According to what I've read the the quake knocked out the electricity for the cooling. The back up generators, powered by diesels, immediately came on line. Then the tsunami took out the diesels.
There's nothing wrong with the plant itself. There's nothing wrong with building on the shore. The problem began with a lack of protection for the diesels. Unfortunately this was probably avoidable.
Some of you guys talk as if all the facts and details are in and you've read all the post-investigation reports. We do things. We make mistakes. We learn from them. As safe as nuke power was before this event, you can be sure it will be even safer later.
Edit:
RADIATION FEARS DETRACT FROM OTHER PROBLEMS
International experts say that panic over fears of radiation leaks from the Daiichi nuclear plant could detract from problems likely to affect survivors of the quake and tsunami, such as the cold, access to clean water and getting enough food.
"People are getting so concerned about what are at the moment pretty low levels of radiation," said Dr Richard Wakeford of Britain's University of Manchester, "but the real problems ... are in dealing with the earthquake and the tsunami."
"If this was a developing country, we'd have people going down in their hundreds and thousands with the likes of typhoid and cholera by now. The questions should be: Where is the sewage going? What is the state of the drinking water? If I were a public health official, that would be my principle concern."
We'll just dump the waste down a hole and it will go away. That's better than we do with plastic or coal dust or heavy metals form neodymium smelting.
This is about potential, which never makes it to the balance sheet when considering economy. But then neither does the cost of building whoot-de-doo windmills or even coal-fired power plants either. The starts and ends never get accounted for, just the bit in the middle where the electric gets made. We don't deal with starts and ends let alone closing loops like we should.
Nuke plant waste. Put it in a hole and forget about it.
So you bury the waste and the low bidder gets the job of guarding which gets budgeted down to maybe 6 guys per shift on paper. Because after all, it's got to be economic.
Next thing you know a terrorist group is holding your country at ransom or worse has caused an epic disaster. Perhaps they take enough to make dirty bombs or perhaps because the material is in glass logs so they can't get it out in concentrated form quickly, they've caused a melt down that's concentrated the lode. What would it take? Some explosives and a lot of aluminum powder and rust. Throw in phosphorous and the mix burns even hotter. Or maybe they dump more hot waste in to increase the fast neutron count and set up an increasing reaction. Then the heavy elements collect at the bottom of the melt and the heat cranks up, all insulated real nice down in that old salt mine with zero chance to cool off. In time it will come back up like a night of curry and lager topped by tequila and rhubarb pie. (or even lots of cheap beer then jelly donuts)
Sure they could put only so much waste material in any one mine shaft but as the years go by there's going to be a LOT of waste material and again, the real estate and guards are going to add up. Who's going to want to pay to watch over waste long after it has finished turning a profit? Why, that's what TAXES are for! Yeah, and VOTES will take care of that. The half life of a government program is nothing compared to nuclear waste.
And a far bigger one on the way. Maybe by the time that the new Krakatoa goes off there will be nuke plants in Indonesia, since that's what's going to save the world from an energy crisis.Originally posted by kimosabi79:
In 2004, close to Sumatra, there was an earthquake measuring 9.3, causing a 10m Tsunami.
Before and after...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/eve...2011/beforeafter.htm
In the UK we used to have a vociferous anti-nuclear lobby but it's been essentially dormant for the last twenty-five years, mainly because construction of nuclear power plants has been largely halted since 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl. Also, the anti-nuclear groups are to a large degree an offshoot of our nuclear disarmament movement.Originally posted by Bremspropeller:
What is the situation in your country?
This isn't that surprising when you consider that our programmes to produce nuclear weapons have been intertwined with our nuclear power programme.
Here's Queenie opening Calder Hall power station in 1956;
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=32422
Don't watch it too often as the Queens accent will give you symptoms similar to radiation poisoning; neausea, bleeding ears, etc!
What the news-reel clip does not tell us is that the primary purpose of Calder Hall was to produce weapons grade material for our H-bombs.
The production of electricity was a useful by-product.
So the tone was set way back in the 'fifties for the two things that unite ALL nuclear power world-wide; secrecy and lies. The lies usually centre around leaks, safety and record keeping. The secrecy is usually reserved for the true economic costs of nuclear generated energy.
So way back in the 'fifties Britain was first with electricity produced by nuclear power and the following year, at the same site, we were the first with a huge nuclear accident that was successfully hushed up.
But for the bravery of a small number of individuals we came within an ace of an enormous Chernobyl style accident that would have had huge consequences for the whole of the UK, Ireland, Scandanavia and depending on prevailing winds the rest of Northern Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
The UK is also the home of some of the most nuclear polluted areas in the world outside of the Ukraine. However, when so much money,so many well paid jobs, knighthoods and reputations are at stake who cares about "unusual and unexplained" pockets of childhood Lukemia, rare cancer clusters or the fact that the children of West Cumbria have measurable amounts of Plutonium in their teeth!
Lets just bury it all and hope the grandchildren figure a way of sorting it all out!
In the mid-eighties our electricity grid and electricity generation were privatised. Inevitably the true cost of nuclear generation emerged as by then our early power plants were nearing the end of their commercial life and the true costs of decommissioning and cleaning up these sites could no-longer be hidden.
Recently we have had to look again at nuclear power generation as our economic short-termism is catching up with us. In recent years we've had the 'dash for gas' as it's called. We've been building a lot of clean(ish) power stations running on gas from that well-known and entirely dependable source; Russia!!!
Ooops!
So where do we go from here? Goodness knows but events in Japan over the next few days will have a huge bearing. Hopefully, we can be sensible and go for a mixture of generation sources. Tidal power would seem the most promising but will require a huge investment from the private sector. Hopefully our government can put in place the correct framework to encourage such investment. Just don't hold your breath.
BastardSword, I never said nuclear power was "supersafe", what I said is that it's much safer and less damaging than the current alternatives. That's a fact, look at how many serious civil nuclear accidents happened compared to how many nuclear plants there are, the statistics show for themselves, as does the fact that there is neither landscape/ecosystem damage, nor is there poisonous gas emission.
For one thing, it won't poison you on a daily basis, like coal and heavy metal industry smoke and other waste does.Originally posted by M_Gunz:
We'll just dump the waste down a hole and it will go away. That's better than we do with plastic or coal dust or heavy metals form neodymium smelting.
Nuclear waste in containment underground is infinitely better than carcinogens and posions in the air and water which you breathe and drink, it's that simple.
Please cut the tirade and leave your strawmans at home. It has been explained a few times already that it's not "putting waste in a hole and forgetting", but putting waste in secure underground containment and watching over it. And if you think it will be here for millions of years, I already told you that if humanity survives a few hundred years more, we will have the technology to send the stuff into the sun at a trivial price, or possibly even develop radiation-neutralizing technology. Don't believe me? Well in 1900 we used horses and wagons instead of cars, 70 years later we landed on the moon.Nuke plant waste. Put it in a hole and forget about it.
Well then your problem isn't nuclear energy and the waste it produces, it's government conduct. The technology is fine, I already said the regulation needs to be improved.So you bury the waste and the low bidder gets the job of guarding which gets budgeted down to maybe 6 guys per shift on paper. Because after all, it's got to be economic.
Lol what? The terrorist argument? Seriously?Next thing you know a terrorist group is holding your country at ransom or worse has caused an epic disaster.![]()
Perhaps.....perhaps.....perhaps aliens will land on earth tomorrow and offer to take our nuclear waste off earth for free because they feed on the stuff.Perhaps...
Indeed, there will always be important sectors that are unprofitable, be it public healthcare or nuclear waste storage, and the role of the government is to step into very important but inherently unprofitable sectors and keep them going, even if they create deficit.Who's going to want to pay to watch over waste long after it has finished turning a profit? Why, that's what TAXES are for!
Please cut the tirade and leave your strawmans at home. It has been explained a few times already that it's not "putting waste in a hole and forgetting", but putting waste in secure underground containment and watching over it. And if you think it will be here for millions of years, I already told you that if humanity survives a few hundred years more, we will have the technology to send the stuff into the sun at a trivial price, or possibly even develop radiation-neutralizing technology. Don't believe me? Well in 1900 we used horses and wagons instead of cars, 70 years later we landed on the moon.Originally posted by ROXunreal:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by M_Gunz:
Nuke plant waste. Put it in a hole and forget about it.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
I think your'e being a little unfair Rox since here in the UK to all intents and purposes we do try and bury it and forget about it or we put it in storage tanks and forget about it whilst it leaches it's way out and causes , er, long-term damage to our enviroment and our neighbours enviroment too.
Your solutions seem to depend on our great-great grandchildren sorting out our problems.
The little old UK's nuclear waste has been created and mis-handled under the supervision of government bodies. I don't know a great deal about the US industry but I do know that it's always been run by private companies and I do know that the sheer size of the territory means there's a great deal more scope to dump this stuff in some very big, remote holes and forget about it. However, annoyingly it has a habit of re-appearing after a few years in the water table and wildlife.
Is nuclear energy that clean and safe? I'm not sure. There arn't that many reactors around the world and their safety record compared with say another hi-tech industry like the airlines is not wonderful.
Please cut the tirade and leave your strawmans at home. It has been explained a few times already that it's not "putting waste in a hole and forgetting", but putting waste in secure underground containment and watching over it. And if you think it will be here for millions of years, I already told you that if humanity survives a few hundred years more, we will have the technology to send the stuff into the sun at a trivial price, or possibly even develop radiation-neutralizing technology. Don't believe me? Well in 1900 we used horses and wagons instead of cars, 70 years later we landed on the moon.Originally posted by arthursmedley:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ROXunreal:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by M_Gunz:
Nuke plant waste. Put it in a hole and forget about it.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
I think your'e being a little unfair Rox since here in the UK to all intents and purposes we do try and bury it and forget about it or we put it in storage tanks and forget about it whilst it leaches it's way out and causes , er, long-term damage to our enviroment and our neighbours enviroment too.
Your solutions seem to depend on our great-great grandchildren sorting out our problems.
The little old UK's nuclear waste has been created and mis-handled under the supervision of government bodies. I don't know a great deal about the US industry but I do know that it's always been run by private companies and I do know that the sheer size of the territory means there's a great deal more scope to dump this stuff in some very big, remote holes and forget about it. However, annoyingly it has a habit of re-appearing after a few years in the water table and wildlife.
Is nuclear energy that clean and safe? I'm not sure. There arn't that many reactors around the world and their safety record compared with say another hi-tech industry like the airlines is not wonderful. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Two words.....Deep Borehole.
Like 3 to 5km deep.
Arthur, I already said that I don't claim that the current system is sunshine and butterflies.
All I'm saying is that it makes much more sense to improve regulation regarding nuclear waste and powerplant safety, than it is to use sources of electricity that poison you or have a large negative impact on the environmnet/landscape by default.