This is why Nuclear Power will Never be Safe

[Tom Rinaldo]

"Like the 1986 Challenger disaster, the investigation into the Gulf spill may well show that complex and seemingly failproof technical systems went wrong because of overlooked problems that interacted with each other in unexpected ways..."

"Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said there were at least "four significant problems with the blowout preventer" — or BOP — including evidence that it had a significant hydraulic leak and a dead battery that was supposed to activate a so-called "deadman" trigger."

What went wrong at oil rig? A lot, probers find
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100512/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill

You can't prevent the unexpected, and you can not guard against stupidity and neglect. Nor can you legislate morality in the face of unchecked human greed:

"In addition, an oil industry whistleblower told Huffington Post that BP had been aware for years that tests of blowout prevention devices were being falsified in Alaska. The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.

Mike Mason, who worked on oil rigs in Alaska for 18 years, says that he observed cheating on blowout preventer tests at least 100 times, including on many wells owned by BP..."

"Mason and another oil worker provided sworn statements in a 2003 lawsuit that rig supervisors "routinely falsified reports to show equipment designed to prevent blowouts was passing state-mandated performance tests," reported the Wall Street Journal in 2005."

Whistleblower Claims That BP Was Aware Of Cheating On Blowout Preventer Tests
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/bp-whistleblower-claimed_n_573839.html


N.A.S.A smashed an incredibly expensive Mars explorer onto the surface of Mars because someone doing data entry confused yards and meters. Someone else forgot to change a dead battery that operated a fail safe system on Deepwater Horizon. Shit happens. People lie. And cover ups are business as usual. Who could have anticipated terrorists flying a civilian airliner into a skyscraper?

This stuff doesn't just happen with deep water oil wells and nuclear power plants. It happens with things like the construction of parking garages also, and when the worst case happens as it always occasionally will, a dozen people die. But thousands of square miles don't end up hopelessly contaminated for scores of generations when a parking garage collapses.

And when the worst case finally happens with a nuclear power plant no doubt a blue ribbon investigation will someday find that "complex and seemingly failproof technical systems went wrong because of overlooked problems that interacted with each other in unexpected ways" or that supervisors "routinely falsified reports" to show equipment designed to prevent meltdowns was passing government mandated performance tests. Or maybe it will be revealed that someone forgot to change a battery, or got yards confused with meters.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Teka]

2. Indeed

Nuclear is built in the US with multiple redundancy.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. Three Mile Island had multiple redundancy also

Except unanticipated human error compounded minor system failures, and technicians initially intervened to hasten a potential meltdown rather than prevent one.

[wtmusic]

6. How many people died at TMI again? Zero?

That's what I thought.

[jpak]

9. It was a $2 billion accident and ratepayers - not the plant owners - paid for it

yup!

[Tom Rinaldo]

10. That is subject to debate as you know, it has been debated here frequently. however

Regardless, it misses my point. No one died on a space shuttle until Challenger blew up for unexpected reasons either. And it turned out the Titanic wasn't unsinkable after all. Human folly is always revealed best in hindsight.

[wtmusic]

13. While you typed your last post, about 18 people died of cancer from coal smoke.

What was that again? Nuclear...Titanic...human folly?

Oh yes. Human folly is not switching to nuclear power as fast as humanly possible.

[jpak]

15. How many uranium workers have died or become ill due to exposure to uranium/radon/beryllium

at US uranium mines, mills and enrichment plants?

Taxpayers have paid billions of dollars in compensation to thousands of uranium workers and their families for cancer, sickness and death from working in the nuclear fuel cycle.

yup!

[whopis01]

73. Can you provide a link for that statistic?

Not questioning its accuracy - just interested in seeing some of the stats.

[jpak]

7. and so did Brown's Ferry until electricians started a fire the disabled the ECCS

and so did Fermi 1 - which suffered a partial meltdown in 1966 after a fuel rod failure.

yup

[Teka]

11. TMI is a perfect example of how SAFE nuke plants are

Everything that could go wrong did, and it was a minor accident in the long run.

No one died, minor amounts of radiation released.

TMI is PROOF that nuclear is safe in the US

[immoderate]

26. That's the conventional wisdom.

Here's another view:

People Died at Three Mile Island By HARVEY WASSERMAN

Ah, but the nuclear industry would never hide information from the public.

--imm

[Statistical]

31. TMI is the single most investigated accident in history of the world.

20 years of studies from wide range of organizations and universities have universally concluded that not a single member of public was harmed as a result of the accident at TMI.

