McCain and Palin: Its still about OIL

Originally posted by Wajoma
"...disaster was not a "nuclear meltdown" [b] in the usual sense "

interesting what some bolding can do.[/b]

The author's phrasing is poor (it usually is on wiki), but a "nuclear meltdown" is caused by loss of coolant which didn't happen here.

I was lazy to use wiki; a more detailed description is here. http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/nuclear_disasters/nuclear_disasters.html

It doesn't appear anything "melted down".

Originally posted by no1marauder
The author's phrasing is poor (it usually is on wiki), but a "nuclear meltdown" is caused by loss of coolant which didn't happen here.

You really like to drag this one out eh.

Can a "Chernobyl" (meltdown/non-meltdown, nuclear in the usual sense/not in the usual sense) happen in a modern power plant?

Originally posted by Wajoma
You really like to drag this one out eh.

Can a "Chernobyl" (meltdown/non-meltdown, nuclear in the usual sense/not in the usual sense) happen in a modern power plant?

Yes, steam could explode and blow off the top of a reactor in a "modern power plant" (though you've yet to give an example of what exactly that means. Was Three Mile Island a "modern power plant"?)

Originally posted by Wajoma
Nuke power stations cannot explode. What happened at Chernobyl was a melt down. So apart from a untold safetys to prevent that happening in the first place the modern reactor is also inside a containment building, thousands of tonnes of steel and concrete designed to contain a meltdown. I hope No1 can explain the similarities between a modern nuke station and Chernobyl, besides they make the water hot,

When you are right you are very correct.

A nuclear reactor is nothing more than a high tech boiler that heats water into steam to turn a turbine to power a generator etc, and while it is also true that nuclear reactors will never explode, and that the design that powered the Chernobyl disaster had breached so many safety codes before the control rods were dumpoed into the core at which point the toxic cloud of radiative gas was released which was one of the most devastating mechanism of the whole radioactive contamination there, its still not the whole story.

Yes most modern designs now circumvent the possibility of the core going molten, due to the fact that a loss of water in a core these days will actually act as a control and slow the reaction down until it stops.

And in terms of actual volume or weight of material required to make these babies glow, a nuclear reactor works off the tiniest fraction of uranium in weight when compared to the millions of tonnes of coal an average 500 MW coal fired power station will consume in a year.

But there are real problems in the industry, one that large scale adoption may only exacerbate. Nuclear proliferation or rather the potential to be able to produce fissionable material long the line of weapons grade plutonium is always a possibility whenever these systems are built. Any FBR(Fast Breeder Reactor) or LMFBR(Liquid Metal FBR) is designed to produce more fuel than it consumes.
Typically the core is packed with a blanket of uranium rods which absorbs neutrons formed during the nuclear reaction. This has the action of enriching those rods in the outer blanket, from which weapons grade plutonium can be extracted.

There will always be spent fuel rods that needs to be recycled and the final non reusable waste is still highly reactive with half lives of transuranic compounds that will be present for many a long year. Given the shortsightedness of most business ventures and given the huge almost permanent devastating effect to the environment a huge radioactive spill may have on the water table or some other part of the life cycle, the question becomes as this means of power production becomes more common and given the tendency of people to lose their vigilance in terms of maintaining the strictest codes of practice in a particular industry over a long time, at what critical number of plants in operation does Murphy's law simply click into action and we have the mother of all meltdowns( meltdown used as a metaphor for any radioactive material accident).

Like intelligence not all radioactivity is the same. The amount of decay from the unstable isotope in question is of primary concern, as well as the atomic number of that isotope undergoing decay. Some types of radioactive decay like alpha particle decay can be stopped with paper, beta decay can be stopped by aluminum but gamma radiation needs lead. Gamma radiation will most likely cause you harm as it ionizes every thing in sight(ie;strips electrons off atoms in its pathway leading to cellular dysfunction:-shortened short version)

Now given your wont to favor the market in managing itself and your reluctance to place any oversight in terms of standards in the hands of government, I would not like to be in a world where the market will decide what constitutes a safe number of "accidents". The amount of capital cost that goes into building these oversized water heaters means that commercial imperatives might mean that plants will stay in operation, even while they are known to be unsafe.

