Nuclear collapse looms? Fukushima No. 4 reactor 'leaning' (YOUTUBE Video)

ransomenote,

Seems to me you’re guilty of the same flaws/tactics you accuse the “pro-nukes” of......I eat bananas for the soluable postassimum.....And yes its possible to create radioactive isotopes of potassimum. But we do this with a lot of substances for a varity of reasons - mostly medical.
The key, IMO, is the “half-life of the isotopes being examined.

As I’ve noted from the outset, my limited nuclear experience has been of the “hairy-knuckled” variety; i.e. confined to the practical aspects of servicing critical components in operating plants. As such my operating dictum regarding exposure has always been “less is best” and “hands and feet before body and brain”.... IOW, I’ll trade a “dose” to my hands if it reduces my brain/body dose any day......

If you were involved, (you didn’t mention at what level), in the design/construction of Fukishima, then you know far more about these plants than I do. My only information of them and the operator is hearsay from from fellow reps that worked there. But when an island larger than NJ moves laterally 17’ and tilts some 4 meters I suspect its only natural buildings grounded in its bedrock should likewise “tip” in comparison to an independent verticle baseline .....

No argument Dr. Openheimer was brilliant. He was also a traitor, passing critical information to the Soviets via the Rosenbergs. As for his later contentions regarding radiation, they don’t “stand up” very well to history. Early hominids were exposed to “dose rates” much higher than we experience now. So were our near ancestors. During the industrial age - and even now - coal miners, ( not to mention a lot of other jobs ) subject workers to higher “dose rates” than are acceptable for nuke plant workers. (Just how many “rems, etc does a teenage lifeguard get in the course of a summer’s employment ?)

Its pretty well established the “explosion(s)” were chemical ones coming hard at the heels of venting of the reactor vessels. (When you break down water you get hydrogen (2) and oxygen (1) IOW all that’s needed is a spark.) To get a “nuclear” explosion implies that a critical mass/containment was created in a fuel pool with some level of water and fuel bundles in individusal containment by a chemical explosion.......When the esteemed Dr. Openheimer was doubtful if the “implosive” Trinity test article would work......For the TEPCO operators it was a “damned if you do/don’t situation”, I suspect.

Human decisions” are part and parcle of any construction project. I’ve read the twin towers of the World Trade center were designed to withstand the impact of a 707. But the impact of a much larger aircraft at much higher than ancipated speed with full fuel load overmastered the design criteria. But do we know the cited reactor vessel has “failed “? Engineers design in a safety factor to guard against manufacturing defects. Fukishima was designed in the “slipstick” era. That is when a slide rule and calculator were “tools of the engineering trade”, rather than a computer and its exotic software. It may well be the vessel is doing its job, despite any defects revealed by a remorseful employee that’s already spent the bonus money he received for concealing the problem.

RN you can “accept or reject”, as you like but history is fact. Following TMI construction/planning of evolutionary - technology plants was seriously impacted. All for a human failure incident that harmed no one !! Worse, all design/research into better, more efficient, safer nuclear plants came to a crashing halt as government reacted to the political stridence of a minority. But our nation’s “energy policy” has ever been thus. In the Sixties a “clean burn” MHD technology for coal emerged. It got so far as a successful demo plant in New England. But its “father” was ousted from his post and soon died, and a antoginistic presidency soon condemned it to a “death by study”, because its revolutionary technology would have major political impact.

Regardless of how the unaffected/remotes of the world feel, Japan - and particularly the residents of one prefecture - are going to become a “case study” in how to recover from disaster. We need to pay close attention to the process. We also need to create safer, more efficient nuclear plants less vulnerable to natural events. For Japan its nuclear or nothing. Unless the world is ready to face the ravages of an energy-starved people - that have tasted the good life - again..... >PS

I am not sure what you mean by tactics I use re bananas. I eat them or used to until they began, over time, to make me think of mushy glue. I was pointing to the number of times on FR and other threads where pro nukers mocked those concerned re Fukushima contaminants that they should likewise fear bananas, a comparison I found pointless.

I see that you comment on Oppenheimer and - while I enjoyed reading your comments - I wanted to point out that I never referenced Oppenheimers work so if it doesn’t ‘stand up’, I am not influenced to change my opinion re low dose radiation. Portions of my reading have focused on John Gofman and I mentioned Oppenheimer in relation to Gofman because at one point, Gofman had the trust of the inner circle of radiation reseach (Oppehnheimer) until he reported that his research indicated low dose radiation was harmful - and then Gofman was mocked and derided etc.

