Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/japans-radiation-disaster-toll-none-dead-none-sick-20130604-2nomz.html

by AndrewDucker • 13 years ago

148 181 13 years ago

theage.com.au

_mulder_3• 13 years ago

Never mind that coal mining kills almost 6000 people a year, or that populations of coal-mining areas have death rates about 10 per cent higher than non-mining areas, or that coal emissions drive global warming.

I'm fully in favour of nuclear power but using partial evidence and misleading comparisons to back up arguments does not help the cause.

You can't compare the death toll of mining coal to the death toll of a nuclear accident and prove one is more dangerous than the other. They are completely different things having no common factors. How many people died mining Uranium? How many people die per MW produced for both fuels? How many people die in disasters at Coal Power plants?

AndrewDucker• 13 years ago

Here's your figures on deaths per TWh:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-ener...

ars• 13 years ago

> They are completely different things having no common factors.

No common factors? Really? They are both used to make energy.

Coal is 1,888 times more deadly than nuclear power when measured in deaths per MW. According to http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de...

And that includes Chernobyl, and uses the worst case scenario for the effects of radiation!

If you removed Chernobyl and used http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis instead (which is more likely to be accurate) the deaths attributed to nuclear power would go even lower.

Nuclear power is by far the safest form of energy on earth - it even beats solar power. It is so very very very stupid we don't get 80% of our energy from it.

onli9• 13 years ago

> And that includes Chernobyl, and uses the worst case scenario for the effects of radiation!

I know he writes that, but the numbers used aren't mentioned and not easily to research, as far as i saw. I heavily doubt that statement.

An article talking about "two failures" of nuclear plants isn't believable, there were quite a few more.

_mulder_3• 13 years ago

Yes there are no common factors between mining a product and an industrial accident occurring when using a product.

Agreed, they are all part of the mix when comparing the overall life-cycle dangers of different fuels, but the Author of the article is not comparing like-with-like. If you're comparing Coal vs Nuclear, you can only compare the death toll of mining coal with the death toll of mining uranium. Or the health effects from coal burning vs uranium fission.

An article claiming BMW's are safer than Volvos because nobody ever dies during their manufacture whereas Volvo's are dangerous because 1000 people crash and die in them per year would hold no wieght.

sasoon• 13 years ago

3 people died in uranium mines in the last 10 years

So that is 3 vs. 60,000 deaths for mining

scarmig• 13 years ago

That should be normalized for TWh, but the point stands, of course.

relix• 13 years ago

Every year 1MM lives are shortened from the exhaust of coal power plants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_coa...

tehabe• 13 years ago

The argument is wrong because coal is as bad as nuclear power. Both are limited, both are centralized systems and both have huge environmental impacts. Mining, transport, energy production, and also exhaust and waste.

It should also be noted that coal mining is done the worst conditions you can think of. I'm very glad that by 2018, Germany will stop its coal production completely and not only because it is very expensive to get the coal in Germany.

This is btw something you have with all fossil and nuclear sources. With time it will get more expensive to get to the fuel needed. And according to the German government, nuclear fuel comes only partially from mining. So mining is currently not delivering the fuel for all nuclear power plants running. The rest comes from old nuclear weapons and other sources, according to the German government.

Also it should be noted that nuclear power was never really profitable. It might be with old plants now but with newer plants I think it is unlikely to earn a dime with nuclear power unless you get some kind of subsidy. The new EPR currently being build in Finland already costs 100% more than expected. With that money you could have installed enough windmills to cover those 1600 MW the EPR might provide.

Nuclear power was used for about 50 years, it will leave us with waste for the next 100,000 to 1,000,000 years.

robbiep• 13 years ago

I would have thought that the evacuation response and the ability to restore water supply to the fuel rod cooling pools would have had a bit more to do with the lack of deaths than the safety of radiation disaster..

I support nuclear as An energy source but it really seems like we are doing it wrong at the moment - it costs too much, seems like we are, or have been using reactor designs that we probably shouldn't (ie they have meltdown risk in disasters vs other newer designs).

However it speaks volumes about the changed political environment, and our environmental sensitivity these days, that a response to Japan's tsunami and nuclear shutdown was also the shutdown of German reactors and fast-tracked plans to transition away from nuclear from them and other countries.

jlgreco• 13 years ago

There are two separate issues here.

One is the safety of radiation. This is a medical question. It can be tested in the laboratory, but we have enough "field experience" with it by now to know that it is indeed Very Bad News(tm) in high doses.

The second is the safety of nuclear power. This has many factors including the first issue and also including things such as evacuation response. Our ability to recognize threats (such as plainly unsafe radiation) and react effectively and rapidly is itself a reason that nuclear power is safe.

