JAPAN INSANE, radioactive MADNESS !!!, page 2

reply to post by randyvs

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I don't think nuclear power is economically feasible. The only reason we think it is is that we hide the true costs or don't even know them.

The waste disposal cost is unknown because we haven't figured out a way to dispose of it yet.

And the insurance cost is unknown because for example in the US, the insurance cap is something like $10 billion. I don't think it's higher in Japan, the whole industry is underinsured. The cost of cleaning up Fukushima is going to run into hundreds of billions of dollars, which would bankrupt TEPCO, so consumers will end up footing the bill.

If the industry was properly insured, that alone might make nuclear power economically impractical. But add in the unknown cost of disposing of nuclear waste, and it's even less economically feasible.

We let the nuclear company lobbies get away with letting the consumers subsidize their insurance and not have to dispose of the waste, and that's the only reason nuclear power exists. If those economics were figured in, we wouldn't have nuclear power according to my back-of-the napkin calculations.

I'm not sure what your point about 13 year olds is. Are you suggesting that economics don't drive decision-making processes in the real world? I think even a lot of 13 year olds know that.

Originally posted by MACchine
I did not know that GOOD IDEAS !!!

Yes there are some interesting ideas for the future like the mass driver, but we're not there yet. I frankly have no idea how they are going to safely dispose of waste for tens of thousands of years, other than space disposal.

Any other method I've heard, and 10,000 years from now it seems like it could show up somewhere to poison our descendants.

Originally posted by AGWskeptic
With recent breakthroughs in nanofiber technology a space elevator is now in development. This could be a very cost effective way of disposing of the nuclear waste.

A satellite will sit in geosynchronous orbit as the space end and a small diameter cable made up incredibly strong nanofibers will connect to a base on the surface. The base will most likely be floating platform in the Gulf of Mexico, for some reason they don't want it on land.

I read about that.

NASA Claims Space Elevator Feasible by 2100
It's kind of hard to predict things so far into the future, so I'm not sure if they couldn't be off by a lot and it really won't be done until 2200. But for the sake of discussion, assume 2100 as NASA claims.

What will we do between now and 2100?

That's a long time to have used fuel pools sitting around like at Fukushima, though they will be cooler by then .

But if the space elevator works, it will be a huge help to the economics of space disposal of nuclear waste, however it will still take a considerable amount of fuel to get the payload from the space elevator out of Earth's gravity, to reach the sun, though far less than launching from the surface.

reply to post by MACchine

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Yucca mountain site has been killed, I thought? After spending millions.

The shale disposal makes me think of fracking. Most of the time that works without contaminating groundwater.

But in some cases groundwater has been contaminated. And that's not radioactive contamination.

I don't think a single successful test of a couple of decades is very reassuring that groundwater won't be contaminated with radioactivity 10,000 years from now. I'm not saying it won't work, but as Fukushima has shown us, it's not the foreseen stuff that is a problem, it's the unforeseen stuff that gets us. And actually I'm not sure it's that hard to foresee either a Fukushima style disaster in an earthquake zone, or radioactive sludge finding its way into groundwater after 10,000 years. That's a long time, and actually it can still be dangerous after 20,000-30,000 years.

reply to post by MACchine

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Never in my life have I seen such a consorted effort to prevent engineers and scientists from answering the distress call. This ceased to be a Japanese problem and became a global catastrophe within a day of the quake. People like Arnie gunderson have to yell to be heard, and are using their own financial resources just to provide awareness. We've seen a 35 percent increase in infant mortality on the west coast of the US, and fallout has been detected nationwide, and nothing constructive has been done to, in the very least, create some basic containment.

I know of many who have volunteered to go at their own expense and were refused. Personally, I have given up trying to help. I have some background on the subject and not much concern for my life, so I spent the first few weeks on the phone, working old contacts at Darpa. It was a frustrating and demoralizing process. I even tried to hitch a ride with the russians when I heard they were contemplating a response of their own, and that fizzled. Unless the Japanese develop a pair of rocks and decide to clean up that mess soon, the casualties are going to be astounding. So many of them are already the walking dead.

AX
FTNWO

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by AGWskeptic
With recent breakthroughs in nanofiber technology a space elevator is now in development. This could be a very cost effective way of disposing of the nuclear waste.

A satellite will sit in geosynchronous orbit as the space end and a small diameter cable made up incredibly strong nanofibers will connect to a base on the surface. The base will most likely be floating platform in the Gulf of Mexico, for some reason they don't want it on land.

I read about that.

NASA Claims Space Elevator Feasible by 2100
It's kind of hard to predict things so far into the future, so I'm not sure if they couldn't be off by a lot and it really won't be done until 2200. But for the sake of discussion, assume 2100 as NASA claims.

What will we do between now and 2100?

That's a long time to have used fuel pools sitting around like at Fukushima, though they will be cooler by then .

But if the space elevator works, it will be a huge help to the economics of space disposal of nuclear waste, however it will still take a considerable amount of fuel to get the payload from the space elevator out of Earth's gravity, to reach the sun, though far less than launching from the surface.

That article is from 10 years ago, they made the breakthrough around 7 years ago. The math and physica have all been worked out.

I'd bet money they've in the process of putting one together.

I'd be surprised if wasn't reality by 2020.

It could explain why the shuttle is being mothballed with no replacement in sight.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
snip

Here's a thread someone just made on that topic:
Worse than Fukushima Daiichi?

TSURUGA, Japan — Three hundred miles southwest of Fukushima, at a nuclear reactor perched on the slopes of this rustic peninsula, engineers are engaged in another precarious struggle.

So the other thread does have a link starting off with "three hundred miles...". But it's a pretty crappy thread, yours is better, but why all the caps?

snip

Thank you very much for the assessment, it is appreciated.

Click here for more information.

reply to post by MACchine

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This thread reads like an old episode of batman. "Oh no please don't"
Well to be honest this doesn't sound as bad as the ones caused by the quake.

Nothing to see here move on

reply to post by Arbitrageur

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Condescending much?

If you had looked beyond my initial post (which I admit was a bit spartan, but was an edit of a blank post I inadvertently made) you will see the second post I made contains my original opening commentary.

Admittedly, that post was clumsily done and I will probably restrict myself from beginning a thread from my iphone in the future, however the mods do not seem to have an issue with it or with this duplicate thread so we shall be able to compare content.

____________________________________________

EX-SKF, who has been the soirce of mich good information regarding Fukushima Daiichi , has the following blog post in relation to the Monju Fast Breeder Reactor:

Monju is a fast breeder reactor that uses sodium as coolant, which catches on fire on contact with air. It uses MOX-fuel. 3.3-tonne, 12-meter "In‐Vessel Transfer Machine" fell into the reactor vessel on August 26, 2010. The manager at the plant in charge of fuel exchange committed suicide in February this year.

So we have another suicide attributable to this plant.

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