Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004
I just link to whatever the latest report from Hawaii's HHS is. They are on the watch for radiation too.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

redreader
Nov 2, 2009

I am the coolest person ever with my pirate chalice. Seriously.

Dinosaur Gum

GrumpyDoctor posted:

I heard this guy talk last week, and no, the Pacific Ocean is not a radioactive wasteland.

e: The talk was some pro trolling because it was entitled "Japan's Ongoing Nuclear Nightmare" and the first opening remark from the panel moderator was "We titled the talk this way because a nightmare is really terrifying and also not real."

Thank you for that!

Solkanar512
Dec 28, 2006

by the sex ghost

Arghy posted:

I get to listen to fukushima crap all day long and when i try to challenge what their saying they put their hands on their ears and scream LALALLALALA. Its motivating me to try to become a physicist so i can spend my days smashing their arguments all day long.

Joke's on you buddy, they'll just call you a shill, refuse to read any of your sources and then post links from Natural News.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

hobbesmaster posted:

If the California coast was being bathed in radiation anyone with a geiger counter could find out. In Japan after the disaster nobody trusted tepco or the gov't so everyone went off private geiger counters. Its not like the amount of radiation is some big secret that only some random conspiracy bloggers would report on.

Then again some of these people are sufficiently loony as to demand that TRIGA research reactors be shutdown. :psyduck:

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.
Well I don't see the problem, shutting down a TRIGA is pretty easy..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyN2E75VGw4

raminasi
Jan 25, 2005

a last drink with no ice

Phanatic posted:

Well I don't see the problem, shutting down a TRIGA is pretty easy..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyN2E75VGw4

Can we get a layman's summary of what's going on here?

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

GrumpyDoctor posted:

Can we get a layman's summary of what's going on here?

Sure. It's a little research reactor that's passively safe. There's a single control rod, and if you pull it out all the way the power level will go way up, from about a dozen watts when the reactor is merely critical to a few hundred megawatts when it goes supercritical because you just pulled the single control rod all the way out.

Which means it heats up, and since it heats up it expands. And because it expands it's no longer in a geometry that supports a chain reaction, the distance between fuel atoms has increased enough that neutrons flying out of fission reactions aren't able to reach another fuel atom to keep the reaction going. So the reaction stops, the reactor basically shuts itself down. That process takes about 30 milliseconds, which means that the reactor puts out about 10 whole joules during that power spike.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

Arghy posted:

I get to listen to fukushima crap all day long and when i try to challenge what their saying they put their hands on their ears and scream LALALLALALA. Its motivating me to try to become a physicist so i can spend my days smashing their arguments all day long.

As a PhD-holding physicist, I can confirm that the people you argue with won't give a poo poo about your degree, your intelligence, or your facts.

Arghy
Nov 15, 2012

I've always found that just explaining what radiation is and comparing it to light and heat causes people to mentally shut down and change the subject haha. I'd love to have in depth knowledge rather then just scratching the surface like i do now so i could enthusiastically go into lectures with confidence rather then giving a very broad definition.

I also love pointing out that whenever physics are involved we should be consulting no one but the physicists since you know, they know what the gently caress their talking about. Literally every single question about the situation at fukushima should have been addressed and answered through knowledgeable individuals--can you explain radiation in depth? no then you dont get to make predictions about it. No matter what alex jones says scientists aren't banded together in a world wide conspiracy--they will gladly explain to you whats going on.

Rent-A-Cop
Oct 15, 2004

I posted my food for USPOL Thanksgiving!

Arghy posted:

they will gladly explain to you whats going on.
At great length.

In fact most would be thrilled that another human has showed interest in whatever incredibly esoteric subject they study.

WarpedNaba
Feb 8, 2012

Being social makes me swell!
Which, to be fair, always tends to be very interesting. Help them out by summarising what they've said in laymans terms. They get the thrill of knowing they educated someone and a useful format for further explanations.

raminasi
Jan 25, 2005

a last drink with no ice

Phanatic posted:

Sure. It's a little research reactor that's passively safe. There's a single control rod, and if you pull it out all the way the power level will go way up, from about a dozen watts when the reactor is merely critical to a few hundred megawatts when it goes supercritical because you just pulled the single control rod all the way out.

Which means it heats up, and since it heats up it expands. And because it expands it's no longer in a geometry that supports a chain reaction, the distance between fuel atoms has increased enough that neutrons flying out of fission reactions aren't able to reach another fuel atom to keep the reaction going. So the reaction stops, the reactor basically shuts itself down. That process takes about 30 milliseconds, which means that the reactor puts out about 10 whole joules during that power spike.

