Excessive Radiation Inside Fukushima Fries Clean-Up Robot (gizmodo.com) 307
"A remotely-controlled robot sent to inspect and clean a damaged reactor at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant had to be pulled early when its onboard camera went dark, the result of excess radiation," reports Gizmodo. "The abbreviated mission suggests that radiation levels inside the reactor are even higher than was reported last week -- and that robots are going to have a hell of a time cleaning this mess up." From the report: Last week, Gizmodo reported that radiation levels inside the containment vessel of reactor No. 2 at Fukushima reached a jaw-dropping 530 sieverts per hour, a level high enough to kill a human within seconds. Some Japanese government officials questioned the reading because Tokyo Electric Power Company Holding (TEPCO) calculated it by looking at camera interference on the robot sent in to investigate, rather than measuring it directly with a geiger counter or dosimeter. It now appears that this initial estimate may have been too low. Either that, or TEPCO's robot is getting closer to the melted fuel -- which is very likely. High radiation readings near any of the used fuel are to be expected. Yesterday, that same remotely operated robot had to be pulled when its camera began to fail after just two hours of exposure to the radiation inside the damaged reactor. Accordingly, TEPCO has revised its estimate to about 650 sieverts per hour, which is 120 more sieverts than what was calculated late last month (although the new estimate comes with a 30 percent margin of error). The robot is designed to withstand about 1,000 accumulated sieverts, which given the failure after two hours, jibes well with the camera interference. This likely means that the melted fuel burned through its pressure vessel during the meltdown in March of 2011, and is sitting somewhere nearby.
Are you insane? I'm not going in there! (Score:2)
Money to be made... (Score:2, Interesting)
If someone could figure out how to make tech that could survive in such environments. Aircraft have to deal with more radiation than normal, as do spacecraft. Something that survived for say a day in such an environment might survive for a very long time in an aircraft and work without errors, which is equally important..
Re:Money to be made... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are radiation resistant electronics but it isn't something you'll find off a shelf. Plus if its a hot neutron source pretty much no electronics they I know of are going to work properly.
Still one would expect they had a more accurate and cost effective way to measure the level of radiation before sending an expensive robot in.
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That's easily enough time to keep the hallway clear by spending those minutes finding somewhere else to die.
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Strange to say, some older microprocessors are more resistant to radiation. The components in modern microprocessors are much more tightly packed and a gamma ray is more likely to hit something critical. This is why NASA uses special microprocessors that are less densely packed and thus more resistant to the radiation in deep space. Sounds to me that they might want to consult with NASA about how to deal with radiation.
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Strange to say, some older microprocessors are more resistant to radiation. The components in modern microprocessors are much more tightly packed and a gamma ray is more likely to hit something critical. This is why NASA uses special microprocessors that are less densely packed and thus more resistant to the radiation in deep space. Sounds to me that they might want to consult with NASA about how to deal with radiation.
The NASA special microprocessors are old 8086, 80386, etc and not so special. The drawback is computing speed and features. They still won't work close to a hot neutron source.
Re:Money to be made... (Score:5, Informative)
+1. What aircraft are exposed to are mostly gammas and a few heavy ions, not neutrons (alongside massive amounts of gammas as well). There's nothing close to neutrons in terms of causing damage, they'll penetrate almost anything and then activate it so you get the whole mix, alphas, betas, and gammas inside the sensitive devices that you're trying to protect. You can make electronics that's somewhat resistant to radiation, but it can't do much against neutrons. In any case all the rad-hard stuff is designed for space/military use, and that's gammas, not neutrons (and accompanying alpha, beta, and gamma).
There really isn't any easy way to do this. One approach I guess would be to have all the control electronics a long way from the robot and only basic actuators and sensors on the robot itself. However, video is still control electronics...
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Re:Money to be made... (Score:5, Interesting)
Random suggestion--
Use a trailing fiber optic pickup, with the actual CCD and robot controller hardware OUTSIDE the reactor.
Similar in concept to the imaging system used for laparoscopy.
In this case, the "mobile" portion of the robot is made using the "more radiation resistant" larger discrete components, with a fat data cable and fiber optic line dragging behind it, leading to the actual logic controller portion of the robot, parked outside.
That would help with costs, and service life of the robot. (Expensive controller hardware stays outside the reactor, only the driver part needs to be discarded as radioactive waste, and the imaging sensor array is not inside the reactor.)
