I dont know anything about nuclear stuff but there are rumors from the internet circulating about nuclear radiation spread by winds from Japan to the West Coast.

I do know that during WW2, they used balloons to bomb the US and some of them actually reached land.

Many credible sources discredit this potential disaster but should we trust our lives to possible human error?

 

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110312194158AAoNjF9

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

Passion is anger and love combined. So if it looks angry, give it some love!

if your're worried stock up on potassium iodide.

 

 

and get some lead lined underpants  ;-)

think the west coast is fairly safe unless there is a really major explosion

from what I have seen on the news theres little chance of a Chernobyl(sp) melt down, because there reactors are to a totaly different design (but dont quote me on that )

 

"Many credible sources discredit this potential disaster but should we trust our lives to possible human error?"

 

and at that point it does not matter what anyone says, you've made your mind up they're wrong.

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

Quote - and get some lead lined underpants  ;-)

think the west coast is fairly safe unless there is a really major explosion

from what I have seen on the news theres little chance of a Chernobyl(sp) melt down, because there reactors are to a totaly different design (but dont quote me on that )

 

 

that's correct. the cores are encased in a containment vessel, where as the russian design was not.

any radioactive release atm is low level and due to venting pressure to avoid further damage, rather than a catastrophic release ala Chernobyl.

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

POSER SIGHTING!

Poser figure used as test subject for nuclear stuff!

Passion is anger and love combined. So if it looks angry, give it some love!

Quote - Many credible sources discredit this potential disaster but should we trust our lives to possible human error?

We trust our lives to possible human error every time we get in a car or cross the street. Drunk drivers and people on cell phones kill tens of thousands of people every year. I'm much more scared of that than of radiation.

The nuclear reactors were all succesfully shut down ie the control rods were lowered into the core to stop the nuclear process. The problem has been the enormous amount of heat still in the core that takes time (and water) to dissipate. Some radiation has leaked with the venting of water/steam but is short lived and low level. Having to use sea water has produced some radio-active sources not usually present.

I'm not a nuclear scientist but the above facts were gleaned from the less-sensationlist news sources.

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it's not very reassuring to see TEPCO and Japanese ministry press releases being repeated here, after the coverups of nuke accidents there in the past.  my heart goes out to the japanese people and I hope china, EU and the americans can keep sending disaster relief supplies.  apparently the americans have already stepped in to assist with (or take control of) the confused situation regarding the radioactive cores.

radioactive fallout was considered a problem when atmospheric nuke and h-bomb tests were being conducted in the past.  the expulsion of radioactive particles into the upper levels of the atmosphere can allow them to spread quite far.  however, it was realised that they can't conduct these tests in a planetary atmosphere, so they went underground AFAIK with unknown consequences.  from the one long-range news film I saw of one of the hydrogen-gas explosions at one japanese reactor, it doesn't look like there was enough energy to get particles high enough to travel far.

however, the use of seawater as a desperate means to keep the cores cool means something else - where does the radioactive seawater go?  from past behavior, it's possible they're trying to boil it off (local atmospheric contamination) or dumping it back in the sea, similar to mercury dumping in past coverups.  they may have no choice, but I hope there will be full disclosure by the IAEA and outside agencies after they've had time to recover from this.  I don't want them to sink further into a north-korea-style regime of secrecy and denial when it comes to their nuke program.

coverups?

your worried about Coverups?

 

right now their country is in shambles. they still don't know the death toll, the personnel at the reactors are trying desperate measures to prevent a worse situtation, the country is largely without power, water, sanitation etc.

 

and your worried about COVERUPS.

 

my god.... right now they have a few more things on their mind than covering up things....!

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

I would hope most of that sea water goes to steam? Surely they can't be recycling it back into the sea? The explosions mean the rods are damaged. The sea water is corrosive, so lets hope these things cool down quickly.

It was good to hear that an outside entity was going to start measuring the levels of radiation in the area. What with the French saying this should be a level 6 incident, and the Australians moving their Tokyo offices further south, it makes you nevous. That being said, I have nothing but admiration for the people still struggling to control this, putting their safety last.

Edit: News report just on, and the used water is being contained in the facility area.

As a freshman in high school I lived in Middletown, Pennsylvania (yes, in 1979). While there were rumors and rumors of rumors about total nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island, I found that I got out of it without glowing in the dark. And we were one of the few families that didn't leave our home during the whole thing.

Sometimes, you just have to trust people that know more about the stuff than you do. Besides, like stewer said, waking up and breathing is a risk. That's life.

FWIW, it's more a nuclear explosion such as a bomb that sends radiation high into the atmosphere that gets blown around in high doses. If by chance anything like a meltdown happens at any of the Japanese nuclear plants, the radiation will mostly remain there, just like it has as Chernobyl.

Laurie

US Navy

 

 

Quote - While there were rumors and rumors of rumors about total nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island, I found that I got out of it without glowing in the dark.

Laurie

 

Your personality glows, though! :thumbupboth:

 

Buuuut, if anyone does need to get ready for any nuclear holocaust that won't happen by this event, there -is- a Pip-Boy available that I saw on the DAZ freebie forum... :biggrin:

 

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Farmers in Wales are still unable to sell some livestock after contaminated rain fell over the hill farms and contaminated grazing land after the Chernobyl accident, there are also clusters of unexplained cancers in the same general area. If it does reach you, you won't know because they'll keep the truth of how much of it has reached you, from you and there's naff all you can do about it anyway.

Injustice will be avenged.
Cofiwch Dryweryn.

Farmers in Wales are still unable to sell some livestock after contaminated rain fell over the hill farms and contaminated grazing land after the Chernobyl accident,

What's the latest RAD count there?

 

 

Coal fired plants release far more radioactivity than even this accident...

According to 1982 figures, 111 American nuclear plants consumed about 540 tons of nuclear fuel, generating almost 1.1 x 10E12 kWh of electricity. During the same year, about 801 tons of uranium alone were released from American coal-fired plants. Add 1971 tons of thorium, and the release of nuclear components from coal combustion far exceeds the entire U.S. consumption of nuclear fuels. The same conclusion applies for worldwide nuclear fuel and coal combustion.

* http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html*

 

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Quote - The nuclear reactors were all succesfully shut down ie the control rods were lowered into the core to stop the nuclear process.

That's the problem, the control rods were not lowered into the core just because in the boiling light water reactors type the control rods have to be raised from the botton by an hydraulic system and not as in the pressured light water reactors where the control rods are located on the top and can fall by gravity into the core in case of any failure or emergency situation.

It is impossible to all reactors have been damaged in the same way by the earthquake, as four reactors have presented almost the same problem, maybe 5 or all 6 of the plant, there must be something common shared by all the reactors that have suffered damage and propagated the problem to all reactors.

My opinion is that the pressurized water system that feeds the hydraulic system of the control rods was common to all the reacftors of the plant and not that each reactor had his own and independent security system (cost reduction ???). The earthquake damaged the pipes, the hydarulic system to raise the control rods of all reactors was unable to work due the lack of fluid, the control rods were not raised and the reactor didn't stop. Yes it is Chernobyl again !

When  a reactor is stopped, the fission process stops in some microseconds and the power drops to 6% almost in the act. This remaining 6% is due radiocative decay that also drops quickly, one hour later is 0.4%, one day later is 0.2 % and not continue burning for four years as is circulating in the internet and media.

Stupidity also evolves!

man anything is possible

they can say that they know this or they know that, but no one expected this, right?  things people are telling each other is like gambling on cards or something, the odds of this or that.  no one working on this stuff considered a 9.0 earthquake and giant tsunami.  it's not what we know that'll get us as much as what we don't know.

this is a 1 2 3 punch that might become a 4 punch.  odds not in favor of any of this.  but here they are.

o yeah i forgot about the volcano in japan so i guess we're already up to 4.

go that way really fast.
if something gets in your way
turn

There are US army personnel in Japan.  They have radiation experts and engineers.  Take the cue from them, if Japan asks them to help out.

Eternal Hobbyist

 

Attached Link: Experts Had Long Criticized Potential Weakness in Design of Stricken Reactor

Reactors are 1960s design GE Mark 1's - hopefully with safety upgrades (see article). Concern is containment bursting under pressure. NRC official once put chances @ 90% - industry said 10% - who do you believe? Chernobyl radiation was detected in US, so yes, it will get here. Very low probability of anything dangerous for US from what I've read, most dangerous radioactive iodine which would affect children r.e. thyroid cancer risk. yada, yada.