What is it about this design that makes it unsuitable for non-research reactors?

Deleuzionist
Jul 20, 2010

we respect the antelope; for the antelope is not a mere antelope

Office Thug posted:

I'd like to improve my knowledge on fracking, especially with the advent of recent protests in my own province about the subject and more extreme views on the subject such as gasland and fracknation have been thrown around a lot. Could anyone point me to some reading material or references on the subject? I found this study published last year to be very good when it comes to the local concerns and dilemmas with Fracking in New Brunswick, Canada (http://www.unb.ca/initiatives/shalegas/shalegas.pdf) but I'd love to have more information on the subject since it's becoming a bit of a phenomenon in many other places around the globe.
Check out Propublica's reporting on the matter. http://www.propublica.org/series/fracking

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

GrumpyDoctor posted:

What is it about this design that makes it unsuitable for non-research reactors?

It's very small.

There are larger reactor designs that incorporate passive safety.

GulMadred
Oct 20, 2005

I don't understand how you can be so mistaken.

GrumpyDoctor posted:

What is it about this design that makes it unsuitable for non-research reactors?
For starters, it's in a pool. The whole point of a conventional power reactor is that you immerse the core in a relatively small volume of coolant (typically water, although you can also use various salts or molten metals or even gases if you enjoy dealing with crazy engineering challenges) and then circulate it (this is referred to as the primary loop). The primary loop will reject heat into a secondary loop, whose working fluid (typically water) will spin a turbine and generate electricity. If you're designing a reactor for a warship, then you might stick a turbine right into the primary loop and remove the secondary loop altogether - you'll get some contamination and/or damage to the turbine (and maintenance will be more tricky), but the overall package becomes much more compact (and you'll have fewer moving parts to worry about).

You remember the crazy video that you just saw with the TRIGA, wherein they ramped it up to 160% supercritical within 30ms? You wouldn't want to do that with a conventional reactor. Pool reactors have few moving parts; conventional reactors have (for example) coolant pumps which must keep pace with activity in the core (and which certainly cannot ramp up within 30ms).

The TRIGA reactor is passively safe because as it heats up, its reaction rate slows down. In the video, you see a momentary flash (as the reactors hits 340MW output) but it cannot sustain such output - thermal expansion forces its fuel elements away from their optimal configuration. TRIGA cannot boil its coolant water, even at ~2 atmospheres of pressure. A conventional reactor must be able to boil water even at hundreds of atmospheres of pressure (the boiling water is continuously circulated away, so that we can ultimately spin a turbine and generate electricity).

If we could somehow "magic away" the negative thermal coefficient, kludge the TRIGA core into a pressure vessel, and give it a coolant loop with proper circulation, we'd run into a new problem - the uranium zirconium hydride fuel used in TRIGA reactors will actually melt before it reached the operational temperature of a conventional BWR. The efficiency of a heat engine depends on the magnitude of the temperature difference, which means that you want your core to run as hot as possible (within the bounds of safety and engineering tolerances, of course). A hypothetical TRIGA reactor (again, ignoring the negative thermal coefficient) which was scaled up so that it generated exactly as much core heat as a conventional reactor, would produce perhaps 60% as much useful electricity.

This doesn't mean that pool/research reactors are useless; they can serve as a neutron source for the creation of medical radioisotopes. And they can help to train new generations of scientists. And they generate Cherenkov glow, which everyone agrees is pretty :hellyeah:.

Office Thug
Jan 17, 2008

Luke Cage just shut you down!

Deleuzionist posted:

Check out Propublica's reporting on the matter. http://www.propublica.org/series/fracking

Thanks for this! There's a tonne of useful information in here and it was pretty much what I was looking for.

GulMadred posted:

This doesn't mean that pool/research reactors are useless; they can serve as a neutron source for the creation of medical radioisotopes. And they can help to train new generations of scientists. And they generate Cherenkov glow, which everyone agrees is pretty :hellyeah:.

TRIGA reactors could also produce Plutonium 238 "cheaply" (http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2012/02/01/11193/). Plutonium 238 is basically a requirement for sending probes beyond the asteroid belt and for powering bigger mission packages like the massive Curiosity rover: http://www.npr.org/2011/11/08/141931325/the-plutonium-problem-who-pays-for-space-fuel

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007
FEEL FREE TO DISREGARD THIS POST

It is guaranteed to be lazy, ignorant, and/or uninformed.
Is there a resource that's really good on explaining the possible ways to harness the oceans energy through tide and the under water currents that exist, I understand that there has been some progress made in that area but I wanted to read more about it.

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Hollis posted:

Is there a resource that's really good on explaining the possible ways to harness the oceans energy through tide and the under water currents that exist, I understand that there has been some progress made in that area but I wanted to read more about it.

I don't actually have resources to link to you here, but there have also been proposals to harness the temperature differential between surface water and deeper water in the ocean. No idea how well it would work or what effects it would have on those ecoystems, but I know it exists.

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007
FEEL FREE TO DISREGARD THIS POST

It is guaranteed to be lazy, ignorant, and/or uninformed.
Yeah I was just looking for something more in depth than Wikipedia and the few brief articles I've found. I'm more interested in the artificial underwater dams.

Arghy
Nov 15, 2012

Hahaha man awesome video here also michio kaku should be loving shot with a gun by science for selling out. Jesus its like someone made a video about lies and misconceptions then slapped it all together.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=040_1384817880

*hahahahahha several QUADRILLION BEQUELS OF RADIOACTIVITY! please explain what this number is announcer lady since you seem to be such an expert!

Arghy fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Nov 19, 2013

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

QuarkJets posted:

As a PhD-holding physicist, I can confirm that the people you argue with won't give a poo poo about your degree, your intelligence, or your facts.

It is hilarious(ly sad) to see alleged scientists/science advocates/generally intelligent people just switch off their brain when it comes to nukyular power. As in, unironically saying that "how people die" is what counts after flat out admitting that nuclear power results in less deaths in some cases.

I guess getting cancer from toxic waste as opposed to radiation is somehow less bad :shrug:

e:

Arghy posted:

Hahaha man awesome video here also michio kaku should be loving shot with a gun by science for selling out. Jesus its like someone made a video about lies and misconceptions then slapped it all together.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=040_1384817880

*hahahahahha several QUADRILLION BEQUELS OF RADIOACTIVITY! please explain what this number is announcer lady since you seem to be such an expert!

Liveleak :lol:

Liveleak is sturgeon's_law.avi, for any interesting video leak there is a bucketload of "leaks" of generally available videos about complete non-issues or :tinfoil: crap.

suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Dec 8, 2013

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!
double post.

Bucky Fullminster
Apr 13, 2007

Arghy posted:

Hahaha man awesome video here also michio kaku should be loving shot with a gun by science for selling out. Jesus its like someone made a video about lies and misconceptions then slapped it all together.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=040_1384817880

*hahahahahha several QUADRILLION BEQUELS OF RADIOACTIVITY! please explain what this number is announcer lady since you seem to be such an expert!

Ok so conspiracy-esque production values aside, would anyone care to address any of the points raised by the video, or are you comfortable with just sarcasm and calls for homicide? I mean unless your position is that it is literally completely fine with absolutely nothing to worry about, there are some issues at hand. Here are some of the points raised which you night be able to address:

Is there a danger that we will see lung cancer and leukaemia in 2-5 years? Or other cancers 16-17 years? Does cancer take a while to develop after inhaling radioactive elements?

Is this scenario contained in any nuclear engineering books? Or are they in uncharted territory, making it up as they go along?

But perhaps most importantly, these tanks. How much water do they hold, and how much is added every day? Were they hastily built, are they bolted not welded, are they sealed with rubber? Are we comfortable with that? Was there a leak detected? What happens if they burst?

What happens if there is another earthquake?

How much water is seeping through the site, is any of it contaminated, what are the effects?

And lastly, the 1500 fuel rods in the storage pool. What's the plan here? Do they stay there or come out? If those rods are exposed to the air, what happens? Would they burn, how bad would it be? What if they touch each other?

This isn't an indictment of nuclear power in general, I think it's got an important role to play in a future energy mix. These are questions about this specific situation. The video might be overstating it, but since you responded to literally none of it, it's hard to know.


This is particularly pertinent given a recent incident in Australia:

quote:

Radioactive acid spill at ERA Ranger mine in Kakadu

THERE has been a major radioactive incident at a mine site inside Kakadu National Park overnight, with about a million litres of acid believed spilled, workers evacuated and production shut down.

A leaching tank containing the contaminated slurry burst at about 1am this morning, apparently with such force that it bent a crane and other infrastructure nearby at the Ranger mine.

Justin O'Brien, CEO of Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation representing the site's traditional owners, said the acid had contaminated a large area of the work site, overtopped a low bund and entered a storm drain.

"A million litres of radioactive acid burst out of a tank at such a velocity that it damaged all the infrastructure nearby," he said.

"We are advised that the spill will make that part of the mine, which is the heart of the operation, inoperable for at least a month or two."

The Ranger mine's operator, Energy Resources of Australia, confirmed the tank failure.


