Fukushima raised to Level 7 Chernobyl event

[taniaaust1]

It wasn't so much the magnitude of the earthquake, so much as the magnitude of the tsunami. They will most likely be increasing the protection (eg place it below ground) of the backup cooling mechanisms of sea level nuclear plants all over the world to prevent this happening again.

Apparently the generators were above ground as it was thought they were safer there as below ground they have more of a risk of being damaged in an earthquake .. as everyone knows (by this i mean something I dont really need to say). Japan is a high earthquake risk.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

The Japanese authorities, like the Britihs ones on Sellafield, have been criminally irresponsible, that is true.
As I've often said, I am sick fed up with moronic stupid bastards maing decisions based on "bean counting" rather than common sense.

for example, those arseholes in Japan knew there had been 2 previous huge tsunamis, 890AD, 900BC?? somehting like that, they figured since only 1:1000 year risk they didn't bother buidling the back up generators etc above such water levels
criminal stupidity. these events DO happen there, the life time of a single plant is at least 25 years, they had 6 reactors there...

now, they had built the plant far better than the British had at sellafield, ntoe the huge safety cages aorund the colling towers, so the plant could sustain a severe earthquake, but more could have been done

As for asteroid impacts. hey folks, if you had an asteroid strike big enough to hit say many US reactors...it would be an Extinction Level Event, we'd be wiped out anyway

targetting reactors with a nuke was one serious worry in Cold War (and today even), but again, that would be Mutually Assured Destruction
note it would take a thermonuclear weapon, ie a megaton class wepaon, to breach them due to accuracy issues, a terrorist would have to plant a fission bomb inside or against the reactor building to breach it

if we don't have power, our civilizations FALL.

I am very aware of how bad nuclear pollution is, assholes at Sellafield dumped os much crap the farmers in Ayrshire can no longer use seaweed as fertilizer as it's contaminated, ugh
And look at the lake at Mayak, lethal dose within 15 minutes, death anyway if you inhale the dust at all.
Sigh

but then look at Iraq and Afghanistan, wars over lies, reality was for oil and gas profits for the corporations/mega-rich, not our security, see how many lives they have claimed... :/

 

[Snow Leopard]

Not all countries can do it but places like Australia.. could be running on just solar if everyone had solar panels on their roofs. Some families who do that and live responsibly as far as energy go, end up being actually able to put power BACK INTO the energy grid.

Right now it is prohibitively expensive to do that. Partially due to the small scale of deployment as well as excessive regulation and rules (eg the restrictive licensing dramatically increases the labour cost, since there are few that are allowed to install grid interfacing systems), but also due to the expense of the technology.
Of course the cost of photovoltaic cells has been undergoing a Moore's law type trend similar to that of computer chips. So in 20 years, photovoltaics, when deployed on utility scale may well be cheaper than coal (which is currently the cheapest method in Australia if you don't count the externalities due to pollution). It's not really efficiency that is important, but dollar per (long term) power output.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=smaller-cheaper-faster-does-moores-2011-03-15

 

[Wayne]

AP IMPACT: Asia nuclear reactors face tsunami risk

Not very comforting:

AP IMPACT: Asia nuclear reactors face tsunami risk

A snippet from the above article:

Asia, the world's most seismically charged region, is undergoing a nuclear renaissance as it struggles to harness enough power for its huge populations and booming economies.

But China, Taiwan, India and several other countries frantically building coastal facilities have made little use of new science to determine whether these areas are safe. At least 32 plants in operation or under construction in Asia are at risk of one day being hit by a tsunami, nuclear experts and geologists warn.