Japan Earthquake: Political Aspects

[NUCENG]

About Enzo Boschi conduct I've had no time to form a specific opinion.
It is more than likely than you know about it much more than I do.

I should perhaps have stated it more clearly but I just do not think that Italy's attitude toward science can be extrapolated form the two cases you mentioned.

This does not mean that I think Italy is having astounding successes in technical or scientific advances (quite the contrary in fact); it is just that I do not see around any prevailing persecutory mood toward science or scientists.

Generalization or inferring a general conclusion from a single example is tempting, but invalid in most cases. Using a prosecution of a scientist to say that Italy is anti science is wrong. Using the referendum on nuclear power in Italy to infer that nuclear power is wrong in other countries is wrong. Using Fukushima management and government mistakes or even criminal negligence to say that all nuclear is unsafe and should be shutdown is equally wrong.

In Latin it is "Non sequitur."

 

[QuantumPion]

Generalization or inferring a general conclusion from a single example is tempting, but invalid in most cases. Using a prosecution of a scientist to say that Italy is anti science is wrong. Using the referendum on nuclear power in Italy to infer that nuclear power is wrong in other countries is wrong. Using Fukushima management and government mistakes or even criminal negligence to say that all nuclear is unsafe and should be shutdown is equally wrong.

In Latin it is "Non sequitur."

I disagree.

In Latin it is a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid.

 

[NUCENG]

I disagree.

In Latin it is a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid.

I am back in High Scool Latin with Sister Mary San Quentin and I am having cold sweats. Thanks for the correction.

 

[NUCENG]

So, what happened to this? How serious is this violation? Is it something everyone violates all the time, or is it rare?

FYI NRC has responded to FOIAs

FOIA/PA 11-0118, 0119, and 0120

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/japan-foia-info.html

Rough count is way over 1000 pp.

 

[zapperzero]

FYI NRC has responded to FOIAs

FOIA/PA 11-0118, 0119, and 0120

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/japan-foia-info.html

Rough count is way over 1000 pp.

I love it how the gov't is making citizens pay for data that citizens' money made possible to gather in the first place. Quaint American idea. Other than that... many of the more interesting FOIA requests are still open (like the one on rad counts in the US).

 

[NUCENG]

I love it how the gov't is making citizens pay for data that citizens' money made possible to gather in the first place. Quaint American idea. Other than that... many of the more interesting FOIA requests are still open (like the one on rad counts in the US).

What are you talking about? There is no charge for downloading from ADAMS. Only charges are for duplication and research fees if the requestor doesn't meet the exemptions anmd there are lots of exemptions.

 

[zapperzero]

Only charges are for duplication and research fees if the requestor doesn't meet the exemptions and there are lots of exemptions.

Duplicating bits is free or nearly so. Research fees? For documents in electronic format, at least, those should be as near zero as makes no difference as well.

I remarked on this in passing, because I was sincerely amused at the ways of your country's bureaucracy (not being a US citizen, I could care less).

However, after reviewing some of the released documents, it became apparent to me that the process of release does indeed involve an actual human being moving actual bits of paper around (printouts of e-mails and presentations etc etc). If it sounds costly, quaint, antiquated and unwieldy to you, it's because it is.

I will also note that this habit, beside wasting paper and man-hours, strips away any and all metadata from electronic documents (such as authorship, editing history, distribution list, access control, signatures, comments, EXIF etc etc) and thus by its very nature violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the FOIA.

But we're drifting way off-topic here, I believe?

 

[nikkkom]

I do disagree. If life gives you lemons, you should return them and ask for a refund.

Folk wisdom disagrees with you.

But seriously, it's not such a good place to store lots of radwaste. There's a city nearby and the site geology is real bad.

In this case, you should think that the entire Japan is not a good place for NPPs, because NPPs are more vulnerable to earthquake than dry casks, which are nearly undestructible.

Considering that Japan also has no deserts to cover with photovoltaics and its total potential wind power capacity is probably less than country's energy demand, what do you propose they should base their long-term power generation needs on?

 

[NUCENG]

Duplicating bits is free or nearly so. Research fees? For documents in electronic format, at least, those should be as near zero as makes no difference as well.