"Upon discovery of a hole in the side of the tank, personnel were removed from the nearby area before the tank failed and a mixture of slurry escaped," ERA said in a statement.

"The slurry moved outside the bunded containment area, but has been captured and contained on site. As the material was contained within the processing area there is no impact on the environment surrounding the Ranger Project Area."

A spokeswoman said workers had been evacuated and production shut down, but was unable to confirm how much material had spilled or what damage had been done. There had been no injuries.

Mr O'Brien said a jet of fluid had been discovered spraying from the side of the leaching tank at around 12.30am this morning. He said workers were trying to use a crane to lower a piece of steel to stop the flow when the initial hole expanded and another developed.

"The 10 to 20 people who were working on it were asked to evacuate," he said.

"Thank god they did, because the whole thing burst apart with such velocity that it bent all the metal walkways around about, damaged the bund, bent the crane and smashed the windscreen of the crane."

The incident could not have come at worse time for ERA, which recently ceased open-cut mining and is now seeking approval to develop its newly discovered Ranger 3 Deeps deposit underground.

The Ranger 3 Deeps resource is believed to be one of the world's best underdeveloped uranium deposits, containing around 10 million tonnes of ore that is expected to yield 34,000 tonnes of uranium oxide.

The federal government is presently considering whether to grant ERA approval for a new underground mine.

Traditional owners have so far maintained an "open mind" on the proposal, but Mr O'Brien said two breaches of the company's radiation plan and now a major radioactive spill in under a year was undermining that goodwill.

"That openness is diminished day by day, incident by incident," he said.

The ERA site is separate from but entirely within World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. Mr O'Brien said that with the heaviest rains of the wet season approaching, traditional owners feared the radioactive acid could be washed downstream.

The site is close to the Magita Creek, which is now flowing, and about 7km upstream from the Aboriginal community of Mudgunberri where about 60 people live.

"We understand the spill entered a stormwater drain. We have been advised that it went no further, and has been contained within that part of the stormwater drain. Well, let's see," he said.

He described the mine as a "hillbilly operation", and demanded the federal government seek advice outside Australia before making a decision on whether to approve the Ranger 3 Deeps underground development.

A spokeswoman for ERA, which is majority owned by mining giant Rio Tinto, promised further updates later in the day.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/radioactive-acid-spill-at-era-ranger-mine-in-kakadu/story-e6frg9df-1226777706547



Oh and a becquerel (symbol Bq) is the SI-derived unit of radioactivity. One Bq is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. The Bq unit is therefore equivalent to an inverse second, s−1. The becquerel is named after Henri Becquerel, who shared a Nobel Prize with Pierre and Marie Curie in 1903 for their work in discovering radioactivity. (from wiki).

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

The Bq is not the unit we're interested in however as it's not a unit of exposure. The entire thing is jibberish.

Bucky Fullminster
Apr 13, 2007

hobbesmaster posted:

The Bq is not the unit we're interested in however as it's not a unit of exposure. The entire thing is jibberish.

I don't get the Bq thing anyway.. it's just 'per second'? Beats me.

Anyway thanks for answering all those questions.

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Hobo Erotica posted:

I don't get the Bq thing anyway.. it's just 'per second'? Beats me.

Anyway thanks for answering all those questions.

It is a unit of how radioactive a given sample is, in terms in nuclei decaying per second. Nuclei isn't a divisible unit, its just a count so they leave it out.

Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010

If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

Hobo Erotica posted:

This is particularly pertinent given a recent incident in Australia:


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/radioactive-acid-spill-at-era-ranger-mine-in-kakadu/story-e6frg9df-1226777706547



Oh and a becquerel (symbol Bq) is the SI-derived unit of radioactivity. One Bq is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. The Bq unit is therefore equivalent to an inverse second, s−1. The becquerel is named after Henri Becquerel, who shared a Nobel Prize with Pierre and Marie Curie in 1903 for their work in discovering radioactivity. (from wiki).

Oh cool, an incident in uranium mining/processing that actually does approach the hilarious horribleness of coal mining/processing. Because uranium power was so easy to sell to the public before.

Pander
Oct 9, 2007

Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.



Hobo Erotica posted:

I don't get the Bq thing anyway.. it's just 'per second'? Beats me.

Anyway thanks for answering all those questions.

As Jeffrey said, in absolute terms a Bq tells you roughly how many atoms within a sample undergo nuclear decay of some sort per second.

It is essentially worthless outside of specific nuclear calculations. It doesn't tell you how dangerous a source of radiation is. It doesn't tell you what kind of radiation it emits. It doesn't tell you what is lost or created. It doesn't specify energy release.

