When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?

[DougSpindler]

Premature deaths. But how do you tell apart a normal death from a premature death? I have friends at the WHO and they have told me not to believe everything the WHO says, they have political agendas: bird flu and Tamiflu being a fine example of what I mean. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bird+flu+vaccine+rumsfeld

It’s statistics and a bit of detective work.   In the 1950s -1970s lung cancer, throat and stomach rates all of a sudden increased dramatically.  Doctors were puzzled.  Was it something in the food, air, exposure during Word War II?  They didn’t have a clue.  Some very smart doctors started comparing notes on patients to see if they could find anything in common.  They did.  All of their patients either smoked ciragetttes or lived in a home with a ciragette smoker.  Thanks to thieir work, we now know how deadly ciragettes are.  Statistically they compared the life expentency of non-smokers with smokers and found smokers on average died years sooner than non-smokers.  And people who smoked and then stopped smoking would live a bit longer than if they continued to smoke but not as long as a non-smoker.

From 1945 though the 1970s we did experiment after experiment to find out the effects on ionizing radiation.  We have a very good understanding statistically of the dose, exposure and life expectancy.  This is not pseudoscience as the anti-nukes like everyone to beleive.  If it were we would not be able to sucessfully treat cancer patients with nuclear medicine.

There are paradoxes with ionizing radiation.  One can be exposed to a dose of ionizing radiation of say 20 which would cause cancer in a patient.  But at a dose of 25 it kills the cancer and the patient doesn’t get cancer. 

On YouTube Vertasium/Derek has a two one hour episodes on the discovery and history of ionizing radiation. Uranium: Twisting the Dragon’s Tale.  This was a PBS show int he US.  5 Stars.

[DougSpindler]

We should be moving towards replacing fossil fuel with something that is cleaner and still serves the purpose of providing energy.   Ironicly we may need to use fossil fuel in that process (ex: heavy equipment to build solar farms), but eventually the new technology should be self sustainable.

We should, yes, best is better than good. But don't demonize fossil fuel because 1) it's been and still is a very good thing and 2) we've got nothing better yet.

While I mostly agree with you, for some applications we do have far better solutions than having to use fossil fuels.

The amazing think about fossil fuels is the energy density.  I think only nuclear fuel is the only energy source which is something on the order of a billion billion more energy dense.  I’ll give you one example where fossil fuels are a poor choice, submariners.  Every heard of a bio-fuels submarine or solar powered submarine?  It’s possible, but would be silly.  Remember all of the submarines in World War II were battery powered.  But ultimately their energy came from fossil fuel.  They had to come to the surface to charge the batteries and for refueling.  Defeats the purpose of having a submarine.  Nuclear power is a much better energy source.  I think they can be operated for 5 to 10 years before needing to be refulled.  It’s the crew that’s the weakness now.  They need  to be refulled every 3 months or so.  Are we working on autonomous nuclear powered submarines? 

[CatalinaWOW]

Premature deaths. But how do you tell apart a normal death from a premature death? I have friends at the WHO and they have told me not to believe everything the WHO says, they have political agendas: bird flu and Tamiflu being a fine example of what I mean. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bird+flu+vaccine+rumsfeld

It’s statistics and a bit of detective work.   In the 1950s -1970s lung cancer, throat and stomach rates all of a sudden increased dramatically.  Doctors were puzzled.  Was it something in the food, air, exposure during Word War II?  They didn’t have a clue.  Some very smart doctors started comparing notes on patients to see if they could find anything in common.  They did.  All of their patients either smoked ciragetttes or lived in a home with a ciragette smoker.  Thanks to thieir work, we now know how deadly ciragettes are.  Statistically they compared the life expentency of non-smokers with smokers and found smokers on average died years sooner than non-smokers.  And people who smoked and then stopped smoking would live a bit longer than if they continued to smoke but not as long as a non-smoker.

