3 ms·
The Fukushima exclusion zone has a 30 km radius, where half of the circle is land area. The Fukushima reactor meltdowns happened because active cooling failed,
by tpmx 6y ago
The Fukushima exclusion zone has a 30 km radius, where half of the circle is land area.
The Fukushima reactor meltdowns happened because active cooling failed, after both electric power and emergency generators failed becaused of the flooding from the tsunami.
These reactors were of a very old 1960s design that depended on active cooling to avoid melting down. This is not the case with newer reactors utilizing passive safety features, based on things such as gravity (to pull the fuel rods out in case of power failure).
Still: There were zero deaths caused by radiation during this incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
- WanderPanda 6y agoI wouldn‘t be surprised if certain states would even face a gravity outage at some point
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- tpmx 6y agoThat does seem to be the unscientific position of your country, unfortunately. Please stop burning coal.
- ErikVandeWater 6y ago> emergency generators failed becaused of the flooding from the tsunami. Exactly. Putting emergency generators below ground when the Tsunami levees were already insufficient was a boneheaded error that could have been fixed any year between the end of construction and 2011. That's 40 years of ignoring a problem a 10 year old would point out.
- tpmx 6y agoThey believed the wall was sufficient for possible tsunamis. It wasn't. Having a reactor design with a passive safety feature involving the fuel rods would have avoided this meltdown, and many other extreme cases that could possibly occur in the future.
- ErikVandeWater 6y agoSure, but I'm also confident this level of incompetence (not exclusive to Japan) can find ways to defeat new designs (for example, improper installation of the design).
- tpmx 6y agoI think increased productization/de-fragmentation of the nuclear plant industry will make things so much safer. Instead of building 2-5 of each reactor design, build thousands. Sort of like with passenger aircraft. Makes things cheaper and so much more idiot-proof.
- neuronic 6y agoThis is also business as usual which is why we need to end nuclear as soon as possible. It's not like Fukushima was the only reactor with a large incident either.
- numpad0 6y agoIt likely have been politically difficult to admit that a crucial safety feature won’t work/couldn’t have worked in the form it is/was built
- Supermancho 6y ago> Still: There were zero deaths caused by radiation during this incident That's an official attribution. The amount of radiation sent into the ocean was measurable worldwide. This number is decidedly not 0, in a realistic sense. I don't see the rationale behind pretending this isn't as bad as it is in any community. https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/radiation-from-fukushima-disaster-still-affects-32-million-japanese https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/radiation-from-fukushima-disaste... https://world.wng.org/2014/09/locals_suffer_long_term_effects_of_fukushima_meltdown https://world.wng.org/2014/09/locals_suffer_long_term_effect...
- tpmx 6y agoI guess you knew what was coming but still: The realistic alternative (coal power) is way worse. So many more deaths. Just with ongoing operations, no accidents.
- hilbertseries 6y agoThe alternative is natural gas these days.
- tpmx 6y agoPlease tell that to Japan (Coal: 33% of electricity) and Germany (Coal: 29% of electricity). Numbers from 2019.
- Supermancho 6y ago> I guess you knew what was coming but still I'm not sure what this is a reference to. I was pointing out a discrepancy about the accuracy of the article, not the relative safety of power generation methods.