Fukushima meltdown hastens decline of nuclear power

Is nuclear fission going to make a comeback and plug the gap in our energy needs? Will nuclear fusion ever become energetically viable?

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emordnilap
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Post by emordnilap »

50% of children in class with nosebleeds simultaneously. :|

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RenewableCandy
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Post by RenewableCandy »

emordnilap wrote:Unemployed? Head over to Japan.*
Meanwhile, according to Tepco's blueprint, dismantling the Fukushima Daiichi plant will require at least 12,000 workers just through 2015. But the company and its subcontractors are already short of workers. As things stand now, there are just over 8,000 registered workers. According to government data, there are 25 percent more openings for jobs at Fukushima plant than applicants. Tomohiko Suzuki says these gaps are often filled by the homeless and the desperately unemployed – people who have nothing to lose, including those with mental disabilities.
*Sorry, that was November.


Just bung all those vacancies on Universal BodgeMatch. Sorted :twisted:
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emordnilap
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Post by emordnilap »

Radioactive water from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown is expected to reach the West Coast by next month, according to one recently publicized scientific model, which will be the 3rd anniversary of the catastrophe
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I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
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Post by RenewableCandy »

They've just let 170 people move back in to a suburb on the edge of the Exclusion Zone. Estimated exposure 20mSv/yr, but that's just from Gamma rays, these poor dudes have also got to eat, and breathe, which adds more.
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Post by emordnilap »

I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
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emordnilap
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Post by emordnilap »

Chernobyl legacy
All these years and a triple meltdown at Fukushima later, the industry and its supporters have yet to learn.
Warning: some fairly graphic images.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
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emordnilap
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Post by emordnilap »

How strange. The Japanese prime minister at the time of the Fukushima catastrophe is now in favour of renewable energy. How very odd, changing one's position just like that!

Read more here.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
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Post by biffvernon »

I'm not sure it's odd. He's just being honest about his change of mind in the light of his own experience. Foresight is great if you have it, but most of us have to make do with hindsight most of the time. Good for him, I say.
"Having faced the real accident as prime minister, and having experienced the situation which came so close to requiring me to order the evacuation of 50 million people, my view is now changed 180 degrees."
Mr Kan told Fairfax Media
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emordnilap
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Post by emordnilap »

I was being a tad facetious. No! says you.

The usual story: to get into power, you have to wear blinkers. The people who vote for you don't count, only those who put you in and keep you in power.

So many 'high-ranking' people - so often, so repeatedly - justify their past disregard for the 99% of society using 'hindsight'.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
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Post by RenewableCandy »

"When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do sir?" as the man once said!
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emordnilap
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Post by emordnilap »

RenewableCandy wrote:"When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do sir?" as the man once said!
Exactly. The 'fact' that changed was him losing power.
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Post by RenewableCandy »

Aussie journos' dispatches from the shadows
http://www.news.com.au/technology/envir ... 7096107865
ONCE pristine rice paddies overgrown into forests. Wild animals roaming the streets of eerie towns with an uncertain future.

That’s the scene described by Australian teacher Jessica Hellamy who recently had the chance to see inside the 20km exclusion zone created after the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai’ichi powerplant in 2011.

“Time had stopped...
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Post by Little John »

I want someone from the pro-wind-power camp on here (I am neither pro nor anti) to provide solid numbers showing the total EROEI of a typical wind turbine over the entire course of its life including mining and processing of raw material, production, transportation, erection, maintenance decommissioning and recycling. From everything I have read, my impression is that the EROEI is quite possibly negative and the only thing that gives the illusion of a positive EROEI is the hydrocarbon inputs at the mining, processing, production and erection stage that are then subsequently removed from typical calculations of the EROEI of such devices. Given the above, I have looked everywhere for a comprehensive EROEI calculation that does take into account this otherwise hidden hydrocarbon input, but can't find one anywhere. That being said, I am more than happy to read one if someone here can provide a link.
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Post by kenneal - lagger »

There's a blog here from a fellow CAT MSc student (now Phd student at UCL), Jamie Bull, who Candy, I and a couple of other people on this forum studied with. He says that the published EROEIs vary a lot but you can read it and the references, Steve, and see what you can find.

An image here but I'm not sure where it came from.
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Post by biffvernon »

There's a notice on the gate of the Ecotricity windfarm near us that says that the embodied energy of the turbines is returned in under six months of operation. Even if they have omitted some things from the calculation, the EROEI, is clearly way into the positive. If the turbine lasts 25 years that's a 50:1 ratio!
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