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[BlueSweatshirt]

jeeze. this really just sunk in for me today. heard there was a big earthquake and a nuclear cooling problem situation but didn't think about it, shoved it out of my mind, didn't think about it.
Not really anything you can say about it that doesn't make you feel like shit.

I feel like a jerk saying this, but the impending meltdowns at Fukushima happened at a surprisingly opportune time-- Where both China and the US were both about to launch major Nuclear plant installment campaigns, and both are now reconsidering their plans.

I'm happy about that, but the devastation in Japan is much more catastrophous to me. Knowing people there is one thing, but having family missing is a complete other paradigm which horrifies me to think about.

The shoddy news coverage has been bugging me since Friday. Right now I'm only trusting the (exact) words of Japanese news outlets, because I'd imagine they would be the least likely to sensationalize and accentuate the situation.

To share, one twitter post has brought me from some of my disparity:
http://twitter.com/#!/DaveEwing/status/46115483853930496

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'm not really happy about that, because note a few things:

in my understanding, the plants that have problems are all very old plants, from the 60s and 70s. that includes the russian and US ones as well: all were 'old style' plants. plants made in the new style, with much higher safety standards, never had these problems, and in fact many of them *were* hit by the tsunami and had no problems, even with their power going out. there are a lot of nuclear plants in japan, and only the older ones had problems, the new ones survived the crisis easily. the plants that the us and china want to build are new style ones, not old style ones (obviously) and would not have this problem.

in japan, several people retired in objection to these plants even being built without adequate protections in place. to repeat: there are people who objected so strongly to these plants and warned that this would happen that they retired in protest. the government of japan ignored them. those experts had no problem with the other plants, which had higher safety standards: namely in one type of plant, if the power goes out, you have problems (which is exactly what happened here), in the other type of plant, if the power goes out, there are no problems.

that said there are still problems with waste disposal and stuff like that, but the chance of a melt-down in modern plants is very low to none

[Hamletz]

Also personally I think it's slightly stupid to donate money to Japan atm, especially if your only goal is to help the current rescue efforts. Japan is one of the richest most industrialized countries in the world and I'm pretty sure the problem right now isn't money, but logistics. If you feel bad about the people in Japan, think of the nearly 5,000 people who die of AIDS every day, or the almost 16,000 children who die from starvation or other hunger-related causes. The same money you're willing to send to Japan could do a lot more good helping those suffering from extreme poverty.

I agree, donating money to Japan is morally reprehensible because in doing so you are literally murdering African children.

[Μarkham]

Uh... his argument was debated and resolved pages ago.

[Destral]

my japanese is probably way out of practice because when i listened to shigi's song on youtube the only (non-simple/grammatical) word i recognized was 'hoshi' (star)

I actually understood more than I thought I would. Maybe I'm not as rusty as I thought I was :D

A beautiful song, sums things up very well.

[Widget]

Re:Paul - I think people need to hear and remember that. While there are a few concerns with nuclear power (primarily the waste) this reactionary rethink that's running around the world has little to do with real risks. It's especially absurd for seismically stable countries (like the UK, for example) to be considering a rethink; what's happening in Japan is a tragedy but it hasn't brought anything new to the debate.

[Dacke]

All nuclear power plants have always been promoted as completely safe by the lobby. It was definitely not true in the past. It may be true now. Given that all kinds of freaky natural accidents and outside attacks have been taken into account. And that they have considered the fact that during both constructions and maintenance (40-50+ years) corners will be cut. It happened in Japan and it has happened here in Sweden.

Also, there is no solution for storing the waste material (no, we can't send it to space). The mining of uranium has big, destructive problems. And it is a deletable source of energy, which will only postpone the current energy problems, making things even worse in the process (even more energy be needed in the future and lots of waste will be created in the process).

[Movius]

Nuclear power needs a few more meltdowns to catch up to the awesome killing power per Terawatt hour of solar.

[slembcke]

From everything I've ever heard Coal is far more damaging to the environment that nuclear power. Acid rain, greenhouse emmisions, radioactive ash (it's true). I can't really comment about if uranium or coal mining is more destructive, but coal mining is also often done by strip mining. While you could argue that there are no Chernobyls or Three Mile Islands of coal plants to stick in peoples' minds, but that doesn't actually mean that coal plants are better.

Both of them are non-renewable power sources that we really need to be waning ourselves off of, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. Society is using more and more energy, not less. I don't think there are any renewable sources available yet that can keep up are there?

[gimymblert]

Nuclear power is not that clean, it's less common place but even with modern reactor you have to deal with leaks and storing waste. If the plant are safe, we still have a slow poisoning of the environment, a more pernicious one. When I lived in charleroi, the most lovely place in europe, we had to deal with a small leak from the nearby nuclear plant and eating local vegetable was forbidden, considering the other extra poisonous industry nearby never had such a high level of alert during my day there, I can't really say.

[Destral]

Both of them are non-renewable power sources that we really need to be waning ourselves off of, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. Society is using more and more energy, not less. I don't think there are any renewable sources available yet that can keep up are there?

This is why people should researching/investing in solar. Sure, you can only have it while the sun is out, but build a global network of powerplants all across the globe and there will always, at all times of the day, no matter where you are, be a power plant generating power.

That or build an artificial solar panel ring around earth and use that as the solar collector, then beam it all down via wifi or something.

[Dacke]

The reasonable solution is to not use any of the incredibly bad power sources like coal, uranium and oil. Instead we should use renewable sources and just accept the cost. If it means energy costs will go up, we simply have to cut down on our use of energy. The usage is somewhat self-regulating, based on availability.

I'm inclined to agree with Peevish:

a polluting, non-renewable system is never better than an expensive-but-clean system

[Theophilus]

my japanese is probably way out of practice because when i listened to shigi's song on youtube the only (non-simple/grammatical) word i recognized was 'hoshi' (star)

I only recognize words that are in the Dragon Ball Z theme song.

[slembcke]

The reasonable solution is to not use any of the incredibly bad power sources like coal, uranium and oil. Instead we should use renewable sources and just accept the cost. If it means energy costs will go up, we simply have to cut down on our use of energy. The usage is somewhat self-regulating, based on availability.

I'm inclined to agree with Peevish:

a polluting, non-renewable system is never better than an expensive-but-clean system

I also agree, but I'm saying that the reality is that it's never going to happen because people as a whole are never going to want to cut back on their energy usage. Especially not the "hidden costs" of energy. While your monthly energy bill is tiny compared to rent, car or house payments, higher energy costs basically mean everything is more expensive. While consumers might be willing to pay more on their relatively small energy bills, manufacturers and such will probably not risk increasing their prices so they can afford clean energy too.

Also, as for the solar argument. There is a reason why we build power plants near the places where the power will be used. It's not that the wires are so expensive to transmit the electricity, but that the farther you send it the more of it is wasted by the resistance of the wire. It's simply not viable to transmit electricity from the other side of the planet on a wire unless we suddenly make room temperature superconductors.

[Dacke]

Indeed. What should be done is not always the same as what can be practically implemented. But I think it is dangerous to assume that the masses will never accept such change. I think that if more people stood up for what is right and what should be done (only renewable energy, in this case) the masses would follow. It's a matter of education and making people understand. After all, people have accepted extreme measures during other crisis, for example during WWII.

[gimymblert]

Wep but that mean you need a crisis first, not a slow crisis but a very tangible one.

[Tumetsu]

According to Finnish science magazine "Tiede" soot kills 1 450 000 humans in year, small particles kill 500 000, coal power emissions 200 000 (most of it belongs into former figure). Tsernobyl kills about 500. And when one adds up to this mining and global warming I think it is pretty clear that nuclear energy is better solution right now. Yes, radioactive waste is bad but it won't further the global warming so fast as coal and oil. And if we can get fusion up or any other efficient energy source, we could make radioactive waste less dangerous by bombing it with neutrons or protons (I don't remember the name or exact principle of the method).

I think we either must have fusion or solar energy. Too bad that fusion has only about 1 billion of research budget and even building of test reactor get barely through vote since some greens objectted it because it is "nuclear energy" 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

those who think nuclear waste is that big of a problem should read this (pay particular attention to the numbers involved):

http://muller.lbl.gov/TRessays/26-Witch-of-Yucca-Mountain.htm

There is an almost primal fear of radioactivity. It may be a new manifestation of an old Jungian archetype: the fear of unseen danger, perhaps originally a predator or enemy lurking in ambush. Other incarnations include the fear of witches, germs, communists, and monsters under our beds. But radioactivity is worse. Not only is the threat hidden, but so is the attack. Your genes are invisibly mutated, showing no sign of the assault until a decade or two later when the damage manifests itself in a growing cancer.
 
