Japan quakes

[Sparky]

I think we will see another fission disaster in the next 20 years if we do not start shutting down. Unless those old plants are all going to be updated in that time. Doubtful. Chernobyl was 25 years ago. Fukishima was not built much better obviously. Problem with Fission is that you can not just turn them off. Sad part is that Fusion power will not likely be wide spread in my lifetime. Scientists seem to think 2040-2050 will be the earliest commercial fusion plants. Plenty of time for a couple more fukishimas or chernobyls first.

You still didn't answer the biggest question about that whole idea - If we were to start shutting everything down over the next 20 years, WHAT would you replace them with?

................ yeah, there really isn't anything that has the power density needed.

Nuke plants are fine when tended to properly and built in safe areas, away from earthquake danger zones and such. Chernobyl was shoddy, Japan's major problem is the whole country is a fault line, so I'm not sure what their alternatives really are.

Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see fusion take off given how much safer it is. But unless something happens soon with it, we can't just go shutting down current fission plants because oh noes they may blow up...

[Power5]

Nuke plants are safe when working properly. Yeah we know. Unfortunately when they have an ACCIDENT (something unplanned) things go catasrophically wrong. This is why ALL of them need to be updated. Especially ones with documented problems like Fukishima had.

Japan is surrounded by water. They could build wind farms/solar arrays in their bay to help as they reduce their nuclear dependency. The plants that remain need to be made earthquake/tsunami proof. I am sure it can be done, but yeah, it will cost more.

Other plants around the world that are not on fault lines need to be updated within the next 10 years. Any that are on a fault line need to be shut down or rebuilt like any that will be built in Japan. Yes this all costs billions of dollars. I guess many will believe that thousands and thousands of lost lives due to the random failures will not be worth the investment.

[Sparky]

OK now you're starting to make a little more sense

I have no problem with checking safeties, upgrading systems, etc. But you first mentioned just shutting down, and that's what I was saying wasn't reasonable.

[Thrmionicshaman]

"Sacred geometry"? Fission illegal through the universe? What?

Yes. The Flower of Life etc. look it up and see if you resonate with the info
Drunvalo Melchizedek is a leading author on the subject.

[Sparky]

Sounds like some hocus-pocus stuff to me. I can draw circles too.

[saaya]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_04.html
As suspected, another leak into the ocean
720000 times the safe limit... awesome... what do you think? Will those incompetent tepco monkeys manage to break the 1 million limit?

Best part, its at reactor3, that's right, the one with plutonium, yay!

[STEvil]

We could collect some of the water and have competitions to see who could grow the fish with the most eyes..

[saaya]

Why eyes? How about one with enough brains to help us build fusion reactor

[saaya]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/12_23.html
Reactor1 pressure vessel seriously breached
Fuel rods stick 1m out of the water
The water pumped into reactor1 runs out into the containment lesser around the reactor vessel. The containment vessel is, as we all know for weeks, breached as well and leaking to the outside of the building. It may still be leaking into the ocean as well...

[Power5]

OK now you're starting to make a little more sense

I have no problem with checking safeties, upgrading systems, etc. But you first mentioned just shutting down, and that's what I was saying wasn't reasonable.

They need to be shut down but till then they need to be updated. Two options for all plants in operation. Shut down immediately or update structure and safety controls and then shut down before 2040 when fusion may start coming online.

We have to be tough and strict to protect our world. And I am the last person to be a tree hugger.

[saaya]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_03.html
Reactor1 is in meltdown, most fuel rods have melted their way through the bottom of the reactor vessel . The surrounding containment vessel made of steel and concrete has been damaged and water is leaking from the reactor to the containment vessel to the reactor building and from there it leaked and possibly still leaks into the soil and sea

Tepco, as always, claims everything is fine though.
The fuel has PROBABLY cooled down by now...
Why they continue to pump ,literally, tons of water per hour into the reactor then is a mystery I guess... if it really cooled down already, why would they flush radioactive material out of the reactor by pumping so much water through it if it wasn't necessary to cool the fuel?

[Sparky]

They need to be shut down but till then they need to be updated. Two options for all plants in operation. Shut down immediately or update structure and safety controls and then shut down before 2040 when fusion may start coming online.

We have to be tough and strict to protect our world. And I am the last person to be a tree hugger.

I have no problem shutting them down when something can take their place (fusion?). But not until then as there isn't really anything that can take their place.

Also it will come down to money too. Will the fusion plant be affordable enough? How much will it cost to build one, then shut down the fission plant? And who is going to pay for it? Ideally I suppose it may be possible to turn off a fission plant and retrofit it for fusion instead, greatly reducing cost, but we won't know if that is possible until we have functional fusion. And this is assuming of course that fusion is indeed possible, there is a chance that it isn't :/

[saaya]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_02.html
At reactor3 highly contaminated water leaked into the ocean.
Sea water close by contained 20000 times the legal safe limit of ceasium alone.
Another isotopes that was measured at high levels was not described.
Plutonium? Hooray!

*listens to gorillaz "superman jellyfish"* ...the sea is radioactive , the see is radio aaaaaactive...

[saaya]

Sparky, all this talk that we NEED fission, and that we CAN'T replace it with anything right now is pure propaganda by the industry, their lobby, their politicians and press...

[Sparky]

Sparky, all this talk that we NEED fission, and that we CAN'T replace it with anything right now is pure propaganda by the industry, their lobby, their politicians and press...

I'm not into propaganda, I'm into reality. Give me ONE thing that has similar power density as nuclear.

We all know (as it is quite obvious by your posts in this thread) that you are 100% against nuclear. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you'd be perfectly happy shutting down every nuclear plant right now.

[vitaminc]

Sparky, all this talk that we NEED fission, and that we CAN'T replace it with anything right now is pure propaganda by the industry, their lobby, their politicians and press...

You are wrong. For the past 200 years, Japan has been hungering for natural resources from steel to coal and natural gas. Because they have none. And that sparked invasions of Korea, Manchuria, Philippines and ended with two nukes in its territory.

Nuclear is the only way at the moment for them to reduce their dependency on foreign energy. For the exact same reason, Germany is powering 25% of their country w/ nuclear and France, 70%.

The only thing you can replace nuclear with is thermal, but that's completely dependent on gas/coal inputs.

You are from Taiwan and should know how strategically important it is to have nuclear power plant. Self sufficient energy.

[vitaminc]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_02.html
At reactor3 highly contaminated water leaked into the ocean.
Sea water close by contained 20000 times the legal safe limit of ceasium alone.
Another isotopes that was measured at high levels was not described.
Plutonium? Hooray!

*listens to gorillaz "superman jellyfish"* ...the sea is radioactive , the see is radio aaaaaactive...

Nothing much has changed. Reactor 1/2 are still broke, 3 is decaying and 4 is effectively blown. I feel sorry for the Japanese people at first but not anymore. Their government and TEPCO is simply ing up the earth big time.

[Power5]

Its in the farmland now.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_01.html
Not iodine either. Cesium.

Its obvious there will be serious energy concerns by taking out nuclear plants. House hold solar units could be used to help reduce power consumption. Yes its going to cost a lot of money to replace nuclear plants, but its obviously pretty important and needs to start happening. Either that or like I stated before. Require ALL plants to be updated to the latest and greatest systems or shut down.

[saaya]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/13_05.html
Hamaoka plant shutting down
Finally something good is coming out of all this for Japan... after all this mess and suffering...
I pray that this won't be the only old and unsafe reactor they shut down...
The Japanese people deserve better than this... a small nation competing head to head with America and China thanks to the ingenuity and diligence of its people... they can do much better than this... having 50 year old patched together reactors set up on top of fault lines that predictably wreck havoc upon the local planes....

I hope Japan and other countries will learn their lessons...
This disaster can't have been in vain... something has to change...

[wez]

So it seems reactor #1 have had at least an partial meltdown after all
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ima-plant.html

[saaya]

I'm not into propaganda, I'm into reality. Give me ONE thing that has similar power density as nuclear.

We all know (as it is quite obvious by your posts in this thread) that you are 100% against nuclear. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you'd be perfectly happy shutting down every nuclear plant right now.

Why do you mention power density? For batteries it matters, for reactors I don't see what you mean.

I'm 100% against nuclear but that doesn't mean I think we should turn off all reactors right now. I think we should avoid fission as much as we can, and only use as much as we really have to, in as safe reactors as possible, until we can replace it entirely.

The main advantage of fission is that its cheap... but this shouldn't be about making money...

You are wrong. For the past 200 years, Japan has been hungering for natural resources from steel to coal and natural gas. Because they have none. And that sparked invasions of Korea, Manchuria, Philippines and ended with two nukes in its territory.

Nuclear is the only way at the moment for them to reduce their dependency on foreign energy. For the exact same reason, Germany is powering 25% of their country w/ nuclear and France, 70%.

The only thing you can replace nuclear with is thermal, but that's completely dependent on gas/coal inputs.

You are from Taiwan and should know how strategically important it is to have nuclear power plant. Self sufficient energy.

a lack of resources doesn't start wars, greed does, and greed is insatiable.
Oh and I'm not from Taiwan, I just chose to live here...

Nothing much has changed. Reactor 1/2 are still broke, 3 is decaying and 4 is effectively blown. I feel sorry for the Japanese people at first but not anymore. Their government and TEPCO is simply ing up the earth big time.

that makes me feel even more sorry for the Japanese people... they suffer really badly right now thanks to greedy and incompetent managers and politicians...

[Linchpin]

a lack of resources doesn't start wars, greed does, and greed is insatiable.

It's a historical fact that both those things start wars + a multitude of other factors, you can't generalize that everything you think is bad is the fault of human greed alone.

[Solus Corvus]

I'm not into propaganda, I'm into reality. Give me ONE thing that has similar power density as nuclear.

We all know (as it is quite obvious by your posts in this thread) that you are 100% against nuclear. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you'd be perfectly happy shutting down every nuclear plant right now.

I'd argue that a high power density is a bad thing. If anything happens to a single high density source then suddenly you have a huge power deficit. Distributed power generation allows the risk to be spread across a larger number of power generation sites.

I think nuclear can be perfectly safe given the right conditions. But it is really hard to prepare for the worst that can possibly happen when you live on a fault line, are regularly hit by hurricanes, etc. In places like the ring of fire there are much safer options.

Logical replacements for nuclear would be to use natural resources that Japan has in abundance. Surrounded by the ocean there are lots of potential sites for wave and tidal power, offshore wind farms, and ocean thermal gradients. Being geologically active, geothermal has much potential. And those could be augmented by solar and biofuels produced from agricultural waste.

[saaya]

So it seems reactor #1 have had at least an partial meltdown after all
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ima-plant.html

They never denied that, actually the admitted partial meltdowns in all 4 reactors...
But they claimed it was partial and that the reactor vessels are fine, or maybe cracked but don't leak... and that even if they did, the containment vessels, the second barrier, would hold everything inside.

What they say now is water levels in reactor1 are so low that any fuel rod still in place would be fully exposed to air... which would cause it to heat up and melt... which is what most likely happened.

The second news is that not only does the reactor vessel have a huge leak (tons of water per hour leaking) but the containment vessel has either been damaged or was never designed to hold back a stream of water and large amounts of water are washing radioactive material out of the building.

Most of the rods are either stuck at the bottom of the reactor core and some melted through, or most of it melted through... its probably still boiling hot and resting in the concrete pit below the reactor core, called the core catcher.

If you could take the radiation you could walk into the reactor and climb up the core catcher and stick your finger into a soup of some of the least healthy materials you could possibly find on earth... no walls, no barriers, no nothing... that's not good...

[NEOAethyr]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-per-cent.html

http://www.socialintensity.org/#fukushima


This is a disaster that has gotten out of hand because no one practiced containment procedures
If the #'s out there for animals in that area are any where near correct, or perhaps even higher then the #'s I saw, this is a big problem...

And the people that were doing something about the reactor, apparently always thought best cause instead of possible worst cause.
I mean, not only did they tell the public that it's ok, the people working on the problem must of thought so to.
I mean hell they had people still driving around that area a month after it blew up...
Just don't drink the water, oh wait, the water is safe as long as you don't keep drinking it for an unknown amount of time ^^.

They aren't even pumping water into the reactor anymore supposedly, they are to scared to, oh we might have a leak, duh we always had a leak because we left the cooling system off for a single day without flying in backup power and support...

It took them over a month just to check the surrounding sea water.
We even haven't heard about the birds yet...

I know this post of mine is not cool.
But other gov's should help out somehow, asap.
They should step in and get it done.
I'm not blaming japan.

I'm worried for japan now, hopefully wrongfully so.
I think this could ruin japan, if they can't get this cleaned up I believe it would be ruined.

40 miles off the coast... 64km's...
They know the water that far is radioactive.

By the gods I hope that stuff doesn't reach any amount of co2 ice.