TEPCO repairing more reactors near Fukushima

Local community took the cash happily for years, now they learn that there is no free lunch. Protest in Japan is symbolic with no real punch so expect this to go full speed ahead.

spud, protest in Japan doesn't always have to be that way...it is possible for it to gain clout.

I can't imagine Dai-ni ever coming back to life, that"s a scary thought. I hope the fact that they're considering it, doesn't imply some sort of government backing or endorsement.

Dai-ni isn't that close unless they consider Narita to be nearby Haneda. The plant was damaged, but the reactor cores are intact and safety systems never in question. Since the government put a freeze on new plant construction, TEPCO has no choice but to fix dai-ni or else increase cost to customers to levels that are just not good for the country. Or build a lot of coal plants and kill everyone with carcinogens and mercury poisoning.

Did they use fresh water or seawater to cool them? I seem to remember the two reactors shut down with the advent of the earthquake and tsunami, but then for some weeks and months the temperatures in the reactor vessels oscillated in strangely unpredictable ways, following puzzling patterns. Then they kind of dropped out of the news.

Same old basroil, refusing to think outside the box. I thought engineers were suppose to put dreams into reality, to find solutions to what people thought couldn't be done. Are you not really just a technocrat, always pushing the status quo to protect your position and authority?

The people of Japan have expressed their desire to find alternatives, including conservation, efficiency measures and alternative energies. They are willing to pay the price. They finally know that nuclear energy is not a match for an earthquake prone country with nowhere to put the toxic waste.

As the posters say here, "the local communities should not dictate national policy".

warispeaceJul. 05, 2012 - 10:32AM JST

They are willing to pay the price.

Yet the first thing they did when TEPCO wanted to raise prices is to complain. Toyota even stopped producing a car (an it's parts) in Japan over energy issues.

Personally, I am not willing to pay the price of a thousand lives a year to replace nuclear with coal, which Japan has many times said it would, just like Germany. Coal pollution actually kills more people than nuclear is capable of, and as a base load type power generation energy, Japan will use it.

There is no box to think outside of, just cold hard facts pushing some some further away than others.

warispeaceJul. 05, 2012 - 10:32AM JST

Are you not really just a technocrat, always pushing the status quo to protect your position and authority?

You're pretty much asking the mods to delete that post for "being impolite to user". Though anti-nuclear posts seem to never get deleted unless they actually mention killing someone.

zichiJul. 05, 2012 - 11:41AM JST

I think TEPCO would like to restart the Daini atomic plant once repairs are made, the reactor stress tests and some improvement in safety standards but there are a number of problems.

The close distance to the first plant. The governor of Fukushima stating there will never again be nuclear power plants in the prefecture. Almost 100% opposition from the people of Fukushima including those who work at the plants or lived near the plants.

Luckily Fukushima has no say in it. From a structural and safety standpoint, Dai-ni is an a whole other level. While no MKIII, the MKII is much better than the old MKI designs used in Dai-ichi, and all reactors are BWR-5 types that have a few extra core cooling modes (but still no passive core cooling as with Gen4 type reactors or automated response systems like the ABWR) that if used at Dai-ichi would have prevented most of the excess energy buildup and hydrogen production.

That site still has issue with redundant power systems, but at least they had the right cable types to connect external power, unlike in Dai-ichi (really, who goes and grabs the wrong cable? Their emergency plans did need some major overhauls)

basroil,

You're pretty much asking the mods to delete that post for "being impolite to user". Though anti-nuclear posts seem to never get deleted unless they actually mention killing someone.

I am not asking, but you seem to be. So your answer to anyone who challenges your authoritative and technocratic rhetorical method is to try to silence them. This is the same thing the people in the nuclear village do. They can't stand to have anyone reveal and challenge their very self-interested "truth". It is never about what is good for the nation or for future generations, though it's always framed that way by the anti-life/pro-nuke side. Or technocrats use lots of statistics and technical details to disguise their real intentions.

As for Tepco's interest in Dai-ni and anyone who supports restarting this power plant, this is a very disrespectful act considering all the people in Fukushima who have suffered long-term health effects and have been displaced from their homes and communities.

all the people in Fukushima who have suffered long-term health effects

Will you please help me understand? How badly have they been affected? What would possibly happen later on?

long-term health effects

I have been trying to understand what health hazard people get from radiation exposure.

basroil and zichi said in another thread 1.22microSv/h=10.693milliSv/y is not a problem.

What about internal exposure? According to Cabinet office, 38,469 Fukushima residents were examined their presence of radioactive materials in the body by whole body counters. (6/27/2011-4/30/2012)

[the result]

3mSv: 2 people

2mSv: 10 people

1mSv: 14 people

Below 1mSv: 38,443 people

What problem would “3mSv/2mSv/1mSv” cause?

http://www.pref.ibaraki.jp/bukyoku/hoken/yobo/fukushimakensa.pdf

basroil and zichi said in another thread 1.22microSv/h=10.693milliSv/y is not a problem.

Wait, why would 10milliSv/y not be a problem? We all know that radiation will damage the DNA cells. And that means that the chance of incurring cancer will increase, no matter how minuscule.

Ideally you would want to receive as little radiation as possible.

Blair HerronJul. 05, 2012 - 07:55PM JST

What problem would “3mSv/2mSv/1mSv” cause?

