When news of the failure at the Fukishima nuclear plant was just breaking in March 2011 I wrote this:
A nuclear power plant in Japan is failing — part has already exploded. The melt down of the core is being discussed.
It's been my nightmare since realising the folly of Sizewell and nuclear power as a teenager living in Suffolk.
If that melt down happens — and I sincerely hope it does not — then we're not just heading for one of the biggest ecological disasters in human history. We're also heading for a massive humanitarian disaster. And if Tokyo is as disrupted as I fear — it being only 200 miles or so a way, we face potential global financial melt down.
If there is no one to deal with the counter party to debts in a global financial system it stops. Banks can't work through that.
Don't think nuclear melt down in Japan is some minor issue.
It's massive. For the world.
I am very, very worried.
This morning's Guardian headline is:
Fukushima radiation leaks reach deadly new high
Exposure to emissions would be fatal within hours, say Japanese authorities, as race to build frozen wall begins
I remain as worried. And, I think, rightly so. Tokyo remains at risk from this plant, as does a large tract of Japan. If this plant can't be made safe - and so far there's been an absurd and wholly inappropriate belief that the market can solve this which is now looking decidedly misplaced - then the impact on the world's financial systems will be colossal.
This is an occasion when I'd like to be wrong. But only be expending enormous effort can the Japanese prove me so.
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they seem to be saying they are going to have to dump the radioactive cooling water into the sea which will also be an environmental disaster on top of everything else
This is what happens when the nuclear industry believes its own hype about nuclear safety.
Tepco’s response to the disaster has been appalling. The global response equally so.
The end result will be a shrug and people being told that they’ll have to accept higher levels of radionuclides in every thing.
Such is the cost of ‘progress’.
At least the MSM is catching-up, that information is over a year old now.
Radiation levels near the tanks holding the overspill from keeping the damaged cores cool(ish) have reached 2.2 Sieverts/Hr. Note the limits for employees exposed to radiation here are around 50 millisieverts a year.
IF…the cooling tank holding the fuel rods, many already seriously damaged by overheating, that is the tank at FD4, collapses (and it is leaning more each week) then the radiation released will affect the entire world and render the area around it, some 200 mile radius, uninhabitable.
Note that there is no way, as yet, to extract the damaged cores in the cooling tank, since the computer-controlled crane that normally does the job has been destroyed. And nobody could survive the radiation above the tank for more than a few hours.
Nobody has any plans to rectify the problem.
With some 40 trillion Becquerels of Tritium leaked into the pacific since the disaster started (one gram of potassium is 31 Bq of radioactivity, for comparison).
My personal observation is that TEPCO and the Japanese government have no control over events, and have little hope of ever having control given the denial characteristics they have developed. The next ‘quake of over 7R will see the FD reactor 4 tank collapse, and they just had a 6.5…
Of course, the reactor is over 50 years old…and new designs are much better…a thorium reactor would be very much safer.
I shall not worry much either way, more people die in this country from exposure to carcinogens such as Benzene, than die in the entire world from exposure to radiation from nuclear reactors.
It makes little difference what you/I want, the world needs power, renewables can not provide it reliably.
That’s a logic that, to be candid, I find both bizarre and unpalatble
That is because you are “into” tax and economics. I’m into health, safety and welfare. The amount of deaths each year in the UK, from industrial disease, is high…4000+ from asbestosis alone.
More people will die this year, in this country, from cancers caused by exposure to medical ionising radiation, than have died at Fukushima (so far).
If (big if) the plant in Japan had been constructed to modern standards then the disaster would probably not have occurred. Of course, we are probably better off here anyway, with respect to nuclear power, because we have only a few minor fault zones in the earth….so few earthquakes. As I pointed out some time ago, at the moment the grid runs hundreds of diesel-powered generating plant, as well as gas CHP, to provide short-term power…there is an organisation that ties-in generators from other organisations to provide the STOR…places like hospitals and factories…they get a fee just for being available.
You’ll note their opening page partial statement “The STOR market has been growing in volume and value for several years, due to the reduction of flexible coal and oil electricity generation capacity, and the increase in forms of generation which require balancing, such as renewables”
http://www.flexitricity.com/key-technologies
As coal plant goes offline, more of the above will be needed. Note that if the grid departs much from the nominal 50Hz then area blackouts will occur first, and if really serious, the entire grid could shut down.
I note what you say
And that others don’t agree
And I do not think the deaths trade off a reasonable one
Seems that a big concern for the japanese Government is that it won’t affect the 2020 Olympic bid for Tokyo – encouraging priorities!
Who is suggesting ‘the market’ is wholly in charge of solving this issue?
In Japan it has been devolved to the private company operator as far as I can see
Tepco, the operator of the Fukushima plant, is only nominally a private company since without the Y1 trillion (approx $10 billion) allocation of preferred shares to a government fund, it would be bankrupt. The government has also announced another $500 million of funding since Tepco cannot pay itself to fix the problem.
It will be interesting to see whether the announcements about the situation in Fukushima are more negative after the Olympics announcement at the weekend. At the moment the Japanese government is trying to say everything will be okay by 2020 but that is a long time away.
If we are talking TEPCO, it is a private company primarily owned by various Japanese governmental bodies.
So, it has not devolved to ‘market’ forces?
If the company is managed as a market entity, yes it has