Has Fukushima Changed Your Position?

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In summary, the conversation discusses how the events following the 3/11 earthquake in Japan have caused a change in individuals' positions on nuclear power. Before March of this year, many were supporters of nuclear power, citing its clean and cheap energy. However, the accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima have made people question the safety and reliability of nuclear power. The conversation also highlights the dangers and consequences of nuclear accidents, such as displacement of thousands of people and economic impact.
  • #1
swl
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I'm wondering if anyone here has been so moved by events following the 3/11 earquake, that their position has been changed in regard to nuclear power.

First, please let us know your position before March of this year.

Second, let us know if you position has changed, either for, or against the use nuclear power.

Third, let us know why you have, or have not changed your position.

All other comments regarding your position on nuclear power, along with any emotional reaction, or consequences you may have experienced are welcome.

=======================

As for me, I was in favor of nuclear power beffore March of this year. I come from a family with three close member who have worked for SCE at SONGS in southern California. While not being a physicist, I am familiar with the basics of nuclear power, and have been a supporter for as long as I can remember. And while I don't feel that global warming is a significant threat to mankind, I was of the impression that nuclear power had potential to remove global warming from the headlines (turns out it did for a short time, but not in the way I had imagined).

I now have doubts about my previous position. I don't know how I'll feel a year from now, but at this point, the industry has lost me as a supporter.:frown:

My position has changed because I am finding it difficult to trust the industry to operate in a safe manner. I have also begun to wonder if nuclear power is simply too complex with too many unpredictable failure modes, to be safe.

It's been a tough situation for my family in too many ways to bore you with, but to summarize my feelings; my family and I struggled to get home after experiencing the largest quake in Japan's history. When we reached home, we had the feeling that the worst was behind us, and that things would soon improve... then we turned on the TV and saw the news. And the news was like a long nightmare where my worst case thoughts of the outcome were consistently exceeded. I called my family of nuke "experts" in the states to ask for advice, and I was repeatedly impressed by their underestimates of the dangers, and the lack of information they had about events. I quickly realized that I would have to make my own decisions. I have decided.
 
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  • #2
Before March, I was a supporter of nuclear power, a very rare position in Germany...

I was basically reciting all those claims about nuclear power whenever I got into discussions. Practically the same claims I'm getting bombarded with in certain threads here:
Nuclear power is clean, is cheap, the fuel is available and it is save. Coal has killed more people than nuclear. Don't mind Chernobyl, our reactors have sophisticated fancy security systems which don't allow any major accident. Chernobyl was only soviet crap technology, no wonder it went airborne, our stuff is way better. And so on...

Then the events unfolded and my mind changed. I realized, that we don't have absolute security. A major accident probability of 10^-6 doesn't mean that there's statistically one accident every million reactor years. It rather means that the probability for a reactor blowing up during its lifetime isn't zero.
Accidents can happen. Accidents will happen. Chernobyl and Fukushima proved that. No probabilitys and no security systems will change that. You can build as many security systems you want, there's still something you didn't think of.
At Chernobyl they didn't think of some crazy operators torturing the reactor with a mad stress test. At Fukushima they didn't think of an earthquake killing offsite power and a major tsunami killing emergency power. They didn't think of airplanes crashing into NPPs.
There are always things which are dangerous to those plants but which we don't know - until they happen.
And when it happens, there are major effects. Fukushima doubled the tsunami damage costs. Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes, probably for forever. And not only those homes are lost. The productivity of an entire region is lost for decades.
Same goes for Chernobyl. And we still got lucky with both accidents!
The initial plume from Chernobyl missed Prypjat, it also missed Kiev and Moscow. The plume from Fukushima missed Tokio and Sendai.
Perhaps we're not as lucky next time? What happens when Indian Point blows up, with the plume going eastwards? I don't even want to imagine what would happen to the world's economy if we had to abandon New York forever because of radioactive contamination.
 
  • #3
clancy688 said:
Before March, I was a supporter of nuclear power, a very rare position in Germany...

I was basically reciting all those claims about nuclear power whenever I got into discussions. Practically the same claims I'm getting bombarded with in certain threads here:
Nuclear power is clean, is cheap, the fuel is available and it is save. Coal has killed more people than nuclear. Don't mind Chernobyl, our reactors have sophisticated fancy security systems which don't allow any major accident. Chernobyl was only soviet crap technology, no wonder it went airborne, our stuff is way better. And so on...

Then the events unfolded and my mind changed. I realized, that we don't have absolute security. A major accident probability of 10^-6 doesn't mean that there's statistically one accident every million reactor years. It rather means that the probability for a reactor blowing up during its lifetime isn't zero.
Accidents can happen. Accidents will happen. Chernobyl and Fukushima proved that. No probabilitys and no security systems will change that. You can build as many security systems you want, there's still something you didn't think of.
At Chernobyl they didn't think of some crazy operators torturing the reactor with a mad stress test. At Fukushima they didn't think of an earthquake killing offsite power and a major tsunami killing emergency power. They didn't think of airplanes crashing into NPPs.
There are always things which are dangerous to those plants but which we don't know - until they happen.
And when it happens, there are major effects. Fukushima doubled the tsunami damage costs. Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes, probably for forever. And not only those homes are lost. The productivity of an entire region is lost for decades.
Same goes for Chernobyl. And we still got lucky with both accidents!
The initial plume from Chernobyl missed Prypjat, it also missed Kiev and Moscow. The plume from Fukushima missed Tokio and Sendai.
Perhaps we're not as lucky next time? What happens when Indian Point blows up, with the plume going eastwards? I don't even want to imagine what would happen to the world's economy if we had to abandon New York forever because of radioactive contamination.

I have always been skpetical about the 1+10-6 or 1*10-7 coremelt/reactor year claims.
I did argue about this with an experienced (and succesful) nuclear engineer while I still was unly an engineering university student (1983).
The guy was my girl frend's uncle. we were yachting around sicily and I was his guest, I never got invited on his boat again.

I then saw chernobyl, and then again while i was becoming concerned also about green gases emissions i have been watching nightmare unfold before my very eyes in Fukushima.

Today italy rejected the nuclear option. I do not know wheter I was able to convince 1 or 1.000 people.
I only know I did not refuse any single explanation about what happened, about the risks.

Now I feel exausted but happy
 
  • #4
Since this is not science, just personal opinions, it has been moved to General Discussion.

My opinion, nuclear energy is still our best best bet for now. I'm hoping all of the knee jerk reactions and lack of understanding among the populace don't harm the progress made in nuclear energy.

Edit: Hurkyl made his post below without seeing mine, I am not included in his response. Right Hurkyl? :biggrin:
 
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  • #5
No offense, but you're all being irrational. You're making two serious errors of logic:
  • You are doing what would be an analysis of alternatives, but you've forgotten to have alternatives! The question is not whether nuclear power has a cost, but whether cost over benefit is higher for nuclear than for coal/oil.*
  • You are focusing on the cost of one event, rather than the average cost over time


I have no idea whether nuclear power is a better alternative than coal or not. But I do know that the decision cannot be rationally made without actually comparing the two alternatives.


*: I'm under the impression that, ATM, this is the only realistic one of the alternatives to consider



clancy688 said:
Fukushima doubled the tsunami damage costs.
Do you have a reference for this?

Same goes for Chernobyl. And we still got lucky with both accidents! [/QUOTE]
Wait, what? As I recall, Chernobyl happened because everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
 
  • #6
swl said:
First, please let us know your position before March of this year.

Second, let us know if you position has changed, either for, or against the use nuclear power.

Third, let us know why you have, or have not changed your position.

First, as a result of logic comparison and feasibility, I was pretty much in favor of nuclear energy

Second, as a result of logic comparison, safety and feasibility, I am pretty much in favor of nuclear energy

Third, when the Japanese reactors failed, many people feared about numerous casualties. I believe there were one fatalities in reality, I thought that would prove to the people that even in the case of a dire catastrophe, the health risk of a severely damaged nuclear reactor is very small. For once, I could not agree more with George Monbiot. But I guess, one can never understand the motivation of the big crowd.
 
  • #7
clancy688 said:
I realized, that we don't have absolute security. A major accident probability of 10^-6 doesn't mean that there's statistically one accident every million reactor years. It rather means that the probability for a reactor blowing up during its lifetime isn't zero.

You''ve pretty much hit the nail on the head with that. This is, as I see it, the only valid argument someone who has intelligently investigated nuclear power can make. Those who are pro-nuclear espouse that 10^-6 probability as an acceptable risk. Those who are not pro-nuclear (I balk at calling them anti-nuclear since the term "anti" tends to give a negative connotation to their viewpoint) say no risk is acceptable. I have no quarrel with that position, since it is bourne of opinion, so my hat is off to you for investigating and adopting that position.

BTW, I am a pro-nuclear environmentalist with caveats that standards and regulations are strictly enforced, and a high preference for recylcing of waste rather than deposition of the extremely long lived nuclides.
 
  • #8
I agree with Hurkyl, the question "is nuclear power safe" doesn't mean anything unless we have something to compare it to. "Safe" is a relative measure of risk. If anything Fukishima has reaffirmed my belief in the philosophy of "s*** happens".

That said the outcome here was far better than it could have been; ten thousand people killed by a tsunami, dozens of reactors across the country shut down safely and one reactor that broke but was nowhere near a Chenobyl-like incident. It boggles the mind that people think that this is more of an argument against nuclear safety than against living near Earth quake zones.

Compared to oil and coal I think nuclear power is safer. Nuclear may harm people when it breaks but oil and coal harm people when they work.

EDIT: I'm not 100% sure about the reliability of this source but it seems to have analysed a lot of official data and has many links in it. It shows the deaths per terawatt hour broken down by energy source, IBM many eyes has a great way of displaying the same data here.
 
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  • #9
My view that nuclear is cleaner and safer than its only viable alternative (coal) has not changed.

My (preliminary) view of is based on my prioritization of what matters: human lives are much more important than money and inconvenience to me, so I don't really see any viable disaster scenarios where nuclear comes out worse than coal. And in judging the disaster in Japan, the nuclear component is a relatively minor piece. On money, lives lost and inconvenience, the tsunami itself was far worse.
 
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  • #10
Hurkyl said:
No offense, but you're all being irrational.

I can live with that. You're certainly not the first one who says this und you won't be the last.

Do you have a reference for this?



And if I recall correctly, tsunami and earthquake damages are also at 250 billion.

Wait, what? As I recall, Chernobyl happened because everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

Yes, inside the facility. I'm talking about contamination outside the plant. The initial plume from the explosion missed Prypjat by two kilometres.
All the trees in its path died later. And trees are way more resistent to radiation than humans. I don't even want to think about what would've happened if the plume striked Prypjat in the night.

http://www-ns.iaea.org/downloads/rw/projects/emras-urban-draft-pripyat-May06.pdf

Same goes for Kiev and Moscow. Somehow the plume missed those two cities.
 
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  • #11
I was, and am still in favor or pursuing nuclear energy. The problems at Fukushima highlight insufficiencies in siting and design. First of all, sea-walls that were not capable of deflecting the tsunami. Second, siting critical equipment such as the EDGs low enough so that having the bottom levels of the plant flooded can knock them out. Third, storing spent fuel high in the reactor buildings, so that loss of power to the pumps means loss of cooling. Situation #3 can be addressed by moving to a cask transfer system to move the spent fuel to ground-level pools which should be feature passive (no pumps needed, and manual valves to bypass electrically-actuated ones) cooling-water supplies.

We can learn (and hopefully have) from the deficiencies in the siting and design of the units at Fukushima. It should be possible to design and operate safer plants in the future, so it would be foolhardy IMO to abandon nuclear power based on fear and emotion. If a utility claims that it would be too expensive to do things properly, don't issue them permits.

As a parallel effort, dirty coal-fired plants that foul the air downstream should be placed on remediation schedules and be required to adhere to them. We have had technology for years that can clean up flue gases from those stacks - the power companies simply don't want to employ them. As a result, Maine has acid rain, rolling ozone alerts much of the summer, and heavy metals bio-accumulating in our fish and wildlife. There are dangers from oil, coal, etc that have been glossed over for many decades, and these have to be balanced against potential problems with nuclear power before we can make a fair comparison.
 
  • #12
Fukushima has stopped me from changing my mind. I was almost ready to buy into the "nuclear can be made safe now" argument, but this event has convinced me that my mistrust of the nuclear industry [all industry] was well founded. This entire episode was forseeable and preventable. The lack of foresight and the irresponsibility that led to this disaster absolutely boggle the mind. It proves to me once and for all that nuclear power is just too dangerous - not that it couldn't be done safely, but it can't be safe and cost competitive. That is the achilles heal of nuclear power - if done right, it's too expensive.

And I don't buy into the strawman that coal is the only option. Firstly, we have natural gas. Why has no one mentioned this yet? Secondly, solar energy is finally ready to compete at market prices. While we don't have the storage problem resolved, solar can certainly help to offset daytime loads. Additionally, wind power could satisfy something like 20% of our demand. Next, it is my firm belief that options like algae and bacterial-derived fuels will be ready long before we could build enough nuclear plants to make a difference. The political reality is that even in a best case, it will take decades to build enough nuclear plants to solve the problem. Long before then then we'll have better options.