Well, the worldwide average is 3mSv/yr from background only, and average medical exposure in Japan is above 2mSv, while background rates are about 1.5mSv in most (but not all) of Japan.

According to LNT, an extra 0.01%-0.03% increase in cancer rates (impossible to statistically prove a change), and according to modern thinking absolutely nothing.

basroil, Japan has been responding to the fall in nuclear electricity production by increasing imports of natural gas. There is no need to create an imaginary threat from coal.

Blair Herron

I have been trying to understand what health hazard people get from radiation exposure.

As I mentioned, we must look at the long-term effects, from both external and internal exposure.

If you want to know the health effects, you should look at all the studies done after the Chernobyl disaster. Most were reported in Slavic languages, but some of these have been translated into English.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-26-01.html

Also other studies are available by groups not tied to the nuclear industry. Here is an example.

http://www.ratical.org/radiation/Chernobyl/HEofC25yrsAC.html

Of course the pro-industry International Atomic Energy Agency provides different figures, but if we consider that they have a interest in promoting the use of nuclear energy, their reports must be considered highly biased.

@basroil, Thank you very much for your help, alwasy :)

@warispeace, Thank you very much for the links. The Chernobyl one is very long, but looks informative. I'm a very slow learner when it comes to science, so I'll read it very carefully. Thanks again :)

Thomas AndersonJul. 05, 2012 - 09:16PM JST

Ideally you would want to receive as little radiation as possible.

Interestingly, some ultra-low dose experiments say that's not good either. Apparently ultra low (zero) dose causes an increase in mortality in animal experiments. One of the many pieces of evidence refuting the linear no-threshold model for low doses and low exposure rates.

I see no reason why they shouldn't repair the facility if it is still able to function. After all, repairing them doesn't guarantee they will be restarted right after repair. After the repairs are made, then they have to look into upgrades and reinforcement to prevent what happened at Daichi. Maybe after all THAT is done, then they could start riling up the neighborhood by requesting a restart.

If you're lucky, by the time all that was completed, fusion reactors will be viable. They're aiming for a sustained fusion ignition that generates more power than it uses at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories this Fall.

https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/

Interestingly, some ultra-low dose experiments say that's not good either. Apparently ultra low (zero) dose causes an increase in mortality in animal experiments. One of the many pieces of evidence refuting the linear no-threshold model for low doses and low exposure rates.

Hmmm, I wonder if it was the lack of radiation that increased the mortality rates, or the radical environment they had to place the animals in in order to achieve the lack of radiation?

FadamorJul. 06, 2012 - 04:02AM JST

Hmmm, I wonder if it was the lack of radiation that increased the mortality rates, or the radical environment they had to place the animals in in order to achieve the lack of radiation?

I would expect that they had gone through and made all containers the same considering they went through the effort of minimizing radiation from even food. I'll try to find the article again and post a link (though most likely only those with site access will be able to read)

FadamorJul. 06, 2012 - 03:09AM JST

If you're lucky, by the time all that was completed, fusion reactors will be viable. They're aiming for a sustained fusion ignition that generates more power than it uses at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories this Fall.

I doubt that they've managed to solve the issue with the high level waste produced that would make commercialization difficult due to decommissioning costs... It surprisingly creates more high level waste than a fission plant.

marcelitoJul. 06, 2012 - 10:38AM JST

So people are stil living in shelters, thousands are unable to go back home due to the contamination from Dai ich

No, at most a few hundred. Thousands are not let back because the government refuses to admit that a circle was a very stupid idea when they had plenty of fallout maps to properly evacuate people in the order of most need. Most areas are not much higher radiation than the Japanese average (and considering the rock structure there, probably no higher than one chest xray above their normal background). Almost all are under the legal limit, and only a tiny portion of the area above that is above the WHO recommended limits.

Well, the worldwide average is 3mSv/yr from background only, and average medical exposure in Japan is above 2mSv, while background rates are about 1.5mSv in most (but not all) of Japan.

According to LNT, an extra 0.01%-0.03% increase in cancer rates (impossible to statistically prove a change), and according to modern thinking absolutely nothing.

basroil, the numbers given were for internal radiation. I think you do quite well understand the difference of the impact which external and internal radiation sources have on the body, so it seems you deliberately want to mislead people which don't have enough background knowledge?

I doubt that they've managed to solve the issue with the high level waste produced that would make commercialization difficult due to decommissioning costs... It surprisingly creates more high level waste than a fission plant.

Do you have a source for this amazing claim? I have a source for mine:

A fusion power plant would produce no climate-changing gases, as well as considerably lower amounts and less environmentally harmful radioactive byproducts than current nuclear power plants. And there would be no danger of a runaway reaction or core meltdown in a fusion power plant.

Source: https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/ife/

The half-life of the radioisotopes produced by fusion tend to be less than those from fission, so that the inventory decreases more rapidly. Unlike fission reactors, whose waste remains radioactive for thousands of years, most of the radioactive material in a fusion reactor would be the reactor core itself, which would be dangerous for about 50 years, and low-level waste another 100. Although this waste will be considerably more radioactive during those 50 years than fission waste, the very short half-life makes the process very attractive, as the waste management is fairly straightforward. By 300 years the material would have the same radioactivity as coal ash.

...

In general terms, fusion reactors would create far less radioactive material than a fission reactor, the material it would create is less damaging biologically, and the radioactivity "burns off" within a time period that is well within existing engineering capabilities.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_energy#Waste_management