Carbon Sequestration

[iceaura]

Because unlike The Soviet Government during Chernobyl, the Japanese Government OVER-reacted. It over-did the right things. Approximately 750 people died during the evacuation DUE TO the evacuation

How is that over-reacting? They under-reacted, if anything - not only was the evacuation area too small for what was happening, but had the meltdown broken loose and the wind shifted, which was entirely possible at the time, their failure to evacuate Tokyo would have been haunting. They gambled and won.

Since then, some 250+ have died from stress related issues due to needless fear and social ostracism. The likelihood that 1000+ people will die due the radiation effects is negligible.

As studies of TMI have shown, the fear was as much from the uncertainties and stresses of being lied to as anything else. And we can rest comfortably on supposition that casualties from the radiation will be low in part because of that evacuation along with the good luck of wind etc ( the various peaks and drifts of radiation seem to have hit many fewer people than would have been afflicted).

Since this kind of official lying and stress and fear-inducing coverup is apparently inevitable during nuke accidents, we should figure it in as part of the risk of building nukes.

We should also figure in another factor of Fukushima, namely the fact that the nuke problems emerged in the middle of, and added considerably to, the difficulty of responding to a natural disaster. That is obviously a likely concomitant of any nuclear mishap, and its multiplier effect should not be omitted in calculating the risk premium of nukes.

The Trojan Plant HAS BEEN DECOMMISSIONED. Done, finne, over. The cost is known. I don't know it, but I am sure you can find out somewhere.

As noted the waste is still on site, and the reactor has been buried at a taxpayer-financed site with serious problems, where it has to be watched and guarded and maintained at taxpayer expense. The site has not been converted to other use yet AFAIK. So we don't know what the total cost will be. The official cost so far seems to have been about 500 million.

Re "immediate bills from the mess": what mess?

The breakdowns, shutdowns, political rehab efforts, political corruption effects, and eventual early decommissioning of the Trojan nuke.

 

[KitemanSA]

None that I know of. Thermal solar plants wouldn't need them either. Something about "lethally hazardous for 25,000 years" goes here.

So you want to just leave all that poisonous material littered about the desert with no clean-up of the eyesore at all? That isn't very responsible. Shame on you!

 

[iceaura]

So you want to just leave all that poisonous material littered about the desert with no clean-up of the eyesore at all?

As with the nuke waste currently littering the deserts of so many places in the US, I fully expect to be footing that bill with my taxes.

I also fully expect it to be considerably less than a billion dollars, even if some radical accident takes down the entire generating complex.

 

[KitemanSA]

How is that over-reacting? They under-reacted, if anything - not only was the evacuation area too small for what was happening, but had the meltdown broken loose and the wind shifted, which was entirely possible at the time, their failure to evacuate Tokyo would have been haunting. They gambled and won.

Knowing that the radiation emissions from such accidents can be kept out of most buildings with minor efforts, and knowing that very old people will probably not live long enough to have adverse health effects even from HUGELY larger output than they had measured, they evacuated said old people into very bad weather with no place to put them and completely disrupted social conditions. Dumb!

As studies of TMI have shown, the fear was as much from the uncertainties and stresses of being lied to as anything else.

Who lied and how? Be specific. I have found that the real lies were told by those who cling to the ridiculous Linear No-Threshold model. Someone at the plant will say, don't worry, there have been no dangerous releases, and then a LNT devotee will say "based on the release numbers given, 3000 people will eventually die.' They get that by averaging the total release across millions of people which is absurd. So in that case, who lied?

And we can rest comfortably on supposition that casualties from the radiation will be low in part because of that evacuation along with the good luck of wind etc ( the various peaks and drifts of radiation seem to have hit many fewer people than would have been afflicted).

And oh by the way, the amount released was not very great in the scheme of things.

Since this kind of official lying and stress and fear-inducing coverup is apparently inevitable during nuke accidents, we should figure it in as part of the risk of building nukes.

Most of the lying I've seen has come from anti-nukes. For instance, that report the waxed horrified about how so many "of the CHILDREN" examined in Fukushima Prefecture had "Thyroid anomalies" oh woe is us. Typical claptrap from the lying anti-nukes. Half truths and innuendoes. The lies were that 1) the numbers of anomalies were abnormally high, and 2) it was caused by radiation. Seems that similar testing of similar aged children in Prefectures remote from any radiation exposure showed on average HIGHER rates of thyroid anomalies. If anything, the fairly low level of radiation IMPROVED the children's health, at least in that aspect.

