Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Fukushima - the slow motion train wreck continues

Lies, Statistics, Paid Engineering Studies using Statistics, and Legal Opinions---The makings for a book.

It is now a commonly accepted fact, in my mind, that Black Swans are far more common than any commonly used prediction methods allow for.   In other words, the risk assessment models used are flawed.

A 1992 policy guideline by the NSC also concluded core damage at one of Japan's reactors severe enough to release radiation would be an event with a probability of once in 185 years. So with such a limited risk of happening, the best policy, the guidelines say, is to leave emergency response planning to Tokyo electric and other plant operators.

185 years?   A huh.   Seems like more like 2 in 20 years, just in Japan.

In fact without even breaking out the tin foil hat, seems like roughly 20 to 30 radiation release events in the nuclear industry in the last 30 years.   This is a rough assessment from my own reading.  

Even though nuclear is a field of interest for me, most of these, except Chernobyl, Three Mile Island (TMI), and Fukushima have escaped my attention.  Cover-up?  Sure.   Media control and downplay, sure.

Thorium is a no brainer transition from Uranium based nuclear power.   Basically uranium was used because we needed plutonium for bombs.   The industry grew up around uranium.   Uranium has much higher dangers than thorium. We need something that is inherently more safe. 

The answer is to force the industry into thorium.   Contact all your State, Local, and Federal reps and educate them with a 10 second sound bite.    Make your point quick and clean.

2 comments:

  1. A reader had this to say.

    Hi,

    Don't know if you saw this article from Reuters on the reactor vent system.
    The light sheet metal vents failing resulted in the large H2 explosions most likely.

    This was a lesson learned from TMI that Tokyo Electric choose to ignore.
    NRC required this mod here in US.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/29/japa-nuclear-risks-idUSL3E7ET2D120110329

    The Frenchies also tried to send them robots to take radiation data (which they refused), sent guys in a Prius instead.

    Looks more like criminal negligence on Tokyo Electric now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for helping spread the word on thorium Steveo! I believe it's the bridge we need to get the world to the next phase of energy generation.

    Great analysis on copper too!

    ReplyDelete

Insightful and Useful Comment!