I get mail:
German physicist Peter Heller wrote a passionate plea for a return to science on the nuclear power issue, published in German here: http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/fukushima/004149/
With Dr. Heller’s permission, I’ve translated it in English. But having gone over the content, I think his plea is worthy of a much wider audience – more than what NTZ can offer. So I send this to you with the kind request that you consider publishing it at WUWT.
Best regards,
P Gosselin
——————————————–
German physicist Peter Heller makes a passionate plea for a return to science on the nuclear energy issue. He wonders if ignorance and fear will cause us to abandon the legacies of Einstein, Heisenberg and others.
Fukushima
By Dr Peter Heller, http://www.science-skeptical.de
Astronomer, Physicist
There’s no place on earth I would rather be right now than at Fukushima – right in the atomic power plant, at the centre of the event. I say this because I am a physicist and there is no other place that could be more exciting and interesting for a physicist. The same goes for many, if not most physicists and engineers, on the planet.
Already at a young age I knew one day I would study physics. As a boy, I received a telescope for Christmas, and from that point on my view was fixed on the night sky; gazing at star clusters, nebula and galaxies was my favourite preoccupation. It was only later that I learned that these lights and the twinkling in eyepiece were actually the expressions of a chaotic and violent force of nature – the direct conversion of matter into energy during the fusion of an atomic nucleus.
My curiosity carried me, as if on a high, through 10 semesters of study and subsequent graduation. It was a time of discovery that involved the tedious task of understanding. At times I felt exasperation and self doubt with respect to the sheer complexity and breadth of what there was to learn. Yet, there were times of joy whenever the fog lifted and the clarity and beauty of physical descriptions of natural phenomena moved in its place. It was a time that, unfortunately, passed all too quickly and is now some years in the past.
The great minds that accompanied me through my studies were Planck, Sommerfeld, Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, and a host of others who, for us physicists, are still very much alive today. They are great thinkers who contributed to unravelling the puzzles of nature and the forces which keep the world together through the most minute structures. I devoured the stories of Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, of Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller – to name a few – and on how they created completely new technologies from theoretical concepts, how the energy stored in the nucleus of an atom could be used for the good of man and how it became possible in a single process to tap into this source of affordable, clean and plentiful energy on a large scale as never seen by man. Electricity illuminates our world, drives our machines, allow us to communicate over great distances, thus making our lives easier and more comfortable. It is a source of energy that staves off poverty and enables prosperity.
Electricity: manufactured by splitting atomic nuclei with neutrons, gained through the direct conversion of mass into energy. It is the principle by which (via the reverse process of fusion) the stars twinkle in the night sky, a principle by which our sun enables life on our planet.
As a physicist it fills me with great joy and pride to see how man is able to rouse this force of nature at the most minute structural level, then amplify, control, and use it for our benefit. As a physicist I have the fundamental understanding of the processes – I can imagine them and describe them. As a physicist I have neither fear of an atomic power plant nor of radioactivity. Ultimately I know that it is a natural phenomenon that is always around us, one we can never escape – and one that we never need to escape. And I know the first as a symbol of man’s capability to steer the forces of nature. As a physicist I have no fear of what nature has to offer. Rather I have respect. And this respect beckons us to seize the chances like those offered by neutrons, which can split nuclei and thus convert matter into energy. Anything else would be ignorance and cowardice.
Dark times in history
There were times in history when ignorance and cowardice overshadowed human life. It was a time when our ancestors were forced to lead a life filled with superstition and fear because it was forbidden to use creativity and fantasy. Religious dogma, like the earth being the centre of the universe, or creationism, forbade people to question. The forbiddance of opening a human body and examining it prevented questions from being answered. Today these medieval rules appear backwards and close-minded. We simply cannot imagine this way of thinking could have any acceptance.
But over the recent days I have grown concerned that we are headed again for such dark times. Hysterical and sensationalist media reporting, paired with a remarkably stark display of ignorance of technical and scientific interrelations, and the attempt by a vast majority of journalists to fan the public’s angst and opposition to nuclear energy – pure witch-burning disguised as modernity.
Freedom of research
So it fills me with sadness and anger on how the work of the above mentioned giants of physics is now being dragged through the mud, how the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century are being redefined and criminalized. The current debate in Germany is also a debate on freedom of research. The stigmatization and ostracism of nuclear energy, the demand for an immediate stop of its use, is also the demand for the end of its research and development. No job possibilities also means no students, which means no faculty, which then means the end of the growth of our knowledge. Stopping nuclear energy is nothing less than rejecting the legacy of Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and all others. It is tantamount to scrapping it, labelling it as dangerous – all in a fit of ignorance. And just as creationists attempt to ban the theory of evolution from the school books, it almost seems as if every factual and neutral explanation in Germany is now in the process of being deleted.
The media suggests a nuclear catastrophe, a mega-meltdown, and that the apocalypse has already begun. It is almost as if the 10,000 deaths in Japan were actually victims of nuclear energy, and not the earthquake or the tsunami. Here again one has to remind us that Fukushima was first hit by an unimaginable 9.0 earthquake and then by a massive 10-meter wave of water just an hour later. As a result, the facility no longer found itself in a highly technological area, but surrounded by a desert of rubble. All around the power plant the infrastructure, residential areas, traffic routes, energy and communication networks are simply no longer there. They were wiped out. Yet, after an entire week, the apocalypse still has not come to pass. Only relatively small amounts of radioactive materials have leaked out and have had only a local impact. If one considers the pure facts exclusively, i.e. only the things we really know, then it exposes the unfounded interpretations of scientific illiterates in the media. One can only arrive to one conclusion: This sorrowful state will remain so.
In truth, this does not show that the ideologically motivated, fear-laden admonitions and warnings were correct. Fukushima illustrates that we are indeed able to control atomic energy. Fukushima shows that we can master it even when natural disasters beyond planning befall us. Still, at Fukushima the conflict between human creativity/competence continues to clamour against the bond energy in atomic nuclei. It’s a struggle that that shows what human intelligence, knowledge gained, passion, boldness, respect, and capability to learn allow us to do. Personally this does not fill me with apprehension, but with hope. Man can meet this challenge not only because he has to, but most of all because he wants to.
Even though I have not practiced physics for some time now, I will never be anything other than a scientist and researcher, and there would be no other place I would rather be than on site at Fukushima. There is no other place at the moment where so much can be learned about atomic energy, which keeps our world together deep inside, and the technical possibilities to benefit from it. Do we have the courage to learn? Do we accept – with respect and confidence – the opportunities we are confronted with? Fukushima will show us possibilities on how to use the direct conversion of matter into energy in a better and safer way, something that Einstein and others could have only dreamed of.
I am a physicist. My wish is to live in a world that is willing to learn and to improve whatever is good. I would only like to live in a world where great strides in physics are viewed with fascination, pride, and hope because they show us the way to a better future. I would only like to live in a world that has the courage for a better world. Any other world for me is unacceptable. Never. That’s why I am going to fight for this world, without ever relenting.
————————————————–
Translated from the German, with the permission of Peter Heller, by Bernd Felsche and Pierre Gosselin. Original text appeared here: http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/fukushima/004149/
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P. Solar says:
March 20, 2011 at 4:30 pm
“I don’t intend to knit-pick this huge out-pouring but let’s just look at this paragraph. ”
Huge out-pouring, is that the beginning of self-awareness? 😉
“janama says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm ……….”
“The land area around Chernobyl has been locked up as you say – a biologist was given permission to enter and check it out. She found thriving animal life more diverse and greater numbers than before Chernobyl.”
The biologists name was Mary Mycio, and she wrote a book about Chernobyl, named Wormwood Forest Published in 2005. She was an American citizens, with an ethnic Ukraium background. She had a background, in Journalism, a B.A. in Biology, and a law degree from New York University, and I might add some competence in Nuclear Physics, and Health Physics (self taught). As the news gradually seeped out of the USSR, the extent of the disaster, and the prognosis, She pictured the area as a radioactive desert, a dead zone, or a black hole. She spent about 3 months poking around in the Exclusion Zone( dubbed Zone of Alienation). In addition to finding pockets of defiant local inhabitants, refusing evacuations, she is shocked to discover that the area surrounding Chernobyl has become Europe’s largest wildlife Sanctuary. A flourishing- at times unearthly–wilderness teeming with large animals, and a variety of birds, many of them members of rare and endangered species. Like the Forests, Fields, and swamps of the exclusion area, the people, and the animals are, have Cesium-137, and Strontium-90 packed in their muscles, and bones. For the record she has gone from a adamant opponent of nuclear energy to a ambivalent supporter of nuclear energy, which reduces our dependence on fossil fuel, until that time, alternative energy sources become practical. It is my opinion, that the time scale for alternative energy to become practical is a least 50 years, and possibly never!!
janama says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm
The land area around Chernobyl has been locked up as you say – a biologist was given permission to enter and check it out. She found thriving animal life more diverse and greater numbers than before Chernobyl.
I’m really going to need a link for that. I hope it’s not the Ann Coulter column.
To Dr. Dave, Theo Goodwin, and James Sexton, I agree with your comments. I am not a Creationists either. My contribution to your discussion is that there is a difference between micro evolution and macro evolution. Micro evolution is a scientific fact (natural selection). Macro evolution is not (Theory of Evolution). The problem with the Theory of Evolution is that Darwinism uses micro evolution to support their weak macro evolution theory. Intelligent design agrees with micro evolution, but not macro evolution.
Keep Smiling 🙂
Jeff Wiita
I am constantly amazed, that people without the sense to pull over to talk on their cell phones, can be completely freaked out with technology. Materials and technology have advanced considerably since the 1960’s. As others have stated, we can almost have neighborhood nuclear installed now. The only issue is how to pay the bill. Safety is not a big concern. Living here in NW Indiana, going back to cave habitation with our families, would be a larger issue.
Roger Sowell says:
March 20, 2011 at 10:55 am
“A stand-alone nuclear power plant built today in the USA must charge 25 to 35 cents per kWh for its power produced.”
A 1 GW nuclear plant costs produces 8 TWh per year running at 92% utilization, the US industry average. At 10 cents/KWh that is $800 million a year in revenue. The ‘going rate’ for nuclear power is between $4 and $6 billion per GW.
The 2010 budget for Columbia Station is $317 million including $77 million in interest and bond payments.
So the actual operating cost minus financing cost is $240 million a year for a 30 year old plant.
So if we subtract out our operating costs from revenues at 10 cents/KWh we end up with $560 million left over for finance costs.
Using your number of 35 cents a KWh gives us $2.8 billion a year in revenue, if we subtract out $240 million in operating costs we end up with $2.56 billion available per year to pay down our loan for a $6 billion dollar/GW unit.
Dr. Dave says:
Perhaps I’m easily impressed but I thought the translation from German was amazing.
Excellent comments by James Sexton and Theo Goodwin.
======================================================
I’d like to thank you and Theo for the kind comments even though it is apparent that you both view things a bit differently than I do. This is the only basis upon which understanding can be attained. I expected a different reaction in general. My faith in humanity is restored!
I feel it necessary to point out, I haven’t read much on either “intelligent design”, nor any novel “creationist” theory. I came to the conclusion that I am a product of a creation by my own thoughts and perspective. I would also point out that the “chaos theory” and “evolution theory” don’t fit well together.
Lastly, in my perspective, the difference between the thoughts of creationism and evolution is this, one believes our being came from one thought. The other believes we came from one micro-organism. My view of Nature doesn’t distinguish the difference. Nor, do either posits answer the original question. But, one, it seems, leads us closer than the other.
