Nuclear Power is safe. Fuck you if you disagree.

Stop watching CNN and other US news crap. Sensational journalism at its best.

The spent fuel rods aren't being improperly stored, the design is that they're stored above the reactor in a pool. The pool keeps them nice and cool for a few years until they're ready to be moved elsewhere. Almost all nuclear places do this. The reactors are mostly fine in this case. They were designed to withstand a 7.0 earthquake and did fine in a 8.9. The tsunami did the most damage, knocking out the backup generators that power the cooling systems.

The current issue is basically the cooling doesn't work and the water in the spent fuel rod pool in reactor #4 isn't able to cool the rods very well (Few of the rods in the pool were just recently put in December so they're generating a lot of heat still). If they can't keep the rods cool, it'll start boiling off water and eventually become exposed.. which would be really bad. If it really catches on fire, water isn't going to put it out and it doesn't even need a lot of oxygen to burn. All the nasty stuff in the rods would burn off into the atmosphere, but it's very heavy so not going too far.
 


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Jabberwokky said:
What do you have to say about this??? Japan suspends work at stricken nuclear plant - Yahoo! News
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That article is the very model of a scaremongering puff piece. What utter Crap! Was it reprinted there from faux news??

* It gave no new information about damage or problems
* It agreed that all rad dosages we 'far from fatal'
* They even called someone who is an anti-nuclear activist an "Expert."
* Worse yet, they didn't give an opposing viewpoint.

Honestly, I am becoming convinced that the american media is EXTREMELY prejudiced against nuclear power and have seen this tragedy as nothing mroe than an Opportunity to push their politics down every american's throat.

Looks like you feel for it hook, line & sinker!
 
(O_o) said:
who gives a shit what happens? I live in the south so i could careless what happens to cali and the west coast LOL im safe ;D

this post is fueld by 4loko ^_^
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The southern US has a large amount of nuclear power plants. I live right next to one.

lukep said:
Honestly, I am becoming convinced that the american media is EXTREMELY prejudiced against nuclear power and have seen this tragedy as nothing mroe than an Opportunity to push their politics down every american's throat.

Looks like you feel for it hook, line & sinker!
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Lol becoming? They've been that way since the 70s - check out the movie "The China Syndrome". Conveniently came out like 2 weeks before the Three Mile Island incident.

The media hates nuclear. Further proof: Fears mounting over U.S. nuclear plants - CNN.com
 
We must sound like Mel-Gibson-Type conspiracy theorists to talk about such an organized mass media effort this way, but it's getting a little past obvious at this point.

Do you think it's just because the editors, so many of them, all happen to be so politically inclined, or there is something bigger pulling their strings?
 
It kinda sucks that all this high tech nuclear reactor technology is simply used to turn water into steam. We need to devise some way of turning nuclear energy directly into electrical energy, bypassing all the water->steam->mechanical turbine->electromagnetic conversions.
 
lukep said:
We must sound like Mel-Gibson-Type conspiracy theorists to talk about such an organized mass media effort this way, but it's getting a little past obvious at this point.

Do you think it's just because the editors, so many of them, all happen to be so politically inclined, or there is something bigger pulling their strings?
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Tough call. I wouldn't put it past the oil or coal lobby to pay off some people. Nuclear needs a much better lobby, I see commercials for nat. gas and "clean coal" *bullshit* all the time.

A lot of the media talking heads were around in the late 1970s as students when they got into the whole "No nukes!" thing, so that could be part of it too.

People just are irrationally afraid of radiation and nuclear because of the bomb connotation behind it.
 
papajohn56 said:
People just are irrationally afraid of radiation and nuclear because of the bomb connotation behind it.
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There are also a lot of people who are rationally afraid of nuclear because of how enduringly toxic the materials are.

Statements from the Japanese government (not western media) in the last few hours indicate the situation is getting worse - a new fire at the spent fuel rod pond, reactor 3 containment vessel likely cracked and now emitting clouds of white smoke, spike in radiation levels prompted evacuation of all remain personnel at the facility, government considering asking U.S. military to assist is dropping water on the facility.
 
geomark said:
There are also a lot of people who are rationally afraid of nuclear because of how enduringly toxic the materials are.

Statements from the Japanese government (not western media) in the last few hours indicate the situation is getting worse - a new fire at the spent fuel rod pond, reactor 3 containment vessel likely cracked and now emitting clouds of white smoke, spike in radiation levels prompted evacuation of all remain personnel at the facility, government considering asking U.S. military to assist is dropping water on the facility.
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Ok, and radiation spiked to what levels exactly? The immediate plant area is high enough to evacuate, but this still does not mean it will be a major hazard outside of this area.

This is also why we need to move away from Uranium, to Thorium.

What about how enduringly toxic oil is?
 
lukep said:
We must sound like Mel-Gibson-Type conspiracy theorists to talk about such an organized mass media effort this way, but it's getting a little past obvious at this point.

Do you think it's just because the editors, so many of them, all happen to be so politically inclined, or there is something bigger pulling their strings?
Click to expand...


Maybe they are just presenting what they think their viewers want to hear and see.


My question is why weren't the emergency generators built up off the ground?

How much water actually reached the plant?


Bompa
 
Here's some input not written by me on how Chernobyl was a much bigger clusterfuck than this can possibly be:

First off the RMBK model reactor (the kind of reactor that the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant used) had some SERIOUS design flaws. In literally every single power plant in the US (and, afaik, most nearly every plant worldwide these days) the number of neutrons produced reduces as temperature goes up. This is called a Negative Feedback Coefficient and is a safety precaution to prevent unstable power spikes. Chernobyl had a Positive Feedback Coefficient, so when things started getting out of hand and the reactor started heating up, more and more neutrons were produced, making it heat up faster, etc etc until meltdown. This is one of two ways a reactor can melt down (the other is insufficient cooling, generally from a loss of coolant) and it is impossible in light water reactors, which are the most common reactors in the world (and the only kind in the US). When I say impossible, I mean impossible. Not unlikely, only happening in unforeseen, catastrophic events. Impossible.

Now, the feedback coefficient aside, the Chernobyl NPP had some other serious problems. Like not having a fucking containment building. All modern NPPs (and older ones too) have big ass concrete buildings around their reactors to act as an extra barrier between radioactive materials and the outside environment. Chernobyl had a bare reactor vessel. When that thing popped, it immediately started spewing nasty shit into the air. All existing power plants have to breach the containment building first, which is equipped with numerous countermeasures to prevent breach. In my humble opinion, I think that Chernobyl wouldn't have been half the disaster that it was if there had been a proper containment building.

Fukushima is a serious incident, but it is also a success story and a tribute to the incredibly redundant safety systems that modern NPPs possess (and they're always being improved on, the next generation of NPPs have some REALLY cool safety systems). They lost both main, offsite, and backup power and still managed to keep the reactor from melting down. They lost coolant and ran out of backup coolant, so they went to the backup backup and started pumping in saltwater. There have been and will likely be a couple more minor releases of radioactive material (from what I've read, the largest dosage anyone has taken has been about 10% of the radiation dosage we all take from universal background radiation), none of which will pose a long-term hazard to the surrounding environment because the radioactive materials released have half-lives on the order of a few minutes.
 
papajohn56 said:
Ok, and radiation spiked to what levels exactly? The immediate plant area is high enough to evacuate, but this still does not mean it will be a major hazard outside of this area.

This is also why we need to move away from Uranium, to Thorium.

What about how enduringly toxic oil is?
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I didn't see any numbers. They just said it was to dangerous for emergency workers to remain so they were evacuated. So nobody left behind to try to take care of things. This is going well.

Oil? I can store a barrel of oil in my garage. I can even stick my hand in it and other than a messy cleanup or perhaps a nasty rash...srsly
 
PapaJohn, your work here is most needed and appreciated. We need nuclear power more than ever now, especially in the United States. Natural Gas(slick water high-volume hydraulic fracturing) is a beautiful beast for the banksters, and they are absolutely slamming nuclear power and pulling the strings on this fear job right now. They want to frack America hard and fast.

They would love nothing more than to literally donate wind turbines and solar panels to communities as they creep into rural America and divide and conquer the people dangling lease values over their heads. Panels and wind are not going to cut it, but the banksters will gladly load balance these two all day long with gas. The sheer volume of land that is going under lease right now in America for fracturing is enormous. We are talking 100s of millions of acres here of prime watersheds. The ideal locations are near reservoirs, rivers, and streams. The gas, once fracked, has to be pushed through pipes that are combustible. Thousands of miles of new combustible pipes. There are giant compressor stations that are built to do this and they leak badly. Benzene and methane. Air quality turns horrible, in addition to water threats. Wyoming Air Pollution Worse Than Los Angeles Due To Gas Drilling

Nuclear power is not nuclear weaponry. It is instrumental to clean power across the world. Nuclear is a prime example of fearing something you don't understand. It is far safer than fracking. And, interestingly, Fracking and the disposal of waste water, is causing earthquakes in Arkansas. They are going miles into the earth with extremely high pressured water and chemicals.

Keep spreading the word, + rep.
 
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johnmatrix said:
It kinda sucks that all this high tech nuclear reactor technology is simply used to turn water into steam. We need to devise some way of turning nuclear energy directly into electrical energy, bypassing all the water->steam->mechanical turbine->electromagnetic conversions.
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The Stirling cycle is the most thermally efficient engine. But I think it is problematic to build very large Stirling engines like the size you need in power plants. Rankine cycle, which is the steam/turbine system, can be built very large. I think that's why it is the choice for very big systems.

Large numbers of Stirling engines ganged together can make up a very efficient power plant, but the heat source wouldn't be a nuclear reactor since that's one really big heat source and distributing the heat out to lots of little engines would be messy and very lossy.
 
geomark said:
I didn't see any numbers. They just said it was to dangerous for emergency workers to remain so they were evacuated. So nobody left behind to try to take care of things. This is going well.

Oil? I can store a barrel of oil in my garage. I can even stick my hand in it and other than a messy cleanup or perhaps a nasty rash...srsly
Click to expand...

I can store uranium in my garage as long as it's in a special container. Shit I can buy uranium ore on the internet.

Also the workers have returned and are continuing to work according to NHK. Radiation levels dropped to a safer level.
 
islomania said:
PapaJohn, your work here is most needed and appreciated. We need nuclear power more than ever now, especially in the United States. Natural Gas(slick water high-volume hydraulic fracturing) is a beautiful beast for the banksters, and they are absolutely slamming nuclear power and pulling the strings on this fear job right now. They want to frack America hard and fast.

They would love nothing more than to literally donate wind turbines and solar panels to communities as they creep into rural America and divide and conquer the people dangling lease values over their heads. Panels and wind are not going to cut it, but the banksters will gladly load balance these two all day long with gas. The sheer volume of land that is going under lease right now in America for fracturing is enormous. We are talking 100s of millions of acres here of prime watersheds. The ideal locations are near reservoirs, rivers, and streams. The gas, once fracked, has to be pushed through pipes that are combustible. Thousands of miles of new combustible pipes. There are giant compressor stations that are built to do this and they leak badly. Benzene and methane. Air quality turns horrible, in addition to water threats. Wyoming Air Pollution Worse Than Los Angeles Due To Gas Drilling

Nuclear power is not nuclear weaponry. It is instrumental to clean power across the world. Nuclear is a prime example of fearing something you don't understand. It is far safer than fracking. And, interestingly, Fracking and the disposal of waste water, is causing earthquakes in Arkansas. They are going miles into the earth with extremely high pressured water and chemicals.
Click to expand...

Best post of the thread. Fracking is far more hazardous to anyone's health than a nuclear plant.
 
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