I remarked on this in passing, because I was sincerely amused at the ways of your country's bureaucracy (not being a US citizen, I could care less).

However, after reviewing some of the released documents, it became apparent to me that the process of release does indeed involve an actual human being moving actual bits of paper around (printouts of e-mails and presentations etc etc). If it sounds costly, quaint, antiquated and unwieldy to you, it's because it is.

I will also note that this habit, beside wasting paper and man-hours, strips away any and all metadata from electronic documents (such as authorship, editing history, distribution list, access control, signatures, comments, EXIF etc etc) and thus by its very nature violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the FOIA.

But we're drifting way off-topic here, I believe?

This IS the more political thread, so I'd like to ask how your country would have responded to these requests?

 

[zapperzero]

This IS the more political thread, so I'd like to ask how your country would have responded to these requests?

My country is a godforsaken backwater, but we do have a law similar to FOIA, so I'd probably get an answer to a similar question within 30 days.

The request form provides a space for me to specify an e-mail address where I want the documents to be sent. There is a tax for hardcopies, but no research tax. All the documents on the commission's website are in electronic format (no scanned PDFs, just e-text).

One of the funny-weird features of the local NRC-equivalent website is the section containing the tax statements of the Commission members. A wise provision, in a country plagued by corruption and tax crime.

EDIT: to be honest, I'm almost sure printing out e-mails, re-scanning them and collating them into PDF copies is way beyond the technical competence of the Commission's clerical staff, so I'd get the electronic format documents faute de mieux, as it were...

EVEN LATER EDIT: Come to think of it, I might just ask them if they've seen any traces of radioactivity from Fukushima. Hmm...

 

[Calvadosser]

(snip)

EDIT: the idea of printing out e-mails, then collating them in a scanned PDF? Who came up with that one? There's zero excuse here - while I can understand why rules and regulations would have treeware master copies, this is just stupid, verging on willfully incompetent.
(snip)

Responding to FOI requests with scanned PDF's has happened recently in the UK. The scanning is usually done at low resolution, making it essentially impossible to OCR the images.

It seems to be done as a way of making life difficult for FOI requesters while avoiding prosecution for failing to respond to FOI requests.

I have no idea if that applies in this instance.

 

[zapperzero]

In this case, you should think that the entire Japan is not a good place for NPPs, because NPPs are more vulnerable to earthquake than dry casks, which are nearly undestructible.

Considering that Japan also has no deserts to cover with photovoltaics and its total potential wind power capacity is probably less than country's energy demand, what do you propose they should base their long-term power generation needs on?

There are better sites, even in Japan (finding those with igneous rock instead of sediments would be a good start, picking spots slightly higher up on the coast would be a nice second priority).

I happen to think that the extreme weather events and gigantic earthquakes that happen to Japan on a regular basis do make it a bad place for nuclear plants. I also believe that Japan, unlike other developed countries, had no choice but to adopt nuclear power on a large scale, to achieve some degree of energy independence and thus a stable (let alone prosperous) economy.

For the long term (50 years or so) I'd say that Japan should try to phase out and shut down obsolete reactors (Monju first of all!) and invest heavily in hydro power, solar and geothermal. Japan used to lead the world in chip-making and oyster farming. Floating solar panels shouldn't be so hard to pull off.

As I understand it, Japan has a lot of unused area, which consists mostly of rocky valleys. So wind power _may_ be a workable alternative/supplement to hydro.

But we're getting off-topic. Let's end this or continue in private, or on another thread.

 

[joewein]

I do disagree. If life gives you lemons, you should return them and ask for a refund. But seriously, it's not such a good place to store lots of radwaste. There's a city nearby and the site geology is real bad.

There used to be a city called Pripyat too, before the accident... It's been a ghost town for the last 25 years.

I think a lot of people who used to live near F1 are far too optimistic about their prospects of being able to return to their homes any time soon. They can't come back, not just because the reactors aren't stable yet, but because the place is badly contaminated.

On second thought, it probably isn't not such a good place for intermediate storage of radwaste after all, because it's not very safe for people to work there. Somebody would have to guard and check the condition of the containers. There will have to be people onsite 24/7. That doesn't make sense in a place where radiation is not measured in fractions of one microsievert per hour, but hundreds of them, or even millisieverts per hour.

