Japan issues atomic energy emergency after earthquake

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Japan declared an atomic power emergency Friday, ordering the evacuation of thousands of residents living nearby the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was damaged in that country's magnitude 8.9-magnitude earthquake. This marks the first time that Japan has issued such a warning for one of its nuclear facilities.

The New York Times reports that a continuing major concern at the Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant, northeast of Tokyo, is over its cooling system. In a separate AP dispatch, Japanese officials announced their plan to release "slightly radioactive" vapor that had built up in the system since the quake disabled normal cooling functions. Pressure in one of the plant's six cooling towers had increased to a level 1.5 times what's considered normal, the wire service reported.

The plant's cooling facility requires an uninterrupted supply of electricity to cool the heat from radioactive fuel rods even after engineers have taken the remainder of the plant offline. As Times reporter Matthew L. Wald explains:

Heat from the nuclear fuel rods must be removed by water in a cooling system, but that requires power to run the pumps and to align the valves in the pipes. So the plant requires a continuous supply of electricity even after the reactor stops generating its own power. […]

Civilian power reactors are designed with emergency diesel generators to assure the ability to continue cooling even during a blackout. …It was not immediately clear how many there are at Fukushima, but the operators reported earlier in the day that they were not working, prompting the evacuation.

Fukushima 1, which was designed by General Electric and entered commercial service in 1971, was probably equipped to function for some hours without emergency diesel generators, according to David Lochbaum, who worked at three American reactor complexes that use General Electric technology. …

If the cooling system remains inoperative for many hours, the water would eventually boil away, he said, and the fuel would begin to melt. That is what happened at Three Mile Island, the reactor near Harrisburg, Pa., that suffered a partial core melt in March 1979. In that case the cause was not an earthquake, but mechanical failure, operator error and poor design, government investigators later found.

Mr. Lochbaum, who now works for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that is very often critical of nuclear safety standards, said that if the cooling water in the vessel was boiling away, the process of boiling enough to expose the fuel would take "hours, not minutes."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that U.S. Air Force planes stationed in Japan had helped ferry emergency coolant to the plant, the paper reported.

Meanwhile, an analyst with the international nuclear power group, the World Nuclear Association, told Reuters that water was now being pumped into the cooling system at Fukushima, describing the situation as "under control."

[Dimmu]

From BBC

The Kyodo news agency is now citing a safety panel as saying that the radiation level inside one of the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant is 1,000 times higher than normal.

[Sasha]

I offcourse hope everybody in Japan will be save (they really don't need another nuclear trauma there) but I must say purely looking at dutch politics this comes very welcome since the right-wing government is pushing hard for new nuclear powerplants and almost got the majority of the dutch convinced they are save.

[Hoplite]

Mhmmm, lovely clean SAFE energy.

[crazyirish93]

A 2nd nuclear reactor i said to be in difficulty not sure if its on the the same site.

[MarxSchmarx]

If any catastrophe is averted (and given that the response so far is very measured and precautionary) this is likely to be resolved without a meltdown although the rapid increase in the chamber's temperature is causing the pressure building up inside which is even more worrisome. Right now the pressure is being relieved from the chambers, though the radioactivity of the steam is apparently making it somewhat difficult.

My guess is that public opinion, at least in Japan, will shift decidedly against building new nuclear reactors and to phase out the existing ones after this. This is a stark reminder that "failsafe" systems are impossible to design. If an economy as advanced as Japan's and with such rigorous enforcement and a regulatory regime often criticized as being too cautious cannot secure adequate electricity to properly shut down a nuclear plant, the Japanese nuclear industry cannot expect much if any support. When the stakes are so immensely high, there will be a greater sense of urgency to move away from nuclear (and oil and gas, whose refineries caught fire). I think that although this won't be as catastrophic as Chernobyl, it will have a similar psychic effect for generations.

It also makes clear why the nuclear industry's insurance costs are so immense that they are not economically viable without massive government subsidies. I would be surprised if within a decade nuclear power has not become virtually non-existent as a power source in Japan.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Looks like it's going into meltdown:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219

But, I thought the fans of nuclear power, who litter this site, swore to us that this sort of thing could not happen.:confused:

Yes, these plants are so 'safe'...:rolleyes:

[MarxSchmarx]

The Japanese press, at least as of 14:18 local time on the 12th reports that there is a possibility of a leak/meltdown, but that it isn't (yet) to the point where the cores are going to melt down like they did (apparently) in Chernobyl and 3 mile island. There is still time to get the coolants to prevent things from getting worse, and the government has solicited the help of the American military on this.

As of 17:24 there has been white smoke and explosions, and apparently 4 workers have been rushed to the hospital.

And I agree with your point, Rosa, about nuclear power. The major disasters so far have been caused by human error and faulty machinery. But I think the Fukushima plants show that no amount of corrections on that front could completely eliminate a major disaster risk - a risk that could be avoided 100% with wind farms out in the pacific, for example.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC has just shown pictures of one of the buildings blowing up.

MarxSchmarx:


And I agree with your point, Rosa, about nuclear power. The major disasters so far have been caused by human error and faulty machinery. But I think the Fukushima plants show that no amount of corrections on that front could completely eliminate a major disaster risk - a risk that could be avoided 100% with wind farms out in the pacific, for example.

In fact, it was caused by the electricity supply being cut, something that they had not foreseen -- so this is just as much a 'human error' as the others were.

The emergency generators which were supposed to have kicked in, failed.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC has just reported that the police have imposed a sixty kilometre exclusion zone around this 'safe' plant. The reporter on the spot says the cops tell them it's too dangerous to go any nearer.

[Dimmu]

Nuclear plant explosion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg4uogOEUrU&feature=player_embedded

[The Vegan Marxist]

But, I thought the fans of nuclear power, who litter this site, swore to us that this sort of thing could not happen.:confused:

Yes, these plants are so 'safe'...:rolleyes:

Maybe if you ever actually paid attention to what a person is saying, instead of going about your own narcissistic rhetoric, you'd realize that we've all been talking about how we can make sure these type of things could never happen again, thus making the plants safe to use for clean energy. Not that nuclear plants pose no danger, especially within capitalist countries where regulation is the last of one's worries.

[Dimmu]

Well.. It looks like it will be melt down.. Japan also extended the expulsion zone by 20 km.

[piet11111]

Hmm commercially run since 1971.

Lets await the investigation into what went wrong before jumping to conclusions.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

TVM:


Maybe if you ever actually paid attention to what a person is saying, instead of going about your own narcissistic rhetoric, you'd realize that we've all been talking about how we can make sure these type of things could never happen again, thus making the plants safe to use for clean energy. Not that nuclear plants pose no danger, especially within capitalist countries where regulation is the last of one's worries.

Well, you haven't been around here long enough to have had the mantra "Nuclear is safe, any suggestion to the contrary is a lie" rammed down your throat (like many of us veterans have) by several technology 'worshippers' at this site.

We can now see that it isn't.

------------------------------

We now know that (according to a report just aired by the BBC) 90 cms of the core has been exposed to the air.

A Japanese government spokesman has however denied that the blast has exposed the reactor.

But, the other report alleged that this has happened before that blast.

All this explains why, despite their denials, they are continually widening the exclusion zone.

[Wanted Man]

Maybe if you ever actually paid attention to what a person is saying, instead of going about your own narcissistic rhetoric, you'd realize that we've all been talking about how we can make sure these type of things could never happen again, thus making the plants safe to use for clean energy. Not that nuclear plants pose no danger, especially within capitalist countries where regulation is the last of one's worries.

In that case, I'm sure you can demonstrate how this particular plant was poorly regulated by the state. And after that you could expand on the rather naïve idea that socialism will magically make nuclear plants safe.

[Leonid Brozhnev]

So unsafe... only taken a 8.9 magnitude Earthquake to shove this 40 year old plant to the edge of meltdown :rolleyes:

[MarxSchmarx]

I'm not sure how much anybody should trust the Japanese government or the electric company Tokyo denryoku at this point but Reuters probably has the best organized coverage on this:

Here are some tidbits from university professors
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/us-japan-quake-experts-idUSTRE72B1BP20110312

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/us-japan-quake-nuclear-us-analysis-idUSTRE72B04C20110312

and their analysis basically says what I figured, that the nuclear power industry has suffered a serious blow here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/us-nuclear-japan-idUSTRE72B0O920110312

[Hoplite]

Maybe if you ever actually paid attention to what a person is saying, instead of going about your own narcissistic rhetoric, you'd realize that we've all been talking about how we can make sure these type of things could never happen again, thus making the plants safe to use for clean energy. Not that nuclear plants pose no danger, especially within capitalist countries where regulation is the last of one's worries.
Part of the concern is you are dealing with an inherently unsafe process and trying to make it safe. There is ALWAYS a margin for error with nuclear power and the question is are we ready to accept that. For me personally, no, I'm not.

A solar array may be bigger and need batteries, but it wont melt down.

[Zhu Bailan]

It's unbelievable. Japan has the worlds most nuclear plants and the worlds most quake activity.
Last night we were evacuated, today we're watching the fallout:
http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/438/fallout.jpg

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

It's unbelievable. Japan has the worlds most nuclear plants and the worlds most quake activity.
Last night we were evacuated, today we're watching the fallout:
http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/438/fallout.jpg

Ooh yeah, that's a very scary looking map, created by a private company (look up Australian Radiation Services), so I'm absolutely sure there's no there's no interest there whatsoever in spreading FUD in order to scare up some custom. :rolleyes:

But let's examine it more closely; apart from using outdated units (rads), the highest exposure level given is 3000 rads, or 30 Grays - are we seriously expected to believe that there is somehow enough nuclear material in a single reactor to induce coma and death within minutes when spread over many thousands of square kilometres? Are they assuming that all nuclear reactors in Japan are going to pop their tops and spread their contents as widely possible? What about the many other assumptions and variables that we haven't been told about that went into this intimidating-looking chart?

The chemicals industry literally gets away with murder in terms of accidents and lax safety, even without powerful earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis to help them. But they get nowhere near the amount of opprobrium from the general public because they have not been the subject of a decades-long campaign of fear, uncertainty and doubt perpetuated by ideological (as opposed to pragmatic) greens and looked on with unbridled glee by the fossil fuel industry.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

From a post on SomethingAwful:


Nearly all of the western news agencies are seriously behind.

Short version:

* All reactors were shut down at both sites about twelve hours ago. Some of them are still experiencing pressure problems in the containment vessels due to cooling system issues, but the cores are only generating "decay heat" because their control rods are all in place.

* At Fukushima site one, the #1 reactor (the oldest) appeared to suffer some kind of explosion. It turns out that they had vented hydrogen from inside the containment vessel, which was accidentally ignited. This destroyed the cosmetic facade of the building and caused some minor injuries, but the reactor itself was undamaged and the vessel remains intact.

* TEPCO, the power company that runs the facility, is permanently shutting down the #1 reactor (and possibly others) by pumping in sea water. This is literally a permanent shutdown as it will irreparably damage the reactor(s), but the risks are considered too high to do anything else. This is apparently their pre-planned last resort in situations like this, where literally everything else has gone wrong due to something unpredictable like, well, the worst earthquake in Japanese history.

* There has been minor releases of radioactive steam, which is why the surrounding areas have been evacuated. Radiation levels were never very high and are already dropping, although there have been some exposure cases due to bad luck. There is still some worry about the presence of trace radioactives like iodine.

* There have been no major core breaches and there will be no Chernobyl-esque fallout distribution problems. Any radioactive material released will is strictly local, within a few kilometers radius, and even that is likely to be on the level of Three Mile Island, which is to say almost unnoticeable once the initial incident has passed.

There's no indication of any similar problems at the 50 or so other nuclear power plants in Japan.

[Dr Mindbender]

This doesn't prove that nuclear power is unsafe, only that it is unwise to build nuclear stations near tectonic fault lines.

So half the USA is going to get covered in fallout eh? Guess that either the pentagon didnt plan right or it rubbishes the conspiracy theory i heard that this earthquake was caused by a USAF orbital energy weapon in order to draw international attention away from NATO's adventures in Libya.

[Hoplite]

There's no indication of any similar problems at the 50 or so other nuclear power plants in Japan.
That isnt the issue. The issue is that a natural disaster has hit these structures and there is a great potential for destabilization and danger.

Natural disasters are not rare and if nuclear power facilities are that vulnerable to natural disasters, we need to reconsider the idea that this method of power generation is safe.

[Dr Mindbender]

That isnt the issue. The issue is that a natural disaster has hit these structures and there is a great potential for destabilization and danger.

Natural disasters are not rare and if nuclear power facilities are that vulnerable to natural disasters, we need to reconsider the idea that this method of power generation is safe.

Natural disasters are far more common in some places than others. Some countries, like UK and Ireland have extremely mild weather systems.

The trick is only to build them in places where there isnt going to be (damaging) earthquakes or particularly strong winds.

Japan as a country prone to earthquakes, is an unwise country for nuclear plants but they are built anyway because of hard headed national pride. The problem is nationalism not nuclear energy.

[Hoplite]

Natural disasters are far more common in some places than others. Some countries, like UK and Ireland have extremely mild weather systems.

The trick is only to build them in places where there isnt going to be (damaging) earthquakes or particularly strong winds.

Japan as a country prone to earthquakes, is an unwise country for nuclear plants but they are built anyway because of hard headed national pride. The problem is nationalism not nuclear energy.
For myself, I'd rather not take the risk.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

That isnt the issue. The issue is that a natural disaster has hit these structures and there is a great potential for destabilization and danger.

So "great potential" means a contained accident in only one out of 50 multi-core facilities despite one of the largest earthquakes in Japanese history, and even then in one of the oldest reactors, 40 years old and thus not up to current standards?


Natural disasters are not rare and if nuclear power facilities are that vulnerable to natural disasters, we need to reconsider the idea that this method of power generation is safe.

"Safe" is not a binary quality, it's determined by degrees. In this case I think nuclear power is a safe enough option for Japan, since only one plant has experienced major damage and the most dangerous elements have been contained despite a tsunami after said earthquake.

[Vanguard1917]

Houses are destroyed in an earthquake = houses are unsafe to live in = let's go back to living in caves.

Exceptional circumstances (this was a massive earthquake even by Japan standards) will inevitably result in exceptional occurances. And serious nuclear accidents are most definately exceptional and very rare.

Japan is a modern, economically developed country which has shown that, relative to poor countries in earthquake zones, it is very much up to the task of adapting to, and prospering in spite of, its unfortunate geographical predicament. We should hope that it learns from this event and becomes even more brazen and defiant in the face of nature's caprice, through further improvement and innovation.

As for the enviromentalists cynically exploiting the disaster for their own political ends, they should frankly be ashamed of themselves.

[Hoplite]

So "great potential" means a contained accident in only one out of 50 multi-core facilities despite one of the largest earthquakes in Japanese history, and even then in one of the oldest reactors, 40 years old and thus not up to current standards?
So how many more plants are like this world-wide and how much will it cost to get them all up to standard?


"Safe" is not a binary quality, it's determined by degrees. In this case I think nuclear power is a safe enough option for Japan, since only one plant has experienced major damage and the most dangerous elements have been contained despite a tsunami after said earthquake.
It only takes one serious failure to cause a disaster. That is a key reason I dislike nuclear power; you only have to fuck up once for there to be extensive problems.



Houses are destroyed in an earthquake = houses are unsafe to live in = let's go back to living in caves.
Houses do not melt down when shaken by an earthquake, try again.


Exceptional circumstances (this was a massive earthquake even by Japan standards) will inevitably result in exceptional occurances. And serious nuclear accidents are most definately exceptional and very rare.
It only takes one.


As for the enviromentalists cynically exploiting the disaster for their own political ends, they should frankly be ashamed of themselves.
My concerns are not strictly environmental. There are tens of thousands of people inside the critical range of Fukushima, if this disaster was worse, those people would be dead and the area would be contaminated beyond livability.

With nuclear power, you CANNOT screw up. If you do, lots of people die. That is my biggest concern.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

So how many more plants are like this world-wide and how much will it cost to get them all up to standard?

Generation III reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor) are at least 15 years old and they're already working on Generation IV reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor) with the expectation of commercial deployment beginning around 2030, or 2021 at the earliest.

Cost will likely depend on factors such as the price of fossil fuels as well as the enthusiasm for nuclear power among those in control. The closer we get to a fully-fledged fissionables-based economy complete with adequate reprocessing infrastructure to ensure future stability of supply, the more the effects of economies of scale will be felt and the cheaper it will be to deploy reactors and other nuclear fission technologies. This has not happened yet because of the sheer cheapness of fossil fuels despite price fixing, resulting in relatively little if any motivation to make the transition.

This particular facility lacked the containment dome that is common to all contemporary designs. These domes are constructed with thick reinforced concrete that can withstand an impact from a high-speed aircraft:

LINK (http://www.crazywebsite.com/Pg-Online-Funny-Videos/F-4-Nuke-Crash-Test-1.html)


It only takes one serious failure to cause a disaster. That is a key reason I dislike nuclear power; you only have to fuck up once for there to be extensive problems.

Actually it depends on the design of the reactor - the more modern the design, the greater the amount and magnitude of failures have to occur in order for disaster to happen. The idea that nuclear reactors will always be one step away from disaster is a false one that ignores the evolutionary development of reactor technology.

[Vanguard1917]

Houses do not melt down when shaken by an earthquake, try again.

The majority of deaths during earthquakes are caused by normal, everyday buildings collapsing. Thus it would appear that buildings are inherently unsafe for people to live, work or go to school in.



With nuclear power, you CANNOT screw up. If you do, lots of people die. That is my biggest concern.


As we have seen, far, far more people have died in earthquakes as a result of their homes, workplaces or schools falling on top of them than as a result of anything relating to nuclear energy.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Keep in mind that while a lot of attention is being focused on the nuclear drama in Japan, there are still many petroleum-fueled fires raging and hydro-electric facilities have been destroyed with predictable consequences.

It's tragically ironic, really. Refineries and fuel tanks head skywards with depressing frequency, and have killed and injured more people as a result. Yet because because major accidents involving nuclear plants are so rare, they're always newsworthy and thus get the greater amount of attention.

[S.Artesian]

Part of the concern is you are dealing with an inherently unsafe process and trying to make it safe. There is ALWAYS a margin for error with nuclear power and the question is are we ready to accept that. For me personally, no, I'm not.

A solar array may be bigger and need batteries, but it wont melt down.

And it won't generate the electricity output per unit [however you want to measure the unit input--- money or time] as a nuclear plant.

Question isn't "Is energy derived from nuclear fission safe?" the question is is the technology amenable to mitigation, reduction of risk until such time as the technology can be replaced?

The nuclear plant in question has experienced, according to what has been acknowledged, a partial fuel meltdown that has, as of this point, not breached the containment structures.

This type of plant has long been criticized for being structurally weak, weak in design, for handling the pressure build up in event of a failure of cooling systems.

So? Safe, unsafe is a question of applied technology, and applied of course means economics.

My personal take on nuclear generation of electricity is that it essentially resolves itself into such an ancient way of creating, and transmitting, energy-- boiling water. We're splitting atoms to make tea? That doesn't sound all that modern to me.

We might, if there were an international socialist council of energy delivery, kind of decide against constructing nuclear power plants along and within the Pacific "rim of fire" seismic zone. I mean just a thought.

But I don't think, until more efficient technologies are available, that we would require shutting in of all the nuclear plants in the country formally known as France.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

My personal take on nuclear generation of electricity is that it essentially resolves itself into such an ancient way of creating, and transmitting, energy-- boiling water. We're splitting atoms to make tea? That doesn't sound all that modern to me.

Generation of electricity in contemporary applications ultimately involves movement and magnetism, usually via some sort of dynamo. There are certain kinds of fusion reaction that generate charged particles which can be more or less directly converted into electricity, but I'm not aware of any other methods of generating electricity that are likely to see application in the near future.

Besides, the idea that even the latest nuclear fission reactors are not "modern" because they use steam turbines to drive dynamos is fallacious. We've been using the wheel for thousands of years, does that then mean that petrol-fueled cars are not a recent and therefore "modern" invention?

[ZeroNowhere]

The media has been rather shameful when it comes to reporting on this event. Perhaps we should ban the construction of news articles about things which involve nuclear fission. It's a good thing that we had 50 nuclear reactors and not 50 CNNs or BBCs.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The one quick solution to the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power facility is to restore power to it. There is an irony to that observation: a nuclear power plant in need of power. But the problem at unit 1 at Fukushima Daiichi began with a double whammy: the 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan that apparently knocked out its main source of electrical power; and the resulting tsunami that put the facility's back-up power supply out of commission. The improbable one-two punch resulted in what is called a "station blackout," according to Kenneth Bergeron, a physicist who used to work on nuclear reactor accident simulation at Sandia National Laboratories in the United States. The likelihood of the scenario was so low that few statisticians expected it ever to happen. But it has in Fukushima. - Japan's Nuclear Emergency: How to Stop a Meltdown (http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20110313/wl_time/08599205861500)

[S.Artesian]

Generation of electricity in contemporary applications ultimately involves movement and magnetism, usually via some sort of dynamo. There are certain kinds of fusion reaction that generate charged particles which can be more or less directly converted into electricity, but I'm not aware of any other methods of generating electricity that are likely to see application in the near future.

Besides, the idea that even the latest nuclear fission reactors are not "modern" because they use steam turbines to drive dynamos is fallacious. We've been using the wheel for thousands of years, does that then mean that petrol-fueled cars are not a recent and therefore "modern" invention?

I'm just trying to get us beyond the "modern" or "technical" fetishization of nuclear energy. It's not the wheel that nuclear reactor technology is equivalent to, it's the way of driving the wheel, providing the energy to the wheel that can provide a comparison.

So if we were installing mini-reactors in locomotives to generate steam in boilers so we could run steam locomotives again, yeah I'd say that isn't quite so modern as using petroleum to run the engine block to create electricity to power the traction motors.

If we were using nuclear reactors to generate steam so that we could heat passenger cars once again with steam, yeah I'd say that wasn't very modern.

What gives nuclear energy its purchase is the amount of water it can boil at costs less than that of utilizing oil or gas or coal. It's an economic advance, hardly a scientific advance in the transformation of energy into electrical energy.

As I said, the safety we get from these systems is basically an economic calculation. I would love to see fission technology replaced, but I don't think it is inherently unsafe or uncontrollable. I do think it presents greater risks not of catastrophic failure, but rather greater risks in the event of catastrophic failure.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I'm just trying to get us beyond the "modern" or "technical" fetishization of nuclear energy. It's not the wheel that nuclear reactor technology is equivalent to, it's the way of driving the wheel, providing the energy to the wheel that can provide a comparison.

So if we were installing mini-reactors in locomotives to generate steam in boilers so we could run steam locomotives again, yeah I'd say that isn't quite so modern as using petroleum to run the engine block to create electricity to power the traction motors.

If we were using nuclear reactors to generate steam so that we could heat passenger cars once again with steam, yeah I'd say that wasn't very modern.

The thing is that "modern" is a temporal rather than technical classification.


What gives nuclear energy its purchase is the amount of water it can boil at costs less than that of utilizing oil or gas or coal. It's an economic advance, hardly a scientific advance in the transformation of energy into electrical energy.

Aside from charged particle capture from certain fusion reactions, how else would we generate large amounts of electrical energy? Even the proposals I've seen for large solar energy plants involve focusing sunlight in order to heat water or some other working fluid.


As I said, the safety we get from these systems is basically an economic calculation. I would love to see fission technology replaced, but I don't think it is inherently unsafe or uncontrollable. I do think it presents greater risks not of catastrophic failure, but rather greater risks in the event of catastrophic failure.

Nuclear energy operates according to fairly well-known physical laws, thus it is entirely possible to design a reactor in which meltdown is a physical impossibility. It's not like nuclear energy is some kind of mischevous genie or evil demon, after all.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Reactor 3 has now lost its cooling system. The authorities there are now warning of a meltdown in that reactor.

The secrecy of the nulcear power industry means that we are never told the truth and have never been told the truth -- until it is too late (and even then we only get an incomplete picture).


Japan fears second reactor blast

There is a risk of a second explosion at the quake-hit Fukushima power station, Japanese officials have said.

However, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the facility could withstand the impact and the nuclear reactor itself would not be damaged.

Technicians are battling to cool reactor 3 following a blast at the building housing reactor 1 on Saturday.

Meanwhile, police have warned that the death toll in tsunami-hit Miyagi prefecture alone could exceed 10,000.

Miyagi includes the port of Minamisanriku which was mostly swept away by the tsunami.

The BBC's Rachel Harvey, outside Minamisanriku, says roads to the town are blocked and emergency workers are finding bodies amid piles of debris.

Officials previously said that more than 2,000 people died or were missing following Friday's earthquake and tsunami.

Millions remain without electricity and authorities are stepping up relief efforts as the scale of the tragedy becomes clearer.

Officials announced that the number of troops helping with rescue work in the region would be doubled to 100,000.

Radioactive vapour

The Japanese government has sought to play down fears of a radiation leak at the Fukushima plant.

But the plant's operators, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said radiation levels around the plant had now risen above permissible limits.

About 170,000 people have been evacuated from the area near the plant.

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says a meltdown at reactor 3 would be potentially more serious than at the other reactors, because it is fuelled by plutonium and uranium, unlike the other units which carry only uranium.

Experts say as long as authorities can keep fuel rods in the core covered with water, they should be able to avoid a major disaster.

Emergency workers were pumping in seawater to cool the rods, but one report suggested the tops of the rods had briefly been exposed.

Technicians opened valves at reactor 3, allowing small amounts of radioactive vapour to escape in a bid to reduce the pressure in the unit.

They performed a similar operation on the first reactor, hours before the explosion that wrecked the building it was housed in.

The Japanese government doubled the size of the evacuation zone around Fukushima 1 to 20km (12.4 miles) after the blast.

There are now problems at the number three reactor - the concern is that it is overheating. They're trying to pump sea water through it at the moment. That's an unusual, somewhat innovative solution to the problem. But the fact that they're prepared to consider unusual solutions like that gives you a hint of just how serious the problem is.

This is a very difficult issue for the Japanese government. There has always been concern here about the safety of nuclear power stations, about the wisdom of building nuclear power stations, on which Japan relies hugely for its energy needs, in a country which is so prone to earthquakes.

They're also aware that they don't want to cause panic. On Saturday we saw the exclusion zone around this plant gradually increased. First of all it was just a few kilometres, now it's much wider. But obviously once that exclusion zone is extended, you've then got to get the people out. So it's important, they would say, not to cause unnecessary panic. And that's why they're trying to play this down as much as they can.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12724953

So, this nuclear disaster is following the same pattern we have seen many times before.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fukushima: The third worst nuclear disaster ever

by Gary Anderson, Sunday Mirror 13/03/2011

Major design flaws were blamed for *Chernobyl in April 1986, when overheating caused two *massive explosions at the Ukraine plant.

Huge clouds of radio*active material escaped into the *atmosphere and *travelled hundreds of miles across Europe.

The disaster *produced 100 times more *radiation than the *Nag*a**saki and *Hiroshima bombs and has been blamed for 200,000 deaths from cancer and other diseases. The March 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in the US was similar to *Fukushima because a fault caused overheating. Although the plant suffered a “severe core meltdown” only small amounts of radiation escaped.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/03/13/fukushima-the-third-worst-nuclear-disaster-ever-115875-22985878/

Whether or not this merits third place time will only tell, but comrades can read the long and sordid history of similar disasters at these 'safe' plants here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC are reporting that engineers have tried to cool the third reactor with sea water, and have failed -- but, and more worryingly, they do not know why they have failed.

They are now reporting that cooling problems have emerged with a third reactor -- by that they do not mean reactor three.

[S.Artesian]

Aside from charged particle capture from certain fusion reactions, how else would we generate large amounts of electrical energy? Even the proposals I've seen for large solar energy plants involve focusing sunlight in order to heat water or some other working fluid.

Gas turbine are capable of providing energy directly without the mediation of the working fluid. True, recapture processes of the hot exhausts are used to provide additional generating capacity through steam boilers, but the turbine process itself doesn't work through that medium.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Gas turbine are capable of providing energy directly without the mediation of the working fluid. True, recapture processes of the hot exhausts are used to provide additional generating capacity through steam boilers, but the turbine process itself doesn't work through that medium.

Uh, gases are fluids. I was using the physics definition; like liquids, they continually deform under shear stress. Like an internal combustion engine, gas turbines turn chemical energy into mechanical energy, but as far as I know you still need some kind of dynamo somewhere if you want to get electricity out of it.

[S.Artesian]

Uh, gases are fluids. I was using the physics definition; like liquids, they continually deform under shear stress. Like an internal combustion engine, gas turbines turn chemical energy into mechanical energy, but as far as I know you still need some kind of dynamo somewhere if you want to get electricity out of it.


Yes, gases are fluid, that is correct; the burning of the gas directly releases the energy that creates the motion of the turbine. It is not mediated by the necessity of heating water.

Whether solid, fluid, gas, the point is the release of the energy. Burning gas can generate enough energy to be transferred directly to movement of the dynamo. Burning coal cannot. Its energy is indirectly transformed into electricity through the mediation of the water

That's my only point in this. That's why I find the "modernity" of nuclear reactors so incongruous.

As for nuclear energy: sure its theoretically possible to create a system physically impervious to meltdown, but that's not how reactors are constructed-- they're constructed according to algorithms-- if/then sequences, of what is likely to happen; what is most likely to happen; what is the worst likely set of circumstances. And those circumstances include the economics of production and cost.

It's the circumstances that are variable and cannot be completely controlled, in all their possible iterations.

Doesn't mean you can't make nuclear energy safe, or safer-- it does mean it is a calculus.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Yes, gases are fluid, that is correct; the burning of the gas directly releases the energy that creates the motion of the turbine. It is not mediated by the necessity of heating water.

Whether solid, fluid, gas, the point is the release of the energy. Burning gas can generate enough energy to be transferred directly to movement of the dynamo. Burning coal cannot. Its energy is indirectly transformed into electricity through the mediation of the water

That's my only point in this. That's why I find the "modernity" of nuclear reactors so incongruous.

I think I see what you mean now. However, we've known about the energetic properties of coal longer than we have of uranium and thorium. Also, the reactions involved are fundamentally different - combustion works on the scale of atoms and molecules, while nuclear power performs what amounts to alchemy - but which can be rationally understood.


As for nuclear energy: sure its theoretically possible to create a system physically impervious to meltdown, but that's not how reactors are constructed-- they're constructed according to algorithms-- if/then sequences, of what is likely to happen; what is most likely to happen; what is the worst likely set of circumstances. And those circumstances include the economics of production and cost.

What if a design were to electromagnetically suspend reactor poison above the core? That way, if the power fails for any reason, the electromagnets would lose power and the poison drops into the core, killing the reaction. You could even run them off a backup generator placed in an area where, if damaged or otherwise compromised, the default action is a complete shutdown of the reactor.


It's the circumstances that are variable and cannot be completely controlled, in all their possible iterations.

Like a complete failure of the laws of physics as we know them?


Doesn't mean you can't make nuclear energy safe, or safer-- it does mean it is a calculus.

Obviously there are other potential dangers with nuclear energy. But meltdown is overrated with improved reactor designs.

[S.Artesian]

I think I see what you mean now. However, we've known about the energetic properties of coal longer than we have of uranium and thorium. Also, the reactions involved are fundamentally different - combustion works on the scale of atoms and molecules, while nuclear power performs what amounts to alchemy - but which can be rationally understood.

No argument about that.



What if a design were to electromagnetically suspend reactor poison above the core? That way, if the power fails for any reason, the electromagnets would lose power and the poison drops into the core, killing the reaction. You could even run them off a backup generator placed in an area where, if damaged or otherwise compromised, the default action is a complete shutdown of the reactor.That sound brilliant, seriously. But we know there's always the 1 in a billion or a trillion where boron won't fall, or the mechanism to release the boron gets compromised due to neglect, maintenance etc.




Like a complete failure of the laws of physics as we know them? Nope. Like human sloth, inattention, incompetence, short attention span, laziness and absent mindedness.

Let me give you an example-- from railroad operations. I've had pretty extensive contact with railroad operating chiefs in the UK, and their philosophy regarding designing signal control systems and train operating procedures that prevent and eliminate all human error collisions seems to be [and this is more than just my opinion; many of my US colleagues agree with me] "Well, the only way to prevent all collisions is to stop all movement and never turn a wheel." Which is theoretically true, and practically meaningless. Worse than meaningless, it provides a rationale for not instituting automatic train and speed control signal systems throughout the passenger network.

On passenger railroads in the US, the philosophy is "zero-tolerance" of human error collisions. We don't accept the view that says the only way to prevent all collisions is to stop all movement. So we design our signal systems, our speed limits, and our operating rule responsibilities such that, if all the rules are complied with, no collision can ever occur. Of course we have collisions, but when we do we regard it as a failure, not an inevitable result of the interruption. More than that, we regard it as a failure in our system.


If the train driver showed up drunk, disabled the speed control apparatus and simply ignored signal indications producing the collision, then we would, and do question, how that could happen without anybody noticing the driver was drunk. We know this couldn't have been the first or only time this driver showed up drunk and disabled the system. We know from this employees past record, his past encounters with supervisors, with operating rules that he or she has exhibited a pattern of disregard for the procedures. We know that somebody, and possibly, a supervisor, turned his or head away, and didn't want to take the appropriate action, removing this employee from service, that would have prevented the accident.

I have yet to encounter a case of a catastrophic failure by an employee that wasn't preceded by "warnings'-- serious but non-catastrophic failures of the impending disaster.

[Garret]

Dumping billions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico = an unfortunate accident.
A reactor failing after being struck with the 7th strongest earthquake in recorded history and a tsunami = an indictment of nuclear energy everywhere.

[S.Artesian]

Dumping billions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico = an unfortunate accident.
A reactor failing after being struck with the 7th strongest earthquake in recorded history and a tsunami = an indictment of nuclear energy everywhere.

Now, now. That's not true at all. Nobody has given BP, Transoceanic, or Halliburton a free pass on the Deepwater Horizon blowout.

There's been no shortage of analysis pointing to the deliberate shortcuts, the failure to use accepted industry standards, the ignoring of preliminary warning date that produced that disaster.