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Darn you, I was thinking the exact same thing. Except having the fiber pointing forward, and just looping around to the back, wehre the CCD is "exposed" but the rest of the camera just layered in lead.
Re:Money to be made... (Score:4, Interesting)
Agree. You could have individual air lines or hydraulic lines to each wheel actuator. Send the fluid one way for that wheel to spin forward, the other way for reverse. Then a minimum robot is just 2 drive cogs, then a fiber optic line for vision and a second fiber optic line for light. No reason it couldn't sit directly next to the molten fuel and work indefinitely. Have an internal chamber and a scintillator tube with a fiber optic line that can relay an image back. From the light intensity - how often the tube is getting stimulated - you'd be able to measure the radiation level. Probably have to use special tubes made just for this.
Re:Money to be made... (Score:4, Interesting)
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From a quick google search I get "Neutrons as particle waves follow the same law for the total reflection as light waves."
Makes me think anything that carries focused light, will carry focused neutrons. Although I imagine it would reduce the exposure of the camera to the size of the lens.
Use vacuum tubes (Score:4, Insightful)
You laugh, but tubes aren't affected by ionizing radiation.
Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:2)
How does that work? I would think a robot would not be affected by radiation.
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Electronic components are sensitive to static electricity. I can just imagine them being blasted by nuclear radiation at point blank range.
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They need to go old school and replace the tech fancy robot with a remote using hydraulics to make it move, and a mirror /periscope system to see what it sees. Fiber optic perhaps? You can manipulate the valves with cabling to avoid using anything electric.
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:5, Funny)
I speak from experience on the latter.
Re:Speaking from experience (Score:2)
Re: Speaking from experience (Score:2)
So? (Score:2)
Oh, I see! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Yes, I stand by the basic intent and meaning of my sig line - that in opposing the madness which our once proud nation has inflicted upon itself, we who perceive this evil clearly should not reduce ourselves to the petula
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:5, Informative)
In this case the "radiation" is the emission of high-energy neutron particles. Neutrons will run into anything *... and when they do, they transfer a ton of their energy into whatever they hit... causing "damage cascades" as atoms get tossed around (Wikipedia has a decent animation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ).
That atom-scale damage adds up after a while... causing material failure... regardless of the type of material.
For instance, inside of a reactor all of the steel holding all of the fuel in place is constantly bombarded... leading to all sorts of effects like radiation induced swelling and embrittlement.
In humans the primary issue is when those neutrons hit DNA / cells and damage them. It actually happens to us all day long from radiation around us... but our bodies can deal with a certain amount. Too much damage though... and your body can't cope any more.
In robots / electronics the issue is much the same. The neutrons run into _everything_ and degrade it. More sensitive pieces (like camera sensors) will degrade rather quickly while larger components (like structural steel) will most likely be fine for long periods of time.
* The probability that a neutron will hit a certain type of atom is called a "cross section" (XS) and is an _extremely_ well studied phenomenon. You can look at some here: https://www.nndc.bnl.gov/sigma... [bnl.gov] for instance, this is the probability for a neutron running into Hydrogen: https://www.nndc.bnl.gov/sigma... [bnl.gov]
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Displacement damage isn't a problem in this case, it accumulates over years. The primary concern there is radiation embrittlement of pressure vessels, standard 316 stainless contains nickel which captures neutrons and forms an unstable isotope of nickel with an even larger capture cross-section, which decays into iron and (eventually) helium. So you end up with voids created as displacement damage from the neutrons that fill up with helium, which is not a good thing in a reactor vessel. Still, that takes
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It doesn't take years if the flux is high enough and the components are sensitive. Direct neutron damage really can be a problem for electronics.
You are definitely right about all the high energy secondary particles. They cause a whole heap of problems for electronics (including signal spikes etc).
My point really was that there's nothing special about the interaction between radiation and biological intitities (as the original poster was implying). Neutron radiation (including secondary effects) will dama
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Neutrons don't usually cause double strand breaks in DNA. Alpha particles are much more trouble; then betas, then high energy gamma, then lowly neutrons!
Also,
Viewing the nuclear cross sections can be done with the even more powerful tool JANIS
https://www.oecd-nea.org/janis... [oecd-nea.org]
Alphas are indeed much more trouble. But also, alphas can be blocked by a piece of paper, while neutrons just keep on sailing through for a good while. My point is that alphas are not a problem in the real world unless you ingest or inhale an alpha-emitter––that is the only way they can cause serious trouble – be being inside you and wrecking whatever cellular matter they are sitting next to.
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:5, Informative)
Gamma rays break down the crystalline structure of things like the chips. Even low-level radiation will wash out a camera, but about 10-25Sv for "long" periods of time will have some effect, 650Sv pretty much instantly destroys everything, even things like the metal the robot is constructed out of will eventually become harder and more brittle as the atoms get knocked out of the structure (eg. if someone suggested pneumatics, plastic, rubber and metals would also deteriorate).
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:5, Insightful)
You would think very wrong. This was, incidentally, already discovered at Chernobyl at much, much lower radiation levels. All the robots sent from the west failed pretty soon. The whole nuclear power industry is built on the assumption that such accidents do not happen and hence it is not at all prepared for them. That makes it exceptionally unprofessional from an engineering point of view.
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather like web security, then.
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, a lot of the resistance against nuclear energy is people who are (rightfully, it turns out) distrustful of the nuclear industry.
Let's face it, we've been fed a diet of PR, if not outright lies from the very start about the risks and costs of nuclear energy. By now, anything that comes out of an industry shill's mouth can be assumed to be untrue by default.
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:5, Interesting)
That is true *fundamentally*. In practice, nuclear has to spend so much on safety as to cause less than 1/100th the deaths of fossil fuels and even then people are still completely terrified over non-events (from a harm to human life standpoint) like Three Mile Island, people talk ominously about half-lives without ever once mentioning phrases like "Love Canal" or "Centralia" as points of comparison, economical designs are opposed by blowhards like Carter, etc.
It's worth focusing on alternatives mostly because there's too much bullshit to cut through, too many misconceptions and assholes protecting their jobs to make nuclear reform realistic. Unfortunately, there's not an ideal drop-in replacement for nuclear, particular not for larger megaproject sizes that could put a serious dent in pollution whilst simultaneously raising capacity and lowering costs in anticipation of the electric automobile revolution. Maybe they could drop a huge geothermal plant in Yellowstone... yeah, I'm sure the Greens would be perfectly OK with that, if it meant stopping global warming.
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It's an onion of bullshit opposed by bullshit, though. Nuclear is fundamentally rather cheap and rather clean, using sane designs
OK, but how many reactors which were built like shit are still in operation? We have a multitude of plants which are just as shit as Fukushima Daiichi operating here in the USA. They are literally built on the same shit design.
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Not a lot because they were all quietly closed down after TMI or upgraded to solve various problems (mostly instrumentation).
Oh, moving the bar from obviously dangerous to the level of just being a lot less than ideal? In that case all of them even the AP1000 reactors under construction (1980s design with tweaks). There's nothing really more modern than the Fukushima reactor at the scale required f
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Not a lot because they were all quietly closed down after TMI or upgraded to solve various problems (mostly instrumentation).
Anyone who's idea of process safety is upgrading instrumentation shouldn't be working in process safety.
Nothing is solved, the likelihood of some incidents have been reduced. Nothing more.
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Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then that's just about everything.
Yes, you got it in one.
Wind disaster: wind turbine catches on fire. Maybe falls over and kills a cow. We don't have to have humans climb them any more until they actually need work, because we are now inspecting them with drones.
Solar disaster: solar installer falls off roof, probably dies. This is very sad and we should integrate the solar into a metal roof which lasts longer and has better failure modes and is fireproof rather than retrofitting onto old houses with crappy roofs and no preinstalled roof anchors.
Oil disaster: ugh. oil is a disaster. too valuable to burn, let alone spill all over ducks.
Coal disaster: mining it is a disaster. burning it is a disaster.
Nuclear disaster: potentially renders large area uninhabitable by humans for long periods, even if it doesn't kill anyone directly it substantially increases cancer risk for large numbers of people.
I mean, holy shit. Can we please, please, pretty please account for the worst case?
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:4, Interesting)
The argument against shitty nuclear designs is (for the sane and knowledgeable among us) thus more about cost than risk to human life, and since you're talking about already-built stuff then most of the costs are already sunk and if there's no easy migration path you're probably better off simply spending more effort on backup equipment and contingency plans. This is completely ignoring the public relations aspect of nuclear, which I've no idea how to manage and at this point probably isn't fixable.
But yeah, you've fully grasped one side of the coin: "Nuclear experts are full of shit."[1] The other side of the coin is the comparison to alternatives, and speculating how much cheaper nuclear could go if we reduced certain safety measures[2] while still keeping the death toll lower than fossil fuels, which is something virtually no one bothers doing. Nuclear being expensive remains a self-fulfilling prophesy as long as you refuse to take off the blinders.
1. This is true of most experts, but particularly experts in controversial or highly politicized fields who have grown insular, defensive and/or polarized over time.
2. Not relaxing the safety measures to prevent catastrophic "everything is now fucked" incidents like Fukushima so much as allowable radionuclide release during normal operation, perhaps allowable radiation exposure levels adjusted to end up being as dangerous as working in a coal mine, etc. Also, there's some common sense shit like designing reactors and sites that can store all of their waste on-site that no one seems to be talking about, but is perfectly doable in principle and would at the very least least nerf one very common complaint.
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"not designs where it fucking melts into oblivion if it doesn't have constant active cooling, jesus christ what is wrong with those people"
It's not easy or even necessarily better to do it another way. Having a gravity activated emergency cooling system isn't foolproof either, especially in a country like Japan where earthquakes are the biggest risk. Massive lateral forces can jam mechanisms, so it may be better to have a non-moving system with pumps and battery backup, for example.
The problem with new desi
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When one looks at the AP1000 design, while more safe than current reactors, there are still problems. Several systems have to function for cooling to occur, even though you do not need a generator. If a cooling line is physically destroyed, coolant will not get where it needs to go, for instance.These things also have a tank that has to be filled after a few days, assuming the coolant lines from the tank to the reactor are not damaged. There are valves that have to be activated by control systems to open th
Re:Radiation wrecks robots? (Score:5, Informative)
Your non-chalant attitude about radioactivity downplays the risks
It does not. It *compares* them. And nuclear power has been responsible for far less death and suffering even if we include Chernobyl. Without Chernobyl, we're deep into 'more people have been killed by pillow fights' territory.
A meltdown and loss of control can cause it to spread wide as it has with Fukushima.
And Fukushima has been a *financial* catastrophe. It has not been a public health one compared to the other risks we accept all the time with fossil fuels.
Radioactivity has toxicity properties in its own class
Just pure white noise. I understand that sentences like these (which are being posted by many people, not just you) are meant to be persuasive, but it's just a complete non-starter. I don't care if it's different. Toxic heavy metals can be terrifying enough [wikipedia.org], thanks. "Different" doesn't matter. Severity does. And the numbers I've seen show pretty convincingly that nuclear isn't nearly as bad.
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The small little thing you overlook (convenient, as you are obviously do not have effective intelligence) is that a single, average-sized nuclear fuel dump that leaks its contents into the atmosphere is quite enough to sterilize the planet with regards to higher life-forms. If you compare normal operations contamination, of course nuclear looks clean. But a coal power plant that blows up is not more toxic than one that works and the same goes for the resulting waste. Not so at all with nuclear.
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In this case, it sounds like the robot was blinded, not "fried".
Unsurprising since the camera sensor is designed to detect radiation. But through the lens.
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Radiation is, by definition, the transfer of energy through space. So yes, a sufficiently high flux will cause an electronic gizmo to fail just as surely as baking it in an oven would, provided the radiation is of a nature that is absorbed by the kind of matter you find in electronics.
Here we're concerned about neutrons.
Neutrons can penetrate deeply in to materials, and when absorbed by a nucleus can generate gamma rays. This damages materials in multiple ways, such as pitting, swelling, cracking, and m
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Semiconductors work by having a "tipping point" after which they become conductive. High energy electrons (beta particles) are way higher than the bandgap of basically any semiconductor. They will cause the migration of ions embedded in the semiconductor that enable it to be semiconductive.
Additionally, you have things like hot neutrons, and gamma rays. Hot neutrons will cause fission type interactions with the doping atoms embedded in the semiconductor, changing them into 'something else', and releasing
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Depends on the component. Google around how a camera flash too close tto a raspberry pi causes a reboot (slightly older versions, like the early releases of v2)
Also, a ccd is a charged coupled device... Its just *waiting* for radiation to hit it. It sounds like the cameras are the first things to go on these probes/robots.
