I don't know how much radiation was pumped into the air but my hair thinning might explain it.

Just to give some FYI about how a reactor works. The cores were all shut down when the earthquake happened. If they werent it would have only taken a couple hours and all three units would have melted completely. Instead it took 2-3 days and only unit 1 actually melted all the way through its reactor vessel.

I am a nuclear engineer.

The tough decisions for the Japanese government are manifold

1. How to dispose off the low, medium, and high-level radioactive materials from Fukashima and Dai-ichi reactors?
2. How to decontaminate the plant site and surrounding environment (soil, ecology, water and structures)?
3. Where will they or who will take these radioactive materials? Perhaps dispose them off by drilling holes in undersea rocks and sealing them, similar to what Finnish have done.

But most importantly, I believe that Japanese government (similar to Germany) and the people will decide to ditch nuclear power altogether. Many countries are starting to go that route. Interesting to see how the nuclear energy picture will look in the next 10 or 20 years.

What happened to the "Experts" Opinion that the Japanese Reactors were in run away condition because electrical power failed (To the emergency generators) and thus the safety system failed.

And thats my Opinion

Tea,

To address your concerns,

1. The amount of contaminated material is approximately what will fit inside of the Dai-ichi reactors. Yes some of the material did get outside of the plant, but all in all, the material is contained inside of the power plant.

2. As for decontaminating the surrounding area, that will take some time. That is why they are performing studies of the radiation levels around the power plant. Also, over time, the rains will wash away many of the contaminants and the area will become safe to inhabit again. Sooner than you think, but probably longer than optimists think as well.

3. The radioactive materials will be taken care of just like they have been taken care of in the past. There are numerous radioactive materials being generated by the other plants in Japan than what is contained in the one crippled plant.

As for the Japanese government ditching nuclear power, unless a new technology is found that is safer, causes less risk, and is better overall, I would believe that Japan would begin to update their existing power plants to make them better, safer, etc. Then I think that they would begin to look at new designs to improve the existing technology. That is one of the problems with nuclear energy, the United States hasn't built a new reactor in several years. So everything that we have is using older technology. Newer, safer technology is being slowed down by bureaucratic red tape.

Hello, my name is Chris Noland. I was in the Disaster in Japan. I am the director of a Documentary titled "Surviving Japan", a documentary I made as a volunteer in the disaster while I was living in Japan. The documentary shows the humanitarian and aid crisis that faced the people in the wake of both natural and nuclear disaster. It features true stories from those affected by the disaster, the government and even TEPCO. It highlights the struggle in dealing with: The Tsunami clean-up, lack of Government response to the disaster, radiation plus the future of nuclear power after the accident, a possible Cover-up of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear disaster.

I am currently seeking funding to complete this film for a March release.

I would appreciate your assistance in any way, if not only by sharing the information on your blog and or social media networks.

Thank you and have a Great New Year,

Chris Noland

The workers I saw on NHK all seemed to be older guys... were they still using foreign workers as I had heard in one report? I wonder how many of these guys went Kamikaze to actually get to this point... they're a dedicated lot, no doubt about that. My impression is that there was no passive control rod system, only an electrical shutdown system which went out with the poorly placed emergency generators. Seems a seriously uncharacteristic design flaw for Japanese engineers, but, being human, maybe they took their own competence for granted. What a horror this whole thing has been for them and vicariously for us. It seems strange that they have reached this point as I seem to remember a fairly recent report that the bottom of one of the reactor housings was close to being breached... Well, I hope this is the truth and some stability will finally be achieved. In any case, to the dedicated workers お疲れ様でした どうもありがとうございました

General Electric engineered the plant post WW2.

I was wondering about the workers myself, William. Thank you for mentioning them. They are heros and deserve to be honored.

The report said the containment vessels were not breached in any of the reactors. Unless you have a quotable and verifiable source, quit spreading terrorist propaganda.

Terrorist propaganda. That's a new one.

Something for you to read, Don.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/world/asia/meltdown-in-japan-may-have-been-worse-than-thought.html?_r=1

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-02/fukushima-fuel-rods-eating-through-concrete/3707916/?site=newcastle

Cold shutdown is a big deal. fuel is a lot easier to cool when it is in cold shutdown, additionally it gives you much more time before fuel damage should you lose cooling again. Additionally the area it is in is depressurized, making it VERY easy to get water in. Almost any pump can do it. Compared to a pressurized reactor in hot shutdown which is ~1000 PSI and requires special high powered pumps.

