Fukushima

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Mark and Dave.....you can call me naïve.... I'll call you cynics..... Happy New Year guys!

[Dave Sheldrake]

I hope so Ken,

One day I hope my children and grandchildren live in a world were Nuclear Weapons are a thing of the past, not because we decide not to use them but because we no longer need them and the huge intelligences that designed them serve a better purpose that benefits us all.

cheers

Dave

[Larry Edgerton]

Thomas Gray said it best in his "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"

Here's a partial quote from the last verse:

"Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise."



Thomas Gray, 1716 - 1771

The thought has often crossed my mind that I would like to be the village idiot.

Larry

[Steven Satur]

I have been following this for some time now. John B. Wells is the weekend host of Coast to Coast Am and his show is always enlightening on this subject.
Here is a like to his web site. http://caravantomidnight.com/category/red-alert/

Steve

[Jim Matthews]

Again, you can choose, or choose not to, listen to hundreds of accounts from numerous sources of information and technology being stiffled or extinguished all together by major corporate and political interests.

What, like the room temperature fusion reactors, or the 200 mpg carburetors in the 1970's?

The petroleum revolutions in Brazil are a perfect example. The innovators have recounted in the open, numerous times, global petroleum executives telling them point blank to watch themselves because they will simply drop the price of oil and render them insolvent. It matters not whether it's better or profitable. The only matter is who gets the profit.

Brazil currently consumes more barrels of oil each day than it produces. It supplements petroleum distillates with sugar derived ethanol. Ford started this in 1908, it's not a new idea.

It's not conspiracy or paranoia, it's merely the capitalist system at work. It is of course sick that it operates even in disastrous situations but we Can see it does over and over.

It walks like a duck, and quacks like one. Perhaps you have confused transformative technologies with regulations of same. Teddy Roosevelt put that ball in play.

Sadly, those with power often lose sight of doing good.

That's a little broad. Nuclear power was first demonstrated by Fermi and Szilard as a power source.

Devils advocacy and faith in the greater good only goes so far when money is involved.

That's overtly cynical, and isn't voiced by the successful in an open market. Predatory capitalism is a cyclic phase that modern economies endure.

It's neither a permanent condition, nor one endemic to power generating. The side costs of large scale power distribution at a profit
are born by the taxpayers, and contribute to the ease of commerce in other venues. Health and safety are expenses willingly
born in stable economies - not circumvented by the most profitable at the expense of their consumers.

Nuclear power isn't finished - but FBR and High Temperature steam systems are circa 1960's designs.
It's not as if everyone would gladly drive a 2014 Dodge, built just like the 1974 model.

[Steveo O'Banion]

1. Consider the news source, I'm thinking they both have an ax to grind along with their agenda.

2. It's not coming out of a 1000' tall stack, most of what ever it is won't get this far. Easy for me to say sitting in the midwest.

3. In the middle 70's the Chinese were doing a series of above ground nuke tests and that radiation made it around the world. I can remember standing in the rain waiting for the bus while the radioactive cloud passed over. In other words, we were standing in radioactive fallout. We survived.

4. If none of that assuages your fear remember that there is nothing you can do about it anyway and that your chances developing COPD from wood dust or choking on a weenie are much higher than any peril Fukushima may have in store for you.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Hiya Steve,

From Mr Wells page

As atomic isotopes decay, they spin off energized particles that can penetrate human organs and damage human cells, potentially causing cancer.

Sadly this is again a great example of a half truth, based in fact but missing a large percentage of the information that really matters.

If they really must worry about anything then the spent fuel pond structural integrity in Reactor 4 would be the thing I'd be concerned with.

cheers

Dave

[Art Mann]

Ken, I really don't understand. If politics is truly off the table on SMC, then why do you permit its occurrence and even participate in it yourself?

[Dave Sheldrake]

Ken, I really don't understand. If politics is truly off the table on SMC, then why do you permit its occurrence and even participate in it yourself?