We should also figure in another factor of Fukushima, namely the fact that the nuke problems emerged in the middle of, and added considerably to, the difficulty of responding to a natural disaster. That is obviously a likely concomitant of any nuclear mishap, and its multiplier effect should not be omitted in calculating the risk premium of nukes.

Agreed. The Japanese did a poor job of selecting their worst case scenarios. Everyone should do better.

I have always been one to believe that such systems should be designed ONCE to meet the absolute worst case scenario and then not messed with. It is cheaper, IMHO, to build the same very robust units multiple times than to design and built each unit "good enough". That is why I like the SM Liquid Fluoride Thorium Recycler concept as a design to build for the future.

 

[KitemanSA]

As with the nuke waste currently littering the deserts of so many places in the US, I fully expect to be footing that bill with my taxes.

I also fully expect it to be considerably less than a billion dollars, even if some radical accident takes down the entire generating complex.

The nice thing about nuke waste is that it goes away in time. Chemical wastes never do.

 

[billvon]

No enrichment allowed at all was the policy that didn't work.

So "no enrichment at all" didn't work when we allowed enrichment? Fancy that. Can you think of another approach to "no enrichment at all" that might work?

The practice of spreading nuclear power around is what led to weapons proliferation, in the real world. There is no extant form of nuclear power that does not embody, abet, cover, finance, and justify the technologies and the opportunities useful for weapons.

Nor is there any industry, anywhere, that does not t embody, abet, cover, finance, and justify the technologies and the opportunities useful for weapons. Oil? Pays for and fuels our military. Coal? Powers the military complex. Steel? Builds those weapons and pays the taxes to develop them. Etc etc.

Bullshit. And irrelevant

So it's not true - and it's true but irrelevant. Interesting debating technique.

what's relevant to assessing future investments is that we came an inch or so of steel plate from dumping a meltdown into the headwaters of the Ohio River just outside Pittsburgh, and spent a billion dollars cleaning up what we should recognize as an extremely lucky break, the best and cheapest possible outcome. Keep rolling the dice, snake eyes will show up.

Yes. And sometimes they DO come up, as in the gas line explosion that killed ten people. But they don't "count" because people aren't afraid of natural gas. It sounds so - natural.

There are no safe forms of energy, just forms that are more or less dangerous than others. Coal is the most dangerous form of power we use now, nuclear is one of the safest. That's in the real world, not in the Hollywood world of the government and the media. Of course, a lot of people know only what they see in the movies - and for such people, nuclear power is very scary business indeed.

 

[iceaura]

So "no enrichment at all" didn't work when we allowed enrichment? Fancy that. Can you think of another approach to "no enrichment at all" that might work?

None that involve in reality providing opportunity, means, and motive, no. Policy talks, money walks.

Nor is there any industry, anywhere, that does not t embody, abet, cover, finance, and justify the technologies and the opportunities useful for weapons.

True. So pick your industries carefully - nuclear power, if you want nuclear weapons.

Bullshit. And irrelevant
So it's not true - and it's true but irrelevant. Interesting debating technique.

? I'll pretend you aren't just pretending to misread and yanking chain

It's not true - for example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1469835/ just considers a few cancers, omitting the other immune system effects and the pediatric anomalies that proved significant with Chernobyl, omitting more careful analysis of actual exposure patterns and gaps in the data, omitting the stress and other effects that are so immediately resorted to with Fukushima, etc.

And it is stated without regard for its truth, without interest or curiosity in its truth value, as a talking point repeated from known compromised sources, which makes it bullshit.

And it's irrelevant: if nukes had killed no one, if the US were immune, if the industry were not so badly corrupt from the beginning, the noted problems discussed here with them would remain - in particular, their cost compared with other options.

Coal is the most dangerous form of power we use now, nuclear is one of the safest. That's in the real world, not in the Hollywood world of the government and the media

Tell it to the Iranians, the Japanese, the Russians.

Nobody is talking about replacing nukes with coal, eh? That's not the choice here.

The nice thing about nuke waste is that it goes away in time. Chemical wastes never do

And there's the attitude, the care and conscientiousness, that will be in control of any nukes built.

 

[Trippy]

So YOU say they are not adequate. You have provided a report that lists some plants that it says are not adequate, but provides no information on what they mean by that. How many other plants of any kind have ANY funds set aside for decommissioning? Dang few, if any.

In some parts of the world, the cost of decomissioning falls upon the owner of the site. We also impose bonds on mines and landfills for remediation of environmental damage once they have been decomissioned.

 

[Trippy]

The danger of needless panic in Tokyo was real, the danger to health from the radiation release was a lot less so. But that needless panic danger can be laid at the doorstep of people who cling to the ridiculous Linear No-Threshold model. If the Japanese has simply implemented a policy based on a conservative Linear Threshold model, those thousand "panic driven" deaths could have been avoided. Oh, and most folks would be back in their homes by now.

Are you also, perchance, opposed to the idea of imposing end of pipe standards for discharges to surface water based on recreational contact standards?

 

[KitemanSA]

Are you also, perchance, opposed to the idea of imposing end of pipe standards for discharges to surface water based on recreational contact standards?

I am not opposed to standards. I am opposed to standards without basis in science.

 

[iceaura]

Knowing that the radiation emissions from such accidents can be kept out of most buildings with minor efforts, and knowing that very old people will probably not live long enough to have adverse health effects even from HUGELY larger output than they had measured, they evacuated said old people into very bad weather with no place to put them and completely disrupted social conditions. Dumb!

So with four reactors out of control and aftershocks of a 9+ earthquake expected, with civil services broken down and even transportation difficult, you would have left the old folks behind when you evacuated everyone else from the kill zone of a Chernobyl?

As studies of TMI have shown, the fear was as much from the uncertainties and stresses of being lied to as anything else.
Who lied and how? Be specific.

Every official source and corporate spokesman in Japan gave false reassurances about the state of the reactors and the possibilities of event starting from the first hours of the tsunami aftermath - they said the reactors had safely shut down, they said the situation was under control, they said there was no risk of meltdown, they said the seawater flooding was normal procedure, they said the radiation releases were lower than subsequent measurement showed they had been, they gave the impression they were monitoring the plumes and exposure regimes in detail, they said only one, then two, then three, then four reactors were in trouble, and so forth. Those are merely the lies of commission - the many lies of omission were even more erosive of public trust. As subsequent events contradicted each of these lies and spins in turn, as assurances of control and successful response were followed by large explosions for example, people became more and more fearful and mistrustful and vulnerable to panic, rumors, etc.

And oh by the way, the amount released was not very great in the scheme of things.

Averaged out over the Pacific Ocean and in hindsight, maybe not. In terms of individual exposure, the jury is still out. In terms of plume exposure if the evacuation had not been accomplished or the weather had been less favorable or the aftershocks a bit worse or the single emergency response generator that wasn't flooded had broken down, the uninhabitable zone might have included Tokyo.

Let's repeat that: at one point in the saga Japan was facing the possibility - not very probable but one of the easily foreseeable possibilities - of losing Tokyo as a habitable city. That would have been "fairly great in the scheme of things", no?

That's what rolling snake eyes with a nuke involves.

I am not opposed to standards. I am opposed to standards without basis in science.

So until the science comes in, which will be many years from now in the matter of low level radiation exposure and basically never in the matter of political malfunction or mishap prevention, let's put our energy investment into something that's cheaper and less politically unstable and less likely to be turned into a horrorshow by the combination of chance event and normal human nature.

 

[Billy T]

... let's put our energy investment into something that's cheaper and less politically unstable and less likely to be turned into a horrorshow by the combination of chance event and normal human nature.

Are you thinking "solar energy" in the form of sugarcane alcohol, already shown to be cheaper than gasoline, with zero subsidy in Brazil? That is safe, sustainable, slightly CO2 negative, and proven very practical as car fuel by >30 years of use. Also plastic production for sugarcane is cheaper than from oil if cost of oil is $90/brl or higher. That has only a couple of years of demonstration, by BrasKem making 400,000 TONs annually of two different high volume plastics with the cane grown on 0.02% of Brazil´s farm land.

There may be a much more important reason to cease using oil:

Yes, why we need to (and are) switching our energy source to solar energy, usually in a transformed form like wind or photo-cells electricity or stored chemically, like the sugar in sugarcane plants). Continued burning of fossil fuels, is not sustainable - not because they are finite resources, but because if even half that remain were burnt, at the present or faster rate, the earth over heats.* ...

