Text 15634, 75 rader
Skriven 2011-03-21 22:08:00 av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHIEL VAN DER VLIST
Ärende: Re: Japan
=================
-=> MICHIEL VAN DER VLIST wrote to ROBERT BASHE <=-

<big snip>

 MVV> It was well known that using graphite as a moderator carries the risk
 MVV> of it catching fire. It is one of the reasons why "the west" had
 MVV> abandoned that type of reactor long before Chernobyl.

All the news is covering is the _three_ significant nuclear accidents.
No one's heard of Windscale all of a sudden? 

 RB> Still, we don't ground all aircraft because human error is possible.

 MVV> No, but we DO ground all aircraft of the same type when an accident
 MVV> happens and we do not know why it happened. Just to make sure the same
 MVV> thing does not happen again.

 RB> If we wanted to exclude all possibility of human error, we'd have to
 RB> go back to plowing with horses and eating raw turnips in an unheated
 RB> shack.

 MVV> Agreed. And I do agree that shutting down the German reactors three
 MVV> month earlier than planned is a panic reaction. But understandable
 MVV> given human nature...

 MV>> So the question is not, "can this happen in Germany", the question
 MV>> is "what else was overlooked that CAN happen in Germany?"

 RB> Practically everything (if you can see into the future).

 MVV> No. It certainly makes sense to periodically look at things with the
 MVV> focus on "what could we have overlooked".  What happened in Japan can
 MVV> be a wake up call to look again with enhanced scrutiny.

 RB> So close all the airports, block off all the autobahns, close all
 RB> filling stations (danger of explosion), stop all motor vehicles and
 RB> otherwise cease modern civilization. Take things to their logical
 RB> conclusions and that's the result.

 MVV> The risks of all in that list are pretty well known. There is a large
 MVV> pool of incidents to draw from. The problem with nuclear incidents is
 MVV> that the pool of accidents that can contribute to the learning curve is
 MVV> very small. Lethal car accidents happen every day. We know what the
 MVV> risks are. Lethal accidents with nuclear reactors happen once a decade.
 MVV> The learning curve is shallow...

 RB> What some people apparently can't accept is that there's a certain
 RB> amount of risk associated with modern life

 MVV> Yes, that is a problem. People want a zero risk society and that is not
 MVV> possible .

 RB>  - and by "modern" I mean even since the early 1900's. Did you know
 RB> that Pierre Curie was killed in a traffic accident - in 1906 - with a
 RB> horse-drawn truck?

 MVV> Yes I know.

 RB> Amazingly, there were no public protests demanding that the government
 RB> ban horse-drawn trucks...

 MVV> Did you know that John Glenn, US first orbiting astronaut, slipped in
 MVV> his bath room, was seriously injured and had to abandon his political
 MVV> career because of it?

 MVV> There was no ban on bath rooms either. But then bathrooms do not have
 MVV> the potential to kill many thousands in a single incident. Nuclear
 MVV> reactors do... 3

LFTR, not a complete solution however it would have mitigated pretty much all
the problems in Japan. 

... It is the best of all possible worlds.
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