Guest post by Michael Dickey (cross posted from his website matus1976.com)
The decline of nuclear power has had a significant effect on global carbon emissions and subsequently any anthropogenic global warming effect. To see the extent of this influence, let us first take a look at total U.S. carbon emissions since 1900.
According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, from 1900 to 2006, US carbon emissions rose from 181 MMT (million metric tons) to 1,569 MMT.
Taking a look at US electricity generation by type, according to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. generates 51% of its power from coal, and cumulatively about 71% of its power from fossil fuel sources.
Comparing the energy source to Carbon emissions, the burning of coal to generate electricity alone emits more CO2 than any other single source, about one-third of the total.
As the US Electrical Generation by Type figure shows, about 20% of the U.S. electrical supply comes from nuclear power. Let us now imagine that the U.S. never built any nuclear power plants, but instead built more coal plants to generate the electricity those nuclear plants would have generated.
According to the Energy Information Administration, since 1971, 18.6 billion MW•h (Megawatt hour) of electrical power have been generated by nuclear sources (1). According to the US Department of Energy, every kW•h (kilowatt hour) of electricity generated by coal produces 2.095 lbs of CO2 (2).
As the calculations in the table above show, every MW•h of electricity generated by coal generates 2,095 pounds of carbon dioxide. For 18.6 billion MW•h at 2,095 pounds of CO2 per MW•h, this amounts to 39.0 trillion additional lbs of CO2, or 17.7 billion metric tons. Finally, converting the 17.7 billion metric tons of CO2 to carbon results in 4.842 billion, or 4,842 million metric tons of carbon.
What all this shows is that had this power been generated by coal plants, an additional 4,842 million metric tons of carbon would have been released into the atmosphere. Breaking this calculation down by year, what would this have made our carbon emissions record look like?
Again in blue we see the real world US carbon emissions, but in green we see what the carbon emissions would have been if all the electricity generated by our nuclear infrastructure had instead been generated by coal power plants.
In all, carbon emissions would have been 14.6% higher, with 1,782 MMT of carbon released without nuclear power plants, while only 1,552 MMT are released with our current nuclear infrastructure. This is why many leading environmentalists, such as James Lovelock (author of the Gaia Hypothesis) are vocal supporters of nuclear power.
But this chart is not entirely fair to nuclear power, because the growth of nuclear power was severely derailed by environmentalist hyperbole and outright scaremongering. Because of the attacks by environmentalists on nuclear power, many planned power plants were cancelled, and many existing plants licenses were not renewed. The result, according to Al Gore himself in “Our Choice” was:
“Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage…Thus, only about one-fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating.” (3)
Let us take a look then at U.S. carbon emissions if the U.S. had simply built and operated the power plants that were originally planned.
Yup, that’s right people: if the US had simply built and operated the nuclear power plants it had planned and licensed, it would today be producing not only less carbon emissions than it did in 1972, but would in fact be emitting almost half the carbon emissions it is now.
But let’s not forget that the very planning and licensing of nuclear power plants was drastically affected by the anti-scientific opposition. Looking again at the Energy Information Administrations figures, the average sustained growth for nuclear generating capacity was increasing by about 28.8 million Megawatt hours for a 20 year period from 1971 to 1989
Here we see a chart taken from the EIA data which shows the growth of real nuclear generating capacity in blue, and the projected growth in red, had the growth of the previous 20 year period been sustained (remember, this is still only about one-fourth of the intended capacity). In this graph, any year which produced less than the average of the previous 20 years was increased to that average of 28.8 million MW•h.
Now let’s take this projected growth and imagine the U.S. had actually built a nuclear infrastructure at this level. What would our carbon emissions look like?
Incredibly, U.S. carbon emissions today would be almost one-fourth of what they are currently. These numbers are estimated by taking the average yearly increase from 1971 to 1989 in nuclear generating capacity and projecting it to the current day, and since these numbers are only one-fourth of the original planned capacity, the result is multiplied by four. In case you think my numbers are fanciful, let’s see if there are any countries out there that did not get entirely persuaded by the anti-nuclear hysteria, and how that affected their carbon emissions.
