Fukushima Nuclear Plant Accident

[Skevitj]

If you read the actual report, they've only "provisionally" raised it to a 7, and that is for the situation as a whole, none of the reactors have gone above a 5 (The Chernobyl reactor was a 7 and the situation was an effective 9). On a related note, the rating system doesn't actually indicate damage done, only potential for damage. The Chernobyl incident blew a 7 within a day, the Fukushima plant has taken a month to get there. Comparing the two incidents on such a simple measure isn't going to reveal anything useful.

 

It's only that no one wants to spend enough money to implement enough windmills, turbines, panels, etc. It's simply a question of wanting to do it.

Capitalism is based on the idea that for something to get done, it has to be profitable, "wanting" for something to happen is useless unless there is an alternative which is economically viable. The costs of dealing with a large area of irradiated land is negligible compared to the amount of money which would have to be burned to implement renewable tech on a wide scale (considering current technology).

 

We all want that to change, and for governments to actually have the balls to implement policy giving our natural resources realistic pricing to make renewable generation competitive but it won't happen, certainly not this generation: It's political suicide, no-one would support a government which doubles, triples,etc fuel and electricity prices, no matter the reason, hence no government will even start the ball rolling.

 

The technology for renewable energy is already here...

No-one is going to argue against that, but it is the general understanding that for a large grid it is effectively impossible to reach renewable penetration values above 30% (with current technology) for the risk of serious grid instability. How do you propose we get around that? What renewable technologies would be suitable for implementation in Japan? There is a very strong reason as to why they are so heavily reliant on nuclear power, how much coal/gas do you think they'd have to import to replace their nuclear plants? How much space do they not have for low output generation?

 

...especially for the less-bright members.

Watch the tone, implying that someone is "less-bright" because they don't share your views is about as close to flaming as you can get.

[WizardOfAtlantis]

Watch the tone, implying that someone is "less-bright" because they don't share your views is about as close to flaming as you can get.

 

I did nothing of the kind. Less bright members of the species, is what I was saying in that sentence, regardless. I'm talking about the whole dumb species that we're all a part of (me included of course!). Taking poison is universally regarded as not-bright. That's obvious. How would you define it? Common sense? Self-defense? Survival instinct? Whatever. It doesn't matter.

 

As for trying to split hairs of 7, 5, 9...*sigh* I'm not even going to touch that with a ten-foot karma pole, and I'd advise you to do the same.http://www.thenexusforums.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/smile.gif *That* is my personal opinion. http://www.thenexusforums.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/yes.gif

 

I think I'll edit out the rest. I don't need to reiterate why taking poison is not a bright thing for anyone to do.

 

As for further technical concerns...where there's a Will, there's a Way. The money will follow.

Edited April 14, 2011 by WizardOfAtlantis

[WizardOfAtlantis]

This is a video of Arnie Gunderson, a world-renowned nuclear engineer and one-time nuclear industry executive, talking about what the "powers-that-be" aren't telling you about Fukushima.

[Skevitj]

Taking poison is universally regarded as not-bright

Yet people still drive cars (exhaust being the point), yet people still eat chard meat. Nothing is "safe", it's just determining what an acceptable risk/consequence is. Walking down your average city street once a day is far more harmful than the radiation exposure for anyone outside the evacuation zone, and likely still worse than many areas inside. Radiation is just another of those things where the human body's regenerative mechanisms give it a "safe" margin where it can dispose of and regenerate any damaged cells (radiation isn't guaranteed to cause cellular damage at low doses anyway). I define nuclear power as an acceptable risk given the current alternatives. As I've stated before, that's not to say nuclear is a good idea, but simply that's it's one of the best we have at the moment even given the possible consequences. My point from before still stands, what alternative is there for Japan?

 

My point on the ratings scheme was more to just point out that saying the Fukushima incident is equivalent to the Chernoybl incident based on a single restrictive ratings system is pointless, the two incidents are nothing alike, and the severity of the situations is nothing alike. Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl on the grounds that there is far more nuclear material which could be dispersed, but the risk of that happening is next to 0, compared to a small amount which was distributed at Chernobyl, making Chernobyl a far more "severe" event. One was a meltdown, the other is a damaged core shielding. The differences go on and on.

 

As for further technical concerns...where there's a Will, there's a Way. The money will follow.

I've got a feeling we're somehow arguing the same point, just I'm taking it from the "researchers need funding" angle and you have the "there are always willing researchers" angle. Same difference really, in society these days "Will" is effectively equivalent to "$".

