Japanese N-Plant Explosion

[Trippy]

Air NZ boss: Nuke threat overplayed

"As a result of misleading media coverage in many countries around the world, some airlines have come under pressure to stop flying to Japan and some governments are coming under pressure to recall their search and rescue personnel," Fyfe said in the message.

"If lives are lost and human suffering is exacerbated in those areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami because of exaggerated and inaccurate media coverage, it will be a humanitarian travesty."

There's no evidence of media induced panic in response to the incidents at Fukushima Daiichi: Yeah, right.

 

[Trippy]

From the NEI:

The ministry also reported conducting surface temperature measurements of reactors 1 through 4 from a helicopter to evaluate the effect of the water discharge operations. The surface temperature of each unit is below 100 degrees Celsius.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said this morning that pressure within the reactor containment vessel from reactor 3 has begun to stabilize and has decided against an operation to vent gases to reduce pressure inside the containment vessel.

But Ice won't like that because it comes from a source with a vested interest in the reactors, and relies on science, and makes assumptions.

 

[iceaura]

Someone pointed out that the price we pay at the pump doesn't include sending our military in to occupy other countries...

Neither does the price of nuclear power include the large military cost of protecting us from its side effects of weapons threats, terrorist threats, etc.

W&Co sold the Iraq War on mere claims of a nuclear threat so derived. Whether the costs of that war should be placed on the sales pitch necessary to sell it, or the oil supply politics at its motivating root, is probably situational.

In a stable country, with stable neiboughs and a stable tectonic profile, nuclear energy is reasonably safe

If such stability is reasonably certain.

"Reasonably" would mean something on the order of millions to one odds.

How many nuclear meltdowns would it require to equal and exceed the deathtoll of coal, oil and gas power?

If anyone could vanish the effects of coal, oil and gas, as well as replace them all with nukes, that comparison would make sense. In the real world, it's irrelevant.

The waste issue is minor, all the high level nuclear waste in the world would not even fill up an average stadium to the first row of seats!

And people who think like that make fun of people who "panic".

Building nuclear power does not disable transition to renewables.

It wastes time and money - lots and lots of time and money. Remember, you have to clean up after them.

How many people have been killed or severely injured from WESTERN style Commercial Power plants over the ~50 years they have been in service?

To help you put this in perspective, 2,442 people were killed in 1,401 coal mining incidents in China last year and in the United States, 18 coal miners died in 2009.

So we restrict the nuke comparison to "Western", but factor in Chinese coal mining practices? Typical.

In their ~50 years of operation, producing nearly 15% of the global electricity, how many people have been killed by Western style (with containment domes) Commercial Nuclear Power plants?

Nobody knows.

More than a hundred thousand Iraqis were killed to protect the US from the mere threat of one of Western nuclear power's major side effects. Do they count?

But Ice won't like that because it comes from a source with a vested interest in the reactors, and relies on science, and makes assumptions.

It's so much easier to make insulting (and wrong, as usual) presumptions, than deal with actual arguments right there on the page, isn't it. Saves you from even the hint of actual thought.

I like being lucky. I like the Japanese being lucky. I wish it hadn't come at the expense of so much deflection of effort an resources, at a time when that effort and those resources were so badly needed elsewhere.

How much of the incoming death and hardship from that tsunami will be from the wasting of resources on that threatening power plant? Add that to the toll of nuclear power.

note on the media stuff: The harping on "panic"

(a common effect of unreliable reassurance - see the 2004 essay I linked, that used TMI media as a classic example)

started while we were still looking down the barrel of potential meltdown and containment breach at Fukushima. Now there's a general principle in dealing with rightwing corporate and authoritarian types ( the primary supporters of nuclear power in the US) (no, Trippy, not you) that says one of the best ways of telling what they are up to is noticing what they are accusing other people of doing. In this case, panicking.

The threat of the loss of the bright, shiny, nuclear dream is serious. There is a lot invested in it - in surprisingly personal and deeply emotional forms, often. If we follow the discussion from its early days, when a world of nuclear powered flying cars and power too cheap to be worth metering was right at their fingertips, to the modern era of well, but it's the best bridge to the distant future of renewables and lots of people die in coal mines, we see a kind of desperation in the clinging.

 

[Trippy]

It's so much easier to make insulting (and wrong, as usual) presumptions, than deal with actual arguments right there on the page, isn't it. Saves you from even the hint of actual thought.

Actually, I wasn't making 'insulting presumptions', I was mocking you by extending your stance on the matter to an absurd conclusion - subtle difference.

