Three nuclear reactors melted down right after quake

[FireFly]

This PV Solar farm pictured below has a capacity factor of 17%. That means it will only produce power for 17% of the sunny day.

Power factor estimates for Solar Thermal vary wildly from 12% to 30%. I found a chart from the EIA with the best estimated "Power Factors" from various energy sources using futuristic 2016 technology. Basically it is a enviro wackos wet dream of unachieved pie in the sky futuristic specs. Chart below provided for your musing pleasure.

Always remember when combining various sources you have overlapping power factors so your combined power factor score goes down but grid power reliability goes up.

 

[Chris]

Now they are saying that the 3 reactors actually leaked twice as much radiation as the power company said.

 

[martybegan]

Now they are saying that the 3 reactors actually leaked twice as much radiation as the power company said.

Your statement is meaningless. What nucleotides? What form? Where did the leak end up? Did it stay in the basement or did it escape to the ocean, or the fields around the plant? or the air?

 

[martybegan]

We have just barely touched geothermal.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/geothermal.html

A comprehensive new MIT-led study of the potential for geothermal energy within the United States has found that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth's hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity the United States will need in the future, probably at competitive prices and with minimal environmental impact.

An 18-member panel led by MIT prepared the 400-plus page study, titled "The Future of Geothermal Energy" (PDF, 14.1 MB). Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, it is the first study in some 30 years to take a new look at geothermal, an energy resource that has been largely ignored.

The goal of the study was to assess the feasibility, potential environmental impacts and economic viability of using enhanced geothermal system (EGS) technology to greatly increase the fraction of the U.S. geothermal resource that could be recovered commercially.

Although geothermal energy is produced commercially today and the United States is the world's biggest producer, existing U.S. plants have focused on the high-grade geothermal systems primarily located in isolated regions of the west. This new study takes a more ambitious look at this resource and evaluates its potential for much larger-scale deployment.

The problem with low grade geothermal is twofold. One is the distance you have to go to get to even low grade viable temperatures, and the second is the power required to send a fluid down the temperature and back. At that point your effective "power out" might not be economically viable.

Geothermal is far more useable when the earth does the job of bringing up a high quality heat source closer to the surface.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

It does not matter how you try to spin green energy, there are limits. You can't get power on demand from Wind or Solar. You can only replace 25% with Wind & 15% with solar. Adding them together Factoring in overlap & off peak production the best you can achieve is 30%.

30% can & likely will happen. Anything beyond that is an absolute lie. There is no way any country is going all wind & solar. Nuclear in deserts is the best option to make up the gap.

Where did you get that numbers from? How can you be sure the limits of green energy are already explored??

Since America started doing research on it, it spent some trillions (!!) on it. How far would we have got, if this money would have been spent on research on other energy sources?

Many money and work was done to get as much knowledge about nuclear power as we've got now. What do we know now? Nuclear power is uncontrollable, more dangerous than everything human beings ever invented and not reliable. We're at a dead end, still many don't want to accept that, because so much was invested.
Meanwhile, nuclear waste piles up and nobody knows what to do with it. It's an easy aim for everybody who wants to harm a society really badly.

The disadvantages of nuclear energy are so grave that the few advantages can not really justify that it is still used. But of course it's hard to go new ways...

More dangerous than everything human beings ever invented? How many deaths has it caused in the US? Not reliable? Compared to what?
I know what to do with nuclear waste. Reprocess it. You know, recycling. That would give us tons of usable fuel and reduce the waste by something like 90%.

 

[Chris]

Japan's tsunami-devastated Fukushima nuclear plant emitted nearly twice as much radioactive material as has been previously estimated, according to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Japan's nuclear regulatory agency. And Japan has announced plans to create an independent nuclear agency.

NISA now says that when a post-earthquake tsunami sent water crashing over a wall, the stricken Fukushima plant emitted almost 800,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials into the air. Previously, estimates were for a release of about 370,000. And new information, it says, now suggests that No. 1 and 2 reactors melted down much earlier than the agency had thought.

Japan radiation double previous estimates | Deseret News

 

[martybegan]

Japan's tsunami-devastated Fukushima nuclear plant emitted nearly twice as much radioactive material as has been previously estimated, according to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Japan's nuclear regulatory agency. And Japan has announced plans to create an independent nuclear agency.

NISA now says that when a post-earthquake tsunami sent water crashing over a wall, the stricken Fukushima plant emitted almost 800,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials into the air. Previously, estimates were for a release of about 370,000. And new information, it says, now suggests that No. 1 and 2 reactors melted down much earlier than the agency had thought.

Japan radiation double previous estimates | Deseret News

again, what type of nucleotides? If it was short chain decay products the radioactivity is gone.

 

[westwall]

Yes, you and many others expressed justified fears that it was much worse than they were stating. And you were correct. The people here that demonstrated their ignorance were Kooky, Walleyes, and BiPolar.

Other then the immediate area around the plants, which I acknowledged were toast, what has been the effect? How many have died? Not guesses, real numbers.

 

[westwall]

Solar thermal. Geothermal. And a continental grid.

Right now, in Oregon and Texas, we often have to idle the wind turbines at the same time that the East Coast or MidWest needs electricity because of the lack of interconnections between the three grids in the US.

And what exactly will power your continental grid? I really hope the power companies just close up shop. I will laugh my ass off when you clowns sit in the dark and wail.