The Diane Rehm Show

We must comment the Japanese plant operators for doing a heroic job. I hope that most radioactive material remains contained in the reactors.

In the worst case, fallout may reach the U.S. Are our modern-day leaders prepared to deal with this prospect in a responsible fashion? Zero-becquerel milk may be coming to the West Coast.

Read more here:
http://brainmindinst.blogspot.com/2009/07/no-country-for-shrinking-viole...

Tsunamis aren't exactly a surprise in Japan. Why was a tsunami able to so easily disable all of these critical systems in these multiple plants?

NRC regulations require US plants to withstand the most severe natural phenomena that has been historically reported, with "appropriate margin for the limited accuracy, quantity, and period of time in which the historical data have been accumulated." Are we ready for these types of events? That "appropriate margin" clause in the NRC regulations doesn't seem to be particularly robust.

Because I could visualize and understand what was going on over in Japan, I stayed away from the TV knowing full well that the Japanese would handle this in a civilized way. This morning I hear information, not speculation. I am grateful. Then my morning is marred by thinking of the voices of the Fox personalities if something similar happened in US. It would all be 'of the devil' or blamed on government employees, who they denigrate at every turn. they expect our employees to operate with nothing, while being verbally abused. These are the scientists and technitians that we rely on. I know how they must feel having multiple schlerosis, being unsteady on my feet at times and at the end of the day my face may have fallen. So I am easy to malign and mock. This is what the tea party and talking heads do to our technicians in various government bodies. So, I don't think America could ever handle things in a graceful, efficient, and calm way as the Japanese. In the US anything with the word community activism is called 'communist'.
I know the angels are with the Japanese, strange as that may sound, because they don't have the type of news organizations and poisonous rhetoric of the US, and its political system.

I am so impressed with the demeanor of the Japanese people: orderly, still polite, willingly conserving resources...the world could learn from them.

I agree with the comment on the demeanor of the Japanese people.

My comment is that the reference to WWII should not be limited to thought of nuclear devastation. As Kurt Vonnegut points out in "Slaughterhouse Five", banning nuclear weapons will not keep humans from killing thousands of other humans. We just passed the 66th anniversary of the fire-bombing of Tokyo, which leveled 16 square miles of mainly wood and paper structures and killed over 100,000 people in two nights.

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia concerning General LeMay:

LeMay commanded subsequent B-29 Superfortress combat operations against Japan, including massive incendiary attacks on 64 Japanese cities. This included the fire-bombing of Tokyo on March 9–10, 1945, the most destructive bombing raid of the war.[6] For this first attack, LeMay ordered the defensive guns removed from 325 B-29s, loaded each plane with Model E-46 incendiary clusters, magnesium bombs, white phosphorus bombs, and napalm, and ordered the bombers to fly in streams at 5,000 to 9,000 feet over Tokyo.[3][4]
The first pathfinder planes arrived over Tokyo just after midnight on March 10. Following British bombing practice, they marked the target area with a flaming "X." In a three-hour period, the main bombing force dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs, killing some 100,000 civilians, destroying 250,000 buildings and incinerating 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city. Aircrews at the tail end of the bomber stream reported that the stench of burned human flesh permeated the aircraft over the target.[7]

Reply to dnpyles [March 14, 2011 - 10:29 am]:

I believe Japan's damaged reactors are the same GE design, but maybe with some additional earthquake resistance.

Spent fuel pools also need to be supplied with cooling water, but if the pool is intact operators can easily add water to keep the fuel bundles covered because the pressure is normal atmospheric pressure.

Its been many years but, as I recall, at all the US pressurized water reactors (PWR) I reviewed the radiation levels at the spent fuel pool floors were low enough that we could stand next to the spent fuel pool without needing protective clothing. I don't remember observing spent fuel pools at BWRs. But IF the pool went dry and IF all the spent fuel caught fire it could become a Chernobyl-like event. The NRC studied spent fuel pool fires as Generic Issue No. 82.

World War II wedded science and technology to the State and ushered-in the Atomic Age; commercial nuclear power generation was sold as the answer to future energy needs, providing "electricity too cheap to meter."

Often used as synonyms, there is a profound difference between wisdom and intelligence. Though nuclear power plants are designed to be "fail-safe," the fact is that no highly-complex system can be made absolutely failure-free; the actual degree of safety is based on cost. In commercial operations, cost is directly related to profit, and therein lies the "bottom line" - in more ways than one; the Wikipedia page, "List of civilian nuclear accidents" (updated today), should startle most readers.

Our way of life depends on reliable economical energy. From cradle to grave, from production to end-point, the true cost of energy derived from nuclear fission - just as with petroleum, coal and natural gas - would astound most people.

Extractive energy technologies are based on privately-owned resources sold at market prices. Their industries are at the forefront of decrying energy which source-cost is essentially zero - solar, wind and geothermal (among others), and has nothing to do with what is in the best interest of humanity; it has only to do with profit - and the power that great wealth confers.

No matter the industry's spin, in fact at ground level, the Earth receives from the Sun in two hours more energy than all of humanity consumes in a year; we need harness but a tiny fraction - reliably available, literally, for as long as we inhabit the Earth (as are wind and geothermal).

Technology (indeed, complexity) can be seducing. Albert Einstein use to ask profoundly simple questions about the workings of the universe, and he liked to say that when the answers were simple too, it was then that you heard God thinking. As for the question of wisdom, future generations will regard nuclear-fission power plants as monuments to Man's stupidity.

Excerpt from US NRC "Resolution of Generic Safety Issues: Item A-44: Station Blackout":

"The complete loss of AC electrical power to the essential and nonessential switchgear buses in a nuclear power plant is referred to as a "Station Blackout." ... There had been numerous reports of emergency diesel generators failing to start and run in operating plants. In addition, a number of operating plants experienced a total loss of offsite electrical power. In almost every one of these loss of offsite power events, the onsite emergency AC power supplies were available to supply the power needed by vital safety equipment. However, in some instances, one of the redundant emergency power supplies had been available. In a few cases, there was a complete loss of AC power, but during these events AC power was restored in a short time without any serious consequences."

In 1988 the NRC issued a new rule in Federal Register Notice 53 FR 23203, "Station Blackout," June 21, 1988, (later codified as 10 CFR 50.63) and Regulatory Guide 1.155" directing operating reactors to prepare for the possibility of beyond-design-basis station blackout events.

The NRC should revisit this issue in light of the common mode failure of the emergency diesel generators in Japan.

"Pancake Rankin wrote:

3. What is the food production situation in Japan after the quake and tsunami? I do know they have a tariff protected domestic agriculture to preserve self-sufficiency and quality, so will they now need increased food imports? Rice would be an especially good indicator.

March 14, 2011 - 8:46 am"

I think they lost the battle for Rice years ago.

Monte Huan mchaun@hotmail.com

Pancake Rankin wrote:

Monte Huan {{Monte Haun, sorry about the error}}

I did not mean to suggest Japan has recently been self-sufficient in rice but that they use protectionism to maintain certain domestic agricultural sectors.

{{Japan was self- sufficent in rice for many years, but I believe the US brought a sucessful action against them to remove the Tariffs.}}

In your previous post you described how Japan punishes North Korea. Japan remains an occupied nation in the grip of the United States and so can't be said to act independently against North Korea.

{{They weaseled out of their agreement to pay for part of the reactor that was promised to the North for destroying the one they had been using and were refueling. They have sufficient autonomy to sail their fleet around the Asian waters leaving a large wake and to refuse apologies to the Korean Comfort Ladies.}}

They are also one the closest potential targets for North Korean beligerance.

{{Completing the Agreements would have removed the threat of NK nuclear weapons.

Anyhow, they are not afraid of being a target, they are one of the "sh__ity little nations" that can go around picking fights knowing full well that the Bushes and Rear Admiral Mullins will take care of them.}}

This is not to say I am an admirer of Japan which can be viewed as one of the most racist places on Earth and where frequently ecological and animal welfare rights are ignored. They have been the dupes of GE and other pro-nuclear corporations too. High tech can be high risk and extremely toxic.

Thanks for sharing your email address. {{You are most welcome}}
March 14, 2011 - 8:21 pm

Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com