Japan earthquake + tsunami + nuclear problems

I read that in Chernobyl they couldn't bury it until the pumped all the water out, and put all this concrete underneath to contain it. If there is water it will blow up, no matter how much concrete and sand they dump on it.
 
Corsair 115 said:
Hmmm, do you have some data on that? I ask because as I recall Ontario has had its highest peak power usage during heat waves in the summer when all those air conditioners are running...
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A quick search didn't find any data. You may be correct about electrical demand, given that many homes and businesses use oil/gas heating.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
That being said, the restrictions on materials available for the construction, some of which have been stated to be extremely rare and hard to come by, is still in effect, albeit a smaller one.
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Not sure this is true. Do you have references? Seems to me that the material and design production costs are far greater for almost any other energy source. Wind turbines are relatively simple.

As far as I can tell, although I'm happy to be proved wrong, it is still not feasible to produce enough wind turbines in enough areas to cover a majority or even a truly significant portion of an industrialised nation's power needs.
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This depends on the nation; how many exploitable areas have constant wind? Where the wind always blows, wind turbines can power adjacent communities. They don't, technically, because everything is on the grid. The system just sucks from the grid if the wind slows down too much. It doesn't have to.

We can "store" energy. We can use excess energy to pump water up hill for hydro power when we have less wind. We can use excess energy to pump air into depleted oil wells to run other turbines. These aren't just concepts. They have been successfully implemented. The firm for which I work is currently bidding on one of these projects.

We don't do these things, because we have an existing network of cheap coal plants. It's economics. It's not about ability. Our biggest challenge with renewables is economic. It's monetary. It's political. It's budget. It seems difficult to believe that with inexhaustable economic resources and political will we'd have any real technical road blocks in shifting to a renewable-based energy infrastructure.
 
Grizzly Bear said:
I was asking about it mainly because the containment for one of the reactors is breached, and leaking water with high levels of radiation. I guess considering the circumstances burying the things in concrete and sand is even more last resort than using sea water to cool the reactors.
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Might be breached, we don't know yet. Though I'm not sure where all this irradiated water could come from otherwise.
 
OMGturt1es said:
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We can "store" energy. We can use excess energy to pump water up hill for hydro power when we have less wind. We can use excess energy to pump air into depleted oil wells to run other turbines. These aren't just concepts. They have been successfully implemented. The firm for which I work is currently bidding on one of these projects.
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Suitable water storage locations (i.e. a deep fjord with sufficiently non porous rock underneath) that can be commandeered--people moved out etc--- for this purpose are relatively rare.

Even so a good sized valley MIGHT cover the equivalent of a single reactor in capacity. In which case you need enough wind generating capacity to provide local power PLUS enough to pump additional water into the reservoir. Then you need hydroelectric capacity (of similar level to the wind capacity) when the process reverses. Additionally you need enough electric motor pumping capacity or wind pumping capacity to fill the reservoir relatively rapidly when the wind is strong. Compare this with conventional hydroelectric where you are NOT pumping water into the reservoir, but nature does ti for you.

Then there are the issues of lost energy in the electricity to pumping, and in the hydroelectric reconversion, lost energy due to evaporation of the water after pumping and loss of pumped water into the ground. and, oh yes you need a big enough source of water.. existing large lake (probably not available), sea water (environmentally problematic).

This is not even close to a general solution.
 
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OMGturt1es said:
We can "store" energy. We can use excess energy to pump water up hill for hydro power when we have less wind. We can use excess energy to pump air into depleted oil wells to run other turbines. These aren't just concepts. They have been successfully implemented. The firm for which I work is currently bidding on one of these projects.
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Indeed, they have been implemented. They've also had disasters. Shifting from nuclear to wind + reservoirs isn't necessarily any safer.
 
OMGturt1es said:
Not sure this is true. Do you have references? Seems to me that the material and design production costs are far greater for almost any other energy source. Wind turbines are relatively simple.
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Actually, they aren't. They're pretty sophisticated.

The problem is that in order to be economical, the whole thing needs to be as light as possible. The heavier it is, the most costly construction becomes. And to make light-weight generators, you want to use permanent magnets that have as large a magnetic moment per unit mass as you can get. Currently, that means using neodymium iron boride, Nd2Fe14B. And right now, most of the global production of neodymium comes from China, where its production is pretty dirty. Furthermore, China is now imposing export restrictions on neodymium (and other rare earth minerals), so the global supply is going to be limited.
 
Ziggurat said:
It could come from the spent fuel pools.
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Or from pipes of the coolant circulation system.
The radiation level was 10000 times what is normal for coolant in a nuclear power plant however, which indicates damage to the fuel rods. It's likely that this is water from the reactor leaking from damaged pipes.
 
