tsunami

Stereodude

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Nailed the crux of the matter right there, Bill.

Mind you, just saying that something is a gamble shouldn't rule it out. Gambling with our future is something we humans often do, sometimes with good reason. But we should at least be clear on what we are doing.
Well, if you want to take that attitude every engineering decision is gambling then. In every project at some point you have to draw the line somewhere and weigh safety against cost. For example, people building a skyscraper don't design them to withstand 10.0 earthquakes and 500MPH wind gusts. Would a building designed to withstand a 10.0 earthquake and 500MPH wind gusts be safer? sure. Would it cost more? absolutely. But is it necessary? Well, there's that dreaded gamble again. :rolleyes:
 

time

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Stereodude, I owe you an apology.

With the benefit of some wine under my belt, I've reread my earlier post and can now clearly see why you thought I was gloating. In fact, it was just an accident of composition. Linking the article made me think about some of the nuclear experts that have occupied so many column inches in the media. Quite a few of them were arrogantly dismissive of people suggesting things might turn ugly. In trying to keep an open mind, I feel I allowed myself to be misled.

IMO, after a rocky first couple of weeks, the BBC is the only media outlet worth reading if you want reasonable accuracy regarding the Fukishima disaster. They seem to have woken up to the fact that everything needs to be traced to original sources and filtered for propaganda from both critics and proponents.
 

Tannin

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Well, if you want to take that attitude every engineering decision is gambling then. In every project at some point you have to draw the line somewhere and weigh safety against cost. For example, people building a skyscraper don't design them to withstand 10.0 earthquakes and 500MPH wind gusts. Would a building designed to withstand a 10.0 earthquake and 500MPH wind gusts be safer? sure. Would it cost more? absolutely. But is it necessary? Well, there's that dreaded gamble again. :rolleyes:

Why the rolling of eyes? That's EXACTLY what engineering decisions are all about - doesn't matter if you are speccing up a beam to support the roof of your outback dunny or designing a space shuttle - in the end, you have to decide where you want to draw the line between cost and safety.

The thing with nuclear is that we usually do some sort of informal calculus of results vs chances, and we humans tend to weight really catastrophic results pretty heavily. In other words, we don't generally accept a simple linear calculation. We don't believe that a 50% chance of one death is the same overall risk as a 1% chance of 50 deaths. (You can argue whether this is morally right or wrong, and I'd probably agree with you if you did, but that's not the point - the point is that people generally think that the 1% chance of 50 deaths is more important, and make decisions accordingly. This is one reason why nuclear power is so horribly expensive - it doesn't often kill people, but when it does, it kills a whole bucket load of them.

So you can argue yourself blue in the face about the number of people killed falling down ladders in coal mines every year and point out that coal kills more than nuclear, but you will never achieve a result doing that, because people don't look at risk that way.

As an example, consider the idiotic national panic that gripped the USA after 911 and still hasn't entirely died down. The reality is that more Americans die in road accidents every month than died as a result of that famous attack .... but that's a small, regular death toll (like coal-related deaths) that doesn't change much from day to day and doesn't grab the imagination. Result: America pissed billions of dollars up against the wall and started at least two wars and got thousands of its own young uniformed citizens killed .... and all to respond to an unlikely risk. If the US had spent that amount of money and effort on road safety, the net saving in lives would be many thousands. Indeed, one tenth of that money would have been plenty. (Or, if you don't care about road safety, spend the money on domestic assults and murders, or on anti-smoking measures, or on healthy diets and obesity prevention .... they could have spent one tenth of the 911 money on any one of those steady but unspectacular killers, and got a vastly, almost incomparably better result. But because people pay more attention to large, unlikely single events than they do to smaller, more common, less unlikely events, the spending decisions are irrational

Net result: if you want to get people to agree to a generally safe facility that, if it ever does go wrong (which it hardly ever does), lays waste to vast areas and kills a lot of people all in one go .... you are up against it.
 

Stereodude

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Duh. Do read up on stuff before you make a fool of yourself.
:scratch: Perhaps you should take your own advice.

All of 31 deaths are directly attributable to Chernobyl. The highest estimates of eventual indirectly attributable deaths from anyone remotely credible like the WHO and the IAE is 4000.
 

Stereodude

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Nuclear people, come back and talk to us again if and when you have figured out a way to deliver a product that is not only safe, but also affordable and practical.And stop asking for bloody subsidies!
Let's not stop there. Lets apply the same rules to green power (wind and solar).
 

flagreen

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So you can argue yourself blue in the face about the number of people killed falling down ladders in coal mines every year and point out that coal kills more than nuclear, but you will never achieve a result doing that, because people don't look at risk that way.
Don't take this mean I am taking sides in this disagreement but just as a point of interest 10,000 former coal miners died of black lung disease in the past decade alone. Granted there are many more megawats of electricity generated from coal than there are by nuclear means. Speaking of which maybe the proper way to compare the lethality of either fuel type is to compare deaths per megawatt of generated power?
 

