MAGAThread XVII: All Things NOT Impeachment

[Vassenor]

Chernobyl is, in a very strange way, a testament to how safe nuclear power is. It was an incredibly poorly designed system that could only meltdown if very specific actions were taken, actions which were specifically taken against the actual safety protocols in place, and only under very specific and dangerous circumstances, which involved pushing the reactor down to a point it was never meant to be pushed to (interestingly and paradoxically, it involved reducing the tractor's production).

Literally everything had to go completely wrong in a nearly impossible manner, including intentionally ignoring safety protocol. And even then, the only reason things went bad was due to the poor design of the reactors.

Simply put, Chernobyl is an aberration. It's not even 1 in a million. It requires poor decision making through out the entire process of the facility, decisions which were know to be faulty.

This ^

what we NEED is a standard template for a nuclear reactor that is effecient and safe that can be replicated over and over instead of 10 differen't reactors with different designs.

standardization

You mean like we thought we had at Fukushima before "built by the lowest bidder" reared its ugly head?

[Nazeroth]

This ^

what we NEED is a standard template for a nuclear reactor that is effecient and safe that can be replicated over and over instead of 10 differen't reactors with different designs.

standardization

You mean like we thought we had at Fukushima before "built by the lowest bidder" reared its ugly head?

wasn't that due to natural disaster damaging the plant?

[Vassenor]

You mean like we thought we had at Fukushima before "built by the lowest bidder" reared its ugly head?

wasn't that due to natural disaster damaging the plant?

And another plant that got hit harder by the same disaster survived without issue. Hence "built by the lowest bidder".

[Galloism]

This ^

what we NEED is a standard template for a nuclear reactor that is effecient and safe that can be replicated over and over instead of 10 differen't reactors with different designs.

standardization

You mean like we thought we had at Fukushima before "built by the lowest bidder" reared its ugly head?

You mean the Fukushima disaster that is projected to cause between 2 and 12 deaths over the next 80 years?

[Gormwood]

You mean like we thought we had at Fukushima before "built by the lowest bidder" reared its ugly head?

wasn't that due to natural disaster damaging the plant?

And they already showed Design By the Lowest Bidder aggravated that unlike the other plant that was built to spec.

[The Lone Alliance]

And another plant that got hit harder by the same disaster survived without issue. Hence "built by the lowest bidder".

Except it wasn't lowest bidder it was "Bad placement of the back up pumps".
That was the lowest bidder part.

It wasn't a structural flaw in the actual building design.

[Galloism]

wasn't that due to natural disaster damaging the plant?

And they already showed Design By the Lowest Bidder aggravated that unlike the other plant that was built to spec.

I like how nuclear plant designs are so safe you can be a fuckwit and cut costs, get hit by a major earthquake and then a freaking tsunami, and still kill fewer people than wind power does just in ordinary operation and setup.

[Seangoli]

Sure, talk about Chernobyl all you want, but when I say that the BP oil spill is proof of the failure of communism suddenly I’m taking it too far.

Chernobyl is symptomatic of Russian-style deep corruption... also a gas plant in Moscow completely went up in flames last summer. <.>

Pretty much this, exactly.

They used a faulty conceptual design for their reactor, largely due to it being cheaper. For what it's worth, modern reactors do not use the same design at all. What happened at Chernobyl is literally impossible on the physics side of the equation due to design.

They didn't perform proper safety protocol tests to pass the plant. The foremen forged the documents on it. This is important, because of the next part.

They forced this test while the plant was in full operation, and due to time constraints didn't follow proper fully laid out safety protocols.

Part of the reason for this is because the team that was supposed to run the test didn't, because the test was out off for 12 hours. Why is this important? Because the night shift were a bunch of undertrained technicians who had never even heard of the tests before, let alone the protocols they needed to following. They were literally learning the test, and what they needed to do, while they were doing it. This goes back to point 2, as the foremen kept it as secret as possible because they already had stated they had performed the test they were now performing.

Then, when the reactors were producing less power than they needed to sustain it (due to the fuck up in number 3), they did something almost unthinkably stupid. They pulled almost every last control rod to get the reactor up and running where they needed. The reason this happened is because they didn't proprlerly Purge the reactor following their shutdown, and the reactor couldn't produce enough energy to maintain a reaction. That said, this was beyond the pale of idiocy; the reactor design required a certain number of rods to function properly, and they exceeded this well known minimum by a significant amount.