I like being lucky. I like the Japanese being lucky. I wish it hadn't come at the expense of so much deflection of effort an resources, at a time when that effort and those resources were so badly needed elsewhere.

This is more of the same egregious bullshit.
In this instance the Japanese were unluck, it's not a case of challenger logic - nor is it a case of them having been lucky up until now.

If they designed to a 5-sigma standard, this was a 6-sigma event. Actually, it was worse then that, because all of the scientific literature says that this earthquake should not have happened. It's unprecedented in this stretch of the Japanese coastline, and it's unprecedented from this fault. No amount of (wrong) bleating about challenger logic is going to change that - incidentally, if the Japanese standards are the same as the US standards, then the reactor was probably designed to withstand a 1 in a million to a 1 in ten million event (although some of the US reactors go as low as one in one hundred thousand).

note on the media stuff: The harping on "panic"

(a common effect of unreliable reassurance - see the 2004 essay I linked, that used TMI media as a classic example)

started while we were still looking down the barrel of potential meltdown and containment breach at Fukushima. Now there's a general principle in dealing with rightwing corporate and authoritarian types ( the primary supporters of nuclear power in the US) (no, Trippy, not you) that says one of the best ways of telling what they are up to is noticing what they are accusing other people of doing. In this case, panicking.

The threat of the loss of the bright, shiny, nuclear dream is serious. There is a lot invested in it - in surprisingly personal and deeply emotional forms, often. If we follow the discussion from its early days, when a world of nuclear powered flying cars and power too cheap to be worth metering was right at their fingertips, to the modern era of well, but it's the best bridge to the distant future of renewables and lots of people die in coal mines, we see a kind of desperation in the clinging.

Political vitriol.

Or do you expect me to believe that the CE of a company that is 76% owned by the New Zealand Government, who has a well publiscized anti-nuclear stance - to the point of the US canceling it's ANZUS treaty with us, is some how caught up in some right wing neo-con pro nuclear conspiracy?

That may be the most patently absurd thing I have seen you suggest.

Ever.

I suppose you also think that the EPA is deliberately taking RADNET stations offline when radiation readings get too high, to protect the nuclear industry from fallout from the situation in Japan (pun intended).

 

[ULTRA]

There have been some positive developments in the last 24 hours, but the overall situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains very serious ~ IAEA

The IAEA also say that they've not been recieving the technical data they've been asking for.

It looks like electric power has now been supplied to the stricken No.2 reactor, and possibly the No. 1 reactor as well. The water levels in the core are about halfway up, and a critical pressure build-up dissipated without having to vent it to the air.

Radiation readings that normally register at 0.02 by reactor 2 are reading 16.0, nearly a thousand-fold increase, but not worsening.

The IAEA also say food has been contaminated by Iodine 15X the legal level allowed for consumption, and has been found in water 100km from the plant.

Indications are that the reactors and ponds have not worsened in the last 24 hours.

It now looks likely the reactors will have to be entombed in concrete and declared a radiological disaster zone. Return for the residents will then be impossible.

 

[ElectricFetus]

Neither does the price of nuclear power include the large military cost of protecting us from its side effects of weapons threats, terrorist threats, etc.

A hypothetical price, if there are no more nuclear wars or dirty bombs are never dropped, then that price tag is quite low. The unaccounted medical and environmental cost of coal, oil and gas are not hypothetical but quite real, detectable and constant.

W&Co sold the Iraq War on mere claims of a nuclear threat so derived.

That not nuclear power's fault, they also sold claims on chemical weapons, she we abolish are chemical factories too?

"Reasonably" would mean something on the order of millions to one odds.

A AP1000 Reactor has core damage frequency of 2.41 × 10^−7 or 1 in 24 million odds per year, and that is just the chance of damage to the core, a full meltdown is much lower chance of out of that. So therefor by your own admission you should find 3rd generation reactors like that "reasonable". Heck the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant is only a generation 2+ design and it was even closer to the earthquake epicenter yet it handle the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami without any damage to its reactors.

If anyone could vanish the effects of coal, oil and gas, as well as replace them all with nukes, that comparison would make sense. In the real world, it's irrelevant.

This is not an argument but a statement with no rational (conclusion without premise) if you find it irrelevant you need to explain how. Because I think I've take account of reality, the real effects and death toll of coal, oil and gas verses the real effects and death toll of nuclear power and the latter is order of magnitude smaller.

And people who think like that make fun of people who "panic".

Do explain, nuclear waste is manageable, containable, even recyclable, its not a nagging problem of grave concern.

