The HBO series about the accident well repays repeated viewings.
I've watched it a couple times in the last few days.
Absolutely horrifying from the first moments.
The spin is mostly anti-Soviet liberal propaganda.
The reality is the accident in Japan was as bad or worse, and that can't be laid at the feet of a totalitarian regime covered wall to wall with official lies.
The reality is humans are too stupid, irresponsible, corrupt, and bloody-minded for nuclear power.
Who would build nuclear plans on the earthquake belt?
Humans, that's who, and it wasn't the Russians.
As for Chernobyl, or anyway the events as portrayed in the video, there were two major issues.
The first is that both that and how the core of a reactor of that sort could explode was a state secret kept even from all those responsible for nuclear energy, including the best trained engineers.
So those in charge did pretty much exactly what would be needed to cause such an explosion never knowing for a second that such at thing could happen - though in doing so they had already departed knowingly and frightfully from the limits of safe operational and testing procedure.
The second is that all up and down the lines of authority stupid people were proud of their ignorance and refused to accept judgements, opinions, and recommendations of relevant experts.
Out society is doubtless less endangered by the first sort of problem than Soviet Russia was.
But we are surely every bit as exposed to the second.
And why didn't those non and even anti-Christian Marxist Russians kill those people whose ends were inevitable and filled with unbearable and uncontrollable pain and horror?
Surely not because of scruples about the sanctity of life, eh?
You'd kill a cat to prevent it suffering like that.
Throughout the film dozens of people knowingly incur certain and even awful death to prevent the worst, but Valery Legasov does not dare tell the truth in Vienna in order to ensure the government will actually fix the 16 other reactors subject to the same fatal flaw, though he believes that his exposure to radiation has doomed him to die in about five years, anyway.
The containment building over the ruined reactor cost two billion dollars and is planned to last a century.
Over how many centuries will it be necessary to continue replacing containment buildings?
Showing posts with label nuclear power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear power. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
Saturday, July 25, 2020
Why does it have to cost taxpayers $ 2 trillion?
Biden plots $2tn green revolution but faces wind and solar backlash
His big spending plans - too big, anyway - predate the virus.
And if he had his way the virus alone would cost us another $ 2 or 3 trillion, for sure.
And these "environmentalists" want to lean on the dirtiest and most dangerous source of energy, nuclear power?
If humans are too stupid to be allowed anything pointy or edgy they are for damned sure too stupid for nuclear power.
The left of and beyond the Democratic Party see this as their chance to steal the tiller and ride roughshod over the center left types who make up the core of the party and by far most of its voters.
Trump is so wildly unpopular the Dems could adopt planks from Trotsky, Pol Pot, and Louis Farrakhan and get away with it.
They think.
And they might be right.
And I think they have.
(Kidding)
And if he had his way the virus alone would cost us another $ 2 or 3 trillion, for sure.
And these "environmentalists" want to lean on the dirtiest and most dangerous source of energy, nuclear power?
If humans are too stupid to be allowed anything pointy or edgy they are for damned sure too stupid for nuclear power.
The left of and beyond the Democratic Party see this as their chance to steal the tiller and ride roughshod over the center left types who make up the core of the party and by far most of its voters.
Trump is so wildly unpopular the Dems could adopt planks from Trotsky, Pol Pot, and Louis Farrakhan and get away with it.
They think.
And they might be right.
And I think they have.
(Kidding)
Saturday, October 5, 2019
No nukes!
Utility Giant Sets Up Critical Test For Top 2020 Democrats On Nuclear Power
If the Dems are the environmentally responsible party they need to make it clear they will have no truck with the dirtiest of dirty power sources.
If the Dems are the environmentally responsible party they need to make it clear they will have no truck with the dirtiest of dirty power sources.
Monday, September 30, 2019
The dirtiest and the most dangerous source of energy available
is nuclear energy.
Nuclear energy and nuclear power are filthy and dangerous spinoff technologies meant as moral whitewashes for the one and only actual use for nuclear tech, insanely destructive and filthy nuclear weapons.
And they are irrefutable proof of the absurd idiocy and viciousness of the human race.
Just saying.
Nuclear energy and nuclear power are filthy and dangerous spinoff technologies meant as moral whitewashes for the one and only actual use for nuclear tech, insanely destructive and filthy nuclear weapons.
And they are irrefutable proof of the absurd idiocy and viciousness of the human race.
Just saying.
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Another nuclear accident in the land of Chernobyl
[T]he Russian military base near Nenoska, Russia, where a small nuclear reactor exploded last week.
In online posts and calls to local officials, Russians on Monday expressed anger that the explosion of a small nuclear reactor at a military test site last week has gone unacknowledged for days by their government.
“Even if it is not as dangerous as it seems, we deserve to know,” said Danil Kotsyubinsky, a resident of St. Petersburg who has been pressing local officials for information.
The accident, which has been cloaked in secrecy, took place on Thursday at the Nenoska naval weapons range on the coast of the White Sea in northern Russia, and it apparently involved a test of a new type of cruise missile propelled by nuclear power, American analysts say.
The explosion killed at least seven people, released radiation that briefly elevated readings in a city 25 miles away and set off a scramble by Western experts to ascertain what happened.
They're testing development of a nuclear engine for cruise missiles.
To whom would that seem like a good idea?
Or, "what could go wrong?"
"Think of it like a mini Chernobyl on a missile," MIT's Narang said.
In online posts and calls to local officials, Russians on Monday expressed anger that the explosion of a small nuclear reactor at a military test site last week has gone unacknowledged for days by their government.
“Even if it is not as dangerous as it seems, we deserve to know,” said Danil Kotsyubinsky, a resident of St. Petersburg who has been pressing local officials for information.
The accident, which has been cloaked in secrecy, took place on Thursday at the Nenoska naval weapons range on the coast of the White Sea in northern Russia, and it apparently involved a test of a new type of cruise missile propelled by nuclear power, American analysts say.
The explosion killed at least seven people, released radiation that briefly elevated readings in a city 25 miles away and set off a scramble by Western experts to ascertain what happened.
They're testing development of a nuclear engine for cruise missiles.
To whom would that seem like a good idea?
Or, "what could go wrong?"
"Think of it like a mini Chernobyl on a missile," MIT's Narang said.
"It's an air-breathing cruise missile and they put an unshielded mini nuclear reactor on it. Obviously, that's pretty bats--- insane.
"We tried this in the 1960s and gave up for a reason, and this is why. It's very risky."
Thursday's accident is the latest sign that Russia's attempts to succeed where the U.S. failed are not going to plan.
Thursday's accident is the latest sign that Russia's attempts to succeed where the U.S. failed are not going to plan.
This is the latest of several failed tests since they started in 2017.
Cheryl Rofer, a retired chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb in New Mexico, believes Putin will never succeed.
"There are basic and fundamental engineering considerations that suggest that a nuclear-powered cruise missile with a very small power source will be very difficult or impossible to build," she wrote on the Nuclear Diner website Sunday.
That's because of how difficult it is to make this type of missile light enough but with enough power to fly.
Cheryl Rofer, a retired chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb in New Mexico, believes Putin will never succeed.
"There are basic and fundamental engineering considerations that suggest that a nuclear-powered cruise missile with a very small power source will be very difficult or impossible to build," she wrote on the Nuclear Diner website Sunday.
That's because of how difficult it is to make this type of missile light enough but with enough power to fly.
But the main reason it was abandoned in the past is the design has the potential to spread radioactive particles over the ground as it flies.
In the 1960s, the U.S. did not want to test its rocket in Nevada or over the Pacific because of the risk it could veer off course and cause an environmental catastrophe.
"Is it dangerous? Yes!" Lewis said.
"Is it dangerous? Yes!" Lewis said.
"I think the phrase 'flying nuclear reactor' tells you all you need to know.
"You've got air blowing through an open nuclear reactor and spewing out the back."
Putin is worried US anti-missile technology, reputedly now practically useless, will improve sufficiently to provide the US with what American policy leaders - though perhaps only the loonier - might think of as a first strike capability.
An unlimited range cruise missile looks like an answer, and a nuclear engine looks like the way to power it.
Putin is worried US anti-missile technology, reputedly now practically useless, will improve sufficiently to provide the US with what American policy leaders - though perhaps only the loonier - might think of as a first strike capability.
An unlimited range cruise missile looks like an answer, and a nuclear engine looks like the way to power it.
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Was this the worst nuclear accident ever?
Damaged Russian Submersible Has Nuclear Power Unit, but It’s Intact, Kremlin Says
Why does anyone think it's safe to use reactors to power any sort of vehicle?
Why does anyone think it's safe to use reactors to power any sort of vehicle?
Monday, June 10, 2019
If the lesson is that things always go wrong, and that's why nuclear power is too dangerous for humans, she's right.
Chernobyl is still horrifyingly relevant – the lessons have not been learned
It isn't.
But the lessons she draws are valid, all the same.
What I was afraid of, what hit me square in the chest, was that Chernobyl is familiar in more ways than one.
I didn’t recognise only those intelligent, earnest Soviet men and women – dying because people more powerful than them needed them to die to protect their own standing – but I also recognised how the mind-numbing lies and the political expediency of the horror is not something we can safely put away into a box.
We can’t say, “That’s what happened then, and sure, it was incredibly awful and sad, but it doesn’t apply to us.”
Whether it’s the demagogue sitting in the White House, the people who engineered Brexit, or the chorus on the right and corporate interests telling us that the climate crisis is nothing but an alarmist hoax, there are people who do the expedient thing for their own ends all around us.
Many are powerful enough to decide our collective fates.
Today, I regularly encounter people who think that life in a communist paradise will help humanity solve its current predicaments.
And who the fuck are they?
Where does she encounter them?
She works in DC, as I understand it.
Some are mean and cruel, delighted by the prospect of purging all those they consider their enemies.
Some are decent and kind, unable to comprehend the brutalities of life in the USSR and genuine in their belief that Vladimir Lenin, the man whose name the doomed nuclear plant carried, foresaw a beautiful utopia – or, as us Soviets once called it, an age of mercy.
I want to urge such people, as well as the Trumpers, the Brexiteers and everyone else, to watch Chernobyl.
To do so is to be reminded of the fact that life is precious, and the least we can do is honour each other truthfully as human beings in the time that is allotted to us.
It isn't.
But the lessons she draws are valid, all the same.
What I was afraid of, what hit me square in the chest, was that Chernobyl is familiar in more ways than one.
I didn’t recognise only those intelligent, earnest Soviet men and women – dying because people more powerful than them needed them to die to protect their own standing – but I also recognised how the mind-numbing lies and the political expediency of the horror is not something we can safely put away into a box.
We can’t say, “That’s what happened then, and sure, it was incredibly awful and sad, but it doesn’t apply to us.”
Whether it’s the demagogue sitting in the White House, the people who engineered Brexit, or the chorus on the right and corporate interests telling us that the climate crisis is nothing but an alarmist hoax, there are people who do the expedient thing for their own ends all around us.
Many are powerful enough to decide our collective fates.
Today, I regularly encounter people who think that life in a communist paradise will help humanity solve its current predicaments.
And who the fuck are they?
Where does she encounter them?
She works in DC, as I understand it.
Some are mean and cruel, delighted by the prospect of purging all those they consider their enemies.
Some are decent and kind, unable to comprehend the brutalities of life in the USSR and genuine in their belief that Vladimir Lenin, the man whose name the doomed nuclear plant carried, foresaw a beautiful utopia – or, as us Soviets once called it, an age of mercy.
I want to urge such people, as well as the Trumpers, the Brexiteers and everyone else, to watch Chernobyl.
To do so is to be reminded of the fact that life is precious, and the least we can do is honour each other truthfully as human beings in the time that is allotted to us.
Sunday, June 9, 2019
The politics of HBO's "Chernobyl"
The Daily Caller, behind an absurd demand for subscription, is claiming liberals hate the series while conservatives love it.
