I’ve been hesitant to post on what’s going on at the Fukushima nuclear plants. But, given the interest and the woefully uninformed reportage from the Australian online media (the Beeb and the NYT, to name two, have done a lot better job) I’ll try to explain some of the key points as best I understand them, and try to leave the broader editorializing out of it where possible.
I probably have made some mistakes – I’m not a nuclear engineer. But I’ve been reading stuff by nuclear engineers, which is more than most of the people writing about this stuff…
The affected plants
As the BBC’s map shows there are two nuclear power plant complexes that have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami – called Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini. The most seriously affected is the Daiichi complex, but there are problems with the cooling with three of the reactors at Daini as well.
Within the Daiichi complex, there are a total of six reactors. Three were operating at the time of the quake. The others were shutdown for inspection and maintenance.
When the quake hit
In all of the affected reactors, a shutdown was conducted in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, as explained in this New York Times article, for instance.
You can think of a nuclear chain reaction as a room full of old-style mousetraps, with ping-pong balls sitting on the trap. When a ping-pong ball hits a mousetrap, it releases another ping-pong ball into the air, which can set off additional mousetraps. In normal operation, the operators keep things so that (on average), each released ping-pong ball triggers one new mousetrap, keeping the rate of the reaction constant.
When a shutdown occurs, control rods are inserted into the reactor core to stop the chain reaction by absorbing the “ping-pong balls”. It’s, roughly, the equivalent of inserting a bunch of rods with superglue on them into your ping-pong ball chamber.
In every case, this worked fine. The reactors were all successfully stopped.
The decay heat problem
Reactor’s stopped, right? Everyone can go get the mops and start cleaning up, right? Unfortunately, no.
Even though the chain reaction is stopped, the fuel rods in a nuclear reactor don’t stop emitting heat and radiation immediately.
Fuel rods, after they’ve been in a nuclear reactor for a while, are made up of not only uranium, but “fission products” – that is, artificially-produced elements left over from the chain reaction and the associated radiation flying around. These, spontaneously, convert themselves into more stable elements, in the process releasing heat and radiation. This process cannot be stopped; all that you can do is wait it out. Initially, the resulting “decay heat” is about ~10% of the output heat from the reactor in normal operation. If the fuel rods are not kept cool with water, the decay heat is more than enough to melt them.
At a minimum, if the fuel rods melt, the reactor is ruined, and there’s the risk of worse happening. So, to prevent this, cooling systems continually supply cooling wate to the core, even after a shutdown.
AC power unavailable, and the backup generators fail
Unsurprisingly, the electrical grid was knocked out after the tsunami. However, all nuclear plants are required to have at least two backup generators to supply power to the cooling system pumps.
However, for Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1, both backup generators failed within an hour of the intiial incident. It’s not clear why this happened, but the tsunami is the most likely culprit.
Water level drops, pressure builds and is vented
With nothing pumping in more coolant, the decay heat in the fuel rods boiled away some of the water, causing the pressure in the coolant circulating system to rise. Pressure release valves automatically released this steam into the “containment” – the steel and concrete casing that surrounds virtually all western power reactors. Of course, this just transfers the problem elsewhere, particularly as the Daiichi Unit 1 is an old reactor with a small containment unit. So the reactor operators opened valves in the containment, releasing some of the steam and other gas into the atmosphere. Inevitably, this gas was somewhat radioactive.
Hydrogen explosion takes out external building shell
Then there was the explosion of the reactor building, which you’ve all presumably seen. According to the BBC’s report of comments from somebody from the Japanese PM’s press room, this was:
Blast was caused by accumulated hydrogen combined with oxygen in the space between container and outer structure. No damage to container.”
So what’s hydrogen and oxygen doing in a nuclear power plant?
Oxygen is in the air, of course. The hydrogen comes from a reaction between the “cladding” of the overheated fuel rods, made of something called zirconium, and steam (water – hydrogen and oxygen…). As this article explains.
It was vented, along with the steam, outside the containment, but was trapped in the outer building shell. Something set it off. Bang.
But the building blew up. How can the “containment” have survived”?
In this nuclear plant, the outer building shell is just an ordinary building. The containment is a steel and concrete shell inside. It’s holding – and we can be fairly sure of that, because the radiation levels outside the plant dropped in the hours after the explosion. The radiation came from venting the steam.
Meltdown, or at least exposed fuel
However, on the downside, the fuel rods in Unit 1 are at a minimum damaged, and may have partly melted.
How do we know this?
Because radioactive cesium was detected (see here for instance). The fuel rods in this nuclear reactor are encased in stuff that stops the water directly touching the uranium and other assorted radioactive guff. If cesium has got outside the reactor through venting, the vented steam must have touched the fuel itself.
Seawater and boric acid
Tepco is now pumping “seawater and boric acid” into the core of Unit 1. The boric acid is a “reactor poison” – it’s like the superglue-coated rods mentioned earlier in the post. Why they are adding the boric acid to the water is not clear, given that the reactor had already been stopped. It’s probably just an additional precaution to ensure that changing the state of the reactor can’t make things worse.
And now unit 3…
The latest substantive development is that Unit 3′s core cooling systems have also stopped working. Like with Unit 1, to reduce pressure in the containment, they have released steam (again, with radioactive stuff in it) into the atmosphere, and some of the fuel rods are exposed to the air, hence the likelihood of core damage, and maybe another partial meltdown like in unit 1. They’re now pumping seawater and boric acid into it too.
Radiation exposure
While several plant workers were injured in the explosion, one has been taken to hospital after radiation exposure., as reported here. Their exposure was about 100 mSv. If that’s accurate, he or she will be fine; the threshold for radiation sickness is about ten times that.
However, the New York Times is reporting Japanese news media as saying three plant workers are “suffering from full-on radiation sickness”. I haven’t seen this confirmed elsewhere – the BBC has no mention of it, and nor have other English-language media.
NISA, the Japanese nuclear safety agency, has confirmed that at least 160 people have been exposed to some level of radiation while waiting to be evacuated. However, again, the question is “how much”?
The highest reading from outside the plant I’ve seen reoprted is 1204 microsieverts per hour. That’s 0.001204 sieverts per hour – and, remember, you need about 1 sievert before radiation sickness becomes a problem. At those levels, you could spend a week in the area and not accumulate a dangerous radiation dose. As such, it’s pretty unlikely that any of those people will have any adverse health consequences.
Cancer? At those levels, it doesn’t add significantly to one’s lifetime radiation exposure, and as such the additional cancer risks are (unless the radiation exposure was much higher than anything measured by the detectors near the plant) minimum.
So what now?
For the reactor managers, the goal is simple – get water into Unit 3, and keep water in Unit 1, and the other shut down reactors, for the next few days until the fuel cools down.
The good news is that they have already cooled down a lot, and will cool down more as the hours pass.
Can Australia help?
I don’t know specifically who or what Kevin Rudd had in mind, but Australia’s nuclear science and technology community is small, and we don’t operate power reactors of the type under threat in Japan. It’s difficult to see what experts from Australia could offer that the Japanese don’t already have.
We can of course help with the earthquake relief. You know, the one that has been confirmed to have killed thousands, possibly over 10,000…must…stop…editorializing…
Is the US at risk?
Pretty damned unlikely.
Is Australia at risk?
Even less likely. Look at a map of global prevailing winds.
Useful sources of info:
Aside from the better mainstream media outlets, the twitter feed of arclight is exceptionally useful, and provided pointers to much of this information. Yes, he works in the industry. No, he doesn’t appear to be shilling (but then, I’m biased, aren’t I?)
If you’ve got additional information would wish to correct/dispute the facts or my interpretation of the immediate events, please do so, but perhaps we can leave the broader questions on nuclear power until later?
Elsewhere: Barry Brook’s explanation.
By the way, if you read this analysis by STRATFOR, reprinted by The Age, stop panicking. It’s twelve hours old, and if the containment had failed as a result of the explosion, we’d know about it by now.
excellent article Robert, thanks for the clarity of explanation.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/#comment-114345
For those interested in an acessible description of events at the Fukushima complex.
It now seems that one person has died at the plant — a worker on a crane, who AIUI, fell from the crane (ready to stand corrected on this).
Boric acid would make sense as a way of dealing with the effects of a meltdown. If fuel rods have melted, even a bit, then there’s (liquid!) fuel (pooling?!) in the reactor. That fuel would no longer be under the control of the control rods, and a chain reaction may still be going on in it.
PS There’s a nice cut away diagram of the BWR plant at th link above
Nice summary. However here is a better one:-
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/
The bulk of the radiation vented was short lived. It would be non radioactive within seconds. Compare this with our coal fire power stations that 24×7 pour out radioactive gas containing uranium and thorium that occurs naturally in coal.
Even if there had been a meltdown at Fukushima the consequences to the general public would have been essentially zero. Except for the hassle of the mass evacuations that were taken as a precaution. As the linked article states the biggest problem is that there will now be a power shortage.
This plant was an old design (built 1971) due to be decommissioned this year. Probably nobody has or will die as a result of this. The effect the tsunami had on other nuclear plants, such as the oil refinery that exploded, is much more severe.
Mean while the more modern nuclear reactors had no significant problems. Even Onagawa which was closer to the epicentre.
The nuclear industry just demonstrated how incredibly safe it is. Especially the more modern designs. Compare this with other industrial plants like oil refineries which exploded causing large numbers of fatalities.
I echo Tyro Rex@2. You make it all make sense. Superb. Utterly superb.
It would be churlish to point out that your NYT link actually refers to the BBC…
Yes, we should all pause to think about just exactly how hairy it would be to be working in that joint right now. The people working there must be well aware that they’re going to die quite horribly if they don’t get it right, and have a large responsibility not to run away.
Not a job I’d like to be doing.
Oops. Fran beat me to the punch.
If instead you had been working at one of the oil refineries that exploded there is a good chance that you would be dead now. Given a choice between an oil refinery job and a nuclear plant job I’d take the latter. Much safer.
Any estimates on how much this is going to cost to clean up these dangerously poisonous radioactive slagheaps?
Also, were these nuclear reactors insured? I assume that the destroyed oil refineries were.
terjep, I meant right now… not during all the boring days of watching the plant tick over safely…
It’s okay Katz, the government insured them … TerjeP supports that kind of thing.
Translation: the Japanese government will attempt to sell bonds to fund the monstrous costs of the clean-up, thus adding to the surrealistically huge Japanese public debt.
Katz: expensive.
But the earthquake/tsunami damage is so large, my guess is the reactor cleanup/decommissioning will be a relatively small part of the cost.
As water is a moderator, I suppose theoretically adding seawater without boron could make the reactor go critical, if the damage to the core put the fuel into some pathological configuration.
Given that Fukushima 1 was due to be decommissioned anyway, it’s probably not going to be a lot of difference. At this stage it seems releases of actinides have been quite minor and may not be detectable much beyond the plant perimeter. All of them are short-lived though so the Chernobyl comparison is not apt.
I imagine inhouse insurance will take care of this.
It does seem clear though that future designs will need to focus on the integrity of “Defence in Depth” — especially ECCS systems. And did they really bring a back up generator that they couldn’t plug in because they had the wrong plugs? If so, that is pretty amateurish.
Still, a challenge like this can be the springboard for a better system. The plant’s specs designed for an 8.2 magnitude quake and it survived one 7 times as large. Impressive.
Tom Davies said:
No it couldn’t. The reactor has been shut down and cannot be restarted. The problem with seawater is that salts absorb actinides more readily than the distilled water normally used so the resulting steam, if it had to be vented, would be more radioactive.
A side risk though, is that if the reactor was due to be decommissioned in a year some bright spark might think of bringing online the new ones earlier (we are 25% down on power here! In the industrial heartland, so it’s pretty important). The temptation to avoid some important safety checks (or installation of safety equipment) in the rush to commission the new reactor early could be very great.
Fran Barlow:
As an engineering exercise, perhaps. From a public policy perspective, when you include the whole process including the design decision to assume 8.2, barely adequate assuming the best outcomes from now on.
Paul of Albury said:
It would be surprising indeed if replacement plants were not engineered for magnitude 9 quakes and complete isolation of the power system for ECCS from interference by water.
Given that there are +10,000 dead from the Tsunami and the apparent current death toll from the Reactor events are less than 10 so far and is unlikey to be anywhere near what the Tsunami has done – is the media coverage balanced?
I don’t think it is and that is due to the fear mongering of the anti-nuclear campaigns.
I amnot saying it is nothing and isn’t serious. It is obviously a bad situation with significant environmental and health isues to consider. If there hadn’t been as tsunami maybe the hype would have been worthwhile.
Congratulations to Robert Merkel for such a well balanced post.
Very good article. Thank you for expressing a considered perspective in the midst of so much internet noise. I was the lead startup engineer on one of the last nuclear power plant startups in the U.S. (RiverBend Unit 1 – a GE BWR design) and supervised the ECCS testing. At least 50 times over 6 months we tested the ECCS systems response to a Loss of Power/Loss of Cooling design basis accident.
There are numerous systems that each must work flawlessly for a perfect response. The two emergency DG rely on battery power to start. Prior to starting the existing loads must be “shed” – also relying on DC power to open the breakers. After starting, the ECCS pumps and ventilation systems will “sequence” on and the injection valves will open (relying on compressed air, DC solenoids and or DC motor operators)and primary containment ventilation systems re-align.
We never had everything work “perfectly” from a timing basis, yet, due to the massive redundancy we always had sufficient capacity to cool the reactor (assuming a design basis rupture of piping above the core). At a structural standpoint the DG were housed, independent of each other, in concrete bunkers designed to withstand 200 mph winds.
In short, the design of the later-generation plants can clearly withstand these natural disasters and are tested periodically to verify it. Ideally, passive cooling systems would be preferable but the U.S. abandoned those designs when we turned our back on nuclear plants after TMI.
From what I can ascertain from all of the media noise, the operators at Fukushima are doing a tremendous job. As a former nuke I couldn’t be more proud.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/growing-fear-of-nuclear-disaster/story-e6frea6u-1226020759242
At every non-soviet cold war era nuclear power plant the operators know what the “ultimate heat sink” is. In this case the ultimate heat sink is the Pacific Ocean. The fact that the operators have to use seawater to remove decay heat is unsettling but a far cry from a “Chernobyl-like” situation. I am not a former head of the NRC nor have I ever met Peter Bradford but I seriously doubt that a respected former member of the industry watchdog would ever, in context, equate what is currently happening to Chernobyl and risk exacerbating the situation.
I love the internet as much as the next guy but really – just because you read it on the internet …
The philosophy of reactor safety states that the first line of defense is design. Chernobyl was a horrible design. The arrogance of Russian engineering at the time meant discouraged dissent. The next line of defense is the well trained operator. The Russian operators responsible for the initial accident were terrified of their superiors.
The next layers of defense have been noted: fuel pellet ceramic coating, fuel rod,fuel plate cladding, pressure vessel, primary containment with annulus and cooling systems, secondary containment. And last, not least, the well trained operator – recognizing they are always the last line of defense.
Anyone interested in reading about another exceptional response to a near disaster could look at: http://www.ccnr.org/browns_ferry.html . After that incident significant changes and retrofits were required making plants even safer by separating the physical placement of safety systems, their power supplies and all associated wiring and instrumentation.
Clearly the Japanese operators are well trained. And again – deserve praise and gratitude. As for the design, as a former GE employee I believe the BWR is magnitudes of order safer than the graphite moderated Chernobyl design.
I’ll second that — but just to mention, it wasn’t “well balanced”. It was factual. Remember facts? We read them so rarely, it’s hard to remember what they look like.
When an article that merely states facts receives an accolade of being “well balanced”, well that tells you something about the quality of the media diet we’re being subjected to, no?
Lotsa folks here doing superb impersonations of The Black Knight.
Time to give up your day jobs!
The big difference between this and Chenobyl is that everyone knows what is happening therefore there’s no risk of people wasting time trying to cover it up. It also seems that the reactors old as they are seem to be containing the situation rather better than the Soviet ones.
I think people are much more afraid of radiation poisoning than traditional things like fire because you can’t see it. But as was said earlier in the thread with the benefit of hindsight it would be better to have been working at the reactor than one of the more traditional fossil fuel depots.
More denialism.
Nuclear apologists are fixating on the small number of deaths so far associated with these meltdowns.
If one or more of these reactors is breached, the resulting fallout would render a large part of the fertile plains of Honshu uninhabitable for hundreds of years.
Take a look at a map of Japan. Such an accident would essentially cut Honshu in half. It would be an ecological, economic, social and cultural catastrophe of unprecedented gravity.
The key word is if though Katz. I know I’m crossing all my fingers and toes hoping everything will be OK. Are any of those reactors near the volcano that’s just restarted?
Whoopsie fuck. There’s been an explosion (explosions?) and radioactivity has been released to the atmosphere, but there’s nothing to be alarmed about, honest. Nukuler power is really very safe, honest!
Thank heavens for your magic fingers and toes, tssk. They’re bound to do the trick.
Good article and Fran is right that at least 1 reactor at Fukushima is junk now. Though as she says it was about to be decommissioned anyway. The age of the reactor may have contributed to its problems. Odds are it will be gotten under control, but the subsequent decommissioning will be a very difficult job.
This is the fundamental problem with both the boiling water and pressurised water reactor design. You have to keep the water circulating. They all have backup systems and, naturally, the more modern the reactor the better those systems are.
Personally I’ve never liked other of these designs and have always preferred the British advanced gas cooled reactors (AGR).
The reason is that the AGR design is a passive safety system. If the power goes off the natural circulation of the CO2 gas in the reactor will keep it cool. In other words if something goes wrong, then the best thing to do is nothing, as it will take care of itself. A friend of mine worked this out and it was later tested during a planned shutdown at Hunterston.
Plus, of course, there is no explosion risk, even if the core overheats (no hydrogen). To be fair the latest PWR and BW designs are vastly better than the 1st and second generation ones.
The issue that no one is talking about is the longer term impact on Japan’s electricity supply. Quite a few reactors around the country have been shut down and most be be able to be restarted. But there may be some other reactors that could be out of commission for some time (and perhaps even junked in a worst case scenario). Undoubtedly there will also be damage to some conventional power stations. I can’t find any reports, but if some nukes are damaged then some of the much less safely built conventionals must have taken damage. So they could be on ‘short rations’ for a while, even after they repair damage to the grid.
Boron is a neutron absorber, no? So boric acid is, as RM says, presumably a precaution.
I read somewhere, so it must be true, that at Chernobyl, apart from the reactor core being exposed to the atmosphere when the containment vessel itself exploded (casting a blue light of tachyon particles into the sky apparently), the reaction not effectively stopped, so the exposed core began heating and heating. The authorities sourced every ounce of liquid nitrogen they could find across the Soviet Union and began pumping under ground under the core. i.e. they thought the China Syndrome was actually occurring.
One lesson that the nuclear industry needs to learn from this (and almost certainly won’t) is to improve its communications.
TEPCO must have known within minutes of the explosion that the secondary containment was intact and that only the skin of the reactor building was destroyed. But I could find nothing in the media – or in the TEPCO press releases – that stated and explained this. Similarly, I have seen nowhere in the MSM a diagram of a BWR showing the different containment levels.
The industry’s communications strategy is – and has always been – “don’t worry your little heads; everything is gonna be fine.”. That has turned what could have been a PR triumph (“our nukes survived when everything around them was destroyed”) into a PR disaster.
Finally found something about conventional plants:
“ten nuclear reactors with a combined capacity of 8.6 gigawatts have been taken off line in Japan. Seven are operated by Tokyo Electric, two by Tohoku Electric Power Co. and one by Japan Atomic Energy Power Co. Tepco said it has suspended operations at five thermal power plants as well.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704838804576196270282565218.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Hopefully the damage is light and they can be spun up again quickly.
@MH – I doubt tachyons would have lit up the sky over Chernobyl. Wikipedia still reports “no experimental evidence for the existence of tachyon particles has been found”.
tssk @ 31:
The volcano is about 1,250km away, on southern Kyushu.
My next door neighbour whose interest in politics and world events is, like,probably nil,who thinks the world might be ending is probably more on the money than the disgusting nuclear apologists. We have melt-downs,fires, radioactive clouds, dead people, people suffering from rtadiation sickness, mass evacuations etc etc but nuclear power is totally safe? Long series of expletives deleted because what’s the bloody point.
I like thorium. Accelerator driven nuclear fission means when the power goes off the whole thing stops and hence no issues with cooling down. That you need a synchotron (or summit) to get the whole thing up to speed (as we earthlings like to say), makes them bloody expensive. A major factor for us canny earthlings in them not being terribly popular.
http://energyfromthorium.com/
This site has a good and I daresay fairly well informed run down of the so called dangers (or not as the case seems to be) of the Japanase reactor going feral and wiping us all out.
Paul, swear at me all you like. But, fingers crossed, the “radioactive clouds” aren’t actually anywhere near radioactive enough to kill anyone.
Yes, thanks to Robert for providing a factual account. The issues, however, go well beyond engineering solutions and mere technocratic control over systems. The issues are deeply political deriving from a history of lies, distortions and cover-ups by the nuclear industry internationally and in Japan as the linked FT article illustrates.
So I’ll wait for the radiocative dust to settle on this one before joining in the nuke industry’s conga line of safety celebrations.
The denialist principle in operation around the Nuclear Industry is ‘The Greens are always wrong”. Bolt made this clear on Insiders on Sunday when he said (to paraphrase) ‘no matter how the Greens might beat this up, there is no serious problem at Fukushima’, following on from ‘only 50 people died as a result of Chernobyl’.
Therefore since the Greens opposed Nuclear power, Nuclear power must be safe.
Well, Robert, that is comforting to know about the radioactive clouds. But surely the point would be not to have them in the atmosphere at all? Not that, so far they’re not radioactive enough to kill anyone. Safe as X-rays or bone-scans so to speak.
