Support NeoGAF

[acrid]

This is scary shit, I might have a mental breakdown if the worst case happens ;_;

Nuclear power is great, when you don't keep 40+ year old reactors running...New reactors have crazy modern safety standards, the problem is it's way cheaper to keep running the old unstable ones :/

I work as a tech in a nuke plant. I can't speak for other plants, but the reason why older reactors are kept running has nothing to do with it being cheaper. It comes down to safety, believe it or not. Newer equipment often doesn't meet the safety rating required or is not compatible for plants currently in operation.

As far as plants in the US, safety is of the utmost importance. There are always NRC members on site overseeing various tasks, having paperwork audited and validated, etc. If the NRC finds something isn't up to standards, they can, by law, bring the plant offline and suspend the operator's license.

The only nuclear disaster in history was due to absolute negligence of the Chernobyl operators and engineers. They specifically disabled safety features and ignored their technician's warnings of the dangers of the test they wanted to preform. Three Mile Island was due mainly to an operator's misunderstanding of a reading, and again, ignoring technician's expertise.

As long as a nuke is operated responsibly, and equipment is tested and reviewed regularly, nuclear energy is quite safe.

 

[Wolfe]

Christ, I understand that being an island nation means that you have limited resources and it gets very expensive to import fuel, but when your country also lies on a major, active fault it is probably best to not build nuclear reactors and spend the extra money to import coal or invest in solar, wind, and wave energy.

Or you actually take the necessary precautions and do things right instead of half assing shit like your sea wall because it would "ruin the view" or whatever.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

I'm sticking my head in the sand regarding this issue because there's not a god damn thing I can do about it.

 

[Enron]

Sorry GAF but some of you mightn't be able to waltz into Japan in your Fedora and claim your cute subservient Japanese who likes sad, white, cartoon obsessed men like you've planned.

ponpo on blast

 

[shira]

Do they have another option?

Wait for the US to lend aid.

I'm sure James Cameron has solutions in the works as we speak. Shots for Avatar 2 and save 10 million people. All in a days work.

 

[JBourne]

I'm sticking my head in the sand regarding this issue because there's not a god damn thing I can do about it.

That's what makes it so scary. All we can do is wait for either the news that the rods have been removed or for the whole thing to go to shit. Terrifying.

 

[Zeus Molecules]

Sorry GAF but some of you mightn't be able to waltz into Japan in your Fedora and claim your cute subservient Japanese who likes sad, white, cartoon obsessed men like you've planned.

.... dude we're talking about a potential nuclear disaster..... possibly the evacuation of a nation.... and this is your post..... smh

 

[ponpo]

ponpo on blast

Pfft.

I guess I'd have to evacuate though. Send me somewhere nice, Abe. Or let me pilot the Gundam at Odaiba and I'll do the cleanup myself.

 

[Chichikov]

As long as a nuke is operated responsibly, and equipment is tested and reviewed regularly, nuclear energy is quite safe.

The problem I have with nuclear plants is not that they're unsafe, is that the worst case scenario is just really really bad.

And this is coming from someone who believed the nuclear is a great stop-gap until renewable become more viable.

 

[Deleted member 13876]

Even my pro-nuclear stance is being weakened by this shit. Newer designs are nearly foolproof, but fools are really, really good at fucking shit up.

Feeling the same way. It's also so frustrating that they keep making it worse. Ideally I think an international team of experts should be working to resolve this as best they can. I can see why they wouldn't want foreign intervention, but the potential cost if they keep fucking up is way too high.

 

[chaosblade]

Even my pro-nuclear stance is being weakened by this shit. Newer designs are nearly foolproof, but fools are really, really good at fucking shit up.

I say take it out of the hands of individual power companies and governments and have a multinational committee that sets the regulations and does inspections. That could help avoid situations like this with less lenient inspections and less capability for a country and company to let a plant continue to run beyond it's intended lifespan to save some money.

Of course the problem with that is people opting in to it.

 

[UltimaPooh]

More scary bullshit to impede progress.

2 of those sites aren't even that reputable... one is an environmentalist site and other is about Oil and Gas prices.

Wonder why they would report such things.

