Japanese Nuclear Power

[greatbritishhoney]

I think we are ALL nimbys deep down. But, given the option of having a nuclear power station or a wind farm on my doorstep I know which one I'd choose (and I'm sure all the Japanese in the affected area will be thinking the same thing).

 

[oliver90owner]

drstitson,

They are failsafe in that respect, except they are Boron, not Carbon, I believe (Carbon is used to slow the neutrons because slower neutrons are better at actually creating the next fissile reaction).

Dropping in all the attenuator rods will stop the fissile reaction (mostly, but not the simple radioactive decay processs which generates a considerable amount of heat - like the Earth is being kept hot by Radium, etc decay energy?) It will be that heat which will still overheat these rods which are sub-critical, but nevertheless very radioactive. The spent rods rods are apparently boiling the cooling water in the pond where they are initially stored (while the short lived reactor-produced isotopes decay). It is all the simple radioactive decay processes causing the initial overheating.

If the rods melt, then that is another problem, altogether. China Syndrome and all that, a really ugly uncontrollable mess, not that it is not a really ugly mess already!

Regards, RAB

 

[Arfermo]

well 1957 uk melt down was worse, nice caesium tainted milk and scottish lamb was fed to quite a few babys including me and the goverment did not let on

but dont like the second reports of no3 reactor, it is a mixed spent plutonium fuel rod reactor just like the one they want to build here

should make a nice mess if that goes up, with a half life of 24,000 years

And DEFRA are still monitoring the fall out as it affects sheep in Cumbria!! Why the hell they put their reactors on the Pacific Ocean side of their islands deserves answering. On the west side there would not have been a problem as I don't think that is on the fault line and would be protected to a large degree from tsunami problems from the Pacific. Much less water that side!!!

 

[dilys]

It's many years since I worked in the nuclear industry but I believe the Japanese reactors are based on the Westinghouse PWR (pressurised water reactor) design, the type that failed at 3 mile Island. When we built commercial reactors in Britain they were always gas Cooled reactors. The early ones were Magnox reactors and the later ones Advanced Gas Reactors (AGRs). The Russians built Boiling Water Reactors.

We considered both water-cooled designs to be unstable and stuck with the safer, but more expensive gas-cooled technology. We were proved right when both water cooled systems failed catastrophically in America and Russia. Successive governments screwed up our Nuclear industry so that we no longer have the capability of building our own reactors and the ones they are now pushing are French built PWRs, the design of which originated from the American one. This is after the Americans banned their own design on safety grounds.

I suspect this latest disaster will kill the current UK proposals. This will not be because of safety issues but because public opinion will not allow it.

If only we could get public opinion mobilised to ban bee imports.... I'll get me coat.

 

[Hombre]

In the USA the phenomenon became known as the China syndrome, which was wildly innacurate, but convenient.

So what would the converse phenomenon be known as in Japan - The Disney Land syndrome?

 

[Busy Bee]

Does anyone here remember wind scale, Blackrock south of Dundalk (Ireland) has the highest rates of cancer in UK and Ireland, well well what do you know it is right across the water from Windscale.

Nuclear energy is to dangerous.... but does not matter we're all gonna die soon. Margaret Thatcher got paid to dump 1,000's of tons of radio active waste in the Irish Sea form Japan some years back and apparently its decaying faster than they expected. What do you know its to deep to recover.

Busy Bee

 

[Black Comb]

Yes I remember my mother saying I had to wear a hat!

My Dad said we were lucky as the wind was from the East when it happened - nearly always westerly. Some must have been deposited in Ireland.

They still test sheep here for Chernobyl residues.

A threat to us in the UK are nuclear plants in France.

 

[biggles]

This made me think (not Nuc)

Something I just read that I though you might like to read.
Devastating Earthquake and Tsunami last week in Japan has actually moved closer to the island to the United States and changed the planet's axis.

The quake caused a rift 15 miles below the sea bottom that stretched 186 miles long and 93 miles, according to the AP. The areas closest to the epicenter of the earthquake jumped a total of 13 feet closer to the United States, Ross Stein, a geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey told The New York Times.

The world's fifth-largest, magnitude 8.9 earthquake occurred when the Pacific tectonic plate dove under the North American plate, which went from eastern Japan to North America about 13 feet (see NASA before and after photos at right). The quake also shifted the axis of the earth in a 6.5-inch day shortened by 1.6 microseconds, and sank down Japan for about two feet. On the east coast of Japan sank, the waves of the tsunami rolled in.

 

[Headnavigator]

Tidal power being built right now off Scotland
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12767211

I'm not mad after all! (See my post #34 which got short shrift)

 

[iball]

Why can't they put solar, air source/ground source heat pump, wind or whatever the current technology is, on to every new build house in the UK?

This would speed up the improvements in the technology, and make it cheaper.

Oh, I forgot, the petrochemical companies wouldn't like it.

Ian

 

[beeboybee]

nice article headnavigator...... just imagine how many jobs we could create if these where in there 100s

 

[roche]

Actually I think most of the housing stock in the UK could do with demolition and replacement with energy effecient buildings. We would see the energy usage plummet.

 

[Storm™]

For anyone interested in just how much seismic turbulence Japan are up against as well as the nuclear side if things here is a link.

Last time I looked they had suffered at least 17 (what are termed aftershocks by the press but in reality is a significant level of earthquake) earthquakes in 24 hours. Some after only 15 minutes of the previous ones.

http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/