Nuclear lobby’s shills are all out on social media today.
NewAlexandria on
This does not portray the radiation impact to fish, increased radiation along N.Am. coastlines, and more.
I agree that many people blow the impacts out of proportion, but there are also real impacts that are not being shown here, which is unethical
PigSlam on
From #21
>In order to open the motor valves to vent pressure in the reactor containment and allow low pressure water to be injected workers ran out to their cars that had not been washed away, removed the batteries and hooked them up in series to power the DC motor operated valves.
I’d be really surprised if all of these guys had identical batteries in their cars, with identical cardboard boxes that fit them perfectly. Maybe the thing you said happened, but the picture you put with it is not of that thing happening.
Hiddencamper on
The BWR2 through BWR6 plants are all generation 2 reactor designs. Not gen1.
[deleted] on
Did anyone see the Vice HBO clip?
Vice made it seem way worse. I am tempted to believe Vice over some guy with 8 posts on Reddit.
jlangholzj on
Just out of curiosity what is your job position? I’m a PRA engineer that specializes in nuclear plants and I must say that you did quite a good job writing everything up. I just started in January but everything I’ve soaked up so far shows up in what you’ve produced. Awesome post man 🙂
vsy on
It would be nice to have a comparison to Tsjernobyl as a follow up
9jjrf8 on
cool.
ange2682 on
Amazing work, great job teaching us all something new. Thank you
[deleted] on
[deleted]
Boludita on
This is great. Here’s a link to an episode of The Moth (amazing story-telling podcast) where a man who was working inside that day tells his story. Prepare for feels: http://themoth.org/posts/stories/fog-of-disbelief
HardwareLust on
Very good job, sir. Nice to see some factual information about the situation rather than ignorance driven scaremongering and conspiratard bullshit like we usually get from redditors.
-ANGUS- on
niffty
CoolGuy54 on
>1600 people have died trying to fleeing radiation that has killed no one.
This seems grossly unfair to me. It’s possible that a couple of people might have died from the increased cancer risk if they hadn’t been evacuated, and the evacuation *was* a legitimate response to fear of radiation, how do you think the headlines would have looked if they hadn’t evacuated and then there was a worse-than-expected release of radiation?
estimates an increase in risk of ~6% for a couple of common cancers in the worst-affected areas, with a LAR for all solid cancers of .01 for a 1-year old in the worst hit zones.
Even if all 100,000 people evacuated were in this highest risk group that’s still only 1,000 cancers, but this is still psychologically scary stuff, and it’s unfair to dismiss that so flippantly.
I’m very pro-nuclear power, but lets not try and whitewash this completely.
NukeWorker10 on
As someone with more than 20 years of military and commercial nuclear power experience all I can say is God(s) /deity of your choice bless you for this post. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster the amount of misleading and wrong information published by the media just boggled my mind and made me so angry.
[deleted] on
.
GoNinGoomy on
Where do you get all of your information and pictures OP? Is this your field of study? Perhaps you work in the industry? Not doubting, just curious.
Also, what makes it so that the reaction cannot be stopped? From my understanding, the fuel is undergoing an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. What before allowed us to control it that cannot be used now?
You had also mentioned that reactors 5 and 6 were shutdown and posed no threat of disaster. What makes the fuel in those reactors less threatening than the fuel in the ones that melted down?
StranaMente on
While I have some doubts about the cleanliness of producing energy via nuclear plants, my biggest concerns are always:
1) what about the spent fuel? We don’t have a way to properly stock that for the amount of time required to make it harmless;
2) what about the human error? While earthquakes and tornados are scary events, the scariest thing is that humans are in charge of the security, and give it enough time and mistakes will begin to add up. See /u/Gmanacus comment [down here](http://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/27us6u/fukushima_in_detail/ci4y9fm).
ablenkend on
I heard that there was some controversy at the time the plant was built about putting the generators in the basement.
greg_barton on
I love it that the highest rated post ever on /r/energy now is an extremely informative, non fear mongering description of Fukushima.
BarrelRoll1996 on
I wish /r/science was as through as you.
Front page: “SCIENTISTS FIND CURE FOR VIRUS”
hugoshtiglitz on
[Here’s the entire Vice segment about the Fukushima disaster (13:33) on Youtube.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAEvT_UdhNI) This is a respected news organization that is known for doing impressive investigative journalism, and they have done a piece about the Fukushima disaster. They interview multiple people who are qualified to talk about various aspects of the disaster, and things aren’t as hunky-dory as OP makes them out to be. Many of the claims made in OP’s post, especially regarding the cleanup efforts, seem to mirror those made by the Japanese government and Tepco.
TheSpeedySloth2099 on
I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan when this happened. It was around 11 in the morning when the ground had a slight 2 second rumble. We didn’t think much of it because small scale earthquakes were actually not unusual over there. My command was the first responders. This was a sad sad time in my life but I was proud to be part of the recovery.
politiksjunkie on
Interesting gallery, but I think it’s definitely lacking in some details. I highly encourage folks to read Fukushima: The Story of a Natural Disaster, published this year by The Union of Concerned Scientists. It provides an incredibly readable moment by moment account of the series of events after the earthquake & tsunami, and at times it reads like a sad tragi-comedy of errors that could possibly have been prevented with better safety procedures. The reality is no one was prepared for the scenario that played out at Fukushima.
What the book really highlighted for me is the fact that it is possible that much of the chain-reaction of events that took place inside the plant could have been avoided if there were improved ‘worst case’ safety practices, and if the Regulatory bodies actually enforced safety regulation rather than continually working to decrease regulation requirements. The book also details some of the efforts that have taken place since 2011 to increase safety standards, as well as lobbying efforts to prevent the approved changes from actually improving anything.
Nuclear can be very safe, and there are a lot of safeguards against meltdown built into these plants, but could Nuclear be safer? Absolutely.
I find your album is very good with providing an overview of the general events that occurred in the first few days, but sort of glosses over the fact that there are still serious issues & safety failures ongoing with the cleanup efforts.
I agree there has been a lot of scaremongering, but I also think that the long term effects are not yet known, and we should be following the situation for a long time to come. The other side of the scaremongering is pretending everything is getting back to normal in Fukushima, and in reality there is a long road ahead before we can consider the dangers completely mitigated.
There are some great sites dedicated to tracking the ongoing situation in Fukushima as well as scientific efforts to track the effects of contaminated water in the Ocean, and on land.
Ongoing updates from inside Japan (a bit difficult to navigate, and does include some unconfirmed reports, etc, but still worth a read) http://fukushima-diary.com/
CorruptCanadian on
What about the amount of contaminated water being pumped into the pacific everyday. TEPCO has constantly underestimated the extent of damages throughout the process and have admitted to the continued dumping of waste water for having no alternative. Further locals have been concerned about the quality of the storage sites/mechanism that are being created to address this issue. There has been speculation that the material the tanks have been created from are degrading faster then expected, leading to seepage of the waste water into surrounding ground water systems.
With how slow TEPCO has been to address the public during crucial moments of this incident it is hard to believe everything is as safe and sound as this post may imply.
senses3 on
You should put some pictures of the giant water tanks that are full of radioactive water they collected that are leaking into the ground outside fukushima.
ElipsesCorter on
I was on the Ronald Reagan during the fukushima disaster… If I find my photos I’ll post them. It was pretty heartbreaking to see little red rubber balls and the little plastic bicycles floating by.
Thanks for this incredibly well-sourced explanation. Great work.
lokhagos on
It was the MUTOs
NotsorAnDomcAPs on
A few technical nitpics:
The Fukushima Daini seawall was also too low, and as a result Fukushima Daini was also flooded to a similar extent as Fukushima Daiichi. Many important cooling systems were taken out of commision, as well as the plant losing most of its power and most of its generators. However, the reactors were newer models and enough systems were still functioning that the reactors were able to be shut down successfully.
The passive cooling system at Fukushima Daiichi was actually turned off after the reactor shut down because the reactor was cooling too quickly. The controllers did not want the rate of cooling to damage the reactor, so they shut it off. Unfortunately, they could not open the control valves back up after the power went out.
The hydrogen in the reactors is actually generated by the zirconium fuel rod cladding reacting with steam. The reactor actually generates some hydrogen all the time, and there is a system to remove it. Which requires power to operate. So once the water level dropped to expose the fuel rods to steam, a hydrogen explosion was inevitable.
bbqroast on
This is kind of sad. Basically human error fucks somethings up and things go badly wrong, but then the media blows it out of proportion and people die over nothing :(.
Meanwhile across the world nuclear plants are being shut down because of it.
Having read the comments it sounds like:
– TEPCO shareholders need to be held accountable, more symbolic than anything.
– Worldwide governments need to work strictly with nuclear companies to develop rapid response teams (although from the look of things the Japanese sorted this out).
– There needs to be better knowledge of the plant available in a disaster.
Crash665 on
You should be Supreme Leader of the Internets for one year because of this post. Awesome!!
cactusetr420 on
is /u/mbox314 a public relations person for any certain industry you think?
hugoshtiglitz on
OP spouts the same shit Tepco and the Japanese government is saying without touching on many of the major problems regarding the cleanup effort, Reddit gives themselves a big clap on the back for another crisis dealt with. Just like that BP oil spill, that was like 4 years ago so it must be better by now, right? Fucking sheep.
zeebious on
I remember reading that the USS Ronald Regan had crew on the deck when it reportedly started “snowing.” They were even running around having snowball fights. Later they learned it was radioactive snow.
37 Comments
Nuclear lobby’s shills are all out on social media today.
This does not portray the radiation impact to fish, increased radiation along N.Am. coastlines, and more.
I agree that many people blow the impacts out of proportion, but there are also real impacts that are not being shown here, which is unethical
From #21
>In order to open the motor valves to vent pressure in the reactor containment and allow low pressure water to be injected workers ran out to their cars that had not been washed away, removed the batteries and hooked them up in series to power the DC motor operated valves.
I’d be really surprised if all of these guys had identical batteries in their cars, with identical cardboard boxes that fit them perfectly. Maybe the thing you said happened, but the picture you put with it is not of that thing happening.
The BWR2 through BWR6 plants are all generation 2 reactor designs. Not gen1.
Did anyone see the Vice HBO clip?
Vice made it seem way worse. I am tempted to believe Vice over some guy with 8 posts on Reddit.
Just out of curiosity what is your job position? I’m a PRA engineer that specializes in nuclear plants and I must say that you did quite a good job writing everything up. I just started in January but everything I’ve soaked up so far shows up in what you’ve produced. Awesome post man 🙂
It would be nice to have a comparison to Tsjernobyl as a follow up
cool.
Amazing work, great job teaching us all something new. Thank you
[deleted]
This is great. Here’s a link to an episode of The Moth (amazing story-telling podcast) where a man who was working inside that day tells his story. Prepare for feels: http://themoth.org/posts/stories/fog-of-disbelief
Very good job, sir. Nice to see some factual information about the situation rather than ignorance driven scaremongering and conspiratard bullshit like we usually get from redditors.
niffty
>1600 people have died trying to fleeing radiation that has killed no one.
This seems grossly unfair to me. It’s possible that a couple of people might have died from the increased cancer risk if they hadn’t been evacuated, and the evacuation *was* a legitimate response to fear of radiation, how do you think the headlines would have looked if they hadn’t evacuated and then there was a worse-than-expected release of radiation?
The Cancer calculation paper linked http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/78218/1/9789241505130_eng.pdf
estimates an increase in risk of ~6% for a couple of common cancers in the worst-affected areas, with a LAR for all solid cancers of .01 for a 1-year old in the worst hit zones.
Even if all 100,000 people evacuated were in this highest risk group that’s still only 1,000 cancers, but this is still psychologically scary stuff, and it’s unfair to dismiss that so flippantly.
I’m very pro-nuclear power, but lets not try and whitewash this completely.
As someone with more than 20 years of military and commercial nuclear power experience all I can say is God(s) /deity of your choice bless you for this post. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster the amount of misleading and wrong information published by the media just boggled my mind and made me so angry.
.
Where do you get all of your information and pictures OP? Is this your field of study? Perhaps you work in the industry? Not doubting, just curious.
Also, what makes it so that the reaction cannot be stopped? From my understanding, the fuel is undergoing an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. What before allowed us to control it that cannot be used now?
You had also mentioned that reactors 5 and 6 were shutdown and posed no threat of disaster. What makes the fuel in those reactors less threatening than the fuel in the ones that melted down?
While I have some doubts about the cleanliness of producing energy via nuclear plants, my biggest concerns are always:
1) what about the spent fuel? We don’t have a way to properly stock that for the amount of time required to make it harmless;
2) what about the human error? While earthquakes and tornados are scary events, the scariest thing is that humans are in charge of the security, and give it enough time and mistakes will begin to add up. See /u/Gmanacus comment [down here](http://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/27us6u/fukushima_in_detail/ci4y9fm).
I heard that there was some controversy at the time the plant was built about putting the generators in the basement.
I love it that the highest rated post ever on /r/energy now is an extremely informative, non fear mongering description of Fukushima.
I wish /r/science was as through as you.
Front page: “SCIENTISTS FIND CURE FOR VIRUS”
[Here’s the entire Vice segment about the Fukushima disaster (13:33) on Youtube.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAEvT_UdhNI) This is a respected news organization that is known for doing impressive investigative journalism, and they have done a piece about the Fukushima disaster. They interview multiple people who are qualified to talk about various aspects of the disaster, and things aren’t as hunky-dory as OP makes them out to be. Many of the claims made in OP’s post, especially regarding the cleanup efforts, seem to mirror those made by the Japanese government and Tepco.
I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan when this happened. It was around 11 in the morning when the ground had a slight 2 second rumble. We didn’t think much of it because small scale earthquakes were actually not unusual over there. My command was the first responders. This was a sad sad time in my life but I was proud to be part of the recovery.
Interesting gallery, but I think it’s definitely lacking in some details. I highly encourage folks to read Fukushima: The Story of a Natural Disaster, published this year by The Union of Concerned Scientists. It provides an incredibly readable moment by moment account of the series of events after the earthquake & tsunami, and at times it reads like a sad tragi-comedy of errors that could possibly have been prevented with better safety procedures. The reality is no one was prepared for the scenario that played out at Fukushima.
What the book really highlighted for me is the fact that it is possible that much of the chain-reaction of events that took place inside the plant could have been avoided if there were improved ‘worst case’ safety practices, and if the Regulatory bodies actually enforced safety regulation rather than continually working to decrease regulation requirements. The book also details some of the efforts that have taken place since 2011 to increase safety standards, as well as lobbying efforts to prevent the approved changes from actually improving anything.
Nuclear can be very safe, and there are a lot of safeguards against meltdown built into these plants, but could Nuclear be safer? Absolutely.
I find your album is very good with providing an overview of the general events that occurred in the first few days, but sort of glosses over the fact that there are still serious issues & safety failures ongoing with the cleanup efforts.
I agree there has been a lot of scaremongering, but I also think that the long term effects are not yet known, and we should be following the situation for a long time to come. The other side of the scaremongering is pretending everything is getting back to normal in Fukushima, and in reality there is a long road ahead before we can consider the dangers completely mitigated.
There are some great sites dedicated to tracking the ongoing situation in Fukushima as well as scientific efforts to track the effects of contaminated water in the Ocean, and on land.
Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/safety/fukushima-book.html
The Center for Marine & Environmental Radiation: http://ourradioactiveocean.org/
General Updates about the ongoing efforts at Fukushima:
http://fukushimaupdate.com/
Ongoing updates from inside Japan (a bit difficult to navigate, and does include some unconfirmed reports, etc, but still worth a read)
http://fukushima-diary.com/
What about the amount of contaminated water being pumped into the pacific everyday. TEPCO has constantly underestimated the extent of damages throughout the process and have admitted to the continued dumping of waste water for having no alternative. Further locals have been concerned about the quality of the storage sites/mechanism that are being created to address this issue. There has been speculation that the material the tanks have been created from are degrading faster then expected, leading to seepage of the waste water into surrounding ground water systems.
With how slow TEPCO has been to address the public during crucial moments of this incident it is hard to believe everything is as safe and sound as this post may imply.
You should put some pictures of the giant water tanks that are full of radioactive water they collected that are leaking into the ground outside fukushima.
I was on the Ronald Reagan during the fukushima disaster… If I find my photos I’ll post them. It was pretty heartbreaking to see little red rubber balls and the little plastic bicycles floating by.
That was a good read.
While reading this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_pqnsKWlpc#t=30
Thanks for this incredibly well-sourced explanation. Great work.
It was the MUTOs
A few technical nitpics:
The Fukushima Daini seawall was also too low, and as a result Fukushima Daini was also flooded to a similar extent as Fukushima Daiichi. Many important cooling systems were taken out of commision, as well as the plant losing most of its power and most of its generators. However, the reactors were newer models and enough systems were still functioning that the reactors were able to be shut down successfully.
The passive cooling system at Fukushima Daiichi was actually turned off after the reactor shut down because the reactor was cooling too quickly. The controllers did not want the rate of cooling to damage the reactor, so they shut it off. Unfortunately, they could not open the control valves back up after the power went out.
The hydrogen in the reactors is actually generated by the zirconium fuel rod cladding reacting with steam. The reactor actually generates some hydrogen all the time, and there is a system to remove it. Which requires power to operate. So once the water level dropped to expose the fuel rods to steam, a hydrogen explosion was inevitable.
This is kind of sad. Basically human error fucks somethings up and things go badly wrong, but then the media blows it out of proportion and people die over nothing :(.
Meanwhile across the world nuclear plants are being shut down because of it.
Having read the comments it sounds like:
– TEPCO shareholders need to be held accountable, more symbolic than anything.
– Worldwide governments need to work strictly with nuclear companies to develop rapid response teams (although from the look of things the Japanese sorted this out).
– There needs to be better knowledge of the plant available in a disaster.
You should be Supreme Leader of the Internets for one year because of this post. Awesome!!
is /u/mbox314 a public relations person for any certain industry you think?
OP spouts the same shit Tepco and the Japanese government is saying without touching on many of the major problems regarding the cleanup effort, Reddit gives themselves a big clap on the back for another crisis dealt with. Just like that BP oil spill, that was like 4 years ago so it must be better by now, right? Fucking sheep.
I remember reading that the USS Ronald Regan had crew on the deck when it reportedly started “snowing.” They were even running around having snowball fights. Later they learned it was radioactive snow.