So the same situation exists at many many other nuclear plants, with the same disaster possible. Of course the plants on the coast of Japan are at extreme risks, because another big tsunami could cause the same problem at many more reactors.
This level of insanity is indicative of the mentality that simply doesn’t think about possibilities, because “they are too awful to think about”.
Like the current clusterfuck of unimaginable danger.
Well, if the government and taxpayers have to take all the risk and then bail out the fourth largest power company in the world, why shouldn’t the taxpayers and government own it? I’d like to see that.
It’s just Tepco though, and it’s only one person in government who has mentioned it, and it was quickly denied by the government, so I’d be surprised to see it actually happen.
I’ll be the first to agree that Generation II reactors should be being phased out in favor of Generation III+ and IV reactors. It’s essentially common knowledge among people who know what the hell they’re talking about that a long or medium-term power failure at a Generation II reactor will cause at least a partial meltdown. Unfortunately, as you probably know if you’ve looked at this at all, the regulatory climate and popular opinion in the US are such that it’s not terribly plausible to build new nuclear plants and has not been for some time. Primarily this is because of retarded fearmongering about nuclear power in general, rather than concentrating on the specific flaws and risks associated with the various generations of reactor technology.
This is the kind of alarmist bullshit that doesn’t help.
The current clusterfuck’s danger level is perfectly imaginable. It’s being monitored by the IAEA. There is a risk of exposure, there is a risk associated with the radioactive materials released. That risk is not currently large, and is in the “some elevated cancer rates in a limited area” range rather than the “face melting off like the end of Raiders” range.
Yep, the current situation is bad in many ways, and there are things we don’t know yet, and things that might happen that could make things worse, but the irrational fearmongering of morons like FXMastermind and The Second Stone (aka Nancy Grace) really don’t help anyone’s understanding of the situation. It’s also rather paradoxical, given that the OP of this thread claims to want accurate and informed reporting, yet provides nothing but teeth-gnashing jeremiads completely divorced from reality.
I like to read the transcript of the Union of Concerned Scientists daily press briefing, because i think it provides a solid, expert-driven summary of many of the main issues, provided by a group that is, in its main policy positions, quite critical of nuclear power safety standards and also unconvinced about the need to have nuclear power as a centerpiece of our future energy needs. These folks are not gung-ho cheerleaders for nuclear energy.
And yet, reading yesterday’s briefing, it becomes clear that these folks are nowhere near as alarmist about the current situation as FX and Nancy and gonzomax (maybe we could just calls them The Three Nancys). The scientists interviewed here acknowledge that the situation is bad, that there is significant radiation leakage at the plant, that it’s not clear where all the radiation is coming from, and that it is having an effect outside the plant. I don’t think anyone is denying this anyway, despite the straw men constantly set up by the Nancys.
For the UCS commenters, however, the most important danger to health right now is clearly that faced by the plant workers themselves. The UCS guys are quite worried about the safety of the workers, and also quite critical of some of the safety procedures in place at the plant.
Most importantly, these experts are quite clear that a lot of what they’re saying is based on limited information, and that there are many things that they can’t be positive about because the main job at the plant so far has been simply trying to contain the situation, and there hasn’t been time to really do much more than try to keep things cool and get power back up and running. It is really too early to say exactly how severe the long-term consequences outside the plant will be, because this will depend on a variety of factors that are not yet really clear even to the experts. They’re not saying everything is hunky-dory and we have nothing to worry about—in fact, in a few places, they readily concede that things could be pretty bad—but they’re also not going to get all alarmist until they actually have enough information upon which to base a reasonable conclusion.
For example, here are some of their comments on the issue of plutonium in the current crisis:
Realizing that the pro nuke moonbats won’t bother to read the whole story, much less watch the video, this was an interview with a top level US official.
She didn’t make it up when she said she didn’t want to think about it. Nobody wants to think about it.
Having 6 reactors out of control, melting down, exploding, fuel rods on fire and spewing radiation at a level nobody wants to even imagine, that is exactly what is going on, when everyone refuses to describe the worst case scenario. It actually would be beyond disaster.
Hell, even I don’t like thinking about it. It actually would be too terrible to imagine.
That rabid nuclear moonbats don’t get it, that is understandable. I can’t blame a true believer for refusing to watch a video interview with a top nuclear official.
But when you realize the top officials simply don’t want to think about it, much less prepare any way to deal with it, that is where it gets fucked up.
There isn’t any plan, much less equipment and resources, ready to go, for a single reactor disaster. Nothing is in place, no drills have been done, there isn’t even a plan to start a plan, to deal with an emergency situation, IN JUST ONE REACTOR problem.
No there are four critically damaged reactors, and shitload of damaged fuel pools, and there is simply nothing ready to deal with it.
Not only is there no technology ready, there probably isn’t any way to create technology for this. Quite simply, they can’t discover what is happening, because the radiation level is too high for a human, or a robot, or even a camera on a stick to see what is happening.
