From the wonderful wry Russian
Kollapsnik
Take a look around: there is no longer the money or the political power or even the technical expertise to immediately shut down and properly dismantle all of these installations and to store the nuclear waste in a way that will require zero maintenance for the thousands of years it will stay lethal. The best we can do now is evacuate ourselves ahead of time, and hope for the best.]
....once these pipes disintegrate (a process that might take a few days to a few weeks) the containment vessels will become riddled with holes, letting in outside air and, if by then there is any zirconium left to burn, possibly causing hydrogen explosions inside the reactors, compromising them further. Their radioactive contents will then be carried to the atmosphere in aerosol form. We will probably know when that happens because the Geiger counters in the area will peg out. Nothing has been said about the destination of the copious amounts of now contaminated seawater that is being pumped through the damaged reactors and spent fuel pools. At Chernobyl, the water that that was used to "cool" the by then nonexistent reactor formed a large radioactive lake which threatened to poison Pripyat river. At Fukushima, we must suspect, all of that contaminated seawater is draining straight back into the Pacific, where tidal currents will carry it up and down the coast, contaminating the entire coastline with long-lived radioactive elements.
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possession to heating your house with ammo, in which case, surely enough, accidents will happen.
What do people mean when they say that nuclear power is “safe” when compared to planes, trains and automobiles? What they mean is that the nuclear power industry has so far killed many fewer people per unit time. They have no data on how many people it will kill eventually, although by now they know that, unlike planes, trains and automobiles, which do crash and burn with some regularity, but cause limited damage, nuclear disasters do not have any definable upper bound on their destructive potential. I am pretty sure that there is enough above-ground radioactive material sitting in spent fuel pools and inside reactors to kill just about everyone. It will stay dangerous for over a million years, which is a lot longer than the expected lifetime of the nuclear power industry, or any industry, or any human civilization, or perhaps even the human race. When nuclear experts say that a nuclear reactor is safe, they can only mean that it is safe for the rest of the afternoon; ..
...If we give up on nuclear energy, what will replace it? Nothing, probably. ... if it turns out that the way you've been generating it happens to be criminally negligent, then you shut it all down. If you have less electricity, you will use less electricity. If this implies that economic growth is over and that all of your financial institutions are insolvent and your country bankrupt, then—I am sorry, but at this point in time that's not even newsworthy....
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2011/03/nuclear-meltdowns-101.html
George Monbiot, is one of a (small) bunch of Greenies who decided to support Nucular Electricity. As Far As I can see these guys (Brand, Lovelock) get their kicks from appearing to be 'daring' ' outside-the-curve' and 'iconoclasts'
even if that means going against the Green.
I'm not excited.
I havnt worked out what to call these guys. I have the term "Professional-RedNeck" for rich radio jocks who claim to be racists and pro wolf shooting etc,even when its doubtfull thjey give these things a moments thought - Its not racist to give your immigrant laundry maid bare minimum wage, its just common rich sense.
But Professional greenies who cuddle up to dying industries, particularly centrist mega nasty industries. I havnt worked out a label for them yet.
Anyway GM is sticking to his guns, saying that Fuck-You-Shima hasnt killed anyone, Nuculr is great, its just that its run by fallible, faulty guys. Well Duh! George, are there any other kind?
I reckon GM's Guardian columns are always worth a glance. His Book "Heat" was well done. Albeitt UK-Centric. GM is very bearish on Solar Panels in Germany which he reckons are getting an absurd subsidy. Still n all, I'm not expecting any 50km exclusion zones around any solar panels soon.
"Heat" did have one glaring fault, which GM has acknowledged. Half of the CO2 emmissions of the average Englishman comes from the STUFF he imports. So double GMs figures.
I like V Smil's ideas Do we need 300GJ/year? What was so bad about Italy ca 1960 on 60GJ?? (gee I reckon a couple of 40W fans and a few 12W light bulbs might do it. I'm gonna need a whole lotta charcoal, but, when the bottled gas vanishes)
Of Course V.Smil was kind-of pro-nuke to.. Like saying that 3MileIsland vented "No" 'radiation'. I guess that a million curies of Xenon doesnt count. Anyway, there
Was I-131, and I'll bet that Hersheys chocolates still have active Cs, (what colour smarties have the most glow, do ya suppose?)
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Rupert seems to be in good health, thank the Gods.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7cbv7TdjAs
spinning boxes
