Is it just me or has there been some seriously sensationalist reporting going on around the japanese nuclear plants?
A good explanation for what is happening and the probable worst case;
http://bravenewclimate.co...hima-simple-explanation/
Here is some typical el reg over the top analysis;
http://www.theregister.co.../14/fukushiima_analysis/
I'm a little worried about the damage to yet another reactor, but I'm still waiting on reliable news reports. Also when I compare it to the still burning refineries that have been spreading sulfur compounds and other neat toxins around I have to say that nuclear looks very safe in comparison. And if coal plants where held to the nuclear emission limits of nuclear plants they probably would all be shut down.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
I laughed at a reporter the other day around here. They got an expert on nuclear engineering on their show and started asking about how doomed Japan is, because the evil nuclear plants are going to DOOM THEM ALL... Only to have the expert calmly explain the situation and what the Japanese government is doing. The reporter, failing to realize what an idiot she was making herself look like, actually kept going on about the DOOM. Hilarious, but kind of sad. Environmentalists keep demanding we do something about the dangers of and damage coal and gas power plants cause, but the one solution that has a chance of being consistently reliable makes them scream like little girls. Yes, Nuclear Power is dangerous. But the more I see, the more I suspect it's still better then any other option out there, not to mention nowhere near as evil as they claim.
Even worse is that someone has made a video likening Fukushima to the Chernobyl disaster, and then goes on to show the worst of the results from Chernobyl. While I feel the disaster has become worse than TMI, it is still nowhere nearly as bad as Chernobyl.
One of the things that really turned my Mother around on nuclear energy was providing evidence that, at one time in Earth's history, it was a naturally occurring phenomenon - they found evidence of such at the old uranium mines in Okslo, Africa. That, and my rationalization that nuclear fuel comes from the Earth... And is usually returned to the Earth if not reprocessed. And to my knowledge there has never been any loss of containment of spent fuel once it is safe inside the disposal facility.
The BBC website considers it headline news that "Radiation levels at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear plant reach levels harmful to human health". However it doesn't explain exactly what they mean by that. My initial suspicion is that it means "radiation levels have reached a level that will result in a statisitically detectable increase in your chance of getting cancer if you live there for at least a couple of decades".
I tend to support nuclear power.
Mostly because my house, if it was a nuclear power station, would be closed down for breaching safety limits. There's a fair bit of radiation in here thanks to radon gas seeping through the floor. Never mind what comes from the banana's.... which set of the radiation detectors regularly enough at US ports.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
blackaeronaut Wrote:That, and my rationalization that nuclear fuel comes from the Earth... And is usually returned to the Earth if not reprocessed.
Hmmmmm... Nuclear power is environmentally friendly - they recycle the fuel!
(Must remember to try that one the next time a no-nukes nutbar comes by...)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
If you're building anything other than nuclear, solar, or wind, I don't want to talk to you.
(And I work for natural gas, go figure)
Anyone comparing Chernobyl to Fukushima (or any other reactor anywhere, really) needs to be slapped immediately. Chernobyl was the nuclear equivalent of the redneck who wrapped a belt around the drive tire on his pickup to power his house, and got confused when something went wrong, years down the road, and ran off screaming instead of shutting off the ignition.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
Nuclear power per se as an engineering problem is not that bad. The GE or GE Hitachi MK I plants have design flaws and really should be retired, not given a 20 year extensions. There are newer pebble-bed designs that uses air for coolant and not pressurized water, therefore even if the power gets knocked out, all you will be doing is venting hot air into the athmosphere. You do need a scrubber system to make sure that no radionuclides gets into the environment, but that's a feasible and easy engineering solution.
There are 2 problems with the nuclear industry as I see it. One is technical and the other is the human interface.
Technical: The problem is disposal of nuclear waste. Where are you going to place waste that have half-lives of thousands of yrs and you don't want to leach into the atmosphere? You got Yucca flats here in the U.S but that has been shot down already and there's no feasible politcal alternative at the moment. I suppose you can place it on the moon, but then there's the Space 1999 scenario. I suppose we can convert it into fuel for solar missions or even interstellar missions.
