Fukushima apocalypse: Years of ‘duct tape fixes’ could result in ‘millions of deaths’

[madokie]

I don't know what anyone else thinks but to me this is some serious shit right here. The thing is many of us have been predicting something of this nature can happen for a long long time.

Published time: August 17, 2013 13:15
Edited time: August 18, 2013 13:41


Even the tiniest mistake during an operation to extract over 1,300 fuel rods at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan could lead to a series of cascading failures with an apocalyptic outcome, fallout researcher Christina Consolo told RT.

Fukushima operator TEPCO wants to extract 400 tons worth of spent fuel rods stored in a pool at the plant’s damaged Reactor No. 4. The removal would have to be done manually from the top store of the damaged building in the radiation-contaminated environment.

In the worst-case scenario, a mishandled rod may go critical, resulting in an above-ground meltdown releasing radioactive fallout with no way to stop it, said Consolo, who is the founder and host of Nuked Radio. But leaving the things as they are is not an option, because statistical risk of a similarly bad outcome increases every day, she said.

(snip)

An obvious attempt to downplay this disaster and its consequences have been repeated over and over again from 'experts' in the nuclear industry that also have a vested interest in their industry remaining intact. And, there has been a lot of misleading information released by TEPCO, which an hour or two of reading by a diligent reporter would have uncovered, in particular the definition of 'cold shutdown.’

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/

[snappyturtle]

1. Frightful. nt

[GladRagDahl]

2. This terrifies me

And the fact that most people seem to be ignoring what is going on over there leaves me speechless.

[madokie]

3. And what'll really get you

in in a bit there will be those here who will come to tell us that what we're worried about is nothing to worry with. How things isn't as they seem. How the linked article is flawed and the people interviewed don't know what they're talking about and on and on.
Its coming

[GladRagDahl]

16. :/

Unfortunately, you are right. What's a little radiation among friends?

[NNadir]

4. Bullshit. Nuclear energy saves lives, and all the coal and gas burned to spread paranoid

fantasies, cost lives.

One of the world's most prominent climate scientists has been calling out the anti-nuke cults in the scientific literature and the vast destruction they have caused to human health and to the environment at large.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3051197

The data is clear from the 60 year history of commercial nuclear energy, which has failed to kill as many people as the next 6 hours of air pollution; anti-nuke fear and ignorance kills people.

[madokie]

5. Its pretty obvious what is happening in Fukushima today

No amount of white washing it will change that either.
Talk about denial, I expected better of you than this

I just threw the smiley in there cause I know it gets under your skin
Now go suck on a fuel rod and get your daily dose of radiation, will ya

[NNadir]

17. Let's see, you actually believe that as you put it, that your paranoid nuclear scare stories...

Last edited Sat Nov 16, 2013, 08:22 PM - Edit history (1)

...will finally come true and millions of people will die and you're posting giggles.

Let's say that there existed a single anti-nuke on this planet who wasn't impossibly stupid - there isn't - and that their wildest fantasies came true and someone, even lots of people actually died from Fukushima.

Would giggly faces be the best response to such a tragedy? How about the 20,000 people who died in the event from things that had nothing to do with nuclear energy? Funny?

How about the approximately 400 people who will die in the next hour from air pollution?

Are you trying to represent that antinuke ignorance is respectable in this regard?

I might be wrong about this, but I believe that only a psychopath would respond with giggles if he actually believed that a million people were about to die, even if his fear was ridiculous and the result of possibly drug induced paranoia.

I believe, with the world's most prominent climate scientist, that antinuke fear and ignorance kills people, and thus is ethically repellent, but the giggles represent a real clear reification of exactly how primitive and evil this rhetoric is.

As for the very dubious claim that "everyone knows what is happening at Fukushima" this too is garbage. If that were true, people who know nothing at all wouldn't be running around making stupid claims.

