Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Earth
-
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...
Read More »
"Meltdown." It's one of the scarier words in the nuclear lexicon. When preceded by the word "partial," it's less frightening. And "partial meltdown" was the case for three Japan reactors following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March.
But the word "partial" no longer applies. Tokyo Electric Power Company now says that the nuclear fuel rods fully melted down in Fukushima reactor number one and burned a hole in the thick steel vessel surrounding them.
What does all this mean for eventual control of the stricken reactor as well as the cleanup? It's not clear. There are literally thousands of tons of radioactive water pooled in the power plant's basement.
But what is clear is that several nuclear power plants in the U.S. have the same safety systems that failed in Japan. And one of them—Vermont Yankee—just got another extension of its license to operate.
Physicist Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research described the license extension as quote "not consistent with safety." The question now is whether the U.S. will re-evaluate its nuclear power plans in the wake of this latest meltdown.
—David Biello
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
See what we're tweeting about
11 Comments
Add CommentAnd the 737 you're about to fly on still has not been fully sorted out from decades of the rudder mysteriously failing, so what. Dave, just come out and say "I hate nuclear power cause it's scary and I don't wanna learn about it."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVermont Yankee is not likely to get hit with a 40 foot wall of water as did Fukushima, so in that respect, they are just the opposite. If Fukushima would have not been flooded knocking out the diesel generator, it would have never even made the news in any way. The safety systems at VY will work just fine in the 99.9999% of the times they are called on. Lessons will be learned from Fukushima, and the industry will be safer for it. How many millions of lives have been lost to coal energy generation???? Do a write up on that. Oh sorry, thats old news, people are expected to die from coal, automobile, & airplane accidents, it's just a risk we take for the greater good. But kill people with nuclear power, and everyone goes nuts!
Honestly, until we can figure out a way to just bust loose the energy right out of matter, (and don't think that won't come at a price of lives) nuclear energy is the best most efficient, greenest way to produce power.
Go into an outrage over Yucca Mt being shutdown so we can have the spent fuel just laying about the 60 or so sites all around the country instead. That’s a moronic policy. We should just put the spent fuel in one out of the way spot where the odds of anything bad happening are way more than what they are now.
And as for the radiation, keep in mind, you get nailed 15,000 times a second by ionizing radiation, you have every day, week, month and year of your life. The average person gets around 500 mrem/yr from background, that translates to 15,000 hits per second. You always have and always will live in a sea of radiation, welcome to the universe, a few extra mrem from a nuke plant isn't gonna make a shred of difference to you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"the 737 you're about to fly on still has not been fully sorted out from decades of the rudder mysteriously failing"
Actually that problem appears to have been fully resolved for all 737s since 2008.
http://www1.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAD.nsf/0/2a37f5faba444a8086256c4b005a2884/$FILE/022007.pdf
-
It means a bunch of liberals have their panties in a wad and some are tarnishing the image of a once preeminent magazine, writing articles to scare other liberals away from the only affordable and clean energy technology currently available.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisP.S. @ChazInMT - you rock.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems Chaz, rather than Biello, could "learn about" nuclear power a bit more. Reporter Stephanie Cooke, who covered the nuclear industry for 30 years, has written an amazingly comprehensive book on the subject, "In Mortal Hands." Good place to start. If you don't like reading, you can watch a movie. New one called "The Forgotten Bomb" connects the dots pretty well, too. forgottenbomb.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the principles of safe reactor design is you do not put flow nozzles below the top of the core. That way if there is a breach in a primary loop you cannot immediately drain the reactor vessel below the top of the core and start a core melt down. This requires that the reactor vessel has to be a bit bigger to accommodate the baffles necessary to get the required flow paths. Bigger reactor vessels are much more expensive than slightly smaller ones. If you can convince the regulators that odds of you ever having a breach in a primary flow path are really small and you can handle it, if happen, then you can save a lot of money. It is bonus time! The flow nozzles at the Fukushima plant enter below the top third of the core and at the bottom.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt now appears that during the actual earthquake one of the pumps got damaged, creating a leak. With no power the steam pressure in the reactor vessel blew the water out until the level reached the top nozzles, uncovering the top third of the core. They had a partial meltdown right away. The remaining water boiled away shortly there after, finishing the job.
This really isn't a very useful report. The references don't match up with the text of the report. Why don't we just make up a story. What has happened to the best science magazine? I'm disappointed that this magazine has become a confused political venue rather than a place to learn about science. And hey, I don't even really like nuclear power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn this and other"discussions", it seems that the biggest insult that an American can give another Yank is to call him a Liberal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs one who lives far away , I am bemused.
To me liberal seems to a compliment.
Radioactive waste will need to be repackaged every 100 years for tens of thousands of years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the nuclear industry was forced by law to make provisions for such long term costs now, there would be very few people investing in nuclear power.
You can't equate 21st century reactor designs with those from the 1950's. It is possible to build reactors today in which the laws of physics prevent meltdowns. There are several such designs. That doesn't fix the waste problem, but nuclear waste is local. Coal emissions are not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe nuclear industry has the media, the congress, and the NRC in their pocket so nothing good will happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe media is still cow-towing even on the issue of the danger of radiation, when scientists know radiation is not good at any dosage.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/05/nuclear-cheerleaders-use-voodoo-science-to-pretend-low-levels-of-radiation-are-safe-or-even-good-for-you.html