It wastes time and money - lots and lots of time and money. Remember, you have to clean up after them.

Clean up what?

So we restrict the nuke comparison to "Western", but factor in Chinese coal mining practices? Typical.

I think he meant western as a not Russian, even the Chinese use containment domes.

Nobody knows.

Actually the direct death toll is quite known, interesting cases too, like the guy that died when he was impaled by a control rod. I bet wind turbines with there spinning blades and tall heights also have interesting cases of causing death due to human stupidity.

More than a hundred thousand Iraqis were killed to protect the US from the mere threat of one of Western nuclear power's major side effects. Do they count?

No that does not count, that grossly indirect, might as well say technology should be abolished because it "causes" war and death.

I like being lucky. I like the Japanese being lucky. I wish it hadn't come at the expense of so much deflection of effort an resources, at a time when that effort and those resources were so badly needed elsewhere.

How much of the incoming death and hardship from that tsunami will be from the wasting of resources on that threatening power plant? Add that to the toll of nuclear power.

Interesting instead of blaming people for wasting there time on hysteria and not focusing on the truely needed issues, we should blame what ever it was that people were hysterical about. So say if people had a deathly fear of cameras and thought it would suck out their souls we should destroy all cameras?

How about this, lets assume they had coal power plants instead of nuclear power plants where those Japanese nuclear plants are, yes now they would not have a nuclear incident to deal with and waste several hundred personals time on, they might have a huge fire at worse that killed a couple of people. They would also have over the decades gain dozens if not hundreds of deaths from mining that coal and burning it into carcinogenic smoke, and had to pay the medical bills for all that, total costs and deathtoll clearly means that even after this incident nuclear was the better deal.

started while we were still looking down the barrel of potential meltdown and containment breach at Fukushima. Now there's a general principle in dealing with rightwing corporate and authoritarian types ( the primary supporters of nuclear power in the US) (no, Trippy, not you) that says one of the best ways of telling what they are up to is noticing what they are accusing other people of doing. In this case, panicking.

Look if Satan him self see an animal and notes that it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, I'm not going to argue the animal is not a duck simply because satan says it is. Now in the case of panic cited by Trippy that was from an airline company CEO with no connections to nuclear power. I nor do I think anyone here also has connection to nuclear power, we are not protecting invested interests and even if we were you can't disprove us on that its merely an ad hominem, you must disprove our arguments themselves.

The threat of the loss of the bright, shiny, nuclear dream is serious. There is a lot invested in it - in surprisingly personal and deeply emotional forms, often. If we follow the discussion from its early days, when a world of nuclear powered flying cars and power too cheap to be worth metering was right at their fingertips, to the modern era of well, but it's the best bridge to the distant future of renewables and lots of people die in coal mines, we see a kind of desperation in the clinging.

Maybe, but that does not mean nuclear power is not such a bridge. You might note a pattern in a mathematicians behavior that he appears to be desperately grasping or what ever when he states that 2+2=4, there for you conclude he must be wrong?

 

[ElectricFetus]

It now looks likely the reactors will have to be entombed in concrete and declared a radiological disaster zone. Return for the residents will then be impossible.

Want to take bets on that? Tell me was Three Mile Island "entombed" and tell me is there an exclusion zone around three mile island?

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Depends on the amount of contaminants deposited, and their half life.
I don't think they are even banning local vegetables from being sold at the moment.

@Ultra. You need to back up your statements with references.
What you report should come from an accurate source.

For example, where did you get this from?
The IAEA also say food has been contaminated by Iodine 15X the legal level allowed for consumption, and has been found in water 100km from the plant.

I realise that we are not submitting articles to Nature here, but your statements should be verifiable at least. The information you give is factually correct, but misleading.
The levels you state are in milk, which has been banned from sale locally, and will be for the next year or more. Not food generally, but milk. Local milk, specifically.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/fukushima-food-radiation-concerns-iaea-1.1044663?showComments=true

 

[ULTRA]

Depends on the amount of contaminants deposited, and their half life.
@Ultra. You need to back up your statements with references.
What you report should come from an accurate source.

For example, where did you get this from?
The IAEA also say food has been contaminated by Iodine 15X the legal level allowed for consumption, and has been found in water 100km from the plant.

I realise that we are not submitting articles to Nature here, but your statements should be verifiable at least.

It's all available in the latest IAEA report on thier website, IAEA.org
They're the Internatonal Atomic Energy Agency, the most reliable source there is. They are advising the Japanese government after being called in at the governments' request.

