My assessment of the Fukushima nuclear disaster

[Peace Patriot]

Several DUers have asked me to post the following comments I've made on the Fukushima nuke disaster as a separate thread. So here they are.

The first appeared as a comment in this thread:

TEPCO Confirms Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool Is Now An Uncontrolled, Open Air Fission Process (post by Talking Dog)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x889835#890550

The DUer named "The Backlash Cometh" asked the following:

(Comment 7) For us people who missed our Advanced Atomic classes,
what does this mean to us? Do they dome the place up? Or wait for it to blow up?

I answered this...

(Comment 19) From this "steep learning curve" student of the atom, as I understand it, the plant won't "blow up"

but instead will continue leaking deadly radiation into the air, the sea and the soil--some part of it lasting for a thousand years--and the most hideous immediate danger is out- of-control fire spreading from the highly volatile "spent fuel rods" stacked above the six reactor containment vessels, incinerating the whole site and sending all of its radioactive material into the atmosphere, to blow hither and yon on the Pacific winds.

The main problem-as to volume of radioactive material already released and to come-- is the DESIGN of this nuke site, which packed SIX nuclear reactors close together at ONE site, with SIX "spent fuel pools" (highly flammable) positioned ABOVE the nuclear cores, in the same buildings, with no other containment around the pools. Fires in the "spent fuel pools" and attempts to cool them with water have already caused the roofs of two plants to be blown off, exposing all that radiation to the open air and potentially quite a bit more from damaged cores (damage to their containment vessels). This design was presumably done to SAVE MONEY (maximize profit) with common power and water-pumping infrastructure. And it was placed at the coast (vulnerable to tsumami and a great danger to Pacific fisheries) to capture fresh river water for cooling the reactors and the "spent fuel rods" and to be able to use sea water in an emergency, which they have done, dumping the radioactive sea water right back into the ocean.

So--if my understanding is correct--there isn't going to be a "mushroom cloud"--but rather a slower dreadful poisoning of the air, water and soil--which has already occurred in the immediate area, and can and will spread. (It's already been detected on the EAST coast of the U.S.--at not dangerous levels, according to the government.)

One reason that the "spent fuel rods" were present in the reactor buildings--greatly complicating the situation and greatly escalating the danger--is that THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THESE HIGHLY TOXIC, HIGHLY FLAMMABLE RODS. Who wants them buried in their back yards? Nobody! Send them to Mars? Maybe that's the solution. I don't know. They can't stay anywhere on earth without poisoning the area (including underground water tables). So they keep them in these sort of open bathtubs and, for convenience and "cost-savings," NEAR THE REACTORS, and keep pouring water on them. And, of course, THAT water is then radioactive, as is all the water that has been used in routine cooling and in this dire emergency.

Several experts have said that the "spent fuel rods" should NEVER have been so positioned--and should have been sealed in cement/steel containers far away from the reactor cores (--until shipment to Mars becomes possible, I guess). That would have made this less of a disaster but it does NOT solve the problem of creating EXTREMELY DANGEROUS radioactive materials, with half-lives of thousands of years, as an energy source.

And it does not solve the problem of the stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID and greedy human beings behind all this--and our inability to control THEM.

One of the many things that I find outrageous and criminal in this disaster is officialdom's view of the Pacific Ocean as a convenient toxic waste dump. They've been pouring megatons of radioactive water into the ocean and saying it will dissipate. This cavalier attitude toward Pacific fisheries is bad enough, but if you believe as I do that dolphins are sentient beings and that whales may be sentient beings, it is unconscionable.

The Pacific fishery is a main source of protein for Japan and numerous other countries. This disaster has the potential of causing mass starvation in the human population of the Pacific Rim, in addition to a great escalation in cancer rates, cancer deaths and other medical impacts from ingesting radioactive sea food. It is a DIRE danger to dolphins and whales--genetic mutations, spontaneous abortions, cancer and potential extirpation of species. And, GIVEN the EXISTING impacts on the oceans of human activity--vast dead zones, vast coral death (corals being main centers of sea life), vast oil, plastic and other pollution, melting of the polar ice caps (flooding salt water environments with fresh water; vast loss of habitat to arctic wildlife and sea life, including migrating and birthing whales) and more, the ADDITION of high levels of completely unnatural radioactive material to water and air (which, of course, intermix) is a gravely criminal act.

