Massive Quake Hits NE Japan

[SlowwHand]

I don't know if this has been posted yet or not. It's kind of hard to see through all the flying mud.

Experts: Crisis Worse Than Three Mile Island

The nuclear accident at a plant in Japan can now be classified as level six out of seven, experts said. A no-fly zone has been imposed around the plant.
Panic grips Tokyo as radiation spreads

[ColdWizard]

but you can still move back home afterward and rebuild in the same spot.

Not if you were exploded or washed away.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

IMHO.
We were promised clean energy without risk. If this is not true then somebody is not being truthful. If radiation has a government allowed exceedance then, I have made up my mind, nuclear energy is not worth the risk. I will not argue for nuclear power no more.

You need a sense of scale. Everyone picks up about 300 mrem of dose just being alive and soaking up background and cosmic radiation. The amount of radiation that exists at fence line levels is required by law to be less than 100 mrem per year. (I would add that all plants are far far below this threshold) Airplane pilots typically receive 600 mrem per year. A ct scan doses you 800 mrem for single cat scan.

Burning coal is a huge bad no no in the terms of trace radon releases same with natural gas.

I again claim no expertise on the effects but the amounts described for the nuclear industry typically are dwarfed by other routine activities.

[Docfeelgood]

Just heard they have had a 6.0 aftershock. Imagine the bravery to crawl through a building that is about to fall to rescue a person when a 6.0 aftershock is going off. Those are some truly brave men and women.

[Docfeelgood]

Not if you were exploded or washed away.

true

[Docfeelgood]

You need a sense of scale. Everyone picks up about 300 mrem of dose just being alive and soaking up background and cosmic radiation. The amount of radiation that exists at fence line levels is required by law to be less than 100 mrem per year. (I would add that all plants are far far below this threshold) Airplane pilots typically receive 600 mrem per year. A ct scan doses you 800 mrem for single cat scan.

Burning coal is a huge bad no no in the terms of trace radon releases same with natural gas.

I again claim no expertise on the effects but the amounts described for the nuclear industry typically are dwarfed by other routine activities.

here http://www.stpnoc.com/About.htm
I have been very active in getting nuclear power here in Texas.
I do understand, I have argued the same thing for nuclear power. I convinced an huge, unknown number of people that it was safe without flaws. I lied to them because I unknowingly drank the kool-aid.

Let me add...
The tsunami and earthquake are but one clear counterargument to the claim that nuclear power is a safe solution to coal usage and the dwindling oil supply.

[Docfeelgood]

Japan disaster hits computer chips

Related news

Prices for key technology components are rising, as damage at Japanese plants and infrastructure caused by the devastating earthquake and tsunami threatens to disrupt the global manufacturing chain.

.

[Asher]

Very, very few "computer chips" are made IN Japan. They make a lot of higher end electronic parts (like capacitors) and the like, so there will be a disruption, but not in chips.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

here http://www.stpnoc.com/About.htm
I have been very active in getting nuclear power here in Texas.
I do understand, I have argued the same thing for nuclear power. I convinced an huge, unknown number of people that it was safe without flaws. I lied to them because I unknowingly drank the kool-aid.

Let me add...
The tsunami and earthquake are but one clear counterargument to the claim that nuclear power is a safe solution to coal usage and the dwindling oil supply.

Its a self defeating position. You argue for no additional nukes, of known more reliable safety design than existing nukes. This ensures a greater reliance on existing nukes and likely their relicensing after 40 years. Or relies on a greater reliance to technologies such as coal, gas, or oil that are inherently more likely to cause deaths and environmental pollution (radiation dose included) greater than the nukes you wish to prevent.


In the nuke field we deal with accidents in terms of Probabalistic risk Assessments.

A good paper describing nuke risk is:

http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/np-risk.htm

The money quote being:

Since air pollution from coal burning is estimated to be causing 10,000 deaths per year, there would have to be 25 melt-downs each year for nuclear power to be as dangerous as coal burning.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The money quote being:

Since air pollution from coal burning is estimated to be causing 10,000 deaths per year, there would have to be 25 melt-downs each year for nuclear power to be as dangerous as coal burning.

That doesn't even count the mining issues, or probably mine fires either. Just nasty stuff.

[Wezil]

Is this a medical opinion? or is this your own personal opinion?

Both.

