More nuclear disaster talk
I think I’m starting to sound like the proverbial broken record (although now that records are pretty much obsolete, should there not be another term?), but the beat goes on with the hyping of the nuclear plant problems in Japan.
Things have escalated somewhat and remain difficult and uncertain there, to be sure. According to the NY Times, there has been a fire that “blew a 26-foot-wide hole in the side of reactor No. 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant,” as well as a separate explosion that “ruptured the inner containment building at reactor No. 2 at the Daiichi plant, which was crippled by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami” and released a surge of radiation.
However, even the Times has these reassuring words for those who got far enough in the article to read them:
But 50 workers stayed behind, a crew no larger than would be stationed at the plant on a quiet spring day. Taking shelter when possible in the reactor’s control room, which is heavily shielded from radiation, they struggled through the morning and afternoon to keep hundreds of gallons of seawater a minute flowing through temporary fire pumps into the three stricken reactors, where overheated fuel rods continued to boil away the water at a brisk pace.
By early afternoon radiation levels had plunged, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Workers have released surges of radiation each time they bleed radioactive steam from the troubled reactors in an attempt to manage the pressure inside the reactors, but the reactors are not yet releasing high levels of radiation on a sustained basis, Japanese officials said.
Talk shows, headlines, blogs, and demonstrators seem to think this is a disaster of terrible proportions. So far it is not, although I cannot imagine the terrible stress the crews are under. They are the ones who stand the greatest risk of health problems, but their plight seems easy compared to the vast numbers of the dead in Japan today—deaths that, by the way, have nothing to do with the nuclear plant.
Although news is fast-changing and dates quickly, and objective news is difficult to come by, this summary seems fairly comprehensive and relatively recent. It contains the following evaluation of the big picture by a scientist working in the field of nuclear power:
Japan suffered an earthquake and tsunami of unprecedented proportion that has caused unbelievable damage to every part of their infrastructure, and death of very large numbers of people. The media have chosen to report the damage to a nuclear plant which was, and still is, unlikely to harm anyone. We won’t know for sure, of course, until the last measure to assure cooling is put in place, but that’s the likely outcome. You’d never know it from the parade of interested anti-nuclear activists identified as “nuclear experts” on TV.
There is no question that those who advocate nuclear power have the motivation to look on the bright side, whereas those who are against it are inclined to the opposite point of view. From what I can see, the facts are on the side of the first group. But prognostications can never be 100% correct, and unforeseen things can happen.
In the comments section of a Slate article by William Saletan entitled “Nuclear Overreactors” I noticed an excellent example of the type of thinking that runs rampant on the left. In it, you can really sense the commenter’s desire for a bad outcome. Addressing Saletan’s argument that the situation is nowhere near as bad as the hype, the commenter says:
Dude, I’d suggest waiting until it’s OVER to write this OK? Sheesh. The magic containment vessel that all you nuke lovers keep twattering about (don’t worry, radiation won’t leak) appears to have been breached at Daini #2. And the ship’s unsinkable, right? Will human technoarrogance never end?
The metaphor of the Titanic as the epitome of human hubris and misplaced faith in engineering is a popular one. The Titanic, however, was apparently destroyed not by an iceberg or even poor design but because builders failed to use the correct (and more expensive) rivets that probably would have made the design work properly.
After the Titanic disaster we certainly didn’t stop designing ocean liners. Nor has there been a repeat. Scientists learn from their errors; they don’t run in fear from a soluble problem. Although it took many decades to figure out what went wrong on the Titanic, it is much clearer what the problems are at Fukushima. And a combined earthquake and resultant tsunami of the magnitude of the one causing the damage is an extremely rare event as well. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be prepared for. But the whole thing needs to be placed in perspective, something in short supply right now.
Sunday Times wrote:A Russian bomber has infiltrated deeper into Britain’s air defences than at any time since the cold war and come within sight of the Scottish coast at St Andrews.
Two Tornado F3 fighter aircraft from RAF Leuchars, five miles north of the university town, were scrambled to head off the Tupolev Tu-95 as it approached British airspace last week. However, the Russian pilot ignored the standard protocols of such interceptions and pulled back only when he was within seconds of entering British airspace and causing an international incident.
