Fukushima and Nuclear Energy

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Virgo
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Fukushima and Nuclear Energy

Post by Virgo »

Split from here.
treehuggingoctopus wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:11 pm
Well there seem to be many signs that suggest Bad Times are indeed coming. Any piece of advice for us mooks?
Try to dispel the myths surrounding nuclear energy that persist among the population. It is a big [and a necessary] step - along with continuing to develop renewables - that will help us get completely off fossil fuels by the middle of the century. If we do not, we are in for major problems.

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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

Virgo wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 4:29 pmTry to dispel the myths surrounding nuclear energy that persist among the population. It is a big [and a necessary] step
We disagree here, and greatly so.
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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by Kim O'Hara »

treehuggingoctopus wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 11:27 pm
Virgo wrote: Sat Dec 08, 2018 4:29 pmTry to dispel the myths surrounding nuclear energy that persist among the population. It is a big [and a necessary] step
We disagree here, and greatly so.
I'm with the authors of Drawdown on this one - it's likely to be a part of the solution but one with regrets, unlike renewables or, in fact, nearly all of the other parts of the solution.
Drawdown wrote:Currently, 29 countries have operative nuclear plants; they produce about 11 percent of the world’s electricity. Nuclear is expensive, and the highly regulated industry is often over-budget and slow. While the cost of virtually every other form of energy has gone down over time, nuclear is four to eight times higher than it was four decades ago.

With nuclear power, there is a climate dilemma: Is an increase in the number of nuclear power plants, with all their flaws and inherent risks, worth the gamble? Or, as some proponents insist, will there be a total meltdown of climate by limiting their use?

At Project Drawdown, we consider nuclear a regrets solution. It has potential to avoid emissions, but there are many reasons for concern: deadly meltdowns, tritium releases, abandoned uranium mines, mine-tailings pollution, radioactive waste, illicit plutonium trafficking, and thefts of missile material, among them.
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/elec ... on/nuclear

It's worth noting that they rank Nuclear as #20 on their list - https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank - and that many of 1 - 19 are not even about energy.

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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 3:14 amI'm with the authors of Drawdown on this one - it's likely to be a part of the solution but one with regrets, unlike renewables or, in fact, nearly all of the other parts of the solution.
I do not think it solves much, to be honest. It ties in neatly to, and therefore solidifies and perpetrates, the paradigm that has given us ecocide and brought us to the brink of our own extinction. We do not need more energy, or even as much energy. We (i.e., the broadly understood West) need much, much less. And then there is the perennial problem of capitalism: in a world driven by greed, we will have Fukushima catastrophes on a regular basis; they are not a bug, they are a feature. Now badly designed, minimise-expenses-maximise-profits wind farms are certainly a headache -- but a nuclear power plant is an entirely different category of problems. And then there is the waste, which would be an ethical challenge even in an ideal, nonexisting, accident-free world.
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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by Grigoris »

treehuggingoctopus wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 9:32 amAnd then there is the waste, which would be an ethical challenge even in an ideal, nonexisting, accident-free world.
We could pay the Chinese to send it to the dark side of the moon.
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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

Grigoris wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 10:52 am
treehuggingoctopus wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 9:32 amAnd then there is the waste, which would be an ethical challenge even in an ideal, nonexisting, accident-free world.
We could pay the Chinese to send it to the dark side of the moon.
Or politely ask the aliens on Mars to eat it.
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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by Kim O'Hara »

treehuggingoctopus wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 9:32 am
Kim O'Hara wrote: Sun Dec 09, 2018 3:14 amI'm with the authors of Drawdown on this one - it's likely to be a part of the solution but one with regrets, unlike renewables or, in fact, nearly all of the other parts of the solution.
I do not think it solves much, to be honest. It ties in neatly to, and therefore solidifies and perpetrates, the paradigm that has given us ecocide and brought us to the brink of our own extinction. We do not need more energy, or even as much energy. We (i.e., the broadly understood West) need much, much less. And then there is the perennial problem of capitalism: in a world driven by greed, we will have Fukushima catastrophes on a regular basis; they are not a bug, they are a feature. Now badly designed, minimise-expenses-maximise-profits wind farms are certainly a headache -- but a nuclear power plant is an entirely different category of problems. And then there is the waste, which would be an ethical challenge even in an ideal, nonexisting, accident-free world.
:good:

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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

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Following the Fukushima meltdown, I can't get on board with more nuclear energy.

The full impact of that tragedy is not being recognized. The incidence of certain cancers has spiked in Kanto. Some suburbs of Tokyo that were directly downwind - people basically have given up growing vegetables in their gardens. Millions of gallons of ground water are running through the site and out into the Pacific ocean and there is no way to stop it. This is a massive disaster and the impact is only growing.

The information about the impact is being downplayed probably for very practical reasons - Tokyo is totally affected, but where are 30 million people going to move in a country that size? Where are people who live on and depend on the Pacific Ocean going to do?

And this was what happened with the Japanese who in many respects are about as careful and detail oriented as any society on the planet. The risks with more reckless players is much, much greater.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by Kim O'Hara »

I was keeping track of the Fukushima story on DWT until all the non-dhammic threads were closed and DWE started. Old topics are still visible, though, and here's my last post, March 2018: https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 45#p460732

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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by Queequeg »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 10:47 pm I was keeping track of the Fukushima story on DWT until all the non-dhammic threads were closed and DWE started. Old topics are still visible, though, and here's my last post, March 2018: https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 45#p460732

:coffee:
Kim
That's just the water that's percolating up where they can try to capture it. That does not take into account the water that flows under the site and directly into the ocean. They're going to have to dig a deep trench around the whole complex and encase it in concrete.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

Queequeg wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:59 pm Following the Fukushima meltdown, I can't get on board with more nuclear energy.

The full impact of that tragedy is not being recognized. The incidence of certain cancers has spiked in Kanto. Some suburbs of Tokyo that were directly downwind - people basically have given up growing vegetables in their gardens. Millions of gallons of ground water are running through the site and out into the Pacific ocean and there is no way to stop it. This is a massive disaster and the impact is only growing.

The information about the impact is being downplayed probably for very practical reasons - Tokyo is totally affected, but where are 30 million people going to move in a country that size? Where are people who live on and depend on the Pacific Ocean going to do?

And this was what happened with the Japanese who in many respects are about as careful and detail oriented as any society on the planet. The risks with more reckless players is much, much greater.
According to the mainstream narrative, Fukushima has been take care of. No danger, no risk, move along, citizen.
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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

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Queequeg wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:59 pm And this was what happened with the Japanese who in many respects are about as careful and detail oriented as any society on the planet. The risks with more reckless players is much, much greater.
The earthquake prediction maps used were inaccurate in this case, it was decided that there was no risk because there hadn't been an earthquake on that part of the fault before, whereas it should have been said there is an earthquake risk because it was on a fault.

Imo it was quite unusual for Japan who are normally very aware of this sort of thing.
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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by Queequeg »

treehuggingoctopus wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:06 pm
Queequeg wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:59 pm Following the Fukushima meltdown, I can't get on board with more nuclear energy.

The full impact of that tragedy is not being recognized. The incidence of certain cancers has spiked in Kanto. Some suburbs of Tokyo that were directly downwind - people basically have given up growing vegetables in their gardens. Millions of gallons of ground water are running through the site and out into the Pacific ocean and there is no way to stop it. This is a massive disaster and the impact is only growing.

The information about the impact is being downplayed probably for very practical reasons - Tokyo is totally affected, but where are 30 million people going to move in a country that size? Where are people who live on and depend on the Pacific Ocean going to do?

And this was what happened with the Japanese who in many respects are about as careful and detail oriented as any society on the planet. The risks with more reckless players is much, much greater.
According to the mainstream narrative, Fukushima has been take care of. No danger, no risk, move along, citizen.
I'm not sure its that cynical, though TEPCO (the Electric company), has been doing PR damage control above and beyond, trying to justify getting the other reactors back up and running (in resource poor Japan there really are few energy alternatives at present). There is an aspect to it that they don't want to raise alarms about things that really can't be changed. Anecdotally, people seem to know that it is worse than openly discussed, but there is a sense of stoic resignation - “しょうがない” "It can't be helped." There is no panic or expression of anger or outrage that can reverse this. 30 million + people are not going to be relocated. Among Japanese, there is a certain level of inborn acceptance of fate. Anyway, I don't want to take this off topic.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: If the bad times are coming, what to do?

Post by amanitamusc »

Queequeg wrote: Tue Dec 11, 2018 2:31 am
treehuggingoctopus wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:06 pm
Queequeg wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 7:59 pm Following the Fukushima meltdown, I can't get on board with more nuclear energy.

The full impact of that tragedy is not being recognized. The incidence of certain cancers has spiked in Kanto. Some suburbs of Tokyo that were directly downwind - people basically have given up growing vegetables in their gardens. Millions of gallons of ground water are running through the site and out into the Pacific ocean and there is no way to stop it. This is a massive disaster and the impact is only growing.

The information about the impact is being downplayed probably for very practical reasons - Tokyo is totally affected, but where are 30 million people going to move in a country that size? Where are people who live on and depend on the Pacific Ocean going to do?

And this was what happened with the Japanese who in many respects are about as careful and detail oriented as any society on the planet. The risks with more reckless players is much, much greater.
According to the mainstream narrative, Fukushima has been take care of. No danger, no risk, move along, citizen.
I'm not sure its that cynical, though TEPCO (the Electric company), has been doing PR damage control above and beyond, trying to justify getting the other reactors back up and running (in resource poor Japan there really are few energy alternatives at present). There is an aspect to it that they don't want to raise alarms about things that really can't be changed. Anecdotally, people seem to know that it is worse than openly discussed, but there is a sense of stoic resignation - “しょうがない” "It can't be helped." There is no panic or expression of anger or outrage that can reverse this. 30 million + people are not going to be relocated. Among Japanese, there is a certain level of inborn acceptance of fate. Anyway, I don't want to take this off topic.
This is a little dated but still informative.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=mi ... &FORM=VIRE
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Re: Fukushima and Nuclear Energy

Post by Virgo »

I just noticed this split thread.



Kevin...
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Re: Fukushima and Nuclear Energy

Post by Kim O'Hara »

A member on DWE used this thread - https://dharmawheel.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=103#p1491 - to push nuclear power as a key part of decarbonisation, quoting Hansen and Shellenberger in support. I argued against him, but you may find the discussion worth a look.

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Re: Fukushima and Nuclear Energy

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I think the future of energy is decentralised and small-scale energy generation, along with renewables. (Consider smart phones in the third world as an analogy- almost nobody has access to a computer in many of those markets, but smart phones are hugely abundant and provide many of the same capabilities.)

Although I had read that thorium reactors were actually quite a feasible model for energy production, especially for Australia. The problem is political, though - anything that sounds like a reactor is electoral poison. And even if there was a political will, the process involved in acquiring the engineering expertise would take a generation or more, as it's a massively difficult science, technically. But it will never get up politically - no major party in this country would ever get behind it.
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Re: Fukushima and Nuclear Energy

Post by Kim O'Hara »

The primary problem has shifted in the last ten years from the political to the economic.
At this point, renewables are so much cheaper (and getting even cheaper, very quickly), and so much quicker to take from bare dirt to finished facility, that nuclear can't compete. Coal can't compete, either - it's now cheaper in some markets to build and run new solar or wind facilities than it is to just keep an existing coal plant running, let alone build a new one.

And your comment that "the future of energy is decentralised and small-scale energy generation, along with renewables" is correct, IMO, but mis-states the relationship between "decentralised and small-scale" on the one hand and "renewables" on the other. Renewables are intrinsically decentralised because they are intrinsically small-scale. Rooftop solar is the norm and enormous solar farms are the aberration. I could go even further: the easy, smart, cheap, sensible thing to do with solar is put a panel or ten wherever you need them, and only hook them up to the grid if it's convenient.
This is not theory, it's the emerging practice. You can visit a picnic shelter in a Cambodian hill village which is lit by a panel on the roof feeding a car battery on a shelf. You can see roadside safety warnings in outback Queensland - and in the state capital - powered by a panel on a pole and a battery in the foundations or a trailer. One rural property I know well has 4.5 KW on the roof of the homestead, connected to the grid; two panels on a bore pump a kilometre away (they were cheaper than replacing the power line from the homestead when it fell down); and half a dozen panels feeding lead-acid batteries in an off-grid weekender down by the creek.
This pattern of development reminds me of what happened with computing between the 1950s and the end of the century. Did you ever read the early SF stories in which one single, huge, computer ran the whole of the USA? Wrong, weren't they?

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Re: Fukushima and Nuclear Energy

Post by Kim O'Hara »

P.S. This - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/06/califor ... homes.html institutionalises decentralisation.
:woohoo:
California clears final hurdle for state's landmark solar panel mandate for new homes

A requirement for new homes built in California starting in 2020 to include solar electric systems is now formally part of the state's building code.
It follows approval Tuesday by the California Building Standards Commission of a plan endorsed in May by a state energy panel.
California is the first state in the nation to mandate solar-energy installations on most single-family homes as well as multi-family residential buildings.
I really liked "California is the first state." Who's going to jump next?

:twothumbsup:
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Re: Fukushima and Nuclear Energy

Post by Queequeg »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Wed Dec 12, 2018 1:14 pm P.S. This - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/06/califor ... homes.html institutionalises decentralisation.
:woohoo:
California clears final hurdle for state's landmark solar panel mandate for new homes

A requirement for new homes built in California starting in 2020 to include solar electric systems is now formally part of the state's building code.
It follows approval Tuesday by the California Building Standards Commission of a plan endorsed in May by a state energy panel.
California is the first state in the nation to mandate solar-energy installations on most single-family homes as well as multi-family residential buildings.
I really liked "California is the first state." Who's going to jump next?

:twothumbsup:
Kim
Its a good bet this will spread across the sunbelt - California to the Southeast US. The promising part is this will happen regardless of political orientation.

Republicans across the country are realizing that you don't have to pay the electric company anymore and with the price of solar dropping, we're reaching critical mass when we will see a major flip. (I also think many of them are as scared of climate change as the rest of us, they just feel like its not ok to admit vocally). Its going to be interesting to see the Republican version of renewables advocates - ranchers with solar and wind farms, rural folk with solar arrays charging up their electric ATVs.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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