Steve wrote:A look at Chernobyl today

Very evocative photos, but the captions are not very informed.

Just how many people does he think died from radiation there? It's too bad he didn't get any pictures of the wildlife that is there. It's apparently doing quite well now there are no humans living locally.

TOKYO—The regulator for Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex said Sunday that radiation at one of the nuclear units has surged to the highest levels yet seen, with the existence of highly radioactive water hampering work to restore vital systems and prevent further contamination of radioactive materials to surrounding areas.

Highly radioactive water accumulating in the turbine building connected to the No. 2 reactor had a reading of more than 1000 millisievert per hour, the highest measured at the six-reactor complex since it lost crucial cooling functions following the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to Shintaro Matsumoto, an official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

The reading is "a rather large figure," Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for the agency, told reporters at a press conference Sunday morning. "There is a strong possibility that the water is from the reactor core."

So we're 2 weeks into this disaster, and I am forced to conclude that they still don't know what's going on there.

More samples from the Tepco vague news show, bordering on the farcical. Is this episode supposed to instill confidence in nuclear energy?

A spokesman for the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), told AFP on Friday "it is possible" that the pressure vessel in the No 3 unit has been damaged. There were no further details.

"Radioactive substances have leaked to places far from the (No 3) reactor," a spokesman for the nuclear safety agency, Hideyuki Nishiyama, said.

"As far as the data show, we believe there is a certain level of containment ability but it's highly possible that the reactor is damaged."

michael^3 wrote:

[Reveal] Spoiler: news release from Tokyo

TOKYO—The regulator for Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex said Sunday that radiation at one of the nuclear units has surged to the highest levels yet seen, with the existence of highly radioactive water hampering work to restore vital systems and prevent further contamination of radioactive materials to surrounding areas.

Highly radioactive water accumulating in the turbine building connected to the No. 2 reactor had a reading of more than 1000 millisievert per hour, the highest measured at the six-reactor complex since it lost crucial cooling functions following the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to Shintaro Matsumoto, an official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

The reading is "a rather large figure," Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for the agency, told reporters at a press conference Sunday morning. "There is a strong possibility that the water is from the reactor core."

So we're 2 weeks into this disaster, and I am forced to conclude that they still don't know what's going on there.

What do you propose they do about it, then?

I think this whole thread is a shame for a board calling itself "rationalskepticism.com". It's filled with the technophile babbling of people who refuse to think outside the delusional "nuclear technology is save" bubble, while maintaining that they are rationalists. Ridiculous!

Fukushima is the best proof imaginable that this whole technocratic mantra ignores the most important factor of all: HUMAN failure. If you look at the big INE- scale incidents, it's always human failure that caused them- either because human operators failed to act the correct way or because human engineers failed to construct their technology in a way minimizing the possibility of breakdown. Often, those two types of human failure were even combined, for example at TMI. HUMAN failure is the best argument against nuclear power- because its occurrence is an empirical fact. It was HUMAN failure that produced Fukushima- building a flooding wall that was too small to stop the tsunami -despite the well known possibility of 10 m tsunamis- was shear lunacy. You can blow up those ridiculous "30.000 years" calculations all you want, but you can't calculate the individual probability of human beings doing the wrong thing in any given situation.

I would also like to point out another fact that has been terrifyingly ignored in this discussion- the question of data control. What's the worth of all your "nuclear plants are saver than a plane flight" hubub if they are based on information given by exactly those people who are interested in continuing the industry? The "cooperation" (=corruption) between Tepco, NISA and other japanese gov. organizations is a prime example of this: They missinform, keep quite about all accidents that can be hushed up, they ignore their own standards, they don't give a figs leave about the health of their workers or the public. To believe that these problems with the owners of nuclear power plants are just a japanese phenomenon would be the height of stupidity. Just look at the way another complex -the military industrial one- handled it's nuclear branch (HANFORD!) and you will have nightmares thinking about the civilian arm. Look at the last great environmental disaster: The oil spill in the gulf of mexico- remember how BP and the government handled this. And now just take a step back and shift your view to the big nuclear corporations and the so called "government watchdogs"... Use your rational thinking skills for once to analyze the SOCIAL and ECONOMIC background of this whole industry and stop riding the high horse of pseudo religious feasibility believes.

