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mynameismud
climber
backseat
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Rokjox,
saying that we should use Nuclear Reactors because the manufacturing process for Solar causes pollution is crazy talk. Think about it. Uh, Nuclear waste is just a wee bit more toxic and the last time someone broke a solar panel we just broke out the broom and recycled the glass.
golsen,
My Uncle worked at Hanford for about 15 years. I have heard a few stories about that place. Nothing about it inspires confidence, that is why they put a locked fence around it.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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I'd like to recommend the the link posted by cintune on atomic testing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA
It is most instructive to see how much fall out we have all been exposed to in the past 55 years. It's really hard to justify why that much further testing was needed for such already lethal weaponry.
It's also instructive that of the first five bits of plutonium found at Fukushima, three of them were determined to be from nuclear testing, and not the reactor itself. Of course that ratio has changed now I'm sure.
Speaking of which, when I was doing a lot of meditation and my senses were more highly attuned, I was on my futon on the floor here in Okinawa one night back in 1985, and felt what I knew was a nuclear blast. I had felt earthquakes before, but this was a much more sustained roaring rumbling feeling coming through the ground with vibrations but no shaking like an earthquake and went on for over 5 minutes.
Later I mentioned it to some students and one of them who worked in Navy intel later pulled me aside and told me it was definitely not an earthquake I felt, but he couldn't say more than that. I looked in the papers and nothing was ever mentioned, so I figured it could not have been the Americans, Russians or Chinese involved anywhere in the neighborhood or they would have been accusing each other.
I surmised the French or maybe the Israelis had tested in the Pacific and since water carries sound more efficiently than land, that's why I could feel it on this tiny island. After watching cintune's link, I noted that there was indeed heavy testing going on in the western Pacific during that period of time.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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It seems more likely to have been the French, although perhaps they let the Israelis test at their site. A mid-Pacific atmospheric atomic test in the mid 1980s seems improbably conspicuous for Israel.
Israel likely detonated its first atomic bomb in the uninhabited South Shetland Islands in late 1979, in the far South Atlantic, but they've surely set off a few more since.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Cryos, the God of Cold Fusion.
Cryos help us in our time of need.
The problem is, not enough people believe in Cryos. So it's understandable if he doesn't what to give us cold fusion.
It might still work. Pray to Cryos. What do you have to lose?
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WBraun
climber
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None of your prayers will be answered.
You've all disrespected material nature for 100's of years and and still are doing so today ......
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Where do you think all the electricity; NEW electricity for all the pretty little electric cars is going to come from? TRILLIONS of watts of new electricity?
Rokjox has a point that many are missing. Kind of a conundrum here. If you think electrical cars are the ticket for reducing greenhouse gases, then building more coal fired powerplants kind of defeats the purpose.
EDIT:
Werner, change you've to we've and I agree with you buddy.
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happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
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"If this were in the states, the workers would be protected to the fullest extent."
Like happened in the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11/01?
When the S#!t hits the fan in a way never really anticipated, the forces scramble.
The workers on 9/11 went in without protection of any kind in some instances. Plenty exposed have sickened and died in this last decade.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Happie,
different situations. Different hazards. While the Nuclear plant is terribly crippled if not nearly out and out destroyed, the workers are wearing PPE over there now and their exposures is even being reported in the media....Not sure I get your point.
By the way, I was trying to respond to the Plutonium find. Since it is an Alpha Emitter, then if you dont breathe or eat it, then you will be safe. We have the technology to prevent that for trained workers. If there was a large scale release with the wind going towards Tokyo then you obviously have a different situation.
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mynameismud
climber
backseat
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They did squat to protect my Uncle when he worked at Hanford. That is in the USA. The standards are the same.
I am familiar with the Semi Conductor industry. It is bad, but nothing close to the Nuclear Industry.
What your saying about Solar is completely off base. Again, a personal friend, solar installation, an electric car and an electric truck. They produce more than they use. They charge their vehicles daily. Their solar installation is 7 years old.
Talked to my other buddy today. Told him about this discussion and he corrected me. His installation covers 1/6th of his house. If his entire house was covered even on the worst day he would produce double what he uses and he's a power hog.
EDIT: he produced 25khw today.
The bottom line is, Solar will never work for you because you do not want it.
EOM
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Those plants look pretty jacked in those drone images CC. I don't know how there can be any talk of restoring the cooling systems and now there's stress about all the water they pump in there because it leaks out contaminated. What to do?
Not a happy problem
Peace
Karl
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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The aerial photos, in the link Cornice Chopper shared, show how difficult any work at the Fukushima reactors will be.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Fukushima Daiichi
A U.S. Navy barge containing freshwater to cool the reactors and used fuel pools at the Daiichi site has been towed to the pier. It will be connected to the pumps with hoses.
Meanwhile, injection of freshwater continues at reactors 1-3 and workers continue to spray freshwater on the used fuel pools for reactors 1-4.
TEPCO is evaluating the use of a synthetic resin that would be sprayed over debris at the site to prevent the spread of radioactive dust.
Additional equipment, including the biggest concrete pump in the world, is being provided by U.S. companies. The pump’s 70-meter boom can be controlled remotely. It has been in use at the Savannah River Site, helping build a U.S. government mixed oxide nuclear fuel plant. Concrete pumps are already in use at the site to assist with spraying water into the used fuel pools.
My hypotheses is that the spent fuel pools are leaking but who knows? Apparently there is containment (like a concrete pool) capturing much of that water that they are filling up but all of the contaminated water should be captured and fed to large storage tanks.
Since this is an emergency situation I hope that they are thinking ahead to lessen the disaster in terms of wastewater management. I don't think that they will have enough capacity to capture all the water unless they start treating it rapidly. There are skid mounted units which can filter the water which will undoubtedly capture some of the radiochemicals (solid phases). This is really tricky here, because if this is extremely radioactive, they don't have the time to set up an emergency treatment system because it would have to be designed for hands off or no maintenance. If there are lots of radioactive solids then those filters which require changing will concentrate the radioactive material. If they had been thinking ahead then they will know this and there are some potential mitigation strategies they can use.
Knowing the water chemistry and the phase of the radioactive material is key to what comes next. Some radiochemicals may be in the liquid phase and may beremoved via ion exchange (think your home water softener). Again, the rad will be concentrated into the resin so this must be factored into how to maintain the unit.
Simply by filtering and ion exchange, they could remove most of the radioactive elements from the water (big assumption without seeing the actual analysis of water chemistry). The simple, quick and dirty system I described will most likely let the radioactive iodine through. If I were them I would let it through as the half-life is very small. In the time they have, it will be very difficult to design and build a system to remove everything.
A simple system above won't meet the USA's clean water act but its a damn site better than letting the untreated water leak into the environment while everyone masterdebates the issues.
They will be keeping these things cool for weeks or months and treating the water is much easier if you don't crap the system up so bad (rad talk for make it so radioactive) as to make it non-maintainable. I guess you can just replace the whole skid, that is an option too.
The article above describes some sort of chemical fixant which would immobilize particulate onto some surface. This seems a viable option, but I would definitely be thinking about the water and the impacts of the fixant on water treatment as they are using mass quantities and generating a lot of contaminated water.
Lastly, the pumper truck they are getting from the Savannah River site can be used to deliver concrete,( while the operators are up to 1 mile away). They will try and ascertain whether they have the nuclear fuel sufficiently cool prior to any dumping of concrete. Further, they will be looking at the existing concrete foundation, potentially make some blind dumps to contain and shield the fuel so that eventually workers can get closer so as to properly cocoon the thing with large concrete structural walls and roof. Or at least that's what I would be thinking.
When it is all over with there will be cocooned reactors there at least for our eternity. Then you can think of them as monuments to man's stupidity, monuments to how a plant that was 40 years old prevented a totally catastrophic nuclear release, or even a monument to the workers. It all depends upon how you view things.
EDIT: Just saw this....Confirmed my suspicions with regards to water management.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/world/asia/03japan.html
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mynameismud
climber
backseat
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Then you can think of them as monuments to man's stupidity, monuments to how a plant that was 40 years old prevented a totally catastrophic nuclear release
To late for that.
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mynameismud
climber
backseat
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“Today we found highly irradiated water in the pit where the electricity cables are contained,” Nishiyama said at a news conference. “It seems that there is a crack on the side of the concrete wall of the pit. Some water is spilling out of the crack to the sea.”
There are other leaks they have not found.
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Minute traces of plutonium are found in nature, especially plutonium-239 and 244....Pu-239 found in uranium ores from spontaneous fission of U-238, which emits free neutrons that are absorbed by other U-238 nuclei, becoming U-239 which decays to neptunium-239 which, in turn, decays to plutonium 239.
...also plutonium produced by the natural bombardment of uranium ores with cosmic rays.
Most "man made" plutonium released into the environment settles near the source...(plutonium atoms are heavy). Elemental plutonium is not H2O soluble but can bond with organic substances in water.
When I worked at the Idaho National Lab, health physicists spoke of an incident, decades ago, in which an engineer was discovered with a vial of plutonium in a drawer of his desk. Since Pu is a low gamma emitter it wasn't hazardous while contained in the vial. But had the vial broken and gotten into food or ingested in someone's cream and coffee... it would have been deadly.
Fotunately, the vial was detected by sensitive instruments during a routine rad survey of the building. The engineer was fired (and he may have faced legal indictment)
In the cold war era, fuel handling and storage were less scrutinized and secure. When I worked there, recently, all aspects of fuel treatment and administration were monitored by a sizable force of security guards.
Anders wrote:
"Israel likely detonated its first atomic bomb in the uninhabited South Shetland Islands in late 1979, in the far South Atlantic, but they've surely set off a few more since."
All humans...animals... have trace amounts of plutonium in their bodies...both from natural sources and human genesis... ie, the 500+ atmospheric and underwater bomb tests in 20th century.
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mynameismud
climber
backseat
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Just recently in the Chinese News (yes I read it daily) there was an incident where I man found a piece of metal the size of a lighter rummaging through a dump. He got sick and died within two weeks. Within a Month his brother and son died. His wifes child was born with life threatening birth defects.
Around 20 people were affected before it was traced down and stored safely. It was plutonium.
Those that say Plutonium is safe are not telling the whole story.
“They don’t want to go there,” said Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert who, from 1993 to 1999, was a policy adviser to the secretary of energy. “The spin is all about reassurance.”
It found core temperatures in the reactors soaring as high as 2,250 degrees Celsius, or more than 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to liquefy many reactor metals.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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MNIM,
if you get it inside of you it can kill. I think that everyone has said that. However, it is an alpha particle emitter. The alpha radiation will not go through paper or your skin. I posted some links to it already from the EPA site. If you are not careful, don't wash your hands, etc, then you can inadvertently ingest or inhale it and then it can be deadly. Not sure about two weeks though unless you ingest a lot! IT is not some type of magical poison. The effects are very well documented.
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mynameismud
climber
backseat
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It may have been a Month. He's dead.
I am sure his wife does not care if he died in two weeks or four.
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