From 1945 though the 1970s we did experiment after experiment to find out the effects on ionizing radiation.  We have a very good understanding statistically of the dose, exposure and life expectancy.  This is not pseudoscience as the anti-nukes like everyone to beleive.  If it were we would not be able to sucessfully treat cancer patients with nuclear medicine.

There are paradoxes with ionizing radiation.  One can be exposed to a dose of ionizing radiation of say 20 which would cause cancer in a patient.  But at a dose of 25 it kills the cancer and the patient doesn’t get cancer. 

On YouTube Vertasium/Derek has a two one hour episodes on the discovery and history of ionizing radiation. Uranium: Twisting the Dragon’s Tale.  This was a PBS show int he US.  5 Stars. 
 
 

I don't think the paradoxes are that tough.  There are four things that can happen when a quanta of ionizing radiation passes through a cell.  In decreasing order of likelihood they are:  Nothing, cell death, a non-harmful mutation, and a harmful mutation (cancer).   Also those odds change with whether the cell is currently dividing or not.  So when a cancer patient is being treated with radiation there are several things going on.  The radiation is focused to the extent possible on the cancer, limiting other cells exposure.  The cancer is rapidly dividing so is more vulnerable to the radiation.  And the odds of creating a new cancer are relatively low.  As in almost all current cancer treatments it is a game of killing the cancer while not quite killing the patient.

Having been through this with multiple family members this is very fresh.  And those treated with radiation were told that they had a higher risk of subsequent cancers due to the radiation treatment.  But they, like most people, choose not having cancer now over a lower risk of cancer later.  In one family members case it resulted in more than two decades of extra life before succumbing to another cancer that may have been related to the radiation treatment.  Or maybe not.  No one really knows the statistics on these things.

[apis]

There are four things that can happen when a quanta of ionizing radiation passes through a cell.  In decreasing order of likelihood they are:  Nothing, cell death, a non-harmful mutation, and a harmful mutation (cancer).

There is also a fifth: a beneficial mutation, without mutations there wouldn't be any evolution and life would not exist.

In one family members case it resulted in more than two decades of extra life before succumbing to another cancer that may have been related to the radiation treatment.  Or maybe not.  No one really knows the statistics on these things.

Sadly, one out of three people get cancer in their life time, for various reasons. I've already tried it once and it wasn't pleasant. At least medical science is improving and the chance of being cured is getting better.

[fsr]

Look at the source. If you don't trust the UN for some reason, look at the data in another place, if available.

Great... but, many many many more people can live THANKS to the fossil fuels, so what? It's not perfect, but almost. Are you against vaccines too because a small % die when vaccinated?

Get your priorities right, because fossil fuels do much more good than bad.

We can do something about the amount of fossil fuels now, and preserve them for other uses instead of burning them. That requires political commitment, however.
And seriously, you're jumping to conclusions, assuming things i never said. Fossil fuels helped us, but we reached a point where their effects are getting nasty. Seriously, how many hurricanes need to hit at the same time to get the idea?
And we can do something about it now. Governments need to build more green power plants, and stop burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. We need them for a lot of other stuff.

[fsr]

About nuclear waste:

The United States has over 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste that requires disposal. The U.S. commercial power industry alone has generated more waste (nuclear fuel that is "spent" and is no longer efficient at generating power) than any other country—nearly 80,000 metric tons. This spent nuclear fuel, which can pose serious risks to humans and the environment, is enough to fill a football field about 20 meters deep. The U.S. government’s nuclear weapons program has generated spent nuclear fuel as well as high-level radioactive waste and accounts for most of the rest of the total at about 14,000 metric tons, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). For the most part, this waste is stored where it was generated—at 80 sites in 35 states. The amount of waste is expected to increase to about 140,000 metric tons over the next several decades. However, there is still no disposal site in the United States. After spending decades and billions of dollars to research potential sites for a permanent disposal site, including at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada that has a license application pending to authorize construction of a nuclear waste repository, the future prospects for permanent disposal remain unclear.

