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Fukushima fuel rods may have completely melted

conservativeguy said:
I heard there was a car accident in Atlanta today.....let's ban all cars. Ship happens.

Note to self: don't live in the fall out zone of a nuke plant.
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and don't ban ****, either. when that stuff backs up on you, it ain't pleasant....:2razz:
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
It's useful to have a plan. That doesn't mean that there is a good chance of it being implemented.



You can't just do that. If you are concerned with the well-being of people, you need to look at the health costs of the plants in general. Some plants have accidents. The vast majority don't. Fukushima is only the second nuclear disaster in history to seriously impact the health of the community. What would you rather have, the possibility of a lot of deaths and illness?
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Ya, and the affected areas are going to be impacted Effectively FOREVER.

Now, does your casualty list count the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people that have developed cancers in the areas affected by Chernobyl in the 25+years since that happened??

So, tragic as it is, if someone dies in a coal mine it does not devastate the entire region surrounding for thousands to billions of years...
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
People are raely exposed to Mox fuels in dangerous quantities. I'd rather live next to a coal plant or work in a coal mine than stand next to a melting reactor. This ignores the fact that the dangers of nuclear energy come about very rarely, while coal plants are always dirtying our air.
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That's the quandary. 98% of the time, nuclear is relatively safe. But that other 2% of the time is a real bitch. (Percentages are estimates, but you get the point.)
 
BmanMcfly said:
Ya, and the affected areas are going to be impacted Effectively FOREVER.

Now, does your casualty list count the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people that have developed cancers in the areas affected by Chernobyl in the 25+years since that happened??

So, tragic as it is, if someone dies in a coal mine it does not devastate the entire region surrounding for thousands to billions of years...
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The russians built cheap, and they paid for it. The Japanese disregarded the very real potential of a tsunami, and they are paying for it.
The odds of either of those 2 scenarios in the USA are slim to none. Where it might be possible, you can bet that some changes are being made to mitigate the potential occurrence.
TMI was our meltdown, and nobody died or had to move away....and if the operators had left the controls alone and let the protection circuits do what they were doing, there would not have been a meltdown. The operators didn't believe their instruments and turned off the safety system designed to provide emergency cooling. You guys can rant all you want, it won't change anything. Long story short, we would be far better off teaching the next generations how to use less energy....the current generation is too addicted to want to change their habits.


http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/chernobyl-bg.html

The NRC has some info on how many cancers actually occurred....
 
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rocket88 said:
That's the quandary. 98% of the time, nuclear is relatively safe. But that other 2% of the time is a real bitch. (Percentages are estimates, but you get the point.)
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There have been two catastrophic nuclear disasters regarding the nuclear power industry thoughout all of history. There have been countless catastrophes involving other power generation industries. The reason that nuclear gets a bad rap is the same reason that people think airplanes are unsafe - it's so safe that the disasters are focused on disproportionately.
 
rocket88 said:
That's the quandary. 98% of the time, nuclear is relatively safe. But that other 2% of the time is a real bitch. (Percentages are estimates, but you get the point.)
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Your percentages are way off.....
Nobody in the USA has died due to a nuclear related accident at any commercial power plant...
Flying in an airplane is safe nearly all the time, but when one crashes, it kills hundreds. Yet, we have not banned flying yet...
 
Khayembii Communique said:
There have been two catastrophic nuclear disasters regarding the nuclear power industry thoughout all of history. There have been countless catastrophes involving other power generation industries. The reason that nuclear gets a bad rap is the same reason that people think airplanes are unsafe - it's so safe that the disasters are focused on disproportionately.
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some years ago the Phoenix paper reported deaths at the Four Corners coal fired plant as a nuclear accident. An old steam pipe ruptured, operators were killed.
The media are even dumber than our politicians...
 
UtahBill said:
some years ago the Phoenix paper reported deaths at the Four Corners coal fired plant as a nuclear accident. An old steam pipe ruptured, operators were killed.
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Well consider the total number of deaths from mining and processing coal alone. Consider the amount of disasters at other sorts of power plants. Consider the countless oil disasters that have happened in the past decade alone. These all far outweigh Fukushima and Chernobyl combined.
 
UtahBill said:
The russians built cheap, and they paid for it. The Japanese disregarded the very real potential of a tsunami, and they are paying for it.
The odds of either of those 2 scenarios in the USA are slim to none. Where it might be possible, you can bet that some changes are being made to mitigate the potential occurrence.
TMI was our meltdown, and nobody died or had to move away....and if the operators had left the controls alone and let the protection circuits do what they were doing, there would not have been a meltdown. The operators didn't believe their instruments and turned off the safety system designed to provide emergency cooling. You guys can rant all you want, it won't change anything. Long story short, we would be far better off teaching the next generations how to use less energy....the current generation is too addicted to want to change their habits.


NRC: Backgrounder on Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident

The NRC has some info on how many cancers actually occurred....
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Ya, the "ODDS" were in the favor of both of those disasters as well. Then there was Three Mile Island. Then there was that canadian nuke plant that had to dump radioactivity into the great lakes...

I'm sorry, but nuclear as it is is only viable because of the nuclear weapons aspect. Thorium is a much better and safer and less wasteful process, but because the process is not suitable to nuclear weaponry it is highly unlikely that this type of change will happen.

And take the example of the airplane, yes, when planes DO occasionally crash it usually kills hundreds of people. However, when a nuclear plant goes up, it might kill a small handful initially, but then it takes a good 20 years before you can really begin to track the cancer clusters that result.

Now, ESPECIALLY for the AGW alarmists claiming that CO2 will destroy the world, nuclear is appalling in this respect because it DOES TRULY MAKE the land virtually uninhabitable for generations, and potentially MILLIONS of years.

It's harder to notice though because you can't feel radiation, or sense it, so you can't know just how or even IF you are being impacted immediately (except for truly high dosages). Just makes it easier to ignore the problems.
 
BmanMcfly said:
And take the example of the airplane, yes, when planes DO occasionally crash it usually kills hundreds of people. However, when a nuclear plant goes up, it might kill a small handful initially, but then it takes a good 20 years before you can really begin to track the cancer clusters that result.
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The point. It went right over your head.
 
BmanMcfly said:
Ya, the "ODDS" were in the favor of both of those disasters as well. Then there was Three Mile Island. Then there was that canadian nuke plant that had to dump radioactivity into the great lakes...

I'm sorry, but nuclear as it is is only viable because of the nuclear weapons aspect. Thorium is a much better and safer and less wasteful process, but because the process is not suitable to nuclear weaponry it is highly unlikely that this type of change will happen.

And take the example of the airplane, yes, when planes DO occasionally crash it usually kills hundreds of people. However, when a nuclear plant goes up, it might kill a small handful initially, but then it takes a good 20 years before you can really begin to track the cancer clusters that result.

Now, ESPECIALLY for the AGW alarmists claiming that CO2 will destroy the world, nuclear is appalling in this respect because it DOES TRULY MAKE the land virtually uninhabitable for generations, and potentially MILLIONS of years.

It's harder to notice though because you can't feel radiation, or sense it, so you can't know just how or even IF you are being impacted immediately (except for truly high dosages). Just makes it easier to ignore the problems.
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We already have plenty of nuclear weapons on hand. Weaponry is pretty much off the table.
We are more exposed to danger from our household chemicals. Risk is part of life. The rest of the world willingly accepts that. They won't go without power for any idealism on anybody's part.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
The point. It went right over your head.
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Your point was about the safety of nuclear, and my point is that even though the odds are slim, the results when the slim chance occurs is far more detrimental than the smaller scale problems and accidents that do occur more frequently with other energy generation methods.

You do know, that according to recent analysis there was around 800000 people that have developed cancers and died as a result of Chernobyl... So, it's rare, but one major nuclear disaster every 30 years is FAR TOO MUCH RISK.
 
