
Fukushima - JoshGlazebrook
http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/
======
ggreer
I found the pictures fascinating, but the accompanying text marred my
enjoyment. Considering the circumstances of the Fukushima disaster, the anti-
nuclear sentiment really irked me. The Tōhoku earthquake & tsunami killed
close to 20,000 people. The author _completely ignored_ those victims.
Instead, he focused on Fukushima, which will cause around 150 deaths from
cancers. For every tragedy created by Fukushima, there are over a hundred
created by the earthquake itself. Yet coverage is warped in the opposite
direction. It's absurd.

I think Scott Alexander put it best. Before starting Slate Star Codex, he had
this to say about Fukushima and nuclear power[1]:

> You know what kills more people per year than nuclear plants?

> _Everything._

...

> When you hit a nuclear plant with the fifth largest earthquake ever
> recorded, then immediately follow that with a twenty foot high tsunami, and
> then it explodes, it still kills fewer people than an average coal plant
> does every single year when everything goes perfectly.

Nuclear power is far from perfect, but it is the safest energy technology in
existence. Curtailing it creates more suffering and death, but in a diffuse
way that can't be photographed or humanized.

1\.
[http://squid314.livejournal.com/292620.html](http://squid314.livejournal.com/292620.html)

~~~
inatreecrown
Get the facts straight: Fukushima is human failure. In the accident the
neccecary cooling could not be supplied. As a result, people will die of
cancer from the radiation. The tsunami is not human failure, and to say that
living by the sea is human failure is another discussion completely.

~~~
DangerousPie
I disagree.

You seem to suggest that the fact that Fukushima was not adequately prepared
for this tsunami was human failure, presumably because they should have
expected such a tsunami to occur.

If this is the case, then you can just as well argue that it was human failure
that the towns in the affected areas flooded because of the tsunami. After
all, if they expected such a tsunami to occur they could/should have built
higher levees.

The way I see it, the deaths resulting from the Fukushima accident were just
as much (or as little) caused by human failure as most of the other deaths
related to the tsunami.

~~~
mackwic
> You seem to suggest that the fact that Fukushima was not adequately prepared
> for this tsunami was human failure, presumably because they should have
> expected such a tsunami to occur.

For your information, in France where we use nuclear energy a lot, we look for
the most catastrophic events of the last 100 years to see how we protect our
infrastructure.

The Japanese looked for the last 50, but there _were_ a tsunami of similar
height 85 years ago.

Also the local authority of nuclear security has made a few reports were they
recommended to increase the height of the seawalls. Several times. Never
followed.

And last but not least, the accident could have been prevented, but has been
badly handled. With Japanese hiding information, not cooperating with trained
international nuclear-firefighters, and minimizing the scale of the incident
until the last minute. This is the biggest mistake of all, compromising lives,
resources, ocean and earth...

How is it _not_ a human failure ?

~~~
mikekchar
The height of the tsunami depends on the area. In the area in question, for a
_very_ long time people thought that it was impossible for the a tsunami to go
above 5 meters. That there were tsunami of that size in other areas is
irrelevant. The earthquake in question was the most powerful in 1000 years.
Looking back 100 years would be insufficient.

What is interesting is that there was actually a city that raised the sea
walls to 16 meters in the area. The mayor of that city was actually sent to
jail because it was a scam to siphon money to his brother in law who was in
construction. I don't remember the details because it was on a TV program that
I watched about a year ago, but unfortunately the mayor in question died a
couple of years before the tsunami and never lived to see that his actions
actually saved the city.

Speaking of the seawall height, there were, indeed, studies done that showed
that under certain circumstances 15-18 meter high tsunamis could be generated
in that area. This was disregarded. "Why", you ask.

Let me explain. I live by the sea in Japan. I can go to the sea side and climb
up on the sea wall. It is 5 meters above sea level. I can walk along it all
practically all the way to Tokyo (200 km away). The only places where it
doesn't exist is where there are natural cliffs (which are not as prevalent as
you might imagine). Every little stream that empties into the ocean has a 5
meter high metal sea gate that can be closed in the event of a tsunami. Where
I live there is one at least every km or so.

The sea walls in Japan are _already_ a miracle of engineering. You want to
make them 20m high? Around the entire country? This is an insane notion.

To be honest, I will take the risk. I don't want to live in a jail where the
only place I can see the ocean is from on top of a mountain.

I live in Sagara, Shizuoka (now merged with Makinohara). It is the most
dangerous place in Japan to live for earthquakes because of the imminent Tokai
earthquake (50 years overdue, unless it actually happened in WWII when the
place was already destroyed and nobody had the ability to measure the big
earthquake that happened then). 5% of the population is likely to die by all
predictions.

Which means 95% will live. Terrible tragedy, but _not_ worse than surrounding
yourself in a 20m high jail IMHO.

Now, there were many human failures regarding the Fukushima disaster (like not
having the correct connectors to power the pumps externally). Sea walls is
_not_ one of them.

~~~
Kankuro
I guess he was talking about higher walls around the (few) nuclear plants, not
the whole country. That would not make the country "a jail where the only
place I can see the ocean is from on top of a mountain".

~~~
mikekchar
The water will just go around the wall. I think people don't quite understand
the logistics involved. You have this massive wave travelling at 300 km/h. The
seawall will break up the wave, but you have to have it long enough to prevent
the water from reaching the bits that you want to protect before it retreats
(often 20-30 minutes later).

Do a google search for "tetrapod japan images" to see what the beaches around
here already look like. The Japanese government is not trying to avoid money
on reducing the damage of tsunami. It seems like there should be a simple
solution, but there isn't.

~~~
zurn
But you could easily build the plant on naturally or artificially higher
ground.

~~~
mikekchar
However, you have to ask yourself, "Why are virtually _all_ the nuclear power
plants in Japan next to the sea?" You could answer that with "Because
engineers are stupid" or you could look for a more likely answer ;-)

I am not a nuclear engineer and I don't have enough background to really say
what the answer is. My _guess_ is that they are set up right next to the sea
so that they can do exactly what they did in Fukushima -- pump sea water into
the reactor.

Naturally higher ground is actually hard to find near the sea (because the
mountains are usually set back by about a kilometre from the sea). Also, if
you perch yourself on a cliff next to the sea, then you are at a more serious
risk of landslides during the _many_ 6-7 magnitude earthquakes we have in
Japan each year. With artificially higher ground, I suspect you would be at
even more risk.

The other main reason for not putting a nuclear reactor on high ground is that
in the event of a containment breach, the contaminated water will run downhill
(in indescriminate directions). The placement in low ground next to the ocean
may be the best place, environmentally, in the case of a disaster.

Again, I'm only guessing, but I'm sure if you ask someone who is trained in
the field they can give you better answers.

I'm hoping that Japan will transition away from nuclear reactors in the middle
term. There is enough geothermal potential to provide base load (though
protecting the environment with all the earthquakes we have here is not
trivial in that case either). Since Fukushima, the amount of solar panels
being installed in my area is insane, so I'm hopeful that things will improve
over the next 50 years or so.

(Having said all that, Hamaoka power plant, which is just down the road from
me, is perched up on top of a cliff overlooking the sea ;-) ).

------
ekianjo
> The disaster could have been forseen and prevented. As in the Chernobyl
> case, it was a human, not technology, that was mainly responsible for the
> disaster.

It's always easy to say that with hindsight. Remind me, how frequent are
Magnitude 9 earthquakes resulting in massive Tsunami?

Of course you can plan for everything, but there's always something that
occurs you did not think of. The good thing is, we learn from previous
mistakes and plan better accordingly next time.

> Have we learnt anything since then?