And there has been no shortage of voices calling deepwater drilling inherently unsafe, damaging, etc.

[Zhu Bailan]

The BBC are reporting that engineers have tried to cool the third reactor with sea water, and have failed -- but, and more worryingly, they do not know why they have failed.

They are now reporting that cooling problems have emerged with a third reactor -- by that they do not mean reactor three.

This was the first night I was not awakened by an evacuation or a phone call of a concerned neighbor. Meanwhile there are problems with the 6th reactor in Japan. :(

[The Vegan Marxist]

Japan's Shinmoedake volcano has just erupted!!! :(

Hundreds flee in Japan after Shinmoedake volcano begins spewing ash, boulders
BY HELEN KENNEDY

Earthquake, tsunami, nuclear plant meltdowns -- as if the people of Japan didn't have enough to cope with, a volcano began erupting Sunday.

Hundreds of people were forced to flee when the Shinmoedake volcano on the southern island of Kyushu began spewing ash and boulders.

The explosion from the eruption could be heard miles away and an ash plume extended two miles into the sky.

Shinmoedake, one of several volcanic peaks in the Kirishima mountain range, is 950 miles from the epicenter of Friday's earthquake and scientists weren't sure if the quake triggered the eruption.

Eruptions and quakes are common in Japan's "ring of fire."

The volcano erupted in January - the first major seismic activity on the mountain in 52 years. Scientists say lava had been building up in recent weeks.

Shinmoedake is famous for standing in as the villain's secret rocket base in the 1967 James Bond film, "You Only Live Twice."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/03/13/2011-03-13_hundreds_flee_in_japan_after_shinmoedake_volcan o_begins_spewing_ash_boulders.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

From the New Scientist:


Japanese nuclear crisis spreads to two more plants

1920 GMT, 13 March 2011

Sumit Paul-Choudhury, editor, newscientist.com and Rowan Hooper, news editor

Three days after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck Japan, killing an estimated 10,000 people and leaving many more destitute, the country is still struggling to avert nuclear disaster, with problems reported at four separate nuclear power plants.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is continuing attempts to cool down two reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant 240km north-east of Tokyo, where a dramatic explosion destroyed the roof of the building housing reactor No. 1 on Saturday. Seawater mixed with boric acid has been introduced to reactors Nos. 1 and 3 in an attempt to cool the reactors' cores and kill the nuclear fission reaction more quickly.

It's not clear how much progress has been made, although nuclear power experts canvassed by Reuters were cautiously optimistic that the situation was being brought under control. The Japanese government has acknowledged that fuel rods at one or both reactors may not have been fully submerged for a time, and may have melted or become deformed as a result, but that would fall short of a complete meltdown and does not necessarily constitute a risk to the public unless the situation worsens.

Japan's nuclear safety agency also faces an emergency at Tokai nuclear power station, 120km from Tokyo in Ibaraki Prefecture, where one of two cooling systems has stopped. But the Japan Atomic Power Company, which operates the plant, says that the remaining systems are working effectively and the reactor core is cooling smoothly.

At a third nuclear plant, in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, an initial report of elevated radiation levels led to a low-level emergency being declared, but Tohoku Electric, the company that runs the Onagawa plant, said the cooling systems at all three reactors are functioning properly. The BBC reported that the increase in radiation was brief, with one possibility being that it originated at the Fukushima plant.

The site causing greatest concern is reactor No. 3 at Fukushima-Daiichi, whose plutonium-uranium fuel mix poses a greater radiological risk than that of reactor no. 1. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at 20.00 local time on Sunday that water levels within the pressure vessel could no longer be confirmed to be increasing and that there was a "high possibility" that a valve used to vent steam was malfunctioning. Earlier in the day, Tepco had warned that an explosion like that at reactor No. 1 was possible.

A state of emergency has also been declared at the nearby Fukushima-Daini plant, where preparations to vent steam to reduce pressure have been drawn up but have not yet been implemented. More than 200,000 people have been evacuated from the vicinity of the two Fukushima nuclear plants, although the Japanese government continues to stress that the radiation known to have leaked thus far poses little risk to human health.

The difficulties at the nuclear power plants, as well as other power generation facilities, mean that rotating power outages will be imposed across Japan as of Monday.


1300 GMT, 13 March 2011
Rowan Hooper, news editor

As fears grow of an explosion at the number 3 reactor in the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan said in a press conference that the disaster was the worst since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the second world war.

Unlike the uranium-based Fukushima number 1, the number 3 reactor uses a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide. In the event of a meltdown, plutonium is considered more dangerous than uranium alone because of its increased volatility and its reactive, "neutronic" effects.

Michael Bluck, a nuclear engineer at Imperial College London, told New Scientist that plutonium is used because it increases the efficiency of power generation. "It improves the burn up, so you get more energy out of the fuel than if you just use uranium dioxide (UO2). Plutonium dioxide enhances burn up in normal situations in a controlled reactor, so it may result in even greater heat generation in the event of a meltdown than is the case with UO2 alone. It's why plutonium is used in nuclear weapons, because it is more reactive and produces more energy."

Bluck notes that plutonium is produced anyway in a "UO2 only" reactor, as part of the fission process. Adding plutonium at the beginning just gives us more.

The danger is that in the event of a meltdown there would be even greater generation of heat, with the additional demands of cooling. Metallic plutonium is a serious fire hazard, Bluck added, further complicating the situation.

To prevent the catastrophe of a meltdown, boric acid - a water solution containing boron - is being pumped into the number 3 reactor. Boron is used because it captures neutrons and reduces the risk of a fission chain reaction. It is being pumped with sea water into the reactor.

Japan generates about a third of its electricity from nuclear power. In order to conserve energy during this crisis, Kan warned that there will be rotating power outages across Japan.

"There have been quite a few nuclear power plants affected by this earthquake," he said. "We have no prospect of restoring electricity supply within the next few days therefore there is a good possibility that we will remain without electricity - and there may be a possibility of large scale blackouts. These will affect people's lives and industrial activities. And we have to avoid large scale unexpected blackouts, so from tomorrow in the area covered by Tepco I have asked them to apply rotating outages."

Meanwhile the Japan Meterological Agency warned that there is a 70 per cent chance of a magnitude-7 aftershock striking the country in the next three days. It said there is a 50 per cent risk over the three subsequent days.

More reports here:

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/03/massive-explosion-rips-through.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Latest from the New Scientist blog:


Update 0815 GMT 14 March 2011: An explosion has destroyed the building housing reactor No. 3 at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant, injuring eleven people. However, Japanese authorities say the reactor containment vessel has remained intact, as it did at reactor no. 1, which suffered a similar explosion on Saturday. Radiation levels in the area remain low. However, cooling systems have now failed at the plant's No. 2 reactor, which is now being cooled with seawater in the same way as the plant's other two reactors

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/03/massive-explosion-rips-through.html

The BBC reports a Japanese news agency saying that the water levels in reactor two have fallen so much that the rods have been exposed. The Japanese authorities have admitted that a meltdown can't be ruled out.

And, the US Seventh fleet has been moved away from the coast to avoid the radiation we were told "wasn't leaking."


Radioactive contamination found on 17 U.S. Navy crewmembers in Japan

Seventeen U.S. Navy crew members have been contaminated with low-levels of radiation during disaster relief missions in Japan, military officials said Monday.

The radioactivity was detected when the service members returned to the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan aboard three helicopters. They were treated with soap and water and their clothes were discarded.

"No further contamination was detected," the military said.

The helicopters were also decontaminated.

The U.S. 7th Fleet, positioned about 100 miles northeast of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to deliver aid to Japan's coastal region, moved its ships further away due to "airborne radioactivity" and contamination found on its planes.

The military noted, however, that the level of contamination was very low, and the ship movement was merely a precaution.

"For perspective, the maximum potential radiation dose received by any ship's force personnel aboard the ship when it passed through the area was less than the radiation exposure received from about one month of exposure to natural background radiation from sources such as rocks, soil, and the sun," the Navy said.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered a second explosion Sunday. At least six workers at the plant were injured in the blast, officials said. A smaller explosion rocked the plant on Saturday.

Radioactive steam was vented recently from the plant in order to ease pressure on the reactors and prevent another meltdown, CNN reported. It is believe that a meltdown previously occurred in at least one of the reactors in the last few days.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/03/14/2011-03-14_17_us_navy_crewmembers_exposed_to_low_level_rad iation_in_japan.html


US pulls ships, aircraft from Japan nuke plant

Associated Press, 03.14.11, 03:36 AM EDT

TOKYO -- The U.S. Seventh Fleet said Monday it had moved its ships and aircraft away from a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear power plant after discovering low-level radioactive contamination.

The fleet said that the radiation was from a plume of smoke and steam released from the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant, where there have been two hydrogen explosions since Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Yahoo! BuzzThe aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore when its instruments detected the radiation. The fleet said the dose of radiation was about the same as one month's normal exposure to natural background radiation in the environment.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/03/14/general-as-japan-nuclear-us-fleet_8354486.html

The BBC is also reporing that there is widespread distrust with the government and nuclear authorities in Japan, since the population has been lied to before about earlier nuclear 'accidents', like the one that occured in these 'safe' installations in 2007 and earlier:


July 18 2007 (Reuters) - The world's biggest nuclear power plant in northwest Japan was ordered on Wednesday to stay closed after a strong earthquake caused radiation leaks, as the top U.N. nuclear watchdog said the utility had misjudged seismic risks.

Following are some other incidents at Japan's nuclear plants:

FIRST FATAL ACCIDENT:

* 1967: One person dies in a fire at a nuclear plant in Ibaraki prefecture, north of Tokyo, a year after the country's first nuclear power plants open.

RADIATION LEAK:

* March 11, 1997: Some 37 workers are exposed to radiation after an explosion and fire at the Tokaimura nuclear processing plant, 160 km (100 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Plant officials admit they waited five hours before informing authorities.

DEADLY ACCIDENT:

* Sept. 30, 1999: Two workers are killed at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, north of Tokyo, when an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction is triggered by poorly trained workers mixing nuclear fuel in buckets. The accident, Japan's second most deadly, forces its first ever evacuation, as thousands of nearby residents are instructed to take shelter.

SAFETY FEARS FORCE SHUTDOWN:

* Sept. 2002: Japan's biggest power utility, TEPCO, is forced to shut down all 17 of its reactors for checks after admitting it falsified safety data.

DEADLIEST ACCIDENT:

* Aug. 9, 2004: Japan's deadliest nuclear accident occurs when five workers are killed when hot water and steam leak from a broken pipe at Kansai Electric Power Co's Mihama No. 3 nuclear power plant, 320 km (200 miles) west of Tokyo.

EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE

* July 16, 2007: The world's biggest nuclear plant -- TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant on Japan's northwest coast -- is closed after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake causes several malfunctions including a fire in a transformer and small radiation leaks into the ocean and the atmosphere. TEPCO says the leaks caused no damage to people or the environment.

Source: Reuters news file

Bold added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/07/18/idUSSP65824


Backgrounder: Major nuclear leakage accidents in Japan

English.news.cn 2011-03-12 17:22:18 FeedbackPrintRSS

BEIJING, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Radiation is leaking from the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant in northeast Japan, after its reactors were disabled by Friday's massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami, Japanese officials confirmed Saturday.

Following is a list of nuclear accidents Japan has gone through since 1990s.

Dec. 8, 1995: Sodium coolant leaked at Monju, Japan's first prototype fastbreeder reactor in the city Tsuruga in western Fukui prefecture, causing a shut-down of the reactor for a complete overhaul.

March 1997: An explosion occurred at a nuclear reprocessing plant in the village of Tokai, northeastern Ibaraki Prefecture, causing radioactivity to leak outside the facility and exposing dozens of workers to radiation.

April 14, 1997: A tritium leakage occurred at the Fugen reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui prefecture.

July 12, 1999: Cooling water leaked from a pipe in the building housing the reactor at the Tsuruga nuclear power plant owned by Japan Atomic Power in northern Japan.

Sept. 30, 1999: A nuclear leakage accident occurred at a nuclear manufacturing plant at Tokai village, killing two technicians, exposing dozens of people to radiation and forcing more than 300,000 local residents to stay indoors.

Aug. 9, 2004: Four workers were killed and seven injured by a steam leak at the No.3 reactor at Kansai Electric's Mihama power plant, 350 km west of Tokyo.

May 22, 2006: A radiation leak occurred at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant, without posing any hazard to the surrounding environment.

Jan. 14, 2007: Four employees at the Takahama No. 1 reactor in Fukui prefecture were splashed by radioactive water during a routine inspection. The workers' health and the area were unaffected by the incident.

Sept. 3, 2007: Some 2.4 tons of water leaked from the No. 1 generating unit at the Ohi power station in Fukui prefecture.

Oct. 8, 2009: A small amount of radioactive water leaked at the Fugen Nuclear Power Plant in central Fukui prefecture. One worker was exposed to levels of radiation higher than the limit set by government regulation to ensure the health of employees.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/12/c_13775056.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC is now reporting that on Saturday their reporters and other journalists were told by the government that the reactors "were safe", there was "absolutely no chance of a meltdown", and that the explosion was a "one-off" and wouldn't happen again.

Now, "very senior" spokesmen are admitting there could be a partial meltdown.

So, it looks like the above lies are being repeated yet again.

[Ele'ill]

Houses are destroyed in an earthquake = houses are unsafe to live in = let's go back to living in caves.

Houses don't continue to kill thousands after their collapse :rolleyes:

[Ele'ill]

Oh good, so wait a second. Did I sleep through the evacuation here in Oregon? It must have been completely silent almost as if everyone was trying to abandon me.

[piet11111]

Houses don't continue to kill thousands after their collapse :rolleyes:

Unless it contains asbestos or other nasty stuff like fungus that got into homes after Katrina.
Or legionella in the water supply (like what happened in the playboy mansion :lol: )

[Coggeh]

The BBC is now reporting that on Saturday their reporters and other journalists were told by the government that the reactors "were safe", there was "absolutely no chance of a meltdown", and that the explosion was a "one-off" and wouldn't happen again.

Now, "very senior" spokesmen are admitting there could be a partial meltdown.

So, it looks like the above lies are being repeated yet again.
Would you expect any different from a bourgeois government?

This isn't an indictment of nuclear power but of poor planning and safety procedures. The reactor in question is over 40 years old, built right next to the meeting place of 3 tectonic plates. And since the earthquake was upgraded to a 9.0 it now makes it a level 4th highest earthquake in history. Combined with the effects of a Tsunami it really is exceptional circumstances the only surprising thing in my mind is that it isn't as bad as i thought it would be .

And the despite the fact that Japan has one of the best Nuclear safety policies they are still susceptible to capitalist corner cutting and cost reduction a better and safer run power plant with the correct planning would make an already low risk form of power production infinitely lower.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Coggeh:


Would you expect any different from a bourgeois government?

No.


This isn't an indictment of nuclear power but of poor planning and safety procedures. The reactor in question is over 40 years old, built right next to the meeting place of 3 tectonic plates. And since the earthquake was upgraded to a 9.0 it now makes it a level 4th highest earthquake in history. Combined with the effects of a Tsunami it really is exceptional circumstances the only surprising thing in my mind is that it isn't as bad as i thought it would be .

Well, we have been told this (that nuclear powere is 'safe') now for over fifty years, and those reassurances are wearing thin.

Of course, the earthquake was almost unprecedented, but the Japanese authorities were warned that building such unsafe generators so near a suduction zone was suicidal.

Moreover, any natural or human-made disaster (like a terrorist attack) means they are permanent time bombs. No wonder so few working people want one built near where they live.


And the despite the fact that Japan has one of the best Nuclear safety policies they are still susceptible to capitalist corner cutting and cost reduction a better and safer run power plant with the correct planning would make an already low risk form of power production infinitely lower.

Except, this industry is linked to the development of nuclear weapons, and has thus always been secretive.

And, since the bi-product of this industry is so lethal and lasts for so long, there is no such thing as a safe nuclear plant.

Especially when there are perfectly safe renewable alternatives, which aren't developed since they are not 'cost effective'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I'm on the e-mail list of investigative reporter Greg Palast, and have just received this:


TOKYO ELECTRIC TO BUILD US NUCLEAR PLANTS

The no-BS info on Japan's disastrous nuclear operators

by Greg Palast
New York - March 14, 2011

I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.

I don't know the law in Japan, so I can't tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

But what will Obama plead? The Administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas — by Tokyo Electric Power and local partners. As if the Gulf hasn't suffered enough.

Here are the facts about Tokyo Electric and the industry you haven't heard on CNN:

The failure of emergency systems at Japan's nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field.

Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called "SQ" or "Seismic Qualification." That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from Al Qaeda.

The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from 'failed' to 'passed.'

The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction which will work with Tokyo Electric to build the Texas plant, Lord help us.

There's more.

Last night I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.

These safety back-up systems are the 'EDGs' in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn't work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn't save a building because "it was on fire."

What dim bulbs designed this system? One of the reactors dancing with death at Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the emergency diesel system.

Now be afraid. Obama's $4 billion bail-out-in-the-making is called the South Texas Project. It's been sold as a red-white-and-blue way to make power domestically with a reactor from Westinghouse, a great American brand. However, the reactor will be made substantially in Japan by the company that bought the US brand name, Westinghouse — Toshiba.

I once had a Toshiba computer. I only had to send it in once for warranty work. However, it's kind of hard to mail back a reactor with the warranty slip inside the box if the fuel rods are melted and sinking halfway to the earth's core.

TEPCO and Toshiba don't know what my son learned in 8th grade science class: tsunamis follow Pacific Rim earthquakes. So these companies are real stupid, eh? Maybe. More likely is that the diesels and related systems wouldn't have worked on a fine, dry afternoon.

Back in the day, when we checked the emergency back-up diesels in America, a mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuke, for example, the builders swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency. They'd been tested. The tests were faked, the diesels run for just a short time at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, "Snap, Crackle and Pop."

(Note: Moments after I wrote that sentence, word came that two of three diesels failed at the Tokai Station as well.)

In the US, we supposedly fixed our diesels after much complaining by the industry. But in Japan, no one tells Tokyo Electric to do anything the Emperor of Electricity doesn't want to do.

I get lots of confidential notes from nuclear industry insiders. One engineer, a big name in the field, is especially concerned that Obama waved the come-hither check to Toshiba and Tokyo Electric to lure them to America. The US has a long history of whistleblowers willing to put themselves on the line to save the public. In our racketeering case in New York, the government only found out about the seismic test fraud because two courageous engineers, Gordon Dick and John Daly, gave our team the documentary evidence.

In Japan, it's simply not done. The culture does not allow the salary-men, who work all their their lives for one company, to drop the dime.

Not that US law is a wondrous shield: both engineers in the New York case were fired and blacklisted by the industry. Nevertheless, the government (local, state, federal) brought civil racketeering charges against the builders. The jury didn't buy the corporation's excuses and, in the end, the plant was, thankfully, dismantled.

Am I on some kind of xenophobic anti-Nippon crusade? No. In fact, I'm far more frightened by the American operators in the South Texas nuclear project, especially Shaw. Stone & Webster, now the Shaw nuclear division, was also the firm that conspired to fake the EDG tests in New York. (The company's other exploits have been exposed by their former consultant, John Perkins, in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.)

If the planet wants to shiver, consider this: Toshiba and Shaw have recently signed a deal to become world-wide partners in the construction of nuclear stations.

The other characters involved at the South Texas Plant that Obama is backing should also give you the willies. But as I'm in the middle of investigating the American partners, I'll save that for another day.

So, if we turned to America's own nuclear contractors, would we be safe? Well, two of the melting Japanese reactors, including the one whose building blew sky high, were built by General Electric of the Good Old US of A.

After Texas, you're next. The Obama Administration is planning a total of $56 billion in loans for nuclear reactors all over America.

And now, the homicides:

CNN is only interested in body counts, how many workers burnt by radiation, swept away or lost in the explosion. These plants are now releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the "levels are not dangerous." These are the same people who said these meltdowns could never happen. Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation.

In my New York investigation, I had the unhappy job of totaling up post-meltdown "morbidity" rates for the county government. It would be irresponsible for me to estimate the number of cancer deaths that will occur from these releases without further information; but it is just plain criminal for the Tokyo Electric shoguns to say that these releases are not dangerous. Indeed, the fact that residents near the Japanese nuclear plants were not issued iodine pills to keep at the ready shows TEPCO doesn't care who lives and who dies whether in Japan or the USA. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.

Heaven help us. Because Obama won't.

http://www.gregpalast.com/no-bs-info-on-japan-nuclearobama-invites-tokyo-electric-to-build-us-nukes-with-taxpayer-funds/#more-4497

[Vanguard1917]

"But if the accident really does get recorded as the third-worst civil nuclear accident, it will be yet further testament to the safety of nuclear power. Even the second-worst event, the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident) plant in 1979, caused no deaths, and exposed people nearby to a dose of radiation no more significant than an x-ray at a hospital. In spite of Chernobyl, nuclear power - even after an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale, a resulting tsunami, and numerous powerful after-shocks on a nuclear plant about to celebrate its fortieth birthday - remains safer than many other, routine aspects of daily life."

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10292/

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^Thanks for that link to the site that always boosts big capital, but as we can now see, this industry is not the 'safest'.

[Vanguard1917]

Houses don't continue to kill thousands after their collapse :rolleyes:

What's the point you're making? That it's better for hundreds of thousands to die pretty much on the spot as a result of ordinary buildings collapsing on top of them? Houses are clearly a bigger threat during earthquakes than modern nuclear plants, yet we have no irrational fear of houses...

And when has the civilian use of nuclear energy ever killed 'thousands'?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Counterpunch article on this disaster:

What Happened, Why, and What Might be Next

The Post-Tsunami Situation at the Fukushima Nuclear Plants

By ARUN MAKHIJANI

On March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi and the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plants (or Fukushima for short) experienced a severe earthquake, followed by a tsunami. This analysis relates to the Daiichi plant, which has experienced the more severe problems as of this writing so far as is known (9 p.m. March 13, 2011 Eastern Daylight Time, United States). Power from the grid was lost, and the reactors were successfully shut down as part of the emergency. But power to operate the site was still needed to remove the heat from the reactors. The Dai-chi plant has six operating boiling water reactors. The oldest, Unit 1, which appears to have had a partial meltdown of the fuel, first went critical in 1970 (and was connected to the grid in 1971. Unit 3, which also appears to have had similar problems as Unit 1, whose fuel includes mixed plutonium oxide uranium oxide fuel ("MOX fuel") first went critical in 1976. Both reactors are of the Mark 1 Boiling Water Design. They do not have the sturdy secondary containment buildings of concrete that is several feet thick typical of later reactor designs. (March 14, 6:30 a.m. note: Unit 3 has also experienced an explosion and Unit 2 appears to have lost cooling. The problems described here would likely apply to Unit 3; Unit 2 may be headed to similar problems.)

A special feature of the Mark 1 design is that the used fuel, also called spent fuel, is stored within the reactor building in a swimming pool like concrete structure near the top of the reactor vessel. When the reactor is refueled, the spent fuel is taken from the reactor by a large crane, transferred to the pool, and kept underwater for a few years. This spent fuel must be kept underwater to prevent severe releases of radioactivity, among other reasons. A meltdown or even a fire could occur if there is a loss of coolant from the spent fuel pool. The water in the spent fuel pool and the roof of the reactor building are the main barriers to release of radioactivity from the spent fuel pool.

An explosion associated with Unit 1 occurred on March 12, at 3:36 p.m.[2] At first the authorities stated that this was in the turbine building next to the reactor building. However, it is the reactor building roof and part of the walls near the roof that were completely blown off leaving only a steel skeleton at the top of the building. This indicates an explosion inside the reactor building – probably a hydrogen explosion, since hydrogen is much lighter than air, it would accumulate near the top of the building. The explosion therefore seems to have occurred near the level where the spent fuel pool would be located in a Mark 1 reactor.

While Japanese authorities have stated that the reactor vessel is still intact, there has been no word regarding the status of the spent fuel pool structure, except indirectly (see below) Is it still intact? This is a critical question as to the range of potential consequences of the reactor accident.

Hydrogen is generated in a nuclear reactor if the fuel in the reactor loses its cover of cooling water. The tubes that contain the fuel pellets are made of a zirconium alloy. Zirconium reacts with steam to produce zirconium oxide and hydrogen gas. Moreover, the reaction is exothermic – that is, it releases a great deal of heat, and hence creates a positive feedback that aggravates the problem and raises the temperature. The same phenomenon can occur in a spent fuel pool in case of a loss of cooling water. In addition, there can be a fire. The mechanisms and consequences of such an accident are reasonably well known. A National Academy of Sciences study, published in 2006, is worth quoting at length:

The ability to remove decay heat from the spent fuel also would be reduced as the water level drops, especially when it drops below the tops of the fuel assemblies. This would cause temperatures in the fuel assemblies to rise, accelerating the oxidation of the zirconium alloy (zircaloy) cladding that encases the uranium oxide pellets. This oxidation reaction can occur in the presence of both air and steam and is strongly exothermic that is, the reaction releases large quantities of heat, which can further raise cladding temperatures. The steam reaction also generates large quantities of hydrogen….

[With a loss of coolant] These oxidation reactions can become locally self-sustaining … at high temperatures (i.e., about a factor of 10 higher than the boiling point of water) if a supply of oxygen and/or steam is available to sustain the reactions…. The result could be a runaway oxidation reaction referred to in this report as a zirconium cladding fire that proceeds as a burn front (e.g., as seen in a forest fire or a fireworks sparkler) along the axis of the fuel rod toward the source of oxidant (i.e., air or steam)….

As fuel rod temperatures increase, the gas pressure inside the fuel rod increases and eventually can cause the cladding to balloon out and rupture. At higher temperatures (around 1800°C [approximately 3300°F]), zirconium cladding reacts with the uranium oxide fuel to form a complex molten phase containing zirconium-uranium oxide. Beginning with the cladding rupture, these events would result in the release of radioactive fission gases and some of the fuel's radioactive material in the form of aerosols into the building that houses the spent fuel pool and possibly into the environment. If the heat from one burning assembly is not dissipated, the fire could spread to other spent fuel assemblies in the pool, producing a propagating zirconium cladding fire.

The high-temperature reaction of zirconium and steam has been described quantitatively since at least the early 1960s….[3]

The extent of the release would depend on the severity of loss of coolant, how much spent fuel there is in the pool, and how recently some of it has been discharged. The mechanisms of the accident would be very different than Chernobyl, [4] where there was also a fire, and the mix of radionuclides would be very different. While the quantity of short-lived radionuclides, notably iodine-131, would be much smaller, the consequences for the long term could be more dire due to long-lived radionuclides such as cesium-137, strontium-90, iodine-129, and plutonium-239. These radionuclides are generally present in much larger quantities in spent fuel pools than in the reactor itself. In light of that, it is remarkable how little has been said by the Japanese authorities about this problem. From the tiny amount of information available, it appears that there is a problem of cooling of the spent fuel. According to a TEPCO press release, issued on March 13, at 9 pm, Japan time:

We are currently coordinating with the relevant authorities and departments as to how to secure the cooling water to cool down the water in the spent nuclear fuel pool. [5]

This indicates that there is a spent fuel cooling problem. But there is no information on how serious it is, and whether the pool has been damaged as is leaking. It is reasonable to surmise that pumping seawater into the reactor building from the outside would be directed more at the spent fuel pool than at the reactor. According to TEPCO, the injection of seawater into the reactor vessel of Unit 1 has been successfully done. This also appears to be the case for Unit 3, as of this writing.[6] Boric acid is being added to the seawater to prevent an accidental criticality, which could happen in the reactor or in the spent fuel pool. Venting of radioactive steam from the reactors will likely have to continue.

It is unclear at this stage whether there has been venting of radionuclides from the spent fuel pool in Unit 1. Venting from the reactor has been acknowledged by the authorities. Rather high levels of radiation, over 1,200 microsieverts per hour[7] – which is more than 10,000 times natural background radiation at sea-level – have been reported outside the plant. At this level the annual allowable dose of the radiation to the public would be exceeded in less than an hour. Such levels indicate a partial meltdown in Unit 1 and possibly in Unit 3. However, while it seems to be widely assumed that the radioactivity has been emanating only from the reactor vessel (s), it is unclear whether some of it is also being released from the Unit 1 spent fuel pool, which may have been damaged by the explosion.

The consequences of severe spent fuel pool accidents at closed U.S. reactors were studied by the Brookhaven National Laboratory in a 1997 report prepared for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. According to the results, the damages resulting from such accidents for U.S. Boiling Water Reactors could range from $700 million to $546 billion, which would be between roughly $900 million and $700 billion in today's dollars. The lower figures would apply if there were just one old spent fuel set present in the pool to a full pool in which the spent fuel has been re-racked to maximize storage. Other variables would be whether there was any freshly discharged spent fuel in the pool, which would greatly increase the radioactivity releases. The estimated latent cancer deaths over the years and decades following the accident was estimated at between 1,300 and 31,900 within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the plant and between 1,900 and 138,000 within a radius of 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the plant.[8]

The amount of spent fuel in the Unit 1 spent fuel pool is has not been mentioned by the authorities so far. The range of consequences in Japan would be somewhat different, since the consequences depend on population density within 50 and 500 kilometers of the plant, the re-racking policy, and several other variables. It should also be noted that Daiichi Unit 1 is about half the power rating of most U.S. reactors, so that the amount of radioactivity in the pool would be about half the typical amount, all other things being equal. But the Brookhaven study can be taken as a general indicator that the scale of the damage could be vast in the most severe case.

One hopes that the spent fuel pool in Unit 1 can be kept full of water and the various reactors can be kept cool enough to prevent much more serious consequences than have already occurred (there has been serious worker exposure and some public radiation exposure already, according to news reports[9]). But the accident makes clear that there is ample information and analysis that very grave consequences are possible from lighter water reactors – which are the designs used in Japan, the United States, and most of the rest of the world. Spent fuel pools special vulnerabilities that are different in different specific designs, but all possess some risk of severe consequences in worst-case accidents or worst-case terrorist attacks (which were studied by the National Academies in their 2006 report).

The United States should move as much spent fuel out of the pools as possible into hardened and secure dry storage. The tragedy in Japan is also a reminder that making plutonium and fission products just to boil water (which is what a nuclear reactor does) is not a prudent approach to electricity generation. While existing reactors will be needed to maintain the stability of electricity supply for some time (as is also evident from the earthquake-tsunami catastrophe in Japan), new reactor projects should be halted and existing reactors should be phased out along with coal and oil. It is possible to do so economically in the next few decades, while maintaining the reliability of the electricity system and greatly improving its security, as I have shown in my book Carbon-Free and Nuclear Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy published in 2007, and in subsequent work that can be found on the IEER website, www.ieer.org. Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free can be downloaded free.

Arjun Makhijani is present of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. He has a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, where he specialized in nuclear fusion. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2007.

[2] Tokyo Electric Power Company, Press Release, "Plant Status of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (as of 9pm [Japan time] March 13th)," on the web at http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031310-e.html These press releases are referred to below as TEPCO 2011, with the date and time of the press release and the URL provided.

[3] Safety and Security of Spent Fuel Storage; Public Report. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2006, pp.38-39. This report addressed the issue of terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools and the precautions that might be taken in light of the potential severity of the problem. See below.

[4] The Chernobyl reactor was a very different design – water-cooled and graphite moderated. The reactor itself exploded catastrophically due to a runaway accident in that case. That is not the case at present, where the reactor was shut down successfully almost immediately after the earthquake. There the graphite caught fire and the fire lasted for ten days. In the case of the most severe spent fuel pool accident, it would the zirconium that would catch fire, as described by the National Academies study quoted above.

[5] TEPCO Press Release, March 13, 9 pm. on the web at http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031312-e.html

[6] TEPCO Press Release, March 13, 9 pm. on the web at http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031312-e.html

[7] Hiroko Tabuchi and Matthew Wald, "Partial meltdowns Presumed at Crippled Reactors," New York Times, March 13, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/ , viewed at 8:13 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, March 13, 2011. Hereafter Tabuchi and Wald 2011.

[8] R.J. Travis, R.E. Davis, E.J. Grove, M.A. Azarm, A Safety and Regulatory Assessment of Generic BWR and PWR Permanently Shutdown Nuclear Power Plants, BNL-NUREG-52498, Brookhaven National Laboratory, 1997, Table 4.1, 4.2.

[9] Tabuchi and Wald 2011.

http://www.counterpunch.org/makhijani03142011.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


And when has the civilian use of nuclear energy ever killed 'thousands'?

Chernobyl:

New Book Concludes - Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer

by Prof. Karl Grossman

September 4, 2010

This past April 26th marked the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident. It came as the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear government officials in the United States and other nations were trying to "revive" nuclear power. And it followed the publication of a book, the most comprehensive study ever made, on the impacts of the Chernobyl disaster.

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment was published by the New York Academy of Sciences.


It is authored by three noted scientists:


Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian president;

Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, a biologist and ecologist in Belarus; and

Dr.Vassili Nesterenko, a physicist and at the time of the accident director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.


Its editor is Dr. Janette Sherman, a physician and toxicologist long involved in studying the health impacts of radioactivity.

The book is solidly based -- on health data, radiological surveys and scientific reports -- some 5,000 in all.

It concludes that based on records now available, some 985,000 people died, mainly of cancer, as a result of the Chernobyl accident. That is between when the accident occurred in 1986 and 2004. More deaths, it projects, will follow.

The book explodes the claim of the International Atomic Energy Agency-- still on its website that the expected death toll from the Chernobyl accident will be 4,000. The IAEA, the new book shows, is under-estimating, to the extreme, the casualties of Chernobyl.

Alice Slater, representative in New York of the Nuclear Age Peace

Foundation, comments: "The tragic news uncovered by the comprehensive

new research that almost one million people died in the toxic aftermath of Chernobyl should be a wake-up call to people all over the world to petition their governments to put a halt to the current industry-driven

"nuclear renaissance.' Aided by a corrupt IAEA, the world has been subjected to a massive cover-up and deception about the true damages caused by Chernobyl."

Further worsening the situation, she said, has been "the collusive agreement between the IAEA and the World Health Organization in which the WHO is precluded from publishing any research on radiation effects without consultation with the IAEA." WHO, the public health arm of the UN, has supported the IAEA's claim that 4,000 will die as a result of the accident.