Tannin

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No need to cite laughable figures, Stereodude. We will never know the exact number of deaths, but you are looking at one or two orders of magnitute higher than your high figure. Claiming "31" isn't just wrong, it is palpably dishonest.

(For some reason unknown to me, I took you off ignore a day or two ago. I can see that this was a mistake. I will fix that now.)
 

Tannin

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maybe the proper way to compare the lethality of either fuel type is to compare deaths per megawatt of generated power?

That's an excellent starting point. It gets hard, however, as both fuels produce delayed as well as instantly visible deaths,which are hard to count, and nuclear contamination goes on producing elevated death rates for a very, very long time indeed. So to compare fairly, you have to measure all the deaths that will come about as a result of escaping materials with half-lives measured in the tens of thousands of years. Obviously, this is difficult!

But in the end, this is a bit of a blind alley. Coal and uranium are both failed fuels, are both technologies that cause too many problems and cost too much money once you count in all the costs and take away the externalities and subsidies. We shouldn't even be talking about them. Better to forget the losers and direct our energy to the technologies which are looking like winners.

Err ... "direct our energy" ... no pun intended. :(
 

ddrueding

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I'm all for solar, wind, and geothermal, but none of them can solve the problems of today. In fact, I don't think they will be ready by the time oil runs out.

When I say "they won't be ready", what I'm really talking about is the energy storage and transmission required to use intermittent and unpredictable sources as base-line power.
 

flagreen

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I'm all for solar, wind, and geothermal, but none of them can solve the problems of today. In fact, I don't think they will be ready by the time oil runs out.

When I say "they won't be ready", what I'm really talking about is the energy storage and transmission required to use intermittent and unpredictable sources as base-line power.
I can imagine life without oil. But I cannot imagine life without electricity. Nuclear may be the only option some day.

Could it be that finding a safe way to generate nuclear power will be lees of a challenge than finding a viable alternative energy source?
 

timwhit

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I don't think nuclear will ever be the only option. At some point it might be the only viable option for base load.

I think everyone should have a look at Wikipedia's article on Cost of electricity by source. Depending on where the numbers are coming from nuclear is not the most expensive source of power.
 

Tannin

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Could it be that finding a safe way to generate nuclear power will be lees of a challenge than finding a viable alternative energy source?

Could very well be, Bill. Well, better put that another way for accuracy: it could very well be that an as-yet undeveloped safe nuclear technology will play a part in the mix - for mix of many things it will certainly be.

It's not really very sensible (mush as it's a nice armchair game) to try to pick future winners, not at a government level. The role of government is to simply make sure that there is a level playing field, with all energy alternatives paying their own costs. The simplest, fairest way to do this is a tax on greenhouse emissions (i.e., make the coal power stations pay for their own pollution, not expect other members of the world community to pick up the tab while they bank the profits), with a balancing reduction or abolition of other taxes (income tax, for example, would be a good one to abolish). But there are other methods to balance up the externalities, of course. (Trading schemes and so on.) None of them are as fair or as efficient as a simple tax.
 

Tannin

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Depending on where the numbers are coming from nuclear is not the most expensive source of power.

Did anybody ever say it was THE most expensive? It isn't - but it's in the upper quartile. It is one of the most expensive technologies around, and because it only works (with present technology) on a large to very large scale, it's even more expensive than the raw numbers make it look. And it will get even more expensive in the future because of the need to implement even more stringent safety regulations in the wake of the disasters the industry keeps on having. (Now you can argue that these are not needed, but you CAN'T argue that they are not going to happen whether they are needed or not - public opinion, rightly or wrongly, will see to that.)

The thing is, with small-scale technologies, there will always be niche markets where they are cost effective. For example, diesel generation isn't even listed on those comparison charts because the cost is off the scale. But for generating emergency backup power, a small or mid-size diesel unit is cheaper than wind or solar or coal or nuclear or anything else. Just a small niche market, but diesel owns it. Similarly, there will certainly be particular niches where pretty much all of the various technologies will rule the roost.

But nuclear (assuming current technology) can't fill niche roles. It's too big and too expensive. It pretty much has to perform large-scale baseload duties or not do anything at all.

(I am not counting military uses here, and regarding nuclear fuel cell-type power packs as a different thing. They certainly have a use - for, as examples, spacecraft and heart pacemakers. Doubtless other things too. But they are not what we usually mean when we talk about "nuclear power".)
 

Tannin

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PS: I should also add that there are some very promising newer nuclear technologies in prospect. But we have been promised cheap, safe nuclear power starting Real Soon Now for 65 years straight, so I'll actually believe these endless promises when the first plant is running on-time and on-budget. Just the same, keep your eye on thorium, plus maybe one or two others.
 