All it does it count the atoms that undergo decay. It is impossible to know from context how important a release should be by Bq. 10^15 Bq from a very small source is very dangerous. 10^15 Bq over a water tank spill that spills into a water source is essentially meaningless.

Radiation is rather complex to judge in terms of all but short-term effects for highly potent non-alpha emitters. After Chernobyl estimates of cancer rates across eastern Europe varied wildly, and it's been demonstrated in practice that there's been very little, if any, effect from the disaster. Long term effects are completely bewildering, and it's possible that ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) may be a flawed concept.

The spill sucks, and I don't want to sound like the pro-nuclear whore that I am, but I'd wager that acid is going to do more harm than radiation unless there's (for whatever insane reason) a whole lot of concentrated tails of radioactive ore lying in the way of the acidic water. I can't see the article due to paywall, so if there's anything more than what you posted I lost it. Without specifics, I'm not too sure about what that acid's been through. In light water reactors, boric acid is used in nuke plants to provide reactivity control. The borated water in the core IS radioactive. But it's not nearly radioactive on the level of the core itself. Calling it a "radioactive leak" brings to mind nuclear bombs or waste, but it's really mostly tritium or other particles likely diluted enough to be considered minor.

In short, the toxicity of uranium is a far larger worry than the radiactive part. It's true for a lot of nuclear applications. The general public's fear of invisible radiation outweighs the more realistic dangers in most situations.

Getting back to the mine, it's awful poo poo and that company sounds like it could use some serious oversight/fines. Realistically, all power requires environmentally damaging mining for installation and maintenance at the very least (and for coal/oil, burning on a far larger scale than nuclear). It'd be nice if it could be done without fuckups like that.

Bucky Fullminster
Apr 13, 2007

Pander posted:

As Jeffrey said, in absolute terms a Bq tells you roughly how many atoms within a sample undergo nuclear decay of some sort per second.

It is essentially worthless outside of specific nuclear calculations. It doesn't tell you how dangerous a source of radiation is. It doesn't tell you what kind of radiation it emits. It doesn't tell you what is lost or created. It doesn't specify energy release.

All it does it count the atoms that undergo decay. It is impossible to know from context how important a release should be by Bq. 10^15 Bq from a very small source is very dangerous. 10^15 Bq over a water tank spill that spills into a water source is essentially meaningless.

Radiation is rather complex to judge in terms of all but short-term effects for highly potent non-alpha emitters. After Chernobyl estimates of cancer rates across eastern Europe varied wildly, and it's been demonstrated in practice that there's been very little, if any, effect from the disaster. Long term effects are completely bewildering, and it's possible that ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) may be a flawed concept.

The spill sucks, and I don't want to sound like the pro-nuclear whore that I am, but I'd wager that acid is going to do more harm than radiation unless there's (for whatever insane reason) a whole lot of concentrated tails of radioactive ore lying in the way of the acidic water. I can't see the article due to paywall, so if there's anything more than what you posted I lost it. Without specifics, I'm not too sure about what that acid's been through. In light water reactors, boric acid is used in nuke plants to provide reactivity control. The borated water in the core IS radioactive. But it's not nearly radioactive on the level of the core itself. Calling it a "radioactive leak" brings to mind nuclear bombs or waste, but it's really mostly tritium or other particles likely diluted enough to be considered minor.

In short, the toxicity of uranium is a far larger worry than the radiactive part. It's true for a lot of nuclear applications. The general public's fear of invisible radiation outweighs the more realistic dangers in most situations.

Getting back to the mine, it's awful poo poo and that company sounds like it could use some serious oversight/fines. Realistically, all power requires environmentally damaging mining for installation and maintenance at the very least (and for coal/oil, burning on a far larger scale than nuclear). It'd be nice if it could be done without fuckups like that.

Thanks, Bq kind of makes sense now. So in the context of how it originally came up, which was the TV lady in the video talking about several quadrillion Bq (in the barrels/tanks?) - is that appropriate or not? (The sound has stopped working on this computer so I don't have the exact quote, sorry, I think it's around the 4:50 mark). But we're getting a fair way off track here, I was more interested in the rest of it.

And yeah that's all there was to the article I posted, if you google it you'll find a bunch of others though. Interestingly, the one I posted was from a fairly right-wing paper, notorious for their 'anti green' stance, and even they didn't really down play it. But the point was more to show that these sorts of accidents do happen to holding tanks, even in tectonically stable areas, and I was trying to get an indication of the sort of risk we're looking at in Japan.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

Arghy posted:

Hahaha man awesome video here also michio kaku should be loving shot with a gun by science for selling out. Jesus its like someone made a video about lies and misconceptions then slapped it all together.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=040_1384817880

*hahahahahha several QUADRILLION BEQUELS OF RADIOACTIVITY! please explain what this number is announcer lady since you seem to be such an expert!