Properly regulated nuclear power is safer than nuclear power that is not. Sort of like how cardiac arrest in Seattle is safer than it is in Detroit, since the EMS response time is about 1/3rd the time.

peterpathname12• 13 years ago

oh, stop being so sensible, pick a side like everyone else ...

Xylakant7• 13 years ago

So now we're all back to "nuclear power is perfectly safe and cheap." The article fails to take into account that radiation is not like poison where you either die or don't. It's a statistical effect and how large the effect is can only be answered in a couple of decades. I'd not want to bet my life on that. Also, the radiation spills are not over yet. Radiated water still leaks from the reactors and flows into the ground and the sea - how and when those leaks can be plugged is yet unknown. Nobody has any idea how to treat the huge volumes of radiated water that have been captured so far.

Cleanup costs and storage/disposal costs for the nuclear waste are usually also ignored when looking at the costs of nuclear power - as well as the environmental impact of mining uranium. Let's just not talk about the additional dangers associated with nuclear proliferation. Nuclear power generates elements that are extremely dangerous and extremely difficult to handle - unlike solar, wind or even coal power.

ghshephard3• 13 years ago

Every single statement you made, with the exception of handling radioactive waste, applies more to coal than it does to nuclear power.

Coal pollution doesn't "kill outright" - but does so slowly, over many years, and many, many more people than nuclear power.

Coal waste continues to leak into the air, and into water systems.

I'm not arguing that Nuclear power is "safe" (nothing, is - even solar power kills many people a year, mostly installers) - but I am suggesting we stay rational, and realize that there are consequences to any of our energy choices.

If it turns out that C02 will have an outsized impact on global warming, that alone, will likely suggest that Coal powered energy systems are fairly bad for the environment - in a much greater way than the discretely managed radioactive waste put off by nuclear power plants - which can be buried underground without changing the earths environment.

onli9• 13 years ago

I always love it when coal is used as a comparision. Because:

Coal isn't the alternative, solar and wind are

Furthermore:

Nuclear energy has a fairly high CO2 output, if you count it all together. So this argument against coal is itself an argument against nuclear energy.

Most importantly: We can't manage nuclear waste. There is just no feasible scenario which makes sure for future generations that the nuclear waste we produce now won't be the mulch of the society after us. This point is what seems to seperate the people pro and against the sharpest, some seriously believing we could manage that.

JanezStupar9• 13 years ago

Also coal power produces more nuclear radiation than nuclear power plants.

Xylakant7• 13 years ago

See, most energy consumed is actually not consumed as electricity but for heat, for traffic etc. Nuclear power produces a mere 13%-14% of the worlds energy (less than hydro power btw.) and by no means can replace all uses of coal (or generally fossil fuel) unless you pop a nuclear plant in every city or village. A lot of coal plants in germany for example produce electricity as well as heat for buildings - something that a nuclear plant can in theory do, but it's just not something you'd want to stick to the edge of the city.

If you want to save on CO2 and energy, there's far better ways than building new coal or nuclear plants: reduce energy consumption and - most importantly - reduce it where it can be cheaply done. Go to developing countries and replace inefficient stoves, air conditioning and fridges. It's dead cheap compared to what we can squeeze out here - but it's a political nightmare. It's simple to support buying an efficient freezer in germany or better insulation for buildings or solar collectors on the roof, it's very hard to do so in africa.

I agree that that solar and wind are currently no perfect solution and alone probably will never be, but that's no reason not to invest money and do research. The progress that has been made so far is impressive. We're nerds, we all love a good challenge.

jonmrodriguez2• 13 years ago

What you say, though true, is borderline FUD.

As AndrewDucker linked to further down the thread, this report http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-ener... shows that nuclear power has the fewest deaths per terrawatt-hour out of any energy source, and coal has the highest.

yk2• 13 years ago

Since the link to the source of the first table in that blog post does not work:

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull411/... (pdf, Wilson &al. IAEA Bulletin 41/1 1999)

Additionally, I recall that there are some problems with the estimate. For example it assumes that there are no more major accidents after Chernobyl. And he uses the WHO study, which may underestimate cancer fatalities by an order of magnitude. For a nice discussion of the problems of studies of Chernobyl see:

http://allthingsnuclear.org/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-r...

andybak2• 13 years ago

Apologies for half-remembered hearsay but weren't there conclusions from long-term Chernobyl studies that were basically "we might have seriously overestimated long-term effects of radiation"?

