Thorium vehicle will run 100 years on 8 grams of fuel

[PamW]

40. 100% WRONG!!!

johnd83,

I have NO ANGLE, and EVERYTHING I have said is 100% CORRECT

You have to separate the claims of anti-nuke "experts" and true scientist experts like myself. It's not easy to know the difference. GE had some disgruntled employees that made wildly INACCURATE claims about the GE reactors that real scientist know about and discredit. However, that doesn't stop the media from presenting those people as "experts". ( I find Lochbaum not credible in the slightest. ) Additionally, it is a judgement call. There are some issues with Boeing 737 airliners that I don't like; but are they bad enough to ground all 737s? Also there have been modifications to the Mark I in the USA to CORRECT some of the issues raised. US Mark I reactor were REQUIRED to implement those changes; like a hardened vent to vent off hydrogen gas to prevent explosions like at Fukushima. The Japanese plants didn't make those modifications, and weren't required to.

I said the GE reactor itself and its containment is well designed for what it is supposed to do.

In regards to Fukushima, I said the support equipment was badly designed. The reactor and containment can only work as well as the support equipment that they rely on. An example is the diesel generator backup power. The Fukushima reactors had the diesels in a non-watertight basement; and the fuel tank was open and above ground. NEITHER would be legal in the USA. The diesels have to be protected from flooding, as must the fuel tanks.

I first heard about this back in 1978 when I attended the conference of the American Nuclear Society in Washington DC. I was still a doctoral student at the time. I was speaking to a young GE engineer at the conference. As I was looking to begin my own career, I asked this young engineer what the most difficult part of his job was. He stated that it was "...getting the customer to listen to me." He was on assignment in Japan as GE was building a new reactor unit for TEPCO. I asked for an example. He told me he recommended burying the fuel tank so that it would not be washed away by a tsunami. I said that sounded reasonable, and inquired why TEPCO would balk at that. He said, "Probably because that would mean they would have to bury the tanks for the other 5 reactors at the site".

It turned out he was assigned to the building of Fukushima Diachi Unit 6.

So I've known since 1978 that if a tsunami were to hit Fukushima; that the diesel fuel tanks were unprotected. The owner TEPCO was warned; but REFUSED to follow the advice of the reactor vendor GE.

In the USA, the NRC would NEVER have allowed such a plant to operate; it would be in VIOLATION of NRC rules.

The real villain here is NOT nuclear power technology, and it's NOT GE ( although some like to disparage GE for what reason I don't know ); but TEPCO and their penny-pinching on a nuclear installation, and the LAX oversight of the Japanese regulators is certainly has my highest opprobrium.

I'm unapologetically pro-nuke; and TEPCO and their regulators SOILED a very respectable safety record for GE reactors. So I'm not going to "cover-up" anything for the likes of TEPCO and their regulators. I'm MAD at them.

But at the same time; there's a LOT of dishonest and loose MISINFORMATION about this; like criticality in pools of corium; and I won't allow bad science to go unchallenged.

PamW