About Japan...
 

What do you think about all that's going on there? My heart goes out to them. Anyone on here that knows about nuclear power plants? What do you think is going to happen?

Re: About Japan...
 

Hello Friends,

I live in Japan, about 170Km west of Tokyo, and we suffered very few from
the quakes.
Living on the volcano archipelago, we are destined that natural disasters
are inevitable to some extent.
On the other hand, however, man-made disasters could not be inevitable.
The most symbolic incident was "Nuclear Power Plant". And the safety myth
on nucelar electric plant was thus completely diminished as everything was
swept away by the gigantic Tsunamis.
No more explanations would be necessary as you would have probablly seen
TVs and read news papers about what happened and are happening at this
moment.

The problem is then "How can we supply enough powers to sustain growing
demand without nuclear power plant?
It is easy to cry "No N Power Plant" ,but how and when this cry would be
heared?

Re: About Japan...
 

Read about Thorium reactors. Much safer, cleaner, more output, less weapons for war.

http://www.bananas.org/f9/thorium-13383.html#post156366

Re: About Japan...
 

Asacomm, do you feel like the government is being truthful to it's citizens? How far do they say the radiation is spreading? Does your family have potassium iodide tablets?

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People need to be really careful taking those. Too much iodine can be just as bad or worse than a iodine deficiency. I can post charts if needed.

Re: About Japan...
 

Hi Mitchel(momoese),

I do agree with you. Our government officially wanrned private dosage of
this kind of comercially sold medicine.
"A little learning is a dangerous thing" or "Amateur doctoring is an origin of
another disaster".

Re: About Japan...
 

Instead of putting billion of dollars into nuclear power the $$ should go into solar/wind etc
I picked up 2 solar water panels last year & use them to heat my hot tubs
I also have solar heat for my pool, which went to 86 last year

Re: About Japan...
 

I agree Dave, but we all know it's not going to happen. The powers that be will never submit to the idea. Half the reason they want nuclear is so they can make weapons. The war machine keeps churning....

Re: About Japan...
 

Japanese are very resilient, they've been going through catastrophies for centuries. It's what formed their internal discipline, culture and believes. They will be back on their feet and stronger in no time.

As for the reactor, I'm no expert. But since Chernobyl left no effect on me, even despite my parents being there during the radioactive maximum (and I was in the womb ;) ), I'm confident that mankind will survive. That's all that matters.

Re: About Japan...
 

I was in the fallout of Windscale nuclear accident in England in 1957 (level 5).
Up to now... I was pregnant (and lost it when I was 3 mos. pregnant) with a severely deformed baby, had breast cancer (no one in the family, either side, had it), and now have low thyroid. My dad's thyroid is completely shot. No one had thyroid problems.

Ah yes, just a few consequences of nuclear power.

Re: About Japan...
 

Curious. Do you think that the technology has made some progress since then?
It's sad what happened to you. :(

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In terms of safety, newer technologies have not been taken advantage of. I have thought for many years that only "pop corn" reactors should be built. With them the type of problems seen in reactor "accidents" would have been avoided. Nuclear power can be generated safely, but the technologies used needs to be "updated." Monetary costs rather than real costs to the economy have been the driving force in the past. Total real costs of not building them has to be weighed (opportunity costs). :jalapenonaner:

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There is no such thing as safety when you are storing the spent fuel all over the place. They are also not safe from terrorism. Bottom line is they don't care about our safety.

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Hard to say but I would hope so. IMO no nuclear power plant will EVER be safe.

BBC made a documentary on Windscale.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Windscale: A nuclear disaster

Re: About Japan...
 

My heart goes out to the Japanese people, heck of a thing to have to go through, and its far from over.
Having a background in both sides of the nuke business, I've worked at a couple of the same model (early GE) reactor sites in the US (in Illinois).
Something didn't sound right when I first heard about the problems until the details about the backup cooling system being wiped out in the tsunami.
BIG whoops!
Other significant details, like spent fuel pools being empty of water, leaving piles of exposed fuel rods sitting in the open air are also causes of major concern, along with having all the water cooked out of the reactor.
The only part of the situation that really has me worried about being downwind (in CA) is the "alternate" fuel rod makeup having significant amounts of plutonium in it.

Now I'm sorta liking all the rain we've been having & I hope it keeps on raining for weeks to come, or at least until the situation over there gets back all the water they need or the nasty spots are buried under sand & concrete.

Re: About Japan...
 

Meltdown today

Japan may have lost race to save nuclear reactor | World news | The Guardian

Re: About Japan...
 

Good article, thanks.
Did you see this one?
Japanese officials consider cell transplants for nuclear workers
Frozen blood stem cells could save workers' lives if they become ill after exposure to high levels of radiation
Maybe they should say WHEN instead of IF.

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I'm afraid that happened at least a week ago; it's just taking a while for the info to leak out.
It sounds like it won't be getting much worse, though it may seem like it, but that's just because the details are just now coming to light.

Worse than 3-Mile Island, not nearly as bad as Chernobyl.

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What nuclear meltdown, look at this war over here instead.

Re: About Japan...
 

The biggest and significant difference between the Fukushima case and
the 3-Mile Island+Chernobyl is that the former was caused by the unbeliebale
scale of the quakes and the Tsunamis which has happened once a thousand
years, but the later was so called human made disasters caused by wrong
operations and applications and not the natural disasters.
This fact should be the fundamental understanding between all when we
compare the three cases.
And I don't cry any more than

"WE SHALL RETURN AND COME BACK!"