Edit:22 Update 2: Experts warned Fukushima of tsunami threat 2 years ago.

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Jun 26, 2007
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It's more than 100 years and the other is much less than 100k years.

The debate isn't so much a better option which you and most are simply not understanding. It's how to you make the switch? How do you explain that you really can't store Thorium just in a garage like you and many believe?

That's where it falls apart. It's still a dangerous technology and those looking to profit from it are getting it out into the media as the new safe fuel.

It's not a new technology though and much of the reasons the world went with uranium and plutonium was due to also wanting missiles.

No, it's between 50-100 years if using only thorium and 100 years approx if using spent uranium too.

It's a source that is very cheap and very abundant, even without the spent uranium as a side source, it's extremely safe and can be implemented in current location but it will take a lot of money which will be well spent for new investors.

What we need is a stop for government investing in current reactors and support in investing for new ones, over a ten year period it's a HUGE win situation.

Meanwhile you can build 100k windmills that at max kapacity can replace 4% of the nuclear power but it won't ever go over 50% capacity and most of the time not even over 20%.

For a cost that will trumph rebuilding every reactor you get nothing, you still have the nuclear waste and the reactors producing more rather than thorium reacors making current waste a LOT less dangerous.

The spent lot of a combo might last as long as 1K, pure thorium is less than 100 years, i think we got them a mixed up, not strange since we are discussion both at the same time.
 
Jun 26, 2007
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Unfortunately, tsunami waves are also incorrectly called "tidal waves."
Although it's an incorrect term because tsunami waves have little to do with the tide, (except to perhaps make things worse if they hit at high tide) it's just a part of the vocabulary...

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

"...and at one time incorrectly referred to as a tidal wave..."

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

"The term tidal wave may refer to:

* A tidal bore, which is a large movement of water formed by the funnelling of the incoming tide into a river or narrow bay
* A storm surge, or tidal surge, which can cause waves that breach flood defences
* A tsunami also called tidal wave, or harbor wave, although this usage is not favored by the scientific community due to tsunamis not being tidal.
* A Megatsunami, which is an informal term to describe a tsunami that has initial wave heights that are much larger than normal tsunamis."

I don't defend the incorrect use of "tidal wave" for a tsunami wave, but, right or wrong, it is still widely used as such.

My apologies to Alchemize, there are too many retards out there to make it a general issue amongst people who don't know what the fuck a tsunami is.

It shouldn't be called that but sometimes is in the US.
 

alkemyst

No Lifer
Feb 13, 2001
83,769
19
81
No, it's between 50-100 years if using only thorium and 100 years approx if using spent uranium too.

It's a source that is very cheap and very abundant, even without the spent uranium as a side source, it's extremely safe and can be implemented in current location but it will take a lot of money which will be well spent for new investors.

What we need is a stop for government investing in current reactors and support in investing for new ones, over a ten year period it's a HUGE win situation.

Meanwhile you can build 100k windmills that at max kapacity can replace 4% of the nuclear power but it won't ever go over 50% capacity and most of the time not even over 20%.

For a cost that will trumph rebuilding every reactor you get nothing, you still have the nuclear waste and the reactors producing more rather than thorium reacors making current waste a LOT less dangerous.

The spent lot of a combo might last as long as 1K, pure thorium is less than 100 years, i think we got them a mixed up, not strange since we are discussion both at the same time.

I think you need to read a bit more into what your are pontifying instead of regurgitating the news.

half-life's and the like are really only one very small part of the story. Like with Plutonium...it's real danger is when it's breathed in. The kind of radiation it emits doesn't go far. However once inside a body that radiation easily gets into the cell.

The main problem is there isn't much 'proof' that our current nuclear power is dangerous...even with Chernobyl. The 'story' is that most of the problem was the media and worry.

As far as investing in the current technology...I am not sure how everyone is so mislead. AFAIK we haven't started building any new reactors since the late 70's. They became to much of a stigma so we turned to lesser yielding power methods.

As far as the rest of the world many are using this technology and the real push for Thorium is coming from the fear that these countries are getting weapons grade by products. Now with Japan's issue Thorium is making the news again and American's wondering why we aren't "building" new reactors with it.

Saying Thorium is cheap is an understatement as well as the costs to convert perfectly working plants to use it. It's not like the US is rolling in dough right now.
 

alkemyst

No Lifer
Feb 13, 2001
83,769
19
81
Also I am willing to bet that most of our cancer-issues have a lot to do with all the above ground and sea tests that used to be so trivial...it's easy to point at a reactor or other chemical plant and say "you gave my baby the brain cancer!"
 
