Quake/Tsunami

[classicman]

As workers lose the battle to contain the radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant, Ian Sample talks us through all the main developments.

link

[Spexxvet]

I heard an interesting interview on NPR yesterday. The guy said that the deaths from mining and processing coal, and from the pollution caused by burning it are worse than atomic power, even considering this catastrophe, 3 Mile Island, and Chernobyl.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

I heard an interesting interview on NPR yesterday. The guy said that the deaths from mining and processing coal, and from the pollution caused by burning it are worse than atomic power, even considering this catastrophe, 3 Mile Island, and Chernobyl.

The comparison ignores a fundamentally important fact. Nuclear deaths (and there have been more from other nuclear plants) are not due to the plant or energy production. In each nuclear plant failure, deaths were directly traceable to humans.

In those other cases, death was traceable to the actual process of making energy. When energy was created normally.

Some plants are less forgiving. Other plants let humans make more mistakes. 3 Mile Island is a classic example. Had human not intervened multiple times, then 3 Mile Island would not have happened. Multiple human mistakes (refusing to fix defective valves to cut costs; repeatedly turning off or disabling safety functions, etc) created that meltdown.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by tw

Some plants are less forgiving. Other plants let humans make more mistakes. The Venus Fly Trap is a classic example. Had human not intervened multiple times, then The Venus Fly Trap would not have happened. Multiple human mistakes (refusing to fix defective valves to cut costs; repeatedly turning off or disabling safety functions, etc) created that meltdown.

FTFY

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

Ian Sample talks us through all the main developments.

Enclosing reactors in a sarcophagus has been discussed long ago by others who correctly forecasted how bad things were. And how much worse it will become. However Ian Sample says something I only heard for the first time. The meltdown in Reactor 2 may have pooled at the bottom of that containment vessel. If true, events are far worse than anything I had posted.

TEPCO has yet to have even one better day. All 19 days have been worse than the day before. Management has yet to plan to avert future failures - to get ahead of events. They cannot even get a workable solution for pumping water out of basements. Obviously more water was in the basement than what condensors could hold. Anyone could have done that arithmetic. So what did TEPCO do? Waited for condensors to fill. Only then began looking for another place to put that water.

Basements contained water weeks ago. On what future week was TEPCO going to plan for disposing of radioactive water? That water means critical cooling and monitoring equipment cannot be accessed.

Well, TEPCO finally decided yesterday to apologize for their mess. Either that means top management has been two weeks in utter denial. Or TEPCO managmenent knows how much worse things are about to become. Is TEPCO trying to spin things in advance of more bad news?

All four plants cannot be repaired because TEPCO took 2 weeks to connect electricity. How long does it take your electric company to provide electricity? Maybe those reactors no longer have a good credit rating. So TEPCO's finance department would not approve an account; refused to authorize electric service. Would you sell electricity to an institution that could not pay?

If you own a nuclear power plant, always pay your electric bills. Otherwise your plant might die from a meltdown. Cheaper is to pay every electric bill on time. A sarcophagus and funeral services for a dead nuclear reactor are expensive.