From the Global Warming Policy Foundation
Throughout the history of Japan, its cities have been destroyed again and again by war, fire and earthquake. After each catastrophe, the Japanese have rebuilt, bigger and better. One hopes and expects that they will do the same again. –Lesley Downer, The Daily Telegraph, 15 March 2011
The Japanese disaster “will put new nuclear development on ice,” said Toronto energy consultant Tom Adams, the former executive director of Energy Probe. He said the nuclear industry was already facing challenges, noting that vast shale gas resources in North America and other parts of the world were starting to make cheaper gas-fired plants the electricity generators of choice. – Eric Reguly, The Globe and Mail, 15 March 2011
Neither new nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, wind nor solar are economic. Natural gas is queen. It is domestically abundant and is the bridge to the future. – John Rowe, The Globe and Mail, 15 March 2011
Obama’s energy plan relies heavily on nuclear power to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions harmful to the climate as well as to reduce dependence on imported oil. The president proposed tripling federal loan guarantees to $54.5 billion to help build new reactors in the 2012 budget plan he sent to Congress. — Jeremy van Loon and Mark Chediak, Bloomberg 15 March 2011
President Barack Obama’s energy agenda appears to be jinxed. While Japan’s nuclear meltdown may be an ocean away, the industry has quickly become the latest example of a policy in peril not long after the White House embraced it. –Darren Samuelsohn, Politico, 15 March 2011
Despite Japan’s crisis, India and China and some other energy-ravenous countries say they plan to keep using their nuclear power plants and building new ones. With those two countries driving the expansion — and countries from elsewhere in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East also embracing nuclear power in response to high fossil fuel prices and concerns about global warming — the world’s stock of 443 nuclear reactors could more than double in the next 15 years, according to the World Nuclear Association, an industry trade group.—The New York Times, 14 March 2011
New data suggests Israel may not only have much larger gas resources than believed, but also the 3rd largest deposit of oil shale in the world. As a consequence of these new estimates, Israel may emerge as the third largest deposit of oil shale, after the US and China. –Dore Gold, The Jerusalem Post, 11 March 2011
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In the “worse than we thought” category –
Fukushima Daiichi reactor #1 started construction in 1967, 1st criticality in 1970, commercial operation in 1971 …
More than you could ever possibly want to know about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_Nuclear_Power_Plant
.
Smokey
You’re exactly right. For those people who don’t know, it’s called ” Progress.”
( For the small-minded, compare your IPhone 4 to the 3’rd model.)
The reactors we build in the future, just like all technology, will undoubtedly be safer, cheaper, and more efficient then the ones we used today, just the technology we used 20-40 years ago is now outdated as well.
Or perhaps the doomsayers would like to go back to a horse and carriage? I could give them a diaper…
“Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 15, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Michael R says:
March 15, 2011 at 6:39 pm
already all achieved cold shutdown.
Cold shutdown? Would you link the story that tells this?”
__________
Amino,
I was wondering the same thing.
I found this but it is apparently from another source:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/IT-All_Fukushima_Daini_units_in_cold_shutdown-1503114.html
And would balance it (discard?) with this in-depth report:
http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2011/03/15/spent-fuel-pool-threatened-by-new-fire-at-fukushima-daichi-unit-4_2c00_-radiation-exceeds-healthy-levels031504.aspx
Ooops, I see Michael R. responded, thanks Michael, and sorry about that. Guess I jumped the gun. :0)
No problem. Personally I a not well versed in reactor design nor do I obviously have a lot of information to go on – just the same everyone else is getting. I have not yet been able to reconcile why some reports are so conflicting but I considered a press release from TEPCO directly stating that they had achieved cold shutdown on all four reactors was a more reliable source then say ninemsn or yahoo news reporting 2nd, 3rd or 4th separation relayed comments.
Having said that while cold shutdown certainly prevents the type of disaster that happened at Chernobyl it is clear it’s not an “all clear”. There are fears there is a hole in teh suppression chamber of one of the reactors and the firee are also a concern. Mostly it seems the concern is about radiation on site from expose fuel sources which is compatible with the reactors having been shutdown. Thankfully if that is the case then there is a good chance that any dangerous radiation will be kept within or close to the facility and the likelyhood of human health impacts outside the exclusion zone are low – and several news utlets have reported officials stating much the same thing.