Current Storage Sites for High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel and Repository with License under Review

[image removed. too big]

That's quite a large amount of nuclear crap to me.

[...]
In 2016, an estimated 4.2 million people died as a result of high levels of ambient air pollution."

Ouch

I doubt that figure very much, but even if it were true, Do you realize how many billion humans aren't starving to death thanks to fossil fuels? Don't you realize that without fossil fuels it's impossible to feed 7 billion people? Can't you imagine what a shitty quality of life we'd have without fossil fuels? You better pray to the gods you do not get to see the end of the fossil fuels because it's not going to be anything nice.

Look at the source. If you don't trust the UN for some reason, look at the data in another place, if available.
We can do something about the amount of fossil fuels now, and preserve them for other uses instead of burning them. That requires political commitment, however.

The map you showed is a compilation.  We’ve been talking about nuclear power.  The map you are showing isn’t that showing nuclear material not only from nuclear power plants, nuclear bombs, medical nuclear waste, and industrial nuclear waste.

The map is an accurate.  It does not show San Francisco, (Hunters Point) or the Farallon Islands.

So not exactly sure what the map is and is not indicating.

In the US we could reprocess the spent nuclear fuel rods, but politically we don’t want to do it.  Same with storage.  We could store it safely, but again the politics gets in the way.

But let’s be fair about this, we have the same issue with the residue from burned fossil fuels.  Coal slug heaps are radioactive, contain many cancerous compounds and the particulate which gets blown by the wind causing respiratory diseases especially in kids.

Yes coal and fossil fuels provide has provided us with machines to grow, harvest and transport food.  It keeps us warm.  Allows to to cook food without building a fire and many other conviences including transportation.  I would gladly fly to Europe on a plane in half a day than spend 3 months on a ship powered by the wind.

Well, the map was only there, because it was on the article, but the important stuff was in the article itself. I forgot to put the link to the source, it's from the U.S. Government Accountability Office https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear_waste/issue_summary . It says that the graphic shows "Current Storage Sites for High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel and Repository with License under Review". If it's uncomplete, i cannot do much about it. The important part was that "U.S. commercial power industry alone has generated [...] nearly 80,000 metric tons [of nuclear waste]". Just to get an idea of the amount.

Yes, coal is serious crap. I don't get why is the US still using such a daunting amount of it.
Still, the level of radioactivity is a lot lower than any spent fuel rod from a nuclear plant (but the ashes from coal can be inhaled, which is as bad as mostly everything else about coal). Spent fuel rods have such a large amount of radioactivity, that they will melt by themselves if not under active cooling. Hell, they will go critical without active cooling. This lasts for at least 5 years, where the spent rod has cooled enough to be put inside a big container made of steel and concrete. Spent fuel rods were a major issue in Fukushima. I didn't knew that spent fuel rods required active cooling before that. It was quite shocking. Take a look at this: https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-waste/safer-storage-of-spent-fuel#.XDPS_8avFcY

[apis]

80000 tonne isn't much if you consider that is all the waste that has been generated since the 1950s in the US. Compare that to "more than 100 million tons of coal ash and other waste products are produced by coal-fired power plants in the United States every year" Nuclear waste is neither particularly hazardous nor hard to manage relative to other toxic industrial waste.

Most of that waste is not as dangerous, only 3% is so called high level waste (HLW). There is only about 22 000 m³ HLW in the world:

HLW accounts for just 3% of the volume, but 95% of the total radioactivity of produced waste.
[...]
The IAEA estimates that the disposal volume of the current solid HLW inventory is approximately 22,000m3.1 For context, this is a volume roughly equivalent to a three metre tall building covering an area the size of a soccer pitch.
[...]
In addition to producing very significant emissions of carbon, hydrocarbon industries also create significant amounts of radioactive waste. The radioactive material produced as a waste product from the oil and gas industry is referred to as 'technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials' (Tenorm). In oil and gas production, radium-226, radium-228, and lead-210 are deposited as scale in pipes and equipment in many parts of the world. Published data show radionuclide concentrations in scales up to 300,000 Bq/kg for Pb-210, 250,000 Bq/kg for Ra-226, and 100,000 Bq/kg for Ra-228. This level is 1000 times higher than the clearance level for recycled material (both steel and concrete) from the nuclear industry, where anything above 500 Bq/kg may not be cleared from regulatory control for recycling.8The largest Tenorm waste stream is coal ash, with around 280 million tonnes arising globally each year, carrying uranium-238 and all its non-gaseous decay products, as well as thorium-232 and its progeny. This ash is usually just buried, or may be used as a constituent in building materials. As such, the same radionuclide, at the same concentration, may be sent to deep disposal if from the nuclear industry, or released for use in building materials if in the form of fly ash from the coal industry.9

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx

[fsr]

80000 tonne isn't much if you consider that is all the waste that has been generated since the 1950s in the US. Compare that to "more than 100 million tons of coal ash and other waste products are produced by coal-fired power plants in the United States every year" Nuclear waste is neither particularly hazardous nor hard to manage relative to other toxic industrial waste.

Most of that waste is not as dangerous, only 3% is so called high level waste (HLW). There is only about 22 000 m³ HLW in the world:

HLW accounts for just 3% of the volume, but 95% of the total radioactivity of produced waste.
[...]
The IAEA estimates that the disposal volume of the current solid HLW inventory is approximately 22,000m3.1 For context, this is a volume roughly equivalent to a three metre tall building covering an area the size of a soccer pitch.
[...]
In addition to producing very significant emissions of carbon, hydrocarbon industries also create significant amounts of radioactive waste. The radioactive material produced as a waste product from the oil and gas industry is referred to as 'technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials' (Tenorm). In oil and gas production, radium-226, radium-228, and lead-210 are deposited as scale in pipes and equipment in many parts of the world. Published data show radionuclide concentrations in scales up to 300,000 Bq/kg for Pb-210, 250,000 Bq/kg for Ra-226, and 100,000 Bq/kg for Ra-228. This level is 1000 times higher than the clearance level for recycled material (both steel and concrete) from the nuclear industry, where anything above 500 Bq/kg may not be cleared from regulatory control for recycling.8The largest Tenorm waste stream is coal ash, with around 280 million tonnes arising globally each year, carrying uranium-238 and all its non-gaseous decay products, as well as thorium-232 and its progeny. This ash is usually just buried, or may be used as a constituent in building materials. As such, the same radionuclide, at the same concentration, may be sent to deep disposal if from the nuclear industry, or released for use in building materials if in the form of fly ash from the coal industry.9

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx

Well, of course that burning coal is crazy. I think that nobody is arguing about that. But that doesn't means that nuclear waste, or nuclear reactors in general are safe. They need a lot of security measures to prevent accidents, but accidents continue to happen. The loss of active cooling was the big problem with the Fukushima disaster in 2011. By resorting to desperate measures they were able to cool the cores and spent fuel pools again, after the series of explosions that damaged the reactors. Today the cleaning and dismantling continues, and estimates are about 40 years to complete. There are 1,130,000 m³ of tritium contaminated water on tanks around the plant. Tritium contamination cannot be removed, and there's still no plans of what to do with it, and this number continues to raise at about 150 m³ per day.

Why compare against coal, instead of other kinds of power plants?
And why does the US use so much coal, anyways? Shouldn't they be relying less on that and more on renewables?

[nctnico]

The US doesn't seem to care. The west part of the US has quite large concentrations of SO2 in the air over larg areas.

[apis]

Yes, coal is serious crap. I don't get why is the US still using such a daunting amount of it.

They are using a lot of energy per person but the percentage of coal used in the US is better than the average in the world. The only reason for using coal is that it is cheap, since coal power don't have to carry all their own costs.