I've cited them numerous times already, I thought everyone knew who they were, my apologies. http://www.iaea.org/index.html
Try also:http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/ The Japanese own agency, and World Nuclear News: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ for the industry standard.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

It's all available in the latest IAEA report on thier website, IAEA.org

Great. Now where on that site does it say that food is contaminated by 15 times allowable levels of radioactive iodine?
Not radiation. Radioactive iodine.

Please quote the sentences that they use.

 

[ElectricFetus]

Yes, you could at the very least give us direct quotes and link.

 

[iceaura]

Actually, I wasn't making 'insulting presumptions', I was mocking you by extending your stance on the matter to an absurd conclusion - subtle difference.

Not subtle, and quite wrong.

The presumption was that you were extending my stance. I have no such stance. I find your presumption that I do insulting, because the stance would be foolish.

You have yet to deal with my stance on the matter at hand, and apparently that's because you haven't figured out what it is yet. Why not?

A hypothetical price, if there are no more nuclear wars or dirty bombs are never dropped, then that price tag is quite low.

The running cost for defending ourselves against such threats is already very high, and will remain high indefinitely. Whether or not any wars or dirty bombs ever show up is irrelevant.

A AP1000 Reactor has core damage frequency of 2.41 × 10^−7 or 1 in 24 million odds per year, and that is just the chance of damage to the core, a full meltdown is much lower chance of out of that

Nobody knows that. Pretending to know that is foolish.

This is not an argument but a statement with no rational (conclusion without premise) if you find it irrelevant you need to explain how. Because I think I've take account of reality, the real effects and death toll of coal, oil and gas verses the real effects and death toll of nuclear power and the latter is order of magnitude smaller.

That reality is the irrelevant part. You can take all the account of it you want - it doesn't make any difference.

So we restrict the nuke comparison to "Western", but factor in Chinese coal mining practices? Typical.
”
I think he meant western as a not Russian, even the Chinese use containment domes.

If by Western he meant Chinese, he's not speaking English.

Interesting instead of blaming people for wasting there time on hysteria and not focusing on the truely needed issues,

We now see someone describe the efforts to control and render harmless the six threatening reactors at Fukushima as wasting time on hysteria. WTF is wrong with these people?

 

[Trippy]

Not subtle, and quite wrong.

The presumption was that you were extending my stance. I have no such stance. I find your presumption that I do insulting, because the stance would be foolish.

Bullshit.
Apparently you fail to grasp the significance of the word 'absurd' in that sentence.
You reject that based on the evidence available, science could not have predicted that this fault was capable of producing an earthquake of that magnitude correct?

 

[ULTRA]

Great. Now where on that site does it say that food is contaminated by 15 times allowable levels of radioactive iodine?
Not radiation. Radioactive iodine.

Please quote the sentences that they use.

The IAEA has received information from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare regarding the presence of Iodine-131 in three milk samples tested in the town of Kawamata. The concentration is reported to be above allowed levels. Cesium-137 was detected in one sample, though in concentration below allowed levels.

In the Ibaraki prefecture, Iodine-131 and Cesium-137 have been detected in leaf vegetables such as spring onions and spinach. Some of the samples have been reported to be above the levels allowed by the Japanese food hygiene law for emergency monitoring criteria for intake of vegetables.

According to the Nuclear Safety Division, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) analysis for Iodine-131 and Cesium-137 in tap water from 46 locations yielded the majority of samples as non-detects. Only six out of 46 exhibited any iodine-131, though the concentration was reported to be below levels allowed by the Japanese food hygiene law for emergency monitoring criteria for drinking water.

Technical data:
http://www.nisa.meti.go.jp/english/files/en20110320-4-2.pdf

 

[ULTRA]

Although IAEA only found low levels of radioactive iodine in the water, Reuters reports that:
Reuters Reuters Top News
FLASH: Japan health ministry asks some residents in the region of Fukushima nuclear plant to refrain from drinking tap water: report
9 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

 

[ULTRA]

Japanese government to send in battle-tanks to clear radioactive debris: Thier radiation shielding will protect the crew as they open the road to reactor 1.

http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2011032100028

 

[ElectricFetus]

The running cost for defending ourselves against such threats is already very high, and will remain high indefinitely. Whether or not any wars or dirty bombs ever show up is irrelevant.

So your blaming whole wars on defense of nuclear proliferation? The Iraq war was not cause to defend against nuclear proliferation, that was merely one of many covers, defending freedom against tyrants was also cited, I guess that is a very high cost now is it, maybe we should not defend freedom? But in all honestly we should defend freedom just not in the way we claimed to in Iraq. So you can't blame things like the Iraq war on nuclear power. No we need more direct costs, like the cost to keep up international regulations, oh no that is soooo expensive, how much does the IEAE get?