“Early hominids were exposed to “dose rates” much higher than we experience now. So were our near ancestors. During the industrial age - and even now - coal miners, ( not to mention a lot of other jobs ) subject workers to higher “dose rates” than are acceptable for nuke plant workers. (Just how many “rems, etc does a teenage lifeguard get in the course of a summer’s employment ?)”
Ok and they had shorter lifespans and died of diseases for which we were unable to study or compare to modern populations so this line of inquiry seems to have no relevance to human exposure to dose - its a black box with a short life span coming out of it, including early industrial people. Comments like ‘how many rems to lifeguards get’ is another poor comparision - to compare a voluntary EXTERNAL dose with potential for mitigation (sunblock, sun hat etc) to concern over unknown quantities of radioactive material releases fielding contaminants that can be inhaled/ingested seems pointless. It seems like the attempts I often see to disperse concern ‘hey if you’ve been outside then you’ve been irradiated - that’s what sunlight is’ does not adequately compare to radioactive Xenon, Cesisum, Iodine, Plutonium, Uranium etc. venting in to the air and water.

“Its pretty well established the “explosion(s)” were chemical ones coming hard at the heels of venting of the reactor vessels”
I don’t believe so. I’ve seen a variety of analysis of the film and conditions prior, during and after and TEPCO’s recent statements regarding the high presence of radioactive iodine in the water of spent pool 3 seems to indicate practicality after the initial explosion just based on the decay rate of that isotope. Gunderson noted the distance from the reactor building that a piece of fuel had been found by TEPCO then did the calculations to see what speed a piece of fuel that size would have to reach upon ejectio to travel that distance. That calculation and others like vid analysis seems to indicate detonation rather than deflagration. I think that both a hydrogen explosion and a criticality could account for what was seen in the vid and why the iodine level is so high in the spent fuel pool.

“But do we know the cited reactor vessel has “failed “? “
The known circumstances have changed since we started this exchange - by now you’ve read that TEPCO has said that reactor 1 drains water and must have a few holes in the bottom and that fuel has melted down. TEPCO has also said that the gauges on the other reactors (2,3) are probabaly also incorrect and the situation is probably the same for those two. Reactor 3 - the temperature continues to rise unabated.
In his materials posted online, John Gofman talked of the problem of containment in lab settings. No lab could ever guarantee that no hazardous material would be released. Gofman thought about the toxicity of Plutonium and did a quick back-of-the-envelope type of calculation using what he knew about realistic values of released materials in a lab setting. His calculations showed him that realistically (now comparing science lab release rates with ‘real world’ reactor) it would be necessary to keep the unintentional releases of radioactive plutonium below the level which was feasible. Sitting next to a nuke engineer on a plane, Gofman asked the man how low he believed nuke engineers believed they could keep accidental releases of radiation based on design of the facility. The nuke engineer said that the scientists just tell the engineers what the required specs are and the engineers would build it. Gofman was stunned and said he’d worked in labs for over 30 years and there’s no way engineering design could ever guarantee that radioactive releases would be kept below ‘x’ level (I forget the number. The engineer disagreed and said that they would build to whatever spec the scientists said was needed. Gofman used that example to note the unrealistic expectations that nuke engineers had for the capacity to control emissions. ‘Just tell us and we’ll build it’ versus ‘but my 30 years working in a lab shows that we cant control down to an infinite level (limitations exist). Now I have heard that containment vessel appears to have holes in it - when nuke engineers have said that it can’t be breached - impossible. I think I observe unrealistic expectations in the example of the warped containment vessel - other companies ‘fix’ defective components to avoid extreme cost or bankruptcy but that just won’t happen with a reactor vessel.
Early on I read nuke guys saying that the ‘reason’ for Chernobyl was lack of containment (faulty design). I used to think that until I read and watched some vids. No other reactor of the same design failed like that in Russia. The failure was management and human error compounded again and again by bureaucracy. The fact that all the reactors in Japan had containment vessels didn’t really ward off the situatio we are in now - TEPCO now believes it’s like that all 3 reactors have melted fuel and holes in the containment vessel etc. and well...there’s all those spent fuel rods in pools or blown out of pools. Placing the reactors near seismic faults in known Tsuanmi regions where it is possible that extreme failure of any one reactor will prevent stabilization of others on the site. It really wasn’t the tsunami and earthquake - the problem didn’t exit control at that time and the buildings came through all that shaking and water. But - the back up generators were placed where they were and the one and only electrical tower feeding the plan was the only one that collapsed. Japan didn’t do what it needed to do to get back up generators flow in. And here we are. So I don’t compare this with the Twin Towers - which received damage beyond specs. In fact, the human response to that act of sabotage was superior to the one we are watching unfold now.

We will have to agree to disagree on TMI. When you first brought it up I went and started researching it. Soon I found people experiencing radiation burns and iodine filled rain eating through new tin roofs and the way TMI is able to deny responsibility is to control the statement of radiation released. No one else ‘gets’ to weigh in on radiation released. So people who suffered symptoms of ARS and later, cancers, are ignored when they say that TMI was related because TMI’s statement is ‘only X amount of radiation was released, therefore all claims of harm resulting are false) Found the same thing when I looked up above ground testing in NV (Later I would learn a scientist like Knapp infuriated the NRC by releasing a research report stating that the radiation levels from the testing were ten times higher than the NRC claimed). So the way this works is the people around the plant report an accident and their medical records, veterinarian records etc. are not deemed ‘official’ - only the statements of the nuke establishment make it into the ‘official record’ and so officially there was zero harm.

“Regardless of how the unaffected/remotes of the world feel, Japan - and particularly the residents of one prefecture - are going to become a “case study” in how to recover from disaster.”
More than one prefecture - tea crops south of Tokyo have found to be extremely contaminated with Cesium, two surrounding prefectures have had to pull radioactive produce, more must be learned before we know how many prefectures must ‘recover’

“We also need to create safer, more efficient nuclear plants less vulnerable to natural events.”

That won’t address the problem. Japan had laws saying that the warped vessel must be discarded and people got past them - it’s physically possible to ‘cheat’. TEPCO has quite the record of falsifying safety records and I will not assume they are the only ones. The plants came through the ‘natural events’ better than anticipated - they were fine. But the decision by the company and Japan to hide the status, decline offers of help (Russia), avoid asking for needed materials - these are human flaws that can’t be designed out. Again, we must agree to disagree. I appreciate the time you took to write an intersting response.

RN,

Re bananas, I was merely pointing out they absorb potassimum and don’t discriminate between the various isotopes of the element. Again, it all comes down to “half-life, dose rate and means of dose.

In the real world your skin still is the best barrier to any threat - biological, bacterial, virual or radioactive. Ingestion of even low-energy radiation (which every smoker does, BTW), isn’t a good thing as it bypasses the body’s natural defense - the exo-skin.

Can’t see how you can avoid “low dose radiation” as its part and parcel of existing on planet earth. Sunlight, building materials, and your choice of decor all influence your “dose”. Even your location !

Yes our early ancestors “died young”. Mostly due to accident and injury. When “civilization” struck, that changed to endemic disease spread by contact and poor sanitation. Industrialization - and nuclear power thanks to cheap, widely available electricity - has provided affordable means to pretty much eradicate diseases common when I was a lad. Typhus, malaria, polio, the various “poxes”, mumps and measels - once common ailments - are almost unheard of now.

There’s no “comparison” twixt TMI and Chernobyl excepting one; both were human-caused. TMI was a “Loss of Coolant” (LOC) accident resulting in a “meltdown”, brought about by -I was told by industry sources - ironically, a similar instrument failure as TEPCO recently documented. (Fukishima and TMI are very similar designs.) But no one died as a result. As for the rest of your TMI diatribe, I live close by and downwind. Never heard, saw, experienced anything approaching what you claim.....

I’m not sure what your point for introducing a “scientific vs engineering containment “ argument re plutonimum - “radioactive” or not - is. Its an imperfect world. Plutonimum is a natural part of it. (Yes it is found in nature, too ! ) As a heavy metal its toxic in small doses. (Note that “dose” is the operative word, as all things can be “toxic”, given sufficient dose.)

From my HK-experience “containment” is the multiple control measures implemented to limit the one’s exposure to or spread of the target substance. (BTW, IME, that also includes such commonly ingested compounds as caffine and nicotine; both of which can be lethal.) None, IME, are “perfect”, just sufficient to meet well-documented risk/benefit studies criteria. As for “voluntary” exposure, don’t know of a “sunblock” that stops but ultraviolet, A and B . Gamma and cosmic ray are far higher energy levels. Just one such random “CR discharge “ event -should earth bludner into it - originating in a “galaxy far, far away” could very well extinguish civilization as we now know it.

