Saturday, March 12, 2011
"Meltdown" in Japan: Implications for energy policy
A Japanese nuclear power plant has exploded following yesterday's earthquake just off shore. Video:
Stratfor is calling it a "meltdown," and its report is reproduced here with permission (short commentary follows).
A March 12 explosion at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown.
The key piece of technology in a nuclear reactor is the control rods. Nuclear fuel generates neutrons; controlling the flow and production rate of these neutrons is what generates heat, and from the heat, electricity. Control rods absorb neutrons — the rods slide in and out of the fuel mass to regulate neutron emission, and with it, heat and electricity generation.
A meltdown occurs when the control rods fail to contain the neutron emission and the heat levels inside the reactor thus rise to a point that the fuel itself melts, generally temperatures in excess of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing uncontrolled radiation-generating reactions and making approaching the reactor incredibly hazardous. A meltdown does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster. As long as the reactor core, which is specifically designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be dealt with. If the core breaches but the containment facility built around the core remains intact, the melted fuel can still be dealt with — typically entombed within specialized concrete — but the cost and difficulty of such containment increases exponentially.
(click here to enlarge image)
However, the earthquake in Japan, in addition to damaging the ability of the control rods to regulate the fuel — and the reactor’s coolant system — appears to have damaged the containment facility, and the explosion almost certainly did. There have been reports of “white smoke,” perhaps burning concrete, coming from the scene of the explosion, indicating a containment breach and the almost certain escape of significant amounts of radiation.
At this point, events in Japan bear many similarities to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Reports indicate that up to 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) of the reactor fuel was exposed. The reactor fuel appears to have at least partially melted, and the subsequent explosion has shattered the walls and roof of the containment vessel — and likely the remaining useful parts of the control and coolant systems.
(click here to enlarge image)And so now the question is simple: Did the floor of the containment vessel crack? If not, the situation can still be salvaged by somehow re-containing the nuclear core. But if the floor has cracked, it is highly likely that the melting fuel will burn through the floor of the containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before but has always been the nightmare scenario for a nuclear power event — in this scenario, containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and expensive to nearly impossible.
Radiation exposure for the average individual is 620 millirems per year, split about evenly between manmade and natural sources. The firefighters who served at the Chernobyl plant were exposed to between 80,000 and 1.6 million millirems. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that exposure to 375,000 to 500,000 millirems would be sufficient to cause death within three months for half of those exposed. A 30-kilometer-radius (19 miles) no-go zone remains at Chernobyl to this day. Japan’s troubled reactor site is about 300 kilometers from Tokyo.
The latest report from the damaged power plant indicated that exposure rates outside the plant were at about 620 millirems per hour, though it is not clear whether that report came before or after the reactor’s containment structure exploded.
Commentary
It is not yet clear how damaging this accident will turn out to be. The Associated Press has rounded up Russians who do not seem too worried about it:
Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said a Chernobyl-style meltdown was unlikely.
"It's not a fast reaction like at Chernobyl," he said. "I think that everything will be contained within the grounds, and there will be no big catastrophe."
The Japanese government, which is said not to have been entirely forthcoming about nuclear accidents in the past -- and what government has been? -- also says that a big-time radiation spew is not in the offing.
Regardless, however, this disaster is likely to have short and long-term consequences for energy prices and policy. Even before the explosion the business press was reporting that the shutting down of the Japanese nuclear power system would create substantial incremental demand for oil:
The Japan earthquake has shut an estimated 6,800 megawatts of nuclear power generation, or 15%-20% of Japan's capacity, and while it isn't clear how long outages will last, there could be considerable fuel substitution, which in turn could drive up prices of alternative fuels, according to a Barclay Capital analysis published Saturday.
If the shuttered nuclear capacity was replaced only by additional fuel oil consumption, it would require an additional 238,000 barrels a day, it said.
Longer term, it would be very surprising if this event, however it plays out, did not reinvigorate opposition to nuclear power in other rich countries, including particularly the United States. Expect the anti-nuclear environmental groups to make as much political hay out of this as they can, as soon as possible. That, in turn, will put even more pressure on the argument over the causes and forecasted consequences of anthropogenic global warming, because the standard of living of the developed world will be at stake.
