Is there a role for nuclear energy?

[Outlaw Yogi]

Loss of coolant in a reactor is only really a big issue when its actually producing power.

... or if the core remains hot enough to boil off enough coolant water to expose the fuel rods, after power generation has been halted.

Which is why USAF is bringing generators to keep the coolant pumps going.

Japanese nuclear reactor in peril - possibly leading to a meltdown
http://www.investorvillage.com/mbthread ... &showall=1

"The multi-reactor Fukushima atomic power plant is now relying on battery power, which will only last around eight hours," said Kevin Kamps, a specialist in nuclear waste at Beyond Nuclear, a group devoted to highlighting the perils of nuclear power. "The danger is the very thermally hot reactor cores at the plant must be continuously cooled for 24 to 48 hours. Without any electricity, the pumps won't be able to pump water through the hot reactor cores to cool them."

"There's a basic cooling system that requires power, which they don't have," said Glenn McCullough, former chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority who has been keeping track of the situation in Japan. He said that as a result of the tsunami, water had gotten into the diesel generators that would otherwise have provided backup power.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Explosion heard at quake-hit nuclear plant
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... tion=world

An explosion has been heard and white smoke can been seen at the quake-hit Fukushima No 1 nuclear power plant in Japan's north, according to local media reports.

Footage on Japanese television showed smoke billowing from plant.

According to public broadcaster NHK, the plant's exterior walls are gone and only the skeleton structure remains.

The broadcaster says several workers were injured by falling debris.

Local media also reports that radioactivity at the plant is now 20 times the normal level.

Cesium 137 and iodine 129 is vented into the atmosphere ... Cesium is the dux nuts for dirty bombs.
Radioactive steam released from nuclear plants
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 162223.htm

The amount of radiation reached around 1,000 times the normal level in the No. 1 reactor's control room, the Kyodo news agency reported the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency as saying.

EDIT ADDITION -
Just heard a Brit news feed on another puter, reckons this incident is 10 times worse than Chenobyl.

[mantra]

The government is keeping quiet about the ongoing ramifications of the explosion to avoid panic. Western media knew about the blast a couple of hours before the Japanese people did. What started off as a 3 km no go zone - last night was up to 20 km.

The unrestrained oil refinery fires are exacerbating the disaster and an entire city is being consumed. There are 10,000 people unaccounted for.

The World Nuclear Association is reassuring the world that there are no radiation leaks, but considering they promote nuclear power - do we believe them when unofficial reports suggest that a meltdown is very likely?

I hope this is a warning to the pro nuclear lobbyists that reactors are not infallible. They will have difficulty selling NP to Australia after this disaster.

Disasters are unpredictable and any sensible government would ensure that the nation's infrastructure can withstand an accident or natural disaster with the least possible destruction to human life. It's easy to say Australia is at minimal risk of experiencing a major earthquake - but human error still accounts for many of the accidents occurring at plants. In the last couple of years natural disasters have escalated and having a mountain of the world's deadliest toxin on our doorstep by choice defies logic.

Japan's nuclear safety agency rated the accident at four on the international scale of zero to seven. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States was rated five, while the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a seven

It appears that the accident at JCO in Tokaimura was only the latest of a string of similar mishaps in the same area of Japan in the last four years. In March 1997, two fires broke out in barrels containing radioactive waste in a nearby plant to JCO and thirty workers were exposed to radiation.

In August 1997 rainwater seeped into a storage pit for highly toxic radioactive waste threatening pollution of water supplies, and in July this year 20 tonnes of radioactive coolant water escaped from a power station north west of Tokyo. In these, as in other similar, regularly occurring incidents throughout the world, it just takes poorly trained or stressed workers to take the wrong decision at a crucial moment for a disaster with global implications to ensue.