Just because some conspiracy nut on a blog says otherwise doesn't refute decades of real studies.

[leveymg]

70. Chernobyl was a "safe" plant, also. Guess 100,000 dead Ukranians don't count.

Depends how you define safety and measure mortality.

"Our nukes are safe, Comrade!" "Radiation levels will be back to normal in 3 months" "No scientific proof of mutations."

[Statistical]

77. Chernobyl had no containment. no modern safety systems.

It also was a positive void graphite moderated reactor.
All 3 aspects which are prohibited in the United States.

[leveymg]

80. No shit.

But, that was still "safe" by Soviet standards. In the future, I'm sure people will be appalled by U.S.-style reactors, as well, and will wonder how we were so lucky for so long until . . . :nuke:, that big "event" in 20__.

I'd rather not push our luck any further than we have already, thank you.

[Statistical]

81. The Soviets starved millions of their own people in forced famine in Ukraine.

They had no illusions about the "safety" of Chernobyl.
People were simply considered expendable and containment too expensive.

I mean really why would you build a containment structure that costs hundreds of millions of people to "protect" the same people you will kill by forced famine.

The idea that Western reactors are unsafe is a silly and uneducated opinion.

104 operation reactors over 50 million combined hours of operation no fatalities.
What will change your mind? Another decade of safe operation, two decades, three?

I think people in 2100 looking back at 150 million safe hours of reactor operation will have a slightly different view. They likely will wonder why anti-science "advocates" tried to end nuclear power in the 1970s and that resulted in tens of millions of deaths from fossil fuels until mankind came to its senses.

[leveymg]

82. It only takes one mass casualty incident to end your safety record.

Unless the risk is nil (which it isn't), the longer without one, the more likely one is to happen in the near time frame. You of all people should know that, statistical.

When the catastrophic event occurs, it is likely to have significant mortality than a comparable incident involving any other power source. I do agree that we need to stop burning fossil fuels ASAP, and should have been much further along in the process started in the 1970s, but all that you're doing is substituting one mortality risk for another. No, thank you.

[Statistical]

83. Of course it only takes one accident but ....

Say we have a major accident in 2050 that will be after 100 years of safe operation.

Still even a major accident doesn't mean a nuclear release. It simply means a major accident and radioactive contamination inside containment. Then you have the factor than in a minor release most of the radioactive material is noble gases which are substantially lighter than air and simply escape up into atmosphere.

So accident isn't the defining factor in major casualties.

It would require an accident, and loss of containment, and significant enough radiation release to result in casualties.

Now lets say 100 people end up dying. That is 100 people over the last century. The amortized death rate is roughly 1 person per year. More people are killed by sharks, or getting struck by lightning, or virtually any other fatal event.

Fossil fuels kill MILLIONS OF PEOPLE every year. Over the course of a century they will kill nearly a billion people.

However people are perfectly content with fossil fuels killing a guaranteed "small" (if you can call tens of millions small) number of people every single year yet are frantically afraid of something that might someday kill somebody.

People should be far more afraid of coal than they are of nuclear power. One has the potential to maybe kill some people in the future and the other kills people EVERY SINGLE DAY!.

Don't you see the disconnect?

[leveymg]

84. There are more rational, safer, and cheaper alternatives to expanding nuclear.

Yes, I see your point, but disagree about the mix of solutions to the many problems of the CO-based energy grid. I enjoy our exchanges, and we could go on all day like this, and I'm not being dismissive. But, we'll pick this up another time.

[kristopher]

85. There is no disconnect - nuclear power is a third rate solution to climate change

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[Gravel Democrat]

29. And if it was so safe, why is this necessary: Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

"...The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act (commonly called the Price-Anderson Act) is a United States federal law, first passed in 1957 and since renewed several times, which governs liability-related issues for all non-military nuclear facilities constructed in the United States before 2026.

The main purpose of the Act is to partially indemnify the nuclear industry against liability claims arising from nuclear incidents while still ensuring compensation coverage for the general public. The Act establishes a no fault insurance-type system in which the first $10 billion is industry-funded as described in the Act (any claims above the $10 billion would be covered by the federal government)...

"...The Act was last renewed in 2005 for a 20-year period....

"...Price-Anderson also covers Department of Energy (DOE) facilities, private licensees, and their subcontractors including the USEC uranium enrichment plants, national laboratories and the Yucca Mountain disposal site. Any payments from the fund for accidents arising at DOE facilities come from the US treasury. The fund size for such installations is set by legislation (also at $11.6 billion), rather than being based upon the number of plants contributing to the fund...."

