Huge March in Tokyo Protesting restarts of Nuclear power plants.

[blankslate]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303649504577496802810864704.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

According to the article tens of thousands marched in opposition to the nuclear power plant restarts

TOKYO—Tens of thousands of people protested against the nation's first nuclear reactor restarts at the Japanese prime minister's residence Friday, in one of the largest demonstrations since the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant last year set off wide opposition to nuclear power.

The massive demonstration was called to protest a government decision to restart Sunday two reactors at the Oi plant in western Japan. It was the 14th demonstration organized by a coalition of anti-nuclear groups outside the premier's residence since March 29.

Given the severity of the disaster at Fukushima because of the tidal wave I can understand the reluctance of many people in Japan to trust nuclear power again.

However they do need power and before the disaster about 24.93% of their electricity came from Nuclear power.
http://www.allcountries.org/ranks/nuclear_share_electricity_generation_by_country_2009.html


Here is an interview with Arnold Gundersen who who used to work in the nuclear industry about Fukushima
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKekI1-DKV0

a report by him on the radiation levels at Fukushima from August 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAMjiVg23TA



Maybe we do need nuclear energy until R&D in other sources of energy like Solar, Wind, and geothermal bring alternative sources of energy up to the point that they can fill the needs that are supplied nuclear energy.

We don't have satisfactory ways of dealing with natural disasters affecting the current nuclear power plants.

In this case the levels of radiation being emitted might be interfering with remote controlled robots used to investigate the damage

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/20...rone-crashes-roof-robot-stuck-building-30341/

How would we respond if there was a seismic event near one of the Reactors we have in the United States?

could we do better than the Japanese?

 

[Infohawk]

How many people died from the reactor issues specifically? (Not the earthquake / tidal wave, but the actual reactor issues.)

 

[bfdd]

atomic energy is green energy and no not just because of the radiation. what happened in japan was a tragic event that could have been avoided, now that we know these things we need to take the proper steps to ensure our facilities are safe and the kind of engineering mistakes that were made can be corrected. atomic energy is amazing and great stuff. we shouldn't get rid of it simply because it can be dangerous, tomatoes used to be dangerous then we tamed them and now they don't carry the nasty poison they used to.

yes i'm comparing tomatoes to nuclear facilities.

 

[Steeplerot]

atomic energy is green energy and no not just because of the radiation. what happened in japan was a tragic event that could have been avoided, now that we know these things we need to take the proper steps to ensure our facilities are safe and the kind of engineering mistakes that were made can be corrected. atomic energy is amazing and great stuff. we shouldn't get rid of it simply because it can be dangerous, tomatoes used to be dangerous then we tamed them and now they don't carry the nasty poison they used to.

yes i'm comparing tomatoes to nuclear facilities.

A chemical poison has no relevance to discussing internal and surface radiation on human physiology.

A tomato also does not pollute whole states for centuries destroying economies and displacing whole cultures for a few years of use.

As both sides of the issue will tell you, it's complicated. Which is one of the reasons why it is so dangerous.

The nuke industry is a terrible cronyist blend of secretive big government and private industry

The industry has no backup plans. Period. Arnie Gunderson is a voice of reason from the nuke industry. He should get a medal from the atomic scientists one day for speaking out about Fuku and the spent fuel storage problems.

The cost of turning a heavily populated area into a wasteland like Fukushima prefecture and large parts of the Ukraine is silly. No "conservative" who studies up would support such irresponsible lemming behavior.

 

[Abraxas]

Am I alone in thinking if we had any sense as a species we would be pumping tens of billions or more into nailing down this nuclear fusion thing that would solve our energy problems? Fission is so last century.

 

[Steeplerot]

Am I alone in thinking if we had any sense as a species we would be pumping tens of billions or more into nailing down this nuclear fusion thing that would solve our energy problems? Fission is so last century.

At least at this point there is no free lunch in physics. Even though the engineers will try and the nuke industry pawns will lie about how economical/necessary it is, it really isn't, nuke power is another corrupt cold war era corporate subsidy with serious consequences to the populace.