FYI cold shutdown is defined as a subcritical core <.95keff with atmospheric pressure and temperature <200F

shakalac

I red the links you posted and there wasn't anywhere in the articles that said the containment vessels were breached. The first one said that study's showed that the vessels may have been breached, but it did not say it had been breached. The second more recent article expressly said that there were 37 centimeters of concrete left before the steel casing.

It's irresponsible to try to scare people with something that did not happen. The reality was sad enough.

Well, Don, if you read the articles you'd understand that because it's so hot in there, no one knows exactly WHAT'S going on in those reactors. According to the articles, TEPCO itself has said "its latest calculations suggest the nuclear fuel inside the number one reactor has melted entirely.

Simulations predict the molten fuel has eaten through 65 centimetres of concrete in a containment base below, stopping just 37 centimetres short of an outer steel casing."

And that is the reality of the matter, at least as presented by numerous reputable news sources and based on the claims of the operator itself.

shakalac: I, too, read both articles you referred to in post #4.2. Neither noted that "it's so hot in there, no one knows exactly WHAT'S going on in those reactors" (as you wrote in post #4.5). Both articles are based on the same press release (for which I've searched, e.g., at http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/, but have not found an English-version of yet), and both have the same conclusion: that the containment vessels were not breached.

"I have always argued that the containment is broken, and that there is the danger of a wider radiation leak," Mr. Koide said. "In reality, it's impossible to look inside the reactor, and most measurement instruments have been knocked out. So nobody really knows how bad it is."

So what exactly do you have a problem with, Whence? Why ELSE would TEPCO be relying on simulation and calculation rather than collected data?

The problem, shakalac, is that you inserted information in your comment (viz., that excess heat is preventing investigation) and implied that it was in the articles when it was not.

Dr. Koide is a well-known antinuclear activist. You can see his blog here: http://hiroakikoide.wordpress.com/ and there you can see that he has no privileged access to data any more than, say, Busby or Gundersen do.

Regarding relying on simulation and calculation, TEPCO (or anyone else) cannot do anything but simulation and calculation, but that simulation and calculation is necessarily based on data: they're not just making numbers up.

According to the articles, TEPCO itself has said "its latest calculations suggest the nuclear fuel inside the number one reactor has melted entirely.

Simulations predict the molten fuel has eaten through 65 centimetres of concrete in a containment base below, stopping just 37 centimetres short of an outer steel casing."

Cut to the chase. This is what the articles have reported, this is what TEPCO has claimed.

What do you have to say about this information? Anything?

shakalac: Neither Don Giacomo nor I has disputed the estimates coming from TEPCO and reproduced in articles to which you referred in comment #4.2.

emmyzeee: The plant at Three Mile Island was not hit by a wall of water, destroying outbuldings and other structures not directly connected to the reactors. The hydrogen explosions that burst the walls of the buildings in which the reactors are do/did not have equivalents at Three Mile Island. You do have a valid point here, in response to Michael C. Thompson, that the debris will obstruct robots used for cleanup.

(I do not understand, however, how that point is related to the "lying crones" and the ties between media and industry. Official and TEPCO announcements are that cleanup will take decades, after all, which does not seem particularly mendacious to me.)

I think you ask the families of the firefighters and police officers that died on 911 about American spirit and dedication. Or how about Sergeant Dakota Meyer, if you need something more recent. There are people like this all across America if you bother to look.

(If nothing else, just allow any of the individual overheated fuel rods to melt or burn their way down through a supporting fuse plate at the bottom of the core, so they can automatically drop down into a passive dampening system below the core. A deep metal sand at the very bottom can be used to cushion their fall.) - RC

The reactors WERE shutdown. The issue is nuclear waste product breaks down and releases large amounts of heat for years and require active cooling.

After a reactor shutdown, the nuclear reaction has stopped entirely, however the core still produces 5% rated heat. Over time this decays away. After shutting down a core you need to pump at least 600 GPM on it (this number will drop to about 200-300 gpm after enough time), just to make sure you replace the water you boil away.

Long story short, just shutting the core down doesnt matter. ALL nuclear plants have automatic shutdown systems which can shut a core down in ~2.7 seconds. (I am a nuclear engineer). It's the radioactive decay heat which needs to be dealt with.

