4 ms·

You're glossing over the fact that Fukushima happened because the power company never should have been allowed to construct or operate a plant in such a locatio

You're glossing over the fact that Fukushima happened because the power company never should have been allowed to construct or operate a plant in such a location. When they were allowed to build the plant, emergency systems were not protected from tsunami damage/flooding. If the infrastructure around emergency cooling had been protected, then none of this would have happened. When the tsunami happened, both the power company and government appeared to have no emergency action plans or preparedness for the obvious scenario of the emergency cooling system failing. When they were caught with no plans and an unfolding catastrophe, instead of being open and seeking assistance from anyone they could, they clammed up and hid as much as possible. It was a disaster predicated on incompetence and arrogance at every step by every organization involved, up to and including the most senior Japanese government officials who sat by and let the TEPCO bungle everything. So yes, given such a systemic failure - much of it enabled by too-cozy relationships, incompetence, and (likely) corruption - I think it's quite wise to say "well, we're not qualified to do more of this." Solar and wind don't have anywhere near the operating expenses, supply chain requirements, or dangers nuclear power has. They're highly distributed. And nuclear power is increasingly unreliable due to (cough cough) extreme weather events from climate change, though usually this is more inane stuff like cooling water sources drying up, or becoming too hot, or clogging up from invasive species that are able to survive where they weren't before.

throw10920 4y ago
This is a really good point - what measure of assurance do we (or, rather, the Japanese public) have that Japanese government officials and power company execs won't make the same mistakes again? Have any of the responsible parties been penalized at all? Even if the technology advances, if the problem was the people last time, technology alone won't be enough.
- lkbm 4y ago
  I don't know about individuals in the government, but the government was held liable for some amount (seemingly <$10MM)[0][1] and top company executives were fined tens of billions[2]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/17/japanese-government-liable-negligence-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-disaster https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/17/japanese-gover... [1] https://archive.vn/UnavD https://archive.vn/UnavD [2] https://www.hazardexonthenet.net/article/191735/Former-Fukushima-executives-ordered-to-pay--80-billion-in-fines.aspx https://www.hazardexonthenet.net/article/191735/Former-Fukus...
- fomine3 4y ago
  Before the accident, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, who promotes nuclear, also did regulation. It shouldn't be. After the accident, Nuclear Regulation Authority was made. They inspect nuclear plants strictly so some plants is stopped despite energy company want to operate.
acidburnNSA 4y ago
Your first two paragraphs seem to contradict each other. I guess I disagree with the first and agree with the second. If you're going to build a plant that requires active backup cooling in a tsunami zone then you should protect your backup cooling system from tsunamis. It's ok to build nuclear fission reactors in challenging locations. We have many that run underwater and a few dozen that run in outer space. We ran one under the ice sheet of Greenland and one in Antarctica. As you say, you just gotta build the necessary infrastructure.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  There have been no nuke reactors in space. (RTG does not count.) The ones in Antarctica and Greenland were notable failures.
  - m4rtink 4y ago
    We don't have any currently operating nuclear reactors in space right now but there were quite a few in the past - a couple test satellites from the US and a couple dozen active radar satellites for ship hunting from the USSR: https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/us-a.htm https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/us-a.htm While none are operational right now, the highly radioactive reactors cores that didn't burn up over Canada by accident do remain a reasonably stable disposal orbit today. :-)
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      Conceded, a few were operated by USSR. The one that crashed in Canada generated quite a fuss, for reasons. The film safe from Skylab that crashed in Australia made less.
      - m4rtink 4y ago
        Long term, we will certainly need nuclear reactors in space - possibly not necessarily in Earth/Luna space that much, but already on Mars and especially the Asteroid Belt solar panel are really becoming too heavy to provide any useful power. Thankfully reactors in space have a lot of benefits compared to terrestrial use - ships and space stations can use the so called shadow-shield to protect the ship/station in its shadow and just let the radiation go into the void of space in all other direction. Makes docking a bit tricky as well as running multiple reactors (you need to take neutron cross-propagation into account), but should be still doable. For surface or asteroid stations - there shouldby plenty of mass for any shielding and no biosphere to contaminate or possibly not even any hydrosphere or atmosphere to spread radioactive particles - on the other hand, this also makes cooling harder.
eldaisfish 4y ago
Solar are wind are also increasingly unreliable due to the same extreme weather events. It is truly mind boggling how easily all legitimate criticism of wind and solar are brushed aside by the belief that they are the future. With changing weather patterns, wind turbines are exposed to more ice events - events during cold weather that cause the shutdown of hundreds of wind farms. And no, i am not referring to wind turbines being affected by the cold, this is specifically wind turbines being affected by temperatures around freezing where ice forms. And what of long periods where winds speeds are too low across half a continent - a la the UK and western europe very recently? Same with solar - the world’s largest power grids are mostly not tropical. There will likely come a future where continents are powered by wind and solar, but that future is not tomorrow nor is it in ten years time. In the meantime, we continue to hurtle towards a climate disaster while quibbling about the problems of nuclear power - a technology that has the potential to get us to that sustainable future.
jchw 4y ago
Fair point. I hope they can resolve the systemic issues. Just so we're clear though, the location itself isn't inherently a problem as far as I know. There was in fact a power plant closer to the epicenter of the disaster that survived just fine, which is pretty impressive given how cataclysmic of an event it was.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  That one survived solely because one man put his career on the line, over and over, ensuring that it would. Depending on such devotion is not sustainable. There is no possibility that any new construction would observe the same standards as that engineer. It might try, but management would overrule it.

throw10920 4y ago

This is a really good point - what measure of assurance do we (or, rather, the Japanese public) have that Japanese government officials and power company execs won't make the same mistakes again? Have any of the responsible parties been penalized at all? Even if the technology advances, if the problem was the people last time, technology alone won't be enough.

lkbm 4y ago
I don't know about individuals in the government, but the government was held liable for some amount (seemingly <$10MM)[0][1] and top company executives were fined tens of billions[2]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/17/japanese-government-liable-negligence-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-disaster https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/17/japanese-gover... [1] https://archive.vn/UnavD https://archive.vn/UnavD [2] https://www.hazardexonthenet.net/article/191735/Former-Fukushima-executives-ordered-to-pay--80-billion-in-fines.aspx https://www.hazardexonthenet.net/article/191735/Former-Fukus...
fomine3 4y ago
Before the accident, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, who promotes nuclear, also did regulation. It shouldn't be. After the accident, Nuclear Regulation Authority was made. They inspect nuclear plants strictly so some plants is stopped despite energy company want to operate.

acidburnNSA 4y ago

Your first two paragraphs seem to contradict each other. I guess I disagree with the first and agree with the second. If you're going to build a plant that requires active backup cooling in a tsunami zone then you should protect your backup cooling system from tsunamis. It's ok to build nuclear fission reactors in challenging locations. We have many that run underwater and a few dozen that run in outer space. We ran one under the ice sheet of Greenland and one in Antarctica. As you say, you just gotta build the necessary infrastructure.

moloch-hai 4y ago
There have been no nuke reactors in space. (RTG does not count.) The ones in Antarctica and Greenland were notable failures.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  We don't have any currently operating nuclear reactors in space right now but there were quite a few in the past - a couple test satellites from the US and a couple dozen active radar satellites for ship hunting from the USSR: https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/us-a.htm https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/us-a.htm While none are operational right now, the highly radioactive reactors cores that didn't burn up over Canada by accident do remain a reasonably stable disposal orbit today. :-)
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    Conceded, a few were operated by USSR. The one that crashed in Canada generated quite a fuss, for reasons. The film safe from Skylab that crashed in Australia made less.
    - m4rtink 4y ago
      Long term, we will certainly need nuclear reactors in space - possibly not necessarily in Earth/Luna space that much, but already on Mars and especially the Asteroid Belt solar panel are really becoming too heavy to provide any useful power. Thankfully reactors in space have a lot of benefits compared to terrestrial use - ships and space stations can use the so called shadow-shield to protect the ship/station in its shadow and just let the radiation go into the void of space in all other direction. Makes docking a bit tricky as well as running multiple reactors (you need to take neutron cross-propagation into account), but should be still doable. For surface or asteroid stations - there shouldby plenty of mass for any shielding and no biosphere to contaminate or possibly not even any hydrosphere or atmosphere to spread radioactive particles - on the other hand, this also makes cooling harder.

eldaisfish 4y ago

Solar are wind are also increasingly unreliable due to the same extreme weather events. It is truly mind boggling how easily all legitimate criticism of wind and solar are brushed aside by the belief that they are the future. With changing weather patterns, wind turbines are exposed to more ice events - events during cold weather that cause the shutdown of hundreds of wind farms. And no, i am not referring to wind turbines being affected by the cold, this is specifically wind turbines being affected by temperatures around freezing where ice forms. And what of long periods where winds speeds are too low across half a continent - a la the UK and western europe very recently? Same with solar - the world’s largest power grids are mostly not tropical. There will likely come a future where continents are powered by wind and solar, but that future is not tomorrow nor is it in ten years time. In the meantime, we continue to hurtle towards a climate disaster while quibbling about the problems of nuclear power - a technology that has the potential to get us to that sustainable future.

jchw 4y ago

Fair point. I hope they can resolve the systemic issues. Just so we're clear though, the location itself isn't inherently a problem as far as I know. There was in fact a power plant closer to the epicenter of the disaster that survived just fine, which is pretty impressive given how cataclysmic of an event it was.

moloch-hai 4y ago
That one survived solely because one man put his career on the line, over and over, ensuring that it would. Depending on such devotion is not sustainable. There is no possibility that any new construction would observe the same standards as that engineer. It might try, but management would overrule it.