A natural system doesn't die from this impact or that impact. It dies from CUMULATIVE impacts. Nature is very resilient but it really cannot take the level of CUMULATIVE impacts that we are inflicting upon it. The World Wildlife Fund gives us less than 50 years--at present levels of consumption, pollution, deforestation and loss of biodiversity--less than 50 years to the DEATH of the planet.

The. DEATH. Of. The. Planet.

This is one more impact, of many.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I also made a comment in this thread:

Fukushima: A Month of Media Disinformation (post by Flamingdem)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x287864

Here is my reply:

(Comment 5) Yup. It's contained. It's about to be contained. It's partially contained. It's soon to be

partially contained. Containment is in the cards. Containment makes you happy. Believe in containment. It's happening. And God said "containment" and it "was contained." Units 5 and 6 contained. Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 not so contained but soon to be contained. Explosive blowoff of roofs contained. Sea water magic containing the containment. Be not afraid, containment is the thing. Sing it! "Con-tain-ment, con-tain-ment, I love you, Containment!" Dig it. Containment is groovy and full of love. Enjoy containment. Whew! CONtroversy CONtained! Lid on it. CON-fusion of CON-tainment and CON-entertainment CON-founded and CON-troversy washed out to sea.

Believe. Containment. It's you.

[Mnemosyne]

1. Thank you, Peace. K&R n/t

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. I never understood why engineer types don't design things for the absolute

worst case scenario, why they put propane tank farms in tiny lots, jet fuel tanks at airports next to one another, (they do make pipes you know) and many other seemingly attempts at shooting one's self in the foot. It's bloody 2011 and they haven't learned yet. Most likely they never will.

[FBaggins]

7. Two reasons

One - It's far too expensive.

Two - It's impossible. The "absolute worst case scenario" goes well beyond earthquakes and tsunami. There are some things that you simply can't design for.

This didn't happen to be one of them.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

12. Hey, I have this highly flammable stuff, I need 100 containers to hold it, lemme

just put them all on this 10 acre lot, that should do it.... OR I have this huge airport, I can easily space out these fuel tanks with 1/10 of a mile between them and connect them with underground piping. Nope, ain't gonna do it, gonna roll the bones and hope for the best.

[JVS]

32. Great. And then when every part of the fucking airport is exploding, someone will say...

"Why didn't those fucking idiots keep the propane in one area so that only one part of the airport was at risk for this kind of event?"

[HysteryDiagnosis]

34. I see your point. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Actually it is simple

1.- The cost. Building widget A for the worst case scenario that we can think off (usually not as bad as it could be) cost a lot of quid. Yes you could isolate those jet fuel tanks from one another... but boy that is a lot of real estate and money.

2.- We humans have this denial down pat. NOT in my watch. It is like trying to convince a city to write a plan for the coming earthquake, even if you are in quake country. We go into cost. That means things like supply caches and JUSTIFYING it is like imposible. Of course when you get the bad thing\ quake thing happen it is usually a slew of similar excuses, including the ever so popular NOBODY could imagine (insert disaster here)

I guess fiction writers are better at this what could go wrong? Remember the nobody could conceive of a plane hitting the twin towers? Well first something similar happened in 1945, by accident. Second, it was a staple of fiction writers for years.

[PVnRT]

30. What is the absolute worst-case scenario?

Hmmm?

Sure, you could space out those tanks with a good couple of acres or so in between them, run pipes everywhere. What happens when a pipe bursts? What happens when a tank springs a leak?

OK, so now we build concrete containment and sumps around every single pipe and tank. We still have to send operators to go check on them daily, which means now they're lugging around all of their equipment across a couple of square miles or so. I'm sure they'll love doing that in August when it's 90 and humid.

Oh, and by the way, we've now multiplied the costs of the project by around 20 or 30. It's an airport, so guess how that's paid for? Enjoy higher ticket fees and taxes, since I'm sure government is footing at least part of the bill.

That's if it even gets built. Now the accountants look at the projected costs and say, "Well, fuck it. Costs too much. Not worth the investment."

Right now, at my project, we have around 6000 items in a tracking log for hazards, most of which have been addressed, others we are working on, as part of the design. We have multiple binders full of process hazard analyses where every little thing is dissected in a process, down to that 2" valve on a drain for equipment that should never be drained. Teams of people go over every thing that we can think of that might go wrong. We design everything to IBC, ASME, API, ASCE, IEEE and so on to ensure we are getting everything right.

Yet, according to you and everyone else who has no idea of how engineering works, we're a bunch of morons who can't find our asses with both hands, and care only about building cheap shit and cashing our checks.