Also, take a look at the nuclear engineering faculties at US universities, mainly financed by the same nuclear complex those engineers will work for or "control" later on. This is nothing but an incestuous relationship, sold to the public as a source of "independent academic experts". The same goes for the IAEA, this lapdog of nuclear interests. The numbers used here to play down Fukushima, TMI and even Chenobyl come mainly from the IAEA, a body with the official mission to spread the use of nuclear energy.

While all those institutional connections are ignored around here, the profit element in this industry is shrugged off even more by the pro- nuclear adepts in this thread, as if it isn't the MAIN driving force behind the corporations controlling the whole complex. Making profit with a high risk technology is a recipe for disaster, as has been seen untold times in other accidents like Bhopal and Seveso. But somehow those empirical facts are brushed away while discussing nuclear power. How convenient.

History and our own experiences tell us one thing: No human technology is totally save. That's a rock steady premise for any argument against technologies that have high risk factors. Nuclear power plants exceed ANY and ALL exactable risks with their potential of destruction.

A few more arguments, just so you can't bash me as "just another know- nothing fearmongerer":

1) What about the risk of terrorist attacks? The design of the Fukushima spend fuel pools is nothing but an invitation for some crazy religionut to visit with a 120 mm mortar. There are US- plants following the same design. What about plants near major urban areas? Just take a team of 25 highly trained and armed thugs and you can blackmail whole nations with the potential of radioactive poisoning.

2) What about the radioactive waste? How can we make sure that it can't get out of whatever cavern we put it into for tens or thousands of years? You have to guard it for all these millenia because some gangster might get the "brilliant" idea to use the stuff in a dirty bomb for some insane reason or another. Not to speak of the potential of the radioactive waste to pollute the environment if it ever gets out through natural events, like earthquakes, changes in groundwater, flooding etc. There are some scary "interim storage" facilities in Germany, look at this:

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

Again, how to solve these problems?

3) What about the problem of fuel? If "the nuclear option" is used by many more countries, like the pro- nuclear faction in this thread propose, the total number of processable uranium (about 100 years worth of mining NOW) will be reduced significantly. The only solution if you want to go forward is to start plutonium breeding and constant reprocessing, heightening the risk of accidents exponentially, especially in third world nations without high security and environmental standards.

4) If nations expand their use of nuclear energy, their drive to invest in low risk alternative sources will be reduced. Why build dams, solar energy plants or wind parks if you have this "save and clean" nuclear industry, making golden profits for the elites while posing an existential risk to millions of people and all other living things around them?

5) If the worst case scenario arrives, the corporate executives who are responsible for the safety of nuclear power plants will most likely escape their just punishment and the taxpayer can look on helplessly while his hard earned money is spend to contain the enormous destruction that private profit interests have produced with the help of a risky and extremely dangerous technology. Nuclear energy is the best imaginable example of the capitalist dream: Privatizing profit and socializing risk.

To wrap this up: The only rational thing to do is to use nuclear power only as a bridge technology, phasing it out in a controlled way while introducing the save and clean technologies of the future. The oldest plants have to go first and there must be a firm, legal timeline making sure that this dangerous technology isn't used any longer than absolutly necessary.

CuriousYellow wrote:I think this whole thread is a shame for a board calling itself "rationalskepticism.com". It's filled with the technophile babbling of people who refuse to think outside the delusional "nuclear technology is save" bubble, while maintaining that they are rationalists. Ridiculous! ...

Starting off your entry here with the above is no way to win support for your position, particularly in the absence of any citations or evidence.

Just saying.

The_Metatron wrote:

CuriousYellow wrote:I think this whole thread is a shame for a board calling itself "rationalskepticism.com". It's filled with the technophile babbling of people who refuse to think outside the delusional "nuclear technology is save" bubble, while maintaining that they are rationalists. Ridiculous! ...

Starting off your entry here with the above is no way to win support for your position, particularly in the absence of any citations or evidence.

Just saying.

I didn't know one had to "quote and citate" the publicly known facts I use to argue against nuclear power. Next time I want to write a 15 page paper with full citations and tons of quotes for an internet forum, I'll come back to do just that.

CuriousYellow wrote: Fukushima is the best proof imaginable that this whole technocratic mantra ignores the most important factor of all: HUMAN failure. If you look at the big INE- scale incidents, it's always human failure that caused them- either because human operators failed to act the correct way or because human engineers failed to construct their technology in a way minimizing the possibility of breakdown. Often, those two types of human failure were even combined, for example at TMI. HUMAN failure is the best argument against nuclear power- because its occurrence is an empirical fact. It was HUMAN failure that produced Fukushima- building a flooding wall that was too small to stop the tsunami -despite the well known possibility of 10 m tsunamis- was shear lunacy. You can blow up those ridiculous "30.000 years" calculations all you want, but you can't calculate the individual probability of human beings doing the wrong thing in any given situation.

That's not an argument against nuclear technology. That's an argument against human beings. By your logic, we shouldn't allow humans to make baby food, because of the risk they could be contaminated with toxic compounds by "human error." I'm not sure what option that leaves us, though.

I admit I haven't read the whole thread, but I hope someone has made this point already: In evaluating risk, it is important to take the proper time scale into account. If a major nuclear disaster occurs every fifty years or so that kills a few hundred people, that may well be an acceptable alternative to relying on coal power that gradually, quietly and and consistently kills many more people over a prortracted length of time.

The_Metatron wrote:

michael^3 wrote:

[Reveal] Spoiler: news release from Tokyo

TOKYO—The regulator for Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex said Sunday that radiation at one of the nuclear units has surged to the highest levels yet seen, with the existence of highly radioactive water hampering work to restore vital systems and prevent further contamination of radioactive materials to surrounding areas.

Highly radioactive water accumulating in the turbine building connected to the No. 2 reactor had a reading of more than 1000 millisievert per hour, the highest measured at the six-reactor complex since it lost crucial cooling functions following the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to Shintaro Matsumoto, an official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

The reading is "a rather large figure," Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for the agency, told reporters at a press conference Sunday morning. "There is a strong possibility that the water is from the reactor core."

So we're 2 weeks into this disaster, and I am forced to conclude that they still don't know what's going on there.

What do you propose they do about it, then?

That you don't wait for 2 weeks before investigating whether you're leaking plutonium would be a good start.

As the worst atomic accident since Chernobyl entered its third week, the government said soil near the Fukushima plant would be tested for plutonium contamination. The radioactive metal was used in one of the reactors and its presence outside the plant would suggest the fuel rods were damaged.

Shrunk wrote: That's not an argument against nuclear technology. That's an argument against human beings. By your logic, we shouldn't allow humans to make baby food, because of the risk they could be contaminated with toxic compounds by "human error." I'm not sure what option that leaves us, though.

No, it's not an argument against human beings, it's an argument against the usage of extremely risky technology through human beings. The analogy with baby food doesn't work either, because baby food production doesn't DEPEND on the use of hundreds of tons of highly toxic, radioactive materials. Yes, human failure can cause poisoning of baby food, no doubt- but the baby food production facilities have an enourmesly lower risk factor than nuclear plants, because they use rather harmless basic materials.

Shrunk wrote:I admit I haven't read the whole thread, but I hope someone has made this point already: In evaluating risk, it is important to take the proper time scale into account. If a major nuclear disaster occurs every fifty years or so that kills a few hundred people, that may well be an acceptable alternative to relying on coal power that gradually, quietly and and consistently kills many more people over a prortracted length of time.

Sorry, but this argument is hollow. Who says we should use coal for energy instead of nuclear fission? In the last paragraph of my original post I admit that we can't just shut nuclear plants all at once. What we need to do is use it as a bridge technology, phasing it (and coal, and oil, and gas!) out while building up alternative energy.

Shrunk wrote:

CuriousYellow wrote: Fukushima is the best proof imaginable that this whole technocratic mantra ignores the most important factor of all: HUMAN failure. If you look at the big INE- scale incidents, it's always human failure that caused them- either because human operators failed to act the correct way or because human engineers failed to construct their technology in a way minimizing the possibility of breakdown. Often, those two types of human failure were even combined, for example at TMI. HUMAN failure is the best argument against nuclear power- because its occurrence is an empirical fact. It was HUMAN failure that produced Fukushima- building a flooding wall that was too small to stop the tsunami -despite the well known possibility of 10 m tsunamis- was shear lunacy. You can blow up those ridiculous "30.000 years" calculations all you want, but you can't calculate the individual probability of human beings doing the wrong thing in any given situation.

