Until a better, safer replacement is found, we'll use cars, and nuclear plants.
I'd wager the change of mind will happen rather quickly after the first terrorist crashes a plane into an US nuclear facility.
I'd wager the change of mind will happen rather quickly after the first terrorist crashes a plane into an US nuclear facility.
According to wikipedia the empty weight of a Phantom F4 is 30,328 lb.
The empty weight of a Boeing 737 is up to 80,000 lb (almost 3x as much). The empty weight of an A380 is 610,000 lb (20 times as much).
http://www.bz-berlin.de/aktuell/deutschland/kein-deutsches-a...
>« not a single site would survive a large passenger aircraft crashing into it. »
Now, what does that even mean ? If surviving means "keep on working", obviously not.
If it means destruction of the protection layers of concrete around the reactor, it's more dangerous, but just because the reactor is open, it doesn't mean the radioactive material is going to fly away.
How is the radiation supposed to be contained when your reactor just turned into a burning pile of rubble?
And you say radioactive material will not disseminate?
Besides, reactors are a small target that's mostly underground. That should limit the damage.
In any case, may I remind you we're discussing a very hypothetical scenario ?
Excuse me? As far as I know the damage to the containment was very limited in Fukushima. And they were very worried about maintaining the cooling in the damaged buildings.
In a plane crash scenario we might be talking about no containment and no cooling at all. Instead we might be left with a pile of radioactive rubble and a kerosine fire.
After all you could be right that the scale would not be comparable...
In any case, may I remind you we're discussing a very hypothetical scenario?
Well, 9/11 did happen, and reactor walls are not built to resist a plane crash. So what exactly is hypothetical about the scenario?
Right. Except water from the ocean was going in and out through the few tiny holes, and maybe that was the main problem.
See, uranium doesn't fly away when the reactor is open, but of course, if irradiated water goes right back in the ocean, there's dissemination on a bigger scale than Chernobyl.
« 9/11 did happen »
A huge scale terrorist attack like this is statistically less likely than an earthquake in Japan.
Where are you getting that from? Afaik they flooded the buildings with seawater on purpose, as a means of cooling. They did that because it appeared to be the lesser of two evils.
See, uranium doesn't fly away when the reactor is open
It does seem to fly pretty well when you add fire. At least that's what the 2600 squaremile no-go zone in chernobyl would suggest.
statistically less likely than an earthquake
That may be true, yet it's bound to happen eventually, right?
How would you rate the socio-economic impact of a single such event in contrast to, say, 9/11?
If you're telling me poor design and incompetence are bad and especially dangerous in security-sensitive contexts, I agree. So ?
Flooding the reactors was indeed the lesser of two evils.
« That may be true, yet it's bound to happen eventually, right? »
No. It may happen.
Can we agree that any given reactor will likely have no core containment either, after a passenger jet crashed into it?
it was a big explosion
Likewise can we agree that there will be a big explosion when a plane crashes into a reactor?
the director was incompetent
And that is unheard of in other reactors?
on a European scale, it's not much
So, which of these areas would you like to evacuate permanently?
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/power-reactors-map-sm....
No. It may happen.
I wonder where you're taking your optimism from. Yes, terrorism may disappear. But it doesn't seem too likely, does it?
No. A broken core containment still provides some protection.
I take my optimism from the fact that I'm not too impressed by things that have little chance from happening, which prevents me from being scared of meteor rains, terrorist attacks, or whatever disaster you can think of.
To put things in perspective, again :
There are much less nuclear power plants than there are dangerous pesticide or fertiliser factories. It is also more likely that a pesticide or fertiliser factory will be poorly maintained.
And yet, people who want to shut down nuclear plants are much more numerous and listened to than people who want to shut down chemical plants.
The only reason people are afraid of nuclear power is that it is associated with those bombs so powerful nobody ever dared to use them in a war since 1945.
There is no rational reason to shut down nuclear plants, and get rid of an energy source that's more efficient and cleaner than any other we know of.
Have you seen what a plane crash does to a structure?
As far as I know most reactor walls are not hardened to withstand a plane-crash. That means you wouldn't end up with a "broken core containment". You'd end up with a pile of rubble.
not too impressed by things that have little chance from happening
That's a valid opinion. But I think it's an equally valid opinion that terrorist attacks are not as rare as meteor rains. And that terrorists will specifically target these facilities.
The only reason people are afraid of nuclear power is that it is associated with those bombs
Personally my concerns are not related to the bombs.
I merely think the economic equation that makes nuclear plants appear cost-effective will collapse over the first such event.
Your average nuclear plant is said to be profitable to the tune of $500mio USD/yr. The total cost of the chernobyl disaster is estimated at around $235 billion dollars, and counting.
That means all US nuclear plants combined (circa 100) have to run for 10 years in order to break even with a single disaster. And that's under the assumption that a meltdown in the middle of the USA wouldn't be quite a bit more expensive than a disaster in the middle of Ukrainian nowhere.
Thus my conclusion is that the facilities will be shutdown rather quickly when and if such an event occurs.
Not sure where you are getting this idea, but it's not true. The reactors are usually above ground, and they aren't small at all.
Nothing happened.
The fact is that terrorists want to target nuclear plants.
What's unlikely is that any of them should succeed. Terrorism isn't that easy.
But gladly terrorism isn't that easy, right?
How many terrorist attacks of that scale have been successfully conducted ?
Over the last twenty years, only one.
During the same period, there has been a dozen of large-scale earthquakes.
And as I said, you're fare more likely to die from a car accident than from any big disaster you see on television.