Made their workers cover their radiation monitors with lead plates:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-07-22/japan-coverup-radiation-nuclear-plant/56408950/1

Tell it to the butterflies:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/mutant-butterflies-haunt-fukushima/story-fnb64oi6-1226450205095

Sure Marc, the IPCC SREX report is clear that current evidence levels on extremes on the issues I chose isn't high. But the evidence on a warming shift and in the shape of that shift (longer tails) is strong, so the other impacts will follow. Hansen's predictions of 1988 have been pretty much spot on, so I'd back his recent PNAS assessment.

As for food production, this is highly non-linear with regard to weather and increases have been as a result of a constant flow of fertiliser and innovation in plant breeding. The easy gains have been made. It's getting tougher. The major problem with food at present is that it isn't always produced where it is needed and the livestock and motor vehicles of rich people always outbid the poor for what is available.

Other's can judge for themselves ...
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/

What were your 1988 predictions Marc?

Hi Alex. Not enough (any) executives died for my liking.

Have you factored in all the lives saved by the 4 coastal nuclear stations? At a rough guess its about a thousand people (workers on duty at the time) who owe their lives to working in those plants rather than in some coastal solar panel industry. If there had been more nuclear plants along that coast, there would have been even few deaths.

See, here's a fundamental philosophical error:

"...who owe their lives to working in those plants..."

It's like reading a mine owner from a Zola novel. Nobody "owes their lives" to an institution and anyone who thinks they do, or that someone else might do, is leading a life not worth living.

What Geoff rightly means is that every coal plant prevented by installing nuke instead, saves many lives, much disease cost and many mining & processing/transport injuries/deaths.

In the US alone, our remaining coal plants kill >10,000 of us per year just from emissions. Add mining/processing to that, if you like.

Nukes have killed 0 of us.

It may be of interest that combustion plants can not only emit Arsenic, Mercury... but also 100x the radiation any nuke is allowed. That's because of the combustion industry's successful lobbying for what are the NORM Exemptions,.

Think about where coal comes from, and that freshly-mined coal is over 50% rock, some of which makes its way to the power plant's fires.

Interestingly (as reported by New Scientist this week) the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has recently decided that new nuclear plants can't be licensed and existing licenses can't be renewed until the US figures out what to do with its nuclear waste.

This does not represent a vote of confidence in the safety of the nuclear indisutry by the NRC.

None who've known TEPCO and the Japanese govt. have nbelieved TEPCO for decades, Shirley.

But, that's a cultural problem the Japanese have long had and covered from average folks. Anyone working for/with Japanese companies learns this cultural reality. TEPCO & NISA just may be the worst examples.

Hi Alex,

appreciate your expertise even if not slways in accord with your viewpoint in regard to risk assessment. Can you point me to some substantial and un-sensationalized information in regard to the Enrico Fermi I partial core meltdown?

And how is that "cultural problem" of malfeasance going in the motherland Alex, 53 years after a sodium reactor had a fuel meltdown?:

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_20108641/rocketdyne-radiation-is-still-abundant

http://www.psmag.com/science-environment/50-years-after-nuclear-meltdown-3510/

You have some point, Shirley? Malfeasance is malfeasance. ask the Indians about Bhopal. Oops. you don't care because that wasn't nuclear, despite it having far larger effects and still not addressed decades later. What about the Japanese mercury problems and Minimata Disease?

Sure, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Fermi_Nuclear_Generating_Station
has a good summary.

One thing folks need to grasp is that "nuclear power" means many things, much as "transportation systems".

The Fermi plant that had partial fuel melting, but no release of radiation, was of the class that uses liquid metal (sodium) for transferring heat from the core to the generation equipment. And it's of a reactor class that uses unmoderated (fast) neutrons, much as they speed out of each fissioned atom.

This has advantages & disadvantages -- it can fission about anything, including existing wastes in LWP spent fuel; but it need a greater neutron flux because fast neutrons see atoms as about 25 times smaller than to slowed (moderated) neutrons in traditional reactors.

