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America would have the opposite problem. Provided the gov't doesn't lie about what's happening (a big if), people would probably overreact and flee on their own.
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Jun 5, 2019 18:05
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Dalael posted:I will never not fight this view. As I stated earlier, while a running nuclear power plant creates the cheapest form of electricity, the capital requirements to build one is huge and is more than what the private sector is willing to shell for 95% of the time. In the US at least, there are so much red tape that most nuclear reactors never see the light of day, after billions have been spent into them. Not only that, but the timeline required to build & test a plant means that any nuclear powerplant that starts construction today, will not produce power for an entire decade and is very likely to be cancelled before completion. Is the cost even the point though? Cost is obviously an important factor, but the crux of the matter is that we need to lower our emissions and we need to do it yesterday. Nuclear is what many see as the best option not only because its carbon foot print is significantly lower than other forms of energy but because it doesn't have the reliability problems that renewable face. Believe me, I am pretty sure that if we had some way of making solar viable when its dark, or wind viable on a calm day, then there would be far less people making the case for nuclear. Fact is though, we have a supply and demand problem and renewable are just not in a position to meet that demand yet. I don't doubt that they will get there but when Nuclear is so much better than the other fossil fuel options, its crazy that we don't roll it out properly and lets face it, the only reason it hasn't is because the private companies that supply power to us all know that doing so will make their end of year numbers trend badly.
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Jun 5, 2019 18:10
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The US equivalent to this show would probably be something like the Texas City disaster or the Port Chicago disaster. Port Chicago would make for a better miniseries.
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Jun 5, 2019 18:12
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WoodrowSkillson posted:We can't even handle hurricanes. We can't even get clean water to Flint. Just lol at thinking the US could handle a Chernobyl level event. It would be weeks before they even approached fighting the reactor fire, the wide scale evacuation would never occur because the govt would pussyfoot around and the people are too stupid to understand it. The govt would be paralyzed with indecision and by the time actual efforts would be made anyone who was going to die would be dead or dying. The whole point is that the only reason why the government reacted is that Chernobyl was too large an event to cover up. If it hadn't been then they would've just pretend that it didn't happen and carried on.
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Jun 5, 2019 18:15
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Party Plane Jones posted:The US equivalent to this show would probably be something like the Texas City disaster or the Port Chicago disaster. Port Chicago would make for a better miniseries. I was thinking something like the SS Eastland Disaster or Hurricane Katrina, but yours are great too.
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Jun 5, 2019 18:17
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What was that big explosion in Canada I hear about on the CBC sometimes? Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
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Jun 5, 2019 18:18
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Comparing the disaster resiliency of Chernobyl-era Soviet Union and the modern United States, using one example from the USSR and a handful from the US, is absurd on a lot of levels. Countless actual and potential disasters, natural or manmade, happen and happened every year in both countries. A small number are reported to a large audience (especially given the USSR had no free press), and we remember even less of them, typically the ones that had the largest negative impact or were the most interesting, even if they caused comparably less destruction. Disasters that are prevented don't get reported, and disasters that were bad but not scandalously bad either don't get reported or get reported and then forgotten. Comparing based on a sample size of 1 from the USSR, and less than 10 from the US, isn't actually statistically significant. Add to that how every disaster has a bunch of different variables and factors that distorts a simple side-by-side comparison, impacting different regions and systems at different times under different management, and that even disasters that are optimally managed can STILL wreak a lot of destruction and thus still be thought of as a failure. Trying to tease apart all of the confounding variables to make a singular statement on the comparative disaster resiliency of each nation is doomed to failure. You'd be better off looking at things like the death rate per capita for things like cancer, natural disaster deaths, etc. Based on national data sources or strong third party research. Only we can't do that either because the Soviet Union did not accurately report the death toll of its citizens even on its most well-known natural disaster, which means it probably didn't for the lesser disasters that had less scrutiny. Trying to compare the disaster resiliency of the two nations is like trying to compare the net worth of the contents of two crates, one in front of you with a bunch of receipts and notes, and one that is a mystery box that hasn't existed for thirty years, along with half of the businesses that sold products that went into it.
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Jun 5, 2019 18:36
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Sherbina and Legazov’s chat outside hit me right in the feels. The script and the delivery were so perfect. “They say it’s a slow disease. Doesn’t seem so slow to me.”
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Jun 5, 2019 18:42
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Prav posted:lotta people trying to figure out if their health insurance covers radiation sickness Actually this brings up an interesting question - who covered the healthcare costs for the Chernobyl victims? Was there such a thing as health insurance in the USSR? Xanderkish posted:Comparing the disaster resiliency of Chernobyl-era Soviet Union and the modern United States, using one example from the USSR and a handful from the US, is absurd on a lot of levels. Each disaster is kind of its own thing, so no two can be compared - but what I'm talking about is poo poo like "we need literally all of the liquid nitrogen in the country, NOW" which they then got, no questions asked, or the creation of the exclusion zone and resettlement of people that lived there. Huge logistical nightmares normally, but in a country that has one huge government that controls everything, it seems a lot easier because they can just do it (for better or for worse). CornHolio fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 18:46
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CornHolio posted:Each disaster is kind of its own thing, so no two can be compared - but what I'm talking about is poo poo like "we need literally all of the liquid nitrogen in the country, NOW" which they then got, no questions asked, or the creation of the exclusion zone and resettlement of people that lived there. Huge logistical nightmares normally, but in a country that has one huge government that controls everything, it seems a lot easier because they can just do it (for better or for worse). This is why we have state of emergencies declared
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Jun 5, 2019 18:53
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Party Plane Jones posted:The US equivalent to this show would probably be something like the Texas City disaster or the Port Chicago disaster. Port Chicago would make for a better miniseries. Bah, such insignificant trifles! What we really need is clearly a 10 episode HBO mini-series about The Great Molasses Flood of Boston. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood posted:Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage…. Here and there struggled a form—whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was…. Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings—men and women—suffered likewise. SimonChris fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 19:08
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CornHolio posted:Each disaster is kind of its own thing, so no two can be compared - but what I'm talking about is poo poo like "we need literally all of the liquid nitrogen in the country, NOW" which they then got, no questions asked, or the creation of the exclusion zone and resettlement of people that lived there. Huge logistical nightmares normally, but in a country that has one huge government that controls everything, it seems a lot easier because they can just do it (for better or for worse). It's possible that a planned economy might be able to do it more efficiently, but at least in theory, there are ways in which it might not be able to as well. A giant planned economy might have what is called a diseconomy of scale, where it's so large that it can't manage things as effectively because it needs more and more bureaucracy to handle it all (this is part of why a lot of big companies typically can't meet the growth projections they had when they were startups). You also have the local knowledge problem where a centralized system might not know or care about the important ins and outs of local communities or bodies of knowledge like the people who are most familiar with it (which seems to actually be part of what made Chernobyl's disaster response so weak initially -- the higher ups didn't treat it seriously in part because it wasn't in their backyard or their expertise). Again, this isn't to say that a planned and centralized economy government wouldn't do as well as other systems, because I don't actually have that data and I'm lazy. I'm saying it's super complicated, and there's theoretical reasons for or against it, and you'd need a LOT of data to be able to verify it. I'm sure plenty of people have done those calculations (and I'm sure some of them came to different conclusions), but I'm not gonna look them up because again, I'm lazy.
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Jun 5, 2019 19:14
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Fox 'n Friends, three days after the explosion: Before political correctness took over, everyone new radiation is good for you. If you chose to live near the power plant, you can just sell your house or move into your summer home until it's sorted out. *bursts through the studio wall with an axe* JUST ONE SMALL PROBLEM, SEAN. SELL THEM TO WHO? loving SUPERMAN?
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Jun 5, 2019 19:26
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If the sarcophagus (both original and the recently installed one) were removed entirely, how much radiation would be emitted from the damaged reactor, and for how many years would it be emitted?
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Jun 5, 2019 19:29
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Sand Monster posted:If the sarcophagus (both original and the recently installed one) were removed entirely, how much radiation would be emitted from the damaged reactor, and for how many years would it be emitted? Two bombs per hour...every hour...twenty hours since the explosion makes forty bombs-worth so far...forty-eight tomorrow...
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Jun 5, 2019 19:36
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FiftySeven posted:Is the cost even the point though? Cost is obviously an important factor, but the crux of the matter is that we need to lower our emissions and we need to do it yesterday. Nuclear is what many see as the best option not only because its carbon foot print is significantly lower than other forms of energy but because it doesn't have the reliability problems that renewable face. Believe me, I am pretty sure that if we had some way of making solar viable when its dark, or wind viable on a calm day, then there would be far less people making the case for nuclear. Fact is though, we have a supply and demand problem and renewable are just not in a position to meet that demand yet. I don't doubt that they will get there but when Nuclear is so much better than the other fossil fuel options, its crazy that we don't roll it out properly and lets face it, the only reason it hasn't is because the private companies that supply power to us all know that doing so will make their end of year numbers trend badly. Regarding the cost, it absolutely matter when it comes to the receiving end. If it costs more to produce, it means people have to pay more to receive it and people who live paychecks to paychecks might have a different opinion on the subject. It's also not just about cost but about timetables. As the reports linked show, it takes a decade for powerplants to be brought online from the moment the first shovel is put into the ground. Then more than half of those are cancelled way before completion. This means potentially wasting billions which could be used towards other energy sources. As for renewables, the technology has improved so much in the last decade that most assumptions about them are entirely false. We can store energy the energy and Australia is currently a test bed for the technology from "The company that musk not be named else people freak out". Not only is it proving to be cost effective (1/3 of the cost made back within 1 year of operation) but it's efficacity has taken everyone by surprise. https://interestingengineering.com/tesla-battery-installed-in-south-australia-saved-the-region-40-million-in-its-first-year http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/technology/tesla-s-big-battery-in-australia-has-defied-all-expectations/article/533773 To be fair, all of your concerns were valid a decade ago. Now? not so much. Critics are the ones holding back the right technologies with their fear-mongering. Even the idea that solar would require vast amount of land has been turned on its head. According to a 2008 study, to power all of the US with only solar energy would require 0.6% of the US. This is still an incredibly large area obviously, but that was 2008. A 2013 report from the National renewable Energy Lab stated that 21 250 square miles of solar panels would meet the total energy requirements of the US for a year. This sounds like an impossible number to meet, I'll give you that. But how does that compare to other form of energy generation? Well let's find out: 40,223 square miles – this is the size of the land leased by the oil and gas industry (according to the US Bureau of Land Management). 18,500 square miles – the amount of federal land offered for lease to the oil and gas industry in 2017 alone. 33,750 square miles – this is the land set aside to grow the corn used to make ethanol, a gasoline substitute. 62,500 square miles – the total amount of U.S. land used for lawns. 22,000 square miles – the size of the Mojave desert, located in southeast California. 2,200 square miles – the amount of Appalachian forests that have been cleared for mountaintop removal coal mining by 2012. 3,590 square miles – a best guess at how much land is used for parking lots. 16,000 square miles – this is an estimate of the total surface of U.S. roads, including highways (4.12 million miles of roads that are an average 20 feet wide). So combine solar with wind power and all of the other forms of renewable and you get a clearer picture of what's possible. If all gas & oil subsidies were to disappear, renewables would become the cheapest alternative by far. Sadly this problem isn't technical. It's political. *edit; Also, according to this report, only 10 000 square miles would be needed since about 30% of the whole production could be done via solar roofs (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/65298.pdf) Dalael fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 19:37
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The Peshtigo fire would make a good series.
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Jun 5, 2019 19:42
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Farrier Theaks posted:What was that big explosion in Canada I hear about on the CBC sometimes? The Halifax explosion was the biggest non-nuclear explosion at the time. Two ships collided and caught fire. one of them was carrying a large amount of ammunition and eventually exploded, devastating the city of Halifax to great loss of life. If I recall correctly, the anchor for one of the ship was left were it was found a few miles in land. Tbh, that would be an amazing show.
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Jun 5, 2019 19:42
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CornHolio posted:Actually this brings up an interesting question - who covered the healthcare costs for the Chernobyl victims? Was there such a thing as health insurance in the USSR? Healthcare was state-funded and free to patients, though by the 80s the quality of their healthcare system had declined considerably. After the USSR collapsed Russia moved to a private-insurance system that seems to take the worst aspects of the US insurance system and the old corruption, but Ukraine has a universal healthcare system.
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Jun 5, 2019 19:47
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Dalael posted:The Halifax explosion was the biggest non-nuclear explosion at the time. Two ships collided and caught fire. one of them was carrying a large amount of ammunition and eventually exploded, devastating the city of Halifax to great loss of life. If I recall correctly, the anchor for one of the ship was left were it was found a few miles in land. Tbh, that would be an amazing show. 
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Jun 5, 2019 20:02
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TinTower posted:*bursts through the studio wall with an axe* Thank you for catching that one 
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Jun 5, 2019 20:03
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counterfeitsaint posted:Where on this diagram is the elephants foot? I would think it would be bottom most red part, but in that case it looks like there'd be two or three, each on a different level. Not sure if anyone else pointed this video out, but it has a nice detailed model of the plant, and the time I embedded the video at points out the Elephant's foot. https://youtu.be/9WVMMJ7O2Zc?t=520
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Jun 5, 2019 20:21
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Two bombs per hour...every hour...twenty hours since the explosion makes forty bombs-worth so far...forty-eight tomorrow... Ok, I wasn't sure if that was still the case after things were "contained" with the helicopters and miners and such.
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Jun 5, 2019 20:26
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Almost 50 years ago this country spent 4% of its GDP on a giant vanity project. Pretty sure it could deal with Chernobyl sized cleanup.
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Jun 5, 2019 20:44
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etalian posted:Don't GIS Hiroshi Ouchi, the pictures were so gruesome. Some of the pictures commonly attributed as him are actually just some burn victim.
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Jun 5, 2019 20:44
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Despera posted:Almost 50 years ago this country spent 4% of its GDP on a giant vanity project. Pretty sure it could deal with Chernobyl sized cleanup. The woodstock festival was not a vanity project.
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Jun 5, 2019 20:48
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Sand Monster posted:If the sarcophagus (both original and the recently installed one) were removed entirely, how much radiation would be emitted from the damaged reactor, and for how many years would it be emitted? While the first containment structure was meant to contain the radiation, the current containment structure is more about containing the dust and debris from the planned cleanup. The idea is to demolish most of the reactor building and the old sarcophagus since both were starting to become unstable due to elements and the radiation. Once cleanup is complete the area needing to be contained is much smaller and thus easier to manage. As for how much radiation is left, it has considerably lowered since the incident. The fuel is close to ambient temperature now and in theory you could stand next to the molten core and not die a horrible death immediately. Still probably not a good idea though.
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Jun 5, 2019 21:02
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Yeah the foot is basically just a really cool glass sculpture at this point https://twitter.com/pinballwizord/status/1135995844195442688?s=19
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Jun 5, 2019 21:56
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Dalael posted:Regarding the cost, it absolutely matter when it comes to the receiving end. If it costs more to produce, it means people have to pay more to receive it and people who live paychecks to paychecks might have a different opinion on the subject. It's also not just about cost but about timetables. As the reports linked show, it takes a decade for powerplants to be brought online from the moment the first shovel is put into the ground. Then more than half of those are cancelled way before completion. This means potentially wasting billions which could be used towards other energy sources. Its fantastic that progress is being made in regards to battery technology, but for one, batteries have a ecological cost of their own, and actually building enough of the batteries to be capable of backing up one nation let alone the world is just not going to happen in a short amount of time. More problematic however, is that not every country is the USA or Australia with huge amounts of sunlight year round. In the UK during winter, we can have days as short as 6 hours. Other countries can basically be living in perma-darkness for half the year. Other renewables can only go so far, but there is a large amount of people who live in areas where renewables will never be able to provide the majority of their power. Until we have something truly incredible like an orbital solar array or something of the kind, there will always be a need for traditional energy sources. If thats the case, Nuclear is the best of a bad bunch. FiftySeven fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 21:56
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FiftySeven posted:Its fantastic that progress is being made in regards to battery technology, but for one, batteries have a ecological cost of their own, and actually building enough of the batteries to be capable of backing up one nation let alone the world is just not going to happen in a short amount of time. More problematic however, is that not every country is the USA or Australia with huge amounts of sunlight year round. In the UK during winter, we can have days as short as 6 hours. Other countries can basically be living in perma-darkness for half the year. Other renewables can only go so far, but there is a large amount of people who live in areas where renewables will never be able to provide the majority of their power. Until we have something truly incredible like an orbital solar array or something of the kind, there will always be a need for traditional energy sources. If thats the case, Nuclear is the best of a bad bunch. Gonna have to disagree on your conclusion. Solar is just one of many examples of renewables and there is a type of renewable for every situation. London for example might be awful fpr solar energy but the whole coast of englan could have tidal power generation (just giving an example). The problem isnt technical. It just isnt anymore. Its all about political will. Also while batteries have an ecological cost of its own, its still far better than shoving spent rods in a hole and hope nobody opens the vault for the next 50 000 years. *edit: you are right that it would be a lenghty process and some place will not have the luxury of choice. Nuclear will have to be part of the solution. It's just not *the* solution. No form of power generation will ever be. It'll require a mix of everything we have. Dalael fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 22:26
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Dalael posted:
Yeah, this is basically what we are all saying. I look forward to the day that nuclear is not needed. I hope it comes sooner rather than later, but human demands for energy are already sky high and as things like electric cars become more prevelant, is only going to get higher. Renewables are a source of great hope for the future, and its worth investing heavily into them but we have to move forward with trying to push nuclear energy, and have it in its best possible form. Short term this might mean investing into Thorium Salt based reactors, long term it might be that we finally achieve nuclear fusion. Either way its something that we should embrace rather than reject wholesale due to valid but ultimately overblown fears.
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Jun 5, 2019 22:49
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wake up sheep
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Jun 5, 2019 22:54
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IMDB rating update: Yep, that's 10.0/10.
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Jun 5, 2019 23:11
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FiftySeven posted:Yeah, this is basically what we are all saying. I look forward to the day that nuclear is not needed. I hope it comes sooner rather than later, but human demands for energy are already sky high and as things like electric cars become more prevelant, is only going to get higher. Renewables are a source of great hope for the future, and its worth investing heavily into them but we have to move forward with trying to push nuclear energy, and have it in its best possible form. Short term this might mean investing into Thorium Salt based reactors, long term it might be that we finally achieve nuclear fusion. Either way its something that we should embrace rather than reject wholesale due to valid but ultimately overblown fears. I really dont know much about thorium salt reactors but i've been told those might definitely be worth it both for the safety aspect & cost effectiveness. As long as its a step towards not turning our planet into Venus, i'm all for it.
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Jun 5, 2019 23:15
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Why couldn't they have erected a crane next to the building and used it to lower a big ole concrete cap or whatever onto the core?
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Jun 5, 2019 23:17
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El Jeffe posted:Why couldn't they have erected a crane next to the building and used it to lower a big ole concrete cap or whatever onto the core? the core was directly surrounded by the rubble caused when it tossed its massive lid 30 meters into the air like it was flipping a coin the roof where you couldn't stay for more than 90 seconds is where they needed to use to support the containment structure
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Jun 5, 2019 23:21
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SeXReX posted:the core was directly surrounded by the rubble caused when it tossed its massive lid 30 meters into the air like it was flipping a coin I see, thanks.
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Jun 5, 2019 23:27
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El Jeffe posted:Why couldn't they have erected a crane next to the building and used it to lower a big ole concrete cap or whatever onto the core? SeXReX posted:the core was directly surrounded by the rubble caused when it tossed its massive lid 30 meters into the air like it was flipping a coin Its actually kind of sad, they actually tested a method of using a Helicopter and gigantic "glue" pads to pick the rubble up and dispose of it in the core, and it actually worked! Yet for some reason they pushed on with the Biorobots... I am not sure if anyone knows for sure why that is other than the leadership in charge of that aspect of the cleanup were stubborn and wanted it done as fast as possible. I imagine the reason they didnt use a crane is that the operator of a crane that could do all that would probably be exposed to a ton of radiation in the crane cab... FiftySeven fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Jun 6, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2019 23:58
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The Soviet Union has a long history of throwing people at the problem regardless of the waste
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Jun 6, 2019 00:05
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If we were in the same situation today, would we have the technology to get the graphite off the roof without having to use biorobots?
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Jun 6, 2019 00:44
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