Nuclear DISASTER Thread !!

[Nitro Express]

what the hell to do with the waste.

It's supposed to go to Yucca Mountain but until they get all the political mumbo jumbo out of the way, it will just sit in trenches at Hanford and in a old aircraft hangar at the Idaho Nuclear Energy Laboratory. The nice thing about using cesium 137 is the half-life is 36 years as opposed to something like plutonium that has a half life of thousands of years.

Encase the shit in glass and hide it in an old salt mine.

By the time all this hype is done there will be far, far, far less damage from those reactors in Japan than the BP oil spill.

[Nitro Express]

I'm sure the coal industry is loving this. Public fear of nuclear competition will drive up the demand for their product. Obama was pro nuclear and anti coal.

[Nitro Express]

If they start dumping shit loads of sand onto that MOX reactor with heavy lift helicopters then that's a sure sign all their cooling capability is gone. That's the last ditch. That's the sign of a final meltdown.

[ELVIS]

By the time all this hype is done there will be far, far, far less damage from those reactors in Japan than the BP oil spill.

That's bullshit...

[ELVIS]

Basically, they keep it in a big swimming pool on the roof and cover it with sheet metal. Only now it's leaking and the water's boiling off.

That sounds like bullshit...

But if it is true, the roof blew off one or two of the containment structures...

[FORD]

There are nuclear reactors in the US which are even bigger potential threats than this. At least these Japanese reactors were built to withstand a 7.0 quake (which was as high as anybody thought they would likely see when they were built in the 1950's).

The Indian Point nuclear plant, 24 miles north of New York City (and often mentioned as a potential "terraist target") was only built to tolerate a 3.0 quake.

Now granted, New York state isn't on the Pacific Rim, and out here, we fucking sleep right through a 3.0. But don't tell me it's not a huge risk to millions of people. The odds of an earthquake damaging that abomination are certainly a lot higher than an attack from the mostly fictional "Al Qaeda"

[ELVIS]

That's why we should burn coal...

[FORD]

That sounds like bullshit...

But if it is true, the roof blew off one or two of the containment structures...

If you won't believe me, Thom Hartmann, or Mike Malloy, would you believe the right wing Jerusalem Likud Post?

March 15, 2011
Tuesday 14:34 IST


Radioactive levels 10 times above normal near Tokyo
By REUTERS
15/03/2011

IAEA reports fuel pond fire that released radioactivity into atmosphere was extinguished; News agency says fuel pond at No. 4 reactor boiling.

Radiation levels in the city of Maebashi, 100 km (60 miles) north Tokyo, were up to 10 times normal on Tuesday, Kyodo news agency said, quoting the city government.

Japan's prime minister warned on Tuesday that radioactive levels had become high around an earthquake-stricken nuclear power plant after explosions at two reactors, adding that the risk of more radioactive leakage was rising.

The UN nuclear watchdog was told by Japanese officials that Japan had extinguished a fire at the spent fuel storage pond of its earthquake-stricken reactor, the Vienna-based agency said.

"Japanese authorities have confirmed that the fire at the spent fuel storage pond at the Unit 4 reactor of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was extinguished," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

Meanwhile, a pool containing spent fuel at the quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi No.4 reactor may be boiling and the water level may be falling, Kyodo news agency quoted an official at the reactor's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, as saying.

It had said earlier on Monday that the fire may have been caused by a hydrogen explosion and that radioactivity was being released "directly" into the atmosphere.

Naoto Kan urged people within 30 km (18 miles) of the facility north of Tokyo to remain indoors.

The French embassy in the capital warned in an advisory that a low level of radioactive wind could reach Tokyo -- 240 km (150 miles) south of the plant -- in about 10 hours.

The reactor operator asked the US military for help, while Kyodo news agency said radiation levels nine times normal levels had been briefly detected in Kanagawa near Tokyo.

"We are making every effort to prevent the leak from spreading. I know that people are very worried but I would like to ask you to act calmly," Kan said in an address to the nation.

As concern about the crippling economic impact of the double disaster mounted, Japanese stocks plunged 7.0 percent to their lowest level in nearly two years, compounding a drop of 7.6 percent the day before. The two-day fall has wiped around $500 billion off the market.

There have been a total of four explosions at the plant since it was damaged in last Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami.

Authorities had previously been trying to prevent meltdowns in three of the Fukishima Daiichi complex's nuclear reactors by flooding the chambers with sea water to cool them down.

The full extent of the destruction wreaked by last Friday's massive quake and tsunami that followed it was still becoming clear, as rescuers combed through the region north of Tokyo. At least 1,254 people confirmed dead in Kesennuma, Higashimatsubara, Sendai and other cities, but local authorities fear more than 10,000 people may have died in the prefecture alone.

The US Geological Survey upgraded the quake to magnitude 9.0, from 8.9, making it the world's fourth most powerful since 1900.

Car makers, shipbuilders and technology companies worldwide scrambled for supplies after the disaster shut factories in Japan and disrupted the global manufacturing chain.

Blast damages roof, workers told to leave

The fear at the Fukushima plant is of a major radiation leak after the quake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems.

Jiji news agency said the first explosion on Tuesday damaged the roof and steam was rising from the complex. It also reported some workers had been told to leave the plant, a development one expert had warned beforehand could signal a worsening stage for the crisis.

The worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986 has drawn criticism that authorities were ill-prepared and revived debate in many countries about the safety of atomic power.

Whilst the Fukuskima plant's No.1 and No.3 reactors both suffered partial fuel rod meltdowns, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) had earlier said the No.2 reactor was now the biggest concern.

A sudden drop in cooling water levels when a pump ran out of fuel had fully exposed the fuel rods for a time, an official said. This could lead to the rods melting down and a possible radioactive leak.

Link

[FORD]

That's why we should burn coal...

Yeah, let's go back to the 17th century, rape every last mountaintop in the country and make the skies all over the planet worse than Los Angeles or Houston. That's the solution.

It's time to stop looking at energy from the perspective of someone "owning" a resource and making a buck off it, to the perspective of what is fucking sustainable in the long term, both in the resource itself, AND the long term effects on the environment.

There is only ONE safe nuclear reactor, and it's located approximately 93 million miles away. It's also known as that "big yellow thing in the sky" that we probably won't see again up here till around mid July. There is NO such thing as safe coal.

[ELVIS]

Clean coal technology works...

And it's SAFE!!!

[ELVIS]

And oil is safe and sustainable...

[FORD]

Clean coal technology works...

And it's SAFE!!!

Where is there a functional example of so-called "clean coal" technology anywhere on the planet? It doesn't work. Just like Reagan's "Star Wars".... a whole lot of bullshit about something that just ain't really there.

[FORD]

And oil is safe and sustainable...

It is neither. The fact that anyone who lives on the fucking Gulf Coast could even make such a claim of "safety" is incomprehensible.

And how is it "sustainable", exactly?? Is God gonna mix up a whole new batch of dinosaurs and then melt them down in a giant microwave and then pour the oil back in the ground??

Once that shit is gone, it ain't coming back. Much like the aquatic ecosystem in the Gulf of BP

[sadaist]

With this tragedy happening right now in Japan, won't we learn a boatload of information about what not to do next time and how to better prepare each facility? Usually things like this end up causing every other similar facility to become safer in the future. We learn from our mistakes and constantly improve. Which is a big reason if a worst-case happens in this plant, it won't equal the meltdown in Russia 25 years ago. Because of what was learned from that incident.

[FORD]

With this tragedy happening right now in Japan, won't we learn a boatload of information about what not to do next time and how to better prepare each facility? Usually things like this end up causing every other similar facility to become safer in the future. We learn from our mistakes and constantly improve. Which is a big reason if a worst-case happens in this plant, it won't equal the meltdown in Russia 25 years ago. Because of what was learned from that incident.

The only "safe" way to build a nuclear plant is to not build one.

As I said, the only safe nuclear reactor is the one that's 93 million miles away. Of course the energy industry hates that, because they can't OWN it.....