Fukushima's real threat?

[oddlots]

The one thing I learned from Fukushima was that I didn't know anything really about nuclear power. The devil's in the details and I was un-aquainted with either.

Beyond that, what struck me most was the realisation of how dangerous spent fuel is. I don't mean in the simple waste sense. I'm thinking about the fact that it a) requires active cooling and b) is entirely un-contained in any sort of "melt-down" proof-ish containment structure. That is an absolutely stunning design flaw to my eye. It's as if a bio hazard lab spent millions designing a negative pressure containment system, space suits etc... and then decided to keep their bio-waste in the lunchroom fridge. In fact it's better than that: the "lunch-room fridge" in this case is a cooling pool suspended 30 metres in the air above the containment vessel. Not only have you put a massive concentration of radioactive material directly above a massive pressure cooker, you've even got gravity working against you. This is even more absurd given the fact that the outer walls are actually designed to "blow away" in the case of a hydrogen explosion... Errr, maybe not such a good idea to rely on the structure whose cover has "by design" blown away to support a hanging swimming pool full of tons of radioactive waste?

Does anyone feel re-assured by the shorings supporting this:

Unit 4 used fuel pool support (Tepco).jpg


http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/...fukushima.html

[cbr]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

I hope i am not proven wrong, but honestly all i see from this is incredibly voluminous and alarming media reports, but a reality of essentially inconsequential real effects. Despite the hysteria, even places like chernobyl, bikini atoll, ground zero nevada are just not that big of a deal. Most deaths around nuclear power are on subs. And they come from being on sinking subs. Not the nuc plant. Statistically it is still by far the safest power out there.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

Last time I checked, no one lives on Bikini Atol, Ground Zero Nevada, or in the area around Chernobyl. The effects of radiation in the environment are statistical in nature. How many cancers were caused in the world by atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons? The answers are hard to come by it seems. One-hundred and fifty years ago most people would not accept that these invisible things called "germs" caused sickness.

As for the waste stored on site. Engineers design things based on assumed boundaries and formula. I am sure they were assured by salesman that wanted a product that the waste would be moved to a "safe site" somewhere out of their responsibility. Of course it wasn't and isn't.

Someday we will learn that Bullshit kills.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

May I remind everyone that the human body repairs cell damage done by radiation. This was unknown in the past. Certainly, there is a limit to the tolerance of the human body to radiation, but the limit of tolerance to radiation is much higher than previously believed. In the past and up until a few years ago ( i.e, in the pre-Chernobyl years ) health physicists believed that the risk of mortality from radiation increased linearly with the dosage of radiation exposure. But now we know that there is almost no risk from radiation exposure until a very high threshold is met; i.e, the limit to where the human body can repair cell damage due to radiation exposure.

Without tolerance to radiation, life on this planet would not have been able to evolve. There is radiation everywhere: i.e, from solar radiation especially X-rays, cosmic radiation and again especially X-rays, terrestrial radiation from Uranium, Radium, Plutonium, Curium, Einsteinium, Berkelium, Lawrencium, Californium, etc.

Another discovery in recent years is that elements beyond 92 on the periodic table exist naturally in tiny amounts on Earth. Until recently, it was believed that all elements beyond 92 were man-made, dangerously radioactive, and all pollution in the environment.... But the point is that the human body and all life on Earth has evolved to tolerate the tiny amounts of radioactive elements in the environment beyond 92. And there is no small number of odd-ball radioactive elements (or radioactive isotopes of elements) below 93 on the periodic table such as, Scandium, Nobelium, Radium, Gallium, Ruthenium, Yttrium, etc. All of these odd-ball elements in nature are compatible with life on Earth.

Hopefully, people around the world will begin to speak-out against the mis-information and rubbish coming from the environmental movement, including the mis-information, lies and propaganda coming from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and all of the other groups.

And the deaths from Chernobyl and Fukashima's earthquake-caused mishap, where are they?

[Shakespear]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

May I remind everyone that the human body repairs cell damage done by radiation. This was unknown in the past.

Steve, get your wet suit and get to work. The plume from the reactor should not be too difficult to spot at the Fukushima where it enters the ocean. Check on the life there and get back to us as to how well they are coping.

[cbr]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

jeez, i am open minded; but there is a complete overload of people literally saying "the world is ending"... just like with Chernobyl. It is not great, of course, but life is abundant and thriving at Chernobyl. There is plenty of fauna at Bikini Atoll. People take walking tours of ground zero. I don't know that Fukushima will be any worse. Have you ever seen the environmental effects of large scale mining operations? Similar impact. Just 'no strange glowing stuff scares me.....' Show me some real information that a real impact is going to happen before you tell me 'the world is ending!'

[Jim Bruno]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

I debated whether to send this. An outgoing Russian friend of mine recently flew to the Ukraine and discovered that the stewardesses refused to leave the plane. He asked questions and was told that because of the Chernobyl radiation, the insurance company (which very well understands risk) would not cover their health issues if they left the plane, or ate/drank from local sources--they packed their food from a different place. My friend was upset particularly after I told him of the research published by the NY Academy of Science authored by Russian/Ukraine scientists (I believe) discussing casualties in the thousands. You can also research testimony of physicians detailing horiffic birth defects.