This is the reason that despite soothing claims from Labour ministers, the nuclear industry will remain inherently unsafe. Privatisation of the nuclear industry as planned by New Labour will only make matters worse. One of the candidates in the sell-off, British Nuclear Fuels, were recently exposed as having falsified documents about safety checks on reprocessed nuclear waste bound for Japan.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Small world - many of you know I lived in Japan for many years but you don't know that one of my clients was one of the two nuclear power plants that have recently been in the news so I know that plant and the area very well. Was told that that location was selected because the area had historically not experienced quakes and the crust was stable there. I think it had more to do that it is a thinly populated rural area that needed jobs ... it is a beautiful area and I have friends there that are suffering ... a few years back it was revealed that Tokyo Electric Power company had long hidden a crack in one of the shields in that plant. Would imagine that all kinds of company secrets will be coming out now ... recall the employees would secretly go fishing at night in resevoir of some sort that held seawater that was a few degrees warmer than the surrounding seawater - huge fished lived there.

Nuclear power looks wonderful until it doesn't.

[mantra]

Nuclear power looks wonderful until it doesn't.

It's sad that so much beauty has to be destroyed to prove a point. Perhaps the earthquake was unavoidable - but the area will never be used for human habitation, farming or fishing again due to the radiation fallout which, although being currently denied, is inevitable.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Nuclear power looks wonderful until it doesn't.

the area will never be used for human habitation, farming or fishing again due to the radiation fallout which, although being currently denied, is inevitable.

That didn't happen with 3 Mile Island. Why would it happen here?

[mantra]

It's early days yet AiA. The explosion so far has only been classified as a No. 4 on a scale of 7. Do we know after 24 hours whether it will remain as that? 3 Mile Island was a mechanical failure. I'm not sure whether there was an explosion and no radiation was released outside the site. Was there a radiation cloud? Both incidents would produce different results I'm assuming.

[Outlaw Yogi]

The government is keeping quiet about the ongoing ramifications of the explosion to avoid panic.

Typical. Even if all 6 reactors at that site were actually in melt-down, they'd say its just a minor hiccup.

The World Nuclear Association is reassuring the world that there are no radiation leaks,

Pro-nuke lobbies compulsively lie as a matter of course. If they didn't there would be no nuke power industry.

I hope this is a warning to the pro nuclear lobbyists that reactors are not infallible.

Unlikely. These sort of characters would refer to a decapitation as only a scratch.

They will have difficulty selling NP to Australia after this disaster.

They do anyway, because we have too many far more viable and much cheaper options.
Y'see pro-nukers imagine they can get something for nothing, so are always chasing an imaginary free lunch.

Disasters are unpredictable and any sensible government would ensure that the nation's infrastructure can withstand an accident or natural disaster with the least possible destruction to human life. It's easy to say Australia is at minimal risk of experiencing a major earthquake -

Lucas Heights reactor site is on 2 fault lines.
Don't know the details on the (new) OPAL reactor, but the (old) HIFAR reactor released 19,000 (rads, rems, or curies - forget which, nuke industry changes the measurement scales every so often) of radionuclides per annum into the air as part of normal operation, and untill prevented by Sutherland Shire Council, dumped their Strontium 90 contaminated coolant water into Woronora river.

This is the reason that despite soothing claims from Labour ministers, the nuclear industry will remain inherently unsafe. Privatisation of the nuclear industry as planned by New Labour will only make matters worse. One of the candidates in the sell-off, British Nuclear Fuels, were recently exposed as having falsified documents about safety checks on reprocessed nuclear waste bound for Japan.

The Brit govt recognised their nuke industry was incredibly dodgey, so to avoid liability, sold their nuke facilities to a French nuke company, which is known to routinely dump high level nuke waste in the Pacific Ocean.

Meanwhile ....

Another quake-hit Japan reactor in trouble
http://au.news.yahoo.com/japan-tsunami/ ... n-trouble/

"All the functions to keep cooling water levels in No 3 reactor have failed at the Fukushima No. 1 plant," a spokesman of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said on Sunday.

... and ...

Tsunami victims suffer as Japan struggles with nuclear accident
http://au.news.yahoo.com/japan-tsunami/ ... -accident/

- Cooling system of two reactors at Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant fail on Saturday and a third reactor malfunctions on Sunday morning.

[Pastafarian]

Typical NIMBYs rushing in to judge everything without knowing the facts.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Typical pro nuke bull$#!+ artist trying to down play the consequences.