the problem with electrics is, they are not any cleaner.

all you're doing is shifting the pollution, energy creation etc to another place.

plus, the materials used to make the power systems can be even worse for the enviroment in processing...

Whoa! Cool down... we don't need any more fallout.

We can't blame the Japanese for not being decades ahead when they built the plant. As in many human foibles, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  The workers who stayed at the plant knew the risks, and stayed in an emergency situation, trying to prevent it from getting worse. They used what precautions they could devise. Real world reaction to time-sensitive crises.

No one is more anti-nuclear power than I am. However, we can't just shut them all down and expect to continue life as usual. Perhaps we should take a step back, re-examine the wisdom of over centralization, and look at power production from a more regional, or even local perspective.

or even just look at the reactor designs.

we are actually using the worst design for all our reactors. see, we build ones we have to tweak to stop them going wrong and stay running safely.

there is a reactor design that's the opposite.  you have to keep tweaking them to keep them running. stop tweaking? it safes itself. no booms no run away fission.

the design's called "Pebble Bed" and easy to find information on.

as to waste, we can actually reprocess the spent fuel and reuse it. several times. but current policies prevent this.

Quote - ... glass ... metal ... ceramic

Which all require high temperatures/large energy input in their manufacture.

Quote - It doesn't matter if stupid Communists damaged Chernobyl or a powerfull earthquake damaged Fukushima. The URSS was full of Communists and Japan is full of earthquakes, in both cases the reactors were damaged and this is the point.

Fukushima reactors were damaged, end of story. Now what to do with the damage and how protect the population from the mess and it doesn't matter if was caused by a huge 9.0 earthquake, schit happened.

I believe you are refering to the USSR not the URSS. Maybe you should spend more time getting your facts straight that you are pulling off the internet without really knowing what they say before you go running around like chicken little screaming that the world is ending.

It is quickly becoming apparent that this thread is become a rant for the misinformed, so I am going to save my remaining brain cells and pay attention to the old saying "Never argue with an idiot, those watching can't tell the difference."

Ya'll made me do it.

Is that praying mantis or crane style?

It's all Tiger. Grrrrrr....

Laurie

...waiting for mushroom cloud from exploding people....

"There are big differences between Chernobyl and Fukushisma.

Chernobyl was one nuclear reactor located in the URSS, it was a Russian product and Russians were Communist in those days, Communists always lie and Russia has always crapy products.

Fukushima is a plant with six nuclear reactors. It are an American GE product and Japan and the US are Capitalists countries, paladins of the truth and their products are the best and always use the top technology."

Yes, there are big differences between what happened at Chernobyl and what's going on at Fukushima currently.

First of all, they had some communist party hacks at Chernobyl, running experiments they really had no business running. The  cooling system was different and also the reactor actually blew up.

The reactors at Fukushima haven't blown up. But the cooling systems have failed, hence the desperate effort to cool them down with sea water. The explosions were hydrogen explosions.  As far as I can tell, they have had partial meltdown(s) there.  Japanese government has pretty much confirmed it, or they strongly suspect it. Perhaps some of the spent fuel rods have also partially melted down in some of the facilities. And it is also possible that some of the containment units were compromised becuase of the explosions.

But the technology is decades old. It was controversial from the very beginning. Admiral Ryckover said that the specific design used by GE, wasn't proper for civillian use (it was originally used in Nuclear submarines).  The containment units were considered to be  inadequate.

Whether a government is called a democratic or communist, in my view doesn't matter all that much. Both are under pressure to present a rosy scenario to their people.  In communism, the party doesn't like to be told the truth, in capitalism investors will punish you for delivering news that are bad for the economy.

As for the rest of your post; I don't neccesarily disagree, but I am simply not competent enough to speculate as to why the Japanese decided to do what they did, or  why they have the kind of systems in place that they have. I simply don't know enough. My personal fear is, that their systems do not differ all that much from the systems and practices that are being used all over the world by the industry. So, that's my little speculation there. I can't really prove it, so it's pointless.

It's all Tiger. Grrrrrr....

Is her Dojo accepting new students?

Somebody thinks they're Charlie Sheen drinking Tiger's Blood....

Attached Link: 16 million hits

Oh boy someone has really pulled the cat's tail now.

Quote - The reactors at Fukushima haven't blown up. But the cooling systems have failed, hence the desperate effort to cool them down with sea water.

