Nuclear Power (spun off from Japan earthquake discussion)
 

They are evacuating the workers from the power plant due to a spike in rads.

The people around those plants should get as far away from there as they can, or else they'll be dealing with cancer for the rest of their lives, as long as that may be.

There's talk in the US that because of what's going on in Japan that we should forget plans for building nuclear reactors. Unlike Japan, our entire country is not San Andreas fault, and we don't have quite the tsunami risk that Japan has. There are areas in the US that does have risks like these, but we don't have to build reactors there. Sure this is obvious, but probably not to politicians.

Obama's director of energy development has announced that the US should continue building nuclear plants despite what has happened in Japan. This seems very premature. We don't know yet how the nuclear disaster in Japan is going to play out. All the assurances about nuclear safety over the years are out the window. There has been controversy over the GE Mark 1 reactor since the 1970's. Is the containment vessel strong enough to withstand a coolant failure? Well, we will soon see.

But that is assuming that most of the reactors being built are of the Gen.I type like the Japanese type of reactors. Most of the Gen. II or III type here in the US and reactors are constantly being updated or replaced by new technology. Also, where in the US are the reactors located? Are they located near the coast where there is a possibility of tsunami or hurricane? Are they located near an active fault line?

Obviously, a reactor situated in Japan is going to be more succeptible to such things as tsunamis and earthquakes given that they are 1) on a relatively teeny weeny island compared to other land masses and that the effects of things are going to be much greater than say, Australia or Africa, 2) they are on a region of the sea known as The Ring of Fire( http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/...f_fire_650.jpg )which is known for its violent and constant seismic activity and 3) that most of the fault lines near Japan are underwater and that tsunamis can occur in the event that the earthquake is powerful enough. A powerplant by the coast and an active fault line has alot more risks than one sitting above bedrock in the middle of nowhere. Does that mean that nuclear power is a bad investment? Not really. What can be taken away is that there needs to be a bit more planning in where reactors are put and that there should be a certain planned obsolescence where old technologies are either updated or replaced altogether.

Just because someone gets into a car accident does not mean cars are unsafe and should never be used. There just needs to be a healthy amount of risk anticipation and mitigation when using such technology is all. :)

Conquistidor Risk Mitigation?
There are still Mark 1 reactors in this country. Their containment vessel is much less robust that subsequent GE plants. That said, there has been no failure of any Mark 1 containment vessels. However, we still don't know if one has failed in Japan.

The Japanese were well aware of the risk of placing nuclear plants on the East coast of the country and they planned carefully. They assumed a potential tsunami created by a 7.2 earthquake to be the maximum. They built a 25 foot breakwater wall around the plant. They installed backup diesel generators to maintain water levels in the reactor in case of a failure.
Well, instead of a 7.2, they had a 9.0! A 9.0 is many times more powerful than a 7.2 and the tsunami created, rushed over the breakwater as if it wasn't there. Severe damage was done to the plant including the diesel backup generators.
Mother nature seems to have a habit of doing in man's the best laid plans.

Huh. It was my understanding that most, if not all Mark 1 reactors have either been done away with or have been retrofitted and updated.

But again, in an area of the world with such active seismic activity, it seems like it would have been alot safer to put the reactor farther inland with reserve cisterns available for cooling. Placed right on the coast, it just screams like it's begging for trouble. Kinda like our San Onofre facility AKA The 2 Giant Titties...

The 2 Giant Titties! http://media.trb.com/media/photo/2009-08/48572366.jpg

Conquistador Hopefully, all of the Mark 1s have been upgraded.
1-The mark 1 was "popular" because it was cheaper to build.
2- It is cheaper to build next to the ocean for cooling and accessibility.

Cost vs safety levels is where decisions are made. A traditional steam plant has minimal public risk. A nuclear plant has extreme public risk. Are nuclear plants worth the risk? If nuclear plants are designed and built to be virtually risk free to the public, the cost would be prohibitive. They would probably need to be buried deep in solid rock mountains.
So we build nuclear plants and take a risk with public lives.

There are some things to put in perspective in this situation. The first is that the media are creating needles hysteria by writing about a nuclear meltdown. None of the reactors have experienced a meltdown and there is not much likelihood of one happening.

The earthquake did not cause the problems at the reactor site. It was the tsunami that flooded the generators that run the pumps that cool the reactor. Because the generators were flooded they were not able to pump coolant which led to the overheating problems. This powerplant is forty years old and among the first generation. Generation III reactors are cooled through convection action and therefore do not require pumps to move the coolant. This means that the reactors will be cooled regardless of outside influences.

Yes the newer designs are much improved, it's too bad the older reactors were not upgraded to the safer technology.
But, again, there is no assurance that some unforeseen event or design problem could cause failure in the newer designs. Its all about risk assessment.