New plant designs like Westinghouses' AP1000 and GE's ESBWR contain passive safety systems which use natural forces like gravity and the chimney effect to maintain cooling for days or weeks with no electricity and very limited human interaction. I believe that's the direction we need to be moving our nuclear fleets. It will make the technology immensely safer.

Presumably this passive dampening system I mentioned would also include a passive cooling system as well. I really didn't think is was necessary to make a point of this. - RC

Nuclear Guy,

Aircraft carriers do have passive cooling systems on them. They are small, but do work with gravity and the chimney effect in the event that normal cooling methods failed. There is even a back cooling system to back-up this back-up cooling system. I want to say that submarine cores have them as well, but I'm not 100% positive. I went through the Navy's Nuclear Power Program. We were trained on fast attack cores, but I went to a carrier, where the plants are immensely bigger compared to the sub cores.

Interesting Natalie,

Is that why they said that the amount of radiation leaked was one tenth of the amount leaked by Chernobyl? Is that why a reactor that was designed just after WWII withstood an earthquake? Just imagine if we were able to develop and build better nuclear plants. Nuclear power will become cleaner and cleaner. It is safe with the proper precautions.

No Nat, Nuclear power does NOT stink, People stink. The plants in Japan should have NEVER been built on shoreline. 1. They were the old technology, 2, they were built to withstand earthquakes, not tidal wave, 3. they did withstand quake damage but the tidal wave sealed their doom. IF they had been built INLAND much of the damage would not have occurred. In short it is NOT the technology but the people factor who discredit this technology. I invite you to disconnect from the power system you enjoy and set up a windmill and solar on your roof. See if you can generate the power needed in YOUR house. Read, learn before you make stupid comments.

The Fukushima disaster is still not as bad as Chernobyl. None of the containment buildings were breached by the melted cores. Chernobyl blew the top off of the containment vessel and the containment buildings.

Then if there were no containment failure then what was that in those photos showing the top of the Reactor core itself eh? And many news reports said the side and top of a containment structure were gone exposing the reactor...

Was it the reactor core? or was it the fuel rods? If you are saying that fuel rods are exposed, that is something completely different than if the reactor is exposed.

Magnum,

That's not the top of the core. I'm trying to find some information on what exactly that is, but my hunch is that is the top of the primary containment building. No nuclear engineer would ever make a primary containment building out of glass and flimsy metal. Metal and concrete are great for shielding too.

Bohnmann,

The core melted down and through the containment vessel in unit #1, with a possible partial meltdown in #2 if I recall correctly.

There was speculation that the containment vessel might have been breached, but recent reports have declared that there was not a breach of the containment vessels.

Interesting, you think this is strictly money driven, when the nuclear industry has a better track record than pretty much every other industry out there.

If you think it's all "profit driven" then I suppose you wouldn't mind footing the bill for solar and wind technologies, killing the massive subsidies they already receive, and paying the massive cost it would require to get these plants rolling.

Did I mention that the US gets about 800 TWh of power annually from nuclear sources? It's all good though, you can pay for 5,000 sq miles of solar cells and 1.2 million wind turbines. And enjoy paying electricity costs of >$0.75/MWh. (Nuclear is ~$0.25 / MWh)

PS - Solar cells get more expensive the more you build them. "Rare earth elements" are called by that name for a reason.

Two serious questions for you Shakalac,

You don't like nuclear at all. Since you don't believe that nuclear is safe in any instance (based on many of your previous posts), what is out there that could replace nuclear energy. Wind and solar are still not available to the extent that we could fully replace nuclear in most areas. Do we develop wind and solar more? Is there something else that we could use?

My second question. Since you believe that nuclear isn't safe, what could be done to make nuclear energy safe? What safety protocols would make you feel comfortable with us using nuclear energy?

I completely understand most peoples aversion to anything nuclear (because it does have a negative connotation with things like nuclear bomb, nuclear waste, nuclear radiation). So how can we make nuclear energy safe?

1. The facility was designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, which was determined through geological records as the biggest that had struck that area. The 9.1 magnitude was way different, and that would easily exceed the design spec. It was the tidal wave that spelled doom for this plant, since the wave was a minimum 10 feet higher than the sea wall. The major design flaw on the plant was placing the back-up generators for cooling in the basement of a building.

2. The technology is safe. There are redundant upon redundant systems to ensure the cores operate properly. There are automatic, engineered, safeguards in place to shut the plant down when it is needed. There are operational procedures that stack to the ceiling three times over on how to operate the plant in normal and emergency situations. The plant operators have to go through many, many hours of book study and hands on training before they can become licensed operators.