 

 

As for Gunderson, I tried to find a technical background for him, but there certinly isn't a lot out there. Most of what he said in the video you linked has been available for a while, people have just had to dig to find it, and while he presents a possible explanation for some of the anomalies seen, he doesn't say anything about there being a wide range of different theories, and his being the most severe (and with the least supportive information). There are a few "scientific experiments" he has conducted to "show(ing) what has happened in the Fukushima reactor's core", you don't have to be an engineer to know that hitting a Zr rod (the fuel rods have a Zr alloy casing) with a oxy-acetylene blowtorch is not in any way scientific or a valid experiment and is just plain misleading, so you'll have to forgive me if I struggle to give what he says any real weight. The only technical info I could find which was semi useful is that he is on a public consultation panel which looks over a US reactor with a core design identical to one of the Fukushima cores, different plants and backup systems designs though.

 

Of all the reports I've read recently, the majority seem to indicate the worst is over, all the reactor temperatures are stable and have been for a while, well below any warning level, and the radiation release levels are dropping. It's mostly just about managing the cleanup, which is going to be significant given the amount of sea water used.

 

... the ALARA guideline is to keep radiation exposure As Low As Reasonably Achievable -- that is why they are doing all the evacuations. It is simply good practice, and probably required by their protective action guidelines, but those levels of radiation exposure are in real terms trivial. They are about as serious as going out in mid day sun without sun screen.

From someone with 14years experience in emergency response management.

[WizardOfAtlantis]

From someone with 14years experience in emergency response management.

From what I've read of him, Gunderson has been in the business since the seventies and that's a lot longer than 14 years. He's a nuclear whistle-blower...of course there's going to be negative information about him out there. Obviously, CNN, The New York Times, and Forbes think enough of his credentials to do interviews, etc with him. Of course, since the pro-nuclear people will only see it their way, the bias that they give from their sources about a whistle-blower should be obvious as well.

 

But I'm not here to convince you. obviously, since you think it's acceptable for people to get cancer, for example, right? It's an "acceptable risk". You said so yourself. I personally don't agree. And when you bring in cars, living in a city, etc. etc, you're just muddying the waters because they're not the same thing. You can have a choice to not live in the city, or drive a car, but the people in Italy didn't have a choice when Chernobyl went the way it did, and the spread of thyroid problems/cancer is HUGE in Italy as a direct result of that. You probably won't find statistics on it, even/especially here in Italy, but all you have to do is talk to the doctors.

 

Try telling to a whole slice of the Italian population that it's all right, acceptable, that their bodies don't work right any more. When you say that it's only dangerous to people in the immediate area, you must be...I don't know how to say it nicely...but the irradiated crops in China and the US...that must be, what then? That's not dangerous to anybody, right? The radioactive waters in the oceans?

 

That must be why the European Union just raised the acceptable levels of radiation to almost three times the previous amount in these last days. Because no one's in danger unless they live in the immediate area of Fukushima, right?

 

They've been downplaying this from day one. Lying and backpedaling at every step. They're still doing it, as they don't talk about any of the other radioactivity (plutonium, for example) that's gotten out.

 

You can keep swallowing it...just like the italians did after Chernobyl when they got their thyroid problems...but I won't.

http://www.thenexusforums.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/wallbash.gif

[Skevitj]

Having the media companies run stories on what you're saying doesn't give you academic credibility, no matter how highly regarded a company is. I'm yet to see an academic body give what he's saying their backing. It's not that there's a negative bias against him, it's just that there is no-one willing to back his view, which says a lot about the credibility of the information it's formed on.

 

I've never said that Chernobyl affected only the immediate area, just that the chance of it happening again is next to negligible due to technological improvements. What happened at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal is a very similar story, almost 8000 dead within weeks and >500,000 recognized injuries today. Did that stop us from using pesticides? or even creating MIC? The point I made before still stands: What is the alternative?

 

I'm not saying you're wrong, but after what you said I had a look through a few medical journals and I'm yet to see one which indicates an increase in the occurrence of thyroid cancer above pre-Chernobyl levels. All so far have concluded that there is no justifiable proof that cases have increased. (One particular study focusing on school age children, rather small sample but it is peer reviewed at any rate.

 

PS. They don't talk about plutonium because there was relatively little there (it was actually one of the first things mentioned), it's more toxic than other materials there, but due to the low amounts there are more severe threats to deal with first. The car and meat comparisons both have been shown to give you a far higher risk of cancer than the radiation levels on the evacuation zone at Fukushima. The irradiated crops you're talking about are showing levels barely detectable above background, you'd eat/drink yourself to death before you increased the cancer risk by even a tenth of a percent. It's about time they increased the warning levels, they were ridiculously low to begin with, eg, a large number of cities' natural radiation levels were well above warning.

[DeTomaso]

The significant increase of rare thyroid cancer after Chernobyl is a fact in reseach and no longer in the public debate, You can't argue it away. Don't even think of it!

Actually we are talking about an additional rate of increase of thyroid cancer by 5% in all European populations that has started with a latency of 3-5 years after the accident. However, one of the most interesting negative effects caused by Chernobyl is the rapid decrease of fertility, the reproductive performance especially among those Europeans (predominantly men) that were born between 1960 and 1970. In 1986 they normally should have been in the natural prime of sexual life that follows the puberty,

Edited April 14, 2011 by DeTomaso

[Skevitj]

I'm not trying to "argue it away", I'm just saying I'm yet to see a medical journal come to that conclusion for Italy. If you have a report which says so, please link it. All the reports I've seen so far have said there isn't a detectable increase, looking at a 10year or more shift from the incident. There are other countries closer to Chernobyl which have shown increases, no-one can argue against that, but there have been a large number of countries where the incidence rate has shot up simply due to screening programs being expanded, with no identifiable link back to Chernobyl.

 

I hadn't looked for info on fertility rates, but I noticed a bit in the WHO report on general reproduction rates:

WHO report on health effects in and around Chernobyl for those interested.

...has seen no evidence indicating that there is decreased fertility among males or females in the general population as a direct result of radiation exposure.

 

Birth rates may be lower in contaminated areas due to concern about having children and the issue is also clouded by the very high rate of medical abortions.

Pg.91 (#98 of the pdf)

 

At any rate, if people have reports which come to different conclusions, please post them. No-one changes their view by only seeing what they agree with.

 

And as a general point for anyone else reading this, it was originally about the Fukushima incident, so to bring it back a tad: Given that the development time of a new technology can be decades as a best case, what *current* alternatives are there to nuclear power for Japan?

[MarkInMKUK]

And as a general point for anyone else reading this, it was originally about the Fukushima incident, so to bring it back a tad: Given that the development time of a new technology can be decades as a best case, what *current* alternatives are there to nuclear power for Japan?

 

As I suggested earlier - given Japan's position on a subduction zone edge, it should be ideally suited to geothermal power. The technology is about as robust as any available, is inherently safe apart from the usual dangers inherent to all power plants (steam leaks, etc), and is also a fairly mature technology having been in use in Iceland and similar areas for decades.

 

Obviously there's a scale consideration - this will be a massive series of power plants to replace what has been damaged, and to allow for future expansion - but at this point what has the power company got to lose? By building what is perceived as a "green" power source using a renewable resource, and using the very natural resource which gave rise to the previous accident, their publicity department could make this a very acceptable alternative.

[Skevitj]

Turns out Japan already has >500MW of geothermal already in operation, there goes the reservation I had about geothermal's earthquake resistance, it would be interesting to see how the plants fared after the quake. Iceland too, 54% of the countries total energy energy demand, heating and electricity by geothermal, and on a plate edge. Mind you, that 54% doesn't sound so impressive when you consider that the Fukushima Daiichi plant by itself could almost supply the whole of Iceland's total energy demand. It could work really well but the capital outlay to start is gonna be ridiculous.

 

The Fukushima plant had a 439MW, 1067MW and 4 760MW cores, so basically they just need to increase their geothermal production by a factor of 9 to replace just one plant.. Ouch, "scale consideration" doesn't quite do it justice. IMO, it will be interesting to see how TEPCO is treated by those above it once this is all over. The damages payouts are likely going to cripple them (early estimation putting it at half their annual revenue), and it's not exactly like the Japanese government can afford to cripple 1/3 of it's electricity grid. Doesn't really create an atmosphere conducive to promoting investing for the future.

 

As a possible different alternative, by the sounds of it TEPCO has a really nice hydroelectric peak-load setup. It could be the case that with minimal modification their dams could be turned into peak buffers for a few large scale offshore wind farms with their thermal plants taking up the base load. It would send electricity prices through the roof until something like geothermal can dominate thermal generation, but it's still an option.

Edited April 15, 2011 by Skevitj