Expert: Despite Japanese Gov’t Claims of Decreasing Radiation, Fukushima a "Ticking Time Bomb"
13 April 2011

DR. MICHIO KAKU: Well, Tokyo Electric has been in denial, trying to downplay the full impact of this nuclear accident. However, there’s a formula, a mathematical formula, by which you can determine what level this accident is. This accident has already released something on the order of 50,000 trillion becquerels of radiation. You do the math. That puts it right smack in the middle of a level 7 nuclear accident. Still, less than Chernobyl. However, radiation is continuing to leak out of the reactors. The situation is not stable at all. So, you’re looking at basically a ticking time bomb. It appears stable, but the slightest disturbance—a secondary earthquake, a pipe break, evacuation of the crew at Fukushima—could set off a full-scale meltdown at three nuclear power stations, far beyond what we saw at Chernobyl.

...

So, when the utility says that things are stable, it’s only stable in the sense that you’re dangling from a cliff hanging by your fingernails. And as the time goes by, each fingernail starts to crack. That’s the situation now.

Follow the radioactive cloud via the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI): link (high load)

Take a look at screencaps made over the last couple of hours, Ibaraki prefecture, south of Fukushima: 1:00, 1:20, 4:30, 4:40, 4:50. The wind turns and Ibaraki prefecture goes from ~40 nGy/h up to 5000 nGy/h -- and that's ~160km from Fukushima I NPP, so it's most likely the cloud passing by.

If you convert it 1:1 into nSv/h just to get a rough picture, it's 5 μSv/h. Average annual dose over here is 2 mSv. That's 400 hours at 5 μSv/h for your annual dose, a little less than 17 days.

Now, it only peaked around 5000 nGy/h and dropped again after the cloud moved on, so it's basically negligable in the short term. But that's 160km from the most likely source of the radiation. Some readings from up close would be interesting. They ought to be considerably higher, don't they?

Unfortunatly, all the entries for Fukushima are marked as "under servey" (sic). Last I heard was about 680 μSv/h recorded at some monitoring posts northwest of the power station: annual dose in three hours, how wonderful for the poor sobs trying to prevent the defecation from hitting the oscillation.

>> ^rebuilder:

When was this clip made? They make no mention of the way the Spanish government has rather scaled down their subsidy commitments:
http://www.bloomberg.com/
news/2010-08-01/spain-proceeds-with-plans-to-cut-subsidies-for-new-solar-power-stations.html


Friday. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2011/feb/11/spain-solar-towers?INTCMP=SRCH

I've heard numbers thrown around that seem to contradict some said here. Stuff like there isn't enough space to meet the worlds energy needs without building over already crucial farm land etc.

Still, fossil fuels are just stored solar energy. Once those resources finally run out then it seems clear to me that any future must go right to the source. That or fusion, but I don't see the latter being practical for a long while yet.

Either way, that solar tower is without a doubt the most beautiful power stations I've ever seen. May the future be bright hurrhurr.

When was this clip made? They make no mention of the way the Spanish government has rather scaled down their subsidy commitments:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-01/spain-proceeds-with-plans-to-cut-subsidies-for-new-solar-power-stations.html

[redacted]

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Personally, I think a better way to go is turning every house into a power station. The bit torrent model if you will. If every house had a freeish energy generating ability, like cheap wind or solar cells, contained via some off the shelf hydrogen conversion storage unit, it would make for a much more self sufficient existence, and one with MUCH MUCH more redundancy than a central grid. My hope for the future is less the monolithic, single high power, power station, but the multitude of many small, low yield power stations. I think, like bit torrent, the sum will end up being more than the whole of its parts. (but fusion is still awesome

Whilst i understand what you're trying to say, nuclear fusion is more energy than you can possibly imagine if you don't understand how it works. It's like melting an ice cube and getting a lake's worth of water out of it. And it can be done using materials like water which we're in abundance of on this planet.

Forget putting up loads of windmills and solar cells, if you crack fusion then you crack every energy need we will ever have, ever. You can then start seriously talking about using electrical cars because the energy is essentially free, electricity would (should, but we know what energy companies are like) become so abundant that it's virtually worthless.