This, in turn, likely caused a runaway reaction to occur, which wouldn't have been a problem except that the design from point 1 above meant that when they then tried to auto-shutdown the reactor, the tips melted on every damn control rod (due to point 4), plugging the rods from being fully inserted. Which meant that there was nothing slowing or stopping the reactor.

Change any single detail in this mess of incompetence, and Chernobyl simply could not happen. Not wouldn't have happened, but couldn't have. It would be physically impossible for Chernobyl to meltdown as it did if any single detail occurred differently.

Perform the tests when they should have? They wouldn't have had the reactor poisoning from the plant being fully operational prior to the test.

Not held off the test for 10 hours? A competent group who knew the test in and out would be in charge.

Not gone with the cheapest possible design? It simply would have been impossible.

Not pull all rods out? The runaway reaction couldn't have happened, and the reactor wouldn't have been hot enough to melt the tips when they hit AZ-5.

Slowly out the the rods in? Sure, ruin the reactor, but not have a massive mess.

Take the time to properly vent the reactor before testing? Again, it would physically be impossible to cause a meltdown.

[Seangoli]

You mean like we thought we had at Fukushima before "built by the lowest bidder" reared its ugly head?

wasn't that due to natural disaster damaging the plant?

It wasn't just a natural disasters. It was a near apocalyptic earthquake, the scale of which is hard to envision. It literally tore parts of the island apart, and Incan almost guarantee the contamination from the outwash from the tsunami is on a scale at least similar in scale to the plant itself, if not moreso.

[Vassenor]

wasn't that due to natural disaster damaging the plant?

It wasn't just a natural disasters. It was a near apocalyptic earthquake, the scale of which is hard to envision. It literally tore parts of the island apart, and Incan almost guarantee the contamination from the outwash from the tsunami is on a scale at least similar in scale to the plant itself, if not moreso.

Meanwhile the plant itself is still pissing radioactive waste into the ocean.

[Seangoli]

It wasn't just a natural disasters. It was a near apocalyptic earthquake, the scale of which is hard to envision. It literally tore parts of the island apart, and Incan almost guarantee the contamination from the outwash from the tsunami is on a scale at least similar in scale to the plant itself, if not moreso.

Meanwhile the plant itself is still pissing radioactive waste into the ocean.

1. No it's not.

2. Every test so far done has found the contamination to be negligible. Even in the immediate vicinity of the plant, radiation levels found in the water and animal populations is well below the levels for human consumption, let alone the levels needed that are actively dangerous.

Even assuming radioactivr material is still being spilled, through some arcane magic, it is doing so at a rate that makes its impact negligible, at best, to the immediate surroundings let alone the impacts to the wider region, which are almost nonexistent.

[Galloism]

It wasn't just a natural disasters. It was a near apocalyptic earthquake, the scale of which is hard to envision. It literally tore parts of the island apart, and Incan almost guarantee the contamination from the outwash from the tsunami is on a scale at least similar in scale to the plant itself, if not moreso.

Meanwhile the plant itself is still pissing radioactive waste into the ocean.

I don't think this is true.

[Luminesa]

It wasn't just a natural disasters. It was a near apocalyptic earthquake, the scale of which is hard to envision. It literally tore parts of the island apart, and Incan almost guarantee the contamination from the outwash from the tsunami is on a scale at least similar in scale to the plant itself, if not moreso.

Meanwhile the plant itself is still pissing radioactive waste into the ocean.

From what we know, it’s not a whole lot though.

[Luminesa]

Sure, talk about Chernobyl all you want, but when I say that the BP oil spill is proof of the failure of communism suddenly I’m taking it too far.

Chernobyl is symptomatic of Russian-style deep corruption... also a gas plant in Moscow completely went up in flames last summer. <.>

And they let a submarine worth millions of dollars basically sink to the bottom of the ocean or something.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Chernobyl is symptomatic of Russian-style deep corruption... also a gas plant in Moscow completely went up in flames last summer. <.>

And they let a submarine worth millions of dollars basically sink to the bottom of the ocean or something.

If you’re talking about the Kursk, then in all fairness, they did raise it and haul it off to dry dock somewhere.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

If we're allowed to use Chernobyl...

Then Chernobyl...

