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[Hitenma]

Originally Posted by Zakoo

It's about nuclear plants, not some half assed house, you need to imagine and prevent the unimaginable.

Imagining the unimaginable is impossible by definition

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Hitenma

Imagining the unimaginable is impossible by definition

Then I would gently ask you to donate your braincells to those Alzhiemer victims who need it more. The application of Murphy's law with some logical thinking is so easy that you could save some cash on a couple of torts.

The human lives are not important; the money being used to fight lawsuits are.

[kuroishinigami]

no, by definition, unimaginable mean impossible to be imagined, so imagining the unimaginable is a paradox in itself . Well, at least that's what I think Hitenma means with that word anyway, since there's another definition to the word that means hard to imagine.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by kuroishinigami

no, by definition, unimaginable mean impossible to be imagined, so imagining the unimaginable is a paradox in itself . Well, at least that's what I think Hitenma means with that word anyway, since there's another definition to the word that means hard to imagine.

That is what I was thinking.

[Zakoo]

Originally Posted by Hitenma

Imagining the unimaginable is impossible by definition

It means that since we began measuring earthquake and recording tsunami, occurences like those were so rare you could think the end of the world would have happened before such a bad amount of coincidences piles up.

Unfortunately nuclear plants aren't normal infrastructures, they need special laws only for them, and above all, you can't satifsfy yourself with a 10 feets wall because the biggest wave ever recorded was 9 feets, you need to go above, thus imagining the unimaginable.

Yes of course, generally we need to have some deaths on our hands to begin thinking about this, the same way now it's common idea to not transport liquid nitrogen in an elevator because if the elevator stops, you are slightly screwed.

But we already had two or three major nuclear incident in the past, so maybe it's time the people that are paid to calculate the risk do their job and give the report they need to do without any intellectual dishonestly because the boss asked them to minimize the risk to pay less.

[Anh_Minh]

Meh. You'll never have a risk zero, so you'll always, eventually, have dead people, so you'll always have people complaining, with the benefit of hindsight, that not enough was done.

It's not like the nuclear industry has killed that many people compared to other industries.

I'm fine with saying more could be done. Or even should be done. I'm not so hot on singling out one industry like that and accusing their engineers of being more dishonest than others.

[Sumeragi]

I have the feeling people here don't know the concept of zero-infinity dilemma.


A zero-infinity dilemma is a situation where the probability of occurrence is tiny while the consequences are enormous. It is typically used in cost-benefit and risk analysis, however in this case the "zero" refers to the risk and the "infinity" refers to the cost.

A common reference of this dilemma has been when characterizing the choice of nuclear power: the risk of a mishap is incredibly small (close to zero) but if one does occur, the cost and repercussions are infinitely large.


Basically, here is the problem: Although there is the element of human mistakes in Fukushima, the ultimate cause was a natural disaster that had a near-zero possibility of happening in the first place. Does one simply blame human for not being able to anticipate such a near-zero possibility or for thinking that such possibility is not worth the investment in preventing?

[Zakoo]

I don't really complain, so far they did the best they could, and I think they measured the risk pretty well, honestly the amount of coincidences that happened for the horror of fukushima daiichi is so big that Tchernobyl is like a little puppy.

But to put everything in the proper context, it's not a reason to think that if the law is "construct a 10 feet wall" then barely doing a 10 feet wall is fine. Politicians do the laws, but they do not have the necessary knowledge to judge whether it is good or not, thus the necessity of lobbying. But let's not be blind, energetical and pharmaceutical societies do not care about the well being of the citizens of the country they operate in or sell medicaments in, the first thing they care is money.

But yes, they are doing pretty fine, let's just hope this little incident, little being sarcastic, will help for the future. Security and risk shouldn't be something that enter in the reduction column.

[willx]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

Basically, here is the problem: Although there is the element of human mistakes in Fukushima, the ultimate cause was a natural disaster that had a near-zero possibility of happening in the first place. Does one simply blame human for not being able to anticipate such a near-zero possibility or for thinking that such possibility is not worth the investment in preventing?

I'm not sure I can agree with this sentiment. It's like saying that real estate in the U.S. had a near-zero possibility of falling across the country simultaneously.

If we critically assess the Fukushima reactor, they had "backup safeguards" in place -- but all of them relied on the back-up generators that failed simultaneously. If they failed for separate reasons individually - that would be a "near-zero black swan event" .. but they all failed near simultaneously because of one single event. For anyone that knows statistics or risk-analysis .. think about correlation. They failed because of the tsunami --

The designers nonetheless chose to build a nuclear reactor directly on the coastline and to site all of their backup generators in a location that could be swamped by a tsunami about 20 feet high, and regulators approved this plan. It appears that no meaningful changes were made after the 2004 Indonesian earthquake generated tsunami waves up to 80 feet high, which should have been a wake-up call to operators of coast-side nuclear reactors worldwide that earthquakes can generate giant waves. Now we’re seeing the results.

That's not to say that if the U.S. or other countries were struck the situation wouldn't be the same or similar .. but to simply claim that it could never have been foreseen or planned for is a tad forgiving, no? Even worse is the information coming out of the WSJ indicating that there was basically zero effort spent to update the Fukushima Daichi reactor even after designs were updated at other facilities both in Japan and otherwise:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...95580035481822

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by willx

I'm not sure I can agree with this sentiment. It's like saying that real estate in the U.S. had a near-zero possibility of falling across the country simultaneously.

If we critically assess the Fukushima reactor, they had "backup safeguards" in place -- but all of them relied on the back-up generators that failed simultaneously. If they failed for separate reasons individually - that would be a "near-zero black swan event" .. but they all failed near simultaneously because of one single event. For anyone that knows statistics or risk-analysis .. think about correlation. They failed because of the tsunami --

For an engineer that's a single point of failure and something that seems to me, a layman in nuclear engineering, like something you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO HAVE in a nuclear facility.

You need to have backups... and backups to the backups... and backups to the backups to the backups. It's the same as a manned space flight: you have to assume that virtually every part of the system can break and plan accordingly.

Is it expensive? Yes. That's why you have to measure that upfront cost against the years of mostly clean energy you'll be getting out of it.

[Ithekro]

If I recall, those reactors were designed a long time ago and where about to be decommissioned.

[Anh_Minh]

I don't know the specifics of Fukushima, but I think what they really didn't foresee was getting flooded, rather than having one diesel generator stop working (which, hopefully, they'd have planned for).

[maplehurry]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I'm fine with saying more could be done. Or even should be done. I'm not so hot on singling out one industry like that and accusing their engineers of being more dishonest than others.

Accusing the engineers? I thought they simply give a number on risks to the higher-ups, and it's the executives that decide on whether further actions should be taken.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/12/wo...tml?hpt=ias_c2

From the report here, it shows that TEPCO did consider taking extra safety measures but ultimately decided against it due to "politics".

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by maplehurry

Accusing the engineers? I thought they simply give a number on risks to the higher-ups, and it's the executives that decide on whether further actions should be taken.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/12/wo...tml?hpt=ias_c2

From the report here, it shows that TEPCO did consider taking extra safety measures but ultimately decided against it due to "politics".

More like face-saving :

TEPCO added that taking such measures could also add to "public anxiety and add momentum to anti-nuclear movements."

Those things are irrational and inevitable snowballs in human/herd effects, it is not like it isn't publicly known that power plants need maintenance and upgrades. Why not just fix the goddamn problem first instead of bothering with the "demographics"?

PR can wait. Periodic maintenances can't.

Originally Posted by Dextro

For an engineer that's a single point of failure and something that seems to me, a layman in nuclear engineering, like something you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO HAVE in a nuclear facility.

You need to have backups... and backups to the backups... and backups to the backups to the backups. It's the same as a manned space flight: you have to assume that virtually every part of the system can break and plan accordingly.

Is it expensive? Yes. That's why you have to measure that upfront cost against the years of mostly clean energy you'll be getting out of it.

But....but it is private company! They have shareholders! They need to have growth! They need to have profits!

[Ithekro]

Shareholders don't want to pay money for maintenance of an old building. They want to spend money on a new building. They were building new reators. No reason to even consider doing anything with the old reactors that they are just going to shut down.....

[Sumeragi]

Revealed: Australia tried to monitor Indonesian president's phone

Something I found funny from this article:

Asked about the spying revelations in a separate interview, Abbott said: "To use the term spying, it's kind of loaded language … researching maybe. Talking to people. Understanding what's going on."

[Fireminer]

Hey, how long would this Drama of Hypocritsy came to an end?

[Ithekro]

Originally Posted by Fireminer

Hey, how long would this Drama of Hypocritsy came to an end?

How long until the Sun goes nova or the Universe ends....

[SaintessHeart]

Ladies and Gentlemen and Kids, let me present to you the Economy of truth : Political Correctness 101.

[Sumeragi]

Originally Posted by Fireminer

Hey, how long would this Drama of Hypocritsy came to an end?

The only hypocrisy comes from those "human rights" activists who are undermining the security of their countries.