
Struggling with Japan’s Nuclear Waste, Six Years After Disaster - blondie9x
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/struggling-with-japans-nuclear-waste-six-years-after-disaster.html
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dandare
I used to be skeptical about organisations like Greenpeace that were strictly
against nuclear power, questioning the logic of a priori refusing any major
energy sources: coal, dams and atom. Because hippies don't wear t-shirts from
China and don't charge their mobile phones, right? But the situation changed
and renewables are reaching price parity with traditional sources of
electricity. Then when things like Fukushima happen you see the astronomical
costs of the negative externalities in the long term and things look suddenly
very different. Now I see that nuclear power is not only an ecological hazard
but also a fool's business from the economical point of view.

~~~
ekianjo
> like Fukushima happen you see the astronomical costs of the negative
> externalities in the long term and things look suddenly very different

Erm, the cost/damage on the whole region (and not just Fukushima) is much
higher than the nuclear power part itself. Let's not forget it's a once-a-
millenium kind of tsunami that occurred there.

> Now I see that nuclear power is not only an ecological hazard but also a
> fool's business from the economical point of view

That's the best thing we have, right now. Good luck powering up cities and
means of productions with solar & wind, from tomorrow onward.

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yulaow
The problem is, every single time a "extremely rare and unpredictable" nuclear
catastrophic event happens, we say the same thing.

The exact reason why we should avoid nuclear in the medium term is that the
events that caused, are causing and will keep cause those accidents are all
unpredictable. The cost in consequences for our planet is still too high and
will remain that high or increase until we will be capable of "de-
radioactivize" things

~~~
7952
It makes things tricky from a risk and commercial point of view. I used to
work on wind farm design and it was as simple as "will the turbine hit
something if it falls over?". And turbine topples are extremely rare events.

I can't even imagine the complexities of estimating risk for a reactor design.

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guidedlight
There is an answer to this: Australia.

Australia is probably the best country in the world to safely store nuclear
waste. Sparse population, and almost no tectonic movement. It already has
areas which are radioactive too (from historical nuclear testing)

Australia is also currently in the beginning stages of a major energy crisis,
which is partly caused by Japan (Some background, Australia signed a major LPG
export agreement that intended to fulfill using coal stem gas reserves. When
these reserves didn't deliver the quantities required, they instead raided the
local domestic supply). You can currently purchase Australian gas in Japan for
less than you can in Australia.

So Japan could directly contribute to Australia's immediate and long term
energy security, in exchange for nuclear waste storage.

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fgpwd
As far as I understand, the reactors there are still active. The reactors
nuclear waste is not like regular cargo, you cant just pick it up on a crane
and move it a 100 meter away let alone another continent. They are having
difficulties making a robot that can study the reactor because it's so
radioactive. A person would die in less than a minute near that reactor.

Maybe they should dig deep into the earth and then let it merge with the
earth's nuclear core :)

In order to keep the reactors cool, they pump 400 tonnes of water through the
reactors everyday. This water has to be stored in tanks after that. The
radiation seems to be never ending and they will run out of the space to store
this water in a couple of years. There is also the radioactive debris around
the place that they have to take care of.

We have the science to create energy from nuclear fission, but the science to
deal with the aftermaths of a nuclear accident is still a work in progress.

~~~
emiliobumachar
Why can't they run the same water through the reactor again after the water
cools?

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nrki
Because it's highly radioactive.

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gambiting
So? It's not like it's any worse at cooling because of it. After all, nearly
all nuclear reactors use highly irradiated water for cooling in the first
cooling loop.

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spodek
Since ctrl-f "conserve" shows no matches, I'll suggest that conserving energy
be some part of the discussion.

Using less energy doesn't solve everything, nor does suggesting conservation
mean anyone wants to return to the stone age or to lower anyone's standard of
living, nor any of the usual straw men misinterpretations.

Nearly everyone can use less power than they do with no loss of quality of
life. Doing so will reduce the waste we create in creating the power.

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TeMPOraL
The only way to convince majority of people to conserve energy (or even expend
the effort on thinking about it) is to... raise energy prices. Since we want
to cut down on fossil sources, the best way to do that would be... taxing CO₂
emissions. Which is yet another reason I like the idea of an emission tax.

~~~
freehunter
Exactly. I'm pretty wary of jumping straight on the latest environmental
trends as sometimes we're just trading one bad situation for another and
calling it progress. But I was willing to switch out all my incandescent bulbs
for CFLs because it had a pretty major impact on my electric bill. Even though
CFLs are an environmental disaster in and of themselves, being filled with
mercury. CFLs are fragile and I don't like having to worry about cleaning up
mercury spills in my house. For that reason, when LEDs became cost effective
and popular, I was all too happy to start the process of replacing burned-out
CFLs with new LEDs.

There are three ways to motivate people IMO: cost, convenience, and social
pressure. All of my neighbors have recycling bins sitting out front so I have
one too. I switched to CFLs because they're cheaper to run, and then I
switched to LEDs because they're far more convenient. I'd have an electric
car, but in my northern climate they're not cost effective, they're really,
really not convenient, and none of my friends or neighbors have one. But I
have an electric snowblower because it's cheaper and more convenient.

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vfclists
Some of the statistics seem to be so hyperbolic and I wonder whether it is due
to Americas preference for the imperial units rather than metric units. It is
much better to use terms that people can readily visualize.

Does the writer prefer gallons because it makes it look so many? Why not
barrels instead?

400 tons of contaminated water a day - lets say matric. = a 7.3 meter cube

962,000 ~ 1,000,000 tonnes of water accumulated so far - a 100 meter cube

64,700 cubic meters, 17 million gallons of radio active clothing - 40 meter
cube.

200,400 cu m3 of contaminated rubble - a 60 meter cube.

Why doesn't the writer use stats or pictures people can visualize? Like
compare it to the size of the Empire State Building, former World Trade
Centres etc? Is he hiding the extent of the damage or expressing it in
meaningful terms?

At least we can extrapolate the extend of the problem into the future.

3.5 billion gallons of contaminated soil ~ 13 million cubic meters of soil, a
235 meter cube.

So after analyzing these figures - is using millions and billions truly
expressing the extent of the problem or just obfuscating it, with
incomprehensible figures, no matter or large they may be?

I guess it is time now to work out how meters compare with the heights of
buildings and street blocks.

E & OE

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freehunter
>It is much better to use terms that people can readily visualize.

That's why they use imperial units. It's the New York Times, an American
newspaper writing for an American audience. I'm pretty familiar with metric
units but even I have a hard time with "one meter" until I remember it's the
same as a yard. What's a kilometer? I don't know, but it's a half a mile to
the coffee shop from my house. That's pretty easy for me to visualize.

What I absolutely _cannot_ visualize is how big the Empire State Building is.
Absolutely terrible comparison, IMO. I have no idea how big the Empire State
Building is. But I know how much a gallon is, and my car weighs two tons, so
that's pretty easy.

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bleair
The article mentions collection of top soil and I assume vegetation and a plan
to burn this to reduce it's volume. I can understand how burning will make the
volume smaller, but I can't imagine how to burn this material and not spread
radioactivity everywhere via airborne soot. How does this work?

