Discussion of Nuclear Power and Safety

[Kim OHara]

8% of Japan's land contaminated: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-22/japan-land-contaminated-by-radiation/3686324


Kim

[chownah]

Kim O'Hara,
Thanks for the link. Japan's rice crop is of national interest. Japan does not allow imports of rice as a rule and controls the price of consumer rice so that there is enough profit margin for farmers that enough farmers will be attracted to growing rice for the consumer market.....this way Japan has guaranteed self sufficiency for rice which is their main staple...this guaranteed supply is important for an island nation whose imports could be stopped by political power plays.
This year one of the land owners (in northern Thailand) is going to grow Japanese rice. It is very unusual (unheard of perhaps) for rice farmers around here to grow anything but the typical varieties that everyone grows and this most definitely does not include Japanese rice since the people here don't eat it and there is typically a no imports allowed policy for Japan. When I heard that this was going to happen I thought that it was odd but did not think much about why this was happening.....after reading the article it seems very likely that Japan is preparing to import rice to make up for any shortages due to contamination.....but this is just my idea and it very well may be just a bizarre circumstance but I think not.....
chownah

[Kim OHara]

Just to keep you up to date ...

Fukushima plant leaks radioactive water

The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant says at least 45 tonnes of highly radioactive water has leaked from the facility, possibly into the Pacific Ocean.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-05/fukushima-plant-leaks-radioactive-water/3713696


Kim

[Kim OHara]

The gift which keeps on giving: Another disaster is waiting to happen at Fukushima, according to this report - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-25/experts-warn-of-another-disaster-awaiting-at/4091826.
In brief, there is a huge store of spent fuel rods in a pool 30 metres (100ft) above ground in a damaged building in an earthquake zone which is occasionally hit by tornadoes. If it collapses, the radiation released will be ten times the amount released in the original disaster.


Kim

[Alex123]

It sucks, but it seems that we are doomed due to tragedy in Fukushima.
http://enenews.com/

I wouldn't be surpised if casualties will be in 10-100s of millions. Of course it will all be blamed on stress.

Unfortunately radiation can produce many terrible health effects...
http://enenews.com/fukushima-resident-n ... ems-photos

Is this the Future?

[Kim OHara]

Still dangerous:

The operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant says a rat is probably to blame for a short-circuit which took out cooling systems at the plant.
The glitch knocked out the cooling system at four of Fukushima's nuclear pools, which contain thousands of used fuel rods.
Temperatures in the pools then began to rise gradually, and it took the plant's operator Tepco more than 24 hours to get all the cooling systems back up and running.
The company says it found burn marks on a makeshift power switchboard, and has blamed a "rat-like animal" for short-circuiting it.
The cooling shutdown highlights just how vulnerable the shattered plant remains, two years after the nuclear meltdowns.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-21/rat-likely-to-blame-for-fukushima-power-cut/4585576


Kim

[Alex123]

Terrible stuff:

“Don’t be a chicken” mayor tells parents who are concerned their children are eating radioactive lunches
http://enenews.com/dont-be-chicken-mayo ... ting-japan

Japanese mayor says students are gaining knowledge by eating radioactive food in school lunches
http://enenews.com/japanese-mayor-educa ... ctive-food

Tokyo official blasts parents who want kids to avoid ingesting radioactivity at school: “It is important to share the pain”
http://enenews.com/tokyo-official-blast ... share-pain

This is horrible!!!

[nem]

I worked in the nuclear power industry, with Japanese, American and European utilities.
I can say that the things which happened in Japan, are a result of that culture where it is important to "Save face" out of respect for other people and not to make changes to work that other people have done, even if safety is at risk. You simply cannot question your elders or superiors there. And every decision is made by committee which includes those same people that cannot be questioned or argued against.
However this is not representative of the environment in European and USA nuclear power plants. In these cultures, engineers and other people routinely criticize everything in the plant to find every last source of a potential failure. In fact, if they can find something that is wrong, something risky, anything like that, they are rewarded with public recognition, raises, bonuses for finding any non-conservative source of potential error, or any safety risk in the plant.
So, what you see in Japan and what exists in the nuclear power industry outside of Japan are 2 different things, for cultural reasons.
I currently live in a home that I own, close to a nuclear plant, and feel completely comfortable with that, because I know the type of engineering and mindfulness toward safety that is present in these plants here in the USA. I would feel the same way in Europe.In Japan, no.. I love Japan and the culture there, but it is simply not the type of open, aggressive fault-finding culture that is needed for the operation of a nuclear power or commercial airline fleet where people need to identify risks and solve problems, without decision by committee or the head guy in the company who basically influences and overrides the whole committee in the end. Technical advice can be given to no end, but all that matters is the opinion of a few elders who may or may not even understand the situation.

[Ron-The-Elder]

Hi, nem. I understand and appreciate you sentiments and opinions regarding the business culture in Japan. I spent a year there myself in The U.S. Military and worked closely with management and staff in municipal environment. My role was as an English Conversation Sensei, so I did not have to deal with the rigid management structure which you described, but I saw that it did exist and just as you described.

As an environmental safety and health engineer, we too had a nuclear plant close to our plant, within the ten mile radius considered of danger to our employees should a nuclear emergency response be necessary. We worked together with The NRC and local Nuclear Plant officials to develop our joint and county plans. Everyone was very cooperative and willing to help in any way that was requested of them.

http://www.cengllc.com/r-e-ginna-nuclear-power-plant/

Fortunately the repairs and clean-up were relatively easy to deal with and they were up and running within two weeks after the release. The plant was built in the 1970's and has since undergone many, many modifications to bring it up to modern safety, security and engineering standards. We are lucky to have the quality of Nuclear Facility management that we have in this country, and I agree with you that we have relatively little to fear of a Japanese, or Russian Nuclear Plant-like disaster, although there are still relatively minor incidents that have to be dealt with.

A few years back a nuclear plant of 1950s vintage in Vermont was leaking contaminated water into a river, which fed drinking water in New Hampshire.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/ ... al.htmlThe event was downplayed by VT authorities until our governor stepped in and reported them to The NRC and had the plant shut down until the problem was corrected. So, The U.S. is not pure as the driven snow by any means.