Safety of Nuclear plants in a corrupt or dangerous country.

[78stonewobble]

I would not even go as far as to call Fukushima "spectacular", just medialized scaremongering. It claimed lives of two technicians – who drowned in basement because of tsunami. Not funny for them, but as far as industrial accidents go, thats pretty tame.

Yeah, I remember a clip talking about fukushima, while showing the tsunami destruction up to and including a dead body at the waters edge. O.o ... Way to paint a picture...

[PB666]

but proving such a thing would basically require you to solve the entire Litvinenko poisoning case

There's once a vlad out their that will wrestle a bear

in good taste he won't decapitate your horse in your bed.

It'll be co-mounted with women who breast are bare

but he'll deliver you Po-sushi and your just as dead

He was once KGB, with this there's no doubt,

but his biography makes John Gotti look like a scout.

He frames his enemies and make descent disappear

and of course, fail to bribe him, then hanged oddly not knowing where

Seriously an ex-soviet bloc political leader, I don't think it was Kim Jung Ill or Amadinajad. The whole case rest under the authority of a virtual autocrat who controls the financial, justice, and treasury

[kreutzkevic]

Good point. And could be worse.

Exactly. 3000 Ci of Co-60... there are no words... If some nutjob decides to toss a source like that in a busy public place...

And stuff like that happens here in Europe as well. Back in the day when I was doing NDT, the security of the source storage was laughable, most of the contracted operators were a bunch of cowboys with no regard for health and safety and I know of at least one time when and ex-colleague had his van stolen with a radiographic source FULLY SET-UP AND UNLOCKED in the back. Idiot. Luckily they found it again. He was, rightly, severly penalized.

Or there was this time when a contracted operator (from the same country as the aforementioned one) caused a car accident while driving reclessly with a radioactive source in the back. And he ran away after the accident. Real smart.

I would not even go as far as to call Fukushima "spectacular", just medialized scaremongering. It claimed lives of two technicians – who drowned in basement because of tsunami. Not funny for them, but as far as industrial accidents go, thats pretty tame.

Not as spectacular as these, I grant you. Chemical plant disasters tend to be more of the fiery sort. There's not much in a nuclear power plant to burn.

I remember watching the news some months after Fukushima and there was this reporter (ugh... save us from the ignorance of reporters) who went visiting the villages around the NPP under escort. He was commenting on how they had to put on paper overalls and breath masks to protect them from irradiation. Paper... against irradiation.

It's CONTAMINATON, you...argh!

I almost had to buy a new TV that day... Pet peeve and all that.

Edited July 16, 2015 by kreutzkevic

[funk]

I would not even go as far as to call Fukushima "spectacular", just medialized scaremongering. It claimed lives of two technicians – who drowned in basement because of tsunami. Not funny for them, but as far as industrial accidents go, thats pretty tame.

Mud sticks.

But a lot of the implications caused by the disaster are hidden. I would like to throw an argument into the discussion which applies also to most great industries, e.g. chemical, automobile, groceries, textile, energy, pharma... infinitely continuable.

It's the fact that there are external costs which aren't paid by the agent. Mostly it depends on resources which are superficially worthless atm. For example clean air, water, land, people and so on.

If you've a look at Fukushima, Tepco couldn't pay their bills even for the reversible damages, though they had multi-billions-profit the years before. This causes expenditures for the japanese people. They had to shutdown all reactors which leads to higher oil imports and rising energy prices. Skimming the ground around the plant. Life with milli-sievert...

Ok that's Japan, but the impact was global. Some countries shutdown their reactors, and burned more oil and coal. The japanese industry layed down so that chips were rare worldwide.

As a result capital from all over the world was redeployed. People invest their money where risk and benefit suit their preferences. And here is the loop: Where external costs aren't applied to the business venture, risk is low and gain is high. And if there is a country where the law is weak, which means nothings else than an unbalanced coordination of interests, there are thousand ways to corrupt people in authority with a fraction of the revenues earned through unpaid external costs.

P.S. This is not about ideology. I'm the most apolitical person I know, perhaps an One-Dimensional Man .

Edited July 16, 2015 by funk

[radonek]

…This causes expenditures for the japanese people. They had to shutdown all reactors which leads to higher oil imports and rising energy prices.…

There you have it. If nuclear shutdown lead to higher energy prices, it implies that nuclear power was a net gain for japanese people. So, those expenditures aint for nothing - in a sense its repayment. I would not argue that commercial entities are to be allowed to act irresponsibely. But if you throw "external costs" at them, you should also think about "external gains" to be fair.

[AngelLestat]

I remember watching the news some months after Fukushima and there was this reporter (ugh... save us from the ignorance of reporters) who went visiting the villages around the NPP under escort. He was commenting on how they had to put on paper overalls and breath masks to protect them from irradiation. Paper... against irradiation.