Neoneocon,
IMHO one must come to the realization that the left is essentially an anti-Western anti-capitalist mind set.
This is the glue to all of their sometimes disparate points of view
Scientists learn from their errors; they don’t run in fear from a soluble problem.
No, but beaureaucrats like the TEPCO executives and Japanese Energy Minister do.
The plants are safe, not intrinsically safe, because in off-nominal cases, the operators must perform actions to mitigate the hazard.
In the Japanese “yes, boss, all is well” Japanese management culture, they did the predicable thing and said “yes, boss, all is well” until the reactor cooling boiled away due to inaction and bickering.
This disaster was imminently preventable if there was one Super Empowered Individual who just would have made the decision to shut the reactors down hard even if it meant they were safe but non-operable in the future.
Now consider that American business and government was steeped in “the Japanese way” of management and Quality (TQM, Kaizen, Rapid Change Management, Lean… etc.) for the past thirty years.
Chilling (unlike the reactor cores….)
Quick, how many people died as a result of Chernobyl? Does fifty sound too low?
James Delingpole’s latest offers perspective.
Matthew M: see this, just posted a moment ago.
the fuel will be spent within a week…
radiation will continue to drop…
this is not a soviet design…
Scientists learn from their errors; they don’t run in fear from a soluble problem.
correction.. ENGINEERS
scientists (or what we commonly think of as scientists) do not build ships. or have you not noticed that all this great stuff that we get is engineered as a functional system, not isolated qualities that can be incorporated or replace things in functional systems, like better steel for rivets.
the science part is in tools, and materials, and so forth… its the engineers that put it all together with the assorted qualities for conditions and the ideas as to what to anticipate.
and its engineers who HAVE to get it right…
applied sciences (engineering) operates at a operative level way above what researchers have as their measure of success or failure.
most programming answers are not from computer scientists, but people in the field who could not express their own work in mathematical form (i cant). but who together make society work at a productive level never seen by any living thing in the universe as we know it so far.
Gray,
The reactors WERE shutdown within seconds of the earthquake… it was an automatic trigger that sent the control rods into the core. What is happening is that the secondary radioactive by products, which generally are relatively short halflives, continue to produce energy. That’s why, even with a quick shutdown it takes several days of cooling to get the reactor “down”. Their big problem has been loss of cooling allowing that residual energy to build up to the possible melting point of the fuel rods. The base of the reactor is graphite/concrete designed to “catch” the melt down, if it occurs, and contain and moderate the slag. Yes, it’s going to be a mess, one way or another, but probably managable.
What drives me crazy about the coverage is that I can’t get any actual information, like: dose rates. Saying the radiation is at 2 microSv is meaningless, as exposure is always expressed as a rate such as 2microSv/hour. That allows one to calculate the total accumulated dose. Also, very important are the isotopes involved. If the dose is primarily from short lived isotopes, that’s one thing, if it’s primarily Cs137, that’s another. Instead, all we hear is RADIATION!! RADIATION!! with no context.
the quake they did ok on, it was the huge wave of water that kind of did them in.
I think they still would have been fine had they had they wherewithal to trigger the final safety systems that would have rendered the plants unusable (but safe).
I think beaureaucratic cowardice, ass-covering and Japanese management pathology are the root causes of the disaster subsequent to the earthquake and tsunami.
Artfldgr,
“. . . and its engineers who HAVE to get it right . . .”
and this is why engineering tends to be overwhelmingly populated by people w/ a conservative mindset. They have to take responsibility for their designs, and their designs have to work.
Imagine the liberal engineer commenting on a collapsed deck by saying “Well, it’s clear that we have an obesity problem in this country. If the people standing on that deck weren’t so fat the deck would have never collapsed. We need more laws to force people to lose weight so no additional decks collapse”
This is where, as they say, the rubber hits the road, and liberals are conspicuously absent.
I think not enough recognition has been extended to the Japanese workers who have stayed at those nuclear reactors battling for control at a time when their families and homes may have been affected by the quake, when they surely wanted to be with their families rather than working in a crisis state, and when the workers themselves are in significant personal danger. I hope that when this is over, they will be treated with the honor and congratulations that they deserve. I’m not sure their conduct is exactly heroic, but it certainly is highly creditable.
physicsguy, try this site for what seems like reliable, knowledgeable information –even though it may not answer your question about radiation dosage:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
The reactors WERE shutdown within seconds of the earthquake… it was an automatic trigger that sent the control rods into the core.
I don’t even know if that happened, there is no reliable information coming out and the TEPCO guys are covering-up.
Why didn’t they resort to the suppression tanks? Or carbon-boron “final resort” safety?
I hope that when this is over, they will be treated with the honor and congratulations that they deserve.
Not a chance, honoring and congratulating them would be a tacit admission that TEPCO and government officials screwed up.
As it looks now, the main source of radiation is the scheduled steam release to lower pressure in the vessel, so this must be volatile components like iodine, noble gases and tritium. They all are short-lived and do not create long-term land contamination. There were also “traces” of cesium, but only within the station itself.
it didnt take but 24 hours for them to blame this on global warming, and now the next hot thing will be the volcanic cooling… or nuclear winter? who cares what it means and that its conjecture
the clean up time will surprise the most vociferous lefty. wont shut em up, just surprise them….
They’re starting to come clean (a little).
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4dljkdz
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4pr2mee
It’s the cover-up that kills….
No, it’s not all that bad even if “the worst” happens, but the cover-up and slow-rolling on it makes it look really bad. Nuclear Power is safe. Beaureaucrats in charge of safety decisions is not. I am not stocking up on iodine tabs, neither should you.
Mrs Whatsit,
I heartedly agree, lets raise a glass and praise those workers who are staying at their post under hazardous conditions and doing everything humanly possible to bring the situation under control.
“Let drink to the hard working people…. raise a glass to the salt of the earth.” — Keith & Mick
I heartedly agree, lets raise a glass and praise those workers who are staying at their post under hazardous conditions and doing everything humanly possible to bring the situation under control.
I will drink a glass of sake. Much like the Japanese, I have great respect for men dying honorably in hopeless situations….
I wonder if we’ll ever see any video of this playing out from inside the plants? Sure seems like a piece of history too important to not have such a record of some sort.
God bless the people there trying to beat this thing.
This latest media blitzkrieg is performed by the same newssheeple whose sole purpose is keeping their mugs on TV so they can say the same thing over and over like a gacked out meth addict doing a chicken head walk looking for crumbs on the floor while muttering, “You’ll never take me alive.” Do they hit the sack in a feel good daze after 12 hours of repeating the same headlines thinking they have done something extraordinary all satisfied and wearing their ‘God I love me!’ t-shirts?
How fortunate we are to have these brave heroes recklessly spending their health to warn us of something or other! I expect it’s nothing (nothing!) more than we’re just an audience for them because these guys don’t know “come here” from “sic em.” There is no crisis only the distraction of a media on one of their episodic dypso nympho maniac binges without a turn off switch but were not supposed to figure that out. It’s time for an intervention but Oprah and Dr. Phil are glued to their overlarge TV sets with the home theater turned up too loud.
Sergey,
Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years, not long lived but not so short lived. In the USA the ALI for tritium is 80 mCi (produces the equivalent of a whole body dose of 5 rem, which is our occupational limit). 80 curies (acute dose) would be needed to approach the LD50. Those levels of intake would require extremely unusual circumstances which are highly unlikely to be present at Daiichi station, and in complete certainty none of the members of the Japanese general public would be exposed to conditions where such an intake would be possible.
(Excuse my use of those antiquated US units, I got my chops under those units and still cling to them like an ignorant redneck.)
OK, now we are getting stupid….
US Surgeon General Recommends buying iodine tablets while touring The Bay Area.
http://tinyurl.com/4reffp8
I don’t give a sh*t about a “coverup”, Gray. Country went kerblooey, then the tsunami, and you seem to believe every Japanese who doesn’t KNOW something about something in that setting is covering up, no doubt about it.
I suggest you refocus your indignation, righteous or otherwise, on the execrable job of reporting, the intentional misinforming, being done by our MSM. Or maybe join the idiots in CA who’re buying up all the KI.
Correction:
“Obese US Surgeon General”….
Gray says, “… iodine tablets while touring The Bay Area.”
Whoa! The surgeon general needs to be taken to the wood shed asap and stripped of his license to practice medicine by the TSA.
you seem to believe every Japanese who doesn’t KNOW something about something in that setting is covering up, no doubt about it.
Not at all.
Yukio “it is highly likely that is happening” Edano and TEPCO officials, who are the only sources of info, were BS-ing us (and the Japanese Prime Minister) for a couple of days.
I’m a huge fan of nuclear power. The cover-up looks bad.
Talk shows, headlines, blogs, and demonstrators seem to think this is a disaster of terrible proportions.
The Oprahfication of the country continues apace. Soon we will all be living in the Lifetime channel, all the time, helpless before sensed but unseen dangers threatening us, and our babies! Will no one help us?
It was so much simpler when peril took the form of being tied to railroad tracks.
Parker Says:
March 15th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Since nuclear energy was essentially invented in the U.S., the rest of the world should be using U.S. units.
The Slate commenter is an ignoramus. That’s obvious on its face, but even more so when you realize that all of the problems are at Fukushima Daiichi. Fukushima Daini has achieved cold shutdown of three of its four reactors, and they’re making progress on the fourth.
but even more so when you realize that all of the problems are at Fukushima Daiichi. Fukushima Daini has achieved cold shutdown of three of its four reactors
Well, that’s not really right either. That info was from 14 March. #3 exploded twice since then while it was in “stable cold shutdown” according to that article.
4 is on fire now….
Gray,
The exact and changing circumstances at the Daiichi reactors are not knowable by the minute, by the hour, or even by the day. Be patient. The Japanese are highly competent in these matters. Metaphorically speaking, the Japanese are willing to throw themselves in mass to cover up a ruptured core if it will save the honor of Nippon.
So while this is a rather bleak situation, I’m optimistic that the situation will ultimately result in little (or no) additional lose of life (not even from long term effects). Is there a cover up? Perhaps, but if so its nothing near the magnitude of the cover up operations of the Federal Reserve. 😉
Gray, Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini are two entirely separate plants, each with multiple reactors. All of the problems are occurring at Daiichi.
http://www.nucleartourist.com/world/japan.jpg
Both plants are at the upper right. I haven’t heard anything about Onagawa, which was also in the vicinity of the tsunami. I guess local geography played a part in which plants were affected.
The Japanese are highly competent in these matters.
They really aren’t. The tendency is to deny, deny, deny until the disaster is undeniable and by then it is too late, as we’ve seen demonstrated.
Metaphorically speaking, the Japanese are willing to throw themselves in mass to cover up a ruptured core if it will save the honor of Nippon.
Nah, they would drop it in your living-room to save the honor.
Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini are two entirely separate plants, each with multiple reactors. All of the problems are occurring at Daiichi.
You are, of course, correct. I was reading too fast.
I read somewhere that Daiichi means #1 and Daini means #2. I don’t speak Japanese, though.
I believe Daiichi means “Big One.” The kanji for “dai” is, IIRC, a stylized drawing of a stick figure with his arms spread, i.e., indicating “big.”
Here’s an excellent graphic from the Brave New Climate website:
http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/tepco_status_4.jpg
I’m not sure what time zone the chart uses. If it’s Japan time, it’s about a half day old. Japan is +13 hours from EDT, or +14 hours from EST. They don’t observe DST.
Correction: It’s about 24 hours old if it uses Japan time.
Correction 2: No, I was right the first time.
I see some parallels to climate arguments. If it’s too hot, it’s bad. If it’s too cold, it’s bad. Similarly, if technology is providing an electric car or tweet or etc, it’s a boon. If it extracts more oil, burns coal better, yields more corn, or generates power, it’s a DISASTER people!
