It pains me to see large parts of the media still hyperventilating over the very modest amounts of radioactive material coming from the Fukushima Daiichi plant on the east coast of Japan.
Nothing has been made more plain that most journalists and editors have no ability to evaluate risk, especially when it comes to radioactive measurements in very unfamiliar units (millisieverts anyone?). Everything they appear to know about radioactivity appears to come from poorly understood science reports and 1950s era B-movies.
You wouldn’t know from the coverage that that very same reactor survived a truly massive earthquake and a towering tsunami with barely a scratch even though it was built around 40 years ago in the expectation of surviving much lesser events.
You wouldn’t know that Japanese people are struggling to survive in the bitter cold, while coming to terms with the loss of family members, friends and entire neighbourhoods. You won’t hear that some survivors are being housed in other nuclear plants, everything else having been washed away.
Witness the BBC reporting today:
Japan nuclear plant: Radioactivity rises in sea nearby
The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the Japanese government has tried to reassure people about the plant’s safety
Levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant are 1,250 times higher than the safety limit, officials say.
The readings were taken about 300m (984ft) offshore. It is feared the radiation could be seeping into groundwater from one of the reactors.
But the radiation will no longer be a risk after eight days, officials say.
There are areas of radioactive water in four of the reactors at the plant, and two workers are in hospital.
The plant’s operator says the core of one of the six reactors may have been damaged.
It has announced that fresh water rather than seawater will now be used to cool the damaged reactors, in the hope that this will be more effective.
Why eight days? Because that’s the half-life of radioactive iodine. But that’s not what you find out from the BBC.
What of those two workers in hospital? Sounds serious doesn’t it?
Not all of the media are so poorly informed. The Register’s Louis Page has produced some well-researched articles which go a long way to explaining what is really happening:
The situation at the quake- and tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan was brought under control days ago. It remains the case as this is written that there have been no measurable radiological health consequences among workers at the plant or anybody else, and all indications are that this will remain the case. And yet media outlets around the world continue with desperate, increasingly hysterical and unscrupulous attempts to frame the situation as a crisis.
Here’s a roundup of the latest facts, accompanied by highlights of the most egregious misreporting.
First up, three technicians working to restore electrical power in the plant’s No 3 reactor building stood in some water while doing so. Their personal dosimetry equipment later showed that they had sustained radiation doses up to 170 millisievert. Under normal rules when dealing with nuclear powerplant incidents, workers at the site are permitted to sustain up to 250 millisievert before being withdrawn. If necessary, this can be extended to 500 millisievert according to World Health Organisation guidance.
None of this involves significant health hazards: actual radiation sickness is not normally seen until a dose of 1,000 millisievert and is not common until 2,000. Additional cancer risk is tiny: huge numbers of people must be subjected to such doses in order to see any measurable health consequences. In decades to come, future investigators will almost certainly be unable to attribute any cases of cancer to service at Fukushima.
Nonetheless, in the hyper-cautious nuclear industry, any dose over 100 millisievert is likely to cause bosses to pull people out at least temporarily. Furthermore, the three workers had sustained slight burns to their legs as a result of standing in the radioactive water – much as one will burn one’s skin by exposing it to the rays of the sun (a tremendously powerful nuclear furnace). They didn’t even notice these burns until after completing their work. Just to be sure, however, the three were sent for medical checks.
So – basically nothing happened. Three people sustained injuries equivalent to a mild case of sunburn. But this was reported around the globe as front-page news under headlines such as “Japanese Workers Hospitalized for Excessive Radiation Exposure”. Just to reiterate: it was not excessive.
The entire article is well worth reading
But panic sells (as readers of WUWT are well aware), and sober analysis of scientific fact is nowhere near as exciting or is likely to spread like wildfire across the Internet.
No-one will die from radiation from Fukushima. No-one will mutate or develop super-powers. Godzilla will not rise from the sea and destroy Tokyo, except in cinemas.
It’s my view that the world deserves better than this. The real plight of the Japanese survivors of the earthquake and tsunami is being forgotten in the service of a bizarre fear about radiation that is more science fiction than science fact.