DanBC• 13 years ago

It's a bit controversial (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029607)

yk2• 13 years ago

The question how many people have died will probably not be answered in a couple of decades. The problem is, that the sample size is limited and disentangling various reasons for diseases is quite hard. For example the highest radiation dosage after Chernobyl was in Belarus, but the population there did also go through the collapse of the Soviet Union.

DanielBMarkham• 13 years ago

Nobody dead or sick, yet tens of billions spent decommissioning nuclear reactors around the planet -- with all the environmental costs associated with that.

The reason the world continues to pollute more than necessary for the energy we desire has much more to do with the irrationality of people than the physics of energy production.

qb454• 13 years ago

Billions spent decomissioning, billions spent building, billions spent operating and billions saved on coal mining and transportation.

Probably people and companies who decided to invest billions in nuclear plants did some cost-benefit analysis.

trusche• 13 years ago

"Decommissioning is a general term for a formal process to remove something from active status."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decommissioning

workbench• 13 years ago

You've never been to a coal power plant have you?

Go to one and watch the endless trains of coal arriving constantly to power the thing, then come back and rethink what you just posted.

anon13852• 13 years ago

I don't think he was saying what you think he was saying.

My interpretation was that he was bemoaning the political backlash that lead to shutting down nuclear power in various countries, with the related financial cost and environmental cost due to the increase in coal and gas power generation that was required to make up the gap. All because of an incident that hasn't killed anybody.

skrause• 13 years ago

And your point is? His post was pro-nuclear and suddenly you're arguing against coal?

antr3• 13 years ago

I'm all for renewable energy. In fact, I own/operate a 200kWp solar plant. I put my money where my mouth is.

Having said that, in the mid-term I'm also pro-nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is one of the greenest, least polluting energy sources right now. It's the only technology that emits zero CO2 and can be used as baseload. All other technologies, be it CCGT/natural gas, fuel cells using natural or bio gas, coal powered plants, etc. produce CO2 and other GHG. As much as I wish the world run entirely on wind, water and sunlight, we are very far from this happening. Nonetheless I think it will be possible.

The main issue with renewable energy right now is its production volatility: the wind blowing, the sun shinning, dams to 100% capacity, etc. The need for a stable, non-CO2 emitting, energy production is nuclear. No doubt doubt about it.

When you negatively say > billions spent decommissioning nuclear reactors around the planet

implying that the cost of decommissioning is a big downside, let me clarify a few things:

1. decommissioning (from cleaning to storage) costs are priced in the energy cost, still making it far cheaper than oil and gas sources even without CCS technologies.

2. the cost of decommissioning is provisioned by the company running the plant, meaning that decommissioning is no extraordinary cost to the operator/consumer/citizen.

3. today's nuclear technology is nowhere as archaic as it was in the 70's/80's, when many errors were made trying out different technologies. Many people make the mistake of brining up the case of Chernobyl, but people are unaware that this plant was an R&D plant, built for the production of nuclear weapons, and not built for energy production.

4. the environmental impact of running nuclear plants today is extremely small (if not insignificant) compared to running the same energy capacity and production on fossil fuels, where CO2 and other harmful gasses are causing increase in temperatures, melting of icecaps, decimating thousands of species, and the list goes on.

I do agree that with you on

>The reason the world continues to pollute more than necessary for the energy we desire has much more to do with the irrationality of people than the physics of energy production.

There is plenty of educating still to be done on energy, its consumption and user behaviour, and I hope the anti-nuclear sentiment focuses more on the bigger picture, rather than blaming nuclear for the sake of sounding environmentally friendly.

lkozma3• 13 years ago

Are you sure you are arguing with the parent post? I think he's expressing a pro-nuclear sentiment similar to yours.

mseebach• 13 years ago

The "cost" of decommissioning is in the destruction of production capacity. If you decommission a plant that has 20 years at 800MW lifetime yet, it's not the fixed amount to actually demolish the plant that's the problem (this money is, as you correctly say, already set aside for this purpose), it's the cost of getting those 20y x 800MW from somewhere else, both in purely financial terms, but also environmental: The only way Germany can replace their nuclear capacity is with coal and gas.

blablabla1235• 13 years ago

I stopped reading after the first 2 or 3 sentences. In fact even the title is wrong. Sloppy investigation, can be invalidated by 5 seconds of Google.

cytokine_storm• 13 years ago

Really? My 5 seconds of google showed links saying pretty much the same thing as OP's article. No one died from radiation poisoning (yet).

blablabla1235• 13 years ago

The title of the story is "Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick".

6 (?) workers died. Maybe not from poisoning or ionization but from something else caused by the accident. What exactly happened with the "Fukushima 50" is also unclear.

Obviously people are smart enough to carry Dosimeters and to protect themselves from radiation as appropriate and possible.

But please, saying that "nobody died/got killed (yet) from radiation => nobody died/got killed => nobody died because of Nuclear accident" is just naive. The people died because even after the power plant became unusuable, they needed to manage radiation and spreading of nuclear material. You don't exactly have that problem when dealing with non-nuclear plants. Most of the times can just run and wait. In case of a nuclear plant you need to stay on site or else...

wyred• 13 years ago

From this article, 12 minors in the Fukushima prefecture have been confirmed to have thyroid cancer. Which usually strikes 1 to 2 for every million.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/06/05/national/fukushi...

justatdotin5• 13 years ago

we can expect more in coming years.

mixmax2• 13 years ago

I have a personal theory, that I haven't really been able to confirm or deny. Here it is.

After Hiroshima and during the cold war nuclear energy was associated with death and destruction. Hiroshima for obvious reasons, and the cold war because the population of the western world was constantly reminded how The Soviet Union had thousands of missiles with nuclear bombs pointing at us, ready to go. Western governments used nuclear weapons to picture the threat and to terrify populations into spending more on defense against the Soviets. There were scary videos of mushroom clouds, scary instructions on how to survive a nuclear blast, and scary stories of how a nuclear winter would pan out.

This, obviously, made people scared of nuclear bombs, and nuclear energy in general. Through decades the population was told by the government that nuclear radiation was the evil silent killer.

The byproduct of all this cold war propoganda was that people are now irrationally scared of nuclear radiation from power plants.

If you look at the numbers you'll see that nuclear energy is the safest and cleanest scalable energy source we've got. It's the energy source that has the fewest deaths per MWH produced, it doesn't produce CO2, etc. etc. Yet we think of it as getting power from the devil.

I blame the cold war propoganda for our irrational fear of nuclear energy.

Here's one of the old propaganda videos from the US, "Duck and cover" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4MVJIU0gFk

scheeko• 13 years ago

It's likely more than that. Chernobyl had a great impact on people's idea of nuclear. Also its damage, when occurring, is done in a spectacular way by something invisible. Radiation poisoning is dramatic, horrific and you can't see, smell or feel. That scares the living hell out of most people and the fact that is statistically unlikely becomes irrelevant as soon as it becomes an irrational fear.

There are things that cause more deaths by cancer, slowly and steadily, that don't (or didn't) scare anyone - tobacco was an example. Junk food may be another.

justatdotin5• 13 years ago

I think another parameter is the intergenerational teratogenic impacts: Radiation fades your genes.

philjohn• 13 years ago

Add sex to the list - HPV is sexually transmitted and is thought to cause a scary percentage of certain cancers.

gmac3• 13 years ago

> Through decades the population was told by the government that nuclear radiation was the evil silent killer.

Well, two out of three's not bad: it is silent, and it can kill.

> people are now irrationally scared of nuclear radiation from power plants

You may not fear nuclear energy, but it's not irrational to do so.

Even the current generation of reactors rely on active safety systems, and can't just be shut down. Even with multiple redundant systems of this sort, things will go wrong, since making these systems truly independent — including in the face of floods, earthquakes, human error, etc. — is effectively impossible.

So plants will continue to melt down from time to time, irradiating large areas of land. Bad luck if those areas are near you: in the best case, you'll have to leave your home and neighbourhood for decades.

Sure, it's a low probability event for each of us, but in my opinion those consequences are unacceptable for essentially any probability of occurrence.

JoeAltmaier2• 13 years ago

The fear prevents development of safe nuclear reactors. Irrational, yes?

rolleiflex• 13 years ago

I find it similar to the risk of an airplane death. Both of those are deemed by 'rationalists' as irrational fears, as airplanes are by and large, safer than driving cars. However, considering the outcomes the fear is not as irrational; there are a significant chance of surviving a car accident, but almost none at all of a plane one. It also comes with a bonus of a few minutes of horrifying fall into your inevitable doom, too.

Nuclear plants can be safe, but when they fail the results are often catastrophic. People prefer to live with many small dangers rather than one giant but very unlikely one, and while it may be called out as irrational in the strictest definition of reason, it's perfectly human.

dpark2• 13 years ago

> Sure, it's a low probability event for each of us, but in my opinion those consequences are unacceptable for essentially any probability of occurrence.

This is not rational fear. The non-nuclear energy industry is not perfectly safe. Coal mining results in many deaths both from the dangers of mining and the pollution caused. Oil mining results in some deaths and a fair few major ecological disasters. Solar power and wind power kill people as well (falling from a roof or having a turbine fall on you are both potentially life-ending).