The book "The Black Swan" is a very interesting read.

I don't think they thought that the tsunami would take out the emergency generators that were needed to run the cooling pumps.

That was the big problem. They didn't plan for a tsunami so big. If the generators had been mounted quite a bit higher off the ground there wouldn't have been a problem.

In a couple years this disaster will be viewed as a fantastic learning opportunity for examining what to do right when every thing nature throws at you is outside any expected events. Tsunamis are rare at best. Earthquakes a bit ore. 9.0 earthquakes under your nuclear plant are what we in statistics call tail events.

Tokyo Electric is doing incredible work. Could they do better--you go try. What could they have done better? Everything. But with hindsight none of us would ever make bad decisions.

Time to clean up the mess, learn, and keep building as that is what humans do.
To Engineer is HUMAN! To mock and cry the sky is falling is worthless.

-mS

This is all fine if we don't have thousands exposed to radiation. Nuclear "accidents" are far more serious than any other kind of human disaster. Tsunamis can kill thousands. Volcanoes can kill thousands. Wars can kill thousands. But when they are over, they are over. Nuclear radiation can go on for generations.
Can we learn from this disaster? Actually, we (humans) knew early on what should have been done to prevent this debacle, but we didn't do it. Economics prevailed over maximum safety.

A review of Chernobyl is here.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_1...ag=component.0

Yes, it is obviously dangerous to build nuclear power plants on a major fault zone, and in a place that's susceptible to tsunamis. How much of the US should heed this warning about where not to build Randolf?

I wouldn't say that. Radiation levels continue to rise. They just said radiation levels are unexpectedly high 18 miles away from the reactors, which is outside the evacuation area.

Well, California is riddled with faults and no way to predict when one of them will cut loose. The San Onofre nuclear plant is directly upwind from where I live, not a pleasent thought. It's built right on the beach with faults offshore by islands where underwater landslides could occur and produce a tsunami. Probably the "safest" nuclear plant I know of is in the middle of Arizona. The cooling water is supplied from the Colorado river.
Certainly the combination of earthquake and tsunami that devastated the nuclear plants in Japan was a rare and unusual event. The destruction of power lines to the plant and damage to the plumbing, pumps and backup generators has prevented rapid stabilization of the nuclear facilities. Could this happen here? I think it is very doubtful such a catastrophic event could happen here. That's not to say that our nuclear facilities are one hundred percent reliable, however. We have 23 GE Mark 1 nuclear reactors similar to the ones in Japan. As long as the coolant water system is functioning, they seem to be fine. Newer plants rely on convection cooling rather than pumps. Pehaps, it is time to retire the Mark 1s.
Oh wait! we have an oil problem, don't we!

There are workers going into the plants, 50 at a time since exposure of more than 15 minutes would be lethal, trying to prevent a meltdown. Despite the protective gear they are wearing, I think these heros have given their lives to shutting down the reactors. :(

Well it's probably time to retire ANY nuclear reactors that are on a fault, and find whoever authorized it and either convict them or put them in a mental institution. But reactors similar to the ones in Japan would probably be just fine in most of the rest of the US.

But yes, we have an oil problem, which is not helped by the moratoreum on drilling in the gulf. BO wants to (or has he already) tax coal into oblivion. He continues to restrict drilling in the gulf. If politicians succeed in shutting down nuclear reactors here then what then? Are we supposed to power our country with windmills?

Remember the movie "Soylent Green"? :eek:

Well the consumer price index just rose the highest it's risen in 2 years. Corn and other prices are sky rocketing. So that may be an option. :drool:

Isn't it true that according to economic theory, prices should decline during a recession?
Humm, I wonder what's going on. :censored:

It is ONLY a theory that prices SHOULD go down in a recession. Reality has shown that it doesn't necessarily work that way.

Prices change because of fluctuations in supply of and demand for goods as well as supply of and demand for money. Most people tend to forget about the money issue. The theory is based on the assumption that greater supply and less demand of GOODS caused by a recession will lead to lower prices.

Keep in mind that the money supply is always expanding, which automatically leads to a continuous inflationary pressure -- which may or may not rear its ugly head as actual inflation in the economy, depending on other circumstances. If wages remain low and economic growth is stagnant or declining, as in a recession, the pressure on manufacturers and sellers of goods with respect to prices may not necessarily work as one would expect. Depending on the particularities of the recession at any given moment, some prices may be increased to compensate for the shortfall in overall sales of goods. That equals inflation.

From Huffingtonpost

This is meaningless. High in relation to what? Also radiation levels have been falling.

High gas prices means the price of every thing goes up. It's interesting that you don't hear much panic via the news about the rise in gas prices this time. I guess they're always doing their part to make their chosen one look good.