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Viv Evans says:
March 28, 2011 at 10:25 am
“Just a remark about coal, since so many think it’s more acceptable than nuclear.
Has any of you actually been down a coal mine?”
Nope. I haven’t been in a uranium mine either but I understand they’re worse the coal mines. You didn’t think those fuel rods grew on trees, didja?
Phil says:
March 28, 2011 at 5:54 pm
@Daryl M says:
March 28, 2011 at 2:39 pm
[deleted]
I agree with everything you just wrote. I just thought you were previously implying the cores of reactors 1-3 had already completely melted. I’m not suggesting it won’t be determined that they have melted and as I said, I think there is pretty indisputable evidence that there has been core damage, but I just don’t see how you came to think the evidence is already conclusive based on what has been released to-date.
My god Daryl, do you actually think that the “spent” fuel pools are contained? Have you not any idea of the quantity of hazardous material which may be released into the environment?
You need to get a source of information on the topic.
From aletho on March 28, 2011 at 2:29 pm
You mean a study besides the report from the US Presidential Commission (aka Kemeny Commission)?
Site: http://www.threemileisland.org/virtual_museum/october30_1979.html
Report: http://www.threemileisland.org/virtual_museum/pdfs/188.pdf
Online version of report: http://www.pddoc.com/tmi2/kemeny/
The radiation outside the plant was tiny, would yield nothing noticeable. The worst health effect, it was concluded, was mental distress. Many recommendations were made concerning technical and personnel issues. By the blurbs seen in the Google search results, it is considered very critical of the nuclear industry of the time. But as to health effects, nothing was found that seemed to merit a follow-up study.
Other subsequent studies of the possible physical health effects were done. See Wikipedia entry: Three Mile Island accident health effects. Nothing dramatic found among even the most “alarming” investigations, especially given factors like the high natural radon concentrations. Basically, no noticeable effects.
Which US government study were you looking for that wasn’t done in the TMI aftermath? How would it be different from the Kemeny Commission report, which was done?
@aletho on March 28, 2011 at 6:27 pm
I apologize for not being more precise. I was specifically referring to a tsunami following an 8.4 (est.) earthquake with an epicenter very near Sendai in 869, IIRC. I don’t believe an earthquake alone of similar magnitude to the one this year would have had this much effect on Fukushima.
@aletho on March 28, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Give it a rest dude. I thought I had used enough qualifiers to avoid getting into food fights.
@aletho on March 28, 2011 at 8:11 pm
If they can maintain enough water to cover the spent fuel in the SFPs, then the spent fuel would be contained. I believe you may be referring to secondary containment of the SFPs, which this design lacks (if you don’t count the building as such, which I wouldn’t). If that is what you are referring to, I would agree with you that there is a lack of secondary containment, a point which I have also previously made.
Given the problems with the SFPs at Fukushima, the issue of Yucca Mountain now acquires much needed attention. Hopefully, you will agree with me that opposition to Yucca Mountain was shortsighted and that moving spent fuel off-site to secure storage needs to be implemented ASAP.
@Daryl M on March 28, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Thanks for your kind words. You are right that it is way too early to know what exactly has happened to the cores in the reactors.
kadaka,
There is no way to measure the “radiation outside the plant” which is claimed only as “tiny”. If one is only a few hundred feet from dangerous concentrations one can get safe readings.
Any sampling is only applicable to the relatively minute sample itself, not to the actual material released.
Leave it to the state to slur their victims as “mentally distressed” rather than to conduct a real health study which would track cancers and correlate them.
Outrageous.
Criminal.
Phil 9:53,
No, I do not agree that Yucca mountain opposition was “shortsighted”. Yucca mountain was abandoned because it is on and in a fault line. The feds could not get their own geologists to sign off on it no matter how much they paid them.
What is short sighted is the nuclear energy industry’s existence.
