
First contact made with melted nuclear fuel at Fukushima plant - howard941
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201902140041.html
======
ChuckMcM
While I realize it was likely impractical to meltdown reactors just to develop
the technology to clean them up, I find the process here pretty interesting. A
lot of good engineering has gone into the effort, and the engineering
challenges (and risks) of post runaway reactors has gotten a lot more data.

The Chernobyl folks just entombed everything, which is a one approach, even
though they can "walk up to"[1] the remains of the nuclear fuel which they
call the "elephant foot."

I also find it interesting that the "China Syndrome"[2] speculation is pretty
much completely debunked. Molten/melted fuel diffuses into the material it is
melting into until it loses criticality and then freezes where ever it is. All
modern reactors have a borosilicate sand pile underneath the reactor. The
boron acts as a neutron absorber (poison) which stops the chain reaction once
the fuel has been glassified by the silicate.

[1] It is too radioactive for that to be literally true, but it is on a floor
with direct access rather than being underwater and only accessible through
cracks as the Fukishima fuel is.

[2] Speculation that a blob of melted core material would just keep melting
into the ground until it "got to china" (which in fact would be interrupted by
getting to the earths core).

[3] EDIT: Corrected for the effects of Boron on the reaction acting as a
neutron poison (absorbs neutrons) rather than a moderator (which just bounces
them around)

~~~
pvaldes
> the "China Syndrome" speculation is pretty much completely debunked

You would be dissapointed. Cou-cou! surprise! The ocean strikes back!.

 _Unexpected source of Fukushima-derived radiocesium to the coastal ocean of
Japan. 2017. Sanial, Buessler, Charette, and Nagao. PNAS. DOI:10.1073
/pnas.1708659114_

"Sanial, Buessler, Charette and Nagao, scientists from Massachusetts and Japan
found a new source of Caesium-137 to the environment after the Fukushima
accident. From 2013 – 2016 they visited 8 different beaches within 100 km of
the accident site, took sand and water samples and measured its radioactivity.

They found that at the bottom of their sand samples, up to 2 m deep into the
beach, the 137Cs concentrations _were incredibly high_ , up to 480,000 Bq per
square meter in their deepest samples. The soil in the restricted zone of the
Fukushima site, up to 100 km away, measured ~100,000 Bq per square meter.

This means even _tens of kilometers away, the radiation can actually be higher
than near the disaster_. (Because, huh?, 137Cs sticks to the sand grains).

[https://oceanbites.org/going-nuclear-radioisotopes-from-
fuku...](https://oceanbites.org/going-nuclear-radioisotopes-from-fukushimi-
power-plant-stay-in-sand-for-years/)

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is a great paper[1], thanks for the reference I've added it to my nuclear
effects library.

It doesn't involve the China Syndrome speculation though, what it does find is
much much more interesting.

The paper reports that beach sand is capable of 99% adsorption of Cs137. And
then goes on to discuss how it gets de-adsorbed (up to 11%) when Cs137 free
sea water is mixed with it. What this says to me is that you can use really
cheap beach sand to filter the discharge water from a nuclear reactor and
collect 99% of the Cs137 in the water which will stick to the sand. The sand
in your filter can be replaced and the cesium rich sand can be sequestered for
the Cs137 to decay over time.

This is an excellent finding that suggests reactors have a reservoir of sand
for pumping cooling water through especially during reactor compromise.
Knowing this a future even would release significantly less Cs into the ocean,
collecting it instead in the sand filter.

[1] _The experiments showed that beach sands have an adequate ion exchange
capacity for this level of 137Cs, with an average adsorption fraction of 99%
regardless of the salinity, sediment grain size, or mineralogy (Table S3)._
\---[https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/09/26/1708659114](https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/09/26/1708659114)

~~~
tarre
Decontamination factor of 100 is rather terrible compared to DF of over 8
million of actual filter materials, which are being used at Fukushima:
[https://www.fortum.com/sites/g/files/rkxjap146/files/documen...](https://www.fortum.com/sites/g/files/rkxjap146/files/documents/efficiency_of_fortums_cstreat_and_srtreat_fukushima.pdf)

See also: [https://www.fortum.com/products-and-services/power-plant-
ser...](https://www.fortum.com/products-and-services/power-plant-
services/nuclear-services/nuclear-waste-management/nuresr)

~~~
adrianN
Adding another factor of 100 with something as cheap as sand still seems
worthwhile.

