I was watching something that made me think,
It certainly makes sense.
These nuclear plants are not built to withstand any disaster but rather the most likely disaster.
It's only a matter of time when, not if a nuke plant melts down. I hope and pray things are contained in Japan, they suffered more than imaginable already!

Myself, this possible disaster doesn't change my position, my position is still solidly on the wall! I just don't know if it's a good investment or not? Quite wishy washy I know, at least I'm being honest about it.

danivon wrote:On the subject of nuclear energy, do events in Japan give us any cause for concern? Certainly being dependent upon nuclear stations that are in or near earthquake zone has been shown to have a large possible downside.

It's the same bad risk managment we've seen in the financial markets or with the levies in New Orleans.
It's probably prohibitively more expensive to design nuclear power plants that can withstand an earthquake of magnitued 9 or 10 than 8.2.
Add politicans into the mix who really don't understand probabilities which means when you say "chances are one in a million" they hear "won't happen" and voila recipie for disaster.
That's the very basic problem: low probability events are ignored, which of course is stupid.

There will be a big quake in California, there will be a Tsunami in California, there will be a huge quake near Istanbul, the Vesuv and the Campi Flegrei will explode again, the list goes on and when it happens everyone will be appalled at the destruction and the tens of thousands of dead and vow that we'll plan better and act with more foresight which we of course then won't do.
Financial markets are doing the same exact thing they were doing before the crash, too.
As a race we are just too stupid i think.

Faxmonkey wrote:It's the same bad risk managment we've seen in the financial markets or with the levies in New Orleans.
It's probably prohibitively more expensive to design nuclear power plants that can withstand an earthquake of magnitued 9 or 10 than 8.2.
Add politicans into the mix who really don't understand probabilities which means when you say "chances are one in a million" they hear "won't happen" and voila recipie for disaster.
That's the very basic problem: low probability events are ignored, which of course is stupid.

There will be a big quake in California, there will be a Tsunami in California, there will be a huge quake near Istanbul, the Vesuv and the Campi Flegrei will explode again, the list goes on and when it happens everyone will be appalled at the destruction and the tens of thousands of dead and vow that we'll plan better and act with more foresight which we of course then won't do.
Financial markets are doing the same exact thing they were doing before the crash, too.
As a race we are just too stupid i think.

We are certainly imperfect, but I don't think we are stupid. Stupid is a relative term, so compared to whom? We are smarter than animals and haven't really met aliens, yet. Really, we are stupid relative to our ideals, which is better than the reverse. We've evolved to organize ourselves in groups of about 150. And we've evolved to survive (as a species) in groups of about 150, and not to operate optimally.

Governance is hard and in the 6,000 or so years that we've been doing it on a large scale, we are making great progress. We've developed democracies, and institutions, and have some semblance of planetary organization. We are moving forward.

I realize that is largely a semantic discussion, but I figured I'd throw in the long view.

As to risk management, not every risk is worth dealing with. Perhaps it is not rational to deal with all of the 1 in a million risks out there. Each one needs a cost benefit analysis. I realize that the distrotion of governance means we operate suboptimally.

Ray Jay wrote:As to risk management, not every risk is worth dealing with. Perhaps it is not rational to deal with all of the 1 in a million risks out there. Each one needs a cost benefit analysis. I realize that the distrotion of governance means we operate suboptimally.

That's the point. If you assume low probability equals no probability you exclude scenarios and thus you don't do your due diligence. I'm betting that we wouldn't have to hope that 6 reactors won't go Tschernobyl on the Japs asses if that had been explained to and understood by the Japanese people.

There are challenges with every form of energy production. The only "totally safe" course is no power.
Hydro-electric: Dam Breaks
Coal: Mine failure, increased pollution
Oil: Exxon Valdez, BP
Wind/Solar: Visual blight, efficiency
Battery: Bopal disaster
Bicycle Powered generator: Heart attack, fuel costs to run generator (More food needed)

Unless we are willing to forgo all energy needs, there are risks with everything. Every scenario cannot be calculated for. This earthquake was a 9.0 for gosh sakes!

Green Arrow wrote:There are challenges with every form of energy production. The only "totally safe" course is no power.
Hydro-electric: Dam Breaks
Coal: Mine failure, increased pollution
Oil: Exxon Valdez, BP
Wind/Solar: Visual blight, efficiency
Battery: Bopal disaster
Bicycle Powered generator: Heart attack, fuel costs to run generator (More food needed)

Unless we are willing to forgo all energy needs, there are risks with everything. Every scenario cannot be calculated for. This earthquake was a 9.0 for gosh sakes!

Let's just exclude the one were fatal failure means a couple of million people glowing in the dark and huge swathes of land poisoned by radiation. Oil spills and damn breaks are bad enough, but at least they don't last a 1000 years.
I'm usually very technophil, but i'm opposed to technology were failure means instant catastrophy on a huge scale with unforseeable and uncontrollable consequences.
So no drilling at depth of 2000 feet if you have no clue how to stop a spillage, don't build nuclear powerplants especially not on fault zones. There's probably a few more. Maybe don't use green gentech if you can't stop cross pollination ?

speaking of climate change, damn it, you guys were right!
It's getting warmer very gradually here. After a brutal winter with over ten feet of snow (no kidding) it's starting to warm up. I even heard geese quite a few times Sunday, seems to me they too sense climate change and they are headed north.

...but doesn't this happen every year?
Facts be damned, it's happening! It's warming and I can't wait

But Fax, Weren't the ecological doomsayers forecasting tragedy after the gulf oil spill?

If you cry wolf enough, then eventually the voice drones into the background.

You can be certain during a nuclear crisis that the government will lie to you.

Green Arrow wrote:But Fax, Weren't the ecological doomsayers forecasting tragedy after the gulf oil spill?

If you cry wolf enough, then eventually the voice drones into the background.

Really, a bazillion gallons of oil spilled in the gulf is considered crying wolf ? I'd just wait a bit before i made any such conclusions, lets see how the fauna and flora develops. If you're right we're lucky.
That really wouldn't change my opinion about not drilling 2000 feet down if you don't have a feasible plan to plug a leak though.

GMTom wrote:speaking of climate change, damn it, you guys were right!
It's getting warmer very gradually here. After a brutal winter with over ten feet of snow (no kidding) it's starting to warm up. I even heard geese quite a few times Sunday, seems to me they too sense climate change and they are headed north.

...but doesn't this happen every year?
Facts be damned, it's happening! It's warming and I can't wait

Oh for the love of Mike! You are just trolling now, aren't you? Mr "it's getting colder because one 7 year trend shows an insignificant decline and I live in a place where it snows in Winter" really has no legs to stand on with that kind of post. Point at one, just one, post by someone who supports the theory that human activity leads to climate change that is anything as stupid as your lame attempt at parody.

But hey, I'm sure you think I'm the one being 'childish' and am just trying to get a rise out of you.

Green Arrow wrote:But Fax, Weren't the ecological doomsayers forecasting tragedy after the gulf oil spill?

If you cry wolf enough, then eventually the voice drones into the background.

I think you'll find it is still a tragedy for people who were making a living from fisheries in the Gulf. Perhaps that indicates the impact a bit. I gather it cost a lot of money to fix, as well.

Fax - I know what you are talking about with risk. I'm currently trying to explain at work to an idiot (sorry, a 'manager') that when a security test report says that something has a low probability but a high impact, that doesn't mean you can let it go live. Mind you, there is a lot more he needs to have explained to him (preferably violently, the mood I'm in)

Uh, calm down Danny, it was tongue in cheek. I really didn't think anyone would take that as some sort of denouncement of your climate change religion, I'm sorry if I offended your science god, how dare I blaspheme the word of the IPCC.

Funny thing though, when it's cold and people post about record cold, this is simply some sort of cycle but when it's hot out and we have record heat, THEN it's because of global warming.
back to the nuke discussion

It was only a few days ago that so many were embracing nuclear energy as a reliable green energy source. Now the tables have turned. It has always and always will be a matter of time before a tragedy strikes. You can never account for every possible disaster, as I mentioned, they design these to withstand the most likely disaster (and then some) but an earthquake over 9 on the richter scale? Where do you draw a line? A meteor could hit the plant, a freak tornado in an area that never experienced them? Its balancing possible risk with possible impact, eventually you would (I assume) figure a risk is so unlikely that we can go ahead? But even then, given enough time, it's still a waiting game isn't it?

GMTom wrote:It was only a few days ago that so many were embracing nuclear energy as a reliable green energy source. Now the tables have turned. It has always and always will be a matter of time before a tragedy strikes. You can never account for every possible disaster, as I mentioned, they design these to withstand the most likely disaster (and then some) but an earthquake over 9 on the richter scale? Where do you draw a line?

At technologies were such failure is fatal. I certainly hope everything will be half as bad as it looks right now, but if they have any more bad luck and the fallout goes down over Tokyo what are they gonna do ? That's the logical consequence of "But even then, given enough time, it's still a waiting game isn't it?" with which sentiment i agree 100%.
The only way i can see such a decision being made is if they say "we're never gonna get hit by a 9+" and that's not risk managment that's faithbased managment.

GMTom wrote:Uh, calm down Danny, it was tongue in cheek. I really didn't think anyone would take that as some sort of denouncement of your climate change religion, I'm sorry if I offended your science god, how dare I blaspheme the word of the IPCC.

That's not how I took it, and I don't see science as a religion, pal. I saw the intended sarcasm a mile off, but I think it was 'childish' and totally irrelevant to the current discussion.

Funny thing though, when it's cold and people post about record cold, this is simply some sort of cycle but when it's hot out and we have record heat, THEN it's because of global warming.

Really? Only I've seen plenty of the former on here, including from you, but very little of the latter. Again, can you point to a post on Redscape that backs you up? Or are you just smearing?

It was only a few days ago that so many were embracing nuclear energy as a reliable green energy source. Now the tables have turned. It has always and always will be a matter of time before a tragedy strikes. You can never account for every possible disaster, as I mentioned, they design these to withstand the most likely disaster (and then some) but an earthquake over 9 on the richter scale? Where do you draw a line? A meteor could hit the plant, a freak tornado in an area that never experienced them? Its balancing possible risk with possible impact, eventually you would (I assume) figure a risk is so unlikely that we can go ahead? But even then, given enough time, it's still a waiting game isn't it?

Yes, but we are capable of letting new information challenge or previously held opinions.

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? JM Keynes.

Fukushima is a potentially pivotal event for fission-based power. Platitudes on risk are not the same as thinking about it.