Lar and Sieg

I knew that there would be responses when I touched this sensitive topic... and of course, I oversimplified quite a few things. It will take a long long discussion over a beer or something equivalent, elsewhere, to sort out all the intricacies. And as usual scientists often have opposite views.

Two things I would like to leave with you for pondering about.

- "The Chernobyl incident was a chemical explosion. The nuclear pile got too hot, gases were evolved inside the containment building, and kaboom." (Lar).

No it was not, it was a nuclear run away accident (a severe accident) when somebody was "playing around" with the reactor outside the safety limits. Yes, it went kaboom, blowing the top off and the highly radioactive fuel was blown outside the core in pieces, many chunks were on the roof of the building and were cleaned up by first responders without proper protection (there was a video). The graphite used as the moderator for the Chernobyl reactors (CANDU reactors use heavy water, instead of graphite) was burning. There was a satellite shot showing a red hot radioactive core (it looks like the tip of a lighted cigarette, essentially the core was completetely exposed, i.e. without any shielding). Responders in helicopters without proper shielding "dive-bombed" the core with boron and sands to plug the hole. As a consequence, about 30 responders, including those scooping highly radioactive fuel pieces from the roof and outside the building, died shortly after (the prompt fatality). The potential delayed effect due to cancer from the radioactive plume on the surrounding population, including neighbouring countries, is a controversial topic and the predictions are vastly different. There are many international reports on the subject.

Some stats: For Fukushima, there was no prompt fatality due to radioactivity. Two workers were killed (they got slamed to the perimeter walls by the waves). Some 23000 people were killed by the waves from the 2011 tsunami.

For Three Mile Island, nobody was killed, and the release outside the intact containment was insignificant (but that accident was enough to put a freeze on reactor construction for a long period of time).

Some other stats for comparison: Car accidents killed ~1 million people per year (WHO), but we are still driving around in fast cars. The 2004 tsunami in Indonesia killed 250,000 people in one shot, but some of us still want to live in ocean-front homes.

Life is not risk free, but somehow the perception of risk is different for nuclear power (not nuclear medicine, or the warm solar radiation/energy from our Sun with its fusion reactor going full blast @ a rate e=mc2). It's worth noting that we are living in a sea of radiation which is required, in moderate dose, to keep life healthy.

- Radioactive waste: Technical solutions for long-term burial of nuclear waste are available, but it's a political decision for the governments. It is quite interesting to note that several minicipalities in Ontario are bidding for hosting the long-term nuclear waste facilities.

As indicated, these are just interesting information and not intended to stir up any controversy. However, it could provide some useful perspective while we wait for the PEA.

If ZEN unveiled an sizable off-take with the GigaFactory (battery grade), or the Chinese (nuclear grade, nuclear is considered by quite a few as clean/green energy), ZEN would rocket, and I would take $10/s or better, go South and look for an ocean-front home, lol.

goldhunter