Hitachi Finds Nuclear Software Fault; Undetected for 28 Years

[bananas]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a6aADdkaL7b0&refer=japan

Hitachi Finds Nuclear Software Fault; Undetected for 28 Years

By Shigeru Sato

April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Hitachi Ltd., Japan's third-largest builder of nuclear reactors, discovered a programming error in software used for almost three decades to measure the impact of earthquakes on pipes at atomic power stations.

The mistake, made by a Hitachi programmer, allows the software to underestimate the quake impact on steel pipes associated with eight nuclear reactors owned by six utilities, including Tokyo Electric Power Co., Hitachi spokesman Keisaku Shibatani said by telephone.

Confidence in the safety of Japan's nuclear power plants has been shaken after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake caused a fire and radiation leaks at a Tokyo Electric facility in Niigata prefecture last July. Twelve power producers, responding to a government request, revealed in March 2007 more than 300 cases of improper safety practices. Hitachi reported the software problem to the utilities this week, Shibatani said.

``It was a human error,'' he said. ``We're closely looking into this now.''

<snip>

[cliffordu]

1. Uh, oh......

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. 28 years and they just found it?

No code reviews in that time?

Hmm...I would say that it was a feature, not a bug.

[Nihil]

3. Yeah ... it was the millions of deaths each year that finally gave it away ...

oh ... wait ...

[NNadir]

4. Well, I guess if it wasn't discovered, unlike a coal facility, it had no consequence.

Duh...

In the meantime, you couldn't care less about the thousands of computer programs, autopsies, tissue samples etc, etc, that show that the normal operations of coal plants kill.

Nuclear power doesn't need to be perfect to save lives. It merely has to be way better than everything else, and it is.

I'm at a cancer meeting this week, and have attended several seminars on air pollution related cancer. I think of the dumb ass fundie anti-nuke cult after each one.

[Greyskye]

7. So you're implying that this shouldn't have been reported?

:wtf:

You need to turn down your defensiveness settings. They appear to be on overload. :eyes:

[NNadir]

9. I am implying that the concern is arbitrary and meaningless and totally without merit.

Got it?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

This may come as a surprise to the scientifically illiterate anti-nuke community, but risk is relative. For instance, there is some evidence - controversial but certainly ambiguous - that smoking cigarettes reduces certain classes of breast cancer risk. This does not mean of course that people should start smoking in they have a certain class of single nucleotide polymorphisms, since reducing their breast cancer risk will increase by several orders of magnitude the risk of lung, esophageal, and stomach cancer, as well as the risk of CV and MI and a variety of other syndromes.

Now, someone looking a cigarettes who only cares about boobs - or is a boob - might recommend smoking, because the boob obsessed - or boob - is viewing boobism in isolation from the other concerns.

This is a situation in which there was no injury, hint of injury or any other demonstrable risk.

In fact, the only concern is a boob concern, and it is, in context of the vast destruction being wrought by dangerous fossil fuels, a deliberate expression of ignorance.

Got it?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

The person who wrote the OP reports nuclear events in isolation from everything else.

I am at a scientific cancer meeting. I have been looking at biomarkers for epithelial cancers all day, many of which are related to air pollution.

The degree of anger that one feels over ignorance is relative to the amount one knows. If I wasn't pissed off at the destruction being wrought by fundamentalist anti-nukes - a fundamentalist is a person whose opinions are inflexible no matter how much data, scientific investigation or other facts he or she or it is exposed to - I would regard myself as morally diseased - like a fundie.

Ignorance kills.

[Greyskye]

10. Aligning people to your cause is not your forte

By your own definition, you seem to be as much of a fundamentalist as those you so passionately decry.

You come on here and attempt to shoot down every single energy option which is not nuclear. You appear to be a smart guy, your nothing-but-nuclear obsession notwithstanding. What in the world is wrong with a diversified approach? Solar? Crap. Wind? Double crap. Tidal? You would probably say that it is too localized.

There is no one, grand energy source which will instantly solve our energy problems. For now, we need every scrap of clean energy we can get, even if it doesn't instantly produce exojoules of energy.

Your tag is "NNadir". 'Nadir' is defined as an extreme state of adversity; the lowest point of anything. Quite appropo of your posts in this forum.

Got it?

No?

Why am I not surprised. :eyes:

[bananas]

11. Last year, an earthquake took out 7 reactors in Japan

and they won't be coming back online anytime soon.

Posted earlier today by phantom power:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x143137

Japan Ups CO2 Offset Buying As Nuclear Power Slows

Short version: they're going to pay into a fictitious market for the privilege of driving climate chaos with more CO2.

TOKYO - Japan is stepping up efforts to meet its Kyoto Protocol targets by buying more greenhouse gas emissions offsets from abroad than previously planned as its own emissions rise and nuclear power production dwindles.

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47959/story.htm

[NickB79]

12. Yep, nuclear plants go offline, and lethal CO2 emissions start rising

Imagine that. I wish someone would have predicted that Japan would re-activate fossil fuel-burning plants to take up the slack for the downed nuclear reactors.

Oh wait, someone did, several someones in fact, right here on E/E. But what's a million tons of CO2 between friends, right?

[bananas]

13. delete.

tired.

[Nihil]

14. *Zing*

:rofl:

Somehow I don't think Bananas had quite thought through the impact of
the article he was drawing attention to ...

> Short version: they're going to pay into a fictitious market for the
> privilege of driving climate chaos with more CO2.

i.e., by *removing* nuclear power from the equation they have *increased*
the amount of CO2 generated ... QED I think!
:toast:

[truebrit71]

5. Nuclear energy? No thanks!

:hi:

[Doctor Cynic]

6. Hope they weren't running Windows Vista OS.

[sergeiAK]

8. 1st law of programming

There's always one more bug.

Doesn't mean it's a dangerous one, or even one that needs to be fixed at all. But there's always a bug.