That's not an argument against nuclear technology. That's an argument against human beings. By your logic, we shouldn't allow humans to make baby food, because of the risk they could be contaminated with toxic compounds by "human error." I'm not sure what option that leaves us, though.

It's about the severity of the consequences. One minor leak in one plant, and a city of 34 million people cannot give tap water to its children.

CuriousYellow wrote: Sorry, but this argument is hollow. Who says we should use coal for energy instead of nuclear fission? In the last paragraph of my original post I admit that we can't just shut nuclear plants all at once. What we need to do is use it as a bridge technology, phasing it (and coal, and oil, and gas!) out while building up alternative energy.

Then your argument is incoherent. Those alternative sources are being developed, and it remains uncertain that they will ever be able to meet the energy needs of modern society. For the immediate present, they are certainly not adequate. So, in the meantime, as you admit, we are left to depend on nuclear energy as one of our chief sources. The only other option is to regress to a pre-industrial standard of living, which will end up costing many more lives than any nuclear power ever would.

michael^3 wrote: It's about the severity of the consequences. One minor leak in one plant, and a city of 34 million people cannot give tap water to its children.

Sure. And a hydroelectric dam breaks, and thousands are drowned. Or a coal powered plant continues to operate for decades without any major accident and the planet is rendered uninhabitable due to climate change. Those consequences are also pretty severe.

The_Metatron wrote:

CuriousYellow wrote:I think this whole thread is a shame for a board calling itself "rationalskepticism.com". It's filled with the technophile babbling of people who refuse to think outside the delusional "nuclear technology is save" bubble, while maintaining that they are rationalists. Ridiculous! ...

Starting off your entry here with the above is no way to win support for your position, particularly in the absence of any citations or evidence.

Just saying.

I've never quite understood why people turn up and start complaining that while we are rightly sceptical of every other crackpot conspiracy theory, Their perfectly rational theory about how evil space lizards called Dave are living on the moon and mind controlling nuclear scientists into destroying the Earth, or whatever fucknuttery they are spewing now is being ridiculed.

95Theses wrote:
I've never quite understood why people turn up and start complaining that while we are rightly sceptical of every other crackpot conspiracy theory, Their perfectly rational theory about how evil space lizards called Dave are living on the moon and mind controlling nuclear scientists into destroying the Earth, or whatever fucknuttery they are spewing now is being ridiculed.

The point is that one has to be rational AND skeptical about all the information sources, and when you THINK through where the information is coming from regarding the safety of nuclear power and the risk factors for our planet, one would come to the logical conclusion that the information source that earns money from mining uranium, building and managing nuclear plants is likely to be biased. If a "regulatory agency" is composed by the same people, then that agency is also likely to be biased.
(That is the case also for many other "industries", food, pharma, clothing, construction etc etc.)
That is why we should be using our rational thinking combined with a good dosis of skepsis, the same way most of us atheists and agnostics on this forum approached what the religion "industry" spews.

ConnyRaSk wrote:for all the nuclear power supporters, you do realise that it was the break-down of the power supply that led to this disaster in Japan. How can you be so (f- cock-) sure that the power supply is fail-safe for all other plants around the world, even the so-called up-to-date plants?

No major earthquakes, no tsunamis and no big tornadoes.

The problem was that the japanese plant lost its backup power as well because it was hit by a natural disaster far bigger than it had been designed to take - and still survived without any major release of radioactive material.

There is no reason to assume that the backup power supplies in a british nuclear plant are not going to kick in as long as we avoid building them on flood plains.

David M wrote:
No major earthquakes, no tsunamis and no big tornadoes.

The problem was that the japanese plant lost its backup power as well because it was hit by a natural disaster far bigger than it had been designed to take - and still survived without any major release of radioactive material.