I know in Chernobyl they continued running the other reactor blocks for years, despite the local radiation levels but that tells you something about what kind of country it was.

 

[nikkkom]

There used to be a city called Pripyat too, before the accident... It's been a ghost town for the last 25 years.

I think a lot of people who used to live near F1 are far too optimistic about their prospects of being able to return to their homes any time soon. They can't come back, not just because the reactors aren't stable yet, but because the place is badly contaminated.

On second thought, it probably isn't not such a good place for intermediate storage of radwaste after all, because it's not very safe for people to work there.

People will _have to_ work there for at least a year anyway, to clean up F1 mess. Therefore, buildings on site and all roads have to be decontaminated to make radiation levels safe for nearly continuous presence of men anyway.

Somebody would have to guard and check the condition of the containers. There will have to be people onsite 24/7. That doesn't make sense in a place where radiation is not measured in fractions of one microsievert per hour, but hundreds of them, or even millisieverts per hour.

I know in Chernobyl they continued running the other reactor blocks for years, despite the local radiation levels but that tells you something about what kind of country it was.

In a few more months, all radiation will be only in the soil, not in the air. (Monsoon season should be helping with it a lot, too).

If roads and buildings are thoroughly decontaminated and people who work in the area do not eat locally grown food, do not drink local water, and do not stroll in local fields or forests, the dose they get may be quite low.

 

[nikkkom]

There are better sites, even in Japan (finding those with igneous rock instead of sediments would be a good start, picking spots slightly higher up on the coast would be a nice second priority).

There are plenty of nearby (~2km) territory which has significantly higher elevation.

 

[Susudake]

Folk wisdom disagrees with you.


In this case, you should think that the entire Japan is not a good place for NPPs, because NPPs are more vulnerable to earthquake than dry casks, which are nearly undestructible.

So why all the fuss in the US about where to store radwaste? Why are the Finns going to all the trouble to bury theirs under 800m of bedrock? Could it have something to do with that (for one) pesky 24,000 year half-life thing?

As someone posted on another forum, at some future point that waste might be considered fuel.

Considering that Japan also has no deserts to cover with photovoltaics and its total potential wind power capacity is probably less than country's energy demand, what do you propose they should base their long-term power generation needs on?

Setting aside that there's also geothermal (which, yes, has it's major downsides), how about conservation?

One thing that should be rather clear by now is that the Japanese are masters at creating a nice pretty picture to cover messy realities. It's even endemic to the language, which is chock-full of euphemisms especially in the way kanji (Chinese characters) are used.

How that pertains here is in the supposed energy conservation and waste-reducing/recycling culture here. One example is "moeru gomi" (burnable waste)...that includes any and all plastics--except, don't burn PET bottles, god forbid! The Kanto plain is basically awash with PCBs from all the trash that's burned.

You can see trash cans outside the ubiquitous convenience stores (there's a cultural meme for you) that say "Save the Earth" on them (at the bottom, tellingly), and, above, "Burnable Garbage" with the various plastics one can burn listed. After all, everyone here knows whales are fish and plastic is burnable.

So as to conservation, while better than the US (who isn't?) the Japanese waste all kinds of energy. Most people stands on down escalators, you see people running so they can get on an elevator, etc. Moving walkways are treated as moving standways--again like Bovinaria aka the USA. I have a photo from the stair case leading to a mountaineering store on the third floor--a sign says "only 13 more seconds (of climbing stairs) until the store." Fortunately they moved to a new location and you can now take the elevator to buy your hiking gear.

Since the FDI disaster they've got a number of escalators turned off (in Tokyo more so than in Kansai), and calorie markings on the staircases coming up from subway platforms (at least in Kyoto)--every step has them marked, about .1-.2kcal per step. Not even any helpful signs telling you only 10 seconds more of arduous climbing left.

Folks are now walking around proudly in yukata (summer cotton kimono) to show they can deal fashionably with the heat (and it IS oppressive right now and will be well into September) and it appears the realization is dawning that one can actually walk rather than get carried around everywhere. I've read the US wastes HALF it's electricity and I'd wager Japan wastes a third, so there's your nuclear portion right there.