Jun 26, 2007
11,925
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I think you need to read a bit more into what your are pontifying instead of regurgitating the news.

half-life's and the like are really only one very small part of the story. Like with Plutonium...it's real danger is when it's breathed in. The kind of radiation it emits doesn't go far. However once inside a body that radiation easily gets into the cell.

The main problem is there isn't much 'proof' that our current nuclear power is dangerous...even with Chernobyl. The 'story' is that most of the problem was the media and worry.

As far as investing in the current technology...I am not sure how everyone is so mislead. AFAIK we haven't started building any new reactors since the late 70's. They became to much of a stigma so we turned to lesser yielding power methods.

As far as the rest of the world many are using this technology and the real push for Thorium is coming from the fear that these countries are getting weapons grade by products. Now with Japan's issue Thorium is making the news again and American's wondering why we aren't "building" new reactors with it.

Saying Thorium is cheap is an understatement as well as the costs to convert perfectly working plants to use it. It's not like the US is rolling in dough right now.

LOL, we are discussing half life storage facilities, not what you'll breathe, but what is contained throught the period of danger and for that half life is EXTREMELY important while acute physical dangers are not.

Thorium reactors cannot produce weapon grade byproducts, so ...

Thorium is WAY more abundant (pretty much ever nation would be self sufficient and it's way closer to the surface than Uranium) and WAY cheaper at the rate of usage in a power plant than Uranium and Uranium is pretty cheap too...


You're just all wrong today, aren't you.
 

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
43
91
Also I am willing to bet that most of our cancer-issues have a lot to do with all the above ground and sea tests that used to be so trivial...it's easy to point at a reactor or other chemical plant and say "you gave my baby the brain cancer!"

While I have no doubt that these tests significantly increased the rates of cancer in some smaller populations the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere and biosphere in general that is still circulating is minuscule compared with the levels that have been shown in studies to be medically significant. No doubt we still know little about the long term effects of small doses of radiation but I would be surprised if the nuclear tests of the 50s and 60s was the primary or even a significant factor in the majority of todays cancers. It's much more likely that other chemicals in our daily environment are to blame. It's really scary how few of the thousands of industrial and commercial chemicals in regular use have received any rigorous medical scrutiny even for short term effects at high doses let alone long term at low doses. Combine this with our general horrible level of public health and increased life spans and I think you have probably a good 80-90% of the cancer puzzle. Course I could be wrong.
 

alkemyst

No Lifer
Feb 13, 2001
83,769
19
81
LOL, we are discussing half life storage facilities, not what you'll breathe, but what is contained throught the period of danger and for that half life is EXTREMELY important while acute physical dangers are not.

Thorium reactors cannot produce weapon grade byproducts, so ...

Thorium is WAY more abundant (pretty much ever nation would be self sufficient and it's way closer to the surface than Uranium) and WAY cheaper at the rate of usage in a power plant than Uranium and Uranium is pretty cheap too...


You're just all wrong today, aren't you.

No I am not. A lot of that 'half life' danger is based on many things.

Also with weapons grade byproducts there is some recycling...with Thorium you don't have that. Do you think they are going to stop producing weapons grade ingredients?

These are the things people are ignoring.
 
Mar 10, 2005
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12981243

Japan earthquake: Radioactive leak into ocean 'stopped'

A leak of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean from Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been stopped, its operator reports.

Tepco said it had injected chemical agents to solidify soil near a cracked pit, from where the contaminated water had been seeping out.

Engineers have been struggling to stop leaks since the plant was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March.

Japan has asked Russia for the use of a floating radiation treatment plant.

In another development, government sources said that a plan to cover the damaged reactor buildings with special metal sheets could not be carried out until September at the earliest due to high-level radioactivity hampering work at the site.

The official death toll from the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami stands at more than 12,000 with some 15,000 people still unaccounted for, and more than 161,000 people still living in evacuation centres.

'Water glass'

Samples of water used to cool one of the plant's six reactors, No 2, showed 5m times the legal limit of radioactivity, officials said on Tuesday.

In order to stem the leak, Tepco (the Tokyo Electric Power Co) injected ''water glass'', or sodium silicate, and another agent near a seaside pit where the highly radioactive water had been seeping through.

