5 ms·

Fukushima was caused by a Mw 9.0 earthquake / tsunami which cased over 15,000 deaths, in a 1st world country with the world's best earthquake mitigation. The me

by wisty 11y ago

Fukushima was caused by a Mw 9.0 earthquake / tsunami which cased over 15,000 deaths, in a 1st world country with the world's best earthquake mitigation. The meltdown was caused by an absolutely huge disaster. The contamination might kill a few hundred, and has resulted in an exclusion zone. IMO, the biggest problem with nuclear is how unacceptable disasters are. One old reactors built in high risk zone has a little meltdown, and the entire world freaks out over it. This is a major practical impediment to nuclear - you won't get costs getting driven down (for better or worse), because people see the risk as completely taboo. It's like people worrying about tall buildings, because of 9/11. There's always risks.

grecy 11y ago
> and has resulted in an exclusion zone And how many of those can we afford to have in the world? How much liquid contaminated waste can we put into the ocean?
- slacka 11y ago
  How often do we get 9.0 earthquake + tsunamis? I'm sure the earth and humanity would be much better off if every nuclear reactor was hit by one of these then the catastrophic damage caused by global warming. How many countries can afford to feed their population when their farmlands have turned to arid deserts and their coastal cities are all underwater? Just look at all the recent super storms and California's drought. Compare that to fukushima. And this is only the beginning. Global warming is the threat you should be worried about.
  - p1mrx 11y ago
    > if every nuclear reactor was hit by one of these I don't know, if Iowa and Nebraska got hit by a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, I would be pretty fucking terrified.
    - slacka 11y ago
      ha. To clarify my point. The end game of a runaway greenhouse effect is far more terrifying than thousands of nuclear accidents. Sure the local effects of a melt down are scary, but it takes the worst earthquake in the Japan's history to cause that kind of disaster on an obsolete, ancient reactor. Every generation of reactor get safer. Even if they weren't, we learn from every accident. Fukushima could have been prevented. In fact, Onagawa a nearly identical reactor under similar circumstances was spared by the heroic efforts of its operators.[1] [1] http://thebulletin.org/onagawa-japanese-nuclear-power-plant-didn%E2%80%99t-melt-down-311 http://thebulletin.org/onagawa-japanese-nuclear-power-plant-...
- mrep 11y ago
  How much pollution and c02 can we put into the atmosphere? The total effects of pollution and c02 i would say are worse than the occasional meltdown. It's just that meltdowns are so much more high profile so everyone notices and freaks out. (Definitely not saying meltdowns are good though)
- brc 11y ago
  Well, the world is a big place, and the exclusion zones are pretty small. The ocean can take a lot of contimination. Obviously nobody wants that, but a tiny bit of somewhat radioactive water is going to dilute quite substantially.
- pdonis 11y ago
  > How much liquid contaminated waste can we put into the ocean? A lot. The Wikipedia article [1] quotes a flow rate of 400 tons per day. Let's suppose that that flow rate was maintained for 30 years, a typical reactor lifetime (which is far longer than anyone is claiming a flow of contaminated waste from Fukushima). That comes to 400 * 365 * 30 = 438,000 tons of contaminated water, or 4.4 x 10^8 kg. According to the Physics Factbook, the mass of water in Earth's oceans is about 1.3 x 10^21 kg. So 30 years' worth of contaminated water from Fukushima amounts to about 0.3 parts per trillion of contaminated water in Earth's oceans. That's not even comparable to naturally occurring trace radioactive elements. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup#Radioactive_contamination_of_the_Ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup#Rad... [2] http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/AvijeetDut.shtml http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/AvijeetDut.shtml
  - iofj 11y ago
    That is of course what the safest way of disposing nuclear waste would be : disperse it sufficiently, and spread it everywhere. That is, after all, what nature has been doing for billions of years, and it doesn't bother anyone because we evolved under background radiation levels. Accumulation is what makes these things dangerous, and what do we do ? We put them all together, behind a thin layer of metal, guaranteeing that a localized problem bad enough to pierce a 3mm layer of metal and a dozen centimeters of concrete becomes a complete catastrophe. But good luck defending that one politically, no matter how much you've got physics on your side.

by wisty 11y ago

grecy 11y ago

> and has resulted in an exclusion zone And how many of those can we afford to have in the world? How much liquid contaminated waste can we put into the ocean?

slacka 11y ago
How often do we get 9.0 earthquake + tsunamis? I'm sure the earth and humanity would be much better off if every nuclear reactor was hit by one of these then the catastrophic damage caused by global warming. How many countries can afford to feed their population when their farmlands have turned to arid deserts and their coastal cities are all underwater? Just look at all the recent super storms and California's drought. Compare that to fukushima. And this is only the beginning. Global warming is the threat you should be worried about.
- p1mrx 11y ago
  > if every nuclear reactor was hit by one of these I don't know, if Iowa and Nebraska got hit by a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, I would be pretty fucking terrified.
  - slacka 11y ago
    ha. To clarify my point. The end game of a runaway greenhouse effect is far more terrifying than thousands of nuclear accidents. Sure the local effects of a melt down are scary, but it takes the worst earthquake in the Japan's history to cause that kind of disaster on an obsolete, ancient reactor. Every generation of reactor get safer. Even if they weren't, we learn from every accident. Fukushima could have been prevented. In fact, Onagawa a nearly identical reactor under similar circumstances was spared by the heroic efforts of its operators.[1] [1] http://thebulletin.org/onagawa-japanese-nuclear-power-plant-didn%E2%80%99t-melt-down-311 http://thebulletin.org/onagawa-japanese-nuclear-power-plant-...
mrep 11y ago
How much pollution and c02 can we put into the atmosphere? The total effects of pollution and c02 i would say are worse than the occasional meltdown. It's just that meltdowns are so much more high profile so everyone notices and freaks out. (Definitely not saying meltdowns are good though)
brc 11y ago
Well, the world is a big place, and the exclusion zones are pretty small. The ocean can take a lot of contimination. Obviously nobody wants that, but a tiny bit of somewhat radioactive water is going to dilute quite substantially.
pdonis 11y ago
> How much liquid contaminated waste can we put into the ocean? A lot. The Wikipedia article [1] quotes a flow rate of 400 tons per day. Let's suppose that that flow rate was maintained for 30 years, a typical reactor lifetime (which is far longer than anyone is claiming a flow of contaminated waste from Fukushima). That comes to 400 * 365 * 30 = 438,000 tons of contaminated water, or 4.4 x 10^8 kg. According to the Physics Factbook, the mass of water in Earth's oceans is about 1.3 x 10^21 kg. So 30 years' worth of contaminated water from Fukushima amounts to about 0.3 parts per trillion of contaminated water in Earth's oceans. That's not even comparable to naturally occurring trace radioactive elements. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup#Radioactive_contamination_of_the_Ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup#Rad... [2] http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/AvijeetDut.shtml http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/AvijeetDut.shtml
- iofj 11y ago
  That is of course what the safest way of disposing nuclear waste would be : disperse it sufficiently, and spread it everywhere. That is, after all, what nature has been doing for billions of years, and it doesn't bother anyone because we evolved under background radiation levels. Accumulation is what makes these things dangerous, and what do we do ? We put them all together, behind a thin layer of metal, guaranteeing that a localized problem bad enough to pierce a 3mm layer of metal and a dozen centimeters of concrete becomes a complete catastrophe. But good luck defending that one politically, no matter how much you've got physics on your side.