Educating the general public about pro nuclear energy?

[mheslep]

...planes and cars still crash, buildings burn and collapse and people die from inhaling the pollutants of other sources of energy.

And enormous coal-ash slurry dumps collapse releasing 4.2 million m^3 of silica and heavy metals into the surrounding environment and rivers in Kingston, TN, the largest in US history. Yet no mass marches occurred; nobody but @Astronuc even mentioned the spill on PF, and Jane Fonda did not make a "you're lucky to be alive" movie about mountains of sludge.

 

[mheslep]

Still the same logical fallacy: since there are other poisons, this poison is not poisonous.

No, the assertions made above are that there are many possible toxins, and that the toxicity comes from the dose. The fallacy here is yours, textbook special pleading, e.g. treat my complaint in isolation without justification.

..I am talking about the 3% long-lived part that according to Krane and the Wolrd Nuclear Association requires long term storage (stated as a fact, not a myth).

The WNA states " ... requires isolation from the environment for many thousands of years". Some radioactive isotopes in high concentration, and drums of cadmium for instance, should be not be dumped in the food or fresh water supply, not ever for the drum of cadmium, and not for thousands of years for some isotopes.

 

[jim hardy]

I am talking about the 3% long-lived part that according to Krane and the Wolrd Nuclear Association requires long term storage (stated as a fact, not a myth).

So,

just why does it matter that it's dangerous for a long time?

 

[mfb]

Still the same logical fallacy: since there are other poisons, this poison is not poisonous.

As far as I can see, you keep arguing "since it stops being poisonous after a while, it must be particularly dangerous before".

Sure, if we had a magic wand to make nuclear waste disappear, we would do that. But we don't have the question "do we want nuclear waste or not". We have the question "do we want to operate nuclear power plants or not?". And we have to consider the benefits of nuclear power, and compare the harm of it to the harm of other electricity sources. Comparing nuclear waste to the waste of coal power plants or photovoltaics production, for example, is important. Considering nuclear waste without considering anything else is one-sided and cannot lead to educated decisions.

 

[russ_watters]

And the bottom line of Russel's answer is "if the US government is no longer in charge, who cares?".

A point to which you clearly have no response, since you have repeatedly declined to respond to it.

And now I also get censorship in my post...

I thought I was doing you a favor by editing-out a part of a reference to a personal communication. I did not remove any of the content as part of the discussion.

 

[nikkkom]

Nuclear waste mainly consists of nuclides with shorter half-life than uranium. It reaches the activity level (per mass) of uranium within 1000-10000 years, afterwards it has a lower activity (see the plot above).

The activity of uranium ore is not particularly benign. You wouldn't want to live in a house where floor is made from it, that's for sure.

Uranium radioactivity is mostly alpha and thus easily shielded. If you isolate it very well (including air-tight, for radon emissions), then it becomes almost as safe as granite. This shielding can be rather thin, ~1 mm.

But nuclear waste activity is qualitatively different from uranuim. It has a substantial gamma component, both direct from e.g. Cs-137 and also secondary gammas from beta electrons. Apart from well-known 30-year half life culprits, there are 200k year half life Tc-99 whose betas are 300 keV, and Sn-126 is both beta-active and has a strong gamma-active daughter, Sb-126. You can't wait those out in 1000 years, and shielding from gammas needs to be, as a minimum, some 5 centimeters if it's steel, tens of centimeters if it's concrete.

 

[nikkkom]

The radioisotopes with long half-lives are mostly alpha emitters that dose by ingestion, with no penetrating power. After 500-1000 years the radioactivity of a ton of spent fuel is on the order of that from a ton of Uranium ore dug from the ground.

Let's look at the concrete example of real-world nuclear waste. This is the state of the art in nuclear waste storage, the French vitrification technology and its final product, "Universal Canister-Vitrified", or UC-V (not mentioned in the table that it has 5 mm thick steel walls):

(UC-C is a similar canister for compacted metal parts of spent fuel assemblies, not relevant for my purposes)

This is roughly what one ton of spent fuel looks like after reprocessing.
Check out the last item in the table. 14000 grays per hour of gamma. In "old units", it's some 1.4 *million* R/h. Please, never, ever even think about coming anywhere close enough to touching that thing.

Let's see... if it's mostly from Cs-137 and Sr-90, then every 30 years it is halved, every 300 years it is reduced by ~1000 times. So, in 600 years this canister would emit 14 mGy/h ~= 14 mSv/h. in 900 years, 14 uSv/h ~= 122 mSv/year. World average natural background is 3 mSv/year.

After about ~1000 years, other isotopes (e.g. Tc-99) start being important. So this canister won't become significantly more safe after that time.

 

[mfb]

The activity of uranium ore is not particularly benign. You wouldn't want to live in a house where floor is made from it, that's for sure.

I don't make my house floor out of uranium ore, and I don't make it out of nuclear waste either. Not the surface, and not the material 5 cm below the surface either.

Please, never, ever even think about coming anywhere close enough to touching that thing.

You cannot touch that thing. Because it is enclosed in more shielding.
Directly after reprocessing there are many shorter-living isotopes in it, so initially the activity will go down faster.

 

[nikkkom]

I don't make my house floor out of uranium ore, and I don't make it out of nuclear waste either. Not the surface, and not the material 5 cm below the surface either.

Exactly my point. Uranium ore is not a benchmark of safe material.

You cannot touch that thing. Because it is enclosed in more shielding.

It can not be enclosed during transport from vitrification facility to short term storage, and some years later, from short term storage to "E/EV/SE storage" which is designed for <500 Watt heat load.

Directly after reprocessing there are many shorter-living isotopes in it, so initially the activity will go down faster.

I'm not that sure about the "many" part. French do not reprocess the fuel right after they pulled it from the reactor. They let it cool for ~4 years. Thus, for example, 75% of Cs-134 is already gone by the time UC-V glass is poured. Which isotopes do you have in mind?

 

[mheslep]

Uranium ore is not a benchmark of safe material.

Safe in what context? Dumped into the food and water supply? No. In contact handling in mining operations, military munitions, enrichment facilities, or even that old uranium glass fixture sitting in your great aunts living room? No problem.

 

[nikkkom]

Safe in what context?

In the context you used it: "look, in only 900 years nuclear waste is as safe as uranium ore". Which is not a safety benchmark I am agreeing to.

Military munitions. First, they don't contain ore, they contain uranium metal. Which is ~8 times less radioactive, since all daughters are removed. Second, uranium metal in tank and GAU-8 30mm projectiles is not exposed, it's jacketed by other metals. (Not that complaints about "uranium in bullets is bad for your health" strike me as making much sense. If you are being fired upon by GAU-8, radiation from uranium is the least of your concerns...)

Enrichment facilities. They don't contain ore either, and they don't let people to come in touch with UF6 (it is unstable to water and forms corrosive products).

Uranium glass, again, does not contain ore, and U content is about 2%. Even after 900 years, vitrified waste is many orders of magnitude more radioactive (mainly due to gammas not shielded).

 

[russ_watters]

In the context you used it: "look, in only 900 years nuclear waste is as safe as uranium ore". Which is not a safety benchmark I am agreeing to.

What @mheslep was asking (and now I am), is what is the benchmark you would agree to?

Surely you are not suggesting, as you seemed to before, that it should be safe enough to build household flooring out of it?

And surely you must see the logic in the "safer than when we dug it out of the ground" benchmark don't you? At that point we could literally put it back where we found it and the location we found it would be no worse off for having it back.

 

[mheslep]

They let it cool for ~4 years. Thus, for example, 75% of Cs-134 is already gone by the time UC-V glass is poure

At creation, CS 134 (1300 Ci/gm) is more than 100x hotter than Cs 137 per gram. After 2 half lives, the original mass of Cs-134 and decay products is still ~3X hotter than Cs 137, and 134 is also a strong gamma emitter. Twenty years, and the 134 is essentially gone.

 

[mfb]

Exactly my point. Uranium ore is not a benchmark of safe material.

It is. Uranium ore has been underground for billions of years. No one seems to be scared by that. Why should people be scared of nuclear material with the same activity, stored at locations that are better protected than the uranium mines?

It can not be enclosed during transport from vitrification facility to short term storage, and some years later, from short term storage to "E/EV/SE storage" which is designed for <500 Watt heat load.

Castor containers can handle tens of kW of heat. It can be contained, transported and stored easily.

Thus, for example, 75% of Cs-134 is already gone by the time UC-V glass is poured.

That is still 25% left that will decay within a few more years, and dominate the activity for a while. Typically the overall activity at a given time is dominated by just 1-2 isotopes, starting from short-living ones and transiting to longer-living ones once the short-living isotopes are gone. That leads to the characteristic wobbly shape of the overall activity in double-logarithmic plots.

 

[nikkkom]

> Thus, for example, 75% of Cs-134 is already gone by the time UC-V glass is poured.

That is still 25% left that will decay within a few more years, and dominate the activity for a while. Typically the overall activity at a given time is dominated by just 1-2 isotopes, starting from short-living ones and transiting to longer-living ones once the short-living isotopes are gone. That leads to the characteristic wobbly shape of the overall activity in double-logarithmic plots.

What isotopes, in your opinion, dominate initial radioactivity from UC-V canister?

 

[nikkkom]

And surely you must see the logic in the "safer than when we dug it out of the ground" benchmark don't you?

Is it indeed safer? Compare uranium ore's gammas with French vitrified waste.

And secondly, why does US not do even what French are doing, which is at least converting spent fuel to this insoluble, chemically stable glass form? Hanford Vit Plant is what, costs $16B to date, not finished yet, and also even when completed, it can't reprocess fuel, it can only vitrify existing Hanford waste. I'm not feeling optimistic when I see this approach to nuclear waste treatment. "Safe vitrified glass 900 years later" is not what's happening in US, it's handwavium.

 

[mheslep]

why does US not do even what French are doing,

Politics driven by Plutonium separation in reprocessing.

 

[russ_watters]

Is it indeed safer? Compare uranium ore's gammas with French vitrified waste.

You need to answer the question you were asked. This response makes it look like you don't have an answer/no level of safety would satisfy you. Is that the case?

 

[mfb]

Is it indeed safer? Compare uranium ore's gammas with French vitrified waste.

Gamma radation doesn't penetrate hundreds of meters of rock. And vitrified nuclear waste is less likely to leak than uranium ore that has not been vitrified.

 

[nikkkom]

What @mheslep was asking (and now I am), is what is the benchmark you would agree to?

Vitrified waste stored for ~100 years for cooldown, then dropped down 8 km into boreholes in a subduction zone would be enough for me. No one has full working plans to do something like this. French are the closest.

 

[mfb]

No one has full working plans to do something like this.

That is just a political problem. Mainly driven by large parts of the general population disliking everything that remotely sounds like radioactivity. And we are back at the topic: A better education would help.

 

[nikkkom]

That is just a political problem. Mainly driven by large parts of the general population disliking everything that remotely sounds like radioactivity. And we are back at the topic: A better education would help.

Vit Plant cost overruns and 21 years construction schedule are also general population's fault?

 

[russ_watters]

Vitrified waste stored for ~100 years for cooldown, then dropped down 8 km into boreholes in a subduction zone would be enough for me. No one has full working plans to do something like this. French are the closest.

I don't understand; if it can be safely stored for 100 years above ground, why does it need to be buried after becoming less dangerous?

 

[russ_watters]

Vit Plant cost overruns and 21 years construction schedule are also general population's fault?

Not the entire population; just the portion working hard to cause those delays and overruns.

 

[nikkkom]

I don't understand; if it can be safely stored for 100 years above ground, why does it need to be buried after becoming less dangerous?

It is not safe above ground. Initially, it's too hot (thermally) to be lowered in the boreholes: when insulated by rocks, it may overheat and somewhat lose integrity. Also, transporting 1 million R/h gamma activity canisters to the burial site is more difficult than 100k R/h canisters.

 

[russ_watters]

It is not safe above ground.

What negative things do you expect to happen during those 100 years?

 

[nikkkom]

What negative things do you expect to happen during those 100 years?

I expect that French authorities will guard and protect the storage site and nothing bad will happen. However, absolutely guaranteeing that they will not fail is not possible.

 

[russ_watters]

I expect that French authorities will guard and protect the storage site and nothing bad will happen.

Isn't that the definition of "safe"?

However, absolutely guaranteeing that they will not fail is not possible.

Of course not. Does that matter?

 

[nikkkom]

Isn't that the definition of "safe"?

No, it is not. Seriously radioactive objects are supposed to be safeguarded everywhere. But in practice, this does not always happen. A selection of events since 2010:

***
April 2010 - INES level 4 - A 35-year-old man was hospitalized in New Delhi after handling radioactive scrap metal. Investigation led to the discovery of an amount of scrap metal containing 60Co in the New Delhi industrial district of Mayapuri. The 35-year-old man later died from his injuries, while six others remained hospitalized.

July 2010 - During a routine inspection at the Port of Genoa, on Italy's northwest coast, a cargo container from Saudi Arabia containing nearly 23 000 kg of scrap copper was detected to be emitting gamma radiation at a rate of around 500 mSv/h. After spending over a year in quarantine on Port grounds, Italian officials dissected the container using robots and discovered a rod of 60Co 23 cm long and 0.8 cm in diameter intermingled with the scrap.

December 2013 - A truck transporting a 111 TBq 60Co teletherapy source from a Tijuana hospital to a waste storage facility was hijacked near Mexico City.
***

Now, every of these sources pales in comparison to even a single UC-V, and French have many thousands of them! The chances of an upheaval in France akin to Syrian Civil War don't look likely at the moment, but in 100 years, who knows. I prefer UC-Vs to go deep under ground, so that any possible ransacking mobs couldn't possibly reach them.

 

[russ_watters]

No, it is not. Seriously radioactive objects are supposed to be safeguarded everywhere.

What does that mean? You're just re-using the word you just said doesn't apply but described almost word-for-word the definition!

But in practice, this does not always happen. A selection of events since 2010:

***
April 2010 - INES level 4 - A 35-year-old man was hospitalized in New Delhi after handling radioactive scrap metal...

But we're not talking about radioactive scrap metal improperly left in a dump somewhere, we're talking about a French storage facility that even you have acknowledge you expect will not be compromised. No one is suggesting the stuff be discarded in a landfill! So this example is irrelevant, isn't it?

Earlier you suggested it would be unsafe to be used as flooring: but you don't *actually* think someone is going to break into that French storage facility, steal the radioactive material and sell in on the black market as a high density flooring product, do you?

So I'll ask again: If the French facility poses no significant risk over 100 years, then it is "safe", right? And if your answer is still no, then tell me what the expected harm is.

 

[nikkkom]

But we're not talking about radioactive scrap metal improperly left in a dump somewhere, we're talking about a French storage facility that even you have acknowledge you expect will not be compromised.

Yes, I expect that "not compromised" scenario is more likely than "compromised". This does not mean I think it's safe enough.

So I'll ask again: If the French facility poses no significant risk over 100 years

I disagree. The chances of compromise are low; but if it would happen, the consequences can be very bad.

And if your answer is still no, then tell me what the expected harm is.

Hypothetical example: tons of highly radioactive glass pulverized by an explosion in Paris.

 

[russ_watters]

Yes, I expect that "not compromised" scenario is more likely than "compromised". This does not mean I think it's safe enough.

I disagree. The chances of compromise are low; but if it would happen, the consequences can be very bad.

So, "safe", but not "safe enough"?

Your dancing around the issue, saying "not safe" over and over again without describing and actual problem just tells me that you have not concluded there is a relevant risk but simply just hold "Unsafe!" as a baseless belief.

Hypothetical example: tons of highly radioactive glass pulverized by an explosion in Paris.

What do you mean? A terrorist bomb? How big would it have to be to do that? How many people would the bomb kill vs the fallout? How likely is this percentagewise?

 

[mfb]

A selection of events since 2010:

All with materials for medical use. I think their benefit in cancer treatment is so large that we should continue to use them.

The chances of compromise are low; but if it would happen, the consequences can be very bad.

That is not an argument without a quantitative assessment. Literally every action can cause very bad consequences, but usually the probability is small.

 

[nikkkom]

All with materials for medical use. I think their benefit in cancer treatment is so large that we should continue to use them.

I used these events to demonstrate that highly radioactive objects are being lost and sometimes kill people from time to time, despite all efforts to make that very improbable. I'm not making an argument that we should stop using these sources.

 

[nikkkom]

What do you mean? A terrorist bomb? How big would it have to be to do that?

A 5 mm thick steel vessel? About 10-20 kg of high explosive would do.

 

[mfb]

I used these events to demonstrate that highly radioactive objects are being lost and sometimes kill people from time to time, despite all efforts to make that very improbable. I'm not making an argument that we should stop using these sources.

Then what exactly are we discussing?

A 5 mm thick steel vessel? About 10-20 kg of high explosive would do.

And a nuclear weapon to crack the container around it? We had the Castor test videos a while ago. They survive nearly everything. You can let a plane or a full train crash into them and they'll survive without leaks.

 

[nikkkom]

Then what exactly are we discussing?

Whether UCs are better to be eventually put deep underground, or stored above ground indefinitely.

And a nuclear weapon to crack the container around it? We had the Castor test videos a while ago. They survive nearly everything. You can let a plane or a full train crash into them and they'll survive without leaks.

UCs are not stored in casks by French. They are only transported in them.

 

[mfb]

UCs are not stored in casks by French. They are only transported in them.

In Germany they are stored in similar casks, and I'm quite sure France doesn't do that completely different. You don't leave things with potentially lethal radiation standing around freely.

 

[russ_watters]

I used these events to demonstrate that highly radioactive objects are being lost and sometimes kill people from time to time, despite all efforts to make that very improbable. I'm not making an argument that we should stop using these sources.

No, you are just arguing that the fact that we can't keep medical waste safe means we should stop using nuclear power. It's like arguing that since we can't keep cars safe we should stop using planes... but keep using cars.

 

[etudiant]

No, you are just arguing that the fact that we can't keep medical waste safe means we should stop using nuclear power. It's like arguing that since we can't keep cars safe we should stop using planes... but keep using cars.

In fairness, I don't think that is his argument.
Rather he is arguing that stuff happens, despite the best efforts of dedicated people to prevent it.
The experience on nuclear power is around 1 catastrophic accident per 20,000 reactor years, counting Fukushima as one accident.
Note that excludes a whole bunch of lesser mishaps, WIPP, Juelich, Windscale, Monju etc.
That is arguably an excessive risk, given the extent of the potential contamination that results.
What is needed is a convincingly idiot proof design, something that can manage being turned off on request at any time, irrespective of conditions.
If that is not possible, nuclear will remain under a cloud imho.

 

[russ_watters]

In fairness, I don't think that is his argument.
Rather he is arguing that stuff happens, despite the best efforts of dedicated people to prevent it.

As mfb pointed out, the same argument could be made about literally anything; from driving a car to showering to walking down the stairs. No, I'm pretty sure he was attempting to make a direct comparison between the waste he cited and reactor waste -- as if all things "nuclear" are equally scary. It wasn't a coincidence that the waste incidents he cited were of radioactive waste.

The experience on nuclear power is around 1 catastrophic accident per 20,000 reactor years, counting Fukushima as one accident.
Note that excludes a whole bunch of lesser mishaps, WIPP, Juelich, Windscale, Monju etc.
That is arguably an excessive risk, given the extent of the potential contamination that results. [emphasis added]

What does that mean? If it is an excessive risk in the same way as car accidents and plane crashes are an excessive risk and we should work hard to mitigate the risk, I agree. If it is an excessive risk in that we shouldn't be using nuclear power, I disagree.

What is needed is a convincingly idiot proof design, something that can manage being turned off on request at any time, irrespective of conditions.
If that is not possible, nuclear will remain under a cloud imho.

My understanding is the new Gen III reactors meet that criteria:

Passive nuclear safety is a safety feature of a nuclear reactor that does not require operator actions or electronic feedback in order to shut down safely in the event of a particular type of emergency (usually overheating resulting from a loss of coolant or loss of coolant flow). Such reactors tend to rely more on the engineering of components such that their predicted behaviour according to known laws of physics would slow, rather than accelerate, the nuclear reaction in such circumstances. This is in contrast to older-yet-common reactor designs, where the natural tendency for the reaction was to accelerate rapidly from increased temperatures, such that either electronic feedback or operator triggered intervention was necessary to prevent damage to the reactor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor

 

[etudiant]

What does that mean? If it is an excessive risk in the same way as car accidents and plane crashes are an excessive risk and we should work hard to mitigate the risk, I agree. If it is an excessive risk in that we shouldn't be using nuclear power, I disagree.

My understanding is the new Gen III reactors meet that criteria:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor

If the wind had been different, Fukushima would have contaminated Tokyo to well beyond acceptable levels. Japan was stupidly lucky.
That underscores that a bad nuclear accident has country wrecking potential, something much worse than a plane crash or even a dam rupture.
We have close to 500 older style nuclear power reactors and past performance suggests a disaster every few decades.
I don't think that is an acceptable situation.

Maybe Gen III will be much safer, but the hugely painful construction delays and deficiencies observed to date in Finland and France suggest that not all projections turn out as expected.

 

[mfb]

If the wind had been different, Fukushima would have contaminated Tokyo to well beyond acceptable levels. Japan was stupidly lucky.

What is "beyond acceptable levels" in mSv for the population?
If the tsunami had been lower, Fukushima would have been fine. If the earthquake wouldn't have happened, we wouldn't have had any tsunami. And so on. Japan was stupidly unlucky. A large number of coincidences had to come together in the worst possible way to create an accident.

That underscores that a bad nuclear accident has country wrecking potential, something much worse than a plane crash or even a dam rupture.

It is not "country wrecking". In the worst case you get slightly higher cancer rates in some regions. And even that has much lower different risk than plane crashes or dam ruptures. Plane crashes and dam ruptures happen frequently. Nuclear accidents with relevant release of radioactivity do not. It doesn't make sense to compare the worst possible incidents without taking the risk into account.
A big dam rupture is by far the worst possible incident, by the way. A breaking Three Gorges Dam could probably kill millions.

I don't think that is an acceptable situation.

What do you suggest to improve the situation? Replace nuclear power by what?
Afterwards please calculate yourself how many more people that would kill per year, and report the results.
Or do you suggest to shut down all power plants and go back to the middle ages?

Saying "it is bad" is easy, but as long as you cannot present a better option it is pointless.

 

[russ_watters]

I was too busy to respond to this yesterday, but figured someone might answer for me (thanks). To add:

If the wind had been different, Fukushima would have contaminated Tokyo to well beyond acceptable levels.

That's not even true. The exclusion zone at Chernobyl is smaller than the distance from Fukushima to Tokyo, but Fukushima released only a tenth as much radioactive material, and much less efficiently. Even still; what are the odds that the wind could have been the required direction? Winds at that latitude tend to travel west to east.

Japan was stupidly lucky.

mfb gave the obvious answer, but I'll expand. People often seize up on one tiny aspect of a major event to call "lucky" or "unlucky". This is narrow-minded based on one's preferred perspective. But if you add up the "luck" from that day, I sure hope you would agree that 16,000 dead and hundreds in billions of damage from one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history make it an overall epically unlucky day for Japan.

That underscores that a bad nuclear accident has country wrecking potential, something much worse than a plane crash or even a dam rupture.

Even with what you described wrong, you still didn't describe country-wrecking potential.

...past performance suggests a disaster every few decades.

Does it? How often are once-a-millenia natural disasters likely to hit nuclear plants that are unprepared to handle them? There has *never* been an accident with wide/significant consequences outside the plant that happened for only human-caused reasons. Never! That isn't to say it won't ever happen, but Fukushima cannot be used as an example in the risk analysis of the vast majority of nuclear plants. Since the risk can't ever be zero we can't say what it is, but it is certainly much less than once every few decades. (Note: I used to be generous and let people include Chernobyl, but I'm tired of being generous when arguing with people who are being unreasonable.) (Note 2: TMI was classified level 5, but that's marginal based on the definition and the actual effects of TMI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter...ale#Level_5:_Accident_with_wider_consequences )

I don't think that is an acceptable situation.

You've made at least three errors/exaggerations by a factor of ten+ each, described above. So if you re-calibrate your assessment to be a thousand times safer, does it become an acceptable situation? If not, again, what does that mean? Just saying a situation is not acceptable does not suggest a course of action.

Maybe Gen III will be much safer, but the hugely painful construction delays and deficiencies observed to date in Finland and France suggest that not all projections turn out as expected.

C'mon. You're saying that just because it is more expensive than projected, it might be significantly less safe than projected? That's just silly. The safety features are what they are. They either exist or they don't (they exist).

 

[mheslep]

...
Maybe Gen III will be much safer, but the hugely painful construction delays and deficiencies observed to date in Finland and France suggest that not all projections turn out as expected.

Of course there is no endeavor in human affairs where all projections turn out as expected. Major offshore wind farm proposals for the US have been in place for decades and so far none are anywhere near construction. Many nuclear plants have been built in five years in China and so too the US decades ago. The delays seen in current US construction are in no small part due to malevolent regulation, where the NRC changed major requirements on a plant after it had approved the design and construction was well underway.

Unsupported comments about 'stupid luck' of nuclear accidents in public engineering forums is likely to encourage more public fear followed by poor regulation decisons.

 

[Greg Wurn]

in US there's a concept named "Probabilistic Risk Assessment"(PRA) , a mathematical process whereby 'things' are evaluated and prioritized according to their likelihood and severity of consequence.. The PRA experts can make it look pretty esoteric to one at my level.

When Japanese archeologists found those stones way up the hill that'd been engraved "do not build below here you'll get washed away"
and historians uncovered records of huge tidal waves within a thousand years
the PRA folks should've raised their 'likelihood' number for 'Loss of All AC' to 1/1000 per year or greater
which would make their ' likelihood X consequences ' product significant enough to warrant action .

I can understand how the 'Modest Proposal' that one's Sacred Diesels(that's how we plant guys feel about them) are at extreme risk would be met with initial disbelief and take some time to percolate up through a bureaucracy .
In that bureaucracy you have competing forces - a group whose job it is to think up "What If's" and another whose job it is to assess them and recommend action or dismissal. Most warrant dismissal or minimal action.
With a bureaucracy you get all the human complications of power, prestige and personalities. . So they're prone to herd behaviors like vacillation and immobility and stampede that promulgate the mistrust you mentioned.

Tepco's bureaucracy failed them on this one. That's why i maintain that they needed somebody near the bottom and close to the facts of the matter, to bypass the bureaucracy and apprise those near the top that their company's whole net worth hung on a decades old PRA equation with a badly underestimated Likelihood term in it .. .
And that's how i see it in my 'view from the bottom'.

We like to place blame on an individual.
I suppose someplace there's a bureaucrat mid level manager who agreed to send back for further study that challenge to their tsunami likelihood assumptions . He gets my vote. But he's surely a lot wiser now and has suffered plenty already in self recrimination so why flog him? Act on the lesson and go on.

My old mentor was expert at shredding red tape.
But if you're at the bottom and decide to bypass middle management you'd better be doggone sure you're right.

It could've been done for this one. Challenger too.
Oddly, Three Mile Island was caused by bureaucratic over-reaction to a hypothetical "What If" . Proximal blame for that one lies with whatever bureaucrat issued the edict to operators "Thou shalt not fill thy Pressurizer" , over some What-If called 'Pressurized Thermal Shock' . Not long afterward they changed their edict to "Thou shalt overfill thy Pressurizer and let the water run out onto thy floor". That left Crystal River operators with a wet containment to clean up but proved the point.
That's how large brained mammals and large organizations learn - through our mistakes.

Progress not perfection..Wow i really rambled on that one,, eh? Old guys just do that. Thanks for reading it.

I think that mistakes and cover ups do occur, then there is natural disasters, despite what cause we attribute to nuclear accidents, my concern is the increasing release of long lived radioactive isotopes being incorporated into the food chain and increasing the occurrence of cancer and mutation, it could be centuries before we fully understand the cost of what nuclear waste that has already been dumped in our oceans. Surely we can come up with safer ways to boil water, ones with much less risk.

 

[russ_watters]

...my concern is the increasing release of long lived radioactive isotopes being incorporated into the food chain and increasing the occurrence of cancer and mutation, it could be centuries before we fully understand the cost of what nuclear waste that has already been dumped in our oceans.

This is very vague, and tough to attach meaning to it. Could you please be more specific about this?

Surely we can come up with safer ways to boil water, ones with much less risk.

Vague concerns are not quantifiable and as such, so far nuclear has shown to be by far the safest way to boil large amounts of water. It isn't even close.

 

[gmax137]

Not sure if this has been linked, it identifies "external" costs of electricity generation by type (coal, gas, nuclear, wind, etc.)
http://www.world-nuclear.org/inform.../externalities-of-electricity-generation.aspx

 

[jim hardy]

increasing the occurrence of cancer and mutation, it could be centuries before we fully understand the cost of what nuclear waste that has already been dumped in our oceans. Surely we can come up with safer ways to boil water, ones with much less risk.

"At Closest Range" and "The World of Carbon" by Isaac Asimov went to great lengths to describe how Mother Nature built the Universe and the carbon based life in it
She made Carbon 14 both unstable and naturally occurring .

Then she built DNA which is basically a pair of long carbon chains intertwined and joined by rungs , the famous 'twisted ladder' .

Because she made radioactive carbon a natural part of DNA , i must agree with Asimov that it was her way of assuring evolution. Every C14 in a DNA molecule that disintegrates into N14 changes that molecule somehow.

And she made C14 be produced in the upper reaches of the atmosphere.

So i don't fear a modest amount of background radiation. A DNA molecule is a very small target unless you're shooting from inside the molecule itself.

We could go back to burning whatever wood we can carry home if we're ready to go back to the living standard (and population) of 200 years ago.