem with nuclear is that the game is high stakes.

 

I have to agree with philby though in the end, even if you operate a nuclear scheme safely from mining (so far we are still cleaning up here in the West from the hey days, and I'm not actually sure real clean up is possible), through refinement, and plant operation, you are still left with waste that will remain toxic forever, and dangerously radioactive for a million years. It is pure hubris to imagine that we can control that legacy on that kind of time-scale.

 

So Bill, of course we strive for progress, but that doesn't mean we should choose to avail ourselves of every dangerous technology without regard for risk. We are capable of rational decision, and should strive to apply our capabilities in such matters.

 

But this is aside from the immediate problem. We just bought and filled a few new jerry cans of water to add to our supply. I feel kinda silly, but I figure by the time any threat is clearly identified, there won't be a water jug left to be had.

 

It's a meltdown with confirmed core material releases. I still hope it is nothing, a minor event, but I am by no means confident that is the case.

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Bobby, they have confirmed cesium and iodine outside of the facility from what I've read. That means there has in fact been a meltdown. The severity, or lack therof, is not known. It may still be minor. We can hope.

 

 

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One fellow made the point that the word *meltdown* (in his words) means the worst scenario, while what is happening right now is more akin to *melting*.

 

:eek:

:cry:

:lurk:

 

 

 

 

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Amazing! I've picked up more relevant information in just a few minutes here on the board than I did all day yesterday listening to the "talking heads" on the news.

Time to turn off the TV. Barring actual changes in the situation, you can get all you're going to get from cable news in about 15 minutes; beyond that they are just repeating and bloviating -- usually without much idea what they are talking about.

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Quesstion to the Board!

We saw the Tsunami effect the west coast of the USA in scaled

down versions of what happened in Japan. If these Reactors

melt down, will the West Coast of the USA be exposed to some radiation due to the ocean/wind currents.

It depends, but it's certainly possible, when you consider that pollution from China is a factor in western US air quality. But we really don't have enough information about the Japanese reactors at this time. Being charitable, the Japanese government is up to its ass in alligators, and I'm willing to cut them a little slack. On the other hand... the first rule of bureaucracies is to spin the situation. When a government official says "You have nothing to worry about" it may be time to start worrying.

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Whats tripping me is that as I read 10 different news publications on the same issue, Im getting 10 different

slants and facts on the issue.

This is probably happening at the Japanese end, they have been notoriously difficult to get the truth from regarding their nuclear power program and any incidents that may have occurred.
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This is probably happening at the Japanese end, they have been notoriously difficult to get the truth from regarding their nuclear power program and any incidents that may have occurred.

Incidents? What incidents? :Cool:

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One fellow made the point that the word *meltdown* (in his words) means the worst scenario, while what is happening right now is more akin to *melting*.

 

:eek:

:cry:

:lurk:

 

A nuclear meltdown is an informal term for a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating.

 

Wikipedia: Meltdown

 

 

 

 

 

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Lets_Play_Two

If getting more water makes you feel better, then it is good you did it. I have been through three direct hits by hurricanes and the extra water was great to have. The times the 'canes missed we still drank the water!!

 

But, if this is the apocalypse, how much water is enough? :)

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I was referring to statements touted in the media such as "earthquake proof buildings"....there really is no such animal!

Even such buildings suffer damage in good sized quakes.....

 

And our arrogance (stupidity? gambling?) seemingly has no bounds...how about building on hillsides/cliffsides in fault zones!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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If getting more water makes you feel better, then it is good you did it. I have been through three direct hits by hurricanes and the extra water was great to have. The times the 'canes missed we still drank the water!!

 

But, if this is the apocalypse, how much water is enough? :)

 

It is not apocalypse. Not even close. Why would you say anything like that?

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When a government official says "You have nothing to worry about" it may be time to start worrying.

 

I agree, government will hold back any alarming information till the last second to avoid nationwide panic.

Remember when the Russians withheld/denied info about nuclear leak at one o their plant, the truth only came out after hundreds of people got hospitalized that lived in a specific (large) swat of the city. Later they traced it back to the nuclear plan and the direction the wind was blowing at the time of the incident. Then official confessed about an accidental release of radioactive material.

I don't have specifics what date and city this was in. The show was on Discovery or History channel recently about the dangers of nuclear power plants.

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------------------------------------------------

Remember when the Russians withheld/denied info about nuclear leak at one o their plant, the truth only came out after hundreds of people got hospitalized that lived in a specific (large) swat of the city. Later they traced it back to the nuclear plan and the direction the wind was blowing at the time of the incident. Then official confessed about an accidental release of radioactive material.

I don't have specifics what date and city this was in.

----------------------------------------------------------

 

The city was Chernobyl. I think it was in the early nineties it happened. The reactor was a carbon pile reactor much more unsafe than the light water reactor that is said to be in Japan. A light water reactor should have fail safes to contain it ( much better design). As of yet, this is unconfirmed. The Chernobyl area is still a vast wasteland. I did read an on line report some time back of how a rider went through that area not too long ago. It still will be years before the half life of nuclear materials give up it;s fission levels before it is safe to live there again.

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Joe Frickin' Friday
I did read an on line report some time back of how a rider went through that area not too long ago.

 

IIRC, that report was later determined to be a hoax.

 

Remember when the Russians withheld/denied info about nuclear leak at one o their plant, the truth only came out after hundreds of people got hospitalized that lived in a specific (large) swat of the city.

 

Truth didn't even come out then. It only came out when radiation alarms started tripping at a nuclear power plant in Sweden, 600 miles away, that people started asking questions. Sweden quickly figured out that their nuke plant wasn't the source of the radiation, and then asked Russia what was going on.

 

As regards safety, the Chernobyl reactor was an RBMK-type reactor. Without going into too much detail, it was a design that had inherent instabilities; combined with mismanagement during an unauthorized experiment, these instabilities are what led to runaway heating, with the heat production rate doubling every few seconds until (in the space of just a few seconds) pressures and temperature were high enough to blow the thing apart.

 

Modern reactor types are inherently not vulnerable to this particular type of failure, but as we are seeing in Japan, meltdown - in which all/part of the nuclear material gets so hot that it melts - is still a possibility. Even after the reactor is shut down, it still produces a small amount of residual heat, and coolant must flow in order to remove that heat. You won't get a runaway/exponential heating rate like Chernobyl, but a slow, linear buildup does happen, and without cooling, you can still see a meltdown. Apparently this is what's happening in Japan right now.

 

If what we've been hearing is true - that the backup generators that would power the coolant pumps were disabled by the tsunami - then it's kind of mind-boggling to think that a nuke plant could be built near the coast of a quake-prone region without putting those generators somewhere safe, like on top of one of the buildings, or on top of a 30-foot-tall concrete block or something.

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I did read an on line report some time back of how a rider went through that area not too long ago.

 

IIRC, that report was later determined to be a hoax.

 

Remember when the Russians withheld/denied info about nuclear leak at one o their plant, the truth only came out after hundreds of people got hospitalized that lived in a specific (large) swat of the city.

 

Truth didn't even come out then. It only came out when radiation alarms started tripping at a nuclear power plant in Sweden, 600 miles away, that people started asking questions. Sweden quickly figured out that their nuke plant wasn't the source of the radiation, and then asked Russia what was going on.

 

As regards safety, the Chernobyl reactor was an RBMK-type reactor. Without going into too much detail, it was a design that had inherent instabilities; combined with mismanagement during an unauthorized experiment, these instabilities are what led to runaway heating, with the heat production rate doubling every few seconds until (in the space of just a few seconds) pressures and temperature were high enough to blow the thing apart.

 

Modern reactor types are inherently not vulnerable to this particular type of failure, but as we are seeing in Japan, meltdown - in which all/part of the nuclear material gets so hot that it melts - is still a possibility. Even after the reactor is shut down, it still produces a small amount of residual heat, and coolant must flow in order to remove that heat. You won't get a runaway/exponential heating rate like Chernobyl, but a slow, linear buildup does happen, and without cooling, you can still see a meltdown. Apparently this is what's happening in Japan right now.

 

If what we've been hearing is true - that the backup generators that would power the coolant pumps were disabled by the tsunami - then it's kind of mind-boggling to think that a nuke plant could be built near the coast of a quake-prone region without putting those generators somewhere safe, like on top of one of the buildings, or on top of a 30-foot-tall concrete block or something.

 

30'?

 

How about 1720'

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yabadabapal

Flooding the reactors with Sea water seems to be the only option now to reduce and stop melt downs. If this continues to be the only option which permanently destroys the reactor, i wonder what type of energy they will be using in the interim as they rebuild.

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Joe Frickin' Friday

 

If a wave 1/3-mile high hits Japan, a nuclear meltodwn at a couple of their power plants is probably going to be the least of their worries.

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If a wave 1/3-mile high hits Japan, a nuclear meltodwn at a couple of their power plants is probably going to be the least of their worries.

 

Yeah.

 

On the other hand, 30 feet may not have done for this one, some reports of depths in excess of that. Many tsunamis produce depths of over 100'.

 

Nuclear needs massive amounts of water. The one they want to put in Green River Utah is on hold as it would take up to 6% of Utah's entire allocation from the Colorado River Compact. On the other hand, proximity to water means risk of flood and tsunami. How do you balance these matters? So far we've done it by saying, "That will never happen."