Desperate engineers had also used sawdust, newspapers and concrete to try to stop the escaping water.

The company still needs to pump some 11,500 tonnes of low-level radioactive seawater into the sea because of a lack of storage space at the plant.

But officials said this water would not pose a significant threat to human health.

Russia's nuclear agency Rosatom said it was awaiting answers to some questions before granting Japan's request to lend its vessel the Landysh, known in Japanese as the Suzuran, which is used to decommission Russian nuclear submarines in the far eastern port of Vladivostok.

One of the world's largest liquid radioactive waste treatment plants, the Landysh treats radioactive liquid with chemicals and stores it in a cement form.

It can process 35 cubic metres of liquid waste a day and 7,000 cubic metres a year.
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
64,137
12,457
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MORE proof that youse youngsters should listen to your elders...


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110406/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake_warnings_in_stone

Tsunami-hit towns forgot warnings from ancestors

"MIYAKO, Japan – Modern sea walls failed to protect coastal towns from Japan's destructive tsunami last month. But in the hamlet of Aneyoshi, a single centuries-old tablet saved the day.

"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants," the stone slab reads. "Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

It was advice the dozen or so households of Aneyoshi heeded, and their homes emerged unscathed from a disaster that flattened low-lying communities elsewhere and killed thousands along Japan's northeastern shore.

Hundreds of such markers dot the coastline, some more than 600 years old. Collectively they form a crude warning system for Japan, whose long coasts along major fault lines have made it a repeated target of earthquakes and tsunamis over the centuries.

The markers don't all indicate where it's safe to build. Some simply stand — or stood, until they were washed away by the tsunami — as daily reminders of the risk. "If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis," reads one. In the bustle of modern life, many forgot."
 

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,859
4,976
126
MORE proof that youse youngsters should listen to your elders...


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110406/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake_warnings_in_stone

Tsunami-hit towns forgot warnings from ancestors

"MIYAKO, Japan – Modern sea walls failed to protect coastal towns from Japan's destructive tsunami last month. But in the hamlet of Aneyoshi, a single centuries-old tablet saved the day.

"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants," the stone slab reads. "Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

It was advice the dozen or so households of Aneyoshi heeded, and their homes emerged unscathed from a disaster that flattened low-lying communities elsewhere and killed thousands along Japan's northeastern shore.

Hundreds of such markers dot the coastline, some more than 600 years old. Collectively they form a crude warning system for Japan, whose long coasts along major fault lines have made it a repeated target of earthquakes and tsunamis over the centuries.

The markers don't all indicate where it's safe to build. Some simply stand — or stood, until they were washed away by the tsunami — as daily reminders of the risk. "If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis," reads one. In the bustle of modern life, many forgot."

lol. That's awesome (well not "Awesome", but you know what I mean).
NOVA had a decent special on why everythign failed and the extent (at the time) of the damage. Some cities had 30ft walls built to protect it. But when the earthquake hit, and the water receded, the land itself dropped 3+ feet. Then the 30 ft waves came in and blammo... it went over the now ~27ft walls. THREE FEET!!!

It was crazy too how the surge went up the rivers into mountain streams and lakes raising the water levels up there and turning many of them into salt water.

Edit: Also, I feel as if I need to go down to New Orleans and post some of those same signs for the future.
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
64,137
12,457
136
lol. That's awesome (well not "Awesome", but you know what I mean).
NOVA had a decent special on why everythign failed and the extent (at the time) of the damage. Some cities had 30ft walls built to protect it. But when the earthquake hit, and the water receded, the land itself dropped 3+ feet. Then the 30 ft waves came in and blammo... it went over the now ~27ft walls. THREE FEET!!!

It was crazy too how the surge went up the rivers into mountain streams and lakes raising the water levels up there and turning many of them into salt water.

Edit: Also, I feel as if I need to go down to New Orleans and post some of those same signs for the future.

I watched a special on one of the cable channels (History channel?) about why tsunamis are so devastating to bays and coves. They funnel the water in and do more devastation than along open shorelines. The surge usually goes inland much farther.
 

