I didn’t see that post before my last post. My use of the word idiot was in reference to myself, not anybody else here.
Plus, I don’t really know anybody here well enough to call them … well … you know, that word.
I am reluctant to intrude on a clash of towering intellects, but it is far, far too early to start drawing conclusions about this, much less draw lessons from those conclusions. It ain’t over, it ain’t even nearly over. When and if we can reliably cover those spent fuel rods with water, it will begin to be over. Until that point in time, we are still waiting for the last cards to be dealt. We don’t even know what has been lost so far, much less what is going to be lost tomorrow.
And when experts are in total disagreement about scientific stuff, your best bet is that they don’t know, any more than we do. When it is over, they’ll be in a better position than we to explain how it got that way. How many times have you heard expressions like “uncharted territory” recently?
Next thing we are going to learn is how much it costs to render this radioactive pustule volcano harmless. That’s if we’re very smart, and Murphy takes a nap. Otherwise, we get to learn how much it costs to fuck it up and do it all over again, 'cause of something we didn’t know the first time.
If covering the entire plant acreage in $100 bills to a depth of ten feet would do it, we’d probably be getting off cheap.
[QUOTE=gonzomax]
What pray tell is one of the most dangerous things a person does in his life? Driving a car.
[/QUOTE]
I’d say, based on probability, that the most dangerous thing a person (in the US) does is eat that double cheese burger, fries and a (diet) coke for lunch every day. Or, to expand…get out of bed. Of all the things likely to kill you (or even give you cancer), a nuclear accident is pretty much on par with death by coconut head drop…
Yep…because dying or even being seriously injured, sick or whatever from a nuclear accident is pretty much off the scale. We are talking about the probability of getting hit by a meteor, or winning the lotto tomorrow.
Leaving aside the fact that your hyperbole called and says to stop jumping that shark and take it for a nice walk, I’m comparing relative probabilities of dying in any given year. So…one car crash that you happen to be in would kill or cause serious injury, and cost thousands to 10’s or even 100’s of thousands of dollars in damage and potential law suit. Multiply that by all of the car crashes that happen in the US every day and…well…it’s going to add up, right?
In the 60 odd years that we’ve had nuclear energy there is exactly one site that irradiated a substantial number of people, caused a substantial number of deaths, and left ‘huge’ amounts of land uninhabitable for generations to come. One. It killed a few hundred people, caused (IIRC) something like 20-30k to have to leave their homes permanently, and cost billions to get under control and clean up. If in the hugely unlikely even that this situation goes all Chernobyl, it’s not going to kill that many people, will probably cost billions to get under control and clean up, and might mean that the environs around the plant are hazardous to ‘generations to come’…and that would make two. In 60 years. And it will pale in comparison to what this one earthquake cost in terms of lives, damage and rebuilding costs. Both nuclear disasters together pale in comparison to a 2 minute sustained 9.0 scale earthquake and what it alone cost.
Think back over those 60 odd years and try and grasp the lives lost, damage done and money spent in just earthquakes. Then think about all the other stuff that has happened, and what it’s cost in those terms and perhaps you will grasp the relative risks involve here.
-XT
The probability of Fukushima Daiichi experiencing an earthquake and tsunami and losing its power and its back ups and back ups and back ups and endangering hundreds of thousands if not millions of people already dealing with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami is 100%
I’ll take the car, Bob.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
I am reluctant to intrude on a clash of towering intellects, but it is far, far too early to start drawing conclusions about this, much less draw lessons from those conclusions.
[/QUOTE]
The irony…it burns! 
The last I heard the spent fuel rods aren’t a major issue (ETA: which isn’t to say that it’s no issue at all, just that it doesn’t seem to be the primary concern, from what I’ve been reading)…and they are covered in water (now). This wasn’t from the Japanese, who seem to be suspect in this thread by the towering intellect guys, but from the IAEA who, presumably, are keeping abreast of what’s going on. The concern I’ve seen is that they don’t know the extent of the blast damage on one or more of the production reactors, or the state of the melt-i-ness of the fuel rods in them, or what other damage those containment vessels might have suffered.