Bottom line is that such reactors are harder to control. The use of liquid sodium also presented challenges, since it reacts immediately & flammably with moisture, should it leak. That wasn't the problem at Fermi. The problem was a plugged pipe preventing adequate heat removal from the core.

In the video here http://tinyurl.com/73p7ler Nixon is seen funding that kind of reactor work to the disadvantage of other reactor types, such as the molten-salt reactors we invented and ran in the 1960s, which the video also mentions. That was a bad mistake, made by someone who admitted he didn't understand physics!

So, here we are, trying to catch up with what some Nobel winners and good scientists & engineers proposed 50 years ago to solve climate & energy problems: www.thoriumremix.com/2011

Of course, the combustion industry, and even some in the solid-fuel nuclear camp, don't want that.

Could you please explain some justification for your statement that fast-spectrum reactors are harder to control?

Stupid and irrelevant answer and standard stock for nuclear proponents to dodge the questions. The implication being that you profit from distraction and trickery.

Sure, Luke but a good nuclear engineering text will be better than my words...

1) Neutrons exiting a fissioned atom move at a significant fraction of the speed of light. This means they have a much harder time engaging & being captured by another atom, particularly the next one we'd like to fission and deliver heat and more neutrons. So target atom nuclei look about 25 times smaller to fast neutrons than to ones that have been slowed by a moderator material to about 1 mile/sec. Water and graphite are two common moderators. The chance of capture is called the Cross Section.

2) Not only do fast neutrons see much smaller targets, those cross sections are divided into-the % of time a fission will occur, or not, if capture does occur. So, depending on the 'fuel' atoms (U235, Pu239...), the fission result we desire will be even less in probability than just the overall cross section. This means we need to put considerably more fuel atoms into the reactor to keep a desired rate of fission going. This can lead to small regions in the tons of fuel that suddenly get too hot. So design of teh reactor's core and heat-transfer plumbing become more crucial.

3) Since fast neutrons start out at 10,000 mi/s or so, there's little natural control available to feed back on the reaction rate (reactivity) in time. This is ameliorated a bit by relativistic effects (time dilation...). But, overall, the potential remains for local "prompt criticality" and things like control rods can't be adjusted quickly enough.

4) A saving grace for all fission reactors is that neutrons that immediately exit a fissioned nucleus, are generally not enough in number to run the reactor, much less cause some high reactivity event. The fission products (typically 2 smaller atoms) will emit one more neutron, but only after a fraction of s second, up to a minute or so. this means that the neutron 'economy' inside a fission reactor is only just barely able to keep it all going, unless we take care in design that doesn't waste neutrons. It also means, the reactor cannot be a bomb. This is natural control.

5) In the case of typical LWRs or HWRs (CANDU...), the moderated neutrons can't create reactivity changes faster than natural feedback effects, such as thermal expansion of the fuel -- atoms that are farther apart will obviously have less chance of being hit by the neutrons available. And, water's expansion, even turning to steam, lowers moderation, thus allowing faster neutrons, which see atoms as having smaller cross sections, thus also slowing reactivity. Canadians use heavy water because it won't absorb many neutrons, thus preserving reactivity, even with un-enriched Uranium.

All western LWRs and HWRs do this to some degree. Moving to liquid salt fuels makes the system far more stable, since the salt itself expands & contracts in proportion to reactor power, thus throttling the reactivity to a stable value quickly, but some moderation is still needed, either via the salts chosen or a classical graphite core. There are many options for design with liquid fuels and they eliminate the need for dangerous materials in the heat-transfer loop, like sodium or pressurized water.
.
6) Reactivity is the key parameter, which is why Chernobyl is irrelevant to western nuclear power -- its Soviet RBMK design allow reactivity to increase as power & heat increase, thus leading to the steam explosions and graphite fire we saw. But, even RBMKs can be safely run by good staff, and several continue doing so in the former Soviet Union.

The fast-neutron reactor thus has to be designed with sophisticated control systems and this is why R&D on them in the US was so expensive and leading to a meltdown or two. The other thing about fast reactors is that they can fission about anything, including all the Plutonium and higher-mass wastes sitting around our LWR spent-fuel stores.

