Merged: nuclear power safe?

[shadron]

Originally Posted by r-j

"The authors believe that this may reflect the fact that many species in the most contaminated regions of Chernobyl have now almost completely disappeared."

Yep, a tsunami sure messed up them birds there.

Well, we certainly do enjoy reading the delightful articles from enenews.com (like this one: "Why Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl; “Now the truth is coming out” — 72,000 times worse than Hiroshima & 1 million+ cancer deaths, says professor August 29, 2011"). When do we get to read the evidence from a journal? Do you think they'll be "believ[ing] that this may reflect" in the journal article as well? Do you think they'll say anything about Chernobyl in the article? No, I don't think so either, but I guess we'll just have to wait to separate the facts from the speculation.

However, it appears that this thread has gone into an area well beyond facts here.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Originally Posted by r-j

Yep, a tsunami sure messed up them birds there.

First off, Fukushima is nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl.

Second, we know from established authorities in the field of nuclear safety and engineering that the area around Fukushima is safe for human habitation.

Third, did you notice this part of the article you quoted?

In July 2011, the researchers identified and counted birds at 300 locations in Fukushima Prefecture, ranging from 15 to 30 miles from the damaged nuclear complex. Largely still open to human occupation, these areas had external radiation levels from 0.5 to 35 microsieverts per hour.

They checked only around Fukushima. They can't have reached any scientifically valid conclusions because they didn't also check everywhere else affected by the quake and tsunami.

[jimbob]

Any views as to whether TEPCO n particular is a suitable organisation to run nuclear power plants? As opposed to questions of the safety or otherwise of nuclear power from properly controlled organisations?

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by JihadJane

I don't understand your point, Corsair 115.

The point is why didn't you just link to the actual report rather than a summary article from somewhere else which paints the report's contents in alarmist tones? No need to add spin to the data; let the data speak for itself.

Originally Posted by r-j

Yeah, cause any mention of damage from radiation is like being scared of an oil spill. Just trust the company, the oil/radiation/coal/mercury/(insert pollutant of choice here) isn't really dangerous. And no huge corporation would ever lie about anything like that.

See above. Any time you insist on putting spin on data I'm going to question your reasons for doing so. Let the data speak for itself.

Originally Posted by r-j

"The authors believe that this MAY reflect the fact that many species in the most contaminated regions of Chernobyl have now almost completely disappeared."

You apparently missed the key word from the quote of the report you offered as to what may be happening around Fukushima. I've emphasized it above.

[Dr.Sid]

Birds will be affected heavily by tsunami .. as long as they build nests on the ground and trees. And tsunami hit during spring, and destroyed most of food sources. So any birds who survived, would most probably simply move away.

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by jimbob

Any views as to whether TEPCO n particular is a suitable organisation to run nuclear power plants? As opposed to questions of the safety or otherwise of nuclear power from properly controlled organisations?

They would probably more suitable today to run power plant, because the next management will almost certainly hover on the side of security rather than having a repeat.

[a_unique_person]

Originally Posted by jimbob

Any views as to whether TEPCO n particular is a suitable organisation to run nuclear power plants? As opposed to questions of the safety or otherwise of nuclear power from properly controlled organisations?

The answer would have to be no. However, this appears to be much more than just one 'rotten apple'. The problem is the tight links between TEPCO and the legal/political arm of Japanese society, which meant that governance was bad.

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by Aepervius

Originally Posted by jimbob

Any views as to whether TEPCO n particular is a suitable organisation to run nuclear power plants? As opposed to questions of the safety or otherwise of nuclear power from properly controlled organisations?

They would probably more suitable today to run power plant, because the next management will almost certainly hover on the side of security rather than having a repeat.

One might have thought that, but they already have had a history of organisational failures, the revelation of which haven't prevent subsequent failures. This suggests that the organisation isn't learning.

[kowalskil]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

First off, Fukushima is nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl. ...

That is true, as far as I know.
.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

More bad news (for the anti-nuke kooks) out of Japan:

Quote:

One year after Fukushima, independent scientists working for the UN say bluntly that irrational fears of radiation poisoning will cause far more harm than the radiation itself. Not a single individual from the Japanese public received a dangerous dose, according to the early and informal analyses by the scientists. (Conspiracy theories cannot survive against the constant independent radiation measurements uploaded on Twitter.) Even the 70 altruistic plant workers who stayed behind gained an additional cancer risk of just 0.002% -- effectively zero in a country where four out of ten people get cancer.