So my position is that even if the nuclear industry can recover from this, by the time they do we won't need it. In fact, we already do have a better option - natural gas. Luckily, the leaders of the world are already seeing that nuclear energy has hit the end of the road. We have options with many more in the works. It is time to stop wasting our time with a dead industry.
 
  • #13
Ivan, as always, the strawman is yours: you are mixing up 'might be viable' with 'is viable'. The reality of the world we live in today is for base load, there is only coal, nuclear, and in some cases hydro. Speculation about other things that MIGHT become viable is just that: speculation.
 
  • #14
Prior, I was in favor of nuclear power. After, I am in favor of nuclear power. Any time mistakes happen it goes into lessons learned so that it (hopefully) doesn't happen again.
 
  • #15
My opinion has not changed. We need to replace the old huge reactors with new, smaller breeder reactors.
 
  • #16
I use to be in favor of nuclear power and am even more in favor of it now. The worst case scenario that I had always wondered about was something like a massive earthquake hitting a rather old nuclear power plant. Well we saw it, then we saw a tsunami, then to top it all off, multiple large explosions. Worse case scenario and in the end, no one died (even though I have a hunch a few people will end up dying sooner because they worked in those first weeks but that's just a hunch).

It's unfortunate more people aren't more rational about this. You'd think every idiot who thinks something like this would create a Hiroshima-like explosion might stifle themselves now at least.

I never deluded myself into thinking nothing bad could ever happen or that statistics are a made up concept and if something is very unlikely to happen that it can't happen. I can't understand people who hear "nuclear power is safe" and translate that internally to mean "nothing bad will ever ever happen". Hell, my car is safe, but people die in them every day; that doesn't mean cars aren't safe. I think it's just a total lack of peoples ability to critically think about things.
 
  • #17
Evo said:
Since this is not science, just personal opinions, it has been moved to General Discussion.

My opinion, nuclear energy is still our best best bet for now. I'm hoping all of the knee jerk reactions and lack of understanding among the populace don't harm the progress made in nuclear energy.

"Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of people."

If you can not understand how societal perception of nuclear power is a critical element of it's engineering and implementation, then I wonder what sort of engineer you are.

There is another thread to discuss the viability of nuclear power. I find it interesting that in a thread where I had hoped to hear peoples position on the issue, so many feel compelled to discredit the views of others. Engineers would do well to listen to the public and to understand that the public's positions are important to the future of engineering projects.
 
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  • #18
swl said:
"Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of people."
So, you are for nuclear plants.

If you can not understand how societal perception of nuclear power is a critical element of it's engineering and implementation, then I wonder what sort of engineer you are.
Like you, I am not an engineer. People's irrational fears and misconceptions are not part of engineering and building facilities.

Your thread OP is irrational fear mongering.
 
  • #19
swl said:
"Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of people."

If you can not understand how societal perception of nuclear power is a critical element of it's engineering and implementation, then I wonder what sort of engineer you are.

And what kind of engineer are you if I may ask?

The Engineering forums are technical forums. Every thread in a political discussion forum has some connection to engineering, but we don't put political discussions into engineering forums. Same rule applies here, discussions over the general public's view of nuclear energy have some connection with engineering, but it's overwhelmingly not a technical engineering discussion.
 

1. Has Fukushima significantly impacted the environment?

The Fukushima nuclear disaster has had a significant impact on the environment, particularly on the marine ecosystem. The release of radioactive materials into the ocean has resulted in contaminated water and seafood, and has also affected the surrounding land and wildlife.

2. How has Fukushima affected public health?

The health effects of Fukushima are still being studied, but it is known that the release of radioactive materials has increased the risk of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses for those living in the surrounding area. However, the overall impact on public health is still being evaluated.

3. Has Fukushima changed the way nuclear power plants are regulated?

The Fukushima disaster has prompted a re-evaluation of nuclear power plant safety and regulations. Many countries have implemented stricter safety measures and emergency preparedness protocols in order to prevent similar accidents from occurring in the future.

4. What lessons have been learned from Fukushima?

Fukushima has taught us the importance of thorough risk assessments and emergency planning for nuclear power plants. It has also highlighted the need for better communication and transparency from authorities during and after a nuclear disaster.

5. Is nuclear energy still a viable option for meeting energy needs?

The debate over the viability of nuclear energy as a source of power continues, but Fukushima has brought attention to the potential risks and consequences associated with it. Many countries are now considering alternative renewable energy sources to meet their energy needs.

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