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Situation in Japon seems to move to the worst possible scenario What a tragedy!
Fukushima reactor#3 used MOX fuel This mox stuff is way more dangerous than simple plutonium (from what i read here and there). Consequences will be terrible...maybe more than Tchernobyl (well i don't know coz my nuclear knowledge is inexistant but it's just scary).
This nuclear bizness is Devil's work. Good to reach and sustain the unlimited economic growth. No limit! until the world realize the danger of this non sense.
It's time to seriously consider denuclearization ...if it's possible of coarse!
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"The most important part of Flamenco is not in knowing how to interpret it. The higher art is in knowing how to listen." (Luis Agujetas)
With all due respect to the victims of this devastation, I still cannot help but wonder how many Archangels were washed away from Japanese collector homes.
D.
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Captain Esteban: Caballeros! I believe you all know each other? Don Diego from San Fernando. Don Francisco from San Jose. Don Fernando from San Diego. Don Jose from San Bernardino. Luis Obispo from Bakersfield.
Denuclearization... the topic certainly seems to be hotter than ever.
To be fair and to play a bit of the devil's advocate, civil nuclear power has a lot of benefits. It has developed into a cutting edge industry providing jobs for thousands of people. Nuclear research has never ceased to improve and to make civil nuclear power safer and safer, as well as creating other fields of research into new forms of energy. Also, civil nuclear energy does not produce and reject any carbon dioxide... it is possible to denuclearize but bear in mind that this means going back to coal energy, which is highly damaging to the environment. Of course a nuclear disaster is apocalyptic for the environment, but let's not forget that the Fukushima incident is happening after a 9.0 quake followed by a major tsunami... it is hard to point the finger at anyone there. But let's also bear in mind that the Fukushima plant is more than 30 years old and that some of it's reactors were supposed to have been retired a couple of months ago. Like everything, nuclear plants have a lifespan that has to be respected... if it's old, close it. There's also the question particular to Japan... why build a nuclear plant in an area that is located in a region which is a quake/tsunami hotbed?!?!?!
Another question that deserves some thinking is whether it is in the public's interest to privatize civil nuclear. Private companies seek profit, which is not bad in itself, but when it's done at the detriment of security and by cutting costs everywhere (like retiring a nuclear plant and replacing it) then it becomes a problem. Chernobyl is often considered to be a Soviet disaster before being a nuclear one... maybe Fukushima will be considered a 'private corporate nuclear disaster' one day.
There are of course many questions to be asked and it's good that the debate about civil nuclear power is on the table again... it's true that more control and security is needed. The Fukushima incident is certainly a testimony of how small our world has become and how important and dangerous a nuclear accident in Japan can be to the rest of the world. But at the same time, we should bear in mind that nuclear power can be very beneficial to us all, if it's done with the utmost control and security.
There will be plenty of time to think about such issues... now what matters is for the Japanese people to get themselves out of this mess. We can only pray for them and hope for the best.
It really scares the **** out of me, all these things happening at the same time. What the hell is going on?? makes me think about everything they said about 2012. I don´t know if anyone noticed number 11 is involved again!!!
11-03-2011 Tsunami japan 11-09-2001 twin towers New York 11-03-2004 terrorist atack Madrid (Atocha) 911 days after 9/11 11-07-2006 terrorist atack India
and a few more strange 11 facts on 9/11
9/11 9+1+1=11 after 11th september there are 111 days left for the new year 11th september is the 254th day of the year 2+5+4=11 First plane to hit the towers was flight nr.11 and had 92 people and 11 crew members aboard 9+2=11 Flight 77, 65 people aboard 6+5=11 New York City (11 letters) and this just goes on and on....
I never was a supersticious person but I have to admit that this makes me wonder?
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it is possible to denuclearize but bear in mind that this means going back to coal energy, which is highly damaging to the environment
At least you're not saying that give up with the nuclear = return to the Stone age and lighting the candle. What about Green energy? The sun, the wind...Maybe it's not suitable for the actual economic model society. The over consumism dogma needs the no limit nuclear to survive. PRODUCTIVITY. Out of nuclear means also out of this system.
quote:
Another question that deserves some thinking is whether it is in the public's interest to privatize civil nuclear. Private companies seek profit, which is not bad in itself, but when it's done at the detriment of security and by cutting costs everywhere (like retiring a nuclear plant and replacing it) then it becomes a problem.
Privatization is the goal of the actual economic model. Public interest is the last thing political care about when they privatize. Cynical, they claims that the public will benefit of cheap cost coz of the competition. A good movie you can watch is "Navigator" by Ken Loach. About the privatization of the railways in UK...
quote:
There are of course many questions to be asked and it's good that the debate about civil nuclear power is on the table again...
Again!? IMO nuclear was imposed and never discussed. In any country. At least in France.
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But at the same time, we should bear in mind that nuclear power can be very beneficial to us all, if it's done with the utmost control and security.
The prob with it is when you start a central, you can't stop it. There's NO red Stop buttom to push here! And the consequences of a catastrophe are for decades if not century. The next generations are going to deal with it. It's not something that happen at a T time and then you could say ok it's done, move on...Long term here! Very long term!!
Too bad we're not in a Hollywood movie where a superhero a la Bruce Willis flew an helicopter and managed to saved the reactors at the last minute...
quote:
makes me think about everything they said about 2012.
Yeah! I thought about it too. The warning signs
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"The most important part of Flamenco is not in knowing how to interpret it. The higher art is in knowing how to listen." (Luis Agujetas)
Posts: 247
Joined: Nov. 24 2010
From: San Francisco CA
RE: nuclear crisis in Japan (in reply to koenie17)
And let's not forget: There are 6 nuclear reactors and 5 letters in Japan. 6+5=11
quote:
ORIGINAL: koenie17
I don´t know if anyone noticed number 11 is involved again!!!
I never was a supersticious person but I have to admit that this makes me wonder?
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Captain Esteban: Caballeros! I believe you all know each other? Don Diego from San Fernando. Don Francisco from San Jose. Don Fernando from San Diego. Don Jose from San Bernardino. Luis Obispo from Bakersfield.
I have a question. Why the F#ck did they build 6 nuclear reactors right smack on top of the worlds largest, and most unstable fault line??
i'll tell you why. Because these people dont give 2 ****s about people's lives or their health.
Its all about money. To be honest, i hope the apocalypse comes soon, cause i really dont care to sit around here anymore and pay 20 bucks a gallon for gas, and just generally get screwed up the ass for the rest of my life. It would be better if the planet just blew up completely. TK
But the IAEA was on Japan's ass for years about their weapons of mass destruction and nuclear proliferation and the US ignored NATO resolution vetoes and went in war with Japan. Oh wait, that was Iraq. Doh.
D.
quote:
ORIGINAL: ToddK
I have a question. Why the F#ck did they build 6 nuclear reactors right smack on top of the worlds largest, and most unstable fault line??
i'll tell you why. Because these people dont give 2 ****s about people's lives or their health.
Its all about money. To be honest, i hope the apocalypse comes soon, cause i really dont care to sit around here anymore and pay 20 bucks a gallon for gas, and just generally get screwed up the ass for the rest of my life. It would be better if the planet just blew up completely. TK
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Captain Esteban: Caballeros! I believe you all know each other? Don Diego from San Fernando. Don Francisco from San Jose. Don Fernando from San Diego. Don Jose from San Bernardino. Luis Obispo from Bakersfield.
(Actually I noiticed Eliasson undergo this change about a year or two ago.)
Doit has been there since he was 18.
Believe me, the World becomes a brighter place and you feel much happier and healthier when you become totally skeptical and cynical about absolutely everything and everyone.
Youthful optimism and enthusiasm is for the birds.
RE: nuclear crisis in Japan (in reply to gerundino63)
quote:
i really dont care to sit around here anymore and pay 20 bucks a gallon for gas
That's where the problem starts. We could switch right over to safe, clean energy, bought at a fair price, but 20 bucks a gallon might be the outcome.
In Germany the government put through a bill to lengthen the amount of time the old nuclear power plants stay on the line, claiming they're all 100% safe. After Japan new demonstrations against nuclear power started it came out that there are a lot of problems and malfunctions that occured in the plants and now they want to take them all out for 3 months and check them, the old ones will be shut down for good. There are elections this month - SUPRISE
It made me even more angry when I found out Germany doesn't even need nuclear energy, 40% of our energy is sold to foreign countries. So there we have it again, money rules. But what would happen to the economy without those earnings?
We're in a man-made system created by rich people with a lot of imperfections. People are afraid of socialism, but they don't want to pay more and they don't want the rich to get richer in the free enterprise. There is no way to win, really. We can't afford to do everything according to people's lives and health - the outcome would be an economic collapse and poverty, which in turn hurts people's lives and health. We're screwed!
Even without his knowledge and philisophical abilities, I've always felt like George. Bad language, beware...
My heart goes out to the people in Japan, I've never been so emotionally moved by a tragedy.
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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things
This could be the worst thing we wittnessed, and seeing what the people in Japan are going through leaves you aghast.
You can´t think over the global situation by means of indoctrinated and established standards. For to overlook what is going on it is inevitable to scratch common sense and start over by logic from ground up.
What would be happening economically if we changed status quo, you ask? Based on what kind of economy? On the given model?
With the given model there is no future. With it the trends in place will have to continue until the only living thing on macro level crawling over this planet be cockroaches; provided the planet then to still be in one piece at all.
For to change anything, first thing needed would be ceasing of the established brain wash. Starting understanding of self-evident circumstances first.
An economical system with a votiv of maximized profit is the antagonist of social being, as maximized profit inherently has to be ripp-off and exploitation of fellow men and fellow creature. Maximized profit has brought about, and by its very nature can only bring about privileged minorities and social discrepancy. Short-sightedness, destruction, insanity and unsocial being.
It incorporates each and every evil we are facing today. From embezzlement of labour value as inalienable property and first human right, over indirect voting systems, manipulative education and concertated media that foil democracy, to systematic desinformation and superstition.
Under pharaonic methods like in place, you can immanently not expect policies of reason and aims in benefit of community and environment. This would be inherent contradiction, and it is about time for the people to realize such basic coherency. Understanding of the released mantra according to which there was no alternative to current conditions as a lie that it is, and in fact a very obvious one.
The truth is that with only basic conclusiveness human population today would barely amount to 2 billion heads, and that not only environment would be in healthy shape, but people as well. Technological progress, much farther than currently developed, would be providing economical heaven on earth. ( With yet the few who´d prefer to be lazy allowed to life without poverty.) - Which is not to say that yet the hampered state of technology today couldn´t provide graceful existence to everyone of the 7 billion now.
But the pharaonic condition will not allow sanity. A fact obvious in every aspect.
Just look at nuclear plants. These under sane and long-sighted conditions would had never been built in the first place. Because with just basic reason in place something that hazardous would not even be considered, independently from its potential of blowing up at a theoretical chance of whether 1:100 or 1:1000 000 000.
This technology was introduced because of it being a bonanza to manufacturers and investors minority who over just decades will earn millions per cent. Themore as they have control on legislature, allowing themselves price stipulation per kilowatt to whatever they fantasize. Not enough, the burden of managing resulting nuclear waste ( which under reason would never be allowed to come about ) and tremendous secondary damage and investments to come will be delegated to the community / state.
Would the cockaigne diggers behind these plants had to have counted with entertaining the nuclear waste themselves ( under strict governmental suspervision ), nuclear power stations would not exist today in the western world. -
Another point you hardly see mentioned is the tectonic situation. The earth had settled to tectonic quietness. It took hundreds of insane subterranean atomic bomb trials to start the ever increasing tectonic movement and the steadily increasing numbers of earthquakes that we are seeing now in the aftermath.
But the causal background is not being discussed, for to not draw attention to the actual immaturity behind instances like common governments that everyone is supposed to picture as thoughtful.
None of the great threats facing us today have been inevitable. They have all been produced by feudal and capitalist insanity.