The show damns socialism, they say, and not without reason, though the point is disputed just what it damns, and so the left hate it and the right love it.
And yet Vox has published a string of well-deserved positive reviews.
The Guardian, too, loved it by the end, as have lots of other people on the left.
Indeed, so far as I know, nobody outside the post-Soviet, post-socialist Russian state, Putin's Russian nationalist state, has published a review of the series that was negative in net.
Though some on the right have taken occasion to crow, and on the left to deflect.
The HBO series was actually very popular and highly regarded among Russians, but the Putinists are reacting out of stupid offended nationalism, much like the Japanese denying comfort women were slaves, denying the atrocity of Nanking, denying any number of war crimes, and even insisting on celebrating hanged war criminals at patriotic Shinto monuments.
Much like our Southerners and their GOP enablers, celebrating people who fought a war to destroy the Union, to kill the idea that "all men are created equal", to deepen and perpetuate racism in order to commit the South to African slavery forever.
That is to say, the only known folks to damn the series have done so out of the sort of idiot right wing nationalism that mimics the crime-family moms who aid and abet their criminal children, denying they are criminals or excusing their crimes when denial is impossible, because and only because "blood is thicker than water".
The truth is the exact opposite of what the Daily Caller has claimed.
The Russian state, btw, is retaliating with a ludicrous series blaming the CIA for the disaster.
As for the discrepancies between actual history and the events in the series, everybody knows about them because the people who made the series have been yakking about them from the first moments, again and again insisting the series is not and dramatically could not be an entirely accurate rehearsal of who did what, and pointing specifically toward the very same departures from fact to which Russians out to defend the Reds have pointed with an absurd filip of "gotcha".
Not every Russian, not even every Russian personally involved, sees it that way, however.
And this Post story should rebut the lies of surviving Soviet officials whitewashing their and their party's role.
And it is worth remembering that Putin and many others in today's Russian society were themselves officials of the Soviet state.
Even today, many of them, starting with the Big Man, are far from pleased to hear criticism of the Soviet state, feeling correctly they are all of them in varying degrees personally implicated in its crimes and disasters.
The show damns socialism, they say, and not without reason, though the point is disputed just what it damns, and so the left hate it and the right love it.
And yet Vox has published a string of well-deserved positive reviews.
The Guardian, too, loved it by the end, as have lots of other people on the left.
Indeed, so far as I know, nobody outside the post-Soviet, post-socialist Russian state, Putin's Russian nationalist state, has published a review of the series that was negative in net.
Though some on the right have taken occasion to crow, and on the left to deflect.
The HBO series was actually very popular and highly regarded among Russians, but the Putinists are reacting out of stupid offended nationalism, much like the Japanese denying comfort women were slaves, denying the atrocity of Nanking, denying any number of war crimes, and even insisting on celebrating hanged war criminals at patriotic Shinto monuments.
Much like our Southerners and their GOP enablers, celebrating people who fought a war to destroy the Union, to kill the idea that "all men are created equal", to deepen and perpetuate racism in order to commit the South to African slavery forever.
That is to say, the only known folks to damn the series have done so out of the sort of idiot right wing nationalism that mimics the crime-family moms who aid and abet their criminal children, denying they are criminals or excusing their crimes when denial is impossible, because and only because "blood is thicker than water".
The truth is the exact opposite of what the Daily Caller has claimed.
The Russian state, btw, is retaliating with a ludicrous series blaming the CIA for the disaster.
As for the discrepancies between actual history and the events in the series, everybody knows about them because the people who made the series have been yakking about them from the first moments, again and again insisting the series is not and dramatically could not be an entirely accurate rehearsal of who did what, and pointing specifically toward the very same departures from fact to which Russians out to defend the Reds have pointed with an absurd filip of "gotcha".
Not every Russian, not even every Russian personally involved, sees it that way, however.
And this Post story should rebut the lies of surviving Soviet officials whitewashing their and their party's role.
And it is worth remembering that Putin and many others in today's Russian society were themselves officials of the Soviet state.
Even today, many of them, starting with the Big Man, are far from pleased to hear criticism of the Soviet state, feeling correctly they are all of them in varying degrees personally implicated in its crimes and disasters.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Chernobyl. Brilliant and terrifying.
As if we didn't already understand that nuclear power is far too dangerous for humans to use.
Nuclear accidents.
Nuclear accidents.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Say no to nuclear power
Former NRC Regulator's New Book Argues Against Nuclear Power
"I saw how the industry was regulated and how it works," he said. "This is a technology that's hazardous. It's a technology that at any moment really could lead to the kind of catastrophic accident we saw at Fukushima. I thought people should understand that. as you said, people are talking about nuclear power as the savior to climate change. That worries me more than the risk of a nuclear power accident because I don't think it can rise to that challenge."
. . . .
"I started in Washington as a physicist, so I looked at every issue based on the facts, made hypotheses and revised as I learned new facts. The biggest fact that changed my mind was this accident in Fukushima. I saw 100,000 people evacuated from their homes, many permanently evacuated. That's the kind of thing you should never see from a source that generates electricity. And moreover, we were promised and the industry pledged that these kinds of accidents were in the past, and here we had one in front of us. I began to realize this is a technology that simply was too hazardous to really be a future technology," he said.
"Walk us through what impact still is found there on the ground in Japan," Jonathan Lemire said.
"There's large areas of the plant still uninhabitable. Most evacuated and can't return to their homes. Lives have been disrupted. in a way we think more with wars than with energy generation. And you have a lot of radioactive water that's being stored at the site that people really don't know what to do with. So it will be decades before -- " he said.
"How likely could something like this happen in the United States?"
"You know, it's so hard to predict," he said. "The plants operate on this precipice of normal operation on one side and catastrophic failure on the other. What we know is accidents will happen. It's just a matter of when and where. It's hard to predict. which is why the industry often touts that everything's fine."
"I saw how the industry was regulated and how it works," he said. "This is a technology that's hazardous. It's a technology that at any moment really could lead to the kind of catastrophic accident we saw at Fukushima. I thought people should understand that. as you said, people are talking about nuclear power as the savior to climate change. That worries me more than the risk of a nuclear power accident because I don't think it can rise to that challenge."
. . . .
"I started in Washington as a physicist, so I looked at every issue based on the facts, made hypotheses and revised as I learned new facts. The biggest fact that changed my mind was this accident in Fukushima. I saw 100,000 people evacuated from their homes, many permanently evacuated. That's the kind of thing you should never see from a source that generates electricity. And moreover, we were promised and the industry pledged that these kinds of accidents were in the past, and here we had one in front of us. I began to realize this is a technology that simply was too hazardous to really be a future technology," he said.
"Walk us through what impact still is found there on the ground in Japan," Jonathan Lemire said.
"There's large areas of the plant still uninhabitable. Most evacuated and can't return to their homes. Lives have been disrupted. in a way we think more with wars than with energy generation. And you have a lot of radioactive water that's being stored at the site that people really don't know what to do with. So it will be decades before -- " he said.
"How likely could something like this happen in the United States?"
"You know, it's so hard to predict," he said. "The plants operate on this precipice of normal operation on one side and catastrophic failure on the other. What we know is accidents will happen. It's just a matter of when and where. It's hard to predict. which is why the industry often touts that everything's fine."
Friday, March 31, 2017
A really bad bet
Toshiba's Westinghouse Electric is filing for bankruptcy
The company bet big on the nuclear industry in 2006, acquiring Westinghouse for $5.4 billion. It was a bold deal that came at a time of renewed interest in nuclear power.
But the meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 changed things.
In the face of souring public opinion on nuclear energy and stricter safety requirements, hopes of a nuclear renaissance soon faded.
Analysts said Toshiba paid too much for Westinghouse, forcing it to maintain an aggressive nuclear power plant sales forecast.
That led to Westinghouse acquiring nuclear construction business CB&I Stone & Webster in 2015.
