4 ms·

There's two things going on for nuclear plants in Japan: - they need water, tons and tons of water, and there's only mountains inland. So any nuclear plant wil

There's two things going on for nuclear plants in Japan: - they need water, tons and tons of water, and there's only mountains inland. So any nuclear plant will be on the shore, where tsunamis will hit first. - there is no safe place from natural disaster. Even building a miracle plant on a mountain top would still leave it vulnerable to seisms, typhoons and land slides. All things considered, the main issue is how much the nuclear plant is suppose to be resistant to tsunamis and earthquakes, and the higher the threshold the crazier the expenses become. For Fukushima, it was a classic example of design failure (failsafes were supposed to work except they were badly designed, and there was too few of them), and no proper reaction to earlier warnings of the system in place being too weak. In a way, all the blame is clearly on TEPCO however we put it: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1426 https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1426

pintxo 3y ago
> https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1426 https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1426 Given the learning checkpoint below that page alone, I have to question the quality of the information presented there. How can "It is hard to assess how much money to spend on those policies; it might depend on the budget, priorities, politics, etc." be the correct/useful answer to "How should governments address low-probability hazard events with potentially devastating consequences? How would you assess how much money is too much money to spend to reduce the likelihood of a highly unlikely event? Please select the correct answer." I mean, it's such a generic answer, it feels like it's been LLM generated.
pintxo 3y ago
> For Fukushima, it was a classic example of design failure (failsafes were supposed to work except they were badly designed, and there was too few of them), and no proper reaction to earlier warnings of the system in place being too weak. In a way, all the blame is clearly on TEPCO however we put it: There's always at least two parties in a regulated environment like nuclear power. The government setting the baseline requirements and the operator adhering to them. I have not enough inside to say who to blame. On the other hand TEPCO is state owned, right, so maybe you should never set your own requirements when it comes to nuclear safety?

pintxo 3y ago

> https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1426 https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/1426 Given the learning checkpoint below that page alone, I have to question the quality of the information presented there. How can "It is hard to assess how much money to spend on those policies; it might depend on the budget, priorities, politics, etc." be the correct/useful answer to "How should governments address low-probability hazard events with potentially devastating consequences? How would you assess how much money is too much money to spend to reduce the likelihood of a highly unlikely event? Please select the correct answer." I mean, it's such a generic answer, it feels like it's been LLM generated.

pintxo 3y ago

> For Fukushima, it was a classic example of design failure (failsafes were supposed to work except they were badly designed, and there was too few of them), and no proper reaction to earlier warnings of the system in place being too weak. In a way, all the blame is clearly on TEPCO however we put it: There's always at least two parties in a regulated environment like nuclear power. The government setting the baseline requirements and the operator adhering to them. I have not enough inside to say who to blame. On the other hand TEPCO is state owned, right, so maybe you should never set your own requirements when it comes to nuclear safety?