On May 5th Japan may have no nuclear reactors in operation

[Zaxor]

anyone using that mess for anything other then useless BS is a moron. Chernobyl happened because of terrible design, construction and operation.

Show anything NEAR to that in the US, Japan, France, England. But the strawman BS is just that. Just like Ninja's claim that there is no problem now without any of the plants.

burmafrd are you stating that the on ground physicians are lying and if you are I want to see the proof otherwise any moron can claim different...

 

[Zaxor]

Unlike you, I'm actually in Japan. I have in-laws and friends here. My in-laws and friends experienced one blackout over the summer for two hours. That was it. They had a very hot summer and a very cold winter. All the nuke proponents had been predicting major outages over the summer and winter. Guess what? Didn't happen in reality.

Now, I don't know about you, but one blackout for two hours hardly constitutes a problem. And now every nuke plant but one is off-line and there are NO problems right now as we speak to the best of my knowledge.

Unlike Burm, I'm actually here experiencing and dealing in reality. Unless you are in Japan right now Burm and would like to give us all a firsthand account of these problems you are so sure exist.

lol don't take burm serious nobody else does

 

[burmafrd]

Unlike you, I'm actually in Japan. I have in-laws and friends here. My in-laws and friends experienced one blackout over the summer for two hours. That was it. They had a very hot summer and a very cold winter. All the nuke proponents had been predicting major outages over the summer and winter. Guess what? Didn't happen in reality.

Now, I don't know about you, but one blackout for two hours hardly constitutes a problem. And now every nuke plant but one is off-line and there are NO problems right now as we speak to the best of my knowledge.

Unlike Burm, I'm actually here experiencing and dealing in reality. Unless you are in Japan right now Burm and would like to give us all a firsthand account of these problems you are so sure exist.

Well I have talked in the last two weeks with three people who are in Japan right now and they say otherwise.

 

[burmafrd]

lol don't take burm serious nobody else does

you are fun. out to lunch; but fun.

 

[burmafrd]

burmafrd are you stating that the on ground physicians are lying and if you are I want to see the proof otherwise any moron can claim different...

Well once again only a moron compars Chernobyl to a well built, well regulated and well run plant.

 

[Zaxor]

Well once again only a moron compars Chernobyl to a well built, well regulated and well run plant.

burm my post showed that more than 50 people died as was stated in a previous post...

but you know I still love ya

 

[TwoCentPlain]

Well I have talked in the last two weeks with three people who are in Japan right now and they say otherwise.

Well, Burm, I told my wife (Japanese) about your comment and she was shocked. She hasn't heard of any rolling blackouts or power outages in a long, long time in Japan. Nor have any of her friends and relatives. Where exactly are these three people you have talked to recently?

Here's a good article for you:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/no-nukes-and-no-blackouts-in-japan

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Yeah, I'm not anti-nuclear, but the attempt to minimize Chernobyl is pretty disgusting. It was a disaster that was dangerously close to an absolute catastrophe.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-replace-them/2012/04/18/gIQApCUYQT_blog.html

I think wind power is the way to go....

 

[SaltwaterServr]

Yeah, I'm not anti-nuclear, but the attempt to minimize Chernobyl is pretty disgusting. It was a disaster that was dangerously close to an absolute catastrophe.

Man-made catastrophe from the ground up to the point that 7 security and redundancy safety protocols were either forcefully ignored or shut off AND the person in charge of Chernobyl the night of the explosion had no serious training in nuclear power. Then they tried to cover it up for how many days?

You have to wonder how many lives could have been saved if the evacuations would've occurred immediately after the explosion that blew the top of the containment vessel through the roof of the reactor room.

Fact of the matter remains, there are no similarities between Chernobyl and Fukushima, but irrational fear of an outcome similar to Chernobyl is what has the reactors shut down, currently.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-replace-them/2012/04/18/gIQApCUYQT_blog.html

I think wind power is the way to go....

Not an option for Japan at all. They were ramping up nuclear production, not going down, with plans to go to 50% of their power supply with nuclear by 2030.

Based on what this article says here:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf79.html

Japan had 48.9 gigawatts of capacity in nuclear power. 2 gigawatts in wind already. To replace the 48.9 gigawatts of production, using the largest production turbine that cranks out 6 MW of power per unit and needs at minimum (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/we.469/full) a spacing of 6 rotor diameters (413' x 6) you end up with an equation that looks something like this:


48.9x1000= 48900 Megawatts/6MW per turbine= 8150 units

Rotor diameter of 413' x 6 for minimum spacing gives you a circle with a diameter of 2478' or just under a half of a mile. Realistically, you have a dedicated area with a perimeter of 2478' so it takes an area of 1795 square miles to put the farm in.

That's bare minimum. The link I put up that you probably can't access recommends a minimum spacing of 15 blade diameters. That jumps it up to 11,219 square miles since each turbine takes up a square with a perimeter of over a mile now.

Japan is 145,000 square miles. You just used 1.2-7.7% of the total landmass of the entire island nation to put in enough wind turbines to replace the current capacity of nuclear power.

Yes, you could use the sea to base turbines in as well.

No, wind doesn't blow all the time nor does it blow at the optimal speed for the turbines.

In effect, wind is a fall-back supplement that can keep an energy company from having to burn additional coal/LNG/oil. Even as a fall back though, it's well-developed in Japan and you would never likely see production from wind begin able to replace the reliability and scope of production of nuclear power.

That is, reliability until people freak out and demand power plants be shut down without thinking ahead with respect to economics and/or availability.
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Separate discussion. Japan's debt/GDP ratio is over 200%, making it either the highest or in the top 3 for sure.

The huge issue with debt in Greece, Italy, Spain? Not even close to that.

Japan has so far financed its debt by borrowing domestically from basically the savings of its population in the national banks.

What that means is that Japan's government gets exceptionally favorable rates to fund it's govt. Problem, they racking up their highest trade deficits in modern history of the nation in part because they're buying tons more oil, gas, and other fossil fuels to keep their country's lights on. That makes their economy all the more shaky. When/if they need to go internationally to borrow more money to fund their gov't the banks they're borrowing from are not going to give them the same favorable rates their getting domestically.

In effect, shutting down the nuclear plants is hurting the country, long term. They shut them down permanently, then the financial crisis that Europe is working through will look like a child's game compared to what happens to Japan when they start having to borrow outside the nation's own banks.

Hell, economists pontificate that Italy is too big to save, and too big to fail. Japan's economy is 60% larger.

The ripples felt in the world markets by the Euro Zone trying to prop up Greece and the problems they had with the logistics and money involved? Japan is 18x larger.

Japan, as a nation, cannot afford to keep running it's electrical grid without nuclear power. Simple economics. Nuclear is 30% cheaper than fossil fuel produced steam:

http://205.254.135.7/electricity/annual/html/table8.2.cfm

No, the nuclear power is not the cathartic issue that will trigger Japan's coming recession, but its certainly adding to it for no good reason other than irrational fear.