According to this site (http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-ener...), Nuclear is the safest in terms of human death by far. This is just a blog post, so grain of salt, but it illustrates that your "unacceptable for essentially any probability" claim is not rational.

s_kilk• 13 years ago

Related to your link, Not propaganda, but a weird pseudo-documentary drama about nuclear devastation over Sheffield: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads

It's a "fun" watch, probably the most frightening piece of film I've ever seen.

EDIT: and a link to the fun part, for the lazy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKLSGLjcJJc

artmageddon• 13 years ago

I remember watching Threads years ago... creepy as hell, but well worth it.

fhd22• 13 years ago

> If you look at the numbers you'll see that nuclear energy is the safest and cleanest scalable energy source we've got. It's the energy source that has the fewest deaths per MWH produced, it doesn't produce CO2, etc. etc.

How about nuclear waste though? Where do we put that? I'm with you, it seems like humanity at large is hysterical beyond reasonable levels about radiation. However, it's not like it's completely harmless or unproblematic either.

Maybe - just maybe - we should just use less energy, so that the renewables suffice. Just a crazy idea.

qwertyboy• 13 years ago

Actually, fossil fuel power plants release more radioactive waste than nuclear ones.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Comparing_radioac...

Nuclear power really is a darn good solution to our energy problems, and is more feasible and entirely more humane than using less energy. Our growing energy demands are not just a result of us being spoiled, they are a direct result of our need to sustain more and more people. Cut down on the energy, and you quickly fund yourself cutting down on progress and on the welfare of the poor.

Progress has created a lot of problems, but we can't really slow down in any significant way. Our only hope is to use our momentum to find solutions.

VLM2• 13 years ago

"I blame the cold war propoganda for our irrational fear of nuclear energy."

That's interesting, certainly very complicated, but consider an occams razor explanation like "Dumb people almost always viciously hate whatever they don't understand, and (intentionally?) not too many people understand nukes, so ... "

elorant• 13 years ago

What about nuclear waste though? You end up with some tons of radioactive material which you have to store in high-security underground facilities with the hope that in some time in the future humanity will find a way to dispose it in a safer way.

scythe• 13 years ago

On the plus side, we are really good at it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X697yZBCN8w

nemof• 13 years ago

one possibility which has never seen the light of day:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor#Nuclear_w...

justatdotin5• 13 years ago

G'day mate, here in australia we're leading the world in nuclear waste storage. After giving our best scientists 30 years to spend on the question, we've finally brought it to a head, and are in the process of unveiling a state of the art solution.

here's what we've done: found a remote and isolated spot of land in the middle of a 3000km long highway. we've paid a pittance and reminded the small local indigenous community who actually own the land that they don't have any political, economic or social power. Their economic disempowerment was exacerbated a couple of years after they were targetted, when new apartheid-style laws quarantined welfare to natives. Their political disempowerment was reinforced by unprecedented laws that negate their rights as land owners and remove any possible legal obstacle to the dump plan.

Right, so with the social engineering out of the way, let's get into the nuts and bolts: we're gonna grade a dirt road onto a dry patch of land, and build a barbed wire shed. to hold the most highly radioactive nuclear wastes we produce.

I'm sure before too long the rest of the world will get on side to endorse the engineering, and of course site selection.

As we say down under, she'll be right mate!

Symmetry2• 13 years ago

Well, the really radioactive parts of the waste will decay after a fairly short number of years. With regards to the less radioactive, slower decaying part I'm not sure why we worry about it so much more than naturally occurring radioactive substances. There are streams in Colorado that are measurably radioactive because they interact with natural Uranium deposits but the levels are low enough to not pose a real public health hazard. I don't see why buried man-made radioactive substances are unacceptable when buried natural radioactive substances aren't.

colinshark• 13 years ago

The problem of radioactive waste...

Let's put it this way:

In exchange for clean, constant, domestically sourced, almost unlimited energy for an entire year, each person must dispose of or store their waste, which is the size of...

A pill of aspirin.

You could just put it in a little lead jar. That's all the waste. The alternative is fossil fuel waste, which would be...

10 tons of CO2 (volume = 5 American houses) which floats into the atmosphere, plus 2 tons of coal ash.

Of course, everyone can just pool their resources and put all the radioactive waste together. I don't consider it to be a very serious or unsolvable problem.

kmm• 13 years ago

Nuclear waste is stored very, very deep and secure. I cannot imagine future humans having the technology to open these up, without knowing what is in there. Either we lose all of our knowledge and no soul will ever see that site, or we stay an advanced civilization and we are warned of the dangers before opening the nuclear waste facilities.

Don't forget that uranium is found naturally in the ground, in geologically vastly more unstable regions, with water flowing through it. What we're doing is concentrating the radioactivity, and putting it deeper and safer. If you're afraid of mankind finding these waste sites in the future, are you not afraid of them finding uranium in their drinking water?

Pxtl3• 13 years ago

You can't make this argument in a vacuum. You need to compare it to the alternatives - most energy today is generated by burning fossil fuels, which might be the way to a global environmental apocalypse. An old mine containing dangerous chemicals seems pretty mild compared to depopulating Mexico.

Now obviously 100% clean means like wind and solar are preferred, but are those really viable at a global level?

gjnxfrnv• 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Nuclear_prolifera...

"Many technologies and materials associated with the creation of a nuclear power program have a dual-use capability, in that they can be used to make nuclear weapons if a country chooses to do so. "

kgarten2• 13 years ago

just watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Eternity_(film) for a start ... (it can silently kill even in generations).

blablabla1235• 13 years ago

>It's the energy source that has the fewest deaths per MWH produced

Source?

I want to remind that the nuclear material needs to be mined somewhere. I never worked in a Uranium mine but it's probably not the healthiest job in the world. Then the material needs to be transported, transported a long way. During this way it gets enriched, used, cooled down. Maybe even re-enriched, used, some part get stuck in walls, pipes ("contamination") etc. At some point it gets stored, somewhere in the ground. During this long way radiation and material gets emitted. Nuclear dust is cancerogenous for the lungs, radiation in general is suspected of boosting leucemia rates.

But the worst part in my opinion is this: NO insurance company in the world will insure a nuclear power plant.

mixmax2• 13 years ago

Here is a source - http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so...

Note that nuclear is significantly safer than even hydro and solar.

I think your fear of uranium mines is overblown, as these numbers are included in the calculations. Many more people die in coalmines.

Did you know that a coal plant emits significantly more radiation than a nuclear plant because coal is radioactive and isn't shielded like nuclear power plants?

dpark2• 13 years ago

> NO insurance company in the world will insure a nuclear power plant.

This is hardly a meaningful claim. Insurance companies in the US won't write flood insurance policies, either. This doesn't mean that your house is very likely to get washed away in a flood. It means that the business is not profitable because no one wants to pay the premiums required to insure for the worst-case, nor do insurance companies want to sit on the piles of cash necessary to insure these sorts of events.

As a counter-point, hydroelectric power plants are also not insured for worst-case scenarios. And when hydroelectric dams fail, the results can be orders of magnitude worse than Nuclear meltdown. e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

altcognito2• 13 years ago

I have a much simpler theory. Everytime an "event" occurs, nuclear scientists tell us, everything is ok, it is all handled, and then shortly thereafter, leaks are discovered to be worse than reported, handling of waste is done very poorly, or things just implode, as they did in Fukishama.

http://www.king5.com/news/investigators/Hanford-no-ENRAF-nuc...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/asia/tepco-says-wate...

Stop looking for elaborate answers. As a "lay" person, my impression is that their credibility is completely shot.

tbrownaw• 13 years ago

But the thing is, this is no worse than how "events" in other areas are handled. I don't trust reports of nuclear accidents any less than I trust reports of refinery or offshore oil-well or chemical plant or ... accidents.

Dn_Ab• 13 years ago

There is a lot of sense in this. From youth we've been trained that nuclear radiation is associated with cancer, Godzilla and mutant fish. My own irrational hate of Nuclear Fission plants comes from the hard learned lessons of Civilization 3; which teaches one to avoid building Nuclear plants due to the incredible rate of meltdowns and the subsequent massive death count and many turn loss of productive tiles. And global warming. Given all that, the level of trepidation around them should not come as a surprise. And if that isn't bad enough, fission plants are like airplanes. Crashes I mean.

People are afraid of Airplanes despite their incredible safety record because failure is spectacular and newsworthy. Consequence is concentrated and easily compartmentalized vs the more background event of the relatively near constant death from cars/coal (I wonder if this is leakage due to the brain reusing the smell cancellation modules on abstract frequencies like death rate). Similarly, the impact of meltdowns can be more viscerally felt in terms of relocation and ghost towning - even if they lead to little to no measured cancers or ill health (the worst case of incompetency in the form of Chernobyl is a fraction of the time integral health/death/radiative burden of coal plants to locals and workers). And to top it off, damage can be easily visualized in terms of three eyed fish, Godzilla and those ugly, ugly orange tiles. Shiver. Availability Heuristic at work.

At the same time I believe there is some cause for apprehension. It has to do with what the state current US infrastructure suggests on the real risks of a plant; failure of which might trigger an AI Winter type event at the worst possible time. The risk of Fission Plants is mainly in human competency and complacency. Will there be any corners cut in design and will operators become complacent due to extended runs of non-events? Will vital maintenance be done? I have not seen evidence that much of the world is ready for that kind of thing. The west is yes, mostly, but as the rest of the world comes online it would be preferable to have clean energy that doesn't jump to 50% chance of meltdown during revolts. So looking at alternative replacements at the same time as - instead of just focusing on -Nuclear is worthwhile.

A single large failure and human reaction to that kind of thing will lead to cascading moving away from Nuclear at just the time when it is most needed. It is thus in my opinion, better to do limited roll outs on newer incompetency resistant designs before any universal switching. Education on the nature of different types of radiation and their effects (focus on neutron vs bio, halflives vs waste), drastically reduced dangers to workers of nuclear vs coal plants, unloading the weighting on the bomb aspect of nuclear, probability theory, and shining a clarifying light on the stellar safety record of nuclear plants; will all go a long way towards solving the world's future energy problems.

As for me, while (I think) Civ 5 doesn't have that stupid penalty, the damage is already done. I will always recommend Solar and Hydro in place of Nuclear.

bfcapell• 13 years ago

None dead, because it doesn't matter how many decontamination workers die from leukemia or heart problems, it is never officially related to radiation.

None sick, because the increase in cancer that even the article mentions means nothing.

The thyroid cancer rate of Fukushima children is 79 times higher than usual. But "none sick". Yeah, whatever.

Udo5• 13 years ago

The article reads as if it was commissioned by Tepco directly. Nuclear power is not risk-free. Plants need to be operated with competent designs under the watchful eyes of competent engineers. None of which was the case at Fukushima. The argument that nuclear reactors are safer than coal is correct but misleading: it doesn't mean people get to ignore the dangers.

Contrary to what the article tries to evoke, the Fukushima meltdowns were a huge catastrophe that severely impacted a whole region. Ask the people who live(d) there if they think the impact of this thing was overstated in the media - they're likely to tell you if anything consequences were buried not exposed. Even if these very first statistics are true, there is likely to be more impact further down the road. There will be shortened lifespans as a result of exposure. There is massive economic damage as well. People's lives were severely affected. And let's not forget the destroyed reactors still aren't safe. There are very likely huge unpleasant surprises yet to be revealed.

I don't get why everything related to nuclear power gets discussed with this much emotion and propaganda. Let's not overreact, but let's also not underreact. Somewhere here there is a middle ground supported by facts and scientific judgement.

gmac3• 13 years ago

The argument that nuclear reactors are safer than coal is correct ... there is a middle ground supported by facts and scientific judgement

There's really no such thing as a 'correct' argument on these issues.

Maybe coal has fewer expected deaths per MW generated on average, but a nuclear plant's worst-case scenario is clearly substantially worse. Facts and scientific judgment can't really tell us in that case which is better: that's really only something that informed democratic deliberation can do (informed by science, economics, ethics, etc.).

Udo5• 13 years ago

> Maybe coal has fewer expected deaths per MW generated on average, but a nuclear plant's worst-case scenario is clearly substantially worse.

No, coal has dramatically more expected deaths. But, yes, nuclear disasters are potentially much worse if things go wrong. [http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/the-triumph-...]

> Facts and scientific judgment can't really tell us in that case which is better: that's really only something that informed democratic deliberation can do (informed by science, economics, ethics, etc.).

Again, I'm really not sure what the point is besides being contrarian ;) I'm certain that you are not telling me facts and scientific judgement don't matter? Or that popular opinion, informed by a host of factors, is somehow preferable to doing the right thing? Keep in mind I'm not even "taking sides" pro or con nuclear here, just advocating an informed discussion.

sampo• 13 years ago

> nuclear plant's worst-case scenario is clearly substantially worse

If 14-meter tsunami hitting a 70's build nuclear power plant isn't a worst case scenario, what is?

Also coal's worst case scenario is global climate change.

jsmeaton2• 13 years ago

But the article mentions the facts and scientific judgements:

> the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has drawn on 80 scientists from 18 countries to produce a draft report that concludes: "Radiation exposure following the nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi did not cause any immediate health effects. It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers.

What you've done is read (or not) an article discussing the findings of a bunch of independent commissions, decided that there must be something missing, and bemoaned the fact that people are applauding nuclear energy.

Udo5• 13 years ago

> What you've done is read (or not)

How about we assume that I've read the article before commenting on it, and while we're at it, how about doing away with the vitriol even when you don't like someone or their opinion?

> decided that there must be something missing, and bemoaned the fact that people are applauding nuclear energy.

I have indeed, for myself, decided there is something missing and I put my doubts out there for people to judge, and I believe I explained where I see the problems. I did express some reservations about the completeness of the picture as it is being rendered in the article and I do believe some measure of caution is advisable, yes.

dpapathanasiou• 13 years ago

Vice Japan did a fascinating story about a man who's been living inside the exclusion zone[1] and has yet to feel any ill effects of being exposed to radiation (though in the article, he was described as being a freak of nature in that regard).

[1] http://www.vice.com/jp/read/alone-in-the-zone-jp (Japanese)

[2] http://macaronics.com/article/2f7763d5d38a49c5aea761ce2fb2f9... (partially translated into English)

Symmetry2• 13 years ago

I don't think anyone is trying to argue that there wasn't a huge catastrophe that affected the region least of all this article. It was very clear on the thousand deaths that the evacuation caused beyond those caused by the Tsunami. What it argues is that the radiation from the disaster wasn't a huge catastrophe that people worried it was.

PacoLinux2• 13 years ago

http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/06/12-fukushima-children-dia...

PacoLinux2• 13 years ago

http://enenews.com/kyodo-27-fukushima-minors-with-confirmed-...

spauka• 13 years ago

From your link:

>Researchers at Fukushima Medical University, which has been taking the leading role in the study, have so far said they do not believe that the most recent cases are related to the nuclear crisis.

ohwp• 13 years ago

A very detailed summary of the radiation effects also states that there is no direct proof of people being sick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_Fukushim...

oelmekki• 13 years ago

Well, if "authoritative reports" say so, it must be true !

Wait, "if author says so", since he doesn't provide any source other than "aristoteles dixit".

It reminds me tchernobyl fallout, here in France, when government said there were no impact on our territory, before being proven wrong (and lying) almost 20 years later : http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/local_news/france-hid-info-o...

VeejayRampay• 13 years ago

Fukushima happened a mere 2 years ago, isn't it a bit soon to draw conclusions when you know that nuclear-induced cancers and illnesses can sometimes be triggered dozens of years later? I am not an expert about that particular subject by any means, but it does seem a bit premature at this point.

tonyplee• 13 years ago

How many of you who think Nuclear power is safe will

   Visit within 10, 5 miles of Fukoshima power plant ?
   Take your kid(s) there?
   Eat any food produce there in next 5, 10, 20 year? 
   Won't move or leave the area if the government give order to evacuate?
   Won't file any lawsuit against the power company when something happen? 

   Or will knowing buy a house, start a family within evacuation zone (20, 30 miles) to Japan coastal nuclear power plant if it 30, 40, 50% cheaper for similar house AND if you can afford not to?

    Won't object at all after you purchase a house and some company decide to build a nuclear power plant within 20 miles of your house?

    I am an engineer and also think it is safe, but it can't be in my backyard or within 100 miles of silicon valley.  It is perfect safe, good for the environment and produce a lot less CO2 - in Japan.

donpark• 13 years ago

I think finding 80 scientists from 18 countries actually willing to live in Fukushima for two years better proof of nuclear power safety.

skore• 13 years ago

They mean humans. No humans dead, none sick. Allswell, then, I guess.

patrickg_zill• 13 years ago

I wonder exactly how much access the scientists had to the raw data - TEPCO has lied before.

I would offer the journalist, all-expenses paid including food (and fed by fish caught in the general area), internet, housing, to live within 10km of the plant, for 1 year with his wife and children.

Would he take me up on the offer?

BTW, articles like this seem to show that long-term effects can be expected: http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130429/srep01742/full/srep01...

gasull• 13 years ago

Study: 28% Increase In Thyroid Problems In Babies Born After Fukushima in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-04-03/study-almost...

humain• 13 years ago

What are two years compared to a gigantic pollution of products that will stay dangerous for 300 years?

What a pro-nuclear disinformation article! That's a shame but so classic of general disinformation on this subject. Costs, dangers, reality of contamination, waste dangers, ... just listen to real independent scientists and concerned actors. The writer and its commissioners don't live in contaminated areas, and they probably don't care about future of these populations. Listen to real people there, for example search for "Women of Fukushima" videos : www.women-of-fukushima.com

A few simple facts : 27 years after Tchernobyl, 3 children out of 4 are ill in Bielarus. 2 years after Fukushima, twelve children of Fukushima have confirmed thyroid cancer et 15 are suspected.

Shame!

Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

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