Geiger counter?

[GeoModder]

Sry for necroposting, but i´m delighted to announce that germanys right-wing(!)-goverment today abandonded nuclear energy.

Good luck with the next two governments who need to put that in effect. There was a "phasing out" commitment made about a decade ago for the oldest nuclear reactors in my country (by 2015 IIRC), and the current government allows extensions to the power company that owns them in return for the profit they make in keeping those reactors running after their normal lifetime is over.

If it wasn't for Fukushima back in March, only the greens would have made a ruckus about it.

[discord]

trantor: imho nuclear power is probably the safest and 'greenest' around, if people would STOP using designs(and facilities) that are like 50-60 years old.
why you ask? well simple, take the thorium cycle for instance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle
or for that matter do some EFFING recycling!? since 'spent' fuel rods contain a LOT of useful materials, like for instance plenty of fissile material to use in nuclear reactors....but noooo there are rules that forbid that...since the same 'principles' and 'methods' are used when creating weapons grade fissile material....

or work out the kinks in FAST reactors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_reactor which effectively could burn out the 'waste' as fuel....

basically, current design reactors and recycling fuel rods would lower the amount of 'waste' by at least 50% and could get closer to 100% than you might think.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/archi ... uclear.pdf <---- nice little text on the subject, damn it is annoying when real life physics comes and annoys peoples delusions...and yes, i enjoy killing cat girls, i would like to adopt a few though for safekeeping of the species, can someone point out where/how you do that?

[Trantor]

Sry for necroposting, but i´m delighted to announce that germanys right-wing(!)-goverment today abandonded nuclear energy.

Good luck with the next two governments who need to put that in effect. There was a "phasing out" commitment made about a decade ago for the oldest nuclear reactors in my country (by 2015 IIRC),

Same here. It was initially initiated by the social-democrats and the greens years ago.

and the current government allows extensions to the power company that owns them in return for the profit they make in keeping those reactors running after their normal lifetime is over.

Also same here. Our current right-wing-gov scuttled the phase-out end of last year, stirring uproar.
Sound like Germany.

Then Fukushima happened, and the right-wing lost Baden-Württemberg in an election to the Greens (!, not only to the SD, but tha Greaans!!1!). FYI: Ba-Wü was (ultra-)conservative for 55 consecutive years, it´s the state where eg Mercedes, Porsche and Siemens have their factories.
Of course it wasn´t only Fukushima, there was already a momentum triggered by general dissatisfaction with the new "inherited" Governor, who for example let the police shoot at protesters, wasted billions of taxmoney and so on. But still. Enough concern for "the Merkel" to take action.

Now some mockers joke that the greens will become redundant, as their only major point is occupied by the right-wing.

If it wasn't for Fukushima back in March, only the greens would have made a ruckus about it.

Yep. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

May i ask, which country are you from?

[Trantor]

trantor: imho nuclear power is probably the safest and 'greenest' around, if people would STOP using designs(and facilities) that are like 50-60 years old.
why you ask? well simple, take the thorium cycle for instance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle

Yes, i already stated that i could live with LFTRs.
Sadly the military-industrial complex isn´t interested in them.

or for that matter do some EFFING recycling!? since 'spent' fuel rods contain a LOT of useful materials, like for instance plenty of fissile material to use in nuclear reactors....but noooo there are rules that forbid that...since the same 'principles' and 'methods' are used when creating weapons grade fissile material...

They already do, and it´s a dirty industry. See Sellafield or La Hague.
LFTRs wouldn´t have sth like "refinery" or "fuel rods" (another thing that repels greedy capitalists, when theres nothing to profit), and therefor no waste from these processes. And we´re talking about vast amounts of waste from these processes.

or work out the kinks in FAST reactors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_reactor which effectively could burn out the 'waste' as fuel...

Hm, liquid metal as "coolant" and moderator. Ask the russians, what a hell this is... (submarine-powerplants etc)

basically, current design reactors and recycling fuel rods would lower the amount of 'waste' by at least 50% and could get closer to 100% than you might think.

But were still talking about reprocessing. And in reprocessing there´s waste, and possible mistakes.
LFTRs don´t need that at all. They only need online-processing for extracting some gases and lead, the rest stays wthin the salt.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/archi ... uclear.pdf <---- nice little text on the subject, damn it is annoying when real life physics comes and annoys peoples delusions...

