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Merged nuclear power safe?

Java Man said:
This is mediocrity at its best. Your main line or argument is comparing nuclear power with coal/oil/gas power. Which are basically three century old solutions from the beginning of the industrial age.

You will always excel if you compare yourself with the loser in the class. Rather than compare it archaic technologies, compare it with itself and see what could have been improved.
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First of all, electricity hasn’t been around for 300 years…only about 130 or so. Now, again, I said let this event stand on its own. A plant designed with slide rules survived the 4th or 5th largest earthquake ever recorded. It still was the safest place to be and only one person has died from the earthquake. How do you consider this a fail? That isn’t mediocre on my scale…I feel very proud of the people that have designed the plant. Subsequently I compared nuclear to the other major forms of electricity production…that is a reasonable comparison as it clearly demonstrates a much higher safety record for nuclear. You seem to dismiss this.


There are plenty of recorded tsunamis of greater hight recorded in Japan's history prior to the building of the plan. Secondly they should have contemplated the scenario in which the wall is not enough. On the following lines
a) we have a wall to contain tsunamis and it will contain waves up to X height
b) what are our options if the wall is compromised or not high enough for the incoming wave?

Unfortunately b was not answered. While it is true that there could be many events and natural disasters, there is one important outcome to consider : vast quantities of water get in. You don't need to think of all the possible events, just one important outcome : water in the plant perimeter. Why not seal the generator in concrete buildings that don't allow water to get in? Why not put some generators up hill, far from the waterline?

Thinking all possible scenarios is not all that complex. For each backup system you have to think about a) being ok or b) failing. Since there was powerline, generator and battery as options you really don't have that many decision points. Now you may rant all you want about reasons for that to fail, a tree falling, an airplane crash, an earthquake, etc etc etc. But the bottom line is just this: what do we do when backup X fails?

Why not the option of having an external jack to plug a trailer loaded generator? Why not auxiliary water connections to put in an external cooling unit for the pools? Why no containment dome on the pools themselves!!??

The main concern right now is the fuel in the pools. Nobody cared to ask what if all three backups fail. It is pretty clear to anybody in the industry that those pools would dry up. Ironically the fuel from the shutdown reactor is one of the ones posing the greatest threat right now. And no one ever though of putting tubes to the outside of a the building to connect some water hydrants?

How expensive can it be to put an external connector to water sprinklers? How hard was it to think of a safer pool? Particularly when it is clear that power failure would lead to its overheating.

So to address your point about worse case scenarios. No they are not designed to consider worse case scenarios because clearly we are living through a worse case scenario that wasn't considered. Once again I don't believe "that every possible natural disaster is predictable and there can't be an unseen event." To do so is impossible, but it is possible to consider the failure of all the systems and all backup systems we implement. Because those are finite and set by us and thus predictable. And then ask us what do we do then.
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Please post the evidence of bigger tsunamis hitting Japan.

Pools do have external water connections, but they still need electricity to pump water into them and the connection may not be accessible. There isn’t enough information to access what has happened. Spent fuel storage is still a robust building. The spent fuel is kept less than 120 degrees Fahrenheit (50ºC) The amount of energy in the spent fuel is minimal and it was expected to get cooling within a few days…which didn’t happen and hydrogen buildup was a problem.


You can come up with any hypothetical that will take out a plant or a plane or anything. You are doing a post hoc analysis by elevating all the accident scenarios—everything looks like a failure under that type of analysis. You keep assuming that it is possible to design for everything failing—that is not possible. If you actually try to do that, we would never build any plant or drive a car or fly any plane or actually walk out of the front door. I suggest you look up PRA.

There will be lessons learned from this experience and additional safety measures will be implemented. However, it won't be off the cuff--analysis of cause and effect will be performed across multiple disciplines. Right now, the worst case analysis is working as the plant is still surviving and people are not receiving overdoses of radiation.


glenn
 
Nuclear Power is safe and in fact nuclear radiation is benefitial to our bodies and our minds. Radiation occurs naturally all around us and aids in our development of vitiamin D in our bodies. Studies have concluded in fact that people who work in nuclear power plants have a lower occurance of all cancers. Nuclear radiation, in fact, is used to kill cancer cells. This all proves that nuclear power is save. I am just kidding. Let's see if anyone responds without reading my complete post.
 
Debaser said:
However, Japan has a coastline approximately 29,000km long. Therefore, to affect this 1km of coastline where the reactors are located is a;
((1/6.73) x (1/10) x (1/29,000) x 40) chance.
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That comes to around 0.000002049 or 1 in 487925.

Now multiply that times what's at stake. Just the cleanup has been placed in this thread at 100 billion. Plus the new plant themselves, plus public image impact, plus stock loss, plus lost revenue, plus human impact, etc.

Lets just talk material costs at 120 billion? 0.000002049 * 120B = 245880

If an insurance company were to pay out 1 in every 487925 possible outcomes it would have to charge you $245,880 for coverage so to speak. You can cover the generators with that money can't you?

There's also the issue that your calculation is slightly flawed. A tsunami can easily cover more than 1km of area. So the 1/29000 isn't very accurate. For example the quake in the Indian ocean easily affected all of Sri Lanka.

As you can see from the image here it is quite a large area:

http://www.disasterscharter.org/image/journal/article.jpg?img_id=96235&t=1300352325135

Maybe 1/20 of the costal area? Moving 1/29000 to 1/20 or 1/30 greatly increases the odds.

BTW, how much are the generators themselves valued at? How much is it worth constructing around them to further protect them?

Look at these costs: http://www.hardydiesel.com/detroit-diesel-generators/

Building sized generators are running up to half a million. Why do you think they'd put half a million Dollar generators in place? It is sheer negligence to spend so much money on that and then fail secure them in a water tight building. How much would such building add? $100,000?? Not much more than that even for the over priced nuclear industry.
 
bikerdruid said:
:D
...just an aside, sir.....
'toke'....great name..:)
....does is have the same meaning in danish as in english?
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No it does not. :) But nice thought. :D
In Danish it is a shortening of a couple names meaning Thor's kettle or hauberk. (So, no I am not related to bluekusk-somenumber)

Why not? Mongolia is close to Japan.
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Not really, but it has a lot of desert. :D
 
Seeing that TMI clean up was in the bnillion, I wonder from which place you are taking your 120 billion from. ETA: and that 120 or 100 billion number was pulled out of thin air by the poster.

As for the rest, I think I will simply stop responding to you since you obviously aren't reading what we say to you.
 
Java Man said:
That comes to around 0.000002049 or 1 in 487925.

Now multiply that times what's at stake. Just the cleanup has been placed in this thread at 100 billion. Plus the new plant themselves, plus public image impact, plus stock loss, plus lost revenue, plus human impact, etc.

Lets just talk material costs at 120 billion? 0.000002049 * 120B = 245880

If an insurance company were to pay out 1 in every 487925 possible outcomes it would have to charge you $245,880 for coverage so to speak. You can cover the generators with that money can't you?

There's also the issue that your calculation is slightly flawed. A tsunami can easily cover more than 1km of area. So the 1/29000 isn't very accurate. For example the quake in the Indian ocean easily affected all of Sri Lanka.

As you can see from the image here it is quite a large area:

http://www.disasterscharter.org/image/journal/article.jpg?img_id=96235&t=1300352325135

Maybe 1/20 of the costal area? Moving 1/29000 to 1/20 or 1/30 greatly increases the odds.

BTW, how much are the generators themselves valued at? How much is it worth constructing around them to further protect them?

Look at these costs: http://www.hardydiesel.com/detroit-diesel-generators/

Building sized generators are running up to half a million. Why do you think they'd put half a million Dollar generators in place? It is sheer negligence to spend so much money on that and then fail secure them in a water tight building. How much would such building add? $100,000?? Not much more than that even for the over priced nuclear industry.
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The diesels are in water tight buildings and also separated by fire barriers.

glenn

by the way...you can't do anything in a nuclear plant for 100K...that won't even cover the first level of paperwork.
 
Java Man said:
And now they're going to need to do it now anyway, and they have the lack of power from the shutdown reactors, and they're in the middle of a crisis, and bleeding money on other things, and on top of that they'll have the cleanup bill. Suddenly Java Man's 5% tax increase begins to sound like a drop in a bucket compared to all this.

Prevention is usually cheaper than correction. Ever heard of insurance policies? It's the stuff you pay with the intent on not using it.
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The reactors were already slated for shutdown and replacement, one of them only a little later this year.

But you know what? If the reactors had been scheduled for replacement ten years ago, and this natural disaster had happened ten years and one week ago, you'd be saying the exact same thing. In fact only way to satisfy your complaint that the plants should have already been replaced, would be to never have built them to begin with.

Even if you're feeling generous on the topic, shouldn't you be advocating all nuclear-powered nations immediately divert a substantial portion of their productivity and wealth reserves into a crash program to replace all existing nuke plants with new, stronger ones (and then promptly replace the new plants as soon as they're done building them)?

I mean, surely we cannot accept a window of opportunity of any size, for a natural disaster of unusual proportions to defeat the current level of protection?

Conversely, if you think that there is an acceptable window of opportunity, during which we can rely on the current level of protection, would you mind telling us what it is?

You've already made the point that you don't think this is it. So what would you recommend instead?
 
Java Man said:
That comes to around 0.000002049 or 1 in 487925.
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Which is the starting point. Now if we add System X (automatic shutdown) to protect from the hazard, what is the chance that this too fails. And now add Safety System Y (containment), and System Z (back-up cooling), etc., etc. At some point the probability that ALL those additional systems fail simultaneously probably does become negligible. At that point why add more and more redundancy?
 
Debaser said:
Which is the starting point. Now if we add System X (automatic shutdown) to protect from the hazard, what is the chance that this too fails. And now add Safety System Y (containment), and System Z (back-up cooling), etc., etc. At some point the probability that ALL those additional systems fail simultaneously probably does become negligible. At that point why add more and more redundancy?
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Hindsight, obviously.
 
Debaser said:
As others have said, it comes down to a risk assessment.

Besides, an earthquake occuring in Tokyo may produce a 9.0 'quake in Fukushima, but due to its location it wouldn't necessarily produce a tsunami. Quakes seem to be the more common threat.

Very quick and dirty risk assessment (it's a Sunday);
Based on Wiki-p there have been 195 tsunamis in Japan in a 1300 year period. Therefore there is approximately 1 tsunami hitting Japan every 6.73 years. Of these about 1 in 10 are listed (let's say they are the 'notable' ones). However, Japan has a coastline approximately 29,000km long. Therefore, to affect this 1km of coastline where the reactors are located is a;
((1/6.73) x (1/10) x (1/29,000) x 40) chance.
Of course, the outcome of a nuclear incident varies, therefore I'll let the reader suggest what value should be ascribed to the severity of this risk. But the point is the engineers will have done this calculation and presumably factored in the probabilities of multiple failures of the safety systems over the 40 year working life of the plant, and the figures they got were again, presumably, below the threshold for requiring any additional systems.
And there has to be a threshold, to everything up to and including nuclear facilities, otherwise we'll end up designing all our infrastructure to withstand meteor impacts.
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The 1/29,000 makes no sense, tsunamis have a very broad front, as this one did.

You also have to account for the probability that if one system fails, that another will probably fail.

There are two power sources to run the cooling. If one fails, the external AC power, you have a very large increase in the probability that another will fail due to tsunami, the generators. That is, tsumais that wrecked the generators are associated with the quake that killed the external AC. If one happens, then the other will also likely happen.
 
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Debaser said:
Which is the starting point. Now if we add System X (automatic shutdown) to protect from the hazard, what is the chance that this too fails. And now add Safety System Y (containment), and System Z (back-up cooling), etc., etc. At some point the probability that ALL those additional systems fail simultaneously probably does become negligible. At that point why add more and more redundancy?
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Because your reasoning is wrong. The automatic shutdown still requires A/C power to be available for these reactors to be considered successful.
 
a_unique_person said:
There are two power sources to run the cooling. If one fails, the external AC power, you have a very large increase in the probability that another will fail due to tsunami, the generators. That is, tsumais that wrecked the generators are associated with the quake that killed the external AC. If one happens, then the other will also likely happen.
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Actually there were three sources, the generators were backed up by Batteries.

And your "very large increase in the probability" is rubbish totally based on hindsight.
 
Java Man said:
Can we protect against a 5 m tall wave? Yes An 8 m tall wave? No. What do we do then. Asking if we can protect against a 9, 10, 11 m etc wave is pointless beyond that.
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You do realise that height is only one factor in a tsumani and probably the least important one?

What counts is not the height of the wave, which can vary based on terrain and sea depth, but rather the size of the surge, in other words how long it is.

This one was able to push water inland for 10km, meaning the surge was likely in the range of about 12km or more. The Boxing Day 2004 tsunami was only in the order of a 4-5km surge and only went about 2km inland. This tsumani was bigger than anything Japan has seen before, created by the largest quake in Japanese history (and given they have been recording quakes for 1,000 years,) and all defences that were built to stop the likes of a 1933 sized tsumani failed spectacularly against this one. Even their designated "Tsunami Safe Zones" were out by over a mile.

Claiming that they should have been aware that a disater of this scale could happen is total Monday morning Quarterbacking.
 
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