The human interface: TEPCO and indeed, the entire nuclear industry in Japan has a shoddy safety history. C'mon mixing spent fuel in steel buckets? Safety is a matter of attitude. Everyone has to buy into it, from management to the workers. It's not something you slack off..ever. I can name you one organization that has zero...zero nuclear incidents since it started operating reactors in the mid-50's. The U.S Navy. Why? Because Hyman Rickover made safety his first priority when he started the nuclear reactor project. He institionialized the mind-set that you never skimp on it, and you always keep your eye on it. and he hand picked the officers that were going to command those vessels and signed off personally (by being officer in charge during sea trials) on every nuclear vessel constructed during his tenure. If every utility has that type of attitude, I would sign off on nuclear power.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
ordnance11 Wrote:Technical: The problem is disposal of nuclear waste. Where are you going to place waste that have half-lives of thousands of yrs and you don't want to leach into the atmosphere?
Not being a nuclear physicist, I don't know why those aren't just put into breeder reactors and turned back into uranium...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Actually, the uranium turns into plutonium, so they reprocess the fuel rods and use the plutonium as fuel. But you still have the problems with what to do with tons of highly radioactive residue left over. And they're running out of space in the spent fuel rod pools.
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
We could look more into the use of a traveling-wave reactor to process some of that spent fuel.
Jinx999 Wrote:The BBC website considers it headline news that "Radiation levels at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear plant reach levels harmful to human health". However it doesn't explain exactly what they mean by that. My initial suspicion is that it means "radiation levels have reached a level that will result in a statisitically detectable increase in your chance of getting cancer if you live there for at least a couple of decades".
There are two considerations when you're exposed to any sort of harmful anything.. One is acute exposure. How much can you be exposed to anything in a short time (say within 8 hours) before you start suffering effects (possibly irreversible). The other is long term exposure. How much can you absorb over a longer period of time before effects start showing up in the future (like cancer)?
For ionizing radiation here are the guidelines
What are the limits of exposure to radiation?The
Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) published by the ACGIH (American
Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists) are used in many
jurisdictions occupational exposure limits or guidelines:
20 mSv - TLV for average annual dose for radiation workers, averaged over five years
1 mSv - Recommended annual dose limit for general public (ICRP - International Commission on Radiological Protection).
What effects do different doses of radiation have on people?
One sievert is a large dose. The recommended TLV is average annual dose of 0.05 Sv (50 mSv).
The
effects of being exposed to large doses of radiation at one time (acute
exposure) vary with the dose. Here are some examples:
10 Sv - Risk of death within days or weeks
1 Sv - Risk of cancer later in life (5 in 100)
100 mSv - Risk of cancer later in life (5 in 1000)
50 mSv - TLV for annual dose for radiation workers in any one year
20 mSv - TLV for annual average dose, averaged over five years
Note that TEPCO has pushed the limits to 250mSV for their workers, so figure 12.5 in 1000 chance of cancer later in life.
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshan...hys_agents/ionizing.html
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
While nuclear waste is bad stuff, it's also a miniscule amount of stuff, hardly even worth noticing amongst the rest of the trash any given first world country produces and has to burn/shove somewhere every single day.
Nuclear is the only viable option to reduce dependance on fossil fuel power plants. Solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric (which is massively environmentally damaging anyway) are all good supplements, but they are not available to all countries and the technology does not exist yet for them to be the only solution. Nuclear is very simply the only alternative to the massive problems caused by fossil fuel plants (especially coal). The fact some extremely old reactors are having troubles coping with the worst earthquake in recorded history (to say nothing of the tsunami) in Japan is tragic, but doesn't change that fact. It is frankly stupid for the environmentalist movement to be anti-nuclear, though it's hardly the only stupid thing it's associated with.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow." -- Kay, Men in Black (1997)
I know it's entertainment tripe; don't mean there ain't a grain of Truth to it.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
...Aiyeke? How does solar and wind power adversely affect the environment? I know that there are issues with bird strikes on wind turbines, but that's a relatively small thing so long as you are not building turbines in an area favored by an avian species on the endangered list.
blackaeronaut Wrote:...Aiyeke? How does solar and wind power adversely affect the environment? I know that there are issues with bird strikes on wind turbines, but that's a relatively small thing so long as you are not building turbines in an area favored by an avian species on the endangered list.
Solar power ATM requires extremely toxic elements for the construction of solar panels, and the extraction and disposal of those chemicals is hazradous.
Wind power doesn't cause much poluttion that I am aware of, however it can't provide main power. Wind power is a decent supplement (if you overcome NIMBY) but as a primary power source its terrible.
----------------
Epsilon
Also, parsing Aiyeke's statement a little more finely reveals that out of the 'renewable' energy sources listed, he's only applying the massively environmentally damaging label to hydroelectric, which is true on the face of it.
