US Alarmed Over Japan's Nuclear Crisis 580
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that the US is urging Americans who live within 50 miles of Japan's earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to evacuate as Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that no water remains in a deep pool used to cool spent fuel at the plant and that radiation levels there are thought to be 'extremely high.' Jaczko's testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee suggests that damage to the plant is worse than the Japanese government and the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has acknowledged. On Tuesday, the company said water levels in three of the site's seven fuel pools were dropping, but did not say that the fuel rods themselves had been exposed. Left exposed to the air, the fuel rods will start to decay and release radioactivity into the air and lack of water in at least one spent-fuel pool sparked fears of a worst-case scenario: the fuel could combust. 'If there's no water in there, the spent fuel can start a fire,' says Eric Moore, a consultant to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on nuclear plant design and safety issues. 'Once you have that fire, there's a high risk of radiation getting out, spewed by the fire.' The power company says a reduced crew of 50 to 70 employees — far fewer than the 1,400 or more at the plant during normal operations — had been working in shifts to keep seawater flowing to the three reactors now in trouble. Their withdrawal on Wednesday temporarily left the plant with nobody to continue cooling operations."
Rethinking my pro-nuclear stance (Score:2, Interesting)
I have always been pretty pro-nuclear power. It doesn't suffer from almost all of the drawbacks that classic power generation suffers from, nor many of the drawbacks of 'green' power generation (works only with wind/sun or you need such a LOT of it to generate anything significant). I've never had anyone be able to present an argument against it that couldn't be picked apart easily - apart from "well, *I* wouldnt want to live next to one". But I must admit I am having to rethink my position. Maybe small, self contained reactors are the answer, but I doubt it.
The Japanese are number 1 when it comes to earthquake proofing. So if they are unable to build plants that can take a big natural disaster (very big sure, but certainly not unheard of) without turning into a catastrophy, I'm really wondering if the idea simply is not inherently flawed. I mean even if it turns out this was caused by sloppy building and bribed inspectors or what have you, even if this was just a small proportion of the nuclear plants in the affected zone - then it still proves that one cannot guarantee there won't be a giant radioactive 'event' in case of a large natural disaster. I really shudder to think what would happen if there was a big earthquake in Russia right now. Or anywhere near the North Korean nuclear facilities. Does anyone believe that they are better prepared for something like that than the Japanese would be?
Re:Fukushima Accidend NOT an error, It is a CRIME (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fukushima Accidend NOT an error, It is a CRIME (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fukushima Accidend NOT an error, It is a CRIME (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not that unpredictable. To get a nuclear explosion you need weapons grade uranium, which is IIRC 90% fissionable isotopes, whereas at a power-plant you typically have fuel grade uranium which is something like 3% fissionable isotopes.
To say the reactor can cause a nuclear explosion is to say that broken eggs can spontaneously reform when hurled at the ground, a deep violation of entropy.