I’ve seen plenty of reports saying what’s being released. There are links galore in the GQ equivalent of this thread. So, yeah…I do blame the media for being clueless gits who are dogging this story as if it’s the only thing happening there, and for giving out as much misinformation and BS as actual facts on what’s going on.
-XT
You’ve seen reports listing the material in the clouds coming from the reactors? Where?
I’ve seen reports listing the radiation levels, which are being monitored. I’ve seen reports about tests for radioactive materials being measured in ground water both on site and in other near by cities.
From the GQ thread, here is a blog telling what’s in the steam…and a more detailed analysis of what’s going on.
It’s really not that much of a mystery…I mean, they know what’s actually in there, so there isn’t going to be some mystery material coming out. They are keeping track of the radiation in the area using on site meters and dose meters on the emergency personnel (that’s how they knew it was spiking and how they know how long a given worker can work in the area before they are in danger). I’m not sure what you are looking at, but even places like CNN have the basics down…there is a ton of focus on this.
Out of curiosity, what makes you think the actual experts on site don’t know what’s going on?
-XT
What they know, and what they are saying may be two different things.
Here is what the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissionsaid today:
Here seems to be a good site with lots of info, apologies if it has been posted before. It is a blog being updated by the graduate students in MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.
Well, “may” and “believe” are not really facts.
The situation is very serious and shitty, but after reading the more serious sources and the misleading info from many main stream sources one problem I think what is happening is that reports of the problems made are many times ignoring latest developments or efforts done to control them, IIRC there were reports that mentioned the problem of the lack of water in the pool or reactor 4 with the spent fuels rods that then caused a fire. Sure, Gregory Jaczko could had been correct, but the report already misses the fact that the fire was controlled and the radiation levels dropped.
So looking at the cite from L. G. Butts, Ph.D.:
As the radiation levels from Unit 3 lowered, this has taken place and more men are now in the location. The big problem is still in unit 3 and 2.
CNN announcing right now the US government statement. Fuel rods are burning in #4, radiation is extremely high, maybe too high to do anything to stop it.
With all due respect, that page hasn’t been updated in 12 hours. The fluidity of the situation renders that information inadequate to judge the current conditions.
The News Hour on PBS reported the US statement, said that the Japanese are denying it, and also said that TEPCO thinks it might get power hooked back up to the mains soon.
Edit: I’ve seen analysis indicating that one complicating factor is that if re-criticality of the spent rods is an issue, then introducing water might actually be a bad thing, because the water might moderate the reaction. On the other hand, they have to cool the rods. So to sum up: I don’t know. And it seems like very few other people do either.
The update in the post said 11:48 AM EST.
We’re talking about ghg and global warming and energy, are we not? It’s important to remember how much of our energy consumption is oil.
8.4% is nuke, and 7.3% is renewable. That’s not that much of a difference.
See above. 20% is the percent of electricity provided by nuclear, not energy.
That’s an awful lot of ifs. I’m trying to be realistic about what we can do now.
Did you read the article about wind power in Texas?
Texas has 9,410 MW of wind capacity. The largest farm is 781 MW.
I very much agree the grid needs to be upgraded in a huge way. Can’t export those jobs overseas - let’s do it!
Yeesh, I am seeing all kinds of conflicting reports from the media. A LA Times story from ~1 hour ago said they had power and were trying to spray water using fire hoses into the pools to cool the spent fuel rods. They also said that it has not been confirmed that the the secondary containment has been destroyed.
I feel like turning of the news for a couple of weeks and just reading the final version of events because it is so hard to determine what is accurate…
NO. 100% false. Please stop it. The physics of nuclear science is well understood, be it fission or fusion.
Now the engineering involved in controlling the reaction with 100% guaranteed safety may be a separate issue but don’t try and make it sound like nuclear energy is akin to magic or vodoo that we dumb apes don’t understand.
It was sarcasm. Now the official word is the fuel from #4 is burning. I’m sure they determined this by measuring what is in the cloud.
That one, at least, is very simple - you put a boron salt in the water to absorb neutrons and prevent re-criticality. It’s a standard technique - normal backup to reactor control rods is a boron salt tank that can be added to the cooling water if control rods fail to insert for any reason.
Most of that renewable is hydro, which is certainly renewable as long as the rivers run, what it is not is expandable. There are only so many places for damns and most of them are taken up already. And of course they have huge environmental costs as well. Nuclear can be scaled way up, you only need to take up a small drainage, just big enough to build a nice little reservoir.
You’re right, I don’t think we’ll be greatly expanding hydro power, but then again I haven’t paid much attention to it.
Hydro power has the advantage of being dispatchible, that is, it can be turned up, down, off, on easily. Well, relatively easily.
Nuke is a base load power generator. They take days to get going smoothly, then they just run. You can’t turn them up or down to respond to peak loads or spikes in usage.
Peak power is provided mainly by gas. A combination of peak power and intermittent sources like solar and wind hooked up to a smart distribution system eliminates the need for base load power plants. Or can eliminate the need, I should say.
You can scale nuke plants up that’s true, but how many of the current dozens or 100s of plans are scaled up? If they aren’t already, you’re talking about many years before any new design gets approved.
Hydro uses lots of water of course 
but nuke plants, depending on their design can use a lot of water too. I’m not aware of any water issues with wind and solar.
No, it can’t. There simply isn’t enough energy available from solar and wind. And how much land do you intend to cover over in the process of trying and failing?
It’s amusing that it’s the so-called green side in this debate that is willing to basically pave over the planet rather than build Evil Nuclear Plants.
Pave over the planet? Are you serious? Put solar panels over every square inch that is already paved, and get back to me.
Where do you get these ideas?
Sun is even more plentiful and just exploiting that which falls on rooftops already would make a sizable dent.
The issue is not the magnitude of the resource; it is the cost competitiveness of its exploitation. That varies per location.