Mercutio

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It should be noted that there is a limited amount of Uranium in the world, that new sources are increasingly hard to obtain, and that obtaining them causes tremendous environmental damage on its own. Nuclear power, as much as I like and approve of it, isn't going to get us very far.
 

Stereodude

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No need to cite laughable figures, Stereodude. We will never know the exact number of deaths, but you are looking at one or two orders of magnitute higher than your high figure. Claiming "31" isn't just wrong, it is palpably dishonest.
Thanks for demonstrating that you're a pompous, arrogant, clueless, blowhard who we're better off without on this forum! Perhaps you can take another break and make it permanent this time?
 

Pradeep

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Thanks for demonstrating that you're a pompous, arrogant, clueless, blowhard who we're better off without on this forum! Perhaps you can take another break and make it permanent this time?

Congratulations. You've described yourself. That you can't admit to being wrong, and hide behind the effects of the tsunami tells wonders.

Please don't think you speak for anyone else on the forums, with the "we".

Tony, its been good to see you back, hope you hang around in your retirement. Ignore feature will do wonders. 3, 2, 1...
 

Tannin

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Good to chat with you again also, Pradeep. :) I'm not quite retired - I still enjoy coming into the office two days a week .... and I enjoy not coming into the office for the other five days! ;) Life is good.
 

time

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I re-read what he had to say, and I can't see anything "wrong" with Stereodude's points. For instance, he pretty much quoted Wikipedia with the mortality estimates; whereas Tannin pulled the 400,000 number (2 orders of magnitude) out of his ass. The radiation exposure of the wider population (far away from the plant) was miniscule.

I often don't see eye to eye with Stereodude, but he can throw up some really incisive arguments and I regard him as a key member of this forum. Similarly, despite the fact that Pradeep is a gun nut, I enjoy reading all his posts. :p

However, I would like to add that Tannin has halitosis that could fell an elephant, he dribbles when he talks and he couldn't find his arse in a room full of mirrors.
 

Pradeep

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It should be noted that there is a limited amount of Uranium in the world, that new sources are increasingly hard to obtain, and that obtaining them causes tremendous environmental damage on its own. Nuclear power, as much as I like and approve of it, isn't going to get us very far.
Assuming this is accurate:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/mining.htm

Uranium is pretty abundant, and the deposits tend to be located in "friendly" countries like Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada etc. There's certainly no concern that supplies will run out in the near term.
 

ddrueding

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Also, my favorite current reactor designs run on the depleted waste from current reactors, dealing with an existing problem at the same time.
 

Handruin

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Thanks for demonstrating that you're a pompous, arrogant, clueless, blowhard who we're better off without on this forum! Perhaps you can take another break and make it permanent this time?

Come on man. Do we really need the name calling? I'm not picking sides here and I'm certainly not saying whose data is right or wrong, but there are better ways to prove your side than to resort to low-balling.
 

LiamC

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Thanks for demonstrating that you're a pompous, arrogant, clueless, blowhard who we're better off without on this forum! Perhaps you can take another break and make it permanent this time?

What a clever post. You showed him
 

Stereodude

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What a clever post. You showed him
Hey, at least I have sources for the data I posted. He on the other hand pulled numbers straight out of his rear and then attempts to belittle my numbers. :scratch:

Him, his sidekick, and an imaginary monkey aren't going to ruin my day by putting me on ignore. Feel free to join the cabal if you don't like it.
 

Chewy509

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A small update on the reactor incident.

A recent report delivered to the Japanese gov by Tepco confirms that both reactor 2 and 3 suffered partial melt-downs within days of the 11-Mar earthquake.

Not good... But as the article (below) mentions, the President of Tepco will stand down from his position from within the company as a result of the incident.

Full article:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/...echalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=052611
 

Pradeep

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In hindsight its clear they should have vented the excess pressure to the atmosphere earlier, the hydrogen explosions that occurred basically destroyed the spent fuel storage which was located above the reactors. The people time I think mentioned that were out in the open 3km away during one of those blasts waiting for a helicopter, that tested positive for radiation, may well have inhaled deadly quantities of plutonium.

Wouldn't have helped with the meltdowns, but not having three destroyed buildings would have helped in terms of containment.
 

sechs

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Not much.

Containment that contains is far more useful. Then again, fuel pools are just that -- pools with fuel in them -- no containment.
 

jtr1962

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That's probably the dumbest, most hysteria-driven, most short-sighted decision I've ever seen in my life. Fusion isn't going to online by 2022 even by the most optimistic projections (even 2050 seems optimistic). Exactly what are they going to use to generate power? They better hope for super efficient solar cells. I can't think of anything else even remotely capable of replacing 17 nuclear power plants. Lots of luck building 17 coal plants. Or depending upon Russia to supply the fuel for natural-gas fired plants.

I hate it when people who know nothing about a technology demonize it. We should be using nuclear not only to generate power, but also to power large ships. The alternatives are far worse. Modern nuclear plants are inherently safe.
 
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