Suppresed Video of Japanese Reactor Sodium Leak 341
James Hardine writes "Following an announcement this week that the infamous Japanese Monju fast-breeder nuclear reactor would be re-opened with a new plutonium core, Wikileaks has released suppressed video footage of the disaster that led to its closure in 1995. The video shows men in silver 'space suits' exploring the reactor in which sodium compounds hang from the air ducts like icicles. Unlike conventional reactors, fast-breeder reactors, which 'breed' plutonium, use sodium rather than water as a coolant. This type of coolant creates a potentially hazardous situation as sodium is highly corrosive and reacts violently with both water and air. Government officials at first played down the extent of damage at the reactor and denied the existence of a videotape showing the sodium spill. The deputy general manager, Shigeo Nishimura, 49, jumped to his death the day after a news conference at which he and other officials revealed the extent of the cover-up. His family is currently suing the government at Japan's High Court."
This video will drive one procedural change (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Also (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing will stop the resurgance of nuclear power (Score:4, Insightful)
This SHOULD show that even a "disaster" is minimal by nuclear standards and that safety is about a billion times better than any type of plant, but who knows how this will be interpreted by those who are inclined to panic at what they don't understand.
Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Safe Nukes (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Youtube link (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it, nuclear power is Bad, so the fact that there is a video showing a bunch of kids in hazmat suits re-enacting Blair Witch in their school basement should we all the proof you need. Any grainy image of sewage pipes is a bonus.
Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Read up on 'loss of blade' accidents for windmills, dam failures for hydro, and how coal releases radiation (lots of it) and other toxins (lots of them). Read up on what chemical compounds are used in solar cells, or just how hot a commercial sterling solar engine is at the mirror's focal point. Look at the political consequences of breeders, but also at the political consequences of the existing fuel oil demand. Look at the environmental consequences of nuclear, but also at the environmental consequences of big oil. Find out how even wave and tide, if scaled up to produce tens or hundreds of gigawatts, means thousands of small boat accidents a year, plus Manatees and probably many other species will inevitably become extinct and whole ecologies such as the everglades will likely follow. For any power source, read up on where it is to be located, and the human costs of sending the power to where it is to be used. THERE IS NO SAFE!
Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
And as we all know, that's not news because it isn't sensational enough.
One study I found when searching indicates that 25 reactor meltdowns per year would be required to being it inline with coal pollution deaths.
Quite right, and since the dawn of the human race (Score:5, Insightful)
We are also poor at judging risks outside our biological programming, which is why we deem it a reasonable trade off to have over a hundred thousand people a year across Europe and the US die in accidents, rather than have universal public transport. If a hundred thousand deaths a year is OK so we can go to the office exactly when we feel like it, why isn't it OK so we can turn on the dishwasher exactly when we feel like it? - and that's meant to be a serious question.
Re:radioactive sodium too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming (Score:3, Insightful)
I was just in my home state of Pennsylvania yesterday and saw a bumper sticker asking "Why not coal?" (Coal Miner's Union) The major industry around my area used to be anthracite mining, and when that collapsed, the town kinda went to shit, although it's coming back slowly. Given that, I understand why they'd want coal, just like I'm sure people in Detroit want the auto industry back, and the midwest wants ethanol.
Unfortunately, even though it would probably be a boon to my home town, I can't agree with bringing back coal. All of the evidence just seems to point to critical public safety issues due to the inevitable pollution. I'm a believer that, when the world changes, you change with it. Re-educate, find something else to do, and go do it. This resistance to change is what keeps communities poor in the global economy, and creates lobbies to bring back technologies and industries that are probably better off dead or significantly re-structured.
Re:Nothing will stop the resurgance of nuclear pow (Score:3, Insightful)
Democratically elected governments do not remain so for very long if they are allowed to muzzle citizens and the media.
Re:Governments can suppress the videos (Score:1, Insightful)
So, no, I don't think we should make the Bush administration miserable just for the sake of making them miserable.
HOWEVER, I =do= believe we should make them answer for the myriad of fuckups and irresponsible decisions they've made since January 2001. That alone should make them pretty miserable, and I wouldn't be sad to see it.
Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming (Score:3, Insightful)
There are other coolants you can use for breeder reactors. My personal favorite is the lead cooled system. It can safely shut itself down even without any computer or operator intervention (thanks to thermal expansion of the core ), there is no pressure in the reactor, so it can't explode, lead doesn't boil at the temperatures involved, so a loss of coolant accident as happened at TMI is unlikely, and it can reach temperatures high enough to allow high-efficiency thermochemical production of hydrogen from seawater. The latter will be important as natural gas gets more expensive ( virtually all fertilizer used in agriculture is made using hydrogen from natural gas ). Main issue is corrosion in molten lead, but already proven materials can handle it for electricity generation. The more advanced high-temperature system that produces hydrogen thermochemically at 850 C will require more advanced materials to be developed however.
Worse than what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, let's talk about the environmental effects. My family actually has a history with this, living in West Virginia and finding work in the mines. Ever heard of a process called "strip mining"? Tearing the tops off of mountains and letting mining sediment flow into valleys and adjacent creeks? Nuclear waste is more dangerous pound per pound, but it also can be contained, stored, and most importantly, reprocessed into other nuclear fuels. Coal burns and releases carbon.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm willing to risk the occasional "breeder screwup" every couple of decades for cheaper, more environmentally-friendly fuel that doesn't involve razing land en masse and sending people into under-inspected mines because the product itself is simply so worthless unless produced in bulk.
Uranium isn't a solution to any major environmental problem, considering that such a novel idea simply doesn't exist right now. But it's still more than coal. It's something I'd be willing to put myself behind if a nuclear plant were proposed near my home.
Re:radioactive sodium too (Score:5, Insightful)
What, exactly, do you think the energy of a 2,000 pound bomb going off in the middle of a reactor will do in terms of letting more sodium leak? What do you think letting more sodium leak will do in terms of further explosions? What do you think all of this will do to the primary?
This was a Very Bad Thing (TM), but could have been far worse.
Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
zing!
Re:radioactive sodium too (Score:5, Insightful)
The big issue here is not that an accident happened -- accidents have a way of doing that from time to time. Things go wrong, the best plans have flaws, people make mistakes. This is true of
The big issue here is that the government lied to its people and the fact that they lied was covered up. We need more stories like this of governments around the world because it might just put a dent in the (very dangerous) "government is your friend" mentality that is especially prevalant in the USA.
Personally I wish the definition of treason were expanded to include "issuing false statements to the people with the intent to deceive when done by any government official" or something to that effect. Meaning, you can make an honest mistake and it's no big deal; deliberately lie to the people and you get removed from office and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Does that sound harsh? Perhaps, but they don't seem to think so when they "make an example" of us, as we have seen with the War on (Some) Drugs and are now seeing with copyright law. Not to mention, almost any concept I have of "harsh" goes out the window when talking of wrongdoing on the part of people who consider themselves our masters.
This isn't Athens where people were chosen for public office by lottery. These are people who seek power and have worked very hard to get it. What's wrong with giving them a reason to be cautions with how they use it?
Re:Safety is not the issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear Power and Global Warming (Score:3, Insightful)
You underestimate the amount of people who will buy Detroit/UAW(and not at exhorbitant prices) despite the push to kill it. They are not of the type that will just settle for an import just because some non-voting person wants us to go in a direction contrary to the citizens' wishes.