Leak Found In Fukushima Tank Holding Radioactive Water

The fallout from tsunami damage at Japan's Fukushima plant isn't over yet. New submitter OldJuke writes "Tokyo Electric power Co. said about 120 tons of the water are believed to have breached [a water storage tank's] inner linings, some of it possibly leaking into the soil. TEPCO is moving the water to a nearby tank at the Fukushima Dai-chi plant — a process that could take several days ...More than 270,000 tons of highly radioactive water is already stored in hundreds of gigantic tanks and another underground tank. They are visible even at the plant's entrance and built around the compound, taking up more than 80 percent of its storage capacity. TEPCO expects the amount to double over three years and plans to build hundreds of more tanks by mid-2015 to meet the demand."

THIS DID NOT HAPPEN

[Anonymous Coward]

This did not happen. Nothing to see here.

There are no problems with nuclear power. It is good and glorious.

No one will ever be harmed by nuclear power. You can trust it. It is good.

Sincerely, the Slashdot nuclear re-education committee

Re:THIS DID NOT HAPPEN

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, whenever anyone says anything the slightest bit negative about nuclear power here on Slashdot, does someone come and start whining about coal?

This is for a normal spent fuel pool

[symbolset]

The spent fuel pools at Fukushima are not in any sense [youtube.com] "normal."

Re:THIS DID NOT HAPPEN

[ohnocitizen]

Because its an easy target? Probably also because the relative panic over nuclear power rubs geeks the wrong way: "Those peasants are being anti science again. WHY won't they look at the math?!". If we want nuclear power to succeed, and it should, we need to look at the real problem - lack of regulation. The companies that run plants too often get away with cutting corners. The lack of trust with nuclear power stems directly from this lack of trust mixed with the potential severity of a mistake. If we work hard to solve both problems, to implement solutions that already exist, and publicize those success stories, we should see progress.

Re:The problem with nuclear power is

[silas_moeckel]

The issue is that were treating stuff as ubber scary that's far less dangerous that what goes up coal plants smoke stacks. Things less radioactive than coal get treated as major problems that we have to contain forever we might as well just throw the stuff into the furnace.

Spent fuel rods are the major highly radioactive bit and those should be reprocessed to make more fuel rods. We don't because that reprocessing is also a good way to get weapon grade bits. Pretty much anything that's radioactive enough to need to be contained over huge periods is radioactive enough to run a reactor. Other bits are non issues.

Re:And the headline is self-contradictory

[symbolset]

I share your enthusiasm for the topic and your point of view. The whole coining words like "Fuckupshima" thing is antihelpful. Could you not do that? Please?

Re:THIS DID NOT HAPPEN

[Anonymous Coward]

Wut? Exercise and eat as healthily as you like. Just don't expect that to "effectively" prevent cancer if you are exposed to significant amounts of radiation.

Re:And the headline is self-contradictory

[professionalfurryele]

You are wasting your time I'm afraid. There are just too many people out there who cant imagine how anyone could come to a different perspective on controversial issues and how abuse of rhetoric can be polarising. If you can please take comfort in the fact that while I disagree with your point of view I can understand how someone with different facts, experiences and values could come to a different conclusion about nuclear power to the one I have. I appreciate your efforts to keep the discourse civil.

Re:THIS DID NOT HAPPEN

[jez9999]

No amount of regulation would fix the problems with Fukushima Daiichi

No, but it would've stopped it being built there in the first place without the proper protections against tsunamis.

Re:Solution: Energy from Thorium (LFTRs)

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is that all the research reactors have had major issues and are still tens of billions of dollars away from being commercially viable. Even then people will want to see one running for at least a decade before investing heavily in new thorium plants because they will worry about unforeseen costs. In the mean time everyone will just take the safe bet and build the same old stuff they have been building for decades.

Things do not move quickly in the nuclear industry, especially when huge amounts of risk are involved. Remember that they will have to convince the government to subsidize and insure the plant as well, adding years to the process.

In the mean time renewables will rocket ahead, and now we have the somewhat risky (from an investment point of view, not safety) but still orders of magnitude better than nuclear shale gas. Even coal is cleaning up, unfortunately. Honestly, I think we will see commercial fusion before we see widescale deployment of thorium reactors.