BmanMcfly said:
Your point was about the safety of nuclear, and my point is that even though the odds are slim, the results when the slim chance occurs is far more detrimental than the smaller scale problems and accidents that do occur more frequently with other energy generation methods.
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If you are in a plane crash the chances of dying are much higher than if you are in a car crash. This doesn't alter the fact that the chances of a plane crash are exponentially lower than that of a car crash and that therefore it is overall much safer.

You do know, that according to recent analysis there was around 800000 people that have developed cancers and died as a result of Chernobyl... So, it's rare, but one major nuclear disaster every 30 years is FAR TOO MUCH RISK.
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You'd have a point if the nuclear power industry still built plants like Chernobyl. And if governments used the same disaster response protocols as the Soviets did with Chernobyl. But they don't, for very obvious reasons.

Talking about Chernobyl nowadays as evidence of the danger of nuclear power is like talking about Model T's as evidence of the danger of automobiles.

EDIT: Also, if you want to talk about cancer rates, why don't you talk about the cancer rates in populations surrounding coal plants that are supposedly operating properly? In terms of deaths there is no comparison whatsoever; the only real nuclear disaster of which we can speak in modern terms is Fukushima, and the deaths due to the Fukushima disaster pale in comparison to the massive amount of death and destruction surrounding the coal/oil industries (even including all of the deaths from the Tsunami/earthquake).

UtahBill said:
We already have plenty of nuclear weapons on hand. Weaponry is pretty much off the table.
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Not to mention the fact that the nuclear power industry has almost nothing to do with nuclear weapons manufacture.
 
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No one is talking about the aging fleet of US Navy Nuclear vessels. Japan has given equipment for decommissioning nuclear vessels to Russia, to encuarage careful decommissioning. What other countries have neclear powered vessels in need of repair?




Japan seeks Russian help to end nuclear crisis(ship for decommissioning nuke sub)



"The United States and France have built nuclear aircraft carriers. By 1990 there were more nuclear reactors powering ships (mostly naval) than there were generating electric power in commercial power plants worldwide.[SUP][11][/SUP] Many of these submarines and other vessels were decommissioned in the 1990s."



Nuclear marine propulsion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nuclear decommissioning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Gladiator said:
No one is talking about the aging fleet of US Navy Nuclear vessels. Japan has given equipment for decommissioning nuclear vessels to Russia, to encuarage careful decommissioning. What other countries have neclear powered vessels in need of repair?




Japan seeks Russian help to end nuclear crisis(ship for decommissioning nuke sub)



"The United States and France have built nuclear aircraft carriers. By 1990 there were more nuclear reactors powering ships (mostly naval) than there were generating electric power in commercial power plants worldwide.[SUP][11][/SUP] Many of these submarines and other vessels were decommissioned in the 1990s."



Nuclear marine propulsion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nuclear decommissioning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Maybe because a) the US has never had a nuclear incident with any of its nuclear powered ships/subs and b) even if any country had a major issue with those nuclear powered crafts, it is not likely to cause problems for the general public, since most of those reactors are quite small compared to commercial plants and likely to be easily moved to the middle of the ocean without severely affecting many people.
 
BmanMcfly said:
Your point was about the safety of nuclear, and my point is that even though the odds are slim, the results when the slim chance occurs is far more detrimental than the smaller scale problems and accidents that do occur more frequently with other energy generation methods.

You do know, that according to recent analysis there was around 800000 people that have developed cancers and died as a result of Chernobyl... So, it's rare, but one major nuclear disaster every 30 years is FAR TOO MUCH RISK.
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They are rare, and with every one, we see more safety issues raised and corrected.

Chernobyl is the only nuclear accident that resulted in a major loss of life. It was also caused by issues that have been addressed by every major country using nuclear power as an energy source. Safety concerns that came up and were addressed due to Chernobyl probably even went into the much smaller loss of life and the better (if not well done) response to Fukushima.

Even TMI led to major changes in the nuclear power rules/regulations in the US (at the very least) which help us run our plants much more safely.