So, let's see, the worst tsunami on record for the past 60 or so years was the 1958 Lituya Bay, Alaska tsunami that hit 1,720 feet. According to you and others, that means that, along every single installation of anything along any part of the Pacific Coast, we must build 1,721 ft. tall walls to hold the water back. Take a guess at how thick a wall would have to be in order to 1)not collapse, being built to be 1/3 of a mile tall, 2) be able to withstand the maximum wind load based on location, and 3) be able to hold back the impact of the 1,720 ft. tall wave hitting it.

After all, that's the "absolute worst case," right?

[ret5hd]

35. Well, you could certainly fuckin' start by not building nuke plants...

anywhere near where a 1,721 ft tsunami would hit it.

That would simplify things, wouldn't it?

[PVnRT]

36. So, you wouldn't allow anything to be built on coastlines?

[ret5hd]

37. yeah, that's what i said, didn't i? oh wait...no i didn't.

try a short remedial reading class.

[PVnRT]

38. Such an intelligent response

It's what I've come to expect from DU anymore.

Lots of dangerous things other than nuke plants are on the Pacific coast - refineries, coal/natural gas power plants, chemical plants, to say nothing of millions of people. I guess, though, as long as it isn't a nuke plant, it's not a problem, right?

[sasha031]

4. thank you and rec

[snot]

5. Thx, Peace Patriot!

[Gin]

6. reading this makes me sad and sick.....another thought I had

was.... if Japan is strapped for funds....they may call their loans...

greed and people....deadly combination.

[buddysmellgood]

8. I think the reason we don't send the spent fuel into space is

expense and the risk of it blowing up on the way out.

[Peace Patriot]

10. I was just joking, really. But the joke illustrates the insanity of nuke power.

We are MAKING something--deliberately making it--that cannot be safely disposed of. It is unfit for a living Earth. Even the most desolate ecosystem on earth would be poisoned by it. And people don't want it anywhere near them. What madness!

So they store it at the nuke site, which more than doubles the danger of a nuke plant.

Talk about a "hot potato"!

This is nuts. It really is.

I suppose, with advanced technology, it COULD be shoved far enough away from Earth that it would never return and wouldn't pollute any other planet. I mean, I really was just kidding about exporting our radioactive potato peels to Mars. Mars looks desolate, but is it? And it is also a candidate for terraforming (creating an atmosphere and greenery). Wouldn't want to pollute it with crap that lasts ten thousand years. (Our successors, if we have any, might curse us.) Anywhere in the solar system and somebody might bump into it some day--unlikely though that might be.

The only redemption I can think of, is development of replicator technology--a la Star Trek--whereby we can convert it into something else. But this, as well as the technology to safely jettisoning it out past Pluto, are likely far in the future. A hundred years at least, if we last that long and haven't been catapulted back into the Dark Ages by amply funded rightwingers.

Gawd, we are SO STUPID to have let our democracy deteriorate this far, and to have let these corporate malevolencies gain the power they now have!

[csziggy]

23. Or maybe somebody watched Space:1999?

http://youtu.be/5qBmydx59bk

Seriously, we don't want to treat space the way we treat our oceans. To our limited view, it looks infinite, but that's what we thought about the oceans. We developed a habit of just dumping stuff in that infinity and kept the habit even when we knew damn well it was not infinite and that dumping was a bad idea.

[buddysmellgood]

27. I had forgotten all about that show.

[FBaggins]

9. Some corrections

Assuming you're going to build a reactor at all... the spent fuel pools pretty much have to be right there. In the newer designs, the pool may actually surround the core vesser itself.

Putting it somewhere else requires coming up with a way to move highly readioactive fuel somewhere else. It HAS to sit under water for a few years and the safest way to get it there is to create a path from the core to the pool that it entirely under water.

IOW... it most certainly wasn't placed there "because of cost"... it was because it had to be there.

One reason that the "spent fuel rods" were present in the reactor buildings--greatly complicating the situation and greatly escalating the danger--is that THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THESE HIGHLY TOXIC, HIGHLY FLAMMABLE RODS.

Also untrue. As I pointed out above, moving the fuel somewhere else in the first few years simply isn't an option. It isn't "convenience" or "cost savings" that puts them right next to the core. It's safety. Hard to believe in this situation... but it's true.

Several experts have said that the "spent fuel rods" should NEVER have been so positioned--and should have been sealed in cement/steel containers far away from the reactor cores

I have seen no such "experts".

This disaster has the potential of causing mass starvation in the human population of the Pacific Rim, in addition to a great escalation in cancer rates, cancer deaths and other medical impacts from ingesting radioactive sea food.