Not that I thought he may, but has Obama said anything about this unbelieveable disaster in Japan? Reagan would have said something on national television. Both Bushes, even Clinton.
Nah, he’s busy.
Occam,
You are correct, daiichi = big one.
Gray,
It appears to me you are being sucked into the hysteria or at least the pessimism being promoted by the MSM. In all sincerity, I have to tell you that you are wrong about the Japanese.
The Japanese are highly competent, they are master technicians at everything they do. Anything less is a loss of face, and a loss of face is a personal (and familial) failure. They are people who take great pride in doing the very best they can do. Don’t sell them short.
Parker, as is probably apparent, I’ve spent some time in Japan, and fully subscribe to your characterization of the Japanese. Failing at something is the occasion for a brandy (sake?) and revolver moment. It’s an ethos that’s tough on them, but one that I admire, and a key to their success. No one has his self-esteem inflated merely for turning food into sewage, contra the ethos of the contemporary American educational establishment.
Consider their history. In 1858, when Commodore Perry forced them to accept foreign influence, they were a feudal society. By 1905 they’d modernized enough to kick Russia’s butt into next week. By 1940 they’d modernized enough to give us a run for our money. For less than a century’s effort, that’s damned impressive.
Contrast that with, say, Africa. Centuries after contact with Europeans, they’re still pretty much re-enacting the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey. So there’s your calibration on Japan’s achievement. Very impressive people.
What i think of when considering the japanese is “methodical”. If anyting they are regimented organizers. Not so great for outside the box creativity, but extremely competent when the task is known and placed in front of them.
SteveH, no question but that that’s true.
Their proclivity toward incremental, rather than discontinuous, improvement, like their famously convoluted courtesy, is probably a function of having a high population density. Idiosyncratic personalities and disruptive innovation threaten civil amity, and are therefore discouraged.
My model is the crowded elevator. No one moves suddenly or expansively, either physically or otherwise, lest he disrupt the unspoken civil contract.
The latest idiotic report: 31 minutes ago
“AP – Japan was considering spraying water and boric acid over a stricken nuclear plant in a desperate measure to contain radiation after officials said….”
Doncha just love these ignorant doofi? “Contain” indeed.
After all this time to learn elementary nuclear physics, during which even I could teach an 8th-grader why use Boron. But stand outta the way while they fling the histrionics yet again.
“AP – Japan was considering spraying water and boric acid over a stricken nuclear plant in a desperate measure to contain radiation after officials said….”
Tom, do you understand that “considering” is the important word in that sentance?
“Considering a desperate measure” is the same as doing nothing. which is largely what they have done from the start of the disaster.
For the rest of you mawashi sniffers: stop romancticizing the culture: that soon-to-be-permanently-unemployed business-school kid shouting slogans on the corner isn’t going to rescue himself, let alone you. You know what I mean….
Occam,
As the Japanese say, “Onegai shimasu.” (Please, ask for something.)
SteveH,
I agree that the Japanese do not tend to be out of the box thinkers. “Nails that stick up get hammered down.” Quite different from our way of thinking.
It is true that in general they are not innovators, but they are perfectionists and supreme craftsmen. Show them how to do something and the next thing you know they can do it better than you. And, no sword in all of history was ever better crafted than the katana. They definitely figured out how to do that all on their own.
Not so great for outside the box creativity, but extremely competent when the task is known and placed in front of them
That would be the opposite of a disaster.
My model is the crowded elevator. No one moves suddenly or expansively, either physically or otherwise, lest he disrupt the unspoken civil contract.
Indeed. Unfortunately, this model falls short in facing chaos where there is no spoken or unspoken civil contract.
The reactors are screwed. It’s a remediation process now.
No, it’s not a big deal. The Fat-assed US Surgeon General, like those before her, is an utter imbecile: we don’t need to buy iodine. Radiation isn’t the horror the media thinks it is….
Prediction: lots of top-soil scraping, concrete pouring and rad-disposal for the next few months. It is the “Gulf Oil Non-disaster” of nuclear disasters. In 18 months, no one will even know it happened.