~~~
tarre
There are reasons, why not to do that:

1) DF doesn't add up like that at low concentrations. Then it comes down to
selectivity of the material. Sodium and cesium have similar chemical
characteristics, but CsTreat is very efficient in selecting Cs over Na.

2) Material you are using as filter becomes radioactive waste. You want to
keep the volume at minimum.

3) With CsTreat you already reach radioactive Cs levels below measurable
limit. There is no reason to try to remove more Cs from that water :)

~~~
pvaldes
Honest question. Is is being CsTreated since eight years, why we do have
radioactive Caesium still accumulating in the coast?

> 2) Material you are using as filter becomes radioactive waste. You want to
> keep the volume at minimum.

This is very reasonable, but storing sand for 50 years somewhere is
technically feasible and maybe even cheaper than storing water. You can put
the sand in concrete and obtain a solid block. Then put the package in some
kind of coating and bury it in a safe vault. Water instead has the bad habit
to leak, run away, and enter in the life chain when bad weather, monsoon or
accidents happen. A huge concrete block is also less vulnerable to terrorism
than a water tank. Is not so easy to steal a jar of it, for example. Even if
you could make a hole in the coating, the product will not just flow out.

~~~
tarre
>Is is being CsTreated since eight years, why we do have radioactive Caesium
still accumulating in the coast?

As far as I know, this is because about 10 PBq of Cs-137 was released during
the accident and the released material is transferred by ocean currents.
CsTreat is being used for purification of the water, which is pumped into and
out the containment to keep core remnants cool. Nowadays the releases are very
limited if any.

>This is very reasonable, but storing sand for 50 years somewhere is
technically feasible...

You're right. Also CsTreat is solid, rock/sand-like material. It can be stored
as mixed into concrete and disposed as low/intermediate-level radioactive
waste.

Now you probably want to ask: Why there is huge amounts of radioactive water
stored at the plant site? Because of tritium, which is chemically equal to
hydrogen and is very expensive to separate from water. Under normal operating
licenses of NPPs, you could release such water into environment, but at
Fukushima standards are nowadays peculiar.

------
ctoth
I suspect I am not the only person who saw "First contact made" at the top of
HN and for one brief, shining moment lived in a far more interesting Universe.

~~~
komali2
This has happened to me here and there on various aggregators over the years,
and every time I get the goosebumps, and ride it out without fully reading the
headline all the way, letting myself imagine, think "yeah, this is probably
how I'd find out about it!"

To me it would feel like discovering magic, or the existence of latent psychic
abilities in humans. A reality shattering event.

------
Asparagirl
People should check out Safecast, which is a citizen-led open data network for
monitoring and publishing radiation readings, including an open API:

[https://blog.safecast.org/](https://blog.safecast.org/)

They're using low-cost open hardware, including Arduino:

[https://github.com/Safecast/General/wiki/Safecast-
Devices](https://github.com/Safecast/General/wiki/Safecast-Devices)

Here's their latest heatmap (well, radiation map) for Japan, centered on the
Fukushima area:

[https://safecast.org/tilemap/?y=37.14&x=140.67&z=8&l=0&m=0](https://safecast.org/tilemap/?y=37.14&x=140.67&z=8&l=0&m=0)

