Japanese nuclear (reprocessing) plant in quake risk (Nature)

[jpak]

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080604/full/453704a.html

A nuclear reprocessing plant in northern Japan is sited directly above an active geological fault line that could produce a magnitude 8 earthquake, some earth scientists say.

The massive Rokkasho plant for uranium enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing and nuclear-waste storage is built on an uplifted marine terrace of sloping sedimentary rock layers on the northeast coast of the island of Honshu. According to Mitsuhisa Watanabe, an earth scientist at Toyo University in Tokyo, there is an active fault lying directly under the plant. Watanabe presented his findings on 27 May at the annual meeting of the Japan Geoscience Union in Chiba.

But Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL), which runs the plant and is based in Aomori City, disagrees, saying that Watanabe's announcement has “unnecessarily sparked fear in people”. JNFL says that seismic reflection profiling shows that no part of the fault line described by Watanabe has seen any action for 1 million years, and that the fault doesn't extend beneath the plant. National guidelines issued in 2006 state that only faults with movement within the previous 120,000 to 130,000 years need be considered active when evaluating earthquake resistance of nuclear facilities. The JNFL survey concluded that there was no reason to fear an earthquake of more than magnitude 6.5 at the site, and that the plant could withstand a 6.9 quake nearby.

Last July, Tokyo Electric Power Company's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant —which was designed to withstand a magnitude 6.5 earthquake — was unexpectedly rocked by one of 6.8 (see Nature 448, 392–393; 2007).

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[NNadir]

1. So what? Japanese Dangerous Fossil Fuel Smokestacks Are Situated in the Atmosphere!

I note that ZERO dumb fundies who were cheering for the Japanese earthquake at the nuclear plant last year - the one that killed ZERO people with radiation - give a rat's ass about the number of people who have died from dangerous fossil fuel waste in Japan while the nuclear plant is repaired.

The Japanese nuclear reprocessing plant could be on a rickety ferris wheel and not be as dangerous as the dangerous fossil fuels that the Japanese dump into the atmosphere.

In 50 years of nuclear power - accompanied by 50 years of dumb fundie evocations of imagined earthquakes - ZERO people have been killed by earthquake related nuclear accidents.

The number of people who have died from dangerous fossil fuel earthquake related accidents is not zero.

In fact, major dangerous fossil fuel fires are a regular feature of earthquakes.

There is NOT ONE dumb fundie anti-nuke who has called for banning dangerous natural gas.

In fact 100% of dumb fundie anti-nukes are dangerous natural gas apologists.

[bananas]

2. It was the pro-nukes who were laughing and cheering

They thought nuclear jesus power plants were like superman!
Poor fundie uranus worshippers!
Earthquake was bigger than nuclear jesus power plants were designed for!
Nuclear jesus power plants were shut down!
Nuclear jesus power plants may never restart!
Pray pray to Lord Uranus for the resurrection of nuclear jesus power plants!
Pray! Pray!

[NNadir]

15. Bullshit. ZERO fundies on this website have remarked on the dangerous fossil fuel deaths

associated with this event.

ZERO anti-nuke fundies had any sympathy for the people killed by falling buildings, and ZERO fundie anti-nukes called for banning buildings because of the earthquakes..

Relying solely on selective attention, the anti-nuke fundie community couldn't care less about anything beyond validating their irrational paranoia.]

Now fundie, why don't you write a post about how you called for banning dangerous fossil fuels after the Marina district burst into flames in the 1989 earthquake.

Wouldn't dream of it fundie?

Why am I not surprised?

[losthills]

16. A falling building is equivalent to a nuclear accident?

You heard it here, folks....

[Systematic Chaos]

17. Maybe if you're lost in the hills, it is.

But here in the Real World (tm), falling buildings have killed many times more people in the last 100 years than radiation.

Of course, anyone with more than two spare synapses already knew that.

[losthills]

18. Wow, what a well thought out point....

Do you have any figures on the ratio of buildings to nuclear facilities? I'm not really sure if that's in the billions, or the trillions to one.....

[Dead_Parrot]

20. "I'm not really sure if that's in the billions, or the trillions to one."

Yes, hilly, there are hundreds of trillions of buildings. I personally have well over ten thousand tool-sheds.

Numbers are a kind of abstract concept, aren't they?

[losthills]

22. Here's something for you and your PPals to ponder...

If a building collapses in an earthquake, it kills or injures the people who are in it at the time.

If you nuclear facility collapses in an earthquake, it kills or sickens everyone in the entire city, neighboring cities, and possibly neighboring countries as well.

The average person can figure that out for themselves. That's why they don't want these things in their cities.

[Dead_Parrot]

23. Questions, genius:

What is the worst energy disaster in terms of lives lost?
What is the worst earthquake in terms of lives lost?
What is the worst nuclear disaster in terms of lives lost?

And, in each case, what are the numbers?


Note: Some of these questions involve lots of "0"s, so be sure to work out the difference between a thousand and a million, or a million and a billion, before attempting to answer.

[losthills]

24. You really don't understand what this post was about,

and probably didn't even read it.

You're just an attention whore with nothing positive to contribute to any thread.

[Dead_Parrot]

25. So, no answers, then

Colour me stunned.

[bananas]

19. Here's just one thread where pro-nukes cheered on the earthquake

Here's a DUer in Japan complaining about pronukes joking and cheering on the earthquake,
from one of the many threads at the time:

5. It's easy to joke about something so far away
But living a mere 125 miles away, I was quite unnerved at seeing the initial video footage of black smoke pouring from the nuclear reactor complex, with no information about its cause. And I'm sure for the people in the immediate vicinity, it was no laughing matter.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=103672&mesg_id=103682

In that thread, you'll see pro-nukes saying things like "So what? They were designed to take it!",
reminiscent of Bush's cheering "Bring it on!".
The pro-nukes didn't know the earthquake was larger than the nukes were designed for.
Fortunately, it wasn't that much larger, and not much radiation was released.
Unfortunately, the structural integrity of the plant may have been compromised,
now a small or moderate earthquake might cause it to fail dramatically.
So extensive inspection, repair, and remediation will be required just to bring it back to the old earthquake standard,
and then more work has to be done to upgrade it to survive the much larger earthquakes that they now know can occur there.
They might decide not to bring the reactors back online.

Frankly, the behaviour of the pro-nukes was simply disgusting.

[Systematic Chaos]

28. It takes one really whack imagination to derive the conclusions you have from that thread.

Nobody here on the pro-nuke side "cheers" death and disaster. We merely point out that others of you lack the critical thinking skills and basic mathematical acumen to determine for yourselves that media hype alone doesn't render nuclear power the harbinger of planetary doom, male pattern baldness, and pomegranate shortages that you so desperately want it to be.

By the way, just for shits and giggles, a Yahoo search for earthquake + refinery + deaths yielded some pretty amazing hits.

Show me some similar accounts of nuclear deaths due to earthquakes, or have yet another bout of
<img src="" alt="funny pictures" /></a><br />more <a href="http://icanhascheezburger.com">cat</a> pictures

[bananas]

29. NNadir said "dumb fundies who were cheering for the Japanese earthquake"

and I pointed out that the only ones cheering were the pro-nukes.
The dumb fundie nucular Uranus worshippers who lack the critical thinking skills and basic mathematical acumen to understand that the earthquake was larger than the plants were designed for.

[losthills]

3. Nuclear power is not a credible alternative to fossil fuels.

Pretending that it is is a false, fraudulent, and propagandistic justification.

[Systematic Chaos]

4. Seriesly!!

I mean, why do we need nuclear when we have all these awesome renewable energy sources which are solving all our problems, even as we speak?

I just know one of these days I'm gonna wake up to find that the CO2 level in the atmosphere has dropped by a third overnight, that all the people who have died of cancer and respiratory ailments from fossil fuels will all jump back to life a la the Thriller video, and there will be two solar pool heaters in every garage!

:bounce::bounce::bounce:

^
|

That would be the Happy Dance of the Renewables-Will-Save-Us Romper Room Brigade.

[losthills]

5. If you studied the issue, you would understand

that we can't possibly build enough reactors to replace fossil fuels, couldn't possibly fuel them if we did, and would spend more carbon than what we saved, anyway.

So why don't you study the issue, learn something, and leave "Jackass Flats" behind?

[Dead_Parrot]

6. Don't mess with the best, GG.

Hilly once read 20 published science papers in under 9 minutes (posts 37-39).

You can't argue with a Science God like that, his intellect is so big there is stuff in orbit around it.

[losthills]

7. Poor little guy.....

Nobody reads your propaganda, or takes your bullshit posts seriously.
:cry:

[phantom power]

8. Actually, according to my last straw poll, about 50% of people took it seriously.

[Systematic Chaos]

11. Well, the "One Brain Cell and Counting" contingent is nothing, if not series.

:rofl:

[Zachstar]

30. Bullshit? Hmm looking at his "evidence" of your "Fast Reading" it looks to be right.

Or are you going to accuse skinner of running a conspiricy against your bunny world?

[Zachstar]

31. Did I mention that you got owned losthills?

The one spreading bullshit in my view is YOU!

[Systematic Chaos]

9. You know what man?

I think it totally sucks that you'd have to go and live half a world away from me. I mean, you seem like the type I'd love to go out and have a beer with, and I can't even fucking stand beer!

:yourock::yourock::yourock:

[phantom power]

10. Wai!

[Systematic Chaos]

12. And you, too!

My wife is from Tempe, even, and you have no idea how badly I wish I would have moved down there rather than dragging her up here to Vegas. Even my mother, who was terminally ill at the time, may have gotten better care down there. Shame on me for being married to a casino job which ultimately meant dick.

I loved every moment of the combined couple weeks I spent in that area.

You ever shop at Bookman's by chance? They still around? I could have just about LIVED in that store, and of course there's nothing approaching its uber-coolness in this shithole.

[phantom power]

13. I actually don't get downtown too much...

because I somehow became a boring middle aged family man. Although it's always cool when we do. Tempe reminds me of Ann Arbor, which I miss. I happen to live about a block from Changing Hands, which is a nice bookstore. We like to walk there on weekends. At least, when it isn't 110F.

The problem with hitting a pub with DP is, New Zealand wouldn't let us in. Tight immigration laws, you know. Maybe we could apply for a pub visa.

[Dead_Parrot]

14. I'll have an extra one for you

and tell you how great it was - kills two birds with one stone. Come to think of it, would you like to buy a "beer credit"? You send me some money, and I'll send you a certificate saying you didn't have a beer (you might have had a different beer, but not the one on the certificate).

Hmm. I might pop round to the local AA meeting with that idea...

[Dogmudgeon]

26. Beer credits? That sounds like carbon credit trading.

I don't drink -- at all.

Could I sell my Beer Credits on the Free Market and invest in psilocybin derivatives instead?

:hippie:

--p!
Al Gore approves. He told me so himself.

[Dead_Parrot]

21. Update: You are now having a virtual Tui East India Pale Ale

www.tui.co.nz
It's damn nice, actually. Granted, that might be down to the bottle of Te Kairanga 'Runholder' Pinot Noir that we just finished, but it's the journey that counts.

Or something (hic).
:toast:

[Systematic Chaos]

27. Actually, I may try and hunt down some Guinness Dark here soon.

I tried it the *one* time I actually went to one of the nightclubs here in Vegas and it tasted pretty good. A little bitter, but mostly like chocolate and nuts or something.

I'm too diabetic to play around much with alcohol, but when I do it's usually just some Bailey's in a glass with ice. :)