Not even close. It's a real problem for the sea area immediately around the plant, but it isn't a significant danger much farther than that. Every ounce of radioactive material in all six reactors only adds up to a tiny drop in the bucket when you're talking about the "pacific rim". Even the MANY nuclear explosions that occured IN the Pacific only sligtly increases the radioactivity.

[jpak]

15. more corrections - Bikini Atoll is inhabitable more than a half century after the H-bomb test

Vast areas of Russia are inhabitable due to the 1957 Chelyabinsk disaster

Parts of the Ukraine are uninhabitable after the Chernobyl disaster

Large areas of Japan and coastal waters will be uninhabitable or unfishable for decades because of the *ONGOING* Fukushima disaster

yup

[FBaggins]

16. Inhabitable is a bad thing?

The point is that we set off hundreds of atomic blasts over the years (over 2,000 worldwide)... and while you CAN detect the results in the Pacific, they aren't that large a percentage of the natural radiation in the ocean.

[jpak]

17. There is a reason why there is an Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty - can you guess why?

:shrug:

and The Nevada Test Site is not inhabitable

yup

[FBaggins]

19. Because it killed everyone on the planet?

I didn't think so.

and The Nevada Test Site is not inhabitable

It wasn't particularly habitable before the testing... that's why they picked it. But that's not the point. We're comparing leaks from three shut down reactors to scores and scores of actual nuclear explosions.

There's an issue of scale here.

[jpak]

21. That's what they were designed for - Mega Death

Some of us remember how close we came during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Yom Kippur War....

[FBaggins]

22. I remember as well.

They're quite a bit more deadly than a leaking reactor.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

28. Bikini Atoll and Russia---did you mean UNinhabitable?

I'm assuming you just mistyped.

Though I wish it WEREN'T a mistype......

[Urban Prairie]

11. The very real possibility that dolphins and whales may be sentient beings

and that they may possess many emotions, and know or have an idea/feeling that it is we humans that are increasingly poisoning their environment, and that they might also know that they can do nothing about it, or stop us from doing so, and yet be unable to communicate perhaps their concern, anger, helplessness and sorrow to us makes me feel very sad.

[Cetacea]

18. There is very little doubt at this point

Emory University neuroscientist Lori Marino will speak on the anatomical basis of dolphin intelligence at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference.

"Many modern dolphin brains are significantly larger than our own and second in mass to the human brain when corrected for body size," Marino says. (I would add that most of dolphin body weight is blubber, therefore, we are second)

A leading expert in the neuroanatomy of dolphins and whales, Marino will appear as part of a panel discussing these findings and their ethical and policy implications.

Some dolphin brains exhibit features correlated with complex intelligence, she says, including a large expanse of neocortical volume that is more convoluted than our own, extensive insular and cingulated regions, and highly differentiated cellular regions.

"Dolphins are sophisticated, self-aware, highly intelligent beings with individual personalities, autonomy and an inner life. They are vulnerable to tremendous suffering and psychological trauma," Marino says.

The growing industry of capturing and confining dolphins to perform in marine parks or to swim with tourists at resorts needs to be reconsidered, she says.

"Our current knowledge of dolphin brain complexity and intelligence suggests that these practices are potentially psychologically harmful to dolphins and present a misinformed picture of their natural intellectual capacities," Marino says.

Marino worked on a 2001 study that showed that dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror a finding that indicates self-awareness similar to that seen in higher primates and elephants.

Source (http://www.emory.edu/home/index.html)

[JVS]

33. Pissed off mutant whales will be the enemy of the future!

[jpak]

13. I posted this a month ago...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x279482

[nc4bo]

14. K&R!! nt

[hayu_lol]

20. The 'spent fuel rods' label is actually a misnomer...

what they really are is contaminated. A reprocessing plant takes the cooled and contaminated rods and removes those products of fission that 'poison' the fuel still in the rods. This fuel is reprocessed, reloaded in the rods, and is good to refuel nuclear electrical generating plants. The total amount of fissionable material that needs long term storage is unbelievably small in comparison to the total weight of the rods.

Normal refueling cycles on most reactors of this size is about 3 years. The rods and the reprocessed fuel in them can be reused over and over again.

People often make wild statements about the tons and tons of material that has to be contained. They frequently only have themselves to blame for stopping the building of sufficient reprocessing plants over the lives of existing plants.

The thorium reactors show great promise in what underfunded programs that are researching them.

[Sirveri]

24. no, spent rods really are spent.

Bottom line is that U238 is not a thermal fuel while U235 and Pu239 is. After the third pass through a modern reactor those rods are primarily burning Pu239 instead of the 3-5% U235 they were initially loaded with. But the generation rate of Pu239 from the activated U238 doesn't keep up with demand.

Basically core geometry says you're wrong, which is why it takes seven spent fuel rod assemblies to create a single PuMOX assembly. Unless we want to go with fast fission reactors like the old Soviet RBMK design or the Canadian CANDU design. I suggest staying away from RBMK though due to its positive thermal coefficient of reactivity.

Also refuel cycle is every 18 months (+/- 2 months), however the rods stay in for about 5 years, give or take a few months.

[Lorien]

26. K & R. So many people on this board don't even list "the environment" among

their top ten issues. The World Wildlife Fund numbers came out over ten years ago and were based on CURRENT consumption rates at that time. Consumption/ destruction rates have soared since then, so it's safe to assume that we have less than 30 years left. So where does everyone here plan to be when the planet can no longer support higher life forms and we're fighting over the remaining scraps?

[Peace Patriot]

31. Good point! I had been saying "50 years to the death of planet earth" but then

I corrected myself to "less than 50 years," because the WWF report actually says "by 2050." I first read the report in 2000. It's now 2011. The clock is ticking. And the U.S. has done nothing but go backwards on environmental protection since that report, including President Obama announcing increased offshore oil drilling just days before the BP oil disaster and then announcing increased federal funding and permits for nuclear plants days before the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Uncanny bad timing! But this insanity is not just his. It is across the board in our political establishment.

It is mind-boggling--and it is one of the many examples of our loss of democracy in the U.S..

We're all worried about Barry Bonds using steroids? Not. But who makes it SEEM AS IF everybody's worried about such trivia. The corporate 'news' monopolies, who write these scripts playing up bullshit and ignoring--not to mention lying about--the very real peril that our planet is in and that our democracy is in. Some of the most blatant idiots ever to have a public forum are now running the U.S. Congress. Who put them there? Not the American people. But do we hear even a breath of objection, from the so-called 'news media,' to corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines all over the U.S. in every state (not to mention the monopoly control of these election theft systems by one, private, far rightwing connected corporation--ES&S, which just bought out Diebold)?

The environment--the survival of our planet-- like war (and the war profiteers), has been placed out of our control.* We the People have NO control on these issues--and of course on other vital issues that involve the profit of the very rich. The corporate media lies, and looks the other way, and makes up bullshit to distract us with, and, like a self fulfilling prophecy, the corporate-run voting machines empower the stupidest among us (and the most corruptible) to write the laws.

A new thought cannot even be born in this atmosphere--that dolphins are sentient and that the ocean is THEIR home, and that dumping nuclear or other toxic waste into it is criminal for that reason (among others).

But check out what Bolivia has done. They've placed the right of Mother Nature ("Pachamama") to exist and prosper, apart from human needs and desires, in their Constitution! That's the kind of thinking that real democracy produces--thinking that is relevant to the crisis at hand. We need to look to Latin America for real democracy these days. They have it. We no longer do.

------------------------------


*(It's quite interesting that the $3.9 billion e-voting boondoggle that spread corporate election theft machines all over the U.S. was passed by the Anthrax Congress in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution--Oct '02. I think this was done partly in anticipation of the American people revolting against the Iraq War--with nearly 60% of the American people opposed to it during that period (Feb '03, all polls)--to keep Bush/Cheney in the White House and the war on track--and partly for future uses, like the fascist junta running Congress now. The corpo-fascist planners must be laughing out loud at how easily they put that one over on us--the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines. One of things we need to understand is that they couldn't have done it without the collusion of the Democratic Party leadership. Lifelong Democratic voter and supporter here, so I don't make that accusation lightly or easily. Our leaders utterly betrayed us on this--out of fear or out of collusion, probably a mixed bag. It was, after all, the Anthrax Congress. But NOTHING excuses them NOW. It should have been Barack Obama's first act in office to de-privatize our voting system, and the fact that he hasn't shown the slightest interest in this fundamental of democracy points to "a deal." I do think he was elected but he was also permitted to be elected, and that's the problem. Believe me, they can easily--EASILY!--replace him and put anyone they want to in the White House in 2012.)

[BlancheSplanchnik]

29. World Wildlife Fund's assessment.....

:scared:

:cry:




why must we keep breeding and breeding and breeeeeeding?