My concern would be with earthquakes seemingly more frequent, west coast nuke plants. Officials say they're designed to handle 1-2 punch of quake & tsunami, but I'm sure the Japanese thought the same thing. Japanese are world's experts r.e. radiation, etc. having had a little experience with same (see Hiroshima+Nagasaki) and they're apparently losing it so... If I were on the west coast & had kids, I'd be getting Potassium Iodide like everyone else is apparently doing, out of an overabundance of caution - better safe..., but really, as much for what happen here when the 'big one' inevitably hits LA/SF.

Remember everything is built by folks trying to maximize profits, part of which go to pay lobbyists & pols to water down oversight & regulation. As for what to believe, take it from H.L. Mencken

"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."

Sleep well :-)

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

It will NOT be like Chernobyl. Chernobyl's problem was that it was essentially a "dirty bomb" on a massive scale. The spread of radioactivity was due to the graphite fire that they couldn't control: the smoke plume from the fire carried radioactive material up to high altitude where it was spread by wind. Even in a full meltdown and possible containment breach, the worst case scenario, this is not a realistic scenario for the Japanese situation.

Ironically, the problem here with the media and public trying to get an understanding on what is happening and the potential risks is that the nuclear power industry has been, relatively speaking, so safe and incredibly accident-free that there simply hasn't been enough accidents to understand what that means, enough accidents to make a meaningful comparison too.

Think of an oil spill: Deepwater Horizon, or a supertanker breaking up, creates a huge environmental mess but because oil spills are something we've all seen before, and many people have experienced, people largely understand them and have something to compare it to: it will be worse than so-and-so, or might be like this incident over here, and so on.

Because of how tightly the nuclear power industry has been run, there's no similar benchmarks you can use.  Basically, your only comparisons are Chernobyl (no meltdown, massive fire and containment breach due to human screw-ups and bad design resulting in the airborne spread of radioactive material worldwide, probable thousands of deaths due to cancer, deaths due to direct radiation exposure, malformed fetuses due to radiation exposure), and Three Mile Island (core meltdown, minimal radioactive release, zero effect on humans and the environment). And those two incidents were so dissimilar they can't really be properly compared either. TMI was a civilian power-generation reactor designed that way from the ground up. The reactor at Chernobyl was military design originally meant to produce plutonium for weapons, and as such access to the core had to be fast and easy (ie, less secure) in order to get the plutonium out as it was produced.

Add to that we've never had an accident at a civilian reactor caused by a natural disaster of this scale.

Once this incident cools down (no pun intended), there will be a look at the industry to see what safety measures have to be improved. In this particular case, the earthquake caused no problems: the reactors shut down automatically without incident, even though the quake was about 10 times as powerful as they thought would be possible in that area when they built the reactors. The problem was the post-shutdown cooling failure caused by the tsunami taking out the backup generators. What I would suspect will be happening worldwide is taking a long look at the protection for those backup generators at other plants and securing them better if needed.

Keith has the facts correct.

except many don't want to listen to correct facts.

they'd rather have sensational incorrect facts.

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

Quote - if your're worried stock up on potassium iodide.

I certainly hope you weren't serious about that. That is just as damaging to the thyroide as the Iodine 131 if used when it's not needed. Here's some info on that.

The following quote from a forum post in the DAZ commons:

Potassium iodide is only useful to protect the thyroid against radioactive iodine, specifically Iodine-131. Iodine-131 is produced by nuclear reactions, and the danger of it is that the thyroid takes it up in place of iodine, and the radioactivity destroys the thyroid. In fact, this is precisely how Graves disease is treated - they give you a dose of radioactive iodine, it destroys the thyroid, and you thereafter take thyroid pills for the rest of your life. Potassium iodide protects the thyroid because the thyroid takes it up instead.

Radioactive iodine has a fairly short half-life, only a smidge over eight days. And, it's fairly heavy, meaning it doesn't travel far in the air. Even if all three of the nuke plants in Japan went Chernobyl and exploded, releasing everything they've got into the atmosphere, by the time the cloud got here, the Iodine-131 would have decayed and been rendered (relatively) harmless. So, even if this was possible, taking potassium iodide to protect oneself is pointless, there is no risk.

However, taking Potassium iodide is not without risk. It's a proven terratogen, and can cause cancer of the thyroid. This is why it is ONLY given when there is a SIGNIFICANT risk of exposure to Iodine-131.

Thus, all these people who are poppin' potassium iodide pills on the advice of the Surgeon General to prevent radiation damage to the thyroid are, unfortunately, very likely to be giving themselves thyroid cancer in a few years anyway. At which point, they'll go to the hospital, be exposed to Iodide-131 anyway, have their thyroid destroyed, and be taking thyroid pills - exactly the result they were trying to prevent.

Yeah, I know. A Forum post from DAZ isn't exactly the medical journal, but the facts are still good.

The first traces have already been detected, but in very small amounts on the west coast of the U.S.

Those in the greatest jeopardy are the Japanese and other nations along the Pacific rim. If things go bad and there's "China Syndrome," that term could take on a genuinely ironic and nasty new meaning.

What alarms me are the contradictory bulletins being released by the Japanese government and news media. Either they haven't a clue as to the nature and scope of the failures involved, or someone is just making things up as they go along.

 

Japan is found to contain substances that are considered cancer causing by the state of California.  And I would like to state my support of buying japan a giant fan and blowing all of the fallout to California...  any state whose name sounds like a fornicating vegitable needs to be irradiated ASAP.  :tt2:

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

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those guys who were working in the plant with the six reactors  ... my heart goes out to them.  were they pulled out in time, did TEPCO force them to stay on until they received a lethal dose, or did they volunteer to stay until the bitter end?

the other question: why did they have 6 reactors there? great deal of secrecy involving whether there are any nuke plants involved in weaponisation in israel, north korea, pakistan, iran, india - was this plant doing that?  japan has publicly eschewed use of nuke weapons, but no way of finding out what's going on there.  if weaponisation involved, that would explain any american military presence there.

in Calif., nuke plants designed for 6.5 - 7 quake, based on now-obsolete "science" and various cost-saving measures.  there's no way any group would have the cash to design for a 9.0 quake/tsunami.  ironic that it's a "once-in-a-thousand-year event" that's occurred at least twice in the last 10 yrs.

Quote - "
if your're worried stock up on potassium iodide.

"

I certainly hope you weren't serious about that. That is just as damaging to the thyroide as the Iodine 131 if used when it's not needed. Here's some info on that.

The following quote from a forum post in the DAZ commons:

Potassium iodide is only useful to protect the thyroid against radioactive iodine, specifically Iodine-131. Iodine-131 is produced by nuclear reactions, and the danger of it is that the thyroid takes it up in place of iodine, and the radioactivity destroys the thyroid. In fact, this is precisely how Graves disease is treated - they give you a dose of radioactive iodine, it destroys the thyroid, and you thereafter take thyroid pills for the rest of your life. Potassium iodide protects the thyroid because the thyroid takes it up instead.

Radioactive iodine has a fairly short half-life, only a smidge over eight days. And, it's fairly heavy, meaning it doesn't travel far in the air. Even if all three of the nuke plants in Japan went Chernobyl and exploded, releasing everything they've got into the atmosphere, by the time the cloud got here, the Iodine-131 would have decayed and been rendered (relatively) harmless. So, even if this was possible, taking potassium iodide to protect oneself is pointless, there is no risk.

However, taking Potassium iodide is not without risk. It's a proven terratogen, and can cause cancer of the thyroid. This is why it is ONLY given when there is a SIGNIFICANT risk of exposure to Iodine-131.

Thus, all these people who are poppin' potassium iodide pills on the advice of the Surgeon General to prevent radiation damage to the thyroid are, unfortunately, very likely to be giving themselves thyroid cancer in a few years anyway. At which point, they'll go to the hospital, be exposed to Iodide-131 anyway, have their thyroid destroyed, and be taking thyroid pills - exactly the result they were trying to prevent.

Yeah, I know. A Forum post from DAZ isn't exactly the medical journal, but the facts are still good.