Unless the anti-nuclear lobby heads to Japan and starts killing people themselves, the mass casualty event they've been hoping and praying for ain't gonna happen.

[Argumemnon]

But... but... it has "nuclear" in it !!!

[JihadJane]

'Commission Calls Fukushima Nuclear Crisis a Man-Made Disaster'

""""TOKYO — The nuclear accident at Fukushima was a preventable disaster rooted in government-industry collusion and the worst conformist conventions of Japanese culture, a parliamentary inquiry concluded on Thursday.

The report, released by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, also warned that the plant may have been damaged by the earthquake on March 11, 2011, even before the arrival of a tsunami — a worrying concern as the quake-prone country starts to bring its reactor fleet back online.

The commission challenged some of the main story lines that the government and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has put forward to explain what went wrong in the early days of the crisis.

“It was a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented. And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response,” Kiyoshi Kurokawa, the commission’s chairman and the former head of Tokyo University’s Department of Medicine, said in the report’s introduction.""""

[My bold -JJ]

[Cuddles]

In other words, if people actually learn the lessons from this disaster (which still hasn't killed anyone), nuclear power could be even safer in the future since much of the problem was due to human errors and not inherent to nuclear power. It's not great news for the people involved since it suggests they weren't doing their jobs properly, but other than that it's nice to hear that one of the safest forms of power generation we have could be even safer.

[Puppycow]

Here's the WAPO story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...EPW_story.html

Quote:

“What must be admitted — very painfully – is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan,’ ” investigation Chairman Kiyoshi Kurokawa wrote in the introduction to the report. “Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.”

[JihadJane]

Originally Posted by Cuddles

In other words, if people actually learn the lessons from this disaster (which still hasn't killed anyone),

Lol. Radiation can takes decades to kill people and death isn't the only unpleasant thing in life! How do you plan to ascertain that radiation pollution from Fukushima will have no negative effects on anybody's lives?

Quote:

....nuclear power could be even safer in the future..,

lol -great advertising speak!

Quote:

...since much of the problem was due to human errors and not inherent to nuclear power. It's not great news for the people involved since it suggests they weren't doing their jobs properly, but other than that it's nice to hear that one of the safest forms of power generation we have could be even safer.

Nuclear power cannot function without humans.

Earlier in this thread posters were (IIRC) saying how this disaster couldn't be seen as a blot on nuclear power because the exceptional magnitude of natural disasters couldn't have been predicted. They also celebrated how the reactors survived the earthquake. Both arguments have proved to be rubbish.

Originally Posted by Puppycow

Here's the WAPO story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...EPW_story.html

Of course no other country operating nuclear power could have any similarly disastrous cultural traits such as corruption and cost-cutting, for example...

[DC]

Originally Posted by JihadJane

Lol. Radiation can takes decades to kill people and death isn't the only unpleasant thing in life! How do you plan to ascertain that radiation pollution from Fukushima will have no negative effects on anybody's lives?





lol -great advertising speak!



Nuclear power cannot function without humans.

Earlier in this thread posters were (IIRC) saying how this disaster couldn't be seen as a blot on nuclear power because the exceptional magnitude of natural disasters couldn't have been predicted. They also celebrated how the reactors survived the earthquake. Both arguments have proved to be rubbish.




Of course no other country operating nuclear power could have any similarly disastrous cultural traits such as corruption and cost-cutting, for example...

oh well when our reactors will be hit by a tsunami i will have alot other things to worry about.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by JihadJane

Lol. Radiation can takes decades to kill people

You know what else can kill people over decades?

Old age.

Quote:

Nuclear power cannot function without humans.

That's not actually true. But so what? Lots of things don't function without humans. Given that we live in a society of humans, the fact that some things we make and use for humans also require humans is, well, not that big a deal.

Quote:

Of course no other country operating nuclear power could have any similarly disastrous cultural traits such as corruption and cost-cutting, for example...

But it wasn't that disastrous. The tsunami itself dwarfed the effects of the nuclear accident it triggered.

[Puppycow]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

But it wasn't that disastrous. The tsunami itself dwarfed the effects of the nuclear accident it triggered.

Or to look at it from a different angle, it was disastrous in a different way:

The tsunami clearly killed more people, but the nuclear accident rendered a large area uninhabitable for decades, with about 125,000 displaced. It's also made people afraid to buy agricultural products from anywhere in Fukushima or even neighboring prefectures.

[a_unique_person]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

But it wasn't that disastrous. The tsunami itself dwarfed the effects of the nuclear accident it triggered.

You moved the goal posts. The tsunami was out of our control, as the report shows, the nuclear disaster was entirely within our control. Safety evaluations of the site showed that the pumps were vulnerable to flooding, and nothing was done, even though it would have been relatively inexpensive to remedy.

[a_unique_person]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

More bad news (for the anti-nuke kooks) out of Japan:



Unless the anti-nuclear lobby heads to Japan and starts killing people themselves, the mass casualty event they've been hoping and praying for ain't gonna happen.

The thing was, when they went in, they had no idea what they were facing. TEPCO was ready to abandon the site, which would have been a disaster, when all along, all it needed was some quick attention to what needed to be done.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Originally Posted by JihadJane

“It was a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented. [/i]""""

[My bold -JJ]

You and I have discussed this before.

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

Originally Posted by JihadJane

"On 20 June Moody's Investors Service obligingly cut its credit rating on TEPCO to junk status and kept the operator of Japan's crippled nuclear power plant on review for possible further downgrade, citing uncertainty over the fate of its bailout plan."

TEPCO pretty well deserves it. My industry contacts have been far less impressed with TEPCOs performance in the wake of the quake and tsunami than they have with the reactors they built 30 and 40 years ago.

You still have nothing to say about the general safety of nuclear energy.

[a_unique_person]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

You and I have discussed this before.

Assements of the site noted the weaknesses in the backup generator plan.

[a_unique_person]

Today, Tepco claims a tapes of conferences will be released. One tape of the PM giving them some heated instructions has a drop out of audio, due to a hard disk filling up. The video is intact however.

I don't think that's possible.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-1...2?WT.svl=news1

[elgarak]

Originally Posted by a_unique_person

Today, Tepco claims a tapes of conferences will be released. One tape of the PM giving them some heated instructions has a drop out of audio, due to a hard disk filling up. The video is intact however.

I don't think that's possible.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-1...2?WT.svl=news1

Yeah, theoretically it's possible.

Just very, very, very unlikely that anyone would produce a system that behaved like that.

[JihadJane]

Some good news for nuclear health freaks - the elixir of life, life-enhancing radioactive cesium 137, is coming to America's shores!

'Radiation On West Coast of North America Could End Up Being 10 Times HIGHER than in Japan'

[Dr.Sid]

Concentration of Cs137 is 10 times higher then in sea near Japan at the moment. As they don't state absolute numbers, it's hard to say how total radiation is compared to Japan.

[Puppycow]

They put the worst-case scenario in the headline:

Fukushima Radiation May Cause 1,300 Cancer Deaths: Study

But the best estimate is much lower:

Quote:

The best estimates of cancer cases resulting from the Fukushima disaster is 180, and range from 24 to 2,500, yesterday’s study said.

The most likely number of cancer deaths is 130 and estimated to range from 15 to 1,300, the authors said, adding that the ranges reflect uncertainties about emissions and the methods the researchers used to calculate their impact.

“They have demonstrated there are no significant public health effects” from radiation exposure, said Evan Douple, associate chief of research at the Hiroshima Radiation Effects Research Foundation. “Their best estimate of 130 cancer deaths in Japan would be lost in the background wash of the hundreds of thousands of cancer deaths that would be occurring in the million or so people in the population exposed.”

ETA:
If it's only 130 extra deaths it would be pretty much impossible to detect because that's well within the error bar of the total number of expected cases of cancer.
Basically, you can round it down to "no significant public health effects" as in "not statistically significant."