Lest I be flamed for posting on the wrong thread (well I will be anyway I expect), let's get (somewhat) scientific here:

Being a lazy-arse/comfort queen — moving your tuckus/sweating a bit = no more nukes!

That's an equation I for one can live with.

 

[nikkkom]

So why all the fuss in the US about where to store radwaste?

I have no idea what's up with US in that regard. Dry cask storage is a no-brainer. One theory is that greens want to kill nuclear power generation by obstructing all possible ways to deal with the waste.

Why are the Finns going to all the trouble to bury theirs under 800m of bedrock? Could it have something to do with that (for one) pesky 24,000 year half-life thing?

As someone posted on another forum, at some future point that waste might be considered fuel.

Exactly. That 'pesky thing' is our future fuel.

Setting aside that there's also geothermal (which, yes, has it's major downsides), how about conservation?

One thing that should be rather clear by now is that the Japanese are masters at creating a nice pretty picture to cover messy realities. It's even endemic to the language, which is chock-full of euphemisms especially in the way kanji (Chinese characters) are used.

How that pertains here is in the supposed energy conservation and waste-reducing/recycling culture here. One example is "moeru gomi" (burnable waste)...that includes any and all plastics--except, don't burn PET bottles, god forbid! The Kanto plain is basically awash with PCBs from all the trash that's burned.

You can see trash cans outside the ubiquitous convenience stores (there's a cultural meme for you) that say "Save the Earth" on them (at the bottom, tellingly), and, above, "Burnable Garbage" with the various plastics one can burn listed. After all, everyone here knows whales are fish and plastic is burnable.

So as to conservation, while better than the US (who isn't?) the Japanese waste all kinds of energy. Most people stands on down escalators, you see people running so they can get on an elevator, etc. Moving walkways are treated as moving standways--again like Bovinaria aka the USA. I have a photo from the stair case leading to a mountaineering store on the third floor--a sign says "only 13 more seconds (of climbing stairs) until the store." Fortunately they moved to a new location and you can now take the elevator to buy your hiking gear.

Since the FDI disaster they've got a number of escalators turned off (in Tokyo more so than in Kansai), and calorie markings on the staircases coming up from subway platforms (at least in Kyoto)--every step has them marked, about .1-.2kcal per step. Not even any helpful signs telling you only 10 seconds more of arduous climbing left.

Folks are now walking around proudly in yukata (summer cotton kimono) to show they can deal fashionably with the heat (and it IS oppressive right now and will be well into September) and it appears the realization is dawning that one can actually walk rather than get carried around everywhere. I've read the US wastes HALF it's electricity and I'd wager Japan wastes a third, so there's your nuclear portion right there.

Lest I be flamed for posting on the wrong thread (well I will be anyway I expect), let's get (somewhat) scientific here:

Being a lazy-arse/comfort queen — moving your tuckus/sweating a bit = no more nukes!

That's an equation I for one can live with.

Domestic power consumption is dwarfed by industrial consumption. You can turn off all elevators in the country, it will not matter much in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Luca Bevil]

According to the EU about 10 % of energy saving can be achieved from today to 2020 with self sustaining economics (i.e. non need for public financing incentives).

http://ec.europa.eu/resource-efficient-europe/

From what I read and see it would appear to me that a somewhat higher than 10% percentage could be easily achieved in both Japan and the US.

While not sufficient in absolute terms it could be a nice target to achieve for 2020.
The political will seems unsufficient, though.
Any thoughts ? may be I am wrong and such targets are indeed in place ?

I wonder why ...

 

[Susudake]

I have no idea what's up with US in that regard. Dry cask storage is a no-brainer. One theory is that greens want to kill nuclear power generation by obstructing all possible ways to deal with the waste.
Exactly. That 'pesky thing' is our future fuel.

Methinks we'll have to move any further discussion to another thread.

Domestic power consumption is dwarfed by industrial consumption. You can turn off all elevators in the country, it will not matter much in the grand scheme of things.

And I suspect the industrial sector could, similarly, do much better at conserving energy; hey, maybe both can, there's a radical idea!

And, domestic conservation would and will matter if merely in making people aware of a) how much they waste needlessly and b) how bearable life is without, for example, freezing cold indoor spaces in the summer. Back when there was even more egregious wasting of electricity (thinking of the 80s/90s) you could walk down the street in a major Japanese city in sweltering summer heat and get blasted by ice-cold air coming out of OPEN doorways to stores large and small. Taipei and Bangkok too as they got wealthier--it was a sign of status: "look how much we can waste!"

I'm staying in hotels/gueshouses right now and at the place I'm at I absolutely can't turn the shower water below 37C, even in sweltering weather I can't take a cool shower if I want to. And yes, I could turn off the heater I suppose but that doesn't disprove my point.

As I've tried and failed to advocate elsewhere, there's a lot of reality happening between and around the numbers. I follow this thread and recognize fully the value of the incremental progress in understanding this disaster made by the small-detail-oriented contributions (and do have some familiarity with the ole scientific method), and am grateful for all the sincere contributions by the various folks here, but equating "weight" with value is a narrow view--IMO.

Anyway this is forest not trees stuff and no equations, photos, analysis thereof, speculation involving facts and figues or "facts and figures," so probably best it leaven up one of the rather anemic political threads, eh mods?

Edit: yes good it was moved to this thread. FWIW I did feel I was intruding on the venerable (no sarcasm intended) scientific thread, it must be the best source on the 'net for info re FDI so these messy discussions definitely muck it up.

More later...

 

[Morbius]

And I suspect the industrial sector could, similarly, do much better at conserving energy; hey, maybe both can, there's a radical idea!

Susudake,

Actually that has been well studied, and industry does MUCH, MUCH better at conserving energy!

After all, think about it - wasted energy is wasted money and wasted profit to industry, so industry which is always in competition goes to much greater lengths to conserve energy and be as efficient as possible with the energy that they use since it means real $$$$ to them.

Greg

 

[Atomfritz]

the idea of printing out e-mails, then collating them in a scanned PDF? Who came up with that one? There's zero excuse here - while I can understand why rules and regulations would have treeware master copies, this is just stupid, verging on willfully incompetent.

If I sound frustrated, it's 'cause I am. I have good text processing, indexing and search tools at my disposal - and none of them work!

Responding to FOI requests with scanned PDF's has happened recently in the UK. The scanning is usually done at low resolution, making it essentially impossible to OCR the images.

It seems to be done as a way of making life difficult for FOI requesters while avoiding prosecution for failing to respond to FOI requests.

I believe the fact that nuclear-related stuff usually is published this way is not incompetent but intentional. See also post https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3353114&postcount=9664" etc.
They just don't want people to be able to find it via public search engines.

Tepco is installing shields to protect workers from radiations in unit 3's reactor building. The purpose is to be able to start nitrogen injection on 8 July.

After 4 months they begin to implement serious measures to begin work inside the buildings. Finally!

The final storage problem would be solved better through international cooperation. Some countries have more suitable formations than others and if something goes wrong, the radioactive plume will does not stop at national borders and 12 nautical mile zones, as we have found out with Chernobyl and the Fukushima disaster.

Hmm, maybe they chose Mongolia because low-inhabitated Siberia will absorb the radiation plume first?
Or maybe just "assisting" some rebels in Burkina Faso that cry for "help", so we can build a mining honeypot for people that live one millennium after us?

I doubt they would want to wash contaminated dust onto the surrounding of the reactor building.

Convincing, thanks. Then this apparent "cleaning" happening in the time until the IAEA picnic photo was probably natural (wind, rain).

Maybe it would, if you had volunteered ;-)

What a pity that I don't speak Japanese. Wouldn't there be the communication problem, I'd enjoy such an adventure.
Japan has way more than 100 million people, and a Kamikaze tradition way more sophisticated than in the real socialism. Really, I think there could be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of volunteers.
The emperor probably just would have to say that this is necessary and people would start lining up.

I know in Chernobyl they continued running the other reactor blocks for years, despite the local radiation levels but that tells you something about what kind of country it was.

Dunno. Does this really matter if the "safe" doses are not exceeded?
Also, radiation-exposed workers got a weekly free bottle of internal decontamination chemicals ("vodka") and extra financial compensation if I remember reports from the glasnost era correctly.

(offtopic)

How that pertains here is in the supposed energy conservation and waste-reducing/recycling culture here. One example is "moeru gomi" (burnable waste)...that includes any and all plastics--except, don't burn PET bottles, god forbid! The Kanto plain is basically awash with PCBs from all the trash that's burned.

You can see trash cans outside the ubiquitous convenience stores (there's a cultural meme for you) that say "Save the Earth" on them (at the bottom, tellingly), and, above, "Burnable Garbage" with the various plastics one can burn listed. After all, everyone here knows whales are fish and plastic is burnable.

Your rant makes me think that there are really many anti-Japanese prejudices.
Just for your information, waste separation in Germany is done in three baskets: paper, packing material, and "other waste".
Most of the latter both are "thermally recycled" in waste incincerating power plants. They just regulate the furnaces by varying the mix of the "packing materials" (high energy) and "other waste".
So you see, most people here believe the waste gets recycled. But they do not think of "thermal recycling", they just imagine recycling like paper.
(/offtopic)

Has this been discussed already and I missed it? Arnie comments on the old SFP3 underwater video...

Yes this has been discussed, long before Arnie even heard of this.
And, he just asks "where is the other fuel?". I think this is a legitimate question.
And I don't think that he will attempt to make us believe that this is why Osama Bin Laden (or whatever) recently was finally punished in Ahmedabad.

 

[clancy688]

Actually that has been well studied, and industry does MUCH, MUCH better at conserving energy!

After all, think about it - wasted energy is wasted money and wasted profit to industry, so industry which is always in competition goes to much greater lengths to conserve energy and be as efficient as possible with the energy that they use since it means real $$$$ to them.

I think there's a most recent example for this. An american general calculated the costs for supplying the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with AC - it's 20 billion dollars a year.

 

[nikkkom]

I think there's most recent example for this. An american general calculated the costs for supplying the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with AC - it's 20 billion dollars a year.

That would be government, not industry. Government is usually horribly inefficient.

 

[etudiant]

I have no idea what's up with US in that regard. Dry cask storage is a no-brainer. One theory is that greens want to kill nuclear power generation by obstructing all possible ways to deal with the waste.

My impression is that US industry has not been eager to shift spent fuel to dry cask storage because the casks are painfully expensive, reportedly in the $1 million/cask range. At that price, leaving the old fuel in the SPF is a much more appealing option, especially as safety arguments are not a good basis for rate discussions.

 

[etudiant]

This Mainichi article offers some interesting perspectives on the still ongoing competition for new business between the reactor suppliers: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110704p2a00m0na015000c.html

Unfortunately, the document described is not linked in the article.

 

[clancy688]

That would be government, not industry. Government is usually horribly inefficient.

That's exactly what I wanted to tell. That government/military is horribly inefficient compared to the industry.

 

[Morbius]

They just don't want people to be able to find it via public search engines.

Atomfritz,

Actually there may be another reason. When one transmits files electronically, one may never be quite sure what is really in the file. There is often information in the file that you don't get to see with your editor.

For example, many people learned only recently that often pictures have more in the file than just the image; they often have the GPS coordinates at which the picture was taken.

Therefore, when dealing with files that may be sensitive, or may have to have things redacted from them - the rules are made so as to prohibit any sensitive information from being passed along inadvertently because the reviewer isn't seeing the information.

One way to insure that ONLY the printed matter that the reviewer can see is all that is being transmitted is to print out the file as a paper copy and then rescan it back into electronic form.

That way one can be sure that there's no sensitive information being passed along that doesn't get reviewed because the review can't see it with the editor or image viewer that the reviewer is using to look at the content of the file.

Greg

 

[Morbius]

My impression is that US industry has not been eager to shift spent fuel to dry cask storage because the casks are painfully expensive, reportedly in the $1 million/cask range. At that price, leaving the old fuel in the SPF is a much more appealing option, especially as safety arguments are not a good basis for rate discussions.

etudiant,

Sorry, but that is just plain WRONG. Whether a utility can leave a fuel element in the pool or not is governed solely by technical considerations, and not economic ones. If they were ever in a situation where they couldn't off-load a fuel element to the pool because they didn't have space, they would jeopardize the return of the plant to online status.

It would be cheap insurance to have extra dry casks sitting around even at $1 million apiece.

The plant can earn much more than the cost of 1 cask in a single day. One days unnecessary outage because you don't have a cask available will be enough to purchase the cask.

