How I went from hating to loving nuclear power.

[Michael]

It has been filtered. Did you actually read the article? It explains that very point:

"Tepco has attempted to remove most radionuclides from the excess water, but the technology does not exist to rid the water of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen."​

Ya but it also said this:

Tepco admitted last year that the water in its tanks still contained contaminants beside tritium.

I can see why it might be impossible to filter out tritium, but what other contaminants are they talking about?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I can see why it might be impossible to filter out tritium, but what other contaminants are they talking about?

I don't know - they had vast quantities of water to filter, so there may be a residue of radionuclides, but the groundwater was probably contaminated with a lot of industrial chemicals used around the site and in the coolant as well as generator fuel and oil. Their primary focus would be the radioactive pollutants, so anything else would have been a minor worry at the time.

 

[Michael]

I don't know - they had vast quantities of water to filter, so there may be a residue of radionuclides, but the groundwater was probably contaminated with a lot of industrial chemicals used around the site and in the coolant as well as generator fuel and oil. Their primary focus would be the radioactive pollutants, so anything else would have been a minor worry at the time.

I sure hope that's the case. It seems like this problem is going to be around for decades to come, particularly since Pacific ocean is already experiencing higher radioactive readings as a result of the reactor meltdowns.

Fukushima Radiation Detected Off California Coast

 

[MyOwnSockPuppet]

Chernobyl was a unique design, numerous other safer ones

Unique? There were 15 RBMK-1000 reactors built, one was destroyed by a combination of flawed design and inexcusable stupidity, four more have been shut down.

Ten are still running (Kursk 1-4, Smolensk 1-3 and Leningrad 2-4), the last one is scheduled to keep running until 2033.

Unfortunately the Soviets, and then the Russians had a simple choice - either keep running them, with the safety systems hard wired against the pathological idiocy that killed 42 people and will probably shorten thousands more lives or freeze.

Given that Russia is experiencing something of a resurgence I'm surprised there hasn't been more international pressure to close them down already.

 

[MyOwnSockPuppet]

I sure hope that's the case. It seems like this problem is going to be around for decades to come, particularly since Pacific ocean is already experiencing higher radioactive readings as a result of the reactor meltdowns.

Fukushima Radiation Detected Off California Coast

I remember about a week afterwards finding an absolutely hilarious Youtube video of someone who was absolutely convinced that California must have become your typical vision of a post-apocalyptic radioactive wasteland.

The level of radioactivity has now reached the level where it can be detected, it can literally get 3-4 thousand times higher before it even gets close to the acceptable limits for drinking water.

 

[Michael]

I remember about a week afterwards finding an absolutely hilarious Youtube video of someone who was absolutely convinced that California must have become your typical vision of a post-apocalyptic radioactive wasteland.

The level of radioactivity has now reached the level where it can be detected, it can literally get 3-4 thousand times higher before it even gets close to the acceptable limits for drinking water.

Ya, the scare factor here in California has been off scale. To listen to the hype, you'd think we're all about to die from radiation poisoning and the Pacific ocean is too polluted to support life.

 

[Erik Nelson]

Unique? There were 15 RBMK-1000 reactors built, one was destroyed by a combination of flawed design and inexcusable stupidity, four more have been shut down.

Ten are still running (Kursk 1-4, Smolensk 1-3 and Leningrad 2-4), the last one is scheduled to keep running until 2033.

Unfortunately the Soviets, and then the Russians had a simple choice - either keep running them, with the safety systems hard wired against the pathological idiocy that killed 42 people and will probably shorten thousands more lives or freeze.

Given that Russia is experiencing something of a resurgence I'm surprised there hasn't been more international pressure to close them down already.

There are 500 reactors on the planet

1 of 15 of the most dangerous design had an accident

Just use safer designs

 

[MyOwnSockPuppet]

There are 500 reactors on the planet

1 of 15 of the most dangerous design had an accident

Just use safer designs

Agreed, and shut down the dangerous ones too.

 

[Ophiolite]

There are 500 reactors on the planet

1 of 15 of the most dangerous design had an accident

Just use safer designs

The Fukushima design was a safe design. It was the ancillary aspects of the site that were lacking. I'm still waiting for you to address that. A third refusal is considered more than enough to be sent of the pitch in most sports.

