Merged nuclear power safe?

[MarkCorrigan]

Safe, maybe, but blowing the walls and roof off with explosive force is an unusual safety mechanism and difficult for the unscientific public to accept as nothing to worry about!

That's true, but let's face it, John Q Public is ignorant about nuclear power, so it can hardly be the fault of the nuclear industry, unless there is somethign they could do to get the information out there.

How much does the long-term safety of nuclear power depend on our advanced industrial civilization remaining stable and intact for centuries?

The point is, nuclear fuel would ensure that, massive global catastrophe aside, our civilisation would carry on for centuries. It would provide all the power we could possibly ever need and land based uranium deposits would last for hundreds of thousands of years. Use breeder reactors and sea based deposits and we're talking millions of years.

Anything that would stop the power and/or create a big enough problem to prevent nuclear power sustaining us would mean we as a species would probably be way too far gone to give a toss about nuclear plants.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

On CNN they just said the radiation at the gates of the plant was 400 million seaverts, but that as you go away from the plant, the radiation decays and it isn't as bad.

Does it work like that? The radiation falls off with distance? Why is radioactivity dangerous then?

There deffinitely seems to be an issue with terminology here. The units (seaverts) have been covered in other posts, but the description of the levals "decaying" as a function of distance is just plain stupid.

Certainly gamma radiation, as an EM energy, obeys the inverse square law in respect to the decrease in energy as a function of distance.

Radioactive decay is defined as a function over time.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

This, if true, would appaear to be a major design flaw

The threat of a fission explosion at the Fukushima power facility emerged today when the roof of the number three reactor exploded and fears that a spent fuel pool, located over the reactor, has been compromised. The pool, designed to allow reactor fuel to cool off for several years, was constructed on top of the Fukushima reactors instead of underground. As of 2010, there were 3450 fuel assemblies in the pool at the number three reactor. The destruction of the number three reactor building has experts concerned about whether the spent fuel storage pool, which sits just below the roof, could have survived intact the hydrogen explosion. The explosion was much more severe than Saturday’s blast at the number one reactor.

http://www.dcbureau.org/20110314130...ng-ponds-threaten-explosion-at-fukushima.html

 

[JihadJane]

That's true, but let's face it, John Q Public is ignorant about nuclear power, so it can hardly be the fault of the nuclear industry, unless there is somethign they could do to get the information out there.

Who else but the nuclear industry is responsible for educating the public about nuclear power? Too often, instead, there have been cover-ups. That doesn't generate trust.

The point is, nuclear fuel would ensure that, massive global catastrophe aside, our civilisation would carry on for centuries.

Energy scarcity isn't the only physical constraint that our civilization is limited by.

It would provide all the power we could possibly ever need and land based uranium deposits would last for hundreds of thousands of years. Use breeder reactors and sea based deposits and we're talking millions of years.

I'll take your word for it.

This all needs to happen very quickly and at great expense, at at time when the world economy is on the edge of freefall. Who's paying?

Anything that would stop the power and/or create a big enough problem to prevent nuclear power sustaining us would mean we as a species would probably be way too far gone to give a toss about nuclear plants.

So it's fine to hand our toxic waste onto them ?

 

[Cleon]

current news....... theyr source are sources in Japan......

"Who?"
"Top men."

 

[DC]

"Who?"
"Top men."

government sources

 

[ceptimus]

The wind blowing the escaping radioactive materials 'safely' out to sea rather than towards Tokyo - that's not good safety design - just lucky.

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

This, if true, would appaear to be a major design flaw ...

The 19:00 (JST) JAIF status update lists (No Info) for the "Spent Fuel Integrity" in reactor buildings 1,2 and 3 while for reactor 4 there is a listing of "SPF level low, injecting water". 4 & 5 are listed as "SFP temp. Increasing".
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1300189582P.pdf

Containment integrity for 4 has a listing "Damage Suspected".
Overall still INES level 4 according to this status estimate.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

The wind blowing the escaping radioactive materials 'safely' out to sea rather than towards Tokyo - that's not good safety design - just lucky.

In other words, towards the U.S.

 

[Buckaroo]

Currently making the rounds on Facebook:

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/say_no_to_nuclear/?rc=fb_share2

There is so much wrong with this I don't even know where to begin.

 

[Belz...]

when you want to be living like them, with some leukemia and so. then do so, but i dont want to, thanks.

Oh, no. I want you to give me some examples of what you're talking about. No more claims.

 

[DC]

Oh, no. I want you to give me some examples of what you're talking about. No more claims.

wow, when you dont know that, you are like 25 years late......

read about it.

 

[timhau]

400 millisievert would be a lot though, wouldn't it? Especially if it were constant.

Depends on the time factor. 400 mSV/hour is certainly a lot more than you'd want. It's about a two-year dose in the most naturally radioactive place on Earth, Ramsar, Iran.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

The 19:00 (JST) JAIF status update lists (No Info) for the "Spent Fuel Integrity" in reactor buildings 1,2 and 3 while for reactor 4 there is a listing of "SPF level low, injecting water". 4 & 5 are listed as "SFP temp. Increasing".
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1300189582P.pdf

Containment integrity for 4 has a listing "Damage Suspected".
Overall still INES level 4 according to this status estimate.

Did you see the note on the bottom that said that the hydrogen explosion was cuased by hydrogen released from the SFP?

That would explain why that explosion took the roof of that part of the structure.

 

[bobdroege7]

Like the sources that point out that the radiation levels had, at one point, spiked at 400 milliseiverts per hour which isn't dangerous unless it persists for a considerable period of time?

Those sources?

At 400 millisieverts per hour:

In 8 minutes you exceed your annual dose limit for US radworkers.

In 40 minutes you equal my lifetime (so far) exposure from 30 years.

In about the same 40 minutes blood changes due to rad exposure could be detected.

In about an hour and 30 minutes you could see the start of radiation sickness.

In about 12 hours you approach the 50/50 chance of a lethal dose.

So much for it isn't dangerous.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Did you see the note on the bottom that said that the hydrogen explosion was cuased by hydrogen released from the SFP?

That would explain why that explosion took the roof of that part of the structure.

The explosion at # 4 had to have been from the SFP because the reactor itself was shut down for maintenance prior to the earthquake.

 

[timhau]

Amusing* that one of my worst hit stocks is a coal miner. You'd think is ANYONE was going to do well out of this......

Right now, my worst-performing stocks are a Russian oil company and a Swedish clothes retailer that operates in Scandinavia, the Baltics and Eastern Central Europe. Their business was so obviously linked to the Japanese nuclear program that ... wait, what?!?

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Right now, my worst-performing stocks are a Russian oil company and a Swedish clothes retailer that operates in Scandinavia, the Baltics and Eastern Central Europe. Their business was so obviously linked to the Japanese nuclear program that ... wait, what?!?

You would think that lead lined clothing would be big right now.

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

Did you see the note on the bottom that said that the hydrogen explosion was cuased by hydrogen released from the SFP?

That would explain why that explosion took the roof of that part of the structure.

I did, yes, it was mentioned in the previous estimate (13:00 JST) as well.

... and part of the walls and similar explosions may have resulted in damage to other elements of the reactor buildings/equipment ... (No certainty on many events yet.)

 

[timhau]

As far as fear-mongering goes, this might take the cake: some investigative journalist wannabe at a local economics newspaper has figured out that if there was no electricity anywhere in Finland, we'd be in deep . You couldn't even buy stuff because neither ATMs nor credit cards would work.

Folks, give this man a Pulitzer.