"Can A Fukushima Happen in Russia? No..."

[bananas]

http://climatecrocks.com/2011/04/15/it-cant-happen-here/

“It Can’t Happen Here….”
April 15, 2011



This is, sadly, not a parody.

Remember how, for the first 20 years at least after the Chernobyl accident, we were calmly assured that such an accident “can’t happen here”, to western style reactors, because…because…because…because….

Now, in a Russian publication, readers are being assured that a Fukushima style accident can’t happen THERE…

<snip>

[LiberalLoner]

1. Just mind-blowing. K&R n/t

[PDJane]

2. It can happen anywhere and everywhere......

because they're built near sources of water and too often on a fault line. There's a reactor in the Philipines that has never produced one watt of power, never held a fuel rod. It was built under Jimmy Carter's watch, and after it was built, it was deemed too dangerous to power up...because it's sitting on a fault line, right near the ocean. The loan is being repaid, however, in spite of the fact that it was wasted money.

[Wilms]

3. "under Jimmy Carter's watch"?

What was particular about Carter with regard to this plant?

[PDJane]

4. I should have said during the Carter administration.

Of course, the aid for training and arming what would become the Taliban was signed by Carter at the behest of Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski. I suppose it's proof that even the very best aren't infallible.

[Wilms]

8. Agreed. n/t

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Technically Accurate.

They CAN have a bunch more Chernobyl's though. Still have a bunch of RBMK type reactors in operation.


Reassuring, I'm sure. :D

[FBaggins]

6. "Such an accident" DIDN'T happen in a western-style reactor.

The differences between what the two designs are precisely what kept it from becoming 2-3 Chernobyls... instead of less than 10% of one.

But you're right. It's hilarious that russia is saying it can't happen there. They're right... theirs could be worse. They still have a dozen or so of the RBMK-type reactors. A loss of coolant for extended periods would be unlikely to be contained to the extent Fukushima has been.

[SpoonFed]

9. USA! USA! USA! USA! n/t

[FBaggins]

10. It has nothing to do with jingoism

The whole host of "can't happen here" claims after Chernobyl gave a very specific set of reasons why. It went over what the differences were between an RBMK-type reactor and the common western types.

1) Lack of a containment vessel
2) Lack of primary containment
3) Positive void coefficient
4) Graphite moderation
5) Insufficient training

None of these existed in Japan, and all of these (with the possible exception of the graphite moderation) truly saved the day (to the extent it was saved).

Think about what would have been different. If Fukushima had lacked the sealed RPV or primary containment, the lid couldn't have contained the pressure that built up over the first few hours. All three cores would be open to the atmosphere (and it's unlikely that workers would have been able to cool anything). It would have been Chernobyl all over again (times 3).

The positive void coefficient meant that rather than power down, Chernobyl powered UP (substantially). The Japanese were just barely able to keep the cores from a total meltdown when the reactors were at 1% of their normal heat output... what do you think would have happened at 200-times that amount? Just that difference would have caused three full meltdowns that almost certainly would have escaped containment. I don't know about "melt down to the water table", but it would have been much worse.

Graphite moderation was what made Chernobyl dangerous for the rest of the world. Instead of leaking into the basement and/or irradiating the people around the plant, a massive fire further damaged the fuel and lifted heavier particles into the air in a cloud of smoke. The plume carried significant radioactivity for thousands of miles. Combine this difference with either of the ones above and, again, you've got three Chernobyl's.

Any of the ones above would also mean that workers wouldn't have been able to cool the spent fuel pools (because they couldn't work aynwhere near the reactors... plus the buildings would probably be gone)... so now you've got three Chernobyls PLUS at least four fuel pool fires.

The training was a big deal. The Japanese made a number of mistakes, but still likely saved many lives. We knew about it within hours, not days. Evacuations weren't as prompt as some would like, but were WAY ahead of Chernobyl. Workers (with the exception of the three that got their feet irradiated) are checking radiation levels and are avoiding "hot" areas. At Chernobyl, hundreds received potentially lethal doses in the first few days (dozens died within a couple weeks). Nobody at Fukushima has received more than 200mSv and only a score or so have gotten above 100 mSv. That's HUGE.

Different designs make a real difference. Had these been even better designs, the tsunami taking out the backup power wouldn't have made the difference. There would (in the case of the AP1000 for instance) have been three days worth of cooling water sitting above the core able to be poured in without power... AND the fuel pools would be inside the containment and cooled by that same flow.

Then you might not have even heard of Fukushima except as a footnote.

[kristopher]

7. The same nuclear industry sleight of hand is everywhere - the problem is fission itself.

For more than half a century fission has been a solution in search of a problem to which end they've created monumentally expensive and unstable Rube Goldberg systems to boil water.

Myths of the Nuclear Renaissance
Jim Harding

More than thirty years ago, my now-deceased colleague David Comey was asked to make a presentation before the annual meeting of the Atomic Industrial Forum, then the major trade association backing expansion of nuclear power worldwide.<1> He was asked to deliver that speech because he had built credibility with the press and with key decision makers by being scrupulously careful with his facts and analyses. The industry understood that its reputation—particularly with the media—was poor, and they wanted to understand how David did it. In Comey’s view, there was an easy explanation—the nuclear industry regularly exaggerated and misled.

In the intervening years, not much has changed. The industry still seems to prefer the sound of a splashy argument to a defensible case. Popular articles in the press, some opinion leaders and politicians, and even some environmentalists have bought the notion of a nuclear renaissance. Among other things, we hear that:

1. nuclear power is cheap;
2. learning and new standardized designs solve all past problems;
3. the waste problem is a non-problem, especially if we’d follow the lead of many other nations and “recycle” our spent fuel;
4. climate change makes a renaissance inevitable;
5. there are no other large low-carbon “baseload” alternatives;
6. there’s no particular reason to worry that a rapidly expanding global industry will put nuclear power and weapons technologies in highly unstable nations, often nations with ties to terrorist organizations...