To be concerned about Fukushima? seen some alarming FB posts that claim to be credibly sourced?

[ClifftopCafe]

Anyone have a view?

I would be very pleased to see the end of the nuclear industry if I am honest.

We cannot contain this sort of problem if it occurs and the effects are of a magnitude and severity that no one wants to see, and no one can deal with.

Accidents like this may be rare, but it only takes one. The stakes are simply too high.

Thanks for the link, gordy.

I had doubts to start with, but when I saw "all sea life in the Pacific are dying" I knew we were talking conspiracy theory.

That's not to say that Fukushima wasn't a disaster. When they were coming up with ways to contain it I wanted to say "but why were they not in place already? Surely you should have said beforehand 'What happens if an earthquake damages the reactor?'"

I think nuclear energy is our only practical source of energy, but it has to be done properly to minimise risk.

I don't understand why energy from solar radiation can't be utilised better.

The sun is getting closer/hotter/whatever the latest reports say about it and here we are saying 'Oh solar panels don't work very well'.

Well why not - and why can't we make the most of the thing that may kill us all one day, while it's available to us?

BackOnlyBriefly
That's not to say that Fukushima wasn't a disaster. When they were coming up with ways to contain it I wanted to say "but why were they not in place already? Surely you should have said beforehand 'What happens if an earthquake damages the reactor?'"

The earthquake wasn't the problem. The site is hardened against earthquakes and wasn't affected by it. It was the tsunami.

The sea wall which protected the plant was 10m high. Unfortunately the tsunami was 13m high which flooded the reactors. That was manageable. What wasn't manageable was the inability of repair equipment to reach the site for a week due to the destruction of the surrounding area by the tsunami.

There's a limit to what you can plan for.

CaroltheAncientChristmasTroll

I don't understand why energy from solar radiation can't be utilised better.

The sun is getting closer/hotter/whatever the latest reports say about it and here we are saying 'Oh solar panels don't work very well'.

Well why not - and why can't we make the most of the thing that may kill us all one day, while it's available to us?

The capacity of modern photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight in to energy is limited. And the steeper the angle of the sun hitting the solar cells, the weaker the sun's rays are (which is why it's colder at the poles than the equator). So putting solar cells in the UK is daft-on-a-stick, for example, but putting them in the Sahara would work well.

However, there are large costs - and power losses - when transmitting that power over a long distance. It's why a Europe-wide grid is such an idiot idea, too - the costs and power losses shifting power around the continent is too great for it to be worth doing.

Huge amounts of money are being spent on research better PV tech, but at the moment it isn't there. Same with batteries, which is why electric cars suck so badly.

Doesn't it cost rather a lot to do the same with nuclear energy?

Other thing with solar panels is that the panels themselves are made from all sorts of nasties, and are carbon intensive in their production. Bit like windfarms and their maintenance.

mariamuir

Thanks for the lols. Gotta love it when people two sandwiches short of a picnic claim 'mainstream media' censors the truth (for no apparent reason of course), and then point you in the direction of youtube and facebook and their own blogs for real evidence.

I mean jesus christ youtube is basically the official home of utter concocted bullshit. I can point you to 'evidence' that the illuminati control the media, that beyonce is in league with the devil etc etc etc.

Because hey you know what it's really easy to make a two minute documentary that's pretty convincing on just about anything, no matter how ridiculous the premise.

Oh and don't even get me started on Russia Today...or Vladimir Putin's personal conspiracy channel of bonkersness as I like to call it.

Pravda was always a bastion of truth, particularly during Stalin's time

'Other thing with solar panels is that the panels themselves are made from all sorts of nasties, and are carbon intensive in their production. Bit like windfarms and their maintenance.'

What - worse than the by products of the nuclear industry?

I wasn't comparing them to the nuclear industry I didn't mention the nuclear industry.

All energy production is a compromise and a balance.

Fukushima was built in a tsunami zone, in an area with a lot of volcanic and earthquake activity.

kneejerk greens in Germany have got their nuclear power stations shut down. Anyone with a tiny knowledge of science knows that Germany is not on a fault line. Germany now has power supply problems.

yes, there are risks with nuclear power. Unfortunately with so much scientific ignorance around (and seen as 'cool' because people who aren't ignorant are 'geeks') then very few are able to make informed risk assessments.

I give you 'the sun is getting closer/hotter' from a quote upthread. This demonstrates a level of ignorance that is utterly breathtaking.

But special the sun WILL get bigger and hotter. You know. In about a billion years.

Well luckily it isn't up to me, and the other terminally ignorant, to make these decisions.

But aren't we allowed to ask questions? That's all I was doing.

@thepig Well unless you would like me to post direct links to each and every document, YouTube was the easiest way, from there links can take you to the documentation. If you choose to trust mainstream media and the half truths they tell, that is entirely up to you, but there is no disputing the documentation.

mariamuir what documentation - how long would it take me to knock up 100 documents, recorded calls, emails, graphs to 'prove' whatever I want?

Carol, You are right that solar energy would be the ideal answer. If we could make some kind of leap forward there to make them good enough I'd prefer them. In the meantime we are stuck with nuclear reactors and burning the remaining fossil fuels, with all the environmental damage that entails.

As flatpack said batteries are another area we need a breakthrough in. Being able to store power efficiently might mean things like wind farms were good for something.

mariamuir, how do you know that the documentation isn't faked by the mainstream media. Perhaps to drum up interest so that you will go to them looking for confirmation or to advance some other agenda.

Got to lol at 'the sun is getting closer'

WTAF do people get rubbish like that from? And how can you be so spectacularly dumb as to believe it?

So in summary

Fukishima is spilling gallons of radioactive water in to the sea now, December 2013, although the news report was posted in August. And the 'expert' doesn't use the term 'microseverts'

There are no fish in the pacific, but the japanese trawlers are hoovering up everything, even though there isn't anything to hoover.

There are no birds in the middle of the pacific. But did there used to be? How far out to sea do birds fly?

snopes says it's not true.

CaroltheAncientChristmasTroll says the sun is getting closer, but we are orbiting the sun so how can it?

Personally I'm more worried about dihydrogen Oxide, which is another possible contaminant crossing the pacific.

Sashh you should probably have included a link to the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide

sashh perhaps you should find out a little bit about overfishing and the migratory and foraging patterns of seabirds before dismissing what I've said.

You think there is still plenty of fish left? Despite all the available evidence?

Christ.

ah yes, dihydrogen monoxide - the biggest killer chemical out there. Terrible stuff and it is in our homes, in everything we eat and drink. Why is this allowed, we ask?

quick check on the latest theories re 'the sun getting closer'; in about FIVE billion years the sun will get bigger, but not hotter as red giants are cooler than during their main sequence phase. Not quite sure if the earth is going to be engulfed, but even if not life will be unsustainable here.

so all of you worrying about the end of the world - you are quite right. It will happen. If humanity still breeds them as ignorant and gullible as some here, it will be questionable if it is any loss.

Sounds to me like a load of overexcitement regarding the Fukushima site, while I can not say that it is good for water to be leaking out of tanks into the soil and then into the sea it is not the doom and gloom scenario that some of the professional antinuclear protesters, twits and ill informed people are claiming it is.

While there are some areas of the Fukushima plant where I would refuse to go (I am not radiophobic but I do not have a death wish) there are plenty of other places where I can think of a mortal radiation threat. For example a radiotherapy unit at a cancer hospital often has radiation sources which are "mortal threat" level (lethal dose in less than an hour) I do not see people getting into a wild panic over the fact that many hospitals have on site objects that after a prolonged attack with metal work tools would yeild up a very nasty (PBq range) source.

I think that the fact it was a nuclear power plant is used as a license by the chattering classes, scare mongers and others who have vested interests in scaring the wits out of the public to distort the event into an end of the world event. Trust me Chernobyl was much worse and more than 25 years later for most people life goes on much the same as it did before the accident. Thus a smaller accident such as Fukushima will not exterminate the human race.

The first thing to note is that heat production is very small now in the used fuel which was inside the reactors, I would be very very surprised if steam was coming out of cracks in the ground. While steam did come out of reactors in the early days that will not be occuring now unless someone cuts off the water supply to the ponds or reactor buildings and leaves it for off for weeks. Also today many of the short lived nasties such as I-131 and Mo-99 have decayed away.

So the fuel in the reactors, while still very radioactive, is much less of a threat than it was back in march 2011 when it all happened.

Next if a tank of radioactive water leaks then the soil will capture most of the cesium radioactivity, very little of the radioactivity which leaks out of a tank will ever make it to the sea. The ice wall then makes double sure of that.

do you know how many cancers in Europe today are caused by Chernobyl radiation

People have died, are dying now and will die in the future due to the radiation from this area.