I think the newer designs are better at handling situations like this (i.e,. no power to handle cooling after it was shut down). If I'm not mistaken, this was a ~40 year old reactor, which was actually scheduled to be decommissioned pretty soon. It needed to rely on the diesel generators to power the necessary "cooling down", but those apparently were damaged by the tsunami and only worked for an hour. Not sure what alternatives they would have had (obviously should have planned out the diesel generators better). At least it has a containment structure (which seems to be doing its job so far) and doesn't use graphite (unlike Chernobyl).
Yeah, CNN is ****.. Even on the Houston chronicle comment section you get a lot of those trolls... I get my real news from Clutchfans...
Now that is stupid and sound pretty backwards. Building a solid foundation around a Tsunami is an easier task than against an unknown earthquake magnitude. It's pretty obvious it was the strong 8.9 magnitude that cause the damage and not the Tsunami. Sound to me they are covering up some crap blaming the Tsunami. Pretty stupid and ironic if they didn't expect a Tsunami. I don't understand why so many of the nuclear plants being built in the first place.
The problem with the reactor is that they aren't able to cool it down AFAIK. Not anything to do with damage caused by the earthquake or tsunami AFAIK (though if there was no damage, they could use the power from the plant to cool it down of course). Basically failed to cool it down in the absence of electricity, working diesel generators, etc. And as I mentioned in my previous post, apparently the generators were damaged in the tsunami, not the earthquake (possibly both, but reports seem to blame the tsunami). So yeah, I'd probably blame the tsunami. They produce a lot of energy (low fuel cost, so it's "cheap"), relatively clean energy (compared to coal/gas/etc.), don't have to rely on other countries for energy, etc. Also generally pretty safe, especially the newer designs. Even in this case (pretty much worst case for a ~40 year old design), probably won't be too bad...assuming everything is contained anyway. I'd prefer more to be built actually. Although I'd prefer some of the newer, safer designs. Thorium-based reactor seem pretty interesting.
This is freaking stupid. It was schedule to be shut down in March of 2011. I still don't believe even the latest power plants have really been tested against a 9 magnitude earthquake.
I understand all that but the risks outweigh everything else. You're talking about the risk Japan are taking are pretty high. You're talking about earthquake happening every year with on top of that there are 55 nuclear reactors. I don't know much about how these nuclear reactors work but what if one is to be cracked open and collapsed in an earthquake?
It's easy for people to criticize what could have been, what should have been. But the fact remains, we are fully submerged in this ****. I'm on the 19th floor, and the got damn building is shaking as we speak. *****!
I'm certainly not an expert on this either (just did some Googling in the last 24 hours or so given the situation, so I could learn more about it). I'd assume that the experts have assessed the risks, and deemed it OK to build these nuclear reactors, especially if the alternative would be to have no power to run the country. And maybe they're right. These reactors have withstood earthquakes for 40+ years in Japan, so obviously they're not TOO bad. Maybe a 9.0+ quake will cause a reactor to be permanently shutdown (as is the case here), but seems like it would still be contained. Lose a lot of money, but not much harm other than that. No clue what would happen if "one is to be cracked open and collapsed in an earthquake." Could be bad, although I don't even know if anything necessarily bad would happen either. Well...relative to Chernobyl anyway, or even all the mine/oil explosions that occur every year. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is Chernobyl the only nuclear accident to have a significant death toll (not to mention all other negative effects it had)? I was reading about some other accidents (e.g, 3 Mile Island), but seemed like few, if any, fatalities occurred. Mostly just caused a lot of PR damage, plus the high costs to clean up.
Right now, as we enjoy watching the Rockets and tapping on our keyboards, fully 10% of the population of Japan is without power. That's a staggering number.
You would be correct, other then Chernobyl, there have been 3 deaths in the US and another 7 in japan from accidents at nuclear power stations since 1952. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents
IIRC, Chernobyl also had no containment structure that the plants do now, and there were other issues with it's operation and regulation.
Yeah, I think that's correct. I was just checking out a Skeptoid podcast that touched on this a bit (Chernobyl and basic nuclear reactor designs, not this recent incident since it was made a while back): http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4092 All that, in addition to not having a containment structure. Another interesting part: (assuming he has his facts correct) Brian Dunning has been saying some things specifically about the Fukushima reactor via his Twitter: http://twitter.com/briandunning
Pretty sure that's fake. Seen that mentioned on multiple forums. Quick Google search returns this blog that sounds like a reasonable explanation: http://yournewreality.blogspot.com/
That's what I thought. No way is the fallout in the US going to be that bad. It would have killed everyone in Japan already by now if that were true. To be honest, I've heard many conflicting viewpoints... Many are saying that the fallout isn't going to anything bad; at least not here in the US. And many are also saying the wind currents in the air will spread mass amounts of radiation to the US and cause some damage.
From what I understand (again, just from brief reading about the subject in the last 24 hours), as long as those containment structures do their job (meltdown or no meltdown), fallout shouldn't be a problem (maybe they've vent some more of the steam out, exposing people to doses equivalent to an x-ray). It would be like 3 Mile Island I'd imagine.
This kinda shows me how safe nuclear energy is. Even if the largest ****storm Mother Nature has to offer hits decades old versions, it doesn't really do much except kill itself. Compared to the toxins released by coal, this stuff they are venting is like Febreeze.
That's what I don't understand. I know you have to have access to water to cool the reactors down but how about not building them on the coast of a major fault line. I don't think you could call that a hindsight call - that's just common sense. Why not build them on the other coast (West) or near a major river or lake 10 miles inland (if one exists).