Greg

 

[etudiant]

etudiant,

Sorry, but that is just plain WRONG. Whether a utility can leave a fuel element in the pool or not is governed solely by technical considerations, and not economic ones. If they were ever in a situation where they couldn't off-load a fuel element to the pool because they didn't have space, they would jeopardize the return of the plant to online status.

It would be cheap insurance to have extra dry casks sitting around even at $1 million apiece.

The plant can earn much more than the cost of 1 cask in a single day. One days unnecessary outage because you don't have a cask available will be enough to purchase the cask.

Greg

If that is so, why are the spent fuel pools in the US plants so stuffed?
I remember discussions early in this disaster where people pointed out that the practice of re racking and of keeping more than one load of fuel in the pool was developed by US plants unable to ship out their spent fuel, but unwilling to spend the money to dry cask it pending eventual shipment. Seen that the regulators are as much at fault in this as anyone, I can understand them not forcing the sites to spend the money.

 

[jim hardy]

"If that is so, why are the spent fuel pools in the US plants so stuffed? "

The industry was promised a robust reprocessing industry that would be glad to take the old fuel. So our existing fleet of plants was built with not a lot of storage capacity for spent fuel.

That promise vaporized during the Carter administration, purportedly over concerns about proliferation. John Mcphee's book "The Curve of Binding Energy" is often credited with having tipped the scale. (BTW it's very interesting and easy to read)

So now our nation's "nuclear generating fleet" is basically a hundred 30-45 year old Chevys, meticulously maintained but with every used tire that was ever on them stuffed in their trunks.

Used to be some utilities don't even own the fuel but lease it from a fuel supplier and simply store it for them until they can take it back for the reprocessing - that never materialized.. i don't know how fuel contracts are done anymore but i'd wager somebody is paying interest on it.

US has kinda fumbled that one.

 

[zapperzero]

Atomfritz,

Actually there may be another reason. When one transmits files electronically, one may never be quite sure what is really in the file. There is often information in the file that you don't get to see with your editor.

For example, many people learned only recently that often pictures have more in the file than just the image; they often have the GPS coordinates at which the picture was taken.

Therefore, when dealing with files that may be sensitive, or may have to have things redacted from them - the rules are made so as to prohibit any sensitive information from being passed along inadvertently because the reviewer isn't seeing the information.

One way to insure that ONLY the printed matter that the reviewer can see is all that is being transmitted is to print out the file as a paper copy and then rescan it back into electronic form.

That way one can be sure that there's no sensitive information being passed along that doesn't get reviewed because the review can't see it with the editor or image viewer that the reviewer is using to look at the content of the file.

Greg

The stuff that the NRC posted so far does not appear to have been censored in any way. Other than that you are right, of course.

 

[Susudake]

Your rant makes me think that there are really many anti-Japanese prejudices.

I assume you mean you think I'm anti-Japanese or prejudiced against them. Prejudice means to pre-judge.

I've lived here off and on for ten years since '88, speak the language, and have a very deep involvement with traditional Japanese culture, so how can I be pre-judging Japan?

Perhaps you could first spend a little time here (Japan) before you start (pre-)judging the statements of people who have in fact spent many years here. Couldn't hurt anything these days but your health.

As for my supposed rant, I mentioned the "moeru gomi" thing to a friend today, a long-term specialist in translating medical texts, so I consider him a reliable source for health-related information: he said that due to the extensive burning of plastic garbage, Japanese women have among the highest concentrations of dioxin in their breast milk in the world.

Just for your information, waste separation in Germany is done in three baskets: paper, packing material, and "other waste".
Most of the latter both are "thermally recycled" in waste incincerating power plants. They just regulate the furnaces by varying the mix of the "packing materials" (high energy) and "other waste".
So you see, most people here believe the waste gets recycled. But they do not think of "thermal recycling", they just imagine recycling like paper.

Well they don't do that here, all kinds of plastics are just incinerated (or burned outside, mostly in rural areas), hence all the dioxin floating around.

This kind of information bears on the FDI situation and it's hopeful successful resolution. I've neither time nor inclination to go online and rant pointlessly.

 

[Susudake]

Susudake,

Actually that has been well studied, and industry does MUCH, MUCH better at conserving energy!

After all, think about it - wasted energy is wasted money and wasted profit to industry, so industry which is always in competition goes to much greater lengths to conserve energy and be as efficient as possible with the energy that they use since it means real $$$$ to them.

Greg

Of course, industry is motivated to conserve, but there are at least a couple of things I can think of off the top of my head that would run counter to what you're saying---at some point on the conservation curve the costs will rise quickly, and then the very same profit motive will discourage further conservation, until--as has happened numerous times--something lowers that cost and then the motivation will be to catch up. Two (again OTTOMH) things can move that point forward--technological progress, especially breakthrough technology, and government regulations which just move the goal posts for everyone (in a perfect world, of course some might cheat but that's ostensibly one reason governments are there in the first place). So there's always room for improvement, that's axiomatic in fact.

Yes, of course industry is much more efficient than the domestic sector, but who produces the inefficient refrigerators, A/C units, etc? And you have another sector, the business sector, with it's open doors in July blasting cold air outside, making every convenience store blindingly bright inside, and so on. That's got to account for more than a negligible amount of waste. Halide street lights streaming light upwards (look at the night map of Japan, it's one big white blob, in fact the factory trawlers blaring lights to attract squid and so on show up too), etc etc etc.

I'll look around the web for the data I've seen on energy wastage, but I'm sure I've read about 1/3 for Japan, in which case it doesn't matter too much who is or isn't wasting, the fact remains that a third--or whatever percentage it is--is being wasted, and at least a portion if not a majority of it can be conserved through various measures.

So my somewhat tongue-in-cheek equation may be a bit simplistic, but I'd like to hear a better counterargument than "studies" (link please?) prove industry's as efficient as can be, so we need nuke power or we'll be either choking on coal dust or living like savages.

 

[jim hardy]

""Domestic power consumption is dwarfed by industrial consumption. ""

i was surprised to find in the US it's not. Between 1996 and 2010 industrial use actually came down from about 96% to 66% of residential use. Residential went up ~34% while industrial went down ~7%.

http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_1.html

 

[joewein]

""Domestic power consumption is dwarfed by industrial consumption. ""

i was surprised to find in the US it's not. Between 1996 and 2010 industrial use actually came down from about 96% to 66% of residential use. Residential went up ~34% while industrial went down ~7%.

http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_1.html

It's not too different in Japan:

Electricity Consumption 2008 (TWh)
total (TWh): 964
Industry: 31.5%
Transport: 1.95%
Commercial/Public Services: 36.4%
Agriculture/Forestry: 0.09%
Fishery: 0.000%
Residential: 29.8%
other: 0.23%
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_energy_consumption" )

So industrial and residential use is basically neck to neck these days. Industrial use dominated up until the bubble era, but since then residential use kept growing significantly relative to industrial use.

It was only in the 1990s that Japanese started using electrically heated toilet seats, which now account for about 4% of residential electricity use.

Growth of residential electricity far outpaced growth of natural gas use and TEPCO's "ohru denka" campaign for "all electric" households (electricity for cooking, hot water, room heating, everything!) right until March of this year must have contributed.

Air conditioning (A/C) is the biggest factor determining annual peak consumption here. I have heard of several innovative approaches for more efficient air conditioning in commercial settings over the past year. For example, Tokyo Sky Tree, the new 634 m high digital broadcast tower uses an underground water tank chilled at night time (when outside temperatures are low and electricity is not in short supply) as a daytime heat sink. Some factories and office buildings have used similar approaches. The cool water tanks can double up for fire fighting and disaster relief purposes.

By contrast, air conditioning in residential settings is still largely an add-on rather than designed in for best efficiency. Tenants in rental accommodation still move their A/C units when they move to a different property, just like their ceiling lights!

I see a lot of potential for residential savings by integrating heating and cooling and smarter building design. When I run my bathtub, cold tap water gets heated to 40C by burning methane, but in the afternoon my A/C struggles to dump heat into 32-35C outside air to keep the house under 30C. And couldn't the land under the house be used more as an A/C heat sink to reduce compressor loads? It would probably be far cheaper to reduce residential usage in ways that do not affect comfort than to add extra generating capacity.