After the energy crisis of the 70s, France, which was highly dependent on imported oil for electricity production, decided to divest themselves of Middle Eastern oil dependence. Lacking significant fossil fuel deposits, they opted for a nuclear infrastructure. Today nuclear power generates about 78% of France’s electrical power supply, and it is today the world’s largest exporter of electrical energy. France alone accounts for 47% of Western Europe’s nuclear generated electricity (3).
While we do not see the production in France dropping to half of its 1970s levels as we would have in the U.S. had it continued the transition to a nuclear infrastructure, nevertheless the 40% reductions are close and tremendously significant.
Consider from the presented information what the total potential nuclear generating capacity for the US would be if it sustained the high level growth and achieved its planned capacity.
By the year 2000, the US nuclear infrastructure could have been generating 100% of the domestic electrical supply. This is not an extraordinary claim considering, again, that France generates 78% of electrical energy from nuclear power.
Extrapolating this to the global climate, let’s take a look at the global carbon emissions levels and compare them against a world where the U.S. sustained the first two decades of its nuclear infrastructure growth perpetually and ultimately achieved the original planned capacity.
In green, we see the existing global carbon emissions levels and in purple is the U.S. carbon emission levels if it continued to adopt a nuclear infrastructure. In red then, as a result, we see the global carbon levels would have been almost 15% lower than current levels.
I invite readers to extrapolate then where the total global carbon emissions would be if all the post-industrialized nations had adopted nuclear power – as their natural technological progressions would have dictated – if it were not for the hijacking of this process by anti-scientific hyperbole by scaremongering environmental activists. Many organizations – such as Green Peace, still ardently oppose nuclear power. And these levels, mind you, are only about one-tenth of what the Atomic Energy Commission was projecting based on demand during the 60s, where at its height 25 new nuclear power plants were being built every year, and the AEC anticipated that by the year 2000 over 1,000 nuclear power plants would be in operation in the U.S.. Today only 104 operate.
Let us project an educated guess as to what the resulting reduction in carbon emissions would have been had the European Union (which in 2005 generated 15% of their electricity with nuclear) Japan (34.5% nuclear) and finally, going into the future China and India as they fully industrialize.
All of these facts lead to one conclusion: if manmade global warming is a real problem, then it was in fact caused by environmental alarmism. That is not to say that some environmentalism has not been good, but this atrocious abandonment of reason hangs as an ominous cloud over everything environmentalists advocate. Rational environmentalists, such as James Lovelock, who want a high standard of living for humans and a clean planet are quick to change their minds about nuclear power. Irrational environmentalists who actually do not desire wealthy, comfortable lives for all people on the planet–as well as a clean planet–actively oppose nuclear power. Nuclear power is a litmus test for integrity within the environmentalist community.
If you want to spur the economy, stop global warming, and undermine the oil-fueled, terrorist-breeding, murderous theocracies of the world, the solution is simple: build nuclear power plants.
– Sources –
Energy Information Administration – http://www.eia.doe.gov/
US Electrical Generation Sources by Type – http://www.clean-coal.info/drupal/node/164
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) – http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
CDIAC US Carbon Emissions – http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/emissions/usa.dat
CDIAC France Carbon Emissions – http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/fra.html
(1) – “18.6 billion MW•h (Megawatt hours) of electrical power have been generated by nuclear sources” – Energy Information Administration – http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec8_3.pdf
(2) – “every kW•h of electricity generated by coal produces 2.095 lbs of CO2” – US Department of Energy “Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Generation of Electrical Power in the United States” – http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/co2emiss00.pdf
(3) – Al Gore (2009). Our Choice, Bloomsbury, p. 157.
(4) – “France alone accounts for 47% of western Europe’s nuclear generated electricity” – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2008 World Nuclear Industry Status Report, http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/reports/2008-world-nuclear-industry-status-report/2008-world-nuclear-industry-status-re-1
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phlogiston says:
March 31, 2011 at 4:06 pm
But it was maniacally idiotic management, incompetent operators and Soviet industrial oplitics that combined to cause the accident. Not a design flaw of the RBMK. Other RBMKs have run safely for decades in Russia and eastern Europe.
=================
The old siren song goes on and on and on.
The plants are all very safe. TMI does not count because there was nothing to see there. Chernobyl does not count because it was human error, which by definition doesn’t count (especially if it’s Soviet human error). Fukushima doesn’t count because it was an overdone temper tantrum by natural forces. The plants are safe. The insurance industry that adamantly refuses to insure them doesn’t count because the insurance industry doesn’t know how to assess risk. The industry is safe. Radiation is safe, and the Chernobyl sarcophagous will be a wonderful tourist destination for the next few hundred years, stimulating the local economy.
Francisco,
They all “count”, but they all occurred just as you sarcastically described. TMI had no health consequences to anyone. Chernobyl was about as bad as it could ever get since the reactor core was dispersed into the atmosphere almost immediately. And Japan is not as bad as Chernobyl but worse than TMI. This is not a new technology and the effects of radiation exposure are pretty well understood. You can like this reality or not but it is still reality.
You are certainly entitled to your own opinions based on reality but you are not entitled to your own reality.
Doug, the bypassing of the auto-scram system was a necessary part of the turbine spin-down test. The procedure had been approved months before by both the Kurchatov Institute (the reactor designer) and the safety authority. The test was in fact invented by the Kurchatov Institute in the first place. Second, it didn’t matter whether the scram system was bypassed or not. The scram system ignited the explosion. The business about too many rods removed from the core was the bogus argument raised by the Soviet September 1986 delegation. It was shown to be false 20 years ago.
Under NO circumstances, should a shut down system EVER inject positive reactivity into a reactor under ANY circumstances. THAT was the initiating event of the accident, and so WANO concluded. It should further be noted that the insertion time of the shutdown system was way too long by design, in excess of 12 seconds.
Phlogiston, not quite. Reactors can indeed be powered down easily and safely. What you cannot do is then try to restart it when it’s loaded with xenon. What you are not apparently aware of is the dismal condition of instrumentation at RBMKs during those years. There was NO real time monitoring of neutron flux in the reactor. An operator had to order a reading of the flux from the detectors and then go down to the computer room to get the printout. At best, reactor power levels were available from five minutes ago. Because of the lousy instrumentation of RBMKs it was literally like flying an airplane with no radar and no windows.
What you are referring to was the disconnection of the emergency core cooling system. This is irrelevant to the accident. With the steam blast, there was no core left to cool.
Further, the operators did not deliberately power down to such a low level. When they started to power down, the grid at the last minute ordered them to power back up. Reactor operators in the USSR did not have the right to override a grid order. So, they hauled out all the rods and struggled back up to about 30% nominal, the designated test power level. By the time the test was started, it had already been delayed by the grid operations by about eight hours and the new shift took over, inheriting a situation with which they were unfamiliar because it had been created by the previous one. To pretend that the new crew was a gang of illiterate bumpkins is simply more Soviet propaganda. The deputy station chief and station chief physicist was on hand in the control room at the time. It should be noted that the power down to 30% which was the designated test level had to be done by hand. There was no computer control. All that the operator had to go on was the pressure in the steam drums; there was no monitoring of either reactor flux or xenon levels on a real time basis.
While powering down the reactor the operator apparently noticed something wrong and pushed AZ-5, the scram button. No one knows why, because he died four weeks later. Pushing the scram was the initiating event of the explosion.
It should be noted that at no time did the reactor operators violate their operating instructions. The Soviets in September 1986 accused the operators of a string of violations of the safety manual. However, at the Operators Trial in 1987 it was shown that this supposed manual was written AFTER the accident and was not what the operators were working with.
As to the basic reactor physics itself, only the RBMK combines both water and graphite in a reactor core. All other power reactors using graphite as a moderator use gas for heat transport. Combining two explosive (water) and flammable (graphite) substances in a reactor core is inherently dangerous.
