Japan Kamaishi

[crash n bern]

[quote author=

P.S. there's a story about some visitor oohing and ahhíng about the Cherenkov radiation at the bottom of the spent fuel pool, "how dangerous is it?"he asked his host. At which point his host stripped off and swam across the pool. Point is that water absorbs neutrons and the is subject to the inverse square law.
[/quote]

I know a builder that cuts asbestos with a power saw and no mask and rekons it wont hurt you.

[TooFastTim]

Where do you get your optimism pills from Tim? I would like to send a few to America and the American Atomic Authority - they seem to have a glum view of proceeding and the Japanese forthrightness .

You still haven't answered my question. Thus far the death toll of the earthquake/tsunami is over 10,000. That's not the death toll as a result of the goings-on at the nuke. 300 years? Where did you find that.

There have been, as I mentioned earlier, some serious breaches of protocol by this mob. Probably, as Marc implied, as a result of the culture, saving face and all that. But you need to understand these reactors CANNOT explode. Period. The level of enrichment is too low to permit that. As an aside the soviet RBMK-1000 reactors were designed primarily for the production of plutonium. Electricity generation was secondary.

That they cannot explode means that the distribution of the truly toxic by-products of fission is restricted to the reactor vessel. I also mentioned the products that were released were short lived and blown out to sea.

[LWC82PE]

Yes thats right, the japanese have a culture to tend to keep things to themselfs/amongst themselves and play down the seriousness make it seem like they have everything under control.. Heard there is now '13000 confirmed deaths' now. Notice how they are saying 20km radius but USA, AUS and other authorites are ordering there men to be 80km's or more away.

[TooFastTim]

Heard there is now '13000 confirmed deaths' now.

As a result of the exposed fuel rods/low water level/radioactive steam release or as a result of the earthquake/tsunami?

[motomaniac]

The diesel generators were gone in the tsunami, what do you do then?

Well you said that you use the sea water to cool the plant after all else fails. What were you refering to when you said "all else fails" ? What else is there after the backup diesel pumps failed?
Also ifthey failed in the tsunami then that was pretty early after the quake , since that time surely they are now no longer under water and could be drained and restarted.
But they havent been because they failed mechanically , cranks blew either because of age and only periodical test runs or poor design.

[motomaniac]

I know a builder that cuts asbestos with a power saw and no mask and rekons it wont hurt you.

What asbestos? Unless its been used on an old building and you come crossit during renovations or demolition it does'nt exist. Its law that any sites that may have asbestos be inspected by a registered inspector and removed buy registered removalists.

[trailietrash]

[quote author=

P.S. there's a story about some visitor oohing and ahhíng about the Cherenkov radiation at the bottom of the spent fuel pool, "how dangerous is it?"he asked his host. At which point his host stripped off and swam across the pool. Point is that water absorbs neutrons and the is subject to the inverse square law.

I know a builder that cuts asbestos with a power saw and no mask and rekons it wont hurt you.
[/quote]

you will find there are tradesmen that have that attitude about asbestos, if it takes 20 plus years to affect you and if you are already 60 years old then the piss you drink every arvo will do more damage than asbestos ever will. Bloody idiots

I have cut 4 inch and 6 inch fibro water pipe, many, many years ago with an angle grinder to repair broken water pipes using nothing more than a mask as the alternative was to allow a whole community not to have a water supply.

The work being done by the workers at the Nuclear plant in Japan to contain the nuclear reaction within levels that will make Japan safe for all people is necessary in that, they are risking their lives for the benefit of all the people of Japan. .. and good on them, they are heroic people.

Chernobyl was a very different event, people were standing on the roof of the highest building in the town just to watch the big glow within the first 24hrs.

I commend the Japanese for working so hard to prevent a disaster, and I wish them every success in containing the radiation that may emminate from these plants. They truly are doing a commendable job amongst the devastation that has befallen their country.

[lukeb1961]

They way things are looking it may be, at worst, another three mile island.

Tim, why is the nuclear world not moving to  liquid-fluoride thorium reactors? My limited reading of this seems to show it wins on every level of our concerns on safety, waste products and viability. NONE of the nuclear accidents could have occured with this system. Curious to learn more!

[TooFastTim]

Tim, why is the nuclear world not moving to  liquid-fluoride thorium reactors? My limited reading of this seems to show it wins on every level of our concerns on safety, waste products and viability. NONE of the nuclear accidents could have occured with this system. Curious to learn more!

Thorium is, AFAIK, a secondary product (i.e. it must be produced as a result of a U235 reaction). I know some research is going into this presently.

The other option is fast breeder reactors which will extend the life of our U235 reserves significantly. This is a proven technology and could easily be turned into a commercial option. France have been running a fast breeder reactor (Phenix) for the past 40 yrs and it is presently being decommissioned. Interestingly I have a friend who lives in the 'Gong who is a fast breeder reactor expert.

We have, at current rates of consumption, about 100 yrs of U235 left. However that excluded reprocessing. Recently the Chinese fessed up to having perfected a process whereby 70% of the unused U235 could be recoved from spent fuel (the fission process only uses about 10% of the available U235, leaving the other 90% untouched)

[mx250]

And I though electro plating chemicals were too dangerous for my confined space garage 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwRt74nzRmY&feature=related

[TooFastTim]

Luke, I've just done a quick look up on Thorium reactors. As I suspected Thorium is stable but its (artificial) isotopes hold great promise. A thorium reactor can, theoretically, produce as much fuel as it consumes and its fission products are more stable and far less toxic than those of Uranium. Research on Thorium reactors is being conducted in India, Israel and the US (Brookhaven).

As an aside see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor. Ever wonder why the earths core is still liquid after 4.5 billion years? It's because we're sitting on top of a very large fission reactor (whick kinda blows the whole geothermal argument out of the water)

[GMC]

I had heard something about Thorium being more user friendly too.
Apparently it can be shut down much easier, which is something that I don’t understand about the current reactors, although there’s lots I don’t understand there.
Like how big are these backup generators and why couldn’t the Army / Air Force fly some in.

[crash n bern]

I know a builder that cuts asbestos with a power saw and no mask and rekons it wont hurt you.

What asbestos? Unless its been used on an old building and you come crossit during renovations or demolition it does'nt exist. Its law that any sites that may have asbestos be inspected by a registered inspector and removed buy registered removalists.

I'm in an old building with 100 square meters of asbestos ceiling. The landlord was putting a ventilator shaft through for the shop downstairs.  The builder walked in climbed a ladder and cut a 1X2 meter hole using a power saw, no dust extractor and not even a mask.  When I pulled him up he said it wont hurt you..  I played with the stuff as a kid on the job sites with my dad.  I even chewed on the shit. Touch wood.

[DR]

As a 7 or 8y/o I helped my Dad fence the back yard of our house at Banyo. We used super66 fibro roof sheeting and when the fence was up we went along the entire length of it (about 70 metres or so) with a circular saw to level it off so the capping would sit flat. Covered from head to toe with white powder you'd think we'd just had a 40kg bag of flour dumped over us. So far so good..I'd reckon we probably ran more of a risk working on the old motors, back in the day the fuels, sumps and used oils were chokers full of lead and carcinogens but we simply thought of it as harmless meddling..big oops

[Mike52]

I know a builder that cuts asbestos with a power saw and no mask and rekons it wont hurt you.

Anyone ever changed their own brake shoes either in their bike or car?
Guess what