Things like a motor, hooked to a battery, not so vulnerable.
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I wonder how much it would cost to replace the parts damaged by radiation, instead of getting a whole new robot?
If you want to sit there with a screwdriver and disassemble something that's taken an absorbed dose of 500-1000 Sv, be my guest.
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Yes, but there are no EMPs inside a melted-down nuclear reactor. An EMP is a side effect of a nuclear explosion at certain altitudes inside the atmosphere. This is about ionising radiation directly affecting microscopic transistors.
Replicant (Score:3, Funny)
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The fucking Replicants (Republicans Cant) won, remember?
FAKE NEWS! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's clean, safe, and too cheap to meter.
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Disgusted by all the alternative facts above. I have some VERY GOOD FRIENDS who have personally benefited from the health enhancing nature of radiation. Aka stuff from the SUN aka the natural energy God made for us people.
We can't live without the sun, yet radiation is bad? YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THAT. My friend would be very angry with you lieberal hippies. You wouldn't like him then.
I'll sign him up for one of those "ask person a question" things, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. You'll see, believe me. Believe me.
Inconceivable (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, I read on Slashdot just the other day that a few remote controlled bulldozers could have Fukushima cleaned up in a month and that tree-hugging anti-growth enviros should shut their pieholes about that accident.
sPh
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Yeah that was a comment from an AC. Don't read those...
But you care enough to reply to them?
Re:Inconceivable (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, all the radioactive waste has short half-lives and by 2016 they'll be able to clean up the mostly harmless waste. [sarc]
Seriously though, Tepco lied and said the reactor cores didn't melt down, so what else have they lied about.
We're told the clean-up is safe and no-one is getting ill. Then we're told the Yakuza are in charge of hiring, they're hiring homeless people and workers rights are being ignored. That doesn't sound like a recipe for safe working conditions to me.
How the Yakuza went nuclear [telegraph.co.uk]
Atomic mafia: Yakuza âcleans upâ(TM) Fukushima, neglects basic workers' rights â" RT News [rt.com]
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Why, I read on Slashdot just the other day that a few remote controlled bulldozers could have Fukushima cleaned up in a month and that tree-hugging anti-growth enviros should shut their pieholes about that accident.
sPh
Nuclear is safe if you don't build it in a tsunami zone, don't build it on an earthquake fault, don't build it from substandard parts to maximise profit, don't trim the staff down to the point where people are working 10-12 hour days in order to streamline labour costs, don't nix safety procedures to cut down running costs, don't economise on maintenance in order to minimise running costs, don't run the reactors at or above than rated maximum capacity in order to increase profitability or suck up to your bo
650 - 530 = 120, thanks Slashdot! (Score:2)
What's the up limit? (Score:2)
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? The upper limit to radiation? Well at a certain density of radiation flux, matter itself is spontaneously being created. Such as near the surface of a black hole.
Voomers (Score:2)
Genom Corporation is proud to anounce that they are working on their new generation of Robots, the Voomers, to handle this and other situations like it.
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I thought it was Boomers, but then it is a translation from japanese so who knows.
Voomers (VOodoo Organic Metal Extension Resource)
Thanks for the links, will check'em tomorrow
http://bubblegumcrisis.wikia.c... [wikia.com]
that can't be right (Score:2)
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The radiation problem is inside the containment building (you know, where it's supposed to be), and so far has harmed exactly zero of the general public.
And if it stays that way for the next century (it won't - that's what half-life means, after all), the general public will have sustained an estimated zero casualties as a result.
Do remember that police officers in the USA have shot more black males than in the last year than all the deaths due to nuclear power in the USA (I'd in
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Well, only if you consider 50 times the normal thyroid cancer rate [telegraph.co.uk] being harmless. But what would I know, I only had a girlfriend from Belarus who had her thyroid removed thanks to Chernobyl.
Cleanup robot (Score:5, Funny)
We need a radiation cleanup robot cleanup robot.
That's pretty stupid. (Score:2)
That's pretty stupid.
The third most obvious thing to do would be to send in a robot with a tether, and include a fiber optic cable, and have the camera outside with the pneumatic drivers for the pneumatic servos and other equipment actually on the robot, making the robot entirely free of all electronics, other than lights.
The second most obvious thing to do would be to load all the spent fuel that's contributing to the ongoing radiation leakage onto the end of a long train, and distribute them around to all
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Fiber optics goes black very quickly in high radiation.
Getting the extremely radioactive and hot fuel onto a train would be rather tricky.
Burying in cement is not a bad idea, but they probably need to make sure that the radioactivity isn't generating so much heat that it would melt its way out of an enclosure.
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Fiber optics goes black very quickly in high radiation.
Organic plastic, yes; glass light-pipe (old-school, like that used in 1976 Buick Station Wagon instrument lighting): not a problem.
Getting the extremely radioactive and hot fuel onto a train would be rather tricky.
Pneumatic/hydraulic remote manipulators: no electronics to fry, and it's outside, so telescopic cameras would be good enough. Plus if they go into large tanks of water on the train, it's not going to boil off in time for it to matter, and a couple meters of water will stop all the hard radiation.
Burying in cement is not a bad idea, but they probably need to make sure that the radioactivity isn't generating so much heat that it would melt its way out of an enclosure.
They could talk to the Russians; they've dealt with it before, successfully, with a
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They could talk to the Russians; they've dealt with it before, successfully, with a hotter meltdown.
Do we actually know how hot it got? We're still counting on Tepco to tell us, which history tells us means that any statistics we're working with are lies.
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With the greatest possible respect because I'm sure that you are very good at something, have you considered that those items you listed are not of an appropriate size to drive tiny little robot parts and that it would be difficult to control dozens of them at once?
Not only can you buy them in lots of different sizes (those are just some I came up with quickly) but I reject the notion that you need a lot of fiddly fine control. I'm still stuck on my tentacle idea. Wait, that sounded wrong. But anyway, it would use the opposite of fine control. You could operate it manually.
What you suggested is a cool idea, I'm not knocking that, just the dream that someone at TEPCO could say "make it so" and a hydraulic robot gets built in under a year.
Not only am I proposing no such thing, but this has been going on for half a decade now. And frankly, that there is no solution for doing this already is just one more reason why nuclear power is un
Looks like "cheap nuclear" is a bit more expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
Or rather, excessively more expensive once reality demonstrates the inadequacy of ElCheapo risk management and risk avoidance. Interestingly, cost comparisons never include these factors. If humanity were not so stupid as a group, the refusal of all insurers to ever cover nuclear reactors should have been a really large hint. And we have not even started to tackle the problem of dismantling non-melted down reactors and storing spend fuel. Fun for the next few 1'000 or so generations to come!
Re:Looks like "cheap nuclear" is a bit more expens (Score:4, Insightful)
How will space colonization ever takeoff if the Earth is not made uninhabitable?
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And we have not even started to tackle the problem of dismantling non-melted down reactors and storing spend fuel.
I don't understand your claim "not even started".
What about (say) Dounreay and the work of the NDA?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Rgds
Damon
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This gives us a total of 73,500 TWh generated by nuclear power over the last 45 years. 20*2300 + 25*(2200/2) = 73500.
Using a global average electricity price of $0.20 per kWh, this is $14.7 trillion dollars worth of electric
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You are yet to defend these figures from from the last time you posted it. [slashdot.org]
This is the cost to *ESTABLISH* cleaning up Chernobyl, how do you support that these are the current and future costs? We have not established the clean-up costs for Fukushima, only estimated, incurring and accumu
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It is a bit arbitrary definition of "major" to include only Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Miles Island. There have been many other major accidents (some more serious than TMI) and many smaller ones. Also "cleanup" costs do certainly not include all costs to society. But anyway, nuclear is not economical anyway. We are just talking about how much less economical it would be, if properly insured.
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False equivalence.
You are comparing entire power stations with several reactor units to individual units inside coal fired power stations.
Shame on you.
This type of argument one of the reasons why there is such distrust of nuclear power. You are making it worse for the technology that you are advocating.
Couple of thoughts ... (Score:2)
... or more:
- Why the fuck didn't they hang a Geiger counter on the robot?
-- Maybe they don't have one that's any tougher than their robot eye
-- Maybe they don't wanna know
-- Maybe they think they know and don't want to alarm anyone.
- Where are the +5 comments?
-- I'm serious
-- I want to learn something
-- The current crop of comments (including mine) are not helpful
Thanks.
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They don't have a geiger counter because geiger counters don't have a range high enough to be able to measure that level of radiation.
530 sieverts per hour (Score:4, Informative)
530 sieverts per hour is an insane level of radiation.
Since 1 Sv = 100 rem, we're talking about 53,000 REM per hour, a level that would indeed kill you dead in under a minute.
For scale and comparison, the average dental x-ray image exposes you to only about 2 or 3 millirem.
So....530 sieverts per hour is like getting ~26,500,000 dental x-rays in an hour.
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Don't lose containment on your reactor core.
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Do dangerous technology carefully. And here is a hint: If you cannot get an "unlimited" insurance, it is probably not a sane idea to do in the first place. Insurers are smart, very experienced with disasters and want to earn money. If they do not offer, that means the rate they would have to charge would be so outrageously high that it could not be paid.
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you might even live for a day
That's comforting.
Re: Nuclear power is good. (Score:3)
Explodes lol. Spoken like an anti-nuke that knows absolutely nothing about nuclear power.
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Re:Hard Numbers (Score:5, Informative)
At those intensities, measuring things becomes very hard. Geiger counters only work up to pretty low radiation rates. Dosimeters need exceptionally heavy shielding to not immediately go black in the conditions there. Actually seeing how long the camera lives may be the best currently available method that fits on a robot.
Humanity has basically no experience with radiation levels this high.
Re:Hard Numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
Humanity has basically no experience with radiation levels this high.
There are higher radiation levels inside an operating reactor. And humanity deals with spent fuel pools with similar level of radioactivity all the time. The difference is that those situations have the spent fuel sealed inside fuel rods and safely shielded by lots of water rather than spread out across the floor, in the air, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they are not. Well, maybe, considering that they are likely to be at that cleanup for 1000 years or so. A lot can happen in that time. And no, if you have radiation levels this high, you are not starting any space colonies either.
Re: Fibre optics? (Score:2, Informative)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_on_optical_fibers
Re:"jaw dropping" levels - more fake news (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.stripes.com/news/16-us-ships-that-aided-in-operation-tomodachi-still-contaminated-with-radiation-1.399094
You don't know what you're talking about again, Kendall.
Re:"jaw dropping" downplaying - more fuked news (Score:5, Informative)
In other words Yes folks, the fuel is indeed outside of the reactor core.
Let's, for a moment, consider what words were spoken inside the TEPCO media relations meeting;
This is exactly the kind of slimy trick the Nuclear Industry PR would use to downplay evidence of fuel being outside of the reactor, maybe I've been napping however I've not seen the headline Evidence of Nuclear Fuel Found outside of Fukushima Reactor Core anywhere. I'm just supposed to be comfortable that it's inside the containment as if it's no big deal that it didn't melt *INSIDE* the reactor where it should be. [japantimes.co.jp]
M: Susan, make sure the by-story runs that it is *inside* the containment, we need to make sure the fans have a counter argument. People, we're running with the robot broken down story and that we think it might have kinda possibly run into a tad bit of radio stuff,, we have to get on top of this before the mainstream get a hold of the news. Susan, where are those overalls!
This article from the Japanese daily [mainichi.jp] contains the video feed from the robot. Above the hole you can see the base of the reactor pressure vessel. Your statement seems a trite summation considering the evidence discovered.
It's perfectly reasonable to be angry about the incompetence that led to this disaster, what's weird is trying to say it's no big deal. The international community who shares the coasts of the pacific ocean will suffer the consequences of this over a very long time. This is what a big deal is.
I don't see any justification for supporters of nuclear energy to play the same morally superior dogmatically skeptic attitude they have had over the last decade anymore, this is an INES7 scale accident. Information is available now, and people can read so what need is less downplaying so we can figure out the nature of the mess the nuclear industry has left us and where these 3 cores are.
Evidence of reactor fuel found outside of the Fukushima reactor is the information [nikkei.com] and the nuclear industry is very carefully avoiding any further criticism.
Re: (Score:3)
This isn't a surprise to anyone. What do you think is contaminating all that water they pump out of the basement? Why do you think you can measure a dose outside near the plant? The evidence overwhelmingly showed it was a meltdown and the fuel escaped the reactor and some has even escaped containment. The latter is the real problem - a better containment design, and they wouldn't have all this contaminated water because it wouldn't leak like it does. Nor would it have contaminated the surrounding town.