Second, the basic physics of the RBMK is that it is very difficult to shut down. Less than 30 per cent of the core is all you need for a self-sustaining chain reaction. Every other reactor in the world requires at least two-thirds of the core for a self sustaining nuclear reaction.
So what do we have?
1. a reactor highly unstable because such a small part of the core is needed for a nuclear reaction;
2. Instrumentation that allowed NO real time monitoring of the flux;
3. Combining both water and graphite in a reactor core;
4. A shutdown system that operated far too slowly;
5. A shutdown system with no redundancy;
6. A shutdown system that injected positive reactivity into the reactor core. This one might not have mattered, except that 1 makes it a lethal problem;
7. An operating manual that indicated none of these hazards or procedures to handle them.
Please note that the combination of 1, 2 and 4 are particularly dangerous, let alone 6.
And after all these grotesque design flaws, you want to blame the operators?
It’s hardly surprising that the Soviets did a massive technical propaganda effort at IAEA in September 1986. Far more was at stake than just a blown reactor for them; it was the entire Soviet scientific and political elite which would be on trial otherwise. The trial of the Chernobyl operators has been rightly labeled by Piers Paul Reid as the last great Soviet political show trial. It should be noted by the way that every outside nuclear physicist and engineer had rejected the Soviet explanation of operator error within eight months of seeing operating data from the plant. Remember the inherent corruption of the Soviet system. The system is never guilty. Therefore, individuals had to be framed for it.
Doug: “…since the reactor core was dispersed into the atmosphere almost immediately.”
No it was not. The source term for Chernobyl unit 4 is that about 90 per cent of the Iodine 131 was released. About half the Cesium and Strontium was released. About 5% of the uranium and plutonium was released. All of the rest remains in the reactor core to this day. These were confirmed by an independent UNSCEAR review in 2000.
I agree entirely with your comments re. Francisco. The antinuclear industry salivates with glee over the prospect of any nuclear disaster. They are going to have some trouble with Fukushima. At this point, the fatality count is one, a crane operator at the time of the quake. It has also not quite dawned on the media yet that nearly everything in the surrounding countryside has been leveled to the ground. Even an old nuclear plant is still standing and its containment still largely intact despite every possible system failure.
Colin,
Fair enough, I knew that the event resulted in very little Pu and U in the environment. I meant that it is hard to imagine a more effective way to disperse core material.
Bzzzzt!
EVERYBODY thinks they’re a hydrologist when they’re not … since you haven’t even seen a map nor a geological survey (to depth) off the area your words or thoughts on this are – pretty much meaningless …
.
There’s something going on at Fukushima that we are not being told about:
The world’s largest concrete pump…… is being moved to Japan in a series of emergency measures to help stabilize the Fukushima reactors…….. “The bottom line is, the Japanese need this particular unit worse than we do……”
http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2011-03-31/srs-concrete-pump-heading-japan-nuclear-site
Quite right, Doug. A steam blast of that magnitude is the most effective way to disperse it. Particularly since RBMKs have no upper containment. And what is more, virtually all the U and Pu fell out within 2 km. Not surprising given its weight.
One of the interesting results of Chernobyl is that a surprising amount of I-131 residue was found on what little was left of the upper building structure. Because of the readiness of I to bond with most anything, some of it plated out on structures. For a reactor with full containment which is breached it suggests that a lot of it will still not escape the plant.
“Acids”, yes, the Bilderbergers are keeping you in the dark by… publishing this info? How does that work? Anyway, the monster concrete pumps are being used to pump water into the cool-down ponds for the spent fuel rods. In fact, some of them are already on site being used for that purpose, which is within the design specifications of the pumps.
Eventually, they can switch from water to concrete, if the managers on site decide it is appropriate. Sorry to have punctured your bubble.
For those that are interested, here is a paper that tells of the real consequence’s of Chernobyl. The past, present and ongoing !
Chernobyl
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People
and the Environment
ALEXEY V. YABLOKOV, VASSILY B. NESTERENKO, AND ALEXEY V. NESTERENKO
Consulting Editor
JANETTE D. SHERMAN-NEVINGER
CONTENTS
Foreword. By Prof. Dr. Biol. DimitroM. Grodzinsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Preface. By Alexey V. Yablokov and Vassily B. Nesterenko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
Introduction: The Difficult Truth about Chernobyl. By Alexey V. Nesterenko,
Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter I. Chernobyl Contamination: An Overview
1. Chernobyl Contamination through Time and Space. By Alexey V. Yablokov
and Vassily B. Nesterenko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe
for Public Health
2. Chernobyl’s Public Health Consequences: Some Methodological Problems.
By Alexey V. Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3. General Morbidity, Impairment, and Disability after the Chernobyl
Catastrophe. By Alexey V. Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4. Accelerated Aging as a Consequence of the Chernobyl Catastrophe. By Alexey
V. Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5. Nonmalignant Diseases after the Chernobyl Catastrophe. By Alexey V.
Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6. Oncological Diseases after the Chernobyl Catastrophe. By Alexey V.
Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
7. Mortality after the Chernobyl Catastrophe. By Alexey V. Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . 192
Conclusion to Chapter II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
v
vi Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Chapter III. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe
for the Environment
8. Atmospheric, Water, and Soil Contamination after Chernobyl. By Alexey V.
Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
9. Chernobyl’s Radioactive Impact on Flora. By Alexey V. Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . . 237
10. Chernobyl’s Radioactive Impact on Fauna. By Alexey V. Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . 255
11. Chernobyl’s Radioactive Impact on Microbial Biota. By Alexey V.
Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Conclusion to Chapter III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Chapter IV. Radiation Protection after the Chernobyl Catastrophe
12. Chernobyl’s Radioactive Contamination of Food and People. By Alexey V.
Nesterenko, Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Yablokov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
13. Decorporation of Chernobyl Radionuclides. By Vassily B. Nesterenko and
Alexey V. Nesterenko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
14. Protective Measures for Activities in Chernobyl’s Radioactively Contaminated
Territories. By Alexey V. Nesterenko and Vassily B. Nesterenko . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
15. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health and the
Environment 23 Years Later. By Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko,
and Alexey V. Nesterenko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Conclusion to Chapter IV
(http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov%20Chernobyl%20book.pdf)
Colin says:
March 31, 2011 at 6:59 pm
…
Phlogiston, not quite. Reactors can indeed be powered down easily and safely. What you cannot do is then try to restart it when it’s loaded with xenon. What you are not apparently aware of is the dismal condition of instrumentation at RBMKs during those years. There was NO real time monitoring of neutron flux in the reactor. An operator had to order a reading of the flux from the detectors and then go down to the computer room to get the printout. At best, reactor power levels were available from five minutes ago. Because of the lousy instrumentation of RBMKs it was literally like flying an airplane with no radar and no windows.
What you are referring to was the disconnection of the emergency core cooling system. This is irrelevant to the accident. With the steam blast, there was no core left to cool.
I defer to your deep knowledge of the incident and familiarity with detailed reports from it. From the book by Zhores Medvedeev “The Legacy of Chernobyl”, I read that in order to power back up the reactor, the operators disabled locks which limited how far the boron control rods could be removed from the core. Later they tried desperately to push them back in but too late.
I accepted at the outset that a graphite moderated reactor has the inherent risk that loss of coolant does not shut down the nuclear reaction – unlike where water is both coolant and moderator.
It seems clear that both bad practice and flawed design combined to cause the accident.
Doug Badgero says:
March 31, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Francisco,
They all “count”, but they all occurred just as you sarcastically described. TMI had no health consequences to anyone. Chernobyl was about as bad as it could ever get since the reactor core was dispersed into the atmosphere almost immediately. And Japan is not as bad as Chernobyl but worse than TMI. This is not a new technology and the effects of radiation exposure are pretty well understood. You can like this reality or not but it is still reality.
You are certainly entitled to your own opinions based on reality but you are not entitled to your own reality.