In this scenario, the knowledge that an unscrupulous vendor may eventually be prosecuted and found guilty of unconscionable negligence in having done untold damage to the environment or to a human population, will be small comfort for the very same who may now face a lifetime of cancer associated trauma that will only ease when they finally pass away. That's if a dirty bomb does not get them first.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Yes, steam could explode and blow off the top of a reactor in a "modern power plant" (though you've yet to give an example of what exactly that means. Was Three Mile Island a "modern power plant"?)

C o n t a i n m e n t building.

Originally posted by kmax87
When you are right you are very correct.

Given the shortsightedness of most business ventures

Now given your wont to favor the market in managing itself and your reluctance to place any oversight in terms of standards in the hands of government,

Chernobyl was an example of gummint doing it, not business and not the free market.

You should be singing the praises of state management.

Originally posted by Wajoma
Chernobyl was an example of gummint doing it, not business and not the free market.

You should be singing the praises of state management.

What was Three Mile Island an example of?

Originally posted by no1marauder
What was Three Mile Island an example of?

It wasn't an example of a "Chernobyl".

Originally posted by Wajoma
It wasn't an example of a "Chernobyl".

From the wiki,

"Whatever the sources of the local fear and outrage, public reaction to the event is judged by some epidemiologists to have induced stresses in the local population that could have caused adverse health effects."

Haha, gotta love it, the scaremongers caused more harm than anything physical that came from the incident.

Originally posted by Wajoma
It wasn't an example of a "Chernobyl".

It wasn't as bad (barely; if the hydrogen bubble had exploded the results might have been worse than Chernobyl) but the core melted, the reactor was destroyed and radiation escaped into the local environment. Not something that gives you a lot of confidence that private companies, unfettered by government regulation, would have the public health and safety as a primary concern.

Originally posted by Wajoma
You really like to drag this one out eh.

Can a "Chernobyl" (meltdown/non-meltdown, nuclear in the usual sense/not in the usual sense) happen in a modern power plant?

Yes, in fact, France is a ticking time bomb my friend and has been for quite some time. Tick-tock, Tick-tock, Tick-tock. LOL.

Seriously though, if we use the designated dump site for the waste, which is a mountain in Nevada, it could give a whole new meaning to the term, "Gambling your life away." From my understanding, this is the main sticking point to opposition for nuclear power.

Originally posted by whodey
Yes, in fact, France is a ticking time bomb my friend and has been for quite some time. Tick-tock, Tick-tock, Tick-tock. LOL.

Seriously though, if we use the designated dump site for the waste, which is a mountain in Nevada, it could give a whole new meaning to the term, "Gambling your life away." From my understanding, this is the main sticking point to opposition for nuclear power.

It's a sticking point (and a serious one) but by no means the only or even the main one.

Originally posted by Wajoma
Chernobyl was an example of gummint doing it, not business and not the free market.

You should be singing the praises of state management.

Chernobyl was an example of a broke government with resources stretched to the limit such that they had hardly any will or capacity to enforce any regulations. Google ageing soviet nuclear fleet.

Originally posted by kmax87
Chernobyl was an example of a broke government with resources stretched to the limit such that they had hardly any will or capacity to enforce any regulations. Google ageing soviet nuclear fleet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/607175.stm

http://www.ebrd.com/new/pressrel/2003/83June30.htm

http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2008/atomflot_torosatom

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/12/opinion/edlugar.php

Just a sample!

Originally posted by no1marauder
... if the hydrogen bubble had exploded the results might have been worse than Chernobyl..

I understand No1 if Three Mile blew up and melted down like Chernobyl then that would have been like Chernobyl.

Here's another 'if'. 'If' you stand on a very tall ladder in the right spot one of the blades on one of your beloved windmills will come and knock your head over into the next state.