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Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Dramatic Footage of Fatal Refinery Explosion and Spewing Toxics in Venezuela

August 26, 2012 By Rod Adams

One of the frequently repeated comments about the way that the ad supported media choses its coverage is that the media tends to focus on “if it bleeds it leads” and on telling dramatic stories. If that was true, why are stories about deadly, dramatic fossil fuel accidents told once and then forgotten while brief hydrogen pops at nuclear plants that did not kill anyone played thousand of times on major world wide networks over a sustained period?


I believe that the difference is that the nuclear industry does not buy enough advertising on a regular basis to be able to influence the editorial directors to lay off and move on. Instead, there is no one in the nuclear industry who can pick up a phone and get the network business people to find other focus areas if there is anything at all happening at a nuclear energy facility. At nuclear plants, even a leak of 99.99999% pure water where the remainder happens to be a minuscule amount of tritium, cesium or other radioactive material becomes a major news item.

Filed Under: Accidents, Fossil fuel competition

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About Rod Adams

Rod Adams is an atomic energy expert with small nuclear plant operating and design experience, now serving as a Managing Partner at Nucleation Capital, an emerging climate-focused fund. Rod, a former submarine Engineer Officer and founder of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., one of the earliest advanced nuclear ventures, has engaged in technical, strategic, political, historic and financial discussion and analysis of the nuclear industry, its technology and policies for several decades. He is the founder of Atomic Insights and host and producer of The Atomic Show Podcast.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AvatarRobert Hargraves says

    August 26, 2012 at 11:23 AM

    I worked as a consultant at the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA for a while, pre-Chavez. The managers were skilled people, with engineering and MBAs from Stanford and other US universities, and good experience. Chavez removed the competent professionals and replaced them with political allies. Oil production is down.

  2. AvatarDaniel says

    August 26, 2012 at 12:02 PM

    Rod,

    A little reminder of the dynamics. When a major accident happens at a gas, oil, coal or hydro plant well, you are gone.

    When a major accident occurs at a civilian nuclear plant, you have days to evacuate. Calmly and safely.

    This is why nuclear plants MUST have evacuation plans. (being sarcastic here)

    • AvatarRod Adams says

      August 26, 2012 at 12:29 PM

      @Daniel – what about all of the “stuff” that is pouring out as black smoke? Where does it go? Whose lungs end up filling with it? What is the long term effect on their health?

  3. AvatarDV82XL says

    August 26, 2012 at 12:30 PM

    We need to start and keep a list somewhere of these events that can be quickly linked to when defending nuclear energy’s safety record.

    • AvatarRod Adams says

      August 26, 2012 at 12:36 PM

      Here’s a link to someone who has already started the process:

      http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2011/04/19/9463/fossil-fuels-a-legacy-of-disaster/

      See also their interactive map:

      http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2011/04/19/9479/interactive-map-fossil-fuel-accidents/

      Of course CAP is not exactly in favor of nuclear energy development, but Joe Romm normally focuses on its cost, not its safety.

  4. AvatarRobert Hargraves says

    August 26, 2012 at 7:19 PM

    Here’s a nice accident compilation for 2010 from the Atlantic..

    http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/25-other-energy-disasters-from-the-last-year/72814/

  5. AvatarJon says

    August 27, 2012 at 10:31 AM

    Yet what do I find on forbes.com one day after Conca’s article was posted?

    A fear-mongering article about Hanford, WA that hasn’t hurt anybody. Go fig.

  6. AvatarMark Ramsay says

    August 27, 2012 at 11:22 AM

    Hi Rod, do you have another link to the resource (initial vid) – says not available in the UK.

    MArk

    • AvatarRod Adams says

      August 28, 2012 at 3:23 AM

      Mark – try some of the videos available at http://on.aol.com/video/venezuela-oil-refinery-explosion-kills-39-517456171. It is hard to tell which ones will play in certain places; I tried embedding several of the ones I found and discovered they would not even play on Atomic Insights.

      Let me know if that helps.

  7. AvatarDaniel says

    August 27, 2012 at 6:35 PM

    Well what do you know …

    After France’s Hollande has won the election with the backing of the greens and promising to cut nuclear, two of his top ministers say:

    On Monday, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls was openly supportive of Montebourg’s position, telling Europe 1 that nuclear energy was “definitely” France’s industry of the future.

    Montebourg is minister of industrial renewal.

    • AvatarRod Adams says

      August 28, 2012 at 3:26 AM

      @Daniel – when will people learn that politicians often say one thing to get elected and do something totally different once in office?

      France has a strong enough nuclear energy program – and plenty of people employed in it – that I was not terribly worried that Hollande was going to follow through. After all, nuclear energy is really quite supportive of most Socialist goals. If you have ever worked in the industry you will realize that it is one of the least hierarchical industries around and one in which nearly every employee feels empowered to do the right thing rather than the one that someone orders her to do.

      • AvatarDaniel says

        August 28, 2012 at 7:44 AM

        I know. But remember how a while ago you had a series of videos and articles that showed all the kooks and marginal morons were ending up leading green movements all over the world?

        Well France is not immuned to those extremists. Many of them have done time in jail and are leading those movements.

        Like you said it is tolerated so that you know where the activists are. Better have in them environmental causes that on real, more important social issues.

      • AvatarDaniel says

        August 28, 2012 at 9:22 AM

        And mark the words of the minister of industrial renewal:

        He wants to attract manufacturing jobs with low cost energy. DAH !

      • Avatarjmdesp says

        August 29, 2012 at 3:44 AM

        However Montebourg is such an expert of nonsensical strategy, like spending huge money to keep the lowest paying job at home, instead of thinking it’s much smarter to spend the same money to create new, well-paying one (and getting a ROI on the investment because with the amount of money he’s ready to spend on the low paying jobs, we’d really be paying people to dig and refill hole).
        So I wonder if it’s really a positive thing to have him support nuclear.

  8. AvatarJohn Englert says

    August 30, 2012 at 12:31 AM

    Very difficult to compete with an extraction industry that can afford adds such as this Chevron add on the Huffington Post

    • AvatarRod Adams says

      August 30, 2012 at 1:41 AM

      @John Englert

      There is a way to compete with money – refuse to accept the logic and keep on pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.

      That is especially true in the United States with its constitutionally protected right of free speech and on the internet where words can be reproduced and amplified quite cheaply. It takes patience, and some understanding of the nature of inertia, but facts will win out.

      I would not be quite so confident if it were not for the huge margin between the capability of nuclear fission and hydrocarbon combustion. Remember the pellet – a ton of coal between your fingertips.
      Fuel pellet with a smile

  9. AvatarJames Greenidge says

    September 6, 2012 at 1:45 PM

    http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2012/09/06/steam-release-renews-calls-to-cut-nuclear-power.html

    Wasn’t even a reactor related incident yet even anti-nuke editors way over here will grab it and warp it into a nuke fear syndrome. That the media sees no differenence in non-nuclear and nuclear incidents occuring in nuclear plants, turning a kicked over bucket of mildly irradiated water into a RADIOACTIVE SPILL seems a corruption in accuracy in reporting to me.

    James Greenidge
    Queens NY

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