Fukushima: The myth of safety

[c1ue]

Re: Spent fuel pools

So it's specifically the neutrons ejected into the environment that turns many ordinary substances into radioactive isotopes. I'm sure many of them are very short-lived, but the ones with half-lives measured in years would make an area radioactive for an extended period.

Fusion theoretically is less radioactive, but since it hasn't been employed in a self sustaining, energy producing cycle even in a laboratory, it is impossible to verify this claim.

As for neutrons flying around and radioactivity of atoms, while the above report isn't factually incorrect it does gloss over the significant differences between the radioactivity of a helium or hydrogen atom with an extra neutron vs. plutonium/strontium/cesium atoms, which are what you see out of fission reactions.

Fission also releases neutrons - the difference is that U238 spits them out spontaneously whereas the D-T theoretical reaction only spits it out once fusion is accomplished.

That's why fission reactors are at heart very simple devices: aggregate enough U238 and you get extra energy in the form of heat. Disaggregate to reduce energy output.

Shovel a bunch into a pail and you too can have your very own nuclear reactor - which is what happened at the Mito accident.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima: The myth of safety

If the world, let's say the U.S, should use the "risk" argument against progress ( such as atomic power ), then please understand that there is a risk in the Midwest of another New Madrid earthquake--- an earthquake so strong that it changed the course of the Mississippi River. Know-one knows exactly how strong it was on the earthquake scale, but it appears to have been a 9.0 (nine, give or take). The tremendous earthquake happened early on in the 19th C. The quake was so strong that it cause buildings in Washington, D.C. to shake, and the chandelier at the White House swayed---- one-thousand miles east of New Madrid, Missouri.

If we were to have been prudent ( and be prudent to this day ), then we should stop all construction and urban development at Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis, Des Moines, Memphis, Joplin, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, Madison, Little Rock, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Omaha, Peoria, Oklahoma City, Dallas-Ft.Worth, Houston, Nashville, Memphis, Detroit, Indianapolis, Montgomery, Souix City, Souix Falls, Frankfort, Cincinnati, Toledo, Tallahassee, among many other cities.... I mean, let's carry this reasoning to exactly where it leads. In fact, to be really prudent, we should dismantle much of the construction in these major urban centres, and maybe throw-in New Orleans since it's built upon mud at sea-level. Those skyscrapers in Chicago and Minneapolis have to be dismantled, because in another New Madrid quake, those skyscrapers would collapse and thousands of people would perish.

In a 9.0 earthquake, everything in the Midwest is going to be destroyed, and we know almost for sure that a 9.0 is going to re-occur. The past is always the best predictor of the future.

Let's begin: That IDS Tower in Minneapolis has to be de-constructed. That Trump Tower and the Sears Tower in Chicago have to be removed, etc. The Westward-Journey Arch at St. Louis, just north of the New Madrid earthquake epicentre has to be removed, as soon as possible.

The bottom-line in this silly reasoning is that mankind is going to return to Dark Ages. All progress in America and in the world is going to come to a stop--- and be reversed..... The world will become green and eco-friendly, just as it was in the Dark Ages.

Let's begin in Minnesota: Please remove the IDS Tower in Minneapolis. Please remove the Monticello nuclear power plant just a few miles away, north and sited on the Mississippi River..... Think of the lives we are going to save, and saving those human lives is a certainty.

And using this green logic, let's insure the safety of human lives along the West Coast, especially in California. Let's dis-mantle San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles. And in Mexico, let's evacuate people out of Mexico City and dis-mantle that entire Federal District. In the Valley of Mexico, not only would millions of human lives be saved, but the air would become clean, too.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima: The myth of safety

[QUOTE=Starving Steve;223391]If the world, let's say the U.S, should use the "risk" argument against progress ( such as atomic power ), then please understand that there is a risk in the Midwest of another New Madrid earthquake--- an earthquake so strong that it changed the course of the Mississippi River. Know-one knows exactly how strong it was on the earthquake scale, but it appears to have been a 9.0 (nine, give or take). The tremendous earthquake happened early on in the 19th C. The quake was so strong that it cause buildings in Washington, D.C. to shake, and the chandelier at the White House swayed---- one-thousand miles east of New Madrid, Missouri.

If we were to have been prudent ( and be prudent to this day ), then we should stop all construction and urban development at Kansas City, Chicago, St. Louis, Des Moines, Memphis, Joplin, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, Madison, Little Rock, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Omaha, Peoria, Oklahoma City, Dallas-Ft.Worth, Nashville, Memphis, Detroit,among many other cities.... I mean, let's carry this reasoning to exactly where it leads. In fact, to be really prudent, we should dismantle much of the construction in these major urban centres, and maybe throw-in New Orleans since it's built upon mud at sea-level. Those skyscrapers in Chicago and Minneapolis have to be dismantled, because in another New Madrid quake, those skyscrapers would collapse and thousands of people would perish.

In a 9.0 earthquake, everything in the Midwest is going to be destroyed, and we know almost for sure that a 9.0 is going to re-occur. The past is always the best predictor of the future.

Let's begin: That IDS Tower in Minneapolis has to be de-constructed. That Sears Tower and the Trump Tower in Chicago have to be removed, etc. The Westward-Journey Arch at St. Louis, just north of the New Madrid earthquake epicentre has to be removed, as soon as possible.

The bottom-line in this silly reasoning is that mankind is going to return to Dark Ages. All progress in America and in the world is going to come to a stop--- and be reversed..... The world will become green and eco-friendly, just as it was in the Dark Ages.

Let's begin in Minnesota: Please remove the IDS Tower in Minneapolis. Please remove the Monticello nuclear power plant just a few miles away, north and sited on the Mississippi River..... Think of the lives we are going to save, and saving those human lives is a certainty.