Nice punchline to finish your article, nihilist-like, but completely
nonsensical. Of course we have learnt a lot since Chernobyl, and designed
subsequent plants to be much more safe based on what happened there.

~~~
Swizec
> Of course we have learnt a lot since Chernobyl, and designed subsequent
> plants to be much more safe based on what happened there.

Unfortunately the anti-nuclear movement won and we are unable to build those
safe subsequent plants because of political pressures.

Half of nuclear reactors in the US, and likely the world, are over 30 years
old.[1] They are licensed for 40 years [2], but can apply for a 20 year
extension [2]. The last new reactor came online in 1996, and the next one is
likely to come online this year.

The Chernobyl disaster happened in 1986, 29 years ago. It will be at least
another 10 years, 30 being likelier, before all those things we learned become
entirely useful.

[1]
[http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/15/news/economy/nuclear_plants_...](http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/15/news/economy/nuclear_plants_us/)

[2]
[http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=228&t=21](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=228&t=21)

~~~
guscost
If I had to pick one outlandish conspiracy theory to believe, it would be that
the Chernobyl disaster was not an accident. It seems unlikely that someone
could accidentally engineer a reactor as ludicrously unsafe as Chernobyl, at
the time it was built. And you couldn't plan a better PR move to turn people
against nuclear power. Guess which large-ish economy is built on petrochemical
exports?

But I'm ignoring Hanlon's Razor, of course.

------
gambiting
As much of a tragedy this was, this is still nothing compared to the damage
coal is doing to our society. I live in a coal mining town that also has a
coal-fueled power and heating plant - the number of people who suffer in some
way due to this is also huge. People get lung disease due to coal dust. In
winter, everything is literally covered in soot - snow is blackish, with dark
dots on everything. Pretty much every house was damaged in some way by the
mine - most had their walls split at least once. There are lakes around the
city which are contaminated with mining water - salty solution pumped from the
mine - it's prohibited to swim in it or grow any produce near it. And there's
plenty of places like that in the entire country.

I'm surprised that the author still calls nuclear energy dangerous, especially
since he comes from the same country I do. Coal did much more damage to us,
and not having a single nuclear power plant in the whole country is really
damaging to our environment.

~~~
facepalm
You assume that coal is the only alternative to nuclear power (there are not
only other energy sources, but also the option to use less energy), and that
there is no way to use coal in a cleaner way.

I leave the judgement up to you, just wanted to point out some confirmation
bias in your convictions.

~~~
pdkl95
> the option to use less energy

Do you wash your clothes by hand, with water heated from solar? No? Then why
are you suggesting that _most of the women in the world_ should continue
spending their lives doing such menial activity?

This idea that we need to use _less_ energy is one of the most short-sighted
examples of western cultural privilege that I've ever seen. The amount of
energy the average person has available to utilize for day-to-day needs is one
of the best correlations to social progress and freedom.

People that don't have to spend their days washing their cloths by hand _have
spare time_ to spend on things like _getting an education_ or participating in
a democracy. We should be using nuclear power to significantly increase the
amount of power people use so the social benefits currently enjoyed by the
"west" can reach more areas in the world.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...](https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_machine)

I not joking or exaggerating when I say that if we let the amount of available
energy per-person reduce significantly, society will start to revert back to
old institutions like feudalism and slavery. Without energy, you don't have
the free time to become educated. Without education, we lose institutions that
depend on an educated population like democracy.

edit: fixed missing word

~~~
facepalm
Most energy is used for heating, transport, and so on. Your washing machine is
not under threat.

And I did not suggest any of the things you say. It's all in your head, which
went on a rampage triggered by the words "save energy".

All I said it is an option. I didn't say you have to take it.

~~~
pdkl95
I never said anything about _my_ washing machine. Maybe you should try to
watching that talk by Hans Rosling that I linked to.

Who are you to say that using less energy is an option, when you _have the
luxury_ of heating and energy-expensive transportation, and most of the world
doesn't yet have the energy to _wash their clothes_?

------
euske
As a citizen, I'm still pretty much open to this is-nuclear-good-or-bad debate
here. The biggest problem in Japan though is that people don't openly talk
about this issue because of the embarrassment or fear of confronting others
(Japanese people are notoriously bad at public discussion). It's such a
divisive issue. As a result, the entire topic is avoided and kinda invisible.
People are resigned and feeling that no one can change the situation (which is
a pretty common feeling among the Japanese).

Sometimes I wonder if we, as a nation, really deserves a better future if so
many people are simply giving up struggling. Sorry for a negative comment.

------
jpatokal
One angle I don't see often see mentioned: if you look carefully, you'll note
that many of the buildings, furnishings, signs etc look a lot older than 2011.
This is largely because Fukushima (and almost all of rural Japan along with
it) has been severely depressed economically ever since the Bubble burst
around 1989, so what you're seeing dates mostly back to the 1980s.

For comparison, here's a trip report from hot spring resort a few hours of
north of Tokyo that looks almost as apocalyptic, but has been ravaged by
nothing other than economics.

[https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ugly-
japan-2/](https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/ugly-japan-2/)

------
struct
One thing that grabs my attention is that the radiation levels in the
contaminated zones are much lower than I thought they'd be. For context, the
limit for a radiation worker in the US is 50 mSv. Obviously, I guess it
depends on the radioactive isotopes released and what kind of radiation they
release, but I'm still impressed.

~~~
dfox
The limit is 50mSv per year, not per hour. Sievert is cumulative unit that has
to be either qualified by time or measured over entire lifespan to be
meaningfully comparable.

But on the other hand quantitatively measuring and comparing radiation effects
is hard problem as there is essentially nothing that can be precisely measured
and at the same time has any meaning as to biological effects, in practice the
conversions between various units are just done using various experimentally
determined constants that may or may not be relevant to given situation.

~~~
e12e
Would appear that the limit is similar - the "red zone" is for "(> 50 mSv/y)"
(note "more than") -- and the sign at the end "Leaving the zone" reads 4.9
mSV/h. That'd be about 42.000 mSV/year -- if we assume constant dose. Or put
it another way -- stay an hour and you're at the (safe) limit of exposure for
a year.

As for all the comments on how nuclear isn't all that dangerous -- how much do
we really know about people leaving 4-5 generations in an area with elevated
radiation, eating produce etc? I guess we have some data from the Bikin
Islands[1] -- but those levels might very well be much higher -- at least it's
not an example of how we can live safely in a radiation zone.

Speaking of [1]: "The special International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Bikini
Advisory Group determined in 1997 that "It is safe to walk on all of the
islands ... although the residual radioactivity on islands in Bikini Atoll is
still higher than on other atolls in the Marshall Islands, it is not hazardous
to health at the levels measured ... The main radiation risk would be from the
food: eating locally grown produce, such as fruit, could add significant
radioactivity to the body...Eating coconuts or breadfruit from Bikini Island
occasionally would be no cause for concern. Eating many over a long period of
time without having taken remedial measures, however, might result in
radiation doses higher than internationally agreed safety levels." IAEA
estimated that living in the atoll and consuming local food would result in an
effective dose of about 15 mSv/year."

It will be interesting to see if removing topsoil in Fukushima will be enough
for radiation to reach safe levels. Hopefully the water tables are safe.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atol...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atoll#Return_to_Bikini_Island)

~~~
ggreer
The numbers in your first paragraph are off by a factor of 1,000. The signs
are in microsieverts per hour, not millisieverts. Only the author's peak
reading of 6.8µSv/h would have exceeded the maximum for radiation workers, and
only if he stood in that spot for a whole year. Even then, it would still be
below the lowest dosage that is clearly linked to increased cancer risk
(100mSv/year).

~~~
e12e
You're right of course. I didn't realize that was a greek letter on the sign
in the photo.

Still, ~43[1] mSv/year is pretty close to the "safe" limit (and it makes sense
to set a safety limit well below what can be documented as being harmful) --
and that's just from irradiation. Who knows the effect of breathing in pollen,
never mind eating local produce, over a period of ~50 years?

Are there different safety levels for children/infants? If the 50mSv/year is
set for workers, I assume they're for adults?

[1] I accidentally dropped a significant digit when rounding off too. It comes
to ~42924.0, not ~49...

------
rmatz
Being Japanese, that picture of blackboard in abandoned school 1/3 of the way
through the post alone almost made me cry.

Single picture tells more stories than thousand words.

4 years since it happened, almost no major Japanese media talks about
Fukushima any more, so please share this to anywhere so it gets more
attentions.

~~~
zemotion
I visited Minamisoma last year, just viewing the damages from the outside was
heartbreaking, seeing these images of interiors is so incredibly difficult,
had me close to tears too.

------
mosselman
Great photographs. Especially the cars in the grass starting to be overgrown
are a 'great' and instant classic post apocalyptic image. Makes you think
about the costs of our 'innovations' in general too. This is the wasteland of
nuclear energy gone wrong, but there are other wastelands like this one,
albeit figuratively speaking.

------
h_o
Those cobwebs in the supermarket are something else! (close to the end)

~~~
facepalm
Where there's radioactivity, there are monster spiders...

------
Shivetya
isn't all that packed up debris just waiting another tsunami or other natural
disaster to spread it? Seems awfully close to the ocean considering how the
last disaster occurred.

So many of the scenes reminded me of the recent Godzilla movie, amazing to see
so much of a recent bustling environment abandoned, returning to nature. The
number of spider webs in the supermarket is remarkable, I assume the rotting
food stores brought insects which in turn made for a good feeding ground for
spiders

------
chinathrow
"Seven years ago I ended my first documentary on Chernobyl with these words:

„An immense experience, not comparable to anything else. Silence, lack of
cries, laughter, tears and only the wind answers. Prypiat is a huge lesson for
our generation.”

Have we learnt anything since then?"

That makes one think.

~~~
fridek
We have learnt to not put reactors on top of the water tanks, and to not
shutdown all safety systems to see if the plant explodes.

~~~
gus_massa
I agree. I'd like to add: don't use graphite as a moderator, because it can
burn in case of a fire.

Chernobyl had many known design problems ever before it exploded. It's
misleading to imply that it was consider a good design before.

There is a comment with more details from pdkl95

>> _Chernobyl_

> _The RBMC design was always known to be an absolutely terrible idea because
> it 's use of graphite as a moderator that required active cooling, creating
> an inherently unsafe positive void coefficient[1]._

Read the complete comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10257459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10257459)

------
ablation
Absolutley fascinating. Great reporting - I don't want to say an "enjoyable"
read, but certainly very engaging and interesting.

~~~
dennisnedry
Agreed, there's a morbid curiosity behind ghost towns due to nuclear
disasters.

------
mkesper
Have also a look here:
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Freportage.wdr.de%2Ffukushima&edit-
text=&act=url)

------
Kiro
> As in the Chernobyl case, it was a human, not technology, that was mainly
> responsible for the disaster.

Isn't there a difference between causing and preventing?

------
treenyc
"Have we learnt anything since then?"

I'm very curious to hear from those who are knowledge in the area.

~~~
fridek
I'm not an expert, but the Fukushima's core problem was an older design based
on active cooling, that requires continuous water input and thus electricity
to run the water pumps. Current work is concentrated mostly on making nuclear
plant as passive as possible, resulting in graceful shutdown in the event of
supporting equipment failure. This involves finding a coolant that behaves
predictably and nicely when various subsystems go down (water does not).

Additional reading: [http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423307/newer-
nuclear-re...](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423307/newer-nuclear-
reactors-might-not-have-failed-in-japan/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety)

------
gabriele
a huge dump site near the ocean [1] doesn't look like the best idea.

[1]
[http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/#attachment_9454](http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/#attachment_9454)

------
WalterBright
With a few minor and cheap design modifications, the Fukushima disaster could
have been prevented. The nuke industry could learn a lot from the aviation
industry about making unsafe things safe. The details are different, but the
principles are the same.

~~~
curtis
Even in the very safe world of commercial aviation, aircraft crash much more
frequently than nuclear reactors melt down. That slows down the rate of
institutional learning.

Of course commercial aviation has killed far more people than the nuclear
power industry, anyway.

Addendum: I should say that I actually agree with you, I just wanted to point
out that the dynamics of the two industries are quite different.

~~~
WalterBright
The principle behind airliner design is no single failure can cause the loss
of the airliner. This principle was not applied to Fukushima's design nor the
Deepwater Horizon's design.

For example, the backup generators could have been protected from the seawater
inundation rather easily.

------
xigency
Great article. I think this is an issue that always deserves more serious
attention.

I also think it's admirable for someone to do this kind of research, take
pictures, and write about the experience for the purpose of educating others.

------
kup0
Many great photos of this and other locations. Got intrigued in this site
looking at photos and essays for quite a while. I appreciate seeing photos
from less-visited areas.

------
coldtea
It's a classic spin -- trying to blind people concerned with nuclear plants in
their area etc, by using science selectively.

~~~
tptacek
It's impolite to accuse people on an HN thread of being deceptive. It also
doesn't add _anything_ to thread itself, so why bother?

~~~
coldtea
> _It 's impolite to accuse people on an HN thread of being deceptive._

It's impolite to do it everywhere. However, just like people "being rude"
happens, people being deceptive also happens in HN as well as in "real life"
\-- in which case it's not longer impolite to call them on it.

But that's just theoritical. In this case I never accused anybody in
particular, heck, I didn't even mention anybody. I said it's a deceptive
_tactic_.

I'm not sure what you mean "it also doesn't add anything to the thread
itself".

Identifying a deceptive argument doesn't add to a thread?

You might argue that I'm wrong in my identification of it as deceptive, but I
don't see how you can say it doesn't add anything (in case it's true).

~~~
tptacek
All I see you doing here is doubling down on your accusation that 'fridek is
being deceptive. That's bizarre, given their actual comment. It's as if you
read something you didn't like, and decided that the only way it could have
appeared before you is dishonesty. No: some people just don't agree with you.
You have no cause to call anyone a liar, and doing so is uncivil. Please stop!

~~~
coldtea
Obviously something being spin doesn't mean somebody repeating it is deceptive
or dishonest. Just some of them, and mostly those that originated it. Others
merely repeat it uncritically.

Obviously again, Fridek, which I never mentioned at all, not even hinted at
him, because I was answering my direct parent, can very much believe what he
wrote.

> _It 's as if you read something you didn't like, and decided that the only
> way it could have appeared before you is dishonesty._

Actually it's like what I said is pretty clear, and you go out of your way to
find some hidden attack beyond my words.

What I said of the thing said is that it's a classic spin.

Not that the one who said it on HN is a spinster or doesn't believe what he
said, or is deceptive or anything.

If I'm right (and I think one can objectively say the argument is indeed
misleading), then whether people who retell it believe it or not is
orthogonal, as it doesn't make it any less spin.

------
kenesom1
The worst case scenario for a nuclear plant accident is millions of casualties
and the long-term contamination of major population centers. 152 of the
world's 211 nuclear power plants have more than 1 million people residing
within 75 km. A plant in India has 16 million living within that radius.
Fallout could be dispersed over an area thousands of miles wide.

The worst case scenario for an accident at a solar power plant or a wind farm
- nothing like that.

Today's nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe. Most that are in operation
depend on active cooling systems to prevent a meltdown. If these cooling
systems are interrupted for any reason (e.g.: power failure, loss of coolant,
pump breakdown, loss of pressure control, control rod failure, backup power
source failure, control systems failure, natural disaster, attack, etc.) -
even for a short period of time - then the fissile material will likely
overheat the reactor and result in a core meltdown.

Sheer luck prevented a catastrophe in the case of the 2006 electrical failure
at the Forsmark plant in Sweden. Two of the four backup power systems failed
to activate [1].

Switching the emtire world's energy consumption over to safe, renewable energy
sources would only take 20 years and cost $100 trillion (money which would be
spent anyway on non-renewable energy infrastructure) [2]. There is no need to
continue building unsafe coal and nuclear plants.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#July_2006_incident)

[2]
[http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/sad11...](http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/sad1109Jaco5p.indd.pdf)

~~~
ifdefdebug
Just up voted this to balance down votes. It's a shame to down vote something
just because you dislike an opinion.

~~~
pdeuchler
Or, you know, it's being downvoted for blatant falsehoods like:

"Today's nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe. Most that are in
operation depend on active cooling systems to prevent a meltdown."

~~~
kenesom1
80% of the world's nuclear fleet are in fact light water reactors - like
Fukushima - which require continuous cooling and a constant source of power.

Even the latest passive safety proposals like liquid fluoride thorium reactors
don't conclusively solve the fundamental problem of overheating after a
cooling system failure [1].

[1] [http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2010/6/not-so-
fa...](http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2010/6/not-so-fast-with-
thorium)

~~~
svedlin
Only 15 plants in operation have gen-3 passive cooling features and these
systems are hardly fail safe.

[http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/docu...](http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/NPWWch6.pdf)

