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Fukushima: Revisited

Does this article reassure your faith in Nuclear Energy?

  • Nuclear power is safe.

    Votes: 16 66.7%
  • Nuclear power is not safe at any price.

    Votes: 6 25.0%
  • It reassures my faith in human arrogance.

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Corporations, like TEPCO, can handle it.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • TEPCO will be bankrupted without gov't bailout.

    Votes: 2 8.3%
  • Corporations get profits, publc gets liabilities, status quo.

    Votes: 5 20.8%

  • Total voters
    24
  • Poll closed .
Except you know, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The present Chernobyl exclusion (no entry) zone to this day after 26 years continues to be approx 20-40 miles around the plant, that's a a total area of around 20-30k square miles. Chernobyl got lucky because it was in the middle of no where, Fukushima got lucky in that the prevailing winds blew much of the radiation out to sea (or they just dumped it in the ocean) but many, most reactors won't have that luxury.

Can you imagine if San Onofre has an earthquake? Buh bye LA, orange county and San Diego.

Those are basically the only two real incidents in about 100 years of nuclear history though.
 
Those are basically the only two real incidents in about 100 years of nuclear history though.


We are at the point of decommissioning many of our reactors and let's watch and see who winds up with the liability. The NUKE operators want more new nukes before the public finds out it's the public who is stuck with the mess. Chernobyl and Fukushima are ongoing disasters with no cure. Then Hanford is not looking too good. Do your homework and find out the quantity of highly radioactive fuel rods stored on site at the reactors due for decommissioning and ask where they go. There are at least nine nuclear reactors in the oceans as a result of submarine accidents. Right, no problem. Just don't talk about it. Pretend it isn't happening. Nothing to see here. Move along.
 
We are at the point of decommissioning many of our reactors and let's watch and see who winds up with the liability. The NUKE operators want more new nukes before the public finds out it's the public who is stuck with the mess. Chernobyl and Fukushima are ongoing disasters with no cure. Then Hanford is not looking too good. Do your homework and find out the quantity of highly radioactive fuel rods stored on site at the reactors due for decommissioning and ask where they go. There are at least nine nuclear reactors in the oceans as a result of submarine accidents. Right, no problem. Just don't talk about it. Pretend it isn't happening. Nothing to see here. Move along.

There is no need to pretend something isn't happening because there isn't anything happening.

You're talking about a technology that has seen two real incidents in about 100 years of use.
 
1. solar competes with computer chips for raw materials

and

2. nuclear power plants next to an area that already has 30 foot high walls to stop a Tsunami is poor site selection unrelated to the manageable risks of nuclear energy.
 
The latest reactors use molten salts as a coolant, and have the fuel encased in graphite so it can't escape into the environment. Nuclear is a hell of a lot safer now than the 30 year old Fukushima plant.
 
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You must be living in a closet. How many nuke reactors are in the ocean's from submarine accidents? I've got some real estate to sell you just Northwest of Cinncinnati. Hanford. Almagordo. TMI. I''ve got a great deal on some slightly glowing fuel rods for you. I'm pretty sure you will have to ship them yourself, but what a deal. You won't have to heat your home no mo'.
 
Except you know, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The present Chernobyl exclusion (no entry) zone to this day after 26 years continues to be approx 20-40 miles around the plant, that's a a total area of around 20-30k square miles. Chernobyl got lucky because it was in the middle of no where, Fukushima got lucky in that the prevailing winds blew much of the radiation out to sea (or they just dumped it in the ocean) but many, most reactors won't have that luxury.

Can you imagine if San Onofre has an earthquake? Buh bye LA, orange county and San Diego.

Fukushima death tally: Zero.

Bottom line.
 
Fukushima death tally: Zero.

Bottom line.


Direct deaths to date: Zero

However future deaths are very likely.

Frank N. von Hippel, a U.S. scientist, has estimated that "on the order of 1,000" people will die from cancer as a result of their exposure to radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, that is, an increase of 0.1% in the incidence of cancer, and much less than the approximately 20,000 people killed directly by the earthquake and tsunami. Because contaminated milk was "interdicted in Japan" the number of (mostly non-fatal) thyroid cancer cases will probably be less than 1% of similar cases at Chernobyl. Von Hippel added that "fear of ionizing radiation could have long-term psychological effects on a large portion of the population in the contaminated areas"

let us also not forget that the situation is far from over and still very dangerous, It could become much much worse.

Reactor building #4 which has over a 1000 spend fuel rods which are still highly radioactive are sitting in a cooling pool which is unstable. The greatest fear is another earthquake or like occurrence which may cause the building/pool to collapse or otherwise drain. This will likely result in a massive meltdown and subsequent radiation event. Conservative estimates predict 5-10 times the radiation that the Chernobyl accident caused.

True nothing further may happen and this may be viewed as a overall minor event by some. I however view nuclear power as something potentially very dangerous and not something we should continue. While other forms of energy production may cause more deaths or environmental harm none of them can ruin the world in a single event like nuclear power can. Why risk the planet on the off chance of a major catastrophe?
 
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Fukushima death tally: Zero.

Bottom line.

Thousands More Radiation-Related Deaths Expected From ...


Thousands More Radiation-Related Deaths Expected From Fukushima, Study | Asian Scientist Magazine | Science, Technology and Medicine News Updates From Asia

Stanford Study Estimates 130 Deaths From Fukushima-Daiichi ...


www.nucnet.org/.../stanford-study-estimates-130-deaths-from-fukush

Stanford researchers calculate global health impacts of the ...


news.stanford.edu/news/.../fukushima-health-impacts-071712.html
 
Fukushima death tally: Zero.

Bottom line.

Thousands More Radiation-Related Deaths Expected From ...


Thousands More Radiation-Related Deaths Expected From Fukushima, Study | Asian Scientist Magazine | Science, Technology and Medicine News Updates From Asia

Stanford Study Estimates 130 Deaths From Fukushima-Daiichi ...


www.nucnet.org/.../stanford-study-estimates-130-deaths-from-fukush

Stanford researchers calculate global health impacts of the ...


news.stanford.edu/news/.../fukushima-health-impacts-071712.html
 
You must be living in a closet. How many nuke reactors are in the ocean's from submarine accidents? I've got some real estate to sell you just Northwest of Cinncinnati. Hanford. Almagordo. TMI. I''ve got a great deal on some slightly glowing fuel rods for you. I'm pretty sure you will have to ship them yourself, but what a deal. You won't have to heat your home no mo'.

Two. What's your point? They aren't "leaking" anything. They are designed against that and every year their fuel level goes down due to decay and other reactions that are taking place.
 
Thousands More Radiation-Related Deaths Expected From ...


Thousands More Radiation-Related Deaths Expected From Fukushima, Study | Asian Scientist Magazine | Science, Technology and Medicine News Updates From Asia

Stanford Study Estimates 130 Deaths From Fukushima-Daiichi ...


Page Not Found - Debate Politics Forums

Stanford researchers calculate global health impacts of the ...


news.stanford.edu/news/.../fukushima-health-impacts-071712.html

Which is a very small increase in the overall number of cancer deaths. 353,000 people in Japan died from cancer in 2010. That makes the increase in cancer deaths from this, even if we assume all of those would be in one year (which they won't) to be 0.368% More likely, they will occur in a much larger time frame, closer to 10 years, so that would make it 0.0368%, which is actually about the same chance if you work in an actual nuclear power plant itself. You have a less chance to die of cancer for this living in Japan than you do of dying because you smoke.
 
Which is a very small increase in the overall number of cancer deaths. 353,000 people in Japan died from cancer in 2010. That makes the increase in cancer deaths from this, even if we assume all of those would be in one year (which they won't) to be 0.368% More likely, they will occur in a much larger time frame, closer to 10 years, so that would make it 0.0368%, which is actually about the same chance if you work in an actual nuclear power plant itself. You have a less chance to die of cancer for this living in Japan than you do of dying because you smoke.

There is some recent study that put your odds of dying from cancer higher if you sit around doing nothing (sedentary life style) than if you smoke which I thought was interesting.
 
There is some recent study that put your odds of dying from cancer higher if you sit around doing nothing (sedentary life style) than if you smoke which I thought was interesting.

They may well be correct, which makes it even worse in this case. But the odds of dying from cancer from smoking is something that we know pretty well and they are high.