"How fortunate," said Ms. Slater, "that independent scientists have now revealed the horrific costs of the Chernobyl accident."

The book also scores the position of the IAEA, set up through the UN in 1957 "to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy," and its 1959 agreement with WHO. There is a "need to change," it says, the IAEA-WHO pact. It has muzzled the WHO, providing for the "hiding" from the "public of any information "unwanted" by the nuclear industry.

"An important lesson from the Chernobyl experience is that experts and organizations tied to the nuclear industry have dismissed and ignored the consequences of the catastrophe," it states.

The book details the spread of radioactive poisons following the explosion of Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear plant on April 26, 1986. These major releases only ended when the fire at the reactor was brought under control in mid-May. Emitted were "hundreds of millions of curies, a quantity hundreds of times larger than the fallout from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." The most extensive fall-out occurred in regions closest to the plant--in the Ukraine (the reactor was 60 miles from Kiev in Ukraine), Belarus and Russia.

However, there was fallout all over the world as the winds kept changing direction "so the radioactive emissions" covered an enormous territory."

The radioactive poisons sent billowing from the plant into the air included Cesium-137, Plutonium, Iodine-131 and Strontium-90.

There is a breakdown by country, highlighted by maps, of where the radionuclides fell out. Beyond Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, the countries included Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The radiological measurements show that some 10% of Chernobyl poisons "fell on Asia"Huge areas" of eastern Turkey and central China "were highly contaminated," reports the book. Northwestern Japan was impacted, too.

Northern Africa was hit with "more than 5% of all Chernobyl releases."

The finding of Cesium-137 and both Plutonium-239 and Plutonium-240 "in accumulated Nile River sediment is evidence of significant Chernobyl contamination," it states.

"Areas of North America were contaminated from the first, most powerful explosion, which lifted a cloud of radionuclides to a height of more than 10 km. Some 1% of all Chernobyl nuclides," says the book, "fell on North America."

The consequences on public health are extensively analyzed. Medical records involving children--the young, their cells more rapidly multiplying, are especially affected by radioactivity--are considered. Before the accident, more than 80% of the children in the territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia extensively contaminated by Chernobyl "were healthy," the book reports, based on health data. But "today fewer than 20% are well."

There is an examination of genetic impacts with records reflecting an increase in "chromosomal aberrations" wherever there was fallout.

This will continue through the "children of irradiated parents for as many as seven generations." So "the genetic consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe will impact hundreds of millions of people."

As to deaths, the list of countries and consequences begins with Belarus. "For the period 1900-2000 cancer mortality in Belarus increased 40%," it states, again based on medical data and illuminated by tables in the book. "The increase was a maximum in the most highly contaminated Gomel Province and lower in the less contaminated Brest and Mogilev provinces." They include childhood cancers, thyroid cancer, leukemia and other cancers.

Considering health data of people in all nations impacted by the fallout, the "overall mortality for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated as 985,000 additional deaths."

Further, "the concentrations" of some of the poisons, because they have radioactive half-lives ranging from 20,000 to 200,000 years, "will remain practically the same virtually forever."

The book also examines the impact on plants and animals. "Immediately after the catastrophe, the frequency of plant mutations in the contaminated territories increased sharply."

There are photographs of some of these plant mutations. "Chernobyl irradiation has caused many structural anomalies and tumorlike changes in many plant species and has led to genetic disorders, sometimes continuing for many years," it says. "Twenty-three years after the catastrophe it is still too early to know if the whole spectrum of plant radiogenic changes has been discerned. We are far from knowing all of the consequences for flora resulting from the catastrophe."

As to animals, the book notes "serious increases in morbidity and mortality that bear striking resemblance to changes in the public health of humans--increasing tumor rates, immunodeficiencies, and decreasing life expectancy."

In one study it is found that "survival rates of barn swallows in the most contaminated sites near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are close to zero. In areas of moderate contamination, annual survival is less than 25%." Research is cited into ghastly abnormalities in barn swallows that do hatch: "two heads, two tails."

"In 1986," the book states, "the level of irradiation in plants and animals in Western Europe, North America, the Arctic, and eastern Asia were sometimes hundreds and even thousands of times above acceptable norms."

In its final chapter, the book declares that the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear plant "was the worst technogenic accident in history." And it examines "obstacles" to the reporting of the true consequences of Chernobyl with a special focus on "organizations associated with the nuclear industry" that "protect the industry first--not the public." Here, the IAEA and WHO are charged.

The book ends by quoting U.S. President John F. Kennedy's call in 1963 for an end of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons."The Chernobyl catastrophe," it declares, "demonstrates that the nuclear industry's willingness to risk the health of humanity and our environment with nuclear power plants will result, not only theoretically, but practically, in the same level of hazard as nuclear weapons."

Dr. Sherman, speaking of the IAEA's and WHO's dealing with the impacts of Chernobyl, commented: "It's like Dracula guarding the blood bank." The 1959 agreement under which WHO "is not to be independent of the IAEA" but must clear any information it obtains on issues involving radioactivity with the IAEA has put "the two in bed together."

Of her reflections on 14 months editing the book, she said: "Every single system that was studied -- whether human or wolves or livestock or fish or trees or mushrooms or bacteria -- all were changed, some of them irreversibly. The scope of the damage is stunning."

In his foreword, Dr. Dimitro Grodzinsky, chairman of the Ukranian National Commission on Radiation Protection, writes about how "apologists of nuclear power" sought to hide the real impacts of the Chernobyl disaster from the time when the accident occurred. The book "provides the largest and most complete collection of data concerning the negative consequences of Chernobyl on the health of people and the environment...The main conclusion of the book is that it is impossible and wrong "to forget Chernobyl.”

In the record of Big Lies, the claim of the IAEA-WHO that "only" 4,000 people will die as a result of the Chernobyl catastrophe is among the biggest. The Chernobyl accident is, as the new book documents, an ongoing global catastrophe.

And it is a clear call for no new nuclear power plants to be built and for the closing of the dangerous atomic machines now running -- and a switch to safe energy technologies, now available, led by solar and wind energy, that will not leave nearly a million people dead from one disaster.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20908

[Vanguard1917]

Less than 50 people died as an immediate result of the Chernobyl accident -- the biggest nuclear accident to date.

There were about 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer in children by the year 2000 - higher than normal rates - but this was at least partly due to increased screening rates in surrounding areas. Also, when detected and treated early, thyroid cancer is usually not fatal. It is recognised that there is an increased long-term risk of cancer for workers who were involved in the clean up after the accident, but according to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, "the great majority of the population is not likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl accident. Many other health problems have been noted in the populations that are not related to radiation exposure."

Yes, the accident at Chernobyl was not pretty, but that's no reason to exaggerate its impact, as the anti-nuclear lobby cynically do. The reality is that Chernobyl was an exception, and nuclear plants today are vastly superior in terms of their safety.

[Decolonize The Left]

Independent nuclear analyst on Al Jazeera's Live Stream (John Large?) just said that given what he's seen and heard, and given his experience, he would look for a similar outcome as what happened in Chernobyl in regards to radioactive release.

- August

[S.Artesian]

It's a bit of a stretch to use this earthquake and tsunami as "proof" that nuclear energy is inherently unsafe, is too risky to ever be deployed, cannot be made safe. Now maybe those things are true, but this incident hardly forms the the proof of those things.

Now nuclear power under the control of the bourgeoisie, that's another thing-- that's commodity production, with all that that entails. Really, whoever would have thought of a tsunami after an undersea earthquake 200 miles off the coast actually flooding an area that is essentially a flood plain?

Apparently many people as there is a tsunami warning system in place which gave some warning, not very much given the proximity of the quake to the cost.

And who would have thought that if a flood knocks out the main power supplies, maybe the flooding would knock out the emergency generators also? Only nervous Nellie, or Chicken Little I'm sure.

And who would have thought that.. maybe we shouldn't have 40 year old reactors designed even longer ago than that on earthquake fault lines?

I mean, hell the next thing you know people are going to be demanding such reactors are taken off line and shutting them down everywhere on the Pacific "rim of fire" and insisting on a rational allocation of fossil fuels to earthquake prone areas, with nuclear power restricted to "seismically" and meteorological "safe areas" [that thing about flooding, you know?].

And damn, that would mean California, wouldn't it?

[Red Commissar]

Ooh yeah, that's a very scary looking map, created by a private company (look up Australian Radiation Services), so I'm absolutely sure there's no there's no interest there whatsoever in spreading FUD in order to scare up some custom. :rolleyes:

But let's examine it more closely; apart from using outdated units (rads), the highest exposure level given is 3000 rads, or 30 Grays - are we seriously expected to believe that there is somehow enough nuclear material in a single reactor to induce coma and death within minutes when spread over many thousands of square kilometres? Are they assuming that all nuclear reactors in Japan are going to pop their tops and spread their contents as widely possible? What about the many other assumptions and variables that we haven't been told about that went into this intimidating-looking chart?

The chemicals industry literally gets away with murder in terms of accidents and lax safety, even without powerful earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis to help them. But they get nowhere near the amount of opprobrium from the general public because they have not been the subject of a decades-long campaign of fear, uncertainty and doubt perpetuated by ideological (as opposed to pragmatic) greens and looked on with unbridled glee by the fossil fuel industry.

Also to add on to this snopes.com addressed this map that is making the rounds on the intertubes

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/fallout.asp

According to snopes, ARS claims they didn't make this and distanced themselves from it. Just seems like someone trying to do more FUD.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


Less than 50 people died as an immediate result of the Chernobyl accident -- the biggest nuclear accident to date.

There were about 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer in children by the year 2000 - higher than normal rates - but this was at least partly due to increased screening rates in surrounding areas. Also, when detected and treated early, thyroid cancer is usually not fatal. It is recognised that there is an increased long-term risk of cancer for workers who were involved in the clean up after the accident, but according to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, "the great majority of the population is not likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl accident. Many other health problems have been noted in the populations that are not related to radiation exposure."

Yes, the accident at Chernobyl was not pretty, but that's no reason to exaggerate its impact, as the anti-nuclear lobby cynically do. The reality is that Chernobyl was an exception, and nuclear plants today are vastly superior in terms of their safety.

Well the book I have just referenced has given the lie to the public relations release you have just posted. As it shows, over 900,000 people have lost their lives so far due to this 'accident'.

And we have continually been told, since the 1950s, that the latest generation of nuclear plants is 'safe' and this can't happen again -- until, as we can now see, it regularly does.

------------

The BBC has just reported a third explosion at this 'safe' plant.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

SA:


It's a bit of a stretch to use this earthquake and tsunami as "proof" that nuclear energy is inherently unsafe, is too risky to ever be deployed, cannot be made safe. Now maybe those things are true, but this incident hardly forms the the proof of those things.

Who is arguing that? We have always maintained they are inherently unsafe, and that we are comntinually being lied to by those who want to promote this unsafe technology.

This is just yet another reminder.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

AW:


Independent nuclear analyst on Al Jazeera's Live Stream (John Large?) just said that given what he's seen and heard, and given his experience, he would look for a similar outcome as what happened in Chernobyl in regards to radioactive release.

Another on the BBC said more-or-less the same thing, and that in his opinion the cover up has already begun.

Not that they are doing a particularly good job at that either.

[Vanguard1917]

Well the book I have just referenced has given the lie to the public relations release yuo have just posted have. As it shows, over 900,000 people have lost their lives so far due to this 'accident'


Anyone can make claims not based on facts.



And, we have continually been told, sicne the 1950s, that the latest generation of nuclear plants is 'safe' and this can't happen again -- until, as we can now see, it regularly does.


No - serious nuclear accidents are very rare. There is nothing 'regular' about them.

And nothing is 'safe' in any absolute sense. The 20th century saw hundreds of thousands of people die in earthquakes as a result of their homes, schools or workplaces falling on top of them.

So buildings are inherently unsafe if we are to use your definition.

But of course, they're not. The point is to improve the construction of buildings in places vulnerable to earthquakes to make them more likely to endure. The same goes for nuclear plants, and everything else manking has created that is good and valuable.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^Not according to the list I appended earlier.

Anyway, pandemics are rare. Does that mean we should arrange our affairs to encourage more?


And nothing is 'safe' in any absolute sense. The 20th century saw hundreds of thousands of people die in earthquakes as a result of their homes, schools or workplaces falling on top of them.

So buildings are inherently unsafe if we are to use your definition.

On that basis, you might a well argue that, since nothing is absolutely safe, we should encourage our children to play with sharks, tigers and crocodiles.

And I have given no 'definition'.


But of course, they're not. The point is to improve the construction of buildings in places vulnerable to earthquakes to make them more likely to endure. The same goes for nuclear plants, and everything else manking has created that is good and valuable.

Even better, scrap the lot.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Latest from the BBC:


14 March 2011 Last updated at 23:35 GMT

Japan earthquake: New blast at Fukushima nuclear plant

A quake-stricken nuclear plant in Japan has been hit by a third explosion in four days, amid fears of a meltdown.

The blast occurred at reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which engineers had been trying to stabilise after two other reactors exploded.

One minister has said it is "highly likely" that the rods might melt. Radiation levels near the plant have risen.

The crisis was sparked by a 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami on Friday.

Thousands of people are believed to have died, and millions are spending a fourth night without water, food, electricity or gas. More than 500,000 people have been left homeless.

On Monday, a hydrogen blast at the Fukushima Daiichi's reactor 3 injured 11 people and destroyed the building surrounding it. The explosion was felt 40km (25 miles) away and sent a huge column of smoke into the air.

It followed a blast at reactor 1 on Saturday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843

They also report that for the first time, the operators have evacuated the site (after "rumblings were heard" in one of the reactors), and that the fuel rods are now exposed.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

We now hear that the third explosion was "different" from the first two, and that 2.4 metres of the rods have been exposed to the air.

This, after we were told there'd be no more explosions after the first one on Saturday.

[Vanguard1917]

^^^Not according to the list I appended earlier.

According to facts, accidents at nuclear plants have killed far less people than those in the coal and oil industries.

Yet as far as i'm aware, Marxist never called for those industries to be scrapped just because they carried risks.

I believe Lenin said that socialism meant soviet power plus the 'electrification of the entire country' -- at a time when the production of electricity was far more dangerous and arduous than it is today, thanks in part to more recent developments such as nuclear power.



Anyway, pandemics are rare. Does that mean we should arrange our affairs to encourage more?


No. But do you need me to explain why this is a silly analogy?



On that basis, you might a well argue that, since nothing is absolutely safe, we should encourage our children to play with sharks, tigers and crocodiles.


See my previous sentence.

[Decolonize The Left]

AlJazzera's page on the most recent explosion (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2011/03/201131423284550745.html).

- August

[Coggeh]

Coggeh:



No.


Exactly.



Well, we have been told this (that nuclear powere is 'safe') now for over fifty years, and those reassurances are wearing thin.

Of course, the earthquake was almost unprecedented, but the Japanese authorities were warned that building such unsafe generators so near a suduction zone was suicidal.

Moreover, any natural or human-made disaster (like a terrorist attack) means they are permanent time bombs. No wonder so few working people want one built near where they live.

Again non of these points refer to the actual safety of nuclear power but to poor planning and the point on the terror attack raises the question, why did terrorists attack the twin towers instead of a nuclear plant, surely to do one was just as hard as the other? hijack a plane and crash it into a building.



Except, this industry is linked to the development of nuclear weapons, and has thus always been secretive.

And, since the bi-product of this industry is so lethal and lasts for so long, there is no such thing as a safe nuclear plant.

Especially when there are perfectly safe renewable alternatives, which aren't developed since they are not 'cost effective'.
2nd red herring.

Just because nuclear weapons are linked to nuclear power again isn't an indictment on nuclear power but an indictment on a capitalist nation manufacturing nuclear weapons.

Also the issue of bi product is interesting seeing as the main reason we don't safely dispose of nuclear waste is based purely on its cost. by using transmutation of waste we can safely dispose of waste and actually use that transmuted waste as a source of power.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_reactor
But its just not cost effective under capitalist nations.

Their are perfectly safe renewables that capitalist nations won't invest in, however we cannot rule out nuclear power as another way of producing energy, it can be made safe and its generates a massive amount of energy for such as small source of fuel .

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


According to facts, accidents at nuclear plants have killed far less people than those in the coal and oil industries.

One nuclear disaster killed over 900,000 people; can you match that from one disaster (or even one hundred) in the industries you mention?


I believe Lenin said that socialism meant soviet power plus the 'electrification of the entire country' -- at a time when the production of electricity was far more dangerous and arduous than it is today, thanks in part to more recent developments such as nuclear power.

We now know that there are far safer, renewable sources of energy, so this argument is redundant.



No. But do you need me to explain why this is a silly analogy?

The analogy was aimed at your reference to rarety, and so it is apt.


See my previous sentence.

And a waste of space it was too.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Coggeh:


Again non of these points refer to the actual safety of nuclear power but to poor planning and the point on the terror attack raises the question, why did terrorists attack the twin towers instead of a nuclear plant, surely to do one was just as hard as the other? hijack a plane and crash it into a building.

That comment is based on the presumption that this industry can be made safe, but there is no way you can show this (unless you have access to a crystal ball).


2nd red herring.

No, it's not. The propaganda this industry churns out, and the constant lies we are told about its 'safety' are intimately connected to this fact.

The other things you say do not seem to be relevant to what I posted, so I won't comment on them.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kiroff:


I think nuclear power is a great achievement in man's dialectical relationship with nature. Japan may have shown problems in its execution but history marches on.

1. There is no such thing as a 'dialectical' relationship with nature. But we can discuss that in Philosophy.

2. History marches nowhere. The capitalist class inflicted this curse on us, and it's up to us to put it right.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

According to Al Jazeera, there is now a fire at the plant, and the authorities there have admitted that there is now serious radiation leak.

They also report that the French Embassy in Tokyo is warning that the wind patterns mean that a radioactive cloud will hit Tokyo in the next ten hours.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Latest BBC Report:


15 March 2011 Last updated at 02:23 GMT

Third blast at Japan nuclear plant

A quake-stricken nuclear plant in Japan has been hit by a third explosion in four days, amid fears of a meltdown.

The blast occurred at reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which engineers had been trying to stabilise after two other reactors exploded.

The protective chamber around the radioactive core of reactor 2 has been damaged and radiation levels near the plant have risen, officials say.

The crisis was sparked by a 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami on Friday.

Thousands of people are believed to have died, and millions are spending a fourth night without water, food, electricity or gas. More than 500,000 people have been left homeless.

Staff evacuation

A fresh explosion rocked reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant - 250km (155 miles) north-east of Tokyo - in the early hours of Tuesday.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the level of radiation at the plant had "considerably risen" and there was a high risk of radioactive material leaking out.

He added that the last remaining people within a 20km (12 mile) exclusion zone around the plant had to leave, and that those living between 20km and 30km from the site should remain indoors.

Radiation levels around Fukushima for one hour's exposure rose to eight times the legal limit for exposure in one year, said the plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

The radiation reading at 0831 local time (2331 GMT) climbed to 8,217 microsieverts an hour from 1,941 about 40 minutes earlier, Tepco said. The annual legal limit is 1,000 microsieverts.

However, officials say that a level of one million microsieverts would be needed to cause widespread radiation sickness.

Mr Kan also said a fire had broken out at the plant's reactor 4, but urged people to remain calm.

On Monday, a hydrogen blast at reactor 3 injured 11 people and destroyed the building surrounding it. That explosion was felt 40km (25 miles) away and sent a huge column of smoke into the air.

It followed a blast at reactor 1 on Saturday.

All explosions have been preceded by cooling system breakdowns. Engineers are trying to prevent meltdowns by flooding the chambers of the nuclear reactors with sea water to cool them down.

After the third explosion, officials said there were fears that the containment vessel housing the reactor may have been damaged.

Higher radiation levels were recorded on Tuesday south of Fukushima, Kyodo news agency reported.

Nearly 185,000 people have been evacuated from a 20km (12 mile) exclusion zone around the plant.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843

[TwoSevensClash]

I never realized nuclear power was such an emotional issue between leftists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, the left used to be united in opposition to this technology. It's only recently that a younger generation of leftists has allowed capitalist propaganda to sway their opinion.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Al Jazeera has just reported that the operators of the plant have now asked the Japanese military to put the fire out -- it is plainly too serious for them to do it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Al Jazeera now reports that there has been a massive increase of radiation around the plant, enough to cause radiation sickness and widespread cancer, which suggests that the containment vessels have failed.

They also report that a prefecture to the west of Tokyo is now experiencing a level of radiation nine times the background level.

[Ele'ill]

Just a suggestion here- let's talk about the updates to this situation and not debate nuclear energy however tempting. I live in Oregon- I hear a possible scenario is that the west coast is going to get hit with the radioactive stuff by Tuesday night. How much? Will I notice? Are things much much worse than being reported? Is this a fantastic excuse for me to begin my travels early?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^Seconded!

Al Jazeera reports that the fire has been put out.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Latest BBC report:


15 March 2011 Last updated at 03:27 GMT

Third blast at Japan nuclear plant

Explosions at a Japanese quake-stricken nuclear plant have led to radiation levels that can affect human health, a senior Japanese official has said.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has urged those living within 30km (18 miles) of the plant to stay indoors.

Earlier, reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant was hit by a blast - the third reactor to explode in four days - leading to fears of a meltdown....

Exclusion zone

A fresh explosion rocked reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant - 250km (155 miles) north-east of Tokyo - in the early hours of Tuesday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said "Now we are talking about levels that can impact human health." He stressed that such levels were recorded at the plant and that the "further away you get from the power plant or reactor, the value should go down".

In his televised address, Prime Minister Kan said: "There is still a very high risk of more radiation coming out."

He added that the last remaining people within a 20km (12 mile) exclusion zone around the plant had to leave, and that those living between 20km and 30km from the site should remain indoors.

Radiation levels around Fukushima for one hour's exposure rose to eight times the legal limit for exposure in one year, said the plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

The radiation reading at 0831 local time (2331 GMT) climbed to 8,217 microsieverts an hour from 1,941 about 40 minutes earlier, Tepco said. The annual legal limit is 1,000 microsieverts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12740843

[MarxSchmarx]

I've split off stuff related to the dialectical materialism debate here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectical-materialism-split-t151503/index.html?t=151503

Kiroff and Rosa and anyone else should continue it there if they are so inclined. Please keep this thread on topic.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC has just reported that the authorities in Japan are concerned now about two more of the six reactors at the plant: their temperatures are rising.

A no fly zone has been imposed over the site to prevent radiation being spread, and airlines are now cancelling flights into Tokyo since radiation has been detected there.

[Vanguard1917]

VG1917:



One nuclear disaster killed over 900,000 people

Except it didn't.

To be frank, you're just coming across as crazy and senile.

Not even the most mental environmentalist would present a figure like that. You have Googled 'Chernobyl death rates', found the article with the biggest number, and pasted it here without even spending a moment to consider just how stupid it really is. And that's what you base arguments on.

If i ever need reminding as to why it is always best to ignore anything Rosa Litchenstein has to say, i just need to search for this thread.

[Sasha]

Don't Panic (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/03/14/dont-panic)

Posted by Jonathan Golob (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/ArticleArchives?author=224756) on Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 6:10 PM

First, the latest news on the Fukushima reactors, via Nuclear Information and Resource Service (http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/Fukushimafactsheet.pdf):

NHK TV reports that there has been an explosion at Unit 2 at Fukushima Daiichi. There is speculation that this explosion has damaged the primary containment (inside the concrete containment building, which is the secondary containment. Tepco is evacuating some non- essential personnel from the reactor site. 2.5 meters of the core are currently uncovered by water—which means it is almost certainly melting. Winds from the site are currently blowing toward the North.
If true, this is arguably the worst case scenario for this disaster. The primary containment building is responsible for containing the nuclear fuel of the reactor. For those of us not directly working at the plant bravely sticking to their duties despite all the risk or within a hundred miles or so from the damaged reactors, there is no heath risk or radiation exposure risk.
Do not panic.
http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2011/03/14/thumb-1300150841-reactorschematic.jpg (http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2011/03/14/1300150841-reactorschematic.jpg)
The prior explosions at reactor 1 and 3 involved the secondary containment building. If the primary containment is actually breached at reactor 2, this might make the site too radioactive for workers to stay at for any length of time.
(If you're curious to read some more details about what has, and is, happening at the plants, I can recommend this article by Dr Josef Oehmen from MIT (http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/).)
There are two perspectives to come at, when considering the significance of this event.
For those within a short distance of the plant, this is now a massive event—with significant local contamination possible. A release of radiation on the scale of the Chernobyl disaster is simply not possible; a release larger than that of Three Mile Island is increasingly likely—particularly as salvage efforts are hampered by the local radiation levels.
For the rest of us, even given the potential release of reactor contents to the environment, the amount of radioactive isotopes we'll be exposed to from this accident should be considered in comparison to that from other sources.
Coal burning power plants, worldwide, release approximately 8000 tons of Uranium and 20,000 tons of (radioactive) Thorium into the environment each year—as a part of routine operations. (Coal is contaminated with these elements, and there are no regulations requiring them to be stripped out before the coal is burned.)
Similarly, the mining of rare earth elements (used to manufacture touchscreens and windmill generators, among many other high tech items) results in vast waste pools of Thorium—also left exposed to the environment.
Despite the magnitude of this disaster—larger than many suspected could be possible with non-Soviet-style reactors—I firmly believe some perspective is needed when you consider if nuclear power is 'safe'.
Another point, that I fear people are confused by: A 'Meltdown' does not mean the same thing as a nuclear explosion. A meltdown means the nuclear fuel in the reactor—normally in pellet form, neatly loaded in metal rods—has melted and lost the orderly shape. A 'partial meltdown' means the fuel rods have partially melted. A 'full meltdown' indicates a complete loss of form to the fuel. The more deformed the fuel becomes, the harder the eventual cleanup.
There is zero, none, zilch, nada chance of a nuclear explosion at one of these plants. None. Not even the shittiest imaginable midnight scifi flick could that happen. (As the Iranians and North Koreans can attest—creating a successful nuclear detonation takes lots of careful forming, enrichment and orderly compression.) Again. A meltdown is a problem for the eventual cleanup of these plants, but otherwise doesn't mean much for anyone who isn't planning on hiring with the Tokyo Power Company.



lets find some sensible midle ground here ppl, we are NOT all going to die but Nucluar power plants are still an bad idea mkay...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


Except it didn't.

Alas for you, and your mates in Big Capital, the latest comprehensive scientific survey says it did.


To be frank, you're just coming across as crazy and senile.

You can be whomsoever you want, it won't change the facts.

And, personal abuse always wins an argument -- as you should know, Frank.


Not even the most mental environmentalist would present a figure like that. You have Googled 'Chernobyl death rates', found the article with the biggest number, and pasted it here without even spending a moment to consider just how stupid it really is. And that's what you base arguments on.

And what is so wrong with 'googling', especially if it locates the latest scientific survey -- and even better, if it exposes your sordid attempt to sanitise this dangerous technology, Frank?

And, even you, Frank, have been known to post links to other internet pages -- alas mostly to public relations sites boosting your mates in Big Capital.


If i ever need reminding as to why it is always best to ignore anything Rosa Litchenstein has to say, i just need to search for this thread.

I'm quite happy to be ignored by an apologist for Big Capital, Frank.:)

But, and alas, you have promised this many times before, and like the promises of the nuclear industry, they all turned out to be false.:(

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks of that Psycho, and I hope you are right, but we have been fed this kind of 'reassuring' talk too many times before to give it much credence, especially given the fact that this industry, and those who sesk to defend it (and I'm not including you in that!), have lied consistently about such things for well over fifty years.

[Sasha]

good recent column in an center left newspaper about the dutch government plans for more nuclear power in the netherlands:



How was it stated again in the coalition agreement? 'The Netherlands for the supply of energy must become less dependent on other countries, high prices and polluting fuels. "
Oh yes.
Hence this governments heavy bet on nuclear energy: the Dutch soil is obviously bursting of uranium, building a nuclear power plant costs only eight billion euros - and the waste is already after only ten thousand years no longer a threat to public health.
Rightwing logic.

The 'free market' - that was the argument, I believe. You remember that one-liner of Mark Rutte (current dutch PM, tr.). That one that went: "Wind turbines are not running on wind, they run on subsidies!" Yes. Good point. Now if the Prime Minister could only point me at me three nuclear plants - anywhere in the world – that are not state-sponsored, I'm in.
Well, two then.
One maybe?
No? Let me put it straightforwardly, nuclear power is, by far, the worst alternative to oil that exists. Actually, its not even an alternative. Worldwide uranium reserves are also depleted within 85 years - just like oil. It is located in unstable regions such as Kazakhstan and Niger - like oil. It creates new, powerful monopolies in the energy market - like oil. And, with making excellent targets, nuclear powerplants play right in the hands of warlike regimes and terrorists - like oil.
Compare that with, say, the sun: an inexhaustible source of energy, all over the world present to use, it produces zero point zero waste, is not dangerous and, above all, it makes the energy market democratic. Each end-user energy supplier with a solar panel on its roof. Exit Nuon (biggest dutch electricity company, tr.). Exit Shell. Exit oil sheiks and uranium tycoons. Exit government.
Sounds good, right, Mark?
And now don't come again with that subsidies baloney: the PC, mobile telephone, the Internet - all started as a government project. Moreover, knowledge about renewable energy you can sell for good money to foreign countries, knowledge about nuclear fusion, you must keep secret at all costs. You do the math.
There is even a dutch word for the energy policy of this government.
Oliedom (oilstupid, tr.).

[Vanguard1917]

VG1917:
Alas for you, and your mates in Big Capital, the latest comprehensive scientific survey says it did.


So you choose to accept the wild claims of a book you probably hadn't even heard of before your quick Google search last night?

Well, below are the conclusions of UNSCEAR's 2008 report, based on two decades of comprehensive study. As can be seen, its conclusions are somewhat different than those of your book.




A. health risks attributable to radiation


99. The observed health effects currently attributable to radiation exposure are as follows:

- 134 plant staff and emergency workers received high doses of radiation that resulted in acute radiation syndrome (ARS), many of whom also incurred skin injuries due to beta irradiation;



- The high radiation doses proved fatal for 28 of these people;


- While 19 ARS survivors have died up to 2006, their deaths have been for various reasons, and usually not associated with radiation exposure;



- Skin injuries and radiation‑induced cataracts are major impacts for the ARS survivors;


- Other than this group of emergency workers, several hundred thousand people were involved in recovery operations, but to date, apart from indications of an increase in the incidence of leukaemia and cataracts among those who received higher doses, there is no evidence of health effects that can be attributed to radiation exposure;


- The contamination of milk with 131I, for which prompt countermeasures were lacking, resulted in large doses to the thyroids of members of the general public; this led to a substantial fraction of the more than 6,000 thyroid cancers observed to date among people who were children or adolescents at the time of the accident (by 2005, 15 cases had proved fatal);


- To date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure.


100. From this annex based on 20 years of studies and from the previous UNSCEAR reports [U3, U7], it can be concluded that although those exposed to radioiodine as children or adolescents and the emergency and recovery operation workers who received high doses are at increased risk of radiation‑induced effects, the vast majority of the population need not live in fear of serious health consequences from the Chernobyl accident. (This conclusion is consistent with that of the UNSCEAR 2000 Report [U3]). Most of the workers and members of the public were exposed to low level radiation comparable to or, at most, a few times higher than the
annual natural background levels, and exposures will continue to decrease as the deposited radionuclides decay or are further dispersed in the environment. This is true for populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and all the more so, for populations of other European countries. Lives have been disrupted by the Chernobyl accident, but from the radiological point of view, generally positive prospects for the future health of most individuals involved should prevail.


http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2008/Advance_copy_Annex_D_Chernobyl_Report.pdf (http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2008/Advance_copy_Annex_D_Chernobyl_Report.pdf)

[S.Artesian]

^^^ The above conclusions may differ than that of the book, but the above conclusions are chilling in and by themselves.

"The vast majority need not live in fear...." Well that's a wonderful conclusion, except for the qualifier of vast and majority which means of course a significant minority should be living in fear.

So tell me exactly how does one guarantee membership in the "vast majority" club, as opposed to the "significant minority" club.

Well let's see-- kids? Sorry kids you're in the significant minority club by virtue of.... by virtue of being kids, drinking milk, having thyroids.... that kind of stuff that is applicable only to minorities.

And the "several hundred thousand" involved in recovery... well apart from the increased incidence of leukemia and cataracts.... nothing to worry about.

I feel better already, don't you? I'm not a kid, I don't drink milk, and I have no intention of every being involved in a recovery operation at a damaged nuclear reactor. But... I do have kids. Sometimes they drink milk...

[Jose Gracchus]

The problem with nuclear scares aren't that nuclear technology is unambiguously safe. The problem is that inappropriate comparisons are made with mundane industrial technology. Under capitalism, and even to a substantial degree without it, I'm certain that industrial production will remain a dirty business. Coal fly ash from conventional coal plants produces more atmospheric irradiation than nuclear power every year. Furthermore, the question is in terms of actual human cost. I mean what about the oil refinery which exploded?

I also think some comrades who think they will arrive at Leon Trotsky's land of abundance for all workers on the back of solar (production of photovoltaic cells, is, actually, a substantially dirty and toxic waste-producing process, and dependent on rare strategic resources), wind, hydro (which damages eco-systems in its own way, and has lifetimes due to silt build up), and other sources.

[Rowan Duffy]

Chernobyl is a worst case event, with a worst case design. If we want to compare things arbitrarily I can choose the disaster at that Banqiao Dam, which lead to 20,000 direct deaths and around 100,000 indirect due to famine and disease. These are not widely disputed numbers by anyone.

Now, I'd never heard the 900,000 number from Chernobyl despite digging through anti-nuclear activists numbers for quite a while. The claim is clearly absurd. Looking at the link you posted it's clearly based on a number of ludicrous conspiracy theories. One of which is that there is evidence of plutonium toxicity in the Nile river from Chernobyl. Fission decay products occur naturally in high concentration uranium ores, and a river bed is a good place to go looking for sediment that might pick it up. The probability of Plutonium particles in sufficient quantities being transported by being airborn is just plane absurd - much less transport of Strontium-90. However, if every plutonium particle in the world comes from Chernobyl we can probably chock up a big number. The number however will be totally wrong.

If we want the makey-upey numbers game though, we can easily throw in all of the deaths due to increase likelihood of floods and typhoon from the coal and natural gas that will be burned to provide base load power.

We might switch to completely use wind and solar but that's going to require some epically large project with epically large hydro storage. That hydro storage itself is going to present a risk, as is the massive quantity of material and energy that's going to be required to make so many turbines.

The real numbers for Chernobyl may be high, but they'll still beat the next best base load power that we have readily at our disposal, and that is natural gas. We wont have another Chernobyl in Europe any more than Europe can hope to suffer a Banqiao failure. The specific technology used is not irrelevant. Not all nuclear reactors are the same any more than all dams are the same.

The worst case scenario occurring in Japan will not be a Chernobyl, and while it may lead to deaths, so did the dam failure which washed away 1800 houses with an unknown death count, the natural gas explosions and the oil plant explosion series.

LWR reactors are not safe, thats obvious enough. They aren't ridiculously dangerous either with an outside estimate (which I think is absurdly overstated), including chernobyl of 10 deaths per TWh. Then compare to coal which has 200 deaths per TWh in Europe.

There are better reactor designs that have the potential to be a good deal safer, including aqueous homogeneous reactors and molten salt reactors.

We definitely need to evaluate the possibilities of alternative fuels. But that evaluation requires looking clearly at the data honestly without emotional anti-nuclear paranoia.

[Vanguard1917]

^^^ The above conclusions may differ than that of the book, but the above conclusions are chilling in and by themselves.

Not any more so than the myriad of far more costly accidents that took place in, say, the last two centuries, involving everyday things that many of us today have no irrational fear of.

A sense of perspective and proportion is needed. And also the reminder that Chernobyl was a specific and exceptional case, rather than the rule or the norm.

[S.Artesian]

Not any more so than the myriad of far more costly accidents that took place in, say, the last two centuries, involving everyday things that many of us today have no irrational fear of.

A sense of perspective and proportion is needed. And also the reminder that Chernobyl was a specific and exceptional case, rather than the rule or the norm.


But I don't have an "irrational fear" of nuclear energy I have very rational fears about the ability, willingness, and capacity of the bourgeoisie to properly assess and mitigate the risks of catastrophic failure-- the very risks that have now materialized in Japan.

[StalinFanboy]

Not any more so than the myriad of far more costly accidents that took place in, say, the last two centuries, involving everyday things that many of us today have no irrational fear of.

A sense of perspective and proportion is needed. And also the reminder that Chernobyl was a specific and exceptional case, rather than the rule or the norm.

Wait, it's irrational to be afraid of fallout and radiation poisoning? Well fuck me.

I'm sure there have been many more expensive and life taking accidents through out history, but the thing is, radiation stays around for a long, long time.

[Vanguard1917]

But I don't have an "irrational fear" of nuclear energy I have very rational fears about the ability, willingness, and capacity of the bourgeoisie to properly assess and mitigate the risks of catastrophic failure-- the very risks that have now materialized in Japan.

After one of the biggest earthquakes in living memory, there were nuclear plant failures, and the majority of experts believe that there is a low-level of danger to the public from resulting radiation. Radiation levels are already falling (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12749444). There certainly haven't been any mass deaths, nothing like a Chernobyl situation, and the chance that there will be seems remote.

Words like 'catastrophe' risk overblowing things just a bit.

[Rowan Duffy]

Wait, it's irrational to be afraid of fallout and radiation poisoning? Well fuck me.

I'm sure there have been many more expensive and life taking accidents through out history, but the thing is, radiation stays around for a long, long time.

It's irrational to be unduly fearful of radiation poisoning. You're better off worrying about whether you will die in a car accident. And if you're going to die of radiation poisoning, it'll probably be due to Radon release in your home.

As for the duration of the radiation, well that depends. The two radioactive substances which are likely to become airborne are Iodine-131 and Ceasium-137. These have half-lives of 8 days and 30 years respectively. Not particularly long lived. The longer lived substances are unlikely to get much distribution.

Radiation may last a long time, but poison is forever.

As an aside, it is instructive to spend some time with a Geiger counter in hand. I was forced by the friendly administration at my University to work on computer statistical modeling in the radioactive sources room. I was, needless to say, a bit worried about getting dosed with the Strontium-90 source. However, when I took my Geiger counter in the room, I came to find that the walls were much more radioactive than the shielded sources. Wondering if this was due to irradiation, I wondered about the complex and found it was typical of the cinder block.

[S.Artesian]

Well you keep saying that, but now there's a 40 mile radius no-fly zone around the damaged reactors, and the Japanese government is considering a request to the US govt to provide military aircraft to "bomb" the site with water to provide cooling.

CNN is reporting that only a "handful" of "heroic" technicians involved in attempting to control the reactors have stayed behind, all others being evacuated.

Now do those two things sound like Chernobyl to you, because they sure sound like Chernobyl to me.

And... according to news reports, people outside the 40 mile zone are being told to stay indoors with windows closed.

As for radiation levels-- they rose sharply on Tuesday-- reports the BBC and fell later. That's radiation being emitted from the damaged reactors

So no... I don't think catastrophic risk is over-reacting.

It's one thing to say "yes, there is catastrophic risk that can be properly mitigated, and in this case wasn't." It's quite another thing to deny the existence of catastrophic risk as you seem to do, "just a bit."

The "majority of experts"? The majority of experts agree there's no such thing as "Gulf War Syndrome"... I could fill an encyclopedia with the mistaken evaluations provided by the majority of experts.

[S.Artesian]

Here's the latest I've been able to cull from TV news, BBC, CNN etc.:

1. Evacuation in a 20 km radius has taken place

2. Those within 20-30 km have been told to stay indoors with windows closed

3. 60 technicians remain on site. Over 700 have been evacuated.

4. Explosions at reactor 2 may have breached or damaged the containment vessel.

5. Fire in reactor 4 building.

6. Temperatures are rising in reactors 5 and 6.

7. Radiation levels at the reactor site were recorded at an hourly rate. The hourly rate of radiation emission was 8 times the amount permissible for an entire year.

8. The Japanese PM acknowledged that the situation is "dangerous"


I think I rather understated the risk of catastrophic failure.


Oh... and that BBC article about radiation falling? That's due to the prevailing winds blowing the radiation out to sea.

Comrade Vanguard1917 perhaps did not read this in the report he linked to in his post:


Europe's energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger said Tokyo had almost lost control of the situation at Fukushima.
"There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen," he told the European Parliament.

[Dr Mindbender]

If we were ever in a position where we had a falling asteriod or comet coming to earth, i know i'd sleep a lot better knowing we lived in a world with nuclear power.

For that reason id even go as far as to oppose dismantling nuclear warheads as long as no single nation has authority over their usage.

[Foreigner]

Even without that last update, to say "[w]ords like 'catastrophe' risk overblowing things just a bit," in light of the developments of the last two days, is stunning.

On another note, I find it highly surprising that the immediate impact of the explosions and radioactive materials releases have been the focus of a lot of discussion. As if you could compare earthquake-induced house collapses to a nuclear meltdown.

Yeah, nuclear is nice, because the majority of its deaths and resultant human suffering are disclaimable, since they mostly happen later. I mean, dramatically- and universally-increased cancer rates in areas contaminated by Chernobyl -- yeah, exactly, how do we know it's not something else? And the nuclear industry and its apologists happily march on.

[EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, this last paragraph is sarcasm, intended to point out that nuclear advocates and apologists find it convenient to disclaim and use heightened weasel-skepticism to pooh-pooh away statistics showing increased rates of leukemia, thyroid cancer and other forms of cancer in broad affected areas.]

Seriously. Saying nuclear disasters are 'better,' as it were, than many others because the immediate and shortly-after death toll is lower... Egregiously, stunningly missing the point.

Same kind of argument from people who argue that the firebombing of Japanese cities was worse than the atom bombs because of its immediate death toll. Sheeit.

On another note, I remember from my readings about Chernobyl that the people who remained to try to contain it after most had been evacuated were called the "liquidators," a sadly appropriate name. Those people staying behind are the Fukushiman liquidators. Hard to imagine having to make that decision.

[Vanguard1917]

Now do those two things sound like Chernobyl to you, because they sure sound like Chernobyl to me.

Despite the fact that the current situation is very different to that which gave way to the Chernobyl disaster? The radiation leak in Japan is very small when compared to that in Chernobyl, where there was a large spread of radiation over a large area as a result of a massive explosion and a fire that lasted for 10 days. The design of the Chernobyl reactor was very different from reactors in Japan. Suitable parallels are lacking. See link (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/ferguswalsh/2011/03/japan_nuclear_leak_-_health_risks.html).


And... according to news reports, people outside the 40 mile zone are being told to stay indoors with windows closed.


Yes, there are various precautionary measures being taken.


The "majority of experts"? The majority of experts agree there's no such thing as "Gulf War Syndrome"... I could fill an encyclopedia with the mistaken evaluations provided by the majority of experts.

That's all good that you aim to challenge those with expertise in the area, but you need to do so with good counter-arguments of your own.

[S.Artesian]

If we were ever in a position where we had a falling asteriod or comet coming to earth, i know i'd sleep a lot better knowing we lived in a world with nuclear power.

For that reason id even go as far as to oppose dismantling nuclear warheads as long as no single nation has authority over their usage.

That's what watching too many Blockbuster video rentals will do to you.

[Dr Mindbender]

That's what watching too many Blockbuster video rentals will do to you.


I dont think so. We had a 'near miss' as recently as 1986 and the earth is continally bombarded by falling rocks.

It is an inevitability that we will be one day faced with one that will be on target and large enough to do apocalyptic damage.

What is the alternative? Shower it with flowers and kisses?

[S.Artesian]

Despite the fact that the current situation is very different to that which gave way to the Chernobyl disaster? The radiation leak in Japan is very small when compared to that in Chernobyl, where there was a large spread of radiation over a large area as a result of a massive explosion and a fire that lasted for 10 days. The design of the Chernobyl reactor was very different from reactors in Japan. Suitable parallels are lacking. See link (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/ferguswalsh/2011/03/japan_nuclear_leak_-_health_risks.html).


I said it sounded like Chernobyl. Not that it was Chernobyl, That it has the possibility, the risk of catastrophic failure. What has, so far, reduced the exposure of the population to that risk, that has limited the spread of the radiation is the fact that the prevailing winds are blowing the radiation toward the Pacific Ocean.

You don't mind if I don't count that as a programmed risk mitigation strategy, do you?

Yes Chernobyl was very different. The used graphite to control the reactions and graphite burns, among other things.

Doesn't mean this design of these reactors is immune to catastrophic failure. It just means the risk is less-- given what all previous experience has been. That is exactly how algorithms of risk are constructed-- on what has occurred and the likelihood of what might occur.

You know who else used these type of risk algorithms, I mean exactly these types of risk algorithms? Wall Street. Yep Subprime 2, and the collapse of the financial structure was an event that, according to the quants, to the majority of those experts, who had developed those algorithms, was "highly unlikely," exaggerated, and had a 0.5% risk of occurrence. Guess what?

I'm not challenging anyone's expertise. I think events, the real events are outside the control, or the understanding right now of all those experts who aren't on scene and getting their information from the same places I get mine.

I've heard experts state that the Japanese government is not taking necessary precautionary measures-- that all children, at the very least, should be evacuated within a radius of, at minimum, fifty miles.

I'm no expert at that either, but I do understand risk. I do understand that the supposed "objective quantification" of risk is highly informed by narrowing the range of possibilities.

History, and nature, have ways of overwhelming the limits of that range.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RD:


Now, I'd never heard the 900,000 number from Chernobyl despite digging through anti-nuclear activists numbers for quite a while. The claim is clearly absurd. Looking at the link you posted it's clearly based on a number of ludicrous conspiracy theories. One of which is that there is evidence of plutonium toxicity in the Nile river from Chernobyl. Fission decay products occur naturally in high concentration uranium ores, and a river bed is a good place to go looking for sediment that might pick it up. The probability of Plutonium particles in sufficient quantities being transported by being airborn is just plane absurd - much less transport of Strontium-90. However, if every plutonium particle in the world comes from Chernobyl we can probably chock up a big number. The number however will be totally wrong

I disagree. What 'conspiracy' theories do you mean?

And I take your point about the distribution of these particles, but these authors are experts in this field, so you might want to take this up with them.


If we want the makey-upey numbers game though, we can easily throw in all of the deaths due to increase likelihood of floods and typhoon from the coal and natural gas that will be burned to provide base load power.

Indeed, but, as has already been pointed out, the things you mention do not go on killing people for decades, if not centuries, after the event.


The real numbers for Chernobyl may be high, but they'll still beat the next best base load power that we have readily at our disposal, and that is natural gas. We wont have another Chernobyl in Europe any more than Europe can hope to suffer a Banqiao failure. The specific technology used is not irrelevant. Not all nuclear reactors are the same any more than all dams are the same.

Well, we have been fed these soothing tales since the 1950s, and have been lied to about the safety of these plants, so I do not share your rosey view of this unsafe technology.


The worst case scenario occurring in Japan will not be a Chernobyl, and while it may lead to deaths, so did the dam failure which washed away 1800 houses with an unknown death count, the natural gas explosions and the oil plant explosion series.

Sure, if you compare non-like with like. This is a man-made diasaster, one that the authorities have been warned about and have ignored for several decades. The others are natural disasters.


LWR reactors are not safe, thats obvious enough. They aren't ridiculously dangerous either with an outside estimate (which I think is absurdly overstated), including chernobyl of 10 deaths per TWh. Then compare to coal which has 200 deaths per TWh in Europe.

Only if you rely on the massaged 'official' figures.


There are better reactor designs that have the potential to be a good deal safer, including aqueous homogeneous reactors and molten salt reactors.

Yes, we were told the same about these reactors back in the 1970s. So, this reply will longer do.


We definitely need to evaluate the possibilities of alternative fuels. But that evaluation requires looking clearly at the data honestly without emotional anti-nuclear paranoia

Who is being 'emotional', or even 'paranoid'?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


So you choose to accept the wild claims of a book you probably hadn't even heard of before your quick Google search last night?

Looks like your promise to ignore me is on a par with your capacity to ignore the latest report.


Well, below are the conclusions of UNSCEAR's 2008 report, based on two decades of comprehensive study. As can be seen, its conclusions are somewhat different than those of your book.

And this book is even more recent, and does not rely on massaged 'official fugures'.

As the reviewer notes:


The book is solidly based -- on health data, radiological surveys and scientific reports -- some 5,000 in all.

It concludes that based on records now available, some 985,000 people died, mainly of cancer, as a result of the Chernobyl accident. That is between when the accident occurred in 1986 and 2004. More deaths, it projects, will follow.

The book explodes the claim of the International Atomic Energy Agency-- still on its website that the expected death toll from the Chernobyl accident will be 4,000. The IAEA, the new book shows, is under-estimating, to the extreme, the casualties of Chernobyl.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC has just reported another fire at the plant, along with a fourth explosion, and that radiation in Tokyo is at least forty times higher than normal.

They also tell us that two site workers are now missing.

[S.Artesian]

I dont think so. We had a 'near miss' as recently as 1986 and the earth is continally bombarded by falling rocks.

It is an inevitability that we will be one day faced with one that will be on target and large enough to do apocalyptic damage.

What is the alternative? Shower it with flowers and kisses?


Do you mind if I don't worry about that right now? Given that the ability of a Patriot missile to even bring down a Scud was vastly overrated, I'm not quite willing to role play in the game of "Armageddon 2."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

From the Real News Network:

YxGtMIwc0OQ

Comrades can find out more here:

http://www.nukefree.org/

[Foreigner]

Incidentally, since the topic of games came up, let's play one really quickly.

Thought game. Imagine that the nuclear and oil energy industries decide to commission a popular film for mass distribution and theaters that would help dramatize them favorably and reverse the popular animus toward those industries. You know, the usual PR repersonalization tactic. And imagine that they got a hold of the writers of Armageddon and got them on board with this project before filming began.

Okay, here's the fun part. How would it be different?

Eh, Disney films portraying the world saved from imminent massive natural catastrophe by the offshore oil drilling industry and nuclear bombs aside (and oh what a reversal of reality), I think we do have more pressing concerns...

[StalinFanboy]

radiation in Tokyo is at least forty times higher than normal.

Don't trip though. Shit's safe!

[StalinFanboy]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/japan-earthquake-radiation-leak-halts-work-damaged-reactors/story?id=13136890&page=1


"When this crisis started we compared it to what Americans are familiar with the 1979 Three Mile Island crisis and the 1986 Chernobyl crisis," said Joe Cirincione, a nuclear policy expert who is president of the Ploughshares Fund and an ABC News consultant. "This is way past Three Mile Island and we are heading into Chernobyl territory."


"What we're seeing is unprecedented in nuclear power history. It's made worse by way the Japanese build their reactors, they cluster them together. ... Many of the plants in Japan have four or more units, it's very efficient, so what it means is a disaster at one can avalanche into a complicated disaster next door," said Cirincione.

[piet11111]

Some areas around Ramsar have the highest level of natural radioactivity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_radioactivity) in the world, due to the presence of radioactive hot springs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_spring). The dose of radiation received by a person living in Ramsar's hot spring for one year can be in excess of 260 mSv (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert).[1] (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5736/883) (compared with 0.06 of a chest radiograph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chest_radiograph)), the medium value is 10.2 mSv/year [2] (http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/ramsar.html) five times the natural radiation [3] (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15063540). Some of the 50 hot springs in Ramsar have 0.03 mSv/h.
The highest levels of background radiation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation) recorded in the world till date is from areas around Ramsar, particularly at Talesh-Mahalleh which is a very high background radiation area (VHBRA) having an effective dose equivalent several times in excess of ICRP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICRP)-recommended radiation dose limits for radiation workers and up to 200 times greater than normal background levels. Most of the radiation in the area is due to dissolved radium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium)-226 in water of hot springs along with smaller amounts of uranium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium) and thorium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium) due to travertine deposits. There are more than nine hot springs in the area with different concentrations of radioisotopes, and these are used as spas by locals and tourists.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#cite_note-1) This high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area and even possibly has made them slightly more radioresistant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioresistance), which is puzzling and has been called "radiation paradox". It has also been claimed that residents have healthier and longer lives.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#cite_note-2) On the basis of this and other evidences including the fact that life had originated in a much more irradiated environment, some scientists have questioned the validity of linear no-threshold model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model), on which all radiation regulations currently depend.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#cite_note-3) Others point out that some level of radiation might actually be good for health and have a positive effect on population based on radiation hormesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis) model, by jump starting DNA repair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_repair) mechanisms inside the cell.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#cite_note-4)[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#cite_note-5) Due to consumption of radioactive water around Ramsar, the agricultural products as well as other living matter and humans are also slightly radioactive.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#cite_note-6)


From wikipedia

Naturally occuring radiation far in excess of chernobyl with no ill effects well that would be interesting.

[S.Artesian]

^^^^ Well remember what Hudson says in Aliens when he's freaking about 2 weeks on the planet with the aliens before they're even reported overdue:

Hudson: Two weeks?!?! Two weeks? We're not going to last 2 days with those things out there.

Ripley [pointing to Newt]: Hudson, this little has survived longer than that, haven't you Newt?

Newt [saluting]: Affirmative


Hudson: What? Oh yeah? Maybe we should put her in charge. Yeah put her in charge.

So let's get a hold of the people from Ramsar and get them to deal with this. Yeah, put them in charge.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC is reporting this morning that white smoke or steam is billowing out of the plant, and that the authorities are now so desperate that they are having to use helicopters to fly over the site and douse the reactors with water -- as a last resort -- since they have pulled out all their staff.

They also report that at Chernobyl the radiation levels reached 350mSV; at this site they are already at 400mSV.

They have further reported that the nuclear friendly French government have advised all their nationals to leave the country, and that others are on the point of copying them.

So, nothing to worry about, then...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

From today's Guardian newspaper:


Fukushima nuclear plant evacuated after radiation spikes

Workers battling to prevent meltdown were ordered to leave the plant for about an hour, hampering efforts restore safety

Justin McCurry in Osaka guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 March 2011 05.31 GMT

Workers battling to prevent nuclear meltdown at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant were temporarily evacuated on Wednesday morning after radiation levels became too dangerous for them to remain.

The withdrawal hampered efforts to secure safety at the atomic power plant and avert a major radiation leak. Staff returned to the plant after about an hour once radiation levels fell.

Its operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said it was considering using helicopters to spray the crippled No 4 reactor with water and boric acid – a fire retardant – in an attempt to prevent more radiation leaks.

The 50 or so engineers, working around the clock in harsh conditions, spent Wednesday morning trying to put out a fire at one reactor and to cool others at risk of overheating and reaching criticality.

To compound problems, a fire broke out at the No 3 reactor, where a fuel storage pool had overheated and may have let off radioactive steam. Live TV footage showed a large cloud of light grey smoke rising above the plant.

The government's chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said Japan was considering seeking help from the US military.

All six of the plants reactors are experiencing problems following last Friday's earthquake and tsunami, in which an estimated 10,000 people have died.

The workers were ordered to leave the facility after the level of radiation at the plant soared to 10 millisieverts per hour – above the level considered harmful to human health – possibly as a result of radioactive substances being emitted from the No 2 reactor. The reading later fell to around six millisieverts per hour, reports said, and they were allowed to return.

The evacuation followed another day of crisis at the plant, which has become the focus of the world's attention, even as rescue workers sift through the damage caused by the tsunami along a vast stretch of Japan's north-east coast.

Earlier, officials from the nuclear and industrial safety agency said that 70% of fuel rods at the No 1 reactor had been significantly damaged, as well as 33% of rods at the No 2 reactor. The cores of both reactors are believed to have partially melted, Kyodo news agency said.

"We don't know the nature of the damage," said Minoru Ohgoda, spokesman for the country's nuclear safety agency. "It could be either melting, or there might be some holes in them."

Before they were moved to safety the workers had been trying to cool spent nuclear fuel pools at the No 5 and No 6 reactors, where temperatures have risen above normal levels.

Edano said that there was "a possibility that the No 3 reactor's containment vessel is damaged".

A blaze also broke out again at the No 4 reactor, which was already feared to be at risk of leaking radioactivity. The nuclear safety agency reported that flames and smoke were no longer visible half an hour later, but were unable to confirm that the fire had been extinguished.

The No 4 reactor is an increasing cause for concern. Tepco believes that the storage pool may be boiling, raising the possibility that exposed rods will reach criticality. "The possibility of re-criticality is not zero," a Tepco spokesman said.

The government has ordered 140,000 people living within a 19-mile radius of the plant to remain indoors after a spike in radiation levels. A further 70,000 residents had already been moved to safe distances. The government said it had no immediate plans to widen the evacuation zone.

The crisis unfolding in Fukushima continued to raise anxiety levels in Tokyo, 150 miles to the south. Radiation levels in the capital were 10 times higher than normal on Tuesday evening, but posed no health hazard, the government said.

The meteorological agency said winds near the power plant would blow from the north-west and out into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday. The winds were expected to strengthen in the afternoon, the agency added.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/16/fukushima-workers-evacuate-radiation-spikes

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

From yesterday's Guardian:


What will spark the next Fukushima?

An untrustworthy nuclear industry, incompetently regulated, is leading the world into greater and greater danger

John Vidal Environment Editor

guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 March 2011 16.12 GMT

'Fukushima is supposedly one of the safest stations in one of the most safety-conscious countries in the world.'

The gung-ho nuclear industry is in deep shock. Just as it and its cheerleader, the International Atomic Energy Agency, were preparing to mark next month's 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident with a series of self-congratulatory statements about the dawning of a safe age of clean atomic power, a series of catastrophic but entirely avoidable accidents take place in not one but three reactors in one of the richest countries of the world. Fukushima is not a rotting old power plant in a failed state manned by half-trained kids, but supposedly one of the safest stations in one of the most safety-conscious countries with the best engineers and technologists in the world.

Chernobyl blew up not because the reactor malfunctioned but because an ill-judged experiment to see how long safety equipment would function during shutdown went too far. So, too, in Japan, it was not the nuclear bits of the station that went wrong but the conventional technology. The pumps did not work because the power supply went down and the back-up support was not there because no one had thought what happened was possible.

Even though Japan had been warned many times that possibly the most dangerous place in the world to site a nuclear power station was on its coast, no one had taken into account the double-whammy effect of a tsunami and an earthquake on conventional technology. It's easy to be wise after the event, but the inquest will surely show that the accident was not caused by an unpredictable natural disaster, but by a series of highly predictable bad calls by human regulators.

The question now is whether the industry can be trusted anywhere. If this industry were a company, its shareholders would have deserted it years ago. In just one generation it has killed, wounded or blighted the lives of many millions of people and laid waste to millions of square miles of land. In that time it has been subsidised to the tune of trillions of dollars and it will cost hundreds of billions more to clean up and store the messes it has caused and the waste it has created. It has had three catastrophic failures now in 25 years and dozens more close shaves. Its workings have been marked around the world by mendacity, cover-ups, secrecy and financial incompetence.

Sadly, the future looks worse. The world has a generation of reactors coming to the end of their days and politicians putting intense pressure on regulators to extend their use well beyond their design lives. We are planning to double worldwide electricity supply from nuclear power in the next 20 years, but we have nowhere near enough experienced engineers to run the ever-bigger stations. We have private companies peddling new designs that are said to be safer but which are still not proven, and we have 10 new countries planning to move into civil nuclear power in the next five years.

It gets worse. More than 100 of the world's reactors are already sited in areas of high seismic activity and many of 350 new stations planned for the highly volatile Pacific rim where earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural hazards are certain to happen. We still have not worked out how to store waste and, we now know that we cannot protect stations from all eventualities.

What the industry and governments cannot accept are the two immutable laws of life – Murphy's law and the law of unintended consequences. If something is possible to go wrong then it will, eventually. It may be possible to design out the technological weaknesses but it is impossible to allow for the unknown unknowns.

Next time the disaster may have nothing to do with an earthquake or a tsunami, but be because of terrorism, climate change, a fatal error in an anonymous engineering works, proliferation of plutonium or a deranged plant manager. If there were no alternatives than employing nuclear power to light up a bulb or to reduce carbon emissions then the industry and governments might be forgiven. But when the stakes are so high, the scale is so big and there are 100 other safer ways, it seems sheer folly to go on in this way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/14/fukushima-nuclear-industry

[Psy]

What if a design were to electromagnetically suspend reactor poison above the core? That way, if the power fails for any reason, the electromagnets would lose power and the poison drops into the core, killing the reaction. You could even run them off a backup generator placed in an area where, if damaged or otherwise compromised, the default action is a complete shutdown of the reactor.

Meltdowns are actually not the biggest problem, steam exploding the reactor is as this has always been the #1 safety issue with all boilers, it is just nuclear reactors can't bleed off steam pressure into the atmosphere like other boilers to bring steam pressure back down due to that steam being retroactive.

Even a steam train that has a run away boiler can blow up when you put out the fire box simply by the boiler already having enough thermal energy to create more steam then the boiler can hold. What is needed is a failsafe way to quickly cool the reactor like a liquid nitrogen emergency radiator system wrapped around the reactor to really drop the thermal energy quickly.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And from Monday's Guardian:


Japan radiation leaks feared as nuclear experts point to possible cover-up

Lack of radiation readings echoes pattern of secrecy employed after other major accidents such as Chernobyl

John Vidal and Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 March 2011 21.03 GMT

Nuclear experts have thrown doubt on the accuracy of official information issued about the Fukushima nuclear accident, saying that it followed a pattern of secrecy and cover-ups employed in other nuclear accidents. "It's impossible to get any radiation readings," said John Large, an independent nuclear engineer who has worked for the UK government and been commissioned to report on the accident for Greenpeace International.

"The actions of the Japanese government are completely contrary to their words. They have evacuated 180,000 people but say there is no radiation. They are certain to have readings but we are being told nothing." He said a radiation release was suspected "but at the moment it is impossible to know. It was the same at Chernobyl, where they said there was a bit of a problem and only later did the full extent emerge."

According to some reports, 17 helicopter crewmen helping in rescue efforts were contaminated with low-level radiation, but Japanese officials declined to comment.

The country's government has previously been accused of covering up nuclear accidents and hampering the development of alternative energy.

In a newly released diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks, politician Taro Kono, a high-profile member of Japan's lower house, tells US diplomats that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry – the Japanese government department responsible for nuclear energy – has been "covering up nuclear accidents and obscuring the true costs and problems associated with the nuclear industry".

In 2008, Kono told them: "The ministries were trapped in their policies, as officials inherited policies from people more senior to them, which they could then not challenge." He mentioned the dangers of natural disasters in the context of nuclear waste disposal, citing Japan's "extensive seismic activity, and abundant groundwater, and [he] questioned if there really was a safe place to store nuclear waste in the 'land of volcanoes'."

"What we are seeing follows a clear pattern of secrecy and denial," said Paul Dorfman, co-secretary to the Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters, a UK government advisory committee disbanded in 2004.

"The Japanese government has always tended to underplay accidents. At the moment the Japanese claims of safety are not to be believed by anyone. The health effects of what has happened so far are imponderable. The reality is we just do not know. There is profound uncertainty about the impact of the accident."

The Japanese authorities and nuclear companies have been implicated in a series of cover-ups. In 1995, reports of a sodium leak and fire at Japan's Monju fast breeder reactor were suppressed and employees were gagged. In 2002, the chairman and four executives of Tepco, the company which owns the stricken Fukushima plant, resigned after reports that safety records were falsified.

Bold added.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/14/japan-radiation-leak-cover-up?INTCMP=SRCH

Surely the capitalist class wouldn't lie to us... :rolleyes:

[progressive_lefty]

It's a little bit scary. Just goes to show how stupid the human race has been in the last 100 to 150 years. Despite the risks of anything nuclear, as long as there's profits, who cares..

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

11:00am GMT: The BBC has just reported that the helicopter ploy, mentioned in an earlier post of mine above, has been cancelled since the radiation is far too high to fly over the plant.

The authorities also deny the radiation is in fact high, which denial is contradicted by the fact that they daren't fly over it in a heliocopter!

So, they are still lying to us.

No surprise there then...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Progressive Lefty:


It's a little bit scary. Just goes to show how stupid the human race has been in the last 100 to 150 years. Despite the risks of anything nuclear, as long as there's profits, who cares..

Well, it shows how stupid the capitalist class is, and how they will risk any number of deaths (and then cover that up) just to make a profit.

[danyboy27]

and all of this wouldnt have happened without this extremely faulty design general electric came up with.

For those who dont know, the used fuel rod are stored in pool of waters in several level ABOVE the fucking reactor.

[Rowan Duffy]

Only if you rely on the massaged 'official' figures.


No, the official ExternE figures put deaths per TWh for nuclear in Europe at around .04 deaths per TWh and deaths per TWh of coal at an EU average of 20 deaths per TWh.

Move 4000 deaths over two places and you get something close to the silly numbers which you'd like to propose.

[Rowan Duffy]

So, nothing to worry about, then...

Worry away. This is definitely a disaster. It's just important that we evaluate it rationally rather than let our emotions dominate.

We can't look at the BWR/1 and generalise to all nuclear power everywhere using every method in all geological conditions anymore than we should say hydro power is the devil.

As regards the fact that radiological deaths are spread out over time, that seems to me to be fairly well irrelevant other than that it allows people greater time to contemplate their terror. Is it somehow better if 4000 people die suddenly than if they lead relatively normal lives until they die of thyroid cancer later?

[Sasha]

and all of this wouldnt have happened without this extremely faulty design general electric came up with.

For those who dont know, the used fuel rod are stored in pool of waters in several level ABOVE the fucking reactor.

It's a bit more complicated than just bad design:


Science



What's on Fire at the Fukushima Reactor?

by Jonathan Golob

on Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 6:20 PM
As Goldy posted below, the day has not gone well at the Fukushima reactor.
(For the record: Goldy has done a fine job keeping Slog up on the latest developments in this crisis—closely following the available news sources, and accurately relaying what's being told to the public. If you're looking for a true hysteric, I'd suggest the EU energy chief declaring this situation the 'apocalypse'. No horsemen in sight, from where I sit.)
Earlier today, a fire was reported to be burning in Reactor 4—the second fire at this site. At the time of the earthquake, this reactor was shut down for maintenance, with all of its fuel stored in a nearby pool of water.
Let's talk about these pools of water. The fuel rods at nuclear power plants—both fresh and 'used' fuel rods—produce large amounts of gamma radiation. Water is an excellent shield for gamma radiation. In order to protect the workers at the plant as they load and unload the fuel from the reactor, the rods are always (supposed) to be bathed in a deep pool of water. Think of a really deep swimming pool, open to the air above. The workers can operate cranes and other machinery safe from the radiation produced from the rods below—thanks to the shielding provided by the water. The water can also double as coolant for the heat generated by the decay of the unstable atoms within the fuel rods. It's an elegant solution to the problem: Water is clear, plentiful, not-too-viscous, with high-thermal density and non-toxic.
The pools were initially designed to have enough water in them to be able to dissipate the heat generated the by the rods with no need for active cooling. Enough heat could be radiated off the top of the pool to keep the water from every boiling away.
The problem starts with the lack of any sort of permanent nuclear waste repository. The initial plan for plants like these were to ship off the spent fuel rods to this (now mythical) waste site, freeing up space for new fuel and freshly spent rods. With nowhere to send the waste, the backup plan was to store more fuel on site, in these pools, by packing them tighter with the fuel rods. By this point—with the increased number of rods stored in the pool—the heat generated by the rods cannot be completely eliminated by passive cooling. If the cooling pumps—that replace the water warmed by the rods with cold water—fail, the water in the pool gradually heats up, eventually boiling away.
This is what has happened at Fukushima over the past day or so—almost certainly in the storage pool for Reactor 4 (stuffed with all of the waste fuel, plus fuel that normally is within the reactor), and possibly the waste pools for the other reactors. These pools were within the (now destroyed) 'secondary containment' building, now are exposed to the air.
As the water boils off, the gamma radiation from the fuel rods is no longer being shielded—making the plant deadly to work in for any length of time. Further, the steam from the boiling water is (partially) broken into oxygen and (explosive) hydrogen, leading to further chemical explosions that have damaged the plant. Finally, these storage pools—once the roof of the buildings were blown off—are exposed to the environment. Any steam (to hydrogen) explosion will result in radioactive waste being propelled into the air—and spread. The waste fuel stored in these pools contains the most worrisome environmental contaminants—radioactive Iodine, Cesium and Strontium that can replace non-radioactive Iodine, Potassium and Calcium respectively.
Arguably, this is a worse situation than a reactor meltdown. At least in a reactor meltdown (in which the fuel rods within the reactor melt and lose their shape) the radioactive slag heap is within the heavily reenforced reactor vessel. The unshielded radiation limits approach to the pools—to repair cooling systems or to refill them with water. The plan now (apparently) is to use shielded military helicopters to drop water onto the pools. It's a grim situation—without a clear, clean solution.


Source: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/03/15/whats-on-fire-at-the-fukushima-reactor

[danyboy27]

what kind of bullshit is that, i mean, really? they are storing tons of nuclear waste in that kind of condition beccause they have nowhere to safely store it?

[Sasha]

Yup, but in all discussions on nuclear energy any mention of the waste problem is brushed aside as an minor/secondary issue while its actually at the core of the whole problem. I believe instantly that's its possible to design an more or less failsafe reactor. But anyone having the idea that humanity can deal with a problem that spans more than a few years, let alone hundreds or even more years hasn't been paying attention in historyclass.

[danyboy27]

the Japanese is changing the allowed rad limit from 100 to 200 milisevert.

This is a fucking disgrace, they will send those poor men to their death.

[Jose Gracchus]

Well you keep saying that, but now there's a 40 mile radius no-fly zone around the damaged reactors, and the Japanese government is considering a request to the US govt to provide military aircraft to "bomb" the site with water to provide cooling.

CNN is reporting that only a "handful" of "heroic" technicians involved in attempting to control the reactors have stayed behind, all others being evacuated.

Now do those two things sound like Chernobyl to you, because they sure sound like Chernobyl to me.

Dude, Chernobyl's core was opened to the atmosphere immediately. The explosion evacuated parts of the core directly on the surrounding ground and uncontrollable fires spewed uranium into the air. Ground crew firefighters went onto the roof and most of them died within the day. The direct ionizing radiation exposure was so intense that prior to dying from acute radiation poisoning, they said they could feel it like "pins and needles" on their face. Engineers swam through radioactive water to shut off valves in the dark.

Writing off the safety as a matter of "capitalism" seems silly to me when the only Level 7 nuclear accident, Chernobyl, was all-Soviet bureaucratic incompetence.

Chernobyl was absurdly bad. This one is not that bad yet, and probably won't be. However, there is bad news. I'll give a more technical update based on my nuclear engineering friends and various technical sources later.

[S.Artesian]

Dude, Chernobyl's core was opened to the atmosphere immediately. The explosion evacuated parts of the core directly on the surrounding ground and uncontrollable fires spewed uranium into the air. Ground crew firefighters went onto the roof and most of them died within the day. The direct ionizing radiation exposure was so intense that prior to dying from acute radiation poisoning, they said they could feel it like "pins and needles" on their face. Engineers swam through radioactive water to shut off valves in the dark.

Dude, let me repeat, I didn't say this was Chernobyl, I said it sounded like Chernobyl. I said it sounded like Chernobyl to counter those who were implying not that it wasn't Chernobyl, but that there was little potential for catastrophic failure in the situation.

I think there is clearly the potential for catastrophic failure. Now of course that depends in part on what you consider catastrophic failure. Does it have to be Chernobyl with hundreds of firefighters volunteering for near immediate death?

The catastrophic nature is not determined by the sacrifice of those who combat it.

Techniques have improved. Does it have to be an uncontrollable meltdown to be catastrophic? No.

But if enough radiation is released to require evacuation for 20 kms for a period of a year or years-- with radiation spread by winds to other populated areas, would that qualify as catastrophic? I think it would.


If the government decides to use the "Chernobyl option" and entomb the reactors in tons of sand and concrete to prevent further radiation exposure does that count as catastrophic failure? Absolutely, as that step means that the government and the engineers cannot control the prospect of further decay.




Writing off the safety as a matter of "capitalism" seems silly to me when the only Level 7 nuclear accident, Chernobyl, was all-Soviet bureaucratic incompetence.
Well, that's solid proof that capitalism doesn't evaluate risk on the basis of cost, because look... the fSU did the same thing. Interesting argument.

Therefore, we can use that logic to say, "dude, blaming capitalism for the oppression of minorities is silly because after all, look how the fSU treated the Chechnyans."

And "dude, blaming the pollution of rivers and lakes on runoff from capitalist farming practices is silly because look at what the fSU did to the Aral Sea, and check out those cotton raising techniques in Kazakhstan."

And "dude, blaming capitalism for exploiting workers globally is silly. Just look at how Poland, Hungary, East Germany treated workers."

And "dude, denouncing Thatcher for breaking the miners' strike, that's so silly. Look at what Jaruzelski did to the miners in Poland."

And "dude, blaming Texaco for its destruction of areas of Ecuador is just silly. Just look at what the Soviet oil industry did to parts of Siberia in the 1986-1992 period."

So the fact that the analogue of capitalism-- different origin, similar function-- did what capitalism does, means capitalism is not the reason capitalism does what it does?

That seems silly to me. I would direct you to look into how risk is calculated, assessed, monetarized in capitalist enterprises.

Here's an example. Years ago, certain unnamed railroads did some risk assessments. One railroad, a freight carrier in the US operated its trains and locomotives over another carrier, a passenger railroad in an arrangement called "trackage rights," for which the freight railroad paid the passenger railroad, essentially, rent.

The passenger railroad's trains were equipped for higher speed operation with a signal control system that would automatically apply the brakes if the locomotive driver [called an engineer in the US] failed to reduce the speed of the train to conform to that required by the signals.

The passenger railroad did not require the freight railroad to equip its locomotives similarly. The freight railroad did a risk assessment to figure the cost vs. benefit of equipping its locomotives anyway to reduce the possiblity of "catastrophic failure," i.e. collision... and determined that the risk of collision was small, since the analysis measured the likelihood of operator error occurring at just the right time and place as to produce an impact with another train, that there was no need to incur the expense of adding that speed control system.

Meanwhile the passenger railroad did its owns risk analysis of a protection system at interlockings [switching points were trains can be crossed from one track to another] called "split point derails." A split point derail means that when the route is lined for one train, the physical rails that might guide any other train into its path are physically "split"... essentially breaking the continuous railroad and thus derailing any unauthorized movement.

Given the fact that the "vast majority" of train movements on the passenger railroad were equipped with the automatic system that would stop the train not complying with signal indications, the passenger railroad decided to eliminate the "split point derail" system, as it does add considerable expense to railroad maintenance.

Now guess what happened shortly after those assessments were done and the split point system removed? Catastrophic failure? Where the operator of the freight locomotives ignored the signal indications? And ignored them at exactly that time and moment that a high speed passenger train with authorization for movement would be crossing over the tracks? Where a split-point derail would have prevented the freight locomotives from colliding with the passenger train? If the split point derail hadn't been removed?

You mean... the event that only had a .0002% chance of occurring?

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Guess how many people died?


Chernobyl was absurdly bad. This one is not that bad yet, and probably won't be. However, there is bad news. I'll give a more technical update based on my nuclear engineering friends and various technical sources later.I have no idea how bad this is going to get. And you know what? Neither does anybody else. For four days the "vast majority" of experts have predicted it wouldn't get this bad.

And it has. This not an issue of how bad it does get. But how bad it can get. That's why we're in this mess, because the planning for how bad it can get was based on faulty assumptions, poor planning, algorithms that are nothing but unconscious or conscious mathematical expressions of the need for profit.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Except, of course, Chernobyl was the fault of a State Capitalist regime.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RD:


No, the official ExternE figures put deaths per TWh for nuclear in Europe at around .04 deaths per TWh and deaths per TWh of coal at an EU average of 20 deaths per TWh.

Move 4000 deaths over two places and you get something close to the silly numbers which you'd like to propose.

You seem to think I wrote the latest report that puts the Chernobyl figure at over 900,000.:lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RD:


Worry away. This is definitely a disaster. It's just important that we evaluate it rationally rather than let our emotions dominate.

Once more, who is being 'enotional'?


We can't look at the BWR/1 and generalise to all nuclear power everywhere using every method in all geological conditions anymore than we should say hydro power is the devil.

As I have already noted, we have been fed 'soothing' words like this for over fifty years, but there have been far too many lies, far too many cover ups, and far too many 'accidents', for this not to stick in our throats.


As regards the fact that radiological deaths are spread out over time, that seems to me to be fairly well irrelevant other than that it allows people greater time to contemplate their terror. Is it somehow better if 4000 people die suddenly than if they lead relatively normal lives until they die of thyroid cancer later?

Who said it was?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC has just reported that the Pentagon has imposed a 50 mile exclusion zone for its forces around the plant. So, it looks like they do not believe the soothing words the Japaneses government are putting out.

In addition they report that the Head of the UN Nuclear watchdog has described the situation there as "very serious", and that the UK rescue team (sent out to help) has been denied access to the site -- perhaps because they might spill the beans about what is really going on?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Q&A session with nuclear experts at Blomberg:


16/03/11

Q: What sorts of radioactive materials are we talking about, and how harmful are they?

A: In the current situation, radiation can come from at least four sources: the uranium fuel that is placed inside the fuel rods, the spent uranium rods that are now exposed in reactor number 4, the dispersal or venting of gases built up inside the reactors from a chemical reaction that takes place between the rods and their alloy casing if the rods become too hot, and the seawater that is being used to cool the reactors.

Q: What is the potential for release from the spent fuel rods, which are currently uncovered, and no longer submerged in water?

A: The spent fuel rods are kept under water to stop them from burning through their casings, which are made of zirconium. In at least one of the spent fuel ponds, the casings have began to burn, exposing the fuel rods and releasing cesium into the air. Since there are no explosions, or ventilation, the cesium will likely form a layer around the area of the pond, and contaminate it.

Q: How do they stop that?

A: The only way to stop that process is re-submerge the fuel rods -- this can be done by helicopters, or by robotic means. If the cesium buildup continues, workers trying to get close to the reactors will be exposed to lethal doses of radiation.

The water will then have to mixed with boric acid to stop the burnt uranium from mixing with water and reaching what scientists call “recriticality.” At that point the fuel rods themselves becomes a sort of open-air reactor, releasing radiation into the sky.

Q: How much of that has been released, and what are the effects of that?

A: The uranium fuel rods inside each reactor are still expected to be largely intact. If the reactors are cooled down over time, the rods will be disposed off as radioactive waste. The spent rods, which were usually stored in a pool near reactor number, are radioactive -- or hot -- and will be leaking radiation until they are fully submerged with cool, distilled water and return to a normal temperature.

At least one of the pools of spent fuel rods is completely dry and out of control.

Trace amounts of Cesium-137 and Iodine-131 were found in the air around the plant starting March 12, around 1:30 p.m. local time. The two isotopes are produced when the fuel rods inside the reactors overheat and react with their casings. Both are radioactive and can cause health damage. Iodine has a half-life, or reduces in mass and thus radioactivity, every eight days -- within two months, it leaves no trace behind. It can be countered with doses of potassium iodide tablets, but only within 24 hours of exposure. It is known to cause thyroid cancer.

Cesium has a longer half-life of about 300 years. External exposure to large amounts of Cs-137 can cause burns, acute radiation sickness and even death. Exposure to Cs-137 can increase the risk for cancer because of exposure to high-energy gamma radiation. Internal exposure to Cs-137, through ingestion or inhalation, allows the radioactive material to be distributed in the soft tissues, especially muscle tissue, exposing these tissues to the beta particles and gamma radiation and increasing cancer risk.

Q: How much of this material is out there?

A: So far, very small amounts of cesium and iodine are reported to have been released, mostly in a process when engineers are venting pressurized gases out from near the reactors core, to chambers outside it, where leaks and explosions have spread it out.

How much Cesium or Iodine remains inside the nuclear reactors is the big unknown -- the fuel rods have been partially submerged several times, and the temperatures have risen each time. If engineers can get control of the reactors, and finish the cooling process, then this radioactive material should be entombed within the reactor itself.

If the cooling process fails for any reason, and the containment chambers are sufficiently damaged, this material could leak out. This is the worst case scenario.

Q: How far has the radiation leaked so far reached, and should we be worried?

A: Radiation levels near Namie, a town 20 kilometers northwest of the Tokyo Electric Power plant, reached as high as 330 microsieverts per hour.

Kitaibaraki city, northeast of Tokyo, had the highest reading so far of radiation at 11:40 PM local time, of 15,800 nanosieverts per hour. That’s about 1/15th of a millisievert. (See below)

Q: What level of radiation is dangerous to human health?

A: One hundred millisieverts a year is the lowest level at which any increase in cancer is clearly evident. Above this, the probability of cancer occurrence increases with higher doses.

A cumulative dose of 1,000 millisieverts would increase the incidence of fatal cancer by about 5 percent. A single dose of 1,000 millisieverts causes temporary radiation sickness and decreased white blood cell count, but not death. A single dose of 5,000 millisieverts would kill about half those receiving it within a month.

Air crew on flights over the North Pole between New York and Tokyo are exposed to about 9 millisieverts of radiation a year, and a chest x-ray radiates about 0.1 millisieverts. Humans are exposed to about 2 millisieverts a year from naturally occurring radiation in soil and cosmic rays.

Q: What are the health consequences of radiation?

A: Exposure to high levels of radiation can cause acute radiation syndrome, or radiation poisoning, resulting in substantial damage to human body tissues, premature aging and possibly death. Prolonged exposure to lower levels is also associated with increased risk of ill health.

Q: What are the symptoms of radiation poisoning?

A: The first symptoms of acute radiation syndrome are typically nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. These symptoms can start within minutes to days of exposure and can last for days. After that, a person with acute radiation syndrome may look and feel healthy for a short time, then become sick again with loss of appetite, fatigue, fever and possibly seizures and coma. This stage may last a few hours or several months. Radiation poisoning also typically causes skin damage.

Q: What is being done to protect human health?

A: Japan has distributed 230,000 units of stable iodine to evacuation centers from the area around the Fukushima Dai-Ichi and Fukushima Daini nuclear power plants. The iodine has not yet been administered to residents; the distribution is a precautionary measure in the event that this is determined to be necessary.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-16/radiation-contamination-risk-growing-as-japan-nuclear-crisis-deepens-q-a.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Apparently, they are getting so desperate they are going to use a water cannon to help cool the reactor -- according to the BBC.

It is obviously now too dangerous for workers to approach these reactors

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

From Democracy Now!


“No Happy Ending”: Nuclear Experts Say Japan’s Disaster is Intensifying

Japan’s nuclear crisis is intensifying. A second reactor unit at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station may have ruptured and appears to be releasing radioactive steam. The plant has been hit by several explosions after a devastating earthquake and tsunami last Friday damaged its cooling functions. It has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo more than 130 miles away. The company operating the reactors withdrew at least 750 workers on Tuesday, leaving a crew of 50 struggling to lower the temperatures. We go to Japan to speak with Philip White of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo and with Peter Ford of the Christian Science Monitor in Sendai. We also speak with Peter Bradford, a former commissioner at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “The best-case scenario at this point is not a good one, not a good one for the public, not a good one for the nuclear industry,” Bradford says. “There is not going to be a happy ending to this story.”

Guests

Philip White, international liaison officer at the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo, Japan.

Peter Bradford, former commissioner at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Three Mile Island nuclear power station disaster.

Peter Ford, Beijing bureau chief for the Christian Science Monitor, reporting from Sendai, Japan.

Click on this for the rest:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Japan’s nuclear crisis is intensifying. A second reactor unit at the damaged Fukushima plant may have ruptured and appears to be releasing radioactive steam. According to the New York Times, it is not clear how serious the breach may be, but the vessel that possibly ruptured is the last fully intact line of defense against large-scale releases of radioactive material.

The plant has been hit by several explosions after a devastating earthquake and tsunami last Friday damaged its cooling functions. It has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo more than 130 miles away.

The radiation levels around the plant are so high that Japanese authorities abandoned a plan on Wednesday to dump water from military helicopters in an attempt to cool the reactors. The plan was made after the company operating the reactors withdrew at least 750 workers, leaving a crew of 50 struggling to lower temperatures. And even those workers were briefly moved to a bunker because of a rise in radiation levels.

Meanwhile, Japanese Emperor Akihito made an extremely rare appearance on live TV to say he is deeply worried about the situation and is praying for the people.

The nuclear crisis has sparked international alarm. France is urging its citizens in Tokyo to move further south or to leave the country. Australia is also advising its citizens to consider leaving the capital, and Turkey has warned against travel to Japan.

We go now to Japan, where we are joined by Philip White of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo. We’re also joined in Washington, D.C., by Peter Bradford, a former commissioner at the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s go first to Philip White in Tokyo. Can you tell us what’s the latest, from what you can tell?

PHILIP WHITE: You seem to have covered it fairly well, but certainly, at least three plants have had a significant amount of melting fuel. And certainly one has breached—the containment has been breached. And the question is whether that has also happened in reactor three. And the fourth reactor, which was actually—had actually gone into a—what do you call it?—a periodic inspection at the time the earthquake struck, so it was supposed to be stable, that—because of loss of off-site power, loss of power supply, and inability to cool the spent fuel pool, that spent fuel pool has now gone up into flames and smoke has come out and breached the roof, and a large amount of radioactivity has spewed into the sky. So, that’s a general summary of—as far as the reactors are concerned.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And this issue of the breach in one of the reactors—and there were conflicting reports last night here in terms of whether all the workers had been pulled out. They had been pulled back to a bunker. The importance of keeping workers there at the site to keep those—all of the reactors there, the six reactors, under control?

PHILIP WHITE: Well, that’s right. I mean, if they’re not being cooled—and you need water to cool them, and there’s not power—normal power supply to provide that water, then somehow or other you’ve got to have some people in there ensuring that the water supply is provided in some way or another, and were supplying it from the sea. I guess they were pumping it up in some way. And that required human beings to be involved. And if those people are pulled out, then I guess it just goes into natural—whatever escalation or whatever there is. And it’s hard to imagine how it will stop, because there are spent fuel pools in all six of the reactors.

And certainly, the first three reactors, which were operating when the earthquake struck, have very hot fuel loads inside of them. So it’s a massive amount of radioactivity. If you just consider the quantity of radioactivity that’s in all those reactors, it far exceeds what was in Chernobyl, because that was just a single reactor. The question is, how far does it get spewed out into the environment? But even if it doesn’t get spewed out, it’s sort of still sitting there, dribbling away or whatever, and it’s leaving a totally contaminated site.

JUAN GONZALEZ: We’re joined also by Peter Bradford, who was a commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Welcome to Democracy Now!

PETER BRADFORD: Thank you.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Mr. Bradford, can you tell us, in terms of being able to, in real time, as folks who are dealing with this crisis, have an accurate handle of what is actually happening in those reactors—in your own experience during the time of Three Mile Island, can you talk about the difficulty officials have in knowing exactly what is going on?

PETER BRADFORD: It’s extremely difficult. And, in fact, it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on. The barriers to accurate information flow are very large, to start with, especially given the chaos resulting from the tsunami and the earthquake. On top of that, a lot of the monitoring equipment, the transmitting equipment, has probably been damaged. The people who are at the site, trying to deal with things that they’ve never seen and never been trained to deal with, have very little time to spend communicating and discussing with the outside world. And so, whenever one hears assertions made with a high degree of confidence, it’s important to remember that the unknowable just can’t be stated with certainty. The figures regarding radiation emissions are subject to all the inaccuracies of monitoring, plus the predilection of the government not to want to create panic. The situation in the reactor itself is infinitely complicated by the fact that this is not a situation that has been trained for and analyzed. So, there are no manuals that people not on the site can consult in order to figure out what’s going on and what will happen next.

JUAN GONZALEZ: We’re also joined by Peter Ford of the Christian Science Monitor, Beijing bureau chief, who’s been reporting on the ground from Sendai, the city closest to the epicenter of last Friday’s earthquake. Peter, what is your sense of—and especially in the northern part of the country, which is still in the midst of trying to deal with the devastating earthquake and tsunami, what is—what are people feeling as they’re hearing these reports of what is going on in the nuclear reactors?

PETER FORD: Well, it’s just one more thing to worry about. But it’s not, at the moment, the most immediate concern for the people who are in shelters or trying to find shelters or looking for food or gas or water, all of which are in very, very short supply up here. The situation complicated and made even more miserable by the fact that today it started snowing, and temperatures are close to zero. But, of course, in the back of everybody’s minds, and on the front of—and on their television screens are all the images of what’s happening in the reactor and all the uncertainties that Mr. Bradford talked about. And as you said, this is really unknowable. Nobody really knows what to think up here.

At least for the time being, the wind is blowing southeast, away from here, so there is no immediate danger of any radiation that might leak contaminating people up here. But, of course, winds can change, and the radiation levels, which, as the government says at the moment, are not an immediate hazard to human health outside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone, those radiation levels could rise if things go wrong. And it certainly seems, from what we’ve seen today—the failed effort, for example, to send a helicopter in to drop water onto one of the reactors to cool it, because the radiation levels directly above the reactor are too high—it certainly seems that, from what we’ve seen today, the situation is far from being under control.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And in terms of the government being able to continue the rescue of those directly affected, whose homes were destroyed, and, as you say, supplying these basic necessities—we’ve heard of 100,000 of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces being mobilized—how efficient has that effort been, from what you can tell?

PETER FORD: Well, it’s certainly not been efficient enough, almost by the government’s own admission. They asked today that private businesses start helping to distribute food, as well, to people. But most people are in shelters. There are, I think, still a hundred, perhaps more than that, people who are still cut off in the most remote villages in the areas that were affected by the tsunami, but there are 400,000—more than 400,000—people in shelters now, between those who were evacuated from villages that have been destroyed, towns that have been destroyed, and those who have been moved out of the exclusion zone around the Fukushima power plant. Now, that’s an awful lot of people to look after. Not all of them are being fed and watered and sheltered and kept as warm as they might like, but most of them are at least tolerably comfortable. But this is an enormous task. And the government is going to need help from private forces, as well, to try and meet it.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask Philip White—you’re familiar with the record of Tokyo Electric, the main operator of these plants, and there have been reports in recent days of an increasing rift or conflict between the government and the officials of Tokyo Electric. At one point, the Prime Minister was overheard saying, "What the hell is going on? Why haven’t you given us certain information?" Your sense of the history of Tokyo Electric in handling problems at its plants?

PHILIP WHITE: [inaudible] is basically wired to conceal things. It doesn’t want to give information. We, as an organization that deals with TEPCO directly in negotiations, particularly since the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa—the earthquake that hit that plant three years ago, and you have to extract information as you extract hen’s teeth. They had a massive scandal about 10 years—nearly 10 years ago, in which they concealed cracking within a certain piece of equipment, some equipment in their reactors, and that led to them having been forced to shut down all 17 of their reactors. Since then, they have been under tremendous pressure to improve their performance. And to some extent, they have. But it’s really a fight all the way to get them to change their natural nature, as it were.

In this case, as I—I mean, I’ve been doing lots of interviews and things, so I actually missed many of the press conferences that go on, but the ones that I’ve heard, I mean, what I would notice, firstly, they give very technical reports that no layperson could possibly understand. Then you get an interpreter from the television station telling you what that all meant. And that information, itself, has probably been accurate, but—I assume; we might find that otherwise later—but it has the problem that they haven’t given real-time data on things. And our scientists and engineers have been calling for real-time, much more detailed information, not only on things like the radiation levels, but also on the temperatures of the reactor and the pressure levels and all that sort of technical detail, to help them analyze the situation.

And as for the—both TEPCO and the government, I suppose, are involved in this—but presentation of the risks associated with this radiation, there’s been downplaying of the risks. Now, Mr. Bradford talked about avoiding panic, and that’s a real issue, and I don’t think you should present information in a way that’s going to cause panic, because that will make it much harder to handle the situation. But I think that they have not been frank about the risks with the radiation.

In particular, they have repeatedly said that below—this is a technical figure, but below a dose of 100 millisievert, there is no risk. Sometimes they qualify it by saying there’s no immediate risk, which is perhaps technically accurate. But they have completely refused to point out that these lower levels of radiation are scientifically recognized—there’s maybe some debate—but basically, the consensus is that there’s—your risk is proportional to your dose. And that goes right down, you know, right down to the lowest doses. So, this notion that you’re somehow or other safe below 100 millisieverts is—it’s not recognized in the scientific community. The difference is that there’s no—you’re not going to get acute radiation sickness; you’re looking more at long-term effects, such as cancer. But they have just refused to give that perspective, which—you know, that’s getting to the point of being outright deceptive, I think.

And today, for the first time, I heard a spokesman of the—and the TV station is involved in this, too. The NHK, the national broadcaster, I heard the person who had been putting forward that view and supporting the view of the government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the first time, I heard him actually say that there was this risk from lower doses. But you could see that that was in response to our—organizations like mine—saying, "This is inaccurate. You can’t go out and say this." Yeah, [inaudible].

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Peter Bradford, former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, you said that it’s clearly—there’s not enough accurate information to be able to give a sense of what—how this will develop. But can you talk about a worst-case scenario and a best-case scenario, given what we know now, as to how this might end up?

PETER BRADFORD: I have no idea what the worst-case scenario is. It would involve a breach of one or more of the containments in such a way that the radiation was released in a way that propelled it up and out into the atmosphere. But at that point, the direction of the wind still makes a big difference in terms of the consequences.

The best-case scenario at this point is not a good one, not a good one for the public, not a good one for the nuclear industry. There is not going to be a happy ending to this story.

But let me also say, on this question of TEPCO’s corporate character, you know, we had that problem with the licensee at Three Mile Island also, in terms of whether the information was accurate, whether there had been falsification of some relevant records beforehand. And it will be important, in the context of subsequent investigations. Right now, my sense is that if TEPCO’s people were replaced by a band of angels, they still could not give very accurate information with regard to what’s going on within the damaged reactors, because much of the area is inaccessible, a lot of the equipment is disabled, and there are no manuals that describe this situation. So, the problem of inaccurate information has moved past the point at which TEPCO’s corporate character is the driving factor.

As to off-site measurements, both as to emissions levels and as to health effects, it’s certainly true that the conservative assumption that most regulators, public health officials go by is that the risk is proportional to the dose. Much of the measurement is probably not being done by TEPCO at this point. Certainly at Three Mile Island, the off-site measurements done by helicopters in the air were being done by various government agencies, state and federal. And the disagreements over the amounts released, the dosages received, are going on to this day. So, when you hear a particular number stated with great confidence, you have to put very large uncertainty bands on it in the context of what’s happening in Japan now.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Peter Bradford, in terms of the—some of the statements from the nuclear industry that this could not happen here in the United States, obviously as the Obama administration and others in Congress are seeking to ramp up the development of nuclear plants here in the United States, your response?

PETER BRADFORD: Well, the statement, "This could not happen here," has a troubled history in the nuclear industry. The Soviet Union came to Three Mile Island and said that accident can’t happen in the Soviet Union. And of course they got Chernobyl. The Japanese, among others, went to Chernobyl and said, "Oh, we don’t have that kind of reactor in Japan," so now they have this. I mean, of course it’s true that particular nuclear accidents are somewhere between unlikely and simply will not repeat themselves from one decade to the next, but the underlying problem of regulators and plant builders, plant operators, deeming certain events to be impossible and therefore not something that has to be designed against and guarded against, it does seem to have a way of recurring at long intervals and rarely, thank heavens. But if you see the sentence "This cannot happen here" in that context, you ought not to believe it.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I want to thank all of our guests: Peter Bradford, formerly of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Peter Ford, a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor, who is in Sendai; and Philip White of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/16/no_happy_ending_nuclear_experts_say

[Foreigner]

"The difference [with lower 'acceptable' levels of radiation exposure] is that there’s no—you’re not going to get acute radiation sickness; you’re looking more at long-term effects, such as cancer. But they have just refused to give that perspective, which—you know, that’s getting to the point of being outright deceptive, I think."

This blindspot (along with the aforementioned neglect of the issue of the accumulating waste) seems to be a common problem among nuclear advocates and apologists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

18:35 GMT. The BBC have just reported that the US authorities in Washington (in fact, this is from the Chair of the US Regulatory Commission) have announced that there is now no water left in the spent fuel pool of Reactor Four, and that radiation levels have shot up to an "exteremely high" level.

They also report that the British Government have just advised UK nationals in Tokyo and the North of Japan to "consider leaving the area."

So, still nothing to worry about then...:)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

1900 GMT: The BBC reports that the wind is blowing South to Tokyo where radiation levels have risen. There are 35 million people who live in Tokyo! Tokyo is about 70 miles south of this 'safe' plant.

They also report that the trains leaving Tokyo and going South are packed.

They also report that Steven Chu, the US Energy Secretary (and I have just seen him saying this), says this disaster is "more serious" than that at Three Mile Island.

That involved just one reactor, whereas this implicates four.

They also tell us that reactor 3 is pumping out so much radiation that they can't get close to reactor four to cool it down.

[Rowan Duffy]

This blindspot (along with the aforementioned neglect of the issue of the accumulating waste) seems to be a common problem among nuclear advocates and apologists.

Accumulating waste is definitely something which LWR have a tendency to do since they have burnups of around 5%. That's not the case for aqueous homogeneous or molten salt reactors which have arbitrarily high burnup, both of which also happen to be radically safer.

The failure to evaluate specific technologies on their merits is at least one problem that anti-nuclear people tend to have a serious problem with. The model-T is not as safe as a Volvo. Even with everyone driving Volvos, if you were really worried about risk of accidental death, you should be freaking out about the use of automobiles. Cars are machines of mass murder. I, being one who would rather rationally evaluate risk of death, would rather live in a country running on trains and nuclear power than cars.

One thing that I think is shared by both the pro and anti nuclear camps in large part is the idea that we can sort this out in capitalism. In fact, if you keep nuclear, they'll do it in the stupidest way possible to safe money. If you get rid of nuclear, you're liable to just end up with something as horrible (like wind/solar + natural gas as base load). You'll even find it really hard to accurately assess which is more horrible because monied interested will throw mud in the water. The only ecological solution is communism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RD:


Accumulating waste is definitely something which LWR have a tendency to do since they have burnups of around 5%. That's not the case for aqueous homogeneous or molten salt reactors which have arbitrarily high burnup, both of which also happen to be radically safer.

Until we find out they weren't safe after all, and the next round of excuses and cover-ups begins.


Even with everyone driving Volvos, if you were really worried about risk of accidental death, you should be freaking out about the use of automobiles. Cars are machines of mass murder. I, being one who would rather rationally evaluate risk of death, would rather live in a country running on trains and nuclear power than cars.

I have already responded to this line of defence of the indefensible.


One thing that I think is shared by both the pro and anti nuclear camps in large part is the idea that we can sort this out in capitalism. In fact, if you keep nuclear, they'll do it in the stupidest way possible to safe money. If you get rid of nuclear, you're liable to just end up with something as horrible (like wind/solar + natural gas as base load). You'll even find it really hard to accurately assess which is more horrible because monied interested will throw mud in the water. The only ecological solution is communism

I agree, but then this will be democratically decided upon by well-informed workers, not lying technocrats.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

Uh, just a message to all teh people making these imcomprehenisble argumetns defending nuclear power...It doesn't take a genius to work out that when people crtitise the safety of nuclear power, they do not mean to do so for a nuclear power plant in a theoretical vaccum, where everything aroudn it is run perfectly, but that it is liable to cause a great deal of harm if soemthing goes wrong.

Given that none of you would accept a defense of say, captialism, that rests on similar logic; "Capitalism is really great; its just that sometimes people are mean to each other" , that really leaves two options? Either you've totally missed the point, which I doubt as your all intelligent people, or you're being in/unintentionally dishonest, in favour of what can be best summarised as your science fetish..and possibly in the case of one particular user, and insane level of obsessive hatred for enviromentalists which can probably only be aqaquately explained if his/her mother was killed by a chimpanzee.

Yeaaaaah.

[Foreigner]

(Putting your reply out of order so as to get agreed things out of the way first.)


One thing that I think is shared by both the pro and anti nuclear camps in large part is the idea that we can sort this out in capitalism. In fact, if you keep nuclear, they'll do it in the stupidest way possible to safe money. If you get rid of nuclear, you're liable to just end up with something as horrible (like wind/solar + natural gas as base load). You'll even find it really hard to accurately assess which is more horrible because monied interested will throw mud in the water. The only ecological solution is communism.

Completely agreed. This question, and, really, all questions of both ecology and social justice, really cannot be realistically answered until then.



Accumulating waste is definitely something which LWR have a tendency to do since they have burnups of around 5%. That's not the case for aqueous homogeneous or molten salt reactors which have arbitrarily high burnup, both of which also happen to be radically safer.

The failure to evaluate specific technologies on their merits is at least one problem that anti-nuclear people tend to have a serious problem with. The model-T is not as safe as a Volvo. Even with everyone driving Volvos, if you were really worried about risk of accidental death, you should be freaking out about the use of automobiles. Cars are machines of mass murder. I, being one who would rather rationally evaluate risk of death, would rather live in a country running on trains and nuclear power than cars.

Actually, automobiles are indeed an ecological disaster, so we are agreed there as well.

And I don't think anyone has expressed or insinuated a risk of accidental death, but if they have, then I'll discount that concern as just as irrelevant as the comparison to earthquake house damage.

But, really, I think you're missing something here if you keep on going back to the issue of accidental death as something more than barely-tangientially-related here.

The hyper-concern with nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, and radioactives in general is not about fear of the impact accidents of accidents on people involved or nearby, as with, say, mining.

The concern is with the terrible permanence of the result, and the impact of it. Just as the nuclear waste generated is essentially an permanent, irresoluble issue, so the issue of contamination is just as permanent.

I'll say right up front that I'm no physicist, and that I don't know about these other technologies you're talking about. But what I will say is that things break, things go wrong, and shit happens. Nothing can ever be failsafe, and to say otherwise flies in the face of applied science and history.

If the safety of this thing relies on even virtually assured failsafeness, it is a trap.

Radioactive contamination is a permanent, terrible legacy. One mistake is too much. One release is too much. We've had many, and there will be more. And even the best laid plans of mice and engineers can be sunk by an unforeseen part of nature (whether an earthquake or a heretofore-unknown dynamic of some sort). The storage of the waste is a terrible problem that will always, always be a temporary solution, simply because there's just nothing you can do with it except contain it using the best methods available and hope nothing ever goes wrong.

(Yes, I know this also applies to solar power panel production. But even if we must accept some degree of it, better to do the least.)

Anyway, I'm approaching wall-of-text territory now, but I really, honestly, don't care what fantastic tech you have in mind. I'm no technophobe or primitivist -- I'm pretty orthodox Marxist in that sense, myself -- but nuclear is a time bomb, and maybe we'll even, for the sake of argument, be safe for 50, 100, 200 years. But something will go wrong.

As for the legacy, and a reminder of the actual, real consequences that we "anti-nuclear" people have in mind:

EDIT: Fixed link now that I've got da status.

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl

[Rowan Duffy]

Until we find out they weren't safe after all, and the next round of excuses and cover-ups begins.

This is paranoid. You didn't need cover-ups and excuses to make you feel warm and fuzzy about dams and cars. Why? It's because you refuse to use reason and evidence to evaluate the risk. Instead you use hyperbole and emotion.

MSRs have no catastrophic failure mode of the type that LWRs can experience. You're essentially doing the same thing as equivocating between Alqueva and Banqiao. Should the Portuguese start running around panicking? Why not? Aren't they about to suffer 10s of thousands of deaths? You need to take it down a notch.



I have already responded to this line of defence of the indefensible.


No you haven't. You've simply played the game of vastly overstating the risk, and not keeping that risk in relation to alternatives. When we look at an order sorted risk profile of our lives we find that we need to get rid of cars. Those cars should be replaced with electric trains, and that electricity will have to come from something that provides consistent base load power. That trade off will safe you 10s of thousands of lives a year. That makes your paranoia about nuclear absolutely unfathomable.

Without nuclear power what will you use? I'll tell you: Something a hell of a lot riskier.



I agree, but then this will be democratically decided upon by well-informed workers, not lying technocrats.

Are you claiming I'm a lying technocrat? Clearly there are people with vested interests. However I'm not one of them.

[Psy]

T
No you haven't. You've simply played the game of vastly overstating the risk, and not keeping that risk in relation to alternatives. When we look at an order sorted risk profile of our lives we find that we need to get rid of cars. Those cars should be replaced with electric trains, and that electricity will have to come from something that provides consistent base load power. That trade off will safe you 10s of thousands of lives a year. That makes your paranoia about nuclear absolutely unfathomable.

Without nuclear power what will you use? I'll tell you: Something a hell of a lot riskier.

Yet is safe nuclear power viable? The US Navy that has a unlimited budget yet doesn't have safe nuclear reactors on its warships where there have been cases of US warships leaking radioactive material into the environment to prevent meltdowns. So how do we know it is possible to build reactors that don't pollute?

[PhoenixAsh]

So unsafe... only taken a 8.9 magnitude Earthquake to shove this 40 year old plant to the edge of meltdown :rolleyes:


and when that happens the consequences are widespread and very, very long lasting.

Now...you are acting like earthquakes are something new to Japan...and something unforeseable. Fact is...the country has been experiencing earthquakes since its existence and the occurance of a big one, again, was something of "time" and not of "if"

[PhoenixAsh]

This is paranoid. You didn't need cover-ups and excuses to make you feel warm and fuzzy about dams and cars. Why? It's because you refuse to use reason and evidence to evaluate the risk. Instead you use hyperbole and emotion.

The fact is that nuclear failure causes long term damage.

There is no argument against that and factual evidence of several nuclear accidents show you can not make it failsafe.



MSRs have no catastrophic failure mode of the type that LWRs can experience. You're essentially doing the same thing as equivocating between Alqueva and Banqiao. Should the Portuguese start running around panicking? Why not? Aren't they about to suffer 10s of thousands of deaths? You need to take it down a notch.



No you haven't. You've simply played the game of vastly overstating the risk, and not keeping that risk in relation to alternatives. When we look at an order sorted risk profile of our lives we find that we need to get rid of cars. Those cars should be replaced with electric trains, and that electricity will have to come from something that provides consistent base load power. That trade off will safe you 10s of thousands of lives a year. That makes your paranoia about nuclear absolutely unfathomable.

Without nuclear power what will you use? I'll tell you: Something a hell of a lot riskier.



Are you claiming I'm a lying technocrat? Clearly there are people with vested interests. However I'm not one of them.


You are overlooking the fact that implementing the amount of nuclear power needed to fuel the energy needs will substantially increase the amount of nuclear power plants and nuclear storage facilities not to mention the artificially created amount of wase which is not safe for hundreds of years. That aside...it will also lead to more incidents.

As of right now...it only produces 5% of our power and 14% of our electricity....

Meaning it would take twenty times more power plants to bring it up to 100%...20 times more long, very long lasting waste.

And when one of them goes wrong...that means long lasting damage to the environment, ecosystem and genetic pool....not to mention make large tracs of land uninhabitable because you can not get rid of the polution or change the fact that there is polution.

[S.Artesian]

Latest from bbc.com and it doesn't sound too encouraging:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12766930

[Rowan Duffy]

Yet is safe nuclear power viable? The US Navy that has a unlimited budget yet doesn't have safe nuclear reactors on its warships where there have been cases of US warships leaking radioactive material into the environment to prevent meltdowns. So how do we know it is possible to build reactors that don't pollute?

Warships and submarines use technologies specifically designed for compactness and other operating tolerances. They've also taken the approach of not being particularly safe absolutely - but being (relatively) safe operationally because of strict procedure (see Hyman G. Rickover).

You shouldn't underestimate the inertia of having a design that you think works well enough. The navy is very conservative and it is not going to branch out from "good enough" if "good enough" means it almost always works except for a bit of radiation release.

Personally, I'd like to see a plant that could withstand the biggest mental and procedural lapse possible and still not suffer significant radioactive substance leaks. I don't think the current lot of reactors satisfy this.

The question of whether its possible to make a reactor that doesn't have meltdowns is a solved problem. If the core is already liquid, there is no risk of meltdown. This isn't a pipe-dream, many liquid core reactors have been run since at least 1944.

[Rowan Duffy]

But, really, I think you're missing something here if you keep on going back to the issue of accidental death as something more than barely-tangientially-related here.

It's not tangentially related. It's directly related. If we want to get rid of CO2 emissions and reduce our daily risks, we should have electrical trains powered by nuclear power. The point is to look at the high risk situations staring us in the face (likelihood of dying from a car wreck) and move down to worrying about asteroid collisions later.



The concern is with the terrible permanence of the result, and the impact of it. Just as the nuclear waste generated is essentially an permanent, irresoluble issue, so the issue of contamination is just as permanent.

This is a common misconception. The result of radioactive release is not permanent. Iodine-131 has a half life of just over 8 hours and Strontium-90 and Caesium-137 of ~30 years. It's totally different from something like a mercury spill - which actually IS forever.

Now close regions around a totally exploded plant like Chernobyl will have Plutonium contamination, and that's more similar to mercury - but it's only very close to an exploded plant - essentially as far as shrapnel can fly.



I'll say right up front that I'm no physicist, and that I don't know about these other technologies you're talking about. But what I will say is that things break, things go wrong, and shit happens. Nothing can ever be failsafe, and to say otherwise flies in the face of applied science and history.

True enough, but things can be safe enough for you to use them. You fly in planes. And people for some reason that totally escapes me, also drive in cars. Even trains get in wrecks. Everything carries risk in this reality of ours. Nuclear, even in its fairly unsafe incarnations, run by capitalists for profit, is just very very far down that line. I'm not going to say LWRs are great, because I don't think they are - I think we can do better. But you have to at least be fair about it.



If the safety of this thing relies on even virtually assured failsafeness, it is a trap.

Is a plane a trap? I mean seriously - this theory of risk wont get you anywhere - literally. Nothing is fail safe.

I think it's sensible to look at worse case scenarios, which is why I think a Molten Salt Reactor is a good idea. The worst case scenarios you get a reactor wall breach from corrosion and it spills molten salt inside of the primary containment unit and the game is over - Nothing is pressurised, the reactor turns off because confinement is no longer maintained.

Overheating merely causes the freeze-plug to melt and the core is evacuated by the force of gravity. The criticality requires the core geometry to be confined.

It would take a miracle to accidentally cause criticality - similar to the probability of your spilled milk jumping back into the shape of a glass.

The waste issue is also solved, since liquid cores can get arbitrary burnup, and you can even tune your waste profile to ensure that you're in a breed burn cycle generating only short lived products. This is really our best bet at dealing with our current waste problem - much more attractive than the current reprocessing options.

[S.Artesian]

I think it's sensible to look at worse case scenarios, which is why I think a Molten Salt Reactor is a good idea. The worst case scenarios you get a reactor wall breach from corrosion and it spills molten salt inside of the primary containment unit and the game is over - Nothing is pressurised, the reactor turns off because confinement is no longer maintained.

Overheating merely causes the freeze-plug to melt and the core is evacuated by the force of gravity. The criticality requires the core geometry to be confined.

Could you explain that a bit more? How is such a reactor fueled? How are the nuclear reactions controlled during operations? How is excess heat prevented? How is the reactor shut down and the fuel "deactivated"?

Thanks

[Psy]

Could you explain that a bit more? How is such a reactor fueled? How are the nuclear reactions controlled during operations? How is excess heat prevented? How is the reactor shut down and the fuel "deactivated"?

Thanks
I'm curious too, just getting rid of pressure would make reactors many times more safer.

[S.Artesian]

OK, I read up a little bit and the molten salt solid fueled reactor seems to exceptionally low risk in its design and functioning.

But since the technology was originally developed in 1954 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US, what exactly has prevented the commercial deployment of these type of reactors.

Is the need to reprocess certain by-products that might be converted in weapons-grade nuclear material?

[Foreigner]

It's not tangentially related. It's directly related. If we want to get rid of CO2 emissions and reduce our daily risks, we should have electrical trains powered by nuclear power. The point is to look at the high risk situations staring us in the face (likelihood of dying from a car wreck) and move down to worrying about asteroid collisions later.

(Asteroid collisions? ... What? I thought the post raising that as an issue was solidly scorned by at least two people, including myself? Perhaps you're being figurative, but if you're referring to nuclear power plant catastrophes as being as infinitesimally-unlikely as asteroid collisions...)

To make it clear, conventional accidents and conventionally risky situations are highly undesirable. Poisoning of the environment through more routine chronic means, use of fossil fuels, etc., is one issue. But it is, appropriately, eclipsed in magnitude by the effects of nuclear disasters -- permanent contamination, etc., as has been mentioned.

In this context I actually don't really give a shit about plane crashes or car accidents, because the risk may be catastrophic for a limited set of individuals, but the risk for "life on earth" doesn't bat an eye. The percentage chance may be much higher, the incidence much more common, but the general cost to all liveable. Here we're talking about the that "life on earth" thing -- including worsening of quality of it across the board. How much consolation is the irradiation of your child if someone tells you, "yes, but it was so unlikely!"


[That radioactive contamination is permanent] is a common misconception. The result of radioactive release is not permanent. Iodine-131 has a half life of just over 8 hours and Strontium-90 and Caesium-137 of ~30 years. It's totally different from something like a mercury spill - which actually IS forever.

Now close regions around a totally exploded plant like Chernobyl will have Plutonium contamination, and that's more similar to mercury - but it's only very close to an exploded plant - essentially as far as shrapnel can fly.


Not really. It's effectively true.

Right, Iodine-131, from what I've caught, decays to relative inertness within two months. Strontium and Cesium... 30 year half life. That extends to, what, two or three hundred of years before inertness and lack of effect on environment. During that time, the ecology of an area is completely wrecked. It has seeped into groundwater, and gone around. It has produced genetic abnormalities and destabilized ecology in surrounding areas. Animals, people, plants, for a long time, see cancer rates. Yes, perhaps it's not permanent in the purest sense, but hundreds of years is enough time that the results of this can not be compared to a plane crash or any other sort of normally-lethal accident.And this is before considering, as you do, plutonium (half-life of, like, 30,000 years or something) contamination in closer areas to the plants, some of which comes out in routine micro-accidents. 30,000-year half life translates to Permanent As Well As We Can Know It. Then we consider rain, silt, groundwater contamination, and so on.

It's all really not so easily discountable or containable, and, given that you seem to know quite a bit about it all, I'm a bit taken aback that this doesn't seem to be entering into your analysis.


True enough, but things can be safe enough for you to use them. You fly in planes. And people for some reason that totally escapes me, also drive in cars. Even trains get in wrecks. Everything carries risk in this reality of ours. Nuclear, even in its fairly unsafe incarnations, run by capitalists for profit, is just very very far down that line. I'm not going to say LWRs are great, because I don't think they are - I think we can do better. But you have to at least be fair about it.

Planes do not carry a risk of creating terrible permanent ecological damage and suffering over entire geographical regions. The risk is relatively mild. And it's limited to my own petty life, or that of those around me. You see this difference?


Is a plane a trap? I mean seriously - this theory of risk wont get you anywhere - literally. Nothing is fail safe.

No. The use of planes (in the sense that you describe -- individual risk to my person) carries an incredibly small risk that I am almost certain never to realize.

Nuclear power is not an individual issue; it's a social one. Accidents are guaranteed. They have, do now, and will affect us. Me. You. Everyone dependent upon the ecosystem.

Terrible, terrible comparison.

The point is that, if nothing is failsafe, then you engage in no activity (unless there is no viable alternative) for which the cost of failure is as great as, say, sudden and catastrophic widescale environmental contamination by radioactive substances. Frankly, nothing that I could do in my personal life -- even riding a scooter erratically on the freeway -- even approaches this, because the only thing it will cost is the lives and property of a relative few, and chemical leaks similar to those that occur by routine every day.

(And yes, that stuff has to stop. But it's a different question, and solving one form of chronic, long-term pollution by instituting one that occurs in infrequent but catastrophic bursts is not what I'd call progress.)


The rest of what you say is beyond my knowledge, and I think it'll be something for a proper postrevolutionary society to adequately consider. But nuclear power as we know it, in any of its forms, is an unthinkably Bad solution.

[PhoenixAsh]

It's not tangentially related. It's directly related. If we want to get rid of CO2 emissions and reduce our daily risks, we should have electrical trains powered by nuclear power. The point is to look at the high risk situations staring us in the face (likelihood of dying from a car wreck) and move down to worrying about asteroid collisions later.


Yeah...pretty sure we should worry about it now....before you know it we have a: "well...we really didn't expect that" type of event.




This is a common misconception. The result of radioactive release is not permanent. Iodine-131 has a half life of just over 8 hours and Strontium-90 and Caesium-137 of ~30 years. It's totally different from something like a mercury spill - which actually IS forever.Yes...30 years of the one that actually causes large amounts of cancer. And remember...thats the half life....and does not mean it will stop being harmful.



Now close regions around a totally exploded plant like Chernobyl will have Plutonium contamination, and that's more similar to mercury - but it's only very close to an exploded plant - essentially as far as shrapnel can fly.
180-350 years of further inhabitability to go....20 mile radius. some areas outside that circle are still uninhabitable for several years to come and others have just now been resettled.

which basically means shrapnel can fly quite a distance....now...considereing the fact that the actual explosion at Chernobyl did a lot of damage control in itself by dispersing the radioactive material over such a large area and blasted the mayor part of it into the stratossphere...means it could have been worse.




True enough, but things can be safe enough for you to use them. You fly in planes. And people for some reason that totally escapes me, also drive in cars. Even trains get in wrecks. Everything carries risk in this reality of ours. Nuclear, even in its fairly unsafe incarnations, run by capitalists for profit, is just very very far down that line. I'm not going to say LWRs are great, because I don't think they are - I think we can do better. But you have to at least be fair about it.The big difference being that you choose to drive a car or fly the plane and take the inherrent risk and have some form of control over the risk occuring.

With nuclear disasters or accidents...its really not your choice, you have no control and you really can not avoid it safe from not living anywheer near the plants...which...in Japan is quite a feat in itself...

But as we can see from rpedicted fall out clouds and weather patterns....living near the damnend thing or not really is not a guarantee that you will be unaffected.

Now...thats not even beginning to adress the problems of the cross-border reality of the situation. Even if you designed your political system in such a fashion that YOUR plants will operate under the most stringent and up to date safety procedures...really does not guarantee the country six doors down will do the same...yet an accident or disaster there can very realistically affect you.

[B0LSHEVIK]

I still think nuclear power can be a viable source of energy. But we cant be stupid either. Japan whom has a well documented history of these massive earthquakes that trigger tsunamis put their little plant not too far from the coast on level ground. Smart move. Ultimately however, its a demand side issue. Americans at least, are very wasteful people. We have to conserve more too, not just produce more.

Im betting the Japanese government wont be able to control the meltdown.

Also, here just south of LA off the I-5 there lays a little nuclear power plant too. Right off the coast, and built to withstand up to a 7.0. Im feeling confident.

[Foreigner]

Yeah, close to there myself. I remember hearing about periodic releases of contaminated water into the ocean at the plant in or just N of San Diego, back when I lived in Oceanside.

[S.Artesian]

In the meantime of course, accurate information is not even being passed to the IAEA, to US NRC members in Japan, and of course not to the Japanese people.

The government has deferred to TEPCO-- brilliant, obviously taking a page from the deregulation bible of Milton Friedman.

Survivors not in the radiation zone are still without power, adequate food, medication as the Japanese bourgeoisie, so famous for efficient organization and operation cannot efficiently organize the immediate care for the living victims.

That's what the future holds under capitalism-- creating 2,3, many New Orleans.... the invisible hand.... of Jack the Ripper.... malign neglect.

This event is 1. the "tipping point" event that puts the world markets back into economic contraction to near depression levels and 2. makes the basic incompetence of the bourgeoisie so painfully evident to even casual observers.

[PhoenixAsh]

yeah...those helicopter water drops really do not seem very effective at all. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12768791)

More like a desperate attempt to do anything really....

[Foreigner]

If anyone else in the Southern California area is interested, someone is running a live video stream of a Geiger counter in Santa Monica, and supposedly will be running it for some time.

Can't post links yet, so please excuse the hackneyed one here: www .enviroreporter.com/2011/03/enviroreporter-coms-radiation-station/

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RD:


This is paranoid. You didn't need cover-ups and excuses to make you feel warm and fuzzy about dams and cars. Why? It's because you refuse to use reason and evidence to evaluate the risk. Instead you use hyperbole and emotion.

How can it be 'paranoid' if it's exactly what has happened?

Here's just the latest (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2049892&postcount=49) to add to the others I have already referenced.

And I like the way you refer to my alleged 'hyperbole' when you use Meiosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiosis_(figure_of_speech)) all the time.

Finally, I have already asked you in what way am I being 'emotive'?


MSRs have no catastrophic failure mode of the type that LWRs can experience. You're essentially doing the same thing as equivocating between Alqueva and Banqiao. Should the Portuguese start running around panicking? Why not? Aren't they about to suffer 10s of thousands of deaths? You need to take it down a notch.

Eh? Where did I mention Portugal?:confused:


No you haven't. You've simply played the game of vastly overstating the risk, and not keeping that risk in relation to alternatives. When we look at an order sorted risk profile of our lives we find that we need to get rid of cars. Those cars should be replaced with electric trains, and that electricity will have to come from something that provides consistent base load power. That trade off will safe you 10s of thousands of lives a year. That makes your paranoia about nuclear absolutely unfathomable.

Ok, let's run it past you again: if there were as many nuclear power stations as there are cars and aeroplanes, humanity would have ceased to exist decades ago, as would most of life on earth.

Moreover, if your car killed 4000 people (official massaged figures), or over 900,000 people (latest figures), in one single accident, then I think we'd advise you to stay off the roads.

As I said to VG1917 when I made these points, you are not comparing like with like.


Without nuclear power what will you use? I'll tell you: Something a hell of a lot riskier.

There are plenty of safe alternatives, as well you know.


Are you claiming I'm a lying technocrat? Clearly there are people with vested interests. However I'm not one of them.

No I'm not, but you are reproducing their massaged figures and empty 'reassurances'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

11:00 GMT -- The BBC has just reported that, for the second time, they have abandoned trying to use helicopters to cool the reactors because the radiation is too high -- despite the fact that they had been fitted with lead shields.

They also report that many more countries have advised their nationals to leave Japan.

So, still nothing to worry about...:)

[Rowan Duffy]

But since the technology was originally developed in 1954 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US, what exactly has prevented the commercial deployment of these type of reactors.

Is the need to reprocess certain by-products that might be converted in weapons-grade nuclear material?

Actually, liquid core type reactors in the thermal spectrum were found to not be ideal for plutonium manufacture (Kirschenbaum 1944). To the AEC, the "plutonium economy" was key. You're going to end up with breeder ratios that are only a bit above 1, that means you're going to be breeding very slowly - with something like 17 year doubling time (if IRC). If you run them on Thorium they are even less suitable for bomb production.

"Atoms for peace" was anything but...

ORNL once put in a proposal to meltdown a LWR core. They said the impact of meltdown was not fully understood and accurate risk assessments could not be made in the absence of such a study. I'm not sure if it was a political gambit, or if they were being serious, but they have a point. If you have a failure mode you aren't willing to test, you probably shouldn't be using it at all.

[Dimmu]

TOKYO – Behind Japan's escalating nuclear crisis sits a scandal-ridden energy industry in a comfy relationship with government regulators often willing to overlook safety lapses.
Leaks of radioactive steam and workers contaminated with radiation are just part of the disturbing catalog of accidents that have occurred over the years and been belatedly reported to the public, if at all.
In one case, workers hand-mixed uranium in stainless steel buckets, instead of processing by machine, so the fuel could be reused, exposing hundreds of workers to radiation. Two later died.
"Everything is a secret," said Kei Sugaoka, a former nuclear power plant engineer in Japan who now lives in California. "There's not enough transparency in the industry."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110317/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake_nuclear_scandals

[Rowan Duffy]

Ok, let's run it past you again: if there were as many nuclear power stations as there are cars and aeroplanes, humanity would have ceased to exist decades ago, as would most life on earth.

You don't need as many nuclear power plants as we have cars. France runs almost completely on nuclear power. They have almost all of their accidental deaths from cars.

I'm not equating the risk of death from nuclear power with asteroids as some have objected. I was saying that we have various risks in our lives, and the move from one end of the spectrum to the other. In risk mitigation you start at high risk and move downwards to the (hopefully very improbable) asteroid event.

car accident ------------------------------------------------------ asteroid
1 in 20,000 ------------------------------------------------------ 1 in a big #


Otherwise we may as well run around screaming about the potential impact of terrorists like chickens with our heads cut off. Fear factor is not a useful way to determine how best we should run our lives.



Moreover, if your car killed 4000 people (official massaged figures), or over 900,000 people (latest figures), in one single accident, then I think we'd advise you to stay off the roads.

Why does it matter so much how punctuated the event is? Car crashes are essentially like a worst case Chernobyl with the most pessimistic estimates of death, happening every year.



There are plenty of safe alternatives, as well you know.

This is at least part of my problem. I don't know this well.

I used to believe there were, and the more I researched it, the less convinced I became. Wind and solar are going to require massive use of materials, massive energy in their production and massive maintenance difficulties and massive land area. Solar is going to require huge amounts of water literally billions of gallons - (CSP for mirror cleaning and SV for fabrication). And while CSP + molten salt will get you stable power, it'll only work if you're in someplace sunny.

The situation with wind is that we'll require huge storage facilities - those will almost certainly have to be pumped water. Huge bodies of pumped water have associated risks.

The only promising base-load power renewables are geothermal and tidal. Tidal is still in developmental infancy. We should definitely be looking in to deployment as it will be much more reliable than wind and the theoretical total energy content is very high. Geothermal seems almost ideal, but again - the technology is in its infancy.

It's also important to remember that just as with dams and nuclear power, not all geothermal is created equal. Using naturally occurring geological features like geysers is cheaper and appears to be less dangerous than injected water types. If we want widespread geothermal, it's going to have to be this later type. This type also has risks of releasing toxic substances, radioactive isotopes and causing explosions.

If we are going to take the best route, we need to cool it with the hyperbole. It's really important to evaluate the risk carefully.

[Rowan Duffy]

The big difference being that you choose to drive a car or fly the plane and take the inherrent risk and have some form of control over the risk occuring.

This is a myth of bourgeois individualism. In fact, I don't have a choice about mitigating the impacts of all of these "individually made" decisions. As a pedestrian my chances of death in Ireland are actually significantly higher due to traffic accidents. That means an opt-out by me endangers myself and my family. You can not control the other drivers at all.

[PhoenixAsh]

as to the helicopter farce....

Four runs were made... one hit the reactor. To fill the cooling pools it has been said 100 (!!) dead center hits were needed. So this was incredibly futile from the start and more of a desperate attempt than anything else.

Now, as Rosa said, radiation is so high helicopters can not fly over the area at all. On the ground radiation levels have increased to levels which are to be considered deadly on the medium and long run.

I heard, but have not seen confirmation, Japan has now likened the workers to kamikaze fighters who were fighting to the death...which IMO is not a good sign or reassuring at all. They also want to bring in retired workers...because they, with their short "to go" life will be less of a waste to use and may be more inclined to actually give up their lives. (Again...I have heard this...I have not seen confirmation.)

[Rowan Duffy]

Could you explain that a bit more? How is such a reactor fueled? How are the nuclear reactions controlled during operations? How is excess heat prevented? How is the reactor shut down and the fuel "deactivated"?

Thanks

The number of liquid core reactor designs run and tested in various place is actually extremely large. It's hard to tell from wiki but the ORNL report on Aqueous homogeneous reactors can give a feel for just how large the matrix of reactor types are.

Molten salt reactors avoid some of the problems of using water as a working fluid. Water, as the general public has now learned from Fukashima, has a tendency to oxidise metals and lose its hydrogen. That can lead to explosions - which are obviously bad in a plant setting. The fact that AHR designs are continuously evacuating hydrogen makes it arguably less of a problem - and indeed these designs were considered so safe that universities were given licenses to operate them.

All of these designs allow continuous reprocessing with relatively simple reprocessing steps - unlike the current labyrinthine solutions used by the French to process very heterogenous spent-fuel materials.

Normally in chemistry, you put things into solution and precipitate out what you want or don't want. If everything is already running in solution, the process is made much simpler. AHR are easier to perform this with than MSR but ORNL did find processes to use for MSR.

This would mean no off-site reprocessing of spent fuel (no cooling pools, no transport of waste) and extremely small amounts of waste - on the order of 1/1000 of what we currently have - and almost entirely of short lived products. It also makes it much more probable that we can completely automate it.

Molten salts are very happy being salts chemically. There is very little risk of anything but corrosion of the containment vessel while the substance is hot. If the molten salt reactor drives a helium cooled Brayton cycle generator, then you have no water, your coolant is chemically inert and you have nothing under pressure. This means that the worse case scenarios are probably something like the following:

1) Vessel containment breech from corrosion

This would lead to the spilling of core salts in the containment area. The salts would cool relatively quickly as neutron spectrum would not allow continuing reactions without the moderators and geometry and would not present a hazard to primary containment vessel breech.

It would create a real cleanup hassle, what with a room full of fission products, but it would not be of the emergency OMG we're going to explode type. This requires more research, but it wouldn't be the worst thing to do that research on the fly, since it wouldn't pose a general risk to the public (baring the possibility that operators might sell us the stuff for table salt).

2) Graphite fire

You need to thermalise neutrons for these reactors and that means the use of graphite. It's probably possible for a breech of the reactor containment to lead to a graphite fire. However, since nothing is under pressure, the containment unit can be pretty much sealed, meaning it should starve itself of oxygen pretty quickly. I've not seen this mentioned in any of the literature, but I think it's a possible danger.

Wigner effect is very unlikely to be a problem due to the high operating temperatures.

3) Turbine damage

You could have a physical disruption of the turbine which would toss bits of the turbine at high velocity. You'd want to make sure that your containment vessel could withstand the potential forces.

-

I'm sure there are other things I can't see. However, there is nothing like the situation with the LWRs where it's obvious that there is a failure mode that nobody wants to deal with.

There are also questions about the total cost versus reward as it's really hard to know without running a full scale production facility for a life-cycle. I imagine that the prime concern will be corrosion and deterioration of moderators due to neutron damage (maybe ITER can help us sort this one out)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RD:


You don't need as many nuclear power plants as we have cars. France runs almost completely on nuclear power. They have almost all of their accidental deaths from cars.

It doesn't matter whether or not we need them, the point is that if you are going to introduce cars and aeroplanes, the comparison has to be like for like.

So, my points still stand.


I'm not equating the risk of death from nuclear power with asteroids as some have objected. I was saying that we have various risks in our lives, and the move from one end of the spectrum to the other. In risk mitigation you start at high risk and move downwards to the (hopefully very improbable) asteroid event.

Indeed, but you specifically referred to cars and aeroplanes, and I said I had dealt with that objection, and you questioned whether I had.

I now have, a seond time.

And sure there are many risks in life, but you have yet to show that this is a risk we needed even to introduce into our lives in the first place.

My arguments, and those of others, suggest otherwise.


car accident ------------------------------------------------------ asteroid
1 in 20,000 ------------------------------------------------------ 1 in a big #

Eh? :confused:

What has this got to do with nuclear power?

Now, if we are all allowed to introduce irrelevances into the discussion, then so can I: Your argument falls to the ground since you have forgotten to take account of the Adhedral Triangle.


Otherwise we may as well run around screaming about the potential impact of terrorists like chickens with our heads cut off. Fear factor is not a useful way to determine how best we should run our lives.

In that case, why not let our children play with crocodiles, sharks and tigers?

Not a good idea? Surely you are not now going to do this:


run around screaming about the potential impact of wild beasts on our children like chickens with our heads cut off.

Surely a fearless advocate of risky public policy like your good self shouldn't shrink from such an innovation in child care? After all, I have it on good authority that the:


Fear factor is not a useful way to determine how best we should run our lives

You:


This is at least part of my problem. I don't know this well.

I used to believe there were, and the more I researched it, the less convinced I became. Wind and solar are going to require massive use of materials, massive energy in their production and massive maintenance difficulties and massive land area. Solar is going to require huge amounts of water literally billions of gallons - (CSP for mirror cleaning and SV for fabrication). And while CSP + molten salt will get you stable power, it'll only work if you're in someplace sunny.

The situation with wind is that we'll require huge storage facilities - those will almost certainly have to be pumped water. Huge bodies of pumped water have associated risks.

The only promising base-load power renewables are geothermal and tidal. Tidal is still in developmental infancy. We should definitely be looking in to deployment as it will be much more reliable than wind and the theoretical total energy content is very high. Geothermal seems almost ideal, but again - the technology is in its infancy.

It's also important to remember that just as with dams and nuclear power, not all geothermal is created equal. Using naturally occurring geological features like geysers is cheaper and appears to be less dangerous than injected water types. If we want widespread geothermal, it's going to have to be this later type. This type also has risks of releasing toxic substances, radioactive isotopes and causing explosions.

Bold added.

Looks like you are the one who is hooked on hyperbole, here.:)

Not to mention your fear of all those "risks".:lol:

Apparently, you do not actually believe this (when it comes to other sources of power):


Fear factor is not a useful way to determine how best we should run our lives

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hindsight:


I heard, but have not seen confirmation, Japan has now likened the workers to kamikaze fighters who were fighting to the death...which IMO is not a good sign or reassuring at all. They also want to bring in retired workers...because they, with their short "to go" life will be less of a waste to use and may be more inclined to actually give up their lives. (Again...I have heard this...I have not seen confirmation.)

The BBC reported it too.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Excellent sources of up-to-date information:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/japan_nuclear_crisis/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/16/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath-live

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/uk-japan-quake-fukushima-idUKTRE72F38R20110316

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

From Kyodo News:


Radiation level rises after water dropped at troubled reactor
TOKYO, March 17, Kyodo

The radiation level rose at the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant Thursday after the Self-Defense Forces' helicopters dropped water at its crisis-hit No. 3 reactor, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

The level around the plant's administration building rose to 4,000 microsievert per hour at 1:30 p.m. from 3,700 in the morning.

It was unchanged shortly after the choppers dumped seawater onto the reactor shortly before 10 a.m., the utility said earlier in the day.

The level around the plant's quake-proof building at which workers are standing by had risen to about 3,000 microsievert per hour, it said in the morning. The level compares to 1,000 microsievert, or 1 millisievert, to which people can be safely exposed in one year.

Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said he had given the go-ahead for the helicopters to drop water as the radiation level was 4.13 millisievert per hour at an altitude of 1,000 feet and 87.7 millisievert at 300 feet.

The choppers actually did so at a height of less than 300 feet, but their 10 crew members suffered no health problems with less than 60 millisievert of radiation measured from them after decontamination, against 100 millisievert to which they can be exposed in an emergency mission, SDF generals said.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79033.html

[Foreigner]

I'm not equating the risk of death from nuclear power with asteroids as some have objected. I was saying that we have various risks in our lives, and the move from one end of the spectrum to the other. In risk mitigation you start at high risk and move downwards to the (hopefully very improbable) asteroid event.

car accident ------------------------------------------------------ asteroid
1 in 20,000 ------------------------------------------------------ 1 in a big #

[ . . . ]

Why does it matter so much how punctuated the event is? Car crashes are essentially like a worst case Chernobyl with the most pessimistic estimates of death, happening every year.


... What? Am I being trolled here? You have got a very serious problem, or a terrible misunderstanding, if you believe this.

Alright. I'll respond normally, assuming I'm not being trolled.

No, car crashes are not essentially like a worst case Chernobyl every year. Car crashes do not permanently disperse radioactives into the atmosphere and surrounding area, worsening quality of life in broad areas and ruining narrower geographical areas, essentially permanently.

Shit, you might as well say nuclear energy is safer than obesity for humankind.

Yes, because of this factor, nuclear accidents are worse than war, obesity, vehicular accidents, and even disasters like major earthquakes and tsunamis. Even in the aggregate. Indeed, more mundane forms of suffering are still essentially temporal; nuclear disasters shift the entire framework toward that direction by destroying environmental carrying capacity and ability to reproduce itself.

Shit, I'm not here to sound like a liberal environmentalist whose concern is nothing but these issues, but this kind of argument is fuck-all crazy. Nuclear accidents =/= conventional accidents, and certainly it is a little ignorant to say nuclear accidents < conventional accidents.

And, to address the first thing you say with the 1 in 20 etc., there are two parts of risk assessment; the likelihood of the risk, and the severity of the risk. Do we happen to be ignoring the second in this neat little framework?

[RED DAVE]

In risk mitigation you start at high risk and move downwards to the (hopefully very improbable) asteroid event.Risk mitigation involves the use of bourgeois values and methods in assessing the worth of human lives. It has nothing to do with left-wing values and should not be used by socialists, communists, anarchists, leftists in general, as part of our belief systems.

Democratic, revolutionary methods of planning will have nothing to do with capitalist bean (or head) counting.

RED DAVE

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC is reporting that the helicopters are back, but as their video shows, the water they are dropping is from such a height over the plant that much of it fails to hit its target.

So, they are getting so desperate that they are willing to repeat this futile exercise at the expense of these workers' lives.

[Rowan Duffy]

It doesn't matter whether or not we need them, the point is that if you are going to introduce cars and aeroplanes, the comparison has to be like for like.

So, my points still stand.

If we get off cars and go to electric trains / trams then you've got to double electrical power requirements. Next step is finding out what can feasibly generate that power. That means trading one group of risks for another. The later risk, coupled with nuclear power as one of the technologies making the short fall is much less costly in human life. That's a comparison of like with like.

In addition I don't think it's irrelevant looking at risk generally without like trade-offs. We shouldn't be spending tons of time figuring out how to protect ourselves from meteor collisions when falling down the stairs is more likely to lead to death. Those aren't like things at all - and they present no trade-off. It's simply a question of relative risk. If the likelihood of death in a nuclear economy is vastly overshadowed by poison gases, drownings and falls (which they are according to French statistics), then it really is hyperbolic to claim apocalypse from nuclear power as if it's a major source of what we should worry about.



Looks like you are the one who is hooked on hyperbole, here.:)


Is it? Have you tried running the numbers? I have. I had my physics class calculate the land area and material requirements to run off of solar power.

According to Jacobson's study, there needs to be a 100 fold increase in wind mills and an even greater than 100 fold increase in solar, as well as nearly a doubling in hydroelectric. For balancing they imagine massive inter-grid connections and production of (explosive) hydrogen for energy storage.

Are you ready to deal with implications of a doubling in hydro power? What about Banqiao!



Not to mention your fear of all those "risks".:lol:


I fear risks in proportion to my likelihood of being impacted by them - not in abstract.

[Rowan Duffy]

Risk mitigation involves the use of bourgeois values and methods in assessing the worth of human lives. It has nothing to do with left-wing values and should not be used by socialists, communists, anarchists, leftists in general, as part of our belief systems.

Democratic, revolutionary methods of planning will have nothing to do with capitalist bean (or head) counting.

RED DAVE

If democratic revolutionary methods of planning don't involve assessing costs, risks and dangers than they're pretty sorry methods of planning. I for one want to bean-count the number of beans that get distributed. If I end up with no beans because some hippie is opposed to counting, I'm going to be pretty pissed off.

[Foreigner]

Risk mitigation involves the use of bourgeois values and methods in assessing the worth of human lives. It has nothing to do with left-wing values and should not be used by socialists, communists, anarchists, leftists in general, as part of our belief systems.

Democratic, revolutionary methods of planning will have nothing to do with capitalist bean (or head) counting.

RED DAVE

This is probably not fair or correct to say. Life itself under any circumstances for humanity involves issues of (1) potential bad results and (2) human planning to mitigate those.

Bourgeois rationality is a twisted form of rationality in which human costs receives less consideration. It's not that the fact that formulae of determining cost and benefit, of judging risk, are used, that is problematic; it's the fact that such formulae with corrupted values are used.

Every day you must weigh your decisions against likelihoods and severity of potential risks, and you must, usually unconsciously, measure the costs against the benefits.

Under a communist society, these would be done sanely and with human well-being (as well as ecological well-being, which directly impacts the former) at the core of concern.


@Rowan Duffy,

That said, I thought of another way to put the issue I'm discussing with you.

Conventional human suffering and loss, no matter how terrible, is something that can heal over generations. We may lose an entire generation to war. But, despite the psychological, cultural and social harm, the next generations can reproduce themselves and even have a chance at avoiding the losses of the past.

Nuclear accidents are the gift that keeps on giving. They dramatically damage or destroy the ability for humanity and the ecology to heal from the damage. That is why the severity of the risk is just a whole other ball game with this kind of thing.

[RED DAVE]

Nuclear accidents are the gift that keeps on giving. They dramatically damage or destroy the ability for humanity and the ecology to heal from the damage. That is why the severity of the risk is just a whole other ball game with this kind of thing.Correct. No procedure of risk mitigation, as it is practiced under capitalism, can deal with this.

Leftists should demand that no more nukes be built and that nuclear power be phased out as quickly as possible in favor of alternatives.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

If we get off cars and go to electric trains / trams then you've got to double electrical power requirements. Next step is finding out what can feasibly generate that power. That means trading one group of risks for another. The later risk, coupled with nuclear power as one of the technologies making the short fall is much less costly in human life. That's a comparison of like with like.

First, risk assessment under capitalism, like everything else under capitalism, is profit-weighted/cost-driven. Trading one risk for another might be less costly in terms of human life, but human life is not driving the process. Value is.


There are nuclear technologies that are less risky, less vulnerable to catastrophic failure than others. You have brought up Molten Salt Solid Fueled Reactors. For some reason, despite its higher relative safety and efficiency, that technology has not been commercialized in the 50 years since it has been demonstrated to be practical.

You want to review all of this under socialism? I agree. Under capitalism? Our review should be limited to "shut it down," and "hand it over."

The bourgeoisie have demonstrated their lack of competence and responsibility.

The risk of a nuclear reactor failing catastrophically may be much less than that of a petrochemical plant... but the risk isn't only about the possibility of failure, the risk is the impact of failure. Clearly the "zone" of catastrophe is greater for the nuclear reactors than it is for the oil refinery that exploded in Chiba after the earthquake.

We don't have to describe or exaggerate the situation in Japan to be any worse than it is. It is, right now, near catastrophic.



In addition I don't think it's irrelevant looking at risk generally without like trade-offs. We shouldn't be spending tons of time figuring out how to protect ourselves from meteor collisions when falling down the stairs is more likely to lead to death. Those aren't like things at all - and they present no trade-off. It's simply a question of relative risk. If the likelihood of death in a nuclear economy is vastly overshadowed by poison gases, drownings and falls (which they are according to French statistics), then it really is hyperbolic to claim apocalypse from nuclear power as if it's a major source of what we should worry about.

This appears to be yet another iteration of the bourgeoisie's "accounting" for risk. Risk assessment statistics again are based on algorithms based on assumptions derived from previous experience. In this very example, you are doing exactly what should not be done-- trivializing the possible risk in a single concentrated incident.. with a single "actor" so to speak... by comparing it to the risk spread across billions of incidents that occur daily.

The risk algorithms can be, and have been used, with catastrophic results in the design of oil tankers in the 1980s.. were computer assisted modeling of waves and wave forces was used to calculate expected shear forces and hull forces on the tankers and reduce "unnecessary," "redundant" structural reinforcement. You know what happened? Wave forces exceed the design levels and several tankers broke apart, or simply disappeared.

The point being... we think we're simply measuring nature when we engineer, design, calculate, assess. We're not. First and foremost, we're measuring our ability to measure; the progress we have made in measuring.

Certainly the process of engineering and design can proceed no other way, but we can't lose sight of the calculus that's at the core of the process.

Not being a particularly humble person, it pains me to say this, but we need more humility in our calculations of "robustness."



According to Jacobson's study, there needs to be a 100 fold increase in wind mills and an even greater than 100 fold increase in solar, as well as nearly a doubling in hydroelectric. For balancing they imagine massive inter-grid connections and production of (explosive) hydrogen for energy storage.
Agree. That does not mean that that process should not be undertaken also. The hesitancy now is driven again by value.


I fear risks in proportion to my likelihood of being impacted by them - not in abstract.Except, in reality, that means nothing. It leads you to do exactly what TEPCO did... build reactors on a flood plain, with emergency generators protected from events likely to happen but not protected from the event unlikely to happen that can in fact lead to catastrophic failure.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RD:


If we get off cars and go to electric trains / trams then you've got to double electrical power requirements. Next step is finding out what can feasibly generate that power. That means trading one group of risks for another. The later risk, coupled with nuclear power as one of the technologies making the short fall is much less costly in human life. That's a comparison of like with like.

Well, you are the one who mentioned cars and aeroplanes -- however, I can see why you now want to 'get away' from them. They destroy your case.


Next step is finding out what can feasibly generate that power. That means trading one group of risks for another. The later risk, coupled with nuclear power as one of the technologies making the short fall is much less costly in human life. That's a comparison of like with like.

In addition I don't think it's irrelevant looking at risk generally without like trade-offs. We shouldn't be spending tons of time figuring out how to protect ourselves from meteor collisions when falling down the stairs is more likely to lead to death. Those aren't like things at all - and they present no trade-off. It's simply a question of relative risk. If the likelihood of death in a nuclear economy is vastly overshadowed by poison gases, drownings and falls (which they are according to French statistics), then it really is hyperbolic to claim apocalypse from nuclear power as if it's a major source of what we should worry about.

1. But you use massaged official figures to assess risk.

2. And where now is that fearless individual who said the following?


Fear factor is not a useful way to determine how best we should run our lives

So, you should be the one who ignores risk, not me.


Is it? Have you tried running the numbers? I have. I had my physics class calculate the land area and material requirements to run off of solar power.

According to Jacobson's study, there needs to be a 100 fold increase in wind mills and an even greater than 100 fold increase in solar, as well as nearly a doubling in hydroelectric. For balancing they imagine massive inter-grid connections and production of (explosive) hydrogen for energy storage.

Are you ready to deal with implications of a doubling in hydro power? What about Banqiao!

Then my alleged hyperboles aren't hyperboles either.


I fear risks in proportion to my likelihood of being impacted by them - not in abstract.

In that case, you will have to retract this hyper-bold statement of yours:


Fear factor is not a useful way to determine how best we should run our lives

Unless, of course, you are the only one who is allowed to 'fear' anything.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

The BBC has just reported this about TEPCO:

In 2002 the Japanese government accused it of "concealing safety information." It later admitted to over 200 incidents of issuing false emissions data. The same culture of lying continued, for in 2007 it admitted to "systematic false reporting".

A risk adviser (from Newrisk LTD) has just said on screen that we are now seeing a very tired workforce, who are making mistakes.

The BBC then added, that TEPCO is not alone in false reporting; in 1995 the state owned Nuclear Power Development Corporation failed to report 11 leaks at one plant alone. "Lax rules and illegal practices" were also blamed for a nuclear accident at the Tokaimura plant in 1999 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident) when two workers died.

This follows a pattern we have ssen all over the world in this 'safe' industry since the 1950s: lies, cover-ups, massaged figures, illegal practices, false reporting...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Latest from Kyodo:


Operation to pour water at Fukushima nuke plant said effective

TOKYO, March 18, Kyodo

An unprecedented attempt to douse an apparently overheating spent fuel pool with tons of coolant water at a stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima bore some fruit Thursday, but the emission of smoke newly confirmed at another pool suggests the difficulties that lie in the way of resolving the crisis triggered by the March 11 quake and tsunami.

Up to 64 tons of water were aimed by helicopters and fire trucks of the Self-Defense Forces as well as a water cannon truck of the Metropolitan Police Department into the pool at the No. 3 unit of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The utility said vapor rising from the partially destroyed No. 3 reactor building suggests the operation went some way toward cooling down the pool that could otherwise emit highly contaminated radioactive materials.

However, no major changes were seen in radioactive levels at the plant immediately afterward.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan expressed his gratitude to SDF personnel and police officers who were engaged in the daunting mission despite high radiation levels, saying at a government taskforce meeting, ''I thank them for carrying out such dangerous operations.''

No grave health hazard has so far been reported among SDF and police officers who were involved.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters that the mission will continue Friday in the effort to avert any massive release of radioactive materials into the air from the pool.

The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said later in the day that white smoke was confirmed to be billowing from the nearby No. 2 unit at the power plant, suggesting that a spent nuclear fuel pool in the facility may also be boiling.

A rise in the pool's water temperature, usually at 40 C, causes water to dissipate and expose the spent nuclear fuel rods, which could heat up further and melt, and, in the worst-case scenario, discharge highly radioactive materials, experts say.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, an agency spokesman, also said efforts to bring electricity back to the plant by using outside power lines accelerated Thursday.

Electricity could be restored Friday or Saturday to recover the lost cooling functions at the No. 2 reactor building, which he said takes priority over other the troubled reactors as it cannot be doused since the roof of its building is still intact.

TEPCO also plans to install a temporary power source in an area of the plant where the radiation level is low.

Concerns are growing that the level of the water filling the spent fuel pool of the No. 4 unit is also becoming low, and water injection efforts will focus on the pool as well as that of the No. 3 unit, according to Nishiyama.

The pools of both the No. 3 and No. 4 units are no longer covered since they were blown off in apparent hydrogen blasts earlier this week.

The spent fuel pools at the power station lost their cooling function after the quake and tsunami struck last Friday. It is also no longer possible to monitor the water level and temperature of the pools of the Nos. 1 to 4 units.

Among the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors that were operating at the time of the quake halted automatically, but their cores are believed to have partially melted as they lost cooling functions after the quake.

The buildings housing the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors have been severely damaged by apparent hydrogen blasts, and the No. 2 reactor's containment vessel suffered damage to its pressure-suppression chamber at the bottom.

As for the remaining reactors that along with the No. 4 unit were under maintenance when the quake occurred, Edano said that his understanding is that it would be ''some time'' until the No. 5 and No. 6 units reach a dangerous situation.

The government has set the exclusion zone covering areas within a 20 kilometer radius of the plant, and urged people within 20 km to 30 km to stay indoors.

On Thursday, Tokyo also tried to allay growing concerns over the crisis as the United States advised its nationals living within an 80-kilometer radius to evacuate as a precaution. South Korea, Australia and New Zealand followed suit with the advisory.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79057.html

[Lord Testicles]

Nuclear accidents are the gift that keeps on giving. They dramatically damage or destroy the ability for humanity and the ecology to heal from the damage. That is why the severity of the risk is just a whole other ball game with this kind of thing.

If you look at this picture of Chernobyl:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/in_pictures_chernobyl0s_lost_city/html/11.stm

You can see trees and grass and the bbc reports: http://news.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif
"Nature has been reclaiming the abandoned town. Wild boars roam the streets at night. Birch trees have been shooting up at random, even inside some apartment blocks."

So I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that a nuclear accident destroys the ability of the ecology to heal it's self. Life is far more resilient then you give it credit for, it's gone through far worse than a nuclear accident and survived.

[B0LSHEVIK]

If you look at this picture of Chernobyl:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/in_pictures_chernobyl0s_lost_city/html/11.stm

You can see trees and grass and the bbc reports: http://news.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif
"Nature has been reclaiming the abandoned town. Wild boars roam the streets at night. Birch trees have been shooting up at random, even inside some apartment blocks."

So I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that a nuclear accident destroys the ability of the ecology to heal it's self. Life is far more resilient then you give it credit for, it's gone through far worse than a nuclear accident and survived.

Life is quite resilient, yes, but the thumb print of this disaster can still be found in ALL contaminated dna in which radioactive nucleotides have fused with plants, animals and people. And, no people anywhere generally want anything to do with produce from the area. The US and the United Kingdom for example, have restrictions that are still placed on the movement and slaughter of any produce from contaminated areas.

[Foreigner]

If you look at this picture of Chernobyl:
[link removed]

You can see trees and grass and the bbc reports:
"Nature has been reclaiming the abandoned town. Wild boars roam the streets at night. Birch trees have been shooting up at random, even inside some apartment blocks."

So I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that a nuclear accident destroys the ability of the ecology to heal it's self. Life is far more resilient then you give it credit for, it's gone through far worse than a nuclear accident and survived.

Indeed. Even the most inhumane conditions can look benign from afar. I'd like to see studies on the health and lifespan of those boars, as well as cancer and birth defect/mutation incidence.

"Life" is indeed resilient. Life in a form conducive to actual health/thriving and lack of suffering is quite a different matter. And then there's life in such a form conducive to those things for us, humanity. As the old cliche goes, were there to be a worldwide nuclear war, the cockroaches would pick up the pieces and continue. Not sure how true that is directly, but if life can exist in volcanic ocean vents, it can exist everywhere. But, unfortunately, we can't.

Disingenuous, you say? I'd say it's rather accurate for our purposes, and I'd also say it's rather accurate in the sense of creating long-lasting suffering in the resultant life for a very, very long time. Remember, we're not working on a geological time scale, here. We humans have an admittedly-small snapshot of evolution we're working with here, and we can't wait for it to all re-evolve and redevelop over the next few million years (or for us to do so).

And while you're at it, why don't you look at my Chernobyl link, since we're sharing Chernobyl pics?

aichteeteepee slashslashcolon inmotion.magnumphotos. com/essay/chernobyl

(Same messed-up link as before -- you have to fix it, since I can't post links yet. Apologies as ever.)

EDIT: Hell, also, while you're at it, take note of the caption to photo #12 in the link you gave.

[S.Artesian]

If you look at this picture of Chernobyl:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/in_pictures_chernobyl0s_lost_city/html/11.stm

You can see trees and grass and the bbc reports: http://news.bbc.co.uk/shared/img/o.gif
"Nature has been reclaiming the abandoned town. Wild boars roam the streets at night. Birch trees have been shooting up at random, even inside some apartment blocks."

So I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that a nuclear accident destroys the ability of the ecology to heal it's self. Life is far more resilient then you give it credit for, it's gone through far worse than a nuclear accident and survived.


Not nature, radioactive nature is reclaiming the town. Just what we need: wild boars to give us radioactive bacon. Plus.... they glow in the dark.

You notice how human beings aren't "reclaiming" the town? That might be a clue.

[S.Artesian]

Correct. No procedure of risk mitigation, as it is practiced under capitalism, can deal with this.

Leftists should demand that no more nukes be built and that nuclear power be phased out as quickly as possible in favor of alternatives.

RED DAVE


To distinguish themselves from those from those without a Marxist perspective on this, the demand should be: No more nukes under the control of the bourgeoisie.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

This is the link Foreigner above wanted to post, I think:

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl

-------------------------

By the way, Foreigner, never underestimate the capacity of the friends of nuclear power to ignore, downplay or explain away such powerful pictures.

I have posted stats on Chernobyl before, and they just brush them aside.

Check out, for example, VG1917's reaction to my referencing of the latest study of the death toll of this 'accident'.

Me: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2047291&postcount=64

VG1917: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2047330&postcount=65

VG1917: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2047488&postcount=72

[Zhu Bailan]

On this map (http://qed.princeton.edu/getfile.php?f=Radioactive_fall-out_from_the_Chernobyl_accident.jpg) is hardly a region without nuclear contamination after Chernobyl.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here's a review of the latest study, again.

Click to see:

New Book Concludes - Chernobyl death toll: 985,000, mostly from cancer

by Prof. Karl Grossman

September 4, 2010

This past April 26th marked the 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident. It came as the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear government officials in the United States and other nations were trying to "revive" nuclear power. And it followed the publication of a book, the most comprehensive study ever made, on the impacts of the Chernobyl disaster.

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment was published by the New York Academy of Sciences.


It is authored by three noted scientists:


Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian president;

Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, a biologist and ecologist in Belarus; and

Dr.Vassili Nesterenko, a physicist and at the time of the accident director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.


Its editor is Dr. Janette Sherman, a physician and toxicologist long involved in studying the health impacts of radioactivity.

The book is solidly based -- on health data, radiological surveys and scientific reports -- some 5,000 in all.

It concludes that based on records now available, some 985,000 people died, mainly of cancer, as a result of the Chernobyl accident. That is between when the accident occurred in 1986 and 2004. More deaths, it projects, will follow.

The book explodes the claim of the International Atomic Energy Agency-- still on its website that the expected death toll from the Chernobyl accident will be 4,000. The IAEA, the new book shows, is under-estimating, to the extreme, the casualties of Chernobyl.

Alice Slater, representative in New York of the Nuclear Age Peace

Foundation, comments: "The tragic news uncovered by the comprehensive

new research that almost one million people died in the toxic aftermath of Chernobyl should be a wake-up call to people all over the world to petition their governments to put a halt to the current industry-driven

"nuclear renaissance.' Aided by a corrupt IAEA, the world has been subjected to a massive cover-up and deception about the true damages caused by Chernobyl."

Further worsening the situation, she said, has been "the collusive agreement between the IAEA and the World Health Organization in which the WHO is precluded from publishing any research on radiation effects without consultation with the IAEA." WHO, the public health arm of the UN, has supported the IAEA's claim that 4,000 will die as a result of the accident.

"How fortunate," said Ms. Slater, "that independent scientists have now revealed the horrific costs of the Chernobyl accident."

The book also scores the position of the IAEA, set up through the UN in 1957 "to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy," and its 1959 agreement with WHO. There is a "need to change," it says, the IAEA-WHO pact. It has muzzled the WHO, providing for the "hiding" from the "public of any information "unwanted" by the nuclear industry.

"An important lesson from the Chernobyl experience is that experts and organizations tied to the nuclear industry have dismissed and ignored the consequences of the catastrophe," it states.

The book details the spread of radioactive poisons following the explosion of Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear plant on April 26, 1986. These major releases only ended when the fire at the reactor was brought under control in mid-May. Emitted were "hundreds of millions of curies, a quantity hundreds of times larger than the fallout from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." The most extensive fall-out occurred in regions closest to the plant--in the Ukraine (the reactor was 60 miles from Kiev in Ukraine), Belarus and Russia.

However, there was fallout all over the world as the winds kept changing direction "so the radioactive emissions" covered an enormous territory."

The radioactive poisons sent billowing from the plant into the air included Cesium-137, Plutonium, Iodine-131 and Strontium-90.

There is a breakdown by country, highlighted by maps, of where the radionuclides fell out. Beyond Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, the countries included Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The radiological measurements show that some 10% of Chernobyl poisons "fell on Asia"Huge areas" of eastern Turkey and central China "were highly contaminated," reports the book. Northwestern Japan was impacted, too.

Northern Africa was hit with "more than 5% of all Chernobyl releases."

The finding of Cesium-137 and both Plutonium-239 and Plutonium-240 "in accumulated Nile River sediment is evidence of significant Chernobyl contamination," it states.

"Areas of North America were contaminated from the first, most powerful explosion, which lifted a cloud of radionuclides to a height of more than 10 km. Some 1% of all Chernobyl nuclides," says the book, "fell on North America."

The consequences on public health are extensively analyzed. Medical records involving children--the young, their cells more rapidly multiplying, are especially affected by radioactivity--are considered. Before the accident, more than 80% of the children in the territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia extensively contaminated by Chernobyl "were healthy," the book reports, based on health data. But "today fewer than 20% are well."

There is an examination of genetic impacts with records reflecting an increase in "chromosomal aberrations" wherever there was fallout.

This will continue through the "children of irradiated parents for as many as seven generations." So "the genetic consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe will impact hundreds of millions of people."

As to deaths, the list of countries and consequences begins with Belarus. "For the period 1900-2000 cancer mortality in Belarus increased 40%," it states, again based on medical data and illuminated by tables in the book. "The increase was a maximum in the most highly contaminated Gomel Province and lower in the less contaminated Brest and Mogilev provinces." They include childhood cancers, thyroid cancer, leukemia and other cancers.

Considering health data of people in all nations impacted by the fallout, the "overall mortality for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated as 985,000 additional deaths."

Further, "the concentrations" of some of the poisons, because they have radioactive half-lives ranging from 20,000 to 200,000 years, "will remain practically the same virtually forever."

The book also examines the impact on plants and animals. "Immediately after the catastrophe, the frequency of plant mutations in the contaminated territories increased sharply."

There are photographs of some of these plant mutations. "Chernobyl irradiation has caused many structural anomalies and tumorlike changes in many plant species and has led to genetic disorders, sometimes continuing for many years," it says. "Twenty-three years after the catastrophe it is still too early to know if the whole spectrum of plant radiogenic changes has been discerned. We are far from knowing all of the consequences for flora resulting from the catastrophe."

As to animals, the book notes "serious increases in morbidity and mortality that bear striking resemblance to changes in the public health of humans--increasing tumor rates, immunodeficiencies, and decreasing life expectancy."

In one study it is found that "survival rates of barn swallows in the most contaminated sites near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are close to zero. In areas of moderate contamination, annual survival is less than 25%." Research is cited into ghastly abnormalities in barn swallows that do hatch: "two heads, two tails."

"In 1986," the book states, "the level of irradiation in plants and animals in Western Europe, North America, the Arctic, and eastern Asia were sometimes hundreds and even thousands of times above acceptable norms."

In its final chapter, the book declares that the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear plant "was the worst technogenic accident in history." And it examines "obstacles" to the reporting of the true consequences of Chernobyl with a special focus on "organizations associated with the nuclear industry" that "protect the industry first--not the public." Here, the IAEA and WHO are charged.

The book ends by quoting U.S. President John F. Kennedy's call in 1963 for an end of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons."The Chernobyl catastrophe," it declares, "demonstrates that the nuclear industry's willingness to risk the health of humanity and our environment with nuclear power plants will result, not only theoretically, but practically, in the same level of hazard as nuclear weapons."

Dr. Sherman, speaking of the IAEA's and WHO's dealing with the impacts of Chernobyl, commented: "It's like Dracula guarding the blood bank." The 1959 agreement under which WHO "is not to be independent of the IAEA" but must clear any information it obtains on issues involving radioactivity with the IAEA has put "the two in bed together."

Of her reflections on 14 months editing the book, she said: "Every single system that was studied -- whether human or wolves or livestock or fish or trees or mushrooms or bacteria -- all were changed, some of them irreversibly. The scope of the damage is stunning."

In his foreword, Dr. Dimitro Grodzinsky, chairman of the Ukranian National Commission on Radiation Protection, writes about how "apologists of nuclear power" sought to hide the real impacts of the Chernobyl disaster from the time when the accident occurred. The book "provides the largest and most complete collection of data concerning the negative consequences of Chernobyl on the health of people and the environment...The main conclusion of the book is that it is impossible and wrong "to forget Chernobyl.”

In the record of Big Lies, the claim of the IAEA-WHO that "only" 4,000 people will die as a result of the Chernobyl catastrophe is among the biggest. The Chernobyl accident is, as the new book documents, an ongoing global catastrophe.

And it is a clear call for no new nuclear power plants to be built and for the closing of the dangerous atomic machines now running -- and a switch to safe energy technologies, now available, led by solar and wind energy, that will not leave nearly a million people dead from one disaster.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20908

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

From the Guardian News feed page:


One of the most important and misunderstood aspects of radiation is that the effects are cumulative. That means that when thinking about health effects, the time of exposure is just as important as the dose. For example, the average person receives about 1-2 mSv per year without any bad effects, but if they received a dose of 1-2 mSv/minute they would become sick in less than a day.

The peak doses recorded at Fukushima Daiichi have been around 400 mSv per hour, enough to induce radiation sickness in about two hours' time. (Radiation levels at the site have since fallen, but continue to fluctuate).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/16/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath-live

And:


10.17am (7.17pm JST) 17/03/11: Another example of a scientists saying something which, to a layperson's ears, sounds alarming while insisting that there is, in fact, no cause for worry. According to a Swedish government nuclear official, radioactive particles from Japan are heading east towards North America, and then eventually Europe. This from Reuters:

Lars-Erik De Geer, research director at the Swedish Defence Research Institute, a government agency, was citing data from a network of international monitoring stations established to detect signs of any nuclear weapons tests.

Stressing that the levels were not dangerous for people, he predicted the particles would continue across the Atlantic and eventually also reach Europe.

"It is not something you see normally," he said by phone from Stockholm. But, "it is not high from any danger point of view."

He said he was convinced it would eventually be detected over the whole northern hemisphere. "It is only a question of very, very low activities so it is nothing for people to worry about," De Geer said.

"In the past when they had nuclear weapons tests in China ... then there were similar clouds all the time without anybody caring about it at all."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Then there is this:


17/03/11: 9.59am (6.59am JST) My colleague, Ian Sample, has passed me the International Atomic Energy Association's round-up of reported injuries at the Fukushima complex, released earlier this morning. It says that two people are missing while 23 suffered injuries. More than 20 people are believed to have been exposed to radiation:

Injuries
2 TEPCO employees have minor injuries
2 subcontractor employees are injured, one person suffered broken legs and one person whose condition is unknown was transported to the hospital
2 people are missing
2 people were 'suddenly taken ill'
2 TEPCO employees were transported to hospital during the time of donning respiratory protection in the control centre
4 people (2 TEPCO employees, 2 subcontractor employees) sustained minor injuries due to the explosion at unit 1 on 11 March and were transported to the hospital
11 people (4 TEPCO employees, 3 subcontractor employees and 4 Japanese civil defense workers) were injured due to the explosion at unit 3 on 14 March

Radiological Contamination
17 people (9 TEPCO employees, 8 subcontractor employees) suffered from deposition of radioactive material to their faces, but were not taken to the hospital because of low levels of exposure
One worker suffered from significant exposure during 'vent work,' and was transported to an offsite center
2 policemen who were exposed to radiation were decontaminated
Firemen who were exposed to radiation are under investigation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here's the latest report from the Guardian News feed:


17/03/11 5.04pm: Here's an evening summary:

• The UK and the US are to pull government search and rescue teams out of Japan tomorrow. Some reports suggested it was due to the levels of radiation reported in the country.

• Attempts to cool down a stricken reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan have suffered a further setback. Radiation levels rose instead of falling after attempts to douse it with high-pressure hoses. Six fire engines and a police water cannon were sent in on Thursday evening to spray the plant's No 3 reactor. But afterwards radiation emissions rose from 3,700 microsieverts per hour to 4,000 per hour, the Kyodo news agency quoted Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) as saying.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/17/japan-nuclear-crisis-tsunami-aftermath#block-28

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

UK Channel Four News:


Watch video of the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, filmed by military helicopters dumping water on it, as a nuclear expert tells Channel 4 News elements of the response are "shambolic".

http://www.channel4.com/news/japan-battle-to-cool-fukushima-as-worlds-alarm-grows

Read the blog on the above page, too.

And:


March 17, 2011

Fukushima: The Danger of Going Critical

Channel 4 considers the far greater danger to human health if it transpires that nuclear fuel in storage pools at the stricken Japanese plant has undergone fission

Video report here:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6427

[PhoenixAsh]

reported: 1000 incidents in Frances 58 nuclear powerplants in the last year alone (http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8503526-last-year-more-than-1000-nuclear-incidents-in-france)

[Ele'ill]

What are the chances of harmful levels of radiation reaching the US West.

[Vanguard1917]

To distinguish themselves from those from those without a Marxist perspective on this, the demand should be: No more nukes under the control of the bourgeoisie.

Why didn't Marxists in the past ever demand that all coal mines be shut down, when hundreds were dying every year as a result of them? Far, far more than have ever died as a result of nuclear plants.

And what about trains, which were literally killing thousands. Or oil production. Or bridges.

Marxists called for greater investment in safety measures, etc., but never for abandoning such things.

Your kind of attitude is absent from the Marxist tradition.

[Foreigner]

Anyway. Hey, I've got a question, too. Why the hell is everyone, with a few exceptions, referring to releases of "radiation"? It seems the term is being almost universally used in place of what at least Al-Jazeera got right -- "radioactive materials."

Makes me wonder if it's a strategic word change that we've all unconsciously accepted (similar to global warming -> climate change, and preventive war -> pre-emption). Because radiation, strictly speaking and as far as I understand, is the ephemeral passing of the radiation itself. Radiation being released -- well, hell, that's alright, because most will go into space. Of course, that's not at all true of radioactive contamination, radioactive materials, fallout, or any of the other terms for it.

But I think it's confusing to many people, and useful to the nuclear industry and its defenders, that release of radioactive materials has been retermed "release of radiation."

Is it just me? Has it always been this way? Is this just a sloppy 'nucularism', or was it another of the all-too-common relabelings used to avoid the (usually appropriate) connotations of the original term?

[Lord Testicles]

Not nature, radioactive nature is reclaiming the town. Just what we need: wild boars to give us radioactive bacon. Plus.... they glow in the dark.

You notice how human beings aren't "reclaiming" the town? That might be a clue.

I didn't say that it was fit for human life but it's not a barren nuclear desert either.

[Sasha]

ScienceThe Health Effects of Radioactive Isotopes from Fukushima

Posted


by Jonathan Golob

on Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 4:27 PM
The damaged Fukushima reactor complex is spreading radiation into the environment by two distinct ways. Radioactive waste and fuel rods are now uncovered by water, allowing gamma rays to escape. The explosions and loss of containment buildings have spread pieces of this radioactive fuel and waste into the environment.
To help understand the difference, think of the nuclear fuel and waste at Fukushima as being like a whole bunch of lights packed together, all blazing at full brightness. With the shielding (water) now gone, the light is blazing out of the plant into the environment. This is the first kind of leak, gamma rays spreading outwards. These rays are highly concentrated right by the plant, and are strong enough at this point to cause real injury to people nearby.
The cloud of material spreading from the plant is like a few of the lights being blown out of the plant—continuing to glow as they are carried away. Very quickly, the lights become isolated from one another. Instead of a raging blaze, the situation is more like a whole bunch of little twinkles arcing across the Pacific.
What will these isolated, spreading, radioactive atoms do to human health? We can use the experience and data gathered from Chernobyl to help figure that out.
In the Chernobyl accident, about half of the radioactive elements released were various radioactive noble gasses—chemically related to Radon, these atoms are chemically inert and rapidly disperse into the environment. Iodine-131 made up about 12% of the radioactive atoms released. Cesium-137 and Strontium made up about half a percent apiece.
Radioactive Iodine, cesium and strontium can replace the non-radioactive iodine, potassium and calcium in our bodies. Because living things scavenge and concentrate these radioactive elements, some of the physical dilution caused by the cloud spreading is reversed as the elements enter the food chain. Even hundreds or thousands of miles away from the plant, these radioactive elements could be found in the bodies of Europeans surrounding Chernobyl.
This sort of radiation exposure is quite different than being blasted by gamma or x-rays. Instead of causing immediate injury, this low-level but chronic radiation exposure increases the chance of bad things—primarily cancers. This change in risk can be thought of in the same way as the change in risk caused by smoking, or driving a car without a seatbelt.
The strongest risk of elements released from a nuclear power plant causing cancers is with Iodine-131. The radioactive Iodine-131 from Chernobyl settled on grass that was eaten by cows. The cows, in turn, secreted the radioactive Iodine into their milk. The milk was then consumed by people, and the radioactive Iodine was concentrated in their thyroids. Those—particularly children—exposed to Iodine-131 (by this pathway, or others), ended up getting Thyroid cancers at a dramatically higher rate than you'd expect. By 2000 (14 years after the disaster), there were about 4000 cases of Thyroid cancer that could be directly attributed to the radioactive Iodine released by Chernobyl.
Iodine-131 has a short half-life of only about six days. Within about five half lives (or a month) after the leaks are finally contained at Fukushima, the risk from Iodine should abate. Here in North America, the concentrations of Iodine-131 should be too low to cause any health effect—even in the worst imaginable situations. Save the Potassium Iodine pills for the people in Japan who really need them.
Cesium and Strontium were both spread by Chernobyl, and detectable in the bodies of Europeans. Despite this, no studies have shown an increased risk from these exposures of cancers or other negative health effects. Our bodies are quite good at dealing with infrequent, long-term radiation damage—able to repair DNA if provided enough time between hits. Strontium and Cesium both have long half-lives (about 30 years), meaning they decay very infrequently—perhaps giving out cells enough of a chance to repair the damage before injury occurs.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


Why didn't Marxists in the past ever demand that all coal mines be shut down, when hundreds were dying every year as a result of them? Far, far more than have ever died as a result of nuclear plants.

If there were as many nuclear power stations as there have been coal mines, there'd be none of us left to debate the issue -- and precious little life left on the planet above the level of cockroaches, either.


And what about trains, which were literally killing thousands. Or oil production. Or bridges.

Same point.


Marxists called for greater investment in safety measures, etc., but never for abandoning such things.

Your kind of attitude is absent from the Marxist tradition.

Unlike you, us Marxists do not in fact continually try to do public relations for Big Capital and the unrestricted free market.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Foreigner:


Is it just me? Has it always been this way? Is this just a sloppy 'nucularism', or was it another of the all-too-common relabelings used to avoid the (usually appropriate) connotations of the original term?

It's just sloppy use of language, I think -- at least here it is.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mari3L:


What are the chances of harmful levels of radiation reaching the US West.

Apparently it's too early to say -- it depends on how catastrophic this 'accident' becomes, and on the wind direction.

[Vanguard1917]

VG1917:

If there were as many nuclear power stations as there have been coal mines, there'd be none of us left to debate the issue -- and precious little life left on the planet above the level of cockroaches, either.

So when there were the same number of coal mines as there are nuclear plants today, there were less deaths resulting from the former?

Quick answer: no, there weren't.



Unlike you, us Marxists do not in fact continually try to do public relations for Big Capital and the unrestricted free market.


You're as comically desperate as usual, i see.

Why don't you actually address the point: that your stance has no precedent whatsoever in the Marxist tradition?

[S.Artesian]

I didn't say that it was fit for human life but it's not a barren nuclear desert either.

Who said it was a barren nuclear desert. Me, I'm kind of impressed that we can have bacon that cooks itself.

[S.Artesian]

Unlike you, us Marxists do not in fact continually try to do public relations for Big Capital and the unrestricted free market.

Totally uncalled for remark, one that should immediately tell us Marxists what kind of pseudo-Marxist the author of the remark is.

What kind of Marxist makes such slanderous statements because someone disagrees about the risks of generating electricity from nuclear reactors? That's the position that should have no place in the Marxist tradition.

I've heard the same slander placed against those who don't believe oil is running out, the world is overpopulated or that agriculture cannot possibly provide for more than 1.4 billion people on the planet.


And I say that explicitly disagreeing with some of Vanguard1917's arguments.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

SA:


Totally uncalled for remark, one that should immediately tell us Marxists what kind of pseudo-Marxist the author of the remark is.

What kind of Marxist makes such slanderous statements because someone disagrees about the risks of generating electricity from nuclear reactors? That's the position that should have no place in the Marxist tradition.

I've heard the same slander placed against those who don't believe oil is running out, the world is overpopulated or that agriculture cannot possibly provide for more than 1.4 billion people on the planet.

1. I thought you were ignoring me.:(

2. You haven't been here long enough to have seen VG1917 champion Big Capital and the free market here for over six years.

And I'm not the only one who accuses him of this; the owner of the site -- Edelweiss Pirate, as he is now known -- does, too. As do several others. I'm just more persistent.

So, it's not un-called for.

You can go back to ignoring me now -- if you can....:rolleyes:

[Vanguard1917]

SA:
2. You haven't been here long enough to have seen VG1917 champion Big Capital and the free market here for over six years.

If Rosa Litchenstein can provide a single bit of evidence for this claim, I will gladly sell all my shares in oil/'nukes'/'Big Pharma'/anything else RL has accused me of having a stake in, as soon as the markets re-open. :)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


So when there were the same number of coal mines as there are nuclear plants today, there were less deaths resulting from the former?

Ah, so your promise to ignore me is worth about as much at the promises of 'safe energy' from your pals in the nuclear industry, I see.:)


So when there were the same number of coal mines as there are nuclear plants today, there were less deaths resulting from the former

You obviously do not understand the use of "if" in the English language.


If there were as many nuclear power stations as there have been coal mines, there'd be none of us left to debate the issue -- and precious little life left on the planet above the level of cockroaches, either

Bold added.


Quick answer: no, there weren't.

Then you are not comparing like with like, are you?


You're as comically desperate as usual, i see.

Whether or not I am "comically desperate", you are still the public relations representative for Big Capital at RevLeft.


Why don't you actually address the point: that your stance has no precedent whatsoever in the Marxist tradition?

Not so, Marxists have been arguing for the closure of nuclear plants for nearly 60 years.

[S.Artesian]

Why didn't Marxists in the past ever demand that all coal mines be shut down, when hundreds were dying every year as a result of them? Far, far more than have ever died as a result of nuclear plants.

And what about trains, which were literally killing thousands. Or oil production. Or bridges.

Marxists called for greater investment in safety measures, etc., but never for abandoning such things.

Your kind of attitude is absent from the Marxist tradition.


Actually, Marxists have argued for coal mines to be shut down until such time as safe operations can be guaranteed. And as a matter of fact, if you look at the history of coal miner local actions, wildcats, etc. that is exactly what the workers do... they shut the mine or mines down until safe working conditions can be guaranteed.

Trains killing thousands? Where is that? Because where that's happening, those trains should in fact be shut down. Having spent a little bit of time in the industry, I can assure you if you had thousands of passengers, the general public being killed by trains, the railroad system in the US would be shutdown in its entirety until proper procedures had been installed.

There isn't a single thing wrong with pointing out how deceitful, irresponsible, careless, dishonest-- how incompetent and incapable the bourgeoisie are to manage a system that poses long term risks to thousands or hundreds of thousands who are exposed to that incompetence.

I'd say the same thing about BP, Halliburton, and Trans-Ocean-- and they killed "only" 11 workers and ruined the livelihood of about 200,000. I'd say-- no drilling under the control of the bourgeoisie.

In fact I did say that.

[Vanguard1917]

VG1917:

Ah, so your promise to ignore me is worth about as much at the promises of 'safe energy' from your pals in the nuclear industry I see.:)



You obviously do not understand the use of "if" in the English language.

Lol. Hilarious.

So you really have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


If Rosa Litchenstein can provide a single bit of evidence for this claim, I will gladly sell all my shares in oil/'nukes'/'Big Pharma'/anything else RL has accused me of having a stake in, as soon as the markets re-open.

We debated this in the old CC -- which is no longer available.

But, anyone who reads your posts here in Science, where you regularly argue the case for Big Pharma, and Big Nuclear, among other things, can see this for herself.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


Lol. Hilarious.

So you really have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

Well, you are the one who seems to be having problems with the word "if", not me.:cool:

[PhoenixAsh]

So when there were the same number of coal mines as there are nuclear plants today, there were less deaths resulting from the former?

Quick answer: no, there weren't.

When were there ever as much nuclear plants as coal mines? And have you forgotten that there are several thousands of deaths attributed to Chernobyl alone and the incrtease in statistics which can not be directly linked is reason enough to even speak of several 100.000 of deaths? 1....yeah...1 accident.

What you seem to overlook as well is that the deaths in coalmines were largely caused by faulty and non implemented safety measures which were refused by capitalists...which could easilly be implemented but were nit for financial gain. Even then....they would not spread beyond a specific population directly involved. None of the health risks with coal mines were as far reaching as the health risks with nuclear plants....nor would they ever be.

What you also seem to overlook is that in the mine struggles for a lot of time there was little or no job alternatives and no alternatives for income. These workers were mainly non schooled or little educated and social and welfare systems were non existent or so basic these people would not have had any live if they did not work....there were also a whole lot of them.

This is NOT the case with nuclear powerplants in current society....where many alternatives exist and workers are highly educated and trained.

[Vanguard1917]

Actually, Marxists have argued for coal mines to be shut down until such time as safe operations can be guaranteed. And as a matter of fact, if you look at the history of coal miner local actions, wildcats, etc. that is exactly what the workers do... they shut the mine or mines down until safe working conditions can be guaranteed.

But a demand for higher safety standards is surely different from the demand to oppose the production itself? Coal mining used to be (and in many places very much still is) a very dangerous occupation, yet it's telling that coal miners (who, incidentally, in the case of Britain and other places, often made up the most advanced sections of the working class) demanded improved working conditions, but never raised demands to 'stop coal'.



Trains killing thousands? Where is that?


List of major train accidents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disasters_by_death_toll#Trai n_accidents_and_disasters

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:


List of major train accidents

Once more, if there were as many nuclear power plants as there have been trains, the only life that would be debating this now would be those cockroaches.

So, you need to compare like with like.

[Foreigner]

Blah blah. We're back to discussing the measurable costs in terms of deaths and property damage in the immediate aftermath of accidents, neatly sidestepping what all the fuss is about with nuclear.

Train accidents, even in the aggregate, are not commensurable with nuclear accidents because of that whole broader consequences thing.

[Jose Gracchus]

But there's never going to be mass nuclear accidents on that scale. The fact is that pesticides have killed a lot more people and ruined a lot more land than all the nuclear technology in human history (Bhopal, the British marketing and selling a V-series nerve agent as a commercial insecticide, etc.).

[S.Artesian]

But a demand for higher safety standards is surely different from the demand to oppose the production itself? Coal mining used to be (and in many places very much still is) a very dangerous occupation, yet it's telling that coal miners (who, incidentally, in the case of Britain and other places, often made up the most advanced sections of the working class) demanded improved working conditions, but never raised demands to 'stop coal'.

I didn't say oppose production in itself. I said oppose the bourgeoisie's control, application, ownership of production. And I say that so we can actually review the technology and go forward with substituting safer technologies, of which there are several, including safer nuclear technology, like molten salt solid fueled reactors.

Yes, mining is a very dangerous occupation. I think 2 years ago, China had over 3000 fatalities among its coal miners. And I would say to that... yeah, close it down completely until such time as we can institute "best practices"-- and insure the safety through actual workers councils.

As far as this argument goes about mining, or petrochemicals, or railroads having killed more people than nuclear reactors.... we might as well just be done with it and say.. conventional munitions have killed more people than nuclear weapons.

And so what? Obviously the destructive potential, in both time and space, of nuclear weapons exceeds that of conventional weapons.

But look at the list of train accidents... for one thing it extends back a century. For another, we're talking about millions and millions of train trips. So if we want to compare that, then we need to compare the ratio of fatal accidents per train trip to the ratio of fatal accidents per reactor runs.

We might also want to compare fatalities per passenger-mile to some equivalent metric in the nuclear industry.

And... one other thing... look at how many of the fatal rail accidents occur in the less developed countries. That constitutes the vast majority of the accidents. Those accidents are directly produced by obsolete technologies, poor training and probably worse supervision.

Last year I was in Cairo doing signal and safety analysis for the Egyptian National Railway. When their railroad management described what was the root cause of their recent fatal accidents, the explanation was that, they, the railway allowed crews to violate the most fundamental principle of safe train separation and disable the safety devices on the train in order to "make up time" when the train was delayed. I am not kidding.

Well, a) the pen dropped out of my hand and b) I told them, literally, that they had to stop that practice immediately or shut the entire railroad down. Either way, I told them, I'm not taking that trip on the high-speed train to Alexandria that we've scheduled. And there was a c) also, in that I said reflexively, and loud enough to cause the translator to almost swallow his tongue "You guys are out of your fucking minds."

Quite literally, when confronted with unsafe practices, yes, you do have to shut the operation down if the violation compromises what we call the vitality of the operation.

I don't think there's any doubt that technology employed today in the nuclear industry is not adequate to eliminating catastrophic failure and that the need for profit trumps everything else.

[S.Artesian]

But there's never going to be mass nuclear accidents on that scale. The fact is that pesticides have killed a lot more people and ruined a lot more land than all the nuclear technology in human history (Bhopal, the British marketing and selling a V-series nerve agent as a commercial insecticide, etc.).


I think part of the point is, comrade, that there doesn't have to be mass nuclear accidents on that scale to exceed the damage done by Bhopal, Texas City, and even Deepwater Horizon combined. There only has to be one.

[Jose Gracchus]

What are you talking about? Chernobyl was not as bad as Bhopal. And a Chernobyl-type incident could not happen in a reactor with a containment vessel. That level of contamination and emission was due to the reactor cooking off and blowing through the roof all at once. And it was graphite moderated, so the entire fuel assembly was very flammable.

We don't build RBMKs or anything like them. Even BWRs like this one in Japan have been banned in the U.S. since 1972.

[Revy]

This is why nuclear power is dangerous. Nobody ever listens. They bash people who question the safety. Yeah, looks pretty safe now. Build wind, solar, and wave power as alternatives to oil, not something which produces toxic waste and radiation.

[S.Artesian]

What are you talking about? Chernobyl was not as bad as Bhopal. And a Chernobyl-type incident could not happen in a reactor with a containment vessel. That level of contamination and emission was due to the reactor cooking off and blowing through the roof all at once. And it was graphite moderated, so the entire fuel assembly was very flammable.

We don't build RBMKs or anything like them. Even BWRs like this one in Japan have been banned in the U.S. since 1972.


This is what I'm talking about [from the BBC]:


Japan has raised the alert level at a stricken nuclear plant from four to five on a seven-point international scale for atomic incidents.


The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi site is now two levels below Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl disaster.


The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog warned in Tokyo the battle to stabilise the plant was a race against time.





So while you keep saying Chernobyl was a "one-off" and can't happen here/there, the reality is that this situation moves pretty steadily to a Chernobyl status.


Now perhaps the governments of China, Germany, UK, France, and even the US are just fear mongering, panicking, worry-warting when they:


1. evacuate their citizens


2. Shut down current or suspend future nuclear operation.


3. Initiate reviews of nuclear energy operations


but then again maybe not-- maybe the fact that they don't know what's really going on, just like we don't know what's really going on, makes those governments cautious and concerned.


Maybe they think the possibility for similar incidents is not that remote, may not require a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami in order to occur.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

TIC:


But there's never going to be mass nuclear accidents on that scale. The fact is that pesticides have killed a lot more people and ruined a lot more land than all the nuclear technology in human history (Bhopal, the British marketing and selling a V-series nerve agent as a commercial insecticide, etc.).

As I have pointed out several times, you need to comapare like with like.

So, if the use of nuclear power was as widespread as the use of pesticides, then there'd be precious little life left on earth.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Latest status report from Kyodo News:


Status of quake-stricken reactors at Fukushima nuclear power plants

TOKYO, March 18, Kyodo

The following is the known status as of Friday evening of each of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the four reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant, both in Fukushima Prefecture, which were crippled by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the ensuing tsunami on March 11.

Fukushima Daiichi plant

-- Reactor No. 1 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core, vapor vented, building housing reactor damaged Saturday by hydrogen explosion, roof blown off, seawater being pumped in.

-- Reactor No. 2 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, seawater being pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapor vented, building housing reactor damaged Monday by blast at reactor No. 3, blast sound heard near suppression pool of containment vessel on Tuesday, damage to containment vessel feared.

-- Reactor No. 3 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, partial melting of core feared, vapor vented, seawater being pumped in, building housing reactor damaged Monday by hydrogen explosion, high-level radiation measured nearby on Tuesday, plume of smoke observed Wednesday and presumed to have come from spent-fuel storage pool, seawater dumped over pool by helicopter on Thursday, water sprayed at it from ground on Thursday and Friday.

-- Reactor No. 4 - Under maintenance when quake struck, temperature in spent-fuel storage pool reaching 84 C on Monday, fire Tuesday possibly caused by hydrogen explosion at pool holding spent fuel rods, fire observed Wednesday at building housing reactor, pool water level feared receding, renewed nuclear chain reaction feared, only skeleton of building survived the fires.

-- Reactors No. 5, 6 - Under maintenance when quake struck, water temperatures in spent-fuel storage pools increased to about 64 C on Thursday.

-- Spent-fuel storage pools at all reactors - Cooling functions lost at all reactors, water temperatures or levels unobservable at reactors No. 1 to 4.

Fukushima Daini plant

-- Reactors No. 1, 2, 4 - Operation suspended after quake, cooling failure, then cold shutdown.

-- Reactor No. 3 - Operation suspended after quake, cold shutdown.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79398.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And:


Japan raises accident severity level to 5 in nuke crisis

TOKYO, March 18, Kyodo

Japan raised the severity level of crisis-hit reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to 5 on a 7-level international scale, the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979, Japan's nuclear safety agency said Friday.

The provisional evaluation stands at level 5 of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale for the plant's No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors as their cores are believed to have partially melted and radiation leaks continue, the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

While efforts to cool down the overheating reactors and spent fuel continued a week after the plant was crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami, Tokyo also reiterated its resolve to do everything to control the situation with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano arriving in Tokyo.

''This is the largest crisis for Japan,' Prime Minister Naoto Kan told Amano at the outset of their meeting in Tokyo. ''Every organization (of the government)...is making all-out efforts to deal with the problem,'' he said, adding Japan will disclose more information to the international community.

The agency put the level at 3 for the Fukushima Daiichi plant's No. 4 reactor, where an overheating spent fuel pool is also posing risks, and three reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant that have been controlled.

An unprecedented cooling mission, which was launched Thursday by the Self-Defense Forces by spraying tons of water over the Daiichi plant's No. 3 reactor building, was bolstered on the second day with more pumps, after efforts were focused in the morning to restore power to some of the reactors' cooling systems, the government said.

SDF fire trucks shot 50 tons of water at a spent fuel pool of the No. 3 reactor in the afternoon, along with a high-pressure water cannon truck loaned by the U.S. military, after aiming up to 60 tons of water at it along with two helicopters the day before.

The Tokyo Fire Department was slated to join in the operation, likely at the plant's No. 1 reactor, with 30 trucks capable of discharging massive amounts of water to high places and some 140 disaster relief specialists of its ''hyper rescue'' team.

Radiation readings at the disaster-hit nuclear plant have consistently followed a downward path through Friday morning, according to data taken roughly 1 kilometer west of the plant's No. 2 reactor, but plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. stopped short of calling the move a trend.

The radiation level at 11 a.m. dropped to 265.0 microsievert per hour from 351.4 microsievert per hour at 12:30 a.m. Thursday. It measured 292.2 microsievert per hour at 8:40 p.m. Thursday, shortly after SDF trucks sprayed water at the No. 3 reactor pool as part of efforts to avert any massive emission of radioactive materials into the air from the facility.

It also fell below 0.1 microsievert per hour to levels below those seen before the crisis in the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo, except in Tochigi, Gunma and Saitama prefectures that still measured higher figures and Miyagi from which no data were reported, the education ministry said.

Edano said radiation amounts near the Fukushima Daiichi plant ''do not pose immediate adverse effects on the human body,'' after the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency released data collected by Tokyo Electric, or TEPCO.

Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama noted the difficulty in properly assessing the effects of the water-pouring mission from the radiation data, while they are all below 500 microsievert per hour, which requires the operator to report an emergency to the government if surpassed.

TEPCO accelerated efforts to restore lost cooling function by reconnecting electricity to the plant through outside power lines, with workers trying to recover power at the plant's No. 1 and No. 2 reactors later Friday and at the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors by Sunday, according to Nishiyama.

Some of the power distribution boards at the plant have been damaged by the quake-triggered tsunami and TEPCO will use makeshift replacement equipment, he added.

The spent fuel pools at the power station lost their cooling function in the wake of the March 11 killer quake and tsunami. It is also no longer possible to monitor the water level and the temperatures of the pools in the No. 1 to 4 reactor buildings.

Plumes of smoke or steam have been seen rising from three of them but not the No. 1 unit, the agency spokesman said, suggesting their pools situated outside the reactor containments are boiling, with those at the No. 3 and No. 4 units no longer covered by their roofs since they were blown off by hydrogen blasts earlier this week.

A rise in the water temperature, usually at 40 C, causes the water level to be reduced, and exposes the spent nuclear fuel rods, which could heat up further and melt and discharge high radioactive materials in the worst case scenario, experts say.

Among the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors that were operating at the time of the magnitude 9.0 quake halted automatically, but the cores are believed to have partially melted as they lost their cooling function after the quake.

The buildings housing the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors have been severely damaged, leaving uncovered the fuel pools, and the No. 2 reactor's containment vessel suffered damage to its pressure-suppression chamber at the bottom.

The government has set the exclusion zone area to a 20-kilometer radius of the plant, and urged people within 20 to 30 km to stay indoors.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/79380.html

It's worth recalling that there was only one reactor at Three Mile Island; here there are three at Level 5.

[Lord Testicles]

Who said it was a barren nuclear desert. Me, I'm kind of impressed that we can have bacon that cooks itself.

Foreigner stated that nuclear accidents destroy the ecology, this implies that sites of nuclear accidents are lifeless, this is evidently not the case.



If there were as many nuclear power stations as there have been coal mines, there'd be none of us left to debate the issue -- and precious little life left on the planet above the level of cockroaches, either.


Whoa, slow down there Rosa, can you prove this? Because many, many more people have died due to the coal industry than the nuclear industry, so forgive me if your above statement seems to be a bit exaggerated.


This is why nuclear power is dangerous. Nobody ever listens. They bash people who question the safety. Yeah, looks pretty safe now. Build wind, solar, and wave power as alternatives to oil, not something which produces toxic waste and radiation.

According to this:
http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/page4.htm

there have been 73 fatalities due to wind power, between 1970 and now, whilst on wikipedia it says "there were just 39 on-the-job deaths of nuclear power plant workers worldwide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents)" between 1970 and 1992, but considering how much more common nuclear power is compared to wind power (http://www.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/renewable_energy.cfm), I'd say that deaths related to wind power are far more likely to happen than deaths related to nuclear power. So we can safely say if we had as many wind turbines as cars/trains/coal mines we'd all be picking lumps of metal out of our faces in our new lifeless wind farm ravaged landscape! :rolleyes:

[Foreigner]

Foreigner stated that nuclear accidents destroy the ecology, this implies that sites of nuclear accidents are lifeless, this is evidently not the case.

Oh really?

Nice oversimplification.

Quote:

"They dramatically damage or destroy the ability for humanity and the ecology to heal from the damage."

[Emphasis in original post, on page 10 of this thread.]

And this is true. If you read about human effects and wildlife, instead of just gleefully pointing at a picture that shows some hapless animals poking through the rubble (again, will those boars have viable offspring? -- unlikely), it can be seen that the ability of the ecology there and in more affected areas to heal the area (and to a large extent itself) from the damage is either destroyed or severely damaged. What damage? Radioactive contamination and the inimical effects it has on animal and plant life. Life cannot remove radioactive contamination (yes, yes, it can concentrate it and move it around, over time, but not enough to decon the area).

Take my reasonable express and implied meanings, please, and don't expand them beyond that into strawman territory. No one implied it creates barren nuclear deserts, either.

(Hey, if you can read overbroad statements into a carefully-limited one, I can read glee into your post.)

[Foreigner]

there have been 73 fatalities due to wind power, between 1970 and now, whilst on wikipedia it says "there were just 39 on-the-job deaths of nuclear power plant workers worldwide" between 1970 and 1992, but considering how much more common nuclear power is compared to wind power[/URL], I'd say that deaths related to wind power are far more likely to happen than deaths related to nuclear power.

Again??


Blah blah. We're back to discussing the measurable costs in terms of deaths and property damage in the immediate aftermath of accidents, neatly sidestepping what all the fuss is about with nuclear.

[Regular conventional fatality-inducing accidents], even in the aggregate, are not commensurable with nuclear accidents because of that whole broader consequences thing.

Man, as has been said over and over, we're not talking about records of workplace injuries or immediate deaths from accidents! Can you see this? (I actually really hope we are being trolled here.)

The Bhopal reference was far more on point; but now we're back into the kind of argument that leads to the absurd conclusion that, as said, conventional munitions are worse than nuclear ones.

[Lord Testicles]

Oh really?

Nice oversimplification.

Quote:

"They dramatically damage or destroy the ability for humanity and the ecology to heal from the damage."

My bad, I'll read more carefully next time.


(again, will those boars have viable offspring? -- unlikely),

Considering Chernobyl happened 25 years ago and boars have an avarage lifespan of 15-20 years I'd say it's pretty likely that they have bred.


Radioactive contamination and the inimical effects it has on animal and plant life. Life cannot remove radioactive contamination (yes, yes, it can concentrate it and move it around, over time, but not enough to decon the area).

Whislt we are talking about radioactive contamination, check this out:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste


(Hey, if you can read overbroad statements into a carefully-limited one, I can read glee into your post.)

Fuck off hippy!




Man, as has been said over and over, we're not talking about records of workplace injuries or immediate deaths from accidents! Can you see this? (I actually really hope we are being trolled here.)

U mad bro? http://209.85.62.26/12332/168/emo/trollface.png

Seriously I can see that nuclear accidents are worse than conventional ones because the effects are much more widespread and long lasting than say a train or wind turbine accident and I don't think anyone is saying any different, but that's not an argument against the use of nuclear power.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Skinz:


Whoa, slow down there Rosa, can you prove this? Because many, many more people have died due to the coal industry than the nuclear industry, so forgive me if your above statement seems to be a bit exaggerated.

Well, first of all my claim was aimed at what some in the pro-nuclear camp think is a knock-down argument: that is, that motor vehicles and trains, etc., have killed more people than nuclear power has. So, my point was that any who argue this way are not comparing like with like. I made it dramatic to drive that home.

Second, it's not possible to prove counterfactual hypothetical, plainly because they are counterfactual, but that is no weakness. Many counterfactuals are manifestly true. For example, if President Kennedy had died in infancy, then he'd not have been shot in Dallas. Does that need any proof?

But, my counterfactual is not unreasonable, either; had there been as many nuclear power stations as there have been motor vehicles, we'd not be able to move for spent radioactive material -- and that takes no account of the many 'accidents' there would have been with that number.

What number? Well:


According to the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, in 2007 53,049,391 cars and 20,103,305 commercial vehicles were produced worldwide, for a total of 73,152,696 vehicles produced in 2007.

http://oica.net/category/production-statistics/

Assuming the same number for 2008, 2009, and 2010, that's over 250,000,000 motor vehicles in four years.

According to this site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry#By_year), there have been over 740,000,000 produced since 1997.

So, it's a reasonable estimate that well over 1.5 billion motor vehicles have been produced since, say, 1910.

Can you imagine over 1.5 billion nuclear power stations built on the available space! We'd hardly be able to move for them. Nor would we be able to survive all that radiation coming off the waste that we still do not know what to do with.

How, for example, would you cool the billions of tons of spent fuel that would have been produced? Is there enough spare water on the planet?

So, if the pro-nuclear mob want to refer us to dangerous motor vehicles to rationalise the use of this lethal energy source, then please compare like with like.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In addition to the above, if any of the pro-nuclear fraternity had a car that killed 4000 people (official, massaged figures, for Chernobyl), or 980,000 people (latest figures) in one accident, I think we'd try to stop him/her driving it.

Now, that's not a counterfactual, but a genuine hypothetical, and it needs no proof.

If that were true of all cars, we'd ban the lot.

Now it could be argued that this is not true of all nuclear power stations -- but we do not know this. In fact, we do know that they all have the potential to do this.

And one other thing we do know, no single car could possibly do this (unless, of course, it was driven into a nuclear plant with a bomb in it).

So, like for like, please.

[Lord Testicles]

Well, first of all my claim was aimed at what some in the pro-nuclear camp think is a knock-down argument: that is, that motor vehicles and trains, etc., have killed more people than nuclear power has. So, my point was that any who argue this way are not comparing like with like. I made it dramatic to drive that home.

Second, it's not possible to prove counterfactual hypothetical, plainly because they are counterfactual, but that is no weakness. Many counterfactuals are manifestly true. For example, if President Kennedy had died in infancy, then he'd not have been shot in Dallas. Does that need any proof?

But, my counterfactual is not unreasonable, either; had there been as many nuclear power stations as there have been motor vehicles, we'd not be able to move for spent radioactive material -- and that takes no account of the many 'accidents' there would have been with that number.


Fair enough.


Can you imagine over 1.5 billion nuclear power stations built on the available space? We'd hardly be able to move for them. Nor would we be able to survive all that radiation coming off the waste that we still do not know what to do with.

But when are we going to need or even build 1.5 billion nuclear power stations?


How, for example, would you cool the billions of tons of spent fuel that would have been produced? Is there enough spare water on the planet?

Do I need to answer questions to scenarios that will never happen?


So, if the pro-nuclear mob want to refer us to dangerous cars to rationalise the use of this lethal energy source, please compare like with like.

No, you can't compare like with like. Lets say you have one nuclear power plant, lets say you only ever need one and that one power plant kills 25 people a year, guaranteed. Lets also say you have a shit load of bicycles and every time you have a bicycle accident one person dies but you have 200,000 bicycle accidents every year. If we assume that this power plant is safe and will never turn into Chernobyl or what is happening now at Fukushima and someone says "bicycles cause more deaths than that power plant" you can't say "Imagine if we had 200,000 power plants, It'd be 25 deaths X 200,000!" because that would be ridiculous.


In addition to the above, if any of the pro-nuclear fraternity had a car that killed 4000 people (oficial, massaged figures, for Chernobyl), or 980,000 people (latest figures) in one accident, I think we'd try to stop him/her driving it.

Now, that's not a counterfactual, but a genuine hypothetical, and it needs no proof.


Of course we would, but we wouldn't go back to a horse and cart, we'd build a better, safer car.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Skinz:


But when are we going to need or even build 1.5 billion nuclear power stations?

I have in fact already answerd this when VG1917 asked it.

The point is not that we need them, the point is that if anyone plans to refer us to dangerous motor vehicles to rationalise the use of this lethal energy source, please compare like with like.


Do I need to answer questions to scenarios that will never happen?

No, I was merely trying to answer your earlier question (about proof), to show what happens if we compare like with like.

The fact that it will never happen means that the pro-nuclear fraternity can't use the dangerous motor vehicle rationalisation any longer, since it's not comparing like with like.


No, you can't compare like with like. Lets say you have one nuclear power plant, lets say you only ever need one and that one power plant kills 25 people a year, guaranteed. Lets also say you have a shit load of bicycles and every time you have a bicycle accident one person dies but you have 200,000 bicycle accidents every year. If we assume that this power plant is safe and will never turn into Chernobyl or what is happening now at Fukushima and someone says "bicycles cause more deaths than that power plant" you can't say "Imagine if we had 200,000 power plants, It'd be 25 deaths X 200,000!" because that would be ridiculous.

Indeed it would be if that were my argument, but it isn't. [I wouild not have used it, anyway, since the pro-nuclear fraternity did not refer us to bicylces, but to cars, and trains, etc.]

My second post above might clear things up for you.

[S.Artesian]

If you had one nuclear power plant that killed 25 people every year, that plant would be, should be, shutdown. Nobody would tolerate that rate of workplace fatalities.

Comparing bicycle accidents to nuclear fatalities is absurd.

And needless to say, if you have a power plant killing 25 people a year every year, either you have faulty design, faulty operation, or the very existence of that sort of technology produces workplace fatalities at a great far exceeding any rate in other industries. And how do we know this?

Because we should measure rates of fatalities not by incidents but as a ratio to employee-hours, or employee days.


So if you have 1 reactor operating 24 hours/day with 200 employees and you have 25 fatalities per year you have a rate 25 X 365/200x365 or a fatality rate of 12.5% and that far exceeds the rate of bicycle fatalities.

Any workplace that tolerated a 12.5% fatality rate would be shutdown.

Let's try and get some sense into this game as to how fatality rates should be measured-- and not the bourgeois sense that simply takes fatalities and divides it by annual employee hours, but rather by employee fatality days in a year [any day with a fatality counts as a complete "fatal" day] vs total employee days.

[Invader Zim]

VG1917:



Well the book I have just referenced has given the lie to the public relations release you have just posted. As it shows, over 900,000 people have lost their lives so far due to this 'accident'.

And we have continually been told, since the 1950s, that the latest generation of nuclear plants is 'safe' and this can't happen again -- until, as we can now see, it regularly does.

------------

The BBC has just reported a third explosion at this 'safe' plant.

Or, the book you cited is unreliable,methodologically flawed and prone to bias, as review articles suggest:

http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F10.128 9%2Fehp.118-a500

http://iopscience.iop.org/0952-4746/31/1/B01/pdf/0952-4746_31_1_B01.pdf

[Lord Testicles]

Nor would we be able to survive all that radiation coming off the waste that we still do not know what to do with.

Also, just to add. If the "waste" is still radioactive, then you can still use it as fuel. ;)