* Perhaps in a very extreme way: Atmospheric CO2 rapidly increasing will accelerate the release for CH4, now stored safely in the frozen tundra or on the near shore ocean floor. CH4 is at least 10 times more effective at blocking the escape of IR ("earth shine") than CO2 molecule vs. molecule. Fortunately, CH4 is oxidized high up with UV getting it over threshold energy. (A tank of half O2 and half CH4 is stable because of that reaction threshold.) The "half life" of a CH4 molecule released at sea level is at least a decade. Thus if the CO2 were more slowly released the atmosphere concentration of CH4 remains small. In fact in Earth´s history the atmospheric CO2 has been several times higher than it is today and Earth was warmer, but still with low CH4 concentrations in the air.

No one can be sure, but it is possible that the current rapid man-made release of CO2 is causing the stored CH4 to be released faster than it can get up to the high atmosphere´s UV and be destroyed. If this is the case, then ALL life on Earth ends: In a thermal run-a-way to air temperature of ~100C as the oceans boil. I.e. Earth can be a "cooler version of Venus." As the air becomes mostly very high pressure** steam, the earth shine IR is ever more efficiently blocked from escaping as H2O is the best molecule for absorbing IR trying to escape - very much better than CO2 and a lot better than CH4. (The physics of this has to due with fact both CH4 and CO2 (actually O-C-O in shape) have full symmetry and are not polar but water molecule is polar as both H atoms are on the same side, with 105 degree angle between them. I.e. the H side is permanently positive and the O side is permanently negative. Just spinning such a polar molecule makes radiation. (Or with equal ease, absorbes IR radiation with quantum changes in the spin state)

Because of the huge heat capacity of the oceans, it may be on the order of a million years before the near surface air temperate is greater than ~105C. Then, when there is no longer any liquid water on earth, the surface temperature soars up to more than the melting point of many metals.

Venus was once much like a "warmer version of Earth" - had a relatively clear atmosphere. Both planets have two stable states, one in which the atmosphere blocks only small part of the IR radiation from the surface (like Earth now) and one where no surface radiation can escape from the surface - only radiation from near the top of the atmosphere can escape. I don´t think man´s release of CO2 has already made the transition to Earth´s hot stable state inevitable, but I am not sure of that. Hence the sooner we stop burning fossil fuels, the better. - Why I am such a strong advocate of using sugarcane alcohol for 93% of all the petroleum now being burnt!

** The weight of the air pressing down on a square inch of earth surface now is 14.7 pounds. If the mass of the oceans were in the atmosphere as steam, each square inch would hold up many tons, not 14.7 pounds!

See post 998 at: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?133084-Apocalypse-Soon&p=3069047&viewfull=1#post3069047 To learn more about methane hydtates & photo of that ice burning.

Look up at noon on a clear day - that is man´s ONLY sustainable energy source.

 

[Trippy]

I am not opposed to standards. I am opposed to standards without basis in science.

That's not what I asked. Take a moment to think about it in terms of the Missippi River. Your position would be the equivalent of "The river has great assimilitive capacity, discharges should not be to contact rec standards, they should be of lower standards (higher levels of contaminants) that and allow for reasonable mixiing." (Dilution is the solution). The 'Linear no thresh-hold' position you're opposing would be the equivalent of suggesting that any discharge has an impact and that all discharges should meet contact recreation end of pipe standards.

 

[KitemanSA]

So with four reactors out of control and aftershocks of a 9+ earthquake expected, with civil services broken down and even transportation difficult, you would have left the old folks behind when you evacuated everyone else from the kill zone of a Chernobyl?

Do you always debate so dishonestly? We were discussing Fukushima.

 

[KitemanSA]

That's not what I asked. Take a moment to think about it in terms of the Missippi River. Your position would be the equivalent of "The river has great assimilitive capacity, discharges should not be to contact rec standards, they should be of lower standards (higher levels of contaminants) that and allow for reasonable mixiing." (Dilution is the solution). The 'Linear no thresh-hold' position you're opposing would be the equivalent of suggesting that any discharge has an impact and that all discharges should meet contact recreation end of pipe standards.

If the current levels are based on LNT and are ALARA, (As Low As REASONABLY Achievable) then I would have no problem with keeping them for daily emissions and base temporary levels on LT. If they are not reasonably achievable, then they should be raised.

 

[KitemanSA]

As studies of TMI have shown, the fear was as much from the uncertainties and stresses of being lied to as anything else.

Who lied and how? Be specific.

Every official source and corporate spokesman in Japan gave false reassurances about the state of the reactors and the possibilities of event starting from the first hours of the tsunami aftermath - they said the reactors had safely shut down, they said the situation was under control, they said there was no risk of meltdown, they said the seawater flooding was normal procedure, they said the radiation releases were lower than subsequent measurement showed they had been, they gave the impression they were monitoring the plumes and exposure regimes in detail, they said only one, then two, then three, then four reactors were in trouble, and so forth. Those are merely the lies of commission - the many lies of omission were even more erosive of public trust. As subsequent events contradicted each of these lies and spins in turn, as assurances of control and successful response were followed by large explosions for example, people became more and more fearful and mistrustful and vulnerable to panic, rumors, etc.

Do you ALWAYS debate this dishonestly? We were talking about TMI! Please answer the questions put to you.

 

[Trippy]

If the current levels are based on LNT and are ALARA, (As Low As REASONABLY Achievable) then I would have no problem with keeping them for daily emissions and base temporary levels on LT. If they are not reasonably achievable, then they should be raised.

Meanwhile, there are those that would argue that all discharges to a waterway should meet recreational standards at the end of the pipe, regardless of the cost to the person responsible for the discharge. And it makes sense, when you think about it.

 

[KitemanSA]

And oh by the way, the amount released was not very great in the scheme of things.

Averaged out over the Pacific Ocean and in hindsight, maybe not. In terms of individual exposure, the jury is still out. In terms of plume exposure if the evacuation had not been accomplished or the weather had been less favorable or the aftershocks a bit worse or the single emergency response generator that wasn't flooded had broken down, the uninhabitable zone might have included Tokyo.

Let's repeat that: at one point in the saga Japan was facing the possibility - not very probable but one of the easily foreseeable possibilities - of losing Tokyo as a habitable city. That would have been "fairly great in the scheme of things", no?

That's what rolling snake eyes with a nuke involves.

Nope. If that amount of radiation had gone south to Tokyo, they would have had to face reality and use realistic allowable exposure levels. Also, cleanup efforts are much easier on pavement and building than on countryside, so the amount of exposure across time would have decreased quite rapidly.

The numbers I have seen regarding released materials at Fukushima shows the value in the 5 to 10 kg range. That would be spread across a large part of the country in your scenario. Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki released about 65 kg of material, in more concentrated application zones. Neither city was "lost". Indeed, the ground zero point in one of the cities is a very nice memorial park.

Face it, with quadruple snake eyes rolled at Fukushima, it will still wind up the the worst part of the "issue" was the needless panic.

My main concern is that in arguing with the anti-nukes about RADIATION, we both are missing an issue that may be significant but is easily treatable. Cs134 and Cs137 are chemically much like potassium and can replace it in the body. And whereas the body has had millions of years of evolution to handle when radio-potassium decays into calcium, I am not so sure about the decay of cesium into barium. So it seems there should be some study on this issue. Until then, folks who consume fair amounts of Cs134 & 137 should probably take prussian blue to bind it and flush it from the system.

 

[KitemanSA]

Meanwhile, there are those that would argue that all discharges to a waterway should meet recreational standards at the end of the pipe, regardless of the cost to the person responsible for the discharge. And it makes sense, when you think about it.

Not if "recreational standards" are absurdly low and costly to meet.

As an example of the type of idiocy that "standards" can engender, there is (or was, they may have finally gotten shamed into fixing the standard) at least one water purification plant that had to inject certain toxic substances upstream of the plant because the "standard required a certain reduction in the dissolved content of said toxins. "But the regular content is below the allowable output", says the plant operators. Doesn't matter. To achieve certification, your plant must remove XX% of the toxin" says the GovNut. "But there isn't enough there to remove that percentage with ANY technology" says the ops. "Too bad, no removey, no certy", says the nut.

So, they injected an amount, removed MOST of it, resulting in DIRTIER water but a plant cert.

Standards have to be REASONABLE, i.e., based on science and reason.

 

[KitemanSA]

So until the science comes in, which will be many years from now in the matter of low level radiation exposure and basically never in the matter of political malfunction or mishap prevention, let's put our energy investment into something that's cheaper and less politically unstable and less likely to be turned into a horrorshow by the combination of chance event and normal human nature.

Yup, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Recyclers. That is what I said in the beginning! Thanks for making my point!!