The deal was supposed to help Westinghouse complete the U.S. reactor projects.
Instead, costs spiraled out of control.
Toshiba later admitted that it may have overestimated the value of CB&I Stone & Webster.
The company bet big on the nuclear industry in 2006, acquiring Westinghouse for $5.4 billion. It was a bold deal that came at a time of renewed interest in nuclear power.
But the meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 changed things.
In the face of souring public opinion on nuclear energy and stricter safety requirements, hopes of a nuclear renaissance soon faded.
Analysts said Toshiba paid too much for Westinghouse, forcing it to maintain an aggressive nuclear power plant sales forecast.
That led to Westinghouse acquiring nuclear construction business CB&I Stone & Webster in 2015.
The deal was supposed to help Westinghouse complete the U.S. reactor projects.
Instead, costs spiraled out of control.
Toshiba later admitted that it may have overestimated the value of CB&I Stone & Webster.
Friday, February 3, 2017
Monday, June 27, 2016
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Are the Japanese worse than others?
Less to be trusted with nuclear power?
No.
Chilling thought?
Yes.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
The energy dilemma
Nuclear power is too dangerous for human beings to be trusted with it.
But nuclear power is the only economically reasonable alternative to fossil fuels, and even that's at a stretch.
Hence.
Japan Restarts Nuclear Reactor 4 Years After Fukushima.
But nuclear power is the only economically reasonable alternative to fossil fuels, and even that's at a stretch.
Hence.
Japan Restarts Nuclear Reactor 4 Years After Fukushima.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Best not do it
Nuclear power is not safe enough in the Earthquake Belt.
The danger is too great both to those who would benefit by use of the power and to those who would not, living anywhere else in the world.
Recall the worries about atmospheric and oceanic plumes of radioactive material moving along currents vast distances from Fukushima and eventually reaching the whole planet.
Japan court blocks nuclear restart
Far more dangerous to "the environment" than global warming, arrested in any case for the last 15 years.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Too big a disaster to let on? Fukushima. Just say “No” to nukes.
To my dismay, things are moving faster than expected and
human incompetence, sloppiness, and greed may have a chance to kill me, after
all.
Frankly, I thought the first nuclear disaster to do serious harm to
lots of the public would happen after my death.
Fukushima may prove me wrong.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
The dog that isn't barking
Fukushima, global warming, coal-fired power plants, nuclear power.
Japan has just announced it will be relying less on nukes and more on fossil fuel for energy than previously planned.
Very sensible.
Nuclear power is much too dangerous anywhere, but especially at earthquake central.
Hence that country is backing away from its commitments regarding future emissions.
Muffled unhappiness and confusion on the left as support for a nuclear powered future has just begun to solidify among global warming believers.
The lwnm should be screaming nuclear power is too dangerous.
And it's not, and we know why.
What if the sorry-assed truth is that we are causing global warming, it will have the predicted devastating consequences, but trusting nukes would - will? - have even worse consequences?
When you get to brass tacks, it's just another choice among evils.
And of winners and losers.
Islanders vs. continentals.
People in temperate regions vs. people in hot areas.
What if, as seems likely, Soylent Green is coming?
Not that I will live to see it.
Good luck, kids.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Another leak in Fukushima
They may kill the whole Pacific, all by themselves.
If these clowns spilled all of it into the ocean, how far would the death cloud spread through the water?
Eventually, through all of the oceans?
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Why the (relative) silence?
The technique of selective outrage.
There’s no end to liberal fury and panic over the environmental
messiness of fossil fuels, even apart from their transparently opportunist bleating
about global warming.
And who does not see their remarkable silence about the
world’s greatest environmental disaster since Chernobyl, the
ongoing, slow-mo horror at Fukushima,
is likewise explained by their agenda?
A good part of the left has decided nukes will have a big
place in the future, helping fill up the huge, and hugely costly, energy
shortfall that they, themselves, will cause by beating the global ruling class into
submission on the non-use of fossil fuels.
Undaunted by Chernobyl and Fukushima.
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