Japan earthquake + tsunami + nuclear problems

[Ziggurat]

I'm just saying that renewable sources of energy are still in their infancy and will no doubt get better as time goes on.

Wind power isn't in its infancy. It's many centuries old. It's not advancing at a rapid rate anymore. Solar is newer than nuclear, but not by that much.

To write them off as being useless and not worthy of further investment I think would be shortsighted.

Concluding that they are inappropriate for base loads is very different from concluding that they are useless.

I agree that right now nuclear is the best option we have, but there are bound to be better alternatives out there.

If we can get it working, fusion would definitely be better than fission.

 

[gumboot]

The classical Greek establishment rejected iron weapons because they had so much invested (materially and culturally) in bronze, and look what happened to them.

Um... no. I think you're thinking of the Mycenaean Civilisation, which was Bronze Age. The Greeks used iron weapons. As early as 900BC virtually all weapons recovered from graves in the Aegean and Greece are iron.

 

[gumboot]

No actually, they don't.

The Fukushima reactors survived the quake and tsunami fully intact.

Hadn't you heard?

Interestingly, the reactors survived a ground acceleration double their design limit.

 

[gumboot]

They had to wait a week to do the obvious?


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/us-joins-race-to-save-reactors/story-fn84naht-1226024568513


I would have thought after the first explosion, this would have been an obvious response for the rest of the plants at the site.

I would have thought that you'd want to avoid drilling a hole at all costs, since it would guarantee radiation will get out.

What I don't understand is why it's taking over a week to get power to the cooling pumps.

The electricity company in Christchurch, after deciding they couldn't repair the infrastructure in the eastern city, linked in power by building a new 3km overhead line in 2 1/2 days (a feat that would normally take 6-7 weeks).

I can understand that they have problems now because there's radiation issues, but if they'd started on alternative power supply to the water pumping system immediately the issue shouldn't have arisen.

I just don't get it.

 

[Mr Clingford]

What I don't understand is why it's taking over a week to get power to the cooling pumps.

The electricity company in Christchurch, after deciding they couldn't repair the infrastructure in the eastern city, linked in power by building a new 3km overhead line in 2 1/2 days (a feat that would normally take 6-7 weeks).

I can understand that they have problems now because there's radiation issues, but if they'd started on alternative power supply to the water pumping system immediately the issue shouldn't have arisen.

I just don't get it.

Me too.

 

[macdoc]

Originally Posted by bikerdruid
earthquakes sure seem to **** them up.

Earthquakes can mess up any man-made structure. But those reactors survived the earthquake, it was the tsunami that really messed them up. And a tsunami would have really messed up a wind farm or solar power station too.

Not to mention say 3 Gorges or Aswan

 

[Skwinty]

The electricity company in Christchurch, after deciding they couldn't repair the infrastructure in the eastern city, linked in power by building a new 3km overhead line in 2 1/2 days (a feat that would normally take 6-7 weeks).

According to the Japanese the power cable was being fed from a coal staion in the north.

That would be the coal station in Noshiro, I assume. That is quite a bit more than 3km away.

Give the Japanese a break for goodness sake. Hindsight is the only exact science and is mainly espoused by armchair critics.

 

[Belz...]

I'm afraid you've lost me there. When you mentioned ores I assumed you were referring to copper, zinc, niobium, that sort of resource. I don't see where coal and (vanishing) oil come into it, and just because we have otherwise-useless uranium available there's no pressing need to exploit it.

Wind mills require lots of copper and iron to build. If we need hundreds of thousands, or millions, of them, I don't think it'll be a good thing for our reserves. As for coal plants, I seem to remember that our oil reserves are finite, and that we might want to keep as much of our alternative oil ressources as possible. We DO use it for a LOT of things.

I'm thinking medium-term, not daily-term. If I was thinking that short-term I'd have made more of "... intermittency, unpredictability and inability to produce on demand" with reference to a Japanese nuclear facility. To me that's just an event.

Not sure I follow you. Wind isn't very reliable, and the cost of constantly repairing mills damaged by strong winds or other factors will certainly be astronomical.

 

[Belz...]

That development has been going on for a while now, and progress is being made.

But you can't guess if it will ever be good enough for the task. All you can know is what we have NOW.

Much more often, decisions are made on the basis that things won't change fundamentally.

Would it be reasonable to go all Sylvia Browne and assume we know how it will change ? That doesn't sound right to me. We know there will be some change but no real grasp of what that will be, so naturally we go with what we know. It's not good planning otherwise.

 

[Belz...]

Why can't every house have it's own small windmill on the roof, and it's own solar panel(s) to supplement the amount of power it needs to pull off the grid.

And what will power that grid ?

Neccesity is the mother of invention.

You can't change the laws of physics, though.

Nuclear power is good but has significant drawbacks.

Compared to what ? It produces more electricity from a smaller construction and produces little waste that eventually becomes safe.

In the longer term I think that either someone will discover a new way of powering stuff that doesn't involve radiation

Thank you for admitting that "radiation" is what bothers you with nuclear. But one form of toxicity isn't much worse than another. You're afraid of radiation, specifically. Don't open a smoke detector.

And again, you can't just assume that the future will hold the answers and therefore do nothing. That is way too easy and doesn't solve our energy problems.

 

[Aepervius]

The events at the Fukishima nuclear power plant are an enormous blow to the nuclear power industry, globally. They have "potentially far reaching consequences for civilisation" because they have happened just as our energy-hungry civilization is facing a "Peal Oil" energy crunch which challenges our civilization's dependence on economic growth and ever-increasing consumption.

This is the point I dispute. Up to now environmentally speaking Fukushima has been far less impact than the rest of the tsunami damage. The plant security held and there was no enormous contamination outside. This is a rather good demonstration that 40 year old design held, and the newer design are probably even better.