Its like the number one alarm for bullshit facts: Excessively large numbers and fear mongering? Yep, its bullshit.

Phanatic posted:

Well I don't see the problem, shutting down a TRIGA is pretty easy..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyN2E75VGw4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_Radiation

:allears: I love nuclear reactors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgNwtepP-6M

UT Austin's NETL Reactor.

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Dec 10, 2013

Neurotic Nurse
Dec 7, 2013

Hobo Erotica posted:

Oh and a becquerel (symbol Bq) is the SI-derived unit of radioactivity. One Bq is defined as the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. The Bq unit is therefore equivalent to an inverse second, s−1. The becquerel is named after Henri Becquerel, who shared a Nobel Prize with Pierre and Marie Curie in 1903 for their work in discovering radioactivity. (from wiki).


What do all the nuclear antis like Helen Caldicott, the author of this article and the Australian Greens have in common? I mean, apart from the fact that none of them have any qualifications as physicists or epidemiologists? But that's not it It is that they dont base their conclusions off facts, figures and observations, but their own opinions.

For starters, the figure for exposure should be in Sieverts or more correctly Millisieverts.


Hobo Erotica posted:

And yeah that's all there was to the article I posted, if you google it you'll find a bunch of others though. Interestingly, the one I posted was from a fairly right-wing paper, notorious for their 'anti green' stance, and even they didn't really down play it. But the point was more to show that these sorts of accidents do happen to holding tanks, even in tectonically stable areas, and I was trying to get an indication of the sort of risk we're looking at in Japan.

The Australian is hardly a bastion of veracity when it comes to science, left or right. If you want to find this figure out, you could search the epidemiological studies on Medline, or you could read a report compiled by the World Health Organisation, which is the authority figure on this one. The number of people who have died thus far in Japan is absolutely zero. The figure likely to die from this one is around the 4000 mark, which is what Coal Ikills daily around the world.

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/78218/1/9789241505130_eng.pdf

Neurotic Nurse fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Dec 10, 2013

Neurotic Nurse
Dec 7, 2013
If anyone is that shitscared about radiation, and nuclear waste storage, how the gently caress do they not have a nervous breakdown every time they walk into their dentists office, or their hospital, or when they step upon a Boeing 747 to their holiday destination of choice?

This topic is like climate change. The science on nuclear power is settled, consensus is that it is the safest, cheapest, and greenest baseload power around responsible for less deaths than any other form of energy. Its obvious looking at the two sides, the pro-nuclear side resorts to thousands of peer reviewed studies in hundreds of peer reviewed journals across dozens of fields of science, real world economic examples and conditions, and economic and environmental arguments based on historic precedent.

while the anti-nuclear crowd, resorts to bullshit anecdotal stories, what if questions about Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima, all of which they never bother to even try to answer and all of which have already been comprehensively answered, and more than that, the feel-good assumption that Solar Thermal, despite never being tested on scale anywhere has the capacity to meet demand efficiently.

Neurotic Nurse
Dec 7, 2013

Arghy posted:

I get to listen to fukushima crap all day long and when i try to challenge what their saying they put their hands on their ears and scream LALALLALALA. Its motivating me to try to become a physicist so i can spend my days smashing their arguments all day long.

In science, we don't give a gently caress who you are, or what your background really is. The most stupid little kid was right when he pointed out the emperor was naked. What we care about is why you believe what you believe in, and what what you believe in is based upon. A 13 year old girl once arse-ended a nursing community endorsed practice with absolutely no qualifications in the field of nursing, but a very solid argument. You don't need to be a physicist to argue about the facts. Of course, this is all dependent on your facts being correct, and that you have based it from observations and evidence which others can then verify and reach the same conclusions. For starters, you're quoting natural news as a source of facts? WTF?!!! Do you wonder why those scientists put thier hands on their ears and scream lalalalala?

By all means, please do become a physicist, you may actually learn what evidence actually is, and the veracity in difference between quoting sources from the World Health Organisation, Medline and the Joanna Briggs Institute versus quoting sources like naturalnews and shills which use scarewords form liveleak.com. If not, you'll be a stellar example of why expert opinion counts for poo poo in science, and why people who use it as a sole source of evidence are laughed at by everybody.

Arghy
Nov 15, 2012

I most just want to be able to explain just what happens in confidence since even i'm still hazy about what exactly emits radiation in places like fukushima. I atleast try to avoid talking out my rear end constantly and openly admit things i dont know.