 

[Michael]

The Fukushima design was a safe design. It was the ancillary aspects of the site that were lacking. I'm still waiting for you to address that. A third refusal is considered more than enough to be sent of the pitch in most sports.

I would describe a thorium reactor as being a relatively "safe" design because in an emergency, one can dump the molten salt into an external container and it cools off, and they don't "blow up" during a power failure.

I fail to understand why you think that a 1950's designed uranium core reactor is a particularly "safe" design, particularly when it's located along the coast and exposed to the danger of tidal waves. Neither the design of the reactors, or their location seem all that "safe" to me otherwise we wouldn't have seen all three reactors blow up simply because the power went off for awhile. Granted, the diesel backup power systems got flooded, but the reactors had no ability to power themselves, or cool themselves in that scenario which seems relatively "unsafe" to me. A "safer" design might include a backup thermoelectric generator to provide electricity to power cooling pumps which might have prevented that kind of catastrophe. The current uranium core designs don't seem that safe me.

 

[Erik Nelson]

The Fukushima design was a safe design. It was the ancillary aspects of the site that were lacking. I'm still waiting for you to address that. A third refusal is considered more than enough to be sent of the pitch in most sports.

u.s.e.
a.
s.a.f.e.
d.e.s.i.g.n.

(for the whole entire enchilada)
(you know what I mean)
(thank you)

a safe design means a safe design, not a mostly safe design with a fatal flaw or two

please acknowledge ??

 

[Ophiolite]

u.s.e.
a.
s.a.f.e.
d.e.s.i.g.n.

(for the whole entire enchilada)
(you know what I mean)
(thank you)

a safe design means a safe design, not a mostly safe design with a fatal flaw or two

please acknowledge ??

I acknowledge that you continue to be obtuse. The Fukushima reactor was a safe design. The problem was the placement of the back up generators where they were exposed to flooding and failure by a tsunami of unanticipated magnitude. Now are you:
1. Asserting that the Fukushima reactor was not a safe design? If so would you have classified it as unsafe before the accident?
2. Asserting that the problem lay exclusively in the arrangements for the generators? If so do you propose similar oversights be identified to provide a safe design?

At the moment all you seem to be doing is making the bland statement we need a safe design, but you are seriously short on the details of what that would consist of, and precisely how human errors would be eliminated.

 

[Erik Nelson]

I acknowledge that you continue to be obtuse. The Fukushima reactor was a safe design. The problem was the placement of the back up generators where they were exposed to flooding and failure by a tsunami of unanticipated magnitude. Now are you:
1. Asserting that the Fukushima reactor was not a safe design? If so would you have classified it as unsafe before the accident?
2. Asserting that the problem lay exclusively in the arrangements for the generators? If so do you propose similar oversights be identified to provide a safe design?

At the moment all you seem to be doing is making the bland statement we need a safe design, but you are seriously short on the details of what that would consist of, and precisely how human errors would be eliminated.

IOW Fukushima was not a safe design

We need safe nuclear power stations, not "potentially safe nuclear reactor cores" with vulnerable support equipment, or whatever nuances you're trying to mince

Yes, of course we should try to ID everything and avoid oversights, agreed?

Whatever, Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island...

how about the other 497 incident-free ones nobody's ever heard about

start with those first??

I never said I was the nuclear engineer around here, but >99% of all nuclear power stations have been safely operated incident-free, so obviously it's humanly possible to do so, yes?

 

[eclipsenow]

I just watched this CNBC 20 minute episode on fusion and fission energy, and I am reminded why the general public are not jumping up and down with excitement about fission power. So many of the engineers speak science-ese, and don't know how to jazz up the message for the average lay person like myself! It took me AGES to understand what the nuclear engineers I was emailing 12 years ago were even saying! So if you watch this CNBC video, you'll see my comment below.

"Increased fission plant efficiency" is a very unsexy way of saying BURNS NUCLEAR WASTE! GenIV breeder fission reactors, of which there are MANY designs that we know will work, burn nuclear waste. This convert a 100,000 year storage problem into today's energy solution. The UK has enough nuclear "waste" for 500 years and America to run her for 1000 years! Nuclear 'waste' is not the problem, but the solution to climate change and energy security! There is a final waste product called fission products, but it can be buried under the reactor for just 300 to 500 years and then are safe. This 4 minute video from Argonne Labs explains.

 

[eclipsenow]

I just re-wrote my 'bonfire' analogy. What do people think?

How do they work? Breeder eat nuclear waste. Years ago that sounded crazy to me. I used to think there was something called 'uranium' and then after fissioning, something bad called 'nuclear waste'. But it's much more complicated than that as used fuel rods are on a decay journey, with the material in them changing a dozen times before they're finally stable in 100,000 years or so. Because I'm not that technical, my long chats with nuclear engineers gradually came up with the metaphor of a reactor as a bonfire. Imagine you've got a big bonfire roaring and then it rains. That's the standard nuclear reactor after 18 months, when it's time to change the fuel out. Nuclear poisons have built up in the fuel rods a bit like rain coming down on your bonfire, leaving plenty of fuel behind but it's 'wet' and mixed in with dirty ash and bits of rock and last night's beer bottles all melted into it. But if you wash off the ash and junk and dry out the logs, you can eventually put them back in a future fire. That's what a breeder reactor does. It usually involves a radioactive chemical bath tub that melts down the fuel and siphons out the good stuff from the bad. The good potential fuel is put back into a fuel rod and then left around the edge of a reactor for a year to 'dry off'. (It needs to soak up some more neutrons to be ready to fission again.) Of course, it's a lot more technical than that, but that's about the level of story that my brain likes to process things at! Breeder reactors are special bonfires with a spot around the edge that dries off the wet firewood. Easy! ;-) Anyone interested can watch this 4 minute Argonne Labs movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlMDDhQ9-pE
There is an even safer method of doing this that bypasses the 'washing off' stage, which has some (in my view very overblown) proliferation concerns. That's the MCSFR, a reactor you can just dump the 'dirty wet firewood' straight into but is so hot it will burn up the wet firewood and any junk on it all in the one go.

 

[SkyWriting]

Nuclear poisons have built up in the fuel rods a bit like rain coming down on your bonfire, leaving plenty of fuel behind but it's 'wet' and mixed in with dirty ash and bits of rock and last night's beer bottles all melted into it. But if you wash off the ash and junk and dry out the logs, you can eventually put them back in a future fire. That's what a breeder reactor does. It usually involves a radioactive chemical bath tub that melts down the fuel and siphons out the good stuff from the bad. The good potential fuel is put back into a fuel rod and then left around the edge of a reactor for a year to 'dry off'. (It needs to soak up some more neutrons to be ready to fission again.) Of course, it's a lot more technical than that, but that's about the level of story that my brain likes to process things at! Breeder reactors are special bonfires with a spot around the edge that dries off the wet firewood. Easy! ;-) Anyone interested can watch this 4 minute Argonne Labs movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlMDDhQ9-pE
There is an even safer method of doing this that bypasses the 'washing off' stage, which has some (in my view very overblown) proliferation concerns. That's the MCSFR, a reactor you can just dump the 'dirty wet firewood' straight into but is so hot it will burn up the wet firewood and any junk on it all in the one go.

If every bar had a nuclear reactor that absorbed beer bottles, that would be a sure marketing bonanza. I imagine people tossing in bottles all the way to closing time.

 

[eclipsenow]

Ha ha ha, oh, what have you done? Why can I hear the Back to the Future score so clearly? Now you've got me longing for my teenage years and a movie marathon rewatch!

 

[Erik Nelson]

Science for hire ?

Deja vu?

33 Vintage Cigarette Ads That Helped Make Smoking America's Greatest Preventable Killer

there was a time when we didn't know these numbers -- or at least when we weren't ready to believe that smoking was so harmful. And that obliviousness, willful or not, was largely the result of an endless tide of cigarette ads that touted cigarettes' alleged health benefits in ways that are utterly laughable today.
​

Decades from now, we'll all learn the truth, that the whole entire time, just as smoking is actually (relatively) bad, nuclear power is actually (relatively) good?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Science for hire ?

Why would you say science? There are no scientists quoted. No scientific results mentioned.

Yes, the American Petroleum Institute is fighting bailouts for nuclear power, but it has nothing to do with science.

 

[Erik Nelson]

it has nothing to do with science

exactly

everyone is more concerned about money-is-king

scientific merits of nuclear power's potential need not apply