We can wait for jesus, or superman, or fusion, or whatever the meme is, but we all know what we have is not sustainable nor has nuclear energy provided this "too cheap to meter" supply of power it promised.

Only wastelands in a sea of corruption.

 

[Abraxas]

At least at this point there is no free lunch in physics. Even though the engineers will try and the nuke industry pawns will lie about how economical/necessary it is, it really isn't, nuke power is another corrupt cold war era corporate subsidy with serious consequences to the populace.

We can wait for jesus, or superman, or fusion, or whatever the meme is, but we all know what we have is not sustainable nor has nuclear energy provided this "too cheap to meter" supply of power it promised. Only wastelands.

Yes, which is why I was advocating for developing fusion and making it a priority instead of just waiting for it. We can use other sources like wind and solar in the mean time, but nuclear fusion, if we can harness it, would be a virtually limitless source of clean power and right now there are a lot of known roads waiting to be explored that we just haven't been able to work up the funds or the will to explore.

 

[Steeplerot]

Yes, which is why I was advocating for developing fusion and making it a priority instead of just waiting for it. We can use other sources like wind and solar in the mean time, but nuclear fusion, if we can harness it, would be a virtually limitless source of clean power and right now there are a lot of known roads waiting to be explored that we just haven't been able to work up the funds or the will to explore.

Meh, A singularity engine would be better imo if I were decking out my big red command cruiser. (and provide the star crushing blast of singularity cannons to take out those pesky renegade capitalist systems)

But then all this is scifi talk in 2012.

 

[DCal430]

It is my understanding that modern designs do not require continuous cooling to stop a melt down unlike th old outdated fukushima plant. The Fukushima was plant with a flawed design that should have been shut down long ago.

 

[Steeplerot]

It is my understanding that modern designs do not require continuous cooling to stop a melt down unlike th old outdated fukushima plant. The Fukushima was plant with a flawed design that should have been shut down long ago.

There is a loop design that Arnie Gunderson is pushing for, but it is even more prone to fault since the engineering gets vastly more complicated. -For a power source that has never been shown to be economical when you factor in building/decommissioning with huge consequences for accidents/sabotage.

Engineers will figure it out if you throw the money at it, but in the big picture. Is it worth it for such dated cold war tech that is not economic in the first place?

Nuclear energy started off with huge possibilities for mankind they thought, unfortunately the physics and economics never lined up with the rhetoric they hoped for. Now we are trapped.

23 of the 104 nuclear plants in the USA are GE boiling-water reactors with GE's Mark I containment systems.

(otherwise known as the salad strainers from hell since the control rod mechanisms by design come in from huge holes punched in the bottom of the core)

The groundwater under Fuku must be a rather nasty blend of 3 different cores that escaped downward. No wonder they cant get near the basements still.

 

[Nintendesert]

Update plants and keep your backup generators out of the basement. There, problem solved.

 

[Abraxas]

Meh, A singularity engine would be better imo if I were decking out my big red command ship. But then this is Star Wars talk in 2012.

First, we have not been able to produce a singularity, we have produced controlled nuclear fusion. Second, if a singularity engine gets out of control, it can cause enormous amounts of damage, if a nuclear fusion reaction gets, wait, it can't get out of control. Third, we have lots and lots of blueprints for nuclear fusion reactors that have not been tested, we have no such specifications for a singularity engine. Fourth, we have working nuclear fusion reactors. Did I mention we already have some working fusion reactors and that we are building some huge ones already?

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

The ITER reactor expected to complete in 2019, will, if it works as intended, will generate ten times the amount of energy it takes in.

Or, take NIF, which is expected to generate net energy using nuclear fusion by the end of this year.

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

Fusion is not "Star Wars talk", it is shit we could have been doing by now if we had put the resources into it it deserved 50 years ago. It is shit we could have in the near future if we dedicated ourselves to it now in any significant way. Fusion is the best solution to being able to produce enormous amounts of energy for low prices, we just need to make the effort to obtain it.