~~~
acidburnNSA
Do you know how they're communicating the expected health effects of dose
rates like these? For instance the yellow is 4 uSv/hr, roughly 10x a normal
dose rate in the USA.

~~~
Asparagirl
I don't know that, I'm sorry, but you can e-mail them or Tweet them and find
out.

------
zyztem
There is better pictures and explanation at TEPCO site:
[https://www7.tepco.co.jp/wp-
content/uploads/handouts_190213_...](https://www7.tepco.co.jp/wp-
content/uploads/handouts_190213_01_e-6.pdf)

------
fouc
Interesting, seems like it's been tough to build robots to withstand the
radioactive materials in the water.

[https://www.sciencealert.com/the-robots-sent-into-
fukushima-...](https://www.sciencealert.com/the-robots-sent-into-fukushima-
have-died)

------
simmanian
Has there been a proper study done on how dangerous it is to live in areas
around the plant, or how safe it is to eat produce grown from Fukushima and
all the fish caught in the area? There's been so much rumor and fake news
around this topic that I don't know what to think.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Absolutely yes. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of
Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) does reports every year or so on the status. Here's
the 2017 one [1].

[1]
[http://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2017/UNSCEAR_WP_201...](http://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2017/UNSCEAR_WP_2017.pdf)

~~~
jessriedel
From the executive summary (for others):

> ...its assessment of the exposures and effects due to the nuclear accident
> after the 2011 great east Japan earthquake and tsunami... It had concluded
> in that report that, in general, doses were low and that therefore
> associated risks were also expected to be low. A discernible increase in
> cancer incidence in the adult population of Fukushima Prefecture that could
> be attributed to radiation exposure from the accident was not expected.
> Nevertheless, the report noted a possibility that an increased risk of
> thyroid cancer among those children most exposed to radiation could be
> theoretically inferred, although the occurrence of a large number of
> radiation-induced thyroid cancers in Fukushima Prefecture—such as occurred
> after the Chernobyl accident—could be discounted because absorbed doses to
> the thyroid after the accident at Fukushima were substantially lower. It had
> also concluded that no discernible changes in birth defects and hereditary
> diseases were expected and that any increased incidence of cancer among
> workers due to their exposure was expected to be indiscernible because of
> the difficulty of confirming a small increase against the normal statistical
> fluctuations in cancer incidence. The effects on terrestrial and marine
> ecosystems were expected to have been transient and localized.

~~~
hrktb
I’m a bit frustrated by some of these arguments. In particular there is all
this “expected” part about low level of radiation that _should_ lead to low
effects.

That all fine, until we get the numbers of actual cases, which are higher than
expected.

But then we have something looking like backpedaling, a lot of “yeah it’s
higher, but it’s not what you think. Because it should be low”, wich I’d take
as a partly circular argument.

An extract from this study:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770131/#!po=41...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770131/#!po=41.4286)

> According to the studies reported until now, it is difficult at this point
> to attribute thyroid cancers in Fukushima to the direct effects of radiation
> exposure. The reasons are as follows. Exposure doses in Fukushima are
> significantly lower than those in Chernobyl (65).

There are other arguments details further down these lines, but the lower
exposure shouldn’t be used to argue the effects of radiation when the whole
point of the studies are to mesure these effects. It taints the whole
conclusion in a veil of “we don’t want to disown or past predictions”

~~~
mikekchar
That paper has some wording that is hard to understand, so I think this might
be what's causing you trouble. The quote you make from the paper is not the
only reason. They give 5 reasons.

\- The exposure rates are significantly lower that Chernobyl (earlier in the
paper they explain that in previous studies there is a correlation between
exposure and cancer rates -- because the thyroid problem rates here are high
while exposure rates were low, it is possible that the high rates are caused
by something else)

\- There is no apparent difference in rates corresponding to proximity to the
disaster. Similar to the above, our models would predict that as you get
closer to the disaster thyroid problem rates would increase. Because this is
not happening, it seems likely that the high rate is due to something else.

\- The high rate of thyroid problems was detected mostly in older, not younger
children. If the thyroid problems were caused by exposure to radiation, our
models predict that younger children would be more susceptible. Because we
have the opposite, it is likely that the cause is something else (this, to me,
seems one of the more convincing arguments). However, they note that it may
just be a case that by chance the younger children may not have developed
problems yet and so further study is required.

\- Thyroid problem rates in other prefectures are also high (and, in fact
higher than in Fukushima). Again earlier in the paper, they discuss this in
much more detail. It was interesting to me that even as far south as
Yamanashi, there were very high rates.

\- The gene mutation and rearrangement rates are different than that of
Chernobyl.

From those pieces of evidence, they conclude that the high rates of thyroid
problems are likely due to some other cause (many possibilities of which they
describe in the paper).

Like I said, I found the wording in this paper to be difficult to understand.
It appears to have been written by non-native English speakers (mostly
Japanese), so that's probably why. If you read it again, hopefully it will
make more sense.

~~~
hrktb
My main beef is how in parralel to the pure data and experiments, there’s all
this commentary going back to other events (Chernobyl) or expected results
(“ours models would predict") to seed the ideas that some of these data is
just non significant.

To draw a bad analogy, if we had a plane crash and had to study how 5%
survived, we wouldn’t be saying ‘previous crashes had everyone dead, we should
not pay too much attention to this set of survivors’ or ‘our models predict
bulky males to survive, young kids surviving here is just an oddity that has
nothing to do with our study’.

Also if there’s actual data not matching the model, shouldn’t we think hard
and long about the the model ? And if we do, the argument wouldn’t be that
data doesn’t matches the model, but that we have additional data explaining
the root cause of the oddities.

I am not saying we must to tie everything back to a single source, and for
instance the fact that having more screening than before actualy affects the
rate of detection and changes the statistics is a very valid point among many.

But brushing away swaths of oddities because it’s not expected feels lazy.
Basically I’m wondering if we would find causes aside from direct radiations
that could cause some of the issues. For instance the whole country’s rate of
cancer rising shouldn’t be an argument to dismiss Fukushima having something
to do with it, hell the gov shipped contaminated soil around the country,
there were multiple food mislabeling issues etc. We should pin down an actual
cause of the rise of cancers around the country before saying it’s unrelated.

~~~
mikekchar
Well, to be fair, the paper you picked did _no_ experimentation. It's a review
paper. Not only that, it's a review paper whose express purpose was to put
forth the idea that the high thyroid rates in Fukushima prefecture are likely
not due to the disaster (they say as much in the conclusion). It is very
possible that it suffers from confirmation bias (I don't know enough about the
topic to comment one way or another). If you look on _any_ topic, you will
find review papers like this.

If I understand your comment, though, I think you still suffer from
misunderstanding the paper. The paper states that the data _is consistent with
our models_. It's _not consistent with the idea that the thyroid problems are
caused by the disaster_. As the paper states, we do not know what the thyroid
problem rate was before the disaster because we did not screen people in the
same way or at the same rate. The equipment being used now is much better at
detecting thyroid problems. Other places using this equipment (for example
South Korea) are _also_ finding high rates of thyroid problems. When doing
screening in other prefectures, they are _also_ finding high rates of thyroid
problems. Discovery of thyroid problems are on the rise all over the world.
(All this according to the paper -- I haven't the foggiest clue if it is
true).

In other words, the paper is explicitly saying that while the rates are high,
it is likely that the high rates are due to a variety of other causes. They go
to a considerable amount of effort to document in detail what these are. You
seem to be fixed on the idea that the high rates are especially unusual or
outside the boundaries of what we would expect if there were not a disaster.
This entire paper was written to dispute that point of view. It is _not_ the
case that they are simply ignoring it. I think the biggest thing to understand
is that they claim that there are places in the world where the rates are
_higher_ , which didn't have a nuclear disaster. Since the data does not match
that of areas that _did_ have nuclear disasters, but _does_ match that which
_did not_ have nuclear disaster, they conclude that the thyroid problems are
likely to have been caused by something other than the disaster.

If you dispute that, it's entirely up to you. Like I said, I have no idea if
it is true or not -- I'm just telling you what they wrote. Generally, I don't
like review papers like this because of the problem with confirmation bias.
People start with the conclusion they want to have and then find evidence to
support it. You can always find that kind of evidence. It's not even a well
written paper... but I didn't choose it ;-)

I think the best way to learn more about whether or not these researchers know
what they are talking about is to read the citations that they make. They make
a lot of claims about detection rates of thyroid problems, the rate at which
these turn in to cancers, etc. If they are wrong that the current rates can be
explained by non-disaster causes (or if they are wrong that data does not
support a disaster cause), then you should be able to find the problem in
those citations. Remember, it's a review paper! They are only gathering data
from other papers and putting it together.

I suppose if I'm particularly uncharitable, if the authors of the paper are
lazy, then I'd ask you to be at least reach their bar. If the data is rife
with swaths of oddities, then write a review paper that points it out. Provide
citations that show current data _does not_ match our models. I bet you don't
even need to do that. I bet there is at least 1 group of researchers in the
entire world who has at least tried to write such a paper. Find it and we can
have a much, much better conversation.

------
JosephRedfern
Forgive the macabre question, but if a human (or other living creatue) were to
venture in to the plant and collect this fuel by hand, how long would they
survive?

I'm in no way suggesting that this is an option, of course -- just curious.

~~~
samstave
You should watch this documentary on Chernobyl:

> __ _According to Vyacheslav Grishin of the Chernobyl Union, the main
> organization of liquidators, "25,000 of the Russian liquidators are dead and
> 70,000 disabled, about the same in Ukraine, and 10,000 dead in Belarus and
> 25,000 disabled", which makes a total of 60,000 dead (10% of the 600,000
> liquidators) ___

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

They had guys running in and throwing lead bricks - and some of the scientists
died by giving their life to get in and take video of the meltdown.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti-
WdTF2Qr8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti-WdTF2Qr8)

These guys knew they were doomed.

But they had freaking reportedly 700,000 men attack that problem.

~~~
varjag
I've met a dying Chernobyl first responder on a commuter train in Belarus,
back in early 1990s.

These people never made it to WHO statistic as their deaths protracted over
many years can not be directly attributed to the accident. As pro nuclear
crowd would be happy to tell you, only couple dozen firemen died on the first
day and that was it, making nuclear meltdowns almost benign incidents.

~~~
roenxi
It is a pretty hard-hearted thing to say, but if the WHO doesn't think there
is enough evidence to count his death in the Chernobyl statistics, what
evidence does he have they are wrong? I mean, it isn't unprecedented for
crippling damage to not surface for a long time (eg, asbestos/mesothelioma),
but on the other hand cancer can strike at any age [0] and people struggle to
attribute things to chance if they have a potential reason for it.

The WHO is using a statistical model to account for the fact that individual
deaths might be cancer or might be something else. There is pretty concrete
evidence that in terms of deaths nuclear meltdowns _are_ benign, and the major
concerns are land contamination and how big the exclusion zones need to be
when things go wrong. Some of the better science-based counterarguments to
nuclear I've heard go to contamination in the food chain.

[0] [https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-
professional/cancer-...](https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-
professional/cancer-statistics/incidence/age)

~~~
varjag
Most of the studies among Chernobyl liquidators were based on monitoring the
cohorts between 1994 to 2004. Very little was done form 1986 to 1991 at all.

------
En_gr_Student
this is good that they are there. It means that the radioactive material can
be sequestered. It means that the radioactive material can be inventoried, and
escapee content determined.

~~~
Animats
Not there yet. They got in far enough to touch it with a grabber. Didn't get a
sample yet. Removing it for disposal is years away.

------
dvh
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_(nuclear_reactor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_\(nuclear_reactor\))

------
jrs235
Are all the rainbow colored pixels in the picture caused by radiation hitting
the camera sensor?

~~~
furyofantares
All pixels in the picture are caused by radiation hitting the camera sensor

~~~
dimensi0nal
I assume the commenter was referring to ionizing radiation.

~~~
db48x
In a CCD, even photons of visible light are ionizing radiation. The light
causes electrons to pop out of a semiconductor and get caught in a capacitor,
where they are stored long enough to be read out as a voltage, and turned into
a number.

------
Haga
My own little pet theory is that super volcanoes are made by nature's corium,
slowly desolving from bedrock and migrating in channels to earth's core.

------
mehrdadn
Are there not any suits that protect against the radiation to let them go in
and do some things by hand? If there are but it's still not a good idea --
why?

~~~
roywiggins
Gamma radiation goes through everything. The only thing that stops it is mass
and distance. You can only wear a certain amount of lead before you collapse.

The amount of radiation is just too high.

~~~
meenzu
Thanks for the answer, just curious would the lead sheet have holes thorough
it if you put it up to that radiation?

I'm picturing a sheet of paper with bullet holes through it.

Or is there a better analogy of what is going on?

~~~
dmurray
More like a sheet of paper held up to the light. Some light gets through, and
if you have thicker paper it will allow less light through, but it doesn't
noticeably damage the paper.

~~~
ggm
Depends how long you leave the paper exposed to light. if you have a sheet of
paper half exposed and half shielded for a year of sunlight the effect is
marked.

The equivalent in lead would probably manifest in some way, perhaps a visible
patina on the surface? or, as a differential in decay products. you could call
that 'damage' if you wanted to.

------
rememberlenny
Can someone add (2016) as the publish date?

Edit: I don't know why but the first time I clicked the link, it went to a
2016 published piece. Please ignore!

~~~
larrik
Why? It was published yesterday, and mentions previous events having occurred
in 2017...

------
mempko
What strikes me is just how inept the Japanese are in handling Fukushima
compared to the USSR during the much worse Chernobyl disaster. The USSR
responded quickly and it took just 8 months to entomb the reactor. Over 600k
people worked to handle Chernobyl. Fukushima, on the other hand, is still at
risk of another disaster, 10 years later. The Japanese government and power
company under-handled the situation and lied for years about it's severity.
For example that 300 tons of polluted water was going into the pacific every
day for 5 years.

~~~
vidarh
The reaction to Chernobyl was excessive. What we've learned since is that
while a lot of rapid response was needed at the immediate site, at least a
portion of the rapid evacuation likely did more harm than good. Large parts of
the exclusion zone remained livable (and the Chernobyl plant itself remained
operational for many years afterwards - the danger was low enough that several
of the reactors were re-started).

We should be thankful the Japanese did not overreact _as badly_ , but in
Fukushima too there is reason to believe that more people than needed were
evacuated, and that this response may have caused more harm than the accident
itself.

~~~
mempko
This is an interesting perspective. It's probably unknown if it's too much or
too little without some serious scientific investigation. What do you base
your opinion on?

~~~
vidarh
For starters there's extensive data on effects of staying in large areas of
the outer exclusion zone, because a lot of people (a small proportion of the
population, though) stayed or went back. The government eventually gave up on
keeping people out.

Secondly, there is the experience of continuing to operate the other reactors.
It took 3 years before work on reactor 5 and 6 (which were unfinished) was
halted. Operations at reactor 2 continued until a fire in 1991. Reactor 1
remained in operation until 1996, and reactor 3 was finally decommissioned in
2000. While workers were subject to stringent controls, and on/off schedules
intended to reduce their exposure, people were nevertheless working in some of
the most radioactive areas of the exclusion zone for many years, with very
limited indication of lasting problems.

Thirdly, there is the economic impact on the Soviet Union in general, and
Belarus overall, both unavoidable costs of the cleanup, but also very much
avoidable costs of large-scale reduction in economic activity in a large area.
There is a lot of data on the subsequent effects of the economic upheaval that
followed the breakdown of the Soviet Union that shows the effects of economic
upheaval on e.g. life expectancy. Applying the same to the upheaval caused by
evacuation of areas that were quickly known to be within safe radiation levels
implies substantial harm.

In general _any_ evacuation causes substantial harm, because of e.g. increased
mortality when moving hospital patients or other vulnerable groups; increased
traffic accidents etc. Just _doing more stuff_ quickly causes harm.

------
mimixco
It took 10 years to even get a robot that could get close to the fuel... and
people still ask if nuclear might not be as bad as coal!

The truth is that accidents like this can _never_ be cleaned up or salvaged.
It's time to move away from nuclear, as other countries have already figured
out.

Fortunately for us in the US, the last nuclear plant under construction today
will likely be cancelled, as the last two were. There are no plans to build
another one here. That doesn't relieve of us of the chance of a homegrown
Fukushima on American soil, but it shows that the future isn't nuclear for
environmental and cost reasons -- of which "decommissioning" costs billions,
even if there's no meltdown.

~~~
acidburnNSA
If you look objectively at the numbers, you'll see that nuclear is one of the
safest forms of energy production we know. Even considering conservative
estimates from Fukushima and Chernobyl, nuclear power has net saved over 2
million lives simply by displacing air-pollution related deaths that would
have occurred had the nukes not been built.

Coal kills on the order of hundreds of thousands of people per year. Fukushima
killed zero. Chernobyl directly killed 60, and caused up to 4000 early cancer
deaths over the next several decades on top of a population that would get
millions of cancer deaths anyway, and that's with a bizarro linear no-
threshold model almost unheard of in other latent estimates.

Nuclear is also very nearly carbon free. So if you start factoring in health
effects of global warming, nuclear's even better.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
We shouldn’t be burning coal either.

~~~
folkrav
What we have right now are three options : fossil fuels, renewable sources
like wind/solar/hydro, or nuclear.

Fossil fuels kill millions a year related to pollution, and does make whole
areas unlivable. About 16% of all fracking oil in the US gets spilled in
nature every year[1], on top of crap like Flint. Coal is responsible for 80%
of energy-generated related air pollution, worldwide[2]. They are not a good
solution.

Natural sources are simply extremely limited in terms of access. Few countries
can realistically really rely on these as a main source of electricity.

The, there's nuclear. We have fission, which is, while relatively safe (5
major impactful accidents since the rise of nuclear power, 3 of those being
the three Fukishima plants), pretty damaging _when_ shit happens. However, are
the damages realistically worse than fossil fuels? I'm not exactly qualified
to figure this out myself but just looking at the numbers really doesn't make
fission look that bad. Finally, there's nuclear fusion, which is a lot safer,
while we've been making decent progress in the recent years, doesn't look like
it's gonna run our cities any time soon.

So no, we shouldn't be burning coal, obviously, but if nothing's perfect, the
logical option is the next best thing.

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-
environment-39032748](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39032748)
[2] [https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/decrease-coal-
use](https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/decrease-coal-use)

~~~
vonmoltke
> on top of crap like Flint

Flint's water contamination has absolutely nothing to do with energy
production of any kind. It was caused by the city still having lead water
pipes.

Edit:

> About 16% of all fracking oil in the US gets spilled in nature every year[1]

> [1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-
> environment-39032748](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39032748)

That isn't at all what that article says. It says 16% of wells suffer a spill
each year. The industry would never allow 16% of its product to simply go to
waste, particularly considering how difficult and expensive those operations
are.

~~~
folkrav
I'm not american, seems like I mixed up Flint with some other american city
that made the news up here for having water catching fire and shit like that.

And indeed, I misread, it's not 16% total spillage but 16% of them spilling at
all. This one doesn't really change much to my point that having one in six
fracking points spilling out is extremely damaging.