“Because humans aren’t smart enough to foresee all scenarios.”
Nor is a turtle, but he pokes his head out of his shell and walks.
Is the turtle wrong?
Are you aware the links you just provided are for Fukushima Daini (also known as Fukushima II in some circles); this site has few issues at present.
Do you have similar links for Fukushima Daiichi (also known as Fukushima I)? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Links such as this:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031504-e.html –
– which describes issues with Unit 4 Nuclear Reactor Building fuel storage pool?
Michael R
What is the explanation for this?
Associated Press – 37 mins ago
FUKUSHIMA, Japan – Japan suspended operations to keep its stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after surging radiation made it too dangerous to stay.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake
Michael R
Gaylon also supplied this from 1 1/4 hours ago:
Radiation levels are too high for workers to approach the reactor building, so it is unknown whether if smoke and/or vapor is coming from the pool storing partially spent MOX fuel.
The latest releases from TEPCO appear to be coming in Japanese and its taking time for the translations to come through. There was an update released within the last few hours located at their website located here:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/index-j.html
That includes a link to data collected from monitoing stations on curent radiation levels. It’s also Japanese however. The direct link is here:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/index-j.html
With a google translate of it here:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tepco.co.jp%2Findex-j.html&sl=ja&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
Which appears to have the current radiation levels at the site as:
It also looks like they had a spike with Radiation levels about 5 hours go hitting 10,850.0 μSv before falling back to current levels of 2538.0 μSv.
There is also a good link that begins to explain how the spent fuel pools work and the possible danger involved in the fuel being exposed (which appears to be the major concern at the moment) :
http://mitnse.com/2011/03/16/a-primer-on-spent-fuel-pools/
Michael R says:
March 15, 2011 at 6:39 pm
several hundred thousand people dying each year
I still would like to know where you got this number from.
Michael R
overexaggerating
Is there an underexaggerating? A justrightexaggerating? That word, along with saying I am miffed, gave me the impression you didn’t know what you were talking about.
Just saw the front page story “explosion increases fears of major radiation leak”. Now this headline is completly true, fears are increasing. HOWEVER, the CHANCE of a “major radiation leak” was zero yesterday, is still zero today, and will be zero again tomarrow.
Why, because all three reactors have “scrammed”, they did so immediatly after the earthquake, exactly as planned. “Scrammed” means that rods of neutron absorbing material inseted themselves into the core. Once that happens, the chance of the core releasing any noticable radioactivity (as in danagerous to anyone anywhere, even inside the plant) is ZERO. It still takes a while for the core to cool, however, and if, as happened here, the backup diesel generators, and even the backup backup generators (yes, they all have them) are damaged, by, oh, say, a huge tsunami, then they may have to bring in portable generators to cool the core while it is shutting down all the way. If they cannot get it cool fast enough, the only “threat” is small amounts of radioactive gas by products, with half lives so short that they would have to hurry to get out of the reactor to even still be detectable (maybe a bananas worth of radioactivity, if that).
But, you say, what about the explosions? The explosions are purely caused by the publics irrational, not to say just plain stupid, fear of even small and completly harmless amounts of radiation. The plants, due to this irrational fear, shut the steam inside the plant, to try and avoid bad publicity (result, even more bad publicity). Due to the way things work in reactors, this resultes in some of the water being converted into oxygen and hydrogen, result, explosion. They could have released it right into the air with no danger, since the half lives of the radioactive parts are so short (seconds for N16, the major source) that it cannot hurt anyone even if it started out radioactive enough to do so (which it didn’t, although it lasts such a short time I don’t think one could even detect if it did). Thus, this irrational fear, and the current desire of plant officials to coddle this irrational fear, are what caused the explosions.
There is also spent feul there which needs to be cooled also. Since it is, after all, spent, the danger of it releasing any harmfull (to anyone, enywhere) amounts of radiation is also zero. It is there because we promised the Japanese we would get rid of it, and then, because of irrational fears, decided not to bury it (there are a number of ways to do so, all work 100%), thus nuclear plants are forced to keep their spent feul in conditions a lot less secure than they would be if we were allowed to properly dispose of it. Do the people with this irrational fear know this, do they realize the actual RESULT of their plain stupidity? Do they realize that the people who stimulate this irrational fear in them for their own gain know the result of this fear, and don’t care if the feul is saftly disposed of or not? Perhaps they know, as I do, that the feul, being, after all, spent, is pretty safe, no matter where it is. Perhaps the irrational fear they stimulate in the stupid sheep people (what else can you call them?) is known by them to be a bald faced lie, as shown by the results. Perhaps they just like stampeding the herd, gives them a great sense of power.
Oh, by the way, this headline shouting out irrational fear (even though not ONE person has died from it) had, like, an actual article after it. It mentioned, after going on about it’s irrational fears for a while, that, oh, say, 2000 bodies has washed ashore, and oh yes, perhaps as many as 10.000 had died. But, of course, THOSE don’t really count, expecpt as a sort of afterthought. After all, death doesn’t really count unless it’s death from radiation exposure, right? In fact, even a trumped up zero percent chance of radiation, even harmless radiation, counts FAR more than a mere 10.000 dead, right? And who cares about the homeless (in winter), injured, bereaved, without power or water people, anyway. They are just the masses, the herd, usefull only when you want a nice stampede, that’s all.
I have heard it said that “free speach” does not allow the shouting of “fire” in a crowded theatre. Stimulating irrational fears that can result in major power outages, so major that civilization could collapse (first the economy, then civil order, then civilization) could kill millions, or even billions. It is thus equivilent to shouting fire. The people who do this should be locked up in an unlighted, unheated, uncooled cell, where they will drink bad water (like many people who have no power in this world do every day) and given raw food only to eat (which should not, of course, ever be refridgerated). If they complain, and want the results of electricity they are missing, give them the bizness end of a cattle prod till they learn to SHUT UP. Now THAT would be justice!
And as for those who vote that they would rather have candellight than nuclear power, note that the above description of a cell is what they will be actually getting. Do they even know what it takes to make candles, especialy to make that many? Will their place of employment also operate on candlepower? Can you run a farm on candlepower, how much food can it grow, ship, and store without it perishing on candlepower? Can you build a house, a road, anything, on candlepower? How many of these people know how much hard (and dangerous) manual labor it takes to run a world on candlepower? How many people can this earth support if we only use canclepower? A LOT less than we have now, so, ok, who is going to have to die so that the rest of us can live this “wonderful” candlepowered life? You? You? THINK!
(Answer, the fat ones will have to go, you can make a lot more candles out of them.)
Ok this is a direct result over a lot of confusion about what the current status is, what the danger is and what the possible danger could be. I am going to attempt an explanation to the best of my ability.
The reactors achieving cold Shutdown is the point at which the reactor’s coolant water no longer boils from contact with the fuel – essentially meaning that provided the reaction chamber remains sealed and coolant levels don’t plummet there is no longer the stressful need to bring in constant additional water for cooling – ie provided no further incidents occur to the reaction chamber, and there is no loss of coolant, the heat generated by the fuel is kept under control. In this state, they could effectively be left “as is” without further risk of harm.
However, the decay of radioactive particles still occur in the fuel rods and continue to do so long after they are no longer being used as fuel however the heat generated is actually quite small (comparitively speaking) and once fuel rods are used, they are stored in pools of water that absorb and remove the excess heat and also absorb the radiation comng from the rods.
In this respect it is still possible for the rods to “meltdown” as it were and additionally if they are exposed directly to the surrounding air start leaking radiation.
From what I have been able to determine, all of the reactors did achieve cold shutdown which means that provided the pressure in the system remained stable, there was no further imminent danger of meltdown however further incidents have hampered the efforts to ensure the systems remain stable.
There have been reported to be several fires located at or near the spent fuel reactor pools (. In addition, it has been reported that there is a hole in reactor 2 (the one that was reported to have had an explosion heard)http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Possible_damage_at_Fukushima_Daiichi_2_1503111.html.
What exactly does this mean?
If there is a hole in Reactor 2 and coolant has leaked exposing the core and most particularly if the workers have been evacuated and no longer ensuring the reactor is stable, radiation can leak out of this reactor. How much will depend upon where it is, how much shielding has been left around the site. However if there is a hole in the reactor then while it is possible it will have a direct impact on the local area, the chance of it affecting a greater area than the exclusion zone are remote unless core material is somehow ejected from the reactor which with little pressure on the coolant from a hole is unlikely to happen. Best guess here is that you will have (effectively) exposed radioactive material that will need to be locked down and removed when safe to do so – or alternatively entombed.