What many don't understand, radiation is all around us. The average person receives 200-300 mrad a year of radiation just from natural sources, like the sun, foods, rocks and other natural things we come into contact with, and buildings, including our homes. Damage done to our bodies by radiation can usually be fixed by our bodies quite effectively. Huge doses are extremely harmful, but we aren't talking about huge, acute doses here. We are talking about small doses when it comes to this accident.
 
Two. What's your point? They aren't "leaking" anything. They are designed against that and every year their fuel level goes down due to decay and other reactions that are taking place.






List of sunken nuclear submarines


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Eight nuclear submarines have sunk as a consequence of either accident or extensive damage: two from the United States Navy, four from the Soviet Navy, and two from the Russian Navy. Only three were lost with all hands: two from the United States Navy and one from the Russian Navy. All sank as a result of accident with the exception of K-27, which was scuttled in the Kara Sea when repair was deemed impossible and decommissioning too expensive. All of the Soviet/Russian submarines belonged to the Northern Fleet. Although the Soviet submarine K-129 (Golf II) carried nuclear ballistic missiles when it sank, it was a diesel-electric submarine and is not in the list below.











Thresher




Scorpion




K-8




K-219




K-278

The location of sunken submarines in the Atlantic


Of the 8 sinkings, 2 were due to fires, 2 were due to explosions of weapons systems, 1 was due to flooding, 1 was weather-related, and 1 was sunk intentionally due to a damaged nuclear reactor. In 1 case, the cause of sinking is unknown.

This is just the list of known reactors. They're going to rust, deteriorate and leak radiation. Big time.
 
My bad, thought you were talking about US subs.

My argument still holds. I know how those are designed and some safeguards designed to keep them from having major problems with leakage if they are sunk. You don't because it is classified.

Now, it is possible that the other countries' subs aren't designed as safely as ours. But they still are not an issue. Water is a huge shield to radiation. It is also a moderator, which means it slows down and diverts the worst radiation given off by nuclear reactions.

They do not rust and deteriorate that fast. It would take a long time for the ocean to actually eat into the reactor itself. There is a lot of containment there.

You are fearing something that really has no reason to be feared.
 
My bad, thought you were talking about US subs.

My argument still holds. I know how those are designed and some safeguards designed to keep them from having major problems with leakage if they are sunk. You don't because it is classified.

Now, it is possible that the other countries' subs aren't designed as safely as ours. But they still are not an issue. Water is a huge shield to radiation. It is also a moderator, which means it slows down and diverts the worst radiation given off by nuclear reactions.

They do not rust and deteriorate that fast. It would take a long time for the ocean to actually eat into the reactor itself. There is a lot of containment there.

You are fearing something that really has no reason to be feared.

Sounds like you might work out of Point Loma. I was stationed on N.I. for 6 months in the 60s as an ASW aircrewman. I'm not naive about nukes. Put your ear to the underground pipeline and see if you hear about nuke waste in concrete casks dumped 600 miles due west of San Francisco. Just one of many instances. You sound very patriotic and naive, like you believe what the gov't tells you. Radiation and saltwater plus the residual high temperatures will cause accelerated deterioration of the reactors. The irradiated fish and organisms will be consumed by larger predators with more wide ranging feeding ares until all fish and marine life incurs a measurable increase in radiation. No fences, no boundaries, and no one is held responsible and you will minimize the dangers. I have every reason to fear for my children and grandchildren. Arrogance and hubris are really a result of ignorance. That ignorance is the fact that nukes of all types are for making money, not the public good. As General Electric's TV commercials from the 1950s said, "Our scientists think they will have a solution for the nuclear waste problem in 6 months." That is what your work is built upon. The big lie.
 
I had to step back and think about this for a bit. Meltdowns and tragedy at those plants are extremely rare. For the most part, it is about the safest place one could work. The safety guidelines are very rigorous for obvious reasons. Nuclear energy provides a lot to many people around the globe.

I do think that they need to think about location a bit more. Along the ocean or a fault line is probably not a good idea. Japan has little options when it comes to that though. We have many options here in the U.S. but a lot of nuclear power plants are along the coastlines. I am not very comfortable with that considering the risk of major storms, or possible tsunamis caused from oceanic earthquakes.

So I guess my only issue is location....location...location
 
nuclear is a lot better than fossil fuels. i'm hoping that we put some research money into thorium, which from what i've read seems to be a better technology.