 

Steve your absolutely correct unless The Owl has been trained or instructed in it's use he should disregard my post.   Carry on.

 

 

 

Of course that is not Chernobyl, Chernobyl was only one, here you have four or perhaps five or six.

Stupidity also evolves!

Chernoby had no interior containment, and it did basically blow like a bomb. What long-term effects the Japanese reactors will cause, we'll have to wait and see. At least sane countries will take that approach. A nuclear accident once every 10 years or so doesn't seem to phase others.

Keep in mind that this plant, as old and vulnerable as it was, withstood the earthquake and the tsunami. It was the loss of power, and backup generators, and hence control, that let things deteriorate to this state. And what area of the country is immune to that?

The technicians who stayed in the plant are all volunteers.  There has been some talk of accepting retired workers familiar with the plant for some relief. They are doing their best to limit time spent in contaminated areas, by switching people in and out, but it probably isn't doing much to protect them. They are quite simply some of the bravest, most self-sacrificing individuals I've ever heard of.

Quote - I dont know anything about nuclear stuff but there are rumors from the internet circulating about nuclear radiation spread by winds from Japan to the West Coast. I do know that during WW2, they used balloons to bomb the US and some of them actually reached land.

Many credible sources discredit this potential disaster but should we trust our lives to possible human error?

Like your avatar.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

whilst the particulate radiation is now being detected on the american west coast, it's not certain how this will develop.  one reason the american military are around the most affected nuke plant may be the presence there of approx. 2 tons of plutonium in various degrees of refinement.  it would be unfortunate if any of this were to go missing during the chaos.  if the self-defence forces are fully occupied with search/rescue/relief operations, then other forces may assist with security issues.

p.s. the courage of the volunteers there is awe-inspiring, really unheard-of (to me at least).

"one reason the american military are around the most affected nuke plant may be the presence there of approx. 2 tons of plutonium in various degrees of refinement. "

 

*citation please that this is for military purpose and not the stated reprocessing of fuel into MOX fuel.

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

Attached Link: http://mountainrepublic.net/

or in Ustream

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-radiation-monitoring-from-west-la

 

Live Radiation Monitoring in West LA.

Passion is anger and love combined. So if it looks angry, give it some love!

Quote - the other question: why did they have 6 reactors there?

 

One reactor can only generate so much steam.  I think that US nuclear carriers have 2 reactors; the Enterprise (first nuclear carrier) has 8.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

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o.k., they've got sevl. reactor clusters like that there.  they use the MOX thermal (uranium/plutonium) to save money.  only a small percent of their estimated > 45 tons is weapons-grade, but plutonium is the worst news possible IMVHO, even if it's just at an impurity level.  obama said we'd be safe from fall-out, but he's gonna be staying in DC for now.  alaska will get most of it, then it may be diminished by the time it hits L.A.;  hoping they don't need to use those water cannons for riot control later on.

Quote - "the other question: why did they have 6 reactors there?"

The size of turbine and generator. As the required power to be generated increases the size also does. Not everyone is able to make big turnines, for example huge turbines only Russians can do. So many times is more practical to make several normal reactors with the generators running in parallel than one big reactor with a huge generator.

As for the radiation released by these faulty reactors who cares, we all have survived to hundreds of nuclear explosions, many 20 or 30 or even 50 megatons and who has not survived it also will not make any difference for him.

Stupidity also evolves!

"TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be the only way to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986."

Of course that is not again Chernobyl.....

Stupidity also evolves!

Quote - "TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be the only way to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986." Of course that is not again Chernobyl.....

Correct, it isn't anything like Chernobyl.
Giving the solution to a problem when posed a question doesn't mean that the problem exists.  

The BBC reports (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12783832) :-

Quote - The Fukushima plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said it was not ruling out the option of entombing the plant in concrete to prevent a radiation leak.

Which clearly means that there is no leak yet, but they will seal the damaged reactors to prevent one from happening.

On the good news front, power lines were connected to the plant today. A small step in the right direction.

Now maybe we can pause in worrying about how this could affect us, and concentrate on  the people who continue to suffer in the wake of these disasters.

There was one interesting comment I saw this morning that might help give some people some perspective.

Between 1945 and 1992, over 900 nuclear weapons were detonated in Nevada, until 1962 most of them above ground, with no containment of fallout or radiation spread. Given that the US east of the Rockies is not a radioactive post-apocalyptic wasteland with two-headed mutant cows and flesh-eating ghouls, perhaps one should temper one's immediate reaction to an accident at a single nuclear power facility for a moment of contemplation of the first bit of data.

I am not so sure we should be so complacent. Governments tend to downplay these incidents. Not because of some conspiracy, but because of politics and the desire to not create panic.

According to Arnold Gundersen , we may very well be witnessing a meltdown of several reactors in Fukushima. Chernobyl on Stereoids, Gundersen said. Even the Japanese government admitted that partial meltdown may have already occurred.  Pouring seawater with helicopters seems like a desperate measure, as it will render those reactors unuseable in any case.

I don't know what the truth is, but I suspect that the the Japanese workers still operating near and in those powerplants, are risking their lives to get this situation under controll. I think these people are incredibly brave and we may end up owing a huge  debt to them that we may never be able to repay.

D'oh! Why do things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?

Don't worry, if some radioactive fallout do happen you wil never know it as you don't know all the "healthy" chemicals in the food you eat, the water you drink and all the effects of medicine you use. If you get cancer, diabettes, heart disease, neurological problems, your liver doesn't work anymore or you get obbesse you can always blame the fast food or the second or third hand smoke.

PS. I forgot the evil Sun with its terrible UV. Nuclear plants are safe and secure, the Sun does not.

Stupidity also evolves!

Still, it doesn't seem right to fret and fume about what might affect us in a dozen years or so, while people are suffering right now.

It just rankles that all we can think about is "How does this affect me?", rather than "How can we help these people?"

".....PS. I forgot the evil Sun with its terrible UV. Nuclear plants are safe and secure, the Sun does not."

I'm not worried for my personal safety. How ever sun has been around for billions of years and life on earth depends on sun. I am not so worried about sun. Sun doesn't require scientists, engineers, complex technologies to operate. Sun operates on it's own. Over the course of evolution, our bodies have come accustomed to suns radiations. Our bodies how ever are not used to radioactive contamination. Nuclear energy is very new experiment. It has only been around for decades. I'm not saying this as an argument against Nuclear Energy (I'm not interested in having that debate. If people support Nuclear power, then so be it. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I have no control over countries energy policies.) I just think the suns radiation is a very different thing compared to radioactive contamination.

And when the sun finally fails, there's nothing we can do about it anyway. Our species has probably gone extinct way before that happens.

"Still, it doesn't seem right to fret and fume about what might affect us in a dozen years or so, while people are suffering right now.

It just rankles that all we can think about is "How does this affect me?", rather than "How can we help these people?""

I'm not worried about my health or safety at all. I live far away from Japan. I am mostly worried about what a possible Nuclear meltdown would mean to the people living in the region. The effects wouldn't be felt decades from now, they would be rather imminent. Land and some areas would become unsuitable to live in. People would get cancers and diseases. All of this would put a huge strain on Japanese ability to cope with an already horrific situation. The head of the Japanse energy company just recently admitted that people were going to die because of the radiation that has already been emitted. He broke into tears as he said that.

But it's like they say; We all have little bit of Chernobyl inside of us by now. I am not so keen on having some Fukushima inside of me as well (and that sounded very dirty for some reason....).

D'oh! Why do things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?

I am not against nuclear energy, I am against reduction of cost and maximizing profits sacrifying safety and people. I am against stupidity.

Accidents always do happen, can be due human error, some stupid operator, a natural disaster or any unknown cause. The question is what do do when an accident happened and what to do to solve the problem.

Many wrong things were done in Japan, it's inadmisible the great number of nuclear in plants in Japan a country where earthquakes are something normal. This earthquake 9.0 was a very big one, it is not common to happen, but also is nothing strage to happen. Japan is located at the boundary of a geological fault, continents move, Japan is moving and the movement of continents or plates is not soft and nice as in a Gondwana animation. Now I know how the continets move, it do it in jumps, some huge eartquake and a train of smaller ones and the land moved a bit, some calm or not and another big or huge earthquakes or a tarin of them and the land moved a little more, apiece of land can sink into the sea or a piece of land can raise from the botton of the sea. And this continues for years, centuries, thousands and million years, the land traveled thousands of miles or collided with another land and new mountains are raised. Tomorrow another 9.0 or even 10.0 can hit Japan or only will happen the next century, nobody knows, but when it happens it will be nothing strange to happen.

What will happen with the other 60 nuclear plants when another big earthquake do happen ?, even can be a small one with the front wave comming with the right direction and hitting the right place. And Tsunamies ?, they are also common and always happen there, can be small and harmless or very destructive. Is like playing Russian roulette, one bullet and six chances, do you want to risk ?

Nuclear plants cannot be located in places where earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos, floods, hurricanes or any natural event is normal to happen. Japan needs energy, any modern civilzation need it. Japan has a big problem, has no oil, no gas, no coal, no river enough for hydroelectics, but also no uranium, so why the reason of nuclear plants. If they had uranium even it can be justified, but they don't have uranium.

And the tsunami, why cties are located near the sea, why population live there ? Why people live near an active volcano or in places where hills fall down with rain and it rains a lot there?

Stupidity also evolves!

This is a very simplistic question. Deliberately so. If you need to boil water to create steam, does it make more sense to use a complicated system that requires nuclear scientists and creates the most toxic waste possible, or a bunch of mirrors that only requre a computer to align and produce no waste?

While I realize not every location has enough sunny days for solar power, those that don't usually have a good supply of wind (an even more direct way to turn a turbine), or geo-thermal availability. "The technology isn't there" is not a reason, it's an excuse for ignoring it.

Don't get me started on the sun. I have Martian dreams with the magnetic poles re-aligning themselves... and why did the fact that our 'wobble' in rotation ceased years ago not make headlines??  Watching too much Science Channel can make one completely paranoid.

Quote - This is a very simplistic question. Deliberately so. If you need to boil water to create steam, does it make more sense to use a complicated system that requires nuclear scientists and creates the most toxic waste possible, or a bunch of mirrors that only requre a computer to align and produce no waste?

While I realize not every location has enough sunny days for solar power, those that don't usually have a good supply of wind (an even more direct way to turn a turbine), or geo-thermal availability. "The technology isn't there" is not a reason, it's an excuse for ignoring it.

Don't get me started on the sun. I have Martian dreams with the magnetic poles re-aligning themselves... and why did the fact that our 'wobble' in rotation ceased years ago not make headlines??  Watching too much Science Channel can make one completely paranoid.

It hasn't made headlines because precession hasn't stopped, maybe?

All energy sources have trade-offs. Wind and solar require space and size of infrastructure. The maximum theoretical energy you can get in the United States from solar is 14 kWh/day for each square meter of reflector or solar cell (and these assume 100% perfect capture of radiant energy, which isn't possible).  An average 1000MW thermal powerplant (whether nuclear, coal, natural gas or whatever) put out 24,000,000 kWh/day. So to equal a single 1000 MW plant, you'd need a theoretical minimum of 1,714,286 square meters of reflector or solar cell.

Of course, it's a little more complicated than that. The figure I gave was maximum theoretical insolation during the sunniest part of the year. If you actually take into account the annual amount of sun, the maximum drops to 8 kWh/day per square meter. Which means your area has almost doubled to 3 square kilometers. Now when you take into account the fact that the process can not be 100% efficient (let's cut it down to 50%, which is still beyond the capabilities of current solar power), you need to cover 6 square kilometers of ground with reflectors or solar cells to equal the power output of a single generation facility which takes up a few hectares in terms of physical infrastructure.

And that's in the sunniest part of the US, the Southwest. In other parts of the country the area needed to collect sunlight will double or triple again.

You're also facing the problem that, at least in the northern parts of the US, the need for electricity if inversely related to how effectively solar can generate it (sun at lower altitude, cloudier days, and so on).

Wind has similar issues: it's not very good everywhere and has constraints on its operation in terms of area required.  The largest windfarm in the world currently is in Texas, has an installed capacity of 781 MW, and covers 400 square kilometers.

Comparatively, the Darlington Nuclear Site in Ontario covers approximate 4.8 square kilometers, including all infrastructure and safety and security setbacks, and has 4 reactors that generate 4.5 times as much electricity as the windfarm, giving it 375 times the power genertaing capacity per area, and it's certainly not affected by the weather or time of day. A coal power plant would have about the same area, if you included the laydown area for the coal.

Thermal power power plants have the advantage of being smaller and generally much more flexibility in location and much more consistant in supply, with the tradeoff that they need fuel. Coal's fuel can cause great environmental alteration to get, but has minimal issues in transport and storage, but creates massive amounts of solid waste in addition to CO2. Natural gas can usually be produced with minimal environmental impact but is very dangerous if handled improperly and produces CO2, but no solid waste. Uranium doesn't require nearly as much mining as coal, the fuel requires processing and has minimal danger, and creates a much smaller volume of solid waste, no CO2, but is technically challenging and requires special handling with a potentially very bad failure mode.

Hydrolectric facilities create environmental issues, produce now CO2, and are generally considered safe but their failure modes can be spectacular: if Three Gorges in China lets go, you are talking perhaps hundreds of millions of people who could be directly effected.

So there's the issue: there isn't a perfect power source that is completely safe, reasily available where and when needed, and sufficiently large to meet current and projected needs. The question comes down to what trade-offs you are willing to make.

Quote - Given that the US east of the Rockies is not a radioactive post-apocalyptic wasteland with two-headed mutant cows and flesh-eating ghouls .....

does that include ..... new jersey?

Quote - This is a very simplistic question. Deliberately so. If you need to boil water to create steam, does it make more sense to use a complicated system that requires nuclear scientists and creates the most toxic waste possible, or a bunch of mirrors that only requre a computer to align and produce no waste?

Solar energy can work fine for homes, but has a big problem. I doesn't work at night and you don't need electric energy during the day !!

A well designed house doesn't need lamps turned on during the day, windows do all the illumination you need. You can need electricity to power the TV,computer and other machines, who will use this energy if there is nobody at home during the day, everybody is at work or in school. The only thing that will need and use electricity will be the refrigerator and in winter even you don't need a refrigerator.

During night the situation is rather different, you are at home, need to turn on the lights, watch TV, use the computer, but at night there is no sun and so, you have no electricity to do all these things.

This was for home application, but if you want electricity to run some industry, you have no idea the amount of electricity needed by a press. Forget solar energy, it is unable to feed industry. And an aluminium plant ? You need whole an hydroelectric or nuclear plant only for feeding this aluminium plant.

Stupidity also evolves!

I have this lingering suspicion that, if solar could be used as a weapon, the efficiency would be more equal to nuclear plants. And, while we're at it, if they could run tanks on batteries, we'd have affordable electric cars. Not that I'm railing against the military-industrial complex, or anything.

I don't think solar arrays are limited to providing power to daytime hours. I could be wrong. Here in Arizona, peak usage during the majority of the year is from 1pm to 6pm. All those air conditioners, you know.

re the wobble: Most scientists seem to think this normally precedes an ice age, which now has me totatlly confused. Are we a) cooling off, b) warming up, or c) just generally in for a really bumpy ride?

Alternative energies are very limited.

Solar energies only work with Sun, at night there is no Sun and Sun is not always available all the time or in all the places. Sun can be too weak or the sky can be obscurred by clouds. Some days ago there was a big full moon, but I was unable to see it, I was unable to see before it reached its maximun and still today I am unable to see becuase the sky is covered by clouds. Some years ago Mars was also big, but for three months I was unable to see it because the sky was cloudy for three month and I live in Brasil, the tropical country full of beaches and Sun.

The Sahara desert is an excellent place for solar energy, a lot of Sun, no clouds, no rain, but there is nothing there and nobody lives there, also there are sand storms, much better, sand hurricans, imagine the sand of a snad hurricane polishing the solar panels.

Wind energy also can be useful, but to work it need to be wind and wind not always is present and depend on seasons or the hour of the day. If there is wind you have energy, if not you have wait until the wind comes again. Wind mills work in this way.

Sea tide energy can be useful, but only work in places that have big tides and also depend on the hour of the day.

The only sources that can deliver constant electric energy that you can use at any moment you want or need are coal, oil, gas, dams and nuclear energy.

Stupidity also evolves!

Quote - I have this lingering suspicion that, if solar could be used as a weapon, the efficiency would be more equal to nuclear plants. And, while we're at it, if they could run tanks on batteries, we'd have affordable electric cars. Not that I'm railing against the military-industrial complex, or anything.

If solar could reach the energy density useful as a practical weapon, then it's usefulness as a power source would go up appreciably because the energy density would be higher. It has nothing to with no one wanting to develop it because it can't be used as a practical weapon.

In fact, as an aside, modern militaries such as that of the US are very interested in energy efficiency, alternate energy sources and the like. The reason is the weakness of all militaries: logistics. If someone developed super-high efficiency solar cells the Pentagon would be all over that because it would allow them to cut the logistical requirements (in terms of things like fuel), especially to units in the field or at forward bases, making the units more flexible as they wouldn't have to rely as much on the logistical tail, and the people taking care of the logistics could focus more on the things that go bang and boom and less on carrying in simple things like fuel to keep generators running.

ugh. I wish my brain understood science. There has to be some way to keep our lights and toys running without polluting the planet or creating disasters waiting to happen. This planet, and the sun are huge sources of energy. We just need to figure out how to tap into them. I know you can make magnets with electricity. Is it possible to do the reverse? 

Quote - ugh. I wish my brain understood science. There has to be some way to keep our lights and toys running without polluting the planet or creating disasters waiting to happen. This planet, and the sun are huge sources of energy. We just need to figure out how to tap into them. I know you can make magnets with electricity. Is it possible to do the reverse? 

Yes. It's called an electrical generator.

The only power source which does not use magnets to make electricity is solar cells: everything else uses something to make something move which turns a magnet and wire coil setup which generates electricity.

Alternative energies are very limited.

Solar energies only work with Sun, at night there is no Sun and Sun is not always available all the time or in all the places.

What about satellites?

 

 

Quote - Alternative energies are very limited.

Solar energies only work with Sun, at night there is no Sun and Sun is not always available all the time or in all the places.

What about satellites?

 

cost. not really practical until we can build a space tether or develop a cheap launcher system.

a Sat system, you really want to be at the Lagrange points for simplicity, it's going to be huge in size, (tho, the collector can be very lightweight/low mass, we're still talking bulk), then there's getting the power down.

and thats just one Sat....

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

Didn't Tesla work on wireless energy transmission?

How huge?

 

 

we're talking the collector array starting at 1km diameter  in space and the collector array on the ground being around 10km's diameter.

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

i wonder if there should be collectors spread around the world?

1km dia,  it might be able to serve as an orbital launch platform as well.

How much do you think it would cost?

 

 

Quote - cost. not really practical until we can build a space tether or develop a cheap launcher system.

a Sat system, you really want to be at the Lagrange points for simplicity, it's going to be huge in size, (tho, the collector can be very lightweight/low mass, we're still talking bulk), then there's getting the power down.

and thats just one Sat....

And, of course, there's a trade-off issue: security. The line between "orbiting solar power satellite" and "orbital death ray" is a fuzzy one (albeit not as fuzzy as some people would think, but still...)

You see people getting up in arms at the idea that WiFi signals might somehow be causing them to develop tumors. You think people are going to be more rational when told that someone is pointing a giant microwave at their heads?

This sounds like the Star Trek plot, where one moon learns how to derive power from the home planet, but a side effect was frying the people on the other moon.

I know magnets are involved in the production of power, but can they do it on their own? How about anti-matter? Ok, that might be a reach right now...

"And, of course, there's a trade-off issue: security. The line between "orbiting solar power satellite" and "orbital death ray" is a fuzzy one (albeit not as fuzzy as some people would think, but still...)" 

I'd read up on it ;) the Microwave beam used would be weak enough you could walk through it and have no ill effects. thats the reason for the 10km receiver...

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

And, of course, there's a trade-off issue: security. The line between "orbiting solar power satellite" and "orbital death ray" is a fuzzy one (albeit not as fuzzy as some people would think, but still...)

You see people getting up in arms at the idea that WiFi signals might somehow be causing them to develop tumors. You think people are going to be more rational when told that someone is pointing a giant microwave at their heads?

Some people will only believe what they want to believe.

10km receiver...i think the first one should be built in Scotland.

 

 

 

the reason you see 'em with cel-fones glued to their ears when driving or walking around is that, in addition to a fairly strong signal being sent to the nearest towers, there is also a very-short-range static electric field that works like a brain stim, acting on a pleasure centre on the side of the brain where the cel is held.  apparently it's very addictive.  we don't have clear evidence that either the long-range signal nor short-range field can cause the sort of excitation of molecular bonds that microwave ovens can achieve.  it might show up later in these individuals as some kind of schizoid or dissociative behavior, in the way that ultrasonic disruption may lead to an increase in the probability of autism in infants.

the reason you see 'em with cel-fones glued to their ears when driving or walking around is that, in addition to a fairly strong signal being sent to the nearest towers, there is also a very-short-range static electric field that works like a brain stim, acting on a pleasure centre on the side of the brain where the cel is held.  apparently it's very addictive.  we don't have clear evidence that either the long-range signal nor short-range field can cause the sort of excitation of molecular bonds that microwave ovens can achieve.  it might show up later in these individuals as some kind of schizoid or dissociative behavior, in the way that ultrasonic disruption may lead to an increase in the probability of autism in infants.

Would i be wrong in assuming this includes "blue tooths" too?

 

 

Quote - the reason you see 'em with cel-fones glued to their ears when driving or walking around is that, in addition to a fairly strong signal being sent to the nearest towers, there is also a very-short-range static electric field that works like a brain stim, acting on a pleasure centre on the side of the brain where the cel is held.  apparently it's very addictive.  we don't have clear evidence that either the long-range signal nor short-range field can cause the sort of excitation of molecular bonds that microwave ovens can achieve.  it might show up later in these individuals as some kind of schizoid or dissociative behavior, in the way that ultrasonic disruption may lead to an increase in the probability of autism in infants.

 

complete rubbish. where's your proof? the studies? the case notes? the evidence?

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

Quote - Didn't Tesla work on wireless energy transmission?

Nobody knows what Tesla was doing. In the oficiall version he was mad, the famous "crazy scientist" of the movies. In the alternative version he was a iniciate genius together with pyramids, Atlantis, reptilians and all the blah, blah.

The problem is that Tesla was not a physic, academic or theorists. He didn't create any theory and didn't left papers with any importance. He was only an engineer that turned all his ideas and conceptions into practical applications and he was a genius in this. Thanks to him we all have electricity available in our homes and in any place we want. He created alternating current, electrical transformer and the alternating current generator and motor, a brilliant mental conception. He was the first that conceived the wireless communication and not Marconi.

Another problem was tat some of his ideas were against what was accepted by the scientists and academics. He ridicularized Einstein, a great blasfemy and sacriledge. He stated that transversal waves cannot transmit power (this is right) and only longitunal waves can do it and his experiments of power transmission was based on longitudinal waves something impossible to exist. The Heaviside simplification of Maxwell's equation and the Lorentz condition only admit transversal electromagnetiv waves as solution to the Maxwell's equation, but with the original Maxwell's equation longitudial waves are possible, you don't find this is physics books, The sam as Ampere's law of the books that is not Ampere's law, it is Biot-Savart law, Ampere's law is different. If you are curious about all this you can read the original 1856 Maxwell's Treatise on electricity and magnetism book.

Tesla could be right or could be wrong, nobody knows what was in his mind, but electricity is much more than what is accepted by today's science

Stupidity also evolves!

Yes tesla did work on wireless transmission and yes, there is a company that thinks they've figured out how it can be done.  At least I saw so on TV.  ;)

As for solar power, the best solar cells caputure only a fraction of the available energy and some solar plants refocus the sun to... wait for it... generate steam.  /facepalm

 

Our modern society takes a c---load of energy to run and it's only going to take more in the years ahead.  Yes having power runs with risks, but not having energy for cooking/refrigeration/heating/cooling/internet/tv runs even greater risks.

WARK!

Thus Spoketh Winterclaw: a blog about a Winterclaw who speaks from time to time.

 

(using Poser Pro 2014 SR3, on 64 bit Win 7, poser units are inches.)

A small car with 70 HP needs an electric power of 51 KW. The solar energy is 1.366 kilowatts per square meter, so this small car with require a solar panel with 38 square meters area, something like 4m x 9m or 6m x 7m that is of course much bigger than this small car and I have assumed 100% energy efficience in the conversion.

Stupidity also evolves!

You know what it's going to take though is our banks heavily investing in energy.  The only bank i've seen so far doing this is the Bank of Scotland.  The others still seem stuck in the mortgage derivatives quagmire.

 

 

One of the interesting things that I just noticed that you'll see is that the amount of electrical generation is often given in "household" units. "This (source of electrical power) will provide enough electricity for X number of homes/number of families/whatever."

It's very intuitive. It's also very useless. Civilization depends on more than just providing power to homes.

To put it in perspective, the world's current largest windfarm is Roscoe Wind Farm in Texas, which supplies enough power for "more than 250,000 average Texas homes". Sounds more impressive than saying that it provides enough juice to power less than one single aluminum smelter, doesn't it?

i wonder how much power the fusion reactor in France will produce?

 

 

What we have with all of this can be boiled down to one simple answer. The world press is creating a panic over something that shouldn't be blown this far out of porportion! I lived in Japan for several years as a kid when my father was in the Navy and I feel for the Japanese people who have lost their families and are suffering through hardships most of us couldn't begin to fathom. But we have the talking heads on the glogal news networks creating a panic about radiation that is less than a chest x-ray! How about focusing on the homeless and hungry japanese people who could be better served by the talking heads than some fantasy radiation scare that will never be noticed? Who cares is a miniscule amount of radiation is added to the atmosphere for a few days? I am currently on R&R in Or and I am not worried one bit, if people on the West coast are worried STAY INSIDE! Plus with all of the talking heads going on about potasium iodine pills and decon kits is bordering on negligent behavior, they are going to hurt more people over this than the radiation will. The American public has become addicted to these talking heads and believe what they are told through them. If they would stop for a minute and quit trying to out sell everyone else on TV they might actually do more good than the harm they are currently causing. If you have a question about radiation and what to do, turn off the TV and find a book or look on the internet for the answer. It might be better for you in the long run.

OK I am off the saop box now, let the rotten tomatos fly.

Quote - There was one interesting comment I saw this morning that might help give some people some perspective.

Between 1945 and 1992, over 900 nuclear weapons were detonated in Nevada, until 1962 most of them above ground, with no containment of fallout or radiation spread. Given that the US east of the Rockies is not a radioactive post-apocalyptic wasteland with two-headed mutant cows and flesh-eating ghouls, perhaps one should temper one's immediate reaction to an accident at a single nuclear power facility for a moment of contemplation of the first bit of data.

dam!  i was hoping for the flesh eating ghouls!

this world is just no fun

go that way really fast.
if something gets in your way
turn

No, not two-headed mutant cows and flesh-eating ghouls, only obesse children with learning problems.

Stupidity also evolves!

Well now that Japan is really radioactive, I expect to see a rise in Godzilla movies!!

"What we have with all of this can be boiled down to one simple answer. The world press is creating a panic over something that shouldn't be blown this far out of porportion! I lived in Japan for several years as a kid when my father was in the Navy and I feel for the Japanese people who have lost their families and are suffering through hardships most of us couldn't begin to fathom. But we have the talking heads on the glogal news networks creating a panic about radiation that is less than a chest x-ray! How about focusing on the homeless and hungry japanese people who could be better served by the talking heads than some fantasy radiation scare that will never be noticed? Who cares is a miniscule amount of radiation is added to the atmosphere for a few days?"

I have to disagree a bit. The TV news that I am getting seem to downplay what's going on at Fukushima . I even heard one talking head say that radiation is good for you. It would be funny, if it wasn't a serious issue. Radiation is not good for you. My national tv news doesn't even talk about what's going on at fukushima any more. As if the situation is solved. It's not. It's ongoing and it is serious.  I understand the need to downplay the incident, after all creating large scale panic would kill more people than radiation eventually may. Also the nuclear industry has a product to sell, so Fukushima is not excatly good publicity for them.

Same thing happened with Chernobyl. Every government on earth (Especially Soviet government) tried to downplay the meltdown and all kinds of redicilous things were being said publicly. Now some recent studies suggest that more than a million people died because of Chernobyl.

It's possible that the people who live in the Fukushima area, wont be able to return to their homes. If I lived there, I certainly wouldn't go back as long as I lived.  The soil might also become contaminated for a long period of time, making it useless for agriculture.  I think that's a serious issue when you have so many displaced people already and the governments resources are stretched.

D'oh! Why do things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?

is this the latest news on the reactor?  LINK

 

 

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.

Besides these differences, the rest is the same and you have at least four Chernobyls. The earthquake damaged the plant, the reactors were not stopped because the control central was not operational due the earthquake's damage. The reactors run out of control and sufferered a partial meltdown until the control was restored in a partial and precarious way. The part of the rods that melted fell to the bottom of the container creating a blob above the critical mass and so the fission goes on and cannot be controlled anymore and it will continue until all fissionable material is exhausted or the blob is exploded int not critical pieces. The critical blob didn't explode as a nuclear bomb because the uranium and plutonium has a very low degree of enrichment, but it can burn for years.

You can disagree with all that I am saying, but use pure logic and common sense and examine the known facts:

• Minutes after the earquake Japan raised a nuclear alarm in five reactors. Fukushima has six reactors and something very bad must happened with five reactors.

• When you shut down a nuclear reactor the fission stop within microseconds. The power or heat drops in the act to 6%. This 6% is not due fission that doesn't exist anymore, it is due radioactive decay that also drops quickly, within one hour is 0.4% and a day later is 0.2% droping in a exponential way. You can find this in any physics textbook, and not what the tales circulating in the media.

• And have passed some weeks since the earthquake, time enought to nothing be hot if the reactor was shut down.

• The combustible rods are not fixed and welded to the container. The rods can be removed and changed by new rods plenty of combustible. When a rod is exhausted you replace it with a fresh new one without any big problem and without thurning down the reactor for some years. You also can insert a rod for creating isotops and alter remove it when is full of them.

• If a nuclear reactor has some problem you remove the rods and take them to a safe place.

• If the pool with used rods had a problem, why they didn't remove the rods from the pool instead of trying to cool the pool? Don't tell that it were very hot, you can move melted iron/steel from one part to other in a steel plant without any problem.

• Why there were injecting borum acid in the reactors? Borum acid is not used to cool nothing, borum has the property of absorving neutrons and so, stop the fission. Stop which fission if the reactor was shut down ?

• A nuclear reactor is used to generate electric power, it has a generator. If there is heat enough and steam enough the generator can produce all the electricity you need without the need o kilometers long cable to bring electricity to the reactor. And if the steam circuit was not more operational due the damage, bringing a kilometers long electric cable will solve nothing because it is not workin anymore.

• But if the reactors were not stopped, the rods melted and are under fission today the scenario is rather different. The fission is not anymore under control, cannot be controlled, it generate a lot heat and a lot of radiation. The released heat is damaging all what was not damaged, the heat source is now located in a part where the reactor was not designed to handle this heat, so the cooling process is not very effective and how many months or years you will have to continue cooling?

 

For me what should have to be done is: In the moment that the earthquake damaged the reactors and the nuclear alaram was raised, take the decision. The reactors are lost and without control and so isolated it from the population, retire as many combustible rods as possible, take it to a save place and burry the recators in sand and concrete. The fission can continue burning inside the concrete block for years, but all the radiation will be confined inside the concrete block without creating any damage to the surrounding population and all the world.

If they have done this the population would be saved, but....

• The company and their insvertors would have total loss, nothing would be able to save and recover meaning a loss of many billions.

• The world would know that nuclear plants are not so secure and that is not green energy.

• There are many nuclear plants around the world with the same design, design proved nothing secure. Not good for GE and their investors.

• Great damage to the plans of creating of new carbon free "green" nuclear plants.

• And much more.....

Stupidity also evolves!

Do you think they'll start pouring the concrete this week?

 

 

I hope they do it and soon, time is life and not money!

There are two ways to deal with the problem, or they isolate the reactors from the world with a concrete block as big as necessary, after all concrete is nothing expensive. Or they explode the reactor into pieces and then clean the mess. The second solution is nothing good because it will spread a lot of radioactive pieces around an area with dense population, but if the reactor would be located in a desert where nothing was living there it would not be a bad solution.

Stupidity also evolves!

Some counterpoint to kawecki's ill-informed postings.

-> http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2011/03/reflections_on_a_fukushima_for.html

-> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/25/fukushima_scaremongering_debunk/

The comments on both articles are worth reading through.

Good counterpoint nruddock.  i guess if they don't start pouring concrete this week then "the proof is in the pudding" so they say.

 

 

Quote - 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.

Besides these differences, the rest is the same and you have at least four Chernobyls. The earthquake damaged the plant, the reactors were not stopped because the control central was not operational due the earthquake's damage. The reactors run out of control and sufferered a partial meltdown until the control was restored in a partial and precarious way. The part of the rods that melted fell to the bottom of the container creating a blob above the critical mass and so the fission goes on and cannot be controlled anymore and it will continue until all fissionable material is exhausted or the blob is exploded int not critical pieces. The critical blob didn't explode as a nuclear bomb because the uranium and plutonium has a very low degree of enrichment, but it can burn for years.

You can disagree with all that I am saying, but use pure logic and common sense and examine the known facts:

• Minutes after the earquake Japan raised a nuclear alarm in five reactors. Fukushima has six reactors and something very bad must happened with five reactors.

• When you shut down a nuclear reactor the fission stop within microseconds. The power or heat drops in the act to 6%. This 6% is not due fission that doesn't exist anymore, it is due radioactive decay that also drops quickly, within one hour is 0.4% and a day later is 0.2% droping in a exponential way. You can find this in any physics textbook, and not what the tales circulating in the media.

• And have passed some weeks since the earthquake, time enought to nothing be hot if the reactor was shut down.

• The combustible rods are not fixed and welded to the container. The rods can be removed and changed by new rods plenty of combustible. When a rod is exhausted you replace it with a fresh new one without any big problem and without thurning down the reactor for some years. You also can insert a rod for creating isotops and alter remove it when is full of them.

• If a nuclear reactor has some problem you remove the rods and take them to a safe place.

• If the pool with used rods had a problem, why they didn't remove the rods from the pool instead of trying to cool the pool? Don't tell that it were very hot, you can move melted iron/steel from one part to other in a steel plant without any problem.

• Why there were injecting borum acid in the reactors? Borum acid is not used to cool nothing, borum has the property of absorving neutrons and so, stop the fission. Stop which fission if the reactor was shut down ?

• A nuclear reactor is used to generate electric power, it has a generator. If there is heat enough and steam enough the generator can produce all the electricity you need without the need o kilometers long cable to bring electricity to the reactor. And if the steam circuit was not more operational due the damage, bringing a kilometers long electric cable will solve nothing because it is not workin anymore.

• But if the reactors were not stopped, the rods melted and are under fission today the scenario is rather different. The fission is not anymore under control, cannot be controlled, it generate a lot heat and a lot of radiation. The released heat is damaging all what was not damaged, the heat source is now located in a part where the reactor was not designed to handle this heat, so the cooling process is not very effective and how many months or years you will have to continue cooling?

 

For me what should have to be done is: In the moment that the earthquake damaged the reactors and the nuclear alaram was raised, take the decision. The reactors are lost and without control and so isolated it from the population, retire as many combustible rods as possible, take it to a save place and burry the recators in sand and concrete. The fission can continue burning inside the concrete block for years, but all the radiation will be confined inside the concrete block without creating any damage to the surrounding population and all the world.

If they have done this the population would be saved, but....

• The company and their insvertors would have total loss, nothing would be able to save and recover meaning a loss of many billions.

• The world would know that nuclear plants are not so secure and that is not green energy.

• There are many nuclear plants around the world with the same design, design proved nothing secure. Not good for GE and their investors.

• Great damage to the plans of creating of new carbon free "green" nuclear plants.

• And much more.....

WOW! That is some of the most uninformed ranting I have heard in a while. First off this disater has noting to do with Socialist/Capitalist politics. If the Japanese were Communists, the earthquake would have been just as devistating! A 9.0 earthquke would level any modern city in the world, but the Japanese have had to deal with earthquakes and are the Subject Matter Experts in the field of building in an earthquake zone.

The next part may come as a shock, but I will try to break it to you gently...Governments lie. Its what they do, they get elected by the people by lieing to them and then they continue to lie to keep their jobs. It is an ugly fact of life.

You seem to be hung up on the idea that there are six reactors at this plant, that is no unusuall at all. Many plants have multipule reactors, it is a space saving issue. The Japanese have a limited amount of it, so they combine several plants into one footprint, not a part of the problem. You also make it sound like the Japanese overrode safety protocols to keep the reactors operating, that is also incorrect. When the power failed the system automaticaly shifted to the back-up generators, which were unfortunately also damaged by the quake.

With a quake of that size, you are pretty much going to get knocked to the ground and will have to wait it out until you can pick yourself back up after it is over.

You keep wanting to compare this to Chernobyl, although both are accidents they are not similar enough to use as a comparasion. Chernobyl's explosion ruptured the core containment vessel and exposed the core when it blew parts of itself all over the surrounding countryside. Fukushisma has had some explosions but they have yet had a core breach of Chernobl's magnitude. Fukushisma's problem stems from a loss of power to circulate coolant through the recator vessals which created a preasure build up that caused an explosion of the main structure, not the containment vessel.

You are talking aobut melted cores and runaway reactions, once freash water can be restored and circulating these "runaway reactions" will become moot. Then it will be a clean-up of enormous undertaking.

You spout off facts that you gleam for the net or from books but you do not know how to use these facts other than to sow confussion and fear. Nuclear energy is not the boogie man that you and other Green factions are saying. Yes there is an issue with the waste by-product, but there is also a waste by product from using fossil fuels but all the greenies still drive their SUV's to rallies.

If you are going to go off on some politically motivated rant, at least make sure that you learn you facts a little better. Right now you are no better than the talking heads that are sittin in their sudio's on the East Coast of the U.S. telling all of the West Coast Sheeple who will listen to them that they need to go out and buy DECON kits and Potasium Iodine pills.

Which would you prefer nuclear fission reactor or nuclear fusion reactor?

 

 

Quote - Which would you prefer nuclear fission reactor or nuclear fusion reactor?

Well, in a perfect world I believe that fusion would be better in the long run, the energy released from the reaction produces less waste and the fuel sourse would need to be changed less often because it would last longer than current Fussion fuel rods. Personally I would like to see a breakthrough in room temprature super conductors and Geo-thermal energy. I would like to see the U.S. break its dependancy on fossil fuels simply for the fact it would lower our taxes and raise the standard of living by creating cheaper energy for the masses. But knowing our government they would raise taxes on it so that we would be worse off than if we still used oil.

"WOW! That is some of the most uninformed ranting I have heard in a while."

 

look at the name..... this is the norm ;)

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

Yep!  Thank gwad this is the real America.  Hopefully there's still a few cowboys left that are willing to explore other energy sources besides hydro-carbons. 

 

 

Quote - Some counterpoint to kawecki's ill-informed postings.

-> http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2011/03/reflections_on_a_fukushima_for.html

-> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/25/fukushima_scaremongering_debunk/

The comments on both articles are worth reading through.

I almost completely subscribe kawecki comments, those links are just pro-nuclear propaganda. In case you are wondering, I have a M.Sc. in Physics...

About fusion reactors:

1 - D+T reaction has not yet powered a SINGLE F$%$$ING light bulb (and it is not going to do so for at least a couple of decades). There are also well founded doubts that fusion reactors will be able to fertilize enough T out of thir Li layers so in practise they will likely to still require fission plants to produce the balance of T.

2 - D+He-3 is NOT aneutronic. NO reaction in which there is D is. The problem is that, if you have appropriate conditions for fusion, the D+D -> T + p reaction can take place and that is immediately followed by D+T -> He-4 + n. And before you start uttering the R-word (regolyte) remember that lunar soil contains one part in 100 million of He3 so each ton of He-3 require processing 100 million tons of soil. Last but not least, D+He-3 reaction requires confinement conditions which make D+T ones "easy cake". Do your math.

3 - p+B reaction is NOT even that aneutronic (same problem, intermidiate reactions can follow neutron production paths) and its containement conditions make D+He-3 one look like "easy cake". Again, do your math.