This doesn't need an Indemnity act:



And if a triple oopsie happens combined with incompetence or greed, it won't leave the land uninhabitable for thousands of years

[Statistical]

35. How much insurance does that plant have? $10.4 billion?

Nuclear reactors have $10.4 billion in private insurance. No other industry carries that level of insurance.

P-A simply pays claims beyond $10.4 billion. To date it has paid (and thus cost taxpayers) exactly nothing.

[kristopher]

86. The Gulf Spill displays the weakness of your position only too well...

[Tesha]

33. So was the Blowout Preventer.

But even "defense in depth" is sometimes defeated,
especially by unanticipated problems or situations.

FMEAs are never complete, they just represent the team's
best judgment at the time.

Tesha

[Statistical]

38. What was the backup for the BOP?

What nuclear component has as bad of a failure rate as the BOP does (50% failure rate in blowouts).
What system was monitoring the BOP and when it detected a problem it overrides the rig and shutdown drilling operations?

Where was the passive safety (relying on physics not human action) to provide a layer of safety beyond that?
Where was the containment building so in the event of catastrophic equipment failure the oil would be kept inside containment?

Oh yeah none of that exists. Here is the oil industry "defense in depth"

Layer 1) BOP will shut off oil flow
Layer 2) See layer 1.

[Tesha]

40. The BOP itself was multiply-redundant. (NT)

[Statistical]

43. That is a single system and not even a good one.

There is no defense in depth if your defense relies on a single system.

In this case the single line of defense isn't even very good. BOP failed about 50% of the time in simulations and no testing had even been done at this depth.

Defense in depth requires multiple INDEPENDENT systems.

For example:
A nuclear reactor can be tripped by lowering control rods. The control rods can be manually lowered, they will automatically fall if power is lost to electromagnets, and they electricity to control rods runs through a thermally sensitive breaker. So reactor overheats, thermal links fail, electricity lost to control rods and they lower by gravity. Now the control rod system is redundant but what if all the redundancy fails. It still is a single system. A single concept. Use control rods to halt fission. What happen for example if a crane falls and smashes entire control rod assembly. What if something blocks control rods from lowering.

This is why a reactor has a second method to halt fission. Neutron poisons. Essentially a liquid control rod that absorbs neutrons and makes it physically impossible for fission to occur. Neutron poisons are held in tanks attached to the reactor. Now this system is also redundant. Valves can be opened (either by signal from control room or by sensors in reactor) however what if the valves fail, they can be blown open by explosive charges. Still what happens if BOTH those methods of activation fail? The valves themselves can be bypassed by a thermal seal. If valves don't open reactor will get hotter and hotter (if coolant is lost) and thus thermal seal will melt when it does neutron poison will flow into reactor.

You can't have a single point of failure and say you have defense in depth.
What would happen if for example an explosion had destroyed the entire BOP? The flow of oil would be 10x as much because there is no defense in depth. If something destroyed EITHER the control rods OR neutron poison the reactor could still be halted. That is defense in depth.

There are three methods of defense in nuclear power
a) redundancy (defense in width)
b) independent systems (defense in depth)
c) passive safety (systems which require no human interaction, gears, motors, electronics).

The BOP at best only had one element of safe design but even that is a lie. A system which fails 50% of the time in testing can't be considered a line of defense.

[Tesha]

67. Ahh, so if the reactor vessel fractures, what's the backup system?

The ECCS doesn't work because the reactor vessel
no longer holds water.

Will you argue that the containment structure is the backup
system? Is it guaranteed to hold *FOREVER* in this situation?
Against all possible steam explosions, hydrogen explosions,
and long-term thermal and radiological insults?

Where's the proof?

Tesha

[Statistical]

69. hold forever?

First of all there is a contingency for RPV rupturing.

First to get to that point:
a) primary (n+2 redundant) cooling systems would have had to fail
b) high pressure cooling system would have had to fail

The next step is to depressurize the core. This releases radiation into containment but then low pressure cooling system can be used to cool core directly. Still if that fails the last line of cooling is to cool containment directly.

Coolant system will flood lower half of containment to remove residual heat from molten core. Sprayers will spray from top of containment to turn steam back into water. Water is pumped from containment through heat exchanges and up to sprayers. This can cool and solidify the core outside the RPV but still inside containment.

