Fukushima question

[SlickSnake]

http://enenews.com/theyre-rushing-s...l-type-seismic-event-wsj-top-official-concern

Tepco is speeding up the spent fuel pool removal process without explanation. There are no operational nuclear power plants in Japan now. There were 50. This should tell us all something about the "safety" of nuclear power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan

The government there must have looked again at all the earthquake, volcano, typhoon and tsunami risk assessments that they should have paid attention to when they built the things over known fault lines and in known typhoon and tsunami zones just to BOIL WATER to make a little power. Wouldn't it have been a lot smarter (and cheaper) just to harness the islands volcanism to boil water for a little cheap power?

Nuke power is certainly not "green" power when it will take many times more dirty power than the small amounts of "green" power ever generated by them just to clean up the radioactive mess these reactors leave behind even when "safely" decommissioned.

 

[Subyman]

FWIW, there is as much Uranium on earth as there is Tin. The reactor can not have a run away reaction. There is a difference between going critical and a nuclear explosion. When a reactor is critical, it makes as much or more neutrons than it needs self sustain itself. If this is not controlled, the rods will heat up to a point at which they exceed their melting point and we have melt down. After melt down, the rod's geometry changes and so does the criticality of the reactor. The material will continue to heat until its heat dissipation reaches a steady state, below its boiling point (which is why they need to continue to cool the mess for awhile.) In essence, the melted rods sit at the bottom until they run out of fissile material.

A run away nuclear explosion requires geometry that is impossible to create without a very precise design and high explosives. The reason for putting it in the ocean is due to dilution. Sea water already contains uranium. Adding a few hundred kilograms to the sextillion of gallons of water of the ocean is negligible, especially if it is thrown below the thermocline--below where most of the ocean's currents reside.

The London Convention Protocol made it impossible to dispose at sea (which was normal practice in the 40's/50's.) That agreement ended a year ago or so and I haven't followed up to see if it was renewed.

 

[Agent11]

You cannot compare all nuclear power. Nuclear power is all about manipulation of nuclear transmutation, it all depends on what elements you put in and how the reaction is designed to behave. Fukushima was a very old power plant, using a highly reactive element that is heavily dependent on active cooling.

If low information anti nuke activists had not blocked the construction of new safer plants around the world then perhaps Fukushima would already have been decommissioned.

You have to understand that there is a significant economic incentive for remaining with the uranium fuel cycle for many countries, if you add the eco-kooks to the equation it makes developing the safer designs very difficult.

 

[SlickSnake]

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Stop with Uranium nuclear plants. Move to Thorium. End of discussion. It's plentiful, it is passively cooled, doesn't produce HEU (i.e. prevent proliferation), etc. Thorium+wind+solar+hydro. That's what our energy sources should be from. Perhaps with some LNG as well.

 

[Agent11]

Thorium transmutes to waste with a shorter half life as well.

Thorium reactor google tech talk 16 minute remix.

5 minute Kirk Sorensen thorium reactor remix.