Japans reactors issues.

[barry12345]

Perhaps people should give some consideration to this. The leakage of the reactors that have melted down day by day flows into the Pacific Ocean. Since they are not even sure how far the cores have sunk into the earth is one issue.

Plus after this many years if they felt it was technically possible to either contain or recover them would be one thing. At this point I seriously doubt they have a solution and may never have one. To me in a few years if not solved it might mean cultures that fish the pacific as a food supply might have to give it up. This may be the lesser of two evils.

The one issue that is getting little press. Is the spent fuel that is contained in a pool five or six stories up. They have attempted to shore that badly damaged structure up.

There are several problems it seems. They are unable to remove the spent fuel apparently. The actual ground under that building is deteriorating. If an earthquake where to happen and could. The structure could collapse.

Now what many may not know is spent fuel bundles contacting each other burst into flame until they are a certain age. If the whole pile burnt. North America would not be habitable.

I even think the survivability rate would be of very short duration once the cloud arrived. To me it may have been and still is a good ideal to perhaps not dwell on this with the general north American public.

It is reasoned that the only salvation would be for those that escaped to the southern hemisphere very quickly. Now getting closer to 400 million North American people out into the southerm hemisphere quick enough. Could not happen.

If this risk is true. There are over 500 nuclear plants in the world. Man should do a serious rethink. In my mind we have become capable of exterminating our specis without war being involved.

The Russian reactor accident was so bad in reality that no new reactors where built for thirty years. I never remember the death toll of that accident posted in other than fairly low figures. Unofficial claims are almost a million people will have died or will die as a result though. I kind of suspected the stopping of new reactor construction had to be based on more than the general information fed to the public.

The potential of the Japanese situation makes the Russian one look like nothing at all. Already more radiation has gotten into the pacific than the total output of the central European one. With no ending in site. It has already been six years now since the Japanese event and the radioactive water is just rising and flowing over the frozen soil barrier. You also have to consider when the hot ores burn their way down to grown water. There will be at a minumin a radioactive steam release unless there is an eruption.

It getting hard to ferret out some effects of modern science plus attempting to get some accurate numbers. For example there have been over two thousand bomb tests since Hiroshima. Some scientists credit a side effect of that causing 58 million cancer cases worldwide.

I hope a lot of the quiet information is accurate rather than sensational in nature or just guessing.

To me man has to make decisions he is not prepared to do. It is becoming fairly obvious that otherwise he risks the possibility of a world that humans cannot exist on.

Japan feels lucky that they did not lose their whole country. Yet the risk of that is not certain at this point still. If those spent fuel rods burnt the northern hemisphere could be uninhabitable. And there are still more than 500 of these potential power plant liabilities out there. Over a hundred in north America alone. Tokyo has twenty million people and there is higher background radiation there now. No dosage in reality is safe if prolonged.

Then you have the nuclear industry out there always saying the reactors are totally safe. Accidents just cannot happen. Forget about the many close calls that have occurred as well as the two very serious events so far. Three mile island was almost much more serious as well.

Man may not have a way otherwise to generate the large amount of electricity required otherwise in any way that does not have issues. Odds are either Japans issue may or may not become more serious. I doubt it will ever go away totally.

The problem is the chances of yet another one not going up in a harmful fashion has to be a matter of just when. It has already become a planning expression of the land areas that will be lost.

In some projected cases whole countries. Personally I think it is wrong to keep the public poorly informed. The Japanese company that owns those reactors lied extensively as well even to their own government. I doubt you would expect much better in any country.

For those that are fixated about the importance of politics. This kind of post can be a distraction. I find it quite a sobering issue although I do not dwell on it.

The atomic energy commissions real function is to promote the use of fusion generated power. They have to know the real risks. I think the stakes are so high they never talk about them.

That pile of spent rods may have gotten removed by now on thinking about it more. Yet they were there a few years ago is certain. . Had the containment collapsed we probably would not be posting anymore in north America.

They distracted attention from the worse possible outcome pretty much. Maybe again a warning may have created a panic? What is obvious is they are not being honest about these issues. Perhaps developing all the hydro sites possible and some conservation would be a better risk in the long haul. There are far too many nuclear reactors located too close to large cities anyways. Yet there is no really safe difference if there is enough release of radioactivity.

Those fuel rods burning would have been thousands of times worse than what has already happened. Why would the designers locate a storage pool that high other than consideration of it being swamped with salt water at that location? Yet they put the back up electrical generators in the basement. All these design issues are getting by the regulators and that facility was not even really that old. If the designers in hindsight are missing the easy stuff perhaps it is a universal issue. What else have they missed? Will we find out a few more of them?

[INSIDIOUS]

Here you can find an interesting perspective on this issue Ruminations On Reindeer And Radioactivity | December 21, 2015 Issue - Vol. 93 Issue 49 | Chemical & Engineering News

Sami people are also known to be some of the most radioactive humans on Earth—and their reindeer follow suit—because of nuclear weapons testing in the northern Soviet Union as well as fallout in the upper atmosphere from weapons tests around the world in the 1950s and ’60s. ...
The reindeer herders of central Norway are more contaminated than most people around Chernobyl. You’ll struggle to find any person around Fukushima with more cesium-137 in their body than Norwegian reindeer herders,

[kerry]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/world/asia/fuel-rods-are-removed-from-japans-damaged-fukushima-reactor.html?_r=0

Why was it stored so high up?

[barry12345]

The more I have read the more convincing it seems. There are massive issues with the continued existence of nuclear power stations.

Bernie has said that if elected he would not renew their operating licences as they came due. Hillary wants to build a lot more and let the old ones still function. Almost sociopathic if she understands the current state of that industry. The large lobby element perhaps the largest in Washington is the nuclear industry today.

America may have the reputation at certain levels of being the nuclear waste dumping ground of a lot of countries or for the free world. There are private companies in the United states making a fortune from accepting other countries nuclear waste.

The American government must be involved with this insanity as the country is getting into difficulty with even the amount it produces. The companies making a fortune from taking it will also never bear the true costs of dealing with it. There is no known usable long term solution so far anyways. The nuclear industry has lied so much over time it should be reason enough for it's demise.

I could go on and on but what is the point. Even Canada has woken up a little. The reactors on the fringe of Toronto where scheduled for a rebuild. It was decided to buy the power elsewhere. The risk of an issue was not high but they have become aware there is still a small but palatable risk over time.

When they were built I remember talking with the wife about what a serious event could do. I suggested it might take out all of central Canada and some northern states.

She mentioned they were foolproof according to the industry. I told her anything that man constructs is not. Even close to foolproof with this product is not acceptable. American perhaps have no ideal of how fortunate they were that three mile island got stopped.

A look at the video of the control room when the issue was going on spells it out. I am only suprised that video was not suppressed by the industry. Their instruments where failing and not considered valid as the radiation was damaging the probes. They where actually doing the wrong things when an outside source suggestion to try something else came in. If that call had not reached them and the callers had been trying for some time to reach them. It would have been really bad.

The overall problem Is man wants to deal with the nucleous of the atom. I do not believe it was intended for man to do so as it represents the power that make most planets in the universe uninhabitable. Only our atmosphere protects us from its true everyday external natural power. It is not an issue of if others reactors will go up. It is more an issue of when they will. Plus the way the waste is being dealt with also has limits.

[Angel]

I'm not tight with the nuclear industry in the US, but I try to be close (not many nukes near where I live...).

Why was the fuel stored high up ? No idea, the only issue I see is that fuel storage buildings often contain other dangerous/radioactive equipment (water processing, laundry(!), used filter media storage... Perhaps the ground floors of that containment building were already filled with other equipment and the spent fuel pool was a later addition.
US plants are already being shut down "on economy", so even the 2(?) that they got permission to build in GA...those will probably be the last unless we elect a LOT of pro-nuclear politicians...and print A LOT of money(but the latter doesn't seem to be a problem in the US...)

I'm not sure what I think about the US storing old nuclear fuel. We have the real estate for it (the EU sure doesn't) and I personally believe that you can bury this stuff and be done with it. Or maybe you cant, but compared to the "cost" of the burnt fossil fuels required to take its place... It quickly gets into the discussion of where we get power from etc....which has been well-hashed by the internet so far.

My point being- Money will solve this. Wind turbines and solar cells are cheaper and easier to piecemeal than a new nuclear site. .gov regulations still make construction of any large power plant cost prohibitive (of any fuel type). The coming generations will not stand for the 'large distributed power grid' model that we currently use anyway - they will demand the ability to divorce from the grid (although those that own factories or large facilities will be unable to do so, and they'll probably just take up more of that load...which also has future repercussions..."whatevs" as the kids would say

When the small money dries up, there wont be enough to build big plants (there almost isn't any now...), the 'grid' will be distributed and local co-ops will sprout up to actually fix wires and poles.
There will be a dip in service (with a few more accidents...), as we re-grow a generation of linemen and engineers (I lament this fact the most), but, for the most part, life will continue for most, the only thing that will change is the writing on your electric bill.

The nuclear problem will fix itself.

-John

[Mark DiSilvestro]

We better go back to coal!

Happy Motoring, Mark

[INSIDIOUS]

Originally Posted by barry12345

The more I have read the more convincing it seems. There are massive issues with the continued existence of nuclear power stations.

Bernie has said that if elected he would not renew their operating licences as they came due. Hillary wants to build a lot more and let the old ones still function. Almost sociopathic if she understands the current state of that industry. The large lobby element perhaps the largest in Washington is the nuclear industry today.

America may have the reputation at certain levels of being the nuclear waste dumping ground of a lot of countries or for the free world. There are private companies in the United states making a fortune from accepting other countries nuclear waste.

The American government must be involved with this insanity as the country is getting into difficulty with even the amount it produces. The companies making a fortune from taking it will also never bear the true costs of dealing with it. There is no known usable long term solution so far anyways. The nuclear industry has lied so much over time it should be reason enough for it's demise.

I could go on and on but what is the point. Even Canada has woken up a little. The reactors on the fringe of Toronto where scheduled for a rebuild. It was decided to buy the power elsewhere. The risk of an issue was not high but they have become aware there is still a small but palatable risk over time.

When they were built I remember talking with the wife about what a serious event could do. I suggested it might take out all of central Canada and some northern states.

She mentioned they were foolproof according to the industry. I told her anything that man constructs is not. Even close to foolproof with this product is not acceptable. American perhaps have no ideal of how fortunate they were that three mile island got stopped.

A look at the video of the control room when the issue was going on spells it out. I am only suprised that video was not suppressed by the industry. Their instruments where failing and not considered valid as the radiation was damaging the probes. They where actually doing the wrong things when an outside source suggestion to try something else came in. If that call had not reached them and the callers had been trying for some time to reach them. It would have been really bad.

The overall problem Is man wants to deal with the nucleous of the atom. I do not believe it was intended for man to do so

There it is. Right there. That idea necessarily implies some overlord ... Try to look at the world without the necessity for make believe. We just happen to be the current pinnacle of evolution - even if we nuke ourselves off history. The possibilities are much less restricted and even endless

as it represents the power that make most planets in the universe uninhabitable. Only our atmosphere protects us from its true everyday external natural power. It is not an issue of if others reactors will go up. It is more an issue of when they will. Plus the way the waste is being dealt with also has limits.