Second who the hell says that containment would need to hold forever.
Once fission is halted decay heat will rapidly drop. Emergency systems only need to cool core for about 24 hours. Once cooled the immediate emergency has been averted. The inside of containment will still be a radioactive mess but time will take care of 99% of that. Cleanup can then be conducted.

Starting to see the concept of defense in depth vs a single point of failure?

[Tesha]

75. It took 12 years to clean up the TMI accident. I'm fairly certain that if the core...

...actually ends up as a puddle on the floor of the containment building,
it will take a bit longer than that to remove the wreckage.

"Forever" is probably a close approximation.

Tesha

[Statistical]

76. The 12 years is misunderstood by you. It implies they were working the entire 12 years.

It actually took about 2 years to cleanup TMI from the time they started. In 1979 a small amount of cleanup was done and then extensive work to mothball the reactor. Then simply waited about 10 years to finish cleanup. Why wait 11 years?

Lets natural radioactive decay "deal" with 99% of the problem. Despite all the talk about spent fuel being hazardous for 100,000 years that misses the large point. 98% of radioactivity in spent fuel decays off in first decade. 99.8% in first century. A side note after 100,000 years only 0.0002% of original radioactivity remains (spent fuel is only about 3x as radioactive as natural uranium).


So in the instance of an accident like TMI it makes far more sense to wait a decade. Time will take care of 95% of the accident as long as it is inside containment. Once decay heat is reduced to below melting point of containment (roughly 24 hours after fission halt) there is simply no urgency to rush into a "hot zone".

A 1GW reactor will contain roughly 50 tons of fuel. If the accident occurred right before refueling it would have the highest level of activity (activity in reactor rises until right before refuiling). The reactor would contain roughly 6.95x10^19 Bq of radioactive material.

That would be reduced by the following by natural decay:
1 month: 1x10^19 Bq (80% reduction)
1 year: 5x10^19 Bq (90% reduction)
1 decade: 8.75x10^17 Bq (98.75% reduction)
1 century: 1x10^17 Bq (99.8% reduction)

After that point the decay "slows" down substantially because most of the short lived isotopes have burned off.

Since TMI had a containment time was on the cleanup crews side. Since Chernobyl had no containment time was working against them. Hence the radically different approaches to cleanup.

This same logic applies to decommissioning a nuclear plant also. Since containment will likely last decades (or centuries) there is no reason to tear down a reactor right away. Usually the NRC waits 10 to 15 years to tear it down because while we wait 99%+ of radioactivity decays naturally safely inside containment.

[Tesha]

78. So in other words, it took twelve "wall clock" years to clean up TMI...

...and nuclear proponents like to tride to hide that
by stating that only two years were actually "working
years".

As if we can all ignore those other ten years.

Tesha

[Statistical]

79. Please that isn't what I said at all.

The point is that any time you have a contained "hot" area you the best solution is to simply wait.

TMI - waited.
Other smaller contamination situations - waited.
Reactor decomisioning - waited

It simply make no sense to rush into a hot area to get it done quicker.

There is only one situation where rushing in was done.... Chernobyl. What? Beacuse it had no containment and thus waiting wasn't an option.

Still the idea that one would need to wait forever which was your original false claim is silly.

99% of radioactive material burns off in the first decade. There is little reason to wait beyond a decade.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. Wasn't BP about to receive a reward for their safe drilling record? n/t

[wtmusic]

8. Because one technology has been proven unsafe they all are?

As Stravinsky said after he saw The Rite of Spring in Disney's movie Fantasia:

"I can't muster a comment for such unresisting imbecility."

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. Nuclear power is intrinsically as safe as any high priority human endeavor

A Nuclear Power Plant is far safer than those Toyotas that made headlines, but if a Toyota unexpectedly accelerates only one or two families may die. Are you claiming that humanity has finally at long last perfected a fool proof technology that is impossible to fail?

"I can't muster a comment for such unresisting imbecility."

[wtmusic]

16. Three Mile Island failed and not even one family died.

19...20...21 people dead from coal smoke.

[immoderate]

24. Many died as a result of TMI. It was covered up.

No suits reached the court. But there were epidemiological studies and other follow ups. Google up some "Three Mile Island deaths" and there's plenty of information to look at.

What to believe? Would the nuclear industry lie? :shrug: It's those environmentalists and other haters.

--imm

[Statistical]

32. Google "Obama Muslim" or "9/11 CIA link" and you will find some interesting reading also.

20 years of studies by respectable organizations and universities with no link to nuclear industry have concluded that not a single member of public was killed as a result of the events at TMI.