See Katz @ 30.
Oh, very reassuring indeed. At least those few hundred thousand people living near those plants should know within a couple of decades how badly they’ve been affected by these harmless radioation releases.
But the Greens are wrong about nuclear.
incurious and unread, maybe the information you were looking for was in Japanese? The head of the ministry (NISA?) and some stern and very worried looking woman whose job title I can’t read have been giving constant updates on TV over here. Maybe this time around the various people involved don’t think the sensibilities of Australian English readers are their first priority…
and now we’re on significant rolling blackouts – my area gets 4 – 5 hours a day, simultaneous with large sections of Tokyo and Northern Japan.
Katz, very very small parts of Russia are permanently uninhabitable due to Chernobyl. Even if this disaster is as bad as Chernobyl – and it appears one reactor is now under control – then it’s unlikely, given the geographic location of the reactors, to either cut Honshu in half or render large areas of land unusable. If you want to see large areas of unusable land, there’s currently lots of footage of prime Honshu farmland being swept away by the sea.
If only people cared as much as they did last month about Christchurch. What’s that you say? They do? But only when someone can put the words “nuclear” and “meltdown” in the same sentence. Ah yes, thanks.
Well I guess the great takeaway from this thread is that commenters here care more about their particular barrows to push than the 10,000 dead people in Northern Japan. After all, they’re only Japs right?
But thank you Robert for such an insightful post. Pity about the lack of class amongst the crowd.
Stretch: if the radiation readings reported are accurate, the risks of additional cancers in the exposed population are minimal.
Indeed, Paul, it would be preferable if they weren’t released. But in the scale of risks faced by the Japanese population in the last few days, these are really, really small beer.
Katz: you’re making some very big assumptions there, one of them that all of the exclusion zone around Chernobyl is actually necessary for safety reasons.
Paul the worst man made releases of radioactivity in human history came from all the nuclear bomb tests. So much so that there is a minor business going cutting up and recycling steel from the German ships scuttled in Scapa Flow as a source of non-contaminated metal.
The current biggest continuous human source is coal fired power stations. The prize for the single event goes to Chernobyl of course.
Given the number of coal stations you would need quite a few nukes to go belly up to equal their environmental effect.
Plus western PWR, etc designs all have containment vessels making a huge cloud about as close to impossibile as human technology can achieve. Chernobyl had no containment vessel and a graphite core, it was that going on fire that created the contamination.
Some links:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_station
Apologies if this has been posted before, but a good source of info (although not up-to-the-minute) is at All Things Nuclear: http://allthingsnuclear.org/
Apparently there are 11 reactors of the Chernobyl style still in operation. Those opposed to the risks of nuclear should make these plants their primary focus.
SG @48
“Maybe this time around the various people involved don’t think the sensibilities of Australian English readers are their first priority”
Well, that’s my point really. Communication is always a long way down the list of priorities. I’m not saying that TEPCO or the Japanese government needed to be the ones to improve English communications: obviously, they have other things on their to do lists.
But what about other agencies. The IAEA say, or domestic nuclear institutions like ANSTO. If they were putting out information (and the info on the IAEA website is pretty limited), it was not getting through to the MSM.
Incidentally, my language skills are pretty good. I can read British and American English as well as Australian English.
OldSkeptic @50,
AGRs – which you were praising @34 – have graphite cores too. That is not to say that they could catch fire, like Chernobyl did.
Thanks Robert for abandoning your nuclear proselytising and providing an excellent summary of the situation.
The aspect of nuclear power that I have never been able to come to grips with is how complex and ad hoc the whole system seems to be.
Start with the steam turbines, invented in the 19th century.
Then you boil water via a heat exchanger (or not) and get a thermal efficiency of about 30 something percent on a good day.
How do you boil the water? By bringing some totally toxic stuff together by withdrawing a moderator until the system becomes really hot and even more toxic. So much so that you have to “contain” it in a massive steel vessel. About which I was quite sanguine about nukes until a paper entitled “Hitherto unexpected degradation of stainless steel alloys due to intense neutron flux” hit my desk in 1968. Shortly thereafter they had to induction anneal all the reactors in France (an amazing feat of heroic engineering- but you won’t read about it) and decommission them within a few years.
Any-way the next lot of stuff you need is massively redundant control systems, diesel and battery back-ups.
To back this up you need a specially trained military force and to back this up you need whole university departments and a huge regulatory apparatus.
I suspect it is the prospect of supping mightily at the academic trough that attracts many of the proponents of nuclear power.
Add in the fact that we the taxpayers have to provide insurance against “accidents” as no insurance company will touch nuclear (that fact alone should tell you something)and you come to the not unreasonable conclusion that there has to be some other attractor for this hideous mess of kluged together shite.
I leave it to you to work out what it is.
Please nothing about the promise of GenIV, it is Gen II and III we have to deal with.
Huggy
Incurious and Unread, I don’t believe you can read American English. Until I see proof that anyone on earth has actually finished a “Great” American Novel, I prefer to think that language is beyond human comprehension. Ditto anything from Russia in the 19th century, even translated.
Incurious, bit unlikely it’s a bit hard to burn in CO2.
Even if you somehow lost that, then it is easy to pump in more (or nitrogen). Plus they have a containment vessel as well (though because of the lower pressures it doesn’t have to be as strong as for a BW or PWR).
Orders of magnitude safer than a Chernobyl style design and I’d argue inherently safer than a PWR/BW design (though by adding and improving safety systems the latest designs are very safe).
Just like the idea from a risk point of view. Systems break down, people make mistakes (as per TMI) especially in a panic.
The AGR design gives you time(/strong>, which in an emergency is like gold. The water based ones require very quick actions if things start to go pear shaped. Much better if you have time to have a cup of coffee and think about things for a while before you have to act.
Huggy,
yes, nuclear plants are complex. But, then again, so are a lot of technologies. Try describing the workings of a Toyota Prius in detail. Or an LCD television. Or the CPU of the computer you’re using.
As far as the steam turbine goes, the fact is that we haven’t found a better technology for converting medium-temperature heat into mechanical energy yet. That’s why solar thermal plants use them
In any case, the steam turbine isn’t at issue here, it’s what’s creating the heat.
That’s absurd.
As dangerous as they may be, they have not forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee.
But let’s turn that game around. Nuclear apologists ought to make these reactors their primary focus to absolve their pet obsession of the inevitable stigma of association with a dangerous technology.
I use reductio ad absurdum only in retaliation.
One thing I think the pro nuclear side of the debate will probably end up needing to concede is that in Japan the earthquake and tsunami rating that the nuclear plant in question was designed to deal with was too low. It does not matter much that it handled this larger quake / tsunami with minimal difficulty. If a quake / tsunami combination such as this was even remotely likely the engineering in the design should have accounted for it. Of course if this earthquake / tsunami is a truly improbable event then the design parameter used may be excusable but that is an open question. Based on the performance of newer designs it may be that there is nothing that needs to be changed in modern designs but no doubt questions will be asked.
In PR terms the worst part of the event was the hydrogen explosion that took the roof of the outer building. The fact that this was of minimal consequence and far less serious than the oil refinery fires and other such things won’t much change things. The video will be played to death by opponents of nuclear energy.
I don’t think so, TerjeP, I don’t think we can say yet that the reactor hasn’t weathered this event. I also wonder if they took into account tsunamis at all – they seem to be quite a new phenomenon from an industrial perspective, and surely handling tsunamis is primarily an issue of placement rather than design?
Katz – my point is that design and risk matters. Both those in favour of nuclear and those opposed to nuclear would do the world a favour if they identified and agreed on the major hazards and went after those together. That does not preclude the former also advocating for newer nuclear designs and the later opposing newer nuclear designs. It may be a fanciful unity ticket but it ought to be where the focus is if we all care about humanity.
SG @ 56:
I nominate this book as the “Great American Novel”.
No-one died (apparently) as a result of the Three Mile incident in 1979 (which might be a better comparator then Chernobyl).
But the fact is there have been no new nuclear power stations commissioned in the USA since then. Whatever the “real” risk the perceived risk is such that no-one is prepared to take it on.
We really need to allow the situation with the Japan power stations to run its course before we can consider the outcome and risk consequences. Its like discussing the result of a football match when we are only at half time.
However, politics will see that it will be a long time before any new nuclear power stations are built in Japan,which is the only good thing to come out of this disaster. They might have dodged the bullet this time, but next time?
Expert opinion on the state of the reactors:
Crap! Japan just can’t cop a break at the moment can they
I’m still crossing my fingers and toes for all the good it will do.
t_j_P @50:
Surely the inevitable end result of this logic is that factories like the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal also need to be shut, and we need to learn to do without a range of nasty chemicals in our daily lives? This seems perilously close to ludditism to me. Bhopal killed far more people than Chernobyl.
It’s simple risk management, I would have thought.
OK. I give. All you anti-nuclear advocates win. I want coal power. No one ever died in a coal mine. There is no environmental impact from coal. All those trees that died from acid rain were an aberration.
Better yet. Lets go with oil. It is so plentiful and clean we only need drill a mile under the ocean to retrieve it or wait for politically friendly states to provide it. No one ever died in an oil refinery explosion like the ones in Japan and no one minds their beaches coated with shiny black oil (it is like a pretty eco-friendly rainbow when it floats on the water surface in harbors).
No, lets have wind. I used to live in San Francisco. Putting the windmill farm in the hills of So. San Francisco really improved the aestitics and sound quality. And when they all get to spinning you can power up maybe 500 houses. Industry will need to stick with something a little more potent.
Of course, if we were blessed with the natural water resources they have in Canada we could go hydro. Actually that would be nice. Tragically, Japan – a truly great island nation – does not have that luxury.
In western countries we tend to learn from our mistakes. Just like the Browns Ferry fire resulted in significant safety improvements and TMI taught us a lot about emergency response. Nuclear power gets progressively safer. The current designs are brilliant and elegantly safe. I wish we could say the same for oil where the disasters seem to get worse, not mitigated.
Just ranting. Personally I wish the mitigated disaster at the Japanese nuclear plants was not getting as much media attention as the souls so brutally affected by the natural disaster of the tsunami. Tragically too many would rather focus on the “China Syndrome” (technically an “Idaho Syndrome”) scenario than on the resue and recovery efforts or helpless folks.
SG, but for huge government subsidies, the nuclear industry is not commercial.
Making these reactors safe to an acceptable standard (risk management) would render nuclear reactors still more uneconomic, meaning even greater imposts on the public purse.
Reassuring isn’t it Katz?
I wish the nuclear apologists here would actually take these reports seriously instead of writing soothing stories. Linking to arclight, who works for the industry, and Barry Brook who’s never seen a nuclear reactor he didn’t love, is hardly evidence of objectivity.
Even the term ‘radioactive stuff’ seems to be a rhetorical ploy that downplays the danger of that ‘stuff’. You know – like caesium which has a half-life of 30 years. A little bit of that ‘stuff’ in your foodchain can be catastrophic.
We don’t know what the outcome is here. Everyone might get out unscathed, or not. So, it’s a bit early to tell us there’s nothing to worry about.
I agree Fine. The level of denialism is breathtaking.
However, I do take a mordant interest in the semantical engineering of the mouthpieces of nuclear special pleaders.
We haven’t been treated to such a dainty diet of circumlocution since the Five O’Clock Follies of the Vietnam days.
Robert @ 59, compexity of Prius vs Nuclear power plant.
Control room of a Prius http://0.tqn.com/d/cars/1/0/8/1/2/ag_10prius_dash.jpg
Control room af a nuclear reactor
http://www.nucleartourist.com/systems/control_rooms.htm
Katz and Fine. Indeed. The unbroken record of nuclear utilities’ mendacity and economy with the truth is equally reassuring. Most incidents only come to light after the event, with denials continuing up to the very moment of revelation. This continues in the present case, where the plant operator – just like the operators at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl – has but slowly and grudgingly revealed the extent of the problems. The Pentagon’s infamous comic capers media conferences are by comparison with the nuclear industry a model of accuracy to the point of bluntness.
Their chutzpah is reminiscent of the Monty Python ‘stake your claim’ sketch where the contestant maintains he wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays (and his wife and he all the sonnets) right up until the moment he’s forced to concede that they were all published centuries before he was born.
That’s why Terjep loves it. He never saw an oligarchy he didn’t love, like all libertarians.
But is it not commercial in Japan? Are you sure you aren’t projecting the British experience onto Japan?
What is it that’s being denied exactly Katz? Of course nuclear power is dangerous. It’s just far less dangerous than many many other types of industrial activity. And I’d also argue, comes with significantly bigger benefits.
SG, as you said yesterday, the Japanese nuclear industry relies on the Japanese government for insurance. How much would that cover cost, if any insurance company were foolish enough to cover it?
That alone represents an enormous subsidy and now an enormous liability on behalf of the Japanese taxpayer.
Then, Wiz, why can’t the industry turn an honest profit?
Katz @66,
Not that this makes him wrong, but it puts his views into context.
Furthermore, his stated position has been garbled by the journalist. He didn’t say:
What he actually said (sourced from another article) was:
A great example of journalistic paraphrasing which gives entirely the opposite meaning to the original.
I gave my source I & U. Where is yours?
Unbelievably offensive comments from some nuclear apologists here. Nobody knows how this is going to turn out, yet otherwise sane people are still willing to play some wierd relativity card, as though just because some criminally negligent chemical accident elsewhere in the world may have caused more deaths, nuclear is fine.
Glad to see I’m not the only one with the concerned of the possible long term risks of nuclear power aversion:
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/13/japans-nuclear-crisis-lessons-for-the-us/realism-about-costs-and-benefits
Katz, I personally don’t have any problem with taxpayer money being used to manage the costs of any form of power generation, including nuclear, so you’re asking the wrong person.
Katz, this anti-nuclear group seems to be suggesting that the cost of Nuclear is below oil and hydro even including government subsidies. Unless coal is subsidy-free (unlikely!) then it’s competitive with coal…
Two points not related to the main topic.
According to an interesting article in Wikipedia, turns out the Luddite movement was also about smashing the looms that had replaced skilled workers with a machine and low paid child labor. Protecting children from exploitation is certainly worth fighting for.
It is natural to be wary of change brought about by technology. As natural as it is to enjoy the benefits provided by technological advances.
IRT to fearing radiation because you can’t “see” it. Personally – as an ex nuke and being familiar with radiation monitoring technology, I know you can monitor the level of radiation with relatively inexpensive devices carried by all first responders in affected areas and they can easily “see” the radiation level – even through walls. The same cannot be said of chemical contaminants, biological agents or a host of other environmental threats.
Furthermore, monitoring the exposure of individuals to radiation is very inexpensive and much more accurate than assessing the individual damage caused by coal dust, asbestos, second hand smoke, automobile exhaust in congested traffic, carbon monoxide from faulty carbon fueled home heating systems, lead paint in children’s toys …
Though if I were to answer, it would be something along the lines of “Nuclear power has to compete unfairly with fossil-fuel based power generation that has never been required to comply to the same safety standards, and has never been to required to come closing to adequately pay for the various externalities involved”
Hey, here in the U.S. we were considering releasing the strategic gas reserves to keep gas prices down. Gov’t subsidized gas prices.
I agree, nothing wrong with the government intervening to control energy costs. In the U.S. we have the worst energy policy on earth (considering we really don’t have one) but we must remember that in this day and age – like it or not we all need energy for warmth, safety and commerce.
SG, did you read your link?
(My emphasis.)
sg @ 48, “very very small parts of Russia are permanently uninhabitable due to Chernobyl.”
I think you mean Ukraine. However, according to Wikipedia, there are still restrictions on production and consumption of foods in parts of Europe, including monitoring of meat sheep on 369 farms in the UK.
The nuclear industry has the same PR problem as jumbo-jet flying: accidents occur at a catastrophic scale, even though they don’t happen often. And therefore, there are people who refuse to fly.
Katz, the document states clearly that the total subsidy comes to 1.5 yen/kwh, on a base of 5.1 yen/kwh. It also makes clear that a large portion of that subsidy – about 30%, maybe? – comes from a tax on energy costs, i.e. is part of the price that users pay. The remainder includes some fundamental research, which is a kind of subsidy that exists for many industries besides nuclear.
The phrase “the industry wouldn’t have survived” is the rhetorical conclusion of the anti-nuclear organization presenting the information. It’s not necessarily consistent with the facts they have provided. Do you dispute the facts?
The group (CNIC) presenting the figures dispute them. Here is their interpretation of them:
I’m inclined to believe the critique of the CNIC and conclude that the costings that they refer to are utterly bogus.
In short, the CNIC has presented the facts and the ANRE has told porkie pies by omission.
They’re not saying those costings are bogus – that “delving a little deeper” sentence refers to the following paragraphs, about subsidies.
No, NCIS are saying that those costings are correct as far as they go but are incomplete and therefore present a bogus view of nuclear power economics in Japan.
Katz @81
Sorry. I was being lazy.
link
yeah Katz, the incomplete part being the lack of inclusion of subsidies, which are then described in great deal.
But note they don’t include any calculation of subsidies to coal, hydro, etc. So their “delving deeper” is also incomplete.
Here’s another reactor explosion.
Robert @59,
I’m not sure if your analogies are good ones. Technological complexity makes TVs and computers cheaper. But it makes nuclear power stations more expensive.
We have been waiting a long time for nuclear power to get cheaper. It does not seem to be happening.
I agree with Huggybunny (steam turbines aside). The intrinsic complexity and danger of nuclear power is likely to mean it will remain expensive and/or dangerous.
Hey Robert @ 59. I am with Salient Green here.
Prius vs nuclear power station ? Control complexity ?
They are not even in the same cricket ground. As to thermal efficiency, for various reasons the BWR and the PWR type reactors get about 32% TE.
Solar thermnal can do much better than this as it is not full of radioactive stuff.
Huggy
Adrian – why are you hating? “Unbelievably offensive comments from some nuclear apologists here.” How is it that an individual with decades of experience in nuclear power who has measured first hand the benefits and threats, costs and benefits of nuclear power is an “apologist” and when stating their opinion?
It would be like asking “Do you beat your wife often”? Of course you don’t. Often. Or not at all. Don’t impute our motivation for defending the safety record of nuclear power. I strongly believe that had we not had the extreme knee-jerk reaction to TMI and instead recognized the event for what it factually was, we would now have available to us reliable, safe and cost efficient nuclear energy. We would not be agonizing over the availability of oil, we would have far more electric cars and busses and would be reversing the measurable trend of increasing green house gases.
I sincerely hope the world sees that nuclear power can be safe – even in extreme conditions seen now in Japan and recognize that the industry does care about safety and it is appropriate to further the development of clean, efficient nuclear systems.
Responding too an earlier random comment implying that 30% thermal efficiency was somehow not acceptable. Anyone familiar with the Carnot cycle knows this is actually pretty phenomanal. And, not for nothing, compared to the less than 1% efficiency of converting solar energy into electricity in solar cells it is definitely preferable. On a purely engineering economics basis.
Adrian said:
That’s a misrepresentation of the claims. The assertion is that humans take risks all the time. If we are rational we use what salient data there is and try to model reality so as to determine which risks are acceptable and which are not.
We accept the presence of potentially dangerous industrial and commercial activities because we want the benefits that they produce. We know for example that a small proportion of those who get onto aircraft will die in horrible air acidents, sometimes, even more tragically, killing people on the ground who would never have chosen to get onto a plane. We demand high safety standards and rightly make a fuss if we think someone is cutting corners and transferring unacceptable risk to others but few people say that an industry that kills people in large numbers every year should be totally shut down. We accept death as an overhead of convenience and comfort.
The question in relation to nuclear is apposite. As a function of power generated, nuclear has an excellent safety record and unlike coal for example, doesn’t poison people as part of its normal operations. It is the one industry that is required to take total responsibility for all of its waste and has standards applied to it that would shut every coal or gas plant in the world — which is one reason why it is relatively expensive compared to coal. We have put a premium on human safety and are getting a deluxe service. If we were happy to have ourt atmosphere disrupted with CO2/CH4, NOx, SO2, our populations poisoned with mercury, miners get silicosis and accept the risk of mine accidents, populations suffer from PM in transit, then coal is “cheaper”. Zero rating some types of harm can make something look cheap.
Now all of this might be irrelevant if there were something safer than nuclear that could do, at worst, the same job on the same scale with the same reliability at similar cost for a similar period of time but at this stage, there is no technology that can meet these criteria. Not even close, so the argument against nuclear becomes an argument for the next best suite of things, with all of their hazards to humans, however earnest people are in objecting to these costs and harms.
Update, that recent explosion occurred in the reactor containing plutonium.
Huggy @98,
Since nuclear fuel is pretty much free (in $/GJ terms), the thermal efficiency is neither here nor there.
Which is probably why it is low.
Does any know if there would be spent fuel pools on-site at Daiichi? And what their status is?
d
Katz @96
Having seen that clip, I realise that my earlier response was, as Mike Crayne says so eloquently, an ‘extreme knee-jerk reaction’, and that ‘nuclear power can be safe – even in extreme conditions seen now in Japan’. Clearly things are totally under control. I’m sure any local residents seeing that would be equally reassured. Nothing to worry about. There’s no chance that an itty-bitty explosion like that could poison the surrounding countryside for centuries, is there? Clearly, the containment systems have done their job well. What a silly billy I was to worry…
I’m glad I set your mind to rest Hal9000!
I and U and Huggy – actually for the most part the nuclear operators do care about thermal efficiency. There is an entire after-market industry in “tuning” nuclear plants to increase efficiency and decrease cost per MW/HR.
That being said, BWR’s, as you know are actually more efficient than PWR because they eliminate the efficiency loss of steam generators. Doesn’t matter in this context, just an interesting fact.
Fran and Mike – of course I understand that every endeavour contains risks, it is clear however that some risks are acceptable, some are not. That is surely what is being discussed here.
