To get back to the original question in the OP, I think that all this has made me more of a nuclear supporter. I look at what’s happened in Japan, at the amounts of devastation in various parts of the country, at the fact that this was an older and less safe design (the plant is older than most 'dopers posting in this thread probably :p), and the fact that despite all of that the plant has held together more than long enough to evacuate most of the people in the area (those still alive from the earthquake and tsunami, and those who would have still been there in any case, considering the pictures I’ve seen of the area and the fact that a hell of a lot of those folks who did survive had match sticks and driftwood for houses)…and that the evacuation might not ultimately have been necessary (I agree that they should have done it anyway, since it’s best to error on the side of maximum prudence in any emergency like this). That eventually those folks will most likely be allowed to go home and try and rebuild their community.
I wish there was some way to make people understand what risk assessment and probability actually means, to grasp the ramifications of all of this, to see that if it takes this level of disaster to bring an older and less safe plant to it’s knees then how much more safe would one of the modern designs be? Sadly, I don’t think it’s going to matter, because I think this is going to be the rallying cry of the anti-nukes in the US and everywhere else. What they will take away from all of this is the fear and uncertainty…and it will simply reinforce their already faith based views (not all people opposed to nuclear energy are ‘anti-nukers’ btw).
And they will kill nuclear here in the US. It’s going to be left to die on the vine, growing increasingly older and more decrepit, with no new modern designs built in the US. They will be built in countries like China, or India, or France, or South Africa…not here. We will continue to wait in hopeful anticipation for the coming of the magic ponies that will save us, and give us clean, cheap and abundant energy that will allow us to get rid of those coal fired plants and make the world a greener, safer utopia, blah blah blah. 10 years from now I have no doubt that nuclear will continue to fade, that coal will still be king, and that wind and solar will still be marginal niche energy suppliers who, with generous outpouring of taxpayer dollars MIGHT just increase to the point where combined they are able to provide 10% of our produced electrical energy. Maybe.
C’est la vie. Any sort of US nuclear revival died in an earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
And just one more happy thought. While still using coal the US is, of course, going to resist efforts at curbing emissions, which will mean other countries have less incentive to reduce emissions and on and on we go…
One of the lessons I hope we can learn from Japan is just how lucky we all are that this happened in Japan. Japan is a modern technological giant with a long history of dealing with earthquakes and tsunamis. It’s infrastructure and emergency preparedness and responsiveness is unparalleled in the world. Japan has been just barely able to prevent a triple meltdown in Fukushima’s reactors, and well as disastrous explosions and fires in its 7 spent fuel pools.
Now imagine a world where the nuclear industry and its overly enthusiastic supporters had their way, and there were 1000s of nuclear reactors along all the earth’s most populated coasts. Can we honestly say any other country *except *Japan could have prevented, and still be preventing, three reactor and 7 fuel pool meltdowns under similar circumstances?
Another lessen I hope we can learn from this is that the very safest passive “modern” nuclear reactor design in the world means nothing when it’s surrounded by spent fuel pools literally bristling with thousands of hot reactor assemblies that must be actively circulated and cooled and topped off for years, not minutes, hours or days.
Yes, I addressed this earlier. The damage in Katrina was roughly the size of Japan. Because of the size of the United States were were able to field far more helicopters and equipment than Japan ever could. We also have Canada next door which is another large industrial complex to tap into.
I am pretty sure you are missing the point. The response to Katrina wasn’t exactly a great representation of American competence. Had Katrina triggered some sort of nuclear meltdown, I am afraid to think what might have happened.
Impossible to say. The first real resources brought to bear were helicopter water dumps and high-pressure fire hoses, after the hydrogen explosions and fires had occurred. Not sure whether Japan has been fast or slow in getting mains power back to the plant.
Hindsight makes everything easy, but I have to wonder, as the steam-powered emergency cooling was making the torus temperatures rise and it was only a matter of time before they lost cooling and had to start venting, if it occurred to anyone to physically make holes in the steel sheet walls of the fuel pool decks. Or if anyone thought to take a physical look in the fuel pools in the reactors 4 building a couple of times a day. It was known to have a recently-removed core load so its decay heat would be expected to be high, and its fuel pool deck wasn’t contaminated by venting so it should have been okay to walk around inside. I’m not sure the Japanese actually made the best choices in the early stages, or if dealing with this was simply a matter of resources.
Most places, the strident voices of ‘nuclear is good’ have gone quiet. I blame the news from Japan.
Once again, it wasn’t the protesters and the Union of concerned scientists, nor any Nobel prize winning geniuses that slowed down nuclear power plants.
It was the power plants themselves.
Wasn’t the earthquake, or even the tsunami that did the reactors in. It was the reactors that did themselves in.
Think again. Katrina damage was the size of the country of Japan. And unlike a simple heat wave in France that killed 10,000 people there were few casualties. Of those casualties you can put the blame squarely on the mayor who didn’t follow the evacuation plan and went so far as to NOT to run the public announcement that emphasized the seriousness of the situation. This announcement was created in advance after a mock hurricane (Hurricane Pam - which he participated in) showed the need for clarity of the situation. Instead he invited everybody to a party at the Super Dome and forgot to bring the hot dogs.
The Federal response was in place before the hurricane struck with relief camps set up inland of the damage. A tremendous amount of infrastructure had to be engaged due to the failure of the mayor to properly advise and then evacuate his constituents. New Orleans represented a fraction of the areas damaged.
Now if you want to make a comparison of the nuclear power plants of Japan to the infrastructure of New Orleans that would be a valid comparison. Prior to the hurricane the Corpse of Engineers focused on the reinforcement of the canal systems and completely ignored the obvious lack of head gates going into lake Pontchartrain. You didn’t need to understand engineering to know that the lake is higher than sea level and would back-fill from torrential rain as the hurricane passed through. It was an obvious flaw in the canal system which as since been corrected.
Germany just had an election in Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz, which was very much an election for or against nuclear power. It was a solid win for the Greens, who are against nuclear power. I understand that the current proportion in Germany in electricity generation, is 60% fossil fuel, 20% nuclear and 20% renewable. The Greens wants this to become 60% fossil fuel and 40% renewable. I don’t know how realistic this is, however what I’d considered a much more desirable goal would be 40% fossil, 20% nuclear and 40% renewable. However you turn it, it seems that unless you are able to produce enough electricity by renewable energy to cover your entire need, then taking out nuclear will result in more fossil. I can’t see how this can be a Green interest. At least if they are concerned with global warming.
Wouldn’t it make sense to focus on co2 scrubbers for coal (assuming Germany has coal). Germany doesn’t have enough sunshine to warrant thermal solar and currently it’s expensive to run solar cells. I’d hate to think how much that autobahn ribbon cost them.
I still think it was ass stupid to line up reactors next to each other. Clearly that is a bad idea. I mean, one reactor goes, the whole thing turns ugly quick.
The levels of plutonium detected were only slightly higher than what is found in ordinary soil. This was actually a surprise to me - turns out that soil all around the world has detectable levels of plutonium in it already, probably from all those above-ground nuclear test explosions last century, yet we haven’t all dropped dead.
Geeze…those wacky Germans! :smack: Like taking every episode of the Simpson’s off the air (which would be pretty much all of them…Homer works in a nuclear power plant IIRC, and a lot of the story revolves around that) that has anything to do with nuclear power is going to help calm their vast Green Party anti-nuke sentiments down. :dubious:
