

A voice of reason speaks of the tragedies in Japan. - RiderOfGiraffes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12785274

======
jim_h
In light of all the news on the Japanese nuclear power plants, I found this
(below) radiation dose chart (from xcd) helpful. It does not seem like there's
too much to be concerned about regarding radiation. They unfortunately have
bigger issues to deal with.

<http://xkcd.com/radiation/>

~~~
groks
<http://www.peakoilblues.org/blog/?p=2630>

------
e40
I think the reason people are focusing on the nuclear threat is that it is
still in the future, whereas the tsunami is done and is no longer threatening.
Sure, the carnage left in its wake is still there, but you don't need to fear
it.

~~~
tptacek
People in the US don't need to fear either event, and yet they covered the
nuke crisis almost to the exclusion of the tsunami. Is the point the article
makes.

~~~
vacri
I don't get that from the article at all. The article mostly seems apologism
for nuclear power, and neatly sidesteps how such a disaster can make large
areas uninhabitable. When you're the size of Russia, losing an area like
Chernobyl is barely a scratch. When you're the size of Japan, with people
squished in everywhere, there is no space to lose.

~~~
tptacek
You might try the lede:

 _The apocalyptic visions of destruction brought by the Japanese earthquake
and subsequent tsunami have been largely replaced in the media this week by
reports of the struggle to control radiation from the stricken Fukushima
nuclear plant._

Japan hasn't lost any area. Unlike Chernobyl's reactors, which were still
fissioning at the time of the disaster, Japan's were not stuffed full of
burning graphite.

~~~
patio11
It may not be obvious from media reports, but Daiichi's 1, 2, and 3 reactors
were in full operation when hit by the earthquake, and all three successfully
executed emergency shutdowns within a matter of seconds. This was the single
most important thing to happen, since It reduced the heat generation virtually
immediately, without which it it is highly likely that at least one would have
lost containment prior to emergency measures of the last few days working. The
lack of graphite may have made that survivable for Japan, but the plant itself
would have been virtually impossible to recover, and continuing failures would
have been very, very bad for neighboring communities. (They'll probably all
get to go back a few weeks after the plant is secured.)

Some minutes _after_ the earthquake, the tsunami physically hit Daiichi and
Daini. (You haven't heard of Daini in about a week because we've reestablished
control there.) It wiped out their diesel generators and external power lines,
because both had tolerances in the five to six meter range for tsunamis and
the actual wVe was nine to ten.

Things, incredibly, still didn't go to pot immediately. They worked on battery
backup for a few hours, but couldn't get an emergency plan in operation in
time without power. That's when things started to get bad, principally with
overheating from waste heat causing radioactive steam/hydrogen explosions,
which were the first cause of radioactivity spikes and have complicated all
the disaster response since. (Though, perversely, the fact that Daiichi 3 had
a steam/hydrogen explosion blow the roof off made the spent fuel pool
accessible to water delivered without entering the building, without which
getting a hose inside would have been a one-way trip.)

------
paganel
> It has been estimated that 17 million were exposed to significant radiation
> after Chernobyl and nearly 2,000 people have since developed thyroid cancer
> having consumed contaminated food and milk as children.

Citation needed for this one, other than one coming from an industry-lobbyist
like IAEA.

~~~
paganel
Me replying to me own comment, and because I've just seen that he's posted an
Update linking to an UN study, here's a link to a book written on the effects
of Chernobyl which presents a much bigger number:

[http://books.google.com/books?id=g34tNlYOB3AC&lpg=PA186&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=g34tNlYOB3AC&lpg=PA186&ots=O15TiPU2a8&dq=romania%20cancer%20rates%20chernobyl&pg=PA185#v=onepage&q&f=false)

I can tell you that in the case of my country, Romania, the numbers are
probably even higher because of a lot of mis-reporting (voluntary or not), or
just plain stupidity from the doctors when it came to diagnosing (just fyi, we
had close to 7,000 kids "accidentally" infected with HIV at at the end of the
'80s).

~~~
paganel
And also, a very interesting extract from Wikipedia's entry on one of the
authors of the above book: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassili_Nesterenko>

> Because of his activities, he lost his job and got problems with the State
> Security Agency of Belarus, which threatened him with internment in a
> psychiatric asylum. Later, however, the Belarusian government tried to
> soften him proposing him to get back a job in a state institute, "at the
> condition that he would not work on Chernobyl anymore." He escaped two
> assassination attempts.[1]

> Nesterenko intervened immediately after news of the accident in the nuclear
> power plant started to spread. As an expert on the subject and with his
> experience as a fire fighter, he threw liquid nitrogen containers from a
> helicopter on the burning reactor core. To do this he had to move into the
> middle of radioactive smoke. Despite the heavy radioactive contamination of
> the area, Nesterenko survived. However, of the four passengers of his
> helicopter, three died from radioactive irradiation and contamination.[1]