FuzzyDunlop

Diamond Member
Jan 30, 2008
3,260
12
81
While I have no doubt that these tests significantly increased the rates of cancer in some smaller populations the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere and biosphere in general that is still circulating is minuscule compared with the levels that have been shown in studies to be medically significant. No doubt we still know little about the long term effects of small doses of radiation but I would be surprised if the nuclear tests of the 50s and 60s was the primary or even a significant factor in the majority of todays cancers. It's much more likely that other chemicals in our daily environment are to blame. It's really scary how few of the thousands of industrial and commercial chemicals in regular use have received any rigorous medical scrutiny even for short term effects at high doses let alone long term at low doses. Combine this with our general horrible level of public health and increased life spans and I think you have probably a good 80-90% of the cancer puzzle. Course I could be wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
64,137
12,457
136
Something that's largely overlooked in the news stories is that there are still many, many bodies yet to be found in the areas closed by radiation...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110407/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake

"MINAMI SOMA, Japan – Japanese police raced Thursday to find thousands of missing bodies before they decompose along a stretch of tsunami-pummeled coast that has been largely off-limits because of a radiation-leaking nuclear plant.

Nearly a month after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake generated the tsunami along Japan's northeastern coast, more than 14,700 people are still missing. Many of those may have been washed out to sea and will never be found.

In the days just after the March 11 disaster, searchers gingerly picked through mountains of tangled debris, hoping to find survivors. Heavier machinery has since been called in, but unpredictable tides of radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex have slowed progress and often forced authorities to abandon the search, especially within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) evacuation zone around the plant.

Officials now say there's not much time left to find and identify the dead, and are ramping up those efforts.

"We have to find bodies now as they are decomposing," said Ryoichi Tsunoda, a police spokesman in Fukushima prefecture, where the plant is located. "This is a race against time and against the threat of nuclear radiation."

Up to 25,000 people are believed to have been killed, of which 12,500 have been confirmed. There is expected to be some overlap in the dead and missing tolls because not all of the bodies have been identified...Teams patrolled deserted streets on the fringes of Minami Soma, a city just on the edge of the no-go zone that was flattened in the crush of water. Packs of dogs caked with mud and the searchers were the only beings roaming the emptied streets.

One area inside the evacuation area seemed frozen in time: Doors swung open, bicycles lined the streets, a lone taxi sat outside the local train station.

One body was pulled out of the rubble Thursday morning.

"We just got started here this morning, so we expect there will be many more," said one officer, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

More than 1,000 people are missing in the city alone.

"I believe the search will continue until they find as many of the missing as they can, but we fear many of the missing were washed out to sea or are buried under rubble," said Takamitsu Hoshi, a city official. "We haven't been able to do much searching at all because of the radiation concerns. It was simply too dangerous.""
 

TheNinja

Lifer
Jan 22, 2003
12,207
1
0
It's still shocking how many people are "missing" and will never be found. Like the article above...even if they are found, there may not be a way to identify them. That would be so weird never really knowing if someone was alive or dead. Of course if they haven't found them now chances are they are dead, but it would always be in the back of your mind.
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
64,137
12,457
136
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake

Japan ups nuke crisis severity to match Chernobyl

"By YURI KAGEYAMA and RYAN NAKASHIMA, Associated Press Yuri Kageyama And Ryan Nakashima, Associated Press – 18 mins ago

TOKYO – Japan's nuclear regulators raised the severity level of the crisis at a stricken nuclear plant Tuesday to rank it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, citing the amount of radiation released in the accident.

The regulators said the rating was being raised from 5 to 7 — the highest level on an international scale overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, there was no sign of any significant change at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

The new ranking signifies a "major accident" with "wider consequences" than the previous level, according to the Vienna-based IAEA.

"We have upgraded the severity level to 7 as the impact of radiation leaks has been widespread from the air, vegetables, tap water and the ocean," said Minoru Oogoda of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

NISA officials said one of the factors behind the decision was that the cumulative amount of radioactive particles released into the atmosphere since the incident had reached levels that apply to a Level 7 incident.

The revision was based on cross-checking and assessments of data on leaks of radioactive iodine-131 and cesium-137, said NISA spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama.

"We have refrained from making announcements until we have reliable data," Nishiyama said.

"The announcement is being made now because it became possible to look at and check the accumulated data assessed in two different ways," he said, referring to measurements from NISA and the Nuclear Security Council.

Nishiyama noted that unlike in Chernobyl there have been no explosions of reactor cores at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, although there were hydrogen explosions.

"In that sense, this situation is totally different from Chernobyl," he said.

He said the amount of radiation leaking from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant was around 10 percent of the Chernobyl accident.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, is still estimating the total amount of radioactive material that might be released by the accident, said company spokesman Junichi Matsumoto.

