Interesting thread. Much fear of nuclear power is generated by ignorance and lack of perspective. Yes it has dangers. But like all massive power production, risks must be weighed intelligently against costs (including development, implementation, use, disposal, and safety). In my most humble opinion, nuclear power is an inevitable part of our energy needs. That, or turn that goddammed computer off and start saving some energy .

Regarding Cs137: just to correct, the radioactive half-life of Cs137 is about 30 years, not lifetime. Its actually much worse than you think- that means that in 30 years, 1/2 of the radioactive decay will have happened. Over the next 30 years, half of that remaining half decays, etc. Its an exponential decay curve, not linear (so it asymtotically approaches zero). However, despite this relatively long half-life, Cs137 is very reactive, as wiki states, so you actually need to look at the biological half-life, which is the time to clear it from the body (by half); this is MUCH faster, and is ongoing. The canine reference listed by wiki is for a bolus of 44ug/kg (3.8 mCi- that a fucking HUGE amount), all at once (for a 50lb dog, that is roughly a milligram of pure Cs137, all at once). That is not really quite the germane experiment for Chernobyl, as Cs compounds are neither very volatile nor lipophilic, so direct ingestion would be needed. I dont think that anyone would argue that ingesting even small doses of even stable Cs133 (i use it regularly in the form of CsCl for isopycnic gradients) would be a good thing. However, even small uCi amounts of Cs137 in something like a water source would be easily identifiable by a Geiger counter (Cs137 emits beta particles). If indeed people are ingesting water or using it for crops in sufficient concentration to provide constant uCi doses, this could ineed be a problem. I suggest to you that this is unlikely the case now, and even less likely the case in the event of a similar event in the US.

As to the statement "because it obviously didn't take much to knock out the backup system in Japan. The reactor appeared to survive the quake & tsunami, but the fucking diesel generators didn't. " That is just being purposely obtuse. The several redundant systems in the Daiichi plant went down in effectively what was a "perfect storm" of circumstances. If terrorists are ever able to wreak that kind of havoc themselves, they wont need to hit a nuclear reactor. They would just do it on a populated area directly.

Regarding the overall risks of radiation exposure: Yes it is true- we don't have all the answers, and there are some areas where it is unclear how radiation exposure of a given dosage RATE (amount/time) affects specific health issues, e.g., thyroid cancer. However, as noted in the MSNBC article, Metler states "At the end of the day, the scientific data isn't there. My instinct is, there probably is an increase there, but it's too small to see," . The reality is that statistically the data just isnt conclusive. It doesn't mean there weren't ill effects, or even that there wasn't some oncogenic potential delivered to that population. It means that the relative impact is essentially indistinguishable from the "normal" rate for that population.

As we see with other medications and toxins, people seem to want to believe that they live in a risk free world, and that "normally", without outside influences, they would not develop cancers, immune problems, etc. They also want to believe that somehow there is the perfect black and white, yes/no experiment that can be done to determine "what level of X is bad for me". This is almost never the case. However, relative to other things to be worried about, the relatively minute amount of radiation (compared with the dilution factor of the entire Pacific weather system) that escapes even a few hundred kilometers from Daiichi, let alone making it across the Pacific to the western coast of the US, I think we could worry more about other things.

One of those things that might be more constructive to worry about is trying to send help and aide to the good people of Japan. Just a thought.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2011 10:50PM by animalpipes.

animalpipes posted:

Interesting thread. Much fear of nuclear power is generated by ignorance and lack of perspective. Yes it has dangers. But like all massive power production, risks must be weighed intelligently against costs (including development, implementation, use, disposal, and safety). In my most humble opinion, nuclear power is an inevitable part of our energy needs. That, or turn that goddammed computer off and start saving some energy .

Regarding Cs137: just to correct, the radioactive half-life of Cs137 is about 30 years, not lifetime. Its actually much worse than you think- that means that in 30 years, 1/2 of the radioactive decay will have happened. Over the next 30 years, half of that remaining half decays, etc. Its an exponential decay curve, not linear (so it asymtotically approaches zero). However, despite this relatively long half-life, Cs137 is very reactive, as wiki states, so you actually need to look at the biological half-life, which is the time to clear it from the body (by half); this is MUCH faster, and is ongoing. The canine reference listed by wiki is for a bolus of 44ug/kg (3.8 mCi- that a fucking HUGE amount), all at once (for a 50lb dog, that is roughly a milligram of pure Cs137, all at once). That is not really quite the germane experiment for Chernobyl, as Cs compounds are neither very volatile nor lipophilic, so direct ingestion would be needed. I dont think that anyone would argue that ingesting even small doses of even stable Cs133 (i use it regularly in the form of CsCl for isopycnic gradients) would be a good thing. However, even small uCi amounts of Cs137 in something like a water source would be easily identifiable by a Geiger counter (Cs137 emits beta particles). If indeed people are ingesting water or using it for crops in sufficient concentration to provide constant uCi doses, this could ineed be a problem. I suggest to you that this is unlikely the case now, and even less likely the case in the event of a similar event in the US.

As to the statement "because it obviously didn't take much to knock out the backup system in Japan. The reactor appeared to survive the quake & tsunami, but the fucking diesel generators didn't. " That is just being purposely obtuse. The several redundant systems in the Daiichi plant went down in effectively what was a "perfect storm" of circumstances. If terrorists are ever able to wreak that kind of havoc themselves, they wont need to hit a nuclear reactor. They would just do it on a populated area directly.

Regarding the overall risks of radiation exposure: Yes it is true- we don't have all the answers, and there are some areas where it is unclear how radiation exposure of a given dosage RATE (amount/time) affects specific health issues, e.g., thyroid cancer. However, as noted in the MSNBC article, Metler states "At the end of the day, the scientific data isn't there. My instinct is, there probably is an increase there, but it's too small to see," . The reality is that statistically the data just isnt conclusive. It doesn't mean there weren't ill effects, or even that there wasn't some oncogenic potential delivered to that population. It means that the relative impact is essentially indistinguishable from the "normal" rate for that population.

As we see with other medications and toxins, people seem to want to believe that they live in a risk free world, and that "normally", without outside influences, they would not develop cancers, immune problems, etc. They also want to believe that somehow there is the perfect black and white, yes/no experiment that can be done to determine "what level of X is bad for me". This is almost never the case. However, relative to other things to be worried about, the relatively minute amount of radiation (compared with the dilution factor of the entire Pacific weather system) that escapes even a few hundred kilometers from Daiichi, let alone making it across the Pacific to the western coast of the US, I think we could worry more about other things.

One of those things that might be more constructive to worry about is trying to send help and aide to the good people of Japan. Just a thought.

Yes, I was being very sarcastic, & for a good reason. Aside from the perfect storm you mention, the total lack of common sense for placing a back up, emergency diesel generator at ground level is why I said it. You need air & fuel to run a diesel engine, it "might not work" submerged under 10 to 30 feet of ocean water. This isn't something that nature through at it, it's an error by design.

OMS posted:

animalpipes posted:

Interesting thread.

Well, hello there.

Well hello back.

OMS posted:

I haven't heard anything but have they revealed that these generators were placed on the ground? From the diagrams they have shown on CNN/etc they are showing them as being placed about halfway up from the bottom of the reactor core. I don't know if that was an actual diagram based on blueprints or just for demonstration purposes. Can you verify this?

I don't know whether or not design errors where there, but it does seem that there was some human error at the executive level in terms of deciding when to fall back to pumping in external sea water (thereby ruining the plant for operation purposes) to keep the rods cool. The fact that you are near sea water is both a danger (although it is even hard to blame design issues for not planning on both an 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami within an hour of each other) and it is also a fail-safe opportunity: pumping in sea water earlier could have helped.

animalpipes posted:

OMS posted:

I haven't heard anything but have they revealed that these generators were placed on the ground? From the diagrams they have shown on CNN/etc they are showing them as being placed about halfway up from the bottom of the reactor core. I don't know if that was an actual diagram based on blueprints or just for demonstration purposes. Can you verify this?

I don't know whether or not design errors where there, but it does seem that there was some human error at the executive level in terms of deciding when to fall back to pumping in external sea water (thereby ruining the plant for operation purposes) to keep the rods cool. The fact that you are near sea water is both a danger (although it is even hard to blame design issues for not planning on both an 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami within an hour of each other) and it is also a fail-safe opportunity: pumping in sea water earlier could have helped.

"Michael Friedlander, a former senior operator at a Pennsylvania power plant with General Electric reactors similar to the troubled ones in Japan, said the crucial question is whether Japanese officials followed G.E.’s emergency operating procedures. Those procedures are “crystal clear” on how to determine when reactors should be flooded, Mr. Friedlander said, and operators at the plant should have practiced many times over the years how to flood them with seawater."

Ah yes...even the best SOP's aren't "worth the paper they're written on" if employees aren't properly trained or chose not follow them. Probably the most popular deficiency/finding in all my process audits I've performed.

animalpipes posted:

Interesting thread. Much fear of nuclear power is generated by ignorance and lack of perspective. Yes it has dangers. But like all massive power production, risks must be weighed intelligently against costs (including development, implementation, use, disposal, and safety). In my most humble opinion, nuclear power is an inevitable part of our energy needs. That, or turn that goddammed computer off and start saving some energy .

Regarding Cs137: just to correct, the radioactive half-life of Cs137 is about 30 years, not lifetime. Its actually much worse than you think- that means that in 30 years, 1/2 of the radioactive decay will have happened. Over the next 30 years, half of that remaining half decays, etc. Its an exponential decay curve, not linear (so it asymtotically approaches zero). However, despite this relatively long half-life, Cs137 is very reactive, as wiki states, so you actually need to look at the biological half-life, which is the time to clear it from the body (by half); this is MUCH faster, and is ongoing. The canine reference listed by wiki is for a bolus of 44ug/kg (3.8 mCi- that a fucking HUGE amount), all at once (for a 50lb dog, that is roughly a milligram of pure Cs137, all at once). That is not really quite the germane experiment for Chernobyl, as Cs compounds are neither very volatile nor lipophilic, so direct ingestion would be needed. I dont think that anyone would argue that ingesting even small doses of even stable Cs133 (i use it regularly in the form of CsCl for isopycnic gradients) would be a good thing. However, even small uCi amounts of Cs137 in something like a water source would be easily identifiable by a Geiger counter (Cs137 emits beta particles). If indeed people are ingesting water or using it for crops in sufficient concentration to provide constant uCi doses, this could ineed be a problem. I suggest to you that this is unlikely the case now, and even less likely the case in the event of a similar event in the US.

As to the statement "because it obviously didn't take much to knock out the backup system in Japan. The reactor appeared to survive the quake & tsunami, but the fucking diesel generators didn't. " That is just being purposely obtuse. The several redundant systems in the Daiichi plant went down in effectively what was a "perfect storm" of circumstances. If terrorists are ever able to wreak that kind of havoc themselves, they wont need to hit a nuclear reactor. They would just do it on a populated area directly.

Regarding the overall risks of radiation exposure: Yes it is true- we don't have all the answers, and there are some areas where it is unclear how radiation exposure of a given dosage RATE (amount/time) affects specific health issues, e.g., thyroid cancer. However, as noted in the MSNBC article, Metler states "At the end of the day, the scientific data isn't there. My instinct is, there probably is an increase there, but it's too small to see," . The reality is that statistically the data just isnt conclusive. It doesn't mean there weren't ill effects, or even that there wasn't some oncogenic potential delivered to that population. It means that the relative impact is essentially indistinguishable from the "normal" rate for that population.

As we see with other medications and toxins, people seem to want to believe that they live in a risk free world, and that "normally", without outside influences, they would not develop cancers, immune problems, etc. They also want to believe that somehow there is the perfect black and white, yes/no experiment that can be done to determine "what level of X is bad for me". This is almost never the case. However, relative to other things to be worried about, the relatively minute amount of radiation (compared with the dilution factor of the entire Pacific weather system) that escapes even a few hundred kilometers from Daiichi, let alone making it across the Pacific to the western coast of the US, I think we could worry more about other things.

One of those things that might be more constructive to worry about is trying to send help and aide to the good people of Japan. Just a thought.

Maybe this speaks to something profoundly odd about our culture.

We have people who won't eat red meat because "it is bad for you". We have people who compulsively sanitize themselves and their environs to protect themselves from germs. Certain Californians pitilessly - and publicly - verbally abuse smokers because "second hand smoke kills"... and then they walk to the beach to bath themselves in the sun's warm, golden, carcinogenic rays. There are literally millions of fucking idiots who think they're going to live forever because they starve themselves and run three miles a day, and there's millions more who want to be just like them.


People don't realize life is like a giant game of Asteroids. You can hit hyperspace all you want and dance around the screen, but sooner or later you're going to get nailed.

LisaM. posted:

I can't remember the name of the song, or the band that sings it, but it's an older one and there's a line in the song that always struck me as having a lot of wisdom:

"As soon as you're born, you start dying." It goes, and I think there's a lot of truth to that one line.

LOL the song is "Minute Of Decay" and the band is Marilyn Manson

"the minute that it's born
it begins to die
I'd love to just give in,
I'd love to live this lie"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2011 09:58AM by Chalkmaze.

OMS posted:

I haven't heard anything but have they revealed that these generators were placed on the ground? From the diagrams they have shown on CNN/etc they are showing them as being placed about halfway up from the bottom of the reactor core. I don't know if that was an actual diagram based on blueprints or just for demonstration purposes. Can you verify this?

An Associated Press article states that the back up generators were in the basement. A basement next the the ocean? Last time I looked in my basement it was underground. I get several inches of ground water in my basement in the springtime after heavy rain & melting snow, & have to pump it out. If I don't pump it out, my boiler, water heater, washer, dryer, freezer, as well as other things become submerged. If the power went out, which it has, my electric pumps won't pump. I have a generator in my garage that is above ground & at least 6 feet higher than my basement floor. I don't keep my generator in the basement for obvious reasons.

It also states that critical inspections that were supposed to have been performed prior to the disaster, weren't. I was never at the plant, nor do I have a set of blueprints, so you just have to go by what is reported. No different than being told that there is nothing to worry about when a nuclear reactor explodes. You have to weigh what is reported & base it on the sources.

Associated Press Article on Yahoo Site

Among the machinery the utility missed, were parts crucial to the cooling systems needed to keep Fukushima's six nuclear reactors and their fuel storage pools from overheating: emergency diesel generators in Unit 3, pumps for reactors in Units 1 and 2 and generator equipment for Unit 4.

In the days since the March 11 disasters knocked out the complex's power supplies, Fukushima has leaked radioactive gas and triggered a nuclear crisis. In the aftermath, the safety agency has pointed to one mistake — backup generators were stored in the basement and so were easily swamped.

------------------------------------------

Another article states the tsunami took out the generators. It also states that the battery backup & pumps could not keep up with cooling the heat. Yes, I am well aware that the back up system isn't designed to continually run the reactor cooling system, but could this possibly be another inadequate design? You need to be realistic about what the capabilities of whatever equipment you have, can do. I used to hear an old expression when I was a kid, "You can't put 20 pounds of shit in a 10 pound bag." I guess you can't cool off a nuclear reactor with a cell phone battery either.

WWW. Science News. ORG

As planned, backup diesel generators kicked in after the monster earthquake and continued to pump water in to cool the reactor cores. But when a tsunami swept across the Japanese coast about an hour later, the wave disabled the backup generators. The next backup system then kicked in: battery-powered pumps.

But the battery pumps could not keep up with the residual heat still coming from the cores of several Daiichi reactors. Excess heat caused steam to build up in the system, which operators eventually vented into the environment along with low levels of radioactive elements like cesium and iodine.

OMS posted:

Bush couldn't even correctly handle Katrina.

Ohh now you're the queen of understatement are you? hahaha

Just wanted to ask this crowd what do we think of the other elephant in the room: What the F***kheadChr***stMutha do we do with the waste?

Here's an actually informative yahooNews article: NuWaste

And I also find getting Potassium Iodide from DHS very, umm, govt-style complicated.
Iodide NRC FAQ

---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2011 08:38AM by votiVe.

votiVe posted:

Just wanted to ask this crowd what do we think of the other elephant in the room: What the F***kheadChr***stMutha do we do with the waste?

The same thing we humans do with every other form of waste generated by energy-generating sources. Store it. Coal, oil, and other fossil fuels burn to create energy plus a lot of CO2 and other gasses, along with some nasty carcinogenic compounds. We store this stuff in the "attic", which you might call the atmosphere. With short-lived low level waste, we store it until it is no longer radioactive. With high level waste such as spent nuclear reactor reactor rods, we store them temporarily in holding ponds on site, then eventually (more are being built) we put them in the "basement", which you would call deep geological storage (>300 meters below surface in stable geological substrates).

Is this a problem? Sure. Pissed? Write your congressman and tell him you want more money spent on development and implementation of solar and wind energy, instead of say, spending it in wars or on farm subsidies for food we dont eat.

ETA; we dont reprocess it, and we have cut the project to build storage because the republicans would like to save some money. Of course nevadans dont want the facility in their backyard, who would? The options are either that or put it in oceanic abyssal canyons, which is also on the table.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2011 09:22AM by animalpipes.

Lest we not forget cutting the budget on research to treat/cure the diseases that are attributed to CO2 gases and carcinogens.

ETA: Lisa, the space shuttle missions are coming to an end and there were budget cuts to the space program.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2011 09:23AM by OMS.

And article passed on by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI):

Ocean Currents, Natural Dilution Dissipate Japan’s Nuclear Risk to Seafood

Old Moparz posted:

OMS posted:

I haven't heard anything but have they revealed that these generators were placed on the ground? From the diagrams they have shown on CNN/etc they are showing them as being placed about halfway up from the bottom of the reactor core. I don't know if that was an actual diagram based on blueprints or just for demonstration purposes. Can you verify this?

An Associated Press article states that the back up generators were in the basement. A basement next the the ocean? Last time I looked in my basement it was underground. I get several inches of ground water in my basement in the springtime after heavy rain & melting snow, & have to pump it out. If I don't pump it out, my boiler, water heater, washer, dryer, freezer, as well as other things become submerged. If the power went out, which it has, my electric pumps won't pump. I have a generator in my garage that is above ground & at least 6 feet higher than my basement floor. I don't keep my generator in the basement for obvious reasons.

It also states that critical inspections that were supposed to have been performed prior to the disaster, weren't. I was never at the plant, nor do I have a set of blueprints, so you just have to go by what is reported. No different than being told that there is nothing to worry about when a nuclear reactor explodes. You have to weigh what is reported & base it on the sources.

Associated Press Article on Yahoo Site

Among the machinery the utility missed, were parts crucial to the cooling systems needed to keep Fukushima's six nuclear reactors and their fuel storage pools from overheating: emergency diesel generators in Unit 3, pumps for reactors in Units 1 and 2 and generator equipment for Unit 4.

In the days since the March 11 disasters knocked out the complex's power supplies, Fukushima has leaked radioactive gas and triggered a nuclear crisis. In the aftermath, the safety agency has pointed to one mistake — backup generators were stored in the basement and so were easily swamped.

------------------------------------------

Another article states the tsunami took out the generators. It also states that the battery backup & pumps could not keep up with cooling the heat. Yes, I am well aware that the back up system isn't designed to continually run the reactor cooling system, but could this possibly be another inadequate design? You need to be realistic about what the capabilities of whatever equipment you have, can do. I used to hear an old expression when I was a kid, "You can't put 20 pounds of shit in a 10 pound bag." I guess you can't cool off a nuclear reactor with a cell phone battery either.

WWW. Science News. ORG

As planned, backup diesel generators kicked in after the monster earthquake and continued to pump water in to cool the reactor cores. But when a tsunami swept across the Japanese coast about an hour later, the wave disabled the backup generators. The next backup system then kicked in: battery-powered pumps.

But the battery pumps could not keep up with the residual heat still coming from the cores of several Daiichi reactors. Excess heat caused steam to build up in the system, which operators eventually vented into the environment along with low levels of radioactive elements like cesium and iodine.

I really don't understand why we have to keep repeating this.

The facility is protected by a sea wall 5.7 meters tall. That's almost 20 feet high. The tsunami produced by the Tohuku Earthquake was 14 meters tall. That's nearly 46 fucking feet.

Extenuating circumstances? Perhaps?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2011 08:04PM by Riktor.

Joan Cootes posted:

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Here's another one: Let's build more nuclear power plants, let them all go into meltdown, spread radiation all around the world, kill off most of the humans with cancer for the next several generations, and animals and plants as well. There's too many people in the world right now...

That's right--it would solve overpopulation issues, take care of all those starving people in Africa who just keep making more babies, and wipe out illegal immigrants and welfare/public assistance abusers to boot! And as an added bonus, pull all the prisoners out of the jails to clean up the mess so they get zapped, too, and die, thus saving those remaining alive a hell of a lot in tax dollars.

(Ooooh Joan. . . .the "Social Conscience Police" are gonna get us for sure!!)

Riktor posted:

I really don't understand why we have to keep repeating this.

The facility is protected by a sea wall 5.7 meters tall. That's almost 20 feet high. The tsunami produced by the Tohuku Earthquake was 14 meters tall. That's nearly 46 fucking feet.

Extenuating circumstances? Perhaps?

I think it's pretty obvious that the circumstances were extenuating, and OMS did ask for an explanation/verification. You certainly can end up with a lot of go-around repetition here or in any thread for that matter; that's what'll happen once all the information presently at hand will be posted, and as things progress and develop in Japan, I'm sure there'll be lots more to post about that to keep your interest and the conversation going. Overall, I'd say that people have posted some very good and interesting information here that we can all learn from.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2011 06:51AM by LisaM..

So this just in, Germany shutting down reactors, switching to Renewables!

---

BTW I'm also not convinced that "storing it" is a satisfactory answer for what to do with Nuclear Waste. I mean, I can see that is what we currently do, but is that a sustainable solution? Does writing about it to congress work? Both answers are a resounding "Not really".
We have a finite Earth, and if nuclear power keeps going, we're going to run out of space to put the waste.

Obviously using rockets to shoot it into the sun is also too unsafe because if any one of those thousands of rockets we would have to launch blows up in the atmosphere, that's aother frigging fallout situation. Nevermind if one blows up on the pad, the whole area gets contaminated, and then it's too expensive to keep moving the operation elsewhere...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2011 02:49PM by votiVe.

votiVe posted:

Obviously using rockets to shoot it into the sun is also too unsafe because if any one of those thousands of rockets we would have to launch blows up in the atmosphere, that's aother frigging fallout situation. Nevermind if one blows up on the pad, the whole area gets contaminated, and then it's too expensive to keep moving the operation elsewhere...

Like I said "Pipe Dream" and "The Stuff of Fantasy". But some of the best ideas and inventions came from people who were not afraid to think outside the box and stretch their imaginations to the limit.