Water leaks from Onagawa nuclear plant

benwm · Apr 14, 2011

dcraig
Come clean - What are your links to the nuclear industry? I think your contributions are still welcome as most of us are not nuclear experts. But if you have a vested interest maybe better to declare it?

I don't believe anyone posting here wants it to be as bad as Chernobyl.

But we do want facts because some of us have family members in Japan.

benwm · Apr 14, 2011

Japanese people are said to be eating strawberries from the Fukushima region because they passed the safe levels, and the Japanese people want to help the disaster stricken area.

Edano, the Government public spokesman, apparently ate a strawberry in public to demonstrate how safe it was.
:eek:

benwm · Apr 14, 2011

One question for dcraig-

If the whole Fukushima plant finally explodes and you get a full scale meltdown just like Chernobyl...do you think the nuclear industry experts that say the Japanese people should not be evacuated are criminally liable for any deaths that result?

benwm · Apr 14, 2011

dcraig · Apr 14, 2011

Quote from benwm:

One question for dcraig-

If the whole Fukushima plant finally explodes and you get a full scale meltdown just like Chernobyl...do you think the nuclear industry experts that say the Japanese people should not be evacuated are criminally liable for any deaths that result?

Which Japanese people? All of them? There have been evacuations from the 20km since just after the start of nuclear emergency. The government has announced further evacuations from the area north west of the plant that is the most heavily contaminated to take place over the next month.

Quite amazing how all the arm chair experts forget the fact that there has been massive destruction due to the earthquake and tsunami. There are huge numbers of homeless already and adding to them is not a decision to be taken lightly. The authorities have to manage multiple crises at once and balance risk. It seems to me that they have got it something like right and importantly have not panicked. In such a situation, people will always find something done poorly or that could have been done better and they may well be right. But that is simply inevitable under such conditions.

Let me put the question the other way. Should doom mongers be held responsible for the distress and inevitable deaths of vulnerable people in unnecessary evacuations?

benwm · Apr 14, 2011

Quote from dcraig:

Let me put the question the other way. Should doom mongers be held responsible for the distress and inevitable deaths of vulnerable people in unnecessary evacuations?

If less than a hundred people die, probably not, either way. As you correctly point out, Government officials have to balance risk. Similar to a war situation, a certain number of casualties is a given.

What if we're talking 10s or 100s of thousands or worse?
Especially those that stayed in the 20km-80km zone away from the plant?

Did the US overreact with 80km zone?

benwm · Apr 14, 2011

1flyfisher · Apr 14, 2011

That's pretty sick and twisted on your part to state that people who have a more realistic outlook on this disaster than you do would wish Fukushimka is worse than Chernobyl.

Quote from dcraig:

There is no doubt that this is a serious event and INES 7 may well be justified but Chernobyl it still ain't despite some people wishing it were so.

jprad · Apr 14, 2011

Quote from dcraig:

One word "shielding". How do you think space based electronics survive the radiation bath?

The Robot Rule
Don't start a nuclear reactor unless you have robots to stop it from melting down.

...This is crazy. We can't have the first robots arriving unfit and unprepared three days after a nuclear facility was nearly abandoned to meltdown because of radiation. Robots have to be available within hours, hardened to radiation, and equipped to help.

France has such a system. Two years after Chernobyl, French nuclear operators created Group Intra, a consortium charged with maintaining a fleet of robots for use in major nuclear accidents. The group is on call around the clock and pledges to deliver equipment and operators anywhere in France within 24 hours. Its robots have hydraulic manipulator arms and can go 10 hours without external power. Some can be remotely controlled from a distance of 10 kilometers.

Japan has no comparable system. Neither does the U.S. The Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the industry, touts robots for routine jobs such as inspection but is mum about robots for emergencies. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires "emergency facilities and equipment" but says nothing about robots, unmanned systems, or remotely operated devices.

This silence must end. No nuclear power plant should be allowed to operate without ready access to unmanned systems that can fight a meltdown.

http://www.slate.com/id/2288886/

jprad · Apr 14, 2011

Quote from dcraig:

Just because it is INES 7 doesn't make it as bad as Chernoby and neither does it mean that matters suddenly have worsened.

...âFukushima is not the worst nuclear accident ever but it is the most complicated and the most dramatic,â said James Acton, Associate of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

...âPeople will look back when they see that there were not many plants built this decade and will blame Fukushima, but the truth is the economics had already changed the situation,â said Joseph Romm, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress who oversees the Climate Progress blog.

âThere is simply no other power source that can go from being a multibillion dollar asset to a multibillion liability in a matter of hours.â
http://www.bestgrowthstock.com/stoc...month-on-japan-nuclear-crisis-still-scarring/