The Nuclear Debate

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
Right now a lot is going on in the world which has brought the topic to the forefront again...I am opening this thread because INFORMATION is always better than MISINFORMATION...
As a former Quality Control Technician at a Nuclear Power Plant here in the US, and the Son of another, I have been around "The Industry" a lot of my life...

I am not going into much in this first post, as I want this thread to develop on its own...But what is going on at Fukushima Dai-ichi , well, bears discussion...

What we have here is an "Open" Boiling Water Reactor, # 3, (badly) re-designed by G.E., from old General Dynamics Mark 1 specs, being used as a breeder, about to melt down...

Reactors have melted down before...Even here in the U.S. (Yes, I promise ) But not a Plutonium laced breeder...(And we have a 66 year old breeder that is (shh) still operating....)

From what I have seen, this is an unavoidable outcome...
And with magnitude 4.5 or better Quakes occurring every hour or so this could get much worse....But @ best we are looking at a double meltdown..
All six are compromised, Two is severely damaged, Four is nearly destroyed, and Three, the breeder, is the scariest of all...

I have known for 20 years that this would inevitably occur, and my heart goes out to the Japanese people, that it had to occur there.....

Don`t get me wrong, I FULLY SUPPORT Nuclear Power..
It powers the universe, gotta mean something, huh??
But more international oversight is desperately needed..
Hundreds of plants world wide, without any real Q.C.
All hell broke loose in the "Industry" when Japan and G.E. tried to build a reworked Mark 1..(Already nearly a 50 year old design)
And the Choice of location was deemed "Insane"....
But there they are....
Any thoughts?????

[Bruce B]

Debate?

1st) Hillary Clinton
2nd) Barack Obama
3rd) Eric Holder

Maybe

1st) Barack Obama
2nd) Hillary Clinton
3rd) Eric Holder

My way of saying - I don't think I have a voice. But on the other hand, if
you are willing to grant me a platform, I'll formulate an opinion. Although,
it does seem a bit of a novel idea to me.

~

[Bruce B]

I have known for 20 years that this would inevitably occur, and my heart
goes out to the Japanese people, that it had to occur there.....

Don`t get me wrong, I FULLY SUPPORT Nuclear Power..
It powers the universe, gotta mean something, huh??
But more international oversight is desperately needed..
Hundreds of plants world wide, without any real Q.C.
All hell broke loose in the "Industry" when Japan and G.E. tried to build a reworked Mark 1..(Already nearly a 50 year old design)
And the Choice of location was deemed "Insane"....
But there they are....
Any thoughts?????

I don't understand the last paragraph. For example:

All hell broke loose in the "Industry" when Japan and G.E. tried to
build a reworked Mark 1..

Was it the Japanese people, whom your heart goes out to, that caused
hell to break lose?

I don't imagine that. I don't think you were implying it.

I can only speculate if "hell broke lose in the industry", it was because of
MONEY people.

The ruling class and elite don't or didn't make decisions in the best
interests of the peasants? Did they ever?

If the dynamics of decision making is about decisions the money people
make, then this has to be factored in.

~

[starhawk]

Can you explain to me what's bad about Reactor Three? (other than that it's chock full of plutonium and about to kaBOOM, I mean...) I get the concepts of how a nuclear reactor works, but I don't get the practical design stuff -- how the reactors are built.

A "crash course" would be much appreciated (pun notwithstanding).

[Dewbie]

Obviously, the pendulum has swung the other way, as it did in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster: First, no drilling...and now, no nukes.

If design flaws and / or shortcuts weren't present in both cases, neither would likely be on the public radar today.

[Ralph124C41]

I think nuclear power plants and meth labs may have something in common...

[DaveS]

the problem is not that we made so many nuclear plants, its that we made so many people, and THAT is fixable long term. Take away the demand................

[bugman]

would prefer to see a proliferation of low-powered appliances than a proliferation of power plants of nearly any type

et cetera

[artifus]

I get the concepts of how a nuclear reactor works, but I don't get the practical design stuff -- how the reactors are built.

A "crash course" would be much appreciated (pun notwithstanding).

it's basically a giant kettle that uses the most dangerous fuel source currently available to humankind built and maintained by the lowest bidder for profit.

[DaveS]

basically a giant kettle that uses the most dangerous fuel source currently available to humankind built and maintained by the lowest bidder for profit.

That about sums it up....................

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
In simple terms, they put the "gas tank above the carburetor"
In order to save space, always at a premium in Japan, G.E. redesigned the containment to include a "spent rod storage area", basically a large concrete pool, INSIDE to dome, and ABOVE the reactor itself... Spent rods are normally stored @ or below ground level, OUTSIDE the containment..When the cooling system failed, the first thing to go dry was the spent rod pools..
Unit 4 was bad enough, as the pool went dry, the "spent" fuel rods quickly exceeded their casing`s design temperature. As the casing began breaking down, some of the alloys were converted into hydrogen gas, which built up until an ignition source set it off...Boom....Unit 4 was basically leveled, and the cloud of "brownish-yellow dust" you see in that explosion, was full of Uranium...Bad deal...But...
Unit 3...same situation, but with a twist...
#3 was a "breeder reactor"...
Breeders are used for two purposes...To create weapon grade PU-242..OR..
To "re-charge" spent fuel rods, by bringing their count back to 239..The "side effect" of these process`s, is element #94.....Plutonium...So...
Same scenario...Pool goes dry, rods heat up, Boom....
Only one difference....That big old cloud of dust that billowed into the Japanese sky, contained Plutonium...
To give an example...
Iodine 131....Half life...about a week..
Cesium 137...Becomes Barium 137 (stable) in about 30 years..( and is very soluble in water)
Uranium 239..(ie enriched) Half life..About 24 minutes...
Under neutron bombardment, ie in a reactor, U-239 breaks down into:
Neptunium 239..(unstable and not created in nature)..Half life..2 million years..
Then further breakdown leads to:
Plutonium 239..Half life 24,000 years...

So storing "spent" rods containing Pu239 above the reactor core, well...
These reactors were unlike any other "Mark 1`s" in the world...
Add to that the seismic activity in the area...
No wonder the NRC/IAEC was against building these....
But build them they did...
No, I dont blame the Japanese...they were sold a "safe" design, by a major company....G.E., however......

As I said, International Oversight is needed...the IAEC has no real power in individual countries...
Nuclear Power can be done safely...But this was not it...
Jay.....

[headfound]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/31 ... _of_facts/

[puppyluvr]

Hello,

According to information provided by Toyko Electric Power Co., which owns the atomic complex:

There are 3,400 tons of fuel in seven spent fuel pools within the six-reactor plant, including one joint pool storing very old fuel from units 3 and 4. There are 877 tons in five of the reactor cores.

Take a look at the aerial photographs:

Seems a lot of it is missing, huh....
I am not fear-mongering...
I am not saying Fukushima is the "End of the world"...(although its impact on Japan may be catastrophic to a large part of the Island...)

I`m saying there are 442 plants worldwide, with minimal, ineffective oversight from the international community...

Look at SONGS for gods sake...And that is in a major US city...
A few examples...

Chlelyabinsk-40

In the fall of 1957, the cooling system around a vessel containing up to 80 tons of solid nuclear waste failed. Radioactivity quickly heated the waste to the point where the container exploded, blowing its 160-ton concrete lid into the air along with a massive cloud of very dirty radioactive fallout. Approximately 10,000 people were evacuated from the affected region and about 270,000 in total were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. At least 200 deaths from cancer can be directly attributed to the accident and around 30 town names vanished from Soviet maps.

(Read....80 tons...refer above...4270 tons....roughly 700 per building...)
(Expect some impact from the explosions???)

Bohunice Nuclear Power Plant in Jaslovské Bohunice, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia)

Construction of A1 began in 1958 and took an amazing 16 years! The untested design of the KS-150 reactor soon revealed numerous flaws that led to over 30 unplanned shutdowns in the first few years of operation. Two workers were killed by a gas leak in early 1976. Just over a year later a botched fuel changing procedure compounded by human error – workers forgot to remove silica gel packs from the new fuel rods – resulted in a core cooling emergency. It’s expected that ongoing efforts to decontaminate and fully decommission the A1 reactor won’t be completed until sometime in 2033.

