Tsunami sounds like a Japanese word, is it ?
I would expect Japanese engineers would design nuclear power plants to withstand such a disaster,
apparently the design expected diesel engines to operate underwater ?
How is this different then getting hit by a tsunami when you are in a school or airport? Pathetic politicizing of a disaster, stay classy.
really, so what do modern hiroshima and nagasaki look like?
FYI when you build things the wrong way, you get chernobyl.
what does Chernobyl look like today? apples and grapes dude not even in the same park
Nuclear power is safe! Nuclear power is safe!
Acanthas-
as chief apologist for nuclear power plant design, would you tell me why a Tsunami can disable the backup power for this power plant ?
Does that seem like an oversight to you, or is it ok ?
I'm not an engineer, but i can think of ways to keep diesel generators protected and operating in an area that could be damaged by flooding..
It just wasn't foreseen i'm sure.
You can bet your ass it'll be changed after this.
And i'm not "apologizing" for the design. I'm just saying that this is very very very different from Chernobyl so comparisons are silly.
More people die every year mining the coal for our power than have died in the history of commercial nuclear power.
So far radiation is only double normal background levels, which is not dangerous.
The government will distribute iodine pills, which will prevent the thyroid from absorbing radioactive materials and prevent the people from getting thyroid cancer long-term.
These plants are more modern than chernobyl and are not fast reactors, they can't explode like Chernobyl and if they did, the radiation released would be minor, because the fuel will cool. There is a negative void coefficient for these reactors in the case of a meltdown, the fuel will cool.
Distributing iodine pills.... do iodine pills have to be distributed when a coal power plant "melts down"?
What's the worst case scenario here?
What's the worst case scenario for a natural gas, oil, coal, or solar power plant?
Distributing iodine pills.... do iodine pills have to be distributed when a coal power plant "melts down"?
What's the worst case scenario here?
What's the worst case scenario for a natural gas, oil, coal, or solar power plant?
While we are still waiting for the full data to entirely come in the evidence in this case is the containment vessel for the nuclear power plant has entirely held and the actual radiation leakage is very limited. No meltdown in fact occurred. A real Chernobyl type disaster is actually impossible as long as the containment vessel for the reactor holds, (or even mostly holds) and the vessel is designed to do this in the first place under all circumstances (barring a nuclear bomb being used on the reactor or the like) unlike the Chernobyl nuclear plant design.Distributing iodine pills.... do iodine pills have to be distributed when a coal power plant "melts down"?
What's the worst case scenario here?
A ship with 100 people aboard is also missing. Should we give up on ships too?
The worst case scenario is people have to take some iodine pills. Dozens may die of cancer over the course of the next 30 years.
Oil spills, NG leaks, and Coal Mining accidents happen all the time. On top of that, all of these emit cancer causing pollution year round without an accident...
Solar does not have enough power density to power urban areas.
what does Chernobyl look like today? apples and grapes dude not even in the same park
The implication of you bringing up coal burning in this context is pretty obvious to anyone, but ok, if you want to go and be an ass about it and claim you meant something else (without saying what), go right ahead.If you are going to quote philosophical techno-babble then I'd suggest that you actually learn the meaning first.
A straw man argument is a misrepresentation of someone's argument. In this case, you took one statement I made out of context and proceeded to misrepresent my argument. Go ahead, just try to prove I ever asserted that nuclear accidents are less dangerous. Otherwise I suggest you spout less techno-babble and pay attention to what people actually write.
The radioactivity is still largely there though, you wouldn't want to live on all that thriving stuff if your health and longevity is one of your concerns.Apparently it looks quite gorgeous and is thriving. Getting rid of all the people was the best thing to happen to nature in the area.
Apparently with the small amount of radioactive isotopes present in natural coal, multiplied by the huge amount of coal that a large power plant burns through, they produce more radioactive waste than nuke plants do, and they spew it all directly into the atmosphere.
Meltdown Caused Nuke Plant Explosion: Safety Body
TOKYO (Nikkei)--The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.
The same day, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), which runs the plant, began to flood the damaged reactor with seawater to cool it down, resorting to measures that could rust the reactor and force the utility to scrap it.
Cesium and iodine, by-products of nuclear fission, were detected around the plant, which would make the explosion the worst accident in the roughly 50-year history of Japanese nuclear power generation.
An explosion was heard near the plant's No. 1 reactor about 3:30 p.m. and plumes of white smoke went up 10 minutes later. The ceiling of the building housing the reactor collapsed, according to information obtained by Fukushima prefectural authorities.
At a news conference Saturday night, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano discounted the possibility of a significant leak of radioactive material from the accident. "The walls of the building containing the reactor were destroyed, meaning that the metal container encasing the reactor did not explode," Edano said.
The amount of radiation detected inside the plant after 4:00 p.m. slightly exceeded the dose people can safely receive in a year, according to information obtained by the Fukushima prefectural government.
The No. 1 reactor shut down automatically soon after a massive earthquake hit the area Friday, but its emergency core cooling system failed to cool the reactor's core sufficiently.
NISA is affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
(The Nikkei March 13 edition)
It's also an issue of developing the technology and expertise locally knowing that future designs will be even safer. Solar power might replace nuclear tomorrow for all I know, but for now this is the cleanest we have and it requires an investment in developing the local talent to exploit and make it safer. The sooner you have the talent and infrastructure in place the sooner you can exploit the safest designs.
This is a Generation II plant. The new generation III plants are much safer and involve passive cooling designs that do not need power. The Westinghouse design has a giant reservoir of water that can gravity feed into the core in case of an emergency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000
The implication of you bringing up coal burning in this context is pretty obvious to anyone, but ok, if you want to go and be an ass about it and claim you meant something else (without saying what), go right ahead.
This is the internet, inconsistency is par for the course here.