Not to even mention that if we can REALLY solve it - we're talking long term, or elegantly simple and small and easy - then you can use it on a moon base, space stations, space ships, you name it.

There literally is no better payoff than fusion for waste vs. benefit.

>> ^Hybrid:

That's exactly the point. We know that nuclear fusion can give off VAST amounts of energy, but it's harnassing that energy and converting it to electricity that is the key. Every scientist knows that nuclear fusion is a holy grail, and solving it would solve the planet's energy requirements forever.>> ^raverman:
I know this is cool... but the "Why" escapes me.
What's the point?
"Stars" are enormous balls of ignited fuel. Spending huge amounts of tax payer money to concentrate sufficient energy to reach ignition gains us what? An achievement badge on Xbox live? then what? you have to keep the lasers on to sustain any reaction?
Nuclear Fusion is only useful if it produces more energy than it takes to create it.



Personally, I think a better way to go is turning every house into a power station. The bit torrent model if you will. If every house had a freeish energy generating ability, like cheap wind or solar cells, contained via some off the shelf hydrogen conversion storage unit, it would make for a much more self sufficient existence, and one with MUCH MUCH more redundancy than a central grid. My hope for the future is less the monolithic, single high power, power station, but the multitude of many small, low yield power stations. I think, like bit torrent, the sum will end up being more than the whole of its parts. (but fusion is still awesome

Also lucky they were on the load end of the lines rather than the source. The opposite might not have been as pretty for them

(Or better yet, high tension lines that typically come out of a power station)

Edit: http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/many-flee-as-tower-demo-fails-falls-wrong-way-999527.html

Reverse angle makes it look like they *barely* escaped much worse destruction.

Interesting. My knowledge on fusion is limited to the basic function of it. I know little to nothing about reaction fusion technology. My brain finds it hard to fathom that harnessing the power of the sun couldn't have volatile reputations. More over, IF one fails, the cost of fixing it and how regularly it would fail are questions that I think are valid. A power station going offline for a year isn't the answer to a power crisis really.

For me, I have always liked the KISS principle to energy. Many small manageable solutions. Granted, I think fusion reactor technology is still smart to look to, but only for our really cool space ships and ray guns (like an ion cannon to clear an escape from Hoth). In other words, there are most likely easier and safer, more reliably ways to get our power...right?

(what I mean basically is this seems like one of those things that will get here when it gets here...but for a good solution now, it is not that. And even when it gets here, it's going to take awhile to get all the kinks out. Solar and hydrogen fuel cells seem like a real solution now that is already very mature and fairly plug and play with current technology.)

>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
The problem to me with a fusion plant is the energy density. If a catastrophe were to happen, how much of a city would go with it...or how much of a country? I have always liked the idea of everything being its own power station.

The danger of fission is radioactivity. All a "meltdown" does, as far as actual damage, is destroy the reactor. However, it can release radioactive isotopes into the environment, which brings enormous health risks. Fission is self-sustaining, so if the containment fails, the reaction can continue. It should also be noted that fission reactors are far safer today than they were in the past.
Fusion does not have this problem. If the system fails then the reaction stops. It might damage the reactor, but even if the magnet exploded (which would only be a local event) there would be no danger to the surrounding area. As far as I know, the only radiation threat would involve tritium, which is only one fuel method for fusion, and even then there would be far less danger than from a fission reaction.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
The problem to me with a fusion plant is the energy density. If a catastrophe were to happen, how much of a city would go with it...or how much of a country? I have always liked the idea of everything being its own power station.


The danger of fission is radioactivity. All a "meltdown" does, as far as actual damage, is destroy the reactor. However, it can release radioactive isotopes into the environment, which brings enormous health risks. Fission is self-sustaining, so if the containment fails, the reaction can continue. It should also be noted that fission reactors are far safer today than they were in the past.

Fusion does not have this problem. If the system fails then the reaction stops. It might damage the reactor, but even if the magnet exploded (which would only be a local event) there would be no danger to the surrounding area. As far as I know, the only radiation threat would involve tritium, which is only one fuel method for fusion, and even then there would be far less danger than from a fission reaction.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
The problem to me with a fusion plant is the energy density. If a catastrophe were to happen, how much of a city would go with it...or how much of a country? I have always liked the idea of everything being its own power station.