If you need to cool something it is because it is hot and is generating heat. If heat was not generated it would be no needs to cool anything. Still today, 16 days later, they still need to cool the reactor, que question is, what is generating heat and which is the heat source ? There are several conceptual misconceptions. First the terms "reactor blown up" or "reactor exploded" are symbolic or metaphoric. A nuclear fission in a reactor never can turn into an explosion, the level of enrichment is too low for an explosion be possible, it only will burn and generate heat. What makes the explosion when it exist can be too much steam pressure that makes the boiler explode, accumulation of hydrogen or other combustible materials that can explode, but never the combustible rods by itself. Another one is the cooling, cooling is also symbolic, you don't need to cool the reactor because it is hot. If the reactor wouldn't be hot it would be impossible to generate electricity. The only existent way for any operational reactor to produce energy is through heat. The direct conversion of fission energy into electricity is only theory, I know it for 50 years and still it continue to be a theory without any practical application. So the only way to produce energy is through heat. The combustible rods become hot, produce heat and the heat is transferred to water or another liquid, water turns into steam and steam moves the turbines, heat energy of the steam is transformed into mechanical energy and is transformed in electricity by the generator. Steam is "cooled" that means that lost it energy in heat form and returns as water into the reactor. Cooling is the process of transferring fission energy to electric energy. And here comes another important point, without water is impossible to exist fission in this kind of reactors. Water has two important functions, is not only for "cooling". One function is to transfer energy (cooling) and the other function is to act as a moderator slowing neutrons. Fission in U235 can only happen with slow neutrons, without water surrounding combustible rods it would not be enough slow neutrons to make fission possible. Throwing water inside a reactor cools the rods, but also makes fission possible. Removing water the rods can become very hot, but all the fission is stopped and so the temperature of the rods will decrease with time. These reactors have by itself a fail-safe design.

We must go back to the starting point and divide people in two groups. In one group we have people that believes that government and media is telling you the truth and it is the absolute truth. With this group of people no further discussion is possible. They always know the truth and no matter what you can say they always will believe the truth that some authority told them. They are not able to reach their own personal truth, always will repeat and defend the truth of some person. If you belong to this group, go somewhere else and ignore this post, there is nothing for you. The second group of people knows or believe that the government and the media is not telling you the truth. Here we also need a subdivision of this group and the question is, do you want and have interest to know the truth? You know that are not telling you the truth, but also you have no interest to know the truth. In this case you can ignore this post. Now comes another filter, you know that are not telling you the truth and you want to know the truth. The question is have you courage to know the truth ? Will your ego survive the truth ? Truth can cause damage to the ego. Someone told you a lie and you have believed that it was the truth, you have fought and defended this lie for a lot of years because you believed that it was the truth. Now you discovered that is a lie, the truth that you believed for so many years is nothing more that an lie and you was cheated and fooled as an idiot for years. Have you courage to accept this ? Many people fail this test, close their eyes and mind and continue to defend this lie as it is the most absolute truth just because they think that admitting that is a lie is admitting to the world that he is stupid. If your ego is unable to support this you can ignore my post. Now here I am, I don't know the absolute truth, I am not a Master of the truth and I am not a teacher of nobody. I have only passed all the test and filters. The roblem is, you know or suspect that are not telling you the truth, you want to know the truth and have the courage to know the truth. The question is, what to do? There is no easy solution, requires methods, experience, knowledge, intuition, common sense, logic and other. With years of practice you can become very good in extracting the truth among a sea of lies and missinformation. I have reached my own truth in some questions and continue to search in other questions. What I think that is a truth in this moment I can discover that is a lie one hour later and the I have improved my knowledge of my truth. I use to tell you many things what I believe. You cannot take what I am saying as the truth, if you do you will be repeating my thruth and never reach your truth. You must analyze what I tell you and reach your own conclusions. I can hear your truth, but I analyze it and the I can accept and change my point of view or reject it. I don't like internet links and almost never post one, even some links can be very useful. Internet links are the truth or lie of some other person, who knows who and with which intention, is the same thing as what a media reporters tells you or a politician speech. It are pre-made truths. I post and discuss my own experience, knowledge and truth, it is mine and I do not repeat as parrot the truth of someone else. Now what to do to know the truth, Fukushima for example ? Suggestions please.....

I belong to Kawecki first group; add to the situation that japanese people die (literally, not metaphorically) not to lose face or for having lost face so be rock sure that they are trying to keep the actual situation from being exactly known.

I forgot to mention a very interesting source of factual information about nuclear accidents of all types: the Database of Radiological Incidents. AFAIK it is the most complete compilation of accidents and it provides, when available, links to the IAEA reports in PDF format.

I think that pro-nuclears on this forum might find instructive reading about the tremendous fights put up by doctors to save victims of 4+ Sv accidents, all ending with the autopsy reports. The longest fight is the one conducted to save a victim of an irradiation plant, the Nesvizh irradiator accident; he died after 113 days. The story I hinted before is described in the Arzamas-16 criticality accident.

Dear Kawecki, your third paragraph should be framed: it is the most lucid explanation why people keep on deriding "conspiracy theories". An interesting note for everybody: the Mafia was considered in the US and Italy a conspiracy theory (though not called that way, the saying had not been coined yet).

Okay we tried to let this OT topic stay and there is some very good discussion in here in places but unfortunately I don't think everyone can stay civil and productive.

I'm going to lock this thread now. 

Thanks

Stacey

Community Manager