TMI is literally the single most studied accident in the history of mankind. It is even more studied that Chernobyl mainly due to prohibitions on outsiders placed by Soviet Union.

That doesn't change because conspriacy nuts think otherwise with some dubious "studies" not peer reviewed and not published in any respectable science journal say otherwise.

You can google essentially anything (aliens, moon landing faked, Obama Muslim, cars that run on water, 100mpg scams, cold fusion being hidden by energy companies, unlimited power generators, etc) and find some nut jobs who wrote about it.

[immoderate]

49. Radiation was released.

Lots of money was paid out. This is not disputed. It is also widely accepted that there is no safe level of radiation exposure. I think there is a paucity of data. But that is not proof of no negative effects.

Thanks for the list of hoaxes. I don't see the connection. Names of things one can find on the internet? I see -- guilt by association. Yeah, I'll bite on that.

--imm

[jpak]

3. 27 US nuclear plants are currently leaking tritium - more than one quarter of operating plants

and as they get older, it will only get worse

[amborin]

12. +1

and look at Chernobyl

[Confusious]

22. Chernobyl used a design that is illegal in the US

Positive void coefficient. Look it up.

Should be illegal all over the world.

[Tesha]

41. Chernobyl's design isn't illegal in the US;

It simply isn't used for nuclear power reactors (for
reasons that are now all-too-obvious).

But when we needed plutonium fornuclear weapons,
that's the exact design we turned to. And will do again
if/when the loonies someday decide we need more
plutonium.

Tesha

[Statistical]

44. Not true. Hanford plutonium piles were graphite moderated but they were also unpressurized.

They operated at a much lower temperature since they were optimized for producing bombs not electricity. Power reactors need a high temperature output because it produces more energetic steam.

Even Hanford plants (which are more dangerous that modern PWR) had backup control system (control rods & neutron poison) and containment building which are both things that Chernobyl lacked.

There has never been a reactor like Russian RBMK design in the US not an Hanford, not anywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBMK

Still even if "loonies" (defense hawks?) decide we need plutonium for future weapons that has nothing to do with how safe modern pressurized water reactors are.

[Confusious]

54. Did you look up postive void reactor?

That's what Chernobyl was. And if you Google it, you find it's illegal in the US.

[NickB79]

17. By this logic, we should abandon ALL forms of advanced technology

Down with the 21st century! Buggies and blunderbusses for all!

[RC]

18. Blunderbusses are too high tech for some here.

Rocks, that's the thing. All natural also.

[Zoeisright]

21. Wow. What a stupid comment.

All or nothing logical fallacies are too difficult for some here.

[PVnRT]

34. Yeah, kind of like the OP

[RC]

71. Laid that nerve right open, huh?

Thanks for Validating me. :thumbsup:

Gee, that was easy.

[Tesha]

42. Nonsense. But we do need to understand the absolute worst-case scenarios...

...associated with each form of technology and accept that
there is some non-zero probability that the worst-case scenario
will actually play out.

For fission nuclear power, there are quite a few worst-case
scenarios that have unacceptable consequences.

Tesha

[leveymg]

72. No, just the ones that lead to mass fatality incidents and cancer for millions

In other words, Nuclear, Oil and Coal.

Nobody says we should just "abandon" advanced technologies. Phase the old ones out, and put the investment capital into greener, saner alternatives.

[provis99]

19. list of nuclear accidents so far, by date.

http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/chernob/rep02.html

Not exactly a very safe technology, is it?

Geo-thermal energy is cheap, easily available, and nearly unlimited, yet kills no one. So we will never develop it.

[Statistical]

20. Nice hodgepodge of nuclear weapons programs, military accidents, some non-radioactive accidents...

and a tiny scattering of western commercial power reactors.

Total number of operating hours of nuclear reactor fleet in US: 50 million and counting.
Total number of members of public killed by nuclear power: 0

Enough said. Nuclear energy is safe, clean, and reliable.

[immoderate]

25. With your screen name, one might think you'd understand risk.

But you don't.

--imm

[kristopher]

27. "...not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely""

Someone posted this the other day and it pegs the problem perfectly -

When Nassim Taleb talks about the limits of statistics, he becomes outraged. "My outrage," he says, "is aimed at the scientist-charlatan putting society at risk using statistical methods. This is similar to iatrogenics, the study of the doctor putting the patient at risk." As a researcher in probability, he has some credibility. In 2006, using FNMA and bank risk managers as his prime perpetrators, he wrote the following:

The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely."

In the following Edge original essay, Taleb continues his examination of Black Swans, the highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. He claims that those who are putting society at risk are "no true statisticians", merely people using statistics either without understanding them, or in a self-serving manner. "The current subprime crisis did wonders to help me drill my point about the limits of statistically driven claims," he says.

Taleb, looking at the cataclysmic situation facing financial institutions today, points out that "the banking system, betting against Black Swans, has lost over 1 Trillion dollars (so far), more than was ever made in the history of banking".

But, as he points out, there is also good news.

We can identify where the danger zone is located, which I call "the fourth quadrant", and show it on a map with more or less clear boundaries. A map is a useful thing because you know where you are safe and where your knowledge is questionable. So I drew for the Edge readers a tableau showing the boundaries where statistics works well and where it is questionable or unreliable. Now once you identify where the danger zone is, where your knowledge is no longer valid, you can easily make some policy rules: how to conduct yourself in that fourth quadrant; what to avoid....

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb08/taleb08_index.html

[Confusious]

23. Geo-thermal energy is cheap, easily available, and nearly unlimited

Only cheap and easily available if you live near a geothermal site, such as yellowstone, or Iceland.

Otherwise, its pretty pricey to drill the hole, and that hole runs out after a while, so you have to drill another. not really Cheap or easily available.

[laughingliberal]

28. K & R nt

[quaker bill]

30. Something can be different about nukes

Current nuke plants are "critical" designs, so if something goes wrong, bad things are likely to happen. This makes them like shuttles and some oil wells, a potential pending disaster that is prevented by technology working from well to perfectly. Critical designs for nukes means that there is a "critical mass" that will self sustain an ever growing reaction, that is moderated by technology to prevent a meltdown.

"Non Critical" designs for nuke plants exist. In these designs there is not enough material to sustain a reaction to meltdown, and the reaction must be encouraged by the addition of high speed particles created in a particle accelerator and shot into the reactor from outside. In this case, when technology fails, the reaction stops naturally. They are like oil wells that have to be pumped to produce oil, if the pump or other parts break, the oil stops flowing on its own.

This sort of nuke energy can be much safer. Nothing we do is ever truly safe, even crossing the street has risk, but a design that naturally reverts to a safer condition with failure is a safe as this technology can be made.

[SidDithers]

36. A plane crashed in Libya this week...

therefore we should ban cars.

Sid

[MajorChode]

37. And trains, and boats, and mopeds

In fact, we should all be in communes living in grass huts, growing our own food, shitting in stoneware pots, and masturbating when we need entertainment.

The obvious problem there is even organically grown food is chock full of carcinogens, so perhaps the real solution is we should just put a fucking bullet in our heads and be done with it.

[Statistical]

39. You could get lead poisoning from the bullet.

Better to mentally force yourself to stop breathing until you expire.
No more CO2 output well except for that onetime terminal CO2 emission (rotting corpse).
:rofl:

[Tom Rinaldo]

45. So tell me this

How many complex man made apparatuses do you know of that you are confident both never have and never will suffer a catastrophic break down? Or are nuclear power plants the only one on your list?

The common denominator is people. People are fallible and all the things that people make and run are fallible. Safe is only a relative term.

[Statistical]

46. That is why the systems are redundant and independent.

Reactors do fail. A reactor trips (unplanned shutdown) somewhere in the US about once a month.
Those could be considered human failures. However when they trip they do so in a safe manner.

For example just last month during start up procedures the reactor at North Anna tripped. Turned out a backup generator had failed.

Nuclear reactors are both massively redundant and have multiple independent backup systems. A single failure, even a dozen failures would be insufficient to injure a member of the public.

[Tom Rinaldo]

47. You are talking about the relative degree of safety

And nuclear reactors are far safer than most human endeavors for the reasons you mention. But the consequences of a catastrophic failure at a nuclear power plant would be almost unimaginably more grave than the consequences of a catastrophic failure of almost any other human endeavor, and those consequences could last far longer than all of recorded human history.

And we are not even discussing potential acts of willful sabotage.

[Statistical]

50. Of COURSE we are talking about relative degrees of safety.

However reactors as so safe that the likelihood of you dying from one is negligible. Current Generation reactor have core damage frequency expectation of once in 50,000 to 100,000 operating years. Gen III+ reactors have a CDF that is a magnitude higher than that. However even a core damage event doesn't necessarily result in lethal radiation release.