26 Comments:
By 
Stephen, at
Sat Mar 12, 08:53:00 AM:
This situation certainly points out the risks associated with nuclear technology. If reactors cannot be designed to be accident safe, maybe they can be put deep underground. In a couple years we will have a new president. Hopefully a top priority will be energy policy.
By sykes.1, at
Sat Mar 12, 09:53:00 AM:
Concrete does not burn; it is already oxidized. The white "smoke" is almost certainly steam.
The steam could have been released from a rupture anywhere in the hydraulic system, and it might not indicate any sort of radiation release.
However, the initial shock wave is disturbing. If this is a hydrogen/oxygen explosion, then the pressure vessel itself might have ruptured, and a Chernobyl type release is possible.
By 
, at
Sat Mar 12, 10:31:00 AM:
President Obama is absolutely right about this, nucular energy is dead in this country, no more and get rid of the dangerous plants that now exist. He is right; our only hope for clean, cheap, safe, green job producing energy is collecting the urine from endless herds of unicorns. That is the only way!!!
BTW, don't you feel bad knowing this could have been avoided if Japan had just paid Al Gore what he was due?
By , at
Sat Mar 12, 10:49:00 AM:
Well, if we would just stand up to the left, this is actually a vindication of nuke plant design. The worst earthquake in modern Japanese history and, at least at this point, it seem like Japanese engineering held the line.
Of course, this requires a rational debate and some courage to stand up to the green lobby.
If the USA does not ramp up it efforts in nuclear power, we certainly will eventually become a third world nation. There is really no way around this. (This is, of course, what the left wants.)
We know the propaganda that is coming; we need to rationally take it to the electorate.
By , at
Sat Mar 12, 10:53:00 AM:
TEPCO is mandated to reveal what's happening by the nuclear protocols of the Japanese Government. I suggest that you keep track of what's happening by visiting this URL:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/index-e.html
The headlines are misleading in the extreme: Chernobyl had NO CONTAINMENT VESSEL.
By pam, at
Sat Mar 12, 11:00:00 AM:
The changes the Japanese made after the Tokaimura accident certainly show that well-constructed plants with strict controls are how it can be done and they provide the best response to fears regarding safety and human errors.
By , at
Sat Mar 12, 11:32:00 AM:
It is too early to know with certainty, but reading the reports leads me to think that the problem the Japanese are facing stems not from earthquake damage to the reactors themselves, but earthquake and in particular tsunami damage to their electrical systems. It appears that the weak link was a lack of power to keep the cooling systems operating. We'll see.
In any event, that was a huge quake. If you had been at ground zero, you would not have been able to stand on your feet. It would have been like trying to ride a bucking bull standing on its back. The only place in the continental US that a quake of that magnitude is ever expected is in Missouri of all places, and maybe Yellowstone Park.
So I think it is fair to say that this is pretty much the worst case scenario in terms of earthquake effects on nuclear power plants. Signs of failure are mixed with signs of success.
M.E.
By Gary Rosen, at
Sat Mar 12, 06:22:00 PM:
"The only place in the continental US that a quake of that magnitude is ever expected is in Missouri of all places, and maybe Yellowstone Park."
Cascadia Subduction Zone
This is almost a mirror image of the location of the Japan quake on the other side of the Pacific.
By , at
Sat Mar 12, 06:34:00 PM:
In the middle of a huge natural disaster the news media is presenting a mountain of speculation and opinions balanced on the pin of know facts about the problems at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants.
A BWR design built in the late 1960’s shut down safely when hit by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake. The fission process was stopped. The diesel powered backup system came on line to circulate water to keep the reactor cool during the decay heat removal phase of the shutdown. When the tsunami wave hit the power plant it stopped the diesel generator. The earthquake had destroyed outside power links so the plant went on battery backup.
The operators continued to pump water into the core to remove the decay heat and vented the steam into the secondary containment building. As the steam was filtered and released there was a build up of hydrogen gas in the secondary containment building. The result was the hydrogen caused the explosion so widely seen on TV. The secondary containment was a normal building not a reinforced concrete dome.
The amounts of radiation that have been quantified (70 uSv is one number) are very low. The reported deaths or injuries at the plant appear to be industrial (due to the earthquake, tsunami, explosion) as opposed to radiological.
There is no evidence or facts to support the reports of a meltdown, primary containment breach, nuclear explosion or dirty fallout.
Now that the secondary containment has been breached, the vented steam will dissipate over the Pacific and the induced radiation will decay safely.
By , at
Sat Mar 12, 10:23:00 PM:
By Gary Rosen, at
Sat Mar 12, 10:54:00 PM:
Mr. Ed,
Living in the SF Bay Area can make you kind of wonkish about earthquakes :^). There are a lot of other "fun facts" at the USGS web site
USGS Earthquake Lists
By Miss Ladybug, at
Sun Mar 13, 12:28:00 AM:
I said this over at Grim's Hall earlier:
I can see this is a black eye for nuclear power, but really, how many other nuclear power plants are built in an earthquake zone and face the potential threat of a tsunami? I can't imagine there are many more of them on the planet....I would think under normal circumstances (not in an earthquake/tsunami zone), the back-ups they had in place would be sufficient for most all contingencies...
By , at
Sun Mar 13, 04:11:00 AM:
missed the class on "nuclear reactor design", so maybe one of y'all can help me out here. in every single industrial plant that involved high-power machinery i've ever been to (or worked in), each massive drive motor/electrical monstrosity had a manual kill switch nearby. to be used in a mfg./or life-and-death safety emergency. plainly labeled, painted bright red, lotsa arrows pointing to it, and *everyone* in that plant - even the brand-new guys - knew what it was for and how to use it.
yet nuclear plants ain't got 'em??? i'm well aware that the reactor control rods are computer controlled, but is there NO WAY POSSIBLE to set up a "cut this chain in case of emergency" gravity rigging that would send the rods crashing into the reactor, thus snuffing the reaction and....oh....preventing a runaway chain reaction or an overheating that results in a core meltdown?? after, like, an *earthquake* or something?
**decades** after 3 mile island and chernobyl??
since i KNOW nuclear physicists aren't idiots; since i KNOW nuke plant designers learn about the emergency plan to kill the first reactions at U. of Chicago in 1942 by using a 'scram man' system very much like what i just described **on their first day in class**; since i KNOW they all attend seminars and conferences where they talk endlessly about "the lessons of 3-mile island and chernobyl"...
how the flying hell is there no way to do a manual override/shutdown of a reaction at a NUKE PLANT located fairly close to one of the largest and most densely populated metropolitan areas in the entire world?
i know they can't be so stupid as to have neglected to make one.....and yet every time we have one of these incidents (and drudge reports that *6* reactors are going critical now) it seems they forgot to make one. WTF???
By , at
Sun Mar 13, 09:27:00 AM:
3 of 6 plants were in operation at the time of the quake. All 3 operating plants shutdown automatically. With an oil fired plant if you turn off the fuel the heat is gone and the unit cools. With a nuclear unit decay heat is still present. 7% at the beginning and even though it decays logarithmically, there is still a lot of energy. The plants are designed to manage this as long as the pipes don’t break. And while the plants have a battery backup, you really need the emergency diesel generators in order to keep water pumping. The plants also use some of that energy to drive steam driven pumps. The weakness is the piping (look at accelerations that stress components during an earthquake). Also, keep in mind they had 2 design basis events, or maybe even past design basis together, earthquake followed by tsunami.
I’ve been away from nuclear plants for 10 years, but I was in operations in a plant of similar design. So here is my guess as to what is taking place.
Earth quake that causes reactor to scram (fission stopped, now only decay heat). High Pressure Coolant Injection Starts (uses some decay heat and keeps Reactor Covered). Emergency Diesels start to provide power. However piping was broken somewhere and water starts dropping in the vessel. The reactor is a saturated system, so as water and energy leak out pressure lowers. Reactor Core Injection Starts (another steam driven pump that will start as pressure lowers or level drops further – add water to HPCI). HPCI and RICI can’t keep up with the size hole and water level and pressure drop. Low Pressure Coolant Injection Starts (LPCI). These are big low pressure pumps meant to move a lot of water, but they are electric. Here comes the tsunami that causes the diesels to go down (Each unit will have its own multiple diesels and there should be some ability to cross connect. Diesels are monsters and can take a lot of abuse and keep running. 30 ft wave of water is more than a lot of abuse.) Diesels down, LPCI down, steam pressure down, water flows out the hole and fuel is uncovered. Fuel heats up and gets to the point of hydriding-where fuel is in contact with water the zirconium cover steals oxygen from the water and becomes zirconium oxide. Hydrogen gas is liberated. Because the reactor vessel has a hole in it, the hydrogen gets into the primary containment (a concrete and steel shell inside the reactor building. The Primary will stop release if the vessel fails). The primary containment is normally inerted with nitrogen in case of this hydrogen release. I suspect the primary containment also has a hole. Nitrogen and hydrogen leaked out, combine with oxygen in the reactor building (secondary containment) that lead to the explosion.
Right now they are pumping in seawater which means they are at the end of their emergency operating instructions (EOI) so things are as bad as they can get. They are also mixing boron, a poison to absorb neutrons and prevent further fission.(Every plant in the US has bags of boron to mix into the vessel and a special system to do it-I believe Japan is the same) Cesium is reported to have been found outside the plant which helps my hypothesis of the various holes. The cesium would be liberated from the fuel rods and pellets. I hope instead of melting that they managed to get water onto the fuel and the rods shattered like at Three Mile Island (TMI). While bad, most fission products will stay with the fuel pellets in the rubble of shattered rods (There was a rubble bed in the bottom of the TMI reactor vessel after this occurred). Also the water will keep things from getting worse.
By , at
Sun Mar 13, 09:28:00 AM:
Comments continued
From the reports that I’ve seen the radiation levels at the fence are 70 times greater than normal, but normal is so low that this isn’t a great concern. Water acts as shielding, so if this is the level without water things will get better. If this is the level with water, than the explosion managed to spread some contamination around. The Government is being very conservative with the evacuation and iodine. I’ve read that the wind will take anything released off shore. This is a very different design than Chernobyl so the release should not be anywhere near the same within several orders of magnitude. Unit 3 is also depressurized and had boron and seawater injected, so that unit is scrap too. However, it doesn’t sound as if they uncovered the fuel or had the complications they had at Unit 1.
One last thing, these are 40 year old units with 50-60 year old technology. There are safer technologies today if people would get over their fear and allow us to build. Imagine your computer if you were only allowed to use 50 year old technology. Fear is keeping us less safe in this instance.
By , at
Sun Mar 13, 09:30:00 AM:
3 of 6 plants were in operation at the time of the quake. All 3 operating plants shutdown automatically. With an oil fired plant if you turn off the fuel the heat is gone and the unit cools. With a nuclear unit decay heat is still present. 7% at the beginning and even though it decays logarithmically, there is still a lot of energy. The plants are designed to manage this as long as the pipes don’t break. And while the plants have a battery backup, you really need the emergency diesel generators in order to keep water pumping. The plants also use some of that energy to drive steam driven pumps. The weakness is the piping (look at accelerations that stress components during an earthquake). Also, keep in mind they had 2 design basis events, or maybe even past design basis together, earthquake followed by tsunami.
I’ve been away from nuclear plants for 10 years, but I was in operations in a plant of similar design. So here is my guess as to what is taking place.
Earth quake that causes reactor to scram (fission stopped, now only decay heat). High Pressure Coolant Injection Starts (uses some decay heat and keeps Reactor Covered). Emergency Diesels start to provide power. However piping was broken somewhere and water starts dropping in the vessel. The reactor is a saturated system, so as water and energy leak out pressure lowers. Reactor Core Injection Starts (another steam driven pump that will start as pressure lowers or level drops further – add water to HPCI). HPCI and RICI can’t keep up with the size hole and water level and pressure drop. Low Pressure Coolant Injection Starts (LPCI). These are big low pressure pumps meant to move a lot of water, but they are electric. Here comes the tsunami that causes the diesels to go down (Each unit will have its own multiple diesels and there should be some ability to cross connect. Diesels are monsters and can take a lot of abuse and keep running. 30 ft wave of water is more than a lot of abuse.) Diesels down, LPCI down, steam pressure down, water flows out the hole and fuel is uncovered. Fuel heats up and gets to the point of hydriding-where fuel is in contact with water the zirconium cover steals oxygen from the water and becomes zirconium oxide. Hydrogen gas is liberated. Because the reactor vessel has a hole in it, the hydrogen gets into the primary containment (a concrete and steel shell inside the reactor building. The Primary will stop release if the vessel fails). The primary containment is normally inerted with nitrogen in case of this hydrogen release. I suspect the primary containment also has a hole. Nitrogen and hydrogen leaked out, combine with oxygen in the reactor building (secondary containment) that lead to the explosion.
Right now they are pumping in seawater which means they are at the end of their emergency operating instructions (EOI) so things are as bad as they can get. They are also mixing boron, a poison to absorb neutrons and prevent further fission.(Every plant in the US has bags of boron to mix into the vessel and a special system to do it-I believe Japan is the same) Cesium is reported to have been found outside the plant which helps my hypothesis of the various holes. The cesium would be liberated from the fuel rods and pellets. I hope instead of melting that they managed to get water onto the fuel and the rods shattered like at Three Mile Island (TMI). While bad, most fission products will stay with the fuel pellets in the rubble of shattered rods (There was a rubble bed in the bottom of the TMI reactor vessel after this occurred). Also the water will keep things from getting worse.
By , at
Sun Mar 13, 05:04:00 PM:
The last Anon rants that there wasn't a Kill Switch on the Japanese reactors, but there was. More below.
What follows is a Comic Book explanation of nuclear power that I gave my 15-year daughter earlier today. I’m not a nuclear engineer, so I welcome criticism.
Part One: A-bombs
Uranium is the largest naturally occurring atom, but it’s so big that it’s unstable. These atoms break apart naturally, which yields energy. You can measure this breakdown – and energy release -- with a Geiger counter. Normally the chances of any one uranium atom breaking down are so low that the “half life” of this occurring for a given amount of uranium is measured in thousands of years. Thus, radioactivity is natural ... but in nature is so diffuse that's it's hardly measurable.
But when one uranium atom breaks down, the odds are higher that it will have the knock-on effect of breaking down a neighboring uranium atom. Normally in nature, this effect is slight, but put enough uranium atoms close enough together and the resulting chain reaction is so accelerated that it causes the uranium to break down in milli-seconds, not millennia – and you’ve got a mushroom cloud bomb.
But this only works for the rarer, less stable isotope, U-235, not the more common relatively more stable U-238. Separating U-235 from U-238 is a challenging industrial exercise that only a few nations are capable of. You can’t make a bomb out of even tons of raw uranium without this skill, hence the concern with “centrifuges.”
Even a shithead college undergraduate from a third-rate university can design an atomic bomb -– getting the necessary U-235 is the real constraint.
i.e., If you pack 25 pounds of U-235 together in a concentrated ball the right way, it blows up … spectacularly. Back in 1945, Fat Man and Little Boy used two competing methods for how to do the packing. Given 40 pounds of U-235 – and a death wish – even this non-Ivy college graduate could make an atomic bomb … 20 pounds in the right hand … 20 pounds in the left … squeeze together ... Voila!
Sidebar: Which is why rumors that Saddam was after raw yellowcake uranium should never have been taken seriously as an immediate threat, to anyone with even a basic understanding of how A-bombs work. Which is why the Bush administration was totally full of shit, and should have been called on it. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Burn in hell, Condi.
By , at
Sun Mar 13, 05:54:00 PM:
Part Two: Nuclear Reactors
We get our electricity by turning turbines. With just a few exceptions, we turn our turbines with steam. We get the steam by boiling water. We boil the water by burning coal or natural gas, or from nuclear.
As explained above, with nuclear power we accelerate the natural decay of radioactive elements and harness the energy release therefrom.
When used to boil water, uranium-based nuclear reactors are part way between what occurs in nature and an A-bomb. Reactors speed up the natural breakdown of uranium – and the resulting energy release – but not so fast as to create an A-bomb explosion.
Note: There’s never enough raw material in a reactor to create an A-bomb explosion. It can’t happen.
There is enough however for the reactor core to overheat.
Reactors use carbon rods to manage the pace of the chain reaction, as they naturally slow down the pace of the chain reaction. If you lower the carbon rods, the reactor slows down. If you drop them in entirely, it stops. These carbon rods are the first order – and most important – fail safe in a reactor. Modern design uses power to hold the rods up – if you lose outside power the rods drop down entirely.
This worked in Japan. The rods dropped, the chain reaction is slowing down – but the nuclear reactor core is still hot.
The problem is that the generating plants have lost their own power – the back-up generator failed too -- so that the plants haven’t been able to run water over the hot nuclear reactor core. Ordinarily this happens to create the steam for the turbines. But it’s not been happening, which is the immediate threat: the reactor core could stay so hot that it’ll melt through its surroundings and release radioactivity.
By , at
Sun Mar 13, 08:16:00 PM:
i'm the "kill switch" anon commenter from earlier, 'ignoramus'. (an unfortunate handle, BTW: difficult to apply honorifics to it without sounding snarky, which is not my intent).
appreciate the answer to my question, and especially the 'comic book' simplicity, since - as i mentioned - i'm no nuclear physicist.
but i DO know a thing or two about industrial safety. ok, so they had a manual 'control-rod kill switch' to snuff the reaction. that's good. but as you pointed out, in an earthquake, they'd have *2* problems that would get critical fast if not dealt with. snuffing the reaction itself, AND dealing with the leftover heat. and evidently they had a system in place that dealt with only ONE of those problems???
that is just not acceptable. especially after TMI and chernobyl. if the reactors have to be cooled manually, then you DESIGN them with 100,000 gallon tanks of ice water on a gravity feed attached to them. or *10* 100K tanks, if that's what it takes. and if that water must be circulated or rechilled, then you attach diesel-powered generators to pumps/chillers. and if you might run out of diesel, then you attach a manual crank to THEM.
nuclear physics is, literally, rocket science. i'll be the first to grant that point. but industrial safety *isn't*. you pay smart guys to envision worse-case scenarios, then you install **whatever it takes to keep them from happening**. especially when you're talking about catastrophic radioactivity leaks, especially in freakin' JAPAN, i would think. no?
the new ipad has...what...about a million times more computing power than the apollo 11 and mission control had in 1969, right? and nobody thinks it's all that big a deal. weighs a pound, less than an inch thick, and....well, it's NICE, but no huge deal because we've come to **expect** this kind of performance and innovation from the computer industry.
so why the hell can't the nuclear power industry manage to design a stone-age killswitch system? anybody?
By , at
Mon Mar 14, 12:40:00 AM:
Ignoramus,
Well, you don’t like engineers much do you?
Nice segue from an earthquake in Japan to a little Bush Bash.
If you could have just worked Sara in you would have had a trifecta.
The tall man or thin man bomb was a U235 design that “slapped” together two sub critical pieces and caused the explosion. The fat man was a plutonium implosion bomb.
The control rods are not normally carbon (graphite) which helps the reaction along but some type of neutron absorber to stop the reaction.
The fission process was shut down at the time of the earthquake. The residual radioactive decay products continue to produce quite a bit of heat, on the order of 0.5% of the original reactor power (for this reactor about 5 Mw). That is what the cooling water needs to carry away. That residual heat is what is dangerous because it can damage the fuel rods.
The reactor operators have been keeping the fuel rods covered with water to prevent the residual heat damaging the zircaloy tubes that contain the uranium. The various releases of steam and gas from the reactor have been part of the process of keeping the core cool.
To have a reactor breach would require that the operators stop adding water to cool the core. …
OK, that is enough. I do not have enough time in my life to bring you up to speed on this subject. Do your own reseach and read what I sent at 6:34 on March 12th.
By , at
Mon Mar 14, 09:41:00 AM:
I do like engineers, and I’m a fan of Sarah’s.
1) Most Americans equate a nuclear plant meltdown with a possible A-bomb explosion. I had Imus on the radio this morning – a guest expert was actually using the words “hydrogen” and “mushroom cloud” in the same sentence to describe the explosions that have already been happening at the Japanese plants.
2) They also believe that radioactivity is unnatural, was somehow invented by scientists in the laboratory, and is being propagated across the globe by evil engineers.
I was trying to write a simple explanation that (1) is false and that (2) nuclear power is just our harnessing a natural phenomenon. I can argue that it’s less unnatural than our burning coal. By the way, burning coal kills hundreds of people in the Northeast every year through increased cancers.
I then wanted to make the point that our current methods of nuclear power have grown out of military applications and have been skewed thereby. Nothing against the military – it’s the lack of government-sponsored research and regulatory impediments that have lost us a generation of progress in pursuing alternative designs and alternative nuclear fuels.
If we lose another generation we’re fucked. We need clear fact-based explanations, and strong leadership on this.
Re the Bush-Condi bash, demagoguery can work both ways. I call ‘em when I see ‘em..
By , at
Mon Mar 14, 09:42:00 AM:
Meant to sign, that was Ignoramus
By , at
Mon Mar 14, 09:43:00 AM:
I do like engineers, and I’m a fan of Sarah’s.
1) Most Americans equate a nuclear plant meltdown with a possible A-bomb explosion. I had Imus on the radio this morning – a guest expert was actually using the words “hydrogen” and “mushroom cloud” in the same sentence to describe the explosions that have already been happening at the Japanese plants.
2) They also believe that radioactivity is unnatural, was somehow invented by scientists in the laboratory, and is being propagated across the globe by evil engineers.
I was trying to write a simple explanation that (1) is false and that (2) nuclear power is just our harnessing a natural phenomenon. I can argue that it’s less unnatural than our burning coal. By the way, burning coal kills hundreds of people in the Northeast every year through increased cancers.
I then wanted to make the point that our current methods of nuclear power have grown out of military applications and have been skewed thereby. Nothing against the military – it’s the lack of government-sponsored research and regulatory impediments that have lost us a generation of progress in pursuing alternative designs and alternative nuclear fuels.
If we lose another generation we’re fucked.
Re the Bush-Condi bash, demagoguery can work both ways. I call ‘em when I see ‘em..
By , at
Mon Mar 14, 11:54:00 AM:
I do like engineers, and I’m a fan of Sarah’s.
1) Most Americans equate a nuclear plant meltdown with an A-bomb explosion. I had Imus on the radio this morning – a guest expert was actually using the words “hydrogen” and “mushroom cloud” in the same sentence to describe the explosions that have already been happening at the Japanese plants.
2) Most Americans also believe that radioactivity is unnatural, was somehow invented by scientists in the laboratory, and is being propagated across the globe by evil engineers.
I was trying to write a simple explanation that (1) is false and that (2) nuclear power is just our harnessing a natural phenomenon. I can argue that nuclear power is less unnatural than our burning coal – e.g., uranium atoms will breakdown of their own accord anyway, just more slowly. When we burn coal we kill hundreds of people in the Northeast every year through increased cancers. More people just died in Japan by riding bullet trains than will die from the venting nuclear plants.
I then wanted to make the point that our current methods of nuclear power have grown out of military applications and have been skewed thereby. Nothing against the military – it’s the lack of government-sponsored research and regulatory impediments that have lost us a generation of progress in pursuing alternative designs and alternative nuclear fuels.
If we lose another generation we’re fucked.
Re the Bush-Condi bash, demagoguery can work both ways. I call ‘em when I see ‘em..
By , at
Wed Mar 16, 01:03:00 PM:
hmm. well, how 'bout that? now we learn the *real* hazard in all this is the pools containing "tons of highly radioactive spent fuel rods" were located - in a move that'll go down in the engineering hall of shame, next to the frozen o-rings from the challenger - located ON TOP OF the reactor buildings.
just siting there, covered with coolant. with - according to today's zerohedge 'nuke engineer expose' - with no backup or failsafe systems to maintain that coolant coverage. "nuclear safety activists have long known of these (design flaw) problems and have sought repeatedly to have them addressed. at least get backup generators for the pools, they implored. but at every turn the industry has pushed back, and the nuclear regulatory commission has consistently ruled in favor of plant owners over local communities."
the bane of human existence isn't stupidity, it's BAD MANAGEMENT. from sending the doughboys over the top to "charge!" the machine guns protected by hundreds of yards of barbed wire to reducing capital reserves on banks because "what could possibly go wrong?" to this latest nuclear mightmare, bad management has killed millions of people - and it looks like fukushima's managers will be responsible for many more deaths when it's all finally tallied up.
no *prison* time for them, of course. we reserve that for scumbags who sell doobies or don't pay their tickets. oh, and BTW, there are 20 or 30 reactors with the identical design (flaws) plugging away here every day in the good ol' USA. have a nice day.
By , at
Wed Mar 16, 06:35:00 PM:
Is this right?
For this 1970s designed reactor, there was concern that if power was lost to circulate water the core would overheat, but they put the spent rods on top of the core in a vat of water anyway -- just asking for them to get boiled?
That the reactor mostly survived an 8.9 earthquake, but this flaw is the cause of the current problem.
