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Merged nuclear power safe?

JihadJane said:
Who's spinning rubbish now? "Such people" have got absolutely nothing to do with why the Japanese keep spent fuel on-site.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
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Since my comment was in reply to another comment referring to people blocking (or trying to block) the transports in the US, i replied that they do the same here as well, just way more "militant".

I then added the general remark that since as a result of those people's actions nuclear power plants now store the used up fuel on-site (either by reaching that agreement, or because of those protesters actively lobbying to get no terminal storage facility built as is the case in Germany), it makes the whole situation even worse, since on-site, ground-level storage simply isn't as safe as burrying the waste.

So yes, it has nothing to do with why they store the used fuel on-site in Fukushima. But then, neither had the post i replied to.

Context matters, you know ;)

Greetings,

Chris
 
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dudalb said:
Why is the Anti Nuke movement so much more powerful in Germany then it is in other European countries? Just curious.
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Frankly, i have no idea.It might be because the anti-nuke movement employs _really_ nasty methods. It might be because our politicians suck big time anyways. It might be because the average Joe over here has no clue about much of the realities involved, and thus prefer to make much noise instead of turning on their brains. It might be because we have some really nasty boulevard media/newspapers here that are known to purposefully spread lies and smear campaigns.

Really, i have no clue. My guess is a combination of all of the above. Sometimes i think we are on the way of making a laughing stock of our selves.

Greetings,

Chris

Edit: BTW, it's not just the anti nuke movement. The whole "green" movement is pretty strong over here, quite often causing a lot of fuzz and useless/crappy laws and regulations.

For example, let's assume you buy a big chunk of land here. Now you want to build homes, a shopping mall, a school or hospital or whatever on that land. All that one needs to do to stop that is to find one instance of an endangered (and may the endangerment ever so slight) animal on that land, and you are out of luck. And no, moving that or those animals to another, nearby place isn't working either, since you are not allowed to do that.

Protecting the environment is all fine and dandy with me. But it seriously starts to get ridiculous.

Edit 2: It even goes so far that people already making fun sites out of that, check this. Feel free to use Google-Translate or Babelfish to get it translated.
 
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Investors Business Daily: A Meltdown of Fearmongers

One can argue that the location chosen for these plants in earthquake-prone areas was faulty. One cannot argue that the world would be cleaner and safer without nuclear power. Between 1995 and 2005, U.S. nuclear generation avoided the emission of 41 million tons of sulfur dioxide, 16.9 million tons of nitrogen oxide and 7.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.

According to the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy, nuclear power plants were responsible for 36% of the total voluntary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions reported by U.S. companies in 2005. If we had built all the nuclear power plants planned in 1979 when the non-event at Three Mile Island occurred, it's likely we'd be both energy independent and Kyoto-compliant today.​
 
CNN is reporting the workers have abandoned the plant. Why does this fill me with unease?
 
Hindmost said:
0.6 milliseiverts would be 60 mrem per hour...that would be enough to make a person quite ill with a long exposure...possibly microseiverts.
glenn
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No, the numbers are sound. Last I checked (via World Nuclear News) it is 0.6 milliseiverts/hour = 60 mrem/hour, which is equivalent to about 2-3 chest x-rays per hour.

However, those are the readings on site at Fukushima, not 30+ km away where civilians are located. And you must remember that the people on site are likely wearing protective gear, and they probably are not remaining on site for an extended period of time. It's serious, which is why they're dealing with it, but the sky is not falling.

Here's an analogy: think of firefighters battling a nasty blaze. The firefighters in the hottest part of the fire have to wear protective clothing, and they don't stay there for too long because it is too hot. Thus, they rotate out teams on a regular basis for both safety and to keep battling the blaze. Now, while it is probably really nasty to be the firefighter, the rest of us can safely watch what is going on via TV without fear of suddenly bursting into flames :)
 
r-j said:
CNN is reporting the workers have abandoned the plant. Why does this fill me with unease?
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NPR is reporting the same (http://www.npr.org/2011/03/15/134552475/radiation-fears-rise-at-japanese-power-plant).

To a non-expert like me, all the confidence indicated by posts in this thread is little reassurance without argument and evidence concerning current updates. I can easily imagine temporary evacuations not indicating very bad things, but imagination isn't evidence. I've found very little evidence regarding recent updates outside media reports. That's what's filling me with unease.
 
Christian Klippel said:
Wow, it seems that we, and especially MattusMaximus, stepped massively onto Greg Laden's toes.

He's doing quite a bit of complaining here.

Greetings,

Chris
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Yeah, Greg made a couple of blog posts within the last few days (here and here), mostly referencing the various mainstream media outlets who have been over-hyping this thing, and ranting on and on about how much the nuclear industry in general sucks. I find it particularly interesting that he's now back-peddling, going on and on about how he "never offered his opinion" and that "he never referenced the media" and (my favorite) that "nobody was mentioning Chernobyl" a couple of days ago. I think he's doing quite a bit of whining for being criticized; it's almost as if he's taking such criticism personally.

So, because I didn't like the manner in which he was approaching the subject, I posted a comment about how I was disappointed that he wasn't being more rational on the subject, and that I thought he should be referencing more reliable sources. I also directed him to my blog post on the subject, and he responded with this...

... A closely integrated subtext is the "It's not Chernobyl stop saying that it is!!!!11!!" rant. I actually have not seen a single individual or press outlet compare the current situation to Chernobyl. But I've seen and heard Chernobyl mentioned dozens of times, and every time as part of some missive telling us all to stop talking about Chernobyl. Like this blog post: Know Nukes: The Japanese Earthquake & Anti-Nuclear Hysteria. While I appreciate the efforts of this pseudonymous blogger who I will presume, but can not know, is not a shill for the Nuclear Power Industry to dispel myths about what may be happening in Japan, I do not appreciate labeling people's concern over the health and well being of those at the site, and the potential environmental effects of a half dozen nuclear accidents of varying degrees of severity happening all at once, as hysteria, and describing it as a series of absurd statements that no one has actually made. That site starts off with dispelling the idea that this is "another Chernobyl disaster" without giving a single reference to anyone saying that it might be. This and other claims are stated complete with exclamation-pointed Glenbeckesque language and breathlessness, and then summarily, even snarkily, dispelled. Not one bit of related hyperbole can be found on my blog regarding these ongoing and very serious problems yet that blogger chose to come on over and tell me to stop it. ...
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Nice, I like the thinly veiled reference to me being a possible shill for Big Nuke :rolleyes:

Imagine how much fun this is all going to be when I run into Greg Laden at Convergence in Minneapolis this summer? What he doesn't know is that he and I served on a panel or two with each other at last year's conference. Hell, I even got drunk with him at the Skepchick suite that night. Weird...

Anyhow, he's a big boy, and he'll get over a little criticism. If not, then he'd better hang up his blogging habit right now.
 
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BenBurch said:
He can feel put upon all he wants, but if he wants to complain about us, doing it behind our backs isn't nice. He needs to come here and have his say.
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You know what? You're right.

I'm taking him on, right now, blogger to blogger - mano e mano.

It'll be fun to see where this leads. Look for my next blog post, it'll be a good one :)
 
timhau said:
Are you sure it wasn't microsieverts? Living in 0.6 mSv per hour for a while would either make you very sick or turn you into Spiderman.
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I'm pretty sure it was milli- not micro-seiverts.

And yes, if you are standing out in the middle of it (on the Fukushima site) for extended periods (many, many hours) and if you are not wearing protective clothing, then it is extremely bad for you.

But if you're sitting back many kilometers away watching it all on TV, you're pretty much okay.
 
I'd like to know more about why they pulled the guys out

The posts I see dont talk about being pulled out, they're using the term "abandoned"
 
bobdroege7 said:
Well turn off your computer and turn on the tv, can we agree it's a 6 now?
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A 6 on the INES? The only source I can find for that is the Wikipedia page on the Fukushima plant, which references this German article.

And when I went to that article, the only thing it said in reference to the INES is this...
ATOMIC ACCIDENT (INES SCALE): An international scale, in order to evaluate the weight of nuclear accidents. It is enough from zero (event without or with small meaning in terms of safety) to seven (catastrophic accident). Starting from stage two one speaks of incident, starting from stage four of accident. The explosion of the nuclear reactor in Tschernobyl before scarcely 25 years was so far the only event of the stage seven. The partial core melt-through in the reactor Three Mile Island in the USA 1979 was arranged on stage five. With the misfortune in Japan stage six is to be expected at least after today's conditions, if there is and in its entirety disaster control measures is introduced a substantial release of radioactive material. Of Japan atomic energy authority in the nuclear power plant Fukushima classifies the incident so far however less badly than the incidents in the US nuclear power station Three Mile Island 1979 and in Tschernobyl 1986. The classification of an event takes over the operator of the power station, it however by the national atomic supervision and the international atomic energy authority in Vienna is examined and possibly corrected.
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And that page doesn't reference anyone for where they got those estimates. So this is yet another example of sloppy reporting, because it basically says "if the absolute worst case scenario happens, it will be a 6 on the INES, but right how it ranks as a 4 according to the nuclear experts on site."

Somebody contact Wikipedia about correcting their article, please :rolleyes:
 
While i don't know if and why they pulled out the remaining 50 people (the last status chart still said there are 50 people there. And it also said that the water in the pools is cooling down again), i can imagine at least two reason:

1) Since the area is exposed to higher-than-normal radiation levels, they pull them out to replace them with another team. The people will surely need some sleep/rest as well.

2) There is nothing more left to do directly at that site, either because the situation is in a state that can be controlled remotely, or because nothing else can be done anymore right now.

In any case, this is of course pure speculation since, again, the available information isn't sufficient to make any definite statements.

Greetings,

Chris

Edit: Made mistake because i misread the chart.
 
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Here is a new article; I have no idea how accurate it is though. http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1#

Between Units 3 and 4, Japanese authorities said they had measured radiation dose rates of up to 400 millisieverts-per-hour, ....."This is a high dose-level value, but it is a local value at a single location and at a certain point in time," it added.
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Radiation levels in Tokyo, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) southwest of the plant, were twice the usual level on Tuesday. But the concentration -- 0.809 microsieverts per hour -- posed no health threat, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said.
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The Tokyo radiation level is certainly no threat. An exposure rate like this for a year would put me at about 15% of the federal government's occupational exposure limit (5 rem/yr). It is not satisfactory that the exposure rates are elevated at all though.

Ranb
 
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JihadJane said:
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!
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It's all relative, isn't it? I'd say a nuclear plant blowing its own building up is preferrable to, say, a hydro dam failing and washing 2,000 homes out to sea...
 
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