But, so can reactors using faster than fully moderated (thermal) neutrons. These reactors allow neutron speeds (epi-thermal) many times faster than the mile/sec thermal neutron systems, but nowhere near the fast category. Thus, cross sections are bigger and we can still design reactors that consume heavy waste elements. This is being done with salt reactors, like...
http://160.36.161.128/UTK/Viewer/?peid=811fb3c7c7714c93a7954874bad331f5 http://tinyurl.com/8xmso5v

Just the LWR spent fuel we have today can run the US grid for about 100 years...

7) Bottom line is that most Generation-IV reactors for civilian power apply Ma Nature's inescapable control mechanisms, especial via liquid salt, to make the machines safe under any circumstance. That typically means avoiding the most energetic neutrons. If we do use fast neutrons to fission existing wastes, which are about 1% Plutonium, then we also need to do that in secured facilities. The same is true iif we use any neutron speeds to breed Plutonium from 238Uranium, which is about 94% of spent LWR fuel, and about 99% of "depleted" Uranium, which we have lying around in canisters all over Kentucky, etc. This is where we can use fast reactors to productively consume what we term "wastes", but which total far more than 100 years of US power. Thermal neutron reactors have no particular security issues different from LWRs, especially is they breed 232Thorium to 233Uranium internally, in molten salt -- that's the best, low-waste, low-cost, high-efficiency solution we know works for thousands of years.

Here's some related info...
www.thoriumenergycheaperthancoal.com
https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AaGzKVyMeFZsYWpnOG5jbmY5emI3XzUwNWd0ODM4Z2Y1&authkey=CJvmhdsO
www.glerner.com/liquid-fluoride-thorium-reactor.php?p=webpage

Yes, I'm well aware of how the cross-sections change as a function of incident neutron energy, and how delayed neutrons are significant in determining dynamic reactor neutronics, but I'm still not convinced that there's anything convincing here which shows that your original claim, that fast-spectrum reactors are somehow intrinsically unstable or dangerous, is convincing.

"Since fast neutrons start out at 10,000 mi/s or so, there's little natural control available to feed back on the reaction rate (reactivity) in time. This is ameliorated a bit by relativistic effects (time dilation...). But, overall, the potential remains for local "prompt criticality" and things like control rods can't be adjusted quickly enough."

The actual speed of the neutrons, or the mean free time of a neutron from the time it's "born" in fission and the time it generates another fission, i.e. the "generation time", is not really significant with regards to the neutronics of the reactor, because it's a very short time relatively to the timescale associated with delayed neutron emission. It's easier to show that more clearly mathematically, but I'm sure you probably understand what I mean. If you look at it in terms of the equations, the delayed neutron emission timescale really dominates over and drowns out the effect of the neutron's generation time in determining the overall rate of neutron multiplication and the effective "k" of the critical assembly, whether it's thermal or fast, moderated or unmoderated.

"This can lead to small regions in the tons of fuel that suddenly get too hot. So design of teh reactor's core and heat-transfer plumbing become more crucial."

Yes, we haven't really discovered anything new here. If you're designing a power reactor you had better know the fission cross-section and capture cross-section for the desired fuel nuclide at the desired neutron energy spectrum. In fact you had better know the fraction of neutrons you're losing to capture in non-fissile non-fertile nuclei in the fuel and core materials, and basically, all the other terms in the six-factor formula.
In other words, basically, all nuclear reactors are designed by well qualified nuclear engineers. Nothing new there.

"Moving to liquid salt fuels makes the system far more stable, since the salt itself expands & contracts in proportion to reactor power, thus throttling the reactivity to a stable value quickly, but some moderation is still needed, either via the salts chosen or a classical graphite core. There are many options for design with liquid fuels and they eliminate the need for dangerous materials in the heat-transfer loop, like sodium or pressurized water."

Sure, MSRs are very interesting and technically sweet and worth more time, effort and funding than they currently get. But there's nothing actually bad or wrong with LWRs, HWRs, or metal-cooled fast reactors either, and that's not particularly relevant to answering my original question either.