The next million people who die from energy production will not die from nuclear energy - nuclear energy never has and never will killed a million people no matter who often illiterate anti-nukes hope it will. The next million people who die from energy production will die in the next four months, just like the last million people died in the last four months, from air pollution.

This is not the rhetoric of dumb giggly stoned out uneducated thugs wiping slaked lime dust dust off their greasy bandanas while blowing dope out of their useless rock caked lungs and concrete encased brains, but it is the report of a wide variety of scientists, physicians and health officials writing in one of the world's most prominent medical journals, Lancet:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)61766-8/abstract


The Lancet, Volume 380, Issue 9859, Pages 2224 - 2260, 15 December 2012 <Previous Article
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61766-8

On page 2240 of the scientific paper the authors write as follows:

Household air pollution from solid fuels accounted for 3·5 million (2·6 million to 4·4 million) deaths and 4·3% (3·4–5·3) of global DALYs in 2010 and ambient particulate matter pollution accounted for 3·1 million (2·7 million to 3·5 million) deaths and 3·1% (2·7–3·4) of global DALYs.

Now I'm sure that there are moral cripples who might be inspired to post giggly faces on the internet on reviewing this tragic information, but normal people, with well developed moral senses are more likely to be appalled.

Irrespective of the giggles and other actions of moral cripples: Ignorance kills people.

And I am sorry to report to all the very, very, very, very stupid people who lie around on their fat asses burning gas and coal to report their Fukushima fantasies, but their actions will actually kill more people than all the inventory of all the nuclear fuel ever utilized, including all which has leaked as a result of a natural disaster at Fukushima, will ever kill.

Have a nice evening.

[madokie]

24. Yup

talk about delusional. Get back to us when they have this catastrophe under control. I know, I know that will be a long time but nevertheless get back to us when they do, K.

[PamW]

18. Fukushima in PERSPECTIVE courtesy of Berkeley Professor

One can put the Fukushima incident into some much needed perspective by reading the following article authored by Professor Richard Muller of the Physics Department at University of California - Berkeley. Professor Muller is also the author of the much acclaimed book, "Physics for Future Presidents" which he wrote as an adjunct to the physics course for non-scientific majors that he teaches at UC - Berkeley. Here is Professor Muller's perspective on Fukushima:

The Panic Over Fukushima
Japan's nuclear accident was a great human tragedy, but its long-term health effects have been exaggerated—and the virtues of nuclear power remain.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444772404577589270444059332

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[madokie]

25. We'll see won't we

You're really slipping, I thought you'd be by a long time before you finally got here.

[PamW]

34. We agree on one thing...

madokie,

We agree on one thing...we will see.

People back in 1945 said that Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be wastelands for 10,000 years. Some people still say that to frighten people about nuclear weapons, "If New York is hit by a nuclear weapon, it will be a wasteland for 10,000 years".

Well Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't wastelands for 10,000 years. In fact, the rebuilding of both cities commenced within a year of their destruction. Unfortunately, the current generation of Japanese citizenry has been propagandized by the world-wide anti-nuke propaganda machine; so I can't predict when they will come to their senses and begin a recovery in earnest.

I have other things to do than just monitor / correct the scientific falsehoods perpetrated on this forum.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[Bennyboy]

27. a 16 month old story from the Wall Street Journal?

C'mon now. seriously in 18 months thing have changed dramatically THERE in japan at the plant. the cracks discovered the other day.

[PamW]

33. Muller's article is still timely...

Bennyboy,

Professor Muller's article is still timely; because even with new cracks and new problems of the recent past; the radiation release rate at Fukushima is NO WHERE NEAR what it was back in March 2011.

What we have now are little upticks in the amount of radiation release; but no MASSIVE changes.

Professor Muller's article was written AFTER the vast majority of radiation was released; and the little upticks due to new cracks, or spilled water; don't change the major conclusion of Professor Muller's article.