I put radioactivity on this witch list in an effort to make sense of the furor over nuclear waste storage at the Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada. When I work out the numbers, I find the dangers of storing our waste there to be small compared to the dangers of not doing so, and significantly smaller than many other dangers we ignore. And yet a contentious debate continues. More research is demanded, and yet every bit of additional research seems to raise new questions that exacerbate the public's fear and distrust.
 
I've discussed Yucca Mountain with scientists, politicians, and many concerned citizens. The politicians believe it to be a scientific issue, and the scientists think it is a political one. Both are in favor of more research -- scientists because that is what they do, and politicians because they think the research will answer the key questions. But I don't think it will.
 
Let me review some pertinent facts. The underground tunnels at Yucca Mountain are designed to hold 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. The most dangerous part of this consists of "fission fragments" such as strontium-90, the unstable nucleius created when the uranium nucleus splits. Because this isotope has a shorter half-life than uranium, the waste is about a thousand times more radioactive than the original ore. It takes 10,000 years for the waste (not including plutonium, which is also produced in the reactor, and which I'll discuss later) to decay back to the radioactive level of the mined uranium. Based largely on this number, people have searched for a site that will remain secure for 10,000 years. After that, we are better off than if we left the uranium in the ground, so 10,000 years of safety is clearly good enough.
 
How can we plan to keep Yucca Mountain secure for this long? What will the world be like 10,000 years from now? Think backwards in order to appreciate the time involved: ten thousand years ago humans had just discovered agriculture, and writing wouldn't be invented for another 5,000 years. Can we possibly see 10,000 years into the future? No. It is ridiculous to think we could. So nuclear waste storage is obviously unacceptable. Right?
 
Of course, calling storage unacceptable is itself an unacceptable answer. We have the waste and we have to do something with it. But the problem isn't really as hard as I just portrayed it. We don't need absolute security for 10,000 years. A more reasonable goal is to reduce the risk of leakage to 0.1 percent, i.e. to one chance in a thousand. Since the radioactivity is only 1,000 times worse than that of the uranium we removed from the ground, that means that the net risk (probability times danger) is 1,000 x 0.001 = 1, that is, basically the same as the risk if we hadn't mined the uranium in the first place. (I am assuming the unproven "linear hypothesis" that total cancer risk is independent of individual doses or dose rate, but my argument won't depend strongly on its validity.)
 
Moreover, we don't need this 0.1 percent level of security for the full 10,000 years. After 300 years, the fission fragment radioactivity will have decreased by a factor of 10; it will only be 100 times as great as the mined uranium. So by then, we should rationally require only a 1 percent risk that all of the waste leaks out. That's a lot easier than guaranteeing absolute containment for 10,000 years. Moreover, this calculation assumes 100 percent of the waste escapes. For leakage of 1 percent of the waste, we can accept a 100 percent probability. The storage problem is beginning to seem tractable.
 
But the unobtainable and unnecessary criterion of absolute security dominates the public discussion. The Department of Energy continues to search Yucca Mountain for unknown earthquake faults, and many people assume that the acceptability of the facility depends on the absence of any such faults. Find a new fault—rule Yucca Mountain out. But the issue should not be whether there will be an earthquake in the next 10,000 years, but whether there will be a sufficiently large earthquake in the next 300 years to cause 10 percent of the waste to escape its glass capsules and reach ground water with greater than 1 percent probability. Absolute security is too extreme a goal, since even the original uranium in the ground didn't provide it.
 
But why compare the danger of waste storage only to the danger of the uranium originally mined? Why not compare it to the larger danger of the uranium left in the ground? Colorado, where much of the uranium is obtained, is a geologically active region, full of faults and fissures and mountains rising out of the prairie, and there are about a billion tons of uranium in its surface rock. (This number is based on the fact that granite typically contains 4 parts per million of uranium. I take the area of the Colorado Rockies to be about 300 by 400 kilometers, and consider only rock from the surface to 1,000 meters depth.) The radioactivity in this uranium is 20 times greater than the legal limit for Yucca Mountain, and will take more than 13 billion years—not just a few hundred—for the radioactivity to drop by a factor of ten. Yet water that runs through, around, and over this radioactive rock is the source of the Colorado River, and is used for drinking water in much of the west, including Los Angeles and San Diego. And unlike the glass pellets that store the waste in Yucca Mountain, most of the uranium in the Colorado ground is water-soluble. Here is the absurd-sounding conclusion: if the Yucca Mountain facility was at full capacity and all the waste leaked out of its glass containment immediately and managed to reach ground water, the danger would still be 20 times less than that currently posed by natural uranium leaching into the Colorado River.
 
