Chinese scientist He Zuoxiu has issued a public warning, about the safety of nuclear plants being constructed as part of China’s economic development programme.
According to The Guardian;
China’s plans for a rapid expansion of nuclear power plants are “insane” because the country is not investing enough in safety controls, a leading Chinese scientist has warned.
Proposals to build plants inland, as China ends a moratorium on new generators imposed after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, are particularly risky, the physicist He Zuoxiu said, because if there was an accident it could contaminate rivers that hundreds of millions of people rely on for water and taint groundwater supplies to vast swathes of important farmlands.
…
He spoke of risks including “corruption, poor management abilities and decision-making capabilities”. He said: “They want to build 58 (gigawatts of nuclear generating capacity) by 2020 and eventually 120 to 200. This is insane.”
A qualified Physicist, Zuoxiu rose to fame by publicly campaigning against superstition, by campaigning against Chinese traditional medicine, and by calling for Falun Gong to be outlawed.
To me, Zuoxiu’s position on Falun Gong seems extreme. In matters of spirituality, I think people should be free to follow their conscience. I’m unsettled that someone who prizes evidence based reasoning, could still consider themselves to be a Communist.
But Zuoxiu is a physicist, and China’s rapid capitalist transformation has not been without its problems. In 1975, China suffered the worst hydroelectric disaster in history – the Banqiao Dam disaster killed an estimated 171,000 people, and destroyed over 11 million homes. According to Wikipedia, the disaster was caused by a combination of poor engineering, shoddy workmanship and poor preparation – a lack of proper local hydrological research.
I’m a fan of nuclear power, and applaud China’s efforts to develop next generation nuclear power systems, such as Thorium reactors. But given the rising pressure on China to reduce CO2 emissions, which might concievably be helping to promote an overhasty nuclear programme, given the potentially awful consequences of an upriver nuclear meltdown, and given China’s track record of sometimes cutting one corner too many, Zuoxiu’s warnings should in my opinion be taken seriously.
After 21 years working in nuclear power, I’d GLADLY go to China to build plants. (Planning on investigating that this summer while on break from BUS DRIVING, which I hate!!!) Anyway, I guess the problem is I’m very “politically incorrect”. I think the 12 of 14 members of the Politburo should take a vote. 12 to 14, and either order this clown executed or deported (permanently) from China!
Here’s me wanting to drive busses after over 30 years in IT. Aircon, comfy air sprung seat, automagic gearbox, what’s not to like?
The Guardian is the last refuge of Britain’s colonial fantasists who think they can rule from Britannia the grass-skirted natives who live in countries like China.
Just as the Guardian’s intervention in Iowa in the US election of 2000 brought JW Bush to power in the USA, the appearance of their unwelcome noses in China’s nuclear debate will greatly strengthen the hand of the nuclear lobby there, and elsewhere.
They could be the nuclear lobby’s best friend worldwide.
My comment makes little sense, unless I put in the “12 of 14 of the Politburo who were trained as ENGINEERS”…then the 12 to 14 vote to EXPELL/DEPORT would make sense.
It’s understandable that to today’s anti-nuclear eco-colonialists, China is the new “yellow peril”.
Oh, good grief. Fukushima was actually a testament to how nuclear safety features WORKED. Unit #1 at Fukushima was the first commercial reactor in Japan and was only 3 weeks from final shutdown for decommissioning when the quake struck. Total toll at Fukushima — 0 dead, 0 injured, 0 sicked in a worst case triple meltdown scenario. The factors that caused those problems in those three units do not exist in the Chinese units being built. Modern reactors do not rely on outside power to pump cooling water or to operate emergency safety gear.
What media are very careful not to mention is that the OTHER nuclear complex at Fukishima, Fukushima Dai Ni, weathered the same quake without major incident. Those were newer design reactors that used their own decay heat to drive turbine pumps for cooling and did not rely on electric pumps from outside power.
And, had the quake happened three weeks later after Unit 1 had already been shut down for a while, this disaster would never have happened at all. It was quirks of Unit 1 that caused a cascade failure that increased the damage to the others. The hydrogen explosion at Unit 1 caused damage to the cooling water supply to units 2 and 3. Add to this the absolutely horrible reporting on this and it is no wonder people are unduly afraid. I would much rather live next door to a modern nuclear plant than an oil refinery. More people died on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig than died at Fukushima. More people died in 2011 from organic sprouts and cantaloupe than died from Chernobyl. The entire death toll at Chernobyl is less than the average jetliner crash.
It is impossible to recognize or calculate any long-term health effects from the Fukushima triple melt-down until the long term has passed.
But nuclear power apologists are eager to close the books, and move on, ‘nothing to see here.
And Crosspatch, please share with us your plan to locate and retrieve the three coriums, and to prevent contaminated water from flowing into the Pacific Ocean.
There was no meltdown.
Patrick May 26, 2015 at 10:27 am
“There was no meltdown.”
Rubbish!
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/05/24/uk-japan-tepco-reactors-idUKTRE74N0NE20110524
“But nuclear power apologists are eager to close the books, and move on, ‘nothing to see here.”
That is nonsense, everywhere research into what happened at accidents, be it the atombomb itself or the development of it, be it Chernobyl or Fukushima just continues, and usually the conclusion is that the effects of the radiation are by far not as disastrous as pictured before. Now you may not like those conclusions.
theorichel May 26, 2015 at 12:36 pm
“That is nonsense, everywhere research into what happened…”
I don’t think it’s nonsense, because I was talking about nuclear power apologists, and not about researchers.
As you note, research is continuing not least of all because, as I said, the long term health effects cannot be known over the short term., so any declarations that there has been no harm from Fukushima, or any other nuclear event, cannot be known until perhaps several decades have passed, and are therefore entirely premature.
What are your ideas for the recovery of the coriums, and stopping contaminated water flow into the ocean?
Fire induced melting occurred -which is not a meltdown in nuclear terms- basically a translation error.
“prevent contaminated water”
contaminated by what?
I repeat for Steve P there was no meltdown. Michael correctly points that out. Steve P, you need to stay away from Wikipedia, it’s a bad as the Gaurdian for misinformation.
Steve P: They’ve been studying the affects on people from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions for 70 years. Is that long term enough for you?
“Nuclear power apologists”
Don’t you just love how alarmists twist word to make it seem like their opponents are in the wrong. If you are in favor of Nuclear Power you are an ‘Apologist’ because, obviously, Nuclear Power has something to apologize for.
Maybe one of the ‘Nuclear Power Condemners’ here would like to do a real comparison on the safety record of the nuclear industry compared to ANY other major industry in the US. Any takers?
Many more people died in a single early steam boiler explosion incident than in all the nuclear power accidents in history.
From the Sultana steamboat explosion and sinking:
Scale that up for US population growth from 1865 to present (35.2 to 320.6 million, or factor of 9.1), and that would be like a single disaster killing over 16,000 people in the US today.
If you compare nuclear power to an imagined perfect world, it appears dangerous. If you compare it instead to other risks we commonly accept or have successfully surmounted in the past, it looks darned good.
The first Japanese plants should be restarting and providing power to the grid by the end of July.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-First-Japanese-reactors-prepare-for-restart-2205154.html
Hark! What’s that sound? Why, it’s the sound of jobs that were coming back to US, mostly from China coming to a screeching halt.
I had never heard of the incredibly terrible Banqiao Dam disaster (171,000 deaths).
So, the worst energy disaster in history was caused by a renewable.
Well, looks like its back to fossil fuels.
I hope the same construction companies involved in the China Olympics aren’t participating….
The pic at the beginning of the lead post is of BWR design reactors @ur momisugly a site in Pennsylvania. The failed reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi site were BWR design reactors.
There are no BWR design reactors operating in Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and there are no BWR design reactors under construction in PRC nor are there any BWR design reactors in the process of being contracted for in the PRC.
John
Picture and article of new nuclear power plant in China.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/10/why-china-will-go-all-in-on-nuclear-power/
“I’m unsettled that someone who prizes evidence based reasoning, could still consider themselves to be a Communist.”
Over the decades since Mao’s death, the Communist Party has morphed the definition of Marxism to a point that you probably agree with it. To quote Deng: “The essence of Marxism is seeking truth from facts.” They have converted to an economy not much less capitalist than the U.S. or Europe, and done it, at every step, under the banner of socialism.
David,
I suggest that it is NATIONAL Socialism, in that the government does not own all of the means of production. They have all the hallmarks of NAZIs.
The sad thing is, in many ways, China has become more of a capitalist country than the US.
Funny how socialists in the west are determined to bury capitalism, while former communists are adopting it.
The largest solar panel company in China, Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, which lost half of its value last week, might not have even been making solar panels. HTF lost $18.6 billion in frantic trading last Wednesday, burning index-tracking stock funds in its wake and ‘losing’ its chairman and majority chair man Li Hejun $15 billion. Li shorted HTF by 796 million shares two days before the stock crashed…
According to hedge fund manager John Hempton, who visited Hanergy’s main Chinese factory last month, the vast complex appeared to be pretty much empty.
“It was almost entirely silent. There was essentially no production of solar cells at all and the accounts that suggest significant production and sales are entirely fraudulent.”
Brilliantly, the demonstration solar panels set up outside the factory were oriented away from the sun…
http://order-order.com/2015/05/26/the-emperors-new-solar-panels/
Your own Lawrence Krauss is also a physicist and public educator campaigning against superstition; so is Neil de Grasse; Dawkins is a biologist campaigning against superstition, and Hawking is a physicist again… what has this to do with his take on nuclear safety?
The christian taliban, err, evangelicals would greatly benefit from actually listening. There are no more Phd students in the US that are actually American… ask Michio Kaku on this (there, another one!), or anybody in academia.
What is it about atheists that makes them so eager to demonstrate their bigotry and ignorance to the entire world?
Like most faithful of intolerant religions, extremist atheists believe that intolerance is a virtue. ‘Correcting Error’ is thus their highest calling.
Michael May 26, 2015 at 4:31 pm
“Fire induced melting occurred -which is not a meltdown in nuclear terms- basically a translation error”.
What rubbish!
There is no translation error. The Japanese are using the same term we are Triple Meltdown, which they render in katakana, used for words of foreign origin.
東京は福島のトリプルメルトダウンの真っ最中の2011年3月に恐ろしい場所であった
Tokyo was a horrible place in March 2011 in the midst of the triple meltdown of Fukushima.
トリプルメルトダウン
toripuru merutodaun
triple meltdown
http://www.asyura2.com/15/genpatu42/msg/315.html
Steve P,
If I am not being too forward, what is your background with languages? Judging by various posts, you seem very well versed, which is awesome! I can, like, barely, like, conversate in one.
Thanks Max. I spent some time in Japan, and can understand, and read a little Japanese, but mostly I rely on Google for translation.
Well, I used to set up PS/2 PC’s at Honda, in Kanji, used to measure engine bearings. As well as install MVS, in Kanji. And Lotus 123/MVS, in Kanji. DB2/MVS, in Kanji. Google did not exist then!
I don’t think there’s is much doubt about a meltdown of the core …
but where do you think it is ? … at the bottom of the RPV ? … at the bottom of the PCV ?
anywhere else ?
not that I want to minimize, but maybe our definitions of “disaster” are different …
China is using Westinghouse’s AP1000 nuclear power plant design. It seems safe to me. Does anyone have a problem with it?
Some assembly required.
simple-touriste May 26, 2015 at 4:32 pm
“prevent contaminated water”
contaminated by what?
I don’t know if you’re trying to be cleverly dense, or adroitly ignorant, but anyone who’s even taken a cursory look at Fukushima would know that Tepco has been trying various methods, including construction of an ice wall to prevent radioactive water from flowing through or from the crippled reactor, and into the sea.
http://i62.tinypic.com/2zedv0j.jpg
（図版提供：升本順夫・JAMSTEC ● Picture courtesy of Masumoto order husband · JAMSTEC
As shown in the figure… the path that radioactive material to flow into the sea, in addition to the direct runoff of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, drop from the atmosphere, it is considered the inflow from rivers and groundwater.
http://sciencewindow.jst.go.jp/html/sw44/sr-earthquake
最大の問題は
炉心のメルトスルーです
The biggest problem is
the core’s melt-through
極度の汚染水が海に直接流れている
Extremely contaminated water is flowing directly into the sea
Fearless Fukushiming Leader: We’ll put the emergency cooling water systems down near the beach – what could go wrong?
Newby on Team: What about tsunami’s?
Fearless Leader: Screw it! It’s time for lunch. Are you a team player or not?
Team: Hai ! ( OK! )
….
Later…
Team: Oh Fukushima!
Ue o muite arukou 上を向いて歩こう.
Kyu Sakamoto 坂本九
Please define: ‘Extremely polluted water’
Steve, the sea is the best place for it.
There is nothing insane about China’s building plans. They are not anywhere near as aggressive as the US Nuclear buildout in the 1960’s and 1970’s or the Japanese nuclear build-out.
Doubling construction rate at a pace slower then every five years seems prudent and leaves plenty of room for build, learn, adjust.
We’ve made great strides in non-destructive inspect-ability since the 1960’s…we also have better containment designs then the GE Mark I’s at Fukushima.
The chinese seem to have serious issues about their building contractors.
http://www.chinaurbandevelopment.com/on-poor-quality-corruption-and-construction-in-china/
Whatever problems there may, or may not be, in Chinese nuclear construction, we can at least sleep soundly in our beds knowing that nobody in China will be taking much notice of The Guardian.
“Construction of the Banqiao dam began in April 1951 on the Ru River with the help of Soviet consultants…”
What could go wrong?
Fukushima May Be At Risk Of Imminent “Hydrogen Explosion” http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-26/fukushima-may-be-risk-imminent-hydrogen-explosion