Nuke Crisis : Level 7 on overall impact

[WetEV]

The worst case climate change scenario is something like the PT extinction event. 98% of species go extinct. Forests are replaced with weeds. Almost completely dead oceans. Millions of years to recover.

You have a vivid imagination! But just because you can imagine it does not mean it is a possible outcome of the anthropogenic release of CO2.

Human-released CO2 has virtually no chance of causing any negative consequences on the Earth. It does benefit the biosphere by improving the rate at which plants perform photosynthesis.

Not imagination, geologic history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[RegGuheert]

Not imagination, geologic history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Geologic history <> geologic future.

If even the IPCC does not see it as a threat, then I would say it is REALLY unlikely!

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

Why do you draw a line at Syracuse? Let's find some really harsh spots. How about Maine and Alaska?

http://www.solarhouse.com/
http://passivehouse.us/passiveHouse...erence-Passiv Haus Alaska-Thorsten Chlupp.pdf

Nope - there's no way THAT'LL ever work... :?

I really shouldn't attempt to go toe to toe with hard core deniers on social media taking your side of the argument, that really should be left to professionals such as yourself, but I'll keep taking a stab at it now and then and come back here for reinforcement.
That's some highly efficient construction in that link, I assume the igloo was just for visual impact. Too bad the guy in Syracuse already has a house and doesn't have half a mill to knock it down and start over. Or at least thats what I expect him to say next.

 

[AndyH]

Go away, regguheert. This thread is about the Fukushima crisis, not a place to link-spam lies from the anti-science lunatic fringe.

 

[AndyH]

Why do you draw a line at Syracuse? Let's find some really harsh spots. How about Maine and Alaska?

http://www.solarhouse.com/
http://passivehouse.us/passiveHouse...erence-Passiv Haus Alaska-Thorsten Chlupp.pdf

Nope - there's no way THAT'LL ever work... :?

I really shouldn't attempt to go toe to toe with hard core deniers on social media taking your side of the argument, that really should be left to professionals such as yourself, but I'll keep taking a stab at it now and then and come back here for reinforcement.
That's some highly efficient construction in that link, I assume the igloo was just for visual impact. Too bad the guy in Syracuse already has a house and doesn't have half a mill to knock it down and start over. Or at least thats what I expect him to say next.

The Alaska link is to a builder from Germany that is living in a Passivehaus (passive house) in one of the most harsh environments in North America - and he's doing it year round with solar thermal collectors and 1 cord of wood. The gent in Maine has been running on both PV and solar thermal for many years as well - check his build date. I believe his house predates the arrival of the passive house standard to the USA.

Your initial suggestion is that renewables aren't popular in Germany (false) because at least in part because they're causing deforestation (false). You referenced a known conservative and pro-business news paper, not a scientific study, in support, and suggested that because it clearly won't work in Germany, that the poor guy in NY hasn't a chance.

Bull Pucky.

The facts remain that solar energy - whether harvested by PV, thermal panels, or wind turbines - can supply ALL or most of the total energy (electricity, heating, hot water) in many places, and renewable energy sources can supply 100% anywhere on the planet.

Your suggestion that one would need "half a mill" to make it work is garbage, as the passive house process, the Reinventing Fire process, and many natural building systems including Earthships show that incorporating passive solar gain, building in such a way as to reduce or eliminate thermal bridging, and using an appropriate amount of insulation, isn't more expensive than typical garbage US home construction. Sometimes it results in an instant payback - it's often LESS EXPENSIVE to do it 'right' from the start. Even if it's the same or slightly more expensive when building, it results in very, very significant utility bill savings over the life of the home. A passive house is so well built that a significant portion of the energy it needs to maintain comfortable temperatures comes from human body heat and heat from cooking and taking showers.

http://www.reina-llc.com/
http://www.reina-llc.com/resources/videos/
http://www.phaus.org/home-page
http://www.usgbc.org/leed

Leed platinum performance:

One-Watt-Houses require very little heat on a 0°F day. Imagine: A 2000 ft2 house heated with only twenty 100W incandescent bulbs or one powerful hair dryer!...spending about $1 a day to heat an average-sized Midwestern [house] during the coldest month of the year.

http://www.cti-home.net/Company.htm

Passive House performance/price
http://inhabitat.com/the-first-passive-house-in-texas-is-actually-an-amazing-diy-renovation/
http://www.passivehouse.us/phc2011/.../Koch, Nicholas Blaise - Austin TX PH PPT.pdf

We built the house in winter when it was 18 degrees...and the house maintained 65 with a 1500 Btu heater...