But people would rather have an uranium belching coal (and coal miner killing) plant beside their home ? That is downright irrational and shows that the scare mongering won over rationality.

It is logical to expect that nuclear power plants built where there is a known risk of earthquakes and tsunamis should be able to withstand both.

It is illogical to expect a 40 year old design to sustain a very rare event and come out unscathed. It is illogical and downright irrational to think the Japanese won't draw the consequence of it and change a bit their design. It is downright stupid to think future plant would not learn the lessons from this one.

Now if you excuse me , I ignore all "daily fail" article.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

There are the resources available to make the transition over the next few decades. We will end up using renewables, and doing a loop through nuclear power on the way just delays the process.

We'll end up living differently as well, of course. The Great Car-Culture is a passing phase.

What about the resources needed to maintain our renewable energy infrastructure?

I think the term 'renewable' is a bit of fudge to be honest because while the energy sources might well be renewable the steel, copper, rare earths and other materials needed to build the things aren't. And these things have lifespans like everything else.

 

[Aepervius]

What about the resources needed to maintain our renewable energy infrastructure?

I think the term 'renewable' is a bit of fudge to be honest because while the energy sources might well be renewable the steel, copper, rare earths and other materials needed to build the things aren't. And these things have lifespans like everything else.

I would indeed like to see the resource cost and man hour associated with building and maintaining *one* nuke plant, as opposed to the resource cost and man hour to maintain the many thousands of equivalent wind farm... (wasn't there a comparison between biblis and 16000 wind turbine by CHristian ? I saw something similar on german TV ith all planst combined to 35000 wind farm).

 

[a_unique_person]

I would have thought that you'd want to avoid drilling a hole at all costs, since it would guarantee radiation will get out.

The holes are being put in the outer shell, which does not perform a containment function, but stopped the hydrogen gas dispersing when it was vented from the container. The results of the explosion are far worse than not having an explosion.

 

[gumboot]

According to the Japanese the power cable was being fed from a coal staion in the north.

That would be the coal station in Noshiro, I assume. That is quite a bit more than 3km away.

The articles I have read say the cable is only 1.5km. And they only started it in the last couple of days. If in fact they started it immediately and have had to cover much greater distance, I stand corrected.

Give the Japanese a break for goodness sake. Hindsight is the only exact science and is mainly espoused by armchair critics.

It's not really hindsight. Surely if you lose power to a vital piece of machinery that could result in a nuclear meltdown, restoring power to that machinery should be a priority, shouldn't it?

My impression is that they've only been working on reconnecting the cooling system in the last few days.

Again, that's only my impression, based on the reports I've read. I am curious to why this is. If, in fact, my impressions are wrong and they've been working furiously on this since day one, my curiosity is satisfied.

 

[sol invictus]

Solar has even more problems because lots of power is needed at night and the only available solar is on the other half of the world.

People keep saying that. It's not true. Another way to do something similar (but less efficiently) is to use excess power to pump water uphill into a reservoir. Then you can let it out (through a dam obviously) when you need power.

Regardless of the technology used to generate power, building that kind of flexibility into the grid is a good idea.

 

[gumboot]

The holes are being put in the outer shell, which does not perform a containment function, but stopped the hydrogen gas dispersing when it was vented from the container. The results of the explosion are far worse than not having an explosion.

Ah, this is in reactors 5 and 6. My mistake.

 

[Ambrosia]

You can't change the laws of physics, though.

I'm willing to bet there are laws of physics that we haven't discovered yet.

Compared to what ? It produces more electricity from a smaller construction and produces little waste that eventually becomes safe.

Define eventually.

Again I'm pro nuclear energy. I'd much rather see nuclear plants go up than coal plants. It's a stopgap measure though until we either solve the "what to do about the waste" problems or the "how to make nuclear trivially safe" problems or we find a safer, cheaper method of generating power.

You're afraid of radiation, specifically. Don't open a smoke detector.

I know how they make smoke detectors already. I don't have some irrational fear of radiation. I get a higher dose of radiation every year from smoking than I ever will from smoke detectors.


[as an aside how is it that you can smoke cigarettes underneath a smoke detector all day and it doesn't go off, however if you light up with a match the smoke from the match head will set it off almost immediately?]

And again, you can't just assume that the future will hold the answers and therefore do nothing. That is way too easy and doesn't solve our energy problems.

Where do you get the idea that I'm saying we should do nothing? IMO we should build nuclear fission power stations and stop with the fossil fuel based stations immediately. Perhaps the way we generate and distribute power could use a rethink as well.

 

[bikerdruid]

Earthquakes can mess up any man-made structure. But those reactors survived the earthquake, it was the tsunami that really messed them up. And a tsunami would have really messed up a wind farm or solar power station too.

but a wind farm or solar station would not now be threatening millions of lives.
it would simply be off line.

 

[Belz...]

I'm willing to bet there are laws of physics that we haven't discovered yet.

So now, instead of imagining new technologies that may or may not ever exist, we exist new physics ?

Define eventually.

10,000 years or so.

It's a stopgap measure though until we either solve the "what to do about the waste" problems or the "how to make nuclear trivially safe" problems or we find a safer, cheaper method of generating power.

Cars aren't trivially safe and yet we use them every day. They kill more people than a lot of other causes and yet we continue to use them.

[as an aside how is it that you can smoke cigarettes underneath a smoke detector all day and it doesn't go off, however if you light up with a match the smoke from the match head will set it off almost immediately?]

And why do they go off when I'm making toasts ?

Where do you get the idea that I'm saying we should do nothing?

Nowhere. But this "well, one day we'll have better options" leads a lot of people to say we should keep coal plants in the meantime, as if they "know" that this better option is "right around the corner". This new tech is kinda like the second coming, really.