
Japan Pictures Likely Show Melted Fukushima Fuel for First Time - daegloe
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-22/japan-pictures-likely-show-melted-fukushima-fuel-for-first-time
======
Boothroid
A common response from defenders of nuclear when concerns are raised is to
point to the impact of other energy sources, and say that nuclear is better in
those terms. But I just cannot get away from the thought that whilst in
aggregate those other forms of energy (fossil fuels, etc) might be provably
worse than well managed nuclear within a particular analysis, humanity does
not seem capable of this good management of nuclear, and when things do go
wrong with fossil fuels they don't have the same potential to go quite so
spectacularly bad. Yes an oil spill can affect a large area, but you don't get
harmful particles washing up on the coast of the US from a spill in Japan in
the same way, for example.

~~~
mikeash
The only reason fossil fuels don't have the same potential to go spectacularly
bad is because humans don't consider enormous damage to be "spectacular" when
it's spread out.

Consider: coal alone kills about a million people a year. If those were all
concentrated in a small area, we'd call it the greatest disaster the world has
ever seen. But it's spread out over the whole world, so we just shrug our
shoulders and say, eh, at least it doesn't go _badly_ wrong like nuclear does.

Put another way: coal kills more people each year than nuclear ever has over
its entire history, _including the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan_.

And yes, you _do_ get harmful particles on the coast of the US from activity
in Asia:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/03/03/518323094/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/03/03/518323094/rise-in-smog-in-western-u-s-is-blamed-on-asias-air-
pollution)

People are suffering and dying from fossil fuel pollution emitted half a world
away. Pollution from Fukushima can only be detected on the US west coast with
the most sensitive instruments, and has no health effects.

Nuclear isn't perfect, but if you want to compare it with fossil fuels, you
need to look at the constant deadly impact of fossil fuels, not merely look at
big splashy accidents.

~~~
colordrops
When a coal plant fails, it just turns off. When a nuclear plant fails, you've
got to get the best people on Earth and tens of billions to contain (not fix)
the problem, in one of the most advanced nations on Earth. It made a huge mess
that spread to Europe when Chernobyl failed. If nuclear is wide spread, what
happens when human incompetence causes a plant failure in a place like Nigeria
or Venezuela?

Edit: also, I frequently hear this argument about coal, but it's not a choice
between nuclear and coal. Nuclear advocates promote investment in nuclear, but
if we were to invest huge amounts into new energy infrastructure, we might as
well invest in renewables, rather than another dirty hard to manage source.

~~~
mikeash
Nuclear plants sometimes kill people when they fail. Coal plants kill vast
numbers of people when they _work_. And the latter number is far, far larger
than the former. Why is that an indictment of nuclear?

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mercurysmessage
I was going to say, I thought computers can't normally operate in those
conditions

> Because of the high radioactivity levels inside the reactor, only specially
> designed robots can probe the unit

There must be some sort of really powerful shielding on the robot. Cool stuff.

~~~
krapp
We've seen pictures of the melted core of Chernobyl too (the "Elephant's
Foot") havent' we?

~~~
21
How do you think those photos were taken?

[https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KxRuWaD0sXg/U7MHoNyBuiI/AAAAAAAAJ...](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KxRuWaD0sXg/U7MHoNyBuiI/AAAAAAAAJhs/qyyqpQXmDQY/s1600/The+Elephant%27s+Foot+of+the+Chernobyl+disaster,+1986+\(1\).jpg)

~~~
bduerst
They used makeshift robots when photographing elephant's foot. Unfortunately
for the worker in the picture, they didn't use it then.

------
marze
I still don't see why they are spending years trying to make rad hard robots.

A long steel tube with fiber optics to pipe in light, mirrors and optics to
transmit an image down the tube would be infinitely easier. They'd need to
burn a few holes, but none of the reactor vessels are intact so that wouldn't
allow additional radioactive material to escape.

I'm surprised the Japanese decision to dump the all the tritium contaminated
water into the ocean hasn't made more news.

~~~
jdubs
Complex problems often require complex solutions. I imagine that your
suggestion works for some situations but not all. The cynical side of me
thinks that one of the few benefits of the disaster will be new technology and
robots that will help prevent future disasters. I imagine there's a very high
priced market for these kinds of hardened robots.

~~~
agumonkey
There was a documentary about Tchernobyl surrounding forest few years ago.
Most of the vegetation grew back, healthily for my naked eye. Anyways, the
most surprising part is that mammals were back too; even though the radiation
level was higher than average. I concluded that only a few generation of
darwinian selection is needed to breed radiation hardened humans.

~~~
frivoal
Alternatively, the animals aren't radiation hardened and do die of cancer, but
not fast enough to get in the way of breeding and multiplying. Or, in other
words, while radioactive waste is unhealthy, it fatality rate is lower than
having humans around.

~~~
nolok
Or put another way : evolution and natural selection aren't about living a
long time, they're about reproducing.

~~~
Pica_soO
Or put another way: Nothing is that poisonous that nature cant swallow it
first and bring it underground, thus making nature the ultimate hipster.

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happy-go-lucky
_This swimming robot is exploring a failed nuclear reactor in Fukushima_

[http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-robot-swimming-
expl...](http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-robot-swimming-exploring-
failed-nuclear-reactor-2017-7)

------
afterburner
"Decommissioning the reactors will cost 8 trillion yen ($72 billion),
according to an estimate in December from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry. Removing the fuel is one of the most important steps in a cleanup
that may take as long as 40 years."

Hmm, pricey.

~~~
curtis
This would be a problem if decommissioning costs for every nuclear reactor
were 24 billion dollars (three reactors melted-down at Fukushima). However,
decommissioning a reactor is a lot cheaper if it's done normally at the end of
the reactor's operational lifetime, rather than done earlier after a melt
down, which is a really extraordinary circumstance.

And remember that the Fukushima circumstances were pretty extraordinary indeed
-- the reactor meltdowns were the consequence of a thousand year tsunami which
directly killed nearly 20,000 people.

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mikeytown2
In terms of a hardened robot, hydraulic or pneumatic movement powered by an
diesel engine seems like the way to go. depending on the location you could
run the pressure lines to the robot and keep the engine outside.

~~~
fest
Is the actuation really the part which needs radiation hardening? The cameras,
sensors and processing unit seems more likely affected by radiation than, say
a battery and motor.

------
atomwaffel
As I feel incompetent to comment on the article's content, I'll be glad to
start a thread on the linguistics of that car crash of a headline. It took me
three or four fresh starts to parse it correctly. The linguistic term for this
is garden path sentence[1][2] and it's such a good one that it makes me wonder
if it's deliberate.

Even just some small adjustments would make it more readable: "Japanese
pictures may show melted fuel from Fukushima for the first time."

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldT2g2qDQNQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldT2g2qDQNQ)

~~~
kijin
Melted Fukushima fuel photographed for the first time.

First photos of melted Fukushima fuel.

If you take away the tentativeness of "may", "likely", etc., you can make the
sentence much easier to read. I wouldn't mind a slight lack of qualifiers as
long as the whole thing is not too linkbaity and the content puts the
qualifiers back where they belong.

~~~
atomwaffel
Good point, those are definitely easier to read, although in this age of
clickbait I give them credit for admitting a degree of uncertainty right in
the headline.

~~~
kijin
Melted Fukushima fuel _likely_ photographed for the first time :)