ETA2: Just for perspective:
Air pollution

Quote:

The World Health Organization states that 2.4 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution, with 1.5 million of these deaths attributable to indoor air pollution.[16] "Epidemiological studies suggest that more than 500,000 Americans die each year from cardiopulmonary disease linked to breathing fine particle air pollution. . ."[17] A study by the University of Birmingham has shown a strong correlation between pneumonia related deaths and air pollution from motor vehicles.[18] Worldwide more deaths per year are linked to air pollution than to automobile accidents.[citation needed] Published in 2005 suggests that 310,000 Europeans die from air pollution annually.[citation needed] Causes of deaths include aggravated asthma, emphysema, lung and heart diseases, and respiratory allergies.[citation needed] The US EPA estimates that a proposed set of changes in diesel engine technology (Tier 2) could result in 12,000 fewer premature mortalities, 15,000 fewer heart attacks, 6,000 fewer emergency room visits by children with asthma, and 8,900 fewer respiratory-related hospital admissions each year in the United States.[citation needed]

Although estimates for Japan are not given, a rough estimate based on US rates adjusted for Japan's population would be ca. 200,000 deaths/year due to air pollution.

130 extra deaths due to cancer spread out over multiple decades is like nothing compared to that.

[JihadJane]

'Japan's nuclear disaster avoidable, utility admits

Company feared effects of new safety measures'

Originally Posted by Ottawa Citizen

The utility behind Japan's nuclear disaster acknowledged for the first time Friday that it could have avoided the crisis.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in a statement that it had known safety improvements were needed before last year's tsunami triggered three meltdowns, but it had feared the political, economic and legal consequences of implementing them.

"When looking back on the accident, the problem was that preparations were not made in advance," TEPCO's internal reform task force, led by company President Naomi Hirose, said in the statement. "Could necessary measures have been taken with previous tsunami evaluations? It was possible to take action" by adopting more extensive safety measures, the task force said.

The task force said TEPCO had feared efforts to better protect nuclear facilities from severe accidents such as tsunamis would trigger anti-nuclear sentiment, interfere with operations or increase litigation risks. TEPCO could have mitigated the impact of the accident if it had diversified power and cooling systems by paying closer attention to international standards and recommendations, the statement said. TEPCO also should have trained employees with practical crisis management skills rather than conduct obligatory drills as a formality, it said.

The admissions mark a major reversal for the utility, which had defended its preparedness and crisis management since the March 2011 tsunami. The disaster knocked out power to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, leading to the meltdowns, which forced massive evacuations and will take decades to clean up.

[JihadJane]

Originally Posted by Puppycow

They put the worst-case scenario in the headline:

Fukushima Radiation May Cause 1,300 Cancer Deaths: Study

But the best estimate is much lower:


ETA:
If it's only 130 extra deaths it would be pretty much impossible to detect because that's well within the error bar of the total number of expected cases of cancer.
Basically, you can round it down to "no significant public health effects" as in "not statistically significant."

ETA2: Just for perspective:
Air pollution



Although estimates for Japan are not given, a rough estimate based on US rates adjusted for Japan's population would be ca. 200,000 deaths/year due to air pollution.

130 extra deaths due to cancer spread out over multiple decades is like nothing compared to that.

We'd better get rid of motor vehicles as well, then.

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by JihadJane

We'd better get rid of motor vehicles as well, then.

And coal plant.

We could handle the situation rationally and evaluate advanatge and disadvantage of each tech compared to the needs we have , forget gut fears about "nookleaar", and concentrate on real effects compared to what we already accepts as human life loss (like the thousands diying of car acccidents , the innumerable death due to air polution, coal plants etc...).

Or we could run around like headless chicken yelling sound bytes "nooklear we are all dooomed doooooooomed !".

[JihadJane]

A chance for all fans of radiation** to secure yourself a healthy dose. Fukushima needs more workers.


'NHK: Concerns rising at Fukushima plant — 16,000 workers have quit, ‘severe working conditions’ blamed (VIDEO)'






**Radiation is well-known for its health-promoting, life-prolonging properties.

[jimbob]

Fukushima Workers Sue TEPCO For March 2011 Injuries

[shadron]

Originally Posted by JihadJane

Some good news for nuclear health freaks - the elixir of life, life-enhancing radioactive cesium 137, is coming to America's shores!

'Radiation On West Coast of North America Could End Up Being 10 Times HIGHER than in Japan'

It appears to me that at best the paper prophesies that the total amount of the contamination from Japan in, say, the year following the breakdown, will appear off the west coast, spread from Alaska through Mexico for a distance of several hundred miles outward, before simply dispersing throughout the whole Pacific. At that point there will be more radiation off California than off Japan in an absolute sense (providing the effluent past the Japanese coast stops), but it will be very dilute; the article quotes a figure of 10 bq/m^3, which is laughably small. Natural well water in Finland reaches 220 bq/liter from radon, for example, a radiation concentration 22,000x higher. Processed water itself has 20 bq/liter.