Meanwhile solar energy requires nothing more than starting to build plants.

As I wrote in another thread, energy politics are dictated by:
1 - the need for power groups to prevent our countries to become indipendent (and indifferent) to Middle East politics;
2 - the need to handle military programs needs with civilian one (AFAIK, Fukushima are the usual bloody PWRs which are the worst possible design for a reactor... unless you need to contain space and weight, like on a navy vessel);
3 - the need for industrial and financial energy conglemerates not to change a single item in order to keep their earning to their current indecent levels.

Bye... and when dose rate is in the 1 Svh range, don't talk people about bananas: their are busy wretching (interesting stuff: early wretching is a nearly sure sign of a fatal exposure but lack of it is not necessarily a positive sign. In one accident in Russia, the victim had absorbed about 45 Sv and did not wretch. He died withing 3/4 days).

GIMP 2.7.4, Inkscape 0.48, Genetica 3.6 Basic, FilterForge 3 Professional, Blender 2.61, SketchUp 8, PoserPro 2012, Vue 10 Infinite, World Machine 2.3, GeoControl 2

Let's see if i got this straight...we build a fusion reactor/giant laser on the moon...transmit the power/weapon to earth...and every agency is happy?

 

 

another british publication (economist) mentioned this:

"the fiasco at the Fukushima Dai-ichi has revealed, again, the cosy ties between the nuclear industry and government.  Together, they have stifled debate, covered up bungles and made assumptions about risks that were too optimistic."

it occurred to me that's why we have trolls at internet forums - to stifle debate.  but they're of no concern in the context of those nuke plant workers whose legs were burned by radioactive seawater because they were only given ankle boots with plastic bags taped over them.

...but Nancy, if someone disagrees with you and calls for your evidence, you term them a troll. you don't present your evidence, you just stop posting for awhile.

thats not them stifling debate. that is debate. you make a statement, you then back up your statement with evidence.

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

Quote - another british publication (economist) mentioned this:

"the fiasco at the Fukushima Dai-ichi has revealed, again, the cosy ties between the nuclear industry and government. Together, they have stifled debate, covered up bungles and made assumptions about risks that were too optimistic."

it occurred to me that's why we have trolls at internet forums - to stifle debate. but they're of no concern in the context of those nuke plant workers whose legs were burned by radioactive seawater because they were only given ankle boots with plastic bags taped over them.

 

LMAO Me, a troll trying to say that nuclear energy is safe? Not a chance, I am one of the most anti-government advocates that you will see. I love my country but I hate the government that runs it. I was simply stating that the talking heads were causing more issues than they needed too. As far as the workers getting burned by the contaminated worker, I think the owners of the facility should be held responsible for not having adiquate safety equipment available for their workers. I firmly believe that better safety precautions should be in place for ALL contingincies no matter where you work. There should have been manual counter measures in place in the event that both primary AND secondary measures are disabled. But in nuclear energy's defense, how many accidents have there been since they started using it? Three maybe four? Now how many oil spills and refinery explosions have there been since the use of fossil fuels? More than I can count. Yeah considering the difference in contamination due to an accident is catistrophic. I still think that our governments are being influenced by the oil industry AND other special interest groups thus preventing the development of clean safe energy.

Attached Link: http://www.cmch.tv/mentors/hottopic.asp?id=70

> Quote - > Quote - the reason you see 'em with cel-fones glued to their ears when driving or walking around is that, in addition to a fairly strong signal being sent to the nearest towers, there is also a very-short-range static electric field that works like a brain stim, acting on a pleasure centre on the side of the brain where the cel is held. apparently it's very addictive. we don't have clear evidence that either the long-range signal nor short-range field can cause the sort of excitation of molecular bonds that microwave ovens can achieve. it might show up later in these individuals as some kind of schizoid or dissociative behavior, in the way that ultrasonic disruption may lead to an increase in the probability of autism in infants. > > complete rubbish. where's your proof? the studies? the case notes? ***the evidence?***

Dude! Just Google Cellphone Effects on the Brain! There are plenty of links to case studies!

Quote - ...but Nancy, if someone disagrees with you and calls for your evidence, you term them a troll. you don't present your evidence, you just stop posting for awhile.

thats not them stifling debate. that is debate. you make a statement, you then back up your statement with evidence.

Maybe Miss Nancy doesn't have time for your BS when you're perfectly capable of looking it up with Google like everyone else. I've attached one such found link for you to go look at if you're not too full of it to read it for yourself.

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.

Stupidity also evolves!

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - the reason you see 'em with cel-fones glued to their ears when driving or walking around is that, in addition to a fairly strong signal being sent to the nearest towers, there is also a very-short-range static electric field that works like a brain stim, acting on a pleasure centre on the side of the brain where the cel is held. apparently it's very addictive. we don't have clear evidence that either the long-range signal nor short-range field can cause the sort of excitation of molecular bonds that microwave ovens can achieve. it might show up later in these individuals as some kind of schizoid or dissociative behavior, in the way that ultrasonic disruption may lead to an increase in the probability of autism in infants.

complete rubbish. where's your proof? the studies? the case notes? the evidence?

Dude! Just Google Cellphone Effects on the Brain! There are plenty of links to case studies!

Quote - ...but Nancy, if someone disagrees with you and calls for your evidence, you term them a troll. you don't present your evidence, you just stop posting for awhile.

thats not them stifling debate. that is debate. you make a statement, you then back up your statement with evidence.

Maybe Miss Nancy doesn't have time for your BS when you're perfectly capable of looking it up with Google like everyone else. I've attached one such found link for you to go look at if you're not too full of it to read it for yourself.

 

ok lets make this clear Matrixworks, lost in spaceman, mizreal.

I try to avoid you. but if you keep changing names it's hard to do.

I have nothing to say to you after this post period.

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - > Quote - the reason you see 'em with cel-fones glued to their ears when driving or walking around is that, in addition to a fairly strong signal being sent to the nearest towers, there is also a very-short-range static electric field that works like a brain stim, acting on a pleasure centre on the side of the brain where the cel is held. apparently it's very addictive. we don't have clear evidence that either the long-range signal nor short-range field can cause the sort of excitation of molecular bonds that microwave ovens can achieve. it might show up later in these individuals as some kind of schizoid or dissociative behavior, in the way that ultrasonic disruption may lead to an increase in the probability of autism in infants.

complete rubbish. where's your proof? the studies? the case notes? the evidence?

Dude! Just Google Cellphone Effects on the Brain! There are plenty of links to case studies!

Quote - ...but Nancy, if someone disagrees with you and calls for your evidence, you term them a troll. you don't present your evidence, you just stop posting for awhile.

thats not them stifling debate. that is debate. you make a statement, you then back up your statement with evidence.

Maybe Miss Nancy doesn't have time for your BS when you're perfectly capable of looking it up with Google like everyone else. I've attached one such found link for you to go look at if you're not too full of it to read it for yourself.

 

ok lets make this clear Matrixworks, lost in spaceman, mizreal.

I try to avoid you. but if you keep changing names it's hard to do.

I have nothing to say to you after this post period.

Good! Because quite frankly I'm fed up with your bullshit antagonistic behaviour towards me and some of my friends here including Miss Nancy who wasn't here to debate you. I'm fed up with you telling people what they can and can not do here in the forums as you did to me when I asked a question about the religion thread and you told me to move along as if you were some sort of moderator I should listen to. Frankly I'm as tired of you as you are of me so after this we can both just ignore each other from now on.

Quote - until cars and trucks and airplanes run electric, there is a need for oil no matter what."

Even cars, truks and planes would be running with electricity it would solve nothing. It only use a fraction of oil, most of the oil is used by plastics and chemical industry.

Unless you get rid of plastics and return to the old glass, wood, metal and ceramic a huge amount of oil will continue to be needed.

Stupidity also evolves!

Got any sources for that? The numbers I could find show that just a small fraction is used for petrochemicals.  Parts of this need for oil could possibly be fulfilled by hemp oil

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...

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

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.

Airport security is a burden we must all shoulder. Do your part, and please grope yourself in advance.

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.

D'oh! Why do things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me?

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

... at least 50 views are mine...

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

 

 

.

“The fact that no one understands you…Doesn’t make you an artist.”

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.

Stupidity also evolves!

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.....

Stupidity also evolves!

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).

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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