Fukushima - The cover-up, the lies, the facts & the figures

[pauldominic]

No. fuck off ;O)

I'd have named you as a bluemoon enemy by now but I shall simply ruffle my feathers ;)

Liberace??? I thought you were dead? ;O)

Nah - Lazarus :P<br /><br />-- Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:29 pm --<br /><br />Has anyone got an up to date periodic table?

I fancy a serious discussion.

 

[uncle charlie wilson]

Nuclear power is one of the cleanest way to make electricity. As the technology progress, it will become safer and safer. The only thing that is cleaner and reliable is hydroelectricity. However not that many countries posses the amount of water pools required to sustain the electricity use.

I prefer nuclear power to burning coal. it is dangerous, but i assume a lot of safety procedures take place. I am not anywhere near an expert on nuclear power and the safety procedures to make a judgment.

Look at France for example. 75% of its electricity is produced from nuclear power, without it their economy is will die. How is their safety record?

At the end of the day, without sustainable electricity our lives will be pretty bad. So unless people posses the knowledge to solve the problem, we shouldn't be kicking one of the solutions under the bus.

I struggle to express in words how much the claim that 'nuclear power is clean' frustrates me, angers me even.

The industry obscures everything it does. We don't know the half of what it has managed to conceal.

Leaks, compromised containment facilities, controlled leaks into the environment in the event of overheating. The list is endless.

Sellafield have nuclear waste all over the site, casually strewn across temporary dumps, on site, and it has remained there for decades.

The Sellafield B30 site has been described as "the most hazardous place in Western Europe" http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/19/sellafield-nuclear-plant-cumbria-hazards

Then there's Dounreay. A nuclear power plant on the very tip of the North of Scotland, decommissioned 17 years ago yet will cost our government £2.9 billion to entirely decommission and clean up the land and stretch of beach it poisoned. The land won't be safe to use as a brownfield site until the year 2336.

And this is just in the UK.

Since you mentioned France, I'll make you aware that they've been pumping water used to treat nuclear waste into the English Channel for years.

And this is without highlighting your Fukushimas and your Chernobyls.

Nuclear power plants leave a legacy, and it's rarely a 'clean' one.

Bulgarian Pride is correct.

Fact number 1 is that the radioactive half life of anything pumped into the channel can be measured in minutes, hours or days at the most.

Fact number 2 is that Sellafield B30 is the location for the tiny proportion of waste that has an extremely lengthy half life and the only option is long term storage.

You're correct about Dounreay as an R&D experiment in Fast Breeder Reactor that failed.

However to compare that with standard reactors is a mistake.

I admire your ability to promote claims as facts, a small role at the IAEA awaits.

Could you provide anything to substantiate your first claim?

Secondly, how can you claim that there's 'a tiny proportion of waste' at the B30 site as a fact?

No-one knows how much nuclear waste is concealed there, in what is essentially an open pond. 'A tiny proportion' might be an accurate assessment if you're comparing it to the collective nuclear waste Sellafield contains. As of 2004, that was 98% of Britain's 'most deadly radioactive waste' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3877343.stm. I've still neglected to mention the B38 building at Sellafield, which is in only a marginally less hazardous condition than B30. This will prove another obstacle few are aware of, even fewer want you to be aware of such information.

You say that 'the only option is long-term storage'. Well it isn't, the buildings which house these cooling ponds are disintegrating and are in no state to house such waste. The government have acknowledged as much, with a planned clean-up of the Sellafield site and the Cumbrian coast over a heavily protracted period of 100 years to the tune of £50bn. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/19/sellafield-nuclear-plant-cumbria-hazards

And how may I ask do you believe Sellafield (among others) found itself in such a condition?

Evidently due to mismanagement and the eternal attitude among the nuclear industry of being beyond accountability or censure. It's a recurring theme throughout the entire industry, that's what contributes to making an already dangerous technology even more so.

The industry is irresponsible and it's reprehensible that they can leave such poisonous legacies yet never have to face the repercussions which their policies brought to bear. Those repercussions are always left to the public - at detriment to our health and our livelihoods. Not least the governments which have to pick up the pieces at great economic cost.

Which is of great significance as it undermines the economic reasoning for our coalition government's plans to expand our nuclear sector. Should the plans become a reality, they will, in time, prove to be an economic failure as well as an environmental one.

 

[abu13]

I was reading up on this earlier today, it's frightening how little notice is being taken of this major disaster. Still pumping out unbelievable amounts of radiation every day.
Nearly 6 years on and there is still no sign of this being controlled, i read that the levels are so high that 2 minutes exposure would kill a man.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

the end is nigh........

What? And we haven't won the CL yet? Get it sorted, Marwood!

 

[andyhinch]

I was reading up on this earlier today, it's frightening how little notice is being taken of this major disaster. Still pumping out unbelievable amounts of radiation every day.
Nearly 6 years on and there is still no sign of this being controlled, i read that the levels are so high that 2 minutes exposure would kill a man.

Where did you read that ?

 

[abu13]

Where did you read that ?

This was the article relating to the 2 minutes exposure, but there are many other frightening stories out there.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...h-enough-kill-human-two-minutes-a7587646.html

 

[andyhinch]

This was the article relating to the 2 minutes exposure, but there are many other frightening stories out there.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...h-enough-kill-human-two-minutes-a7587646.html

I'll have a read, I suspect it's sensationalist bollocks though

This was the article relating to the 2 minutes exposure, but there are many other frightening stories out there.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...h-enough-kill-human-two-minutes-a7587646.html

I'll have a read, I suspect it's sensationalist bollocks though.

 

[TCIB]

Even my Dad has said nuclear power should get the cold shoulder, i was shocked at that. Having seen the devastation and recently watched updates on it then i have to agree, when one goes wrong the consequences are to severe imo. We now have more people employed in the renewable power source industry than the rest combined. I feel will will regret not being decisive with moving to renewable sources in many parts of the world in a few years.

 

[Grassland Blue]

Whether we like it or not nuclear power is here to stay and of necessity.
Problems with it are safety, future development and waste management.
Well it's never going to be completely safe as far as we understand it - then again neither is travelling on the road, or by air, or even walking, but we take those risks every day.
We need to grasp the nettle over nuclear power but what is the best way?
My thought is that if we have large reactor sites the consequences of any incident will be large too.
Fukushima was exceptional in that outside factors (an earthquake followed by a tsunami) caused the problems there. The chance of a similar combination of events must be millions to one.
So how to make sure that we can control the nuclear beast whatever problems arise?
At the moment the nuclear power industry is viewed with suspicion, because what is known about it is not widely shared - we need to educate future generations properly about the industry and give them a good understanding of the technology. The subject should be made compulsory in all secondary schools. Educate people, take away the mystery and reduce the concerns.
As regards future development - what is to prevent us from engineering much smaller reactors, but more of them, spread sub - station like throughout the country? (For example large new housing developments could have their own dedicated small reactor built alongside the development to power it.)

Nuclear produces radioactive waste which will always represent a danger , so why not just fire the stuff off into outer space where it cannot pose that risk ?
Are my thoughts valid? Just throwing it out to your good selves for debate /criticism etc.

 

[i kne albert davy]

Whether we like it or not nuclear power is here to stay and of necessity.
Problems with it are safety, future development and waste management.
Well it's never going to be completely safe as far as we understand it - then again neither is travelling on the road, or by air, or even walking, but we take those risks every day.
We need to grasp the nettle over nuclear power but what is the best way?
My thought is that if we have large reactor sites the consequences of any incident will be large too.
Fukushima was exceptional in that outside factors (an earthquake followed by a tsunami) caused the problems there. The chance of a similar combination of events must be millions to one.
So how to make sure that we can control the nuclear beast whatever problems arise?
At the moment the nuclear power industry is viewed with suspicion, because what is known about it is not widely shared - we need to educate future generations properly about the industry and give them a good understanding of the technology. The subject should be made compulsory in all secondary schools. Educate people, take away the mystery and reduce the concerns.
As regards future development - what is to prevent us from engineering much smaller reactors, but more of them, spread sub - station like throughout the country? (For example large new housing developments could have their own dedicated small reactor built alongside the development to power it.)

Nuclear produces radioactive waste which will always represent a danger , so why not just fire the stuff off into outer space where it cannot pose that risk ?
Are my thoughts valid? Just throwing it out to your good selves for debate /criticism etc.

Firing it off into space may not be the brightest move with the reliability of rocket technology I wouldn't have thought.