Probably has more to do with the human brain's basic inability to accurately assess risk on a larger scale than a village.

I don't think that action movie villains would've utilized nuclear power if people weren't already a bit uneasy about it to begin with.

Anyone who shakes their martini is an asshole.

unavailable for comment

I think a lot of it has to do with deliberate fearmongering by "environmentalists" and other opponents of the Nuke industry.

Where's Hank Scorpio?

Given the choice, I'd rather live within a mile of a fission station than one fired by coal.

Without the rape scenes. James Bond movies is pure evil.

the rape scenes make it wholesome.

Sure, nuclear energy COULD be safe. But I could never trust it to private industry (profit above EVERYTHING!) or to a government like that in the US today (cut, cut, cut... pander, pander, pander).

Come up with some basic guidelines (don't build plants on fault-lines... duh), punish CEOs HARSHLY if negligence is found and put the nuclear material back in the ground where you found it when it's waste and nuclear power would be a god send.

These things are not possible today so, no nukes I'm afraid.

Jon iz teh kewl: Without the rape scenes. James Bond movies is pure evil.

the rape scenes make it wholesome.

I really liked the guy who used the cigar and ice cube on the bond girl. Much fuel for fapping when I was a kid.

As someone who has lived with nuclear power (my dad's in the industry) and now works in it myself..

The nuclear power industry has never exactly fit in with the rest of the power industry. It doesn't fit in with the muscled jocks of fossil power but doesn't fit in with the artsy kids of green power either. And both parties tend to hate nuke, which kind of makes it the greasy haired kid in a Korn t-shirt of the industry.

This is complicated by the fact that since the whole industry was even conceived of, Hollywood has been making movies about it without having one iota what nuclear power actually is about. After all, if you watch movies from the 50s on, you'll be convinced nuclear power causes Giantism and fish monsters. My favorite exchange from a B flick is actually from Santo vs the Vampire Women.
Professor Orlof: ..we are living in a time when it is perfect for monsters to return to Earth!
Santo: Yes. Nuclear Energy.

This, combined with the fact that every time nuclear power pops its head out the door it gets a half brick to the face, has made the entire industry extremely agoraphobic. It wants to hide under its desk and work, and refuses to defend itself. About the best it'll do is invite kids over to see the control room simulators, which does nothing to calm the adults who think that Silkwood was real.

So what do we do about it? This is an industry which has, overall, a pretty goddamn good safety record. Hundreds of reactors running and what, three accidents? What other industry has that good of a farkup rate? Certainly not any of the fossil industry. Not that the public understands it, they'll claim these three accidents are worse than sliced Hitler meanwhile ignoring chemical spills that decimated entire towns and cities (Love Canal and Bhopal come to mind, here). Really I don't know what to do about it.

I don't blame James Bond. Hollywood overall, sure. Bond? Hell, my favorite Bond of all time is Dr No.

/with the swimming pool reactor
//laugh every time I see it.

The pressing question is what the hell difference does it make if a drink is stirred instead of shaken. It's still mixing if you do it properly.

RE: cold war - "It was before we found out that the Russians were incompetent.."

hitlersbrain: Jon iz teh kewl: Without the rape scenes. James Bond movies is pure evil.

the rape scenes make it wholesome.

I really liked the guy who used the cigar and ice cube on the bond girl. Much fuel for fapping when I was a kid.

Sure hope you're younger than home video players.

/some of us had to hold it until we got home from the movie theater

I used to worry about someone radiating the country's gold supply ala Goldfinger until RON PAUL came along.

Ringshadow: As someone who has lived with nuclear power (my dad's in the industry) and now works in it myself..

The nuclear power industry has never exactly fit in with the rest of the power industry. It doesn't fit in with the muscled jocks of fossil power but doesn't fit in with the artsy kids of green power either. And both parties tend to hate nuke, which kind of makes it the greasy haired kid in a Korn t-shirt of the industry.

This is complicated by the fact that since the whole industry was even conceived of, Hollywood has been making movies about it without having one iota what nuclear power actually is about. After all, if you watch movies from the 50s on, you'll be convinced nuclear power causes Giantism and fish monsters. My favorite exchange from a B flick is actually from Santo vs the Vampire Women.
Professor Orlof: ..we are living in a time when it is perfect for monsters to return to Earth!
Santo: Yes. Nuclear Energy.

This, combined with the fact that every time nuclear power pops its head out the door it gets a half brick to the face, has made the entire industry extremely agoraphobic. It wants to hide under its desk and work, and refuses to defend itself. About the best it'll do is invite kids over to see the control room simulators, which does nothing to calm the adults who think that Silkwood was real.

So what do we do about it? This is an industry which has, overall, a pretty goddamn good safety record. Hundreds of reactors running and what, three accidents? What other industry has that good of a farkup rate? Certainly not any of the fossil industry. Not that the public understands it, they'll claim these three accidents are worse than sliced Hitler meanwhile ignoring chemical spills that decimated entire towns and cities (Love Canal and Bhopal come to mind, here). Really I don't know what to do about it.

I don't blame James Bond. Hollywood overall, sure. Bond? Hell, my favorite Bond of all time is Dr No.

/with the swimming pool reactor
//laugh every ...

My father is a nuclear pharmacist (which is just an awesome sounding job title) and so I knew more about radiation when I was five then...most adults now. The ignorance is staggering. When I was in the seventh grade, I did a science fair project on common household radioactive objects (Smoke detectors, watch dials, lantern hoods etc) The highlight of my display was that i'd actually gotten permission from my dad's boss to use a geiger counter from their office. Not going into the details of the hoops I had to jump through to actually do the project (the term radiation caused teachers to flip out), but my project lost out to the cheerleader's "Which hair shampoo dries fastest?"

/nuclear family puns.

sprawl15: Anyone who shakes their martini is an asshole.

I don't understand the whole shaken vs stirred thingy. All I care if there's booze involved and I'm getting drunk. Beside I wouldn't know the diff anyway.

macross87: Where's Hank Scorpio?

Chilling out with some friends, literally. It's the same Scorpio we're talking about, right?

Ringshadow: About the best it'll do is invite kids over to see the control room simulators, which does nothing to calm the adults who think that Silkwood was real.

What???

Allen. The end.: Ringshadow: About the best it'll do is invite kids over to see the control room simulators, which does nothing to calm the adults who think that Silkwood was real.

What???

Since I'm not sure what you're questioning here... the Boy Scouts in particular have an Atomic badge, but some plants also do outreach to local elementary schools where they'll show them the Control Room Simulators (which are normally in training buildings outside the protected area), show them how to dress out and dress down, show them geiger counters and ion chambers, and so on and so forth.

As for the second part, there are people who think the film Silkwood was totally real. I was in fact asked about it by a friend, who said his mother was concerned about me going into the degree I was "because of Silkwood." I was a touch taken aback needless to say.

Ringshadow: Since I'm not sure what you're questioning here... the Boy Scouts in particular have an Atomic badge, but some plants also do outreach to local elementary schools where they'll show them the Control Room Simulators (which are normally in training buildings outside the protected area), show them how to dress out and dress down, show them geiger counters and ion chambers, and so on and so forth.

I got to see a replacement airlock for a plant in the NW once. Wife works in the Nuke industry, her company owns the plans to a decent portion of all airlocks and probably provided the headwell gasket for your upcoming outage.

I wish Americans weren't so stupid about nuke plants. I'd rather live a mile from a nuke plant than 10 miles down wind of a coal plant. Fly ash is nasty.

dragonchild: The pressing question is what the hell difference does it make if a drink is stirred instead of shaken. It's still mixing if you do it properly.

"Shaken, not stirred, will get you cold water with a dash of gin and dry vermouth. The reason you stir it with a special spoon is so not to chip the ice. James is ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it."
- President Josiah Bartlet, The West Wing

Ringshadow: Professor Orlof: ..we are living in a time when it is perfect for monsters to return to Earth!
Santo: Yes. Nuclear Energy.

That's one of my favorite MST3k movies. It's the only reason I even know about El Santo

Gawain: dragonchild: The pressing question is what the hell difference does it make if a drink is stirred instead of shaken. It's still mixing if you do it properly.

"Shaken, not stirred, will get you cold water with a dash of gin and dry vermouth. The reason you stir it with a special spoon is so not to chip the ice. James is ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it."
- President Josiah Bartlet, The West Wing

Favorited. Love that bit.

Fubini: I think a lot of it has to do with deliberate fearmongering by "environmentalists" and other opponents of the Nuke industry.

this is ridiculous. If nuclear power were safe, it would be an environmentalist's dream come true. Clean energy! YAY! There would be no reason to oppose it, and no reason to fear monger about it. Quite the opposite. The Sierra Club would be building nuke plants.

The reality is it is not safe, and the very real and demonstrated consequences of it are an environmentalist's (and everyone else's) worst nightmare.

You can't blame environmentalists for the Ukrainian exclusion zone.

Ringshadow: a pretty goddamn good safety record

But if there is one little problem, hundreds of square miles glow in the dark. This has now happened twice.

She comes in colors everywhere: You can't blame environmentalists for the Ukrainian exclusion zone.

Interestingly enough, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is an environmentalists' dream. Wildlife is thriving like crazy there.

She comes in colors everywhere: Ringshadow: a pretty goddamn good safety record

But if there is one little problem, hundreds of square miles glow in the dark. This has now happened twice.

Um. No.

First of all, please stop perpetuating "glow in the dark." Cerenkov radiation is blue for starters, and only generally happens under water.

Second, you're showing a lot of ignorance toward industrial accidents from other industries, and some general misinformation about the accidents you're implying in general. TMI2 killed no one, and provided next to no dose to anyone outside the plant (as confirmed by multiple studies. If you were downwind and outside at the right time, you saw an extra .1 mrem or something, whoopity do).

Chenobyl's been credited with worker deaths, and closing off land, and causing cancer, the problem is it was a prolonged fire that involved multiple known carcinogens. I dare you to figure out if the cancer and birth defect increase was radiation, or the simple fact that smoke and rain laden with carcinogens and poisons was to blame. Is the land around the Chernobyl unit closed now? Sure, but what you don't seem to realize is the other Chernobyl units ran for YEARS afterwards because they couldn't lose the power from the other units. And they're letting tourists in now. And nature's thriving.

Fukushima? We're far too early to tell. As far as I know, the only worker deaths are industrial, overwork in particular (it's Japan). I haven't seen anything about workers being dosed too much (Japan's regs are tighter than ours!), or the public. Okay there's that one farmer who won't leave, but he's still getting less dose than the natural background dose of Ramsar, Iran.

One key point: The "all radiation causes damage" theory has no basis in reality. It's literally just thrown out there, and has no proof to support it. Stop being afraid of low levels of radiation. You need to go to YouTube and watch some videos by a guy named Kirk Sorensen. Expand your mind and all that.

And now let's talk about other industries! Not a few years ago a coal mine collapsed and killed everyone inside of it. It had multiple outstanding orders to shut down because it was violating ventilation standards. It ignored these orders. Several hundred of them.
How many oil and gas platforms have been catastrophically lost, taking out most or all of the crew? I can't even find the numbers.
The fossil power industry is under no due diligence to report problems to the public, like nuclear is. So you don't know how bad things are. And from talking to other contractors that have worked fossil: things aren't great.
The Bhopal, India chemical disaster is credited with killing up to ten thousand people, depending what you read, and permanently crippling thousands more, because their facility fell so far outside their own guidelines.

But to say, nuclear power has had a grand total of THREE major farkups, with hundreds of reactors running perfectly, and that should cast the entire industry in bad light? Nothing but being tragically misinformed and paranoid. Period.

/don't make me post my nuclear education comic again
//I'll do it

Knara: She comes in colors everywhere: You can't blame environmentalists for the Ukrainian exclusion zone.

Interestingly enough, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is an environmentalists' dream. Wildlife is thriving like crazy there.

Same with the Korean DMZ. Nobody is really advocating for either, though.

She comes in colors everywhere: The Sierra Club would be building nuke plants.

One of the CEOs of GreenPeace came out in favor of Nuclear Power a few years ago.

And seriously, do you gauge the meat industry by the insane rantings of PETA? Because this is the comparison you're making by bringing in the Sierra Club.

/okay, maybe they're not quite as off their tits as PETA is, but point stands

She comes in colors everywhere: this is ridiculous. If nuclear power were safe, it would be an environmentalist's dream come true. Clean energy! YAY! There would be no reason to oppose it, and no reason to fear monger about it. Quite the opposite. The Sierra Club would be building nuke plants.

The problem, as several people have pointed out, is that your average person has absolutely no concept of relative threat. I'm not going to argue that nuclear power is perfectly safe, it's not.

However, look at nuclear power in relationship to other power sources, especially in relationship to the base-load fossil fuels it would replace. Nuclear power is way safer (in terms of human cost), way cleaner, and way less dependent upon foreign imports. Even when you factor in the human cost of things like Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear power is still way safer.

Your argument is spurious: "If nuclear power is safe then environmentalists would endorse it, but they don't and therefore it's not safe." Look up some hard numbers, esp. concerning the environmental and human cost of coal mining, let alone the process of burning it.

Ringshadow: And seriously, do you gauge the meat industry by the insane rantings of PETA? Because this is the comparison you're making by bringing in the Sierra Club.

/okay, maybe they're not quite as off their tits as PETA is, but point stands

Technically, due to advocating tree spiking, Sierra Club can be considered a terrorist organization. But they still aren't as batshiat insane as PETA. That would be almost impossible to achieve.

WarszawaScream: I aspire to be a Bond villain when I grow up. Anyone want to be my trusty henchman?

/also taking applications for creature to sit on lap and be petted
//giggity

What about mostly incompetent henchmen? Are you looking for them?

/ cause I know a guy
// who has two thumbs and just let the good guy escape? This guy

She comes in colors everywhere: Knara: She comes in colors everywhere: You can't blame environmentalists for the Ukrainian exclusion zone.

Interestingly enough, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is an environmentalists' dream. Wildlife is thriving like crazy there.

Same with the Korean DMZ. Nobody is really advocating for either, though.

Advocating doing it for that purpose? No.

But it is a wasteland, devoid of life? Most of the plants and animals there would disagree with you.

It really has to do massive disinformation by moronic liberals in the press. Chernobyl was a major accident, but that was in Russia in a reactor with no safeguards whatsoever. 3 Mile Island did not in fact irradiate anyone except two workers inside the reactor. Fukushima had some fairly major leaks, but that was in reactors many decades old that had been run past their expiration date and then got hit by both an earthquake AND a tidal wave.

Modern pebble-bed reactors have an effectively zero danger level.

macross87: Where's Hank Scorpio?

Ahhh, That Hank Scorpio. Then who turn that city in "General Hospital" into a winter wonder land?

j0ndas: It really has to do massive disinformation by moronic liberals in the press. Chernobyl was a major accident, but that was in Russia in a reactor with no safeguards whatsoever. 3 Mile Island did not in fact irradiate anyone except two workers inside the reactor. Fukushima had some fairly major leaks, but that was in reactors many decades old that had been run past their expiration date and then got hit by both an earthquake AND a tidal wave.

Modern pebble-bed reactors have an effectively zero danger level.

STOP. You have just revealed how misinformed you are. Just with that last line.
"Modern" pebble beds have been ABANDONED and all of them are being RETIRED because they are not commercially viable. Do you understand? They do not make money. They go into the red. And the "pebbles" makes it impossible to recycle the fuel.

You will not see viable pebble bed reactors until Generation IV, possibly not even then, if prismatic beds work better.

This is not to mention the fact that there is basically a ban on graphite in reactors in the United States!

/by the way, you can't be "inside" the reactor in any circumstance. Did you mean containment?
//during refueling you'll see people on platforms *over* the open vessel, and the cavity pools can be occasionally entered for decon, but never the vessel itself

j0ndas: moronic liberals

And BTW I'm a liberal. You meanypants.

Ringshadow: /by the way, you can't be "inside" the reactor in any circumstance. Did you mean containment?
//during refueling you'll see people on platforms *over* the open vessel, and the cavity pools can be occasionally entered for decon, but never the vessel itself

I cringe at the mere thought of the dose you would get going inside the vessel, even with the control rods in place.

knightofargh: I cringe at the mere thought of the dose you would get going inside the vessel, even with the control rods in place.

mymindisfulloffark.jpg

Well first of all, the only kind of vessel that can simultaneously have rods in and be open is a BWR, because in a BWR rod entry is done from underneath. If this is the case, you're likely looking at vessel disassembly, in which case, you're looking at a "flooded up" cavity pool, but this is all dependent on what make and model of BWR you have. Frankly I'm still not fluent in BWR. Either way it is UNDER WATER. Lots and LOTS of water. There is a stage when the vessel is sealed up and flooded from the inside and deconners go diddledink around in the empty cavity pool and decon it, but they're not in the vessel, they're in a pool above the vessel with only some of the uppermost head components visible to the eye.
Now if you're talking PWR, the control rod assembly is part of the head, so if the head flies, so do the rods and rods drives. A PWR doesn't need rods in to remain shut down because the water is borated.

Either way, I'm trying to comprehend how you make entry into something that is A) full of water and B) full of fuel rods.

That all being said, the last plant I was at did a full core offload so they could do a "barrel inspection". I had no part in that, but I imagine it's still fully under water, and it's still not a place you'd send a diver. We don't even like putting divers in fuel pools.

/as an RP, if someone asked me about diving the barrel, I'd probably laugh and tell them to go get the robots
//unless they had several hundred pages of paperwork backing them up. then I'd still laugh, and tell them to get the robots
///because I don't trust divers, that's why

Ringshadow: mymindisfulloffark.jpg

Well first of all, the only kind of vessel that can simultaneously have rods in and be open is a BWR, because in a BWR rod entry is done from underneath. If this is the case, you're likely looking at vessel disassembly, in which case, you're looking at a "flooded up" cavity pool, but this is all dependent on what make and model of BWR you have. Frankly I'm still not fluent in BWR. Either way it is UNDER WATER. Lots and LOTS of water. There is a stage when the vessel is sealed up and flooded from the inside and deconners go diddledink around in the empty cavity pool and decon it, but they're not in the vessel, they're in a pool above the vessel with only some of the uppermost head components visible to the eye.
Now if you're talking PWR, the control rod assembly is part of the head, so if the head flies, so do the rods and rods drives. A PWR doesn't need rods in to remain shut down because the water is borated.

I probably had the rod terms ass backwards. Wife works in nuke services not me. I meant, control rods fully covering the fuel rods, as in no reaction. You'd still get a hell of a dose even in that instance. I thought PWRs needed rods in to stay shut down, apparently I was wrong. I have learned something today.

Having known some Navy nukes and a few hydro-dam divers. You are 100% correct in not trusting the divers.