The fuel ponds pose the greater risk for the most part because if their fuel rods are exposed then they have a much greater chance of radioactive particles reaching further distances (through fire/wind/explosion) but for the most part, as with the reactors their radiation will be affecting the local area more so than at any great distance.
This link : http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake
Is another example of how second hand information combined with news reports putting a very dire spin on everything coming from the plants leads to misleading conclusions. That report was about 1 hour ago, and 30 minutes ago it was reported that :
http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/idINIndia-55547920110316?pageNumber=1
The reason for pulling out was a surge in radiation which they have not yet determined the cause.
Please note I am not downplaying the severity of the situation rather trying to convey meaningful information that is no jaded by the sensationalism of the media.
Dave Worley says:
March 15, 2011 at 8:20 pm
“Because humans aren’t smart enough to foresee all scenarios.”
Nor is a turtle, but he pokes his head out of his shell and walks.
Is the turtle wrong?
No, he’s just fine. and as he pokes his head out radiation is released. All the animals in the area die of cancer 2o years later. The ones closest handle the job of covering the hole of the shell with cement as soon as he pulls his head back in. Those die within 8 months.
Thanks for asking.
But in saying what you said you agree with me that not all accident scenarios will be planned for and there will be more accidents at nuclear power plant in the future. Some may be as bad or worse than any reactor accident that has happened up until now. Can you say I am wrong?
But that’s fear mongering because nuclear power is safer than it used to be, right?
Or wait, better yet, I’m against progress. Because the only way the world can progress is with nuclear power. Any other option means we go back to the stone age.
Yes, some people in this thread are really thinking tonight.
Michael R
It could be there’s a leak. Shorter answer.
It was taken by a /sarc “Reputable Source” /sarc much like GreenPeace makes it’s declarations. Essentially it took the values of a study located here:
http://www.mei.gov.on.ca/en/pdf/electricity/Cost%20Benefit%20Analysis%20DSS%20Report%20-%20Executive%20Summary.pdf
That had figures for deaths based on Fossil Fuels for the Ontario, which found an approximate number of deaths as result of Fossil Fuel usage as a ratio for the amount of power consumption then extrapolated a best guess on a larger scale.
Obviously I am not going to argue the facts are conclusive, it would be pointless, but when the WHO says that there were only ~ 5000 confirmed cases of death and illness due to Chernobyl on the last 25 years, and this article:
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2011/03/02/4-000-deaths-in-2010-in-the-northeast-fr?blog=53
Shows already 4000 deaths in one year in one section of one contry using, obviously while not having exact numbers I still cannot see the comparison to the mortality of Nuclear Power generation and Fossil Fules.
If I wanted to be totally inaccurate I could just make a linear addition back 25 years since Chernobyl and would reach 100,000 just in that one site alon – and that’s one country. This is getting into murky waters as it related to fact or fiction however there are at least enough studies out there that show a ridiculous number of deaths attibuted to Fossil Fuel power plants and their associated pollutants that there is a reasonable chance my “Serval hundred thousand” was looking on the bright side…
Oh and the link the “reputable source” http://www.green-blog.org/2008/06/14/pollutants-from-coal-based-electricity-generation-kill-170000-people-annually/
😉
Sorry I type fast and have a tendancy to not proof read >.< I noticed in some of my epic posts above I have made a number small errors.
True. I believe however that I am physically incapable of giving an explanation on anything without it taking 3 paragraphs however. I think it is left over from my old job where there were issues with people taking things out of context so now I like to pile and pile context around it instead.
I think I was also getting irritated with the fact that so many other issues are also happening over there – not to mention the death toll already – and this seems to be the only story the mainstream media is running with. Yahoo’s front page earlier today had a bright red picture of one of the explosions at the plant that I am prety sure they intended to be reminiscient of an atomic bomb which I think is going just a little too far.
This post makes very clear your reasons for finding it impossible to believe in the science of global warming. Is there a financial reason for your love of fossil fuels, or is it totally irrational?