Towards the irrational fear of nuclear melt down, I would remind people that we were reduced to cooling the damned things down with firetrucks. (I don’t believe this is optimal.) We didn’t get to an awwww damn, but we got pretty close. We live, we learn and we adapt. Hopefully, our hindsight will provide better than the foresight used to put the reactor and backups in a place given towards tsunamis and earthquakes. Anyone believing we won’t see a catastrophic occurrence with nuclear reactors are deluding themselves. It isn’t a matter of “if”, it is a matter of “when”, especially given the proliferation of the technology. That said, we can’t base that as a reason not to pursue it and use it. If we were, as has been pointed out, we should ban wind, coal, gas, oil, cars, jets, planes, or any other thing that advances the general welfare of mankind.
As to electricity use, it’s an easy mix formula. Coal, where available for base. Hydro, where base demand is feasible. Nuclear where it isn’t. Nat gas to provide peak demand. Wind and solar to provide when it can and where it is economical. I don’t understand why this is so hard?
Interesting and thought-provoking essay. That is, other than the gratuitous, totally irrelevant, and, frankly, flawed attempt to analogize by including a couple of demeaning references to “creationism” — whatever he means by that, as he didn’t bother defining precisely what it is that he is objecting to. Nevertheless, Dr. Heller evidently knows quite a bit more about physics than he does about biology or origins science, so I’m happy to listen to what he has to say on the former.
Agreed. Shephard Smith on Fox News’s 7 PM (Eastern) report was foaming-at-the-mouth hysterical over the ongoing or impending “nuclear disaster.” It was embarrassing. On the other hand, Bret Baer on the always excellent Fox Report (6 PM Eastern) was much better at maintaining a judicious sense of proportion. I don’t generally watch the opinion shows on Fox, so can’t speak to those, but Shep is ostensibly doing ‘news’. Unfortunately, his often ill-informed opinion is too often on histrionic display.
/Mr Lynn
“Japan shows that they are doing everything possible and impossible to keep it under control. Great job.”
Actually, there are some criticisms of the way the disaster was handled. One is that they did not fly in big big generators to restore power to the pumping system straight away. (Of course, a lot of people had one or two other things on their minds at the time. Nearly every city, town, village, road, and rail line on the North-East coast had just been reduced to rubble.)
The 50 who are staying behind to control Fukishima plant have a lot more guts, and a greater sense of duty, than me. I would have been on my bike and heading to Kyushu long ago.
A speculation that is going the rounds: The Israelis created and released the Stuxnet virus/worm to foul up Iranian nuclear plants. It has been found in Japanese computers. Could that have got into the systems at Fukushima and Tokai?
Sorry to go somewhat off topic, but creationism was mentioned in this article. Here is a very impt Nature article regarding chromosome mapping of a chimpanzee with comparisons to humans.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7055/abs/nature04072.html
The abstract should have one “pause” for deeper consideration.
“we have generated a largely complete catalogue of the genetic differences that have accumulated since the human and chimpanzee species diverged from our common ancestor, constituting approximately thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes, five million insertion/deletion events, and various chromosomal rearrangements.”
35 millions + 5 million = 40 million random mutations, all in the “right” direction, all in 6 million years. There had to be literally billions of wrong mutations and somehow the fittest 40 million survived and reproduced. Somehow this had to occur, yet know one has the slightest idea how. But it’s a FACT they say.
We don’t see this species evolution going on right now in the millions of species on planet earth right now. We should be seeing evolution in motion everywhere, beneficial and harmful, we don’t. This is not about Creationism, which is only a theory not whatsoever based on science, and a more wacked-out theory than evolution. But the facts are there is much we don’t know. Why is it so important to think you are sure?
E Smith says:
March 20, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Forget physics. The Japanese nuclear industry is very corrupt. Nuclear power is a strange right wing talisman that represents the military industrial complex.