Since I was a child I have been told how nukes were clean and cheap. Factoring the costs of cleanup (excluding cancer treatment) they are neither. Of course I was also told for years, sometimes by paid for scientists, how tobacco and secondary smoke were harmless. Now the nuke industry' s captured regulators and paid for scientists are front running them and a confused public is forced to educate iself amidst a media which receives vast amounts of funds from that industry.

Japan is a disaster which is spreading radiation everywhere. You may wish to start at enenews.com

Wikipedia shows a map of Chernobly exclusion zones where humans do not enter.

The following references should further discussion.
http://www.news.com.au/national/cher...-1226321733744
http://www.damninteresting.com/in-so...taminates-you/

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

Human activity including agriculture around Chernobyl has been restored. At Fukishima, the wreckage and debris from the earthquake and tsunami is being cleaned-up, and human activity is being restored.

If anyone believes the lies and rubbish about cancers and mutations coming from radiation at either the Chernobyl or Fukishima site, please show me all of the deaths, tumors, mutations and a few one-eyed monsters that have been born there, too. Show me the evidence, not the spin from the environmental movement to-day.

[oddlots]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

The thing that alarms me most about this - the fuel pool issue - is that I think it cuts through a lot of the contentious issues about nuclear power and poses a danger that is all too tangible.

A) there is a very large tonnage of irradiated, spent fuel in Spent Fuel Pool at reactor 4 suspended 30 meters in the air.
B) this fuel requires both active cooling and constant water-cover.
C) if it does not receive active cooling the water will evaporate exposing the fuel to air, allowing it to heat to the point that a radiological fire can occur.
D) given the fact that this pool and the weight of it's contained fuel is hanging on a structure that has been presumably weakened by both the earthquake and the subsequent hydrogen explosion should give anyone pause no matter how pro-nuclear they are.
E) I think this follows from the fact that 1) it's all too easy to imagine this structure failing during an earthquake, and a sizeable earthquake is the expected outcome after such a large seismic event 2) it's all too easy to imagine this resulting in the fuel being dumped from the tank into a situation where neither water cover or cooling is a practical possibility. And so a massive radiological fire seems a real possibility.

The only reason I posted this is because it seems to be a completely possible outcome with absolutely devastating, uncontainable long term effects.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

Why not take the spent-fuel and radioactive cooling-water at the Fukishima site and send them by rail to the seashore? Place the contents into the sea, or maybe a few miles out into the sea, and go home.

Problem solved....Have a nice day.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

As we sit freezing in our homes because we can not afford the cost of heat and the cost of electricity; and
as we sink in the Great Recession to something now resembling the Great Depression; and
as we are pushed around and threatened by hoodlums from OPEC and the hoodlums from the Middle East; may I publicly ask a question:

Don't you and your cohorts in the environmental movement think it is about time to stop worrying about highly unlikely and the remotest of outcomes; your so-called, "absolutely devastating and uncontainable long-term effects" from such an unlikely outcome, etc?

The most likely outcome that we face now is starvation and freezing in the dark. When we should now be building a thousand Fukushimas and digging ourselves out of this Great Recession, we chose now to dwell in fear, sit in darkness, and to do nothing...... Sad to say, that may well be the outcome from this incident about the giant tsunami flooding Fukushima.

[vt]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

Steve,

It's no use using facts that nuclear is far safer. The envirofacists want us to continue to use coal fired plants that result in deaths of coal miners, probable illness of hundreds of thousands of city dwellers over time through exposure, and illness from fossil fuel use. They'd rather kill dozens of golden eagle in California for their windmills, and see poor people freeze.

[Jim Bruno]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

Let us begin with a tenfold increase in thyroid cancer, mitigated by the fact that as the years pile on, the cancer will increase and b intervention by some of the victims reduced incidences...I am no environmentalist...I look at facts and reject ad hominen attacks which are poor substitutes for knowledge and analysis...this does not look like rubbish to me.
http://depts.washington.edu/epidem/E...0et%20al-1.pdf

[Shakespear]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

"thyroid cancer" = "tarczyca" --- Is a big problem in countries around Chernobyl so attempting to down play accident and that all is well now is really low. Like everything, it is "a problem" that is being buried so as to pretend that all is great. Simple fact is that area around Chernobyl is closed. FEW people reentered it but is a number that hardly one could call large.

"Children of Chernobyl"
http://wiadomosci.wp.pl/gid,13335815...a,galeria.html

[oddlots]

Re: Fukushima's real threat?

Why not take the spent-fuel and radioactive cooling-water at the Fukishima site and send them by rail to the seashore? Place the contents into the sea, or maybe a few miles out into the sea, and go home.

Problem solved....Have a nice day.

SS you really don't get this. As I understand it there is currently no way to access this material in order to move it. It represents an enormously heavy (and live in an earthquake scenario, because of the water) load trapped amongst the debris of a presumably structurally compromised building and reliant on that building to support it, again, most worryingly, in an earthquake scenario. The infrastructure to move and handle it - the cranes - have been blown away.

If this pool empties or collapses you will get a runaway radiological fire with a mind-boggling amount of radioactive material. Will it empty or collapse? I don't know, but given the state of the building it doesn't seem a long shot. The concern seems completely reasonable to me.

Regardless of how pro-nuclear one is or isn't, if you can't perceive the danger here you are fooling yourself IMHO.

The joke is SS I am not an environmentalist and have posted criticisms of various, in my opinion, ill-informed environmental opposition to resource development at times. The fact that you have to make me out to be one in order to make your "point" speaks to the quality of your reasoning.