Which is why over two week after this terrific fuck up has happened, they simply don’t know what is going on.
That won’t bother a true believer, but it bothers a rational person. That is insane. It’s the worst kind of situation possible. Extreme danger, and no way to know what the danger actually is.
It seems they can’t even sample the steam coming out of the multitudes of holes and unknown areas, to find out what the isotopes are there. Which would at least give some idea of how bad it is.
You’ve shown time and time again you’re expert at missing current headlines and denying everything as it happens, even as it’s happening. Are you still denying that there is any radiation from *inside *the plants, now on the outside? You had me laughing all yesterday over that one.
[QUOTE=mhendo]
To quote the UCS scientist in the selection i posted a little while ago:
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lol…yeah, no doubt. FWIW, that was a good post…lots of decent info in there. It was pearls in the mud here, but I appreciate it.
I know what he’s doing…he’s madly Googling anything to do with what’s going on in Japan and then cherry picking what he thinks is the most scary articles to spew out here and in the other threads to try and prove whatever point he thinks he’s making (probably ‘Nuclear is teh evilux!!’). And he’s not even checking to see what the date stamp is, since if it sounds scary enough folks like gonzomax aren’t going to bother checking to see if the information is even up to date…they will just join in the echo chamber.
I’ve been checking too, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of new information coming out. the IAEA site, last I checked, hadn’t been updated since yesterday on their Japan section. Most of the regular news sources are just spouting the same stuff they did yesterday, though some of them are starting to go with more frantic language, while at the same time the story is slipping off the main pages of a lot of news websites.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
You’ve shown time and time again you’re expert at missing current headlines and denying everything as it happens, even as it’s happening. Are you still denying that there is any radiation from inside the plants, now on the outside? You had me laughing all yesterday over that one.
[/QUOTE]
You would have to have the ability to actually read what I said, instead of what you think I said. I said that there has, afaik, been no report of large scale high level radioactive leaks reported…and, sure enough, there still hasn’t been. There have been some reports of highly radioactive radiation IN THE PLANT, and there have been some reports (2 out of 5 soil samples IIRC) that show low levels of plutonium and other radioactive elements in low concentrations outside the plant. And obviously there have been reports of airborn radiation in the ground water in several, more distant locations, as well as reports of small scale contamination above the legal limits in certain farm produce. When there is more information, which is what I was asking for, feel free to provide it. Unlike you, I don’t have much preconceptions cast in stone…I KNOW that this has been a bad accident, and that it continues, and that bad things might still happen. I’m just not willing to wank off every time some scrap of news comes out and jump to the worst possible conclusion. Unlike, oh, say you.
If I made you laugh yesterday, however, then I feel like I’ve accomplished something, even if the amusement would have been better spent on yourself and your dreadful lack of reading comprehension skills…
Just for drill, here (again) is what I actually said:
[QUOTE=Me]
Do you have a cite that shows it’s been set to level 7? A quick Google search shows me the Greenpeace reference Finn mentioned and a bunch of whacky anti-nuke sites ranting about how it’s really an 8 or a 10 now, blah blah blah.
I haven’t heard that there is deadly levels of radioactive material outside of the containment BUILDING, but some of the water outside of the containment VESSEL are certainly very high (1000 mSv/hour is what I was reading earlier…that’s definitely serious contamination since if you were there for an hour you would certainly be in danger of serious radiation poisoning).
[/QUOTE]
So…no cite showing that it’s been upgraded to a level 7 has, as yet, been forthcoming. What happened to that? Care to comment, levdrakon? And I STILL haven’t heard that ‘there is deadly levels of radioactive material outside of the containment BUILDING’. Do you happen to have a cite showing that there is? Which part of my statement did you NOT understand…perhaps I can translate it for you?
And note…my request for a cite was for the assertion that the emergency had been upgraded to level 7. I merely said I hadn’t heard anything about the other (and, as of today I STILL haven’t).
[QUOTE=FXMastermind]
The points were ignored then as well. Which is why I consider a lot of posts trolls here.
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:rolleyes: Seriously man…are you crazy and stupid, or just stupid? Let me translate for you…from your cite:
It’s now the 29th of March. By using a clever technique called ‘subtraction’, I calculate that this was 9 days ago. So…has there been a large explosion of the pools holding the spent fuel rods? Has there been a full on meltdown and fire? Has this catastrophe affected the neighboring plants? Do you anticipate that it will any day now…and for how long will you continue to wait in hopeful anticipation of this coming disaster? Did you know that they actually got water into those pools shortly after that article came out? Do you think this might affect the progression of the event since then, or would have no effect at all? Do you think that the folks who made those statement then (to recap, 9 days ago) still feel that this is a primary issue today, or do you think they might see OTHER things as being of more importance now. Like, oh, say the contaminated water issue (the water that they were worried about not being in the pools)??
If you got any dumber then your automatic nervous systems would shut down and you’d stop breathing. For your own health I urge you to keep at least two or three neurons rubbing together, even if the smoke is disturbing you.