STILL SAFE? The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama, where three reactors came online in the 1970s, is one of many U.S. facilities to use the same design as the crippled reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.
Image: TVA
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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DALLAS—It can't happen here. Or can it?
Many reactors in the U.S. have a similar design to the General Electric units that are spewing radioactive clouds into Japan's skies and keeping the world on edge. So, the U.S. should learn lessons from that ongoing disaster and seriously consider retrofitting at least some of its reactors, Raymond L. Orbach, former undersecretary for science at the U.S. Department of Energy, said here this week at a meeting of the American Physical Society.
"We're trying to learn from Fukushima," said Orbach, who now directs the University of Texas at Austin's Energy Institute.
Orbach and other physicists warned about the current "hysteria"—caused in part by human errors and a lack of transparency on the part of plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Company—and the possible consequences of abandoning nuclear power, such as the environmental impact that would result from producing the same electricity with fossil fuels. Instead, more research and better engineering are called for, he says, adding: "I'm hopeful that cooler heads, wiser heads, will prevail."
Nuclear engineers have long promoted intrinsic safety features that could make future reactors safer, but retrofits at existing nuclear power plants could make intrinsic safety features available at old reactors, too, Orbach said. Such improvements would particularly pertain at 23 reactors in the U.S. that are based on the same 1970s General Electric design as the Fukushima reactors.
For example, one of the worst scenarios at Fukushima would be the release of radioactive material not from the reactor itself but from the pools of water where "spent" fuel is kept. Spent fuel still produces copious heat from its ongoing radioactivity. A failure to refill water lost to evaporation or, worse, from a leak, could lead to a complete boil-off and large releases of radioactive materials into the atmosphere. "They need to figure out a way so that if water level drops, you inject new coolant passively," without the need for pumping, Orbach later told Scientific American in an interview.
Passive cooling systems could be powered by the very heat produced by the spent fuel. Upgrading nuclear plants is expensive, Orbach admitted in his talk, but these plants have long ago paid for themselves and are now producing electricity at a very low cost, which would "seem to have a bit of headroom" for paying for retrofits.
Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says that Mark I reactors have had repeated safety retrofits over the decades, and in particular since 9/11. After the attacks in 2001, "all U.S. plants have incorporated additional resources and procedures to compensate for the possible loss of large areas of the plant due to fires and explosions—these mitigative measures include actions to ensure spent fuel pools are kept cool."
Orbach also called for increased funding for nuclear power research. In a separate presentation here, Robert Rosner, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and the former head of the Argonne National Laboratory, pointed out that funding for nuclear energy research precipitously declined between the late 1970s and the late 1990s and has not recovered much since then.
Orbach and Rosner spoke here at a session on nuclear power that had been scheduled long before the world woke up to the new threat at Fukushima Daiichi. With the nuclear crisis still unfolding, the physicists tailored their talks to address issues raised by the crisis in Japan and a predictably renewed wave of public skepticism toward nuclear power.
Rosner cited several arguments in favor of nuclear power. If the U.S. abandoned nuclear power, the nation might end up forfeiting economic opportunities in an industry dominated by a handful of companies that are now reaping profits around the world.
Nuclear energy also provides energy security and diversity with a source that is largely insensitive to fuel price fluctuations and thus to market shocks. "Even if you're anti-nuke," Rosner said, "you might want to think twice about completely abandoning nuclear."
In the absence of any tax on carbon emissions, however, it is hard for nuclear to compete with coal and gas, and therefore "it's very difficult to make economic case for it."
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Add CommentThis recounting on how the Japanese failed to properly account for rare natural disasters in their reactor designs shows how widely nuclear regulators have miscalculated the risk of catastrophic radiation release and how little they have learned from recent events. Rather than trying to evaluate whether reactors are susceptible to similar natural disasters, the regulators should be evaluating the fault tree to determine how to prevent this chain of events from being irrevocably set into motion from natural disasters, human error AND INTENTIONAL SABOTAGE. A careful analysis of this fault tree would show that only a few negligent or intentional actions are necessary to start the sequence of fuel melting that compounds itself with hydrogen explosions and radiation leaks, which substantially impair the ability to regain control of heat in the reactors and spent fuel pools. Nuclear regulators and national security agencies must ferret out how these fault trees could be exploited by persons of ill will and develop countermeasures that would prevent initiation of these fault trees by any possible set of negligent and/or intentional acts. My initial assessment would be that it would take very few, relatively lightly armed assailants to do exactly what the tsunami did, cut off power for several hours. If you only consider the probability of this fault tree occurring after a combined earthquake and tsunami of these magnitudes, you will naturally conclude that the risk of catastrophic failure over the facility's operational lifetime at well over a million to one, but if you ask what the probability is of sabotage or negligence initiating the same sequence of events during 50 years of operation, the probability likely jumps up to well under 100/1. If DHS spent their time securing vulnerable reactor sites instead of demanding my legislator remove her breast cancer prosthesis, I would be a lot less worried.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA recent (and very popular) PNG image from the writer of xkcd.com did a beautiful job of explaining and comparing the various sources of ionizing radiation. (See www.xkcd.com/radiation) However, I must confess doubt, xkcd is a comic strip, how much trust should I give to the comic strip writer when it is measured in sieverts (or even millisieverts)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have noticed that the experts in Environmental, Health and Safety at my office have posted the same image outside their cubicles. Can I safely ridicule them?