From the link provided by kadaka (KD Knoebel) on March 28, 2011 at 9:24 pm:
http://www.pddoc.com/tmi2/kemeny/supplemental_view_by_anne_d_trunk.htm
The minority view containing this comment is dated October 25, 1979!
aletho says:
March 28, 2011 at 8:11 pm
“My god Daryl, do you actually think that the “spent” fuel pools are contained? Have you not any idea of the quantity of hazardous material which may be released into the environment?
You need to get a source of information on the topic.”
The number of rods in each of the spent fuel pools is well documented thank you very much and if you weren’t so disingenuous you would not be hung up on this as if it’s a major issue. Spent fuel does not pose anywhere near the hazard of an active reactor core. Spent fuel is called “spent” because it no longer contains enough fissionable material to efficiently generate power. That’s why it can be put into a pool, or do you not know that? It’s there to cool until it can be moved to another location for reprocessing. You seriously need to get a clue and maybe you should consider trolling somewhere else.
I’d gladly keep one of those spent fuel rods buried in my back yard, encased in some lead and concrete like a septic tank, with plumbing pipes embedded in the block to circulate water to heat my home in the winter.
The heck with Yucca, I’ll store that spent fuel rod for free… if it could only make that PG&E Smart-Meter* run backwards, then we’d really be talkin’.
Fear prevents us from using this valuable commodity.
*Assembled in Mexico from electronic parts made in China… how’s that helpin’ us?
PG&E charges enough that they could make them in the USA providing American jobs. We seem to be giving it all away…
@aletho on March 28, 2011 at 10:05 pm
Thank you for your frankness. Please let’s just agree to disagree then. I wish you good cheer.
aletho says:
March 28, 2011 at 4:27 pm
phlogiston cites study:
The former group all had exposures above 5 mSv and average exposures of 50 mSv.
Useless PR phlog. Low levels of external radiation are irrelevant.
You failed to address my question:
Why do you suppose that the US government never conducted such a study in the aftermath of Three Mile Island? Any guesses?
What planet are you on? 5-50 MGy / mSv is above, not below, the dose range likely to have been received by a small number of people following 3 mile island. Public health officials get panic-stricken even over doses in the range of hundreds of micro-grays, based on pure medieval type superstition to which our society has returned. The shipyard study shows that, over a dose range extending to far higher than anything received by the general public around 3 mile island, and probably affecting only a few hundred people around Fukushima or Chernobyl, there is no radiation carcinogenesis.
It would have been a total waster of time and money to study radiation carcinogenesis around 3 mile island where there was essentially no radiation (trivial amounts). For a study to work you have to have something to measure.
Exposed groups where you can actually do some science include:
Japan bomb survivors
Radium dial painters
radiotherapy patients especially pediatric
Thorotrast (thorium containing clinical contrast agent used in 60s-70s)
spondylitis patients treated with Ra224
to a limited extent, Chernobyl, compromised by quality of dosimetry
3 mile island is a complete irrelevance, radiation carcinogenesis from this radiological non-event is in the same category as discussion of UFOs and ghosts.
There has been a war against cheap energy (nuclear) since the late 70’s when it was recognized that in order to support the Petro-Dollar one needed to keep people and other countries reliant on Oil. The Shah of Iran was allowedf to be overthrown in part because of his insistence to continue with building 20 nuclear plants. TMI was hyped by FEMA on it’s first day of operation to scare the public away from nuclear.
There is no reason to store spent nuclear fuel rods as they could be recycled (97%) with the 3% going for other products that require radioactive. DHS or military could make sure none of it is used for proliferation. We could shut down uranium mining industry for 25 years if this were allowed. But we don’t want nuclear power, and it has nothing to do with safety.
Why? Oil and Financial Industries are interlocked. Countries that need oil borrow money from banks and pay interest. In order to buy the Oil they need to pay in USD (which OPEC agreed to in return for higher Oil Prices), which supports the dollar (hence the term Petro-Dollar, it is backed by Oil instead of Gold). Otherwise, the dollar would be in free fall given our trade and fiscal deficits, so government has an interest in helping the Oil and Financial Interests.
Market prices for Oil are volatile due to speculation by the Finance Industries, not supply/demand fluctuations. Morgan Stanley’s futures contracts could supply the entire worlds oil consumption for 1 year, yet their Wall Street office could take delivery on perhaps 1000 barrels. Dubai is a major center of oil futures trading as well, helped set up by NASDAQ, and it’s trading center opened in 2006 with Oil at 60 dollars a barrel, prices then went to 150 within a year, only to drop to 70 dollars, and now on the way back up to 150 or more before falling again.
The Finance Industry earn profits in driving up the price. When the bubble has reached the point that peoples outcry forces regulators to take a close look at speculation, they burst the bubble and make money by shorting the futures market as prices fall (last time from 150 to 70 dollars). They make money with prices going up or down. No matter to them.
The Multi-National Oil companies do not buy oil at market prices. They have long term deals with National Oil Suppliers. In addition to buying the oil, they transport it to their refineries, refine it, and transport it to market. They also supply the parts the oil producers need to get the oil out of the ground and store it. Without their support, many of the oil suppliers would have to let most of the oil seep out of the ground. Why do you think Iran must import gasoline at the same price or higher than the Oil they sold.
Here is how it works. Oil company X has a contract for 50 dollars/barrel oil with Country Y. They have their oil tankers registered in a Tax Haven like Liberia or Panama. The Oil gets sold to their company in the tax haven at 50 dollars a barrel. They then sell it to their refinery in Texas at market price (100 dollars), which driving up the price of gas. The large profits get booked in the tax haven, while the refinery earns a marginal profit. The profit from Oil coming from the companies oil wells in the US is taxed at 35%. Thats why they hate the idea of doing more drilling in the US. Imported oil is more profitable.
While Oil companies would love oil prices to stay at 150, they earn a healthy profit at 70 dollars, and since they are interlocked with the Finance Industry, they indirectly earn money when prices are falling as well.
As Oil prices increase, demand for adjustable rate loans and USD also increase. Finance companies earn more interest. Energy prices increase, which cause the price of food and consumer goods to increase. Interest rates will then increase to combat inflation, increasing Finance companies profits on ther loans. Those holding loans may find themselves unable to afford payments and go into default, and having their assets seized. In the case of a country, the IMF will ask them to open up their markets or natural resources. This happened in the late 70’s and early 80’s as well forcing a lot of 3rd world countries to default. The Fed bailed out the large banks holding these loans, and will do so again, and again, and again.
What’s this mean for Nuclear? Same as in the 80’s. The higher interest rates make building nuclear plants too expensive. More regulatory hurdles as a result of this disaster will also make them more expensive. Oil is safe.
Furthermore, without nuclear power to worry about, all other “viable” energy
sources give off CO2 which will be taxed, to combat the phony threat of AGW, making energy even more expensive. Living standards and thus consumption will decline, making the world a greener and more sustainable place to live (so say the greenies).
Furthermore, once living standards in Europe and North America decline enough to reach those of the rest of the world, the conditions will be right for a world government and the end of nationalism. Thats the goal.
Green is Red in this Orwellian world of ours.
Daryl M says:
March 28, 2011 at 10:54 pm
Spent fuel does not pose anywhere near the hazard of an active reactor core. Spent fuel is called “spent” because it no longer contains enough fissionable material to efficiently generate power. That’s why it can be put into a pool, or do you not know that?
==================================
http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/meltdowns_grow_more_likely_at_the_fukushima_reactors
[…]
On average, spent fuel ponds hold five-to-ten times more long-lived radioactivity than a reactor core. Particularly worrisome is the large amount of cesium-137 in fuel ponds, which contain anywhere from 20 to 50 million curies of this dangerous radioactive isotope. With a half-life of 30 years, cesium-137 gives off highly penetrating radiation and is absorbed in the food chain as if it were potassium.
In comparison, the 1986 Chernobyl accident released about 40 percent of the reactor core’s 6 million curies. A 1997 report for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by Brookhaven National Laboratory also found that a severe pool fire could render about 188 square miles uninhabitable, cause as many as 28,000 cancer fatalities, and cost $59 billion in damage.