And we, yet at five to twelve, are much too slow at recognizing insanity and practical impossibility / not realizing most rudimentary crash barriers of coherency.
* The death toll is expected to exceed 10,000, with northeastern prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima most severely hit. At least 4,314 people were confirmed dead, but 8,606 people are still missing, National Police Agency of Japan says on early Thursday.
NUMBER OF PEOPLE EVACUATED
- More than 440,000 people have been evacuated, NHK says. Hundreds of people are waiting for help in isolated areas and have no access to food.
NUMBER OF PEOPLE WITHOUT ELECTRICITY, WATER
- About 850,000 households in the north are still without electricity in near-freezing weather, Tohuku Electric Power Co. says. The government says at least 1.5 million households lack running water.
NUMBER OF BUILDING DAMAGED
* At least 87,894 buildings have been damaged, National Police Agency of Japan says. At least 7,400 buildings are completely destroyed, public broadcaster NHK says.
IMPACT ON ECONOMY
-- Citigroup expects 5-10 trillion yen in damage to housing and infrastructure, while Barclays Capital estimates economic losses of 15 trillion yen ($183.7 billion) or 3 percent of Japan's GDP.
UBS expects Japan's economy to grow 1.4 percent this year, compared with its previous forecast of 1.5 percent expansion. But it upgraded its growth forecast for 2012 to 2.5 percent, up from the previous estimate of 2.1 percent.
- Goldman Sachs expects total economic losses is likely to hit 16 trillion yen, while it expects real GDP to decline by 0.5-2 percent in the second quarter.
NUMBER OF COUNTRIES OFFERING AID
- According to Japanese foreign ministry, 114 countries and 24 international organizations have offered assistance. By Tuesday, teams from 14 countries/regions have arrived to help, though some have already left.
The current crisis in Japan as well as the economic/energy crisis everyone has been dealing with the past few years have been a long time in the making, but... Recently I heard on the national news that the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended up having longer than average lifespans due to the increased, lifelong medical attention and scrutiny they received. All of the other medical conditions and bad habits people have--and ignore--can be just as significant as radiation exposure if left untreated.
RE: nuclear crisis in Japan (in reply to Pgh_flamenco)
I'm not on any conspiracy rant etc...in fact I'm pretty pro nuclear, looking at the options, but I think if they had treated Nuclear Power Stations as a serious way of producing consumer energy back in the 60's, then all these plants and the problems of waste disposal etc would have been WAY further on that it is in 2011.
I remember when the first couple of reactors were built in the UK and in fact knew a Senior Engineer who worked there. The plants ran at a serious loss in (£ per kilowatt) and had to be subsidised heavily by the taxpayer for years and years. It was difficult to get ANY information, financial or otherwise about them, as they were classified as "Government Experimental" and information was restricted only to press releases..
Why?
IMO it's because these plants were really built with the main aim of producing weapons grade material for use by the military. The secondary benefit, or "side product" was that they would also produce electrical power for domestic and business use which could be sold to the public as "Cheap, everlasting energy for all".
So my opinion, all these reactors are design compromises and could have been built one helluva lot better if only the main drive and thrust had been to produce energy in the first place.
I heard today that the CEO of one of the companies that builds and maintains nuclear facilities in the USA doesn't plan on building any more. Environmental considerations make it too costly and there isn't enough profit. A few years ago I saw a show about mishaps at nuclear facilities in the USA--it turns out a small reactor went critical and the government didn't tell any of the 300,000 people affected. As much as I support this form of energy the possibility of large areas of land becoming uninhabitable for millennia due to a meltdown just seems like too much of a risk.
The energy sector is like planting greenback trees. Especially the atomic one. Had the price efficiency ( sans appropriate waste care, as is ) been passed on to the customer, you could hardly term the kilowatt price in currency units.
Interesting hint to plutonium production, there!
While you mention the past: It must be taken into consideration the sabotage of the mineral oil and nuclear industry against solar technology, for which over the first decades governments were enageged who would ( unlike now ) deny subsidies for solar research, and classify this technology as not realistic. ( While in the same time pampering nuclear tech with subsidies to no end, not to mention later sell-out of states owned plants for close to nothing - or actually nothing, with regard to following subsidies. )
With the budgets sunken into the destructive nuclear tech, instead invested into alternative energy ressources, you bet that energy now would be a nobrainer. By now probably all solar and so efficient / cheap to accumulate that suppliers would be having a hard time explaining their prices by mainly cable nets maintenance.
Ron,
Should you be thinking of me with "conspiracy rant": It would logically equalling that you understand it as legit ...
# that labour surplus value can be appropriated by thirds. That would be wrong by human base, evident the minute one cares to take the time and actually think about it step by step. Under ethical conditions labour surplus value is inalienable property. Appropriating it means underprivilege and robbing of material power, of life time and of social life options ( like non-obligatory education / adequate upbringing of offsspring etc.)
# that some would be justifiedly entitled to take in the unlimited multiple of what others earn. That is clearly injust whenever reconsidered in depth. Not only because one human can produce only so much more than the least productive other ( like say max 8 times as much, at the very best ), but also because humans should not be treated as of different value. Hence noone, through privileged´s excessive occupation of estate and goods, be hindered from having a dignified living.
Which could be realized naturally and easily, if posession wasn´t as perversly unevenly distributed as is. ( With billions of sheeps taking it as if it was natural law.) -
Though not mainstream, I wasn´t really mentioning far fetched or indistinct matters like Apollo 11, was I?
What if contemporary thinking standards globally common, enabling and tolerating caste society, were based on conspiracy theory?
Figures now indicate 28000 people dead or missing.
It is very worrying to me that radiation levels in the water overflow around 2 of the reactors are approaching levels that turn them into no go zones for anyone. What happens then??
it is possible to denuclearize but bear in mind that this means going back to coal energy
Sun, wind and wave power are the way to go. Electrical energy from power stations (either coal, gas or nuclear) is generated into a grid and then lost. That is an enormous waste of production during non peak times to fuel the peak levels of consumption. Wind generators currently put energy into the grid system but they can also provide energy to compress air into gas containers. Gas containers containing compressed air can be stored with no risk of explosion or environmental damage. The energy can be stored for years. A compressed air cannister can be used to power a car with an engine that uses compressed air to travl over 100 km. A pump station can recharge a car with compressed air for $2.00. Air cannisters can be used to drive generators that heat homes and run electrical appliances. Imagine a home with a turbine in the roof or garden generating free compressed air as energy. Storms provide enough power to last months. Your only fuel bill is purchase of compressed gas cannisters. Sound radical? http://www.espcinc.com/ we already have compressed air cars in production in some countries...you think the fuel companies want to promote them? http://www.mdi.lu/english/ The public has to radically change its ideas about energy comng from fossil and nuclear fuels. Once we see that wind, water and sun could solve many of our energy problems will things change.
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we should bear in mind that nuclear power can be very beneficial to us all, if it's done with the utmost control and security.
I think what is happening in Japan proves there is no such thing as control or security. You cant control extremist terrorists or volcanos or tidal waves...or human greed. Corners get cut to make money. The problem with a nuclear reactor is that even if it provides 100 years of safe clean power, the environmental damage of even 1 accident outweigh the benefits. It is clear that this one nuclear accident in Japan has outweighed all the benefits of nuclear power in Japans history.
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: nuclear crisis in Japan (in reply to Pimientito)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Pimientito
Electrical energy from power stations (either coal, gas or nuclear) is generated into a grid and then lost. That is an enormous waste of production during non peak times to fuel the peak levels of consumption.
I don't believe it works quite that way. Let me give a very simplified example.
I lived on a small island in the Central Pacific for 18 years. There were four gigantic radars, and other technical facilities. I was the radar boss, so I was interested in the details of power plant operation and construction.
The new power plant has nine generators, run by big diesel engines, thousands of horsepower apiece. During the day, when the air conditioning load is heavy, five generators supply the power. Usually one or two generator sets are down for maintenance, two are in reserve for unplanned outages.
During the night, two suffice, even when the big radars operate. During critical missions a third is kept spinning, but offline. It consumes far less fuel than the ones online, since it requires very little torque just to spin without supplying power.
The electrical grid functions the same way. Generators are brought on or offline as the demand for power fluctuates.
Having said that, I agree that we must move away from fossil fuel as a power source. I am fearful though, that the human race might be too short sighted to see this.
What you are saying is true. Generators are brought on line in peak periods and off line for example during the night. However my point is that you still dont use all the energy that is generated and a lot gets lost anyway. The generators in a nuclear power station are so enormous and heavy that once they are up to speed it takes a long time for them to slow down again. You cant just switch them off at will. Conversly they take time to get to full speed again so you cant actually afford to run them down too much or you wont be able to get them up to speed in time for peak output. A grid system is very convenient for us in someways but its also wasteful and you have to have power lines everywhere. A simple storage of energy to use as and when you want to, is to me a much nicer idea.
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: nuclear crisis in Japan (in reply to Pimientito)
On the scale of things, my present post is in the first part just a quibble, in the second part a serious point.
First:
Generators are taken off line by throwing a switch. As soon as the field current is shut off, the power to keep them spinning is reduced by orders of magnitude. All you have to do is overcome the friction of the bearings, and any tiny eddy currents that might be caused by residual magnetism in the cores.
The grid in Europe and the US is tremendously efficient in gauging demand, producing just enough power and transmitting it with small losses. Only a tiny fraction of the electric power is wasted. The problem lies elsewhere.
Second:
For nuclear energy, we are receiving an object lesson day by day with the tragic situation in Japan.
Fossil fuel plants convert about 33% of the energy in coal or oil into electricity, natural gas plants can approach 50%. There's plenty of coal to go around for now, so thermal efficiency is not the immediate problem.
It is a bit shocking to come around a bend in the road in northeast Java to see them ripping the guts out of a mountain and loading them into a huge ship. Taking the tops off mountains in Appalachia and dumping them into the valleys to get at the coal is a bit rude as well. Anyone who has traveled through south Wales will have been suitably horrified.
But for fossil fuel the big problem is the tremendous amount of greenhouse gases and other pollutants produced, endangering the planet and human health.
Generators are taken off line by throwing a switch. As soon as the field current is shut off, the power to keep them spinning is reduced by orders of magnitude. All you have to do is overcome the friction of the bearings, and any tiny eddy currents that might be caused by residual magnetism in the cores.
But the generators are driven by energy in the form of steam in Nuclear power stations. You are talking about Diesel engines that can be shut off at the turn of a switch there, Richard.
If you de-couple the generator from the steam source, then the source just gets hotter and hotter since there is nothing to take the energy away. Leaving the generators with no-load has the same effect.
You cannot shut down a Nuclear reaction in 5 minutes or at the turn of a key.
It takes days and that energy has to be dissipated, whether in useful energy of not, otherwise you will get a heat overload and eventual explosion.
This is what Pimientito was on about.
You'll either have to keep the generators on line and feeding into the gridand that energy being taken up, or divert it into a dummy load buried in the ground. Either that or have a cooling system circulating into a massive sink like the sea or a lake. This is the problem they are having in Japan, since the electric pumps have no power and there are broken pipes etc. So the core is just getting hotter and hotter, even though the reactor is turned off. That's why they are trying to use Fire Engines and Helicopters dumping water.
It's similar to when a wind generator gets blown by a gale force wind.
The propellor will rotate so quickly that it will destroy the gearbox and then itself. The only way to keep it under control is to keep the generator hooked up and under load.
Same as pedalling a bike and engaging the dynamo.
The dynamo slows you down so long as the lights are on.
No lights...then you only get a slight retardation due to friction.
Try to think the other way round.
The generator is only there to act as a heat dissipator to the energy source, like a heatsink. The fact we get useful electrical power from it is a bonus.
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(well i don't know coz my nuclear knowledge is inexistant but it's just scary). 
...if it's possible of coarse! 
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