We can't learn anything from Fukushima yet...because much as everyone is trying to close the books and write summary editorials ( either (a) "shows nukes are safe" or (b) what we should learn ) the story isn't over yet!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are witnessing a chaotic event of unknown origin and consequences, yet (like most "news" today) 99 percent of the articles about conclusions to be drawn.
They don't even know what caused the black smoke yet!
Science begins with event and observation, analysis comes after consideration...and thinking.
"hysteria" or rational response to a great big Reality Check?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf any developed country wants to destroy any other developed country, building multiple nuclear power plants in close proximity make things a lot easier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink of them as self-destruct buttons that you have to push with a missile.
There is little doubt that we can make nuclear energy safe enough from a technical point of view. The main issue is the human factor. Doing a HARA (Hazard and Risk Analysis) to start with is not trivial because it requires to think in reverse about unlikely events at an abstract level. Engineers's brains are not that much better or better trained than others to do that correctly. And then come the managers who think from the cost perspective and prefer to ignore bad news. They call that a management's decision. Then we enter the domain of politics and social. They decide as well, from a point of view of power and emotions without understanding the scientific data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an engineer, I have always been in favor of nuclear energy. A lot more people have died in the coal mines or from the effects from burning coal.
Enegineering can handle the safety risks. But the human factor has started to scare me.
The only way to make these fossil fuel power plants safe from natural disasters and safe from human disasters is to shut them down and build new non-fossil fuel power plants. Germany is shutting down all their nuclear power plants. Let's wait and see what they do to make their energy sources safer and cleaner and then follow their lead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGermany shuts down nuclear? Either this is a gross over-reaction or their plants must be in pretty crummy shape.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlant safety is an issue of when the immutable radioactive toxins are released into the environment. The actual products of these massive plants are the radioactive substances. A byproduct of the production of huge amounts of these immutable toxins is heat. The heat is used to boil water to spin turbines. Is it a good idea to create hundreds or thousands or millions of tons of substances which have the capacity to make the planet uninhabitable? These are not chemical poisons which can be neutralized. These are radioactive substances with half-lives that are set by the laws of physics which humans have no control over. On a planet with so much water on its surface and so much oxygen in its atmosphere and a geologically active shell of tectonic plates it is likely not possible to isolate hundreds of tons of anything for the time periods required before the radioactive substances created in nuclear reactors become non-toxic. This is a problem which has not been solved.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's why those pools of used fuel rods are at Fukushima. No one knows what to do with this stuff. I read recently that the bomb blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki released about 2,000 curies of radiation into the environment. The same article stated that there are 12,000,000,000 curies of radioactive substances on site at Fukushima.
Nuclear power plants are, perhaps, the greatest folly of all human history.
Jabailo is correct. The rush to analyze and make assumptions is something I don't expect from SciAm. If you must rush to make a news deadline, why not analyze the different reactor designs. The CANDU design seems to be a candidate for replacing these aging GE units. There are other designs that are self extinguishing when pumps fail, are there not? Analyze them. Let's have more information and less speculation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@tstrt: What's wrong with using sieverts?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn responce to all of the previous comments:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat in the world are we doing playing with this type of nuclear energy anyways? While it's nice to rely on "status quo" it remains very dangerous at best! In todays world we have leaps and bounds in scientific knowledge, data above from something thought up by people in the early 20th century.
While "It" was a great advancement for humankind we as humans have always strove for better. There are two types of Nukes to play with Fission and Fusion.
