| Even as the Fukushima crisis drops off and on the front pages, several hell-for-leather lets harness the god given power of the atom pro-nuclear bloggers may be showing stress cracks.
At the top of the list is Rod Adams AKA atomicrod who at the very start of the fast moving crisis confidently released a blog titled: Performance of old nuclear plants in Japan demonstrates why much of current regulations are overkill I also think it is important to recognize the opportunity to explain to people why there will be no health consequences to the public from challenges at Japanese nuclear plants and why that prediction could confidently be made almost as soon as the earth stopped shaking, long before all of the details of the events began to unfold.
Writing today atomicrod seems less inclined to predicting the future, saying in part "What this event has taught me is that I need to retreat a bit."
While still making it clear he is 100% touched with atoms he ads: However, I am now certain that not all operating reactors are equally safe, equally well maintained, or equally well sited. I have always known that there are risks associate with nuclear energy - it is such a concentrated source of power that it is impossible to ignore just how quickly it can get out of control.
…far short of a catastrophe
Another supporter goes wobbly “ It is clear that LWRs are not 100% safe.” then speedily rallies to the idea that, for him at least Fukushima is only an accident and not a catastrophe. To date the consequences of the Dai-ichi accident have fallen far short of a catastrophe. But whether the public is aware of the distinction between an accident and a catastrophy is open to question. For the enemies of nuclear power, accident and catastrophe are the same thing.
Hydrogen explosions are bad and should be avoided !
By far my favorite release is Meredith Angwin’s yesvy blog lessons learned diary. She primly notes two root causes:
My two lessons are:
- upgrading emergency preparedness, especially back-up power
- preventing hydrogen explosions.
She discusses the spent fuel pools then ads Still, if the Japanese reactors had had available back-up power and if they had been able to prevent hydrogen explosions, the fuel pools would have been fine. Yes, lesson learned : if only they hadn’t had those problems they wouldn’t have had those other problems. Safe clean logic. |