**A single spent fuel pond holds more cesium-137 than was deposited by all atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in the Northern Hemisphere combined. ** Earthquakes and acts of malice are considered to be the primary events that can cause a major loss of pool water.
[…]
As I wrote a couple of days ago, I would not be (in principle) against nuclear power, but I think it is the kind of industry whose regulation needs to be held to such lofty standards that it may well be beyond our capability to adequately control it. And if we can’t control it to those standards, messes will occur with increasing frequency. The industry lobbies ferociously and succesfully against all manner of increased safety measures that increase costs. And all additional safety measures increase cost. It is already a very expensive industry that survives to a great extent due to its birth links to the industrial military complex. Economic factors everywhere clash with safety factors. The temptation to cut corners can, and will, prevail if a sufficient amount of money is at stake. You might think there might be exceptions with something as exceptionally dangerous as nuclear materials, but there aren’t. The problem of how to properly handle “spent” fuel (which is not spent at all) remains serious.
The industry seems to possess an enormous amount of resources to try to mollify public concerns about its safety. This has become clear to me in the last couple of weeks, when, in the face of an obviously serious accident, there suddenly arose shrill voices everywhere urging us to look elsewhere, insisting this was irrelevant, demanding that the media stop talking about it, recommending that we “concentrate on the tsunami,” and similar inanities. The intensity of the reaction seemed odd. When reports of highly radioactive water spilling out of the reactors at 1,000 mSv/h began to appear, the focus shifted to a preposterous siren song about the beauties of radiation and how it improves the health of those exposed.
All things considered, even if in principle I believe that nuclear power might be made reasonably safe in an ideal world, in practice I’ve come to the conclusion that it will always be far from it, because ultimately greed gets its way and overcomes all manner of resistence. Given the uniquely dangerous nature of this industry, the only way to regulate it properly would be to have it follow the orders of a committee of extraterrestrial angels (with no possibility of appeal) regarding what they need to do in each plant. No human-made agency can accomplish this task. Even if you had an international group of angelical experts inspecting every plant in the world, a group that was totally immune to any form of ethical compromise, it is unimaginable that any drastic decision they made regarding the revamping or closure of what they considered unsafe would ever be enforced. Who would enforce it? Who would force the US, or Russia, or China, to do whatever they are told needs to be done to their nuclear facilities, if they deem it economically unviable?
The future looks rather grim. If economic conditions worldwide continue to slowly deteriorate due to dwindling natural resources, especially cheap fossil fuel energy, it is a given that what needs to be done with aging nuclear plants will increasingly fail to be done, cutting corners everywhere will become more frequent, and so will these kinds of accidents, which when they happen will become more and more difficult to deal with appropriately precisely because of a lack of resources. The structure of the Chernobyl sarcophagous is visibly deteriorating, a lot of money is needed to revamp it, and the money can’t be raised. The enormous world accumulations of spent fuel in ponds would need to be stored in hard containers, but it won’t, because money rules, and has to come from somewhere, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is controlled by the industry, will not rule its own demise.
The saddest thing to see is the enormous amount of totally childish statements being made here about these very serious matters.
Here is the latest article by Robert Alvarez, senior scholar of nuclear policy at the IPS, on the topic of spent fuel storage.
http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/safeguarding_spent_fuel_pools_in_the_united_states
Excerpts from the article:
As this photograph shows, http://www.theoildrum.com/files/5530841229_ce48e3518d_z.jpg the spent fuel pools at Units 3 and 4 at the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex are exposed to the open sky and might be draining. The radioactive dose rates coming off the pools appear to be life-threatening. Lead-shielded helicopters are trying to dump water over the pools/reactors could not get close enough to make much difference because of the dangerous levels of radiation.
If the spent fuel is exposed, the zirconium cladding encasing the spent fuel can catch fire — releasing potentially catastrophic amounts of radiation, particularly cesium-137. Here’s an article I wrote http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/atreactorstorage/alvarezarticle2002.pdf in January 2002 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists about spent fuel pool dangers.
