Fukushima ghost towns

[madokie]

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR2WFK1#a=1


An empty shopping street is seen in Tomioka town, inside the exclusion zone of a 20km radius around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Fukushima prefecture, January 15, 2012. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was hit on March 11, 2011 by a tsunami that exceeded 15 metres in some areas. The tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling systems, resulting in meltdowns of nuclear fuel, and became the world's worst atomic crisis in 25 years. The government announced in December that reactors at the plant had reached a state of cold shutdown, a milestone in cleanup efforts and a pre-condition for allowing the return of about 80,000 residents evacuated from a 20km (12 miles) radius of the Daiichi plant. The government also said it would draw up new evacuation zones by the end of April, and areas where annual radiation levels are currently higher than 50 millisieverts would not be deemed suitable for living for at least five years. REUTERS-Stringer

[Mnemosyne]

1. Could be photos of any town in the US. I guess no one told the ostrich to leave. nt

[madokie]

2. I was looking at a map showing all the nuclear power plants in our country

and many of them are sited near large population areas.
As I've said before and will say again. On paper and when everything is going right nuclear energy is the cats meow, its when something goes wrong that creates the problems. I wish they would have spent more time in ensuring that faults that possibly could happen were better thought out to the point that a Fukishima couldn't happen but they didn't. I have to admit that we've been lucky so far in not having to cordon off any areas of our country due to a mishap but can we let our guard down based on that alone. I hardly think so due to the fact many of our nuclear power plants are nearing their original designed ages. I understand that machines, which a nuclear power plant is, can be kept going for years with proper maintenance and upkeep but when the decisions for that are somewhat made based on the bottom line how secure can we be in that they get the proper upkeep and updating.
Personally I'd like to see all of them shut down but I realize that is pretty much impossible to do due to the amount of energy hog appliances and shit that we all have come accustomed to as well as the manufacturing base needs. We all know that we need the manufacturing or we'll all starve to death from lack of income.
I don't see a silver lining at all in all this at the moment with out some serious work towards leaning us personally off the need for so much energy and ramping up alternates. In the mean time we're stuck with what we have. IMHO

I'll add before its brought to my attention that many of these nuclear power plants that are in close proximity to large population areas are that way due to people having moved near them but that matters not in the fact that many people now live near nuclear power plants and if we have to cordon off a 10 mile or 20 mile radius we'll have a lot of people being displaced and with that comes a lot of problems in itself.

Three Mile Island was a close call as was Davis Besse

Personally I've done a lot in the last 20 or so years to lesson my carbon footprint, something we all should be doing more of, me included even though I've been working on that for quiet some time now.

[PamW]

4. Your expertise is????

madokie states
Three Mile Island was a close call as was Davis Besse


You really don't have the expertise to say that.

Sure - you read it in the news - by other people who don't have the expertise.

What was a close call about Three Mile Island? The core melted and the containment system WORKED.

Why don't you tell us what "could" have happened that "almost" did - that is after all what a "close call" is.

Do the same with Davis-Besse.

It really doesn't take much to be like a "Chicken Little" and yell, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling..."

But why don't you show us what you know? Why don't you supply some specific things that "could" have happened without violating the Laws of Physics.

It wasn't LUCK that NOBODY was injured at Three Mile Island and Davis-Besse.

It was DAMN FINE ENGINEERING which is hard to appreciate for people who misquote the effects of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and the Carnot cycle.

The operators at TMI, unfortunately did practically everything wrong that they could; and STILL nobody injured due to the that damn fine engineering.

Of course, the propagandists have been lying their hindquarters off about TMI, and may have instigated the nearby residents to sue; but that went nowhere:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/tmi.html

...the discrepancies between Defendants, proffer of evidence and that put forth by Plaintiffs in both volume and complexity are vast. The paucity of proof alleged in support of Plaintiffs, case is manifest. The court has searched the record for any and all evidence which construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs creates a genuine issue of material fact warranting submission of their claims to a jury. This effort has been in vain.

However, you are correct about the need for a large amount of electric energy; that demand isn't going away in the foreseeable future; which means that renewables just WON'T CUT IT as expressed so well by climate scientist Dr. James Hansen:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/23/jim-hansen-presses-the-climate-case-for-nuclear-energy/?_r=0

Can renewable energies provide all of society’s energy needs in the foreseeable future? It is conceivable in a few places, such as New Zealand and Norway. But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.

PamW

[Mnemosyne]

5. Some of the plants have little security also, at least the Perry plant in Ohio doesn't. I drove

right up to it and took photos a few years ago. I really expected someone the come up and ask what I was doing, no one came.

Hope you are enjoying the holidays, madokie! Cold enough here to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!

[madokie]

7. Yes enjoying the day real well

thank you. I hope the same for you too.

I wonder if I have the expertise to type what I just did, probably not

[Mnemosyne]

8. I saw you were being gnawed on a bit.

She works very hard trying to make sure we 'know' how small a problem Fuku is and how ridiculous and uneducated we all are compared to her. We should be grateful.

Glad your day is good!

[Throckmorton]

9. Were you inside or outside the owner controlled area?

Just wondering?

[Mnemosyne]

11. Sitting beside the open unattended gate. nt

[Throckmorton]

13. So you were outside the owner controlled area then.

and two layers away from the vital area.

[Mnemosyne]

14. Just seemed strange that I could take photos no questions asked. I could have driven in, but

thanks to Junior, was worried about being tasered.

[PamW]

16. From where you were...

From where you were, the really wasn't anything sensitive to be seen.

Anything that is sensitive is pretty much under wraps. After all, you can look over the plant and its grounds from Google Earth or Bing Aerial.

So nothing of any sensitive nature is going to be visible outside.

PamW

[PamW]

18. Actually, there is a significant amount of security..

Actually, there is a significant amount of security; you just don't see it.

If you are expecting to see the security out in the open where they could be viewed aerially or by satellite; then you are expecting the wrong thing.

The NRC demands the level of security that the plant has to provide, and that is something that the NRC doesn't advertise.

However, the security really is there. Besides, contrary to popular belief, there really isn't that much that someone could do - even if they got access to the control room.

One of the "lessons learned" from the Three Mile Island accident is that the operators may be the plant's worst enemy in challenging situations. Therefore, the controls overseen by the "Reactor Protection System", an automated system; are designed to prevent the operators from doing something that could result in a serious accident.

PamW

[Mnemosyne]

19. Ok, thanks. nt

[PamW]

6. WRONG Again

Last edited Thu Dec 26, 2013, 07:24 PM - Edit history (1)

madokie states
I wish they would have spent more time in ensuring that faults that possibly could happen were better thought out to the point that a Fukishima couldn't happen but they didn't.

Poster madokie continues to MISUNDERSTAND.

Actually, we DID spend the time to make sure to think things out so that Fukushima couldn't happen.

The problem is that Japanese didn't listen.

The Fukushima plant was NOT built to NRC specs or even to GE specs.

The NRC and GE specify that the diesel generator fuel tanks can not be out in the open vulnerable to tsunami, but must be buried or otherwise protected. The NRC enforces that mandate on all US plants. The Japanese didn't follow that and put the fuel tanks at dockside for easy access to filling.

The NRC also requires that the diesels be protected themselves. I visited Boston Edison's Pilgrim plant, a BWR of similar vintage to Fukushima. The diesels are high up in the reactor building. ( I saw them. ) The Japanese didn't listen on that either. They put the Fukushima diesels in the basement where they could be flooded.

Madokie doesn't understand that we actually did think these things out and developed solutions. He is looking at a plant that didn't follow those mandates.

If Pilgrim were sitting in Fukushima and got hit by the wave, the wave wouldn't have taken out the fuel tank because Pilgrim's tank is buried. The wave would not have flooded the Pilgrim diesels since they are high up in the reactor building.

With intact fuel tanks and diesels, Pilgrim would have electricity to provide shutdown cooling and wouldn't have had a meltdown.

Unfortunately, some people follow shoddy logic and "think" that all examples of a given class of thing are all equivalent.

It's like saying the B52, B2, and Boeing 777 are all jet aircraft. The B52 and B2 can drop bombs. Therefore, the Boeing 777 can drop bombs.

PamW

[hatrack]

10. Fair warning, Pam - your toes are right on the line and you need to rein it in.

"I wish DU members would have better mental capacity."

"Show me you have some lead in your pencil."

And so forth - not helpful.

Make your points, post at will, but if you can't tone it down, I will block you.

[PamW]

12. Thanks

Thanks.

OK - no more editorializing.

The facts will speak for themselves.

PamW

[hatrack]

17. Thanks, Pam - appreciate it!

[PamW]

3. Doesn't have to be that way...

Last edited Thu Dec 26, 2013, 07:29 PM - Edit history (1)

Professor Richard Muller, Professor of Physics at the University of California at Berkeley, and author of the highly acclaimed science book for non-scientists, "Physics for Future Presidents" has written an article about the situation in Fukushima:

The Panic Over Fukushima

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444772404577589270444059332

Why not find out what the dosage numbers you are quoting mean?

The above shows that the dose rates that cause the Japanese authorities to cordon off the area around the plant, are less than one-third the radiation rate that Denver experiences naturally, and US authorities allow free access.

PamW

[quadrature]

15. what annual dose is the ...current... keep-out area?

please note word ...current...

FYI.

annual does, background radiation.

worldwide average , 2 to 3 millisievert.
......................... Denver, 12 millisievert.