Tepco Quietly Admits Reactor 3 Could Be Melting Down Now

Bakatono
Clean coal or otherwise, nukes aren't clean by any means. 1) they do generate "greenhouse gases" in the mining and production of the fuel and 2) they create a waste that cannot be mitigated for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions

It is not "clean" by any means. It is merely a version of highly concentrated sequestration of a catastrophically dangerous by-product which is distributed throughout the globe in cooling ponds at every single plant world-wide. No one has any idea what to do with this stuff. The best we have come up with is to bury it as deep as we can, hope for the best, and make it a subsequent generation's problem.

So, while coal is by no means "clean"; nuclear power is a "clean" facade.

You're right, nuclear isn't totally clean either. There's a saying I like in politics and I use the principal behind it often when evaluating something: "We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". Nuclear plants aren't perfect by they represent a huge step up from our other options.

In terms of greenhouse gasses they're about equal. In the US nuclear is a bit above solar, wind, and geothermal but if we took advantage of newer technologies it would be below. These types of switches take time however (we're in the process of it now) so I'm ok with just calling this average equal. Either way, all of these types of power generation are so much lower than coal that a couple more tons of co2 here or there in either direction doesn't matter. They all represent substantial improvement.

The waste issue is far bigger, the thing is though newer generation nuclear plants use 100% of the fuel rather than 1% of it like ours do. If we switched to the newer technology (again this will take time, but there's not even a slight move towards it in the US) the result would be an amount of waste equal to 1% of what we're creating today for the same energy output. That doesn't solve the problem by any stretch, but it makes significant progress to reduce the scale of the problem and that's something I could live with, for now. If we can reduce waste generation by 99%, maybe at the end of the 50 year lifespan of new nuclear plants we build today we could have a better solution for getting rid of the waste. In 50-75 years we're probably looking at technologies like space elevators existing which would allow us to send the waste into Jupiter or Sol without risking atmospheric contamination. Really, that's just a high tech way of burying it, but given our current knowledge I think that's an ok solution.

Aazadan
You're right, nuclear isn't totally clean either. There's a saying I like in politics and I use the principal behind it often when evaluating something: "We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". Nuclear plants aren't perfect by they represent a huge step up from our other options.

In terms of greenhouse gasses they're about equal. In the US nuclear is a bit above solar, wind, and geothermal but if we took advantage of newer technologies it would be below. These types of switches take time however (we're in the process of it now) so I'm ok with just calling this average equal. Either way, all of these types of power generation are so much lower than coal that a couple more tons of co2 here or there in either direction doesn't matter. They all represent substantial improvement.

The waste issue is far bigger, the thing is though newer generation nuclear plants use 100% of the fuel rather than 1% of it like ours do. If we switched to the newer technology (again this will take time, but there's not even a slight move towards it in the US) the result would be an amount of waste equal to 1% of what we're creating today for the same energy output. That doesn't solve the problem by any stretch, but it makes significant progress to reduce the scale of the problem and that's something I could live with, for now. If we can reduce waste generation by 99%, maybe at the end of the 50 year lifespan of new nuclear plants we build today we could have a better solution for getting rid of the waste. In 50-75 years we're probably looking at technologies like space elevators existing which would allow us to send the waste into Jupiter or Sol without risking atmospheric contamination. Really, that's just a high tech way of burying it, but given our current knowledge I think that's an ok solution.

I agree that we need to make better use of technology and I believe this is the point I have been making. The tech to utilize thorium has been around for decades. Unfortunately that didn't help increase our nuke stockpile, thus it was buried. Even today we lag behind others such as India and the Scandanavians who are working on ways to utilize Thorium. I believe India has a Thorium reactor coming online soon. So, the politicans, corrputocrats and profiteers continue to sell us down the river.

While it is true that someday we may be able to use space elevators or even Star Trek-like transporters to move the spent fuel off the planet that is kicking the can down the road and is a false argument. It is also true that someday we could also invent perpetual motion machines or transport ourselves into a clean parallel dimension where these problems are already solved. This potential or possibility doesn't make any of these avenues any more real than any other theoretical science fiction solution. The fact of the matter is that today we have thousands of reactors across the planet all of which are ticking time-bombs and they will be for hundreds of thousands or millions of years depending on the fuel type and we have absolutely no idea what to do with them.

So, yes, I agree, we need better tech to be utilized. Tech that actually exists today. But we will not.

Thus my prior statements about our short-sightedness being our undoing.

Bakatono
Oh, well that is better then. There is only half as much harmful radiation as there was a few years ago.

Actually, about 37.5% as much. By the time the radiation plume peaks in our shores in 2016 it will be down to ~18.75%. Is that good? Not really, but you do have to keep it in mind when evaluating just what is and isn't harmful.

Except the OP is stating they are NOT under control

Except the OP was debunked, I think it was even in this very thread (there's a couple going on about the same subject right now)

Oh, well it is OK then, because we were stupid before we can also be stupid now. Nothing to see here; move on.

No, but it's important to take into consideration when evaluating Fukushima. The existence of that oceanic dumping means we've already put a higher source of radiation into the Ocean, and we've been able to evaluate it's effects for a long time. Meaning, the after effects of Fukushima are a known quantity, and for that matter a lower source. If you weren't already worried about radiation in your seafood, there's no reason to be worried now. We're not even adding 2% to the total radiation in the ocean, likely less than 1% but I don't feel like looking the published numbers up right now. Take into account all the secret dumping from corporations and governments and I bet the real total is less than a 0.05% increase to the total. Though that's the ocean as a whole and it takes time to dilute through all of it.

Ok, so there ARE more than the 3 mentioned above. Also, link or it didn't happen on the not significant amount quote.

Yes, there are more than the 3 mentioned above, however what we in the US are concerned about is the release into the Pacific Ocean. The wind currents blow from Japan to China, Vietnam, and the Pacific Islands, so an atmospheric release affects them, not us. You can see the wind currents here for yourself. Wind Currents Map

This is from October 2013

This website actually ripped a poorly reported story off from other publications that reported this back in June. If you go back a little further and look at the source you'll find that it's misreported. It's measuring the initial release, and the paper itself was published Dec 27th, 2012.

Then you have this gem of a quote in there, where they're essentially saying they can't measure beyond the initial release (which did include strontium, most of it went into the atmosphere)

It is worth noticing that in December 2011, the Tokyo Electric Power Company reported an accidental leakage from the evaporative condensation apparatus at Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP of approximately 150L of water containing 11GBq of 89Sr and 15GBq of 90Sr. In fact, activities of 90Sr measured at the discharge site in December 2011 exceeded 137Cs concentrations. Thus the 90Sr/137Cs ratio that we measured 15 cannot be used to predict the total amounts of 90Sr released through direct ocean discharge after December 2011

2014 is now btw. So, bad news I suppose.

Yes well, being 8 days into 2014 when the plume isn't going to start hitting until, March I think it is automatically debunks all of these amateurs with geiger counters running out to the beach. As if the wind currents themselves didn't do it already.

Bakatono
I agree that we need to make better use of technology and I believe this is the point I have been making. The tech to utilize thorium has been around for decades. Unfortunately that didn't help increase our nuke stockpile, thus it was buried. Even today we lag behind others such as India and the Scandanavians who are working on ways to utilize Thorium. I believe India has a Thorium reactor coming online soon. So, the politicans, corrputocrats and profiteers continue to sell us down the river.

There have been quite a few Thorium reactors built, mainly to test for viability, there's even a handful in use for power generation today. Moving to Thorium reactors would be a good step in the safety direction but it's still not clean. The spent fuel is still quite dangerous for centuries after use. It's not as bad as the spent fuel being a problem for millennia but we need another solution. As we've seen with our current waste, it borders on impractical to store it for even 50 years. Still needing to store it for 500 years rather than 5000 years is just about equally impractical.

While it is true that someday we may be able to use space elevators or even Star Trek-like transporters to move the spent fuel off the planet that is kicking the can down the road and is a false argument. It is also true that someday we could also invent perpetual motion machines or transport ourselves into a clean parallel dimension where these problems are already solved. This potential or possibility doesn't make any of these avenues any more real than any other theoretical science fiction solution. The fact of the matter is that today we have thousands of reactors across the planet all of which are ticking time-bombs and they will be for hundreds of thousands or millions of years depending on the fuel type and we have absolutely no idea what to do with them.

I threw it out as one possibility based on our rapidly expanding capability with carbon nanotubes. Maybe it will be another technology. The big point is it's very likely that we won't be relying on relatively unstable chemical rockets to get things into space in the future. Barring another dark age (which is a distinct possibility given the rapid regression of our general technical knowledge over the past few decades) we're going to come up with some sort of solution to the rocket problem, which as a side effect solves our nuclear waste problem.

Does anyone actually know what the enrichment of the nuclear fuel we use in reactors is?

Anyone?

4%

Yepppers... 4% Every pellet is only 4% uranium...

Also people keep talking about a cooling pool meltdown, there IS NO SUCH THING... there is a cooling pool FIRE that could happen but a very very special set of circumstances must happen for that to even be a problem.. AND it would only effect a general 50-100 mile radius NOT THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD...

In order for the rods to be cooled down after their reactions are below the minimum threshold for generating power, they are placed in something called a cooling pool for about 10 years. These pools must MUST be kept at 120 degrees or cooler at all times. The rods, if exposed (say with a sudden loss of water or the water boiling off) will combust at 700 degrees F just due to the sheer amount of heat they still retain. This would of course spew radioactivity into the air around the plant. But it would not be an ELE, or end of life incident for the planet, it would not be gme over, or game set and match for the human species.

Yes it would be bad, yes there would be consequences but can we please refrain from screaming END OF LIFE END OF LIFE every other statement? We're talking about pellets enriched to 4% not 98% uranium like in ombs which WOULD possibly be an End of Life experience...

reply to post by jaffo

lol, well they actually did their best effort to earn them

reply to post by Aazadan


The idea is to look for radiation spikes, that is what should be looked for to see if radiation is drifting across the pacific from Japan. The overall average isn't going to increase. A monitoring stationing would see a large increase in spikes, as the EPA monitoring station is seeing, this is a strong indication that we are seeing radiation drifting over from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. This is because the radiation drifts over in clouds, concentrated little pockets.

Radioactive Strontium is in the water leaking into the ocean at Fukushima. It has a half life of 27 years, and is exactly what we should be worried about.

All you are doing is ignoring the facts.

reply to post by Aazadan

Except the OP was debunked, I think it was even in this very thread (there's a couple going on about the same subject right now)

Not at all. It has been shown on the thread that radioactive emissions from Fukushima are increasing.

When I posted my response it was getting late. Guess what? It's still late and I'm running out of time.

What I actually was alluding to, what not necessarily the cost implications, but rather the time and manpower required to build a hydroelectric plant. A project was already canceled in Japan, hilariously at the halfway point of it's construction, due to local opposition.

See? Not even the locals want hydroelectric power. I'm not saying it's a good idea, mind.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: purplemer

Psssst...how'd that work out?

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
Been posted about at least a few times already...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

What's wrong with one more time? Everyone needs attention and love.