And using this green logic, let's insure the safety of human lives along the West Coast, especially in California. Let's dis-mantle San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles. The First Interstate Bank Building in downtown Los Angeles has to be dis-mantled. And in Mexico, let's evacuate people out of Mexico City and dis-mantle that entire Federal District. In the Valley of Mexico, not only would millions of human lives be saved, but the air would become clean, too.

By the way, on the subject of how insane human progress is, Stanford University in Palo Alto, California is built near the San Andreas Fault. Stanford's linear accelerator crosses the fault. So, to be prudent, the university should be moved. And the University of California in Berkeley, California was built foot-steps from the Hayward Fault, a fault which is allied with the San Andreas Fault. So, using the green logic of to-day, UC Berkeley should be re-located. UC's Lawrence Radiation Laboratory sits exactly on top of the Hayward Fault.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Spent fuel pools

I am not an engineer, but personally I like simple things. Fission is simple, at least in principle. So it would seem to me that a fission reactor would be much easier to build, fuel, maintain and to operate than a fusion reactor.

In teaching, the best lessons to be taught to kids are lessons which teach simple and meaningful concepts. "Keep it simple, Simon," is an old saying in teaching.

In driving automobiles, at least in my experience in driving cars, the autos which lasted forever and needed little or no servicing were the autos which ran with simple and rather boring engines, alternators, radiators, starters, transmissions, clutches, drive-shafts, rear-ends, brakes, lights, dashboards, electrical systems, fuel-pumps, front-ends, window-cranks, turn-signals, radios, shocks, door-hinges, door-locks, wipers, batteries and tires. If parts were available everywhere, there was no way to get "taken to the cleaners" on anything/anywhere. No "special mechanics" were needed.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima: The myth of safety

The environment at Chernobyl is doing just fine, thank you. The plants and animals are back, healthier than ever.

Contrary to what used to be believed, living-things on this planet repair all damage done by radiation--- otherwise, life on this planet would have gone extinct tens of millions of years ago. There is no shortage of radiation in the environment on this planet, and life on Earth has adapted to survive and thrive with it.

Is there a limit to what life can tolerate? Of course. There are limits with everything, but with radiation, we haven't even come close to reaching the limit of tolerance of ecosystems.

"I put my money where my mouth is." For decades I have kept a rich sample of yellow uranium ore (carnitite) on my desktop. And what a surprise: no cancer.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Spent fuel pools

I am not an engineer, but personally I like simple things. Fission is simple, at least in principle. So it would seem to me that a fission reactor would be much easier to build, fuel, maintain and to operate than a fusion reactor.

In teaching, the best lessons to be taught to kids are lessons which teach simple and meaningful concepts. "Keep it simple, Simon," is an old saying in teaching.

In driving automobiles, at least in my experience in driving cars, the autos which lasted forever and needed little or no servicing were the autos which ran with simple and rather boring engines, alternators, radiators, starters, transmissions, clutches, drive-shafts, rear-ends, brakes, lights, dashboards, electrical systems, fuel-pumps, front-ends, window-cranks, turn-signals, radios, shocks, door-hinges, door-locks, wipers, batteries and tires. If parts were available everywhere, there was no way to get "taken to the cleaners" on anything/anywhere. No "special mechanics" were needed.

Your point applies well to nuclear reactors. Some talk lately has been about standardized designs for new nuclear power plants. In the 1970s and 80s, designing nuclear power plants became kind of an engineering racket, each one all new and different, starting from scratch. If we use 3 or 4 standardized, modular designs, each one built many times, we can reduces costs and have a chance to debug, improve and refine them. And get some economies for the spares and maintenance like you mention.

[c1ue]

Re: Fukushima: The myth of safety

More fun with astroturfing.

The previously noted 'report' which claims 14000 babies or whatever died due to Fukushima in the West Coast of the United States is now being published by "The International Journal on Health Services", a 'peer refereed journal'.

1) The name of this journal is a clear play on an actual credible publication: the International Journal on Health Research (ijhr.org)

2) The IJHS, according to this web site - as well as a complete lack of independent Internet existence - isn't even available under its own domain name:

http://www.altpress.org/mod/apc_dire...display&id=241

Publisher

Baywood Publishing Company, Inc.

Publisher Email

baywood-AT-baywood.com

Publisher URL

http://www.baywood.com


Editors

Vicente Navarro

Editorial Staff

Managing Editor: Jean McMahon

Editorial Address

Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University, School of Hygiene and Public Health, 624 N Broadway, Hampton House Room 448 Baltimore, MD 21205-1901 US


Circulation Region

international

Subs-Individual

$64

Subs-Institutional

$252

Subs-Foreign Individual

Canada:

Subs-Foreign Institutional

Canada:

Subscription Address

26 Austin Avenue, PO Box 337 Amityville, NY 11701 US

Subscription Phone

631-691-1270; 8

Subscripton Fax

631-691-1770


Listed Since

1971

ISSN

0020-7314

OCLC

1115313

Readership

Researchers interested in public health and social policy from a socialist perspective

The last line above is very interesting: Public Health and Social Policy from a Socialist Perspective?

So is this an actual credible journal, or is it an astroturf? Maybe it is just a 'pay for play'? Be that as it may, the Asia Times online article reporter Victor Kotsev who quotes this journal clearly exhibited a very lax investigatory attitude regarding credibility checks on sources.

This very much reminds me of the Journal of Nuclear Physics and Rossi - another fine example of a respectable sounding name but a very not respectable incestuous relationship between subject matter covered and controversial subject.

A sad situation all around.