_Jim says:
March 15, 2011 at 7:17 pm
“Dave, God love ya, but you just blew any credibility you had with me going forward … you have NO idea of the energy requirements to air condition a house in Tejas in the summer …”
Really? I’ve lived in Austin for almost 20 years. Last summer I built a small house from the ground up doing everything myself including the electrical wiring, plumbing, air conditioning, and heating. I use “My Use Energy Analyzer” on the Pedernales Electric website to monitor my electrical usage on a daily basis to assess how well things are performing.
I think you’re confusing residential solar technology with what’s possible using centralized biotech. I agree that grid independence via solar isn’t a viable option. Storage is the main problem. The amount of energy storage to run your air conditioning through several days of cloudy weather is prohibitive. It becomes feasible, barely, with a grid tie and net metering so you don’t store power but either use it immediately or sell it back onto the grid and when you aren’t producing enough to meet your needs you buy it from the grid.
However, when I say synthetic biology I’m talking about things like the pilot plant like they’re building in Leander about 20 miles from me. It uses municipal waste water rich in nutrients to grow a genetically modified (patented) cyanobacteria on land that isn’t otherwise suitable for agriculture. The cyanobacteria have been modified to produce diesel oil with very little in the way of refinement. They’re basically oily little suckers and all you need to do is crush them like so many tiny grapes and separate the diesel oil from the water. By substituting different genes into them they can produce just about any hydrocarbon desired including ethanol and methane. The pilot plant is expected to produce 20,000 gallons of diesel per year per acre at a price equivalent to $30/bbl crude oil.
These fuels can directly replace all the liquid fuels used in transportation and methane is a direct replacement for natural gas to fuel combined cycle natural gas electrical power plants. Basically no existing infrastructure changes at all. The only thing that changes is the fuels are coming out of fuel farms instead of from holes in the ground. It’s perfect, it’s real, its beginning to happen right now, and synthetic biology is just beginning – it’s about at the point where the computer and electronic technology was at right when the transister was invented and began replacing vacuum tubes. It will progress at a similar pace – Moore’s Law appears to apply to biotechnology just as well as it applied to semiconductors. Synthetic biology is the future and it’s ultimate potential to improve living standards is as big as the discovery of fire, metallurgy, agriculture, electricity, division of labor, and mass production. Maybe bigger. Cheap clean renewable fuel is just the first little step. Cheap clean renewable almost everything imaginable is what we get when the technology is mature.
Roger Carr says:
March 15, 2011 at 6:55 pm
re; particles lodged in lungs causing cancer many years later
“At that point our paths diverged and I left you to go on gathering nuts in May whilst I headed back to the main drag and some reality.”
Can’t handle the truth? I suppose you don’t believe that inhaling asbestos causes cancer many years later either? How about tobacco smoking – is that not a health risk in your book either?
The real message of the Japanese earthquake is that when you run into power shortages the whole economy suffers.
I was also surprised how safe nuclear was – compare the recent Gulf of Mexico oil disaster with that of Japan. Lives lost zero vs ??, affect on accident on others: a few thousands moving home for a short while compared to a whole coastal economy shutting down for months on end. Effects on wildlife … it’s like comparing apples and supernovae.
It says here that the earthquake has caused the earth’s spin to increase a mini bit, but also that it has altered the earth’s axis by several inches. Does anyone know more about this?
http://news.discover.com/earth/japan-earthquake-time-sped-up-110314.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1
Who keeps track of such things? Is there data for these effects from previous large quakes? I’ve also come across the idea that the weight of water now being held in massive damns in the US has a similar effect of changing the earth’s axis.
I think this new incident with Fukushima Daiichi will set back the nuclear industry for decades. I’m old enough to remember the problems caused by the Windscale nuclear disaster in 1957, and the way our government tried to put a smokescreen over the enormous impact of the affair and how many people had been seriously effected.
A brief summary of what happened can be found on the link below. The final paragraph has many parallels to the current disaster…
“In the aftermath of the accident, the true scale of the event was concealed from the public, and the majority of the blame was apportioned to the plant operators. For 50 years, the official record on the accident has been that the very men who had averted a potentially devastating accident were to blame for causing it. ”
http://sonicbomb.com/modules.php?file=article&mode=thread&name=News&order=0&sid=76&thold=0
Here’s a link to a good resolution satellite picture showing the recent state of four of the huge Fukushima Daiichi reactors – things not looking good 🙁
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/6145/japanearthquaketsufukus.jpg