What I was ‘hating’ in particular is the kind of logic displayed by sg:
Where what was probably a criminally negligent catastrophe responsible for the deaths of thousands is being used to make us feel better about nuclear power. What kind of insane logic is that?
The Union Carbide ‘incident’ would never have happened if the most rudimentary safety procedures standard in the west had been in place.
But hey, no problem using this disaster as some debating point in an increasingly frantic attempt to spin the events in Japan.
I just don’t get it.
I see that we haven’t been able to resist turning this into a broader nuclear discussion, despite my requesting that be kept to Saturday Salon.
As far as the explosion at Unit 3, it appears to be similar to Unit 1 – a hydrogen explosion outside the containment structure, which appears to be OK.
And a question. this article in the Age claims the following:
I’ve read the relevant NISA press release, and it says no such thing. It states that they were possibly exposed to radiation, but it does not state that the levels were dangerous. Furthermore, as far as I have seen neither TEPCO nor NISA mentions anything about any workers with radiation sickness.
Can anybody point me to a media report with more details on these supposed workers with radiation sickness?
Mike @ 106,
I stand corrected.
Daryl, yes there are spent fuel pools on site.
No, there has been no information to date on their status that I have seen.
However, seeing that the stuff in them, while still radioactive, is not releasing much decay heat, as long as they remain intact they should be right for the next few days (cross fingers).
Oh come on Adrian, you can’t tell me that chemical accidents “never” happen. One happened in the US today. They are governed by the same risk/cost analysis as every other form of industrial practice. Bridges fall, chemical factories explode, oil refineries explode, oil transports sink and create oil slicks, reactors melt down. And we’ve seen repeated evidence that serious accidents at nuclear reactors aren’t that frequent (even in badly-run systems like the USSR) or dangerous.
Union Carbide was criminal negligence. That’s still negligence, and it still could happen even if the plant were well-managed, especially in an earthquake-prone country like Japan. Look at the news footage of Sendai – there’s a lot of heavy industry there, some of it currently spewing potentially very toxic smoke. Do you think Japan should ban the lot?
They’re proposing to build new nuclear plants in India and Indonesia. I ssuppose then that any issues with earthquakes, tsunamis, construction standards, corruption or terrorism there would be alarmist.
Adrian – point taken. I agree with you. My bad.
IRT the video of the explosion. I agree, that is horrendous. Easily as horrendous as the refinery fires and associated deaths and injuries. However, as one who lives less than 80 miles from Three Mile Island and almost in the shadows of a GE BWR plant at Limmerick, PA I would caution the observer to be wary. For months following the TMI incident we were bombarded every night with stock footage of the steam rising from the cooling towers at TMI. Water vapor. The actual danger was from 4″ vents of the primary containment at TMI and not visually interesting.
A hydrogen explosion in the secondary containment is horrendous and extremely scary. I agree 100%. It would be frightening to be there. However, a partial meltdown contained in the pressure vessel can be mitigated and the risk to surrounding areas minimized.
Thus far, I have not heard of any primary containment breach. That is good. My prayers are with the operators.
Hal9000 @ 104.
Wait, is that sarcasm? Are we dealing with an Australian English vs. English English vs. American English again?
Seriously, as we say in software engineering, sometimes a bug is a mistake, sometimes it is a feature. The secondary containment explosions, while horrifying, are not an indictment of nuclear plant safety – it is a feature of the containment design under worst case conditions, or, as in this case, beyond design basis conditions.
“However, seeing that the stuff in them, while still radioactive, is not releasing much decay heat, as long as they remain intact they should be right for the next few days (cross fingers).”
yeah, cross everything and pray. What they lack in heat intensity they make up for in fuel mass. With no power, I assume the heat exchangers aren;t running, nor the air cycling, so there’s a chance of a hydrogen build-up in the Pool buildings from radiolysis of the water. If the water boils away, the spent rods are exposed to the air and there’s a risk of a pool fire. And spent fuel contains a much higher proportion of long half-life isotopes than core fuel. There’s, presumably, a god-awful amount of Cesium-137 in there.
Not that I’d know or anything. I’m just an unenthusiastic amateur who thinks that while the likelihood of a nuclear super-catastrophe is minuscule, approaching zero, the impact approaches infinity, which makes sensible risk assessment difficult.
d
Mike, that be irony, not sarcasm.
While you and the other nuclear spruikers say the explosion is outside the containment system and nothing to worry about, my lying eyes detect what look awfully like huge chunks of masonry, from the containment structure, thrown hundreds of metres into the air. As Bones McCoy might have said, ‘It’s safety, Jim, but not as we know it.’
I just watched the Japanese PM’s chief spokesperson give a press conference on the explosion. It was bigger than the one on Saturday (about 3 times) because it occurred in a more powerful vessel. He says that the risk of a release of significant amounts of radiation is low, as is the risk of another explosion. There is no evidence of an increase in radioactivity around the plant. Furthermore, pressure in the containment vessel began to decrease at about 11:30, and was at 360 kilopascals by midday.
Six staff were injured but all are still conscious.
The PM’s spokesperson is pretty calm and clear, he fielded lots of questions and handled them all clearly and calmly. Very much like Bligh during the floods…
I find the discourse on this thread to be oddly comforting by way of diversion. Technology, with all its’ evil, allows individuals at all corners of the world to share their opinions and fears.
When I stop and think what it must be like for the operators at Fukushima I recoginize the worst of my own personal nightmares and waking fears when I worked at nuclear plants. I would imagine they have been on full 24 Hr. staffing since the beginning of the incident. They may or may not know what is happening with their families but know they cannot be with them to protect them. They know the only way to protect them is to endeavor relentlessly in response to this event.
Again, my prayers are with those operators.
Hal9000 @ 116,
Now I am confused. “Mike, that be irony, not sarcasm”. Is that sarcasm?
What was irony again?
Mike, according to Eric Partridge as quoted in Wikipedia,
Never mind Hal9000. I Googled “what does irony mean” and the first response was:
“•sarcasm: witty language used to convey insults or scorn; “he used sarcasm to upset his opponent”; “irony is wasted on the stupid”; “Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own”–Jonathan Swift
OK. I am pretty sure it is ironic that the definition of irony references sarcasm. In this context.
Or am I being sarcastic?
Nice commenting with you all. I truly hope you are all safe in Australia. I love your country and people. Even the anti-nuke Green Party Card carrying among you.
Curses, my blockquotes aren’t working well for me today. Only the first two lines are a quotation.
Rob@108:
this looks like a source for the casualties: http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031312-e.html
Looks like one confirmed radiation sickness and two unknowns (plus 8 others).
Casualty
- 2 workers of cooperative firm were injured at the occurrence of
the earthquake, and were transported to the hospital.
- 1 TEPCO employee who was not able to stand by his own with his hand
holding left chest was transported to the hospital by an ambulance.
- 1 subcontract worker at important earthquake-proof building was
unconscious and transported to the hospital by an ambulance.
- The radiation exposure of 1 TEPCO employee, who was working inside
the reactor building, exceeded 100mSv and was transported to
the hospital.
- 2 TEPCO employees felt bad during their operation in the central
control rooms of Unit 1 and 2 while wearing full masks, and were
transferred to Fukushima Daini Power Station for consultation with
a medical advisor.
- 4 workers were injured and transported to the hospital after explosive
sound and white smoke were confirmed around the Unit 1.
- Presence of 2 TEPCO employees at the site are not confirmed
Darryl, I just asked arclight on Twitter whether he’d heard any info about the status of the spent fuel pools.
You can read his reply here.
Thanks for the TEPCO link. As I discussed in the main post, the quoted figure for radiation exposure is an order of magnitude too low for radiation sickness.
Now we have two explosions at nuclear plants. What I haven’t seen is an explanation of what’s causing these explosions, except that it’s a build up of hydrogen. But, what’s causing that?
I don’t know whether it has been covered here<Robert, but apparently the No 3 reactor was trialing new fuel rods cantaining MOX fuel, which according to the report contains a higher percentage of plutonium. I will not be good if any gas leakage contains radioactive material from these fuel rods.
I have no doubt that the Japanese are going to use this experience to revamp their designs, which appear to have a number of shortcomings, to make far safer reactors in the future. I think that it is unfortunate that the Americans went to such lengths to the deny the Hydrogen explosion at the three mile island reactor. Had they not done so then the danger and the method of the hydrogen accumulation might have been better understood and avoided.
Daryl @ 123.
Help me understand. Do you know if 100mSv is the same as 100 mRem? I apologize, I am not familiar with that unit of exposure. If it is, that would not cause radiation sickness. It would simply mean you reached your guidance limit for monthly exposure and should not work around a nuclear plant to minimize further exposure. Then, depending on the operators age, further exposure would be limited.
Radiation sickness does not show signs or symptoms as acute as described, even when exposed to an acute dose which it clearly does not appear to be this case. The operator was taken to hospital as a precautionary step and for observation. It really is too soon to know but it doesn’t describe radation sickness.
Fine, it’s discussed in my post.
The uranium fuel rods are coated in zirconium-alloy cladding.
When they are not exposed to water continuously, they get very hot.
When hot steam subsequently comes into contact with the zirconium, the hydrogen and oxygen get split off.
Hence, hydrogen gas.
Looked it up. That exposure is what I know in the non metric world as 100mREM. Many of my co-workers would regularly recieve 100mREM during outages and non of them suffered any ill effect or cancer – even 25 years later.
Mike a millisievert is 100 millirems.
100 millisieverts is therefore 10 rems.
A reasonably large radiation dose, sure, but not enough to give you radiation sickness as I understand it.
Robert.
I stand corrected. And you are very correct. 10 REM would be the legal limit for 2 years exposure for U.S. radiation workers. It is assumed that signs and symptoms do not manifest with less than 100REM short term exposure. Thus, I know in the U.S. we limit workers to less than 5 REM per year.
Thanks for the correction.
Thanks Robert.
So, assuming the same limits in Japan, which I think is true, that poor operator is now out of a job.
I am not being sarcastic or flip. Imagine how sick you would be if, as part of your efforts to respond to an emergency you exceeded your legal dose limits and could now not work for at least 2 years? Couple that with possibly not knowing what is happening with your family. Any reasonable human would be sick.
Spread of radioactive particles:
Mike Crayne, in Japan he’ll have unemployment insurance and a good health cover, so he’ll be fine. They probably won’t sack him anyway, but will just move him somewhere non-radioactive for a while. TEPCO is a very large company.
Sorry Mike and Rob, sloppy with my language. I probably should have written radiation exposure. I’m anti-nuke by disposition, but I’m not trying to make propaganda hay out of anything.
d
Robert, help me out. It is late here and I may not be doing my unit conversions correctly. I looked it up and:
‘A person’s biological risk (that is, the risk that a person will suffer health effects from an exposure to radiation) is measured using the conventional unit rem or the SI unit Sv’
thus 1REM = 1Sv or 100mREM = 100mSv. 100mSv is not even “reportable” exposure as it does not exceed legal or guidance limits.
Katz, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is a difference between “detectable” and “a problem”.
Mike, 1 Sievert = 100 rems.
One millisievert (mSv) is therefore 0.1 rem, or 100 millirems.
sg@ 135.
Good point. He would get a “window seat”. My understanding is that in Japanese culture that could be a fate worse than life in prison (my own hyperbole). I learned that “fact” from “Rising Sun” by Michael Crichton and the movie by the same name starring that great American actor Sean Connery.
Actually, if his dose was, in fact, 100mSv he is in no danger of radiation sickness or losing his job due to over-exposure.
And, yes, I recognize the swipe at the American healthcare system. I agree.
“starring that great American actor Sean Connery.”
I hope that’s irony – or sarcasm.
Three observations/objections to nuclear power at my blog (which is mostly arcane clippings related to my research):
1. Expertise in nuclear physics does not equate to expertise in radiation dispersion.
2. Nuclear institutions have a poor record of disclosure.
3. Energy policy is a political matter.
http://framingoverflows.blogspot.com/2011/03/three-objections-to-nuclear-power.html
Robert @ 139.
If I could let me pile on. Katz should show his references. This is the kind of stuff that is dangerous on the internet. US reporters readily admit they use blogs, YouTube, and tweets as a source. That quote is meaningless out of context. Fact is, with sensitive enough equipment you will find those isotopes in air.
Lets make a rule – name your source.
Fine @ 141
What? You don’t think he is a great actor? Cuz we do in America. Even after he did “Never Say Never” with that sorry Australian actress Kim Bassinger.
Mike,
Grey is the SI unit of absorbed dose
1 Gy = 1 J/kg
Rads are/were defined in cgs units and 1 rad = 1 erg/gram = 0.01J/kg
so 1 Sv = 100 rem
d
Happy to Mike. It’s from the New York Times.
You may have heard of that particular publication.
Rob, the fact that particles were found 60 miles away must signify something.
My parting shot.
Robert – thank you.
Best source I have found today:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html
Lastly – “Never Say Never” would have been much better had they cast that other great American actress Nicole Kidman.
Kim Bassinger Australian?
Source?
MOX fuel
http://www.japantoday.com/category/technology/view/mox-fuel-loaded-into-tokyo-electrics-old-fukushima-reactor
http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/japans-mox-reactor-fuel/
Katz @ 146.
Now that you mention it I have heard of the New York Times. That is where Jason Blair worked wasn’t it? Good crossword puzzles too.
In all fairness – they (NYT) should reference their sources. Being an ex Navy Nuclear trained radiological controls officer (before I worked for GE Nuclear on BWR startups) I can’t imagine a military rad tech saying “I assume the particulate is Cesium 137…”. I mean, we are trained to be precise. In an emergency situation partial information is often more dangerous than no information at all.
Just saying – I would like to know the source.
Mike, the NY Times is a journal of record. Right now we a looking at what they call a “fast developing situation”.
Under those circumstances, folks will occasionally get things wrong.
Frankly, I’d prefer to read honest mistakes to the pre-digested lies that are part and parcel of the corporate and government spin trotted out to cover disasters like Fukushima.
“the NYT is a journal of record”
As that baffling Australian writer William Faulkner once put it, “Was”.
Mike Krane:
Indeed. And critical appraisal of technologies includes the politics of energy production which is happily not confined to those whose claim to expertise lies solely in applied technology.
Katz, the fact that there’s radioactive stuff out there, and that it’s detectable 60 miles away, isn’t surprising.
The question is, how much, and what composition. If it was much more radioactive than previously recorded, or its composition was significantly different to what’s known to have been released, that would be of major concern.
FYI, here’s a New York Times article about the the USS Ronald Reagan also travelling through the radioactive plume.
The thermal efficiency of a reactor is of 1st order importance, double the thermal efficiency and you halve the amount of waste. Not that the enthusiasts care; nuclear waste is good as it provides fuel for the Gen IV reactors eh?
Huggy
I just an interesting interview with Tony Bowral on RN about the long history that the company which owns these reactors has of lies and falsifications when it comes to accidents and dangerous incidents. I don’t know that we can totally trust their word about what’s going on.
Here’s what Scientific American has to say about it
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fukushima-core
All the defence of safe nuclear power seems to rely on making it unlikely for bad things to happen. But the other side of risk management is the consequences when they do.
If a Prius fails, its owner and Toyota may suffer. If a nuclear reactor fails the consequences are potentially somewhat greater. The two are not comparable.
Greater consequences demand greater reduction of the chance of failure
But thanks RM for the useful information on what has actually happened. Nuclear engineers are a good source of facts and experience, but they have an interest in being optimistic
If anyone is interested here is a time-lapse video of every nuclear explosion around the world from 1945-1998 that was in the Crikey email a few weeks ago.
Not exactly relevant to what is happening in Japan at the moment but sobering none the less.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/01/nuclear/
Yes I caught that interview as well Fine. Bowral said that The Tokyo Electric Power company had had to shut down all 17 of its nuclear facilities at once after it was revealed that there had been 29 incidents/accidents that had gone unreported or were covered up.
Thanks Japerz.
As a matter of fact I am well acquainted with Faulkner’s Australian oeuvre.
Jacques @159: I am getting a little impatient with the panic-mongering. It would help if you did not conflate nuclear bomb tests, like these, with accidents at nuclear power stations, which are something quite different. Nuclear bombs and power-generating reactors involve quite different applications of similar physics, and bear much less relation to each other than, say, the conventional explosives used in mining coal and those used in cluster bombs.
Andyc,
I think that the relevance is that each of these bombs began life in a reactor.
I find that scary,
Huggy
Via Reuters
Huggybunny @163 You are being scared by a non-fact. U-235 for bombs does not need to be made in a reactor but occurs naturally: the enriching plants that concentrate it slightly for power generation use or considerably for bomb use are not reactors. Plutonium is made in reactors, but not the ones that are used for power generation, medical isotope manufacture or conventional scientific research. It’s a bit too militarily/national-securitywise sensitive for that.
Are you implying that all work using nuclear reactors is intrinsically “scary”? Because if so, I recommend finding out considerably more about it from responsible sources.
Andyc @ 165
I lost a good mate in a research reactor accident, yes it is scary. His death was really scary. Pu from a tweaked reactor is scary and relatively easy.
Huggy.
andyc: some of them use bomb-grade U-235, some of them use plutonium made in a reactor (though virtually all of that plutonium was made in special “bomb factory” reactors rather than commercial power reactors). Some, apparently, use both.
Since my comment to Mike above about the dimensions of the sievert, I’ve been thinking about the units we’re using to understand what’s happening, and I am wondering if we are measuring this business appropriately.
seiverts (and rems) are measure of accumulation, of how much energy due to radiation has a body absorbed. That’s very important, particularly if people are talking about how much you personally have absorbed. But I am thinking we are missing something significant we are not also considering intensities over time. It seems very relevant to regarding our friend who absorbed 100 mSv earlier, whether that was because (s)he spent many hours exposed to a hazard, or a few minutes.
Should we also be asking ‘how many Becquerel (or ‘Curies’ for our central North American brethren) have been released in the last 15 min/hour/6 hours? And how much was gas/vapour/liquid/solid?
d
Oh good, #2 reactor how has had a notifiable cooling failure and NHK is reporting the fuel rods are exposed and a core meltdown may have occurred.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/14_46.html
d
Robert @ 167 Thanks for the additional detail. But presumably, it would still be fair to say that power-generating reactors are not used to produce bomb material?
Huggybunny @ 166 I am sorry to hear about your friend, but note that this type of accident is extremely rare. Incidents that result in people dying hideous deaths have been much more frequent in other industries.
andyc @ 165,
I am on your side in this discussion but I am not certain about your facts. U-238 is the predominant isotope in natural uranium. Light-water reactors (commercial BWR & PWR) use lightly enriched U-235 as fuel. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-235
There are commercial “Breeder Reactor” designs that use the Plutonium from the U-235 reactions as fuel. I don’t think they caught on. see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
I can’t speak to weapons grade fissile materials exept to say that the trend is toward fusion and away from fission (H-Bomb using tritium with none of the resulting heavy metal by-products and much larger yield). I also can’t speak to the material used in Navy Reactors – like those fueling the USS Ronald Reagan CVN-78 (the “N” means nuclear).
While it does appear ominous this morning (I am on the East Coast of the U.S.) I would hope cool heads prevail. As I did not adequately represent earlier – the overblown response to TMI is the reason, the only reason, we do not have AGR and/or HTGR in the U.S. employing passive safey systems that can loose all off-site power, send the operators home and still be safe from meltdown.
A non-statistical opinion on risk.
I have recently retired from a software company that provides software and services to the pharmaceutical industry. I participated, in a data management capacity, in numerous vaccine studies. We hate the fact that no vaccine is 100% effective. In some cases the vaccine can result in death or illness. So, as a community we are forced to assess the cost/benefit analysis. For instance – only a Christian Scientist (who I consider sane) or an insane person would ban the flu vaccine and allow 1000′s at risk to die from flu-related illness because the flu vaccine might cause flu in 2 or 3. Yet, because of the mis-information from a single medical doctor many otherwise reasonable and pragmatic parents have opted to expose their own children to preventable childhood disease because the vaccine supposedly caused an increase in autism. Now there is a spike in preventable disease and deaths in the U.S.. I would not want to be a parent who’s child died of measles when it was preventable.
My point is this – the global risk profile of nuclear plants should be evaluated on par with the risk of any other form of energy. We should excercise moderation (bad pun) and not allow this disaster to bias the debate. Oil, coal and natural gas, while plentiful, are not renewable. They each cause hundreds of deaths each year. We just recently suffered a horrible gas explosion in Allentown, Pennsylvania killing five (including young children)and destroying 5 homes YET – no one is saying we should no longer use natural gas – they are asking “How can we make it safer?” That should be the discussion. IMHO
daryl @ 168,
Again, please suffer my stumbling with unit conversions. Depending where I looked the Sv “is the same as REM” or sV = 100 REM. So, it is true that the 100mSv exposure would be 10,000 mREM or 10 REM. 5 REM is the allowable limit for occupational workers. And you are absolutely correct – the radiation exposure is over time. It is important to understand the difference. And, the type of exposure, gamma, beta or alpha. Alpha radiation cannot penetrate the dead layer of skin but if ingested in alpha emitting particulate will cause excessive damage to lungs. Beta (essentially an electron) will cause sun-burn like damage. Gamma penetrates the skin and tissue and damage depends on the energy level of the gamma (pure energy like light).
andyc@165,
disregard my comment. I just got up and didn’t properly read what you wrote. You are correct.
When I tested effluent radiation monitoring systems we provided the NRC a visual representation of radiation levels combined with meteoroligical data to show gaseous, particulate and liquid contamination levels. Does anyone know of a similar presnetation available on the web for Fukushima?
Some questions:
An expert chappie on the radio this morning remarked that the cores of these troubled reactors were cooling down as a matter of course.
Will this cooling occur regardless of whether the radioactive material is immersed in cooling fluid?
If so, in lay terms, how does that happen?
If not, then given that the containment vessels remain intact, what is the long-term fix for this problem?
Katz,
I thought the OP covered this under “decay heat”. What I am unclear about is whether, with the core totally melted down and so the control rods ineffective, the reactor can become “critical” and recommence “burning” uranium.
I&U, my understanding is that the boron and other shit in the melted control rods means that it won’t ever go critical. It will, however, stay very, very hot (both thermally and radiologically) for quite a long time.
The threat to life from these events is pretty small and doesn’t remotely justify the hysteria we’re seeing, especially in comparison to the continuing threat to life of destroyed infrastructure (power, sanitation, roads, etc) generally in that region. The economic cost is likely to be big, though – getting those plants safe and replaced will not be cheap. But then not more so than replacing the five thermal power stations, the two oil refineries and the numberless chemical plants knocked out by the tsunami. I’d be surprised, too, if the latter weren’t more of a long-term public health threat than the nukes. Dioxins stick around.
Thanks I&U.
The thing that mystified this lay person in the OP was this:
I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong, but this implies that the only sources of heat are the “fission products” and not the uranium in the rods. Hae I misunderstood this?
After posing my question I went hunting for answers and found this interactive presentation from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/12/world/asia/the-explosion-at-the-japanese-reactor.html
At slide 7 the presentation appears to imply that the uranium pellets themselves remain hot. The presentation makes no specific mention of “fission products”.
Have I misunderstood this?
If not, does this not imply that these uranium pellets will continue unabated to emit heat?
And huggybuuny, you’ve made claims about a friend’s death due to radiation before – IIRC last time it was supposed to be from a synchroton.
Forgive my scepticism but given the EXTREME rarity of such deaths, this time I want checkable details before I believe you. If you’re telling the truth, my sincere apologies and condolences. If you’re making it up, then it’s a really, really low act.
Katz: the rate of heat production is slowing down.
The heat, as discussed earlier, is “decay heat” – it’s not coming from a nuclear chain reaction, it’s the result of the actinides and fission products (which accumulate in the fuel in normal operation, but stopped accumulating once the chain reaction was stopped) decaying as they inevitably do.
Each different radioisotope decays at a different rate – the shortest-lived ones are long gone, the long-lived ones will still be decaying thousands of years from now. However, the long-lived ones don’t decay fast enough to contribute significant amounts of radioactivity in this context.
The heat production over time is very predictable and essentially can’t be changed, no matter what happens (unless the chain reaction were to somehow start up again, but that’s very, very unlikely).
I don’t have enough information to calculate it myself, but this guy claims that after 10 days, the decay heat will be down to about 0.3% of the reactor’s nominal power output, from about 7% when it shut down.
Assuming that’s roughly right (it sounds plausible) and the heat production follows a simple exponential curve (an overestimate), at the moment the fuel rods in Unit 1 are producing a total of about 12 megawatts, and units 2 and 3 are producing 20 megawatts each.
For unit 1, that’s roughly the equivalent the heat coming of 30 car engines, running at full throttle, that needs to be removed.
After the ten days, it’s down to about 1.4 megawatts for unit 1, and 2.35 megawatts for Units 2 and 3.
As time goes on, the amount of new water that needs to be added to the containments to stop the rods from melting will be radically reduced. Indeed, it’s already much less than it was immediately after the shutdown.
And, if worst comes to worst, the risk of molten, uncooled fuel melting through the containment decreases over time, given the much lower heat production.
Long term fix? I suspect if the containment really is secure, leave the thing be while constantly monitoring, over a period of months, at least. That’s what they did for Three Mile Island.
Thanks Rob.
What stopped the nuclear chain reaction?
Sorry Katz, to make myself absolutely clear, the uranium itself in the fuel rods is not producing heat or radiation any more, and will not unless a chain reaction starts up again.
However, in the process of the reactor’s normal operation, the rods accumulate the “fission products”. These are what’s now giving off the decay heat (and radiation) I mentioned.
Inserting the “control rods” stopped the reaction.
Again, thanks Rob.
In the NYT presentation (slide 6), is mentioned the possibility of uranium pellets falling out of the rods and accumulating in the bottom of the containment vessel.
Is it possible that the accumulation of the pellets may restart a chain reaction, if enough of the accumulated?
Derida Derida,
Not making things up, had a circle of friends who worked in the nuclear and associated industries around the world mostly doing research during the 60′s. Despite the claims of absolute safety, by those who have never been at the coal face, any-thing involving intense radiation is potentially fatal and/or very sick making.
Huggy.
Don’t have the expertise to absolutely rule it out Katz, but would think it relatively unlikely.
Reactor fuel is not like HEU or pure plutonium. It’s only just fissile enough to work if the geometry of the fuel and the “moderator” is right.
My guess is that the bottom of the containment is also designed to reduce the possibility of this occurring, but don’t know.
IF this guy is right then the actual reactor itself is not the problem. I hope he is not.
http://www.counterpunch.org/alvarez03142011.html
Extract:
“The boiling-water reactors at Fukushima — 40 years old and designed by General Electric — have spent fuel pools several stories above ground adjacent to the top of the reactor. The hydrogen explosion may have blown off the roof covering the pool, as it’s not under containment. The pool requires water circulation to remove decay heat. If this doesn’t happen, the water will evaporate and possibly boil off. If a pool wall or support is compromised, then drainage is a concern. Once the water drops to around 5-6 feet above the assemblies, dose rates could be life-threatening near the reactor building. If significant drainage occurs, after several hours the zirconium cladding around the irradiated uranium could ignite.
Then all bets are off.
On average, spent fuel ponds hold five-to-ten times more long-lived radioactivity than a reactor core. Particularly worrisome is the large amount of cesium-137 in fuel ponds, which contain anywhere from 20 to 50 million curies of this dangerous radioactive isotope. With a half-life of 30 years, cesium-137 gives off highly penetrating radiation and is absorbed in the food chain as if it were potassium.”
Huggy
Re: thermonuclear weapons (i.e. the “H-Bomb”). What is known of the design, probably most of the explosive detonation force comes from the fissile elements of the secondary stage. The primary stage is a fission bomb (plutonium implosion): the radiation pressure of this bomb as it detonates are focussed and channelled onto the secondary (perhaps the neutrons or X-rays pouring off it, its not exactly know how or what as it is probably the most highly classified secret of any government in possession of it and the details obviously not in the public domain).
The secondary is a core of fusion material (e.g. lithium deuteride) surrounded by a “pusher-tamper”. The fusion fuel itself surrounds a core (the “sparkplug”) of P239 or U235. The tamper is lead or U238. The radiation pressure compresses the tamper, which crushes the fusion fuel which in turn crushes the “sparkplug” and causes it to undergo fission. This in turn causes the fusion fuel to undergo fusion. The tamper may also undergo fission; certainly as it is blown apart in the tremendous nuclear explosion that results it is transmuted to various nasty, dirty, elements.
In other words a H-Bomb is a “staged” weapon, “fusion-fission-fusion”, it is highly reliant on fissile materiel such as Plutonium and Uranium, and it’s a very ‘dirty’ weapon.
And I’ll just point out, none of the above is relevant to any discussion about civilian nuclear power.
A sobering passage from the Scientific American article cited at 157:
“the type of accident that is occurring in Japan is known as a station blackout. It means loss of off-site AC power—power lines are down—and then a subsequent failure of emergency power on-site—the diesel generators. It is considered to be extremely unlikely, but the station blackout has been one of the great concerns for decades.
“The probability of this occurring is hard to calculate, primarily because of the possibility of what are called common-cause accidents, where the loss of off-site power and of on-site power are caused by the same thing. In this case it was the earthquake and tsunami. So we’re in uncharted territory, we’re in a land where probability says we shouldn’t be. And we’re hoping that all of the barriers to release of radioactivity will not fail.”
Note in particular the fact that that this has apparently been a great concern for experts ‘for decades’ but a satisfactory solution has apparently not been forthcoming? Also note the incredulous references to the failure of the laws of ‘probability’ to operate according to human expectations which has left experts in ‘unchartered waters’ and the resulting resort to the language of hope.
Latest news reports are of problems with the No.2 reactor and concerns about damage to the container.
I read on the SMH this morning that with the decay heat the first 72 hours after station blackout are crucial. We’re past them for two of the reactors and this third one will soon also reach the 72 hours point, so it seems likely all crisis will be averted…
Again, from a layperson’s point of view, the fact that the latest explosion was “heard” but not seen would suggest that it occurred in the containment vessel.
Is this a reasonable conclusion?
Moreover, “higher radiation levels” after this invisible explosion would suggest some kind of containment breach.
Katz I just watched a surprisingly aggressive interview between the heads of TEPCO and the media, and they were saying just “damaged” not “breached.” At least that’s what I interpreted their words to mean. How they can thus have released extra radiation I don’t know. But these execs didn’t come across as particularly trustworthy or even knowledgable about the situation…
According to the SMH 11.26 am)
Following the explosion, the Deputy Cabinet Secretary of Public Relations Noriyuki Shikata said on Twitter that while radiation levels has risen around No.2, “the level is not judged to be immediately harmful to the human bodies”.
Radiation levels in the air surrounding the power plant have risen four-fold after a fresh explosion at reactor No.2, the plant operator said.
The radiation reading at 08.31am local time climbed to 8217 microsieverts an hour from 1941 about 40 minutes earlier, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said.
Japanese authorities say levels would need to reach one million or so before causing large-scale radiation sickness.
With radiation levels around the facility up, TEPCO suspects the core of the No. 2 reactor has partially melted, a critical nuclear safety situation.
“It was a hydrogen explosion. We are still assessing the cause and unsure whether the explosion was caused by damage to the suppression chamber,” an official at the nuclear safety agency told Reuters. He did not have any more details.
Japanese authorities say levels would need to reach one million or so before causing large-scale radiation sickness.
With radiation levels around the facility up, TEPCO suspects the core of the No. 2 reactor has partially melted, a critical nuclear safety situation.
“It was a hydrogen explosion. We are still assessing the cause and unsure whether the explosion was caused by damage to the suppression chamber,” an official at the nuclear safety agency told Reuters. He did not have any more details.
Japanese authorities say levels would need to reach one million or so before causing large-scale radiation sickness.
With radiation levels around the facility up, TEPCO suspects the core of the No. 2 reactor has partially melted, a critical nuclear safety situation.
“It was a hydrogen explosion. We are still assessing the cause and unsure whether the explosion was caused by damage to the suppression chamber,” an official at the nuclear safety agency told Reuters. He did not have any more details.
From the Guardian:
The New York Times has some rather worrying quotes from concerned nuclear industry executives in the US who have been talking to Japanese counterparts amid faltering emergency operations to pump seawater into one of the crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station:
“They’re basically in a full-scale panic” among Japanese power industry managers, said a senior nuclear industry executive.
The executive is not involved in managing the response to the reactors’ difficulties but has many contacts in Japan. “They’re in total disarray, they don’t know what to do.”
Apologies – doubled up the extract from the SMH
Despite the claims that the nuclear power generation industry is not much more complex than a few Prius motor cars it would have to be the most knowledge intensive, unforgiving and difficult industry I know of.
Sure the petrochemical industry comes in next, I suppose, followed by a whole host of knowledge intensive capital intensive and dangerous industries. It is worth noting howver that many of these , such as the steel industry are only dangerous because the owners are unwilling to move from low cost 19th century techniques to more modern low emissions intrinsically safer techniques.
The nuclear power industry has to be supported by a whole host of academics, engineers and scientists as well as special army and police units.
This retinue has really only one major purpose, to prevent these machines from blowing up and/or poisoning us.
I know of no other industry that demands such extensive support.
I contend that is the obsession with nuclear power that has held back the development of other and far safer and potentially cost effective sources of power such as geothermal,Solar thermal and above all the energy storage systems that will mediate the intermittency.
We have been on the wrong path for the last 70 years, the events in Japan have finally demonstrated the folly of the construction of complex and inherently dangerous edifices when far safer alterbnatives can be developed.
Lomborg was wrong about many things to do with climate change but he is right about one. The deperate need for more R&D into energy systems.
Face up to it guys the nuclear age is over.
Huggy
huggybunny, the nuclear age never started. Only countries with special economic (Japan) or cultural (China, Russia, France) reasons ever got near to it. And those countries will probably continue with their nuclear programs regardless of occasional extreme events, because their reasons are special.
The rest of the world is not so fussed by nuclear, and this event may be an incentive to switch funding plans a bit but most of the world doesn’t seem to be exactly focussed on this energy system – the bleatings of a few hopeful libertarians aside.
Why should the libertarians be interested in nuclear power?
Its delivery requires substantial powers of management and surveillance by the state to a degree not shared by any other power generation system. Quite the opposite of their philosophical concerns with the concentration of power in the state.
‘most of the world doesn’t seem to be exactly focussed on this energy system’
Paradoxically the challenge of global warming seems to have given the industry more credibility in recent times, despite the unprecedented dangers involved in combining human fallibility with nuclear fission.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/modern-times/nukes-and-the-x-factor/20110314-1buc8.html
Adamite @200,
Who is that blogger? He/she is terrible!
Incurious – not sure. Seemed a bit of a strange mix of views but I thought the point about human fallibility and nuclear power was spot on.
Katz @ 183 and Robert @ 185,
There really are no concerns about the uranium going critical and generating power again. As Robert says, the geometry is crucial. The spatial relationships between the the moderator (water that “slows down” the fast neutrons from the U-235 and allow for absorption by the U-235 to continue the cycle) control rods (a “poison” or nuetron absorber which rapidly decreases the level of nuetrons) and the U-235 as well as all the structural materials that maintain these physical relationships. Upon a partial meltdown the geometrical relationship is altered making a sustained reaction (“critical” – where the level of neutrons is neither increasing or decreasing each lifecycle if microseconds).
In other words, it is possible a monkey could type out Shakespeare but pretty unlikely. Besides, if, by a remote chance the various elements all come together exactly right to achieve criticality – without any controlling the approach to criticality the energy build up would be so fast that the parts would rapidly separate. And stop.
It doesn’t matter. Nuclear Power as a viable commercial energy source is now defunct. Congress is “tapping on the brakes” and will not authorize the planned expansion and build of 20 new plants. The technology has been historically too complex and difficult to understand by the population at large. The fact that modern design are actually much less complex and far safer will not make any difference.
Why paradoxical? It doesn’t seem unreasonable to regard global warming as a greater threat than the risks posed by nuclear energy. If this disaster leads Japan to become less reliant on nuclear power, the reality is that means Japan will burn more coal and LNG. The big winner from this nuclear disaster will be the fossil fuel industry. In the long run, we will all be losers.
Doug asked:
It’s dangerous to generalise. I suspect that at least some of them are advancing it disingenuously, trying to wedge Greens and leftists and have a stick with which to beat us about the head. They suppose that as most advocates of Co2 mitigation hate the idea of nuclear power they can present us with the option of either embracing nuclear power or arguing for solutions that could never amount to more than nibbling at the fringes of the problem at great expense or perhaps arguing for serious reversals in the standard of living that would never be politically viable and would thus wedge us against the ALP. In short we could be painted as a new species of fundamentalist and fit to be marginalised from public policy.
Some right-of-centre libertarians are not totally fundamentalist on the “personal bubble” question and accept a role for the state as a “nightwatchman” and regard nuclear power as a least cost solution for clean energy.
As Hugbunny points out, the end of the nuclear age only signals more coal and gas if your sights are set resolutely in the rear vision mirror.
Approached in the right way, this could actually be a wonderful opportunity.
Tim – ‘paradoxically’ because the potential negatives of the proposed cure are arguably infinitely worse than the disease (or alternative types of cure. The reltive opportunity costs of investing in nuclear energy as opposed to other energy sources has already been touched on in earlier posts (see Katz 71 & 88).
sdamite @ 200,
The blogger puts “air quotes” around “fail safe”. This term is usually misused. It is a design consideration sought after where, given a specific failure or unsafe parameter change, the system “fails” to a safe state.
For instance, if the “safe” position of an air operated valve is closed, failure or loss of air pressure would result in the valve being closed (by a spring). The term is used throughout the design of complex systems.
Another example is if the “safe” mode of a Toyota’s brakes is to slow the car down, then loss of control signal or control power would mean the brakes would slow the car down. Following the problems last year, that is now how the sytems work. Fail Safe.
Thanks Mike,
But given the assurances about the rapid decline in heat and energy after a reactor is shut down, what might be the source(s) of the energy sufficient to compromise a containment vessel days after the reactor rods were slipped into position?
@ 204
Exactly. One of the first things Japan will do is import more LNG to help replace the lost generation capacity from the nuclear plants.
I found it odd a little further up thread when Katz (I think but correct me if I am wrong) said that the nuclear industry was not cost competitive without enormous subsidies. I would have thought that the key point was that the two technologies it is not competitive with are coal and gas, which are themselves only cheaper because their externalities aren’t priced properly. Nuclear is very cost competitive with most renewable technologies (which in most countries are also highly dependent on state subsidies).
The other important point I think is that there should be very few implications for Australia from what is happening with Japan’s reactors. Japan is one of the least geologically stable countries in the world whereas Australia is one of the most geologically stable. Unfortunately rational discussion goes out the window when nuclear energy is being discussed.
adrian @ 205,
Well said. To your point, it is disparaging that the media and industry at large spend so little time promoting conservation while pushing alternative energies. A deliberate and considered campaign to conserve energy (and I fully realize that Americans are the world’s biggest offenders per capita) could decrease energy use by 20%, cost nothing in R&D or infrastucture build out and decrease environmental impact all with absolute safety.
I’m talking about Japan, not the “end of the nuclear age”.
And where’s the evidence that policy makers are likely to “approach it in the right way”? “Could” be an opportunity is not the same as “will” be an opportunity. Also, the potential for renewable energy is not everywhere the same. Even if, in the long run, this disaster causes Japan to increase its generation of renewable energy, in the short to medium term the most likely outcome is more fossil fuel burning.
Nuclear is very cost competitive with most renewable technologies
Even taking into account construction and decommissioning costs?
Well, LO good luck on establishing and imposing a price regime for fossil fuels that both accurately quantifies the costs of the externalities you are talking about and is politically acceptable to consumers.
Meanwhile, here in Australia the punter who buys petrol is paying a 45% excise to government.
Please note that I do not doubt the magnitude of the cost of the externalities of which you speak.
Japan is one of the least geologically stable countries in the world whereas Australia is one of the most geologically stable.
True, but Japan’s (nuclear) problems haven’t come from the earthquake. They’ve come from the tsunami. Who is to say that an earthquake near NZ couldn’t create a tsunami that would wash over a nuclear power plant on the Australian east coast?
Katz @ 208,
Good question.
Over the lifetime of reactor operations a percentage of the nuclides (elements) created when the U-235 absorbs a neutron then splits into smaller atoms are “radioactive”. Meaning, they “want” to decay to a more stable isotope. They emit beta, alpha and gamma energy. This energy interacts with its’ surrondings (water, structural materials, etc.) and the result is they heat up. This heat must then be removed by some means. Actually, even during normal reactor operations this heat source is used by the system to generate energy and heat up water, power turbines, etc.
The more hours (measured as Effective Full Time Hours or EFTH) a reactor core has the more of these isotopes it contains up to a certain equilibrium. An any event, since the reactors where safely shutdown (SCRAMMED) prior to the station blackout (a full hour if I recall) the decay products ceased to be produced since they are only created as a by product of fission. And now they will decay away. There level will depend on the power level the reactors where operating at in the weeks prior to the shutdown.
I think that explains it.
Prime Minister Kan has announced the chance of a meltdown is increasing. People between 20 & 30kn away should stay indoors.
minister Edano says there’s a fire in reactor 4 and they assume leakage. and a hole observed in the primary containment of #2. monitoring levels now in the mSv range
d
Katz,
The elephant in the room is the spent fuel rods that sit outside the containment vessel in a big water bath. See my earlier URL
http://www.counterpunch.org/alvarez03142011.html
This should be of greater concern than the rods in the 40 year old containment vessel.
Huggy
Thanks for that info, Huggy. As it may be apparent, I’m on a very steep learning curve here.
On the use of the term “meltdown”.
In actuality there have been a few prior “partial” meltdowns where the cladding of the fuel rods has been breached and the uranium, decay products and matrix material (usually a temperature resistant ceramic) leak out into the coolant. This is a problem and must then be contained in the pressure vessel. In a BWR the steam line stop valves have been shut and the the emergency cooling system water supplies have been opened and the pressure vessel filled with water like we see now.
In this situation I assume the normal purified water is not available or was contaminated by the tsunami. So the pressure vessel is filled with seawater which is now contaminated with the materials that have leaked out of the fuel cells. Right now there is nothing “melting” as much as there are materials undergoing metallurgical failurs of one sort or another, tensile stress, cracks, etc. There is no “melting” occuring but rather multiple metal failures. The pressure vessel, which houses the core, is now a mess. But a contained mess and not a “melting” mess.
Outside the pressure vessel is the primary containment. This is much larger in volume and, in the GE BWR design, has a “suppression” system designed to absorb the energy from decay heat. But it means the gamma radiation levels will increase in the general vicinity. Any radioactive gases or particulate that leak out of the primary containment can cause long term problems. But note, there has been no report of the pressure vessels failing let alone the primary containments. There are still two barriers of protection and the benefit of elapsed time providing protection.
About the spent fuel pools:
There is no way for us to know how thermally hot the spent fuel is. It would depend on how long it has been since the last refueling. In a BWR commission in 71 the vast majority of the spent fuel is generating negligible thermal energy. It is in the pools awaiting transport for re-processing or Very Long Term storage. At this point it is dramatic to worry about the pools but, considering the plant has already resorted to using seawater for cooling I doubt they would hesitate to use it to cool the heat exchangers used to cool the pools. In summary, truly the least of our worries though I am sure there is a dedicated team assigned.
Huggy @ 218,
I just looked at the link for the first time. It is probably just me but a site that is asking for donations is not, in my mind, interested in factual reporting as much as sensationalizing or exploiting the situation for profit. They need to get all their facts straight.
In this instance I doubt they have any facts on the Fukushima spent fuel pools and are generalizing for effect.
What happens to the sea water after it is pumped in? Does it all evaporate or is there also an outflow? Are there contaminants vented with it? Apologies if this has already been answered.
Mike @220,
“Meltdown” seems to be a terribly imprecise term. It seems to include everything from a warped fuel rod to a full-on “China Syndrome”. Everytime it is used in the media, one’s mind leaps instinctively to the latter (well, mine does anyway).
Is this an industry term, or is it a journalistic invention (cf “financial meltdown”)?
Regardless of merits of the comparisons raised between the ill-effects coal/petroleum vs nuclear, and the comparisons made between the relative expense of nuclear vs renewables – don’t you think that if you were to put it to people that they could have none of the ill-effects of nuclear, but at a slightly greater expense, people would find renewables more attractive.
If this horrible situation in Japan achieves anything, it may be to force people to wake up to reality regarding the true costs [social, environmental, economic] of energy production, and it may encourage politicians to stop pretending it wont cost people money if we are to achieve emissions reductions.
This is a time to have an honest discussion about what price we are willing to pay and what risks we are willing to accept.
LO @210,
Yes, it would be nice to see renewables and nuclear go head to head on fair and commercial terms under a carbon pricing regime.
Who would win? In Australia, renewables, without a shadow of a doubt. In Japan, I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess.
A correction to what I wrote earlier, boingboing has what looks like a more convincing translation:
“We’re seeing radioactive substances being released, says Edano, and reactor No. 4 is now exposed. The blast at No. 2 reactor came 30 minutes after the incident at No. 4. A hole has been observed in the No. 2 reactor; there is a high possibility of container vessel damage for this reactor.”
I’ve been doing a little reading and some of the old school experiments in the early days are enough to make your toes curl.
Read this for instance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
As for safety back in the 40′s…
Brrrrrr. I’m sure safety has come a long way since then.
Paul @ 222,
Actually, there are number of options available. As the water heats up it flows out then cooled in heat exchangers with the waste heat eventually dissipated in the ocean (or cooling towers as the case may be). The most difficult situation to deal with is the radioactive gases which are now in the coolant from the cracks in the fuel cells. Under normal operation there are radioactive gases (N-16 caused by the breakdown of water exposed nuetron radiation in the core) carried over in the steam, pass through the turbine and then accumulate in the tops of the condensors. These gases are short-lived and are vented through the “Off Gas” system. This system slowly vents the gases through shielded piping, filters and other treatment so by the time they are released to the atmosphere they are no longer radioactive.
However, since the steam line stop valves are shut the operators can not, and would not, use the main condensors and the Off Gas system to remove the gases. They are vented into the primary containment where they will accumulate and decay. Depending on the degree to which the fuel cells are comprised the level of these gases will vary. The primary containment has a passive suppressive system in a toroidal shaped suppression pool that lowers the pressure in the primary containment (not to be confused with the pressure vessel which houses the reactor core). As long as the pressure in the primary containment is maintained then the gases will not need to be vented. Eventually the gases will be vented to high pressure cylinders and stored for re-processing.
I&U @ 223,
I was in nuclear power (Navy) from 1974 and the term had already been coined. We never used the term meltdown in conjunction with a loss of cooling accident. However, once China Syndrome was released in 1979 followed almost within weeks by the TMI accident, it was in common spoken use, though not in any protocol or SOP.
The LOCA is the “design basis accident” in nuclear plants. Virtually all safety systems are designed to mitigate the effect of a LOCA. At commercial BWR’s the Loss of Power/Loss of Coolant accident is the design basis accident. At Fukushima the Loss of Power has resulted in a Loss of Coolant but it is within the design basis. Thus, having experienced the design basis accident, the plant can be safely managed, threats mitigated and eventually retired. It is not pretty but at least it is analysed for.
And this aspect is not to be confused with the chatter about the fact that the assumed worst case earthquake was 8.2 and tsunami was 25 feet. The mere fact that these were exceeded doesn’t mean all bets are off or a mistake was made in the analysis. It means that had the natural disasters been less than these magnitudes the probabilty of an accident was low.
tssk @ 227,
What is your point? As has been repeated often in this forum and hopefully emhasized for all, there is a difference between nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. Frankly, it nuclear weapons weren’t dangerous as hell they wouldn’t be “WEAPONS” would they?
Mike Crayne@120
You question the probity of Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary from 1993 to 1999. (He must be a liar, he after all is just another trough seeking professor)
Well if that is not good enough try this:
http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/ucs-spent-fuel-report#document/p6
More from the same source:
http://www.propublica.org/article/status-of-spent-nuclear-fuel-in-question-at-crippled-japanese-power-plant
It is from the union of concerned scientists (stinking trough seeking scum eh?) and it has images of the reactor layout as well as description of the way the waste is stored on site in a non contained building.
The second URL raises the spent fuel storage concerns.
I confess that I did not realise that this ancient piece of nuclear junk that was supposed to be decommissioned last month had on site uncontained spent fuel storage. In a fucking earthquake zone for fuck sake.
Huggy
Mike, is there an outflow of seawater/condensate? Are there non-gaseous wastes in this outflow?
When you talk about loss of coolant, are you saying that it is by design a closed system? But since the LOC it’s now open? Or was the seawater pumped in and the system sealed again?
“Prime Minister Kan has announced the chance of a meltdown is increasing. People between 20 & 30kn away should stay indoors.”
“As for safety back in the 40′s…”
Judging by PM Kan’s suggestion that people stay indoors, one thing that doesnt seems to have changed much is the total incapacity of governments to do anything about the devastating effects on the population once radioactive contamination has been released into the environment. Sounds a lot like the ‘duck and cover’ advice the US government gave to Americans during the cold war in case of nuclear attack.
Huggy @ 230,
Yeah I do. I am sure he is a real smart guy. With no agenda. Nonetheless, do you think he is intimately familiar with the spent fuel cells at Fukushima? He might be but I doubt it.
Bad knews sells. Never let facts get in the way of sensationalism.
Like I said, having lived through the TMI accident I am so discouraged with the amount of nonsense and self serving noise comes out in the midst of tragedy. The TMI accident was horrible and was a breach of the fuel cells (aka “partial meltdown”) but the next time you eat a Hersey’s chocolate bar know the milk comes from cows that continue to graze in the shadows of the cooling towers. Well maybe not now, but back then. There was no danger to the surrounding environment.
For instance – a great example quoted by Daryl @ 226
“A hole has been observed in the No. 2 reactor”. Really? I mean REALLY? Someone saw a hole inside a 12″ concrete containment housing a 6″ steel pressure vessel? Is it OK if I question that statement? I think they mean a hole in the No. 2 Reactor Building (secondary containment). Big difference.
Even more sensational “reactor No. 4 is now exposed”. Come on. WTF does that mean?
And by WTF does that mean I don’t mean what does “Rector no. 4 is now exposed” means. I think it means that the water level in the pressure vessel is below the top of the core. Big difference. And, you really can’t “see” that either.
Meanwhile, Mike Crayne, radiation has apparently just now been detected on the outskirts of Tokyo. But maybe the Japanese are being sensationalist?
235.
Source? And levels? Remember, within Tokyo there may be multiple sources of radioactivity from commercial or medical sources not related to the nuclear power plants.
I do want to read your source though.
Thanks
236 ABC News Japan Earthquake live. I’m trying to find a source in japanese media.
Mike Crayne, to explain I was just saying to deal with the raw materials back then you needed balls of steel. And experiment where one material hitting another would result in death?
Of course there was a repeat of that accident in 1999 (using liquid instead of solids) but that was due to poor safety training and standards.
While I’m not enamoured by some of the tone in the post “This is our Three Mile Island” the Bad Science Blog has some good posts on the nuclear drama and context.
http://depletedcranium.com/latest-information-on-fukushima-daiichi/
and
http://depletedcranium.com/while-everyone-was-focused-on-the-nuclear-plant/
Paul @ 231,
Yes, a BWR is a closed system in that during operation the coolant is condensed in the condensor after powering the turbines then pumped back into the pressure vessel by feed pumps. All condensors, nuclear or not, have to extract gases that come out of concentration when the steam condenses.
I would guess, I don’t really know for sure, that right now the seawater injected into the pressure vessel is replacing water that has turned to steam and vented by over pressure valves into the primary containment. If this is not done periodically the operators would risk a fracture of the pressure vessel. The energy required to turn the seawater at 1000# pressure (I am guessing) into steam is how energy is being transfered from the decay products. Despite all the reports to the contrary I don’t think any pressure vessel has ruptured. If it did then the operators would flood the primary containment. That is a lot of water and would take a tremendous amount of decay heat to turn to steam. It is possible to cool the primary containment by external means that do not transfer contaminated materials.
Furious balancing said:
Doubtless they would, assuming that all else were equal. Of course, that’s not close to being true. If the cost were only double or triple that of coal/gas/oil a lot of people (not me however) would baulk and that would not IMO, be covered by “slightly”.
In practice, the differential is likely to be a lot greater than that if one wants to reproduce the level of service we want now — one order or magnitude higher at least and probably quite a bit higher than that.
tssk @ 238,
My bad. Good point.
To reiterate my concern in the context of this thread only – I am sad that any efforts toward advanced, simple, elegant and passively safe reactors will now come to a halt.
In 1988 Freeman Dyson wrote “Infinite in all Directions”. I have since based my technical philosophy on his ideas and insights. Specifically he examines how the High Temperature Gas Reactor at Fort St. Vrain, Colorado was put on hold post TMI. As time passed the cost of restarting the project became exponentially more expensive. Eventually General Atomic the design altogher. Unfortunately, it was exactly these types of reactors that obviate the LOCA in the best way possible – not by interlocks or active safety systems but by design. Now, I really don’t see any progress in nuclear design. Unless there is some unfathomable disaster far worse than the BP oil spill or massive warfare in the Middle East and East Africa.
General point.
I genuinely appreciate you all tolerating my misspellings. But I hope you still understand what I am saying.
Good night all.
I hope tomorrow brings some good news and the sufferng starts to wain. I really can’t imagine how horrible it must be for the victims of the quake and tsunami. My prayers are with them.
Mike Crayne:
“100 millisieverts is therefore 10 rems.”
“10 REM would be the legal limit for 2 years exposure for U.S. radiation workers.”
“It is assumed that signs and symptoms do not manifest with less than 100REM short term exposure.”
“Thus, I know in the U.S. we limit workers to less than 5 REM per year.”
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yukio Edano:
“In a press conference following Mr Kan’s, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation levels around the No.1, No.2 and No.3 reactors were a threat to human health. The rise in radiation levels – which were recorded at up to 400 millisieverts an hour and were thousands of times higher than the levels recorded before the explosion at No.2 – may have also been caused by the fire at No.4″
400 millisieverts an hour = 40 REM per hour.
8 hours exposure to 400 millisieverts/40 REM an hour means a 50/50 chance of death within 30 days.
Mike @233 I’m sure you’re not particularly having a go at me per se, but just to be clear, that stuff at 226 is, reputedly, a quote from Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano at the PM’s press conference. It didn’t make much sense to me, but it seems to be about as ‘official’ a statement as we can get.
On the radioactivity in Tokyo, I’ve different things, but there’s a guy with a geiger counter here: http://park18.wakwak.com/~weather/geiger_index.html
d
Or am I reading the facts wrong?
“If the cost were only double or triple that of coal/gas/oil a lot of people (not me however) would baulk and that would not IMO, be covered by “slightly”. ”
That’s a bit sneaky, Fran. I was talking about the costs of renewables vs nuclear. My post was in response to LO focus only on the economic, which I’m not questioning favours nuclear at this point in time.
Yep, Nick, was about to point to that.
That’s much, much worse. Those workers can spend no more than an hour there before they’ll have to leave – actually, if the regs are applied, only a few minutes.
The question is where that radiation is coming from and whether it’s going to continue to remain that high.
My post above should be “slightly favours”.
Nick, the theory reported by the New York Times is that the spent fuel pool on the number 4 reactor – which was closed for maintenance, but suffered a fire earlier today was exposed to the air.
If that’s the case, if they’ve got the fire out (seems to be the case) and the pool is still capable of holding water, they can get the lid back on it (assuming that they can get close enough to run a hose into it without dying of prompt radiation poisoning).
Guys, things have taken a turn seriously for the worse here.
I must say, my efforts not to be sceptical about the deafening “everything’s okay” alarms ringing in Japan and around the blogosphere have finally given way.
This is looking very very bad, and has set back my own increasingly pro-nuke-power position. After all, this is Japan we’re talking about. Sure, that means some pretty fucked up local geology too, but these guys know their engineering.
This wikipedia entry on X-rays suggests a CT scan of the torso doses the torso with about 5milliSieverts of radiation.
So 400mSv per hour is like getting 80 CT scans per hour. I wouldn’t want to be working there.
sry, link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray#Plain_X-rays
Yes but they have the best little engineers in the world working on that buzzing little honeypot of a nuke. Nothing can go wrong…
In 1986, a top official at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission raised concerns about the GE containment system’s design.
“I don’t have the same warm feeling about GE containment that I do about the larger dry containments,’’ said Harold Denton, director of NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation during an industry conference, according to a report at the time by the publication, Inside N.R.C. “There has been a lot of work done on those containments, but Mark I containments . . . you’ll find something like a 90 percent probability of that containment failing.’’
“There is a wide spectrum of ability to cope with severe accidents at GE plants,’’ Denton said. “And I urge you to think seriously about the ability to cope with such an event if it occurred at your plant.’’
He was talking about the Fukushima spent fuel container design in the Mk1 GE reactor.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/nuclear-experts-weigh-in-on-ge-containment-system/2011/03/14/ABspN1V_story.html
I think there are about 28 of these machines world wide.
Including at least 4 in the US.
Huggy
>Razor says @22 March 14, 2011 at 12:39 am
Anyone care to defend Razor’s thesis?
“Including at least 4 in the US.”
Not in L.A., on that faultline, I hope!
Question of balance is a real one – I don’t think it has been skewed by anti-nuclear campaigners though.
The media is in a bind on this one – if things end up going disasterously wrong and they hadn’t covered the issue they would be accused of a cover up.
The other difficulty is that it has been difficult up to now to be confident that the information being provided on developments by both the company and the government has been accurate. the company has a poor track record on transparency and accurate reporting which has inevitably lead to a tendency to be sceptical and assume that things are being covered up.
Even so up till now the news reorting even where a story has started with the power plant issues has almost always ended up giving substantial coverage to the devastating impact of what has happened.
IAEA seems to confirm the NYT’s theory on the source of the radiation: Spent fuel pond fire.
“Japanese authorities also today informed the IAEA at 04:50 CET that the spent fuel storage pond at the Unit 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is on fire and radioactivity is being released directly into the atmosphere.
Dose rates of up to 400 millisievert per hour have been reported at the site. The Japanese authorities are saying that there is a possibility that the fire was caused by a hydrogen explosion.”
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html
So now we get to wonder what, exactly, has been released into the air & how much of it .
d
I think also the tsunami damage is in the past (with an uncertain possibility of more to come) vs the nuclear threat which is ongoing and where there is a reasonable expectation that consequences should be knowable.
Not only are the poor tsunami victims homeless and powerless from the tsunami with a chance of more to come, but they’ve got the threat of nuclear catastrophe (which must be particularly scary for the Japanese given WW2), said threat having also displaced vast numbers of people who might otherwise be able to attend to their homes.
It’s unsurprising that efforts to defuse the ticking bomb get a lot of attention. The media could offer balance but people will go where the suspense is.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/breaking-news/new-blasts-fire-at-plant-as-shares-dive/story-e6frea73-1226021919806
Thanks Robert for the best description I’ve read. You’re right of course that the scale of the problems is small compared to the death toll from the tsunami itself, and I do wish everyone on the anti-nuke side would acknowledge that.
Still, it seems to me that even if there is no loss of life, this is going to shift a rational assessment of the use of nuclear power in two ways. For one thing, the costs are going to be big and that needs to be incorporated into future costings. The chances that renewables plus storage will be cheaper goes up.
Secondly, I can remember being told by quite a few pro-nuclear advocates (including a university physics lecturer) that modern design meant it was absolutely impossible for a TMI-type disaster to ever happen again, except with soviet-style reactors. Obviously this was a very rare circumstance but it would be nice if people weren’t so arrogant about what could go wrong.
I wish someone could show me one person, just one, who claims the current scale of the nuclear reactor accident is on par with the tsunami catastrophe.
wbb: I will admit to some frustration with the media priorities in the wake of the quake.
Stephen: I think it’s best to leave the broader debate until later, but anybody that said a TMI-scale event wouldn’t happen again was talking out their arse. The question is really whether a Chernobyl, or worse, could happen.
Based on what we know so far, the only event that’s taken us anywhere close to that is the fire in the spent fuel pool. That was potentially really disastrous, and also difficult to understand how it might have occurred. Adding water to an unpressurized pool before the spent fuel was exposed would presumably be a relatively straightforward task, even for some kind of jury-rigged system.
Huggy @ 254,
I don’t think Peter Denton was talking about the spent fuel pools as you say. He was concerned about the BWR-1 containment design. There is nothing in the quote talking about the spent fuel pools.
Nick @ 243,
Your math is correct. Thus, as later discussed, workers would not be allowed to stand for 8 hours in a 40REM/Hr. radiation area. If it becomes necessary for a human to enter the area they would be limited to minutes, at most.
From a website with a URL too long to post:
Table 5 presents the estimates of the fatal cancer risk for a group of 1,000 workers of various ages, assuming that each worker received an acute dose of 25 rems (0.25 Sv) in the course of assisting in an emergency. The estimates show that a 25-rem emergency dose might increase an individual’s chances of developing fatal cancer from about 20% to about 21%.
And From: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/bio-effects-radiation.html
Conversely, low doses – less than 10,000 mrem (100 mSv) – spread out over long periods of time (years) don’t cause an immediate problem to any body organ. The effects of low doses of radiation, if any, would occur at the cell level, and thus changes may not be observed for many years (usually 5-20 years) after exposure.
Robert – the Japanese PM has been making repeated announcements from day 1 on the nuclear reactor issue. Hence I think it understandable and sensible that the world has focused on it. Otherwise why is he wasting his time with it?
The horror of the tsunami has had a great effect on people’s psyches. Fears of what might come next are only heightened in such post-catastrophic moments.
Look at false alarms/panics about new tsunamis etc.
There is no case that anybody who is anti-nuclear needs to answer for here.
Agreed, it isn’t a good time to achieve the most rational discussion of the pros and cons etc – but to condemn people for expressing their fears and doubts about nuclear reactors at such a time is to expect Olympian detachment.
Not to mention that the context here is specifically nuclear reactors sitting atop a notoriously unstable piece of geography. I’m pretty gobsmacked right now that I had never really thought about it before. The questioning going on is the sound of millions of hands smacking the foreheads at their own stupidity/ignorance.
@265
I posted the wrong paragraph from the link. Anyways.
In an emergency the volunteers are selected first by age. The older are the first to go as the effects of the radiation have a lower chance of resulting in cancer.
It is actually how I got started looking at this blog. I was trying to find a way to volunteer as a BWR experienced, radiation worker qualified male of an advanced age. Foolhardy I know.
As well as tapping deeply into national primal fear, maybe the lizard is trying to tell his conjurers something about future coastal zoning and town planning.
http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/96836
wbb @ 266,
I can’t speak for any other nuclear advocate but I, for one, have capitulated. The Germans have shut down 5 or 6 older reactors. I suspect all BWR-1 in the U.S will be operating under extreme restrictions and emergency response beefed up. We will try to debate the benefits nuclear power but will not be able to get past the legitimate fears raised by the Fukushima accidents.
As an aside, while it is possible to eliminate the risk caused by a Loss of Coolant Accident, we would still be faced with possible “Reactivity” accidents – rapid uncontrolled power excursions caused by a rapid change in the fuel/moderator/control-rods ratios allows the reactor to be critical on “prompt” neutrons alone. This is what happened at Chernobyl and the increase in power was so acute the pressure vessel head blew and breached the primary containment. It is the type of accident all operators fear and is often only preventable by operator action and interlocks. The failure of an interlock followed by an operator error would result in a disaster on par with Chernobyl.
These concerns will not be in the forefront of the debate. In order for Nuclear Power to be truly safe, the risk of reactivity accidents as well as loss of cooling must be designed out.
The Japanese government is still rating it as a level 4 – France has upped the rating to a level 6 (one behind the seriousness of Chernobyl.
A French spokesmen seemed to be of the opinion that the containment vessel in reactor 2 may have been breached.
One of the original designers of the reactor in question suspects the containment vessel may have cracked.
What is the scenario if the containment vessel in reactor 2 has been breached?
Also tonight news of cooling problems in reactors 5 and 6.
The earthquake and tsunami are done and dusted. Beyond spectatorial interest, the rest of the world has only an indirect stake in what will happen next.
The meltdowns on the other hand serve as a clarion call for a major, worldwide revision of national policies toward energy generation.
And as we have seen, world governments have not been slow to make those important revisions.
For the rest of the world, the reactor stories are an archetypal example of news that can be used.
“Done and dusted”? We’re not even close to having a final toll, and the possibility of aftershocks (and potentially further tsunamis) is still very real.
However I can’t really blame the media for putting a heavy emphasis on the nuclear situation – it would be hypocritical to do so given it’s the aspect of the disaster that I’ve been following the most closely.
Stephen L said:
Only in a notional sense. The gap between the cost of renewables at equal levels of service is so great that the point is moot. Whether renewables go from being between 10-20 times the cost of nuclear to 8-16 times the cost at equal levels of service is neither here nor there. In a Japanese context of course renewables aren’t really an option. It’s nuclear power or fossil HC.
More broadly in the case of Fukushima, it does seem nuts that they built a nuclear plant at sea level without ensuring that it was secure from storm surges or tsunami, given that such things were foreseeable, particularly in Japan. And realy it’s a basic principle of disaster management that your “plan b” option in a disatster be isolated from the sweep of the disaster itself. We keep our backup servers at school physically remote from the main server room for just this reason and we aren’t looking after something as critical as a power plant. Why was the power to the ECCS put in the path of the disaster that forced the emergency shut down? It would not have been technically difficult or seriously costly to have done this with the diesel backup generator. Did they really bring a replacement generator with the wrong kinds of plugs?
The mind boggles at the amateurish thinking here. In some places nuclear plant safety accreditation has been held up because the wrong shade of paint has been used on a safety sign, and yet here, it seems, seriously salient matters have been overlooked.
Katz @271,
I think you have summed up the situation rather well.
The only thing that can really be done is to, burn the dead, take care of the survivors and clean up and rebuild after the earthquake and tsunami. Take steps to mitigate the effects of the land subsidence and the longer term rising sea levels in the district, essentially a localised task.
The evolving nuclear incident has global ramifications, there are at least 30 of the BWR type reactors around the globe; all reactors need to be assessed in the light of the lessons we are learning.
In this context, the reactor in Indonesia should concern us all.
“The original proposal to build a reactor in central Java is now on hold after locals complained that it was near a fault line.
Now there’s a new plan off the coast of Sumatra – which is further from fault lines, but more expensive, as the electricity will have to be sent to the more populous island of Java through underwater cables.
“Based on the readily available data that we’ve studied, the location is very stable. It’s never felt a major tremor, there are no volcanoes nearby, it’s safe from a tsunami, the geology of the land is appropriate for a nuclear power plant,” said Mr Aziz.
The plans are still being studied, but Mr Aziz is confident that the proposed nuclear reactor would be perfectly safe.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12742021
“perfectly safe” eh.
Huggy
But, Fran you’ve been telling us for ages how rigorous the engineering and safety issues are controlled in nuclear reactors, as opposed to other sources of power. You mean that human error still comes into play? You mean that TPEC might cut corners and might not be so rigorous and honest as you supposed?
Now you can tell us how this could never happen anywhere else and how the newer reactors are far safer.
There was an interesting story last night on the 7.30 Report by Eric Campbell. It outlined via the research of an independent documentary maker how TPEC has a long and dishonourable history of lying about safety in their nuclear reactors and how protests by locals about new power plants being built get under-reported or not reported by the Japanese media. This woman says she was a journo with NHK, but was fired when she wanted to do negative stories about nuclear power. The government is hand in glove with the owners of the power stations and people are frightened to voice their fears, is her argument.
Not quite the clean, green power source we’ve been lead to believe.
Well said Fine.
FB, take some advice. It’s over. Find another hobby horse.
I have noticed a regular pattern in the coverage of this disaster – every explosion or fire leads to a series of strident articles in every paper about the risk of a major catastrophe, how it’s got to happen this time, and then they get it under control. There have been 4 or 5 now, mostly related to each other, and they’ve all been under control. You can see this not just from the press conferences but also from the radiation charts, which spike after each report and then plummet.
I still don’t think we’re going to see a significant disaster. And some French minister calling it an apocalypse… really? Japan has seen nuclear apocalypse and this ain’t it.
Well I’m happy to drive the point home: the anti-nuke power movement has argued for more than 30 years that nuke power leads to weapons proliferation (proved) and that the nature of the fuel is so hazardous that at every point of the cycle it presents serious dangers to human and wider environmental health (proved).
You might think you have engineered the perfect plant only to find that power and profits intervene to spoil what otherwise appears to the engineering/scientific community to be an impeccable solution. Impeccable solutions only ever appeal to utopians, however, and we’ve had enough experience of both social and scientific utopianism in the 20th century to be well wary.
BTW: reports of Tokyo residents behaving in calm Japanese ways are totally false. It actually appears that everyone who can is heading south and why wouldn’t they?
They’re still leaving in a calm Japanese way akn… I saw it yesterday…
…thanks sg…a very orderly form of get the eff out, I’m sure.
Just in on spiegel.de the fire has apparently reached the control room of the water cooling system in reactor 4, where the “used” fuel rods are being stored. This is a terrible catastrophe and failure of planning if this is the case.
Must be horrible to be in Japan right now. The tension alone must be unbearable. Are the LPers in Japan safe? What’s happening with you guys? Let us know if everything is ok your end if you get the chance?!
sg, just thinking of you. What’s happening over there right now? Are you safe?
ok, sounds like all is fine. Hope so.
I keep hoping things aren’t so bad in Japan and none of the reports seem catastrophic just yet, but the tension certainly seems to be building. Burning fuel rods, even though they’re “spent” doesn’t seem like a good thing though. Anyway, hope you’re in good hands!
And, just 10mins later everything is apparently under control like sg says. Well, that’s it. I’m off to bed. This news watching is infuriating some times.
Fran,
“Whether renewables go from being between 10-20 times the cost of nuclear to 8-16 times the cost at equal levels of service is neither here nor there.”
Where are you getting your numbers from? My expectation would be that the cost of mature thermal solar technology would be of the same order of magnitude as nuclear. Twice as much, possibly, but not ten times as much.
Perhaps Japan does not have the renewable resource, but the world as a whole does. What is Japan using its electricity for? I would guess a large part of it is for manufacturing and smelting. Those industries can relocate to where the renewable resource is, just like in the old days where aluminium smelters were sited next to hydro dams.
I don’t know if “apocalypse” means something different in French. But you’re right SG, it ain’t no English apocalypse.
On the other hand, given French dependence on nuclear power generation and given the propensity of French citizens to express themselves forcefully about issues of concern to them, this may look a little apocalyptic from the point of view of a French politician committed to defending nuclear power generation.
Katz@ 276
Sadly, that’s not going to happen. The Norwegian blue parrot status of this particular hobby horse will not prevent its ongoing flogging.
Notwithstanding that one doesn’t wish to “overreact”, we have a situation where reactor buildings (which presumably hold sensitive instrumentation) are going off like a string of crackers.
Burning fuel rods and possible containment vessel breaches are cause for concern – not only for “hysterical” lay people, but also for experts. Why do I get impression that we are all accused of being a little “excitable”?
Fran,
I think japan took a calculated risk with these reactors – discounting the probability of this magnitude of event. Most of the safety shutdown features which worked were negated by the advent of the tsunami and its ability to disrupt the plant’s emergency pumping capacity.
sg, are people leaving Tokyo solely because of fears about radiation, or are there other factors?
A friend was due to travel to Tokyo in a couple of days time for a conference and she;s been in two minds about it. Doesn’t sound like a good idea if the locals are leaving.
Yes Katz, I think I agree. Fine, people do seem worried about the reactors. But I suspect a lot of people are very scared of an aftershock. The first one wasn’t pretty, even 200 km away from the epicentre. There were lots of children on the train, so I suspect it’s a general concern to get them out of harm’s way, not specific to the reactor.
I updated my blog with more detail about my flight from Tokyo.
Thanks sg. I guess the problem is that there’s no escaping an earthquake, as you don’t know where it’s going to hit.
Truly tragic stuff and I don’t know how the Japanese are coping.
FB@273
“The mind boggles at the amateurish thinking here. In some places nuclear plant safety accreditation has been held up because the wrong shade of paint has been used on a safety sign, and yet here, it seems, seriously salient matters have been overlooked.”
Fran, in my experience that about sums up the nuclear industry in the real world.
It is one long litany of lies, deceit and cover-ups. This time, in Japan, the cover up is demonstrably difficult.
The Indonesians seriously wanted to build a reactor on a seismic fault lne, this is now being re-considered. Oh goody.
On the question of renewables, waht is wrong with Geothermal for Japan?
http://www.tic.toshiba.com.au/product_brochures_and_reference_lists/gpp.pdf
This is a commercial product , not some green dream.
I suggest you get educated on renewables and stop pushing Nukes, about which you are demonstrably starry eyed and perhaps in need of abit of objectiive research.
Huggy
I don’t think that the placement is “amateurish.” the fact is that there is nowhere in japan that is safe from earthquakes, and until 2004 there had not been a devastating tsunami in living memory, certainly not of the sort we saw on the weekend. waves that park boats on top of 4 storey buildings are not the sorts of things one usually designs for. Are hte houses in Sendai also “amateurish”? What about the sea walls, that weren’t 10m high? We don’t design for the ludicrously improbable.
As it stands, the reactor was hit by some kind of ginormous wave from hell, and it hasn’t yet melted down. That’s not “amateurish.” There was a 6.2 magnitude quake in Shizuoka yesterday and the local reactor didn’t even have to do an emergency shutdown. I’d say these reactors are robustly designed for their environment, and at some point if you want to have reactors, refineries and chemical factories in your society you have to accept the risk of the improbable occuring and rendering them dangerous.
SG said:
Yes, but there are many places that are safe from tsunamis and we know don’t we that where there are earthquakes near water tsunamis can follow.
Also — who allows a back up plan to be in the path of the problem that demands the backup plan? It’s like buying an extra lamp or radio in case the power goes out. It doesn’t make sense unless they are independent of the failed power circuit. If you think there’s a chance that an earthquake can force a shut down, then you have to be 100% sure that the ECCS will work. If the same quake can damage that (or as here, the consequent tsunami) then your disaster recovery plan is rubbish.
Think again sg@293
“I’d say these reactors are robustly designed for their environment,” I don’t think they were.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287
BTW I just love the way you enthusiasts conflate nuclear with other industrial processes. Please tell me of any other industrial process that if it starts to go tits up requires a 30km exclusion zone.
Huggy
Fran, if an earthquake causes a shutdown, how can you separate the backup plan from the cause? Put the cooling pumps in space? The facts here are very simple: everything in half of Japan was hit with a massive earthquake, rated 7 strong in the area of the reactor. Where do you put your backup?
Having backup systems separate from the main ones is useful when dealing with isolated fires or human error. Thus they had backup diesel pumps. But when the cause of the shutdown is a region-wide catastrophe the concept of “failsafes” becomes a little difficult to implement.
As for moving a reactor away from the coast – I think there’s a reason these things are built near the sea. I think it might form part of the backup plan, and the system for disposing of waste water. Where else are they going to put it? Near a dam? And what then when the earthquake hits – no spare water!
I think you might find that the reactor was built by experts who know what they’re doing. As it happens, the reactor appears to be (barely) surviving a 1 in 1200 years region-wide catastrophe. That’s not “amateurish” design.
I & U asked:
Check out the TCASE series at http://www.bravenewclimate.com
Katz suggested:
Just as soon as someone can show me a technology that has the same upsides as nuclear power at the same quality without at least one of the contraindications, I will move on.
I suppose I could junk the idea of being concerned with the integrity of ecosystem services or the well-being of present and future humanity, but then the point would be moot as I’d be someone else. I’d have found not another ‘hobbyhorse’ but a whole new persona.
huggybunny, from the wikipedia on Bhopal:
Chemical industries are inherently risky. If this tsunami had hit Osaka or Tokyo bay, what do you think would be happening now? Massive industry on a scale that dwarfs Bhopal would be dumping all sorts of toxic shit over Tokyo…
SG said:
What would have happened if the diesel generators had been in secure storage a level below the reactors? Or on higher ground — (which isn’t far away from Fukushima by the way)?
Pretty straightforward and cheap really.
Here is an interesting quote from a nuclear expert
I’ve seen it suggested that this earthquake maybe a 1-in-1000 year event. The reactor may have been designed against a 1-in-100 year event. Either way, the Tsunami should not have led to a meltdown. It seems to have been a combination of bad design and bad response that allowed this to happen.
But this is the problem with nuclear power. Murphy’s Law makes it really hard to manage risks down to the 1 in 10,000 level in a system that is so complex and unforgiving. Something will always unexpectedly go wrong.
Is that really a nuclear expert, I&U? It’s not yet a core melt… It’s a cooling failure.
Fran, maybe there are other reasons that pumps don’t get put underground in earthquake-prone areas? and high ground isn’t so close to the FUkushima reactor as would suit a pump. If you want to pump water into a reactor you need some kind of device that enters the reactor and thus is in close proximity. Any such device is vulnerable to a 10m wave.
Fran, this kind of thing would fall under systems failure or human error. But the question is not, can we make this kind of error vanishingly rare (as in, say, surgery or aviation). The question is can we make errors nonexistent, not for a decade, not for a century, but for the millenia for which the materials will remain dangerous? Nothing will convince me that is likely. We’re talking life spans of civilisations, not humans.
Incidently, the Valdivia earthtquake in Chile (1960) 9.5magnitude) created a tsunami with wave heights up to 25m. That took place some years before Fukushima was specfied for construction. The resultant tsunami crossed the Pacific at and made it to Japan 22 hours later (and some other places too), killing 142 people there and producing wave heights of between 8-10m.
Surely it would have been fresh in their minds.
10,000 people killed by H20 in a tsunami. Cities have been completely destroyed. Pollution from all kinds contamination by biological and industrial material from various factories, residential houses, sewerage systems and so on will cause all manner of future health issues including cancer risks. However, all that is discussed is the reactor; the tsunami will be forgotten. All future cancers in people from the area will be selectively ignored if the causes are able to be directly be linked to common industrial chemicals or just arbitrarily attributed to the reactor no matter what. Even if the worse case scenario eventuates with the reactor, the added damage to this disaster will be comparatively background noise.
Nuclear power is an inseparable piece of the puzzle for the human collective gaining mastery of our environment. Nature is chaos and a seemingly endless brutal struggle for survival from hideous diseases and arbitrary destruction. I say “seemingly endless” because it will come to an end one day from any number of galactic events.
Nuclear power is dangerous, people will make mistakes and accidents will happen — people will die, it is, however, no more dangerous than any other industry, its benefits are vast and it is getting safer. I would prefer this industry to be publicly owned but I would say that about most large scale operations.
True enough SG but it was the power to the pumps that failed not the pumps.
While there are very clear advantages in building water-cooled reactors at the shoreline you do need to factor in the costs of defending the reactor against threats from that shoreline. I’d have been having some very impressive breakwater between the plant and the ocean. I’d also have been separately securing the generator.
I don’t think that is the question, Helen, because radiation isn’t that dangerous. The exclusion zone around Chernobyl is 30km radius but people still live and work in it, with no significant documented cases of wildlife mutation and a return of wolves and deer. If you check out the research from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (in Hiroshima) you’ll see that radiation releases aren’t the hell-on-earth people think they are. Even survivors of Hiroshima have a surprisingly low rate of cancer given their exposure, and can be long-lived (as Stephen Fry found out recently).
Compared to some of our more hazardous chemical industries, well-managed nuclear industries are quite safe.
Fran, in 1960 how often did they think 9.5 magnitude quakes were going to happen? Once every 1200 years…?
Fran is now spinning that this is the fault of the silly Japanese engineers and that if only they knew what they were doing this wouldn’t have occurred. Plainly, Fran, you know better than they do.
I agree nuclear power is perfectly safe; as long as no-one ever makes a mistake,is completely honest, never looks for short cuts, fesses up to errors and there’s never any improbable occurrences that haven’t been factored in on a cost/benefit basis. In other words, it works in a perfect world, which we don’t have and never will.
“Nuclear power is an inseparable piece of the puzzle for the human collective gaining mastery of our environment.”
Says it all really when it comes to human folly.
Closely followed in second place by:
“I don’t think that is the question, Helen, because radiation isn’t that dangerous”
Adrian, if you look at the work of the RERF and the experience of areas where meltdowns actually occurred, you’ll be surprised to find that my statement is not folly. It’s simple scientific fact.
I really hope that you are correct sg, but I’m with Fine regarding the perfect world in which we do not live.
James Wakefield the dead from H20 are not directly attributable to a public policy decision. Any casualties from the decision to build a nuclear power station and to accept a 1 in 1000 year risk of catastrophe (or 1 in 10000 or whatever) are.
A 1 in 10000 or 1 in 100000 year event could still happen tomorrow. For many of us the potential harm from a nuclear ‘accident’ require absolute certainty that it cannot occur. Given human frailty, greed, corruption etc I cannot see this degree of certainty ever eventuating.
Do chemical factories really have similar potential to cause harm?
There seems to be a meme that Chernobyl was at the highest possible extreme of conceivable damage from a nuclear accident – if so perhaps this is an overreaction. I had imagined it could be a lot worse, especially if Chernobyl was in fact as harmless as nuclear proponents are now telling us
I don’t know, but given that we don’t have good data on earthquakes going back several multiples or more of 1200 years, that number could scarcely have told us very much. The fact that one occurred within living memory implies that we are in a time window when such things occur. The potential of earthquakes to trigger devastating tsunamis is both a function of their magnitude, their location focal depth and Japan didn’t need to assume that another 9.5 magnitude quake would come. They designed Fukushima to withstand an 8.2magnitude earthquake but they must have assumed that if one such occurred in the worst possibly location, or something like it, that they would be at serious risk.
In 1964, the Niigata earthquake (7.6) hit the opposite side of Honshu causing 6m tsunamis along the west coast. That should have concentrated their minds. The so-called “Good Friday” Earthquake (Alaska/Aleutians; 9.2magnitude) in the same year was a couple of orders of magnitude stronger yet. and closer yet to the surface. It too produced tsunamis that reached Japan.
In fact a look at the record just between 1950 and 1964 (the time when the plant was being specified) and in the Asia Pacific rim where tsunami could reach Japan, shows that there were 6 earthquakes of 8.5 magnitude or larger. Kamchatka (1952), was a magnitude 9 quake. Once every 1200 years? Hmmm
Fran @297,
Can you give me a rather more specific source. That TCASE series covers all sorts of stuff, including this (from TCASE 11):
Sound advice indeed!
BilB – can you help me out here?
RERF on leukaemia in atomic bomb survivors:
http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/late_e/leukemia.html
and on solid cancers:
http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/late_e/cancrisk.html
See there: a 10% increased risk of solid cancer in survivors within 2500m of the Hiroshima explosion.
So all we need is reactors designed by omniscient geniuses, sited in locations immune from the effects of nature, and run by a dedicated priesthood of daleks.
Problem solved!
same for chemical plants, Katz. Do you live in West Melbourne? I’d evacuate now if I were there…
Fine said:
I think it is clear that almost anyone with a modicum of wit would have known better than whoever took the decision to build the plant without due regard for its context. I wouldn’t necessarily blame the engineers. Engineers don’t always get their way.
In almost any “natural” disaster there will be some level of human folly that aggravates the problem. This is a good example.
Paul, allowing people to build houses in coastal regions vulnerable to tsunamis is a public policy decision.
FWIW, I have my own views on what this will teach us, but I’ll keep them until the emergency is over.
Nope. East Melbourne.
I guess the folks in East Fukushima are feeling pretty smug about their choice of residence as well.
Fran, the backup generators are very large and heavy items. It’s not trivial to move them to higher ground.
But there is a fair bit about this accident and the reactions to it I don’t understand.
Fran’s list of tsunami events makes it pretty clear that building a reactor near water in japan would be “amateurish.” Not building one near water is rather difficult. What are the alternatives?
Robert that’s why I said ‘directly’ but your point is valid.
On the generators, it seems sadly ironic that the underlying problem was lack of power in a hot power station. I presume there’s no possibility of a thermocouple or some other relatively failsafe way of harvesting the power they were sitting on
I & U
Solar thermal is often touted …
take a look here using Andasol as a benchmark:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/12/06/tcase7/
And SG, those dirty and fallible chemical plants in West Melbourne can run profitably, be subject to tort law, and pay for commercial insurance.
How does that compare with the Japanese nuclear utility companies?
sg, adrian – I believe that the belief that even very low levels of radiation are dangerous came from interpolated data. They didn’t have data for the very low levels of radiation exposure and so someone drew a straight line from the levels they had to the zero point assuming a linear like behaviour. Thus the early very high cancer predictions across Europe from Chernobyl which didn’t turn out be true.
Indeed the pollution from “simple” chemical pollution in the tsunami affected areas is going to be around for a long time over a very large area.
sg, I lived in Port Melbourne very near the Coode Island explosion when that occurred in the ’90s. Lots of dangerous chemicals spewing everywhere. Result; zero evacuations, advised to stay indoors for a couple of hours. Very different than this.
Katz, we’ve been over your rather unique interpretation of the Japanese nuclear industy’s profitability. There are reports of a variety of insurance companies getting edgy about non-nuclear-related “catastrophe insurance” that they are going to have to fork out on, and we can see that all aspects of Japanese life have suddenly started being underwritten by the government, through e.g. their sending in the army to save whole residential areas. In a disaster of this magnitude, standard discussions of insurance issues hardly apply, do they?
As to tort law – that’s beyond me, but looking at the ease with which Japanese companies can build new roads and railway lines, I’d imagine things are a bit different here to Australia in that regard.
Who said anything about moving them? Why not first deploy them on higher ground (or secure lower ground)?
That’s only because most are water cooled. You can use other coolants; or you can build out of range of tsunami and pump the water up; or uyou can build on lakes and rivers as they do in France and accept the environmental cost in messing with the river (I wouldn’t); or you can defend the plants.
sg, from what I’ve heard so far, they planned for an eight metre tsunami.
They got a 10-metre one.
Paul, the thought had occurred to me – and indeed, they had a little steam turbine to drive one of the cooling pumps. However, designing a thermocouple to survive inside a reactor would be a challenge.
More to the point, I’d like to know (some time down the track) if they had a contingency plan for “if the backup generators fail”.
You’d assume they would have, but assumptions like that aren’t always true. The criticality accident in the late 1990s at the Japanese reprocessing plant showed the staff had NFI what they were doing.
Nuclear expert Guy with a Norse name on BBC right now says that the same pool draining almost happened at the Dresden plant in the US.
He says that the gamma rays from such an event would be lethal up to 1/4 mile.
He painted an apocalyptic picture of metal burning and strontium 90 pluming into the air.
He says that the fact that workers have been withdrawn “means that we are all in the lifeboats now.”
Or you can not have nuclear power – which, thankfully will be the situation in Australia.
As for Chernobyl; Greenpeace has a different take on its effects.
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/news/nuclear-power/the-real-face-of-chernobyl
I’m not vouching for this as I don’t know how reliable their research is. But, neither am I taking other claims about the effects of Chernobyl at face value either.
Fran, I don’t think you can do any of those things in this case. Imagine a reactor on a mountainside, during an earthquake; imagine a reactor on higher ground, with its connection to the sea dependent on a system of pipes knocked out of operation by the tsunami.
I think you’ll find the people who built this were aware of the trade offs, and none were pretty. As it is, they seem to be avoiding a meltdown despite the 10m waves, in a very old reactor hit by a disaster at the edge of its predicted range. I think this isn’t amateurish.
SG, it wasn’t my interpretation of the profitability of nuclear companies, it was an accurate reading of the document that you yourself cited.
Fran @323,
The website refers to the costs of an experimental 20MW prototype solar thermal plant. It estimates the costs at 45c/kWh. What are you assuming for nuclear, around 6c/kWh, say? So, even such a small-scale prototype is below the bottom of your “10-20 times” range.
What do you think a 20MW nuclear power station would cost per kWh? How much did the first nuclear prototype of this scale cost? Your comparison (if this is what you are basing your statement on) is ridiculous.
I would seek to dig out some more reliable numbers, but I am sure that BilB will do the heavy lifting for me at some point.
it was an inaccurate reading, Katz.
Fine, RERF are the foremost experts on radiation and its effects on health. Their research on Chernobyl does not support hyperbolic claims about the deadliness of nuclear accidents.
And no, Japan cannot easily do without nuclear power. The average operating requirement of energy for Tokyo is obscenely large. It has 34 million people, and a transport system heavily dependent on large electrical baseloads (for trains). Their long distance transport system also depends on high energy trains. They have no fossil fuel resources. It’s highly unlikely that they can use renewables for this baseload, and when they build their current energy system in the 60s and 70s renewables were extremely unreliable and expensive. They went down the path that would give them the most reliable power source with the least dependence on external sources of fuel. Any bright ideas to serve a population of 120 million with the second largest economy in the world – based entirely on industrial production – are not going to be based on solar panels on rooftops.
BBC just announced that ALL workers have been evacuated.
Details?
My concern about Chernobyl was that I thought at the time, bad as it was, that it could have been a lot worse. I hope the ‘suicide squads’ that pumped the concrete in felt the same way about their contribution. But now we are told it’s rated at the maximum on the harm scale and is used as an exemplar of the worst that could happen (though we’re told at the same time that it was relatively minor in public health terms).
I dunno sg. I’ve downloaded the Report and started reading it. It doesn’t sound like alarmist bullshit to me. Perhaps someone else who reckons that only 53 people have died because of Chernobyl, might have a read of it and rip it to shreds.
SG said:
Higher ground does not entail building on a mountainside. It only has to be out of reach of the tsunami and as I said you put the generator at elevation and remote from the plant and “pipe” the power. A look at google maps suggests that adequate elevations are not at great distance. And what is wrong with undergrounding the generator on the site?
And what is wrong with a sea wall? Not too expensive surely? A plant needs a secure fence for other reasons than a tsunami or storm surge.
I see an advert for a photo exhibition and no report Fine, where’s the link?
Fran, it has a sea wall. Robert suggested it was designed to withstand a tsunami of 8 metres and it looks as if the waves never touched the reactors themselves. It’s possible they don’t underground (that’s a verb?) the generators for earthquake reasons.
I really don’t think you know more about wise reactor design than these people, Fran. If you think that resistance to 8m tsunamis is too much, why stop at 10m? Why not 50m? There are limits to the risk management people are willing to take at a given cost – especially if they’re being realistic about the health threat from the consequences.
sg, there isn’t link (which is bad of them), but I googled the title which is mentioned at the beginning of the article and it was the first thing that came up.
sg @335,
“a transport system heavily dependent on large electrical baseloads (for trains)”
I very much doubt that train loads contribute substantially to Japan’s electricity demand. I also doubt that they are baseload in the sense of running continuously 24/7. Do you have any source for your contention.
As I said upthread, I would imagine a large part of Japanese demand is associated with manufacturing and smelting, which does not need to be located in Japan.
Paul of Albury said:
The scale reflects the nature of the release rather than the epidemiology. In the case of Chernobyl there was an uncontrolled release of high level actinides. Even if, miraculously, nobody had been harmed, it would have been at the top of the harm scale.
With nuclear power I don’t understand why the fuel has to be enriched so much or even why it needs to be in a reaction state. Wouldn’t just having any radioactive material generate heat? couldn’t you just have long water pipes travelling through radioactive material being converted to steam and then energy just like a coal plant and continue to produce the steam and electricity for the hundreds of thousands of years? I know that this is kind of how geothermal works. And if this is true shouldn’t radioactive waste be a valuable commodity and not waste. Sorry for being a little off topic, and I am not being rhetorical.
Fine, I found out through a search on the greenpeace site. Check out the relative risk estimates for cancer for liquidators vs. controls on page 33. They range from 1.11 to 2.62.
Passive smoking comes with a RR of about 1.11. And this was in the liquidators. That is not a human catastrophe of the worst kind.
I&U, no doubt the largest part of Japanese demand is smelting and manufacturing. But I’m sure if the Japanese were offered a choice of giving up their industrial economy or taking the odd nuclear risk, they’d go for the latter. “Not done in Japan”= “Japan becomes a lot poorer.”
SG said:
Oh I agree. There are limits. So you model the worst case scenario and build to that standard. In Valdivia 1960, there was a 25 metre tsunami. Fukushima is right at the shoreline so you are going to have to allow all of that. It’s not going to add that much to the cost of the project.
Short answer – no.
What you describe is a “radioisotope thermal generator”. They are used in a few specialized applications, notably for powering space probes in the outer solar system.
Collecting enough radioactive material to provide enough heat to power even a small space probe is very expensive. The resulting material is extremely dangerous, if it gets out of its packaging.
The other problem from a safety perspective is that if something goes wrong, you can’t turn the heat down at all.
With nuclear reactors like at Fukushima, they shut them down and the heat production immediately reduced to something like 5-10% of normal levels. That’s reduced a lot further now, probably something like 1% or less. In another couple of weeks it’ll be at 0.1% and we can all start to relax (fingers crossed).
With your hypothetical “decay heat generator”, it would stay at 100% of its rated output indefinitely.
So, how do you know 25m is the highest that a tsunami will come in at? It’s the highest for now, but is it the worst case scenario? Build to 25m and the next wave might come in at 30m.
Someone should tell those wooses at Fukushima to get back to work.
“We don’t know the nature of the damage,” said Minoru Ohgoda, spokesman for the country’s nuclear safety agency. “It could be either melting, or there might be some holes in them.”…..
“there might be some holes in them”?…is that really the best we can do in terms of information about what is happening at a damaged reactor in the early part of the 21st century????
“there might be some holes in them”.
so if that is the best we can do (since there appears to be absolutely no way at all of any of us finding out what is actually going on at this power plant) then the best is simply…not good enough i’m afraid…and any debate about how high to build a wall is simply…silly.
“there might be some holes in them…………..”.
Fine, how do you know that your pet lizard won’t mutate into Godzilla?
Fran, as far as the 25-metre tsunami at Valvidia, the extreme height may have been the result of the geography (think funnel-shaped bay or something). I don’t know one way or the other, but it may not be reasonable to assume that just because there was a 25-metre tsunami in one very specific location, that it’s a possibility elsewhere.
Robert, I agree with you. My point is that a decision was made to build the reactor 8m above sea level, presumably because that was seen as safe. Fran seems to be saying it should have been 25m to beat a worst case scenario. I’m actually using a bit of hyperbole to show how silly her statement was. You wanna go 25m – why not 30, or 50m?
SG@347,
“I’m sure if the Japanese were offered a choice of giving up their industrial economy or taking the odd nuclear risk, they’d go for the latter.”
Well, it’s their choice, of course. But I wonder how much value the siting of energy-intensive industries in Japan actually adds to the Japanese. I mean, it’s all done by robots now, isn’t it? The factories could be located anywhere (and commonly are).
Either because the pet lizard has already mutated into a teenage ninja turtle, or (more likely) because that isn’t how mutation works.
Rescue workers in Minamisanuriku have said that the height of water there appears to have been about 30m. Link. Minamisanuriku is the town where 10 000 people are thought to have died, as that is the number of the missing.
“how do you know that your pet lizard won’t mutate into Godzilla?”
The odds of that are, presumably, higher if you live close to Fukushima.
are you volunteering to go in and look around Eric?
Katz, the “Fukushima 50″ are different to the liquidators. I think the equivalent group to the Fukushima 50 in Chernobyl all died in a few days.
To give some perspective: in Fine’s report the incidence of all solid cancers in liquidators was 460 per 100,0000 population, vs. 380 per 100,000 in the controls. There were 72000 liquidators. That gives a total of an excess of 80 cancers per 100,000 that might be attributable to chernobyl. In the cohort… 56 cancers.
I think this might be a misreading of the table though and the figures in that table are per 100,000 person years, in which case the cohort (with 790,000 person years) recorded about 640 excess cancers.
These were the people at highest risk of cancer, outside of the small number of people who died in the plant itself. If we apply this amount to the population around the Fukushima plant (300,000 evacuated) and assume they will live an average of 50 more years if healthy, we get 15 million person years. At the excess risk for liquidators, this population suffers 12000 excess cancers of all kinds (except leukaemia). On a base of about 40,000 cancers for this population. Not all of these will be fatal, of course, and the assumption of 50 years lifespan remaining in rural Japan is probably unrealistic (it’s an old population); as is the application of liquidator-levels of risk to an evacuated population. But if cancer survival in those cancers matches that in the west, the numbers dying from the worst possible case scenario will be dwarfed by the numbers killed by the tsunami itself. And the worst case scenario hasn’t happened yet.
Fran @345 that seems to suggest there’s something wrong with the scale. If everyone at Chernobyl had bolted and left the reactor to do its worst, according to the official measurements it would have made no difference.
Perhaps the people responsible for the scale don’t want to think about the possibility of anything worse? (A bit like tsunamis over 8m or earthquakes over 8.2)
Further to @356, the pet lizard herself won’t become Godzilla or a ninja turtle. She will lay an egg from which Godzilla or a ninja turtle will emerge.
“At the excess risk for liquidators, this population suffers 12000 excess cancers of all kinds (except leukaemia).”
Wow, that’s a hell of a lot of freakin’ cancers. Okay, you put some caveats on it – but this supposed to be something which is not so bad?
ABC news is reporting (via Reuters) that the workers are now back at the plant.
Pumping of the seawater into units 1, 2, and 3 “is proceeding smoothly”.
My definition of smooth does not includes periodic evacuations for lethal radiation levels, but anyway…
It’s not a hell of a lot extra, Fine. It’s 25% above background levels. IF the entire evacuated population are set to work repairing the damaged areas.
now go and compare that with the figures for Union Carbide’s Bhopal accident…
sg, not sure that’s a helpful analogy.
The people who evacuated Fukushima evacuated before any radiation was released, so at this stage their risk of cancer hasn’t changed.
I think what sg is trying to say is that, even making absurdly pessimistic assumptions of what has and might go wrong, the human health effects of whatever happens at Fukushima are dwarfed by the effect of the tsunami.
sg….no of course not
but I do think that what this little debacle clearly shows is that the best we (the human race) can say is that it “might have holes”, and that in the 21st century for me, that is a completely unacceptable answer to a really simple question.
It brings me to the conclusion that “we” simply do not have the capacity to deal with this stuff when it stuffs up. And until we can improve on our current personal best (“it might have holes”) then we had really not better jump in the pool. Especially if it is going to be hot in there.
If “we” are really serious about continuing to build these things, and some people clearly are set on building them despite the fact that they might get holes if anything “unexpected” happens; then maybe we should instigate some really serious high level research into a real time monitoring system that can withstand the pressure long enough to actually tell us what is going on. Like…we can see the effects of black holes sg, we can look at star clusters billions of light years away. But the best we can say about this incident in Japan is that…”it might have holes”?
The nuclear industry, as it stands today is a joke, a really serious and harmful joke.
I know that it’s an exaggeration but I think the meaning is clear. Being forced to work reclaiming radioactive soil after a chernobyl-style meltdown is vastly safer than being in the region of a plant like the Union Carbide plant when it had its little accident. These things need to be seen in perspective.
It is weird isn’t it, Eric, that we can see into space but not into the concrete building next door…
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Future effects of the Fukishima accident will be the result of the tsunami. This is a bizarro framing – Fukushima vs other causes of death, all with the specific aim of minimizing effects that have not yet happened. It’s nauseating, quite frankly. Let’s line your small children up to be tested for contamination and then tell me that any illness or death is minor in the scheme of things.
Thanks Robert for the answer I’ll see if I can make something like this to use as my hot water heater.
yes sg, in fact, in this case I’d say, it is not just weird, but really stupid to boot.
Eric Sykes,
I think you need to take into account that the power station is 40 years old. I would imagine (and hope) that monitoring systems on new stations would be considerably advanced.
well then su, why don’t we line the small children up against the effects of any industrial accident caused by a tsunami? The point at issue here is whether nuclear power is worse than any other element of our modern industrial economy, and the effects of a leak such as occurred at Union Carbide seem to be a lot worse than Chernobyl.
Not to mention of course that this accident wouldn’t have happened without the concomitant deaths of 10,000 people living near the coast. They are inseparable, but in the aftermath the Fukushima plant will be seen to have been a tiny portion of the total damage caused by the wave. Damage which at this point appears to be still preventable despite the panic being bandied about.
Calculating risks associated with major industrial accidents is not “nauseating.” It’s an essential part of life.
su: would you be happier if I’d said “other effects of the tsunami”?
Pardon me for being blunt, but I, and my hypothetical small children, participate in activities which risk illness and death every single day.
I ride a bicycle. I drive a car. I go swimming. I use electrical equipment. I breathe polluted air. I eat. I drink. I come in contact with people carrying infectious disease. I have medical procedures done.
Every one of the above activities has a non-zero chance of killing me.
But we all do at least some of the above.
yes, I&U @ 372 I woulod do more than hope I would demand.
oh and sg: and I would also suggest the nuclear industry jump on the following band wagon real fast, then they’ll be able to see through concrete wherever it is..
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-10215117-42.html
Of course it’s nothing like Chernobyl – not at all – those explosions were inside the containment vessel; these ones are outside, those were defective authoritarian bolshevick blasts; these are cute and cuddly detonations done by beneficial corporations for our benefit.
Logic is obsolete and reason is no longer reputable.
The fact that economic logic dictated the siting of a friendly copororate nuke on the sea at the edge of a fault line has nothing at all to do with the viability of nuke energy.
BTW: anyone care to hazard a guess as where all that cooling sea water is going? Not out to sea, I hope, unless the Japanese want to re-experience Minimata with added value.
My partner emailed me from the local university to tell me that people in Beppu – 800+ kms from Fukushima – are leaving the country out of fear of radioactive fallout.
i bet there has never been a single particle of anything blown from Fukushima to Beppu, given their geographical situations. This is the result of saturation coverage of an event that has yet to go beyond being a workplace safety issue. People really need to get a grip.
Rob, with respect, don’t turn nuclear opponents into absolutist straw men.
Any sensible person understands that all activities entail risk.
The question is whether the expected reward merits the perceived risk.
On nukes you say yes, we say no.
Surely we can all respect each other enough to argue sensibly about how we arrive at the measurement of that relationship.
For example, I’m prepared to continue to live in Melbourne despite those toxic chemical plants crouching malevolently on the far, infernal bank of the Maribyrnong River.
Call me a thrill-seeker…
“has yet to go beyond being a workplace safety issue”.
LOL.
come on Katz, it was su who introduced children into the debate (won’t anyone think of the chilllllldren?!)
Eric, so far only workers at the plant have been injured or killed. Evacuations are a safety precaution but no one has yet been exposed to high levels of radioactivity who is not an employee, nor would they have been if they had not been evacuated.
Same basic question (about nuclear power) being debated on a US blog gets some interesting and informed-by-experience responses.
http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2011/03/15/parental-debate-yay-or-nay-on-nuclear-power-after-japan-disaster/
I was living in Europe when Chernobyl happened, and there was something unbelievably sinister about the prospect of a silent and invisible ‘enemy’. (Not so silent and invisible if you live near an exploding plant, of course.)
Robert said:
That’s a fair point and if one could show with confidence that, taking acount the salient data on sea-floor and landfall topography in a worst conceivable case scenario the greatest wave height possible were only, for example, 15m then maybe that would be fair enough. I’m not familiar with the peculiarities of Valdivia and Sendai obviously. The fact that they got a 10m tsunami shows that their 8m wall wasn’t confidently a worst conceivable case scenario.
One of the complicating wrinkles in this would be the large error bars in the modelling because it is not merely earthquake magnitude but focal depth that is pertinent. Valdivia was apparently 33km deep but still managed to send a 6m tsunami to Japan, 22 hours later.
The Sendai quake was shallower — about (24.4km) and apparently about 130km off the east coast of the Oshika Peninsula. This is right at the boundary some seismologists claim for tsunamis at magnitudes of 6.5+. There have been, in the waters of Japan, subduction quakes at focal depths of 14km so, as bizarre as it is to say so, the events at Sendai could have been worse.
I&U you said
“I think you need to take into account that the power station is 40 years old. I would imagine (and hope) that monitoring systems on new stations would be considerably advanced.”
Regardless of when the plant was built, if the industry was as responsible as they would like us to believe, plants of this vintage would have either been upgraded or decommissioned over the years.
While it may not be possible to change the underpinning design of the plant, I would like to think that as advancements were made and risks better understood, these would have been incorporated, or modifications to operating procedures made.
I have never worked in the nuclear industry but do have extensive experience in engineering. This has all the hallmarks of a design where they either did not understand the risks or scrimped and downgraded the acceptable risk in order to reduce costs.
Either way it will be a long hard road back for the nuclear industry to gain the confidence of the public.
Sg and Rob, I think we have different ideas about risk, in that case.
25% more cancers is huge. The argument that radiation won’t hurt you just isn’t working for me. But, I’m starting to understand why nuclear apologists are so sanguine about it. And saying, but Bhopal was worse is just a weak argument. Something is terrible, and something else is less terrible, so let’s not worry about the latter.
And wasn’t the Union Carbide plant closed down?
Katz said:
Just so … and it is fair to ask what the alternative, in the middle 1960s in Japan (or even today), would have been to building a nuclear plant at Fukushima?
There were not and are still not, any feasible alternatives outside of fossil HC with all of its attendant risks, uncertainties and measurable hazards. Looking at this matter it is clear that those who specified the plant were reckless, (though they went within a whisker of getting away with it). Now, although as it goes, the total harm is likely to be modest, even by the standards of normal industrial accidents, large swathes of the Japanese are much more fearful than the facts as we know them at this stage suggest is reasonable. This matter is being traded upon in a way that may extend the age of fossil hydrocarbon usage –which would add another disaster to this one orders of magnitude larger.
.
Is that what you are doing, you are calculating risks right here on this thread, of an accident that is still underway under atmospheric, environmental and human induced conditions that you cannot possibly know or, more to the point, foretell since most of these conditions are yet to eventuate? No, this has nothing to do with calculating risks, it is making pre-emptive excuses for an industry you wish to defend. When we do not even know how or whether people will be affected, that is appalling.
Interesting that you have to go to the most infamous example of criminal negligence and utter contempt for human life for your comparator, you have set the bar as low as it is possible to go I think. No doubt the fact that the population were poor and powerless factored quite large in Union Carbide’s “calculation of risk”.
Many of the cancers caused, yes caused, by Chernobyl, sprang into being in the Thyroids of children whose parents did not know and could not have known that one day a plume of radioactive iodine would blow through their town, since they lived in Belgium or Poland or somewhere far remote from Belorussia. No other form of environmental contaminant can wage its acute effects at places so remote from the source, and children, not hypothetical ones, but actual children like the ones we saw being tested are among those most at risk, so no apologies from me for mentioning them.
Fine, 40% of the Japanese population smoke. They suffer a much greater than 25% increased risk of cancer. I think the current relative risk for lung cancer from smoking is about 10-15, i.e. a 1000% higher risk, and their all cause mortality risk is 50% higher.
We really do do a lot of things that increase our risk of cancer. The meat industry tried very hard to suppress a CSIRO report on increased cancer risk from red meat (I think the figure was about a 50% increase).
And in this case we’re talking about liquidators, people who worked the contaminated earth in 80s-standard protective gear (if they got any, the stories about what happened aren’t clear).
This is the huge risk that is driving our fear of nuclear energy…?
He Fran,
This appeasred in Crikey this arvo:
“These radioactive clouds are now mixing with higher altitude air currents and being dispersed more widely across northern Asia and the north Pacific.
They are being tracked by the international Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in London, which is authorised by the International Atomic Energy Agency to alert airlines and airports to accidental releases of nuclear contamination.
The VAAC this morning issued 10 nuclear emergency flight information regional advisories (FIRs) to enable airlines to route flights well clear of the hazard along air corridors across northern Asia, southern China including Hong Kong, all of Japan and Korea and the high latitude or sub-polar routes that are used to connect North America to dozens of Asia-Pacific cities.
Radioactive particles? What radioactive particles? Oh those……………
Huggy
su, all the “pre-emptive excuses” here are coming from the crowd of people crowing over the demise of the nuclear industry. I’m not even pro-nuclear, I’m equivocal, but I’m an epidemiologist and I don’t like the unreasonable response to nuclear power. I’m not, as you say, calculating risk
Rather I am pointing out the observed, calculated risk of increased cancer in a cohort of forced labourers who worked in a fallout zone after a meltdown in Soviet Russia, and suggesting – I think quite reasonably – that this is the highest cluster of cancer effects we’re likely to see as a consequence of Chernobyl. I also pointed out the increased risk of cancer in Hiroshima survivors, and gave a link to a Japanese organization that also engages in this “nauseating” process. Do you think they’re defenders of nuclear weapons?
As for thyroid cancer in children in Belgium, let’s not jump the gun. In the liquidators there was a 2.6 relative risk of thyroid cancer, which is an extremely rare cancer. It’s highly unlikely that the increased risk of thyroid cancer in Belgium was anywhere near that.
In that case, you’ll need to teach yourself how to write in Japanese and try to convince these foolish folk of the error of their ways.
Time’s a-wasting, and the task is getting tougher by the minute.
Right now, they appear to be trending to our side of the argument.
Trevor,
I pretty much agree with you and I wonder why the nuclear industry is so different from other safety-critical industries: like airlines, say.
One problem is secrecy, I think. If an engine fails on a plane, everybody knows about it. A corresponding failure at a nuclear power station might be covered up.
Another problem may be that there are not many nuclear reactors and so not “enough” accidents to learn lessons from. A plane falling out of the sky concentrates the mind and any relevant engineering or procedural flaws are quickly understood and then rectified on other aircraft.
Finally, a lack of competitive discipline may be a problem. Not all nuclear operators are monopolists but many are; nuclear is hard to support in a competitive environment. In any case, a nuclear accident can affect everyone, not just the nuclear “customers”. If you don’t like an airline’s safety record, you will fly with someone else. The airline soon gets the message.
I don’t think you would see much 40-year-old technology in a transparent, competitive industry. Not in the developed world, anyway.
Doesn’t make them right, Katz…
I&U, how old is the internal combustion engine?
SG, there is no definitive answer to the validity of predictions. That’s what makes them predictions.
We don’t have to be right. We just have to be persuasive.
Thyroid cancer affects children more than adults Sg, for obvious reasons. Many articles have been published on childhood cancers following 1986, so I suspect rather than me jumping the gun, it is you who are behind the 8 ball. As an epidemiologist you would see the limitations in using one very particular cohort to make broad claims about cancer deaths.
And in any case, I still awaiting delivery of my totally safe and emission-free Ford Nucleon.
I don’t think its fair to compare Union carbide to Fukushima.
The Union Carbide accident was horrendous and near the top of the scale of chemical accidents.
The Fukushima accident has so far been minor on the scale of potential nuclear reactor disasters.
If the planet could be guaranteed that Fukushima was the worst nuclear accident possible then we might all be happy to go nuclear. But it patently isn’t.
Depends on your attitude to risk I guess.
Some things just aren’t worth the possible consequences.
I certainly do, su, but unfortunately I don’t have access to medline, since I’ve been driven away from Tokyo and into the comforting arms of my partner by the earthquake. However, google scholar points me to this:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.22037/full
which suggests the attributable fraction of thyroid cancer cases in children in group 1 countries (including Belgium, Germany et al) is about 0.16% by 2065.
A letter to the BMJ suggests a 30-fold risk increase by 1991 among children in the most immediately affected regions immediately around Chernobyl, giving about 100 cases of thyroid cancer in 2.3 million exposed children. Unfortunately, thyroid cancer is so rare that estimates of the relative risk are very unstable – a mere couple of extra cases by random chance in the years before the event would have the relative risk, and that seems to be the case in the above-referenced paper, which suggests an attributable fraction of 20%.
Certainly though, it doesn’t appear that the population of Belgium was particularly adversely affected by Chernobyl, with 700 extra cases of thyroid cancer estimated in 61 million children. Probably there would have been a greater risk of a Belgian child dying in a traffic accident during the period of the chernobyl incident, than of their subsequently developing thyroid cancer.
I think the whole debate about whether people are right to be scared is grimly amusing. The fact is that they ARE scared and while voting with their feet now they’ll vote with a ballot later. Even if the actual fatalities are minute compared to the tsunami the additional inconvenience and fearful uncertainty surely renders nuclear untenable. I would add that I live within one kilometre of a coal fired power station so my daily risk from pollution etc is probably higher than any risk from a nuclear station. I don’t anticipate it exploding, however, nor do I expect to ever be evacuated because of it.
‘I’m not even pro-nuclear, I’m equivocal, but I’m an epidemiologist and I don’t like the unreasonable response to nuclear power.’
sg – one might be more convinced of your equivocation if you were to avoid extreme and insensitive analogies like ‘This is the result of saturation coverage of an event that has yet to go beyond being a workplace safety issue. People really need to get a grip.’ All I can say in response is you must work in a very strange workplace compared to the rest of us.
IanM – I agree. In particular, the image of the nuclear experts standing by seemingly helpless in the face of a major unfolding crisis only amplifies the sense of uncertainty and lack of confidence in the technology.
ag @192,
“how old is the internal combustion engine?”
In new cars? With direct fuel injection, electronic fuel management and electronic ignition as all new cars would have now? Substantially less than 40 years old I would imagine.
If you drive a 40 year old car, I think you will notice the difference.
Sorry, sg not ag. I am typing in the dark here.
Must be the day for terrible analogies. Exposure to radioactive contaminants from a Nuclear reactor is not like either smoking, which is entirely voluntary, or traffic accidents which are largely due to preventable behaviours of motorists. We have no control over our exposure to the after effects of a nuclear accident, even living in a different country to the reactor may be insufficient protection, and the contaminants persist in the environment for decades, and persisting, continue to affect the ecosystem and human health, despite spin to the contrary. There has been a lot of ludicrous misinformation about the environment around the exclusion zone at Chernobyl. Link
Fran and the equivocators should watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47N_nKjAWVA&feature=feedu
These are your guys.
When this is all over there will be a whole bunch more joining them.
When are you going to wake up to the fact that you are supporting the greatest crock and the greatest and most corrupt techno scam in history.
Huggy
Ian M
On Saturday I still had what may be misplaced confidence in the operators of the plant. I thought that they would quickly get the situation under control and the news would be concentrated on the rest of the tsunami disaster, with the Fukushima nuclear plant being a embarrassing hiccup but no more.
That we are now approaching a week since the accident and still receiving confusing messages from the operators, who I understand have now asked for US military assistance, it is no wonder people are frightened.
I live in the Perth Hills and was only a couple of kilometers from the fires that recently destroyed many houses close to me. While this was happening I had access to information, I knew what was happening, I felt in control. While obviously concerned, I was never frightened.
Contrast this to the poor buggers near these reactors. They have probably lost confidence in the company messages about the situation, the danger they face is invisible, the affects can be deadly but manifested over years.
It is no wonder people are frightened, I would be. It is because of the nature of the risks from nuclear plants that they have to be held to a much higher standard if they want public support. I am afraid based on what has occurred at Fukushima the industry has shown it does not reach this standard. Seeking to be judged as if it were just another industry is not good enough.
Trevor – spot on
Not spot on at all, adamite. The information below was posted on the Japan facebook site by one of its managers
—
I have just returned from a conference call held at the British Embassy in Tokyo. The call was concerning the nuclear issue in Japan. The chief spokesman was Sir. John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, and he was joined by a number of qualified nuclear experts based in the UK. Their assessment of the current situation in Japan is as follows:
* In case of a ‘reasonable worst case scenario’ (defined as total meltdown of one reactor with subsequent radioactive explosion) an exclusion zone of 30 miles (50km) would be the maximum required to avoid affecting peoples’ health. Even in a worse situation (loss of two or more reactors) it is unlikely that the damage would be significantly more than that caused by the loss of a single reactor.
* The current 20km exclusion zone is appropriate for the levels of radiation/risk currently experienced, and if the pouring of sea water can be maintained to cool the reactors, the likelihood of a major incident should be avoided. A further large quake with tsunami could lead to the suspension of the current cooling operations, leading to the above scenario.
* The bottom line is that these experts do not see there being a possibility of a health problem for residents in Tokyo. The radiation levels would need to be hundreds of times higher than current to cause the possibility for health issues, and that, in their opinion, is not going to happen (they were talking minimum levels affecting pregnant women and children – for normal adults the levels would need to be much higher still).
* The experts do not consider the wind direction to be material. They say Tokyo is too far away to be materially affected.
* If the pouring of water can be maintained the situation should be much improved after ten days, as the reactors’ cores cool down.
* Information being provided by Japanese authorities is being independently monitored by a number of organizations and is deemed to be accurate, as far as measures of radioactivity levels are concerned.
* This is a very different situation from Chernobyl, where the reactor went into meltdown and the encasement, which exploded, was left to burn for weeks without any control. Even with Chernobyl, an exclusion zone of 30 miles would have been adequate to protect human health. The problem was that most people became sick from eating contaminated food, crops, milk and water in the region for years afterward, as no attempt was made to measure radioactivity levels in the food supply at that time or warn people of the dangers. The secrecy over the Chernobyl explosion is in contrast to the very public coverage of the Fukushima crisis.
* The Head of the British School asked if the school should remain closed. The answer was there is no need to close the school due to fears of radiation. There may well be other reasons – structural damage or possible new quakes – but the radiation fear is not supported by scientific measures, even for children.
* Regarding Iodine supplementation, the experts said this was only necessary for those who had inhaled quantities of radiation (those in the exclusion zone or workers on the site) or through consumption of contaminated food/water supplies. Long term consumption of iodine is, in any case, not healthy.
The discussion was surprisingly frank and to the point. The conclusion of the experts is that the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami, as well as the subsequent aftershocks, was much more of an issue than the fear of radiation sickness from the nuclear plants.
Let’s hope the experts are right!
Perhaps not on the final point: Prophylactic Iodine is just that – it should be taken 24 hours prior to exposure, when taken after exposure its effectiveness is reduced to 25%.
IanM and Trevor: 100% agree. The operators quite obviously are lying or incompetent, or most likely both. There was no suggestion before it happened that there would be an explosion, then another, and then yet another. Experts for hire like our own Ziggy Switkowski assured tv audiences that these reactors couldn’t possibly melt down or release large quantities of radioactive gasses and particles into the atmosphere.
This afternoon I read that the latest damage control strategy is to back a fire truck up to burning reactors and poke a hose through one of the holes blasted or burned in the reactor container. Very high tech and very reassuring, I don’t think. Very reminiscent of the efforts at Chernobyl, actually. No doubt the volunteers who operate the truck will perish, just like their Soviet predecessors. Poor buggers.
There are vast quantities of nuclear fuels and waste on site. The population is right, based on bitter experience, to ignore the anodyne statements of the operators. If I were living within 500km of the place I’d be wanting to move if the wind from the plant swung around in my direction.
Sg – While I sincerely hope their conclusion proves correct, even this considered assessment is full of major qualifiers. Leaving aside the somewhat bizarre notion of a ‘reasonable’ worst case scenario, the report notes, for example, that, “IF pouring of sea water can be maintained to cool the reactors, the likelihood of a major incident should be avoided.” I note there has already had been one major failure in this process reported already since the problem began.
But, to reiterate, Trevor’s key point (also echoed in su’s comment at 404) was that, because of the unique nature of the risks from nuclear plants, they have to be held to a much higher standard if they want public support. There is nothing I can see in your post that addresses that general issue.
“* If the pouring of water can be maintained the situation should be much improved after ten days, as the reactors’ cores cool down.”
After 10 days? For the past six days I’ve been reading that it will all be under control within 2-3 days.
Great post Robert.
Before this I had reuluctantly come around to the idea that nuclear might have to be considered in Australia (seeing that air-conditioners big-screen tellies became a birthright halfway through John Howard’s reign), but nuclear still creeps me out.
I know, I know – Australia isn’t on a nasty faultline, the Japanese plants are older, coal kills lots of people and ruins the environment. But even a scientific philistine like me can see the design flaw in a system that has no safe plan C if the back-up generators fail.
Science geeks let us down again – and they wonder why they aren’t invited to the cool parties.
The SBS news correspondent reports that there is a breach in the containment vessel of reactor 3. Explosions, inexplicable and recurrent fires – I don’t see a rational reason for any great optimism at the moment.
Hal9000, did you see what the UK’s chief scientist said? The organizations public statements are being monitored, and there is no evidence they’re lying.
But here is the essence of the objections: you refuse to believe the epidemiological evidence, you refuse to accept assurances from nuclear scientists or engineers, and you fall back on the assumption that everyone who isn’t you is lying.
Look at su’s effort above – outrageous claims about thyroid cancer in Europe easily dismissed with the epidemiological evidence, and without a blink – or an acknowledgment of any kind of scare-mongering on his or her part – su is off to the next conspiracy theory.
Why bother looking for any kind of information when you can just make up any facts you want and ignore contrary evidence?
Sg, I was a medical student, I have read many of the papers in the nineties and early 2000s on thyroid cancers across Europe after 1986, there are figures that are highly disputed by various people, but without any shadow of a doubt the incidence of childhood thyroid cancers went up. I’m not sure which statement of mine you think is so outrageous, I suspect it is in your head. Now that you are an assistant Professor I think you should do better than verballing and sophomoric sneers like “what about the children.” The next conspiracy theory – I assume you are referring to news report about the study of animal populations? Please link to the text that indicates that researcher is concocting a conspiracy theory.
I thought you were a scientist. Evidence you don’t like is still evidence until such time as it is discredited, rebutted or disproved.
sg – before you get on your high horse, it would pay to actually read the statement you’re spruiking.
The money quote is:
That is, cooling the cores is a necessary condition for a happy ending. Since the whole unfolding incident is about failure to maintain supply of coolant, the condition is clearly not being met. As a well trained bureaucrat, the good British knight-scientist is covering his arse while sounding positive.
And here’s a report about the fire truck squirting water through the holes in the reactor container strategy.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3165797.htm
My advice: avoid accusing others of making up facts when you a) can’t understand what you’re relying on for your argument and b) don’t know what you’re talking about.
Katz said:
This reminds me of the words of that famous ‘newscaster’ Kent Brockman …
Su when you write:
it is just common sense, as well as common courtesy that you link to those papers which are proof of your assertions before you say to sg:
It is obvious that sg is a sincere person trained in and committed to the scientific methodology of his training, epidemiology, a rigorously evidence and statistics based discipline. He happens, by chance, to be in Japan at a time where a calamity has struck and to find himself in a circumstance where his very training is highly relevant to understanding the possible consequences of that calamity.
He may be wrong in what he writes but please engage him in an honest debate in which, if you have evidence that contradicts what he writes you present it rather than asserting what you know without putting up the evidence for it then demanding he producing evidence, satisfactory to you, to refute it.
Simply: do not embarrass yourself by asserting your superior knowledge on the basis that “I was a medical student” without presenting any evidence of what you learned while you were a medical student then demanding that he produces links to prove that your unpresented evidence is not true.
GregM,
My transmutation device says:
I would like to say you’re an idiot, GregM, but because that’s against the posting guidelines, I’ll just say, hmmm… OK
or
Our greatest enemies have left the planet Zeros. They are once again in time and space. No power in the universe can stop the Daleks!
Joe if you have any problem with the substance of my post please address it.
The matters being addressed on this thread are serious enough that you should put aside whatever petty feelings you have about me personally.
You are correct:
And that was perhaps a frivolous reply, but this is a forum GregM. And it is not necessary to provide a footnote for every claim you make. If su remember reading something 10 years ago, she doesn’t have to supply you with a link. Just who do you think you are, anyway?
And btw, if you’re really interested, there are a whole heap of footnotes at the bottom of the wikipedia article: Chernobyl disaster effects
Hal9000, the “money quote” is actually that even if there is a meltdown, a 30km exclusion zone is sufficient to protect human life, even if that meltdown extends to 2 reactors. The key debate here is not “will some Japanese people die horribly” but “can we use this tragic event to justify anti-nuclear rhetoric” (depsite the fact that Robert asked that this post not be turned into an attack on nuclear power). I have posted up a lot of evidence here that actually, no, we can’t even use chernobyl as anti-nuclear rhetoric very successfully. As evidenced by the fact that Chernobyl is rated the most serious level of nuclear accident, and there is a 30km exclusion zone around the plant.
su, if you have some solid evidence in favour of your view then feel free to post it. I have presented results from two studies, and an overview of cancer and health from a world-respected research institute on radiation and health, that dispute your claims. You really need to do better if you want to claim you’re talking from facts.
I wasn’t asserting superior knowledge, just replying to sg’s accusation that I was just skipping gaily from one conspiracy to the next without any knowledge or understanding at all. The paper SG linked to does not rebut the increase in Thyroid Cancers BTW, his argument was that the increase was so tiny as to be inconsequential. That is a value judgment in which I do not share. After the UN released its report (google UN WHO Chernobyl – it was released 2005 and from memory they concluded about 1000 excess thyroid cancers in Ukraine and neighbouring areas) there was at least one study commissioned by Environmental groups who did not accept those findings – the TORCH study, as well as smaller regional collations of cases, especially in the Ukraine The paper that I read about a cluster of cases in Belgium was in the Lancet. There is a problem with linking directly to studies as usually they are behind a paywall and so my googling them for you and for someone who has access to medline is somewhat ridiculous but I’ll play Girl Friday for a moment: http://www.springerlink.com/content/r2283828535mt823/
The risk of Thyroid cancer continues to rise after initial exposure, peaking at about 15 to 20 years post the event, so the situation is in flux and has been coalescing in the last 5 years, ie post the 2005 epidemiological study.
Yeah Joe, including the report in 2006 that includes this in the abstract:
Sg said: “depsite the fact that Robert asked that this post not be turned into an attack on nuclear power”
Oh ye of selective memory, he asked that it not be turned into a continuation of the stoush about the value of nuclear power, upon which I have made no comment.
Joe I did not ask her to provide me with a link. I asked her that if she asserted something as true then demanded that sg provide a link that disproved it then she provide the link that supported her assertion. That is an absolute minimum of intelligent and respectful debate.
“I was a medical student and I read something somewhere but I don’t have to produce any evidence of what I read and what I understood of it but you have to prove me wrong” does not cut it.
And Joe on your last question
That’s a large metaphysical question. It’s best though that I answer it briefly.
When I reflect upon those two gametes which got together to make me who I am, and who I think I am, I I have to think how infinitely more fortunate I am in the biological consequences of my conception and the person I am as a result of it than you are in that joining of those gametes that have made you who you are.
I think that we can agree that there are studies which have come to different conclusions as to the effects of Chernobyl on health and mortality rates.
We can all, hopefully, also agree that the current situation in Japan isn’t the catastrophe that some people currently fear it could be.
I can’t imagine why.
But then again, perhaps I can.
That link was in comment 405.
pretty informative
btw su, that lancet article you linked to is a criticism of the statistics of a 1965 paper on thyroid cancers in children in the Ukraine, not Belgium. The paper survives the critique, but reapplication of the methods correctly would suggest a lower relative risk.
It ain’t a problem in Belgium.
There were a number of papers all under the same broad heading, I made a mistake. Paper is here: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2802%2908754-8/fulltext
No it wasn’t, su.
The link you provided was to an article on 17 March 2009, not from when you said you said
.
The source you linked to was a Reuters article on something about how animals have fared after Chernobyl,without any link to a source article.
The next time you read a newspaper headline, no matter how improbable it may be, and no matter how constructed to pander to the crassest commercial instincts of Rupert Murdoch, I can feel confident that you will require sg or some other silly bugger with actual expertise in the area to prove to your satisfaction – and certainly not that of a lesser being, such as an imntelligent or reaanonable person- that what he says, informed by study and science though it is, meets your standard of ignorance, and rebuts whatever ill-informed opinion you hold, informed by the last headline you read, before you accept it.
You have set your standard. Don’t criticise me if I expect ypu to keep to it.
I can understand the error su, those papers look exactly the same – I thought when I first saw it that you’d linked to the same one in order to take the piss.
The correct paper refers to a cluster of 4 cases, but doesn’t conclude anything about increased cancer prevalence in Europe – it recommends further investigation, which the paper I linked to did. The paper you show here is a case report on a potential cluster, and cluster analyses are a very very hard thing to do right, which is why they wisely avoided drawing any conclusions. The paper I linked to found the attributable fraction for thyroid cancer in Belgian children to be very low (0.16%) based on the available records (which I suspect in Belgium are very good).
Incidentally, the earlier paper you linked to is a great example of why one should be very careful when interpreting output in SPSS. I can’t stress that strongly enough!
Good, we can agree there was an increase, I wasn’t making anything up, you can concede that much, we just differ on what we see as an acceptable increase in risk. Greg M , 417: “The next conspiracy theory – I assume you are referring to news report about the study of animal populations? Please link to the text that indicates that researcher is concocting a conspiracy theory” quotes and is a response to 416, I could only assume “next conspiracy” referred to the link in 405. You either were, in a previous life, a particularly fastidious uniform monitor, or you’re coming back as one.
Be nice to put all this in context, this is from my post on the Japan Disaster Questions:
“…. I will even make a very confident prediction, more people will die from pneumonia, other bugs (diarrhea from contaminated water has to be a major concern) and even just exposure, than from anything related to the reactors … even if they do a total meltdown.”
In fact the authorities are probably making a big mistake evacuating so many people from such a large area (the local area is sensible of course), that action will probably kill more people than any conceivable radiation exposure. But I suppose by this stage any rationality has gone right out the window.
If only the sea wall had been a meter or so higher, then we would all have news reports and discussions about what really matters.
OK, I’ve put up a fresh thread because this one is getting too long.
Keep it nice on the new thread, please.