Why is the water radioactive for example? they say their releasing tons of contaminated water but i dont know why that water is contaminated--did the core breach releasing fission products or is it stuff from the spent fuel rods? Just what exactly is a fission byproduct? i watched those 10 hour long lectures and i still cant say with confidence just what exactly is emitting radiation in the water. I was under the assumption that it was cesium and another element which was emitting radiation which was the byproduct of the fissioning spent fuel rods.

Any idiot can realize that any contaminated water is getting diluted to hell and poses no threat but just why the water is radioactive in the first place is a good question.

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Arghy posted:

I most just want to be able to explain just what happens in confidence since even i'm still hazy about what exactly emits radiation in places like fukushima. I atleast try to avoid talking out my rear end constantly and openly admit things i dont know.

Why is the water radioactive for example? they say their releasing tons of contaminated water but i dont know why that water is contaminated--did the core breach releasing fission products or is it stuff from the spent fuel rods? Just what exactly is a fission byproduct? i watched those 10 hour long lectures and i still cant say with confidence just what exactly is emitting radiation in the water. I was under the assumption that it was cesium and another element which was emitting radiation which was the byproduct of the fissioning spent fuel rods.

Any idiot can realize that any contaminated water is getting diluted to hell and poses no threat but just why the water is radioactive in the first place is a good question.

This article should answer most of your questions regarding the source of the contaminated water and its relatively minor risks to the public at large:

The Atlantic posted:

This makeshift cooling system is a conceptually simple cycle. Water is constantly pumped to the stricken reactor vessels containing the damaged fuel. Because the integrity of internal various containment units was compromised, the water not only becomes contaminated by its pass over the damaged core but also finds its way into the buildings’ basements. The water is then pumped back out of the building, processed, and pumped through the building again.

In practice, however, the system is not a neat, closed cycle; and it is here that major problems begin to appear. The entire site bristles with conduits, tunnels, and trenches, which, unfortunately, allow some of the untainted groundwater on its way to the sea to leak into these basements. This net inflow of about 400 tons of water per day, amounting to the carrying capacity of about 13 large gasoline trucks, adds continuously to the volume of contaminated water that must be processed and contained. The solution so far has been to keep building more storage tanks and reservoirs on site.

Uphill of the stricken reactors is land covered with almost 1,000 of these water storage units. After two and a half years, they already hold enough water to fill 120 Olympic-size swimming pools, and their burden continues to grow. This colossal effort is unsustainable. Not surprisingly, leaks have begun to appear.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/how-fukushima-is-contaminating-more-water/280671/

You might also find it helpful to check out a brief summary of nuclear plant functionality. It's simple (it's from the classic nuclear fearfest The China Syndrome but it helps to visualize the problem - a ruptured core filled with fuel assemblies (assemblies are made of control rods and fuel rods that are made of pellets) is being cooled by water that is then being treated and cycled through again. But there's extra water draining into the plant, which means they are having to store it in massive ad hoc water tanks (that are then leaking out of the plant and into the ocean):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIxzVkS4Hrg

Hobo Erotica posted:

Here are some of the points raised which you might be able to address: :words:

The problem here is that this is a negative argument by exhaustion. Each of these prompts could easily take 500-1000 words to fully respond to, and most of them could be answered quite easily with just a little bit of research and familiarization. Identifying concerns is fine, but a good journalist should also be trying to seek out the truth. Instead, that video skips from clip to clip making unsupported assertions and "raising questions" that it has no interest in resolving. It's an anonymous source that is too unreliable to use as a foundation for a discussion.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Dec 10, 2013

Fray
Oct 22, 2010

CommieGIR posted:

UT Austin's NETL Reactor.
I'm a nuclear student at UT and it's always loads of fun when I meet some Austin hippy who's terrified of nuclear power, because then I get to say "You know we're like half a mile from a reactor right now, right?". Most of the time they had no idea and have a minor panic attack.

Pander
Oct 9, 2007

Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.



Hobo Erotica posted:

Thanks, Bq kind of makes sense now. So in the context of how it originally came up, which was the TV lady in the video talking about several quadrillion Bq (in the barrels/tanks?) - is that appropriate or not? (The sound has stopped working on this computer so I don't have the exact quote, sorry, I think it's around the 4:50 mark). But we're getting a fair way off track here, I was more interested in the rest of it.
It's not appropriate. You have no idea what sort of energy is being emitted. Scale is important to keep in mind, too. A quadrillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000. That's how many atom disintegrations occur per second. Looks like a lot, right? Just remember that the common unit of "how many atoms are in X grams of something?" is a mole. In 12 grams of carbon, there are 6.022 times 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or so (I might be off by a power or 10 or two, not sure) atoms.

So doing a little division, you find out that if you have 12 grams of carbon, a quadrillion Bq means you're burning off about 0.000001% of your carbon per second in nuclear decay (again I think I'm on it or within a power of ten). Yikes! That's...a lot? Maybe? Hard to tell still! But let's look at something like a million litres of water, or something reasonably close to water. Water weighs about a kilogram per litre, so that's roughly a million kilograms (or a billion grams). Water's molecular weight is about 20 grams per mole. So you have about 50,000,000 moles. So take that 6.022 * 10^23 number and multiply it by 50 * 10^6. That's a rough idea of how many atoms you have bouncing around in that million liters.

Again, this is all rough scaling stuff, and I've taken some pretty big liberties and assumptions. But generally, you're going to end up with something like <5*10^15 atoms giving off energy per second over a 'volume' of about 5*10^30. That means every second, about 0.0000000000000001% of your inventory is undergoing decay. It's not really that much is it?

Consider this: Gather 1,000 illuminating EXIT signs from the 1970s that used small amounts of tritium as a source. You have now gathered a quadrillion Bq together. That's the same 'radioactivity' as the million liters of water.

Here's a good link that tries to break down how radiation functions in accessible terms even to non-nuclear engineers.
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/53939/radiation-exposure
It's relatively light on propaganda, and at a glance the numbers seem legit.

(e: typos, changed liter to litre to be all non-American)

Pander fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Dec 10, 2013

Fray
Oct 22, 2010

Yeah, a Baquerel is an astoundingly tiny unit. In most practical contexts we use Curies, which are 37 billion Bq each.

Fray fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Dec 11, 2013

Neurotic Nurse
Dec 7, 2013

Arghy posted:

I most just want to be able to explain just what happens in confidence since even i'm still hazy about what exactly emits radiation in places like fukushima. I atleast try to avoid talking out my rear end constantly and openly admit things i dont know.

Why is the water radioactive for example? they say their releasing tons of contaminated water but i dont know why that water is contaminated--did the core breach releasing fission products or is it stuff from the spent fuel rods? Just what exactly is a fission byproduct? i watched those 10 hour long lectures and i still cant say with confidence just what exactly is emitting radiation in the water. I was under the assumption that it was cesium and another element which was emitting radiation which was the byproduct of the fissioning spent fuel rods.

Any idiot can realize that any contaminated water is getting diluted to hell and poses no threat but just why the water is radioactive in the first place is a good question.

The radioactivity of the water dissipates very, very quickly, and the long lasting effects are minimal.

As far as its effects go, they really arent that big. You are for instance, going to get far far more naturally occuring radioactive isotopes from the the fish than you are from the Fukushima Radioisotopes, the amount of radioactive and natural. For instance, radioactive and naturally occuring Polonium 210 is in amounts about 600 times what the Caesium from the reactor is found, and that isn't even inclusive of the radioactive potassium in there either (Fisher et-al 2013, p.4) reference below.
Factor this into your diet, one single banana has about 20x the radiation of a tuna, even pumped full of Fukushima isotopes.
Now, I agree with the left wing scaries, that it DOES result in an increase in cancer risk, and any risk without justification, according to the ALARA principles is unacceptable. However, this figure is an additional two per ten million, or 0.000000002% increase in cancer risk, and certainly not the glow in the dark risks that the bullshitters at NN or Helen Caldicott make everyone scared of.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/05/30/1221834110.full.pdf+html


As for whether or not we ought to be poo poo scared of the fish near Japan, even in Japan itself they dont agree with the idea.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/09/24/national/fukushima-fisheries-to-resume-trial-fishing-after-samples-prove-safe/

Neurotic Nurse fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Dec 11, 2013

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Neurotic Nurse
Dec 7, 2013

Fray posted:

I'm a nuclear student at UT and it's always loads of fun when I meet some Austin hippy who's terrified of nuclear power, because then I get to say "You know we're like half a mile from a reactor right now, right?". Most of the time they had no idea and have a minor panic attack.

Hell yes isnt it just!!! We have the same idiot hippies here in South Australia, who object to a low level nuclear waste repository, built under thousands of tonnes of concrete, in the middle of the desert under military security on the grounds that it is unsafe, could pose a health risk for the locals and subject to terrorists stealing poo poo.
Yet the very same hippies have no problem with storing the stuff in the middle of the densely populated Adelaide, at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in the basement, where the security staff have enough trouble with dealing with violent drunks on a Friday night, let alone a concerted terrorist attack.

Hippie-critical much?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply