Posted on 11/29/2014 6:26:45 AM PST by WhiskeyX
I remember an episode of River Monsters where the host fished the main cooling reservoir near the plant. Had to wear a meter on himself at all times. The catfish he caught was stunted as far as growth for its age.
I’m no enviro-nutjob by any stretch. Love the countryside, hate the city. I thank God for the beauty of his creation often.
With that said...why in sam hell are we still building nuke plants around the world, specifically in areas high in earthquake activity such as Japan?
When something as serious as Three mile, Chernobyl, Fukashima, it poisons the area for decades if not longer.
Pretty crazy. A fella from work took a motorcycle ride out west into the desert of Nevada and so forth. Came across a series gargantuan holes in the ground with piles of rocks on top. Buried nuke waste. Uh, duh?
Not only the danger of accidents or earthquakes causing serious breaches in these facilities, you have to bury the waste on the planet. Nice!
Sure, that's how they do it - they just dig big holes and dump it on in. The Enviro's are OK with that, too.
And the "contrails" point the way....
Not all nuclear reactors are created equally.
The biggest problem is bedwetters preventing the building of new much safer reactors as old ones crumble.
We haven’t disposed of much waste in decades as it is. We’ve paid the DOE billions for disposal over decades and almost all of it is still sitting on site.
The most dangerous thing about nuclear power these days are the anti nuclear morons who are happily creating the next disaster.
Chernobyl had a single reactor failure that was capped, but is still a danger. Fukashima had three reactor failures that were never capped. They are spewing highly radioactive debris into the environment now at a rate that makes Chernobyl-level events seem desirable.
Nuclear power is too dangerous in the hands of the inept ... which seems to the hands of nuclear engineers and power companies.
“why in sam hell are we still building nuke plants around the world”
Because it makes good excellent environmental and economic sense to do so...whenever doing so has been done in a responsible manner. Chernobyl is the prime example of how not to build and operate a nuclear power plant in a responsible manner. The human use of fire has caused far more death and destruction than nuclear power plants ever have or are ever likely to cause, but we still use fire every day and take precautions in its use. At sme point soon, we will be able to shift from the current types of fission nuclear reactors to new types of fission reactors that are far safer than now and fusion reactors which do not produce the kinds of toxic radioactive byproducts that concern us today. In the meantime, we can cope with the risks by forbidding Chernobyl type nuclear reactors and employ the designs which are far safer. The radioactive waste problem can be mitigated satisfactorily, until the new reactors, particularly the fusion reactors of the future, eliminate the production of all but trace amounts of the toxic radioactive waste.
Also, the future design and engineering of certain types of fusion reactors hold the prospect of being able to safely destroy the radioactive wastes by transmuting them into stable isotopes of elements lower down in the periodic table of elements that are not highly toxic radioactive substances. In other words, the continued development of nuclear reactors would make energy production more abundant by orders of magnitude, increasingly safer than current fission nuclear reactors and non-nuclear power plants, and capable of safely recycling dangerous radioactive wastes and ordinary garbage. None of this can be accomplished by succumbing to irrational fears and phobias.
Chernobyl was operated by communists who had physicists pushing brooms and political appointees making decisions.
Fukushima was an old reactor that they sought to replace for years.
Fukushima would be fine today if they had used modern passive cooling systems that don’t require power to work.
But, they didn't. They also didn't shut them down. Now they can't cap them. The point is that the power company did not do the responsible thing on behalf of safety. The Earth and all of its inhabitants will pay that price forever.
Nobody is about to shoulder the responsibility of operating those things, new or old. Greed is a Great Destroyer. That will never change. Nuclear power needs to be kept off the table until man evolves a great deal.
” Fukashima had three reactor failures that were never capped. They are spewing highly radioactive debris into the environment now at a rate that makes Chernobyl-level events seem desirable.”
Now that statement is a total and utter lie.
“Fukashima had three reactor failures that were never capped.”
That is a lie, because the none of the Fukushima reactor cores ever became uncapped in the first place. The fuel cores melted down, but they remained contained in the reactor pressure vessel or the primary containment vessel in each case, as they were designed to do. What little radioactive contamination escaped the Fukushima nuclear reactors was due to the venting of radioactive hot water vapor used to cool the nuclear reactor and its power generation turbines. This contaminated water reached the basements of the buildings and worked its way into the soil and water table.
The level of radioactivity is very minor. At its very worst, the radioactivity levels are one-tenth to one-thousandth of where low level radiation poisoning begins with dermal itching as a symptom. That is also one hundred thousandth to one ten-millionth of the Chernobyl radioactivity levels. By comparison, a person just outside the Fukushima fence would receive an equivalent dose of natural radiation from the Sun and outer space by taking one to ten flights as a passenger aboard an airliner flying at altitudes of 20,000 to 35,000 feet above sea level. A person will also receive a greater dose of natural radiation by eating a normal amount of bananas per day or by sleeping beside their naturally radioactive spouse in bed.
So this fear mongering with totally fictitious claims about levels of radiation poisoning from the Fukushima reactors is outrageously wrong.
That is absolutely correct. One of the reasons TEPCO failed to take responsible actions to remedy design flaws or, better still, replace the badly designed reactor was the anti-nuclear movement which opposed safer nuclear reactors out of irrational fear.
You are just spouting a lot of totally ignorant falsehoods and utterly hysterical nonsense. Try some reality for a change, and not all of that fantasy fear.
I live fairly close to the South Texas Nuclear project. Although it's never had a release near the magnitude of these other incidents, go out and look at their safety record over the last decade. Small releases are very frequent.
You may say, well those are in acceptable levels. Ok, fair enough. Why then is it frowned upon to catch and eat fish within a certain distance of this plant? Because of health precautions.
It only takes ONE major release. In Europe, feral hogs are being tested every now and again for their levels of contamination after Chernobyl. They dig for fungus, mushrooms and become contaminated. If folks consume feral hogs...what happens? Does the contamination cook off. I'm being silly of course.
We now are detecting large amounts of radioactive waste along the CA. coast to Oregon. Would you want your child swimming in the ocean in these areas? Would you go fishing and take your catch home for your family to consume? Not me.
I understand where your coming from, just seems we've not totally made safe this sort of technology. I am convinced cancer clusters will pop up all through Japan because of their lil experiment with nuke tech.
An exaggeration perhaps, but not a lie. You are a piss head, little man.
I apologize for my last post to you. Your liberal-like attack made me angry. Stick to discussion of the topic if you can. Do not resort to deformation of character.
The material I have read indicates that a great deal of radioactive debris is escaping from those reactors into the sea and into the air. The reactor containment vessels have degraded and the waste rod containment ponds are leaking.
http://enenews.com/cdc-official-public-health-emergency
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201411220029 http://enenews.com/barrier-holding-very-highly-radioactive-liquid-flowing-fukushima-reactor-building-observers-escaping-pacific-ocean-workers-trying-prevent-overflow-video
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/photography/video-chernobyl-disaster-city-captured-for-first-time-in-incredible-drone-footage-9890829.html
Has anyone done the numbers on how many blue collar workers have died in the last 50 years involved in non nuclear energy fields of exploration, producing and using, such as oil and coal? How about the deaths and costs from pollution?
There are all kinds of statistics kept, fact is that nuclear power has one of the best safety in any heavy industry. The accidents that do occur are very similar to accident in any other plant environment and not generally related to nuclear power. Having work in electrical/I&C in all types of industrial environments, nuclear is by far the safest just more frustrating because of the paperwork involved. OSHA & the NRC keep very close tabs on safety at commercial nuclear plants. The EPA makes up all kinds of stuff about pollution based on thing other than facts so don’t know and would trust numbers from them but the state environmental regulatory agencies are more trustworthy I think.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.