FUKUSHIMA earthquake and tsunami thread and aftermath

[Riedquat]

All part of the reputational cleanup. I expect there to be a team right now thinking of a natural sounding new name (like Seascale)...perhaps 'Wind away'?

Windscale and Seascale were both existing names, and referred to different facilities on the site, although trying to quietly forget the one that caused the problems and emphasise the other was definitely a PR exercise.

[Damik]

Did you mean "нас много" which google translates to "We have many"?

indeed

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

We know nuclear power works, we harnessed the atom for peaceful use, we knew it was safe, give or take the odd Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, but I think public opinion will swing strongly against nuclear power after what's happened in Japan. The nuclear industry itself will still act as a strong vested interest but the task of getting any new nuclear power stations past public opinion will become impossible. Come the next election here, the party that proposes the phasing out of nuclear power will see their support rise.

Edited March 15, 2011 by Hyperduck Quack Quack

[thecrashingisles]

Did you mean "нас много" which google translates to "We have many"?

It means "there are many of us".

[fluffy666]

But it's not just the accident record of what has happened, it's the potential of what could happen. Mining disasters could kill several hundred men - they have done in the past. At a coal-fired power station a boiler could explode with a force similar to the explosions we've seen at the Fukushima nuclear power station - and that would probably result in deaths on the site. Workers are at risk during construction and maintenance of wind turbines though I can't see they present any other risks.

You are forgetting the pollution from burning coal, which kills 5 figure numbers annually in developed nations (goodness knows the figure for China..) Invisible and insidious.

And because so few people are killed by nuclear power, compared to the amount of power produced, industrial accidents around wind turbines compare significantly.

But a nuclear accident can obviously have much wider reaching longer term effects because of radiation leaks.

The most dangerous renewable energy source is large-scale hydro electric allied with a big dam, for obvious reasons - if the dam bursts the results could potentially be as lethal as a radiation leak at a nuclear power station, except the effect will be immediate and visible in communities downstream of the dam, not incidious and invisble as with a radiation leak.

The killer with a major dependence on renewables would be the loss of power in incidents such as last December. Or worse, higher energy bills leading to deaths from cold because people fear putting the heating on. Invisible and insidious.

[The Ayatollah Buggeri]

I would say that the lesson is that despite the fact that the public were told that all the risks were mitigated and that it was safe to site reactors in a notorious earthquake/Tsunami zone, reality proves that you can't trust what the 'authorities' tell you (this lesson is repeated time and time again throughout history).

+1. For three days the authorities (both in Japan and elsewhere) were stating emphatically that there was no substantive risk of a significant radiation leak. We now have a significant radiation leak. It could be that the misinformation was the result of incompetence and/or for honourable purposes, e.g. to prevent civil unrest while evacuations were organised, in the sincere belief that coming clean would cause more harm than trying to manage the problem into existence, so to speak. As the Minister of Information, Brendan Bracken, described the British WWII propaganda approach, it by necessity consisted of 'the truth, some of the truth and some modifications to the truth'. But of course rumours of a sinister cover-up for dishonourable purposes are bound to gain ground too, and history tells us that there could be something in them.

Agreed with others on the polarisation thing. I doubt that this is going to mean the end of nuclear power: as someone pointed out on the radio last night, between 60-100 deaths have been directly attributed to nuclear accidents in the history of the technology, and compare that with coal mining... But if anybody's got any sense, it will mean the end of building nuclear power stations in seismological high risk areas. That having been said, there's also the geopolitical issue in play, i.e. that one of the reasons Japan relies so heavily on nuclear energy is the desire for energy independence from China and Russia. That problem is not so easily solved.

Edited March 15, 2011 by The Ayatollah Buggeri

[fluffy666]

France is actually the largest consumer of fossil fuels per head of the big-4 European economies.

Interesting, since their per capita CO2 emissions are the lowest. Numbers?

[Scott Sando]

Reactor three the other day was a meltdown with MOX going everywhere, no wonder the 7th fleet got out of there pronto. Well done to the French embassy for removing citizens, as usual the british government are doing nothing, total failure of duty to protect subjects.

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

thecrashingisles, on 15 March 2011 - 10:33 AM, said:

France is actually the largest consumer of fossil fuels per head of the big-4 European economies.

Interesting, since their per capita CO2 emissions are the lowest. Numbers?

I posted a reply to that claim with statistics clearly showing that France is not the largest consumer of fossil fuels per capita of the big 4 European countries. For instance Germany uses over 10 times as much coal as France, but has less than twice the population.

[saving since 2005]

10.53 GMT German chancellor Angela Merkel announces the temporary shutdown of seven nuclear reactors amid safety fears sparked by the atomic crisis in Japan.

[newbie]

Reactor three the other day was a meltdown with MOX going everywhere, no wonder the 7th fleet got out of there pronto. Well done to the French embassy for removing citizens, as usual the british government are doing nothing, total failure of duty to protect subjects.

Everything's fine, according to TEPCO:

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031507-e.html

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

CNN website is reporting that spent fuel rods at Fukushima might have been burned in the fire, releasing radioative particles into the atmosphere.

We mustn't lose sight of the (so far) much bigger natural disaster that has befallen Japan, with the huge loss of life and destruction.

But the resulting Fukushima nuclear disaster looks more and more like the nightmare nuclear scenario the worldwide nuclear industry has always promised couldn't happen.

Edited March 15, 2011 by Hyperduck Quack Quack

[mfp123]

You are forgetting the pollution from burning coal, which kills 5 figure numbers annually in developed nations (goodness knows the figure for China..) Invisible and insidious.

And because so few people are killed by nuclear power, compared to the amount of power produced, industrial accidents around wind turbines compare significantly.

The killer with a major dependence on renewables would be the loss of power in incidents such as last December. Or worse, higher energy bills leading to deaths from cold because people fear putting the heating on. Invisible and insidious.

you have to bear in mind the potential of a radiation leak though.

lets say the containment vessel fails and the radiation leaks out , the winds carry across tokyo and japan, across to china and russia, thats a lot of people.

people killed or affected are in the low percentiles, but expose it to 100 million people and how many people are affected?

[cassiedog]

10.53 GMT German chancellor Angela Merkel announces the temporary shutdown of seven nuclear reactors amid safety fears sparked by the atomic crisis in Japan.

I don't believe this!

Is it true?

[Conrad]

Holy crap this is history in the making

[saving since 2005]

I don't believe this!

Is it true?

True!

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/15/c_13780113.htm

Germany to temporarily shut down seven nuclear plants

English.news.cn 2011-03-15 19:08:46 FeedbackPrintRSS

BERLIN, March 15 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday that seven nuclear power station built before 1980 would be temporarily shut down during the three-month moratorium on nuclear extension plan.

Merkel made the announcement as Japan's nuclear crisis escalated dramatically early Tuesday with two new explosions rocking he country' s quake-crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Radiation near the plant area has climbed to danger levels.

The German government decided on Monday to suspend the plan of extending the lifespan of its 17 nuclear power plants for three months.

Love Germany, in so many ways

[VeryMeanReversion]

How long before we see a report on ZeroHedge that is was all Goldman Sachs fault.

And have you all checked how far you live from your nearest nuclear reactor?

[Damik]

I don't believe this!

Is it true?

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/uk-germany-nuclear-idUKTRE72E2SI20110315

"TRANSPARENT TRICK"

But her policy drew cynicism from the opposition. "She just wants to get through the provincial assembly elections," said Social Democrat leader Sigmar Gabriel, accusing her of playing political tactics with people's fears.

"The whole thing doesn't make sense and is really just a transparent trick," he told ARD television.

Merkel faces three regional elections in the next fortnight, including in the wealthy southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, which has long been a stronghold of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).

Even before the Japanese crisis the CDU faced losing control in Baden-Wuerttemberg, which would be a political disaster for Merkel. Last month her party suffered a thrashing in elections in Hamburg, Germany's richest city.

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

you have to bear in mind the potential of a radiation leak though.

lets say the containment vessel fails and the radiation leaks out , the winds carry across tokyo and japan, across to china and russia, thats a lot of people.

people killed or affected are in the low percentiles, but expose it to 100 million people and how many people are affected?

You are forgetting the pollution from burning coal, which kills 5 figure numbers annually in developed nations (goodness knows the figure for China..) Invisible and insidious.

In the past the use of coal and other old, dirty industries have indeed created industrial wastelands where hardly any plants grew and human health was adversely affected. The difference with nuclear is that most of the time it's clean and safe, but if things go wrong it can lead to deaths, large areas becoming contaminated and uninhabitable, agriculture being affected by contaminated soil etc.

A major accident at a nuclear power station could lead to tens of thousands of early deaths, birth defects, hundreds of square miles that become uninhabitable and thousands of square miles where agricultural products would be contaminated. I'm not saying thus will happen at Fukushima but that's that's the worst case for a nuclear accident. For a coal fired power station the worst accident would be if part of the pressurised steam system exploded - the boiler or a turbine, which could lead to the destruction of the power station and the deaths of the people in it, but that's about all.

Edited March 15, 2011 by Hyperduck Quack Quack

[thecrashingisles]

Interesting, since their per capita CO2 emissions are the lowest. Numbers?

Barrels of oil per capita - France is above the UK, Germany and Italy:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con_percap-energy-oil-consumption-per-capita

I was surprised to learn this myself and originally got the information from a discussion on French TV about energy. I may have made a mistake in including all fossil fuels instead of just oil.

[SaintJay]

How long before we see a report on ZeroHedge that is was all Goldman Sachs fault.

And have you all checked how far you live from your nearest nuclear reactor?

not a reactor - but Aldermaston is the nearest dodgy thing to me.

[Guest_FaFa!_*]

Dam right you shouldn't believe official sources

Yeah, you should believe ZeroHedge

How's the re-introduction of the deutschmark going again? Wasn't that one of their posts?

Tokyo cannot become a ghost town, as Left in 2009 pointed out, it cannot be evacuated.

Yet to hear of any wild panic, though I understand supermarkets are running low. They can be replenished with goods from the west of Japan, however. If you look on Google maps you'll doubtless observe that there's this whole other part of Japan to the west of Tokyo which has been unaffected.

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

Barrels of oil per capita - France is above the UK, Germany and Italy:

OK, oil, yes. I wonder if that's because a lot more people rely on oil for domestic heating. Does anyone know?

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

I don't believe this!

Is it true?

It makes sense, even if it's just to reassure the public in Germany.

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

What about Porton Down? I know from previous conversations with one of their "mad" scientists they have some really freaky shi1t there that makes ebola look like a walk in the park.

Hinkley Point and Oldbury are the ones to watch. The prevailing winds in Britain are West / South West. In the unlikely event of tither of those suffering a catastrophe the radiation would probably head for London and the Midlands.

Edited March 15, 2011 by Hyperduck Quack Quack