[…]
In January 2003, my colleagues and I warned that a drained spent fuel pool in the U.S. could lead to a catastrophic fire that would result in long-term land contamination substantially worse than what the Chernobyl accident unleashed. An area around the Chernobyl site roughly half the size of New Jersey continues to be considered uninhabitable.
[…]
U.S. reactors are each holding at least four times as much spent fuel as the individual pools at the wrecked Daiichi nuclear complex in Fukushima. According to the Energy Department, about 63,000 metric tons of spent fuel has been generated as of this year, containing approximately 12.4 billion curies. These pools contain some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet. Merely 14 percent of U.S. spent fuel is in dry storage.
[…]
At this stage it’s critical that:
The NRC hold off on renewing operating licenses for nuclear reactors, given our newfound certainty that many sites in earthquake zones could experience greater destruction than previously assumed.
The NRC promptly require reactor owners to end the dense compaction of spent fuel, and ensure that at least 75 percent of the spent fuel in pools operating above their capacity be removed and placed into dry, hardened storage containers on site, which are more likely to withstand earthquakes.
One of the real problems with reporting the undoubted difficult and dangerous situation in Fukushima Daiichi is that no one can easily digest the units involved, and how these units relate to the risk. This chart helps
http://xkcd.com/radiation
The BBC not prone to being unbiased these days did once upon a time do some excellent science programs. This is one and it explodes some of the myth surrounding heath issues in the wake of Chernobyl.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5173310.stm
Quotes from the program:
“When people hear of radiation they think of the atomic bomb and they think of thousands of deaths, and they think the Chernobyl reactor accident was equivalent to the atomic bombing in Japan which is absolutely untrue,” says Dr Mike Repacholi, a radiation scientist working at the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Low doses of radiation are a [very] poor carcinogen,” says Professor Brooks, who has spent 30 years studying the link between radiation and cancer.
“If you talk to anybody and you say the word radiation, immediately you get a fear response. That fear response has caused people to do things that are scientifically unfounded.”
“Professor Ron Chesser, of Texas Tech University, US, has spent 10 years studying animals living within the 30km exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl.
He has found that, far from the effects of low-level radiation being carcinogenic, it appears to boost those genes that protect us against cancer.
“One of the thoughts that comes out of this is that prior exposure to low levels of radiation actually may have a beneficial effect,” Professor Chesser says.
What the program demonstrates is that our expectations of danger from radiation are based on old models that may not be relevant today. Also there is evidence that low dose radiation may be beneficial.
This second article draws from the study of the victims of the 2 atomic bombs. This study also shows that those who were exposed to low doses of radiation are in fact living longer with fewer heath issues that those who were not.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/03/21/lawrence-solomon-reactor-victims-will-benefit-studies-show/
Could it be that just as in climate science our understanding of the effects of radiation is flawed? A could it be that some thought should be given to the fact that as we have evolve on a planet bombarded with radiation there may have been time when the magnetic field of the earth and sun did not deflect some much and that life has evolved a defence mechanism. I’m not a biologist but I just know that something dose not add up, perhaps someone around is studying this very issue
It’s sad to say, but I have lost any respect for the integrity of many commentators here.
Disingenuous talking points that get repeated ad nauseum.
Refusal to take in information that challenges their false reality.
Kind of like religious fruitcakes.
One of the real problems with reporting the undoubted difficult and dangerous situation in Fukushima Daiichi is that no one can easily digest the units involved, and how these units relate to the risk. This chart helps
http://xkcd.com/radiation
=======================
Yes, it does help. The amount of radiation in the water coming out of the reactors (1000 mSv/hour), i.e. the water they are trying to prevent from running into the sea, takes all of 8 hours to give you the same amount of radiation (8 Sv) as the heaviest dose in the red part of your chart (bottom right), the dose that is described as “Fatal dose, even with treatment.”
The same 1000 mSv/hour gives you (in only 1 hour) 320 times the radiation in all the green boxes combined. And it gives you, in 1 hour, 400,000 times the radiation of all the blue boxes combined.
It’s a pretty chart, very reassuring, mind you.
Sorry,
1000 mSv/hour in the contaminated water coming out gives you (in 1 hour):
*16,666 times all the blue boxes combined
*13.3 times all the green boxes combined
*4 times the dose limit for emergency workers in lifesaving operator (250 mSv in red chart)
*1/8 the “fatal dose even with treatment” (8 Sv, red chart)
*The equivalent of the entire chart (blue, green and red) in about 16 hours.
Re:Francisco says:
March 29, 2011 at 3:44 am
“As I wrote a couple of days ago, I would not be (in principle) against nuclear power, but I think it is the kind of industry whose regulation needs to be held to such lofty standards that it may well be beyond our capability to adequately control it.”
Your excellent summary pretty well captured my position on commercial nuclear electric power generation. If the risk-reward analysis included the inevitable “black swan” of a Chernobyl or Fukushima Dai-ichi coming along every so often rather than assuming “it will not happen”, the only rational conclusion would be that the downside risks so heavily outweigh the upside rewards that the technology in its present form should not be employed so long as there are viable alternatives.
Having designed, built and operated power plants of all stripes for some 40 years, I would add to your “lofty standards” concern with a description of a human “Achilles heel” element that no standard can ever overcome. I came to call it “the operator mentality”. Unlike many industrial processes, there is something about an operating power plant that regularly draws its operators into “pride of ownership”. They like to see their plant up and running and, if possible, setting records. While I ordinarily encouraged such fealty to ownership motivation, I discovered a downside. Many operators will tend to take foolish risks to keep a plant up and running even to the point of risking their own lives in the process. I called it “the John Wayne syndrome” and it was so pervasive that I was forced to regularly pound away through “come to Jesus” safety lectures to the effect that “you do me no favor by dying for the cause and possibly taking others with you”. Any relaxation of that stern message and “John Wayne” would creep back into the operation.
I’ll finish this with a description of a mess that occurred in spite of my best efforts to cover “the John Wayne syndrome”. I’d designed a de-mineralized water makeup system for a pumped storage plant motor/generator’s water cooled rotor. Any significant leakage in that coolant loop, especially at the rotating coupling where water entered and exited the rotor would result in destruction of a 540,000 hp machine. Therefore, I included in the design redundant detection mechanisms that guaranteed the 23Kv machine would not only signal an alarm, but would also immediately trip free of the system and automatically shut down in the event of such a leak before the machine was destroyed. The detection system hinged on my limiting automatic makeup water to a small holding tank to a prescribed amount while monitoring water level in that tank. If leakage in the machine exceeded prescribed maximum makeup rate, the holding tank level would drop and trigger the shutdown. I then imagined the operators defeating those automatic controls with rubber “boots” slipped over relay contacts and other mechanisms I knew them to use to avoid pesky alarms and shutdowns they might judge to be unnecessary. So I wrapped the whole system in such electrical complexity that any attempt to defeat it would result in a shutdown.
Years later, I received a call from a friend informing me the unit I’ve described had just “blown up” due to a leak of de-mineralized water into its rotor windings where it had mixed with dust and debris to form a catastrophic electrical short-circuit. When I expressed disappointment that the operators must have found a way to bypass what I’d thought was a foolproof automatic shutdown system, he responded that they’d failed to defeat the system electrically, just as I had intended them to fail and the unit had shut down safely and refused to restart. Instead, they had formed a bucket brigade to pour water into the makeup tank fast enough to outrun my level detector and were running the unit under those conditions when it blew. Their motivation was a world “unit availability” record the operators were close to breaking when my exotic leak detector had shut them down.
As the Buddhist would say, “That which is” is simply “That which is”.
CH
Francisco says:
March 29, 2011 at 2:08 am
“Daryl M says:
March 28, 2011 at 10:54 pm
Spent fuel does not pose anywhere near the hazard of an active reactor core. Spent fuel is called “spent” because it no longer contains enough fissionable material to efficiently generate power. That’s why it can be put into a pool, or do you not know that?