There is no reason to assume that the backup power supplies in a british nuclear plant are not going to kick in as long as we avoid building them on flood plains.

It was about a year ago when i read in the local (German actually) paper here that the power plants and everything else -world wide-, are not equipped to deal with a major black-out due to a major solar flare.

Making profit with a high risk technology is a recipe for disaster, as has been seen untold times in other accidents like Bhopal and Seveso.

Interesting you mention those. Bhopal was far worse than virtually any other industrial disaster yet no one is suggesting banning pesticide production worldwide.

1) What about the risk of terrorist attacks? The design of the Fukushima spend fuel pools is nothing but an invitation for some crazy religionut to visit with a 120 mm mortar. There are US- plants following the same design. What about plants near major urban areas? Just take a team of 25 highly trained and armed thugs and you can blackmail whole nations with the potential of radioactive poisoning.

Risk to spent fuel pools can be reduced by using reactors that burn used fuel from other cycles. Thus less need for the pools in the 1st place. In addition look at the low levels of release from this earthquake+tsunami. do you think terrorists can conjure up more fury than nature did in this instance?

2) What about the radioactive waste?

Again use reactors that burn the waste to make energy. reduces the total amount. Also remember the stuff with long half lives is the less radioactive stuff. Also as i have mentioned before why are people concerned more about nuclear waste being radioactive for say 1,000 years than they are the chemicals used in many forms of manufacturing that will be more deadly until the heat death of the universe? The difference in level of concern doesnt strike me as logical.

3) What about the problem of fuel? If "the nuclear option" is used by many more countries, like the pro- nuclear faction in this thread propose, the total number of processable uranium (about 100 years worth of mining NOW) will be reduced significantly. The only solution if you want to go forward is to start plutonium breeding and constant reprocessing, heightening the risk of accidents exponentially, especially in third world nations without high security and environmental standards.

Again don't just burn uranium. The 100 years is only if we only burn current known reserves and do not explore for any more. Use thorium and we have thousands of years of fuel. Use CANDU style reactors and we burn uranium its waste products and virtually anything else we can think of.

When it comes to both fuel and waste why do people think we are incapable of handling the materials when industry routinely handles far more deadly materials with far less oversight?

4) If nations expand their use of nuclear energy, their drive to invest in low risk alternative sources will be reduced. Why build dams, solar energy plants or wind parks if you have this "save and clean" nuclear industry, making golden profits for the elites while posing an existential risk to millions of people and all other living things around them?

Again its the failure of dams that has caused the greatest loss of life in accidents of any power source. I don't think any nuclear advocates here are saying don't invest elsewhere too they are saying the other things are not adequate.

It's about the severity of the consequences. One minor leak in one plant, and a city of 34 million people cannot give tap water to its children.

Well it can again but in the time when it was advised not to it probably could have as well. Regulatory limits in nuclear are set very very very cautiously.

What we need to do is use it as a bridge technology, phasing it (and coal, and oil, and gas!) out while building up alternative energy.

Of course construction of solar cells and composites for wind farms often involves very dangerous and polluting chemicals. Why do you have faith in our handling of those but not nuclear?

ConnyRaSk wrote:

David M wrote:
No major earthquakes, no tsunamis and no big tornadoes.

The problem was that the japanese plant lost its backup power as well because it was hit by a natural disaster far bigger than it had been designed to take - and still survived without any major release of radioactive material.

There is no reason to assume that the backup power supplies in a british nuclear plant are not going to kick in as long as we avoid building them on flood plains.

It was about a year ago when i read in the local (German actually) paper here that the power plants and everything else -world wide-, are not equipped to deal with a major black-out due to a major solar flare.

This is why nuclear plants have diesel generators that do not rely on the power grid to operate. Of course though these were on high ground in Japan they were not on high enough land when the tsunami hit. (estimates put it at 14 m now at the plant)

CuriousYellow wrote:I think this whole thread is a shame for a board calling itself "rationalskepticism.com". It's filled with the technophile babbling of people who refuse to think outside the delusional "nuclear technology is save" bubble, while maintaining that they are rationalists. Ridiculous! ...

"not everyone instantly agrees with me, they must be delusional or crazy because im omniscient, and if i think something it is the truthtm"