Chernobyl is, in a very strange way, a testament to how safe nuclear power is. It was an incredibly poorly designed system that could only meltdown if very specific actions were taken, actions which were specifically taken against the actual safety protocols in place, and only under very specific and dangerous circumstances, which involved pushing the reactor down to a point it was never meant to be pushed to (interestingly and paradoxically, it involved reducing the tractor's production).

Literally everything had to go completely wrong in a nearly impossible manner, including intentionally ignoring safety protocol. And even then, the only reason things went bad was due to the poor design of the reactors.

Simply put, Chernobyl is an aberration. It's not even 1 in a million. It requires poor decision making through out the entire process of the facility, decisions which were know to be faulty.

It was also a case of nationalistic propaganda being put before actually listing problems with the RBMK reactors.

I'd just do thorium rather then add even more carbon to the atmosphere.

Unfortunately that would mean "stealing" profit from the American oil and coal zaibatsu/lobby. So... yeah... we're proper fucked.

Steal away I say. Coal is dying on its own and man kind will push for fusion reactors soon.

Meanwhile the plant itself is still pissing radioactive waste into the ocean.

From what we know, it’s not a whole lot though.

To be fair any amount of radioactive waste being put in the ocean is too much.
That's why Fission reactors should be used as a stop gap while we upgrade to fusion.

[Aclion]

I winder how many Chernobyls we could have a year before the effects would be worse then not switching to nuclear.

[Seangoli]

I winder how many Chernobyls we could have a year before the effects would be worse then not switching to nuclear.

Honestly, not too many. Chernobyl was bad. Real bad.

That said, Chernobyl is an aberration that is almost impossible to happen, and entirely caused by human idiocy that is hard to comprehend. It's not even a case where people screwed up something. Had the technicians merely screwed up the test, the reactor would have shut down by the physical nature of nuclear reactors.

When you actually look into what happened with Chernobyl, it is actually astounding how the damn thing melted down. The technicians had to do practically everything in their power to create a situation to occur. The Soviets couldn't have done a better job if they had planned to melt it down. It's such an unlikely and absurd series of events that it frankly shouldn't have happened. As in it was nearly impossible to cause a Fatal meltdown of the sort, even with the design in place. They had to actively make decisions that were completely contrary to actual function of a nuclear plant to do so, and had even one thing been different it would have never happened.

Seriously, it's like they read a book called "How to intentionally cause a Catastrophic Meltdown of the RBMK Reactor".

[Neutraligon]

wasn't that due to natural disaster damaging the plant?

And another plant that got hit harder by the same disaster survived without issue. Hence "built by the lowest bidder".

Fukushima got hit by a massive quake, one i was no designed to actually take (it was designed to take a less strong earthquake and keep producing electricity though the building itself was built to withstand the actual earthquake, and did). Due to the quake, the reactor properly started to shut down, but doing so meant that it was no longer producing electricity to cool the reaction and so of course switched to emergency power provided diesel generators which worked until the plant got hit by a massive tsunami that the plant was also not designed for taking out the backup generators. It was only after these backups where taken out that issues began to occur. When the tsunami flooded where the first set of generators where they attempted to switch to a second set of backup generators that here higher up but those too had been flooded and so could not work, an due to the earthquake messing up roads and the such, backups from outside where delayed in reaching the plant. In essence, this powerplant had backups for the backups for the backups and they all failed due to the sheer severity of the quake and then tsunami.

[Genivaria]

It really is a shame that so many people are irrationally afraid of Nuclear energy, I blame Godzilla movies.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

It really is a shame that so many people are irrationally afraid of Nuclear energy, I blame Godzilla movies.

Godzilla came from nukes iirc.

[Telconi]

It really is a shame that so many people are irrationally afraid of Nuclear energy, I blame Godzilla movies.

Godzilla came from nukes iirc.

I think that was the point.

[San Lumen]

It really is a shame that so many people are irrationally afraid of Nuclear energy, I blame Godzilla movies.

Well there is that problem of nuclear waste that no one has come up with a viable solution for

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

It really is a shame that so many people are irrationally afraid of Nuclear energy, I blame Godzilla movies.

Well there is that problem of nuclear waste that no one has come up with a viable solution for

Yucca Mountain

[Aclion]

Yucca mountain yes, We can also store in in uranium mines or recycle it.
Also remember that the vast bulk of nuclear waste is low grade stuff like mops and gloves.