It seems ok, you can not have a suit to fight radiactivity emisions, but you can avoid breath or enter in contact with radiactive material..

If you breath it, those radioactivity particles will remain in your body even if you leave the place, also.. inverse square law.. if something is in contact to you, you receive the 100%.

[kreutzkevic]

It seems ok, you can not have a suit to fight radiactivity emisions, but you can avoid breath or enter in contact with radiactive material..

If you breath it, those radioactivity particles will remain in your body even if you leave the place, also.. inverse square law.. if something is in contact to you, you receive the 100%.

**Semantics Mode Activated**

There is a huge difference. You are correct that contamination in reality is irradiation from eg. ingested particles. Hence the mask and overalls.

But that reporter wasn't talking about that. He was talking about gamma irradiation.

Gamma radiation is always dangerous, ingested or no.

BUT

Alpha particles are blocked by a sheet of paper or your skin. If you would have the misfortune of swallowing an alpha emitter, the radiation emitted inside of you is still blocked by your skin. So it bounces back and forth inside of you, knocking holes in your soft tissue. That was what these people were protecting against and that is called contamination. Way more dangerous than irradiation. Big difference.

Gamma particles, if ingested, "just" pass through all of your bits and leave your body, never to return.

http://teachnuclear.ca/all-things-nuclear/radiation/biological-effects-of-radiation/irradiation-vs-contamination/

As I said... Pet peeve!

- - - Updated - - -

As a result capital from all over the world was redeployed. People invest their money where risk and benefit suit their preferences. And here is the loop: Where external costs aren't applied to the business venture, risk is low and gain is high. And if there is a country where the law is weak, which means nothings else than an unbalanced coordination of interests, there are thousand ways to corrupt people in authority with a fraction of the revenues earned through unpaid external costs.

I'm just an engineer. I won't touch politics with a ten foot pole.

I'm also an incorrigible cynic. I would aim a rocket propelled ten foot pole at certain politicians.

I do know this, however: there is no force in the world that keeps a person honest if that person doesn't want to be.

And the old maxim "one man's meat is the other man's poison" will ALWAYS be true.

Edited July 16, 2015 by kreutzkevic

[AngelLestat]

**Semantics Mode Activated**

But that reporter wasn't talking about that. He was talking about gamma irradiation.

heh, But you dint mention this in your first post, also even gamma irradiation is emitted from contaminated particles, so I have doubts on how wrong was the reporter...

I will need to see the video, but well.. is not weird lessen reporters messing stuffs, more on science topics.

[funk]

There you have it. If nuclear shutdown lead to higher energy prices, it implies that nuclear power was a net gain for japanese people. So, those expenditures aint for nothing - in a sense its repayment. I would not argue that commercial entities are to be allowed to act irresponsibely. But if you throw "external costs" at them, you should also think about "external gains" to be fair.

You're right, external cost and gains are the two sides of the same coin, but the gain for the people isn't par for par. Under the assumption that the good is dealt in a ideal market you're right because it's offered at the lowest price. But we all know energy markets aren't ideal. Besides other discounts, e.g. an absolute component of the margin for the shareholders of Tepco has to be subtracted at least.

Besides energy prices there are other external costs, as mentioned above, which don't lead to external gains in the first place or can hardly be measured. You can argue that land near a power plant is cheaper, but living in a non-polluted area should be an original state where you cannot determine gains.

Edited July 17, 2015 by funk

[GeneralVeers]

I wanted to know if there are any Nuclear reactors that could not be dismantled or salvaged to make nuclear weapons.

Why restrict the question to only the kind of nuclear weapon that goes kaboom and produces a mushroom cloud?

There are many other dangers inside a nuclear reactor. Uranium, for example, isn't only radioactive; it's chemically toxic in the same way lead is (in fact, the effects of lead poisoning and uranium toxicity are so similar that "Gulf War Syndrome" may actually be the result of soldiers inhaling or ingesting pulverized LEAD instead of depleted uranium). Plutonium has a similar toxicity issue. The fission products that a nuclear reactor produces (i.e. nuclear waste) are even nastier. Some reactors use liquid-metal coolants (usually sodium or a mix of sodium and potassium); these coolants can ignite when exposed to air, and are EXTREMELY EXPLOSIVE on contact with water.

There are already lots of sci-fi stories about people swiping nuclear waste from a reactor and using it as a weapon. So, really, there IS no such thing as a nuclear reactor that can't be turned into a weapon.

In spite of this, I would say that nuclear reactors are still safer than fossil fuels. Just take a look at the number of people who have been killed in wars fought over oil.