Reactor Design in Japan Has Long Been Questioned
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
* BWR reactors use less substantial construction because pressures are much lower than PWR. Intense pressure is used to prevent the water inside a PWR from boiling. Pressure in a PWR can reach 22.064 MPa (3200 PSIA). Contrast this with the 7.6 MPa (1000–1100 psi) present in a BWR. PWR has its own set of risks, and the discussion of PWR vs BWR in the nuclear community would seem familiar to many in the tech community. cough Emacs vs Vim cough.
* Mark I reactors are Mark I for a reason. They were initial designs succeeded by Mark II, III. No one questions that we can do better because we have. We can all sit around and pontificate on the shortcomings of Mark I BWR units, but what is the solution? The solution is to pursue decommissioning and replacement with newer, safer technology.
An important perspective that's missing from this discussion is the fact that the fear of nuclear power has kept older reactors in operation longer than they should/would have been, due to lack of replacement by newer designs.
Especially not true for Japan, the country with the highest number of nuclear plants in the world.
These old designs would not get any permission to get online by today's standards, at least in Germany.
Some of these old reactor designs can't be brought to current safety standards. They just have to be closed.
I'm looking for the ability to tweet a wiki page into existence :-)
Nuclear power is far from flawless, but it does have a better track record.
Japan's reactors have, so far, survived the worst earthquake in recorded history and a tsunami that's wiped out a good chunk of the coast. That's a spectacular success.
Huge multi-billion dollar wrecks. None of them will ever go online again. All will cost Bazillions to clean up and while humans are doing that they will be in danger.
Your reality distortion field is even larger than that from Steve Jobs.
If the track had been the cause, it would have been investigated and no train would use that track until it would have been brought up to standards.
If there were a chance to stop the train in case of an environmental catastrophe it would have been done. If there would be a technical system, it would brought into service.
Here we have a full wreckage of at least 10 nuclear plants which to rebuild and clean-up would cost upwards of 50 billion dollar. The damage that can be caused by leaking radiation to around 20 or million people can't even be estimated.
Claiming that the multiple engineering failures exposed and the multiple mismanagement is a triumph of Japanese engineering is not even laughable - it is cynical.
For example that the diesel power generators would fail has been known before and improvements had been suggested already. That there was a pool full of spent fuel is also total engineering and management failure. That the cooling failed and they caught fire is another failure. Why were they there? Because Japan does not have an idea what to do with them. They were running nuclear reactors (something like 50 at last count) without an idea where to finally store the nuclear waste. For decades! Please! The least they could have done to bring them away, provide better cooling and more space. But that would have been to expensive.
TEPCO is a company of FAIL. Multiple severe FAIL in combination with corrupt politicians.
NONE of these reactors would get a permission to get online based on current regulations. Some are very simple BWR designs, some are near an earth quake zone, some don't have sufficient protection against relatively simple aircraft accidents, ...
The government also says that the reactors are shut down for safety inspections and then it has to be decided which of those can get back online. Which is controversal, since there was already a negotiated plan which of those had to shut down and the oldest ones had to go.
It is not silly, it is just about using the current political pressure to force the government to follow the originally negotiated phase out plan (which was also negotiated with the industry).
It has nothing to do with 'silly', it is a political struggle to force the current government to reverse its pro-nuklear policy.
Survived as a non functioning power plant cutting back Japan's electric supply by 20% is not exactly an ideal or wining solution..its like laws once one is passed it is very hard to 'decommission' not useful ones..
As the containment system is stressed only in case of failure of all other systems, it didn't happen before. His 0 defect statistic is not really accurate.