cavanami Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 http://snipurl.com/radiation This is the home page for the video link that I posted. Good video as they explain about the actual reactor, what the release of the radiation means, the numbers that they use to express the amount of radiation, etc. helps to put things in perspective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozpharlap Posted March 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 ... so which of those nuclear experts expressed concern about that plant BEFORE the earthquake? Which ones predicted the 3 hydrogen explosions destroying the outer containment buildings? Which ones predicted the overheating of the spent fuel rods? We have now the uncontrolled release of radioactive particles from 4 nuclear reactor buildings. The farmers in that region have been put out of business, certainly for this growing season. Well, it's a 9.0 earthquake, followed by a Tsunami, what do you want, clean cheap energy and not in reality too much to be concerned about, or modern governments charging you and arm and leg with taxes because their usual stream of taxes, pay as you earn, are drying out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 The experts in the video said that for all that happened, the reactor held up quite well. The safety expert had also made the comment that for years he had made suggestions to improve safety and the exact incident that happened, but it all fell on deaf ears! It comes down to the almighty $$$$...how much can we save and how much will we have to pay when / if an incident should happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 ... so which of those nuclear experts expressed concern about that plant BEFORE the earthquake? Which ones predicted the 3 hydrogen explosions destroying the outer containment buildings? Which ones predicted the overheating of the spent fuel rods? We have now the uncontrolled release of radioactive particles from 4 nuclear reactor buildings. The farmers in that region have been put out of business' date=' certainly for this growing season.[/quote'] Well, it's a 9.0 earthquake, followed by a Tsunami, what do you want, clean cheap energy and not in reality too much to be concerned about, or modern governments charging you and arm and leg with taxes because their usual stream of taxes, pay as you earn, are drying out There is the rub! Nuclear power is NOT cheap! Natural gas and coal power plants provide cheaper electric power. Now there is going to be spent billions of dollars to sequester these 4 radioactive husks. Plus billions in compensation to evacuees, farmers, fishermen, and businesses shut down by the radioactive contamination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizardKing Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 The experts in the video said that for all that happened, the reactor held up quite well.The safety expert had also made the comment that for years he had made suggestions to improve safety and the exact incident that happened, but it all fell on deaf ears! It comes down to the almighty $$$$...how much can we save and how much will we have to pay when / if an incident should happen. Agreed. Considering that it held up at 5x the earthquake and 3.5M over the water levels for which it was designed over 40 years ago, it is damn good. Iff people step back and look at the facts, this should be a PLUS for nuke power, not a negative. I mean, look how well it worked at huge overage of design specs. You can't design the thing for a Godzilla attack FFS; that's totally impractical. You do take in account the most improbable *but realistic* thing and go for that. That's called Probabilistic Risk Assessment and is a normal engineering discipline. Right now, the radiation released (uncontrolled is an overstatement, I'd say -- only some was uncontrolled, some was necessary) has been stuff that has a short half-life or quickly dissipates so is not really a long term issue. Every day that passes means that this is all that will be resultant of the disaster. Ironically, I am told that the Fukushima #1 site (with most of the issues) was in the process of being decommissioned as obsolete which is why 3 of the 6 reactors were already shut down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LizardKing Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 There is the rub! Nuclear power is NOT cheap! Natural gas and coal power plants provide cheaper electric power. Now there is going to be spent billions of dollars to sequester these 4 radioactive husks. Plus billions in compensation to evacuees, farmers, fishermen, and businesses shut down by the radioactive contamination. That's pretty dramatic and highly improbable. And given that both coal & natural gas will run out in the fairly new future, we need to change our thinking as humans (country makes no diff). Plus, the cost to the environment is astronomical (air pollution from coal; destruction of fresh water supplies by fracking for gas, as examples). So are the deaths as compared to nuke per unit of electricity generated. Dem's facts and they are indisputable. Had we took the end of fossil fuels seriously 35 years ago, we'd not be so behind the 8-ball. But as such, nuke is the only option now, and we wasted 35+ years of R-n-D for something else because of our human arrogance or apathy or a combination of both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 Cs-137 has a 30 year half-life. Also on Tuesday the public broadcaster NHK, citing the government’s Science Ministry, reported that radiation levels surpassing 400 times the normal level had been detected in soil about 25 miles from the Fukushima plant. In the NHK report, a Gunma University professor said that radiation released by iodine-131 had been found to be 430 times the level normally detected in soil in Japan and that released by cesium-137 was 47 times the normal levels. The professor, Keigo Endo, said that there was no immediate health risk but that the radiation levels would require monitoring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 This is way worse than Three Mile Island, with 1 reactor damaged. The cost to cleanup Three Mile Island was 1 billion dollars and took 14 years. Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coss Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 Just as an exercise in thought, let's say I have a hectare of salt free land. 0g/l of salt/soil - in my soil If salt got into it, 3g/l of soil volume, would hypothetically render my soil useless and plants would never grow. So, one day, a water spout somewhere, sucks up some seawater and when combined with rain falling on my land the salt content of my land becomes 0.0001g/l. Headline, "Pristine Farmland Contaminated By Deadly Salt" Then, one day, a water spout somewhere, sucks up some seawater and when combined with rain falling on my land the salt content of my land becomes 0.04g/l. Headline, "Salt levels surpassing 400 times the normal level had been detected in soil" add "25 miles from the sea!" Neglect to say, "Plants and Humans tolerate Salt levels as high as 1.0 g/l in soil, with no problems". Neglect to say, "The difference between 0.04g/l and 1.0 g/l in soil, huge, 2 orders of magnitude, the difference between 4 elephants and 100 elephants ". So when the people who know about these things, Physicists and such say there is no health risk (at the moment) we should listen. Green Peace, Journalists, Frightened "Social" Experts and the like should try and get facts. Arguments about cost are just about money, if it's expensive, it doesn't make it bad, money is not god or some moral measure. The big problem today is the primacy of belief over fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekong Posted March 22, 2011 Report Share Posted March 22, 2011 ] There is the rub! Nuclear power is NOT cheap! Natural gas and coal power plants provide cheaper electric power. Now there is going to be spent billions of dollars to sequester these 4 radioactive husks. Plus billions in compensation to evacuees, farmers, fishermen, and businesses shut down by the radioactive contamination. Totally disagree How many fatalities can be directly linked to Nuclear power, Chernobyl the worlds worst only had 50 fatalities. compared to organic and fossil fuels that is nothing. I personally knew more than 50 people who perished on Piper Alpha, on Middle East Projects if we can keep fatalities below 10 it is classed as a success. We read about mining disasters 2-3 time a year where as Nuke incidents occur maybe once every 20 years It would be interesting to compare this incident to Deep Sea Horizion and its fiscal / enviromental impact . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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