Thorium technology was developed by a Physicist in the USA in the 1950s.

The main reason that Thorium wasnt pursued as an energy option was that there was NO Plutonium by product. Uranium fission reactors were built NOT for power generation but for producing Plutonium for nuclear weapons - the power was a by product and a bonus

Currenlty Plutonium costs about $4,000 per gram (or 4 million dollars per kg)

And you need quite a few kilograms just to make the smallest of nukes.

Although Thorium reactors have one safety advantage in that the reaction process can be stopped easily, which makes a meltdown impossible, they still produce extremely toxic and long lived radionuclides.

It is not possible to insure a nuclear power plant anywhere in the world today. Also, there has not been one nuclear power plant built by the private sector or the stock market anywhere in the world.

Nuclear, by far the most expensive, most dangerous/risky and if you do the sums properly, nuclear power has the highest carbon footprint over the entire fuel cycle

the most insane activity pursued by humanity is nuclear energy and weaponry - an exhibit of human madness on display
 
Location, location, location and that is correct. Nukes always require huge amounts of cooling water, ergo, if not on the coast, then a large water source is required, and that would be a large freshwater source such as a river or very large lake. It doesn't require a rocket scientist to realize that we are putting at risk our freshwater sources, especially realizing that all of these "Nukes" have become the long term storage sites for all fuel rods. Dry casks could solve that problem, but it's a Corporate business and these cost a million dollars per each so it's better to risk contamination of all of our freshwater sources and increase Corporate salaries and stock dividends. It's jus' bidness, just like war. I thnk dry casks would cost about a billion dollars per each reactor site. Always be aware of the background business decisions. I read that US reactor sites have more stored fuel rods than Fukushima. That should be reassuring.
 
Sounds like you might work out of Point Loma. I was stationed on N.I. for 6 months in the 60s as an ASW aircrewman. I'm not naive about nukes. Put your ear to the underground pipeline and see if you hear about nuke waste in concrete casks dumped 600 miles due west of San Francisco. Just one of many instances. You sound very patriotic and naive, like you believe what the gov't tells you. Radiation and saltwater plus the residual high temperatures will cause accelerated deterioration of the reactors. The irradiated fish and organisms will be consumed by larger predators with more wide ranging feeding ares until all fish and marine life incurs a measurable increase in radiation. No fences, no boundaries, and no one is held responsible and you will minimize the dangers. I have every reason to fear for my children and grandchildren. Arrogance and hubris are really a result of ignorance. That ignorance is the fact that nukes of all types are for making money, not the public good. As General Electric's TV commercials from the 1950s said, "Our scientists think they will have a solution for the nuclear waste problem in 6 months." That is what your work is built upon. The big lie.

No. I've worked on aircraft carriers and in Hawaii and in Puget Sound. I got the training and I've done extra research. There is no "big lie". Nuclear power is not nearly as bad as you are trying to make it out to be. One of our biggest problems is cost, not radiation. Radiation doesn't work like mercury. It doesn't "build up" in the fish. It constantly decays. It doesn't stick around. And there are safeguards in place, as I said. I know them, you don't. It isn't nearly as easy as "well the salt water will eat away the reactors". The engineers have planned for that. We are not talking about barrels here. We are talking about ships that were designed to go under water and be able to go under water, just the hull for decades. The inside is even more secure. And the radiation doesn't do anything to the structure or the deterioration of the metal.
 
Location, location, location and that is correct. Nukes always require huge amounts of cooling water, ergo, if not on the coast, then a large water source is required, and that would be a large freshwater source such as a river or very large lake. It doesn't require a rocket scientist to realize that we are putting at risk our freshwater sources, especially realizing that all of these "Nukes" have become the long term storage sites for all fuel rods. Dry casks could solve that problem, but it's a Corporate business and these cost a million dollars per each so it's better to risk contamination of all of our freshwater sources and increase Corporate salaries and stock dividends. It's jus' bidness, just like war. I thnk dry casks would cost about a billion dollars per each reactor site. Always be aware of the background business decisions. I read that US reactor sites have more stored fuel rods than Fukushima. That should be reassuring.

It's not money that is the problem. It is laws and that we should change. The feds need to stop restricting our ability to recycle spent fuel rods, which can be done and that would do wonders for those storage issues.
 
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