Reply to: The future of Nuclear power

[Mich the Tester]

I agree with George on this. Well not all of it, but the general thrust that Nuclear is still cleaner and safer than coal.

Japan nuclear crisis should not carry weight in atomic energy debate | George Monbiot | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Heap loads of hysteria in most newspapers, especially the German newspapers, who are now expecting Tsunami's to go sweeping across their landlocked country.
Let's recap the death toll of this catastrophe is ?

The answer is 0.

The 50 workers have been subjected to no more than twice the normal dose they get anyway.

...and the radioactivity, all short bursts that decay due to irradiated steam.

May I suggest that those workers who smoke, stop smoking and then increase their life expectancy by about 15 years. I think 40% of the Japanese population smoke.

Germany has had problems with major floods in the past. Different, but worth considering nonetheless.

[TimberWolf]

You might like to get your news from a less crap source.

Progress by on-site workers

A Tepco worker was taken to hospital after collapsing and experiencing chest pains.

Hmm, could be anything.

Two Tepco workers felt ill whilst working in the control rooms of Fukushima Daiichi

Food poisoning?

One Tepco worker working within the reactor building of Fukushima Daiichi unit 3 during "vent work" was taken to hospital after receiving radiation exposure exceeding 100 mSv, a level deemed acceptable in emergency situations by some national nuclear safety regulators.

"Over 100", probably 101.

An unspecified number of firemen who were exposed to radiation are under investigation.

[Moscow Mule]

Japan tsunami: Fukushima Fifty 'on suicide mission' to battle nuclear meltdown | Mail Online

Brave people. They will be remembered. Unlike those who claim they'll just lose "2 years of their life".

You might like to get your news from a less crap source.

Progress by on-site workers

[AtW]

Japan tsunami: Fukushima Fifty 'on suicide mission' to battle nuclear meltdown | Mail Online

Brave people. They will be remembered. Unlike those who claim they'll just lose "2 years of their life".

[EternalOptimist]

Well, so far it seems that, whatever "plain stupid" practices they were employing, a nuclear installation located close to the epicentre of the largest quake ever measured in Japan has survived with no major loss of life or radioactive catastrophe. Obviously it isn't "nothing to worry about" but it's not conclusive evidence that nuclear power is a disaster waiting to happen either, although the media have had a field day with it and will no doubt continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Hopefully everything will start to look a little less bleak once power is restored...

BBC News - Japan quake: Power line laid to Fukushima nuclear plant

hah. a red herring.

a lot of things are done with an eyeball on what will happen if it all goes horribly wrong. Most things are built to be fail safe.
just because the stations have failed safely so far, is no reason to get cocky. they should have, and the fact that there is any doubt is the real concern

apart from that, I too am optimistic

[shaunbhoy]

Do you read the Daily Mail?

No. But he looks at the pictures.

HTH

[doodab]

Well, so far it seems that, whatever "plain stupid" practices they were employing, a nuclear installation located close to the epicentre of the largest quake ever measured in Japan has survived with no major loss of life or radioactive catastrophe. Obviously it isn't "nothing to worry about" but it's not conclusive evidence that nuclear power is a disaster waiting to happen either, although the media have had a field day with it and will no doubt continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Hopefully everything will start to look a little less bleak once power is restored...

BBC News - Japan quake: Power line laid to Fukushima nuclear plant

[Moscow Mule]

Quiet.

A few nuclear reactors next to each other proper blown up, workers struggle to cool them for days - finally have to leave because radiation will pretty much kill them in a few hours (like those who were send to deal with Chernobyl with spades without explanations). The crisis still continues and there is no obvious end to it anytime soon.

So this makes my position is indefensible but the guys who claim "it's all right they will just die 2 years earlier" have perfectly defensible point of view.

Do you read the Daily Mail?

Your grasp of reality is shocking for somebody who manages to run a seemingly successful business.

[xoggoth]

Many of the problems were preventable. The Japanese practices were plain stupid, close packing of spent materials all round the reactor, and why not put the reactors themselves below sea level to allow flooding if necessary?

Green generation "solutions" are not solutions at all, they are unreliable, hugely expensive and themselves very damaging to the environment. The number of deaths worlwide directly from accidents in the oil and coal industries plus indirectly from pollution due to burning fossil fuels is huge.

[shaunbhoy]

Does binge drinking make your hair fall out?

Depends what you drink. Too many pints of Doctor Magloo's Amber Enema and your hair is the least of your worries.

[TimberWolf]

But don't you think the vomiting, body swelling up and hair falling out might not be a bit of a give away?

I'm not basing my views on the following, or believe TEPCO are unique in hiding this kind of information, which I would assume is endemic to the nuclear power industry (and most other industry for that matter), but here is a little about their past record:

On August 29, 2002, the government of Japan revealed that TEPCO was guilty of false reporting in routine governmental inspection of its nuclear plants and systematic concealment of plant safety incidents. All seventeen of its boiling-water reactors were shut down for inspection as a result. TEPCO's chairman Hiroshi Araki, President Nobuya Minami, Vice-President Toshiaki Enomoto, as well as the advisers Shō Nasu and Gaishi Hiraiwa stepped-down by September 30, 2002.[7] The utility "eventually admitted to two hundred occasions over more than two decades between 1977 and 2002, involving the submission of false technical data to authorities".[8] Upon taking over leadership responsibilities, TEPCO's new president issued a public commitment that the company would take all the countermeasures necessary to prevent fraud and restore the nation's confidence. By the end of 2005, generation at suspended plants had been restarted, with government approval.
In 2007, however, the company announced to the public that an internal investigation had revealed a large number of unreported incidents. These included an unexpected unit criticality in 1978 and additional systematic false reporting, which had not been uncovered during the 2002 inquiry. Along with scandals at other Japanese electric companies, this failure to ensure corporate compliance resulted in strong public criticism of Japan's electric power industry and the nation's nuclear energy policy. Again, the company made no effort to identify those responsible.
Tokyo Electric Power Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[doodab]

So a lot like binge-drinking then?

Does binge drinking make your hair fall out?

[TimberWolf]

But don't you think the vomiting, body swelling up and hair falling out might not be a bit of a give away?

Those symptoms appear over 2 Sv within an hour, whereas their exposure limits are much less than that magnitude for an entire year. There's a big gulf there.

[shaunbhoy]

But don't you think the vomiting, body swelling up and hair falling out might not be a bit of a give away?

So a lot like binge-drinking then?

[EternalOptimist]

But don't you think the vomiting, body swelling up and hair falling out might not be a bit of a give away?

hey. fook off with that.

it was the lager