He acknowledged the amount of radioactivity released might even exceed the amount emitted by Chernobyl.

The company, under fire for its handling of the accident and its disaster preparedness before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, issued yet another apology Tuesday.

"We humbly accept this. We deeply apologize for causing tremendous trouble to those who live near the nuclear complex and people in the prefecture," TEPCO spokesman Naoki Tsunoda said.

In Chernobyl, in the Ukraine, a reactor exploded on April 26, 1986, spewing a cloud of radiation over much of the Northern Hemisphere. A zone about 19 miles (30 kilometers) around the plant was declared uninhabitable, although some plant workers still live there for short periods and a few hundred other people have returned despite government encouragement to stay away.

Meanwhile, setbacks continued at Japan's tsunami-stricken nuclear power complex, with workers discovering a small fire near a reactor building Tuesday. The fire was extinguished quickly, TEPCO said.

It said the fire in a box containing batteries in a building near the No. 4 reactor was discovered at about 6:38 a.m. Tuesday and was put out seven minutes later.

It wasn't clear whether the fire was related to a magnitude-6.3 earthquake that shook the Tokyo area Tuesday morning. The cause of the fire is being investigated.

"The fire was extinguished immediately. It has no impact on Unit 4's cooling operations for the spent fuel rods," said TEPCO spokesman Naoki Tsunoda.

The plant was damaged in a massive tsunami March 11 that knocked out cooling systems and backup diesel generators, leading to explosions at three reactors and a fire at a fourth that was undergoing regular maintenance and was empty of fuel.

The magnitude-9.0 earthquake that caused the tsunami immediately stopped the three reactors, but overheated cores and a lack of cooling functions led to further damage.

Engineers have been able to pump water into the damaged reactors to cool them down, but leaks have resulted in the pooling of tons of contaminated, radioactive water that has prevented workers from conducting further repairs.

Aftershocks on Monday briefly cut power to backup pumps, halting the injection of cooling water for about 50 minutes before power was restored.

A month after the disaster, more than 145,000 people are still living in shelters, and the government on Monday added five communities to a list of places people should leave to avoid long-term radiation exposure.

A 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius has already been cleared around the plant.

The disaster is believed to have killed more than 25,000 people, but many of those bodies were swept out to sea and more than half of those feared dead are still listed as missing.

Aftershocks have taken more lives.

In Iwaki, a city close to the epicenter of a magnitude-7.0 temblor Monday, a landslide brought down three houses, trapping up to seven people. Four were rescued alive, but one of those — a 16-year-old girl — died at the hospital, a police official said. He would not give his name, citing policy.

Around 210,000 people have no running water and, following Monday's aftershocks, more than 240,000 people are without electricity.

In all, nearly 190,000 people have fled their homes, the vast majority of whom are living in shelters, according to the national disaster agency. About 85,000 are from the cleared zone around the nuclear plant; their homes may be intact, but it's not known when they'll be able to return to them. "


This just never seems to stop getting worse and worse for the folks in the affected area.
 

Geocentricity

Senior member
Sep 13, 2006
768
0
0
The same is said about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Big. Fkn. Deal.

We deal with it and move on; no need to dig up dirt about should'ves and could'ves.
 

rcpratt

Lifer
Jul 2, 2009
10,433
110
116
Posted this in the P&N thread, but I feel like the crowds are kind of separate, so hopefully nobody minds the cross-posting. Thought this was really interesting.

--

Some potentially good reading for anyone still interested in this situation: ACRS meeting with NRC Re: Fukushima

The NRC gives a presentation to the ACRS that basically recaps the events at Fukushima, and then discusses some high-level effects that it will have on the regulatory environment here.

I'm still reading so I'll edit this as I find interesting quotes.

NRC talking about when they recommended a larger evacuation zone than Japan:
NRC: Before that time, the NRC's position was that we were advising the Ambassador to advise citizens to obey the Japanese Protective Action Recommendation. We performed a calculation that -- well, the morning of the 16th, we were very much worried about the status of the spent fuel pools, in addition to the reactors.

Our vision was what you might have expected in a spent fuel pool in America, and that would be a lot more fuel in them than turns out to be the case, which we learned several days later. So we were very worried about the spent fuel pools.

We were not getting succinct information, as you might imagine. We did talk to a NISA representative on the morning of the 16th, and we didn't get much information that would tell us things were going in the right direction. The gentleman did his best to inform us of what he knew, but that wasn't at all what we would have expected in a nuclear event in the U.S.

That being the case, my staff -- I'm the protective measure team's director, developed a source term that they thought would represent the potential situation using the tools we had -- that's RASCAL. NARAC takes a couple of days to perform -- well, several hours, and perhaps longer, to perform a calculation. So we needed to use the tool that we had -- that was RASCAL.

We did a calculation that would give you -- the details do exist, and whether the task force looks into that deeper or they can be provided, we will have to get back to you on that. But the first source term was 100 percent fuel damage in Unit 2, and literally no -- it was assumed to be ex-vessel and an unfiltered, totally failed containment. Be "totally failed," that is typically 100 percent a day.

...

NRC: There was limited and uncertain data, and although our assumptions here don't necessarily track, we, the staff, were worried about all the spent fuel pools. You know, we were unaware of the low heat loading in Units 1, 2, and 3, and we were aware that mitigative actions were not being taken.

Well, we thought -- we didn't know that mitigative actions were being taken. So that gave us great pause. Although we didn't model four spent fuels in trouble, it was part of the limited and uncertain data that forced this conservative and prudent recommendation.

...

ACRS: Because at least from my standpoint, I think Sam kind of expressed it for a number of us. We're a bit concerned about the fact clearly you did a what-if calculation, but I'm assuming the Japanese did a what-if calculation. Before you started publicizing our what-if, I'd like to have done some sort of comparison, because it creates a -- it potentially can create a misimpression.

But let me reverse this. Thirty-two years ago, if Japan would have done a what-if calculation about Three Mile Island, and said all Japanese within 50 miles of Harrisburg should get out, what would be our response to that, from a policy standpoint?

...

NRC: In addition, if I could add, the NRC does not make protective action recommendations. Our role in a U.S. event is to understand, to do our own independent calculations, so when the state or when the licensee makes protective action recommendations to the local, county, or state officials, who actually make the decision, we can verify whether those recommendations -- you know, we can do an independent check. That is our role during a U.S. event.

And so it is -- in this case, it was a different role that the NRC was playing, it was fulfilling.

ACRS: It's exactly how that role is portrayed in the United States that I would be concerned about, you know. And I think this area needs more examination. I'll leave it at that, and thank you.
The first of a lot of crap the NRC is going to take about the 50 mile evacuation zone, as I think I said at the time. Pretty interesting.
 

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
96,906
16,174
126
Posted this in the P&N thread, but I feel like the crowds are kind of separate, so hopefully nobody minds the cross-posting. Thought this was really interesting.

--

Some potentially good reading for anyone still interested in this situation: ACRS meeting with NRC Re: Fukushima

The NRC gives a presentation to the ACRS that basically recaps the events at Fukushima, and then discusses some high-level effects that it will have on the regulatory environment here.

I'm still reading so I'll edit this as I find interesting quotes.

NRC talking about when they recommended a larger evacuation zone than Japan:

The first of a lot of crap the NRC is going to take about the 50 mile evacuation zone, as I think I said at the time. Pretty interesting.


I have no idea what the bolded part means.

" But the first source term was 100 percent fuel damage in Unit 2, and literally no -- it was assumed to be ex-vessel and an unfiltered, totally failed containment."
 

rcpratt

Lifer
Jul 2, 2009
10,433
110
116
I have no idea what the bolded part means.

" But the first source term was 100 percent fuel damage in Unit 2, and literally no -- it was assumed to be ex-vessel and an unfiltered, totally failed containment."
The calculations that the NRC based their 50-mile evacuation zone on were based on assumptions that were basically wild guesses on a "what-if" scenario. They were more concerned about the spent fuel than they should have been (like "it's going to catch fire and disperse everywhere" concerned) because they assumed that Japanese fuel pools are loaded as densely as American pools - they're not. Because of that and the limited information that they were getting on the reactors themselves, they assumed that one unit had failure in 100% of the fuel (i.e., complete meltdown) and that all containment systems were completely failed. Basically a Chernobyl assumption.

The "source term" is basically the starting point for their calculation. They assumed the amount of radionuclides released from a single point and extrapolated based on meteorological data, etc.

The reason they assumed one single release point was because the simulation program (RASCAL) can only handle one source term. The more sophisticated calculation (NARAC) takes several days to run.
 
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