They should fear diarrhea more than radiation just now….
I don’t quite understand the logic of the boric acid idea. OK, I get it, boron can be used to capture thermal neutrons, but for my part I’d be more worried about gamma radiation than neutrons.
Physicsguy, what say you? My knowledge rolls off rapidly on matters exceeding a few eV. If it’s not in a valence electron shell, color me uninterested/ignorant.
Gray,
Imagine for a moment a 9.0 quake off the west coast of the USA followed by a huge tsunami. Next imagine what would be happening in LA or Portland after the catastrophe. Compare that to what is happening right now in Japan.
I make no apologies for my culture, I’m proud of my heritage, I know I am fortunate to have been born where and when I was born. However, I readily recognize the positive attributes of other cultures. Granted there are cultures where nothing positive is to be found, but Japanese culture is not one of those.
BTW, my uncle Donald was a Marine in WW2. He fought on Guadalcanal and later Okinawa. He had great respect for the Japanese. He never said anything specific about his experiences other than to tell me always respect the Japanese martial spirit. As a young man I gravitated to the Japanese martial arts. It was that involvement that lead me to understand what he meant.
And, no sword in all of history was ever better crafted than the katana. They definitely figured out how to do that all on their own.
Yeah, it was murder on silk and bamboo armor….
It was not a contender in the inelegant, but effective, European arms race.
They could build a helluva fighter plane, though. Luv my Mitsubishi. Luv my Yamaha FJR bike….
Granted there are cultures where nothing positive is to be found, but Japanese culture is not one of those.
Of course. Unfortunately, this nuclear thingey got them right in the beaureacratic blind-spot.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake
Well, that’s the end of that….
As I said above, it’s a remediation effort now. Not an apocalypse. like the “Gulf Oil non-Disaster” in 18 months, no one will know it happened.
The Hikikomori are totally not going to come out of their bedrooms now!
(OK, g’night….)
Japan (as well as the U.S.) should be on the cutting edge of nuclear technology. We have been forced into using old plants by fear-mongering environmentalists.
Just a simple question to our Earth loving friends – How many windmills and solar panels will it take to replace these plants?
Rupert,
And how will offshore windparks stand up to a tsunami?
One thing that has struck me about the German hysteria and anti-atom protests is that we have seen nothing similar regarding Iran’s nuclear programs. No fear about power plants on unstable ground. No boycotts of German companies supply dual-use technology to the Mullahs. People are questioning whether they should take iodine tablets as a precaution against radioactive clouds coming from Japan, but there is far less concern about how Germany might be affected by a nuclear accident in the much closer Iran.
I’m just wondering how long it is going to take until people no longer remember why “sounding like a broken record” came to be a metaphor for repetition.
Or, for that matter, how long until people no longer even remember what it means.
My close friend, professor in pure and applied math, worked in Japan with their team of scientists. His main impression was a wonder. Nobody in this team of around 10 mathematicians rose in their level above average MSU mech-math graduate. But collectively they were able to solve very hard applied problems amazingly fast. Their secret was a team work and level of social cohesion, group cooperation and ability to organize and distribute tasks in the most effient way. My friend could not believe that such thing is possible in so individualistic and creative field as mathematics. But Japanese it seems have a knack of making one genius from ten ordinary people.
I’m and old nuke and work in all parts of the power industry. In a certain sense the culture of perfection works against us in many hazardous industrial activities. We are required (and encouraged) to design systems with a very low risk of failure. We include multiple backup systems, automatic protection etc. In many cases (especially in nuclear regulation) we are not allowed to take credit for human actions.
Yet, when accidents occur (airplanes, oil rigs, nuclear plants, Apollo 13 etc.) it is often human ingenuity that finally solves the problem. The BP oil spill is a perfect example. It was assumed (and required) that the multiple systems would be able to catch any failure. No provision for repair intervention was planned. Yet this is what solved the problem. This is not a cost issue, rather it’s a cultural issue. We are throwing out our human resilience proven over the centuries.