 

[DCal430]

Update plants and keep your backup generators out of the basement. There, problem solved.

Should a backup be offsite.

 

[Steeplerot]

we just need to make the effort to obtain it.

We as a species have a lot of priority problems when it comes to the long term future. With that said I hope fusion comes soon, but then just because it can be done does not make it practical.

Maybe with time. Hopefully.

 

[Nintendesert]

Should a backup be offsite.

Sure for data.

 

[Jeff7]

It is my understanding that modern designs do not require continuous cooling to stop a melt down unlike th old outdated fukushima plant.

Yes, some of the future designs are either passively or inherently safe, and they're highly efficient, so they could extract around 99% of the usable energy from a given quantity of fuel. And they could use existing nuclear waste as a fuel source; current reactor designs are in fact terribly inefficient in terms of the amount of energy extracted versus the potential energy that could be obtained. Though even with that low efficiency, you can still extract an immense amount of energy from a very small amount of fuel. There's an insane amount of energy stored in atomic bonds.
Unfortunately, a lot of the fun features are in the Gen IV reactor designs, which are still a ways off.

The Fukushima was plant with a flawed design that should have been shut down long ago.

I think this is the main valid argument against nuclear reactors.
- The engineers that design the system say "Do this and this. Do not do this."
- Management whines that following those guidelines costs money.
- Management disregards Engineering's guidelines.
- Power plant screws up, and causes damage.
- The design itself is blamed for being dangerous.
- Engineers contemplate an angry killing spree.
😵


- Buy gun.
- Get warned that shooting yourself in the head is a bad idea.
- Shoot self in head.
- Therefore, guns are inherently flawed because they function precisely within their normal parameters.
😵



Beyond that, fusion power would be very nice to see. Lots of fuel, very low waste production (though fission reactors already produce very little waste), and a reaction process that snuffs itself out if something would go wrong.

 

[Nintendesert]

Ah yes fusion power, well I'd like us to simply transition to anti-matter and dilithium power generation.

 

[marincounty]

One of the arguments in favor of nuclear power is that nothing can replace the huge baseline nuke plants . Now that the San Onofre plant is down because of a problem with the tubes, so much for the reliability of nuclear plants. Southern California may be facing blackouts this summer with this plant out of operation.
The world is now awash in natural gas, Japan should build a few natural gas powered plants and a port to handle the natural gas tankers. Then close the rest of the nuclear plants.

 

[mmntech]

We need electricity. We will continue to need it for the foreseeable future. If we get rid of nuclear, what are we going to replace it with? More fossil fuels? They're not green. Renewables? Too unreliable.

A 9.0 earthquake is a very rare event. IIRC, the Fukoshima quake was the first of that magnitude since we started recording seismic activity. Japan suffers frequent quakes and this was the first one that damaged a nuclear plant to that level. Thus the plants are safe. The environmentalists want to compare it to Chernobyl. You can't. Chernobyl was a plant that didn't have even the most basic safeguards. No containment system at all. Pair that with Soviet incompetence and it was a ticking time bomb. Three Mile Island? Containment worked and the public wasn't exposed to radiation.

My challenge to the environmentalists is this. Develop me an electrical generation that can reliably produce as much electricity at a nuclear plant, costs the same or less, with no CO2 emissions. If you can do it, I'll be the first to support your project. So far no technology exists that can match it.

 

[Steeplerot]

My challenge to the environmentalists is this. Develop me an electrical generation that can reliably produce as much electricity at a nuclear plant, costs the same or less, with no CO2 emissions. If you can do it, I'll be the first to support your project. So far no technology exists that can match it.

From a few weeks ago, old news

Germany’s solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of energy on Friday, equivalent to the output of 20 nuclear plants. The country is already a world-leader in solar power and hopes to be free of nuclear energy by 2022.

http://www.rt.com/news/solar-energy-record-break-332

Ze Germans at it again with engineering the hell out of stuff. While we debate why we should stick to cold war era uneconomic cancer plants.