Fukushima was handled the best way they could at the time and because there are doubts that they could clean it up doesn't mean they can't. I

 

[speculawyer]

It is a shit situation but you gotta do something. If they can pull out some fuel rods and put them in dry cask storage, that is the right thing to do.

No doubt, this will be a difficult and dangerous operation. But considering that Reactor 4 is leaning and could be knocked down with another big quake, the need to remove those fuel rods from those upstairs fuel pools.

 

[bonercop]

Japan is run by the Liberal Democratic Party, which is very conservative and occasionally nationalistic. They are the same party that embraced and reinforced the "Japan as Victim" school of thought regarding World War II and refuses to acknowledge war crimes. They also elected a Class-A war criminal as Prime Minister (Nobusuke Kishi).

So to expect the government of Japan to take accountability for their shortcomings is unrealistic.

My perspective on the Japanese government isn't what has been challenged, though.

It's the idea that nuclear energy is totally safe and the responsible choice for power-generation in the short-term future. This opinion was built on the premise that properly regulated modern reactors have been proven to be incredibly safe. And in the event that an old reactor like Fukushima craps out due to a natural disaster, I figured that the relatively negligible damage past disasters have done to the environment was worth it.

The idea that people would try to cover-up the extent of the damage and pretend everything is hunky-dory as the situation gets worse never even crossed my mind. I see now that was very naive of me.

 

[POWERSPHERE]

Is there any idea of how large the fallout could end up being? Could it reach Australia?

 

[SneakyStephan]

Reads like a bunch of fud, that wording lol... '14000 hiroshima bombs'


can the stupid thread title be changed btw.

 

[Upsidedown Fuji]

Anyone playing down the potential severity of this operation is seriously living in a wonderland.

While the idea of billions of lives being threatened by any slipup is largely over exaggerated, the way the Japanese government has handled the 3/11 disaster and food monitoring is a good indicator of what will happen post disater. Basically denials, reluctance to take responsibility, and dragging of feet to close large swaths of land to human habitation and agriculture which will expose more people to potential cancer and leukemia many years down the road through contaminated water tables, food, and residences.

Going by the events leading up to 3/11 and how TEPCO has bungled and lied about the cleanup and containment of their failed reactor site, it's quite obvious TEPCO shouldn't even be considering doing such a delicate operation on their own. Their number one motivator is profit and satisfying their shareholders, not the safety of the Japanese people, and more importantly, the rest of the northern hemisphere.

We're at a f'd if you do f'd if you don't scenario here. While leaving the fuel rods in the exposed and unstable containment pool is highly dangerous, the way the rods have shifted and bunched up makes the slightest bump or slosh of water instantly deadly for those in the immediate area. There's no way to stop a reaction like that with our limited experience in this kind of recovery pieces. So we would be even worse off hurrying along. But the seismic activity in the area means it's really just a matter of time before shit gets f'd up naturally.

Bottom line, TEPCO should not be heading this operation and this needs to be a coordinated effort between the International community. This isn't just Japan's problem anymore.

 

[Deleted member 13876]

Anyone playing down the potential severity of this operation is seriously living in a wonderland.

While the idea of billions of lives being threatened by any slipup is largely over exaggerated, the way the Japanese government has handled the 3/11 disaster and food monitoring is a good indicator of what will happen post disater. Basically denials, reluctance to take responsibility, and dragging of feet to close large swaths of land to human habitation and agriculture which will expose more people to potential cancer and leukemia many years down the road through contaminated water tables, food, and residences.

Going by the events leading up to 3/11 and how TEPCO has bungled and lied about the cleanup and containment of their failed reactor site, it's quite obvious TEPCO shouldn't even be considering doing such a delicate operation on their own. Their number one motivator is profit and satisfying their shareholders, not the safety of the Japanese people, and more importantly, the rest of the northern hemisphere.

We're at a f'd if you do f'd if you don't scenario here. While leaving the fuel rods in the exposed and unstable containment pool is highly dangerous, the way the rods have shifted and bunched up makes the slightest bump or slosh of water instantly deadly for those in the immediate area. There's no way to stop a reaction like that with our limited experience in this kind of recovery pieces. So we would be even worse off hurrying along. But the seismic activity in the area means it's really just a matter of time before shit gets f'd up naturally.

Bottom line, TEPCO should not be heading this operation and this needs to be a coordinated effort between the International community. This isn't just Japan's problem anymore.

Sums up my feelings and expands upon what I alluded to in my previous post. I still fully trust the technology, but I'm losing my trust in the people behind it. TEPCO's actions so far have not been responsible and since their mishandling could negatively impact a massive amount of people they should not be the sole caretakers and transparency going forth should be key.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Christ, I understand that being an island nation means that you have limited resources and it gets very expensive to import fuel, but when your country also lies on a major, active fault it is probably best to not build nuclear reactors and spend the extra money to import coal or invest in solar, wind, and wave energy.

Most people don't know this, but the entire crisis could've been averted if they put the back-up generators into the containment buildings. No need to spend extra money at all.

Anyways, Fukushima is an example of what's wrong with nuclear politics. The public thinks that nuke plants are Fat Man style bombs hooked up to wires, and as such building new plants is political suicide. And so, the old plants are forced to operate for far longer than they were ever intended to.

Is there any idea of how large the fallout could end up being? Could it reach Australia?

No. We aren't talking about some Dr. Strangelove doomsday weapon here.

 

[Gallbaro]

So that is how that island in Cloud Atlas got like that. Only the biggest idiots would ever want to host a high profile, international event in a place like that.

 

[ElectricThunder]

As with virtually every thread we've had since the disaster, Upsidedown Fuji and some other folks get it...in full...and it is thoroughly depressing to see other folks downplay the entire lot of it, or get glib, with such vigor in the face of an actually desperate mess that has been meandering along the knife's edge this entire while.

Few of us have ever been in a general crisis, like a natural disaster---probably fewer still by a manmade one divorced from a societal chain of responsibility that ignores any semblance of contract and tells the mores to fuck off. Deep down, EVERYBODY save extreme naturalists is pro-power generation on the modern-futuristic side of things as per the human scientific prerogative---but damn it all, the caveats relevant to each approach matter especially in terms of scale and potential with regards to recent history and trends! That this has gotten so bad, has remained so horrible mismanaged, with wholly no serious consequences leveraged on the offending parties to send a message and get things under control---this kind of shit tears people apart that can see it for what it is as something far worse, more sinister, and less "cinematic" than a train wreck in slow motion.

The world's finest should've been on this, with no objection to the resources they'd need to get this better handled, from Day 1---instead we see firsthand that the Venerable Mentality of the older generations at the reins has not changed one damn bit from their classic hits with the Oil Spills in decades past and other such disasters despite the stakes in this being so very much more dire.

 

[MikeDown]

Their entire country is prone to violent earthquakes. It was the tsunami that crippled the plant anyway, not the earthquake.

True, but who is to say a larger quake or tsunami won't come along. I really don't want to get into hypotheticals and such, but I honestly would have second thoughts about building a plant in a region like that, let alone keeping an outdated facility in operation. Besides that I'm all for nuclear power, alternative energies like wind/solar just aren't there yet.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

As with virtually every thread we've had since the disaster, Upsidedown Fuji and some other folks get it...in full...and it is thoroughly depressing to see other folks downplay the entire lot of it, or get glib, with such vigor in the face of an actually desperate mess that has been meandering along the knife's edge this entire while.

Few of us have ever been in a general crisis, like a natural disaster---probably fewer still by a manmade one divorced from a societal chain of responsibility that ignores any semblance of contract and tells the mores to fuck off. Deep down, EVERYBODY save extreme naturalists is pro-power generation on the modern-futuristic side of things as per the human scientific prerogative---but damn it all, the caveats relevant to each approach matter especially in terms of scale and potential with regards to recent history and trends! That this has gotten so bad, has remained so horrible mismanaged, with wholly no serious consequences leveraged on the offending parties to send a message and get things under control---this kind of shit tears people apart that can see it for what it is as something far worse, more sinister, and less "cinematic" than a train wreck in slow motion.

The world's finest should've been on this, with no objection to the resources they'd need to get this better handled, from Day 1---instead we see firsthand that the Venerable Mentality of the older generations at the reins has not changed one damn bit from their classic hits with the Oil Spills in decades past and other such disasters despite the stakes in this being so very much more dire.

Upsidedown Fuji says that a mistake would be a threat to the entire northern hemisphere. Disagreeing with that is not "downplaying" the threat by any means. Three-year old spent fuel will not achieve criticality when taken out of water, and they'd literally have to blow the fuel rods up to achieve the apocalyptic scenarios being predicted.

 

[xbhaskarx]

I'm glad to have already visited Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Kamakura, Nikko, etc. back when doing so wasn't like a Fallout game.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

I'm glad to have already visited Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Kamakura, Nikko, etc. back when doing so wasn't like a Fallout game.

Have you gone on a Chernobyl tour? Cool stuff.

 

[thefit]

I wish they would do it after the PS4 release.

 

[mjontrix]

So, its a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation...

 

[Aureon]

Journalistic stupidity and hyperbole threatens my blood pressure.
After the 'radioactive water leak' debate, we're getting apocalypting news again.. that's the.. eighth time?
Now, please: Anyone that thinks a nuclear power plant can literally cause a bomb-like explosion, understand you've been lied to for a long time (For the simple reason that fear of the unknown SELLS, and articles with apocalyptic themes will get more clicks\newspapers sold; conspiracy theorists are hardly ever credible) and either bail out of the argument altogether, or get some sound information. I hope that disclaimer doesn't apply to anyone here, but still.
catch-all: If you know what's Chernobyl, but not what's Banqiao, same thing.

True, but who is to say a larger quake or tsunami won't come along. I really don't want to get into hypotheticals and such, but I honestly would have second thoughts about building a plant in a region like that, let alone keeping an outdated facility in operation. Besides that I'm all for nuclear power, alternative energies like wind/solar just aren't there yet.

Any substantially bigger than the Tōhoku earthquake\tsunami and there's no Japan to worry about.
Or, if there was, a nuclear meltdown would basically be the least of your worries.

spoiler: Worse stuff than what would basically be getting the rods, breaking them, and ocean-dumping them happens daily.


The critical scenario is there, but it's not in the slightest the pressing situation of the management of a broken nuclear power plant; it's the appalling, incredible mismanagement of the whole crisis and the lack of consequence for those involved, which is now starting to compare to how the USA handled the financial crisis half a decade ago.

The general public is just completely ignorant of the numbers in play when the word 'radiation' gets out, and that's how we get such wonderful pieces of news:

All citizens of the town Fukushima received dosimeters to measure the precise dose of radiation to which they were exposed. After September the city of Fukushima collected the 36,478 "glass badges" of dosimeters from all its citizens for analysis. It turned out that 99 percent had not been exposed to more than 0.3 millisieverts in September 2011, except four young children from one family: a girl, in third year elementary school, had received 1.7 millisieverts, and her three brothers had been exposed to 1.4 to 1.6 millisieverts. Their home was situated near a highly radioactive spot, and after this find the family moved out of Fukushima Prefecture. A city official said that this kind of exposure would not affect their health.[224]

1.7msv. The median dose for a human being, for the great exposure that is living on planet Earth, is 3 msv. Numerous zones of the world get 20+ msv/yr without consequences, which become probable (and still so small no studies have managed to prove that they statistically exist - that doesn't mean they don't exist, but it means that, if they do, they're very near to null) at 50msv, and definite at 100msv.
Basically, it's the same news of "A kid put his hand near boling water and was exposed to 80° temperatures!"

Yes, in the.. absolute worse estimations, there could be ~100 deaths from fukushima radiation issues. That's the total death toll for nuclear power in the last 25 years, and it's less than carbon's daily toll. But sure, let's talk about it some more like it's relevant or something, it's doing a great job demonizing a viable alternative to burning every single particle of fossile carbon left on the planet!

Required reading for understanding the health impact of the only two relevant nuclear accidents in recorded history:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/ WHO report on Chernobyl
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/78218/1/9789241505130_eng.pdf WHO report (on risks, and not effects) on fukushima
(There is no report on TMI, because there were no health consequences of TMI, apart of some paranoia induced stress issues)

To get some bearing on the numbers, midly-accurate on energy deaths comparison:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html (i wouldn't trust the solar number, since it's done with fuzzy math, basically including any accident related to working on the installation\repair of anything on a rooftop and then ballpark estimates; but the carbon numbers are pretty solid)

"But, in the worst case, nuclear power kills millions\devastates large swaths of land"
"In the worst case, carbon-based power makes earth no longer inhabitable"

Nothing is perfectly safe. Chasing perfection can cause us to ignore just improving and trading worse for a lot better.

 

[Zaptruder]

As with virtually every thread we've had since the disaster, Upsidedown Fuji and some other folks get it...in full...and it is thoroughly depressing to see other folks downplay the entire lot of it, or get glib, with such vigor in the face of an actually desperate mess that has been meandering along the knife's edge this entire while.

Few of us have ever been in a general crisis, like a natural disaster---probably fewer still by a manmade one divorced from a societal chain of responsibility that ignores any semblance of contract and tells the mores to fuck off. Deep down, EVERYBODY save extreme naturalists is pro-power generation on the modern-futuristic side of things as per the human scientific prerogative---but damn it all, the caveats relevant to each approach matter especially in terms of scale and potential with regards to recent history and trends! That this has gotten so bad, has remained so horrible mismanaged, with wholly no serious consequences leveraged on the offending parties to send a message and get things under control---this kind of shit tears people apart that can see it for what it is as something far worse, more sinister, and less "cinematic" than a train wreck in slow motion.

The world's finest should've been on this, with no objection to the resources they'd need to get this better handled, from Day 1---instead we see firsthand that the Venerable Mentality of the older generations at the reins has not changed one damn bit from their classic hits with the Oil Spills in decades past and other such disasters despite the stakes in this being so very much more dire.

Anyone that's not an alarmist has their own heads up their asses!

Seriously though, it's a shit fucking situation that needs to be managed better without a shadow of a doubt - but it's barely a scratch on the continued annual damage perpetuated by fossil fuel sources.

More radioactive waste released by coal then is generated by a Nuclear power plant.

The only difference is that coal spreads it out over a period of time over a really wide area.

And that factoid encapsulates the whole issue of existing fossil power versus nuclear.

Fukushima is a wet dream for people with an anti-nuclear agenda. Which sadly is a growing proportion of people thanks to... Fukushima!

 

[Dreams-Visions]

is this the only option?

can it not be entombed in cement or something?

 

[Upsidedown Fuji]

Upsidedown Fuji says that a mistake would be a threat to the entire northern hemisphere. Disagreeing with that is not "downplaying" the threat by any means. Three-year old spent fuel will not achieve criticality when taken out of water, and they'd literally have to blow the fuel rods up to achieve the apocalyptic scenario being predicted.

Just to be clear I'm not attacking you but I'm a bit curious. You make it sound like a cakewalk as if the fuel pool about to be worked on is under absolute control. Fuel is hot long after removal from the reactor and can be very dangerous if not handled carefully. I wouldn't be so concerned if the spent fuel pool wasn't in shambles and moreover TEPCO heading the cherry picking of fragile rods sitting precariously in a packed jerry rigged manner. These pools were well over capacity before the earthquake. This is serious and very relevant to me as I live in Japan with my son and wife.

While any slipup, minor or not may not directly affect you this is still well worth being concerned about and I'm not playing up anything. The northern hemisphere would be affected in some way if a real honest to goodness f up happens and TEPCO is more than capable of that with all their cost cutting, subcontracting, and cutting off corners on preventive maintenance. The chance of the spent rods being exposed to air is always present and we may be opening a Pandora's box if the pool happens to incur further damage from any more avoidable accidents. I have fear in TEPCO and utility monopolies like it that don't take the human element of their customers and environment seriously, not nuclear power.

 

[iamblades]

The problem I have with nuclear plants is not that they're unsafe, is that the worst case scenario is just really really bad.

And this is coming from someone who believed the nuclear is a great stop-gap until renewable become more viable.

It's not even that the worst case scenario is 'really really bad', as both Chernobyl and Fukushima are pretty damn close to 'worst case', and nuclear power still has a safety record orders of magnitude better than almost all alternatives.

The issue with nuclear disasters is that they are scary in an intensely emotional instinctual part of our brain because we can't see or smell radiation and we are not very good at estimating probabilistic risks like radiation exposure. Our brain naturally underestimates regularly occurring risks like pollution from coal power plants or driving a car, and overestimates risks of things that happen to us rarely, like shark attacks, plane crashes and nuclear disaster.

This happens because you have personally driven hundreds of thousands of miles without ever dying in a car crash, and you know that coal plants dump tons of radioactive fly ash into the atmosphere and you haven't gotten lung cancer yet, but you have not personally experienced the other risks as regularly, so they are more scary because they are unknowns.

Anyway, as far as the OP goes, this is a necessary step to stop the leak of radioactive material from the fukushima site. As long as those fuel rods are in that cooling pond, the site is going to continue to leak radioactive water into the ocean. Sure it's a difficult high stakes job, but it's something that must be done eventually, because the fukushima site is not able to be entombed like Chernobyl afaik.

 

[zerodayPopbot]

Man scary stuff.

 

[Coal]

This sounds absolutely terrible. And like most others have stated, seriously scary stuff. My question (which may have been brought up) is why other countries haven't offered to help with any and all efforts to "fix" this? Do people not realize that Japan isn't going to be the only country suffering from this thing, whether a "worst case scenario" happens or not?

 

[ElbowRocket]

I like the cigarette pack explanation it sounds sexy but yeah things are probably gonna get worse.

 

[Chichikov]

It's not even that the worst case scenario is 'really really bad', as both Chernobyl and Fukushima are pretty damn close to 'worst case', and nuclear power still has a safety record orders of magnitude better than almost all alternatives.

The issue with nuclear disasters is that they are scary in an intensely emotional instinctual part of our brain because we can't see or smell radiation and we are not very good at estimating probabilistic risks like radiation exposure. Our brain naturally underestimates regularly occurring risks like pollution from coal power plants or driving a car, and overestimates risks of things that happen to us rarely, like shark attacks, plane crashes and nuclear disaster.

This happens because you have personally driven hundreds of thousands of miles without ever dying in a car crash, and you know that coal plants dump tons of radioactive fly ash into the atmosphere and you haven't gotten lung cancer yet, but you have not personally experienced the other risks as regularly, so they are more scary because they are unknowns.

I think the worst case scenario is that you make a part of your country uninhabitable for a long ass time, so Chernobyl yes, Fukashima, not so much.
I think that's a risk that is separated from the effect it has on total mortality, a metric by which nuclear is indeed better than coal, and it's exactly that risk that I'm struggling to accept, as unlikely as it is.
Also, I find that coal comparisons are not the most suitable as I don't think there a whole lot of people outside the coal industry who advocates building more coal power plants, I know I am not.

 

[Burger_Baron]

 

[2MF]

Christ, I understand that being an island nation means that you have limited resources and it gets very expensive to import fuel, but when your country also lies on a major, active fault it is probably best to not build nuclear reactors and spend the extra money to import coal or invest in solar, wind, and wave energy.

Or at the very least build the nuclear plant away from the coastline where it can get flooded.

 

[maniac-kun]

Or at the very least build the nuclear plant away from the coastline where it can get flooded.

They build these things so close to rivers / the sea because they need a lot of water.

 

[jimi_dini]

Yes, in the.. absolute worse estimations, there could be ~100 deaths from fukushima radiation issues. That's the total death toll for nuclear power in the last 25 years, and it's less than carbon's daily toll.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/ WHO report on Chernobyl

If you already know about that report, why don't you actually read it instead of saying that "around 100 deaths would be the total death toll for nuclear power?

Childhood thyroid cancer caused by radioactive iodine fallout is one of the main health accident were particularly high in those who were children at the time and drank milk with high levels of radioactive iodine. By 2002, more than 4000 thyroid cancer cases
had been diagnosed in this group, and it is most likely that a large fraction of these
thyroid cancers is attributable to radioiodine intake.

But what's more important:

It is impossible to assess reliably, with any precision, numbers of fatal cancers caused by radiation exposure due to the Chernobyl acciden

That's the good thing about nuclear power. "What, you got cancer/died because of cancer? Well, chernobyl had nothing to do with it. At least you can't prove it. Ha ha"

btw. the 4000 thyroid cancer cases number is from 2002. In 2005 it were 6000.

According to UNSCEAR, up to the year 2005, an excess of over 6000 cases of thyroid cancer have been reported. That is, over the estimated pre-accident baseline thyroid cancer rate, more than 6000 casual cases of thyroid cancer have been reported in children and adolescents exposed at the time of the accident, a number that is expected to increase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

And also:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hQFJw0bNC6jkuJkFyzxPOot2PivA?hl=en

Vyacheslav Grishin, head of the Chernobyl Union, a liquidator advocacy group in Russia, estimated that 200,000 rescue workers were still around in the country. Of them, 90,000 have major long-term health problems.