"The fast-neutron reactor thus has to be designed with sophisticated control systems"

Not true. With something like an IFR or EBR-II, existing proven, tested designs, you can just turn off coolant flow and go to the pub for lunch or something... what happens is determined by basic physics and not by any sophisticated control systems.

"The other thing about fast reactors is that they can fission about anything, including all the Plutonium and higher-mass wastes sitting around our LWR spent-fuel stores.

But, so can reactors using faster than fully moderated (thermal) neutrons. These reactors allow neutron speeds (epi-thermal) many times faster than the mile/sec thermal neutron systems, but nowhere near the fast category.

Just the LWR spent fuel we have today can run the US grid for about 100 years..."

All true.

"That typically means avoiding the most energetic neutrons."

You've yet to actually convince me that that's true and why.

"If we do use fast neutrons to fission existing wastes, which are about 1% Plutonium, then we also need to do that in secured facilities."

What exactly does "secured facilities" mean, and why?

"The same is true iif we use any neutron speeds to breed Plutonium from 238Uranium"

Why?

""depleted" Uranium, which we have lying around in canisters all over Kentucky, etc.

Well, one particular site in Kentucky.

Maybe they are stressed about their children's health? http://enenews.com/now-35-8-of-fukushima-children-have-thyroid-cysts-or-nodules

Lisa, take a look at Ben Heard's comment on this study.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13925

To have any credibility at all, the researchers in the latest study should have gone back to the 2001 researchers and asked for their original data (its never too late!). The 2001 study didn't regard anything smaller than 5mm as significant enough to warrant mention. Hopefully, they recorded smaller cysts and a comparison can be made. Without knowing the normal rate of cysts of various sizes, it's tough to say anything about rates.

Ben Heard is a nuclear proponent and bereft of credentials in radiation or nuclear fields. In his "researched opinion" he declared on OLO:

'Of course, if you want to listen to Arne (Gundersen) and his ilk and be sh!tscared by all this, be my guest.'

February 2012 - Ben Heard, co-author Barry Brook: "The best start for responsible management of any hazardous waste is to capture and contain it at the source. Nuclear power does this." This claim is concocted, mind-boggling, unadulterated swill.

Biography - Arne Gundersen: "Arnie is an energy advisor with 39-years of nuclear power engineering experience. A former nuclear industry senior vice president, he earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in nuclear engineering, holds a nuclear safety patent, and was a licensed reactor operator. During his nuclear industry career, Arnie managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants around the country...."

The Johnnies-come-lately continue a repetitive and systemic twisting of facts to immunize the nuclear industry’s criminal conduct, its state-corporate collusion and its violations of national and international laws to protect human health and the environment.

It's always a thrill to see Arni Gundersen used as an 'expert'. Even FOE knows he's just an MS engineer with no real credentials in radio-biology either. He has no idea why people aren't dead all over the world every day from eating bananas or Brazil nuts!

Glad to see this is your best, Shirley.
;]

“Professor” Cannara, I daresay you have as much credibility as the two gentlemen I alluded to who have mendaciously advised that the nuclear industry “captures and contains their waste at the source.” Like you, these gentlemen are self-appointed “nuclear experts.” Unlike you and these two gentlemen, Gundersen has a Masters in Nuclear Engineering and 39-years of nuclear power engineering experience.

1) Self-appointed “nuclear experts” debunked: Radioactive gaseous and liquid discharges emitted to air and water by nuclear reactors:

Pu-238, 239,240, 241, Tc-99, Co-58, 60, Cr-51, Cs-134, 137, I-129, 131, C-14, Nb-95, Sb-124, 125, Sr-89, 90, Te-123m, S-35, Kr-85, Tritium, etc (Source: European Commission - Radioactive effluents from nuclear power stations and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants in the European Union).