Their goal was $120-140/square foot, but my goal was $100/sq ft. We are at $93/sq ft - this is the same price that we can build a code building for.

Once a building is constructed correctly, 100% renewable energy becomes trivial.

We don't need nukes today even with our poorly constructed buildings - and we'll need much less energy even with an expanding population and growing economy as we become more efficient. We absolutely can provide all of our heat, electricity, hot water, and gas flames from 100% renewable sources.

 

[LTLFTcomposite]

I wasn't the one saying the German program was running off the rails, that's what someone threw at me. Maybe I didn't make that clear (forgetting folks are too young to get the "Spiegel catalog" quip)

The half mill wasnt suggested as the incremental cost to do it right, thats the cost to redo it. The notional guy in Syracuse doesn't have an earthship, he has a regular house, maybe even in the historic district where he isn't allowed to change the exterior.

 

[WetEV]

Not imagination, geologic history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Geologic history <> geologic future.

If even the IPCC does not see it as a threat, then I would say it is REALLY unlikely!

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Those that don't understand the past are doomed to repeat the past.

The IPCC mostly limits discussion to the the period of up to 2100, and geologic history to the past 120,000 years. We very very probably will not release enough CO2, and very very probably will not release enough of other greenhouse gases to cause such an event before 2100. Before 2400, now that is a different story.

But back to the point. The PT event is a fair approximation of the worst case climate disaster. Far worse than nuclear accidents.

 

[AndyH]

I wasn't the one saying the German program was running off the rails, that's what someone threw at me. Maybe I didn't make that clear (forgetting folks are too young to get the "Spiegel catalog" quip)

Thanks for that - wasn't completely sure where you were coming from.

The half mill wasnt suggested as the incremental cost to do it right, thats the cost to redo it. The notional guy in Syracuse doesn't have an earthship, he has a regular house, maybe even in the historic district where he isn't allowed to change the exterior.

I understand, and I didn't say any building had to be an earthship. The point is that people keep assuming they have two choices - an earthship or a 1902 colonial in a historic district, and then assume that renewables won't work. What I've been trying to provide you is links and proof that that is an incorrect series of assumptions.

The passive house standard is about conventional homes - whether new construction or retrofit. Conventional building practices results in a building with enough insulation to meet minimum standards, air leaks all around, thermal bridging from inside to outside - and the addition of large and expensive heating/cooling systems to keep the inside in a human comfort zone. This building will fail to perform if it's not constantly fed a ton of energy. Passive House focuses on super insulation, removing thermal bridges, intense air tight construction, and heat-recovery ventilation. It requires significantly less heating and/or air conditioning - smaller, less expensive equipment -- and a much smaller energy footprint over the life of the home.

The cost to redo is a tiny fraction of the cost of energy over the lifetime of the building - that's looking at a sapling and missing the forest. A world of possibilities opens with a tiny change in perspective.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Which is worse, the occasional accident like this or devastating climate disruption from CO2?

Neither. Corporate Greed makes either no more inconvenient than missing the green light ahead of you. Just finished watching two documentaries on Deepwater Horizon and its ONGOING coverup

I've heard people say you could have all the solar panels and wind turbines imaginable and you'd never be able meet the world's energy needs without nukes if you want to displace fossil fuels. I have no idea if that is true, but I suspect others here know more.

an effective power storage solution would insure that the two sources above could quite easily 100X what we need but we are conquering that question a bit at a time almost daily. CSP shows promise with its ability to generate power as much as 3 days during cloudy weather.

The solution is really only complicated by three things and one of them was discussed above. besides regulatory red tape over power distribution networks, the other is space.

 

[kubel]

We very very probably will not release enough CO2, and very very probably will not release enough of other greenhouse gases to cause such an event before 2100. Before 2400, now that is a different story.

I'm just wondering if it would be economically viable for our species to continue releasing CO2 at the rate that we are beyond 2100- not because of the future dangers but because of scarcity of cheap things to burn. I just think that it's likely that the rising cost of once-cheap fuels will be a better push to solve this problem than any environmental awareness or foresight on our part.

 

[AndyH]

We very very probably will not release enough CO2, and very very probably will not release enough of other greenhouse gases to cause such an event before 2100. Before 2400, now that is a different story.

I'm just wondering if it would be economically viable for our species to continue releasing CO2 at the rate that we are beyond 2100- not because of the future dangers but because of scarcity of cheap things to burn. I just think that it's likely that the rising cost of once-cheap fuels will be a better push to solve this problem than any environmental awareness or foresight on our part.

One of the really important points here, kubel, is that we do not need to find more cheap things to burn! We already have them - and we have enough ways to reduce the amount of burning we need to do.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

We very very probably will not release enough CO2, and very very probably will not release enough of other greenhouse gases to cause such an event before 2100. Before 2400, now that is a different story.

I'm just wondering if it would be economically viable for our species to continue releasing CO2 at the rate that we are beyond 2100- not because of the future dangers but because of scarcity of cheap things to burn. I just think that it's likely that the rising cost of once-cheap fuels will be a better push to solve this problem than any environmental awareness or foresight on our part.

2100?? we wont make even half that far without a MAJOR shift in policy

 

[WetEV]

I'm just wondering if it would be economically viable for our species to continue releasing CO2 at the rate that we are beyond 2100- not because of the future dangers but because of scarcity of cheap things to burn. I just think that it's likely that the rising cost of once-cheap fuels will be a better push to solve this problem than any environmental awareness or foresight on our part.

We don't need to get to the worst case to regret going there. Climate change by 2100 isn't going to be pleasant.

There is a lot of easily available carbon fuels around, and the technology for getting carbon out of the ground isn't going to stand still. While it would be nice if carbon fuels became uneconomic, saving our climate, I don't think it is wise to count on that. Also, alternatives from solar to fusion to fission are being developed, and we can hope that some combination of these provide a path forwards that is not much more expensive. Again, it would be nice if some alternative was to become radically cheaper... but I don't see it as wise to count on this happening.

Oil is by far the smallest of the fossil fuels, and while the price has risen, people still use a lot of it. The oil price can't rise much more, or coal to liquid conversion will start to become very profitable. There is a LOT of coal.

 

[AndyH]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsr-CTGhzak[/youtube]

 

[Reddy]

Andy, thanks for the video. That was one of the best news pieces I have seen, informative and fairly accurate, without being alarmist. After seeing it, I have more confidence in the clean up efforts. As I've said before, it will be a long effort that will require dedication, persistence, scientific advancements, cooperation, and time.

 

[AndyH]

Andy, thanks for the video. That was one of the best news pieces I have seen, informative and fairly accurate, without being alarmist. After seeing it, I have more confidence in the clean up efforts. As I've said before, it will be a long effort that will require dedication, persistence, scientific advancements, cooperation, and time.

Glad you liked it. I thought it was well done as well. The section about needing to develop new radiation-proof robot systems to expand the cleanup was sobering.

Hopefully we'll remember that 'the odds of that happening are so small we don't have to have a recovery plan' isn't a great practice...

 

[AndyH]

File this in the "radiation is good for you" folder...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/...n-fundraising_n_4916401.html?utm_hp_ref=green

Mike Sebourn served at a U.S. Navy base in Japan after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, measuring radiation and decontaminating aircraft. Nathan Piekutowski spent the days after the disaster with the Marine Corps, passing out water to survivors near the stricken power plant.

Today, nearly three years after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that triggered the nuclear catastrophe, Sebourn has lost 60 percent of the strength on the right side of his body. Piekutowski faces a long recovery from a recent bone marrow transplant.

"My exposure was continuous," said Sebourn, a former Navy senior chief mechanic and radiation-decontamination officer. He noted that radiation levels routinely read 300 to 400 times the amount naturally found in the air from the sun. He took those measurements more than a month after the disaster, and more than 100 miles from Fukushima. Sebourn said his son, now 11, who lived at the same Japan base, became acutely ill during those months -- throwing up as many as 30 to 40 times a day.

 

[WetEV]

File this in the

FUD folder.

From your source:

Each estimate falls well below amounts associated with short-term or long-term health effects, spokespeople for the Navy and the Defense Department told HuffPost. In fact, the reported radiation doses were less than the annual background dose for an average American, they said.

David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, concluded the same from the estimates. "All the doses are indeed very low, and the chances that these radiation exposures could lead to a cancer are very small indeed," he said.