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Paul Mihalka

 

"If this continues to be the only option which permanently destroys the reactor, i wonder what type of energy they will be using in the interim as they rebuild."

Among so many things I've read that Japan has 55 nuclear powerplants. Losing 2 or 3 may be is not catastrophic.

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Flooding the reactors with Sea water seems to be the only option now to reduce and stop melt downs. If this continues to be the only option which permanently destroys the reactor, i wonder what type of energy they will be using in the interim as they rebuild.

OIL. Lots of oil. And, interest rates are likely to rise, as the Japanese cash out of U.S. bond holdings to pay for recovery. These will probably have much more effect on us than the radiation plume (if any) from the damaged reactors.

 

I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I would think that post-earthquake/tsunami, the Japanese might now be looking at building large water reservoirs next to nuclear power plants. If built upslope, a reservoir would provide the ability to flood a reactor quickly, with almost no need for backup power. However, I'm not sure how long it would take to heat even that large volume of water to a dangerous level.

 

Given their history with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese are very careful with radioactive materials, but accidents happen. In 1999 there was a criticality, or "blue flash" accident at a uranium processing plant in Japan. BUT, there was no explosion or significant release of material outside the immediate area, although two workers were killed by radiation poisoning.

 

Every energy technology carries costs and risks, and nuclear doesn't seem any worse to me than petroleum or coal. How many miners are killed annually in coal mines? Coal-fired generators release mercury, and coal ash can be more radioactive than nuclear waste. Nigeria has experienced the equivalent of a Deepwater Horizon disaster almost every year for decades. Lots of noxious chemicals are required to produce solar cells and batteries. Wind isn't so bad -- unless you're a migrating bird, but who cares about birds. (I'm NOT serious about the birds!). Hydro gobbles up land for reservoirs. Yada yada yada.

 

I'm not trying to downplay the risks of nuclear power, but at the moment, the Japanese have a lot more serious things to worry about. Looking at video of the aftermath of the tsunami, I can't help but think of photos from Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs went off.

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Shame on Scientific American. In fact the actual comparison is on the dose of radiation to the population from a coal plant stack, vs the effect from the stored waste to those living near a nuclear plant. To suggest that fly ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste is not only ridiculous, but grievously irresponsible.

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I drew a different conclusion from the SA articles, namely that the exposure risk for both nuclear and coal is quite low, but the public perception is that nuclear plants are far more dangerous.

 

The chances of experiencing adverse health effects from radiation are slim for both nuclear and coal-fired power plants—they're just somewhat higher for the coal ones. "You're talking about one chance in a billion for nuclear power plants," Christensen says. "And it's one in 10 million to one in a hundred million for coal plants...."

 

"In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." Our source for this statistic is Dana Christensen, an associate lab director for energy and engineering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as 1978 paper in Science authored by J.P. McBride and colleagues, also of ORNL.

 

As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage.

When you compare the number of coal fired power plants with the number of nuclear plants in this country, coal plants are putting vastly more hazardous materials (radioactive and non) into the environment, both in the form of fly ash in smokestack emissions, and coal ash -- such as that in the reservoir in eastern Tennessee that discharged billions of gallons of toxic sludge in 2009.

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A physicist friend of mine directed me to this link with a clear explanation of the situation.

 

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/

 

I have not read it, but my friend assures me that it is good.

 

Well, that basically comports with the wikipedia article on meltdowns I linked earlier, but seems to include a number of details that are somewhat unbelievable, and that haven't been publicized elsewhere.

 

Just as an example, I have a very hard time with the concept that auxillary power supplies have not been connected after 4 days due to plug mismatches. I would have thought they would have those things hard wired in in minutes, and failing that, with all the world's military airlift capacity at their beck and call, any needed parts should have been available within 24 hours, at the very outside.

 

I also think the author has the timeline and severity of core damage pretty thoroughly bollixed up, in that cesium and iodine were detected on Saturday, and folk have been being contaminated all weekend, as well as Navy ship one hundred miles out to sea.

 

All in all, a very Pollyannaish view from a pro-nuclear site. A view that in many respects purports to know more about the details of the situation than I think the folks on the ground know.

 

YMMV, but for me this report, and it's conclusions lack credibility.

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Seems like one can get overly paranoid here.

 

The article below also corroborates the fact that once the control rods have been inserted, even a complete meltdown of all the fuel rods will not get hot enough to breach the containment vessel. A Chernobyl type meltdown is not possible.

WSJ Tucker article

 

As far as the contaminated ship, my understanding is the contamination was the result of up to 3 helicopters/crews returning from the immediate area of the damaged reactor had above normal levels of radiation detected after landing back aboard ship.

Levels were so severe that treatment was soap and water for the crew. All crew and equipment still in service.

 

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