2) “The 238Pu/239,240Pu ratios up to 0.18 indicate discharges from nuclear fuel reprocessing plants as a main contributor of plutonium. Based on 238Pu/239,240Pu ratio, it was calculated that up to 19-27% of plutonium is supplied from sources other than atmospheric global fallout……. Sellafield is a major source for the Barents Sea.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20172634

3) Emissions of ozone depleting Dichlorotetrafluoroethane (CFC-114) at Paducah uranium enrichment plant, Kentucky: Total Environmental Release in 2000: 379,000 pounds.

http://208.109.172.241/pesticides/dichlorotetrafluoro.tri.1.htm http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env-releases/ranking.tcl?tri_id=42001PDCHGHOBBS

“Alex Cannara, Engr. ’66, MS ’74, PhD ’76.” (Source – Alex Cannara). While you endeavour to discredit Gundersen’s Masters Degree in nuclear engineering, you are listed on the web as an activist and a software and networking consultant who acquired a PhD in mathematical methods in educational research. To the best of my knowledge your most ‘recent’paper was published in 1976: (05/1976; Thesis for: PhD Ed., Advisor: Patrick Suppes):

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/221671423_Experiments_in_Teaching_Children_Computer_Programming_(Stanford_U._PhD_Thesis_May_1976)

Can the reader now correctly assume that you do not have a PhD in Nuclear Engineering as you imply and that you have a tenacious reluctance to advise when and where you acquired the title of “professor?”

I imagine there is a significant difference between scholars and unskilled pamphleteers who condone and obscure the criminal conduct that prevails in the nuclear industry.

Very good, Shirley! You make it too easy. Gundersen has yet to respond to specific critiques of his statements by nuclear engineers with more degrees and experience than he has. My comments to him have also not been responded to

But, FOE has indeed said they will engage a discussion of what he has said. They understand the importance to all of getting things right, rather than biased. Perhaps that will spur him to do what honest scientists & engineers do -- seek facts.

As yo your 'discovery' of my degrees, etc. -- don't apply for a CIA job yet, Shirley. Do you know the term "honeypot" from spy/crypto land?

Apparently not, since you seem naively able to copy things from the web and then blab them as some sort of odd support for your naive opinions.

My account, from which you got your 'incisive' stash of facts about me, is used to detect folks who cheaply try to expose others from what they find about them on the web. In other words, you got caught blabbing from someone's "honeypot" of partial & mis-information. Good work, Shirley!

Thanks for exposing your naive, craven attempts to discredit others from the web, of all silly places!

Since you want nuclear knowledge, consider my 3 degrees in engineering and plasma physics, for example.

Keep the blab coming, Shirley!
;]

Shirley, did you work in The Inquisition?

As Sam Clemens once said: "You don't have to be a chicken to know a rotten egg when you smell it."

If you'd bothered to read what I wrote above, I said that others with more degrees and experience than Gundersen's also critiqued his statements. Whether I have a nuke PhD or not is no matter -- we all know you've no physics, radio-biology, or engineering training, just a loud, inappropriate mouth apparently driven by diffuse anger \it's not our job to cure.

Keep dipping into that honey pot, Shirley!

"Professor" Alex, I once had a responsibility to confirm to my superiors that the curricula vitae of potential employees were not dodgy. The experience has gifted me with an ability to sniff bogus credentials a mile off.

Thank you for avoiding the questions once again and for providing more grist for the anti-nuclear mill.

Oh what a tangled web these nuclear pushers weave when they practice to deceive.

Yes, indeed Luke.

These studies, taken together show exactly what rational observers have been saying, that the trauma of Fukushima is entirely due to the likes of Caldicott and co and there really was and is no reason for fear or panic. Caldicott came out on the 18th of March 2011 saying that Fukushima was "orders of magnitude worse than Chernobyl". I'd say there would be a good case for the people of Fukushima to take out a class action against Caldicott and any media outlets who reported her rantings for the pain and suffering they have caused and continue to cause.

Interesting, I didn't know Caldicott, who knows nothing about nuclear physics or radiobiology, did that.

I stopped giving to her PSR some years back, when she insisted on publishing an erroneous assessment by an Indian named Arjun. Even after some scientists & engineers refuted that document, she continued to have it on her site, without correction.

So the "R" in PSR doesn't seem to actually stand for "responsibility", nor does Caldicott appear to. She even seems to have forgotten her oath to "do no harm".

Sad.