5 ms·

It's interesting. I've been reading the science subreddit and a lot of people are holding this up and some kind of engineering triumph, but to me it's an absolu

by btmorex 16y ago

It's interesting. I've been reading the science subreddit and a lot of people are holding this up and some kind of engineering triumph, but to me it's an absolute engineering failure. Even if nothing bad happens from this point forward, two reactors were almost certainly destroyed and they'll have to sit dormant for a long while before they can be properly cleaned up. And as far as I can tell, there's still a very real risk of meltdown/containment vessel breach. From my perspective, the root cause of what happened is that no one anticipated an event that would simultaneously cause failures in multiple systems (power loss, and destroy probably multiple redundant generators). It's easy to say after the fact that of course someone should have thought about that, in your words they should have had "better advisors", but I'm not sure how useful it is. All nuclear accidents that I'm familiar with were unanticipated. Can anyone really argue that they all just had bad advisors or engineers? To me, this is the real argument against nuclear power and I say this as someone who still thinks that overall it's a good idea. How can we say something is truly safe when the accidents that did happen were not anticipated?

wtallis 16y ago
I think it's too soon to say that this failure mode was never considered or even conceived of in the contingency planning for the power plant. If you have a source that says otherwise, please provide a link. Keep in mind that this is currently estimated to be the biggest earthquake in the recorded history of Japan. It's completely unreasonable to expect stuff to totally not break when the big one hits. If some reactors are damaged beyond repair, that's understandable, as long as the radiation is contained well enough to keep the public safe. After all, good safety plans will always be willing to sacrifice expensive infrastructure in order to save lives.
- erikpukinskis 16y ago
  Using "biggest in recorded history" as an approximation for "biggest possible" seems weak to me. Proper engineering will look at the numbers and account for events outside of the historically observed range, but within the probability distribution. The "biggest event we see in 1,000,000 simulations of the lifetime of the plant" is likely much larger than the "biggest we've seen in history." Which isn't to say that it was bad engineering. Just that this being the biggest quake in history is not an excuse.
- jeza 16y ago
  Sure you can't expect everything not to break when the mother of all earthquakes hits, though surely you'd expect a nuclear reactor to be failsafe in a self-sufficient manner. Like surely they could generate the energy they need to keep the core cool from the heat it is still producing. It sounds like they are trying to do just this (not sure what the battery issue is), though if it were actually designed for this, there'd be much less of an issue.
- idlewords 16y ago
  The earthquake was big, but in building a reactor on the PACIFIC RIM you set up your worst case scenario to cover a 1000-year event centered underneath the structure, and with handsome margins. This was a contingency that was planned for, but for some reason the systems are failing. The measures being taken now are clearly ad hoc, rather than part of an orderly contingency plan.
  - starpilot 16y ago
    Then when the ten-thousand year earthquake happens, you say thousand-year wasn't enough, it was bad engineering etc. Hindsight.
Confusion 16y ago
The scenario is slightly more complicated: power loss, loss of backup power sources and not being able to solve either of those two issues before the secondary backup power source, the batteries, ran out. We're dealing with what is almost the worst case scenario the reactors are prepared for. That the reactors should be considered lost in such a situation is by design. How is it an engineering failure if everything operates as it was designed to? And as far as I can tell, there's still a very real risk of meltdown/containment vessel breach There is, but that is the worst scenario that the reactor is prepared for: that the fuel rods melt through the bottom of the containment vessel. There is secondary containment with a huge heat sink down there. Damage will still be contained. But as they are now pumping seawater into the reactor, we won't get to test that bit of engineering.
- lispm 16y ago
  I'm not supporting a technology which has these kinds of worst case scenarios happening.
  - Confusion 16y ago
    The worst case scenario of driving a car is meeting a drunken or sleepy driver and dying in the resulting crash. This happens thousands of times every year and seems to be an acceptable risk. I don't understand why a technology with large economic damage as the worst case scenario would be less acceptable.
    - lispm 16y ago
      There are scenarios, where a nuclear accident has a damage that makes living in that area impossible for a long time. Then you don't even have a choice whether you want to drive or not. The people of Prypjat had to leave and the region there is uninhabitable for the next 300 years. There are very few car crashes in that area.
  - adrianN 16y ago
    Why do so many people only care about the worst case scenario? You should always consider the expected outcomes when arguing for or against a technology. Sure, in the worst case a nuclear reactor can kill thousands and make large areas no longer habitable, but this event has only a tiny probability. On the other hand conventional fossil fuel plants don't have such a dramatic worst case but they produce a constant stream of greenhouse gases and other toxic fumes. How many people died because of smog? How much land will become unusable due to global warming? It's the expected harm we should be worried about, not the worst case scenarios.
dublinclontarf 16y ago
I think that the greatest problem with nuclear is that we are still using reactors that were commisioned over 40 years ago! Why the hell have they not been replaced with newer, safer, more effient reactor designs? I'll tell you why, environmentalists. We need energy, we NEED electricity. Because of this need, and the fact that we can't build any new reactors thanks to the green lobby we are stuck with old reactors(which become riskier with age). We cant turn them off because we need them and are not allowed to replace them. The green movement, because of it's anti-nuclear stance is putting increasing number of lives at risk. If they were worried about safety they would make sure old plants are shut down and replaced with new ones. But they don't want this, they will only accept wind or solar.
- foxylad 16y ago
  The reason these plants haven't been replaced with newer ones is NOT environmental lobbying - it's because no-one has figured out how to do it economically. Decommissioning a highly radioactive power station is extremely expensive. When these things were built their proponents optimistically expected the decommissioning problem to be have been solved by now - but it hasn't. I fully expect US nuclear power stations to end their useful lives by being sold to shell companies that promptly go bankrupt, leaving the problem (and cost) of rendering them safe to the usual suckers - the taxpayers. For generations. And generations. And generations. Our descendants are going to curse us for this for ever.
  - pyre 16y ago
    What is it that is difficult about decommissioning the plants? The leftover fuel/waste? Or is it that the equipment itself has been contaminated. If it's just the fuel/waste, then why can't it be used in one of those whizz-bang reactors that people keep talking about whenever a discussion about nuclear shows up here (or reddit, slashdot, etc)?
    - shareme 16y ago
      difference between waste products that have short lifespans and ones that have long lifespans.. In a power plant near its operational life span end you only have those waste products with long lifespans of radioactivity which no one has figured out how to do a reasonable cost decommission of as remember the plan infrastructure of the reactor vessel, etc also contains those long lifespan radioactive elements form being bombarded for 40+ years.

by btmorex 16y ago

wtallis 16y ago

I think it's too soon to say that this failure mode was never considered or even conceived of in the contingency planning for the power plant. If you have a source that says otherwise, please provide a link. Keep in mind that this is currently estimated to be the biggest earthquake in the recorded history of Japan. It's completely unreasonable to expect stuff to totally not break when the big one hits. If some reactors are damaged beyond repair, that's understandable, as long as the radiation is contained well enough to keep the public safe. After all, good safety plans will always be willing to sacrifice expensive infrastructure in order to save lives.

erikpukinskis 16y ago
Using "biggest in recorded history" as an approximation for "biggest possible" seems weak to me. Proper engineering will look at the numbers and account for events outside of the historically observed range, but within the probability distribution. The "biggest event we see in 1,000,000 simulations of the lifetime of the plant" is likely much larger than the "biggest we've seen in history." Which isn't to say that it was bad engineering. Just that this being the biggest quake in history is not an excuse.
jeza 16y ago
Sure you can't expect everything not to break when the mother of all earthquakes hits, though surely you'd expect a nuclear reactor to be failsafe in a self-sufficient manner. Like surely they could generate the energy they need to keep the core cool from the heat it is still producing. It sounds like they are trying to do just this (not sure what the battery issue is), though if it were actually designed for this, there'd be much less of an issue.
idlewords 16y ago
The earthquake was big, but in building a reactor on the PACIFIC RIM you set up your worst case scenario to cover a 1000-year event centered underneath the structure, and with handsome margins. This was a contingency that was planned for, but for some reason the systems are failing. The measures being taken now are clearly ad hoc, rather than part of an orderly contingency plan.
- starpilot 16y ago
  Then when the ten-thousand year earthquake happens, you say thousand-year wasn't enough, it was bad engineering etc. Hindsight.

Confusion 16y ago

The scenario is slightly more complicated: power loss, loss of backup power sources and not being able to solve either of those two issues before the secondary backup power source, the batteries, ran out. We're dealing with what is almost the worst case scenario the reactors are prepared for. That the reactors should be considered lost in such a situation is by design. How is it an engineering failure if everything operates as it was designed to? And as far as I can tell, there's still a very real risk of meltdown/containment vessel breach There is, but that is the worst scenario that the reactor is prepared for: that the fuel rods melt through the bottom of the containment vessel. There is secondary containment with a huge heat sink down there. Damage will still be contained. But as they are now pumping seawater into the reactor, we won't get to test that bit of engineering.

lispm 16y ago
I'm not supporting a technology which has these kinds of worst case scenarios happening.
- Confusion 16y ago
  The worst case scenario of driving a car is meeting a drunken or sleepy driver and dying in the resulting crash. This happens thousands of times every year and seems to be an acceptable risk. I don't understand why a technology with large economic damage as the worst case scenario would be less acceptable.
  - lispm 16y ago
    There are scenarios, where a nuclear accident has a damage that makes living in that area impossible for a long time. Then you don't even have a choice whether you want to drive or not. The people of Prypjat had to leave and the region there is uninhabitable for the next 300 years. There are very few car crashes in that area.
- adrianN 16y ago
  Why do so many people only care about the worst case scenario? You should always consider the expected outcomes when arguing for or against a technology. Sure, in the worst case a nuclear reactor can kill thousands and make large areas no longer habitable, but this event has only a tiny probability. On the other hand conventional fossil fuel plants don't have such a dramatic worst case but they produce a constant stream of greenhouse gases and other toxic fumes. How many people died because of smog? How much land will become unusable due to global warming? It's the expected harm we should be worried about, not the worst case scenarios.

dublinclontarf 16y ago

I think that the greatest problem with nuclear is that we are still using reactors that were commisioned over 40 years ago! Why the hell have they not been replaced with newer, safer, more effient reactor designs? I'll tell you why, environmentalists. We need energy, we NEED electricity. Because of this need, and the fact that we can't build any new reactors thanks to the green lobby we are stuck with old reactors(which become riskier with age). We cant turn them off because we need them and are not allowed to replace them. The green movement, because of it's anti-nuclear stance is putting increasing number of lives at risk. If they were worried about safety they would make sure old plants are shut down and replaced with new ones. But they don't want this, they will only accept wind or solar.

foxylad 16y ago
The reason these plants haven't been replaced with newer ones is NOT environmental lobbying - it's because no-one has figured out how to do it economically. Decommissioning a highly radioactive power station is extremely expensive. When these things were built their proponents optimistically expected the decommissioning problem to be have been solved by now - but it hasn't. I fully expect US nuclear power stations to end their useful lives by being sold to shell companies that promptly go bankrupt, leaving the problem (and cost) of rendering them safe to the usual suckers - the taxpayers. For generations. And generations. And generations. Our descendants are going to curse us for this for ever.
- pyre 16y ago
  What is it that is difficult about decommissioning the plants? The leftover fuel/waste? Or is it that the equipment itself has been contaminated. If it's just the fuel/waste, then why can't it be used in one of those whizz-bang reactors that people keep talking about whenever a discussion about nuclear shows up here (or reddit, slashdot, etc)?
  - shareme 16y ago
    difference between waste products that have short lifespans and ones that have long lifespans.. In a power plant near its operational life span end you only have those waste products with long lifespans of radioactivity which no one has figured out how to do a reasonable cost decommission of as remember the plan infrastructure of the reactor vessel, etc also contains those long lifespan radioactive elements form being bombarded for 40+ years.