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The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists
- NickM 16y agoIt would be nice if they posted a diff between their version and the original, if only for the people who already read the original and just want to see what changes were made.
- gregschlom 16y agoHere you go: Original: http://pastebin.com/UnCYDKbu http://pastebin.com/UnCYDKbu Modified: http://pastebin.com/1BAV3A4s http://pastebin.com/1BAV3A4s Good online tool to compare both: http://text-compare.com/ http://text-compare.com/ Sorry, the tool above doesn't offer a direct link to the diff, so you'll have to do the copy/paste by yourself. Or you could use pastebin's own diff, but it's less clear, in my opinion: http://pastebin.com/diff.php?i=1BAV3A4s http://pastebin.com/diff.php?i=1BAV3A4s
- joe_the_user 16y agoYour last link unreadable. I think one would need a side-by-side comparison.
- brown9-2 16y agoTry this for a side-by-side diff: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/171026/japan-nuclear-diff.html http://dl.dropbox.com/u/171026/japan-nuclear-diff.html I produced this using a feature of WinMerge (graphical diff utility for Windows, not too shabby) which can produce an HTML report of a diff. The revisions seem pretty significant.
- marshray 16y agoor: how I learned to stop not worrying and love the daiichi. Very interesting, thanks.
- wtracy 16y agoIdle speculation from someone who is not a nuclear or a chemical engineer: I'm suddenly wondering if the pressure relief valves for the primary coolant system could be designed with ignition circuits. The idea would be to burn off any hydrogen in a controlled fashion as it exits the coolant system, rather than giving it a chance to accumulate and later detonate. It would be similar to the way oil rigs burn off unwanted natural gas. No doubt there's some very good reason for not doing this that I'm just not aware of. :-P
- brown9-2 16y agoI believe the hydrogen that accumulates contains some radition (although mostly harmless) itself: http://mitnse.com/2011/03/15/explanation-of-hydrogen-explosions-at-units-1-and-3/ http://mitnse.com/2011/03/15/explanation-of-hydrogen-explosi... (sixth paragraph)
- arram 16y agoAnother article mentioned hydrogen wouldn't ignite with steam present.
- bdonlan 16y agoBy the point you're producing hydrogen, you're already well beyond your design limits... Moreover, they've already lost primary, secondary, and tertiary power, so what exactly is going to run those ignition circuits? A gas flame near the reactor is just trading one source of explosion for another. And if they _did_ have power, they'd be running the primary (or secondary) coolant loops, and wouldn't have any hydrogen gas generation.
- RandyHelzerman 16y agoOr how I learned to stop worrying and love category 6 nuclear disasters. This is typical MIT hubris. Nobody knew om march 12 what was happening, even the operators, and even now nobody knows how bad thing are or how bad things will get.
- icarus_drowning 16y ago>This is typical MIT hubris. I am getting tired of asking this, but which facts are wrong in the revised article?
- joe_the_user 16y agoI don't know what is wrong with the article since I am not an expert in this. I do know some of the claim have been contradicted by other experts, however. One that I haven't seen agreement with is the claim that if the fuel achieves a full melt down, the chances of that melted fuel escaping are low. Most reports I've read aren't so optimistic to say the least. Another point that is not wrong but simply unmentioned is the danger of high-level nuclear material stored around the plant. When spent nuclear fuel loses it's cooling water, it seems capable of going into meltdown also. There currently seems to be considerable worry about this happening. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Possible_damage_at_Fukushima_Daiichi_2_1503111.html http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Possible_damage_at_Fuku... (updated ) "Concern is growing over the status of fuel cooling ponds at units 4, 5 and 6."
- icarus_drowning 16y agoOne of the primary reasons the spent fuel problem is not mentioned in the article is because it became an issue fairly recently with the fire in the #4 building. Note that the date on the article is 3/12, whereas the fire and concerns in #4 are fairly recent, occurring on 3/15 and 3/16. ++Also, the spent fuel and the reactors themselves are separate problems, so I fail to see why an article about the reactors in under obligation to mention them.++ UPDATE: I concede that the article should be updated to include the #4 fire, as that is very pertinent (see below).
- erickhill 16y agoMeanwhile, 2 days after this article was published on March 13: "A small crew of technicians, braving radiation and fire, became the only people remaining at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Tuesday — and perhaps Japan’s last chance of preventing a broader nuclear catastrophe." http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16workers.html?_r=1&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16workers.html?...
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Element_ 16y agoThey have just been pulled out because of increased radiation. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2330500 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2330500
- dicemoose 16y agoThey're still there and working on the plant. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/latest-updates-on-japans-nuclear-crisis-and-earthquake-aftermath-2/#core-group-of-workers-remain-at-plant http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/latest-updates-o...
- whyenot 16y agoCNN and MSNBC are now reporting that all workers have now been evacuated from Fukushima due to rising radiation levels.
- guscost 16y agoSo, there's still nobody hurt then? I hope so.
- 13Psibies 16y agoThere are reports of two missing: http://www.hindustantimes.com/Fresh-fire-at-Japan-nuclear-reactor-radiation-fears-rise/Article1-673974.aspx http://www.hindustantimes.com/Fresh-fire-at-Japan-nuclear-re...
- guscost 16y agoWell, there are thousands missing elsewhere, I just hope that anyone alive gets found.
- podperson 16y ago5 dead, 2 missing, 22 injured (including some severely). http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16workers.html?scp=1&sq=reactor%2022&st=cse http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16workers.html?...
- gojomo 16y agoThis was quite a 'walk-back' of the original headline. It started as "Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors" on one site. The title is now "Modified version of original post written by Josef Oehmen", with the content modified and moved to another site. It also now includes a disclaimer "Note that the title of the original blog does not reflect the views of the authors of the site." Perhaps they should just come out and say, "we're experts and we're worried".
- kragen 16y agoUnfortunately, this version is not as entertaining to read. It does seem much more accurate, though.
- Estragon 16y agoYes, I'm really grateful to them for cutting through the crap. It's nice to have a relatively confident sense of what's going on.
- basugasubaku 16y agoIs there anything in the article to actually support the headline "we're worried"?
- guscost 16y agoI would guess they're worried about some unknown or unprecedented contingency caused by the unique circumstances, as any rational person should be. Still, this has not happened and there is no scientifically sound reason that it should happen, based on our experience.
- angus77 16y agoJust remember that the "original" was a blog post quoting an email posted by someone other than the writer---the "original" title was not the author of the email's.
- woodpanel 16y ago
- colinprince 16y agomitnse.com was registered just two days ago? With no track record what is the credibility of this site? From whois: Registered through: Automattic Domain Name: MITNSE.COM Created on: 13-Mar-11 Expires on: 13-Mar-12 Last Updated on: 13-Mar-11
- brown9-2 16y agomitnse.com is linked to from http://web.mit.edu/nse/ http://web.mit.edu/nse/. I imagine it would be either hard to fake that or it'd be noticed quickly if a MIT department's website was hacked.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- dkersten 16y agoOn the about page, they also state that its linked and that they registered a new domain because they wanted to host on wordpress.com instead of dealing with large traffic themselves and apparently wordpress.com won't work on a sub-domain (or something along those lines).
- rglovejoy 16y agoYou left out: Registrant: MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 United States and: Administrative Contact: Subbiah, Ilavenil subbiah@mit.edu MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 United States 617-576-0593 Fax -- Edit: fixed formatting
- Duff 16y agoI'm really kind of sick of listening to people talk about how everything is hunky-dory. I heard one supposed expert on CNN basically state that a nuclear meltdown is no big deal. The lesson to learn here is when a government tells you everything is ok regarding an event with potential regional impact, get the hell out of town. I'm assuming the reactors are melting down and are out of control. Pumping seawater in may be keeping the thing from blowing up, but obviously isn't cooling the reactors down. So what happens now? Do they keep melting down indefinitely, or do the reactions eventually fizzle out?
- wallflower 16y agoThe worst case scenarios are bad: If one reactor gets so bad (meltdown) forcing permanent evacuation - all the remaining reactors won't be maintainable/saveable and thus in a domino effect - if one goes, all go (meltdown). It is unlikely that a meltdown through the core will occur but if that happens - the scary term China Syndrome - the melted radioactive fuel will melt through steel, concrete, rock, maybe even bedrock. For the USA and rest of the world: Irradiated food supplies will be a real concern if hundreds of tons of radioactive melted fuel merge with the outside environment To put it in perspective: If you were in Japan near Tokyo or closer to the affected nuclear plant, would you be more skeptical of the seemingly contradictory news coming out.
- forensic 16y agoWhy would one meltdown cause evacuation? The meltdown would still be contained
- marshray 16y agoWhy would one meltdown cause evacuation? Because of fire, explosions, and excessive radiation exposure to workers. The meltdown would still be contained Containment is believed to have failed in reactor 2 and likely 3 at this point. Smoke or steam has been billowing from number 3 for hours now and its fuel is in the reactor, not the spent fuel pool.
- 16y ago
- bgrainger 16y agoOne small nitpick: if earthquakes were still measured on the Richter scale, the difference between 8.2 and 8.9 would be 5 times (as stated in the corrected article). However, the USGS uses the Moment magnitude scale (M_w, see http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/glossary.php#magnitude http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/glossary.php#magnitud... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale for details), so the difference between an 8.2 and an 8.9 is 11.2 times--more than double the stated increase. And now that the magnitude has been adjusted to 9.0 (see http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0001xgp.php http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us...), the amount of energy released was 15.8 times more than an 8.2 earthquake.
- wazoox 16y agoAFAIK, all reports of the magnitude were on the Richter scale.
- wtallis 16y agoI'd suspect that at least half of the journalists reporting on this don't even know that there is a replacement for the Richter scale. Particularly with translation involved, it's pretty easy for one publication to drop the reference to the moment scale and the next publication to reattach the Richter name to the number.
- kitsune_ 16y agoThis is BULLSHIT, the guy (Oehmen) is a mechanical engineer with a management focus. He worked at my alma mater (ETHZ). His field of experties is supply chain risk management. Look up his papers, he isn't a nuclear physicist. I'd say he's about as qualified to make a comment on the situation as I am. The "essay" by Oehmen was first published by a notorious nuclear lobbyist, Jason Morgan. Look at this: http://nuclearfissionary.com/about/ http://nuclearfissionary.com/about/ Nuclear Energy suffers from a poor public image. We’re here to change all that. For decades the nuclear energy industry has been under attack by antinuclear activists both organized and unorganized. Fear and panic have been their call signs and with little regard for science or the impact on civilization, they have remained unchecked for years And more, from that page: Jason Morgan A corporate finance and accounting professional who has great personal interest in the future of the world’s energy crisis. Jason is looking forward to utilizing his financial and economic data analysis skills to shed light on nuclear energy. In short: FUD by nuclear energy lobbyists.
- rimantas 16y ago> In short: FUD by nuclear energy lobbyists. So mechanical engineer cannot possibly say anything truthful about nuclear energy? The fact still remains: nuclear energy is the safest and cleanest we have for now. So far we had what, three serious incidents with total number of causalities of 35, all in Chernobyl. Sure it affected much more people but still: the single incident at Sayano-Sushenskoye hydroelectric power plant claimed 75 lives. How about Banqiao Dam? According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province,[5] in the province, approximately 26,000 people died from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine. In addition, about 5,960,000 buildings collapsed, and 11 million residents were affected. And thats not counting all the incidents in coal and oil industry (and the fact that burning coal releases more radiation for the same amount of energy produced than nuclear power plants).
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- borism 16y ago
- adsr 16y agoI still don't understand why this would be better than official sources of what has taken place. Sure for a background on the design of the plant in laymans terms, but. The event described is of what happened at the 12th, since then there has been more incidents, as noted at the very end of the article and a lot of it is unknown still.
- retrogradeorbit 16y agoHe doesn't even get the units right, saying "231 micro sieverts" but specifying no time window. Per day? Per hour? Per minute? A decent physicist would _never_ make that error.
- cperciva 16y agoI've seen lots of nuclear physicists say "micro sieverts" when they mean "micro sieverts per hour". Apparently radiation levels are normally cited in hourly dosages, so people get lazy and don't say the "per hour" part...
- JonoW 16y agoTo any nuclear experts, question I've got: The Fukushima plant is a 1970's design I believe, what would the situation be if the plant was as modern a design as possible, would the situation there be different?
- Gamble180 16y agoHi, Jack Gamble here, editor and founder of Nuclear Fissionary. Would kitsune_ care to post a link to where my website allegedly published the story by Dr Oehmen? The reason I asked is, though I agree with the papers content, Nuclear Fissionary never published it. So basically, kitsune, you're a liar. As for the attack on Jay Morgan, we're getting a kick out of that. Jay likes to describe himself as a Corporate Bean Counter, but he doesn't work in the nuclear industry like I do. I'm a nuclear engineer, not a lobbyist. I suppose you could describe me as an ADVOCATE for nuclear energy, but I'm no lobbyist. But if you know of someone was willing to pay me a lobbyists salary to do what I do, I'd gladly take it. Until then, I shall bask in the tens of dollars that Google Adsense has paid out to my website in the last 13 months. Of course, you're all welcome to come by nuclearfissionary.com and ask me technical questions about what's happening in Japan. Just don't expect me to give you the kind of chicken-little song and dance you're hearing in the media. I don't do fear, I'm a science guy.