With Fission we have now become lax resulting in my poor Japanese brothers and sisters in danger, (let alone now two contaminated world sites), suffering. How about those in Russia. How about the fallout contaminating the rest of the world. GE be damned on profit margins. Come on guys and gals!
Fusion, while it's hard to employ that technology, is not that far out of hand, so why neglect it? Industrial Military got the ball rolling and now control the paths these two facets of Nuclear Energy follow. Why the stall in developing Fusion? The costs are easily embraced...less war = more cash! If there is a lack of global conciousness or a lack of understanding better get the word out. Time for the People of every nation to stand up and be counted,(as we see in the Middle east now). Time to push to the next level of energy and embrace Fusion power as the safe, friendly version of nukes.
Time to "Get With the Program" don't you think?
In responce to all of the previous comments:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat in the world are we doing playing with this type of nuclear energy anyways? While it's nice to rely on "status quo" it remains very dangerous at best! In todays world we have leaps and bounds in scientific knowledge, data above from something thought up by people in the early 20th century.
While "It" was a great advancement for humankind we as humans have always strove for better. There are two types of Nukes to play with Fission and Fusion.
With Fission we have now become lax resulting in my poor Japanese brothers and sisters in danger, (let alone now two contaminated world sites), suffering. How about those in Russia. How about the fallout contaminating the rest of the world. GE be damned on profit margins. Come on guys and gals!
Fusion, while it's hard to employ that technology, is not that far out of hand, so why neglect it? Industrial Military got the ball rolling and now control the paths these two facets of Nuclear Energy follow. Why the stall in developing Fusion? The costs are easily embraced...less war = more cash! If there is a lack of global conciousness or a lack of understanding better get the word out. Time for the People of every nation to stand up and be counted,(as we see in the Middle east now). Time to push to the next level of energy and embrace Fusion power as the safe, friendly version of nukes.
Time to "Get With the Program" don't you think?
In responce to all of the previous comments:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat in the world are we doing playing with this type of nuclear energy anyways? While it's nice to rely on "status quo" it remains very dangerous at best! In todays world we have leaps and bounds in scientific knowledge, data above from something thought up by people in the early 20th century.
While "It" was a great advancement for humankind we as humans have always strove for better. There are two types of Nukes to play with Fission and Fusion.
With Fission we have now become lax resulting in my poor Japanese brothers and sisters in danger, (let alone now two contaminated world sites), suffering. How about those in Russia. How about the fallout contaminating the rest of the world. GE be damned on profit margins. Come on guys and gals!
Fusion, while it's hard to employ that technology, is not that far out of hand, so why neglect it? Industrial Military got the ball rolling and now control the paths these two facets of Nuclear Energy follow. Why the stall in developing Fusion? The costs are easily embraced...less war = more cash! If there is a lack of global conciousness or a lack of understanding better get the word out. Time for the People of every nation to stand up and be counted,(as we see in the Middle east now). Time to push to the next level of energy and embrace Fusion power as the safe, friendly version of nukes.
Time to "Get With the Program" don't you think?
Germany is NOT shutting down nuclear energy; Driven by a kind of green mass histeria, the politicians are preemptively putting the oldest power plants on hold. There is no real rationale, just panic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't disagree with extra tests and reverification of the nuclear power plants, but if this continues, the Japanese nuclear disaster will have worse conseqences than 9/11. Not because people might get killed (we have zero fatalities now vs. 30000 people killed by the tsunami), but because the way people react. Economical crisis 2 is being created right now. And let's juts hope the Lybia ware doesn't explode in our face.
QUANTUM ENERGETICS - THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVladimir Leonov
There are now over 440 commercial nuclear power reactors operating in 30 countries. It's 440 nuclear bombs. 1986 - Chernobyl, 2011 – Fukushima. Who will be next? Large earthquakes occur every 20 years. The mankind can to disappear in 200 years.
Leonov V. S. Quantum Energetics. Volume 1. Theory of Superunification. Cambridge International Science Publishing, 2010, 745 pages.
http://leonov.inauka.ru/
Quantum energetics is based on new fundamental discoveries of quantum of space-time (quanton) and super-strong electromagnetic interaction (SEI) made by Vladimir Leonov in 1996. On the basis of new fundamental discoveries the theory of Superunification of fundamental interactions of electromagnetism, gravitation, nuclear and electro-weak forces is completed. It is important that new fundamental discoveries have the widest practical application in the development of quantum energetics. It is discovered that the single source of energy in the Universe is the quanton in the structure of quantized space-time, which is the carrier of super-strong interaction (SEI). All known methods of energy generation (chemical and nuclear reactionsm etc.) are redued to the release and transformation of SEI energy. Quantum energetics is a more general concept in energetics, which includes both the new energetic cycles, and traditional ones, including nuclear energetics.
The theory of Superunification is confirmed experimentally: Leonov effect, Usherenko effect and other.
LEONOV EFFECT.
Results of the tests of a quantum engine for generating thrust without the ejection of reactive mass. http://inauka.ru/blogs/article104833.html
In two years of experimental work it was possible to increase the thrust from 0.1 N to 500 N with the mass of apparatus being 50 kg together with the chassis. The diameter of the apparatus of was 1.5 m, the height 1.05 m together with the chassis. Unusual even for the author was to observe the motion of the apparatus which has no screws, jet nozzle and drive for the wheels. High stability is typical of the work of the quantum engine.
USHERENKO EFFECT
In 1974 the Belorussian scientist Sergey Usherenko discovered the effect of the ultradeep penetration (UDP) of particle-strikers of micron sizes in solid targets with the release of colossal energy in the channel of the target.
Leonov V.S., Russian Federation patent No. 220 1625, A method of generation of energy and a reactor for this purpose, Bull. 9, 2003.
If the NRC did its job 100% then nuclear plants could be safe. Unfortunately, the NRC is subject to lots of political influence. How else can it be explained that the earthquake/tsunami considerations were not adapted one iota after major new geologic/seismologic findings since most plants were built in the 70s?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a problem with somebody who tries to sell me new fundamental physics but gets the ratio between tons and Newtons wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisP.S. It was exactly the same thing that caused the Fukushima disaster:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/world/asia/27nuke.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
I am a businessman in the science and technology. I have our own factory and engaged in the development and testing of new power aggregates. I do not sell books on physics. I perform my mission. At present, the Superunification theory is the most powerful analytical means of investigating matter. This is the new knowledge:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLeonov V. S. Quantum Energetics. Volume 1. Theory of Superunification. Cambridge International Science Publishing, 2010, 745 pages.
The theory of Superunification is based on new fundamental discoveries of quantum of space-time (quanton) and super-strong electromagnetic interaction (SEI) made by Vladimir Leonov in 1996. On the basis of new fundamental discoveries the theory of Superunification of fundamental interactions of electromagnetism, gravitation, nuclear and electro-weak forces is completed. The theory combines the theory of relativity and quantum theory and represents a new stage in the development of quantum theory. It has been proven that the principle of relativity is the fundamental property of quantised space-time.
The book has 745 pages. This book is not a novel. Not every expert can understand the contents of the book.
P.S. The International System of Units (SI): mass - kg, force - N (Newton).
There's no such thing as Leonov effect or quantum energetics in physics. It's all a scam.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdbtinc wrote: "Germany shuts down nuclear? Either this is a gross over-reaction or their plants must be in pretty crummy shape."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo. We are just clever enough to realise that it's now the right time to say goodbye to nuklear power.
The risk is too high. As we say: "When, if not now?"
"On a planet with so much water on its surface and so much oxygen in its atmosphere and a geologically active shell of tectonic plates it is likely not possible to isolate hundreds of tons of anything for the time periods required before the radioactive substances created in nuclear reactors become non-toxic."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this99% of the radioactive nuclear waste can be recycled in fast neutron breeder reactor. The remaining 1% can be safely stored 500 meters underground. France which produces 80% of its energy from nuclear plants has such underground storage that can last for millions of years. The remaining radioactive elements will decay in 3,000 yrs.
We don't have to produce much radioactive waste. In 20 yrs. we might have nuclear fusion and nuclear fission will be obsolete.
Correction: The radioactive elements will decay in 300 yrs. Their half-life is 30 yrs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne thing you can conclude from Fukushima is that the utility and regulators ignored the risk from tsunami's despite the evidence in the geologic record. This amounts to negligence and incompetence on their part.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a singularly uninformative article. At the very least a "thumbnail sketch" could be presented as to what a passive cooling system for spent fuel might look like along with its counterpart for LONG TERM passive cooling of the core. (The link to such in the article just provides for some rather short term cooling of the core via dousing it with water stored above the core---but what happens if/after such eater boils away is NOT addressed)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey should stop wasting the money, change over to Gravity Control.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Technology, used by a Flying Saucer, discovered and patented.
A weight of one thousand tons can be lifted 1000 feet with a very moderate amount of power, using the technology.
A grade one High School kid can understand, that if that weight comes down, it can be used to generate thousands of Kilowatts. Maybe Japan has even some Engineers, that understand it. Of course, a Die-Hard Nuclear Reactor Engineer would not dare to understand it.
Say please, whether there is in the world someone, who wants to live in the safe world (without atomic power stations and emissions in an atmosphere of power stations burning fuel)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSay please, whether there is in the world someone, who wants to pay for the consumed electric power and warmly in 3 times less, than today?
Say please, whether there is in the world someone, who can allocate of 300 millions dollars for achievement of this purpose and receive of the dividends in 1 million millions dollars.
The purpose is reached(achieved) for 7 years.
I from Russia, but the officials in Russia (including the President of Russia) are fed from a pipe - from sales of fuel abroad. By him(it) this project is not necessary.
From state department of USA to me have answered and have said, that it is forbidden to state offices to conduct correspondence with the foreign citizens.
It turns out, what this civilization doomed to choke with emissions of harmful substances in an atmosphere nuclear and thermal power stations, and also automobiles, planes and rockets?
I have working breadboard model of the isothermal converter of a thermal energy of air in direct an electrical current.
If this project will not be introduced,:
I congratulate beforehand with the end of light!
"In the absence of any tax on carbon emissions, however, it is hard for nuclear to compete with coal and gas, and therefore "it's very difficult to make economic case for it."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis closing statement needs drastic revision. No principle or theory of economics is valid if it does not require adding the cost of any environmental degradation to the cost of any process or product. This is the unstated reason for the "tax on carbon emissions". We must stop using fossil carbon as fuel, or face massive disasters from climate change.
Therefore, saying "it's very difficult to make economic case for [nuclear power]" means that you are ignoring this basic principle. We are in the current climate mess because we have always ignored the principle of adding environmental costs to the cost of products. If this obvious and "common sense” understanding is not added to public, business, and government consciousness very soon, we will be far less likely to adequately respond to the present climate crisis. We need to change to Nuclear Power for baseline power because it is the quickest way to stop using sequestered carbon as fuel.
Also often overlooked is the fact that modern designs of fast neutron reactors are not only safe, they can use present stockpiles of "spent fuel" as fuel, and can convert thorium to fuel as well, thereby ensuring the availability of relatively cheap fuel for the indefinite future - enough fuel to provide baseline power globally, without any waste problem.
Among other things this would give us time to further develop and build massive energy projects using solar, algae, geothermal, wind, wave and tidal, and other renewable energy sources. We are rapidly running out of time to control and avoid drastic climate change.
"In the absence of any tax on carbon emissions, however, it is hard for nuclear to compete with coal and gas, and therefore "it's very difficult to make economic case for it."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis closing statement needs drastic revision. No principle or theory of economics is valid if it does not require adding the cost of any environmental degradation to the cost of any process or product. This is the unstated reason for the "tax on carbon emissions". We must stop using fossil carbon as fuel, or face massive disasters from climate change.
Therefore, saying "it's very difficult to make economic case for [nuclear power]" means that you are ignoring this basic principle. We are in the current climate mess because we have always ignored the principle of adding environmental costs to the cost of products. If this obvious and "common sense” understanding is not added to public, business, and government consciousness very soon, we will be far less likely to adequately respond to the present climate crisis. We need to change to Nuclear Power for baseline power because it is the quickest way to stop using sequestered carbon as fuel.
Also often overlooked is the fact that modern designs of fast neutron reactors are not only safe, they can use present stockpiles of "spent fuel" as fuel, and can convert thorium to fuel as well, thereby ensuring the availability of relatively cheap fuel for the indefinite future - enough fuel to provide baseline power globally, without any waste problem.
Among other things this would give us time to further develop and build massive energy projects using solar, algae, geothermal, wind, wave and tidal, and other renewable energy sources. We are rapidly running out of time to control and avoid drastic climate change.
Why does SciAm, otherwise a scientific periodical, keep pushing nukes? Thank you, Heavy Runner and several others for your on-target analyses. Hard to believe that back in the 1950s I spent two years of undergrad college majoring in physics because I thought nukes were "the future" and I wanted to participate in the Dawn of the Atomic Age! Then I began reading more deeply into the so-far insoluble problem of spent PU-238 fuel with its 24,000 year halflife, decided that Robert A. Heinlein's 1940 solution in his short story "Blowups Happen" (sending reactors and their products into space) was much too costly, neither feasible nor safe, and was happy to switch to linguistics in my junior year. At least it offered a lot more usefulness to humanity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNukes and fossil fuels are nothing but an expensive dead weight on people and the planet. It's why I became an environmental activist for pollution control and alternate energy after leaving the Navy in the late 1960s. For a while people listened to us, then the propaganda machine owned by the greedos rolled out and Ronald McDonald (Reagan), the Clown Prince, stopped sanity in its tracks. After 1981 the U.S. set out to see how quickly our planetary cancer (sociopath greedos with their paid alienated technogeeks) could kill our host, the earth.
Now, despite an almost complete right-wing propaganda-and-lie monopoly of the media, many are awakening, and we may have the possibility of another chance. Let's follow Denmark, a chilly climate where whole districts are heated and electrified solely by community renewables and where people live more comfortably and a whole lot more cheaply than we do. The Germans are smart to give up nukes, but they still use far too much fossil fuel. BOTH sources are killers and polluters. Mad scientist runaway experimentation on human and planetary health, funded by the greedos, has been around a long time, but its reign must end--and nukes need to be the first to be stopped.
Quark said of the Humans; "They irradiated their own planet?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith some considerable disbelief. He may have been on to something there.
We study physics and chemistry of nuclear reactions for the benefits of mankind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the nuclear accident of the Fukushima power plant on March 11, 2011, the physics of the huge coriolis vortex (more than 40 km in dimeter viewed from satellite)in the ocean east of Fukushima was suspiciously interesting. First, coriolis vortex do not usually form during earthquakes. Second, the size of this coriolis vortex was so big that even ships were sucked into it, and many lives could have been lost in it on March 11. Third, coriolis vortex does not form if there is no flow nor sudden collapse of space takes place beneath the ocean. Looking at the duration and the size of the vortex in the news, something must have been going on suddenly between Fukushima nuclear power plant and the location of the earthquake east of Fukushima. This vortex occurred only once and never come back again, as if a void space beneath the ocean has been filled by sea water suddenly & permanently. Because this vortex occurred only once, this ruled out a possibility of repeated natural vortex due to geographic geometry under the ocean near Fukushima. However, this does not rule out a possibility of a sudden collapse of a man-made tunnel that could have been built from the Fukushima nuclear power plant to the location where the earthquake took place --- termed nuclear testing site. This opens up a discussion: Why a huge man-made tunnel was built, and for what purpose. Would it be possible that the Japanese govt. have been performing nuclear tests in the ocean floor east of Fukushima? Numerous vibration data of consistent magnitudes (between Richter 5.6 and 6) have been collected in the last 10 years in this location. The Japanese government claimed that these vibrations were due to earthquakes. But it is odd that the magnitudes were consistent for 10 years, and they matched with the normal nuclear testing magnitude of 100,000 tons of TNT. Many puzzling questions exist. E.g. why do Japan use plutonium/uranium fuel in their reactors? the used fuel rods of which can be extracted for plutonium for making nuclear bombs. Why were there so many nuclear reactors in Japan? almost one reactor per province. Why did the US air craft carrier turned around at 100 km from Japan? when the Japanese government informed her people 20 km from the power plant to evacuate. Would it be possible that the US air craft carrier detected a radiation that came from nuclear tests on March 9 and 10, claimed by the Japan govt. as "earthquakes" of Richter 6?
More of my comments to follow...
As I understand it one critical factor that caused this disaster was that the backup power generators, used to circulate cooling water, were knocked out by water from the tsunami.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHad the generators been on higher ground, or the roof of a building, they would not have been knocked out.
Very poor backup planning - for a plant next to the sea.
I think atomic power might be given another
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thislook as a main energy source. But there are problems with existing uranuim
reactor designs and the elusive fusion alternative. One is there with its
waste products, and the other has been around the corner for half a century,
and like manned interplanetary flight, might remain science fiction for a
good deal longer. We need an answer sooner, and I believe thorium-based
test reactors are already operating in India and China. These reactors
purportedly do not have the same level of waste product or safety problems
of previous designs, and may have many other advantages. See:
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/348/ - also
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/indias-thorium-nuclear-reactor-and.html
Due to the usual investor/promoter syndrome, these sources may depend on
biased information. At least one prominent Union of Concerned Scientists
member, Ed Lyman, apparently doesn't believe it offers much and has been
arguing against it in public. I sent an email query to UCS asking whether
they had an official position on the thorium alternative, but received no
answer; What does the rest of the physics community think?