What you “belive” isn’t germane. Just what is fact - and provable science - as we presently understand it. The creation of a “critical mass” essential to a nuclear explosion is the sum of a lot of specific preconditions including, (as I understand it) the mass of material, its radioactivity, and the amount of time they can be held/stimulated in proximity to create the cascading nuclear reation neccessary to creat an “explosion”.

FWIW, I belive, given recent revelations, its possible there could have been a “super-critical steam explosion” in the fuel pool atop the failed reactor. (Steam has a “CofE” of 17/1 at standard conditions.) Nothing to sneeze at...... Ever seen a cup of coffee/water “explode” with the introduction of a spoon, sugar, etc when taken from a microwave ?

Comparing Fukishima to Chernobyl is an “apples/oranges” argument on many levels. Chernobyl resulted, (as best as can be determined after filtering through many official kidneys), from the deliberate application of an unsanctioned procedure in an untested manner to an uncontained graphite-moderated pile. The resultant LOC event resulting the graphite catching fire creating further heat/smoke issues and the ultimate melt-down in an uncontained environment.

By contrast, Fukishima had alread “scrammed” and was in the process of an “emergency event” where a vast amount of heat - not temperature - had to be “wasted” to the environment. The tsunami truncated this process resulting in the LOC(s) observed. FWIW, many of the post events sort of confirm tales recounted to me by fellow reps that had worked TEPCO units.

You do, however make some salient points. Your perception of the resultant contaminations issuing is interesting. You group all such in one bag as if they were all the same “evil”. They’re not. Each is unique, having its own half-life, environmental persistance, soluability and exposure potential/effects. IMO heavy contaminants leaked/leached into bedrock/deep soil layers isn’t likely to pose much of a long-term threat. Light gases degrade rapidly, (its a matter of radioactive mass, after all), so that leaves the “common contaminants”, cesimum, various uranimum isotopes, zirconimum, plutonimum, etc. All can be extracted from the environment. That’s what “fuel recovery plants” do......

Thle siting/design and construction of nuclear plants has long been a political football......Witness Long Island’s Shoreham plant. Why should Japan’s plants be any different ? The real “tragedy” is every minor, non-threatening incident, every “major” incident is seen as “proof” nuclear power is inherently “unsafe”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What if every chemistry/bio/engineering lab accident/incident over the past century had been treated the same way ? Would we enjoy our current standard of living ? I know not we wouldn’t !! The USN has operated small, high-energy nuclear plants shipboard for decades without failure. Right now we could be building smaller, less environmentally dependent gas-cooled nuclear plants n the security of an industrial setting for assembly on site using a secure fuel made from the thousands of tons of “spent fuel” and recovered “weapons-grade” materials we now have in storage.

I suspect you’ve revealed you’re really a closet luddite, after all !! (at least so far as nuclear power is concerned) >PS

“Can’t see how you can avoid “low dose radiation” as its part and parcel of existing on planet earth. Sunlight, building materials, and your choice of decor all influence your “dose”. Even your location !”

I know about background radiation and speak of limits of low level radiation exposure (e.g., iodine in milk) that are theoretically deemed safe as opposed to the concept of ‘all exposure increases risk’ and therefore not electing to consume milk with iodine-131 as if it does not contribute to overall risk.

“Typhus, malaria, polio, the various “poxes”, mumps and measels - once common ailments - are almost unheard of now.” And cancer has been increasing following industrialization at numbers that concern the medical profession or those of us who watch loved ones die from it. Yes industrialization and it’s pesticides, toxins, radioactive dispersals takes away a portion of that which it contributes.

“As for the rest of your TMI diatribe, I live close by and downwind. Never heard, saw, experienced anything approaching what you claim.....”

Ah...diatribe...the word used to describe details you don’t like? And anecdotal evidence from a biased source of ...1 person.

TO THE VICTOR GO THE SPOILS

The nuke/government ‘won’ and has, since the inception of nuclear research, controlled what goes in the official record. I never realized the extent to which that was true until Fukushima.

In college, I thought about going into nukes and chose, as my senior thesis, to experiment with Cesium-137. Fascinating, really. I took another path upon graduation and assumed, really, that the problems the nuke industry was having way back then would have ‘come a long way’ until Fukushima. I also assumed pristine Japanese precision work and decision making when there was no real reason to do so.

I really didn’t turn my attention to policy/history/official record making until someone mentioned Chernobyl as stellar proof that a melt down could occur and NOT ONE PERSON DIED. I had worked with Soviets and had kept a bit of a tab on Chernobyl when it happened but later had turned away from it as well until I read that comment following Fukushima. And so I started to research Chernobyl because I couldn’t understand how they could blow THAT much radiation into the countryside with zero effect. It didn’t make sense. I knew people were living in heavily contaminated areas because there was no place to send them.

And that’s where I hit reality, over and over and over again. Lots of documentation out there - including the official secret reports of the Soviet government reporting the facts as they knew them - never realizing that this information would ever be made public with the fall of the USSR. The official story does not match the body count and medical problems, of course. I would read this same kind of scenario over and over re nuke power.

I have worked with a gifted researcher (not a relevant field to our discussion) who told me that I, unlike many whom she routinely meets in her work, have a fairly good working understanding re ‘the scientific method’ and noted that I could both pull apart or build a reasonable hypothesis and experimental design. So I read up on Chernobyl knowing that cause/effect and anecdotal versus scientific data collection issues are present and factor them in.
And in the end, considering the biases of reporting parties (IEAE, Soviets, physicians etc.), limitations of method etc. come to the conclusion that the Chernobyl losses were huge and the political lying is even larger. I note that those who object to the content of my posts ‘dare’ me to name the exact number of causalities - I wonder if they know that Soviets made it illegal to report death from radiation poisoning for 3 years after the accident?

Some one taunts me with an irrelevant comparison (air travel is as safe as inhaled contaminants) and so I look up medical studies and stewardesses and am disappointed to find med studies indicating higher breast cancer and skin cancer rates for flight attendants.
http://www.google.com/search?q=nuclear+reactors+and+breast+cancer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
OR
http://berkeleycitizen.org/radiation/radiation1.htm (check out figure 3)

Do I believe everything I read outright? No. Do I comprehend that one must look at the body of work, biases, limitations (e.g. size) of studies? Yes. Over and over again. Reading Gofmang I discover well documented history that the nuke/gov controls the ‘official record’ and strips funding from researchers who say things they don’t like.

So the last and final retreat of someone who really ‘needs’ to try to discredit my judgement by calling me a Luddite is to refer to all information not granted ‘official’ status as something on the order of ‘diatribe’. Had I not spent the many hours I have evaluating sources and their content - I would still know my own nature - I had high hopes for nuke power and this road of reading up on the issues that people hurl at me has been a huge disappointment.

The ‘official’ pruning of information from the tree of knowledge started in the 50’s so we know have ‘bonsai sized truth’ pitted against oak tree sized PR. The internet is changing the grip on PR. And slowly, very slowly, citizens are gaining the right to push back when the government and it’s favored industry is abusive.
Here’s an example:
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ocas/pdfs/theact/eeoicpaall.pdf
“(6) While linking exposure to occupational hazards with the development of
occupational disease is sometimes difficult, scientific evidence supports the conclusion
that occupational exposure to dust particles or vapor of beryllium can cause beryllium
sensitivity and chronic beryllium disease. Furthermore, studies indicate than 98 percent
of radiation-induced cancers within the nuclear weapons complex have occurred at dose
levels below existing maximum safe thresholds. “

See, ENERGY EMPLOYEES OCCUPATIONAL ILLNESS ACT of 2000, enacted by congress, stopped the gov from litigating against workers who filed medical claims for cancer sustained while working on the job below levels of radiation exposure deemed ‘safe’. The act acknowledges that there is scientific proof that there is a link between higher rates of cancer and worker’s exposure to ‘safe’ levels of radiation. Things like that are slowly eroding this ‘if it’s not published by the NRC why then we can ignore it!’ attitude.

I am not a Luddite. But I don’t like ‘how’ nuke power is managed at this point. For example there should be objective oversight - not ‘if TEPCO said it, it must be true’. Not ‘If the NRC said it, then all other accounts are ‘diatribes’.

In the Nevada ranchers versus government denials re radiation released during above ground testing - at the trial only government veterinarians were allowed to testify to livestock deaths because...well... non governmental veterinarians who examined the downed animals had information the government didn’t like. Gofman would later mention the furious efforts of the NRC to stop a researcher (Knapp) from revealing that the NRC lied about the amount of radiation released by the tests (under reported by a factor of 10).
That’s the persistent theme throughout my research on this topic. Under report radiation released. The officer reporting Chernobyl’s radiation releases to Hans Blitz (IAEA) was told to tell the whole truth - the pro nuke organization didn’t like it so they reduced the amount of radiation reported by a factor of 10. Then, the argument is made that X release didn’t cause X harm because there wasn’t enough radiation present to account for x result.

