The fuel came from the environment in the first place. The ground is full of that stuff. Cry baby.
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?
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?
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?
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.
Here's the Rachel Maddow segment:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/
She really nailed that discussion, I'm quite impressed (more with her than with the scientist).
However one thing that the scientist overstates is the effects of radioactive steam venting. Also, his attitude about how the nuclear industry doesn't take DBE events seriously kind of pisses me off too.
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.
The risk when a nuclear power plant gets damaged is release of radioactive material. That's far worse than fire or explosions or smoke. And that's what happened here.
You can rationalize nuclear power all you want, with stupid comparisons to the downsides of other power sources... but face it, there is a fucking reason we are so concerned about nations becoming nuclear weapons capable, when we aren't concerned about them having conventional weapons. Smoke and fire goes away within a human lifetime.
I'm sorry but I see a country with fires burning everywhere, all sorts of random industrial sites are blowing up, hundreds are dead, and a nuclear facility right on the ocean got smacked by the largest recorded earthquake in Japanese history and by a follow up Tsunami and not a SINGLE person is dead from that facility. Meanwhile not a SINGLE containment dome has been breached.
Your sarcasm is well placed, clearly nuclear power plants have terrible designs.
could this cause a Chernobyl type of event?
So you're saying it's not possible for a nuclear power plant to melt down and release fuel to the environment?
What if we could build a nuclear reactor that offered no possibility of a meltdown, generated its power inexpensively, created no weapons-grade by-products, and burnt up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles? And what if the waste produced by such a reactor was radioactive for a mere few hundred years rather than tens of thousands? It may sound too good to be true, but such a reactor is indeed possible, and a number of teams around the world are now working to make it a reality. What makes this incredible reactor so different is its fuel source: thorium.
Named after Thor, the warlike Norse god of thunder, thorium could ironically prove a potent instrument of peace as well as a tool to soothe the world's changing climate. With the demand for energy on the increase around the world, and the implications of climate change beginning to strike home, governments are increasingly considering nuclear power as a possible alternative to burning fossil fuels.
But nuclear power comes with its own challenges. Public concerns over the risk of meltdown, disposal of long-lived and highly toxic radioactive waste, the generation of weapons grade by-products, and their corresponding proliferation risks, all can make nuclear power a big vote-loser.
A thorium reactor is different. And, on paper at least, this radical new technology could be the key to unlocking a new generation of clean and safe nuclear power. It could prove the circuit-breaker to the two most intractable problems of the 21st century: our insatiable thirst for energy
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.
Just because something is hazardous doesn't mean it can't be made safe. While this is of course a terrible tragedy, keep in mind that coal miners die ever day while this meltdown will not result in the loss of any lives due to public radiation exposure. And this is in the wake of a historic once-in-a-century megaquake.
Simple answer: no.could this cause a Chernobyl type of event?
Lol, is that a joke? Bad attempt at internet sarcasm?Proves how dangerous high-speed trains are. Probably hundreds of people on each, all dead.
Lol, is that a joke? Bad attempt at internet sarcasm?
Hundreds, if not thousands of people die in airplane crashes every year. Tens of thousands are killed by handguns, even more in automobile accidents. Proves how dangerous all of those things are, yes?!
If you're gotta blame anything for the deaths of those people, blame the friggin' earthquake.