We are getting our asses left behind.

Northern Japan or the Ukraine or even Belarus' situation is coming to one of our leaky old plants sooner or later.

This is utter foolishness, on a civilization ending level.

Gorbachev himself said in his memoirs it was Chernobyl cleanup that sunk the CCCP, not the arms race.

The science is fascinating, but even Einstein said that generating power like this was madness, it is not something that we can pay the cost for if something goes wrong.

 

[GrGr]

The Japanese, much like Americans, have nobody to vote for as both parties are just toadies for the elites. The elites need the nuclear power to run their plants, so the nuclear reactors are being restarted even if the vast majority of the Japanese don't want it. And who can blame them after the horrors of Fukushima. Fukushima is slowly, and inexorably, destroying Japan.

 

[K1052]

One of the arguments in favor of nuclear power is that nothing can replace the huge baseline nuke plants . Now that the San Onofre plant is down because of a problem with the tubes, so much for the reliability of nuclear plants. Southern California may be facing blackouts this summer with this plant out of operation.
The world is now awash in natural gas, Japan should build a few natural gas powered plants and a port to handle the natural gas tankers. Then close the rest of the nuclear plants.

Technical problems at one plant don't mean a whole lot. The domestic reactor fleet still has a capacity factor far exceeding any other source of generation.

What should be done is the NRC deny long term license extensions to the old Gen II plants only provide short term ones to utilities who are in the process of building new Gen III+ reactors and also streamline the licensing process for approved designs so it doesn't take 10+ years to get a new reactor online.

 

[K1052]

From a few weeks ago, old news

Germany’s solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of energy on Friday, equivalent to the output of 20 nuclear plants. The country is already a world-leader in solar power and hopes to be free of nuclear energy by 2022.

http://www.rt.com/news/solar-energy-record-break-332

Ze Germans at it again with engineering the hell out of stuff. While we debate why we should stick to cold war era uneconomic cancer plants.

We are getting our asses left behind.

Northern Japan or the Ukraine or even Belarus' situation is coming to one of our leaky old plants sooner or later.

This is utter foolishness, on a civilization ending level.

Gorbachev himself said in his memoirs it was Chernobyl cleanup that sunk the CCCP, not the arms race.

The science is fascinating, but even Einstein said that generating power like this was madness, it is not something that we can pay the cost for if something goes wrong.

It isn't that simple. There was a NYT article a few months back about how Germany apparently forgot to build a massive new 25B dollar high voltage network to move that renewable power to consumers (a project projected to take at least a decade). Germany has also been buying power from it's neighbors (mostly nuclear) and increasing it's consumption of coal to offset the losses from advanced retirement of the nuclear fleet. It is unlikely Germany will meet the 2022 target at the present rate and more of that will be fossil fuels again.

They've made remarkable progress in renewables but still face significant problems.

 

[Jeff7]

Ah yes fusion power, well I'd like us to simply transition to anti-matter and dilithium power generation.

Antimatter reactors would only be for energy storage, not generation. 😛

There are indeed experimental fusion reactors though. Yes, there are some technical hurdles left, but I think it's going to be a significant power source within 50-100 years. (I know, they've been saying it's 50 years away for more than 50 years. :\)

 

[Steeplerot]

The domestic reactor fleet still has a capacity factor far exceeding any other source of generation.

It is 19.6% of the US's power. And a whole lot of cancers and literally billions to decommission these 30+ year old plants and counting.

Guess who is going to pay for this?

We have about 150 plants in operation or laying there with waste still, how many US cities will be lost to accident or sabotage? In oh let's say 50 years, or even 200.

And they said the plants would be too cheap to meter.

By the way, if you or your families get cancer years down the line good luck proving it was one from a certain event.

Take a peek at what Japan is doing to it's people in the north with Fuku fallout. They are a very advanced society and have people living in plumes of fallout waste like guinea pigs. The iodine 131 and children nearby is BS and the Japanese govt needs to wake up fast.

Probably too late though I-131 did its damage to youngsters thyroids the past year.