Tsunami in Japan

[Teyl Maktoyu Ayfìwopxä]

Nuclear energy never was, and never will be safe, do you know that to keep the proces under a somewhat controllable state, they can only use 0.5% of the energy that's bound to the radioactive material? But because the pumps for the cooling system of the material failed, because of the flood, it can no longer be cooled, and they no longer have the proces under control, they cant put any cooling water in the system anymore, because it now is soo hot that it turns into steam faster then you can immagine, and the steam pressure blows everything out agen.

[Sіr. Ηaxalot]

How could it be safe enough?
It has to exist for a lot longer than recorded human history, and never ever have an accident. It's not possible.

The plan is to place everything in special containers and then place them in a storage facility 500m below the surface. When the facility is full, everything will be sealed tight, including the tunnels back to the surface.

[archaic]

And what happens if in the next 100 000 years there is an earthquake that releases the material? Or it floods due to climate change? Or it's hit by a construction team because the record of it's existence was lost?

It has to exist for a lot longer than recorded human history, and never ever have an accident. How could that be possible?

[Sіr. Ηaxalot]

It's more than 500m below sea level, it's gotta be a hell of a earthquake to bring it back up and it's far from any "earthquake zones" anyway. Flooding also seems like a minor problem, especially since everything will be covered in a special mud that will expand and seal everything tight if it gets contact with water.

The last questing might be the most concerning. Let's just hope that if someone in the far future gets curious about why there is something buried deep underground, they wont bring everything back up to the surface before they realize what it really is.

Whatever happens it will be better than the storage facilities we have now.

[Dalva]

yea nuclear waste is another problem. maybe one day we can have the technology convert it to something useful

[archaic]

It's more than 500m below sea level, it's gotta be a hell of a earthquake to bring it back up and it's far from any "earthquake zones" anyway. Flooding also seems like a minor problem, especially since everything will be covered in a special mud that will expand and seal everything tight if it gets contact with water.

The last questing might be the most concerning. Let's just hope that if someone in the far future gets curious about why there is something buried deep underground, they wont bring everything back up to the surface before they realize what it really is.

Whatever happens it will be better than the storage facilities we have now.

Umm, you do know that not all earthquakes happen in the "earthquake zones" at plate boundaries, mid plate quakes are mush less frequent, but also less well understood.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

On the surface, nuclear energy seems clean and cheap, but under the surface it really isn't all that advantageous over any fossil fuel. Imagine all the energy/carbon it takes to mine, refine, enrich, and transport uranium. Then the energy required to build disposal facilities for the waste. Any gains made in environmentally friendliness from the plant itself is soon eaten up by the oil-driven support infrastructure. As you can imagine, this makes nuclear energy insanely expensive in the big picture. In fact, it takes a reactor about 15 years to break even, when all costs are calculated (roughly half it's useful life).

Not to mention the direct detriments N-plants can have on the environment. While the most spectacular incidents, such as in Japan today, grab the most attention, plants effect local ecosystems in much subtler ways. Most notably, the negative effects that warm cooling water has on ecosystems that evolved for cooler waters.

But the problem is that the mass-energy alternatives - oil, coal, and natgas - are just as much bad news as nuclear. So what is humanity to do? The German solar model seems to be developing along quite nicely, same with Denmark and wind. I just don't know how much of the world would be willing to try it. I know it won't fly here in the US (it'll be shouted down as "SOCALISUM!!11!" in 5 minutes).

[Sіr. Ηaxalot]

On the surface, nuclear energy seems clean and cheap, but under the surface it really isn't all that advantageous over any fossil fuel. Imagine all the energy/carbon it takes to mine, refine, enrich, and transport uranium. Then the energy required to build disposal facilities for the waste. Any gains made in environmentally friendliness from the plant itself is soon eaten up by the oil-driven support infrastructure. As you can imagine, this makes nuclear energy insanely expensive in the big picture. In fact, it takes a reactor about 15 years to break even, when all costs are calculated (roughly half it's useful life).

Not to mention the direct detriments N-plants can have on the environment. While the most spectacular incidents, such as in Japan today, grab the most attention, plants effect local ecosystems in much subtler ways. Most notably, the negative effects that warm cooling water has on ecosystems that evolved for cooler waters.

But the problem is that the mass-energy alternatives - oil, coal, and natgas - are just as much bad news as nuclear. So what is humanity to do? The German solar model seems to be developing along quite nicely, same with Denmark and wind. I just don't know how much of the world would be willing to try it. I know it won't fly here in the US (it'll be shouted down as "SOCALISUM!!11!" in 5 minutes).

Actually, Nuclear power is the single most effective way in terms of CO2 / MWh produced. More effective than both Wind and water. It isn't CO2 free to construct a Wind power plant, which usually hold for about 5 years, then it needs service / replacement. And in comparison to other alternatives a Wind power plant doesn't produce s***. The main problem with Nuclear power is still what to do with the waste. It feels like a kindof dirty trick to just bury it underground for all eternity.

Most powerplants take the water from a sea and dump it out in a smaller nearby or artificial lake. The lake beside the OKG plant was actually open for the public to swim in for a while, but after 2001 the security perimeter was extended so people can't get in.

I'd say that we should invest in getting Fusion power working. It's supposed to be at least as effective as nuclear power but without any nuclear waste. Technically, it is nuclear power but with smaller atoms fusing together instead of Uranium splitting in two.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

I kinda doubt that. Sure, it takes CO2 to manufactor and construct wind turbines, but wind turbines don't require massive mining/refining operations for any sort of minerals, or any massive vaults to be built to store wastes (imagine all the wind, solar, or geothermal facilities that can be built with all the energy needed to build nuke plants and their support infrastructure). I'd imagine turbines are much less maintenance heavy than nuclear plants, and old turbines can be recycled. Plus, yeah, like you said, no radioactive waste.

Fusion would be the absolute pinnacle. It produces more energy than fission (the yields in an atomic bomb vs hydrogen bomb), but the reaction is in our complete control. Not sure about cold fusion, though).

[Sіr. Ηaxalot]

One Nuclear power plant is roughly 3000 wind power plants. The estimated lifetime of a wind power plant is 5 years, about the same time as a fuel rod in the Nuclear power plant. In a nuclear power plant you need about 10 to 20 new fuel rods / year depending on the reactors size. Yes, the uranium needs to be mined and refined, but the steel and all other parts that is needed for a Wind plant doesn't magically appear either.

On another notice it feels like we are a bit offtopic, but I'm positive to a topic split.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Well wind is always a fallback (which survived the quake in Japan, BTW). Solar is the renewable with the most potential. TBH I don't know how I got sidetracked, my main topic was supposed to be solar. Ah well. Though I have seen things about gravel-xenon battery systems that could make wind a central source of energy. High-altitude balloon turbines are also quite promising. Though good ol' fashion steel turbines (or carbon fibre, which is definitely a possibility) will likely have a place. Thigh they don't need to be mined, there's recycled metal.

But solar...that's what Germany's putting it's money on. The important part is getting people off the grid, which Germany is doing. People are actually able to sell power back to the grid, on self-sufficient solar alone! The more decentralized power production has become, the less stress is put on a central grid, the less mass-produced energy is needed. Germany is planning on decommissioning some of it's nuke plants in the face of the crisis in Japan, and I'm sure they can handle it just fine. People always down solar, but that's from a centralized point of view. It's growing quite well in Germany as a decentralized system. And keep in mind, too, that Germany is one of the cloudiest countries in Europe.

Though, again, this has no chance here in the US with the plague of neo-McCarthyism sweeping Capitol Hill.

[Human No More]

Solar is a massive placebo. Depending on the type, some photovoltaic cells take more energy to manufacture than they produce. It's good for things like satellites, but that's about it. It also requires the mining of massive amounts of heavy metals, and large amounts of shipping processed and raw materials all over the world, and creates numerous hazardous byproducts.

[Swoka Ikran]

Japan's government finally raised the severity classification for the nuke disaster today. They're now calling it on par with Three Mile Island.

Also, trace amounts of radiation levels were found in California today...about one billionth the hazardous amount, so completely safe.

On another notice it feels like we are a bit offtopic, but I'm positive to a topic split.

I'd agree with that. Maybe the non-Japan nuclear stuff should go to Science?

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

There's more and more research going into organic cells.

Plus there's concentrated solar power.

Energy 101: Concentrating Solar Power

[Sіr. Ηaxalot]

http://godhatesjapan.com/

When I saw that link I was filled with rage and thought f*** this guy, how much bandwidth can it take before his site goes down? But then!

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

I am going to weigh in on the nuclear topic.

The Japan situation is actually more good than bad, when looked at in the long term. There, you had three operating nukes that were knocked off line, and then shortly lost all cooling. This is very close to a worst-case accident. And what happened? There was not a serious meltdown. The containment in all three reactors worked as designed, and did not get breached. They were eventually able to get reasonably good control of the system, even though full power was not restored to the pumps. Despite the hydrogen explosions and severe damage to the outer buildings, the important protections held. Personally, I believe that the hydrogen was mainly from the spent fuel pools and not from the reactors themselves. Even with the spent fuel pools exposed to the outside, the actual amount of radiation released was small. Small enough that there will not likely be any long term effects. The site is not so badly messed up that it cannot be cleaned up. And despite the damage to the building on reactor number 4, that reactor may be able to eventually be placed back in service.

This incident shows that nuclear power, even under very bad conditions, can be safe within reason. The nuclear industry has never had an accident like this happen. What will be learned from this incident will ensure that some of the real troublesome things, like generator flooding and hydrogen explosions can be minimized. (From what I can see, the number 2 reactor building wasn't even damaged, even though the reactor is ruined.)

The spent fuel is not as big a hazard as the popular press makes it out to be. First of all, if the spent fuel is reprocessed, much of the usable fissionable material is recoverable. The US is one of the few nuclear countries that does not reprocess. We need to follow the rest of the world in this respect.

Once the spent fuel has sat for a few years, it generates a relatively small amount of heat. It is pretty inert stuff. After a few thousand years, the radiation is a tiny fraction of what it was when it was 'active'. I personally think we will eventually go back and recover our spent fuel because we will need materials that readily exist in it. The fuel components of the waste are good for thousands or even millions of years.

The number of people that die each year as the result of fossil fuel plants is much higher than any nuclear deaths, even when you include Chernobyl. Chernobyl was a catastrophe of the first order, as the reactor core (made of flammable graphite) actually burned. This spewed the extremely dangerous, just-after-being-critical fission products. Only tiny amounts of fission products were released at Fukishima. Most of the radioactive materials that were released were the less dangerous 'light' radionuclides.

The newest reactor designs have even more inherent safety to them. I was told that there could be a loss-of-cooling-accident just before lunch, and the operators could go take their lunch break, and deal with the loss of cooling after lunch.

The biggest disadvantage to nuclear is that the plants tend to attract extremists. I would rather deal with a spent fuel assembly than an environmental extremist any day!

[Sіr. Ηaxalot]

[...]

The newest reactor designs have even more inherent safety to them. I was told that there could be a loss-of-cooling-accident just before lunch, and the operators could go take their lunch break, and deal with the loss of cooling after lunch.

[...]

Yeah, I read in another forum in a Nuclear Power topic that a 3rd generation reactor would be just fine several days without any cooling whatsoever. I'm not sure of how real that information is, but newer reactors surely are safer. The fukushima plant was all 1st generation reactors.

[archaic]

I am going to weigh in on the nuclear topic.

The Japan situation is  .....

Science is about making discoveries, sometimes when you least expect them, and not always what was expected.

No one knows what we will discover in the future, and when you are talking about what is effectively a tamed nuclear device, the potential worst case scenario is bad, very bad.

As budgets are squeezed tighter, and profit margins become more marginal, will shortcuts be taken? Am I paranoid to think the answer might be yes?

Will there be accidents in the future?
How many?
Where?
When?
How bad?
How many people will be affected?
To what extent will they be affected?
Over what time scale will these effects persist?

If I had made a prediction back in January, that there could be a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, followed by a tsunami and that three nuclear plants would explode, would you have taken me seriously?

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Science is about making discoveries, sometimes when you least expect them, and not always what was expected.

No one knows what we will discover in the future, and when you are talking about what is effectively a tamed nuclear device, the potential worst case scenario is bad, very bad.

If we want to enjoy the kind of technology we have to take some risks. The only way to have truly zero risk is to not exist.

As budgets are squeezed tighter, and profit margins become more marginal, will shortcuts be taken? Am I paranoid to think the answer might be yes?

This is always a problem. I have to deal with it every day. It is really hard to maintain a high standard when everyone around you wants to cut corners. There are regulations in place to discourage/prevent accidents in the nuclear power industry. But those regulations have driven costs to astronomical levels by making everyone do things 'the government way', which is NEVER efficient. And the 'comprehensive safety review being planned by our government will do little to improve safety, but will do much to drive up costs.

What really needs to be done is learn from what happened at Fukishima, and make improvements based on that. If industry does it voluntarily, the solution will likely be cost-effiective. If 'government does it for us', it will likely be very expensive. Remeber that even as things are now, the Fukishima incident is nowhere near Chernobyl.

Will there be accidents in the future? Yes
How many? One can't say for sure, but they should be few and far between
Where? If we are talking about nuclear power, in a nuke somewhere.
When? Cannot say with any certainty, but not likely anytime soon.
How bad? Cannot say with certainty, but nearly all events are not 'worst case' like Fukishima. Remember, it
    was the tsunami that was the problem. The reactors withstood the quake itself just fine. A few hundred thousand $ worth of improvements on the generator plant would have prevented this incident.
How many people will be affected? Cannot say with certainty. The fukishima incident has done very slight
    harm to a lot of people. Except for the reactors themselves, the residual radiation level will be very low,
    based on what I understand to be the case. Contrast that with Chernobyl, where there is still a large
    uninhabitable zone.
To what extent will they be affected? Cannot say with certainty, but most likely 'TMI or less', and almost
    certainly 'Fukishima or less'. This, of course, assumes modern reactor designs, and not a Chernobyl.
Over what time scale will these effects persist? Radiation levels fall exponentially, unless you have
    contamination with mainly long-lived materials like Co-60, Sr-90, etc. Very little of this kind of material
    is involved with Fukishima, but a lot of it is involved with Chernobyl.

If I had made a prediction back in January, that there could be a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, followed by a tsunami and that three nuclear plants would explode, would you have taken me seriously?

No more seriously than the prediction of any other major earthquake. That said, tectonic subduction zones like the island of Japan are known for the largest earthquakes we have seen. The Japanese are well aware of this. In the Fukishima case, as I mentioned before, it was the massive tsunami they were not prepared for. In the end, I think the tsunami will have been responsible for far more loss of life/property damage than the earthquake itself. The Fukishima incident? As far as I know, no one has been killed by it. There is likely to be a significant increase in cancer for the workers who are dealing with it (and I am sure that many who are being exposed to higher radiation levels have volunteered to do so). There will be a very small, probably very hard to measure, increase in cancer among the population living around the plant. That said, if this was a coal plant, that would kill far more people over time in the surrounding area.

[archaic]

I thank you for what seems to be answered as honestly as you can. I sense you have far more trust than me.

I hope your views are correct, but I fear that they maybe too optimistic.

I detect a faith in progress, that in the future we will overcome all challenges, I wish I could share that with you, but I can not.
For me history is too littered with examples of how we've failed to really learn from past mistakes.

Has reactor design improved over the years? Yes.
Will we ever build unsafe reactors in the future? Imho, probably.