==================================
http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/meltdowns_grow_more_likely_at_the_fukushima_reactors”
First, the article you are quoting is from 2 weeks ago and I would question the objectivity of the source due to the site. I believe it’s safe to say it is not a site that is friendly to nuclear power.
Second, you are still missing the point about spent fuel. Spent fuel does contain some highly radioactive and/or long-lived products, but it is MUCH less likely to heat to the point where melting can occur because it is spent. That’s why it’s called “spent”.
The comparision in the article of the amount of radioactivity in spent fuel to Chernobyl is irrelevent and is not surprising considering the site. The Chernobyl reactor exploded while it was undergoing fusion. And the reactor did not have a containment vessel, due to the design. There is NO WAY, aside from a bomb being detonated in the pool, for radioactivity in the Fukushima spent fuel pool to be spread in the same manner as Chernobyl.
From Phil on March 28, 2011 at 9:53 pm:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR_Double_attack_on_US_nuclear_waste_fees_1003111.html
By Congressional action, the utilities have paid for and are still paying for a permanent nuclear waste disposal site. The Commissar in Chief unilaterally decided Yucca Mountain won’t be it. They’re still charging for what the Administration is refusing to provide. That’s breach of contract, in a normal business setting. It’s mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on Yucca Mountain:
Reference 10 is a dead link, but here’s an good one from the same time, first week in July 2010: Judges rule Obama can’t close Yucca Mountain nuclear dump
It’s illegal for the Administration to unilaterally kill off Yucca Mountain.
Reference 11 is informative:
The nuclear industry wanted long-term disposal, they were promised it, they paid for it, waited for it, they’re still being charged for it. The Commissar in Chief reneged on the deal. So give them back the money, so they can build dry cask storage instead while they wait for sensible fuel reprocessing to finally happen in the US. And go back to waiting for a real long term disposal site like they had wanted and were promised and still need.
Daryl M says:
March 29, 2011 at 8:19 am
There is NO WAY, aside from a bomb being detonated in the pool, for radioactivity in the Fukushima spent fuel pool to be spread in the same manner as Chernobyl.
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What it takes for spent fuel in pools to catch fire and start putting stuff in the atmosphere is only enough time being exposed to the air, without water. The assumption that removal of that water is a bulletproof impossibility is very silly, and yet it seems to be what drives the nuclear industry to keep piling up this stuff onsite in pools. Alvarez writes: “According to DOE about 63,000 metric tons of spent fuel has been generated as of this year containing approximately 12.4 billion curies. These pools contain some the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet. Only 14% of U.S. spent fuel is in dry storage.”
Pool storage never was meant to be permanent, but since it is a lot cheaper than dry storage, there you have it. Another example of money having its say over sense. As a matter of fact, they are running out of room to store them this way. What they will do next, I don’t know. 63,000 metric tons of spent fuel in the US alone holding upwards of 12 billion curies makes me think it’s a measure of the total insanity of this industry that they assume they can keep piling up this stuff all over the world like that.
For a more detailed account of the pool storage topic:
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/The-spent-fuel-crisis-Region-s-nuclear-plants-1309964.php
@Claude Harvey:
March 29, 2011 at 8:17 am
That’s a great story, Claude. By hook or by crook, we have to find ways to mess things up.
@kadaka (KD Knoebel):
March 29, 2011 at 9:19 am
At the beginning you say that the *customers* of the nuclear industry paid for Yucca Mountain. By the end of your story, it’s the industry that paid for Yucca Mountain.
Poor Industry!
And poor Yucca Mountain, robbed of the surprise we had in storage for it.
Claude Harvey,
I have been a nuclear plant operator for 25+ years and would go to jail for the actions you describe. About a decade ago an individual at another utility was sentenced to three years in prison for cheating on an NRC licensing exam. The willful bypassing of tech spec required safety features would be treated even more harshly I suspect.