• Huge anti-nuclear demonstration staged in Tokyo
    77 replies, posted
Fun fact: we have enough thorium to last us more than 200,000 years.
Out of the thousands of nuclear power plants in the world, only 33 have had any accidents or meltdowns. And only 5 have been serious.
[QUOTE=proch;36793399]Perhaps it would be smarter to rather focus on making the country more secure from, hmm, earthquakes and tsunamis?[/QUOTE] If anything, Japan is the leading country on techniques on how to minimising the damages of an earthquake.
[QUOTE=DireAvenger;36793186]One little disaster and people go apeshit. If a fucking coal plant blew up a small town, they would be arms about that too.[/QUOTE] Oh boy, here we go again with idiot nuclear power supporters who need to fall on a sword. Comparing a coal plant to a nuclear plant is about as dumb as it gets. You double proved your idiocy by calling a "little" disaster and by inferring that it was the only one that ever happened. If a coal power plant exploded and took out half a town, or a town (which by the way is virtually impossible to happen, coal is not a high powered explosive) then the town could be rebuilt and life would go on. It's not going to affect a city 3,000 miles away, or across the globe like Chernobyl did. Fukushima fallout has already spread thousands of miles and its effects are already in motion. If a nuclear power plant melted down or exploded, you have to spend billions and billions of dollars in hazardous waste cleanup and containment. You also have to spend billions more creating an exclusion zone, evacuating people and accounting for property loss and economic loss. Then you have an area which could be hundreds of square miles that would be uninhabitable for the next 10,000 years. [QUOTE=Reds;36793195]I hate how that nuclear power plants can run smoothly for years and years, but the moment something goes wrong, and it's particularly annoying since this was the fault of the tsunami, everything gets put back twenty years.[/QUOTE] Yeah, let's just blame that tsunami, it's totally the reason why people hate nuclear power :downs: No, it just shows there is no safe nuclear energy because something is always overlooked. The difference with everything else vs. nuclear is that one little "oops" that otherwise wouldn't be bad will result in catastrophic global devastation nearly always.
[QUOTE=bohb;36803707]Oh boy, here we go again with idiot nuclear power supporters who need to fall on a sword. Comparing a coal plant to a nuclear plant is about as dumb as it gets. You double proved your idiocy by calling a "little" disaster and by inferring that it was the only one that ever happened. If a coal power plant exploded and took out half a town, or a town (which by the way is virtually impossible to happen, coal is not a high powered explosive) then the town could be rebuilt and life would go on. It's not going to affect a city 3,000 miles away, or across the globe like Chernobyl did. Fukushima fallout has already spread thousands of miles and its effects are already in motion. If a nuclear power plant melted down or exploded, you have to spend billions and billions of dollars in hazardous waste cleanup and containment. You also have to spend billions more creating an exclusion zone, evacuating people and accounting for property loss and economic loss. Then you have an area which could be hundreds of square miles that would be uninhabitable for the next 10,000 years. Yeah, let's just blame that tsunami, it's totally the reason why people hate nuclear power :downs: No, it just shows there is no safe nuclear energy because something is always overlooked. The difference with everything else vs. nuclear is that one little "oops" that otherwise wouldn't be bad will result in catastrophic global devastation nearly always.[/QUOTE] This obviously doesn't apply to older reactor designs like Fukishima (which, again, only failed because the tsunami was about...10 feet higher than they ever anticipated), but it's worth noting that both the design and safety standards for modern reactors effectively guarantee that the reactor will NEVER suffer a meltdown. The sad thing is that a large part of the reason why we aren't building any of them is because of the general public's fear of nuclear power.
[QUOTE=JeanLuc761;36803843]This obviously doesn't apply to older reactor designs like Fukishima (which, again, only failed because the tsunami was about...10 feet higher than they ever anticipated), but it's worth noting that both the design and safety standards for modern reactors effectively guarantee that the reactor will NEVER suffer a meltdown. The sad thing is that a large part of the reason why we aren't building any of them is because of the general public's fear of nuclear power.[/QUOTE] And now for the drawn out argument about nuclear power with bohb being rude to everyone that doesn't agree with him. Or we could just dig up the past few articles that had the words "Nuclear" and "Power" in them and save a bunch of time for everyone. [editline]16th July 2012[/editline] Here's one for starters: [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1191121[/url]
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;36800473]They want both their touchey-feely solar/wind "renewable" power architecture AND their comfortable metropolitan life where production is delegated and people drive cars and have an Internet connection. Grow up.[/QUOTE] I'm gonna' assume this is directed at the Japanese protesters, so: stop being so damn condescending. I'm sick of the ridiculously small-minded attitudes in this thread: "HURR HURR STUPID IDIOTS DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW SAFE NUCLEAR POWER IS STOP BEING CHILDREN". Newsflash - your statistics are cold comfort given just how perilously close to a nuclear disaster Japan came to. And, consider the damage from this "non-disaster" - hundreds of lives have been thrown into chaos with the abandonment of towns within the exclusion zone, not to mention all those across Japan still worried about the spread of radiation, and the trace elements which emerged hundreds of kilometres from the site itself. And all this from a "close call"! Funnily enough, you won't see these effects from an imploded coal mine (as some users have falsely tried to create an comparison out of). Now, I agree that on the balance of probabilities, nuclear energy for Japan isn't the way to go: fossil fuel power would require massive imports (and costs!). But, that doesn't mean there are no valid concerns for the Japanese people given the incredibly-close call they've just had. So, I'd appreciate it if further posters stopped treating the protesters as uninformed idiots "WHO JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND" - you try having your life thrown into chaos by nuclear disaster, and see how you feel.
[QUOTE=DireAvenger;36793186]One little disaster and people go apeshit. If a fucking coal plant blew up a small town, they would be arms about that too.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Reds;36793195]I hate how that nuclear power plants can run smoothly for years and years, but the moment something goes wrong, and it's particularly annoying since this was the fault of the tsunami, everything gets put back twenty years.[/QUOTE] If only it were that simple! These people aren't just going out there for the heck of it, there was some major problems with the way the government and the manager of the plant treated the situation. [url]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-16/japan-s-reactor-risk-foretold-20-years-ago-in-u-s-nuclear-agency-s-report.html[/url] [quote] The earthquake disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant north of Tokyo was foretold in a report published two decades ago by a U.S. regulatory agency. In a 1990 report, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency responsible for ensuring the safety of the country’s power plants, identified earthquake-induced diesel generator failure and power outage leading to failure of cooling systems as one of the “most likely causes” of nuclear accidents from an external event. While the report was cited in a 2004 statement by Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, adequate measures to address the risk were not taken by Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant in Fukushima prefecture, said Jun Tateno, a former researcher at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and professor at Chuo University. “It’s questionable whether Tokyo Electric really studied the risks outlined in the report,” Tateno said in an interview. “That they weren’t prepared for a once in a thousand year occurrence will not go over as an acceptable excuse.” [/quote]
[QUOTE=JeanLuc761;36803843]This obviously doesn't apply to older reactor designs like Fukishima (which, again, only failed because the tsunami was about...10 feet higher than they ever anticipated), but it's worth noting that both the design and safety standards for modern reactors effectively guarantee that the reactor will NEVER suffer a meltdown.[/QUOTE] Don't even start on "it's not possible for xxx to yyy because zzz" because it's a stupid argument that will always fall flat on its face. Safety standards are just that, standards. They were written by people who make mistakes and are interpreted by people who make mistakes. You won't find an organization on the planet that follows rules and regulations to the dotted i and crossed T. And you aren't going to find a set of regulations anywhere that don't have some sort of flaw in them. [QUOTE=JeanLuc761;36803843]The sad thing is that a large part of the reason why we aren't building any of them is because of the general public's fear of nuclear power.[/QUOTE] The fear is justified because you have idiots playing with highly dangerous experimental technology that has worldwide implications. Then the same idiots when a disaster like Chernobyl or Fukushima happens are like "oh :downs: well that obviously didn't work, we'll just have to try xyz in the future, that should solve that problem!" Fukushima was a disaster waiting to happen. Building it near a fault zone and next to an ocean known to produce tsunamis. Grade A+ genius there. Then there's the issue of nuclear waste storage. On-site storage at most nuclear plants is far over capacity. Nobody wants nuclear waste stored or transported anywhere near them, and some European countries are basically bribing citizens to turn a blind eye to their plans to make 500m deep sarcophagi and cram them full of radioactive waste. [QUOTE=OvB;36803905]And now for the drawn out argument about nuclear power with bohb being rude to everyone that doesn't agree with him. Or we could just dig up the past few articles that had the words "Nuclear" and "Power" in them and save a bunch of time for everyone. [editline]16th July 2012[/editline] Here's one for starters: [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1191121[/url][/QUOTE] Haha, that's the [I]best[/I] argument you could find against me? The guy trying to debate with me in that thread was clearly dumb. He endlessly repeated himself with dumb and illogical ideas that were downright scary. At least with those EU sarcophagi, you have someone that's semi-competent trying to figure what to write on the seal to prevent future generations from digging it up. Who knows what language will exist in 10,000 years, or even if humans will still be around.
[QUOTE=bohb;36806748]Don't even start on "it's not possible for xxx to yyy because zzz" because it's a stupid argument that will always fall flat on its face. Safety standards are just that, standards. They were written by people who make mistakes and are interpreted by people who make mistakes. You won't find an organization on the planet that follows rules and regulations to the dotted i and crossed T. And you aren't going to find a set of regulations anywhere that don't have some sort of flaw in them.[/QUOTE] ...that's not an argument against something in general, though. Regulations actually have measurable failure rates. You observe how people behave and modify enforcement appropriately. If anything this is an argument against, say, Japan and Russia having nuclear power with their track record of preventable failures. [QUOTE=bohb;36806748]The fear is justified because you have idiots playing with highly dangerous experimental technology that has worldwide implications. Then the same idiots when a disaster like Chernobyl or Fukushima happens are like "oh :downs: well that obviously didn't work, we'll just have to try xyz in the future, that should solve that problem!" Fukushima was a disaster waiting to happen. Building it near a fault zone and next to an ocean known to produce tsunamis. Grade A+ genius there.[/QUOTE] Technology is not "highly experimental" because you cannot understand it. Reactor design right now is an art form. The flaws of Fukishima were highlighted by the industry decades in advance of the actual disaster, but were ignored. Chernobyl was only an "experiment" in the sense that something idiotic was done without proper consultation; it was considered "experimental" by the industry in the same sense a biologist would consider shooting an octopus with a grenade launcher experimental. [QUOTE=bohb;36806748]Then there's the issue of nuclear waste storage. On-site storage at most nuclear plants is far over capacity. Nobody wants nuclear waste stored or transported anywhere near them, and some European countries are basically bribing citizens to turn a blind eye to their plans to make 500m deep sarcophagi and cram them full of radioactive waste.[/QUOTE] This comes back to thinking something is dangerous because you failed physics. Nobody wants nuclear waste near them because they hear it's awful and have no idea what's actually worth concern. Storing waste on a small scale is inefficient, and we have multiple large-scale solutions outlined, but people like you rile the NIMBYs up and then nobody can do anything without incentivization.
I bet that if they started putting up windmills for green energy and they get knocked over because of a tsunami, they're gonna go apeshit about how dangerous they are because they fell over. Well, at least if they use the same logic as here.
I would say their concern is partially justified. Japan is a very high risk location for nuclear power. You have a large number of people on a small chunk of land prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. I'm also quite certain that modern nuclear power plants being built in Japan would have to meet very stringent regulations to assure something even as powerful as this last earthquake would not cause another Fukushima.
[QUOTE=No_Excuses;36813485]I would say their concern is partially justified. Japan is a very high risk location for nuclear power. You have a large number of people on a small chunk of land prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. I'm also quite certain that modern nuclear power plants being built in Japan would have to meet very stringent regulations to assure something even as powerful as this last earthquake would not cause another Fukushima.[/QUOTE] The earthquake was only indirectly responsible for the damage to the Fukishima plant, actually. The tsunami reached far higher than their wildest predictions when they built the plant and, as such, the elevated generators responsible for providing cooling to the reactors were flooded and the power failed. If it hadn't been for the huge tsunami, Fukishima would have been fine, which is phenomenal given the plant was only designed to withstand an earthquake measuring approximately a 7.0.
[QUOTE=No_Excuses;36813485]I'm also quite certain that modern nuclear power plants being built in Japan would have to meet very stringent regulations to assure something even as powerful as this last earthquake would not cause another Fukushima.[/QUOTE] Fukushima was supposed to be meeting "very stringent regulation" already, and have been upgraded or shut down in the 2000s. People involved in the project lied about safety data and put off work. The populace should be mad at TEPCO for being corrupt as fuck, not the government or nuclear power. Shifting the blame here to "nuclear power" here is providing a scapegoat.
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;36813981]Fukushima was supposed to be meeting "very stringent regulation" already, and have been upgraded or shut down in the 2000s. People involved in the project lied about safety data and put off work. The populace should be mad at TEPCO for being corrupt as fuck, not the government or nuclear power. Shifting the blame here to "nuclear power" here is providing a scapegoat.[/QUOTE] Lying, human failure and corruption will always be a risk. Nothing will change that. People come up with reasons for every meltdown, but they keep happening.
[QUOTE=bohb;36803707]Oh boy, here we go again with idiot nuclear power supporters who need to fall on a sword. Comparing a coal plant to a nuclear plant is about as dumb as it gets. You double proved your idiocy by calling a "little" disaster and by inferring that it was the only one that ever happened. If a coal power plant exploded and took out half a town, or a town (which by the way is virtually impossible to happen, coal is not a high powered explosive) then the town could be rebuilt and life would go on. It's not going to affect a city 3,000 miles away, or across the globe like Chernobyl did. Fukushima fallout has already spread thousands of miles and its effects are already in motion. If a nuclear power plant melted down or exploded, you have to spend billions and billions of dollars in hazardous waste cleanup and containment. You also have to spend billions more creating an exclusion zone, evacuating people and accounting for property loss and economic loss. Then you have an area which could be hundreds of square miles that would be uninhabitable for the next 10,000 years. Yeah, let's just blame that tsunami, it's totally the reason why people hate nuclear power :downs: No, it just shows there is no safe nuclear energy because something is always overlooked. The difference with everything else vs. nuclear is that one little "oops" that otherwise wouldn't be bad will result in catastrophic global devastation nearly always.[/QUOTE] OH BOY HERE WE GO. Chernobyl happened because the people working there purposefully pushed the reactor beyond it's limits to simulate a worst case scenario, and I think a pressure gauges needle stuck at some point. Fukushima happened because the reactor was old as shit. Three Mile Island happened because the coolant system was fairly shit in comparison to modern designs. Essentially Three Mile Island and Fukushima both happened because the reactors were limited by the available technology of their time. Modern reactors are damn near impossible to melt down, at least in recent (not even super modern) British reactors the power plant itself powers its own electromagnet in the reactor vessel, if the power fails or if the reaction goes runaway then the magnet is killed, dropping boron control rods into the chamber to kill the amount of neutrons being produced, and thus killing the reaction.
[QUOTE=BoysLightUp;36804015]I'm gonna' assume this is directed at the Japanese protesters, so: stop being so damn condescending. I'm sick of the ridiculously small-minded attitudes in this thread: "HURR HURR STUPID IDIOTS DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW SAFE NUCLEAR POWER IS STOP BEING CHILDREN". Newsflash - your statistics are cold comfort given just how perilously close to a nuclear disaster Japan came to. And, consider the damage from this "non-disaster" - hundreds of lives have been thrown into chaos with the abandonment of towns within the exclusion zone, not to mention all those across Japan still worried about the spread of radiation, and the trace elements which emerged hundreds of kilometres from the site itself. And all this from a "close call"! Funnily enough, you won't see these effects from an imploded coal mine (as some users have falsely tried to create an comparison out of). Now, I agree that on the balance of probabilities, nuclear energy for Japan isn't the way to go: fossil fuel power would require massive imports (and costs!). But, that doesn't mean there are no valid concerns for the Japanese people given the incredibly-close call they've just had. So, I'd appreciate it if further posters stopped treating the protesters as uninformed idiots "WHO JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND" - you try having your life thrown into chaos by nuclear disaster, and see how you feel.[/QUOTE] Having concerns is great and all that, but blaming the wrong thing is still stupid.
[QUOTE=PowerBall v1;36839720]Lying, human failure and corruption will always be a risk. Nothing will change that. People come up with reasons for every meltdown, but they keep happening.[/QUOTE] No, they don't "keep happening". Quit taking a passive voice because you want to portray this as an inevitability. People have caused reactor failures. We remove them from control, and there stop being reactor failures. It happens infrequently enough (and not at all in places with sufficient oversight) that you cannot say it is a universal trait of reactors to fail. It's actually a physical impossibility for some to fail without active human intervention to make them. We have had almost 15 thousand years of reactor uptime and three failures. Nuclear power has killed fewer people per terawatt than any other power supply known to man. Nothing "keeps happening".
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