Nuclear power development in UK going bust? 6

[edison123]

Paging Scotty.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46900918

First, it was Toshiba, now it is Hitachi. Nuclear was touted as the only way forward for sating future demand. What happens now?

Muthu

http://www.edison.co.in

 

[Mbrooke]

Very well produced documentary IMO and I agree with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDCEjWNGv6Y

 

[Sparweb]

About that PBS documentary:
@ 4:10, "We are about 1km away from the Fukushima Daichi plant. Getting particularly high readings here: 34 microSieverts per hour"

Always remember, when you see a reporter holding a Geiger counter going nuts, to ask yourself: if it's so bad, why is he still standing there? How long has he stood there to get the video take just right?

In context:
[ul]
[li]Expect 40 microSieverts on an airline flight from New York to Los Angeles, which takes about 5 hours, or 8 microSieverts per hour.[/li]
[li]EPA yearly limit to environment in vicinity of a nuclear reactor: 250 microSieverts per year (0.03 microSieverts per hour).[/li]
[li]Living in a stone, brick or concrete building for one year: 70 microSieverts per year (0.01 microSieverts per hour).[/li]
[li]Eating one banana: 100 NanoSieverts[/li]
[/ul]

This chart should help (credit: Randall Munroe & PBS)

So it's helpful to bear in mind that the reporter received about as much radiation from his 12 airplane trips across the Pacific as he did during his reactor site visits.

No one believes the theory except the one who developed it. Everyone believes the experiment except the one who ran it.
STF

 

[Mbrooke]

In the link I don't like how they automatically say cell phones don't cause cancer without citing a study. One or the other has never been definitively proven.

But anyways, great link and I do agree the reporter was hyping it a bit there.

 

[Sparweb]

Mbrooke,
Interesting you should say that, since I believe the thing about cell phones may be wrong, but for completely different reasons.
The thing about transmitting ionizing radiation should be obvious (radio waves VS. gamma/X/UV rays) since the energy is lower by many orders of magnitude.

OTOH, there are many materials in common use that have radioactive elements in them. For example bananas, I assume from the decay of phosphorus. So on that basis, the radiation dose from stone buildings also makes sense, as well as all the other stuff in the natural environment that appear on the list. The whole world is full of sources of radioactive exposure. Well then, if cell phones are made of natural materials, of which some have radioactive isotopes, and in fact contain some heavy elements in the semiconductors, then I would expect a certain amount of radiation to come from a cell phone, whether it is Off or On. In fact, completely independent of the activity of the phone. Exposure is the worst when you hold it against your head.

No one believes the theory except the one who developed it. Everyone believes the experiment except the one who ran it.
STF

 

[Compositepro]

The radiation in bananas is due to potassium-40 from weapons testing.

 

[itsmoked]

I don't sweat the cellphone thing because I always use it on speaker phone. Well, maybe once a month I have to mash it against my head, but I keep those conversations short.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[ZeroSeq]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned liquid salt reactor technology being utilized over existing water reactors.