Nuclear accident follows Japanese earthqauke

[2 As and a B]

Japan is considering whether to halt sales of food products from near a crippled nuclear plant because of contamination by a radioactive element which can pose a short-term health risk, the U.N. atomic agency said.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20110319/tt ... 02f96.html

[Aurora]

The Guardian - 20/03/11

Fukushima workers exposed to high radiation levels

Six workers at stricken nuclear plant assigned to new tasks, while food supply problems grow.

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The government's chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, confirmed the plant would not be used again.

The nuclear safety agency said the facility could be buried in sand and concrete, as happened at Chernobyl following the nuclear disaster in 1986, but has said that trying to cool the reactors remains the priority for now.

[RGR]

it has been surprisingly more non-lethal than just a regular drilling rig blowing up in the GOM last spring. Could still get worse of course, but we shall wait and see.

Yes, it has to be a long wait. Radioactive iodine and caesium are being emitted continuously and that will continue until the the wreckage is cooled and sealed from the environment. The waiting is because these isotopes don't cause a quick body-count. The effect will only be determined epidemiologically in years to come.

No one is denying there are long term effects, just as there will be from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The question is, are they minor enough to not slow down or discourage nuclear power.

The human condition requires energy to do work. Acquiring energy is inherently risky. People probably die doing it every day. From that perspective, this meltdown is nothing more than an industrial accident caused by a natural disaster...no different except in scale and scariness than a full oil storage tank being overturned during a hurricane along the Gulf Coast.

[UndercoverElephant]

The human condition requires energy to do work.

No. Modern civilisation requires energy to do work. For 99% of our history, humans did all of their own work. For another 0.9%, the only assistance we had was from domesticated animals.

[Tawney]

7 billion people, a lot of them in the wrong places. We need "cheap" energy to hold it all together. So what choices do we have?

* Nuclear – with all that means.
* Oil and gas wars - with all that means.
* Coal - with all that means.

The only alternatives, in my view, can’t sustain anywhere near the current global population.

Tricky.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

7 billion people, a lot of them in the wrong places. We need "cheap" energy to hold it all together. So what choices do we have?

* Nuclear – with all that means.
* Oil and gas wars - with all that means.
* Coal - with all that means.

The only alternatives, in my view, can’t sustain anywhere near the current global population.

Tricky.

You clean forgot all about hydrogen.

[An Inspector Calls]

so far three dead - the first nuclear power industry fatalities in the western world.

Ahem *cough* (or was this in Russia too?)

I do remember a criticality accident a few years ago when a couple of workers blatently disregarded procedure and perfomed bucket chemistry whilst preparing fuel rods. They died of their radiation dose.

Ahem *cough*
No, it was in Japan. It was nothing to do with power generation, it was a nuclear research accident. Look it up yourself.

[RGR]

The human condition requires energy to do work.

No. Modern civilisation requires energy to do work.

The human condition (life) requires energy to do work (drawing back the string on a bow, clubbing a feral hog with a rock, etc etc). Hunter/gathers require energy to do work just as well as a modern civilization does....modern civilization simply requires more.

The Amish have the same type of energy acquisition problem that modern civilization does...sometimes the feral hog gets you before you get him, and sometimes the nuke plant goes ka-flooey.

For 99% of our history, humans did all of their own work.

For 99% of our history we substituted mythology for knowledge of the physical world in the exact same way that peakers still do today. Just because it is what we ONCE did does not mean it is what we SHOULD do again.

For another 0.9%, the only assistance we had was from domesticated animals.

Considering how well we did with the last 0.1%, sounds to me like the sky is the limit. UE, you haven't suddenly transfigured into an uncompromising optimist while I wasn't looking have you?

[biffvernon]

If Japan's wind turbines were to get a new theme song, it would be Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", and it would ring out from the hills upon which they stand triumphantly, unscathed by the the country's earthquake/tsunami double whammy, lifting their skinny, still-turning blades like antennas to heaven.

While Japan's water-dependent nuclear power plants suck and wheeze and spew radioactive steam, "there has been no wind facility damage reported by any [Japan Wind Energy Association] members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami," says association head Yoshinori Ueda.

Even the country's totally badass Kamisu offshore wind farm, with its giant 2 MW turbines with blades big as the wings on a jumbo jet, and only 186 miles from the epicenter of the largest quake ever recorded in Japan, survived without a hiccup thanks to its "battle proof design." As a result, the nation's electric companies have asked all of its wind farms to increase power production to maximum, in order to make up for the shortfalls brought about by the failure of certain other aging, non-resilient 20th-century technologies.

Unlike conventional power plants, wind turbines don't have to be situated close to sources of water (always a liability), and their simplicity means fewer potential points of failure.

Bonus: when they break down, no one has to give their life to keep them from turning one of the world's most densely populated countries into a radioactive hellscape!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-rig ... 37172.html

[An Inspector Calls]

Bonus: when they break down, no one has to give their life to keep them from turning one of the world's most densely populated countries into a radioactive hellscape!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-rig ... 37172.html

Provided you discount the lives of all the engineers and technicians lost working to erect and repair them - more than 80 since the 1980s - far more than the nuclear industry.

[biffvernon]

Here's Amory Lovins' post Fukushima essay:

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-21 ... r-disaster

A couple of people here will doubtless roll on the floor laughing at what Lovins has to say, but that in itself does not make it untrue.

And here's a crowd sourced map of current radiation levels.
http://www.rdtn.org/

I'm quite surprised at how consistent the result are, with all the sites a little to the south of Fukushima being an order of magnitude, a few hundred nano Gray per hour, greater than all the readings from much further afield.

[Bandidoz]

Bonus: when they break down, no one has to give their life to keep them from turning one of the world's most densely populated countries into a radioactive hellscape!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-rig ... 37172.html

Provided you discount the lives of all the engineers and technicians lost working to erect and repair them - more than 80 since the 1980s - far more than the nuclear industry*.

*....with so many qualifications and filters applicable to that statement that it becomes effectively meaningless

[Aurora]

The Guardian - 22/03/11

Japan nuclear firm admits missing safety checks at disaster-hit plant

Documents show operator failed to carry out mandatory checks at Fukushima Daiichi and allowed fuel rods to pile up.

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[biffvernon]

Text is in German but the pictures are worth a thousand words - map of radioactive cloud:

http://www.zamg.ac.at/aktuell/index.php ... 18GMT09:52

edit: here it is in English:

http://www.zamg.ac.at/docs/aktuell/2011 ... 0_engl.pdf

but without the movie so less fun.

[Aurora]

The Independent - 23/03/11

A Japanese radiation expert has claimed that life just one kilometre outside the restricted area surrounding the stricken nuclear plant leaking radiation is "as safe as London".

In the latest proclamation by officials trying to reassure people that they face minimal danger from the nuclear crisis a government adviser said the public had been misled by inaccurate information.

But it came amid more sinister news as it emerged that the plant had contained far more spent fuel rods than it was designed to store, while its technicians failed to carry out the necessary safety checks, according to documents from the reactor's operator.

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