Do you see this happening in America too? If you do I would very much like links to read up on it. Eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex, I’m sure you know. But if nuclear power is a product of it I’d like to read up on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. In fact that would would help to make sense out of why billions and billions have been put into nuclear.
Eisenhower’s Farewell Address. Talk of the military starts at approx 6:30:
Those picking nits in the translation of Peter Heller’s original article should address those comments initially to the translators.
Every language has idioms and nuances which do not have a 1:1 correspondence in other languages. Perfect translation (in a readable form) is not possible. However, if one asks the translators (or other able, third parties) nicely, then a re-examination and comparison of original source and translation may show that the nit is insubstantial; a figment of personal nuances imposed on language.
Remember: The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten.
@harrywr2: re your costs of nuclear power.
Great! Please, go build one or two or ten. Take all your costs, for design, permitting, construction, financing, fuel, labor, maintenance, operations, taxes, licenses, land, environmental services, and legal services, and get a long-term contract for 10 cents per kWh. Take that to any financier or lender, and get that loan for $6 billion — and go build a nuclear plant! We’ll follow your progress in the news. If you build a double-reactor plant at 1100 MWe each, for 2200 MWe total, you will never get it built for less than $25 billion, and likely 10 to 12 years construction time.
Let me know who your financiers are. I’d be curious to see who is willing to part with their money on any new nuclear power plant built here in the USA.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 20, 2011 at 5:33 pm
“Flying a plane into a nuclear plant would be hard. But what if they had a missile? Aiming that is frighteningly easier than a plane.”
What kind of missile are you thinking of? An anti tank missile won’t do it, same for anti airplane, they’re designed to pierce armour and blast copper plasma or something similar into the machine, so they’ll pierce the building and spew the plasma into the space between containment and outer wall and not even pierce the containment.
So we need something bigger. Now there was a nice invention by the Brits to crack German bunkers. The tallboy, so yeah, you’re right, what if our terrorists had a tallboy bomb and a Lancaster bomber and enough experience to climb 10,000 meters high and drop it from there… Modern guided bombs make the job somewhat easier…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker_buster
But i think you would have to attack at least twice to make sure you crack the reactor after you have cracked the containment. An easier way would be to attack with a nuclear warhead, but that kinda defeats the purpose.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 20, 2011 at 5:35 pm
“janama says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm
The land area around Chernobyl has been locked up as you say – a biologist was given permission to enter and check it out. She found thriving animal life more diverse and greater numbers than before Chernobyl.
I’m really going to need a link for that. I hope it’s not the Ann Coulter column.”
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 20, 2011 at 5:35 pm
janama says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm
The land area around Chernobyl has been locked up as you say – a biologist was given permission to enter and check it out. She found thriving animal life more diverse and greater numbers than before Chernobyl.
I’m really going to need a link for that. I hope it’s not the Ann Coulter column.
Do you trust NatGeo?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_chernobyl.html
Dr Heller,
Thank you for your fine essay – an inspiration.
I have been waging my own personal war on disinformation on the nuclear situation in Japan by emailing everyone on my email list with alternative sources of information including posting on this blog as well as other objective scientifically grounded sources (MIT; etc). The responses have been quite interesting – one friend called me and had read a link I gave her on how nuclear reactors operate and had read up in detail. She is not technically trained (but very sharp nonetheless) and was absolutely fascinated by how nuclear reactors work. After gaining a better understanding, she was able to see through the panic and alarmism MSM is selling.
Other friends and colleagues were less than positive and seemed to be feeding on the fear – it will most likely turn out their fears will thankfully be groundless.
Has anyone seen anything on MSM that names and celebrates the heroic people in Japan that have worked so hard to control this horrible crisis? I do not have a TV, don’t listen to the radio, and don’t read the poodle publications like Newsweek anymore (got rid of all that stuff after Climategate) so I really do not know.