Even with all the recent upticks; the radiation levels at Fukushima are still about ONE-THIRD that of Denver.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[ramapo]

6. We will see

I agree that that nuclear offers many advantages over the fossil fuels. The problem is one bad nuke can turn into an almost unimaginable catastrophe that quickly becomes competitive with all the human health destruction caused by the fossil fuels. Scary as it was initially, Chernobyl turned out to be a bad industrial accident that had the unseen advantage of creating a wonderful nature preserve in the forbidden zone. (Flame on folks). If the Fukushima operators succeed in pulling out the fuel without creating a disaster, then this one too will turn out to be pretty awful but not horribly catastrophic, at least in the human cost.

[zeemike]

7. Always look on the bright side eh?

The contamination of thousands of acres of land and the displacement of thousands from their homes created a nature perserve...no matter that the plants and animals that live their are contaminated too.
And so what if the Pacific is contaminated and so are the fish that live there rendering them unfit for human consumption...it will become a nature preserve too, and a wonderful experiment to see what the effects are on life itself....a great win win for science.
It is far more serious than just a bad industrial accedent...it will effect generations of life on the earth for hundreds of years to come and cannot be cleaned up with some paper towels and a broom.

[Thor_MN]

10. "what if the Pacific is contaminated"?

Are you maybe forgetting that many, many critical masses of radioactive isotopes have been unleashed in and around the Pacific Ocean? The two bombs dropped in anger pale in scale to the testing that was done.

I'm not trying to say there is nothing to worry about in this very high stakes game of PikupStiks, but don't you think it might be a bit over the top to talk about the entire ocean being contaminated? Exaggeration on such a ridiculously massive scale tends to detract from the real dangers.

For some perspective, consider that we have been living affected lives for almost 70 years.

[zeemike]

11. It is not over the top at all.

If that spent fuel pool collapses and catches fire, it will release more radiation than all the bombs exploded in the history of man...that is not my opinion but a fact.
And all of that radiation will will wind up in the Pacific.

[PamW]

20. It's OPINION

zeemike states
If that spent fuel pool collapses and catches fire, it will release more radiation than all the bombs exploded in the history of man...that is not my opinion but a fact.

NO - that's your OPINION.

It's not "fact" unless you have some scientific credentials that you haven't told us about.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.

PamW

[zeemike]

21. Add it up...the least of them contains 50 tons.

The spent fuel pools are of significant concern, Marvin Resnikoff, a radioactive waste
management consultant, said in a Wednesday press briefing organized by the nonprofit organization Physicians for Social Responsibility. Resnikoff noted that the pools at each reactor are thought to have contained the following amounts of spent fuel, according to The Mainichi Daily News:

• Reactor No. 1: 50 tons of nuclear fuel
• Reactor No. 2: 81 tons
• Reactor No. 3: 88 tons
• Reactor No. 4: 135 tons
• Reactor No. 5: 142 tons
• Reactor No. 6: 151 tons
• Also, a separate ground-level fuel pool contains 1,097 tons of fuel; and some 70 tons of nuclear materials are kept on the grounds in dry storage.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nuclear-fuel-fukushima

[PamW]

31. It's more complicated than that...

zeemike,

As a scientist, I knew you weren't a scientist because you are just adding up the amount of radioactive material.

No question; there's a lot of radioactive material there. The thing that you and scientifically INCOMPETENT groups like the Physicians for Social Responsibility are missing; is "how mobile are those radioactive materials".

Most of the radioactive materials are trapped in the ceramic fuel. They are like color pigments in glass. When ever I explain this, I think of some lovely blue glasses that my brother and I got for free at the soda counter of the local drug store near where we grew up.

Those glasses are blue because of blue pigment in the glass. When we pick up those glasses, even when wet; do you think we get blue pigment on our hands? NOPE!! The blue pigment is locked inside the glass; and unless the glass melts or is dissolved, or some other method; the blue pigment is trapped inside.

The SAME is true for that radioactive material. It is trapped inside the fuel ceramic. In order of the radioactive material to get out; the ceramic would have to melt. However, much of that spent fuel is so old that the radioactivity has subsided to the point where it doesn't have enough energy to melt the fuel. So the radioactive material that is in the ceramic will be trapped.

Now some of the radioactive material when it was created as fast moving material recoiling from a fission, came to rest in the thin annular gap between the fuel and the inside diameter of the zirconium cladding tube. If the zirconium cladding tube is broken; then that small amount of fission gas can certainly escape.

However, the vast majority of the radioactive material is trapped in ceramic that isn't "hot" enough to melt even if is taken out of water. This is like the fuel that can be put into dry casks; they don't need to have to be submerged in coolant because the heat generation has died down so much over the years they've been out of the reactor.

So the amount of radioactivity is only PART of the story. The other part is how much of that radioactive material can escape being trapped in the ceramic.

Because you only referenced the amount and not the mobility; that was what tipped me off that you are NOT a scientist.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.

PamW

[zeemike]

36. So you are telling us you are a scientist then?

and telling us that the fuel in the pools are so spent that they could never catch fire and burn through the zirconium clading?...then why do they need to pump watter through the pool all the time?...what would be the point of that if nothing bad could happen?

But it is funny to hear you talk about it's mobility....nope it does not have legs that it can walk on, so therefor it will just stay put....and can not be transported by other forces.

And it is true that science is true whether you believe it or not...and science tells us that this is an extremely dangerous situation whether you believe it or not.

[PamW]

37. Think about it..

zeemike,

Think about it. Why do you have to cool spent fuel? It's because of "decay heat" which is due to the radioactivity of the fuel. The more radioactive the fuel is; the more heat produced.

However, you must also know that radioactivity exponentially decays. So as time goes on; the exponential decay of the radioactivity, also means exponential decay of the decay heat.

A nuclear reactor is refueled about once a year to once every 18 months. Let's say we refuel every year and that we have just completed the refueling cycle for a 40 year old reactor.

So in the spent fuel pool, we have newly discharged spent fuel which is as radioactive as spent fuel gets.

We also have some that is 1 year old, with less radioactivity. We also have 2 year old fuel, 3 year old fuel....40 year old fuel.

The "younger" batches of spent fuel still haven't radioactively cooled down; so you have to keep the pumps going to cool them.

However, that decades old fuel has cooled down. That's the type of fuel that no longer needs the forced circulation, and could be put into dry cask storage if the utility has those facilities.

So when you compute how much radioactivity could be released; it is ERRONEOUS to include the radioactivity of the decades old fuel. That fuel doesn't produce much decay heat and is not going to melt even if you don't keep it submerged in circulating water. The heating rate is low enough that forced cooling is no longer necessary; so one can put those into dry casks that don't have active cooling. That fuel isn't going to melt.

You DO need the forced water cooling for the "young" spent fuel. That fuel still has the potential for melting.

But when you say how much radioactivity could possibly be released, you should ONLY count the radioactivity in the rather "young" spent fuel that has a possibility of melting.

You should NOT include the radioactivity in the decades old fuel that can't melt due to the lowered decay heat.

The only reason for using the 40 year total inventory of radioactivity including the decades old fuel that won't melt; is so you get an artificially high number so as to needlessly scare as many people as possible, which is what the anti-nuke propagandists do.

If you are a scientist; you restrict the possible radioactive release to only the "young" spent fuel that actually still needs active cooling.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[kristopher]

42. "The pool contains 1,533 fuel rod assemblies, 202 of which are fresh"

Yearlong effort
Yearlong effort
Yearlong effort

Reactor 4 pool fuel removal begins
Yearlong effort aims to lower potent rods to safer storage
BY KAZUAKI NAGATA
STAFF WRITER
NOV 18, 2013

Tokyo Electric Power Co. started a yearlong operation Monday to remove hundreds of nuclear fuel assemblies stored atop reactor 4 at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant to prevent the rods from causing another radiation catastrophe.

The building housing reactor 4 was hit by a hydrogen explosion in the early stages of the triple meltdown triggered by the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and giant tsunami it spawned.

The explosion blew off the roof, exposing the spent-fuel pool on the fifth floor to the sky and falling debris. Tepco has since built a steel-framed cover to protect it from the elements, but getting the fuel out of the damaged building will allow the utility to monitor and safeguard it more easily and safely.

The pool contains 1,533 fuel rod assemblies, 202 of which are fresh. The utility plans to remove the fresh ones first...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/11/18/national/reactor-4-pool-fuel-removal-begins/#.Uoqi8SgyHdk

[PamW]

43. OK - let's assume 202 are fresh.

kristopher,

OK - we'll assume that 202 are fresh, hence highly radioactive, and hence capable of melting and releasing their stored inventory of radioactivity.

The other fuel rods have spent time in the pool so as to have the decay heat exponentially decay so they can't melt. If they can't melt, then the radioactive material that is trapped within them will stay trapped; just as the pigment in my water glass analogy above.

Now the statement was made in post #11 that the potential for radioactive release exceeded all the releases of atmospheric nuclear tests

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112757547#post11

So the question is whether the radioactivity in the 202 assemblies exceeds the radioactivity released in all the atmospheric nuclear tests.

By way of comparison; one of the consequences of the releases due to atmospheric test is the release to the environment of 10 metric tonnes of Plutonium:

http://www.clarku.edu/departments/marsh/projects/community/plutonium.pdf

From page 5:

About 10 metric tons of plutonium were released into the atmosphere during these tests.

The mass of 10 metric tonnes is 10,000 kilograms or roughly 22,000 pounds. ( A metric tonne is about 1.1 short tons )

So do you think that there are 22,000 pounds of fission products in the 202 assemblies? NO WAY!!

So using your own figures; the claim that this would release more radiation than all the atmospheric nuclear tests is a clear EXAGGERATION.

Q.E.D.

PamW

[FBaggins]

44. That's the wrong "fresh"

The 202 assemblies mentioned are not spent fuel.

Thus, there are no fission products and not much radioactivity.

Of course, none of the spent fuel is "fresher" than almost three years. I doubt that there's enough heat to melt the fuel even if you pulled one and left it in the air for weeks.

[zeemike]

45. Well I have to thank you because you have caused me to read up on it.

And it is even worse than I thought...and I new it was a dangerous situation but not just how dangerous it really is...for instance here is a description of just one of those thousand or more fuel rods...

Pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel consists of cylindrical rods put into bundles. A uranium oxide ceramic is formed into pellets and inserted into Zircaloy tubes that are bundled together. The Zircaloy tubes are about 1 cm in diameter, and the fuel cladding gap is filled with helium gas to improve the conduction of heat from the fuel to the cladding. There are about 179-264 fuel rods per fuel bundle and about 121 to 193 fuel bundles are loaded into a reactor core. Generally, the fuel bundles consist of fuel rods bundled 14×14 to 17×17. PWR fuel bundles are about 4 meters long. In PWR fuel bundles, control rods are inserted through the top directly into the fuel bundle. The fuel bundles usually are enriched several percent in 235U. The uranium oxide is dried before inserting into the tubes to try to eliminate moisture in the ceramic fuel that can lead to corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement. The Zircaloy tubes are pressurized with helium to try to minimize pellet-cladding interaction which can lead to fuel rod failure over long periods.

BWR fuel[edit]
In boiling water reactors (BWR), the fuel is similar to PWR fuel except that the bundles are "canned"; that is, there is a thin tube surrounding each bundle. This is primarily done to prevent local density variations from affecting neutronics and thermal hydraulics of the reactor core. In modern BWR fuel bundles, there are either 91, 92, or 96 fuel rods per assembly depending on the manufacturer. A range between 368 assemblies for the smallest and 800 assemblies for the largest U.S. BWR forms the reactor core. Each BWR fuel rod is back filled with helium to a pressure of about three atmospheres (300 kPa).

[PamW]

19. Perspective!!!

Read the article by University of California - Berkeley Physics Professor Richard Muller that I posted above

Yes Fukushima was "contaminated" by the accident. However, as Professor Muller states; Denver Colorado is 3X as "contaminated" as Fukushima, and it has NOTHING to do with the activities of mankind. Mother Nature made Denver Colorado 3X as "contaminated" as Fukushima because of all the uranium-bearing granite in the area.

Do we run around in circles like a bunch of "Chicken Littles" over Fukushima; while paying no heed to the fact that radiation levels in Denver are 3X higher and we allow people to live there?

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[zeemike]

22. Then why did the evacuate the place?

And why did they evacuate Chernobyl?...if it is more safe than Denver.
Are you willing to live there?...I bet you could buy a house real cheep.
And I could point you to a video that shows just what the effects of Chernoble has been but I am sure you would not like watching it...it is not a pleasant thing to see.

[PamW]

32. You've got to be kidding...

zeemike,

You've got to be kidding. Because of the vast ignorance of most people about the supposed dangers of radiation; one can EASILY stampede people into evacuating when it isn't necessary.

I could hold a bag containing only a banana which naturally has radioactive Potassium-40 in it; and if I stand in the middle of the crowd and truthfully announce that the bag I'm waving over my head contains radioactive material; I can stampede the crowd away from me.

People evacuate and stampede away from radiation because they are reacting to the over-hyped fears of radiation; rather than a well-considered intellectual decision. People would stampede away when the only threat is a banana.

I'm sure Chernobyl looks bad. But NONE of the unpleasant things you see at Chernobyl was caused by radiation; but rather NEGLECT. If you saw the recent installment of Anthony Bourdain's program where he visits Detroit ( I grew up in the Detroit suburbs ), Bourdain claims the one place Detroit most resembles is Chernobyl. The decay you see at Chernobyl isn't due to radiation; it's due to neglect just as it is in Detroit where there wasn't radiation.

As far as people not living in Chernobyl; take a look at the new documentary "Pandora's Promise". Contrary to the oft-quoted public myth that nobody lives in Chernobyl; people DO live in Chernobyl. In fact, there are 4 reactors at the Chernobyl complex, and only reactor 4 had the accident. For years thereafter, people came to work at the Chernobyl power plant to run the other 3 reactors that were undamaged.

You need to quit falling for all the myths and hype; and look at the real science.

Professor Muller's article is a good first step in a more enlightened direction based on science and not on myth.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[zeemike]

35. Frankly that sounds delusional to me.

And science damn well know the effects of this and has warned us for decades.
But some people believe it because they don't want things to change and some want things to change and I guess I am the latter and you the former.
And then there are those that want us to continue down that destructive path because there is big money in it, and believe as long as they get theirs in their lifetime that is all that matters...let the rest of time fend for itself.

[kestrel91316]

9. You forgot to attack Amory Lovins. You're losing your edge.

[MyNameGoesHere]

12. Who is this "World's most predominate climate scientist"?

Your link is to an article co-authored by 2 gentlemen. So which one is it?

[caraher]

14. If you don't know who James Hansen is...

you haven't been paying any attention to climate change science.

[MyNameGoesHere]

15. Ok.

So me asking which one the post was talking about is me not paying attention? Well my momma told me if you ask a donkey a question you get a donkey response.

[Scootaloo]

26. I'm sure TEPCO will accept your volunteer work, then

Get to it!

[liberalla]

8. I have to finish reading this later.

Damn scary situation. Thank you for posting this.

[ConcernedCanuk]

13. Considering the fact that we call ourselves "The Master Race",

.
.
.

we are dumber than cockroaches.

They will survive our stupidity;

We won't.

eom

CC

[CRH]

23. Could you provide us with a little background on 'fallout researcher Christina Consolo', ...

The reason I quibble is, the person who finishes last in the class at medical school, is still called a doctor. Might not know beans from bacon, but they are still Doctor. Now we have a quoted source stating, a series of cascading failures with an apocalyptic outcome could ...; and all of it is sourced from a 'fallout researcher'. No other information. Can you please expand on the qualifications of said researcher to make this statement, as a well as all the other 'if - then cascades to doom, in the original article.

The situation is scary enough, without undocumented hysteria.

[NickB79]

28. Christina Consolo is a fucking ophthalmologist!

http://endthelie.com/2012/05/06/which-will-collapse-first-the-economy-or-the-spent-fuel-pool-at-fukushima/#axzz2kspmQGKR

Christina Consolo is a former clinical researcher supervisor with NIH credentialing; a former Member-at-Large for the Board of Directors, Ophthalmic Photographers’ Society; A peer reviewer for the Journal of Ophthalmic Photography; She has written, published, and contributed to numerous scientific research in retinal imaging and ophthalmogy for the past 24 years; She is also an award-winning biomedical photographer and maintains several websites to teach people about radiation, mitigation, and other nuclear issues. She is also the host of “Nuked Radio” Tuesdays & Thursdays from 12-1:00 pm EST on the Orion Talk Radio Network.

Can anyone find ANY evidence she has any formal schooling regarding nuclear anything?

[miyazaki]

29. I thought she invented duct tape

I guess this thread wins over the other recent post from a site called
'The Extinction Protocol'...

What more can you really argue about with some of these folks other
than telling them to stick their heads between their legs and kiss their ass goodbye.
Again, they wouldn't swallow the truth if every nobel winning physicist shoved it down their
throats.

[CRH]

30. Thats all I could find too! ... Oh Well. n/t

[kristopher]

40. Mighty selective head-banging you are engaging in...

when you skipped the opportunity to make the same observation about Hansen and nuclear or any type of energy.
Why does no "formal schooling" in nuclear rule out Consolo while the opinion of Hansen on nuclear is regarded as sacred by those who promote nuclear?

Where and when did he formally study nuclear physics or energy systems?

[NickB79]

41. You do have a small point there

Neither Ms. Consolo or Mr. Hansen has formal education in any of the nuclear sciences. But then again, Hansen has at least been in close contact with some of the best and brightest scientists we have in his role at NASA for the past 30 years, including many with advanced degrees studying nuclear science.

That's hardly comparable to a fucking ophthalmologist

Do YOU think Ms. Consolo is a credible speaker about nuclear issues, given her background? If Hansen isn't qualified, then clearly she isn't either.

[quadrature]

38. is ...criticality... really a possibility?

a swimming pool is not a reactor.
the fuel is used, U-235 has been depleted.

please be as specific as you can be.
thanks.

[PamW]

39. Criticality is NOT a possibility

quadrature,

As you point out; we are talking about fuel that has been depleted in U-235. Spent fuel has been in the reactor for about 3 cycles ( ~3 years ) before it is discharged. So the reactor was operating with the spent fuel just before it was discharged as spent fuel; but ONLY because it was in a core with fuel that was depleted less. One third of the core had been burned for 2 cycles, and one-third had been burned for 1 cycle. It was only because 2/3 of the core was less depleted that the reactor could operate with fuel that had been burned 3 cycles.

The water in the spent fuel pool is borated. Boron is a neutron absorber, and "poisons" the fission reaction.

The spent assemblies are in racks that also contain neutron absorbers. With all those neutron absorbers; the fission reaction is well "poisoned".

Some would argue that the fuel is damaged / melted. However, that actually works AGAINST having a criticality. See my explanation at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112756727#post20

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW