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Fukushima: Tepco Faces 132 Olympic Pools of Radioactive Water (and it gets worst)

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Forgive my ignorance but why tepco can't send a robot in the nuclear plant , collect all the nuclear shit and then process the water ?
Robot technology, particularly Japanese robot tech , isn't advanced enough to handle the amount of radiation and lack the ability to safely navigate within the crippled reactor buildings. The other problem is that Japan refuses international aid. So we're stuck with the ham fisted work of tepco.
 

CTLance

Member
Forgive my ignorance but why tepco can't send a robot in the nuclear plant , collect all the nuclear shit and then process the water ?
Afterwards the robot would glow in the dark and be deadly to anything near it, and there's the problem that radioactivity erodes certain kinds of chips and plays havoc with others. Making a robot is already an immensely complicated task, but making one that can survive these conditions eclipses it by far in complexity. And then there's this.

Plus: There is so much irradiated shit there, and the building is a damaged heap of corroded material that probably won't take too kindly to a robot weighing a ton or more schlepping half a ton of debris through its insides.
 

Thaedolus

Member
Put this radioactive, heat-producing shit on a giant floating heat sink where it stays cooled without having to come into contact with (and thus contaminating) water.

Someone do this and pay me for the idea.
 

foxuzamaki

Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
for the life of me, I still dont know why we push for nuclear energy, time and time again they keep saying that theres basically little to no chance of an accident.....and then an accident happens....and this isnt even the 1st accident in history.
 
for the life of me, I still dont know why we push for nuclear energy, time and time again they keep saying that theres basically little to no chance of an accident.....and then an accident happens....and this isnt even the 1st accident in history.

I agree. hopefully this will be the start of banning nuclear powerplants entirely. Solar, wind and wave energy is the future
 

Flo_Evans

Member
OT but what is up with some people using "worst" in the wrong tense? Shouldn't it be "worse"?

Is this some American English thing like "maths"?
 

StayDead

Member
for the life of me, I still dont know why we push for nuclear energy, time and time again they keep saying that theres basically little to no chance of an accident.....and then an accident happens....and this isnt even the 1st accident in history.

The accidents are not the fault of the nuclear energy themselves.

Chernobyl was a freak explosion damaging the reactor, three mile island was caused by human error due to a terribly designed user interface and Fukushima was the work of a tsunami and poor precautions taken by TEPCO to upgrade all their defenses enough.

Nuclear energy is by far one of the safest forms of energy we have.
 
for the life of me, I still dont know why we push for nuclear energy, time and time again they keep saying that theres basically little to no chance of an accident.....and then an accident happens....and this isnt even the 1st accident in history.

Because it is cheaper, safer, and more viable in the immediate future.

Nuclear technology that we currently use are like 40 to 30 year old plants. It's incidents like this and people's fear that keeps us from progressing to better and safer plants.
 

shuri

Banned
I think its obvious that Japan has no idea wtf to do with all this. The international community has to get involved.
 

zma1013

Member
The accidents are not the fault of the nuclear energy themselves.

Chernobyl was a freak explosion damaging the reactor, three mile island was caused by human error due to a terribly designed user interface and Fukushima was the work of a tsunami and poor precautions taken by TEPCO to upgrade all their defenses enough.

Nuclear energy is by far one of the safest forms of energy we have.

Chernobyl wasn't a freak accident, it was the combination of a flaw in the reactor design and human error where they basically ignored some warnings signs.
 

StayDead

Member
Chernobyl wasn't a freak accident, it was the combination of a flaw in the reactor design and human error where they basically ignored some warnings signs.

I thought it was an uncontrollable explosion that caused the initial damage?

Either way it tails back to human error.
 

FStop7

Banned
for the life of me, I still dont know why we push for nuclear energy, time and time again they keep saying that theres basically little to no chance of an accident.....and then an accident happens....and this isnt even the 1st accident in history.

Were you here during the tsunami?

Every step of the way there was feverish denial from the pro-nuke people. "X can't happen. It's impossible. Stop overreacting." Then X happened and they shifted to "Y can't happen. It's impossible." All the way down the line.
 

iidesuyo

Member
Damn it, poor Japan. Besides the human suffering, this will cost them an insane amount of money over the years.

"Nuclear energy is clean and cheap" my ass.
 

Osiris

I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
It continues to get worse.

Tepco now reporting spikes up to 2200 millisieverts around the holding tanks, up from the previous high of 1800 millisieverts.

Ouch.
 

CTLance

Member
And the saga continues.

...

I have nothing against nuclear reactors per se. A modern, well-maintained plant staffed by educated, well paid, properly trained people and under constant surveillance of a competent independent watchdog is something I have no issue with despite the unsolved problem of waste disposal and the occasional accident. There are basically no real alternatives to this, at least in the short term.

However, if there is one thing we need to learn from this catastrophe is that national regulatory bodies and even their international counterparts are absolutely friggen useless.
Japan should not be able to reject international input at all. The mere notion is ridiculous. This should have been out of their hands the moment the first leak happened after the Tsunami. (This applies to all countries, USA, North Korea, Iran, China, whatever. The moment something happens that could affect the entirety of the human race on that scale is the moment imaginary lines in the sand cease to matter.)

It is clear now that the international community has its head stuck too far up its own arse to allow for this tech. Sucks, really. It's our own failing, not the fault of the tech itself.
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
The accidents are not the fault of the nuclear energy themselves.

Chernobyl was a freak explosion damaging the reactor, three mile island was caused by human error due to a terribly designed user interface and Fukushima was the work of a tsunami and poor precautions taken by TEPCO to upgrade all their defenses enough.

Nuclear energy is by far one of the safest forms of energy we have.

All systems can fail. Nuclear power plant failure has a cost which is much too high.

That's just the failing issue. Then, even when it works perfectly fine, it generates HIGHLY dangerous waste with which we will have difficulty securing for an extremely long time.

And declassifying a nuclear power plant takes DECADES.

Nuclear energy is not for 21st century humans (let alone 20th).

Oh here is some cute information:

http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm

Number of reactors in operation, worldwide as of 18 January 2013
num-of-reactors-ww-180113.gif


Number of reactors under construction, 2013-01-18
npp-under-construction-180113.gif


Vermont just announced they were decommissioning their one nuclear power plant.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyl...plant-close/JTX64k3YjBz7yrJnI40bVM/story.html

How long will it take to do that?

The company has two years from the date the reactor shuts down, expected in the final three months of 2014, to deliver a decommissioning plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Entergy will have 60 years to dismantle buildings, drain reactor pools, and contain spent fuel in cylinders reinforced with steel and concrete.

Pff earthquakes. Pffff tsunamis. Pffffff terrorists. Pfffffffff age. Pffffffffffffffffffft greed. Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft meteors. Nothing to see here, all will be fine. It doesn't affect us, it won't affect us, and if it affects anyone, surely it will only be people in some other country.
 
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