Gray@10:53pm-
My complaint was not against the Japanese. My complaint was against the AP and its commitment to ignorant misinformation. I regret the failure to be clear.
What strikes me is how a single point failure — the diesel-electric sets — was never spotted and corrected by either the operator nor officialdom.
I’m seeing stories on the web that Tokyo Electric is still building roads to regain access to their plant!
I hope that’s a false rumor.
There appears to be a disturbing complacency WRT the cooling ponds. They’ve been without make-up water for days. That has to be corrected ASAP or they’ll burn up and they are outside any containment!
This fiasco is going to cause world-wide modifications to nuclear power plants.
Dry stand pipes leading to the cooling ponds from a safe distance will become mandatory.
The shut down procedure will shift towards immediate pressure reduction through the turbine circuit. Braking power to be bled off via electrolysis or resistance grids.
Tokyo Electric has been behind the curve every step of the way. Early venting would have prevented fuel rod exposure. Venting steam does release radioactive particles — but they are of an entirely trivial consequence — no threat to life.
Instead, pressure was permitted to build and build — sort of a penny-in-the-fuse-box fix.
If this is their textbook solution then the plants have been run by Homer Simpson.
My complaint was not against the Japanese. My complaint was against the AP and its commitment to ignorant misinformation. I regret the failure to be clear.
Oh. Sorry I was snippy. I think work is getting to me….
Any “Plug the damn radiation!” statements yet from Obama?
To get some perspective, remember, that the reactors were shutdown 5 days ago. Since then, only residue heat from radioactive decay, not chain reaction of fission, takes place. And it fades out exponentially, so now the heat production is just 0.3% of full thermal power before shutdown. This is not enough for a major accident, like melting of the core through steel (4 inches thick) reactor vessel. So the bulk of radiation will be contained in every case. What was released from the vessel can not bring about significant contamination beyond the station itself.
Great info here. Thanks. I copied the whole thread comments and all and emailed it to some people to show them the nonsense of the media coverage.
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I re-visited this thread and the later comments provoked this thought:
We can not know what may or may not happen, all we can do is take precautions and put into place redundant safe guards. This is true of any new, potentially hazardous thing we plan to accomplish. We can not, as a species, stand still. We have to keep innovating. Innovation involves risk. We are technological creatures. Every technological advance involves a variable degree of risk. We strive to keep risk at minimum but beyond a certain point we have to realize that risk is inherit to anything we undertake to achieve.
Raise your hand if you are a Luddite.
So glad I was able to access neo’s blog. I’m in Kauai (yes, spent the night of the tsunami in the rental car. No damage here on the Garden Isle.) and the TV coverage has been abysmal. Even Fox News has been over the top all the time.
Nice to get some rational views. Now I can go snorkeling tomorrow safe in the knowledge that neo’s band of commenter’s is on the job, as usual.
When the dust literally settles, the nuclear plant portion of the earthquake/tsunami disaster will pale in comparison to the rest of the story. Not that CNN, CBS et al will bother to cover it. They’ll be seeking hyperbolic transformation of an event into the apocalypse.
I dream of a contemporary Joseph Welch who can say to them: “Gentlemen, have you no sense of decency?”
On “Titanic” and failed rivets: not only probably, but most certainly using proper rivets would have prevented “Titanic” catastrophe. Rivets are the focal points where stresses concentrate. This was a blunder of the first order to use softer material to joint plates of harder metal. But this blunder was widespread these times, and so were steam explosions of boilers of steam machines. They happened at factories, steam boats and mills and these disasters were feared by public and covered in newspapers. Rivets were simply cut, like wire is cut by cutter, when pressure in boiler exceed certain level. To answer this problem, the steel rivets were introduced. But they were expensive, there was shortages of them and even more – of riveters capable to use them. They required higher qualification from workers using them.
Just an FYI, internet bandwidth is being routed over to Japan. What this may mean to you is slower than normal traffic on the internet and in some cases, inability to get to certain sites. I work at an ISP and had several folks in Hawaii that couldn’t get to our website or email due to the internet issues. The main impact seems to be on the Cogent backbone.