My bet is when their refrigerators stop running and they get warm beer and spoiled food out of them.
They would probably put up with more than we would; but if our roles were reversed, I know most people here would be begging to have their reactors back (just not sure what we would miss first, the power for our AC, or to charge our iPads).
Chernobyl was in 1986, once every 25 years is not same as once in a lifetime.
Tell me what would have happened if the Fukushima plant was coal powered.
people here would refuse to change their lifestyle.
Fact is Japan is in danger of another 9+ EQ and massive Tsunami, so any reactor on the coast is in danger should not be operating. Another 9+ EQ could hit Japan any day without warning.
Chernobyl was caused by human stupidity. Should every technology be shelved because people are stupid and corrupt?!
You could always lead by example by unplugging your computer, iphone, ipad, etc permanently.
Makes people like you make stupid comments is what you really meant.
Japan has the best earthquake/tsunami warning system in the world. Japan was highly aware of their earthquake danger and highly aware of the dangers of radiation. They thought that through superior engineering, high design standards and strict adherance to what the "experts" thought as more than adequate safety protocols was sufficient. Real life proved them dramatically wrong and they now have to deal with the aftermath of three nuclear meltdowns.
I don't blame them at all for making that tough decision. I do question our decision (by default) to proceed ahead as is here with far lower design standards and implementation.
Yes it can and will someday happen here, with a far greater degree of probability.
I think he was
talking about the Tsunami, in which case he would be correct for the area.
This may have been asked before but what about the design of a nuclear power plant makes it so it cannot power itself?? I don't understand this.. why can't some of the power it produces power its own pumps?
We aren't in that situation.
And I spent 30 years of my life without a car so I feel confident my carbon footprint is much lower then most.
I notice that is a trick of the rightwing who would be the ones to refuse lifestyle changes (god gave us the right to use the planet).
This may have been asked before but what about the design of a nuclear power plant makes it so it cannot power itself?? I don't understand this.. why can't some of the power it produces power its own pumps?
Yet there is also this other fact that Japan doesn't have the massive natural resources to fulfill their electrical power needs without nuclear power.
You can easily shut it down without external resources, you just cannot keep it cool after you do. You need power to run the pumps. This power has to come from somewhere, and it was supposed to come from diesel generators. However, these generators were under water.
How high should the protection be, 1,000 feet? You know, just incase an asteroid hits the Pacific Ocean? That is what I mean, you build it to a most likely scenario, then a little safer. You cannot protect against everything. Simply not possible.
This is absolutely stunning to me. Japan is about as high-tech a society as you'll find, and is now shutting down all nuke plants, and talking about phasing them out permanently. That's absolutely mind boggling.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46676913/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/
I understand why residents would be scared or wary of nuclear power, but to take a step backwards toward fossil fuels from existing nuclear power plants? That's crazy.
Which translates to the leftwing wishing it had direct say on the lives of individuals whether they agree with their views or note.Thus there goes that whole lie of the left being in favor of "personal freedoms".
Not as far as Dimona and the NRRC is concerned.
http://www.gsi.gov.il/Eng/_Uploads/264Israel-Tsunami-Hazard.pdf
No where near the area of concern.
Yeah, it should be noted that when these were built (50s-60s) they had a huge demand for cheap energy (couldn't plunder manchuria for hydrocarbons anymore) and didn't have the petrochemical deposits to lean on like most of the world does. BWRs were the cheapest way to make electricity for them on a c/kwh basis so that's what they chose. But they definitely should have replaced them decades ago, it would hurt financially but they're one of the largest economies in the world so they could ultimately afford it. Of course, the US is still using a lot of old reactors as well....
Thanks for proving my point.
Not a single person has died because of exposure to radiation as a result of the Fukushima accident, though two plant workers did die in a flooded basement room as a direct result of the tsunami. But lesson four is that overreaction to a problem can be worse than the original problem. For example, it was reported that 45 patients died after the botched and hurried evacuation of a hospital in the Fukushima prefecture, and this was not the only such case. One centenarian committed suicide rather than be forced from his home in the exclusion zone.
To try to use Fukushima to justify a complete disavowal of the use of nuclear power would be a gross distortion of the extent of the threat it posed. It would also consign the world to greater use of fossil fuels and higher concentrations of greenhouse gases, unleashing many more natural disasters with huge loss of life. This is the real risk we need to be vigilant against.
That's well and good, but there are hundreds of reactors operating now that are going on 50 years old. Old equipment and containment buildings can fail more readily, pipes can leak or burst, a cooling water supply could dry up in a drought, backup generators could go down, or maybe something else nobody thought was possible actually happens. Whenever the fit hits the shan, the world has yet another huge problem.Modern designs have greatly expanded the passive safety features of nuclear plants. In the new Gen III+ reactors this accident would not even have been possible.
All it would have taken for this to have never been an issue is for the generators to have been wave-proof. It would be pretty feasible and not that expensive (compared to the total budget of a nuclear plant) to have the generators housed in a sealed concrete building, with large tanks of diesel/lng/whatever either in aboveground tanks or flexible underground tanks sufficient to run a couple of large generators (hell I bet even one medium-large commercial generator would be able to provide enough pumping capacity to cool most plants). Slap a couple of intake/exhaust stacks, and remote automation and controls, and none of this would have ever made the news
It wouldn't take very much engineering or money relative to the scale of these projects to ensure that much at least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunamiThe earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture,[15][16] and which, in the Sendai area, travelled up to 10 km (6 mi) inland.[17] The earthquake moved Honshu 2.4 m (8 ft) east and shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cm (4 in) and 25 cm (10 in).[18][19][20]