1) I've never personally encountered a "health care professional" as uneducated as you appear to be.

2) In this jurisdiction an education is required:

# Registered Nurses (RN, Reg.N.). RNs (inclusive of Nurse Practitioners) represent the largest regulated health care provider group in Canada. Registered nurses must complete a nursing program either at a baccalaureate or diploma level and register with their respective provincial or territorial nursing regulatory body which permits them to perform the authorized functions of a registered nurse. All provinces and territories have RNs, who work in a variety of settings.

# Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN). LPNs are the second-largest regulated health profession in Canada. Prior to 1945, "auxiliary workers", as they were known, were employed and trained on the job to meet nursing service needs in hospitals and nursing homes. LPNs now receive theoretical and clinical education in one to two-year community college programs. Like RNs, all provinces and territories have LPNs, who work in a variety of settings.1 In Ontario they are called Registered Practical Nurses. (Please see note in next paragraph.)

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/pubs/nurs-infirm/onp-bpsi-fs-if/2006-educ-eng.php

There's no way on earth you have a BA and if you claim a college diploma I would have to suggest you seek a reimbursement of tuition paid.

[Arrian]

Nukes (especially new & improved designs, taking into account lessons learned from Japan) >>> coal. Except, of course, wrt cost. And there is the waste issue, which has always been my main concern. I'm still cautiously pro-nuke even with that concern.

-Arrian

[Docfeelgood]

.

"The nuclear power plant design strategy for preventing accidents and mitigating their potential effects is "defense in depth"--- if something fails, there is a back-up Reactor accidents The nuclear power plant design strategy for preventing accidents and mitigating their potential effects is "defense in depth"--- if something fails, there is a back-up system to limit the harm done, if that system should also fail there is another back-up system for it, etc., etc. Of course it is possible that each system in this series of back-ups might fail one after the other, but the probability for that is exceedingly small
Bernard L. Cohen, Sc.D.."

A fuel melt-down might be expected once in 20,000 years of reactor operation. In 2 out of 3 melt-downs there would be no deaths, in 1 out of 5 there would be over 1000 deaths, and in 1 out of 100,000 there would be 50,000 deaths. The average for all meltdowns would be 400 deaths
Bernard L. Cohen, Sc.D..

In the worst accident considered, expected once in 100,000 melt-downs (once in 2 billion years of reactor operation), the cancer deaths would be among 10 million people,
Bernard L. Cohen, Sc.D.

This guy may be a lobbyist.


Now the counter--------------Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People: New Book

Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility. The book, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment," was compiled by authors Alexey Yablokov of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy in Moscow, and Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko of the Institute of Radiation Safety, in Minsk, Belarus.

The authors said, "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

"No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe," they said. "Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere."

"On this 24th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, we now realize that the consequences were far worse than many researchers had believed," says Janette Sherman, MD, the physician and toxicologist who edited the book.

Drawing upon extensive data, the authors estimate the number of deaths worldwide due to Chernobyl fallout from 1986 through 2004 was 985,000, a number that has since increased.

Nations outside the former Soviet Union received high doses of radioactive fallout, most notably Norway, Sweden, Finland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Austria, Romania, Greece, and parts of the United Kingdom and Germany.

About 550 million Europeans, and 150 to 230 million others in the Northern Hemisphere received notable contamination. Fallout reached the United States and Canada nine days after the disaster. The New York Academy of Sciences says not enough attention has been paid to Eastern European research studies on the effects of Chernobyl at a time when corporations in several nations, including the United States, are attempting to build more nuclear reactors and to extend the years of operation of aging reactors.

The academy said in a statement, "Official discussions from the International Atomic Energy Agency and associated United Nations' agencies (e.g. the Chernobyl Forum reports) have largely downplayed or ignored many of the findings reported in the Eastern European scientific literature and consequently have erred by not including these assessments."

[Arrian]

Chernobyl was a massive cluster**** that included serious design flaws (ones that, to my knowledge, were never built into a Western plant) and almost comical (if not for the loss of life, obviously) human error.

-Arrian

[BlackCat]

Nukes (especially new & improved designs, taking into account lessons learned from Japan) >>> coal. Except, of course, wrt cost. And there is the waste issue, which has always been my main concern. I'm still cautiously pro-nuke even with that concern.

-Arrian

coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste