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Dissident Voice reports
After a week of limited coverage of "unimaginable levels" of radiation inside the remains of collapsed Unit 2 at Fukushima[...], Nuclear-News.net reported February 11 that radiation levels are actually significantly higher than "unimaginable".
Continuous, intense radiation at 530 sieverts an hour (4 sieverts is a lethal level), was widely reported in early February 2017--as if this were a new phenomenon. It's not. Three reactors at Fukushima melted down during the earthquake-tsunami disaster on March 3, 2011, and the meltdowns never stopped. Radiation levels have been out of control ever since. As Fairewinds Energy Education noted in an email February 10:
Although this robotic measurement just occurred, this high radiation reading was anticipated and has existed inside the damaged Unit 2 atomic reactor since the disaster began nearly 6 years ago.... As Fairewinds has said for 6 years, there are no easy solutions because groundwater is in direct contact with the nuclear corium (melted fuel) at Fukushima Daiichi.
What's new (and not very new, at that) is the official acknowledgment of the highest radiation levels yet measured there, by a factor of seven (the previously measured high was 73 sieverts an hour in 2012). The highest radiation level measured at Chernobyl was 300 sieverts an hour.
[...] This coverage relates only to Unit 2's melted reactor core. There is no reliable news of the condition of the melted reactor cores in two other units.
[...] Whatever is actually going on at Fukushima is not good, and has horrifying possibilities. It is little comfort to have the perpetrator of the catastrophe, TEPCO, in charge of fixing it, especially when the Japanese government is more an enabler of cover-up and denial than any kind of seeker of truth or protector of its people.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 22 2017, @08:50AM
Outer burbs of Melbourne, surrounded by a 18-hole golf course.
Yeap. And it's not the production cost, but the distribution. Wholesale, the energy is somewhere at AUD50/MWh, I'm paying retail 30c/kWh peak, 22c/kWh offpeak (23:00-06:00) + a fixed "service to property fee" of $1.05/day. Wanna do a calculation for how large is the difference they pocket?
The total energy that passed through the inverter to date is: 25850kWh.
Based on the stats I collected during 1 year before and the avg sun light, I concluded 3.6 kWh would be needed to cover the net consumption.
Thus, I installed 4.4kW (this is what the inverter screen is reporting me) - 20% overhead, expecting to a drop of efficiency of about that over the first 3-4 years.
It is about that - actually, it was 3.2kW generated today in full sun, but I need to climb the roof and wash the panels a bit, some showers mixed with dust from northerly winds let a quite stick fine layer of dust on the chinese panels that I have. I have a feeling that cleaning them will get them into 3.6kW.
I wouldn't hold my breadth for fusion, even more so that will take some 10 years at least from a functional prototype to an actual power station - fission is much easier and building a commercial nuke is over 5 years. I have more confidence in battery tech progress than fusion.
Other than that, if I can be self sufficient, yes I don't mind to be still in the payout when the electricity prices cuts in half - based on the invoices I receive, I have a hunch that the gridders won't pass the full lower price to me.
Only considering the "service to property fee" at the current price of $380/year (to be increased year-after-year), a reasonable-priced "electricity buffer" ($7500) is payback in 20 years. Yes, I know, they won't last that long, but I still think an off-grid solution that is viable given the prices the damn'd retailers charge here!!!.
Do you see now why Australia is so quick to embrace "power grid independence" as much as possible?
Why not?
When's 40C during Christmas (and the lamb is sizzling on the barbeque) and the lower temp over the year is 4C, 25C is warm but bearable. I'm not sweating and this means comfortable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @04:39PM
Thank you for solidly debunking every bit of bullshit that guy passes off as reasonable discussion.