It's considered not to be a large risk in fusion as the plasma would have little density even though it's volume might be large. You could stop it with a confinement structure (worst scenario). Also there is no risk for a runaway event.

The problem to me with a fusion plant is the energy density. If a catastrophe were to happen, how much of a city would go with it...or how much of a country? I have always liked the idea of everything being its own power station.

>> ^notarobot:
I appreciate Brand's appeal for rational global-problem solving as well as his research and his organization of information, but I share almost none of his enthusiasm for the topics he discussed.
Genetic engineering presumes that humans, in our 50-70 year life span know better than nature. Nature has been at the game of shaping genes, of us and every living thing on the Earth, for a long time. Once a gene has been modified it can stay way for eternity. There is no undo. It is arrogant for any human to believe that even the knowledge of how to meddle with genes should be the same as carrying the wisdom to wield that knowledge without error.

If you think something shouldn't be done, because nature knows best, you could carry that same argument to all aspects of our technology, and I doubt you want us to live in pre-stoneage time again. I don't see how nature knows anything, or cares about anything. Nature just functions through mutation and selection. At any time an invasive or disruptive species could evolve. The only safeguard on nature is that evolution moves quite slow.
We have been genetically modifying animals since the first wolf was domesticated. Just look at what kind of freaky dogs we have created since. Or highly productive farm animals that couldn't function in the wild, a dairy cow for example. Now we have the ability to speed up and improve this process. And granted, there is a difference, because now we can move genes into an organism that never were there before, like jellyfish genes in a mammal.
Most if not all species that we engineer have no competitive advantage in nature and will only thrive in our carefully managed farmlands. For potentially more dangerous applications, we need to take adequate precautions and thoroughly test species or build in kill genes that we could trigger. Or just make them infertile.

Though it is true that warheads can be dismantled (with significant effort) for use in nuclear power stations, the fact that the bi-product of fission reactors is weapons-grade material remains lost on most people.

This fact is not lost on many engineers. Many modern reactor designs cannot make weapons grade materials. The reason that many old nuclear plants can do this is because they were specifically designed to make the bomb material and produce energy in the process.
Weapons grade material can also be made without reactors by extracting the fissile component of natural uranium.

Geo engineering is the product of similar arrogance of as genetic engineering. It is fueled by a desire for a static environment. The fact is that the Earth has never stood still, and will never do so (except for that one time in film..).

Of course the Earth doesn't care what we do, it and life will go on no matter what we do, even after a full out nuclear war. The point could be made that we have been geoengineering for a long time now. Just look at our cities, farmland and pollution. The only problem is that some of our geoengineering is potentially harmful to us and nature. Therefore deliberate geoengineering is proposed to mitigate these problems. From a humanitarian view one would want to mitigate these problems to relieve human suffering, just like we try to eradicate horrible diseases.

>> ^cybrbeast:
I couldn't agree more with this guy. He even talked about the evils of Greenpeace trying to stop Africa from using biotech. But that's only half of it, they are also against artificial fertilizer and pesticides. Probably responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans.
We need more rational environmentalists!


I appreciate Brand's appeal for rational global-problem solving as well as his research and his organization of information, but I share almost none of his enthusiasm for the topics he discussed.

Genetic engineering presumes that humans, in our 50-70 year life span know better than nature. Nature has been at the game of shaping genes, of us and every living thing on the Earth, for a long time. Once a gene has been modified it can stay way for eternity. There is no undo. It is arrogant for any human to believe that even the knowledge of how to meddle with genes should be the same as carrying the wisdom to wield that knowledge without error.

Though it is true that warheads can be dismantled (with significant effort) for use in nuclear power stations, the fact that the bi-product of fission reactors is weapons-grade material remains lost on most people.

Geo engineering is the product of similar arrogance of as genetic engineering. It is fueled by a desire for a static environment. The fact is that the Earth has never stood still, and will never do so (except for that one time in film..).