Japan Nuclear Coverage

[roter-kaiser]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12745899

Germany has temporarily shut down seven of its nuclear power plants while it reconsiders its nuclear strategy.

What the hell?

Is this just a case of "shit people are suddenly scared of nuclear stuff, so we'll look like we're doing something"?

They'll hunker down until this blows over so Die Gruenen won't flip out.

Makes sense.
I remember my Mum complaining that if you put something into the wrong bin when sorting (Müll trennung) that they'd tip out the whole contents of your bin to embarrass you in front of your neighbours, needless to say she was quite happy to move to the UK, and unfortunately as a side effect has little sympathy for anything even remotely "green".

That's a good example how a single urban myth can influence people in a terribly wrong way forever.

[roter-kaiser]

Partly, there's also the fact that a) the Greens have managed to get like crazy powerful in Germany and have been pushing for them to just get rid of nuclear power for years
b) those plants are old and soon due to be closed anyway, so closing them a little earlier indeed makes it look like doing something, when it would have had to be done, possibly even before 2015 anyway

I don't know about 'crazy powerful'. The Greens are just one party out of many elected in a democratic process with approximately 10% of all votes.

Shutting down old nuclear power plants earlier than planned does not only look like doing something, it actually IS doing something, if it really happens. What's interesting though is that these politician who are now fiercly advocating shutting down those plants were absolutely in favor of extending operation times for all nuclear power plants when it was discussed in parliament last year. It's just that there's an election coming up in a fortnight....

I guess that's politics

[Warren Dew]

Actually, they were all volunteers, and heroes, and Chernobyl directly killed fewer than 60 people, and it's estimated that IN TOTAL, only about 4000 people may die of radiation exposure directly attributable to Chernobyl.

That's one estimate. Other estimates for fatalities from Chernobyl range up to 200,000.

One of the most informative and rationally restrained commentators on the situation has been Glenn Beck, who took the time to explain exactly what was going on and explain that there is ZERO chance that radiation from the Japanese plants will negatively affect the health of anyone in the United States or points east, because of the radically different design of the Japanese plants and Chernobyl.

This part is true, though from your description he got some of the details wrong. At Chernobyl, the explosion happened at the beginning, and the firestorm from the burning graphite required no additional explosions to send all the fission products up in smoke, to fall out over half of Europe. Unless the concrete catches on fire, that can't happen at the Japanese plant; the nonsoluble, nonvolatile fission products - which are the most dangerous ones - will mostly stay at the reactor site even if all the containment measures are breached.

While there's substantial risk of radiation exposure in Japan, the amounts would be nowhere near Chernobyl levels, even at the plant.

They could conceivably be that high inside the secondary containment, if the primary containment were breached and for some reason workers had to go in there. Outside the plant, you're right, radiation exposure won't likely be at Chernobyl levels.

[egbert]

They could conceivably be that high inside the secondary containment, if the primary containment were breached and for some reason workers had to go in there. Outside the plant, you're right, radiation exposure won't likely be at Chernobyl levels.

It's Chernobyl all over again, only worse. Chernobyl was one reactor - this is FOUR reactors, PLUS FOUR spent fuel storage pools.
The real design insanity is that the spent fuel pools were located in the upper part of the reactor builings. It is hard to imagine the explosions which hugely damaged the reactor buildings didn't also wreak havoc on the spent fuel pools, to the point that they can no longer hold water.
Time to bring in the sandbags and start building another sarcophagus. Those poor sods in a hopeless struggle at the plant are going to suffer a horrible fate, just like the Chernobyl "volunteers".

[SPMaximus]

They could conceivably be that high inside the secondary containment, if the primary containment were breached and for some reason workers had to go in there. Outside the plant, you're right, radiation exposure won't likely be at Chernobyl levels.

It's Chernobyl all over again, only worse. Chernobyl was one reactor - this is FOUR reactors, PLUS FOUR spent fuel storage pools.
The real design insanity is that the spent fuel pools were located in the upper part of the reactor builings. It is hard to imagine the explosions which hugely damaged the reactor buildings didn't also wreak havoc on the spent fuel pools, to the point that they can no longer hold water.
Time to bring in the sandbags and start building another sarcophagus. Those poor sods in a hopeless struggle at the plant are going to suffer a horrible fate, just like the Chernobyl "volunteers".

[Thumpalumpacus]

One of the most informative and rationally restrained commentators on the situation has been Glenn Beck, who took the time to explain exactly what was going on and explain that there is ZERO chance that radiation from the Japanese plants will negatively affect the health of anyone in the United States or points east, because of the radically different design of the Japanese plants and Chernobyl.

Newsflash: Beck didn't break this news.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's Chernobyl all over again, only worse. Chernobyl was one reactor - this is FOUR reactors, PLUS FOUR spent fuel storage pools.

Good to see you can count. Maybe next you'll work on qualitative judgments. As pointed out above, there are major differences in containment structures which relegate this post to the status of "hysteria."

[egbert]

It's Chernobyl all over again, only worse. Chernobyl was one reactor - this is FOUR reactors, PLUS FOUR spent fuel storage pools.

Good to see you can count. Maybe next you'll work on qualitative judgments. As pointed out above, there are major differences in containment structures which relegate this post to the status of "hysteria."

Really. So tell us how the spent fuel pools are being "refilled" by dropping water from helicopters, if these pools are enclosed in "containment"?

[Warren Dew]

Really. So tell us how the spent fuel pools are being "refilled" by dropping water from helicopters, if these pools are enclosed in "containment"?

The explosions kind of removed the roofs over some of the spent fuel pools.

The design of these reactors is kind of weird: there's a concrete secondary containment around the reactor, most of the spent fuel pools are in the roofs of those concrete containment buildings, then there are - or were - relatively lightweight walls and roof around the fuel pools.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Should Japan's Reactor Crisis Kill the Nuclear Renaissance? From SciAm.

[Rum]

My guess is that Japan will come out of this with a revolution in the efficiency of renewables we will all be using in 15 years time.

[SPMaximus]

Should Japan's Reactor Crisis Kill the Nuclear Renaissance? From SciAm.

I thought Chernobyl killed the nuclear renaissance?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Should Japan's Reactor Crisis Kill the Nuclear Renaissance? From SciAm.

I thought Chernobyl killed the nuclear renaissance?

Yep, and the Republican Party was dead after the 2008 elections. And World War One was the war to end all wars.

Etc.

[Warren Dew]

Should Japan's Reactor Crisis Kill the Nuclear Renaissance? From SciAm.

I thought Chernobyl killed the nuclear renaissance?

I'm unconvinced that there's a nuclear renaissance to be killed.

[JimC]

Should Japan's Reactor Crisis Kill the Nuclear Renaissance? From SciAm.

I thought Chernobyl killed the nuclear renaissance?

I'm unconvinced that there's a nuclear renaissance to be killed.

There was going to be, all the pundits said...

So it may have been aborted, rather than killed off...