On Sun, 03 Apr 2011 11:50:35 -0400, Jeff Thies
wrote:

On 4/3/2011 9:14 AM, wrote:


Any
reasonable person knows that only after a full investigation by
experts
will we know what happened, what the sequence of events were, and
what went wrong.

I never said there wouldn't be, or shouldn't be.


I don't think it even matters what went wrong.
Things will always go wrong.
What matters is the result of things going wrong.
That's why the nuke industry has big problems.
I've already said this, but my idea for nuke salvation is not
trying to make it impossibly perfect so that nothing goes wrong, but
to design the systems so it's not a huge disaster when things do go
wrong.
The policy should be to add a "contain and abandon" strategy to the
current safety regimen.
A rough analogy is car airbags.
Car is totaled and abandoned, but nobody got killed.
Airbags add expense, and don't always work.
Doesn't keep many parents from making sure their kids' cars are airbag
equipped.
Similarly, the NIMBY sector has to be sold on safety.
The nuclear power industry has to be able to say with conviction that
when things go wrong "We can lock it up if it melts down, and leave
it. Some "minor" venting, but no lasting harm done."

There's 2 reactors on Hutchinson Island in Florida.
Waiting for the right hurricane and surge.
Or maybe a tidal wave when that Canary island breaks in half.
I have a strong feeling that if the Japan disaster had happened before
they built those reactors, their construction wouldn't have been
approved.

I still support nuke power, but unless they make radiation containment
changes, I'm now a NIMBY.
The Japan disaster is pretty much a "worst case" scenario.
Maybe 6 reactors melting, all in one place.
Maybe multiple spent rod pools also melting their rods.
What transpires there in the coming months/years will hugely
affect the future of nuke energy.
If there's permanent contamination of hundreds of square miles, nobody
will listen to nuke advocate claims of safety and "can't happen here."
Human nature.
They'll need a different safety strategy. Containment.
That can sell.

--Vic