
Fukushima: A second Chernobyl? - cJ0th
http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima-a-second-chernobyl/
======
jessriedel
Echoing mpweiher's comment ("the most significant damage is not from
radiation, but from fear of radiation"), keep in mind that no one died from
radiation during or in the immediate aftermath of the accident:

> Though there have been no fatalities linked to radiation due to the
> accident, the eventual number of cancer deaths, according to the Linear no-
> threshold theory of radiation safety, that will be caused by the accident is
> expected to be around 130-640 people in the years and decades
> ahead.[12][13][14] The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of
> Atomic Radiation[15] and World Health Organization report that there will be
> no increase in miscarriages, stillbirths or physical and mental disorders in
> babies born after the accident.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami)

The expected statistical increase in cancer deaths (~hundreds) can be compared
to the 15,000 people killed in the rest of Japan due to the Tsunami.

~~~
berntb
That is also assuming that cancer treatments won't get better with time,
right?

Also, "Linear no-threshold theory of radiation safety" sounds strange? For
e.g. gamma radiation, cancer risk is very far from linearly correlated.

Edit: Iirc from course literature a long time ago, a DNA break from gamma
radiation is repairable. So for a permanent mutation to happen, there had to
be two hits of radiation close together _before_ the first damage could be
repaired. (Also, as links were given in comments, the self repair functions
seem to be healthy. So when radiation forces a start of the helpful self
repair mechanism, the end result for low radiation levels might be better for
health if the repair mechanism adds more to health than the radiation harms.)

~~~
jessriedel
Well, the linear assumption is only applied in the limit of low doses. The
problem is that for many large-population radiation exposures, the total
release is dominated by very small dosages to very large numbers of people,
and we're not able to extract the dosage-response curve from data for
arbitrarily small dosages. (If I get one extra gamma ray, does my risk of
cancer rise by 10^-10? Hard to check...) There are alternative theories that
small amounts of radiation are neutral or even positive since they are within
the natural radiation background and the body has various mutation repair
machinery.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis)

However, these theories tend to be emphasized by nuclear-power proponents, and
of course the data doesn't say.

In any case, I believe the linear no-threshold model is consistent with the
data and is generally considered conservative (i.e., an upper limit on the
number of ill-effects).

------
cthalupa
This article comes across as fairly exploitative to me. It's full of constant
self promotion, hyperbolic parallels being drawn, and leading questions. The
photographs are certainly fantastic, but the idea that Fukushima is anything
like Chernobyl just isn't even remotely scientific.

It's hard to believe the author's claims that this is done for the people that
have suffered through this when you juxtapose those claims against the
repeated mentions of just how popular his work has been and how many people
have seen it and how important it is.

Am I the only one that feels this way?

~~~
2AF3
In what way is it not worse than Chernobyl? Fukushima is a triple meltdown and
the cores are not entombed in concrete. If people die from Fukushima they will
die of cancer and not 'radiation' so we won't know the real mortality numbers
for a long time.

~~~
zymhan
Because Chernobyl spread a radioactive gas cloud across Europe that likely
caused tens of thousands of extra cancer cases and deaths.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disas...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster)

As another poster pointed out, so many more people died from the actual
tsunami than have or will die from the Fukushima meltdown.

~~~
andybak
> that likely caused tens of thousands of extra cancer cases and deaths.

From a very quick reading of that (fairly complex) Wikipedia article - 'tens
of thousands' needs to be caveated rather heavily. Estimates range wildly and
disagreements about methodology abound.

Some example quotes:

> The total deaths reliably attributable by UNSCEAR to the radiation produced
> by the accident therefore was 62.

> The full version of the WHO health effects report [...] predicted that, in
> total, 9000 will die from cancer among the 6.9 million most-exposed Soviet
> citizens. This report is not free of controversy, and has been accused of
> trying to minimize the consequences of the accident.

> Greenpeace suggested there will be 270,000 cases of cancer attributable to
> Chernobyl fallout, and that 93,000 of these will probably be fatal.

So - it seems estimates range from 62 to 270,000...

I'm not qualified to determine which end of that range is the most plausible.

~~~
mpweiher
"considerable uncertainty ... estimates point to several thousand deaths ...
will be indiscernible from the background of overall deaths in the population
group. The estimate does not substantiate earlier claims that tens or even
hundreds of thousands of deaths will be caused by radiation exposures from the
Chernobyl accident" \- [1] p2

"The mental health impact of Chernobyl is the largest public health problem
caused by the accident to date" \-- [1] p95

One thing to note is that these estimates have been dropping consistently over
the years as more data has become available.

[1] Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident and Special Health Care Programs,
World Health Organization
[http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/43447/1/9241594179_...](http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/43447/1/9241594179_eng.pdf)
(2006)

------
mpweiher
So as usual, the most significant damage is not from radiation, but from fear
of radiation.

~~~
merb
there was damage done. but most the radiated stuff fall into the ocean, where
people just didn't cared / cared enough. tepco actually hide most of it and
didn't took that seriously, as of today it's still not clear how much
contained material was going to the ocean.

Just reading Wiki:

>
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fuk...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Water_releases)

I mean diggin deeper makes this actually worse. I mean like nearly no news
about that, just like "if it doesn't affect us we don't care". I mean
seriously? Why does nobody takes this more serious?

Most people analyze the air, yeah great that's serious, but we should also
take more care about things which basically don't affect us "directly".
nuclear plant's in earthquake or landscape's which are effected by nature
catastrophes once in a while should be forbidden.

~~~
mikeash
People don't care about the stuff going into the ocean because the ocean
dilutes it to the point where it just doesn't matter.

This isn't something we want to be doing regularly, but for a one-off event it
is ignorable.

------
chrishacken
"When protesting against the construction and re-starting of subsequent
nuclear power plants,"

This mindset really aggravates me. Instead of restarting nuclear power plants
with additional safety precautions, you'd rather have CO2 emitting fossil fuel
plants running instead? Those are arguably much more harmful to the collective
health of Japan, and the world, in the long run.

------
guscost
Not even close. Comparing the two events in such a way is extremely
irresponsible.

[https://guscost.com/2011/03/14/nuclear-
meltdowns/](https://guscost.com/2011/03/14/nuclear-meltdowns/)

------
pitaj
No. This kind of exaggerated spin on nuclear "disasters" is not only
misleading, but harmful. If nuclear power was more prevalent, it would result
in economic growth due to practically free power, and would also reduce our
dependence on fossil fuels _drastically_.

------
ggreer
This looks like an update to his original post about Fukushima
([http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/](http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/))
which was discussed on HN last year:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10256419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10256419)

------
wongarsu
For me, the most interesting part were the two very contrasting television
reports at the end of the article (both with english subtitle). The Japanese
video focusing on how evacuees have found a new life, and how some are hoping
to come back within a few years, and the German video focusing on the
destruction and how a complete cleanup will take decades.

~~~
Gibbon1
I tell people that based on Chernobyl and Three Mile Island they will be
dealing with cleaning up Fukushima for the next fifty years. From memory it
wasn't until the early 90's that they finished removing the fuel from TMI.
Chernobyl they are still finishing up the New Safe Confinement. Would not
surprise me (if I was still around, which I won't be) that they'll still be
working on clean up in the next century.

------
dmh2000
no one was killed but the outcome was pretty expensive. Was it worth it?

~~~
vonmoltke
The outcome was expensive because it as a gross overreaction.

------
mzw_mzw
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." \-
Betteridge's Law of Headlines