I don't mean to imply waste from Yucca Mountain is not dangerous. The Colorado River example only illustrates that when we worry about mysterious and unfamiliar dangers, we sometimes lose perspective. Every way I do the calculation, I reach the same conclusion: waste leakage from Yucca Mountain is not a great danger. Put the waste in glass pellets in a reasonably stable geologic formation, and start worrying about real threats—such as the dangers of continued burning of fossil fuels.
 
A related issue is the risk of mishaps and attacks while transporting nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain site. The present plans call for the waste to be carried in thick reinforced concrete cylinders that can survive high-speed crashes without leaking. In fact, it would be very hard for a terrorist to open the containers, or use the waste in radiological weapons. The smart terrorist is more likely to hijack a tanker truck full of gasoline, chlorine, or some other common toxic material and then blow it up in a city.
 
So why are we worrying about transporting nuclear waste? The answer is ironic: we have gone to such lengths to assure the safety of the transport that the public thinks the danger is even greater. Images on evening newscasts of concrete containers being dropped from five-story buildings, smashing into the ground and bouncing undamaged, do not reassure the public. This is a consequence of the "where there's smoke there's fire paradox" of public safety. Raise the standards, increase the safety, do more research, study the problem in greater depth, and in the process you will improve safety and frighten the public. After all, would scientists work so hard if the threat weren't real?
 
Well-meaning scientists sometimes try to quench the furor by proposing advanced technological alternatives to Yucca Mountain storage, such as rocketing the waste into the sun, or burying it in a tectonic subducting zone at sea, where a continental plate will slowly carry it into the deep Earth. Such exotic solutions strongly suggest that the problem is truly intractable, and they only further exacerbate the public fear.
 
Let me return now to the danger of the plutonium in the waste. Plutonium is not a fission fragment; it is produced in the reactor when uranium absorbs neutrons. But unlike the fission fragments, plutonium doesn't go away by a factor of 10 in 300 years; its half-life is 24,000 years. Not only that, but many people think plutonium is the most dangerous material known to man.
 
Plutonium is certainly dangerous if you make nuclear weapons out of it. If turned into an aerosol and inhaled, it is more toxic than anthrax—and that's very toxic. But when ingested (e.g. from ground water) it isn't. According to the linear hypothesis, when consumed by a group of people, we expect about one extra cancer for each half-gram of plutonium swallowed. (Click here for a good reference.) That is bad, but not a record-setter. Botulism toxin (found in poorly prepared mayonnaise) is a thousand times worse. The horrendous danger of ingested plutonium is an urban legend—believed to be true by many people, yet false. Moreover, I think it a mistake to bury the plutonium with the waste. It is a good fuel for reactors, as valuable as uranium. I sense that original reason for burying it (rather than extracting and using it) was to keep the public from worrying about it, but that approach has backfired.
 
By any reasonable measure I can find, the Yucca Mountain facility is plenty safe enough. It is far safer to put the waste there than to leave it on site at the nuclear plants where it was made and is currently stored. We should start moving it to Yucca Mountain as soon as possible. Research should continue, because more knowledge is good, but the hope that it will reassure the public is forlorn. Further studies are no more likely to reduce public concern now than scientific research would have calmed the fears of the people of Salem in 1692.

[gimymblert]

That article miss the point: CO² is less harmful (we produce it) and yet we need to put it on brake. It's not about the relative dangerousness.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

it is about relative dangerousness, and CO2 is only dangerous because of the large amounts produced. think of it like this:

(danger of a substance per gram) * (number of grams produced)

that equation comes out much more dangerous for coal and oil than for nuclear, it's just that spectacular things like this make it seem more dangerous than it is

as an analogy, you're far more likely to die in a car than in a plane. yet plane crashes are the ones that are televised so far more people fear flying by plane than fear driving in a car, even though driving in a car is about 100x more dangerous than flying in a plane.

similarly, people don't notice all the little deaths from coal each year, they only notice spectacular deaths from nuclear accidents once every 20 years, but if you add them up far more people die from coal plants / coal mining than nuclear plants / uranium mining (by many orders of magnitude)