Come on, that´s just PR.
Nuclear energy is clean and green... yadayada. Nothing there is true. Take a look where they mine uranium. It´s an atrocity. Even here in Germany there were officially (!) 117.000 victims due to uranium mining (former east germany, SDAG Wismut-Aue).
Nope, i don´t buy this.
Thorium-mining would be a lot cleaner and less lethal, but no one is interested.

and yes, i enjoy killing cat girls, i would like to adopt a few though for safekeeping of the species, can someone point out where/how you do that?

I sadly don´t know, but pls bring some along if you find them.

[Mjolnir]

What about the atrocities in the whole chain? From mining (see impact from the Grasberg-mine alone, or how the miners in africa suffer), then the oh-so clean processing? And reprocessing?

And coal mining is so much better...

Fact: Fukushima didn't kill anyone. Didn't even make anyone sick. It's possible that some people will have absorbed enough radioactive iodine in spite of limited exposure and iodine tablets that they will have an increased risk of thyroid cancer, fortunately thyroid cancer is readily diagnosed and treated...radioactive iodine being one way to attack it.

Just mining coal kills thousands a year. Coal ash spills wipe out huge swathes of land, destroying houses, causing tremendous damage to water life, and contaminating soil and water with heavy metals that, unlike radioactive iodine or cesium, never decay and produce health effects that are much harder to treat if not outright impossible...neurological damage, birth defects, etc. Coal mines produce similar forms of pollution, and some of the mining practices are simply devastating to the environment (mountaintop removal, for example).

And don´t forget about all our supersafe ultimate disposal places!
Oh. Wait one. There isn´t. And there will never be. Gosh. This shit radiates for a million years, where to put it save? How much will this cost? And will it be save forever? Or do we just curse or children for our shareholder benefit, and leave it to them? (Did i hear someone saying "transmutation"? :mrgreen: )

We don't need to store it forever. The "spent", mostly-unburned fuel that's been through a generation 1, 2, or 3 reactor once is almost entirely still useful fuel. We can build reactors now that reduce the fuel to isotopes that'll be safe in a matter of centuries, both eliminating the long term waste problem and greatly decreasing the amount of fissile isotopes that have to be mined in the first place...given current stockpiles, we could get by without mining anything at all for a good long time. It can be considered a type of transmutation, just one that has the pleasant side effect of producing power.

Contrast with coal ash and the various emissions from coal mining, which decay...well, never.

An update on the status of Fukushima: from the beginning, it was known the cores had sustained damage,

No, sir. From the beginning on there were lies and malicious deceit from the officials.
The one who published first that there was something bad going on was fiercly decried by you.

No, JAIF has been publishing regular updates since the earthquake and tsunami took the plant down, from a few days after the quake they were estimating severe core damage in 1 and 3. Estimates later went up to 50-70%, and back down to 50% based on what available instrumentation seemed to be saying. You can check, the updates are still up. So are all the posts in this thread...

Combining computer simulations with measurements taken from the reactors over time and with better measurements taken more recently, it looks like the cores did worse than thought,

Now you see my with my jaw dropped.
Weren´t you the one who decried said measurements from the CTBTO?

CTBTO is not taking measurements of the reactor temperatures, pressures, and water levels and flow rates, etc. Your "said measurements" is incorrect, their measurements have absolutely nothing to do with this. I'm talking about temperature, pressure, and water level measurements made at the Fukushima plant, much of the data coming from instrumentation that's been repaired, installed, or made accessible by workers relatively recently as working conditions in the buildings have improved.

The one who brought up this guy from England with his powerpoint-yadayada-"simulations" that said everything will be in perfect order, nothing happened?

I'm at a complete loss as to why you refer to time series measurement data in machine-readable form and a few example visualizations of said data as "simulations" or why you keep comparing such data to a Powerpoint presentation. There were no simulations whatsoever at that page, and no Powerpoint presentations.

The simulations I refer to are finite element models created by Tepco (yes, yes, Tepco is evil, I know), based on detailed knowledge of the structure and materials of the reactors, their operating history and current conditions, and so on. Without measurements to compare the results to, you can not be certain you're simulating the actual conditions. The current estimates of the reactor status are based on simulating various possible outcomes and matching the results to actual measurements.

Let´s check: Ah, yes, it´s all in the Thread. Sry, you lose.

Yup, it's all in the thread. I think you might want to check the score again.

Keep in mind that there was no reason to expect an earthquake and tsunami of this severity,

Lies, lies, lies and malicious deceit. There was a tsunami in the same region around 1900 with a height of 14m. And that wasn´t the only one. They simply ignored it.


You know what´s funny?
You´re subtly trying to make me look like an ideologist (anti-nuke-nut), but it´s not me who´s the ideologically blinded here.

I don't have to do anything to make you look like an anti-nuke-nut...you're constantly misrepresenting and cherry-picking information, ignoring information that contradicts your views, and ranting about conspiracies and coverups. You're doing the job quite well all on your own.

And that btw is an interesting phenomenon, because i´d normally consider you a well educated and intelligent person. You show a lot of knowledge in your posts, especially in science and tech topics, but at least in this vital case you draw utterly false conclusions. I really puzzle about this.

It is a curious blind spot. I'm not sure why you have these irrational beliefs about nuclear power, but education seems to help in many cases...if you can let go of the preconceived belief that nuclear power must be bad and reason from facts instead.

[Trantor]

Fact: Fukushima didn't kill anyone. Didn't even make anyone sick.

You lie outright. There are thousands of people that lost their homes already. PTSD.
And there were those guys in the plant who were burnt by irradiated water, getting a whopping 1000mSv from this.
And every addtional dose statistically leads to increased rates of cancer.

...<coal whatev´s>...

I´m not promoting coal, either.

You seem to be stuck in the cold-war times.
But i have news for you: There´s a little thingy called "progress".
Progress makes renewables available. No need for nukes anymore.
No need for coal in the near future anymore.

And YOU wil buy the tech from us then.

And don´t forget about all our supersafe ultimate disposal places!
Oh. Wait one. There isn´t. And there will never be. Gosh. This shit radiates for a million years, where to put it save? How much will this cost? And will it be save forever? Or do we just curse or children for our shareholder benefit, and leave it to them? (Did i hear someone saying "transmutation"? )

We don't need to store it forever. The "spent", mostly-unburned fuel that's been through a generation 1, 2, or 3 reactor once is almost entirely still useful fuel. We can build reactors now that reduce the fuel to isotopes that'll be safe in a matter of centuries...

Fairy tales. Nothing of this will work properly or environmental friendly.

It can be considered a type of transmutation

Ok, that´s enough.
We can talk again when you´re back in reality.
For the others: Only two points: This so-called transmutation needs way more energy than ever came out of all NPPs. Ever. And there will be no unicorn-poop. Still, there will be a lot´s of dangerous nucleoides coming from this. It´s not working. It´s a chimera, wishful thinking by an industry obviously gone bonkers.

I'm talking about temperature, pressure, and water level measurements made at the Fukushima plant, much of the data coming from instrumentation that's been repaired, installed, or made accessible by workers relatively recently as working conditions in the buildings have improved.

Look, tepco was able to monitor the shit hitting the fan in the first 16 hours, until the last battery died. They knew all the rods melted already.
And?
And they lied about it. Simply. Lies, lies, lies. Malicious deceit.
And that´s industry-wide. Japan, USA, France, England, Russia, even here in Germany our nuclear heroes managed to scram Isar 1 while shutting it down a few weeks ago.
They didn´t even publish it as they´re obliged to, only a whistleblower delivered the news. Only 6cm water left above the rods, where the minimum was 200something. NOoo risk for everyone, of course, all under control. Yadayada.

And you know what? I don´t want such a dangerous tech run by such jerks. It´s not worth that little bit of electricity.

The simulations I refer to are finite element models created by Tepco (yes, yes, Tepco is evil, I know), based on detailed knowledge of the structure and materials of the reactors,

You still believe them?

You know, a russian nuclear expert recently stated, that the age of nukes won´t be over till another 3 or 4 Fuckupshimas will happen. I´m afraid he´s right.

...you're constantly misrepresenting and cherry-picking information

LOL. Say´s the right one.

I'm not sure why you have these irrational beliefs about nuclear power

Aren´t Chernobyl and Fuckupshima enough? And all the atrocities in the whole processing chain?
117.000 dead in germany alone! And suffering from all kinds of cancer before death. Some of them for decades. Google SDAG Wismut.
And still: There won´t be safe ultimate disposal places. Ever. Even if there were, the cost of them would eat up every profit a thousand times over the millenias.
And forget transmutation. It doesn´t work. And it is even not suitable for all types of waste. Even IF there were such a thing, there still would be vast amounts of waste that couldn´t be treated in this way.


So, your spin doesn´t work. I´m not the one who is irrational here.

but education seems to help in many cases...

Not in all, obviously.

if you can let go of the preconceived belief that nuclear power must be bad and reason from facts instead.

Were did i stated that?
Actually, i would welcome LFTRs.

[Nemo]

You lie outright.

The Troll is strong with this one.

[CptWinters]

The Troll is strong with this one.

And has been for a while.

[Arioch]

This "discussion" can serve no further useful purpose, so I am closing this thread.