Map of Fukushima Radioactivity

ElectricAye

A science article that maps radioactivity in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/11/11/1112058108.full.pdf

Luis Digital

I agree with nuclear power (the only real alternative in the future), but these accidents are unfortunate.

jim N8RHQ

I think Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors are the real answer. Maybe because Fermi 1 in Monroe, MI is in my proverbial back yard. Ever read the book "We almost lost Detroit"?

Give this Kirk Sorensen guy a listen and see if he doesn't make some real sense.
http://youtu.be/D3rL08J7fDA

http://flibe-energy.com/

LoopyByteloose

The nuclear power industry is not the first industry to make a profit by slacking off on maintenance and ignoring the cost of final disposal of wastes, but it may well be the last.

I worked on the Hanford Nuclear Area in the early 70s in the 'go-go' days of nuclear power. We were presented with the wonderful future of 1000 years of energy and what was said to be a good plan for final disposal of nuclear waste into a solid glass in naturally cooled towers.

The only problem is that the final disposal plans have not moved any closer. And I see that Taiwan doesn't have any place within its rather crowded boarders to provide for long-term disposal. So for the past 30 or so years, fuel rods have been backing up in cooling ponds at the reactor sites while the political arena kicks around proposals that never quite move ahead.

It is really time to acknowledge that industry is in many ways 'morally bankrupt' as it doesn't have the ways and means to deal with the waste in a proper and safe fashion AND there is a very strong economic tendency to extend reactor operation for the sake of economic prosperity far beyond prudent risk.

Japan is paying the price for all this and will continue to do so for quite some time. Thorium reactors would be wonderful in terms of preventing proliferation of large scale nuclear bombs, but the other issues remain unresolved and even Thorium might be of use in some sort of 'dirty bomb'.

Radioactivity is a problematic environmental and health hazard that may well be beyond humanity's ability to properly manage. It does work fine in a military setting, but even they don't deal with final waste management.