The US use about 63% fossil fuels for electricity and about half of that is from coal.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
Globally 38% is from coal.
https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/

Why compare against coal, instead of other kinds of power plants?

I compare against coal since that is the biggest source of electricity. It makes no sense to shut down nuclear power plants as long as there are still coal plants in operation.

All kinds of burning (coal, gas, wood or other bio-fuels) causes more damage to human health (because of air pollution) than nuclear power, even if there was a major nuclear disaster every year (which there is not). Fukushima is a very serious accident, no doubt about that, but it's not believed to be worse than Chernobyl. We know today after more than 30 years of research what the consequences of Chernobyl is. If you compare that to the problem with air pollution, which according to the UN causes 7 million deaths every year it is clear nuclear is one of the safest methods of generating electricity. Air pollution comes mainly from burning. As I showed before, over a period of 30 years domestic wood stoves in Sweden kill more people than the Chearnobyl disaster did globally, and Sweden only has a population of 10 million. (Wood ash can also be pretty toxic by the way).

Solar is slightly safer and cleaner than nuclear I believe [although there are those who claim more people die from falling down from roofs when maintaining solar panels than from nuclear (per generated watt)]. Unfortunately wind and solar can not be used to replace energy from burning completely, because solar and wind does not produce energy when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. Therefore we still need an alternative and the safest and most environmentally friendly alternative is nuclear.

Wind and solar also only produce electricity, while in many parts of the world we need a lot of heat during the winters, and nuclear can be used for district heating. Today, because people are so irrationally scared of radiation, the heat from nuclear power plants is often just dumped in the ocean.

[DougSpindler]

There are 1,130,000 m³ of tritium contaminated water on tanks around the plant. Tritium contamination cannot be removed, and there's still no plans of what to do with it, and this number continues to raise at about 150 m³ per day.

Tritium is easy to deal with, all we have to do is nothing and wait.  In two more years half of it will be gone.  And in another 12 years half of that will be gone.  Shortly after that there won’t be enougj left to worry about as it will have decayrd away.

[apis]

You could do electrolysis of the water and release the hydrogen into the atmosphere, it will quickly rise to the top of the atmosphere and then leave earth. Probably a waste of energy though. 

[DougSpindler]

You could do electrolysis of the water and release the hydrogen into the atmosphere, it will quickly rise to the top of the atmosphere and then leave earth. Probably a waste of energy though.

Only problem with that is the H3 would probably react with molecules in the atmosphere.  Instead of acid rain we could have tritium ran.  But you know than might not be a bad idea and could save electricty by glowing during the night.

Wasn’t it the Soviet Union who used Trittium and Phospherous based paint in tunnels, pill boxes and gun implacments to provide a source of light at all times without the need for electricity? 

[fsr]

There are 1,130,000 m³ of tritium contaminated water on tanks around the plant. Tritium contamination cannot be removed, and there's still no plans of what to do with it, and this number continues to raise at about 150 m³ per day.

Tritium is easy to deal with, all we have to do is nothing and wait.  In two more years half of it will be gone.  And in another 12 years half of that will be gone.  Shortly after that there won’t be enougj left to worry about as it will have decayrd away.

Well, it seems to be considered a problem to deal with, so i assume there are other issues.
It takes 24 years to completely "die" on it's own right? At the current 150 m³ rate, that means that they need to almacenate 1,314,000 m³, plus whatever they have from the time it was leaking more water.
They were considering dumping it to the sea (it seems that this stuff is considered acceptable in certain concentrations), but apparently the system that was supposed to clean everything but tritium is leaving some much more persistent radioactive stuff in the water, so i don't think that it will be going anywhere until they fix that: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/08/19/national/alps-system-fukushima-no-1-plant-failing-remove-tritium-toxic-cooling-water/#.XDTyvmnfeUk
The lesson seems to be that natural disasters and nuclear reactors don't mix well. At least we got lucky, and no more tsunamis had hit the zone.

[apis]

You could do electrolysis of the water and release the hydrogen into the atmosphere, it will quickly rise to the top of the atmosphere and then leave earth. Probably a waste of energy though.

Only problem with that is the H3 would probably react with molecules in the atmosphere.  Instead of acid rain we could have tritium ran.  But you know than might not be a bad idea and could save electricty by glowing during the night.

Wasn’t it the Soviet Union who used Trittium and Phospherous based paint in tunnels, pill boxes and gun implacments to provide a source of light at all times without the need for electricity? 

That sounds like it would be bad, although, I wounder how much of the ³H₂ would react before it reached beyond the troposphere. Probably not enough that it would matter. (EDIT, just to make sure no one misunderstands: it wasn't a serious suggestion in case someone thinks so, I'm sure they know what they are doing around there.)

They still make radioluminescent paint and gadgets with tritium. Apparently tritium costs $30000 per kg.

[DougSpindler]

You could do electrolysis of the water and release the hydrogen into the atmosphere, it will quickly rise to the top of the atmosphere and then leave earth. Probably a waste of energy though.

Only problem with that is the H3 would probably react with molecules in the atmosphere.  Instead of acid rain we could have tritium ran.  But you know than might not be a bad idea and could save electricty by glowing during the night.

Wasn’t it the Soviet Union who used Trittium and Phospherous based paint in tunnels, pill boxes and gun implacments to provide a source of light at all times without the need for electricity? 

That sounds like it would be bad, although, I wounder how much of the H³₂ would react before it reached beyond the troposphere. Probably not enough that it would matter.

They still make radioluminescent paint and gadgets with tritium. Apparently tritium costs $30000 per kg.

Half life of Trittium is just over 12 years.  In a few years it will have been 12 years since the accident so if all of the Trittium was created the year of the accident only half would be left.  And in aother 12 years it will be one quarter.  I am making the assumption here no new Trittium is being created as a result of the decay of other isotopes.

Interestingly plutonium bombs have to be serviced every so often because due to radioactive decay.  If not serviced the war head becomes contaminated with enough Helium (from the decay) to make the bomb a dud.

Ideally would we all want to be driving around in nuclear powered cars?  I know the US and Russians both worked on nuclear powered planes and missies.  The Russians were successful but they had one problem the crews and passengers would get radiation sickeness and die.  Not exactly a very good business model.
 

[apis]

The lesson seems to be that natural disasters and nuclear reactors don't mix well. At least we got lucky, and no more tsunamis had hit the zone.

Absolutely. The tsunami directly killed more than 15000 people and cost over $360 billions in damages. That tsunami was 40 meter high at some places. They have tsunami walls in Japan that protect cities, and they had that at Fukushima as well, but they were too low in this case. It is the same with hydro electric dams. If such a dam fails because of an earthquake or a meteorite several thousands living downstream will die.

[DougSpindler]

The lesson seems to be that natural disasters and nuclear reactors don't mix well. At least we got lucky, and no more tsunamis had hit the zone.

Absolutely. The tsunami directly killed more than 15000 people and cost over $360 billions in damages. That tsunami was 40 meter high at some places. They have tsunami walls in Japan that protect cities, and they had that at Fukushima as well, but they were too low in this case. It is the same with hydro electric dams. If such a dam fails because of an earthquake or a meteorite several thousands living downstream will die.

Are you sure the tsunami was 40 meter high?  Seems much too high for a tsunami wave.
 Thought the power plant survived the tsunami with no problem.  Wasn’t the real cause of the meltdown no electricity to power the pumps?  The fuel tanks for the pumps were flooded and the fuel floated away.  If they only would have built the fuel tanks on the hill behind the power plant there would have been any disaster. This was not a fault with the design or operation of the reactor, but the back-up systems.

[apis]

The nature of tsunamis is such that they are very low out at sea, hardly noticeable, but rise dramatically when they reach shallow waters.

This height is deemed the record in Japan historically, as of reporting date, that exceeds 38.2 metres (125 ft) from the 1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake.[166] It was also estimated that the tsunami reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture. The inundated areas closely matched those of the 869 Sanriku tsunami.[167]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

I don't know how high it was at Fukushima but their tsunami walls weren't enough and the entire plant was flooded. That flood (somehow, maybe because they lost the fuel?) knocked out all the backup generators for the cooling systems. I believe either the earthquake (which was the fourth most powerful earthquake ever recorded) or the tsunami or both also damaged containment. I haven't read that much about it yet because I think its still too early to evaluate, especially since the Japanese government kept underestimating the damages, at least in the beginning.

[CatalinaWOW]

The Fukashima incident is a very telling illustrator of the irrational fear of nuclear.  Fifteen thousand people are killed and no one goes around saying you can never build or live near a coastline again.  But a few people may die a few years earlier because of the radiation from the nuclear element of the disaster and there are people all over saying nuclear power should be eliminated.

[jmelson]

Are you sure the tsunami was 40 meter high?  Seems much too high for a tsunami wave.
 Thought the power plant survived the tsunami with no problem.  Wasn’t the real cause of the meltdown no electricity to power the pumps?  The fuel tanks for the pumps were flooded and the fuel floated away.  If they only would have built the fuel tanks on the hill behind the power plant there would have been any disaster. This was not a fault with the design or operation of the reactor, but the back-up systems.

Tsunamis have a thing called "run up".  As the modest tsunami wave approaches shore, where the water depth decreases, the size of the wave increases.  This can be seen at any seashore, where the modest waves at a distance become big surfing waves near shore.  I'm not sure about the 40m, but they certainly got close to 30 m at the plant.

The plant came through the earthquake with modest damage, they scram the reactor and start shutting down with any significant quake.  They did lose grid power, as some of the high tension pylons fell over near the plant.  They had everything heading toward a normal shutdown when the tsunami hit, and flooded the basement of the main building.  Where did they have all the critical electrical equipment and most of the Diesel generators?  In the basement!  The tsunami also flooded a massive seawater pump motor that was right on the sea dock of the plant, just a couple m above normal sea level.  This provided "ultimate sink" cooling water for the entire plant as well as practically all of the Diesel generators.  They DID have one air-cooled generator, but it also got flooded.  They had one Diesel above the flood, but it was cooled by seawater, which became unavailable when the pump flooded.

Other than plant #1, the oldest, all these plants had "Tenney turbines" which could run off the residual heat of radioactive decay generating steam to condense the steam on a rooftop cooling tower, and pump it back into the reactor.  But, this RCIC (residual cooling isolation cooler) system required 120 V DC power to keep valves open, and was to be cycled on and off to provide a specific cool-down rate to not stress the reactor pressure vessel.  They actually stole batteries out of people's cars to try to keep the 120 V DC system up, but eventually ran out of charged batteries.  The amount of power needed for this was a couple hundred Watts, one tiny consumer-sized gas generator and suitable charger would have been enough to keep this system up for as long as needed to get to safe shutdown.  But, nobody thought of that!

Plant #1 was a goner within an hour of the power outage, as it had no way to get rid of residual heat with the main cooling loop not working.

Jon

[DougSpindler]

Looks like I was wrong....

The tsunami waves reached run-up heights (how far the wave surges inland above sea level) of up to 128 feet (39 meters) at Miyako city and traveled inland as far as 6 miles (10 km) in Sendai. The tsunami flooded an estimated area of approximately 217 square miles (561 square kilometers) in Japan. I know when the tsunami wave hit San Francisoc

The largest tsunami wave was in 1958 in Alaska at a height of 524 m / 1,720 feet.  Never knew they could get that tall.  Care to guess how many people were killed?  5

When the tsunami from Japan reached Californa the was was measured in inches in San Francisco Bay and at 20 feet in Santa Cruz some 75 miles to the south.   That Alaskan tsunami wave woudl have been nearly twice as high as the tallest point in San Francisco.

[boffin]

Why Tesla receives such criticism in the videos?

Because Telsa concentrate on only one part of the business.  Their after-sale and parts available (and used Tesla purchase programs) are utter and complete crap.  You can find dozens and dozens of people waiting months for simple parts, or in this case, the purchase of a used certified pre-owned Tesla that has taken 2+ months and counting (and this to a guy who has a big Tesla following)

The lack of dealing with the rest of the business will be Tesla's downfall.

And here's his update

[DougSpindler]

boffin  Why do you think this is a Tesla thing?  We know Ford, VW, Mercedes, Cheverlot/GM, Volvo all treat customers like shit. Tesla is far from being Number 1 when it comes to treating customers like crap.  I think

it’s a neck and neck race between VW, Ford, Mercedes, and GM/Cheverlot for being the worst.  Mercedes was in the lead, but VW came on strong when it dieselgate, making monkey inhale diesel exhaust, and selling pre-production test cars to customers as new.  But then Ford came along strong with their defective transmissions, exploding cars whch burned people to death, and then tried to lawsuits to blame the driver and lost.  But then agin it was GM/Cheverlot who after acccpeting US tax payer money to bail them out is now screwing every single tax paxer in the United States by “Right Sizing” or closing car assembly plants and unemploying thousands.

At least this guy is alive.  Yes he’s out $2,500 and has been inconvenienced, but what car company hasn’t?

I will say when I watch his videos I have to wonder if ther’s part of the story he’s not telling us which is making Tesla look worse then they actually are.  I wonder if he’s doing this to profit from YouTube likes?

I know I watched another Tesla YouTube video where a guy said he purchased a used Tesla and was left stranded 200 mile from home after getting the car serviced by Tesla for free.  Turns out the guy purchased a salvaged car, (a car that was totaled by the insurance company and Tesla) and expected Tesla to fix it for free.  Not saying something similar is gong on with this guy, but one has to ask.   

https://youtu.be/n6Sf92Ejy14

https://youtu.be/RCyJchRXfF8

https://youtu.be/8CTyRUZjF5Y

[DougSpindler]

boffin  I did some research on the guy making the videos.  You do realize he has an agenda.  He has a kickstarter fund and is trying to launch a business that’s in competition with Tesla.  The success of his business from what I can tell is to make Tesla look bad.

I watched another one of his videos where he said he has to ewplace the 12v battery in his Tesla every year.  Something doesn’t sound right already.  Then he’s complaining because he purchased a Tesla which had been in sea water, (think massive corrosion) for $15,000.  The car was totaled by the insurance company and Tesla yesterday he Frankensteined from other totaled Tesla’s and got one running.  Then he complains that some of the electrical parts on the car do not work reliably.  Duh, the thing was in corroding in salt water.

Look I’, not saying people aren’t having issues with Tesla but they are with Mercedes, VW, Ford, GM, Volvo and many other car companies.  This guy appears to be on a mission to make a profit from Tesla looking bad. If you look on YouTube you can find many people who have owned a driven a Tesla for years and are very satisfied.  Fact still remains people are still buying Teslas and some are buying their second, third or fourth Tesla.  So until people quit buying Teslas, Tesla will be around.

One has to ask do you have an anti-Tesla agenda?  Sure seems like it.  Being on this forum I would think you are into innovation.  Elon could have retired with his billions years ago.  But instead he’s doing what many others have tried and failed, taking on the big car manufactuers.  Crud man, give the guy credit he’s done it and is still in business.  Like all startups he’s struggling.  But the fact remains he’s done it and has been successful.  Heck with the new CEO of Ford saying they want to be like Tesla in the cuter says it all.   Don’t know of any company that’s saying we want to be like VW, Ford or GM.  Give the guy credit he deserves for singlehanded taking on some of the largest and most powerful companies in the world.