We have been using nuclear power for over 55 years now, and in that time, there have only been 2 major disasters. For the US, we have lost very few lives due to nuclear power accidents (I think the number is 3 known for actual US nuclear power accidents being the primary cause, but there could be some obscure ones I'm not aware of).
 
BmanMcfly said:
Your point was about the safety of nuclear, and my point is that even though the odds are slim, the results when the slim chance occurs is far more detrimental than the smaller scale problems and accidents that do occur more frequently with other energy generation methods.

You do know, that according to recent analysis there was around 800000 people that have developed cancers and died as a result of Chernobyl... So, it's rare, but one major nuclear disaster every 30 years is FAR TOO MUCH RISK.
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In 2005, there were 6.4 Million car accidents. Of those accidents, 2.9 million were injured, and about 43 thousand were killed. In 20 years of driving (assuming that 2005 was a average year) in America, more people are killed than Chernobyl. Not to mention we incur about 430 Billion in damages. Under your philosophy, even though car accidents are quite common, the risks and expense are far too much to risk.

Accidents will happen. We need to learn from them, engineer better and move on. We should never regress.
 
Blue_State said:
In 20 years of driving (assuming that 2005 was a average year) in America, more people are killed than Chernobyl.

Accidents will happen. We need to learn from them, engineer better and move on. We should never regress.
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The difference is that the area surrounding Chernobyl is uninhabitable for hundreds or thousands of years. If anyone had been living in Pripyat for the last 25 years, the death toll would be unimaginable.

A vast majority of the time, nuclear is much safer than coal plants. I'm not saying "no nukes." It is a power source that should be used judiciously. But part of that judicious use is weighing what could happen in an accident. The fact that there aren't that many accidents doesn't mean you should put a reactor in Manhattan.
 
roguenuke said:
Maybe because a) the US has never had a nuclear incident with any of its nuclear powered ships/subs and b) even if any country had a major issue with those nuclear powered crafts, it is not likely to cause problems for the general public, since most of those reactors are quite small compared to commercial plants and likely to be easily moved to the middle of the ocean without severely affecting many people.
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There are at least seven nuclear reactors from subs etc. littering the ocean at this point in time. At least two of those are from US subs, The Thresher and Shark are the names in my memory, (might be slightly off). And you seem to think that is OK. It's not. "Dilution is not the solution to pollution." I know you are spouting your company line. Go with developed thoughts, not beliefs.
 
roguenuke said:
Maybe because a) the US has never had a nuclear incident with any of its nuclear powered ships/subs and b) even if any country had a major issue with those nuclear powered crafts, it is not likely to cause problems for the general public, since most of those reactors are quite small compared to commercial plants and likely to be easily moved to the middle of the ocean without severely affecting many people.
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The Thresher nuclear submarine:


"Ballard's robotic survey discovered that Thresher had sunk so deep it imploded, turning into thousands of pieces. The only recoverable piece was a foot of marled pipe.[7] His 1985 search for Scorpion, which was thought to be a victim of a Soviet attack, revealed such a large debris field that it looked "as though it had been put through a shredding machine." Once the two wrecks had been visited, and the radioactive threat from both was established as small, "


USS Thresher (SSN-593) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



USS Scorpion

"Today, the wreck of Scorpion is reported to be resting on a sandy seabed at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in approximately 3,000 m (9,800 ft) of water. The site is reported to be approximately 400 nmi (740 km) southwest of the Azores Islands, on the eastern edge of the Sargasso Sea. The U.S. Navy has acknowledged that it periodically visits the site to conduct testing for the release of nuclear materials from the nuclear reactor or the two nuclear weapons aboard her, and to determine whether the wreckage has been disturbed. The Navy has not released any information about the status of the wreckage, except for a few photographs taken of the wreckage in 1968, and again in 1985 by deep water submersibles."




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_(SSN-589)



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DaveFagan said:
There are at least seven nuclear reactors from subs etc. littering the ocean at this point in time. At least two of those are from US subs, The Thresher and Shark are the names in my memory, (might be slightly off). And you seem to think that is OK. It's not. "Dilution is not the solution to pollution." I know you are spouting your company line. Go with developed thoughts, not beliefs.
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It's the Thresher and the Scorpion. Those were not lost to a nuclear accident. I know their history. I learned it during Navy Nuclear Power School. They are not polluting the ocean any more than a conventional sub would be because they are shut down and even have safety measures in place to cover them not being able to start up down there.

There is no "company line". I have not worked in nuclear power for anyone but the US Navy. I know exactly how safe we operate. I also know our backups and fail-safes. But, along with these things, I know the guidelines that commercial plants in the US are required to follow, who checks up on them, and what happens if they do not follow procedures. I also know that even commercial plants must have backups and show that they have plans set up if something goes wrong.
 
DaveFagan said:
There are at least seven nuclear reactors from subs etc. littering the ocean at this point in time. At least two of those are from US subs, The Thresher and Shark are the names in my memory, (might be slightly off). And you seem to think that is OK. It's not. "Dilution is not the solution to pollution." I know you are spouting your company line. Go with developed thoughts, not beliefs.
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Neither the Thresher nor the Scorpion was lost due to a nuclear accident. Their reactors are not giving off a significant amount of radiation. There is probably more radiation given off by the nuclear weapons aboard either than by their reactors. There is certainly no issues from those reactors regarding the public.

I don't have to spout "corporate lines". I have never worked for corporate nuclear power. I only worked on nuclear power for the US Navy. I know what our safety measures are and our backups. I also know that, although we have more stringent rules than the corporate nuclear power world, they are still held to national rules and safety standards that we are. Heck, at least one of the blackouts affecting a major area of the country within the past decade had to do with a safety concern involving the loss of a reliable backup to a plant, which caused the plant to have to be shutdown til a backup could be brought back online. This shows that there are procedures in place that take precedent to the public having power even, when it comes to nuclear power safety.
 
rocket88 said:
The difference is that the area surrounding Chernobyl is uninhabitable for hundreds or thousands of years. If anyone had been living in Pripyat for the last 25 years, the death toll would be unimaginable.

A vast majority of the time, nuclear is much safer than coal plants. I'm not saying "no nukes." It is a power source that should be used judiciously. But part of that judicious use is weighing what could happen in an accident. The fact that there aren't that many accidents doesn't mean you should put a reactor in Manhattan.
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I agree, no nuclear power plants in the heart of Manhattan...LA...maybe...just kidding. As far as Chernobyl goes, I find it hard to compare that incident with any nuclear incident that has or ever will happen in the civilized world. I don't believe the US or Japan would have handled that problem so horribly. Chernobyl could have been averted, but corner cutting and lack of education caused a huge disaster.
 
Blue_State said:
In 2005, there were 6.4 Million car accidents. Of those accidents, 2.9 million were injured, and about 43 thousand were killed. In 20 years of driving (assuming that 2005 was a average year) in America, more people are killed than Chernobyl. Not to mention we incur about 430 Billion in damages. Under your philosophy, even though car accidents are quite common, the risks and expense are far too much to risk.

Accidents will happen. We need to learn from them, engineer better and move on. We should never regress.
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No, the opposite. Because when there is a car wreck you can clean it up and there is no residual damages.

Now, if everytime there was a car wreck you had to seal the accident in a block of lead infused concrete and buried for millions of years before returning to normal, THEN I might argue...

Actually, that's a good idea... let's get nuclear powered cars on the road, there'd be less CO2 to worry about.
 
The average driver on the road can't operate his/her car safely enough as they are, you really don't want them operating a nuclear reactor. The Navy sends its people to a year long school specifically for that purpose, and that is after their "A" school.
but I know you jest....


BmanMcfly said:
No, the opposite. Because when there is a car wreck you can clean it up and there is no residual damages.

Now, if everytime there was a car wreck you had to seal the accident in a block of lead infused concrete and buried for millions of years before returning to normal, THEN I might argue...

Actually, that's a good idea... let's get nuclear powered cars on the road, there'd be less CO2 to worry about.
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