=======================
It is beyond me how you guys keep pointing out certain causes for any accident in order to dismiss safety concerns about the probability of accidents — on the grounds that the cause you point to is somehow exceptional. Whether it is a bad location for diesel generators, or a suspect design that is no longer being made, or operator incompetence, or bad management, or natural disasters… your whole point boils down to the argument that these are *exceptions* and therefore cannot be used to gauge the safety of nuclear plants. Why, of course they are exceptions!! So what?? The periodic appearance of black sheep in a flock of white ones is always an exception, and that doesn’t make them disappear. To me, arguments cannot get any more absurd than this. The Wikipedia entry on “nuclear meltdown” lists at least 14 such events. I suppose every singele one of them had a cause that can be seen as exceptional (after all, if the causes were routine, the accidents should be routine) and I am sure in your mind none of those accidents has any bearing on the safety of the industry. It’s just bizarre beyond comprehension.
Look, since these things have happenned, it is reasonable to suppose they will continue to happen, and it is reasonable to suppose that they will happen more frequently if the number of plants keeps getting larger. And we are not even getting into the subject of spent fuel piling up in plants everywhere.
You have to know this perfectly well: shit happens. So the other aspect of your campaign is to downplay the effects of any thing that may happen, even if it involves contaminating large areas pretty much forever (in human time frames), and keep promoting the lunatic notion that high levels of radioactive matter getting into the atmosphere, the food chain or the water supply are not that bad.
Mitsuhiko Tanaka, one of the engineers that built Fukushima, has made some pretty clear statements that reveal the gap between the dream world you nuclear fans pretend to live in (talk about entitling yourselves to your own reality) and the real world. Tanaka, “turned his back on the nuclear industry after the Chernobyl disaster” and began writing to explain why he belives the industry is not safe.
Fukushima Engineer Says He Helped Cover Up Flaw at Dai-Ichi Reactor No. 4
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-23/fukushima-engineer-says-he-covered-up-flaw-at-shut-reactor.html
And here is Tanaka explaining (starting about minute 9) why he thinks reactor 1 probably lost cooling before the tsunami, i..e. as a consequence of the earthquake.
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13573218
Phlogiston, what many do not realize is that RBMKs have only a single boron rod system. The control rods and the emergency shutdown system were one and the same. Every other reactor system in the world has at least one dedicated shutdown system, with CANDUs having two. And these shutdown systems all operate independently of the control system.
There is one further fact here regarding institutional corruption. The Leningrad RBMK station had had a similar event a few years before, in Unit 2 I believe. The event involved some small melting of fuel with a power surge. The event was safely contained with minimal damage. But the point is that the episode was covered up and was prevented by Kurchatov from being reported to any other RBMK stations. They knew there were serious design flaws, but they deliberately left all operators in the dark.
The paper Sunspot refers to is not supported by science. Vassili Nesterenko was a nuclear physicist and engineer with no background in radiation health physics. Yablokov was an environmental activist with no relevant physics or science background.
The findings in this paper are entirely contradicted by the exhaustive analysis done by UNSCEAR in 2000.
bbgun says:
March 31, 2011 at 9:35 pm
if the managers on site decide it is appropriate.
I have no bubble to be punctured. I’m sure there was no other way to pump water. They had to move that huge piece of equipment 1/2 way around the world for pumping water. And it’s such a small task to do it. So simple, like falling off a chair. There’s no water hoses in Japan I guess. And they really didn’t need it for any project in Atlanta for pumping concrete. Heck, who needs a concrete pump for pumping concrete when it has so much more value in pumping water. Those poor Japanese, just don’t have the means of pumping water to be found anywhere in the nation. They must have got together and said, “We got no water hoses. We need the Americans to send a very big piece of equipment to use, say maybe some kind of concrete pump, ya, maybe the Americans will transport some kind of big machinery to us to pump water. Everything’s big in America. And at this time we have so much money to spare to pay the transporting costs. This tsunami has had this way of putting money in our pockets.”
Thanks for the angle on things that makes the most sense of everything I’ve seen in the past 3 weeks. It’s good to know that, well, just in case, if they ever had to pump concrete anywhere at Fukushima, who’s knows why they would, well heck, what do you know, they just happen to have a concrete pump brought all the way from Atlanta there. Who woulda thunk a the biggest concrete pump in the world would just happen to be on site?! And here they were, all the while, pumping water with it. It’s like that slap to the forehead on those V-8 commercials, “Hey, we coulda been using this for pumping concrete! Who knew?”
But your reply to me must have been sarcasm and you didn’t put “/sarc” after it.
UNSCEAR – the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation – is the exact equivalent of the UNIPCC on climate change.
UNSCEAR wouldn’t manipulate the truth now would they ?
You don’t think that maybe the two have the same ultimate adgenda ?
Cover the planet with toxic waste from nooklar spills, bombs, depleted uranium, toxic medical waste.
Only an extremely small percentage of the population want noooks, those with a vested interest, and gullible people that have swallowed the noooklar propaganda.
Noooklar power plants are filthy, dirty old technology ! They need to be phased out as quickly as possible and the same effort that was put into building them in the first place should now be put into new clean energy.
For all I care, all you noooklar sycophant’s can get a job cleaning dunnies !
This must be wrong too:
Elevated radiation found in groundwater under Fukushima
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/31/radiation-slows-recovery-dead-near-japan-plant/
But nothing to see there too. So move along folks, right?
Francisco,
I do not downplay Chernobyl. It is the poster child of how not to design a reactor and its containment systems. The problem is the antinuke crowd overplay the radiological consequences of all of these accidents……..including Chernobyl. Chernobyl radiological consequences were significant to both plant workers and the surrounding environs and people but there is no evidence except that manufactured in activist’s minds that 100s of thousands or millions will die even from this the worst possible accident.
Not a single worker is likely to die from acute radiation exposure in Japan. To date 20 employees have recieved exposures between 100 and 200mSV (10 to 20 REM) no other employee has exceeded 100mSv. Any increase in latent fatalities in this population will be too small to see, if they occur at all.
Meanwhile, 26000 die when two dams fail in China and another 150000+ die in the following epidemics and famine and no one even blinks.
Doug Badgero
All the pro nuclear crowd has to stop using disasters in China as an example why nuclear is great.
sunspot
Let them continue to use the UN and disasters in China as their only arguments. Since they keep bringing them up it looks like that’s all they’ve got. Sucks to be them I guess.
AAM,
As opposed to those who use disasters in the former Soviet Union. What’s the difference? I am not suggesting that all hydro should be abandoned, I am suggesting the anti nuclear crowd is hypocritical on the subject. The issue is can this industrial hazard be managed safely like thousands of other hazards are managed? You say no for reasons I don’t understand. I say yes.
Re: Amino Acids in Meteorites on April 1, 2011 at 5:59 am
Please select which side of your mouth you wish to speak from. The concrete pump is an excellent means for precisely delivering water directly where needed, in this case the spent fuel pools. Through your sarcasm, you’re implying the Japanese can use mere water hoses. Yet they have been criticized for using sloppy methods like fire hoses and helicopter water drops which aren’t precisely putting water into those pools. You have posted a link to an article about groundwater contamination involving the pooling of water at the plant. Apparently you are concerned about such, therefore it would seem to follow you would prefer non-sloppy methods of water dispensing into the pools, minimizing the pooling at the plant. Yet you are sarcastically critical of the planned use of a non-sloppy precise water dispensing method.
Which side of your mouth will you speak out of next? Haven’t you run out of sides yet?
Heroic plant workers are resigned to radiation death
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/31/japans-nuclear-rescuers-inevitable-die-weeks/?test=latestnews
jakers,
An article sourced from the mother of one of the workers……..powerful evidence indeed. Absent credible evidence of a massive coverup I will continue to rely on the information coming from the IAEA and my 25 years experience as a radiation worker.
Japan is working around the clock to clean up after their nuclear crisis; could the US be next? What can we do to prevent and prepare?
WPSU discusses the situation on Nuclear Energy: Lessons From Japan:
http://bit.ly/e02awE