Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

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You literally do not know what transpired.

When the tsunami hit and Fukushima #1 lost power and was at risk of meltdown, TEPCO was ready to scuttle the reactors by dumping seawater in them. It would have rendered the reactors unusable, but meltdown would be prevented.

The Japanese government at the time, coming from the Prime Minister (Naoto Kan) himself, denied TEPCO from scuttling them because the government wanted the reactors usable. TEPCO was begging for authorization but it was not meant to be.

So what happened was the meltdown happened and the reactors became unusable anyway.

The blame was then scapegoated on TEPCO, because elite politicians surely can't and shouldn't be prosecuted for their ineptitude.

What happened at Fukushima #1 was a human failure that did not have to happen.

Bittersweet revenge was that the incumbent party at that time, the Democrat Party of Japan, lost the subsequent general election and the party subsequently fell apart.

This story has a very bad smell of urban legend/history rewriting on it. I don't say it is, but without good sources (for instance good investigative journalism by renowned journalists and backed by leaked documents) the stink doesn't go away. Just to say it "transpired" doesn't suffice. Where are the sources and references for the story you tell?

How does that refute what the parent comment was saying? Sounds like you are agreeing that the problem is not the technology but the people and processes in place.

The problem is (or at least was) with the people in political chairs playing power games. No amount of better regulations or technology can prevent fucking morons going on power trips screwing everything up and then get away with it.

The nuclear (TEPCO) people in the field were and are amazing, and it is a cardinal sin they got scapegoated for political purposes.

But that's kinda the point: name one government in the world where politicians don't play political games, sometimes in ways that put their citizens in danger. I'm sure you can't, because no such government exists.

"Everything would have been fine if it weren't for the politicians" is not a path forward. These sorts of disasters will continue to happen.

I agree, but then that should not be falsely characterized as a failure of the nuclear industry and technology. The failure was humans, and a very specific subset at that.

> The failure was humans

Isn't it always true, for such matters?

As we cannot avoid committing errors it seems better to prefer a way without any risk of major accident (very dangerous radioactive things, difficult to cleanup, travelling long-distance thanks to wind, rain...). No wonder renewable sources quickly gain traction.

Characterizing the failure of politicians as a failure of nuclear power is the error in logic I am talking about.

Refusing to understand that everyone (politician or not) can fail and that if we now can replace something dangerous in case of failure (nuclear) by something new which isn't (renewables), we should do so... is the error in logic I am talking about.

You're essentially arguing that kitchen knives should be banned because a small handful of psychos will murder someone with them.

That isn't how this works.

No, because we have ne replacement for kitchen knives.

We have a replacement for nuclear: renewables.

Sincerely, please stop talking nonsense.

Renewables can be a complement to other power sources, but to even suggest they can be a "replacement" for nuclear power indicates either naivety or ignorance.

Quantitatively this replacement is already done (renewables produce way more than nuclear) and is running (nuclear produces less and less), right now, nearly everywhere (explore using 'Change country or region'): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...

You cannot separate the human equation from the technology.

As I said: "The big problem with nuclear is not technological, it’s guaranteeing that whoever is responsible for it will be competent, capable and solvent for hundreds of years."

> should not be falsely characterized as a failure of the nuclear industry and technology. The failure was humans

Humans working in the nuclear industry are "the" nuclear industry. By definition all economical sectors are arranged around human workers. Remove each human and the industry will lose its reason to exist.

> No amount of better regulations or technology can prevent fucking morons going on power trips screwing everything up and then get away with it.

I mean. If the story is true (which I have my doubts about). Then the simple change required would have been to make it clear that TEPCO has the sole authority to decide to scuttle the reactors. The politicians could have been morons going on a power trip all they wanted, and the reactors would have been safely scuttled.

If you are a firefighter you wouldn't ask the government if you should pump gasoline or water on a fire. Why did the people managing the nuclear reactors gave the government an opportunity to choose wrong? (Or rather, why was the system set up such that it was not already clearly defined under which technical circumstances the reactor must be be scuttled.)

>why was the system set up such that it was not already clearly defined

For the simple reason that the 3/11 Tohoku Earthquake defied and rewrote essentially all the geological/maritime scientific and political expectations up to that point.

I doubt the same errors will happen today, but hindsight is 20/20.

Naoto Kan was an advocate of nuclear energy, changed his mind after Fukushima, and the industry now tries hard to use him as a scapegoat.

Don't worry, experts are perfectly able to maintain a high level of safety (nope), then to assess correctly during an accident (nope: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-ody... ), and also to manage the aftermath (nope... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/special-report-he... ).

Congratulations, you're armpits-deep in the Japanese political propaganda machine.

PM Naoto Kan infamously declared "I know nuclear!" in unilaterally ordering TEPCO around during the crisis and ultimately denying their request to scuttle the reactors. Nevermind that TEPCO had the finest nuclear engineers Japan could muster at that moment.

For his valiant achievement of causing a nuclear meltdown and turning back the clock on nuclear power for the better part of a century, PM Naoto Kan was rewarded with merely the loss of his premiership, loss of his parliament seat in the subsequent general election (regained in the same election by proportional vote), and the victim card (sympathy from guys like you).

TEPCO's engineers meanwhile got dragged through the judicial mud before they were finally cleared a few years ago, the train to repair their reputation having left the station long ago.

> ultimately denying their request to scuttle the reactors

A solid source detailing the story would be useful.

TEPCO ignored his order to stop pumping in order to avoid re-criticality, and Kan soon accepted TEPCO views on the matter: This seems sourced to me (no mention of scuttling anything): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoto_Kan#Fukushima_nuclear_ac...

> was rewarded with merely the loss of

I don't think so. Japan was, then, in a political turmoil with 4 prime ministers from September 2006 to June 2010 (when his mandate began): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Jap...

He passed a bill to promote the use renewable energy. This is sufficient, even for this ex nuclear enthusiast, to be blacklisted and villified.

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