I sent this to PZ Meyers.  Phil Plaitt and Michael Shermer seem to want a phone call to get it posted.  That will happen tomorrow.

   This whole event is sooo sad, when I think about those video's on the News, all I can say is WoW ! WTF, then when you add in the Nuclear disasters going on (as you pointed out), will be around for a while,so in your opinon what should we do here for energy in the future ?  

My understanding is that these are old style reactors.  Apparently they've go reactor designs now that fail to the off position rather than the meltdown position.

Well mellestad,

In all honesty, nuclear reactors in general are designed to shut down automatically in the event of a serious emergency. That has been the situation since well before these reactors went into operation. In a typical reactor, there are at least four separate systems which should automatically trigger and some have even more layers. Past that, they all have the proverbial “big red button” spaced at intervals around the control room and several in the actual reactor building itself. So even if everything failed at once, someone should hit the button.

Now I promised to discuss Chernobyl. It was a dangerous reactor design to begin with and the Soviets decided to test what would happen if there was a total failure of all the systems. When that did not work out as planned (due mainly to a Benny Hill like ignorance of what was going on in the reactor), they ran the last ditch system but that actually made the reactor pulse due to the way it was built. The people who did that should have had their cocks stuck in a vise with the room lit on fire and a knife where they could reach it.

But back to Japan.

The reactors that are the current problem are 70's era BWR (boiling water) type reactors. They actually heat up when they lose water. Compare that to the more common PWR (pressurized water) type reactors, where the main reaction stops if the water is lost. PWR reactors have not less than four systems which can trigger an automatic shutdown, in addition to the SCRAM buttons. BWR reactors lack two of the minimum systems which are standard on the PWR design. Of some note is that the BWR design lacks the ability to replace the water with a solution of borax and water (boron will kill a reactor so badly that it can take weeks to get it running again).

So why would anyone build such a beast?

The simple answer is that they have many fewer subsystems which can fail. Thus they are both cheaper and nearly boringly predictable in operation. It is all about the money and ease of use. Of course that makes the dangers different. In the PWR design, there is more to go wrong but more ways to fix a problem should one happen. For example, the Sequoyah Nuclear Generating Station outside of Chattanooga has a system where they keep huge chunks of borated ice above the reactor. If there were a steam explosion like we have seen in Japan, the steam would melt the ice and dump the borated water in the core. Nice idea there as it also serves to cool the steam so that it can't burst the containment. TEPCO does not use that system.

In addition, one of the reactors (Fukushima 1-3) is running MOX fuel, which is basically recycled waste fuel. There is actually a good reason for doing that but it is a bit complicated. Let me try to keep it simple without becoming too simple.

Basically, if you remember the 70's, there was talk about building fast breeder reactors which would make more fuel than they used. That is only partially true. All reactors are breeders to some extent. However, apart from reactors which are built for research purposes, all reactors are run so that the “breeding coefficient” is as close as possible to 1.0. Therefore, they actually make as much new fuel as they burn. However, you can't run a single batch of fuel like that for more than a few years as it tends to become more powerful over time despite the general idea. Also, the second generation fuel is slightly less stable. So every few years, the fuel is removed and (in the US) stored near the reactor. MOX fuel is made by taking the old fuel and combining it with the depleted uranium from the original manufacturing cycle to make it closer to a normal fuel type. In some sense, it is like getting a second bite at the apple (actually, nearly a hundred bites if you follow the process to the logical conclusion).

However, you have to modify the reactors that run with MOX. Well, the Canadian CANDU reactors can theoretically burn pure MOX with no modifications but they have only exported a few of those and none of them to Japan. So unit 3 is by design supposed to be used with the more stable first generation fuel but it is actually partially fueled with the less stable MOX stuff.

Prior to last week, TEPCO felt that they were fine by doing this. The systems are so stable that nothing can happen to them. Unless it does and then if you don't get them back under control right away, it will take quite a long time to regain control. So they are fine, even using the MOX. They are so fine that they can put them right in the middle of the biggest quake zone on the planet. Add the largest earthquake ever recorded and we are now seeing that that is just a really stupid way of managing a nuclear reactor.

Well, if you are asking for my opinion on the matter, I think that we should do exactly what we can do and that should properly be viewed as what we need to do.

First off, we need to stop calling alternative energy by the name alternative. It is energy and can be used just like any other form of energy.

We should use solar power in the southwest. We should use wind on the tops of mountains. We should use hydroelectric at the bottom of mountains. We should use geothermal where that is appropriate. Now the most optimistic numbers that I have seen say that that will not get us off the Middle eastern tit. But it is stuff that we can do today and will reduce our dependance on foreign sources of oil.

We should also drill where we already know the oil is right here at home. Alaska has quite a bit of oil as does the Atlantic coast. In all honesty, we need to start those projects now as it can take twenty years to bring an oil field into full production. We should also drop a few test wells into depleted oil fields to see how well they are doing at refilling.

We also should build more nuclear reactors. In case you did not notice above, I am a fan of the PWR design. Also, the PBMR design as it is inherently safe (well, as far as we can tell and we have been there before with reactor designs). As we build that capacity out, we need to think in terms of a new power grid that uses superconducting cable. Of course that has to be kept cryogenic cold but that is relatively easy to do. Just use one of the reactors in a reactor farm to produce liquid hydrogen. Then make those cables hollow tubes with the liquid hydrogen running down the tube. Cold solved and fuel for local uses such as cars and truck solved.

With some luck, somewhere around the time that we have all of that built out, fusion reactors should be coming on line. For the foreseeable future, we will need fission reactors to light up the fusion reactors, so those will not become dinosaurs just because the new fusion reactors are viable but they will go on the proverbial back burner as we can just use them on the new “as needed” basis.

         I'm not well versed in the new nuclear reactors, but I do think that they would have to be a part of our system, we just have to figure out, how to store the waste, which is the problem that we will always have I guess ? Anyway tell me, if the oil field is depleted,why would you drop some test wells ? they will not refill if the field is depleted ? Maybe you will watch this,and tell me your opinion ----www.democracynow.org/2011/3/15/this_could_become_chernobyl_on_steroids

I am loading it now Ken.  a bit long but not as long as some videos we have been asked to watch.

In any case, the refilling of old wells is connected with the geology which formed them.  If the oil forms in a type of rock that is, well, spongy for lack of a better word, then the oil will tend to flow to the places where it pools and can be cheaply extracted.  Against that, there is plenty of oil which has formed in what is known as "suitcase rock" where it does not move around enough to matter.  The flag stones in your garden walkway are a great example.  they have a fair bit of oil in them but it cannot be profitably extracted.

OK Ken,

It is technically accurate. But it is still fear mongering. Right now, we don't need that. What we need is to let TEPCO get the game on and do as much as they can to fix the issues.

Only that can keep this from becoming bigger than it needs to be.

Seriously, after Chernobyl and the green peace people telling everyone that life was going to be short and pointless, the amount of drug use and the AIDS rate skyrocketed? That is what come from panic.

Sure, the worst is far from over. Even once TEPCO gets the situation under control, there will be longer term issues that will take a year or two to show up. Here I will note that the idea of bad things happening to people twenty years later is mostly bogus. Sure, there will be a few cases of cancer that happen that far down the road but one thing that we learned from Chernobyl is that the twenty year numbers will be small enough to fade into the statistical background. Most of the cancers that come from this will happen in the next six months.

OK, I found an interesting blog with a series of interviews from a retired nuclear engineer that is clearly technically accurate.  It really shows a fair amount of what may be going on over there.

http://georneys.blogspot.com/2011/03/announcement-daily-updates-from-my-dad.html