From the Wall St. Journal:
Plant’s Design, Safety Record Are Under Scrutiny
It sounds like when you know you’re building on the ocean, you have to make your backup diesel generators safe from tsunamis. One way to do that, is to elevate them. Unfortunately, that makes them vulnerable to earthquakes.
One solution would be to put the fuel tanks underground, but that didn’t occur to them or something. “Hindsight is 20-20,” they say. No really, they do:
All reactors depend on the ability to cool a problem. Any reactor, no matter how it’s built, if it suffers fuel rod melting, will breach. No metal or rock can withstand the heat from a nuclear pile out of control.
But, and this is good news, studies and the best minds have determined that due to the thermal dispersion from reaching solid bedrock, there would be cooling due to heat dissipation through the rock, and a corium pile would not just keep boring down. As long as somebody can come up with a way to get boron to it before it reaches ground water, it could be stopped.
So no America syndrome. (that is a terrible pun on China syndrome)
Shoot me.
Indeed.
Incidentally it was the authorities monitoring the food supply that reported the increased levels, if the alarmists actually where right on their scary say so’s regarding the actions of the authorities, then the authorities would be hiding that.
If only there was some way to go out in the fields and villages and test for radioactive elements, and report that. Rather than waiting till crops get to market.
What you replied to Waenara had very little to do regarding the meltdown point.
Even in Chernobyl, some material did melt, but only after the reactor had exploded, and even that melted material was stopped by the concrete chambers made for that purpose under the reactor.
Good lard. Go read the Wikipedia article on Chernobyl. Before you type another word. Seriously.
And yet you still don’t provide a cite for this assertion. Color me shocked :eek: :rolleyes:
Also, nice use of weasel words. I especially like the use of “nuclear pile out of control”, which could be interpreted different ways depending how you look at it. And given that you don’t have a cite, we don’t have any context. What, exactly, does this mean? I’m sure a layman reading your post with no scientific background would think this applies to the Fukushima situation, with you alarmists sure making it seem like it’s totally out of control. Or maybe “out of control” would mean a core that’s at 100% or more and about to the explode a la Chernobyl. But Fukushima’s cores are shut down and only have decay heat, which is decreasing by the day. So are they still “out of control”?
When come back bring cite.
The ignorance is shocking. But, true believers are often known to avoid reading anything with pesky facts in it.
If only you would see how stupid is to move the goalposts.
There are already testing for radioactive elements. You need a cite that shows that they are only doing the testing after the items go to market.
Any progress on finding cites for your previous bullshit points?
It was within an hour of happening at TMI.
Here is a CSMonitor article (a source I trust) that confirms your opinion that it cannot China Syndrome. I am still skeptical.
Why am I skeptical? Because I don’t believe that a full core meltdown of 5000 plus degrees can be held indefinitely by anything and that between a 5000 degree core and gravity it will melt anything. It is because the pro nuclear people have obviously lied and covered up the disadvantages of their product in full accord with my experience of human nature of people who have something to sell. The costs to the surrounding residents mean nothing to these people. Nothing. They are in the way of profits. Their attitude is screw them all.
Cite that they waited until the crops went to market. Seriously, I would like to know if they did. I have been googling, but most of the news articles are unclear on whether the elevated levels in milk and spinach were found on the farms, in the supply chain, or at the market.
Apparently milk and spinach are the first plants where radiation would concentrate, so it’s good that the government is testing them.
I found this article (my emphasis added), which seems to imply that the spinach was caught before it was shipped, and the milk was still raw. Do they drink raw milk much in Japan (I seriously don’t know), or did they catch the contamination before the milk was processed?
If you would care to post some facts that are relevant and specific to this situation, I would be pleased to read them.
And for the 50th time, calling everyone “true believers” just because they don’t march in lockstep with you is hardly how you win friends and influence people to take you seriously.
I don’t think you understand that even when mentioning meltdown, Wikipedia needs to clarify.
Once gain, the mess of radioactivity was released by a chemical explosion and the core burning. Anything that remained that melted was captured by the concrete. The only mention of meltdown in the Wikipedia article:
There was indeed melted core material, and this report shows that it was contained by the concrete bottom.
As it was a very close call, it is really a stretch to assume that nuclear planners of today did not make improvements on how to better contain a worse case meltdown where the containment vessel also melts.
I’m convinced FX, like the OP, is engaging in trollery. They’ve both admitted they’re “venting” without concern for the truth or accuracy of their statements. Combine that with the provocative bullshit both have been spouting, the gross misrepresentations of opposing arguments and claims from both posters of “sarcasm and satire”, and you’ve got classic message board chain yanking.
Starve 'em.
You’re right. DNFTT.
As I mentioned in the GD version of this thread, here’s an interesting, cited radiation exposure chart from XKCD.
Venting has very little risk according to your posts. Heck, even if I exploded in a hydrogen rage it would pose very little risk. Even if I had a complete meltdown, the containment precautions here in The Pit would keep it from contaminating the public at large.
In any event, I’m not admitting to trollery. I think nuclear power is a very poor and dangerous investment, particularly to those that have no voice in the various monetary and health risks. I am pleased that I sold my PG&E stock in the late 80s. I was invested in nuclear and it was a huge bust. Diablo Canyon was billions over budget. The public was lied to for years about TMI. At this point it seems that two of the reactors at Fukushima partially melted down, it is difficult to say how badly. Radiation has leaked and there have been a number of hydrogen bubble explosions. People who never had a choice were evacuated from their homes, food is contaminated and people are in the hospital, most likely with radiation poisoning. And the pubic is still largely in the dark.
No new nuclear plants around me please. We’ve got several hundred new giant wind turbines that I like just fine.
I posted this in the GD thread but may as well toss it out here:
Per terrawatt/hour of energy generated, coal kills 161 people - compared to 0.04 deaths from nuclear
If it is a bad investment it is because knee jerk reactionaries like FX who could not give a rat’s ass for facts scream in fear over what they do not understand thus increasing costs.
Let’s try it with simple words, so you can follow the information.
Is that simple enough? If the fuel slumps to the bottom, and is out of control, it melts through the containment vessel. Then it burns the concrete or rock below that. That is, in simple terms, the worst case scenario. Unless it also blows up and spreads material all over, and high into the air.
Or if it also burns and releases material that way.
What part of “can” and “worst case scenario” do you not understand?
Can does not equate to will. Worst case scenario does not equate to every day occurrence.