Hi Art,

Politics? it's only really Ken voicing his faith in the good in people and Mark voicing his opinion of the bad in some people,me, I just sit on the fence and look at the numbers and smile at some of the mainstream media stories

Fukushima is a problem, maybe a big one, maybe not so big but I think all of us can agree that no matter what the facts are the mainstream media will dramatise it to sell product (papers).

cheers

Dave

[Harold Burrell]

Sorry. I have faith in man.

Then...why do we need moderators?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Discussing nuclear reactors or nuclear safety isn't political until you start laying blame on governments etc.

It's just like discussing economics. It's not political until you start laying blame on governments or political parties.

[Mike Cutler]

I've spent 29 years working in US commercial nuclear reactors. Prior to that I spent 6 years in the Navy Nuclear Weapons Program. I've been wearing a TLD, radiation monitoring badge, since I was 19 years old.
The Fukushima event will have world wide consequences for all commercial reactors and the lessons learned will be, and currently are, being incorporated into enhancing, redesigning and implementing fail safe strategies for all reactors, regardless of vintage, generation, or design.
The fundamental flaw, or "root cause" associated with Fukushima was the location and design of the emergency backup Diesel generators and their associated power distribution network. It was not nature.
I could expound ad nausea in response to Dave Sheldrake's posts, which I find very articulate and suspect that Dave has more than an academic background on the subject. Most people don't know about core poisons, high and low energy beta's and gamma's, and fission byproduct half lives. I know that Keith Outten can though.
In the end, I stand with Ken. I believe that people inherently will work towards a common goal, and given the correct operation envelopes, will do the most correct thing they can, and that they are capable of. We may be flawed in some respects, but we are socially gregarious mammals, and by nature need each other to survive.
I have met people from all over the world that work in nuclear power plants and can tell you that they are very serious people. Corporations as a whole may make bad decisions, as evidenced by TESCO's lack of movement in relocating those back up power systems, even though they were known to be vulnerable, but the individuals that operate and maintain these plants are acutely aware of the consequences of action and lack of action.
From the standpoint of someone very familiar with the operation, design, and layout, of the Fukushima GE style plants. I can tell you that the moment the roofs were blown off due to hydrogen, it had been game over for quite some time. It was already too late, and from there it just got worse.
While there once was a somewhat cavalier attitude with regard to radiation exposure in the nuke plants, it is now an extremely serious matter. The amounts of exposure we receive now are less by factors of 10, from as little as 15 years ago. US plants have really cleaned up their act, and that is a good thing. A very good thing. Any rad exposure beyond that which occurs naturally should be held to the absolute minimum, to the fullest extent possible.
The Nuclear power industry will change as a result of Fukushima, and hopefully it will be the catalyst to spur the next generations of inherently safer reactor designs to come into being.

Dave.
Post 39 states a 100mW output for the MSR reactor design. Is that really the correct number? That is a very tiny plant, and the Chinese are currently in the process of constructing over two dozen Westinghouse style PWR's, each at about 1200mW electrical output. (It will be interesting to see what happens to the price of oil when they shut down their fossil fleets, which is their intention. Right now they are split between fuel oil and coal.)

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Then...why do we need moderators?

I didn't say "all men"........

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Mike,

I began wearing a TLD in 1976 and gave one up in 2010 when I was forced to retire due to my sudden deafness caused by Meniere's disease.

At NAS Meridian, MS I was a member of the NBC warfare team and qualified annually. The last 8 months of my 8 Years in the US Navy, I worked aboard the USS Orion, AS-18. We had a squadron of fast attacks attached. I was a qualified sub-safe inspector. E-6 and above stood OD watches aboard the tender so I had to be nuclear and nuclear security qualified as I stood OD watches.

For 34 years I wore a TLD as I worked on CT scanners, x-ray machines, nuclear medicine cameras and MR scanners. We had to qualify annually on radiation safety taking courses and passing exams.

Far from an expert but I did have and use daily a working knowledge. I worked regularly with private and government health physicists.

Obviously you and Dave have experience with reactors but as you are aware, radiation goes beyond reactors.

[Brian Elfert]

A nuclear plant produces electricity. Why does a plant that produces electricity need a constant connection to the grid or backup generators? How come the plant wouldn't make its own power to keep the cooling and such running?