When you think about it,building the reactor near the ocean is probably what saved it.How do you build a nuclear plant on land with access to water if an earthquake is going to bust pipes and bring down water reservoirs?Or am I being dumb again?
We need to de-centralize our power and eliminate the “grid” altogether. The grid itself is a tremendous liability. The planned “Smart Grid” is really a total control grid with “snitch appliances” and the ability to shut your power down whenever the Big Nanny government bureaucrats see fit. Any centralized power system is also a system of control over the people. Nuclear power has not been proven safe or affordable so far in my opinion. There were 4,277 tons of nuclear fuel at Fukushima at the time of the disaster. The Mark 1 reactor design was so deeply flawed that top scientists resigned in protest yet many of these poorly designed reactors are in use today. Which lunatic thought it would be a good idea to store thousands of “spent” fuel rods above the reactor? This complex was a dirty bomb waiting to happen. I demand a full investigation of this preventable disaster. Despite all the pronouncements of the nuclear fanboys, all it takes is one tiny particle inhaled into your lungs and you are doomed to eventually die from cancer. Why are so many reactors located on fault zones? Where did the idea to store spent fuel above the reactor originate? I’m sorry but these facts do nothing to instill confidence in nuclear power.
I agree that mercury-laced coal pollution is another huge problem which must be dealt with and considered in any comparison. Mercury from coal burning plants circles the entire planet before gradually raining slow-death on all the little creatures below. Coal pollution from China is one cause of northern ice cap melting due to the albedo effect. Natural gas extraction is wrecking aquifers across the West. Wind turbines are sprouting up all over the place and new solar panels are everywhere. The arguments against the economic viability of wind and solar fail to account for the true longer-term costs of nuclear / oil / gas / coal such as thousands made sick over the course of their lives from pollution, damage throughout the food chain, billions in cleanup costs, and other “externalities”.
Someone mentioned eugenics as if it was a thing of the past. Sorry to break the news, but eugenics is all the rage right now among folks like John P Holdren, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Al Gore, and many other “hope and change” charlatans.
They have initiated their “final solution” for their imaginary “overpopulation crisis”. The Gulf oil spill wrecked the Gulf and the Grand Banks in the Atlantic, the Fukushima dirty bomb will wreck Pacific seafood production, and chemtrail spraying of aluminum barium and strontium will soon destroy the farm belt. Oil prices will top $7.00 per gallon in America and no one will be able to afford food. What food we can afford will be heavily laced with toxins. More and more slow-kill vaccines will be forced on an unhealthy immune-compromised people. Together with fluoride these toxins will attack our bodies and slowly more and more people will die. Our only hope is to face facts and fight back with truth and justice. We are all being deliberately exterminated.
Q. “What do you expect me to do?”
A. “I expect you to die, Mr. Bond”
Peter Heller says: I devoured the stories.. of Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller – to name a few – and how they created completely new technologies from theoretical concepts, how the energy stored in the nucleus of the atom could be used for the good of man ..
Have you heard this one?
“Richard Rhodes, in his classic history of the making of the atom bomb, relates that as far back as 1943 Enrico Fermi approached Robert Oppenheimer with the suggestion that if they could not develop the bomb in time, the same purpose would be served by dumping strontium-90, which he was generating at his pilot reactor at the University of Chicago, over the German land-mass. Oppenheimer then discussed the proposal with Edward Teller who agreed that their animal studies would indicate that radioactive strontium would enter the food chain and be deposited “dangerously and irretrievably in bone” and kill perhaps 500,000 persons. The plan was discarded because they could not be sure the desired deaths would occur quickly enough. After the bomb was developed, the military did not want an atomic explosion associated with the possibility of biological damage so the animal studies remained classified until 1969.”
From “Chernobyl and the Collapse of Soviet Society” by Jay M. Gould -http://www.ratical.org/radiation/Chernobyl/CherobylCoSS.html
Hmm, for the good of which man were these heroes of yours thinking? Or is such a famous story, in your world of science, the reason for your enthusiasm? I only ask, inquiring minds like to know, perhaps you haven’t heard it.
janama says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm
“Fly a plane into a hydro/electric and you break a dam and cause thousands of deaths. In Fukushima Prefecture that’s exactly what happened – A dam in NE fukushima burst and 1500 houses destroyed including most of the occupants. ”
Damn good thing that a nuclear power plant wasn’t built on the dam, eh?
DirkH says:
March 20, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 20, 2011 at 5:33 pm
“Flying a plane into a nuclear plant would be hard. But what if they had a missile? Aiming that is frighteningly easier than a plane.”
——————————————————-
“………… So we need something bigger. ”
==================================
No, not something bigger. Something more precise. I’d be chagrin to say more, but I understand if I can think, so too, can others. The fallacy is to believe we are advanced but they are not.
Unlike AAM, I am pro nuclear energy. However, the dangers pointed out by AAM shouldn’t be so casually disregarded. It will happen. Time and occurrence dictate as much. To believe it won’t, equals the hubris of the Titanic or the Lusitania.
Noelene: “When you think about it,building the reactor near the ocean is probably what saved it.How do you build a nuclear plant on land with access to water if an earthquake is going to bust pipes and bring down water reservoirs?”
No, by all apparent accounts the reactors survived the earthquake OK and shut down as they were supposed to do. It was the backup generators, located at ground level, that failed when they were flooded by the tsunami. So, yes, they are using seawater to help cool now, but it was the seawater what don’ it in the first place.
Interesting. The article mentions all the luminaries of early nuclear physics. Einstein is named several times, as though his name alone ought top be sufficient to persuade the anti-nuclear public that nuke is safe.
One particular name is conspicuous in its absence: J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. Much to his credit, however, Peter Heller mentions the name Edward Teller, the guy who fathered hydrogen bomb.
The fact is all those super-intelligent people spent the better part of their career -and the credibility of their science-to build bombs, more bombs and more destructive bombs. They didn’t build these devices for the good of the humanity but to kill fellow human beings and to instill fear of an inescapable destruction. True or false?
In 1963, the Cold War rivals came within a whisker of annihilating each other with thousands of these doomsday devices invented by those very intelligent and literate scientists. Right or wrong?
For nuclear science, the issues of public safety or peaceful use of nuclear energy came almost as an afterthought. The first and most important priority was to create devices that could terrorise the enemy and, if that wasn’t enough, to wipe them off the map. What kind of madness drove them to build and detonate 50 megaton bombs, or bombs that would leave structures intact but kill the living organisms inside?
This is the problem with nuclear science and nuclear energy. The public came to know the destructive force of atom way, way before the technology was converted for electricity generation. The thoughts and images that comes to mind at the mere mention of the word nuclear are mushroom clouds, radioactive fallout, mutations, cancer, mad scientists and secrecy. Compulsive and complete secrecy. But the fact that a small, simple device could kill 40 thousand in a blink is not secret.
Nuclear science and the industry cannot just shake their heads in disbelief at the utter ‘stupidity’ of the ‘illiterate’ public. They must face up to the fact that public fears nuclear for very good reasons.
Trinity & Beyond – The Atomic Bomb Movie pt. 1/5 documentary
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeayzvmAdxw&w=480&h=390%5D
DirkH says:
March 20, 2011 at 6:56 pm
“Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 20, 2011 at 5:35 pm
janama says:
March 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm
The land area around Chernobyl has been locked up as you say – a biologist was given permission to enter and check it out. She found thriving animal life more diverse and greater numbers than before Chernobyl.
I’m really going to need a link for that. I hope it’s not the Ann Coulter column.”
“Do you trust NatGeo?”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0426_060426_chernobyl.html
Do you? Did you read the article? There is a second page.