I think civilians need representation. Right now the wolf is guarding the sheep. When has that ever worked well? That’s why I am a conservative - I don’t want the government to ‘rule’ me.

And if you haven’t noticed, pro nukers like it just fine the way it is. Hence we must agree to disagree.

Great Post RS !!

Seems some of our discussion has been “OTBE”... As progress is being made delving into Unit One workers are discovering higher levels of structural damage than TEPCO’s “front office” types were announcing. And there has been one fatality - most likely due to heat stress and pre-existing conditions. I can attest heat stress working in rad gear is a serious issue.....

All flight crew get far more “dose” than most individuals as a consequence of spending so much time above most of the shielding effects of earth’s atmosphere. But its a complex issue. Not only do they get a “direct” dose, but also a “secondary” dose resulting from high energy particles impacting the metal aircraft structure. Note this ratio is changing as more, (and more of) aircraft are being constructed of more radiation transparent materials. FWIW we all experience a base level of neutrino exposure as well as other high energy particles for which there’s no known practical shielding, I’m told.

One “difficuly” I have with linking radiation exposure to cancer is the wide and varying exposures of the cases to a “witches brew” of toxins/insults due to life-style, location and genetic history make it impossible to derive a “baseline”. Lots of human populations live or work at high altitudes, yet don’t evidence the cancer rates of others living at much lower altitudes.....The one “constant” I perceive is modern populations live a much more insular existence from natural environmental stresses than our forebears while subjecting themselves to “manufactured stresses”. IOW, how does science, (or a scientist) separate, classify and identify the the roles radon, formaldehyde, adrenaline, etc play in cancer occurrance individually or in combination ?

Personally, I’ve long been convinced our immune systems play a far larger role in our vulnerability to various cancers, regardless of than the medical profession will agree to. I’ve followed a strict regimin of vitamin supplements for over 3 decades in consequence......IOW anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, including some level of radiation.

More to the point at discussion, in Japan even more so than the U.S. the development of a nuke power capacity was driven by the government. In consequence it appears siting was driven more by political concerns (a sparsely populated - hence politically weak - prefecture) than engineering concerns. They had to know the complex’s proximity to a major fault system in a tectonically active area. But “bigger is better” was the mantra of the time; and not a bad one as it took advantage of the economies of scale. Like any large public works project there were risks/benefits. Politicians pushed the benefits and minimized the risks. And they - and the Japanese public - “won the bet” for many decades enjoying increased prosperity and abundant energy.

But there’s another side to the tale as well. With mega-millions in the pot, there was ample resource for unions to “have a drink” at the public money fountain. So plants cost far more than needful. BTSTGTTS...... Whorehouses running in condensers. Vital assembly tools removed from active work sites for scrap; daily ! Incredible “overmanning” levels. Outright theft of equipment/tools/supplies. I’ve seen it all; multiple times at multiple sites.

What I find most disturbing about Fukishima it was an “accident” that needn’t have happened. The U.S. was the leading developer of new nuclear technology with lots of innovative designs being explored. With the advent of TMI - and the resulting anti-nuke kook hoopla - all real world progress in new designs came almost to a standstill. So here, and elsewhere,(like Fukashima) old dinosaurs are kept in service; often far past their design life or technological viability.

All of man’s devices involve “risk/benefit” choices. We make them every day - often poorly and to our detriment - as witness the mayhem on highways. Old style nuke plants - derived from Hyman Rickover’s early design - merely “up the stakes” of failure inherent in the design. So why haven’t we “changed the paradigm” ?

Alas, IMO, those lacking technical expertise, (or with other agendas) have been far more vocal, ( and more mendacious in promoting their anti-nuke agendas), than the consumer of nuclear power has the time/knowledge/money to contradict. IMO nuclear power can be as safe - or as dangerous - as its creators and benefactors wish. Why contend with “meltdowns” of old reactors when far more efficient “fail safer” units are possible ?

I suspect the effects of Fukashima are going to be persistent but, ultimately addressable and minor to any dispassionate examination. Remember we currently visit sites of uncontrolled releases of nuclear power regularly. The fears/predictions of its early creators proved false. Its just another power source we needs must use, thus study and learn how to employ it safely. No one today thinks of hydro power as being “dangerous”, yet its killed far more people than any nuclear accident.... >_PS

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