3. Please educate yourself on nuclear power before you start to yell at everyone in your ignorance. These cores at the Fukushima plant are all generation 1 and 2 cores. They are old. The company that owns Fukushima was actually going to decommission the #1 unit later this year. The generation four and thorium based cores are much safer and have many more engineered safeguards in place.

The technology is safe. There are redundant upon redundant systems to ensure the cores operate properly. There are automatic, engineered, safeguards in place to shut the plant down when it is needed. There are operational procedures that stack to the ceiling three times over on how to operate the plant in normal and emergency situations. The plant operators have to go through many, many hours of book study and hands on training before they can become licensed operators.

And yet, somehow all that didn't translate into a safe experience for the people of Fukushima and Japan, did it. You can claim "safe, clean, convenient, cheap" all you want, but that fact remains. It happened once, and it could happen again.

Shakalac

WHOOSH...

That sound was point number one from my initial response that you so glowingly avoided. The age of the plant, with some design issues, were what caused the problems. It wasn't operational or procedural violations. The automated safeguards worked. You can be in denial all you want about nuclear power and only look at the bad stuff. It is a viable source of power, it is cheaper in the long run, they are safe, and they have extremely smart, educated people who work in them.

, they are safe, and they have extremely smart, educated people who work in them.

And yet here we are having this discussion for at least the second time in 25 years after the unthinkable accident has happened and thousands are living with the aftereffects and will be for years afterwards.

You keep ignoring my original first point and squarely blaming the event on the operators instead of what caused, a 50 year old plant design. They did nothing wrong.

I'm not blaming the operators as much as I am acknowledging that they were human, and no matter how wonderful all your modern nuclear technology is, as long as you have that "human element" involved there WILL be mistakes and things will go wrong.

Is that clear now to you?

You keep ignoring my original first point and squarely blaming the event on the operators instead of what caused, a 50 year old plant design.

And why not also note that this 50-year old plant design was undoubtedly touted as being "perfectly safe" by the industry until the "unthinkable" happened?

So now the blame is being shifted to the plant designers and the geologists who built the plant 50 years ago?

The "human element" will be a factor in anything. It's not specific to nuclear power. Natural gas power plants, coal based power plants, hydroelectric plants all have human operators too. There are disasters at plants like that too. There is much more at stake with a nuclear plant. That is why there are engineered safeguards built into them. That is why the licensing procedure is so painful. That is why the operating manuals are ridiculously technical and wrong. That being said, the human element is still needed because of experience and the ability to acknowledge problems and correct them early. Computers can't do that. Your human element argument is rather weak at best.

So now the blame is being shifted to the plant designers and the geologists who built the plant 50 years ago?

You keep ignoring my original first point and squarely blaming the event on the operators instead of what caused, a 50 year old plant design.

You're a funny dude. :D Too bad the situation is so very unfunny.

The industry never touted the plant was "perfectly safe." That's a pipe dream in any industry. It operated as it should have during the earthquake, and from most perspectives, it escaped relatively unscathed. It was the tidal wave that hurt the plant the most because of a design flaw:

In 1990 the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ranked the failure of the emergency electricity generators and subsequent failure of the cooling systems of plants in seismically very active regions one of the most likely risks. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) cited this report in 2004. According to Jun Tateno, a former NISA scientist, TEPCO did not react to these warnings and did not respond with any measures.^[33]

I do my best :D

The industry never touted the plant was "perfectly safe." That's a pipe dream in any industry. It operated as it should have during the earthquake, and from most perspectives, it escaped relatively unscathed. It was the tidal wave that hurt the plant the most because of a design flaw:



I'm truly curious. Do you REALLY think it matters to the people of Japan right now if Fukushima was knocked out due to an earthquake vs. a tsunami wave? Not to you "experts". To the citizens who are having to deal with the aftermath. Do you really think "relatively unscathed" is an appropriate term to use for a plant who has done so much damage to not only the surrounding environment, but to the country of Japan? And now for the first time is admitting the possibility of melt-through to the public? Really?

Since you're taking my comment out of context, I'll correct you. I feel for the people who have had their lives tossed upside down because of this disaster. I know what radiation does to organic tissues in high doses. I know what it can do if ingested in a high quantity. I know how much of a pain it is going to be to clean this up in the long run. I'm not a monster by any means.

I'm not an expert by any means. Since you like to use quotations when you use that word, I can assume that you are not well versed about nuclear power. I am what I would call experienced. I learned about all of these differing things from my time in the US Navy, where I went through the nuclear power program and spent 4.5 years working on and maintaining a 500MW nuclear reactor. I'm not as ignorant on the subject as you jest.

From an engineering standpoint, ie, the immediate moments after the earthquake, the plant escaped relatively unscathed. There I used that word again. The plant shutdown like it was designed to do. The back-up generators kicked on to supply power to the cooling pumps, like they were supposed to. The operators followed emergency shutdown procedures, like they are supposed too. From an ENGINEERING standpoint, everything went like it should have following the earthquake. The tidal wave was what sealed the plants fate. Even engineers who were at the construction of the plant noticed the flooding potential and wanted it changed. TEPCO said no. The loss of cooling was what created the entire mess. The plant did escape relatively unscathed from the earthquake.

To answer your question, no, the people who live around the plant probably don't care about the technical aspects of the plant. Do remember though, you were the one to bring it up initially. There is also no possibility of a meltdown, two of the cores did, with a third possible. One is a partial meltdown that has most likely escaped the containment vessel, and the other two are contained within the vessel. That has been known for awhile now.

I'm not an expert by any means. Since you like to use quotations when you use that word, I can assume that you are not well versed about nuclear power. I am what I would call experienced. I learned about all of these differing things from my time in the US Navy, where I went through the nuclear power program and spent 4.5 years working on and maintaining a 500MW nuclear reactor. I'm not as ignorant on the subject as you jest.

Hey, hold on, I never tried to imply you were ignorant.

I used the word "expert" in quotes to specify those people, including yourself, who portray yourselves as being more experienced with the ins and outs of nuclear power than the average citizen. I have no idea who here actually works for the industry and who does not.

If that's how you feel about it, what exactly will you do to replace the 20% energy (800 TWh) produced by nuclear plants across the United States? I've done a few simple back-of-the-envelope calculations, and you'd need about 5,000 sq. miles of solar cells in a high-sun region, with about 1.2 million wind turbines to completely replace nuclear. Nuclear is also one of the cheapest sources of energy per kWh.

What exactly do you propose as an alternative?

We have Gen. IV technology available for nuclear plants, but we haven't built a new one since the 70's because anti-nuclear activists demand "impact studies" and "environmental analyses" and all sorts of time-consuming, expensive studies. It makes the plants cost prohibitive by raising the price of construction by an order of magnitude.

So again... what do you think we should use instead?

If it's too expensive to do it thoughtfully and safely, why do we really want to do it at all?

Well Matt, not right away...from "Three Mile Island, The People's Perspective"

http://www.tmia.com/node/118

Sally Smith, Housewife, Duncannon, PA

52 years old [in 1979]

Interviewed: January 4, 1983

Sally Smith was diagnosed as having thyroid cancer in 1979. She had her operation at Harrisburg

Hospital in November and subsequently received therapy, once in December and then again the

following March. Both times this consisted of the oral intake of radioactive iodine. Here she describes

her physical reaction to this therapy.

I was in the hospital six days in isolation simply because I was a danger to other people. My body had

too much radiation in it. I’d say that for the first six hours, [I had no physical reaction], but then I got

nauseous. And I stayed that way for two to three weeks. Now, my doctor declares up and down that I

should not. He said it does not make you nauseous. But it did. And a terrible taste in my mouth, a

metallic taste in my mouth.

The taste would be hard to describe. I think it started about the same time [as the nausea]. About six

hours after I took the radioactive iodine. You get the taste afterwards and it stays with you. I had it for

two to three weeks. The taste wasn’t strong. I wouldn’t say it was strong. [But] the taste did bother

me. I think that maybe it contributed to the nauseous feeling, because, when I would eat, nothing I

ate tasted right. With a metallic taste in your mouth it would be hard to taste the natural taste of food.

As time went on it faded.

The doctor told me there would be a taste. He told me there would not be any nausea, which there

was. He sort of insisted that I had the flu the first time. [Laughter] Which I knew better. I’m sure of

that.

[Mitsuru told Sally that many people had a metallic taste around the time of the accident.]

It’s the first I’ve heard [of it]. I think it’s the first I’ve heard of it. But, come to think of it...there may

have been others who’ve said that. It seems to me I have heard people ... and I didn’t pay any

attention to it. [In fact] I’m pretty sure there was somebody that said something about a taste. It was

before I had my operation, and of course I had forgotten about that. And when I have spoken to

people about therapy, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned the taste to anyone. Except to [a friend who

also had radioactive iodine therapy] when I talked to her, she mentioned the taste in particular and I

said, “Oh, yes, I had that too.”

@Anonymous: Maybe I'm missing something, but what does taking radioactive iodine to treat a thyroid condition have to do with nuclear power? Also, people do get thyroid cancer from time to time. Is there a direct link of causation? Statistics that show irregularities? Anything?

Just today:

http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/16363348/radioactive-material-discovered-in-water-around-sequoyah

Radioactive material has been found in the groundwater around the Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant.

Tennessee Valley Authority officials have reported finding elevated levels of tritium in a groundwater sample taken from one of two new onsite monitoring wells at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant. ...

An Associated Press investigation published earlier this year found tritium leaks at 75 percent of the commercial nuclear power plants in the United States.

The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.

Tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, has leaked from at least 48 of 65 sites, according to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission records reviewed as part of the AP's yearlong examination of safety issues at aging nuclear power plants. Leaks from at least 37 of those facilities contained concentrations exceeding the federal drinking water standard - sometimes at hundreds of times the limit.

So, Matt, is this acceptable to you in your quest to meet the power needs of the masses? Circumstances like the article mentioned above?

Shakalac,

Based on the information you give (which isn't much) you can't even come to a conclusion one way or another. Tritium (or tritiated water most likely) leaking, what are the consequences? What happens if you drink the water with elevated levels? Tritium itself has a half life of ~12 years, but the beta particles emitted cannot pass through the skin. It does readily combine with water/organic compounds which can then be hazardous if ingested. But otherwise, it is a fairly non-threatening radioisotope. So, in my opinion, the tritium leaking is a minor issue and not something to worry about. That is why they have those limits to make sure that the water you/I/everyone is drinking do not contain more than it should.

In defense of Matt's question, anonymous copied and pasted an article that really didn't do a good job of trying to link the metallic taste from the iodine in the chemo to the metallic taste that people said that experienced after three mile island. I think that is where anonymous was going with that, but it also seemed like the article was also trying to link the ladies thyroid cancer to three mile island. Both of you provided a problem but didn't really give data or details.

You forgot to include quotes like:

TVA says these elevated levels pose no threat to the health and safety of the public.

None of the Sequoyah groundwater monitoring wells is used for drinking water or irrigation purposes and no potable water wells are downstream of where the tritium was found. Additionally, TVA confirmed no detectable levels of tritium in any sampling of the Tennessee River where the plant discharges water.

or the fact this tritium was found in monitoring wells which are far away from water being used for drinking. Or that no new nuclear power plants have been built in decades and the leaks are coming from old buildings.

I get that you don't like nuclear energy and would never agree with it being allowed to be a major contributor to our electric grid. You believe that the risks are too great. The scientific/technological discoveries that have occurred in the last 10 years are mind boggling. Just imagine how efficient/clean nuclear energy could be if allowed to develop.

Or the fact this tritium was found in monitoring wells which are far away from water being used for drinking. Or that no new nuclear power plants have been built in decades and the leaks are coming from old buildings.

So......? It doesn't count if the leaks are coming from old buildings? It's a freebie? It affects the environment less?

A reminder, Bohnman.

An Associated Press investigation published earlier this year found tritium leaks at 75 percent of the commercial nuclear power plants in the United States.
The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.

Name one death in the United States due to nuclear power. I'll give you a hint: There haven't been any.

Don't know Matt. In return, I give you this interesting story from the History Channel, about Simi Valley, CA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAHmaEs5cYU

Somebody please tell me again that the nuclear industry has historically made safety their first priority and everything else is just red tape.

In response to both of your posts,

The reactors are old because nuclear power is restricted so much and feared by so many people because of sensationalistic information from the news media and people like yourself. The fact that there are tritium leaks is horrible, but what is the overall environmental impact of the leaked tritium? How does it affect humans?

In my opinion, the tritium leaks are an important factor in determining that the plants are still working properly. If we had been able to develop, build, and implement newer nuclear power plants, we may not even be having this discussion. Your argument is akin to saying that 75% of Gremlins leak oil so we shouldn't build any more vehicles.

Funny, how you just continuously ignore my prime question: Where do you propose generating 800 TWh per year from?