[babycondor]

Originally Posted by shadron

...At that point there will be more radiation off California than off Japan in an absolute sense (providing the effluent past the Japanese coast stops), but it will be very dilute; the article quotes a figure of 10 bq/m^3, which is laughably small. Natural well water in Finland reaches 220 bq/liter from radon, for example, a radiation concentration 22,000x higher. Processed water itself has 20 bq/liter.

It's a bit confusing to compare concentrations of cesium 137 to radon, in cubic meters vs liters. Yes, both are forms of radiation, but are they comparable in this manner?

The most useful information pertains to the practical significance of these concentrations, such as the incidence of cancer and birth defects, and comparisons to "normal" background levels.

The reader comments on the linked Zero Hedge article contain some good observations from a skeptical perspective, by the way.

[shadron]

Originally Posted by babycondor

It's a bit confusing to compare concentrations of cesium 137 to radon, in cubic meters vs liters. Yes, both are forms of radiation, but are they comparable in this manner?

The most useful information pertains to the practical significance of these concentrations, such as the incidence of cancer and birth defects, and comparisons to "normal" background levels.

Comparing radon and cesium might seem off to you, but as it happens the sources of the radiation are less important than the fact that both are radiation. The radiation is question is discrete particles; the measurement unit "becquerel" (bq) is the occurrence of a single particle from a decay event per second, regardless of the source. The radioactivity from radon is mainly alpha radiation, while the cesium is beta; these are fairly comparable in that alphas are rated as 20 to 1 harsher in effect than beta; see sievert^WP. Thus my comparison of a harsher radiation type, higher in concentration (both numerically and by a factor of 1000 in a smaller volume [there should be no confusion over liter vs cubic meter]) was meant to qualitatively point to a lack of impression on my part with the amount of radiotides in the ocean water off SF.

Twenty years ago such small concentrations of radiotides would have been unmeasurable; they are today unmeasurable in chemical terms; they are only detected because of their radioactivity. Today they are scare headlines from the anti-nuclear power media.

I agree that it would be appropriate to put the dosage in more human terms. Unfortunately, the arguments as to how exactly to do that are still wrapped in controversy and as yet unexplored data. That started when studies of the Japanese exposed to radiation in Hiroshima/Nagasaki showed that for the data available, it appeared that harm caused by radiation was roughly linear to the amount of radiation dose; this is the "Linear No-Threshold" theory. Unfortunately, the data was very sparse in the mini-dose region. Further data from Chernobyl in particular seems by many researchers to deny the LNT model in low intensity situations, but rather support a non-linear "hormesis" theory, in which the body's immune system takes a hand in helping cells recover from radiation damage. Since this has an obvious dimension in the nuke/anti-nuke power debate, don't expect quick resolution.

Scientists have taken a step in that direction, though, in declaring a unit of radioactivity which quantifies the biological action of various radiation types and their targets. The "sievert" (SI unit of equivalence to the older unit REM, or radiation equivalent man) does sort out the types of radiation and how they interact with the body. 4.50 sieverts (450 REM) is the amount of absorbed radiation which has a 50/50 chance of killing the recipient human, regardless of source (alpha, beta, fission event) or target (whole body, head, heart, hand). That leaves only the manner in which objective measurements (such as mentioned for Cs137 or radon above) can be converted to seiverts. That is difficult. For a look at important numbers in this realm, see http://xkcd.com/radiation/ .

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Originally Posted by bikerdruid

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

Do you know how many people have died at Fukushima, BD?

let's leave that question for a few days.

It's been two years.

Still no confirmed radiation casualties.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

It's been two years.

Still no confirmed radiation casualties.

Better call the CDC, because that burn is sick.

:P

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

It's been two years.

Still no confirmed radiation casualties.

Three years now, still waiting.

Yes, I logged in for the first time in months just to say that.

[tyr_13]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

Three years now, still waiting.

Yes, I logged in for the first time in months just to say that.

I'd like to nominate that for some award, I just don't know for what.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

I'm sure you'll think of something before March 11th, 2015. It's not likely there'll be anything to draw attention back to this thread before then.