Huge blast at Japan nuclear power plant

[Alyxx Thorne]

I have been watching news most of the day, and they state (Not sure if we can believe it.) that Radiation levels are going down, and things appear to be mostly under control.

Let's hope that's true then...

[Waldo_II]

Anyone who thinks that this will resemble Chernobyl in any way is completely uninformed and does not understand the modern nuclear power industry in any way.

 

Nuclear reactors are built with a hundred different mechanisms to prevent a disaster. It is probably the most watched and regulated industry in the world. Hell, each reactor is encased in a huge, impenetrable shield many feet thick of concrete and steel. The article mentions a breach of the concrete layer, but admits that the steel layer has not shown any sign of failure.

 

If anybody starts crying "Chernobyl," don't listen to them unless they themselves are either nuclear inspectors or nuclear power agents.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Anyone who thinks that this will resemble Chernobyl in any way is completely uninformed and does not understand the modern nuclear power industry in any way.

 

Nuclear reactors are built with a hundred different mechanisms to prevent a disaster. It is probably the most watched and regulated industry in the world. Hell, each reactor is encased in a huge, impenetrable shield many feet thick of concrete and steel. The article mentions a breach of the concrete layer, but admits that the steel layer has not shown any sign of failure.

 

If anybody starts crying "Chernobyl," don't listen to them unless they themselves are either nuclear inspectors or nuclear power agents.

So true. It's important to remember that.

[Bjossi]

Prepare... for unforeseen consequences.

[BTGBullseye]

Anyone who thinks that this will resemble Chernobyl in any way is completely uninformed and does not understand the modern nuclear power industry in any way.

 

Nuclear reactors are built with a hundred different mechanisms to prevent a disaster. It is probably the most watched and regulated industry in the world. Hell, each reactor is encased in a huge, impenetrable shield many feet thick of concrete and steel. The article mentions a breach of the concrete layer, but admits that the steel layer has not shown any sign of failure.

 

If anybody starts crying "Chernobyl," don't listen to them unless they themselves are either nuclear inspectors or nuclear power agents.

+rep

 

Never believe conspiracy or disaster theories, they just drag you down, and are rarely if ever true.

[Kirkreng]

Prepare... for unforeseen consequences.

Ba-Dum-TSCH!

[Alyxx Thorne]

Prepare... for unforeseen consequences.

You just had to, didn't you? XD

[Bjossi]

I'm the B-Man.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I'm the B-Man.

G-Man's lesser known and lesser evil brother?

[Bjossi]

If by lesser you mean more, then yes.

[Alyxx Thorne]

If by lesser you mean more, then yes.

That's... a huge contradiction. Like Obama.

[Doom Shepherd]

Personal outlandish opinion:

We should build nuclear power plants in geosynchronous orbital space instead of on earth, transmitting resultant power down to earth via laser uplink (real upcoming tech) , and disposing of nuclear materials by jettisoning them from the plants into the sun. The risk of fallout disaster would of course be limited to downed orbiters, and they could be built with disposal fail safes to prevent this.

 

We've already launched a number of small nuclear reactors into space. The US has done so without incident, although the USSR lost one or two back iin the day.

 

The space probes Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, New Horizons, Viking, and so forth, were all powered by Plutonium Radioisope Thermoelectric Generators.

 

They test the containers these things are made out of by crashing speeding locomotives into them. They're pretty secure.

[Nueemann]

Ok, so we've established the plant isn't going to blow up.

 

So unless you live in a country that leads the world in Uranium mining, stop worrying you'll wake up with an extra arm tomorrow.

 

I, however, don't have such comfort.

[Waldo_II]

Raw Uranium out of the ground is not particularly dangerous. Only if it enters your body. Miners wear masks and have to worry about cuts, but I'd be surprised if you saw someone mining with a straight-up radiation suit.

[Lord Sinister]

Reactor 1 seems to be fine, but apparently another reactor is overheating and radiation levels are rising. Apparently they have been pumping sea water through it in an attempt to cool it down. The exclusion zone has been widened to 20km, and people are still being evacuated.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12724953

[jumpyed]

Ok, so we've established the plant isn't going to blow up.

 

So unless you live in a country that leads the world in Uranium mining, stop worrying you'll wake up with an extra arm tomorrow.

 

I, however, don't have such comfort.

 

I would like to also point out that you and I live in countries where the average population per square KM is like, low.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Countries_by_population_density.svg

[Razor235]

I get the feeling such fail safes would be more foolproof than that.

 

Those who try to make everything foolproof underestimate the ingenuity of fools.