Aepervius said:
I am wondering where the NY time get that. All primary source (tepco) indicate exposure of 170 mSv. I am wondering if somebody by teh NYTime did not do the same error as was done initially (misplace the coma).
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Tepco is going to be liable, so a little cynicism is warranted. Remember BP lowballing the amount of oil coming out of the well? The NY Times figure comes from The National Institute of Radiological Sciences
 
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It would be far more practical to store wnd energy in ev vehicles for the grid to draw on.

That will require a smart grid - but a combo of nuclear base, gas turbine peak load, EV smart storage and 30% wind/solar as appropriate is a feasible mix. That is where Ontario is heading tho in fits and starts.
But the higher the renewables the higher the cost of the grid and the storage. ( and individual EV would not be allowed to go below 60% and some proposed systems pay the owners a premium if it does - so if you have a short commute you might end with a free ride from time to time).

Individuals can and do become largely self contained and feed some to the grid and can power their own ev.
THIS is feasible -

Running a major city and industrial region is not feasible without consistent baseload and nuclear already provides that for 15% of the world's power and in some regions 30% ( japan ) 40% ( Ontario and others ), 70-80% France.

The proof is in the doing and France and Ontario are both big time proof of safety and effectiveness.

It is not inexpensive but a nuclear reactor has a run time upwards of 50 years and maybe more with refits.

Forgoing nuclear due to fear mongering while allowing coal a free ride is just utterly stupid. :mad:
 
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It ain't over yet. I fear something terrible is going to happen. Not to mention the probable total economic collapse of Japan.
 
Don't worry. No matter how bad it gets, somebody will be saying, "Nuclear power is safe", so it will all be OK.
 
r-j said:
Don't worry. No matter how bad it gets, somebody will be saying, "Nuclear power is safe", so it will all be OK.
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Don't get me wrong. I think nuclear power is necessary and incredibly useful. There are no "safe" cars, airplanes, or even bicycles. Seeing enough "Seconds from Disaster" shows highlights that a perfect storm of events can have disastrous consequences.
 
alfaniner said:
It ain't over yet. I fear something terrible is going to happen. Not to mention the probable total economic collapse of Japan.
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Total economic collapse? Boy, I hope not.

Here's the latest bad news:

Radiation in reactor's building tests 10 million times above normal

Tokyo (CNN) -- Radiation levels in pooled water tested in the No. 2 nuclear reactor's turbine building at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant are 10 million times normal, utility company and government officials said Sunday.
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ETA:
The 10-million-times normal reading applies to radioactive iodine-134 found in the No. 2 building's pooled water, according to the nuclear safety agency. This isotope loses half its radioactive atoms every 53 minutes, compared to a half-life of every eight days for radioactive iodine-131 that has also been detected in recent days.
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That means it would be back down to normal in a day, if more isn't added in the meantime.
 
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If it's leaking, and it appears it is, and there is a fusion reaction happening, and there is evidence suggesting that too, then the area is a small scale Chernobyl. It won't cause the economic collapse of Japan, but it will render a sizeable area uninhabitable for a long period of time. From this, I would guess about 30km radius. Apart from that, I would guess no-one is going to be living with 100km if they can help it, even if it is safe.

Also, according to this, it rates a level 6.

http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2011/03/slowly-leaking.html

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, all the evidence has for some time pointed towards a significant leak from a reactor core. The radiation levels around the plant don't seem to be dropping much if at all - it can't be expect to actually decay much over a few days, but should surely start to disperse if the source is eliminated. There was a brief mention of neutrons being found some way off-site, which I think suggests ongoing and unshielded fission, long after the reactors were supposedly shut down. Remarkably, this news was only released 10 days after the observations were actually made, and it was only at that point that TEPCO said they would start to look for uranium and plutonium! And it is only now, following the unavoidable evidence of the recent radiation burns suffered from workers on site (who weren't even wearing boots despite wading through water!) and heavy contamination of the sea, that the likelihood of a leak is being openly discussed by officials (also here and here).

The accident looks like being upgraded to a level 6, though I don't think this is official yet. There is a de facto increase in the official 20km exclusion zone to 30km, as it seems that no-one will make deliveries in that area and there's not much point in living there when you have to stay indoors all day and the Govt is openly admitting that "the present conditions are projected to continue over a long period of time". Some modelling suggests that infants may have received as much as 100mSv so far, even outside of the 30km advisory zone. It's obviously a horrible disaster for the area.
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Puppycow said:
Tepco is going to be liable, so a little cynicism is warranted. Remember BP lowballing the amount of oil coming out of the well? The NY Times figure comes from The National Institute of Radiological Sciences
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Think I did not looked there first ? That is why I said there was no news after 21st March for the english page, and after 24th march for the japanese. ETA: if it was told , it was told offline and an untraceable mannersuch as this does not even come up as a press conference release.
 
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Fission. Not Fusion. And I would rather wait for official news than hear speculation from people which seem to be saying "the end of the world is neigh" when most of the environmental damage hasn't been done by the local nuclear plant.
 
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