Solar on a mains or 'power plant' scale is typically molten-sodium, as opposed to a 'solar panel'. Also, solar panel research continues, and non-toxic ingredients are one of the fruits of that.
Wind becomes viable once you apply a handwavium 'superbattery', and becomes unviable again when you realize you still have to have enough generation capacity to provide for peak consumption, since you can't count on wind..
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
Large scale wind farms are already seeing altered erosion patterns, there are some place where solar can work, but there are plenty of places that do not get enough sun for it (such as brittan), hydro is limited by geography and is dangerous (What damn can survive a magnitude 8 earthquake?), as well as disruptive to the area.
Geosynchronous Orbital Solar powerplants are a neat idea and have very low environmental impact if you exclude the launch cost (and even those would be ameliorated over the 20-30 years expected service life.) They are also far more reliable due to being above the clouds, and the energy per square meter is better up there.
So nuclear is the only real option, and it will be a while before fusion reactors are ready. Nuclear fuel is not that big of an issue, you can do what the French did and reprocess it and then reuse it, but that is dangerous as it gets to be much closer to weapons grade. Alternatively after it has been buried for about 300 years most of the really bad stuff is gone, and while radiation levels would still be well above background for the next hundred thousand or so years it was also radioactive before we dug it up.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Just a quick question. Maybe a silly one:
Would it possible to place or bury spent nuclear fuel at a subduction zone (where a tectonic plate goes under the continental plate - such as off the coast of California or Japan) in armored containers? So that continental drift simply pulls the fuel (eventually) under the continental plate (maybe down to the magma)?
Obviously there's a problem is making sure the stuff doesn't crack open and leak BEFORE it gets drawn under the continental plate.
Foxboy Wrote:"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow." -- Kay, Men in Black (1997)
I know it's entertainment tripe; don't mean there ain't a grain of Truth to it.
I've always felt surprised that such a profound statement made it into an otherwise typical (though well done and very funny) Hollywood movie.
Quote:Would it possible to place or bury spent nuclear fuel at a subduction zone (where a tectonic plate goes under the continental plate - such as off the coast of California or Japan) in armored containers? So that continental drift simply pulls the fuel (eventually) under the continental plate (maybe down to the magma)?
Logan, I seem to recall hearing similar proposals as far back as the 1970s... You may have the right of it as to why it hasn't been done yet.
On the other hand, there's always "shooting it into the sun" as an alternative.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Bob Schroeck Wrote:Quote:Would it possible to place or bury spent nuclear fuel at a subduction zone (where a tectonic plate goes under the continental plate - such as off the coast of California or Japan) in armored containers? So that continental drift simply pulls the fuel (eventually) under the continental plate (maybe down to the magma)?
Logan, I seem to recall hearing similar proposals as far back as the 1970s... You may have the right of it as to why it hasn't been done yet.
On the other hand, there's always "shooting it into the sun" as an alternative.
In either case, throwing it away means it can't be recycled for use in the next generation of power plants (whatever those might be and whenever those might appear).
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
The next generation plants rob, had been on the drawing board since the 1990's. We can replace the ones on-line no problem. It's coming up with an economic and reliable disposable method that is the problem. Shooting it into the sun would be doable, but you need a cheap way of taking it out of the gravity well.
Well, the good news is that they managed to hook up external power to Fukashima-daichi #2 and got diesel power working on #6 and used the power generated to power the pumps on #5. Kinda hard to say if they have coolant pumps both working on both 5 or 6 or just 5. The next task is determining whether the pumps work on 1 thru 4. If all of them work, then the crisis becomes manageable. They can start trying to restore the backup generators because I doubt nothing short of scrapping the reactor and building a new one will bring back main power. Any reactor cooling system that is not working and can't be repaired due to high radiation ...I suspect they'll have to entomb that reactor. So keep yer fingers crossed!
__________________
Into terror!, Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
Shooting stuff into the sun is very very very energy intensive. It will probably never be worth it.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
I'm more of a fan of reprocessing spent fuel. And now that I know about it... WOW. bmull, I wish I had known about this Traveling Wave Reactor before. This does look like promising technology, but it is something that needs much work to accomplish.
Here is a blog entry that puts down TWRs as an unrealistic technology... but the commmentary that follows is amazingly concise and polite in how it comes to TWRs defense. A worthwhile read, I think.