

Japan’s nuclear reactor overreaction - lt
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/14/the-japanese-nuclear-reactor-overreaction

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marshray
Yeah there was the fraudulent fallout map. Yeah somebody who hadn't slept in a
week may have misspoken and used the term "nuclear explosion" when they really
meant "conventional explosion involving nuclear material".

I haven't seen a lot of overreaction. People are still in Tokyo even while
detectable radiation levels rise to many times background levels.

What I have seen is a huge number of media outlets and bloggers falling over
themselves to assure everyone that everyone is safe and everything is under
control. And they look more and more wrong with every new explosion and every
new fire at the plant.

The real heroes are the 50 plant workers who are there putting water on the
melting fuel rods.

~~~
mseebach
> What I have seen is a huge number of media outlets and bloggers falling over
> themselves to assure everyone that everyone is safe and everything is under
> control.

Perhaps in response to a huge number of media outlets and bloggers falling
over themselves to link Fukushima to Chernobyl and gloating over being right
that nuclear power is going to kill us all.

~~~
VladRussian
my previous 2c : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2324723>

Read more about Chernobyl and nuclear technology and you'd be able to see
yourself where similarity is and where isn't.

~~~
mseebach
At Fukushima, the core reaction is shut down, all activity since seconds after
the quake are secondary. This is bad enough, but it's _fundamentally
different_ from Chernobyl, where the core melted down with the control rods
only 1/3 inserted.

~~~
marshray
It's fundamentally different to a nuclear engineer, but we still face an
uncertain potential of fire, explosion, and radioactive contamination.

To any of the thousands who are evacuating, especially farmers, it probably
seems like a distinction without a difference at this point.

~~~
mseebach
And striving for accuracy and consulting domain experts is a bad thing since
when?

And if significant technological differences doesn't interest you, here's a
political one: People have actually been evacuated, even though the Japanese
government claimed no risk at the time of doing so. Even if these people lose
their homes and farms, and no-one can return to the region for 50 years, they
still have their lives and health.

~~~
marshray
Don't be ridiculous, I never said either accuracy or experts were a bad thing.

I've been watching the translated coverage on NHK World from their site and
ustream since the beginning. This coverage seems be 30 minutes or more ahead
of other English media.

The Japanese government has warned since the early hours of the possibility of
the release of "radioactive gases" from the pressure release.

The elements in that gas were said to have very short half-lives and not pose
a risk to population. On the other hand, it blew up the reactor building.
(According to Wikipedia they tried to hold it in the building to let it decay
before releasing it to the atmosphere.)

Since then the officials have been warning about possibility of release of
"radioactive substances".

------
evo_9
Yeah because it's best to under-react to nuclear danger.

I know the trend is to reassure everyone everything is a-ok, but as others on
HN have pointed out, things are not a-ok, and we won't know for some time.

We should continue to overreact for the good of everyone.

~~~
sophacles
I would like to propose this crazy concept to you: appropriate reaction.

Over-reaction is as damaging as under-reaction. Much like the cries of
"standing idly by" that are thrust on under-reactors, over-reactors become
"wolf criers", and when the situation actually warrants extreme action, people
won't take it because they assume it is mere over-reaction.

I don't know why you would champion a crappy course of action, but I guess I
know where not to get advice in the future.

~~~
notahacker
Whilst I agree with the general point, I don't think the rapidly-backpedalling
author of the linked blog post or many of us here are qualified to determine
what the appropriate reaction is. Most of the reaction is simply a case of
people with limited understanding of the relevant facts (either the current
condition of the reactor or the underlying science) attempting to communicate
to people with no understanding of the facts.

I also suspect that well-orchestrated overprecaution and explanations of worst
case scenarios are better for public safety than feeding them constant
reassurances they don't believe and leaving them to get their sensationalism
from demagogues

~~~
sophacles
Strategically, I think it is also easier to recover from "a bit too far" in
terms of over-reaction, since it can be written off as "better safe than
sorry", however there is still a line and balancing act between "crying wolf"
and "being extra careful".

------
dhughes
The picture is very misleading too a big black column of smoke rising up and
the headline about nuclear reactors yet no clarification the picture isn't a
reactor on fire, it's probably an oil refinery.

------
ChuckMcM
I dislike the medidiots who conflated a hydrogen explosion with a nuclear
explosion. There is however one risk here that neither folks in the media, nor
have I seen yet on HN, and that is the danger of old fuel meltdowns.

There are reports now [1] that the pond where expended fuel rods are stored is
boiling. While fuel is removed from a reactor because it is 'spent' that
doesn't mean that it cannot still reach criticality, that is why it is stored
in a pond where the water provides the moderation. Normally this wouldn't even
be considered but given the challenge of getting water into the reactors, the
use of sea water and venting the steam (which makes the room around the
reactor temporarily dangerous), it seems the ponds are warming up and not
getting the attention they need. It would be unfortunate to have the pond
evaporate. Note that in some cases this pond is the holding area for new fuel
as well (during a refueling operation) but there is no information available
on the quantity, and current composition, of fuel rods in these ponds.

So I remain confident they will be able to get the reactors cooled off without
causing them to be 'abandoned in place'. I'm cautiously watching reports about
the ponds.

[1] <http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20043127-503543.html>

------
ars
It's pretty clear that reactors are designed quite well, and it seems the
design is working.

What people forgot were those storage pools. It looks like the radiation is
coming from those, and not the reactor itself. It's clear those needs some
serious design attention as well.

A passive cooling system to start with.

------
chrisling
much kudos and respect for the brave workers working to safely retire the
reactors.while all the various news reports state some version of what they
have heard or read, we won't know the entire truth of what is happening, since
the updates and articles change by the hour. the sheer volatility in the
markets (japanese market fall, solar companies rising, etc.) shows the entire
picture isn't clear yet.

------
angdis
I fail to see _any_ evidence of "overreaction" except for the usual chatter on
the blogosphere.

Is the author of the article saying that the area around the reactor should
not have been evacuated? Who is he accusing of "overreaction" except for some
anonymous (and inconsequential) internet map-maker?

~~~
yummyfajitas
The German government, for one.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/germany-nuclear-
id...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/germany-nuclear-
idUSLDE72E17620110315)

~~~
aw3c2
Many of the german reactors were meant to have been shut down a long time ago.
The "conservatives" prolonged the uptime. The germany chancellor will be
talking with the lobby about measures, how backwards is that.

~~~
mseebach
It's called a lifetime extension. When you build something expensive, you make
a conservative estimation for how long it will be operational _at minimum_ ,
so you can write off your investment in a responsible fashion. Then, at the
end of that period, you see if your plant can keep working in a safe and
profitable manner, and if it can ( _gasp_ ) you let it. Of course the "greens"
(scare-quotes, since, after all, we're both adults) are against this kind of,
hmm, we could call it "re-cycling".

~~~
dialtone
They are because the vast majority of "but"s related to this event are about
how this reactor is 50 year old technology and how it's been running for 40
years so it's somewhat excusable that it melts. Since 40 years is a standard
reactor life[1] and many countries pursue life extensions on their reactors it
is _not_ exceptional that of the roughly 450 active reactors in the world the
majority of them is not up to the latest greatest tech standard or safety
measure because it's expensive to keep up with all the upgrades and it's even
more expensive when you just spent 10 years and $7B building a modern nuclear
reactor[2]. So if it's ok to extend the life of a plant to 50 or 60 years as
some would want then they need to upgrade them to latest standards.

[1]:<http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2007/npp_extension.html>

[2]:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Pressurized_Reactor>

~~~
mseebach
I don't care is it melts, I care if it's going to leak significant amounts of
nasty stuff to the environment(1) - which WOULD be inexcusable, and which
would prompt me to seriously reconsider my support of nuclear power.

I'm not opposed to everyone running old reactors taking a step back saying "uh
uh, could this happen to us?" - I'm opposed to the hand waving assertion that
when the initial lifetime runs out, you're supposed to just scrap the thing.

1: (Those events may or may not be the same. Apparently the third containment
is designed to hold a melted core indefinitely, but there are reports of
containment breach - however it's unclear _which_ level of containments we're
talking about)

------
droz
The most disappointing aspect is the amount of ambiguous information floating
around, which leads to speculation and consequently misinformation. Couple
that with ignorance that most people have on the subject and you get a lot of
people under/over-reacting.

------
marze
Overreaction? History will view this as "underreacted".

It has been days now since the earthquake, and at the reactors they are having
trouble _pumping_ _water_. Japan and the world is full of equipment that can
pump water, but for some reason not enough is on hand.

------
jellicle
This link is simply wrong. Japan is indeed facing the release of a large cloud
of highly radioactive steam carrying radioactive particles that were once part
of the core. Right now both the cores of several reactors and the spent fuel
rods that are stored on site face the possibility of turning entirely molten
and ending up in the atmosphere. The reactors are fail-unsafe. If everybody
walked away now, a disaster worse than Chernobyl would result. And as the
situation at some of the reactors deteriorates, it becomes increasingly likely
that workers are going to have to depart the area. Remember, Chernobyl was
actually better off than Fukushima in many ways - while one reactor was
screwed, the others at the same plant were undamaged and could continue
operating normally - cooling systems could continue to run, and so on. The
other 3 reactors were never in any danger at Chernobyl. That is not true at
Fukushima.

It is entirely possible - even likely at this point - that the fuel rods in at
least 3 of Fukushima's reactors going to end up significantly spread over the
Japanese countryside. Overreaction is not really possible at this point.

~~~
lutorm
While I don't want to discount the risk of real badness happening, what you
are saying is not possible. At Chernobyl, there was a fire in the reactor
moderator and fuel itself. Loss of cooling in the present case will not cause
that kind of massive dispersal of radioactive material. Even if the fuel
melts, it does not vaporise. There will be lots of radioactive release, to be
sure, but the fuel will stay in a molten clump.

~~~
KVFinn
Few points:

There are multiple reactors, each larger than Chernobyl, including the fuel
rods in unit 4 which was down at the time of the accident so the fuel isn't
spent.

The real worst worst case is that loss of cooling causes a containment breach,
the fuel melts through the bottom and contacts ground water, causes a steam
explosion which is able to spread material over a decent distance. This would
be comparable to Chernobyl.

As the whole world is pulling for the workers doing their best to prevent such
a scenario it's not too likely but it is not out of the question. We've
already experienced failures at these reactors that were previously considered
enough to be impossible.