You have to ask yourself, though, how much expert disagreement is actually happening wrt experts who are on-site and working the issue? The only disagreements I’ve seen (leaving aside the medias various ‘experts’ and coverage) is between people who are certainly experts, but who don’t have any direct knowledge of what’s happening. Other than that, the biggest thing I’m seeing in following the story is that a lot of folks what to know what’s going on right this minute, but that there is an information lag happening. Also, there are definitely aspects of this that aren’t fully known…they simply have no way of really getting into the reactor vessels and seeing what all the problems are, so to some extent they are extrapolating based on what they do have.
Well, we wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusions or try to spin things in the worst possible light, right 'luci?
We probably would. Much the same thing could be said about covering the quake and tsunami damage in $100 bills…it would cost less lives, for one thing.
-XT
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
The probability of Fukushima Daiichi experiencing an earthquake and tsunami and losing its power and its back ups and back ups and back ups and endangering hundreds of thousands if not millions of people already dealing with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami is 100%
[/QUOTE]
The probability of all of the dinosaurs on earth getting wiped out by an asteroid is 100%…OMG, getting hit by a big fucking rock is dangerous!! Pass me that double cheese burger, extra-trough sized fries and a diet coke.
BTW, gonzomax’s hyperbole called you too and wants to know if it can have his shark back…
-XT
You still haven’t answered my questions. Are you being disingenuous, or do you not get it?
The irony is that I did in fact answer your question. If you would like a translation, your analogy was ridiculous. You don’t weigh risk that way. To use the car analogy, it would be like going to a traffic accident and saying ‘well, see? That guy crashed his car and is dead now…so, driving a car is too risky! It’s a 100% probability you will crash and die! Give me that double cheese burger, blah blah blah’. It’s silly.
There…now, which was it for you? Did you not get it or were you being disingenuous? Based on subsequent posts I’m leaning towards the ‘he didn’t get it’, but I suppose it’s possible that you are just pulling my chain here.
-XT
I’m giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, and trying to read between the irony, humor, satire and sarcasm that is the hallmark of an intelligent person.
I’m trying hard to throttle back my sarcasm and humor, since a literal reading of some of it makes me seem like an insane person. The same could be said for others, but I swear I can’t tell if some statements are false flag operations to make the opposition look bad, or if people actually mean it.
No, you compared fuel rods with cocks. You did not answer a single question.
Disingenuous, don’t get it, or something else?
Gosh, I must have been misinformed!
(emphasis added)
**Fukushima’s Spent Fuel Rods Pose Grave Danger **
Probably some hippy.
Greater Danger Lies in Spent Fuel Than in Reactors
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18spent.html
Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. You were saying?
[QUOTE=FXMastermind]
I’m giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, and trying to read between the irony, humor, satire and sarcasm that is the hallmark of an intelligent person.
I’m trying hard to throttle back my sarcasm and humor, since a literal reading of some of it makes me seem like an insane person. The same could be said for others, but I swear I can’t tell if some statements are false flag operations to make the opposition look bad, or if people actually mean it.
[/QUOTE]
False flag operations? What is this, a 9/11 Truth thread or Loose Change 2: Electric Boogaloo??
To answer your question from my own perspective, while I certainly do my best to make ‘the opposition’ look bad (I have a real thing about the anti-nuke crowd, at least the fact free faith based ones…there are real concerns about nuclear power, and while I generally disagree with the thoughtful and informed anti-nuclear people, I can respect the position), I am posting what I 100% know to be The Truth (at least, based on my own research, participation in nuclear related threads, discussions, preconceptions and belief).
As for sarcasm and humor, that’s the fuel that keeps the hamsters hyped up and running that wheel around here. You just need to read the rules and stay within the limits. It helps if you use less hyperbole and stick to reality more. Don’t use off the wall opinion pieces or blogs if you want to be taken seriously. Stick to the facts and don’t embellish (well, not as much anyway).