Ultimately your claim of high costs because of the possibility if misuse is foolish in that it would lead to the conclusion that all technology should be abolished because of the possibility of misuse. Clearly we must ask what do we gain, do the benefits out-way the risks, with nuclear power despite the hysteria yes the benefits do out-way the risks, clearly if we are willing to operating polluting coal power which kills tens of thousands a year we should be willing to operate nuclear power which total death-toll and price tag is very unlikely to exceed coals with significant margin enough that we could throw in a few Chernobyls and even a couple of dirty bombs and it still would not be greater than coal, a power source people don't get hysterical about.

Nobody knows that. Pretending to know that is foolish.

These are calculated risks based on sound science, if you don't want to believe in probabilities and statistics, then I advice you give up on science, Heck I don't even know why you would even ask for a million in one odds if you believe it impossible to determine that!

That reality is the irrelevant part. You can take all the account of it you want - it doesn't make any difference.

Wait, so how does death-toll of coal verse the smaller death-toll of nuclear not verify that nuclear is safer?

If by Western he meant Chinese, he's not speaking English.

if you want to argue semantics with him go right ahead it doesn't change the conclusions of his argument. I don't understand why people like the nit-pick that kind of stuff, maybe they feel that if they can win on a little thing like the definition of a word then they have won the whole argument, that is rather delusional.

We now see someone describe the efforts to control and render harmless the six threatening reactors at Fukushima as wasting time on hysteria. WTF is wrong with these people?

Not at all, but panic like asking for flights to japan be cancel like in Trippy's example is just that panic and hysteria. The only people that need to be worried about the reactors at this time are the people actually working on the reactors.

 

[ElectricFetus]

Japanese government to send in battle-tanks to clear radioactive debris: Thier radiation shielding will protect the crew as they open the road to reactor 1.

http://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng?g=eco&k=2011032100028

Lets correct this, here what you should have said:

Tokyo, March 20 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Defense Ministry on Sunday ordered the Ground Self-Defense Force to send two tanks to the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to remove debris at the quake-hit plant to facilitate work to prevent a radiation disaster.
...
As soon as they receive a request for action, the large blade-attached tanks will enter the radiation-exposed plant of Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501> to clear debris from roads for vehicles to spray water to cool nuclear reactors whose safety systems were battered by the 9.0-magnitude quake and subsequent massive tsunami on March 11.

Big difference, they aren't clearing radioactive debris, just debris,

 

[ULTRA]

Sorry, I underestimated the level of radioactive iodine. I said it was 15x legal limits, when it is reported to be 27x legal limits.

Spinach with radioactive iodine 27 times more than the government-regulated limit was found in the city of Hitachi in Ibaraki Prefecture, more than 100 kilometers south of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, but the radiation levels do not affect human health, local authorities said Sunday.
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79856.html

 

[chimpkin]

Okay...since my position has rather shifted, having looked into the tech specs of breeder reactors...I do consider them to be superior to coal as a transition method to a purely-renewable energy economy

But, as Cpt Kremmie observed, they're not a permanent solution-merely longer term-and that's given we don't use Light Water Reactors-we have to use the Thorium or reprocessing types.

I recall reading somewhere we only have about 40 years' worth of uranium left, so LWR's are going to go the way of the dodo-tell me if that's incorrect?

Now, we still need to eventually go to 100% renewables, it's just that using nukes pads the time-frame out quite a bit. So building that decentralized system? Still has to happen.

Something else? Since our government's(USA) done a fine job of letting our manufacturing move overseas...and we need it back (REALLY!) my suggestion would be to site new industrial builds at places where renewable energy is abundant.

Because ATM you can find desperate people out of work all over America-you won't lack for employees wherever you choose to locate.

I was trying to find info on the solar panels that are light enough to put on warehouse roofs.
(Another unused opportunity in my town-there should be solar panels covering every warehouse I see-we are the top port city in the country, I believe-so that's a lot of warehouse roofs needing panels)
I did not find those, but I found this company show-off page. They do high-efficiency design and redesign for big projects. The following talks about a 2-story office building:

The energy provided to the owner should exceed $5,000 per year! Not only will it make a positive impact on the environment, the system should pay for itself in about 8 years, and then provide income every year thereafter!

http://www.optimapa.com/featured-projects.htm

Are people building like this usually? no. Can they, and have it look nice? obviously.