Nuclear energy is just this big scary complicated thing however real killers are far more simple. Smoking, eating fatty foods, driving a motor vehicle, excessive alcohol consumption, fossil fuel pollution, natural radiation (radium & radon), not getting enough physical activity, cancers from man made non-radioactive sources are all a magnitude more likely to kill you.

Hell hydro-electric power has killed a magnitude more people in one event than all nuclear accidents around the world combined since its inception.

50 million operating hours, not a single member of public has been killed by nuclear power. Imagine if cars, airlines, or fossil fuels were that safe.

[Tom Rinaldo]

53. I once had the N.A.S.A. space disaster expectation statistics

for a shuttle launch that were calculated prior to the Challenger disaster. After a couple of moves I lost track of where I had them, but suffice it to say that they showed odds of a catastrophe occurring on a magnitude of at least a hundred fold times less likely than those now projected by revised calculations done after the investigation of the Challenger disaster. It also used to be considered scientific fact that it was safe to use xrays on children's feet to see if their shoes fit them right. Calculations are only as good as the assumptions that get plugged into them.

[Statistical]

55. However track records are "slightly" different....

We have/had 6 Space Shuttles and less than 300 launches and two resulted in loss of life.

We have 104 commercial nuclear reactors operating today (and peak of 132) with combined total of 50 million operating hours spanning 4 decades. To date that has resulted in only one significant core damage event and zero fatalities.

[kristopher]

59. the scientist-charlatan putting society at risk using statistical methods...

Someone posted this the other day and it pegs the problem perfectly. Note that it doesn't criticize the value of statistical analysis to decision-making and science, rather it shows that events like the Deepwater Horizon and nuclear power are examples of a very real limit on the ability of probabilistic methods.

When Nassim Taleb talks about the limits of statistics, he becomes outraged. "My outrage," he says, "is aimed at the scientist-charlatan putting society at risk using statistical methods. ...

In the following Edge original essay, Taleb continues his examination of Black Swans, the highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. He claims that those who are putting society at risk are "no true statisticians", merely people using statistics either without understanding them, or in a self-serving manner. "The current subprime crisis did wonders to help me drill my point about the limits of statistically driven claims," he says.

Taleb, looking at the cataclysmic situation facing financial institutions today, points out that "the banking system, betting against Black Swans, has lost over 1 Trillion dollars (so far), more than was ever made in the history of banking".

...Statistics can fool you. In fact it is fooling your government right now. It can even bankrupt the system (let's face it: use of probabilistic methods for the estimation of risks did just blow up the banking system).

...My classical metaphor: A Turkey is fed for a 1000 days—every days confirms to its statistical department that the human race cares about its welfare "with increased statistical significance". On the 1001st day, the turkey has a surprise.

...the turkey economics department will always manage to state, before thanksgivings that "we are in a new era of safety", and back-it up with thorough and "rigorous" analysis. And Professor Bernanke indeed found plenty of economic explanations—what I call the narrative fallacy—with graphs, jargon, curves, the kind of facade-of-knowledge that you find in economics textbooks. (This is the find of glib, snake-oil facade of knowledge—even more dangerous because of the mathematics—that made me, before accepting the new position in NYU's engineering department, verify that there was not a single economist in the building. I have nothing against economists: you should let them entertain each others with their theories and elegant mathematics, and help keep college students inside buildings. But beware: they can be plain wrong, yet frame things in a way to make you feel stupid arguing with them. So make sure you do not give any of them risk-management responsibilities.)

Do yourself a favor and review the entire piece at:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb08/taleb08_index.html

[Statistical]

63. Deepwater wasn't a limitation of statistical models.

The failure rate of BOP is 50% under simulations.

The BOP failed exactly as predicted. Our govt simply didn't require adequate level of redundancy.
The entire Gulf region was entrusted to a single point of failure and that system had a 50% failure rate.

[kristopher]

68. Not even close to true. Multiple levels of failure were required.

And that evades the point that nuclear IS an example of precisely the type of blind spot discussed.

[whopis01]

74. There were only 5, not 6. n/t

[gravity]

48. Nuclear power plants aren't 5000 ft deep or shot into space.

You cant make any comparisons between nuclear power plants and remote operations in extreme environments.

Shit happens isn't a valid argument

[Tom Rinaldo]

52. Where it is is moot until something goes wrong

and if something goes terribly wrong with a nuclear reactor, it might just as well be a mile underwater because the lethatlity of the radioactivity in the viscinity surrounding it would make efforts to remedy the situation just as if not more difficult than trying to attempt a fix in space or below the ocean.