SL-1 Idaho USA

One of the earliest major nuclear power plant accidents occurred on January 3, 1961 when a steam explosion and meltdown killed 3 workers at Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One (SL-1). The reactor, located at the National Reactor Testing Station 40 miles (60km) west of Idaho Falls, Idaho, was of a now-discontinued design that featured a single large, central control rod.
A maintenance procedure that involved withdrawing the control rod about 4 inches (10cm) somehow went horribly wrong: the rod was lifted 26 inches (65cm) and the nuclear pile went critical. Three plant workers were killed in the resulting explosion and radiation release; one man was found impaled to the reactor building’s ceiling by one of the reactor’s shield plugs. About 1,100 Curies of nuclear fission products were released into the surrounding environment but any damage was mitigated by the station’s remote location in the Idaho desert.

THTR-300 4 May 1986

Accident caused by the release of radioactive dust caused by a human error during a blockage of pebbles in a pipe. Trying to restart the pebble movement by increased gas flow led to mobilization of dust, always present in PBRs (Pebble Bed Reactors) and—due to an erroneously open valve—to an unfiltered dust release into the environment.
The THTR management originally charged the Chernobyl fallout for all the contamination in the surrounding, until the presence of Pa-233 in the vicinity of the THTR-300 was detected: Pa-233 (Protactinium) is not formed in Uranium reactors as Chernobyl, but only in thorium reactors. Thus, step by step, the THTR management reported the whole truth. The activity in the vicinity of the THTR-300 was finally found to result to 25 % from Chernobyl and to 75 % from THTR-300.

How about this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster
More here:
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Reports/Ja ... ents.shtml
Starting to see my point yet.....
And I realize that 58% of all nuclear accidents worldwide, have happened in the US...

[artifus]

Japan Nuclear Crisis: Sawdust, shredded newspaper, "diaper absorbent" fail to soak up radioactive water

whatever is happening, it's happening. guess we just deal with the fall-out now. pun intended.

[nooby]

What is that word and how do you spell it? Transparance Transparence Transparans sorry you get what I mean.

that they sop hiding fact to us so we can all make "informed" voting for the future.

Energy is not the only issue.

Fresh water will be the next big thing that will create fights about territory with running water that can be relied on to provide fresh water.

And the biggest and morally the most difficult to solve ethically are how to reduce the population so the human specie not only survive but allow some nature and wild life to still be around and that is incredibly difficult to solve and in a dear hurry too.

We sure are too many to live a quality life now on Earth and to go to Mars and terra forming that planet cost too much energy and effort too.

These issues are so easily going into wild strife and flame wars so I prefer to not be active on them but just to share this view for this time.

So I bow out gracefully I hope.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,

shredded newspaper, "diaper absorbent" fail to soak up radioactive water

I know, right...The poor bastards are wearing paper suits taped to their ankles, paper masks, and using sawdust...

And from their statements they are not being treated well either...
And these men are probably going to die from this effort....
Sad.....

[artifus]

What is that word and how do you spell it? Transparance Transparence Transparans sorry you get what I mean.

that they sop hiding fact to us so we can all make "informed" voting for the future.

Energy is not the only issue.

Fresh water will be the next big thing that will create fights about territory with running water that can be relied on to provide fresh water.

And the biggest and morally the most difficult to solve ethically are how to reduce the population so the human specie not only survive but allow some nature and wild life to still be around and that is incredibly difficult to solve and in a dear hurry too.

We sure are too many to live a quality life now on Earth and to go to Mars and terra forming that planet cost too much energy and effort too.

These issues are so easily going into wild strife and flame wars so I prefer to not be active on them but just to share this view for this time.

So I bow out gracefully I hope.

transparency is right, only then can we move on as a race, as bucky said we need to start telling each other the truth. it's a fair (re) distribution of resources/wealth thing. clever folk have done the math. we can work it out. here's hoping.

[puppyluvr]

Hello,

And the biggest and morally the most difficult to solve ethically are how to reduce the population

Ironic...considering the thread....

[nooby]

As I promised I don't want to be active here. Too much strife could start up very easily.

AFAIK but maybe I am not informed but the current wild guess is some 2 billion people for to live on what land and running water can provide in teh long run and now we some three times that many and growing to 9 billion statistically so it is disaster coming with the uproar in Cairo and Libya and the other areas just small such compared with the desperation when we get into fight for fresh water.

To die due to diarreah is not something any of us want.

Yes I am pessimistic but everything point to that we fail to do anything about our over using of resources until it is too late.

[artifus]

if true, could possibly be yet another media myth to play the markets and world economy. this is bigger than the original topic which is just another symptom of the underlying global problem. the elephant in the room. refer to my original post on the subject '...lowest bidder...profit...' etc

*edit* posted before nooby's above post.