Tsunami hits Japan after massive quake

[MindyMcfly]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709850

Not sure if you can see this outside of the UK but my gawd its awful

[Tiel]

Holy crap, you can see some cars trying to drive away, but fail.. Really sad that nature can be so cruel.

BBC seems to be working in holland btw.

[Idorian]

Terrible....

[diviness]

bad BLEEP feel sorry for people when there lives are ruined by nature its soo cruel.

[Dust]

Nature has no notion of cruelty. But it's powerful. The scale of the world is so much bigger than that of our human civilization. The power that is released in such an earthquake is gigantic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_ma ... magnitudes
Sometimes I feel so insignificant compared to the scales of the universe.

[Dust]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219
I don't think that there will be a nuclear explosion, but normal explosions from steam pressure for example can be terrible enough when spreading highly radioactive fuel :(

[Fangfury]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219
I don't think that there will be a nuclear explosion, but normal explosions from steam pressure for example can be terrible enough when spreading highly radioactive fuel

There won't be a nuclear explosion as the fuel is only enriched to around 5% as a maximum. Thats nowhere near enough for a nuclear explosion to occur. Modern nuclear reactors are also very good at containing a meltdown inside the shell its built in. There will be little that escapes, but sadly even a little is bad.

[shiftnshape]

Although Japan is a very closed place it still has some of the best brains and tech there is, they are way ahead of most of the rest of the world even though there was an explosion i cant see much if any radioactive material getting away it aint Russia or what ever country its is now when Chernobal went up.

[Elemag]

Its Ukraine.

[MindyMcfly]

Now you making me think about what a disapointment Stalker was.

[Dust]

http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp ... photos.htm

[MindyMcfly]

Thats some serious damage. I hate the way people are going on about nuclear power being dangerous, yet this plant was hit by one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded. Not like that kind of thing happens every day.

[Tiel]

Thats some serious damage. I hate the way people are going on about nuclear power being dangerous, yet this plant was hit by one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded. Not like that kind of thing happens every day.

Yeah exactly.. We have one power plant in Holland which has been working fine since 1973 and Holland isn't exactly near any tectonic rifts that can cause tsunamis. It is near the sea, but quite deep land inwards. The safety precautions are very mature and not like a company like Tepco that has a reputation of bringing false information to the media.
Organizations like Greenpeace are protesting already, but they don't seem to have the knowledge about how a power plant like that works and what could go wrong with it. I understand their concern, but I disagree that this plant is unsafe. Safety regulations in all its forms in Holland are probably more over the top than any other country.
I would prefer energy to be produced by fusion reactors though, they have many advantages to nuclear reactors, but unfortunately that is gonna take ages to finally be in production and it's still a bit uncertain if that will actually work very well. They use non depletable sources of hydrogen to operate, they can't explode and if they do the reactor just shuts down and melts a little hole in the reactor. No radiation then and only some manageable forms of radiation during operation.
As long as no limited earth materials are used to produce energy I'm all pro. But even though Uranium and Plutonium are rare, when we run out of them it's not such a big issue as running out of oil and coal.
Tidal wave energy is also something that has been underdeveloped if you ask me, as you can see with the tsunami's, water has a much bigger force than you'd think and if you can use that to your advantage then I don't see the downside. Especially in Holland where about half of the border is sea.

[Tiel]

Another plant near the shore that is only used for research produces nuclear waste that can actually be used for medical purposes. Radiation therapy needs these materials and when our power plant shut down for a little while a few years back they actually had a shortage.
I'm not sure if the power plants can produce this too, but if so then a massive shutdown of these is bad for healthcare.
The Dutch Uranium based nuclear power plant Borssele produced on its own 3.9% of all energy for the country in 2008. Not bad.

[Dust]

I am a technologist, so I think new technologies are good.

But Nuclear energy is dangerous. The old and outdated reactors are, while patched, not sufficiently secure. And the owners of the power plants are not even responsible above a very low ceiling for the immense damages they can cause.

So in my opinion we should replace the old, crappy reactors with newer and better ones. Research Nuclear Fusion. Photovoltaic. Wind power. Hydroelectric storage. Tidal plants or wave plants are unfortunately in a very unfriendly environment, the salt water and oxygen rust through metals easily, the sand in the water scratch off the surface, so they are very high maintenance. Wind power is getting increasingly popular here in switzerland, but some cantons hate them because they apparently "destroy the landscape...

What you need to get nuclear materials for therapy is usually created in a breeder reactor (I think), not one like those primarily for power generation, which use uranium/plutonium fuel.