This isn’t going to be The Worst Nuclear Disaster in History, and Millions aren’t going to be displaced forever from their homes, with the countryside a nuclear wasteland Forever™…none of that is going to happen. It’s going to be a nasty cleanup, and it will probably be (hell, has already been) quite expensive…but it’s nothing compared to the cleanup and recovery from the actual earthquake overall. Just…keep it real. That’s my take, FWIW and all that jazz…YMMV.
-XT
fwiw levdrakon, I think I got what you are saying.
My biggest failing is probably that I hate the edit button. It leaves a trail that I had to go back and fix a typo or something, ruining my illusion of perfection. So I tend to post two or three times in a row, with smaller posts, which drives some people nuts.
Sorry.
I hope I am wrong, and the deniers are right. That this is no big thing. In any case, it’s already got a lot going in other countries, because it’s pretty obvious nobody is ready for a problem. That’s what happens when you convince yourself there won’t be one.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Gosh, I must have been misinformed!
[/QUOTE]
Did you perhaps notice that none of those people are directly involved?
That none of your cites actually say anything new or are from people directly involved? But since you obviously have a bug up your butt about this I’ll see if I can find that report I was reading from the IAEA about reactor 4.
-XT
Hell,** XT**, nobody is “directly involved”! Nobody can get close enough to be “directly involved”!
And the bug up my butt? You put it there by sneering about how ill-informed I was compared to your luminous self. Sort of thing that gets on my nerves.
I couldn’t find it, but I found this on CNN:
Here is what they say about reactor 4 (unfortunately this part of the CNN report isn’t from the IAEA, but they said something similar):
I’m going to leave it there. You are free to believe that reactor 4 is the number one issue currently if you like, 'luci…it’s not really worth trying to find that report at this time of night over a fairly obscure point.
ETA:
You are pulling my chain, right? The folks you quoted don’t have direct knowledge afaict of what’s going on. People who are ‘directly involved’ are, you know, actually involved in the crisis. They don’t have to walk naked into the reactor covered in green jello to be ‘directly involved’…they simply have to, you know, actually BE INVOLVED.
Join the club my friend…these kinds of threads set my teeth on edge.
-XT
Me too, and I have to add that even if I have disagreed before on some issues with you before, I have to congratulate you on your efforts here.
[QUOTE=GIGObuster]
Me too, and I have to add that even if I have disagreed before on some issues with you before, I have to congratulate you on your efforts here.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks…I appreciate that, especially since I consider you one of the more knowledgeable 'dopers concerning the environment and environmental issues. I think WRT the environment, you and I aren’t so far apart. It’s only those pesky economics or political issues where we don’t always see eye to eye. 
I hope I’m wrong, but I think no matter how this turns out in Japan it’s going to do a hell of a lot of damage to ever getting nuclear energy going again in the US. Which is a shame, since I really think we could take a big bite out of CO2, at least enough to offset those crazy Chinese who are building old style coal plants like they were going out of style (well…I suppose they are at that). Now we have to wait to see if the magic ponies of wind, solar or IPD saliva can scale up to save the day. Or maybe that ‘clean coal’ stuff that Una doesn’t believe in will happen.
-XT
Your first citation has nothing much to say about spent fuel pools. It simply says they “remain a concern” and then change the subject to the cooling of damaged reactors, which is another matter. If anything, the first cite underlines my point, albeit mildly enough.
And there’s a bit of a problem with the second citation, and that is the metric buttload of radiation. We are assured that the containment walls on the reactor are intact, praise the Goddess. Well, good, but that means the only source of that much radiation pretty much has to be those rods. All the more likely because there is no such special containment for spent fuel as there is for the reactor.
Now, the good news would be if the containment walls have not been compromised, and all this radiation is coming from those pools. And all that needs be done is to refill them with water. Major challenges, perhaps, but nothing like trying to restore the integrity of the containment walls.
Actually, maybe not, maybe just send a guy down a ladder with a roll of duct tape. So I don’t want to make a flat statement like that, some smart ass come along, prove me wrong, then I gotta eat some crow.