Perhaps the radiation levels have dropped in Japan because the winds have carried the radiation to California. :frown:

No that's not it.

Radiation is scary stuff. But the universe is radioactive. Everywhere. Some places more so than others. We know that high concentrations are dangerous. We believe that exposure over time may have impacts on health but studies on that are not conclusive. People in careers that have higher exposure than the population on the whole appear to live longer.

So what does this mean: Be cautious of radiation. But, do not let fear mongers frighten you. Now, after this is all cleaned up, who want to bet that ever nuke plant in the west is updated for Tsunami proofing?

There will be little long term effect from the radiation here. It will be an expensive mess to clean up though.

-mS

Given that every noted expert in the world seems to agree that we don't yet know how serious the Japanese situation is or will become, you sure do seem pretty certain of there being "little long term effect." Are you a lobbyist for the nuclear power industry? I ask because they are running around Congressional offices in Washington saying the same thing, while delivering the equivalent of bags of money to legislators. Just sayin' ...

It is way to early to assume there will be no radiation effect here from the nuclear mess in Japan. During WWII the Japanese made balloons, attached bombs to them and released them. they drifted over the Pacific ocean and landed in Oregon. Some of them were found and exploded when touched.
WE ARE DOWN WIND! :frown:

Radiation around the power plant is declared to be safe outside of 50 miles. Perhaps this isn't entirely true and is only to reassure people living there. But after drifting and dispersing over 5000 miles it is surely no where near dangerous levels. That being said, there will always be those people who cling to any hope of disaster, no matter how unlikely or low the risks are (i.e. the chemtrail crowd, the Y2Kers, the 2012ers etc).

To those people I say keep up the fight. Don't let the government fool you into false complacency. I have a miracle syrum that I have developed called di-hydrogen oxide that the government does not want you to know about. It does wonders. It can be yours for $499.00 for a one year supply.

I don't know how far Finland is from Chernobyl but the Reindeer milk was so radioactive that it was not safe to drink because the moss they eat was radioactive.

By the way, I have a swimming pool full of your secret syrup if you run short. :lol:

My day job in in the energy business. Been there for years. Been in and out of more power plants than I can count. I work with nuclear engineers and the like. So yes, I am the business. But, I bust my little tail to be objective and the press is not noted for the same.

Basically it all comes down to this, it appears that the containment is working in Japan. Not perfectly though as a 9.0 Earthquake and 15 meter tsunami are outside any design considerations. If you see pictures of the containment systems breached--then get nervous. Up until then, the press is playing this for shock value and ratings. And the chicken little crowd is running with it.

I am not too proud to say that after this all plays out--I will adjust my opinion if I am found to be wrongly pro-nuclear power. But, right now there are good people working to minimize the damage. Catch this: They built a power line in days. Normally it takes years to build a power line anywhere. So the best and brightest are working to minimize damage. And--I believe in people!

-mS

This is the very reason not to build them, The Unknown. It's like mother nature is getting the blame again. I live within a 100 miles of Diablo Cyn. and I still say no one has the right to risk my ass to make money, and this is what the bottom line is.

Life is full of risks. Airlines fly planes over your head all the time. Some drop. That is a risk.

Trucking Companies drive trucks to bring food to you. Some are involved in accidents. Another risk.

Society is a balancing of risk and it never gets to zero. If you look at the increases in average life span which have gone up consistently for the last 150 years of technological innovation we are doing something right.

-mS

Yes, but the common thing about the risks, you quote, is they are all single events and much less impact. I know all it takes is for one of those to happen and your still dead, but at least i have to be in the area for it to happen. I can be a hundred miles away from a plant, and it can still kill me.

It is true that life is full of risks, but your examples are patently false equivalencies -- although I must give you credit for the cleverness of referencing planes dropping on people on the ground rather than mentioning the risk to actual passengers on airplanes.

Humans don't seem to mind taking risks skiing, racing cars, parachuting, taking drugs, smoking and of course drinking. We enjoy taking risks. The problem is when the risk is imposed upon us, then it becomes a big problem.
A nuclear accident is viewed as an extreme threat because we have no control over it. The chances of being affected by radiation from Japan even if a meltdown occurs are extremely small and far less than smoking a cigarette. Four hundred thousand people a year die from smoking in the US. If that many people were dying from radiation a national emergency would be declared!
It's all relative.

Hey, it was early and the coffee had not worked. My examples are not all the way patently false as they do involve other people doing things for a profit that impacts somebody else in their normal course of daily activities. I was not intending that they be on the same order of magnitude. So far the greatest damage from a western (including Japanese) nuclear accident has been minimal releases of radioactivity--AND NO (zero) deaths. Japan may change that death total by a number slightly and we will have learned how to build safer power plants everywhere as a result. All deaths bug me. But keep perspective here--Bhopal and the Union Carbide accident there were responsible for around 5,000 deaths, tremendous suffering, and so forth.

I am pro-nuclear power if that is not already evident. But more than anything I am totally against not learning how to do things better next time. And if we want to have power for our computers, it has to come from somewhere. I want that somewhere to be clean safe and cheap. If nuclear cannot compete on that it should go away. Coal is the only thing cheaper that we know of right now and it is fraught with dangers also.

-mS

That is not true. I don?t have looked deep into the matter so there is more.

3 deaths, January 3, 1961, Idaho Falls, Idaho, US, SL-1, National Reactor Testing Station
2 deaths, September 30, 1999, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, Tokaimura uranium processing facility
5 deaths, August 9, 2004, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, Mihama Nuclear Power Plant

March 28, 1979, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, US, Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station - 2
It released radioactive steam in the environment. 6 years later, cancer rates went at peak 150% up on the contaminated side (where the wind blew) compared to the not contaminated side.

Cancer rates are higher and life expectations are lower near nuclear plants. It looks that there are many deaths caused by it, but direct causal connection is difficult to prove.

It doesn?t have to be a western plant or accident. The Chernobyl disaster caused radioactive fallout over most of Europe. And in some areas mushrooms, plants and animals are still harmfully contaminated.

Plutonium 239 and Uranium 238/235 have huge half-life times. It must be stored, buried or protected at minimum 1 million years. Mankind exists about 160,000 years. It can't be estimated what happens in this time, and how many will get harmfully radiated over that time.
How to tell understandable warnings and instructions over a period much longer than humans exists?
Who will notice if radioactivity, out of deep geological repository or a buried nuclear plant, reaches ground water? Test storage showed leaks (not to ground water yet) in less then 50 years.
Radioactive resources are already or will be taken away (legal or illegal) from closed nuclear plans, nuclear submarines, radioactive waste and contaminated areas. No one checks if your car is build with steel from nuclear submarine with a meltdown.

Your comments are really not relevant to the situation in Japan. It wasn't the Unknown that did in the reactors. Japan is right smack on the ring of fire. It is known that 9.0 quakes are possible. The reactors were built on a shore where it is known that tsunamis are possible. It's not the Unknown that caused this disaster, it was planning by beaurocrats and engineers who dismissed the possibility that Known dangers could happen.

In the US there are PLENTY of places to build nuclear reactors that are not on a fault, not where tsunamis can happen, not where hurricans are a danger, not where flooding can happen, not where there's a lot of tornados, etc. Humanity didn't get to where it is by having a defeatist attitude. When problems arise we can figure out how to design around them. I guess in Japan's case they were running out of options to power their country and unfortunately accepted known risks.

In their planning, they anticipated a tsunami and built a 25 foot high seawall. The tsunami was so big, it's hard to say weather any seawall would have stopped it. One town on the coast built a 30 foot seawall and the wave went right over it. A tsunami is very different from a storm wave. A storm wave is just a big regular wave. A tsunami is like a flash flood, a vast river with tremendous momentum able to smash everything in its path.

They prepared for quakes and tsunamis, but thought they can predict nature similar to this statement:

The San Andreas Fault is partly under water, and there are many smaller faults that can become a bigger one.

The Unknown is what is not expected. Who would have expected 10 years ago that a passenger plane hits the Pentagon?
What if a happening like the one in Tunguska hits a nuclear plant? I know it?s very unlikely, but the outcome and especially the long term effects are absolutely unpredictable. Whole countries could be uninhabitable for 100,000?s of years.

But they don?t do it. And no one can predict the weather or volcanic activity. Can you guarantee that in these ?safe? places is always enough water in the rivers to cool the fuel rods or is anyone prepared to transport the rods in a harmless way to a ?secured? place?

Does humanity have a single convincing idea what to do with nuclear waste? And who pays for it?

There is no doubt in my mind that humanity would be much better off today if nuclear bombs and energy had never been invented. It just adds to all the other human woes we have to contend with.

Acutally hydro electric power is cheaper and cleaner than coal.

I'm just sick of fossil fuel lobbies capitalising on this, when Nuclear plants give off less radiation than coal plants do, over a normal operational lifespan...

And seriously, anyone who has ever had a CAT scan has had more radiation exposure than anyone in the area bar those actually entering the plant to cool the reactors.

That's an interesting comment that coal plants give off more radiation. do you have a reference for that information?

You are 100% correct in that Ila. There are limited number of opportunities to build additional hydro-electric plants with existing environmental regulations in the US. There was a turbine blow out in Russia a couple years back that had some major damage. -mS