Brenner noted that no exposure to radiation is risk-free. "Rather," he said, "the risk is very low."

Dr. Lydia Zablotska, an epidemiologist with expertise in radiation at the University of California, San Francisco, said she agreed that the exposures estimated by the government were "miniscule." She said it is impossible to link specific health problems in individuals to a radiation exposure.

"It could be genetics, smoking or radiation -- and the leukemia would look exactly that same," Zablotska said.

 

[AndyH]

File this in the

FUD folder.

From your source:

<snip>

Good Wet - let's 'go there'. Number one - how many years do you have in the uniform of any country? In other words, what background do you have in understanding how/why the US military collects information and reports it? More specifically, is there any reason why it is not in the military's best interest (or ability) to collect and report information as accurately as possible?

The military is not in the business of collecting in depth data for research. They're not equipped or funded to collect, track, or process this information. If they DO collect exposure information (nuclear, biological, chemical - NBC) it's in their best interest to collect the minimum data required. How do I know? I'm a disabled veteran. I was trained to operated in an NBC environment during my 9 years in Europe and year in Korea (I was part of the base survivability/decontamination team while in England). Close friends of mine were in Vietnam and in Iraq.

[For a bit of context, most US troops were withdrawn from Vietnam in 1971 yet in spite of bizarre diseases and cancers, the Department of Veterans Affairs didn't recognize Agent Orange as a health risk until 1991 after many affected veterans were dead. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/0...active-benefit-rules-for-agent-orange-claims/ http://www.vva.org/Guides/AgentOrangeGuide.pdf I have friends still suffering from Agent Oranage exposure, and other friends suffering from chemical weapons and depleted uranium exposure from first Iraq war.

Here's the piece you missed, Wet - surely an unintentional oversight, hmm?

As the DOD's report states, "computer modeling was required to evaluate doses for ships at sea because of the relative lack of empirical data to estimate radiation exposure rates and airborne activity concentrations."

Rachow further noted that the estimates were calculated by averaging information across a large number of troops, and therefore cannot reflect an individual's exposure. Sebourn, for example, worked hands-on with radiation for months, which likely resulted in far greater exposures than others at the Atsugi Naval base.

The people the article writes about were aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, the aircraft carrier stationed off the Fukushima coast after the meltdown. The arrived on station and then had to move because the radioactive plume was much stronger than they expected based on official info from the DoD, Japan, and TEPCO. One doesn't enter an area in a full defensive posture when they don't expect a 'significant' hazard.

http://japanfocus.org/-Kyle-Cleveland/4075

In transcribed telephone conversations between U.S. based federal government officials, nuclear authorities, U.S. embassy officials in Tokyo and military staff in the Pacific Command (PACOM) made available through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the U.S. government response to the nuclear crisis can be seen in real-time as it played out over the course of the first month of the crisis:
ADMIRAL DONALD: (...) Earlier this evening, as the USS Ronald Reagan was operating off the coast of Japan, we - the ship just arrived. We had given the ship some guidance as far as positioning was concerned to stay clear of the area of the potential plume, basically told her to stay 50 miles outside of the radius of the -- 100 miles -- excuse me -- 50 miles radius outside of the plant and then 100 miles along the plume with a vector of 45 degrees. The ship was adhering to that requirement and detected some activity about two and a half times above normal airborne activity using on-board sensors on the aircraft carriers. So that indicated that they had found the plume and it was probably more significant than what we had originally thought. The second thing that has happened is we have had some helicopters conducting operations from the aircraft carrier and one of the helicopters came back from having stopped on board the Japanese command ship in the area, and people who had been on -- were on the helicopter who had walked on the deck of the ship, were monitored and had elevated counts on their feet, 2500 counts per minute. But I wanted to get you guys on the line and my expert on the line so we can get the data and then the proper people notified.
MR. PONEMAN: Okay, I have a couple of questions. Number one, in terms of the level of radiation that you are picking up, what's the delta between that and any information we have from the Japanese or other sources of what the level of radiation would be, given the venting and so forth that we know has occurred?
MR. MUELLER: So -- this is Mueller -- the sample that was taken and then what we detected, we were 100 nautical miles away and it's -- in our terms it's -- compared to just normal background it's about 30 times what you would detect just on a normal air sample out at sea. And so we thought -- we thought based on what we had heard on the reactors that we wouldn't detect that level even at 25 miles. So it's much greater than what we had thought. We didn't think we would detect anything at 100 miles.
MR.. PONEMAN: You didn't think you'd detect anything at 100 miles. Okay, and then in terms of the regulations and so forth of people operating in these kinds of areas, I forget some you know, acronym for it, PAG (Protective Action Guidelines) or something, how do the levels detected compare with what is permissible?
MR. MUELLER: If it were a member of the general public, it would take -- well, it would take about 10 hours to reach a limit, a PAG limit.
MUELLER: Right. For a member of the public.
PONEMAN: Right. You mean, at the level you detected?
MR. MUELLER: Yes sir. But 10 hours, it's a thyroid dose issue.
MR. PONEMAN: Okay, but the net of all this is that the amount of release that is detected by these two episodes whatever you would call them, is significantly higher than anything you would have expected what you have been reading from all sources?
MR. MUELLER: Yes sir. The number specific number we detected was 2.5 the times 10 to the 88 minus nine microcuries per milliliter, airborne, and that's particulate airborne. It is -- we did not take radioiodide samples so I don't know that value, but this is particulate airborne...
MR. PONEMAN: Tell me again exactly how you picked up these two forms of samples.
MR. MUELLER: We have automatic detectors in the plant that picked up -- picked up the airborne, and all of our continuous monitors alarmed at the same level, at this value. And then we took portable air samples on the flight desk and got the same value.
ADMIRAL DONALD: These are normally running continuous detectors, continuous monitors that run in the engine room all the time, monitoring our equipment.
MR. PONEMAN: These are detectors on the Reagan?
ADMIRAL DONALD: On the Ronald Reagan, correct.
MR. MUELLER: Yes sir.
MR. PONEMAN: On the Ronald Reagan. They are there because you have got equipment there that you know, it could emit stuff and while you were there, you picked up stuff that was ambient which indicated that you actually were in the plume?
MR. MUELLER: That's correct.
MR. PONEMAN: And this was -- this was 30 times higher than what you would have expected?
MR. MUELLER: Yes sir.9

Hopefully you can see that there are two pictures here. One is the picture one can assemble after the fact from the available data - mush of which has been proven to under report the depth and breadth of the problem. The second picture is drawn from the experiences of the people actually involved. Light exposure equivalent to a few hours sitting on a beach doesn't make people's hair fall out or give them leukemia.

What you're hoping we'll do, Wet, is forget that these folks are people that live and work on a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and have extensive training and experience working in a nuclear environment when it is and is not working correctly (and performing regular and routine disaster drills so they're ready 'just in case'). They have some idea what is and isn't normal...

 

[WetEV]

File this in the

FUD folder.

From your source:

Each estimate falls well below amounts associated with short-term or long-term health effects, spokespeople for the Navy and the Defense Department told HuffPost. In fact, the reported radiation doses were less than the annual background dose for an average American, they said.

David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, concluded the same from the estimates. "All the doses are indeed very low, and the chances that these radiation exposures could lead to a cancer are very small indeed," he said.

Brenner noted that no exposure to radiation is risk-free. "Rather," he said, "the risk is very low."

Dr. Lydia Zablotska, an epidemiologist with expertise in radiation at the University of California, San Francisco, said she agreed that the exposures estimated by the government were "miniscule." She said it is impossible to link specific health problems in individuals to a radiation exposure.

"It could be genetics, smoking or radiation -- and the leukemia would look exactly that same," Zablotska said.

Good Wet - let's 'go there'.

Your skills as an information warrior are very impressive, Andy. But spreading FUD isn't useful for humanity's future. You should know this, but perhaps we have different perspectives.

Human's have a list of lot of different ways in which we die. Radiation is far down the list, and would continue be so even at much higher levels of radiation. It is, of course, somehow scarier than many. Great for spreading FUD. Chernobyl released more radioactive material than Fukushima, and far more people were exposed to larger doses before any sort of public health protection effort started, and far from cleanup and containment efforts.

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Based on the experience of atomic bomb survivors, a small increase in the risk of cancer is expected, even at the low to moderate doses received. Such an increase, however, is expected to be difficult to identify.

Why is that?

Why would such an increase difficult to identify?

Chernobyl was huge, wasn't it?

I don't expect a realistic answer, and expect you will continue spreading the FUD, and never bother to consider the cost of doing so. After all, you are fighting an "information war". By disagreeing with you I have become the "enemy".