[Statistical]

56. Why would you fix it.

Nuclear reactors are surrounded by air tight containment.

If something disastrous did happen (which would require the simultaneous failure of dozens of independent systems) the radioactive core would be contained in containment building. Given activity decreases very rapidly initially one would simply monitor the containment building and wait a decade until radioactive output has fallen 99% to begin cleanup.

[Tom Rinaldo]

57. Chernobyl can not be safely approached for any length of time now

There were real fears of a possible breech of containment at TMI due to a possible explosion of a hydrogen bubble inside of the containment vessel, let alone from a full core meltdown. And you do know that there has been no test of the structural integrity of a containment building should a recent generation jumbo jet airliner be piloted into it, don't you? Only of a smaller lighter plane carrying less fuel. And air traffic is cleared to fly directly over the Indian Point nuclear reactor on the Hudson, where a catastrophic event would directly effect New York City.

[Statistical]

58. Wrong & wong.

DOE has done over pressure tests on containment building. The most recent one withstood 250% of rate pressure before leaking and reached 500% of rated pressure without completely losing containment.

http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2000/pccvtest.htm
http://nrc.pf.mediaspanonline.com/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/contract/cr6810/index.html

After 9/11 new tests were done for the largest of jumbo jets even under impossibly scenarios like a perfect strike with 100% of takeoff weight. Of course to takeoff requires burning fuel thus a plane can never be heavier (or even as heavy) at impact as it is at takeoff.

http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/aircraftcrashbreach

Lastly the jumbo jet canard is just that. Kinetic energy is 1/2mv^2. one half mass times velocity squared. Notice the squared velocity. A high performance fighter plane will have higher kinetic energy than a Jumbo Jet because of its much higher velocity.

[Tom Rinaldo]

60. I sincerely would appreciate a link to more info on the most recent

jet crash tests regarding containment buildings. I recaall watching film footage of a test of an older generation jet into a structure done for that purpose. I saw this after 9/11 and it was stated then that more modern jets have not been field tested so.

[Statistical]

62. It was almost a year after 9/11 so at the time that might have been accurate.

I updated the post with links.

Also one thing to consider about fighter jet vs passenger jet.
Passenger jet is much larger and heavier but it actually has less kinetic energy.



This is due to the slower impact velocity and kinetic energy being increased by square of velocity but only by mass to a single power.

[Tom Rinaldo]

64. A fighter would probably be harder for terrorists to get hold of fortunately

...but they crashed TWO planes into the twin towers, not just one.

[Statistical]

65. True.

However a couple things from physics standpoint make hitting a reactor with jumbo jet very difficult.

First is ground effect. Max controllable safe speed of a large jet like wide body craft is much lower close to ground. To avoid losing control of the craft any terrorist would need to lower flaps and speed which reduces kinetic energy by the square. For example 747 has cruising speed of 500mph but below 1000 ft max speed drops to 250mph.

Second thing is location. The roof of WTC was 1400 above ground and 200 feet wide with to intervening obstacles which allowed the terrorist to line the plane up with building and simply keep it level and under control until impact. That situation doesn't exist with nuclear reactors who are relatively low to the ground and have numerous other obstacles in the area.

Lastly in the WTC both engines were able to strike the plane. The engines are the densest location of the aircraft and will result in most effective kinetic energy transfer to object being struck. A reactor building is not wide enough to be struck by both engines at the same time.


High speed collisions are far more dangerous in their ability to transfer energy to the containment. The original name for outer layer of containment building is .... missile shield. The largest threat to containment was considered a Soviet attack with high speed missiles.

[Tom Rinaldo]

66. Gotta sign off for now. Thanks for an intelligent discussion

I still disagree with your conclucion, but respectfully so.

[kristopher]

61. They didn't release the details of those tests.

They are hiding the detail behind a veil of secrecy. That isn't unreasonable from the point of security, but it IS unreasonable when it comes to confirming the validity of their claims to safety.

Also, the threat of terrorism is much better demonstrated by the infiltration of 5 different nuclear plants by Mosley (documented terrorist) than by the single strategy of crashing a plane into a containment dome.

[LanternWaste]

51. must have been a death trap

The Radiation Therapy oriented Outpatient Cancer Treatment Center I worked at in the 90's must have been a death trap. I never knew... :shrug: