
Fukishima is Worse than Ever - rfreytag
http://www.cringely.com/2017/02/16/no-fracking-way-fukishima-daiichi-worse-ever/
======
Tepix
HN has been quite pro-nuclear in the past. However, _this_ is the grim reality
of nuclear power: It's a mess we won't be able to clean up for many
generations. The operators cannot cover these limitless risks, they will have
to be shouldered by the entire country (or world).

And Fukushima isn't the only accident. It's merely the most recent big one.

Even if nuclear reactors work as designed, we still haven't solved terminal
storage of nuclear waste after more than 60 years.

~~~
vidarh
HN has been quite pro-nuclear because _despite_ these accidents, the effect is
limited. You could crush the radioactive material in that reactor and pump all
of it into the atmosphere, and nuclear would still be one of the safer methods
of generating power.

Compare it to e.g. the vast on-going death toll caused by pollution from coal,
and decommission nuclear power plants becomes outright immoral if it is
replaced by coal. If you can replace it by e.g. concentrated solar or wind,
then fine, but even hydro is likely to cause more deaths of time (dam
accidents - construction, maintenance and failures - kill a lot of people).

~~~
ebbv
Focusing on deaths is one of the favorite moves by nuclear proponents. It
works because nuclear creates long term problems that aren't people getting
crushed in a coal mine or drowned when they fall off a dam, and both coal and
hydro have been around a lot longer than nuclear and as a result have some
really major disasters in their history.

Additionally dams are fairly simple to build and construction of them is not
as well regulated during its history as nuclear has been for most of its life
because of its very obvious risks. If anything the mortality statistic is an
argument for more regulation of mining and dam construction practices, not for
more nuclear power.

The reality is that while not that many people died in Chernobyl, Fukushima
and other nuclear disasters relative to other disasters we have had, they are
still some of the worst disasters in human history and downplaying that to
push nuclear is either being very cynical or naive.

~~~
vidarh
I grew up in Norway when Chernobyl hit and we had to deal with monitoring of
reindeer uptake of Cesium-polluted moss etc. for years. Norway was one of the
worst hit due to a combination of the prevailing winds and a lot of animal-
rearing that depends on sheep and reindeer feeding on moss and other plants
that would aggregate those pollutants.

It's still an issue now and again in some areas, but it was still a minor
inconvenience compared to the _huge_ amounts of deaths caused on an ongoing
basis by some of the alternatives.

> Additionally dams are fairly simple to build and construction of them is not
> as well regulated during its history as nuclear has been for most of its
> life because of its very obvious risks. If anything the mortality statistic
> is an argument for more regulation of mining and dam construction practices,
> not for more nuclear power.

Great, but until that happens, they are still far more lethal. In the case of
coal, by at _least_ an order of magnitude, probable 2-3 orders.

> It works because nuclear creates long term problems that aren't people
> getting crushed in a coal mine or drowned when they fall off a dam, and both
> coal and hydro have been around a lot longer than nuclear and as a result
> have some really major disasters in their history.

For coal, coal kills more people _per year_ due to respiratory illnesses etc.
than nuclear has done _in its entire history_. For dams, feel free to ignore
the largest ever (Ban Qiao - 171,000 people dead) which was an extreme outlier
(so far - there are a number of dams, like e.g. the Mosul dam, that are in
disrepair and has the potential to be worse if they fail) and it's _still_
worse on average than nuclear.

> they are still some of the worst disasters in human history and downplaying
> that to push nuclear is either being very cynical or naive.

Exaggerating it is worse: It leads to policies enacted out of fear that kills
and harms far more people. It's immoral.

------
xianshou
If Cringely claims authority on the topic, he could at least spell "Fukushima"
correctly. Both the link above and the article misspell it as "Fukishima," the
article 4 of 6 times!

~~~
ptaipale
Apparently spelling "Fukushima" is as hard as spelling "Ph.D.". Link subject
is so clickbaity that I'll avoid it.

------
nl
Damn, the comments on that are... bad.

Having said that I have followed the Fukushima situation somewhat, and it
certainly has given me pretty serious pause in my conversion to a nuclear "new
fission" advocate (like many on HN seem to be).

The general argument seems to be "Oh, new reactors are much safer than the old
ones."

To be honest, that argument doesn't seem very compelling. The most compelling
version of this argument involves using Thorium reactors instead of Uranium.
This does seem somewhat safer, but actually reading it turns out it is only a
question of degree[1][2].

It seems to me renewables + power storage seems a much better solution.

[1] [http://ieer.org/wp/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/thorium2009fac...](http://ieer.org/wp/wp-
content/uploads/2012/04/thorium2009factsheet.pdf)

[2] [https://theconversation.com/should-australia-consider-
thoriu...](https://theconversation.com/should-australia-consider-thorium-
nuclear-power-37850)

~~~
JorgeGT
> "Oh, new reactors are much safer than the old ones."

You're aware that Fukushima Daiichi NPP was _older_ than Chernobyl NPP, right?

~~~
nl
Yes(?)

I'm just relaying the argument as I understand it.

~~~
vidarh
The point being that in the 30 years since Chernobyl we have had no serious
accidents involving any modern nuclear reactor models and one serious accident
involving a reactor older than Chernobyl. We may just have too little data,
but at least so far the data all points to the argument that modern reactors
are safer being reasonably likely to be true.

The only reason we don't have clear evidence either way is that the risks even
with the older models is very low.

~~~
nl
The incidence of accidents with any reactors is very low.

The risks associated with those accidents are extremely high.

~~~
vidarh
> The risks associated with those accidents are extremely high.

And yet they are low enough that nuclear is one of the safest alternatives we
have, given the low incident rate.

------
dvcrn
Here in Japan the government tries to actively shape the public opinion about
Fukushima. You often see ads and projects advertising what a beautiful place
it still is and how everything will soon be fine. Then you have companies
helping with this by proudly (in the sense of putting big posters stating it)
importing ingredients, fruits and food from Fukushima.

It's probably still the main reasons why I don't want to be here. It's easy to
forget about everything but things could go sour very quickly without us being
able to react in time.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
> molten uranium that has melted its way through the steel pressure vessel,
> through the reinforced concrete containment, through the reinforced concrete
> foundation of the nuclear facility, and is now working its way through
> whatever rock or soil lies underneath the foundation, dropping lower each
> day.

Is this really what happens? How does a quantity of molten metal-oxide burn a
hole through "hundreds or thousands of feet" of earth? Where does all the
earth / rock go? Does it just vaporise off?

~~~
DrJokepu
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_(nuclear_reactor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_\(nuclear_reactor\))

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
From the link you provided:

 _The fast erosion phase of the concrete basemat lasts for about an hour and
progresses to about one meter in depth, then slows to several centimeters per
hour, and stops completely when the melt cools below the decomposition
temperature of concrete (about 1100 °C). Complete melt-through can occur in
several days even through several meters of concrete; the corium then
penetrates several meters into the underlying soil, spreads around, cools and
solidifies.[3]_

This would seem to counter the claim that the molten core material could burn
through hundreds or thousands of feet of earth.

~~~
ethbro
Isn't all of this dependant on the composition of the corium? As that's what
defines how much heat is being added to itself via nuclear reactions?

Per my understanding, it will always be sub-critical without correct geometry
and neutron moderators. But wouldn't the precise amounts and percentages of
various materials in the molten sludge vary thermal output?

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
That's the way I read it.

I find it hard to believe there are any circumstances under which a hundreds-
of-megawatts to gigawatts core could remain hot enough to burn through
hundreds or thousands of feet of earth.

------
baq
The linked article ([http://www.sciencealert.com/radiation-levels-in-the-
fukushim...](http://www.sciencealert.com/radiation-levels-in-the-fukushima-
reactor-have-started-unexpectedly-climbing)) has a most interesting picture
from inside the Reactor 2 building depicting the floor beneath the pressure
vessel, or rather, what's left of it.

------
cocktailpeanuts
I've been looking at what's going on his comment threads recently and it looks
like he pulled a near-con on Kickstarter.

It's kind of amazing how one can completely ignore people you've hurt and keep
posting as if nothing happened, when they keep asking for explanation.

Why is no media talking about this? It looks like a huge scandal.

~~~
baby
There are bigger scandals, like people getting offended by Pewdiepie.

------
stargrazer
If I remember correctly, the thing that killed Fukushima was the wave of water
from the ocean killing the water pumps at the ocean's edge. And there was no
backup water supply. So it isn't necessarily true that nuclear power is not
safe, it is it's relationship to the environment and how it is constructed. I
guess there was no anticipation of such a significant event. Which I suppose
is an indicator of the failure mode. It isn't the technology itself, it is
unforseen accidents. Which is how any technology evolves: newer generations
improve due to observations of past mistakes.

------
DrScump
His entire rant is based on _fake news_.

The whole “The radiation levels inside Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear reactor No. 2 have soared in recent weeks” is _bogus._

The new, higher readings are from areas _never measured before_ [0]; levels
measured from consistent points are _falling consistently!_

[0] [http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at-
fuku...](http://blog.safecast.org/2017/02/no-radiation-levels-at-fukushima-
daiichi-are-not-rising/)

------
iSnow
I doubt he gets his facts straight. I very much doubt the 250t of Corium
haven't cooled down enough in 6 years to solidify.

