Fukushima upgraded to Cat 7 TEPCO: Radiation leak may have topped Chernobyl release

[CLite]

So is the land at 3 Mile Island usable yet?

Wow you are a barrel full of ignorance. TMI-2 is mostly decommissioned and it's sister reactor TMI-1 is in operation today.

Also the land at TMI was not effected whatsoever.

 

[Minjin]

So is the land at 3 Mile Island usable yet?

LOL! I water ski right next to TMI! You might want to go educate yourself about what happened (or didn't happen) at TMI.

 

[frostedflakes]

This is exactly the stupid rationalization I'm talking about. If an area of land is contaminated forever in human terms, and no one dies, is that acceptable?

Nuclear power is the only type of power that can do that.

What land has been contaminated?

I'm far from an expert, but some Googling suggests that the radioactivity of the water in a BWR is very short lived with a half-life of only seven seconds. No, that's not a typo.

People seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill with this. I'm sure the Japanese have the situation under control.

 

[Steeplerot]

So is the land at 3 Mile Island usable yet?

TMI didn't go critical (the fuel blowing up) it had a steam implosion and blew out core chunks and crap into the bottom of its containment structure and some radioactive gases from pipes. No #1 in Japan may have gone critical though, they say the control room is 1000x normal, it would have been small. Luckily.

 

[Craig234]

TMI didn't go critical (the fuel blowing up) it had a steam implosion and blew out core chunks and crap into the bottom of its containment structure and some radioactive gases from pipes. No #1 in Japan may have gone critical though, they say the control room is 1000x normal, it would have been small. Luckily.

I don't think a nuclear power plant's fuel can 'blow up', but in a disaster it could melt through its containment chamber and I've seen estimates of many thousands killed.

From the Rachel Maddow segment on this that seems much better than most news, it sounds like there is some risk of that IF the reactor doesn't get power quickly enough for its backup to its backup for cooling, and the good news is the Japanese say they have gotten mobil power supplies there (battery powered).

 

[JD50]

Wow, Throckmorton is dumber than I thought.

 

[Throckmorton]

I don't think a nuclear power plant's fuel can 'blow up', but in a disaster it could melt through its containment chamber and I've seen estimates of many thousands killed.

From the Rachel Maddow segment on this that seems much better than most news, it sounds like there is some risk of that IF the reactor doesn't get power quickly enough for its backup to its backup for cooling, and the good news is the Japanese say they have gotten mobil power supplies there (battery powered).

I thought nuclear power had no risk, because they were self quenching or some crap like that. But now you're telling me they need BATTERIES to power backup cooling to prevent a meltdown?

 

[Throckmorton]

LOL! I water ski right next to TMI! You might want to go educate yourself about what happened (or didn't happen) at TMI.

So are you saying the reactor itself isn't radioactive? What happened to that thing called half life?

Wow, looks like I'm the only one dumb enough to be living in a world where nuclear fuel is radioactive. In the real world that you nuclear fanboys live, the TMI reactor was turned into a mall right?

 

[Minjin]

critical (the fuel blowing up)

Critical doesn't mean what you think it means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass

If the plant isn't "critical", it isn't even working.

 

[Steeplerot]

I don't think a nuclear power plant's fuel can 'blow up', but in a disaster it could melt through its containment chamber and I've seen estimates of many thousands killed.

From the Rachel Maddow segment on this that seems much better than most news, it sounds like there is some risk of that IF the reactor doesn't get power quickly enough for its backup to its backup for cooling, and the good news is the Japanese say they have gotten mobile power supplies there (battery powered).

Good to hear that it is not the machinery of the plants cooling system and just power. It should be under control soon then.

And yes, Chernobyl initial explosion was a steam implosion that blew the weak containment mechanism open letting the fuel chain react for a brief moment. It did have a criticality event. That is what blew the big lid up and the graphite moderators and fuel rods (what didn't melt into graphite to make corium or went up in criticality) all over the plants grounds.

The most dangerous part of Chernobyl never happened, the water from the cooling system was under the burning fuel/graphite slag and was cooking itself through nuclear fission decay still. If it had reached water under it would have gone critical with the steam heating the already burning fuel, with the sudden turn to steam under the criticality it would have blown the blast out across the center of Russia. Chernobyl was not a "Power Plant" really, it was a massive Soviet nuke fuel enrichment plant that made some power as an afterthought. (and for propaganda) Chernobyl's design was not really efficient for power really.

 

[Throckmorton]

Wait a minute. In 2009 there was a radiation leak at Three Mile Island.

I thought nuclear power plants didn't release radiation.

I'm so stupid that I believe radiation is a real hazard! http://articles.cnn.com/2009-11-22/...-radiation-leak-containment-building?_s=PM:UShttp://www.thepajamapundit.com/2009/11/radiation-leak-at-three-mile-island.html

 

[Minjin]

So are you saying the reactor itself isn't radioactive? What happened to that thing called half life?

Did you even bother to read up on TMI yet?

Note: This is the part where an adult says "oops, I was misinformed" and doesn't move the goal posts. There is nothing wrong with ignorance.

 

[CLite]

TMI didn't go critical (the fuel blowing up) it had a steam implosion and blew out core chunks and crap into the bottom of its containment structure and some radioactive gases from pipes. No #1 in Japan may have gone critical though, they say the control room is 1000x normal, it would have been small. Luckily.

WAHHH?? This thread continues to amaze me.

No.... the reactor core never underwent a steam explosion and no chunks were ever blown.

The disaster was the fact that the Pressured operated relief valve (PORV) was stuck open and allowed the containment building to fill with radioactive material which was then unknowingly pumped out to an auxiliary building. The main "fallout" from the disaster was the venting of steam/hydrogen from the reactor to the atmosphere to prevent an explosion.

 

[CLite]

Wait a minute. In 2009 there was a radiation leak at Three Mile Island.

I thought nuclear power plants didn't release radiation.

I'm so stupid that I believe radiation is a real hazard! http://articles.cnn.com/2009-11-22/...-radiation-leak-containment-building?_s=PM:UShttp://www.thepajamapundit.com/2009/11/radiation-leak-at-three-mile-island.html

From your article

"A monitor at the temporary opening cut into the containment building wall to allow the new steam generators to be moved inside showed a slight increase in a reading and then returned to normal," the company said. "Two other monitors displayed normal readings."

So there was a faulty monitor, keep posting retarded drivel.

 

[Throckmorton]

Did you even bother to read up on TMI yet?

Note: This is the part where an adult says "oops, I was misinformed" and doesn't move the goal posts. There is nothing wrong with ignorance.

Misinformed how? There was no meltdown at Three Mile Island? There was no nuclear waste to dispose of after meltdown? Everything was perfectly fine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

Today, the TMI-2 reactor is permanently shut down with the reactor coolant system drained, the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated, radioactive waste shipped off-site to a disposal site, reactor fuel and core debris shipped off-site to a Department of Energy facility, and the remainder of the site being monitored.

 

[Fenixgoon]

This is exactly the stupid rationalization I'm talking about. If an area of land is contaminated forever in human terms, and no one dies, is that acceptable?

Nuclear power is the only type of power that can do that.

really, so what do modern hiroshima and nagasaki look like?

FYI when you build things the wrong way, you get chernobyl.

 

[Throckmorton]

From your article



So there was a faulty monitor, keep posting retarded drivel.

Tests showed the contamination in Saturday's incident was confined to the building itself, and none was found outside, Exelon said.


Oh right, so it was a faulty sensor, but there was contamination confined to the building....

 

[CLite]

So are you saying the reactor itself isn't radioactive? What happened to that thing called half life?

Wow, looks like I'm the only one dumb enough to be living in a world where nuclear fuel is radioactive. In the real world that you nuclear fanboys live, the TMI reactor was turned into a mall right?

TMI is a fully operational nuclear power plant site, the reactor that failed was shipped to a DOE site, the other reactor is still fully functional.

Why would a functional power plant be turned into a mall?

 

[Nebor]

Tests showed the contamination in Saturday's incident was confined to the building itself, and none was found outside, Exelon said.


Oh right, so it was a faulty sensor, but there was contamination confined to the building....

You are such a god damned cry baby. I wouldn't mind having a nuclear power plant in my back yard. The remote chance of radiation is more than worth it for the benefits.

 

[Throckmorton]

TMI is a fully operational nuclear power plant site, the reactor that failed was shipped to a DOE site, the other reactor is still fully functional.

Why would a functional power plant be turned into a mall?

The reactor that melted down...... Why didn't they turn it into a mall?

And why did they have to clean up the fuel and ship it to a DOE site? You can't with one breath say nuclear power is clean and safe, and with the next breath acknowledge that they had to do a cleanup and ship out the fuel and contaminated material.

 

[CLite]

Misinformed how? There was no meltdown at Three Mile Island? There was no nuclear waste to dispose of after meltdown? Everything was perfectly fine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

Today, the TMI-2 reactor is permanently shut down with the reactor coolant system drained, the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated, radioactive waste shipped off-site to a disposal site, reactor fuel and core debris shipped off-site to a Department of Energy facility, and the remainder of the site being monitored.

Every single nuclear power plant that is decommissioned must undergo a similar process. Although TMI-2 is certainly more radioactive than a regular decommissioned plant it still involves the same kind of procedure. Once it is fully decommissioned along with TMI-1 a mall can be built on-top of it if people wish.

 

[Throckmorton]

really, so what do modern hiroshima and nagasaki look like?

FYI when you build things the wrong way, you get chernobyl.

Those were BOMBS. Bombs by design turn matter into energy, so of course there's not a lot of fuel being left on the landscape to gradually decay
http://www.straightdope.com/columns...did-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-recover-so-quickly

The bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki produced their share of residual radiation, but it didn't stick around long, for two reasons. First, both bombs were detonated more than 500 meters above street level so as to wreak maximum destruction (surrounding buildings would have blocked much of the force of ground-level explosions). That limited surface contamination, since most of the radioactive debris was carried off in the mushroom cloud instead of being embedded in the earth. There was plenty of lethal fallout in the form of "ashes of death" and "black rain," but it was spread over a fairly wide area.

 

[CLite]

The reactor that melted down...... Why didn't they turn it into a mall?

And why did they have to clean up the fuel and ship it to a DOE site? You can't with one breath say nuclear power is clean and safe, and with the next breath acknowledge that they had to do a cleanup and ship out the fuel and contaminated material.

Google image TMI, the reactor that melted down is practically side by side the reactor that is fully functional, they are on the same power plant campus. Why would you build a mall in the middle of a power plant?

I never claimed that a nuclear reactor does not radiate it's immediate containment building and the systems inside the containment building, that's the entire point of a containment building.

Any power source will require cleanup, even windmills and solar panels require rare minerals which is a dirty mining and processing procedure which would require proper cleanup upon decommission of any mines and processing plants.

 

[Throckmorton]

Every single nuclear power plant that is decommissioned must undergo a similar process. Although TMI-2 is certainly more radioactive than a regular decommissioned plant it still involves the same kind of procedure. Once it is fully decommissioned along with TMI-1 a mall can be built on-top of it if people wish.

So you're saying it's not possible for a nuclear power plant to melt down and release fuel to the environment? Even if they don't get those backup generators in place to power the cooling systems?

 

[CLite]

So you're saying it's not possible for a nuclear power plant to melt down and release fuel to the environment? Even if they don't get those backup generators in place to power the cooling systems?

In all likely hood if the reactor core failed then the contents would spill onto the containment floor and solidify due to increased surface area and greater cooling without breaching the containment wall. As I previously stated this is a specific analysis that has already been done. HOWEVER, I never speak in absolutes and of course there is a chance for fuel to be released to the environment.

I will teach you something today Throckmorton,

Risk = probability x consequences.

Nuke = extremely low probability and high consequences
Other power sources = higher probability and lower consequences.

You can't demonize nuclear power because of its consequences and ignore the fact that it has an infinitesimally smaller chance of failing as compared to other industries.