...

However the extent of the health effects on the half million "liquidators" remains hugely controversial, with estimates ranging from only a few dozen deaths directly attributable to Chernobyl to tens of thousands.

 

[Perkel]

Note to myself:

If i will be President... Don't build fucking nuclear reactor on area that has seismic activity and for the love of god do not build it near sea and especially near any city.

 

[akira28]

Pfft.

I guess I'd have to evacuate though. Send me somewhere nice, Abe. Or let me pilot the Gundam at Odaiba and I'll do the cleanup myself.

This is their chance. Finally an excuse to develop and use their giant robot stratagem to literally save the world.....from themselves.

 

[jerry1594]

Note to myself:

1)Ring of Fire cuts right through Japan and they don't have fossil fuels to burn and powering a moderately large country of 130 million people with imported fuel would be fucking expensive
2)you'd still need a huge water source for the massive amounts of cooling needed

 

[ElectricThunder]

Anyone that's not an alarmist has their own heads up their asses!

Seriously though, it's a shit fucking situation that needs to be managed better without a shadow of a doubt - but it's barely a scratch on the continued annual damage perpetuated by fossil fuel sources.

More radioactive waste released by coal then is generated by a Nuclear power plant.

The only difference is that coal spreads it out over a period of time over a really wide area.

And that factoid encapsulates the whole issue of existing fossil power versus nuclear.

Fukushima is a wet dream for people with an anti-nuclear agenda. Which sadly is a growing proportion of people thanks to... Fukushima!

Make no mistake, I'm damn opposed to the ruination wrought by the fossil fuels industry as well, want to explode when people go on about "clean coal", etc---just a matter of this thread being on this side of their foolhardy spectrum.

Much of this comes down to worthless quarterly thinking on all sides---ever chasing that short-term profit, cutting corners, and not getting serious about trouble that has been looming as a matter of fact for all these past decades we've been kicking the can as opposed to spending and researching accurately, as our very lives DO depend on energy solutions, with the kind of insane projection of abdication to collective responsibility that Rapture-folks and Preppers exude.

I get that the world is scary and for a good many being dismissive is something of a coping mechanism---but in a case like this where it wasn't just a one-off event quick to fade back into the long list of Bad Moves by energy operations the world over....it should probably serve as a bit of a canary.

 

[Desmond]

I plan to study in Tokyo next year, so selfishly I hope things are finally dealt with. Here's hoping for substantial outside help.

 

[Upsidedown Fuji]

I plan to study in Tokyo next year, so selfishly I hope things are finally dealt with. Here's hoping for substantial outside help.

Fully dealt with? Not even close, but if the fuel rod removal goes by without a hitch you'll be fine. You probably won't even really notice anything happened 2 years back, or rather 3, by the time you visit. It really isn't discussed in daily discussion either way. It's just how this country rolls I guess.

 

[Aureon]

If you already know about that report, why don't you actually read it instead of saying that "around 100 deaths would be the total death toll for nuclear power?



But what's more important:



That's the good thing about nuclear power. "What, you got cancer/died because of cancer? Well, chernobyl had nothing to do with it. At least you can't prove it. Ha ha"

btw. the 4000 thyroid cancer cases number is from 2002. In 2005 it were 6000.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

And also:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hQFJw0bNC6jkuJkFyzxPOot2PivA?hl=en


...

Fukushima-related. Last 25 years, that's Chernobyl excluded, not included. (1988-2013 is the last 25 years, Chernobyl is 1986)
I did not try anywhere to assert that Chernobyl caused ~100 deaths and that's it, and i wouldn't dare, so..

 

[Blader]

is this the only option?

can it not be entombed in cement or something?

Doesn't do much good when the entire reactor is sinking.

 

[Hari Seldon]

So do they have pictures of what the spent fuel pool currently looks like? Surely the first step is to send in some robots, get some pics, then design another robot to handle it. Japan is good at making robots.

 

[sangreal]

Fairewinds Energy Education is an anti-nuclear advocacy group