Practically all nuclear reactors in EU arisk

[Skybird]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19804817

This was in the news already two days ago in German media.

Greenpeace pointed out in German TV that the stress test did not even consider multi-factorial failures of security systems - that means more than one security system failing simultaneously or in sequence.

Technical improvements necessary on basis of just the EU report now would range in the range of up to 25 billions.

[Oberon]

Urk.

I can believe this, although I think it unlikely that such circumstances mirroring that of Fukushima would take place, but I can believe that there are certain safeguards not in place.
As sea levels rise there's also the risk to the reactor sites near the sea, which account for most of the NPPs here in the UK, and there has still not been an adequate answer to what would be done in the circumstances of another powerful North Sea swell culminating with a seasonal tide and weather patterns, like 1953.

How are things going in Germany after all nuclear plants were shut down? How much oil do you import for energy reasons now? How much coal is burnt? What's the emissions levels like?
I hate nuclear power, primarily for its messiness, but I also recognise that as the current level of technology stands, plus the current society, we cannot generate enough power to supply our nation and cut back on CO2 emissions at the same time without nuclear power, even with all the wind farms that have been built and are being built along our shoreline.

[soopaman2]

I would worry more about internal sabotage blowing one of these up before the sea levels.

I am all for nuclear, but safe, stiffly and neutrally regulated nuclear.

Hybrid reactors are the future, they can burn Uranium, and also the waste products we normally bury and have to guard for 100k years.

But you know Greenpeace, hippies, oil company lobbying...

We could never fully research it without beaurocracy, and red tape, due to how "dangerous" it is .

Until We can get that plasma reactor working in Europe nuclear is our best hope, I am a peak oil believer, and the videos from Wyoming and other places, of people lighting thier drinking water on fire is more than enough proof to me, that the oil companies are running short on profits. Fracking is a job creator though! Too bad tens of thousands need to drink bottled water because of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus

The future. Once we make it viable.

Remember, until that first graphite pile, nuclear was a pipe dream too...

We just need scientists to decide funding, than politicians who would rather buy a tank, or Joint Strike Fighter. (or outright pocket it)

[JU_88]

You should be more worried that the terrorists just give all their money to Marlbourgh and Volvo. Cancer and car accidents kill Europeans every day.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by JU_88

You should be more worried that the terrorists just give all their money to Marlbourgh and Volvo. Cancer and car accidents kill Europeans every day.

But Volvos are the safest cars if you sit inside one and lock all the doors it is the only way to live.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I can believe this, although I think it unlikely that such circumstances mirroring that of Fukushima would take place, but I can believe that there are certain safeguards not in place.
...
How are things going in Germany after all nuclear plants were shut down? How much oil do you import for energy reasons now? How much coal is burnt? What's the emissions levels like?

Speaking of Fukushima, I did some back of the envelope calculations on what if Fukushima produced oil rather than neutrons, based on the capacity of Fukushima and the daily spillage from the Deepwater Horizon the resulting spill would have been something like 60 times worse than the Macondo blowout (assuming that plutonium is as dangerous to the environment as crude oil, which it is not).

I found this to be interesting bedtime reading.

[soopaman2]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Speaking of Fukushima, I did some back of the envelope calculations on what if Fukushima produced oil rather than neutrons, based on the capacity of Fukushima and the daily spillage from the Deepwater Horizon the resulting spill would have been something like 60 times worse than the Macondo blowout (assuming that plutonium is as dangerous to the environment as crude oil, which it is not).

I found this to be interesting bedtime reading.

Don't be silly TLAM!

In the 50's all you had to do was cower under a table, and you were safe!

Bert the turtle says so!


I believe Bert. I even walk around with a lead turtle shell, just in case.

Damned Ruskies gonna get me...

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Speaking of Fukushima, I did some back of the envelope calculations on what if Fukushima produced oil rather than neutrons, based on the capacity of Fukushima and the daily spillage from the Deepwater Horizon the resulting spill would have been something like 60 times worse than the Macondo blowout (assuming that plutonium is as dangerous to the environment as crude oil, which it is not).

I found this to be interesting bedtime reading.

You're preaching to the choir, TLAM I view nuclear power as a necessary evil, if and when we manage to create another forum of power which generates enough energy to replace nuclear power, I will be very happy to see the back of nuclear power stations. Not because of the possibility of radiation leakage, but the problem of dealing with the waste and the length of time it takes to fully decomission an NPP. When you build a nuclear power plant, you're making a decision that will affect your children, their children and their childrens children, depending on how long it takes for the site to break down its radiation. Until that day, well, which is worse, a high CO2 producing coal plant that can screw the whole planet in enough numbers, or an NPP that can only generally screw a small portion of the planet.

In regards to Fukushima, well, it and Chernobyl share a lot in the fact that in order for it to happen, every single thing that could go wrong, went wrong. There was also the question of incompetent management, particularly in TEPCO, who brought in western experts to get ideas from them about how to increase the reactors safety...and then ignored most of what the experts said. Thus the whole distribution point for the reactor systems was routed through a point which was if not on sea level then damn near it. Once the sea walls were breached, well, that was that.

Not that I think that our designs in Europe are perfect, certainly there are a lot of things that could go wrong with our reactors, but like Chernobyl, they'd ALL have to go wrong at the same time for any major release of radiation. Smaller releases of radiation...yeah...they happen a lot, too often IMHO, but they've got monitoring stations on their monitoring stations so aside from standard laziness and incompetence most of these leaks are picked up on quickly and dealt with. Most of the time:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...e-nuclearpower

Still, you can't spend all of your time worrying about it, particularly when you see it nearly every day. I once did spend all my time worrying about it...didn't do me any good.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by soopaman2

Don't be silly TLAM!

In the 50's all you had to do was cower under a table, and you were safe!

Bert the turtle says so!


I believe Bert. I even walk around with a lead turtle shell, just in case.

Damned Ruskies gonna get me...

Over here, you had to take the door off its hinges, fill up pillowcases with sand, fill up your bath-tub with water and cover it, put the door against the wall and put the pillow case sand-bags against it so you have enough room to crawl underneath it, get necessary food supplies, paint your windows white, take down your curtains, and get a bucket for waste...all in four minutes.



I think most people would have just got as drunk as they could in four minutes...

[soopaman2]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Over here, you had to take the door off its hinges, fill up pillowcases with sand, fill up your bath-tub with water and cover it, put the door against the wall and put the pillow case sand-bags against it so you have enough room to crawl underneath it, get necessary food supplies, paint your windows white, take down your curtains, and get a bucket for waste...all in four minutes.



I think most people would have just got as drunk as they could in four minutes...

(long obnoxious laughter)

Sounds like you guys had more of a chance.


I hope one day we can look back at how we act today in response to percieved threats, and laugh at it like we laugh at the cold war percieved threats.

All jokes aside, nuclear is the future, as long as corners are not cut.

Which requires energy being nationalized. So it is driven by the needs of the country, and not the shareholder, who seek profits at all costs, despite safe operation, and paying for maintainance. Most of these places (3 mile Island) would rather pay to make it (regulators) go away, than actually fix things. Then you get shutdowns, and leaks.

I am within nuking distance of Oyster Creek Nuclear plant, and they run that place like a Bodega.

I advocate nuclear, but not ran by private industry, I am sorry, profits and stock prices have always been over safety

It is no wonder the treehuggers hate it.

Or we can make it so energy companies are banned from stock exchanges. That would make them serve the customer, and not the select few shareholders.

My ideas may suck, but I am at least offering solutions.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by soopaman2

(long obnoxious laughter)

Sounds like you guys had more of a chance.


I hope one day we can look back at how we act today in response to percieved threats, and laugh at it like we laugh at the cold war percieved threats.

All jokes aside, nuclear is the future, as long as corners are not cut.

Which requires energy being nationalized. So it is driven by the needs of the country, and not the shareholder, who seek profits at all costs, despite safe operation, and paying for maintainance. Most of these places (3 mile Island) would rather pay to make it (regulators) go away, than actually fix things. Then you get shutdowns, and leaks.

I am within nuking distance of Oyster Creek Nuclear plant, and they run that place like a Bodega.

I advocate nuclear, but not ran by private industry, I am sorry, profits and stock prices have always been over safety

It is no wonder the treehuggers hate it.

Or we can make it so energy companies are banned from stock exchanges. That would make them serve the customer, and not the select few shareholders.

My ideas may suck, but I am at least offering solutions.

In all seriousness I think most of the stuff would have been done at the outbreak of hostilities with the Pact...and before the nukes flew...but judging by the Pacts original plans, the nukes would fly on day one, which wouldn't give you much time to redecorate the house before it turned into a pile of rubble! Furthermore, there's bugger all in the P&S leaflets about dealing with chemical and biological weapons which would have fallen on us before the nukes did in a traditional escalatory war.

Still, at the end of the day it'd all be immaterial, just like the question of 'who fired first'

I hope one day we can look back and laugh too, but there's so much hatred around these days...one wonders.

Anyway, getting back to nuclear power, I'm fully in agreement with you, NPPs should not be run for profit, nor should they be made to operate on a shoestring budget, but alas...try getting any government to leave the funding of something alone...they'll always try to cut things back here and there, just like the private sector, only they're not quite as obvious about it as they do it in smaller amounts. It's just the society we're in, to live we need money, we need to live to get money, it's a vicious circle we're all trapped in. Of course, a lot of it depends on what you define as living, but that's a discussion for Skybirds other thread about the American dream I think.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Over here, you had to take the door off its hinges, fill up pillowcases with sand, fill up your bath-tub with water and cover it, put the door against the wall and put the pillow case sand-bags against it so you have enough room to crawl underneath it, get necessary food supplies, paint your windows white, take down your curtains, and get a bucket for waste...all in four minutes.

Pfft. I've lived within sight of an 8000 foot long runway for half of my life (half-life get it? ). In the event of war that baby was going to be hit by repeated ground bursts. I didn't have to worry about stuff like that!

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Pfft. I've lived within sight of an 8000 foot long runway for half of my life (half-life get it? ). In the event of war that baby was going to be hit by repeated ground bursts. I didn't have to worry about stuff like that!

At least you'd have had enough time to get the deck chair out, grab a beer and put your feet up before you got to work on your tan.

Unless you were near the coast in which case you'd probably only have enough time to get outside and wonder why there are five suns.

[soopaman2]

Originally Posted by Oberon

At least you'd have had enough time to get the deck chair out, grab a beer and put your feet up before you got to work on your tan.

Unless you were near the coast in which case you'd probably only have enough time to get outside and wonder why there are five suns.

Most likely not, if it was a strategic airstrip.

He most likely had enough time to wonder what the flash was before he was vaporized.

He might have seen his beer blow off the table from the initial shockwave. But not see much after that.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Unless you were near the coast in which case you'd probably only have enough time to get outside and wonder why there are five suns.

Only 250 miles from the atlantic coast.

Unless Ivan managed to penetrate Lake Ontario.
If Iraq could pull that off the Russians must have too...