
Fukushima: Wild boars take over Japan's evacuated towns [video] - bauc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39216242
======
rodionos
There was a report on Chernobyl the other day. Apparently, the nature there is
experiencing a renaissance of sorts with a measurable growth both in
biodiversity as well as in the sheer number of species, including endangered
ones.

For animal world, the radiation is the lesser of two evils, the first one
being humans.

Here's a BBC article:
[http://www.bbc.com/russian/science/2015/02/150205_ukraine_ch...](http://www.bbc.com/russian/science/2015/02/150205_ukraine_chernobyl_wild_animals)

It's in Russian, but the pictures are telling if you can't read it.

~~~
eriknstr
Are those wild horses? If so then that's awesome. Also, Lynx are great, happy
to see them too.

~~~
rimliu
Those are
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przewalski%27s_horse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przewalski%27s_horse)
brought there in the nineties.

------
alphonsegaston
I've never seen addressed how one factors in long-term societal problems into
the use of nuclear energy. There's not a country in world that hasn't
experienced a civil war, invasion, or other massively destabilizing event
within the span of time needed to safely manage nuclear energy and its
byproducts.

After Chernobyl, I always wondered how a less authoritarian regime would
respond to a similar nuclear disaster. Now that we have Fukushima, we can see
the Japanese government doing something like a combination of climate change
denial and media manipulation (Japanese television frequently runs pieces
conflating opposition to nuclear energy with a lack of empathy for those who
suffered in 3/11). It would probably work the same in the states.

~~~
petre
So would you rather they burn coal, which they don't have and has to be
imported and intoxicate everyone with mercury and arsenic biproducts from coal
burning? These two heavy metals also contaminte seafood, which the Japanese
are quite fond of.

~~~
marze
What we see here (in the parent comment) is someone parroting standard nuclear
industry propaganda: coal is bad too.

While those line at least made a bit of sense 15 years ago, it is totally
pointless in 2017.

No new coal plants are being built now. It is in phase out mode. All new
generation is wind, solar, and to a lesser degree methane. Coal is going away;
like nuclear, it can't compete.

~~~
jcrawfordor
> No new coal plants are being built now. It is in phase out mode. All new
> generation is wind, solar, and to a lesser degree methane. Coal is going
> away; like nuclear, it can't compete.

In the United States, at least, natural gas is the largest component of new
generating capacity. Wind and solar are both independently fairly close to
natural gas recently, but natural gas is still the #1 increase and has been
for most of the last 10 or so years.

So yes, the rate of increase in coal capacity is very low (but still net
positive), but it is not true that all new generation is wind and solar. New
generation is roughly 1/3rd each natural gas, wind, and solar, ranked in that
order. Again - in the United States. This varies from country to country, e.g.
I believe China is still seeing substantial net increases in coal, whereas I
believe Western Europe is seeing a lot more wind/solar.

You can get these numbers for the US from EIA reports:
[https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/)

~~~
marze
Wrong on all points, data helpful:

[http://www.ecowatch.com/ferc-renewable-energy-
capacity-22330...](http://www.ecowatch.com/ferc-renewable-energy-
capacity-2233026420.html)

~~~
jcrawfordor
I did refer to the data, and that article gives about the same numbers. FERC
and EIA are 'sibling' components of the Department of Energy, I suspect EIA's
information on new generation comes directly from FERC.

The article you link shows that wind and solar combined add up to a bit less
than twice natural gas. This is because, as I said, the three dominant forms
of new production (natural gas, wind, solar) added up to about one third each,
with natural gas being the largest portion.

------
rb1
Turns out, living in an environment with as low as possible background
radiation might not be such a great idea either.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/09/23/is-
radiat...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/09/23/is-radiation-
necessary-for-life/#2ba1b4bd7898) <~~ forbes piece about this study:
[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09553002.2015.106...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09553002.2015.1062571?journalCode=irab20)

------
mpweiher
As with most nuclear accidents so far, the health risks from _fear_ of
radiation exceed the actual health risks from the radiation itself.

The boars don't know about the radiation and therefore do not fear it.

~~~
_ph_
Sorry, no. There is a distinctive health risk to radioactive radiation, and
thus the regions around Fukushima and Chernobyl are evacuated from permanent
residency. It is perfectly safe to do short trips into those regions. But long
term, this is a considerable health risk. The boars can live there, because
they are short-lived animals compared to humans, and the article doesn't say
whether they do reach their natural life span even. They only seem to live
long enough to procreate, which is 1-3 years for wild boars. Humans could live
there as well, but they would experience an unacceptably short live. A human
group can survive on a life expectancy of little more than 20 years, thats
what human kind did in the past. But by modern standards this is not
acceptable, and consequently those regions are not considered safe for
settlement.

~~~
mpweiher
There is a difference between "there is no risk", which I did not write but
you imply I did, and "this risk is greater than this other risk", which is
what I did write.

See the WHO evaluation of the the Chernobyl disaster, which states that the
largest public health problem of the disaster has been the mental health
impact (link in other response:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13829192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13829192)).

Again, that doesn't mean that there weren't other impacts, but the mental
health impact was larger. I also remember seeing video footage of all the
animals that died after Fukushima. They didn't die of radiation, they died of
neglect.

Also, the health impact of fairly low radiation dosages is effectively unknown
to date, but data from the Chernobyl incident keeps correcting the effect
downward every 10 years.

The idea that "there is no safe dosage" was created artificially, because
after Hiroshima and Nagasaki the exposure effects were simply linearly
extrapolated to zero. There was no actual data there.

~~~
onli
I realize there are a lot of nuclear apologist around here, but this is
getting ridiculous.

That boars are living in the area means nothing. It doesn't mean in the
slightest that it is safe for humans. With Chernobyl and Fukushima we are
talking about serious levels of radiation, high enough to kill people very
fast. See
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/03/fukushim...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/03/fukushima-
daiichi-radiation-levels-highest-since-2011-meltdown) of how high the
radiation in Fukushima still is today.

To act like "Ah, nothing really happened, see the wild pigs flocking around"
is not even close to an appropriate judgment of the situation.

We all would like to have safe and cheap energy. We won't reach that goal by
trivializing the dangers of nuclear energy, which isn't even cheap to begin
with.

~~~
jessaustin
The nuclear apologists don't seem to realize they would have a more effective
argument if they just admitted what is obvious to anyone: that occasionally
nuclear power causes terrible catastrophes. Perhaps someday in the bright
shiny future it won't, but it certainly has for the last 65 years we've been
using it. Then they could stack those terrible catastrophes up against what
they see as the wonderful benefits of nuclear power, and reasonable people
would have some choices to make. Instead, they run around with fingers in ears
chanting "nyah nyah nyah no problems here", and reasonable people can only
conclude that the analysis is missing some important points.

~~~
mpweiher
> occasionally nuclear power causes terrible catastrophes

Except that's not the case, other forms of power generation not only have far
higher death tolls overall, but also more terrible catastrophes:

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

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

~~~
onli
That's not even internally consistent. We have no terrible catastrophes
because the others have terrible catastrophes?

~~~
mpweiher
Yeah, it is.

The only thing that rates as catastrophe is Chernobyl, so singular. And that
was 56 direct deaths. Fifty-six. Fukushima, which is widely regarded as a
"catastrophe" has zero direct deaths and so far it looks unlikely that effects
on mortality will be statistically detectable.

What was the worst energy-generation catastrophe? Banqiao Dam, 1973[1].
170,000 direct deaths. Or that coal explosion with >1000 direct deaths. On
those types of scales, even Chernobyl doesn't actually register.

And when you take into account long term effects, there simply is no
comparison. 100K deaths per T-kWH for coal, 90 for nuclear. So for every death
due to nuclear power, there are 1000 deaths due to coal.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam)

~~~
onli
You are aware that your numbers are wrong?

As dark as it is to argue about something like that, but Chernobyl caused many
more deaths. Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower
figures. This is heavily debated, but to say _it was 56_ is not even a base
for discussion. The cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers.

Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths
caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast
as well.

Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence
strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again repeated
on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman, and many
people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal.

 _Edit_

Four: No, it is no case consistent logic. Something does not become not a
catastrophe only because another thing is a catastrophe. It might become a
lesser evil (that is not the case here), but that's as far as it goes.

~~~
vidarh
> Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower figures. This is
> heavily debated, but to say it was 56 is not even a base for discussion. The
> cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers.

The WHO number is number of people expected to die prematurely as a result of
Chernobyl. The deathcount he gave is an estimate of _direct_ deaths. They mean
very different things. The WHO number includes anyone who can be expected to
die _sooner_ , whether their life expectancy has been cut by a decade or a
year. It's an important consideration, but it's not in any way directly
comparable to the direct deaths numbers.

> Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths
> caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast
> as well.

Uranium mines used to be bad. In most present mines the amount of radon miners
inhale is no higher than you risk in residential housing in areas with high
natural occurence of radon. Even if you went back to unventilated mines to
kill miners on purpose, it would still cause fewer radiation deaths than fly
ash from coal plants, before even factoring in the other major causes of death
from coal plants.

> Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence
> strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again
> repeated on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman,
> and many people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal.

It is relevant because power plants do not exist in isolation. If you shut
down nuclear, it needs to be replaced. None of the alternative we currently
have for base load are as safe as nuclear. So if you shut down nuclear plants
over fears about them, odds are your replacement generation load will kill far
more people. And a lot of places the goto replacement is still coal or
oil/gas, which are some of the worst.

Stoking fears over nuclear is outright immoral, given the consequences such
fears have already had. E.g. the nuclear phaseout in Germany has resulted in
continued use of coal at much higher levels than otherwise, to the extent that
assuming lethality quivalent to US levels, the phaseout has likely already
killed several magnitudes as many as all nuclear accidents combined, on top of
the environmental effects.

~~~
onli
Actually, the coal thing in Germany is interesting. As a consequence of the
end of nuclear energy they _did_ construct new coal plants, against the
protests of the very people that wanted the Atomausstieg. But the funny thing
is that those new coal plants can't be properly used today, because they are
just too expensive. Energy prices fell that low, thanks to green energy
sources, that those new coal plants are not profitable anymore.

Sucks for the cities and energy companies that backed them, but is a win for
society as a whole.

~~~
vidarh
Even without those new plants, Germany's dependence on coal has been
substantially extended in time. And it's not just Germany - the shutdown has
also affected Germany's ability to export electricity, and so increased _other
countries_ depdency on more dangerous means of generation.

The death toll from Germany's shutdown is likely to be in the tens of
thousands before the baseload capacity is fully replaced by safer alternativs.

------
oftenwrong
Why is this interesting? Wild boars in Japan are common in areas where there
are few people because they are generally scared of people. If you come across
one in the forest, most likely it will run away from you.

------
arippberger
They're gonna end up with some real-life Princess Mononoke demon boars.

------
ctack
DNA damage from radiation could potentially affect future generations of
boars.

~~~
kristianov
What's scarier than wild boars are radioactive wild boars.

~~~
_ph_
You meant it as a funny statement, but it is actually true. Here in Bavaria,
we actually have too many wild boars in the forests, but hunting them for meat
is limited by the fact that they are still partially contaminated by the
radiation left from the Chernobyl disaster. So about 1 out of 3 animals shot
have to be destroyed.

~~~
tasuki
Wild boars in Bavaria contaminated by radiation from Chernobyl? Do you have
any citations/links?

~~~
sabertoothed
Not OP but German as well. Can confirm statement.

Sources are easy to find but are mostly in German, e.g.

[https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/umwelt/article139797061/Geh...](https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/umwelt/article139797061/Geheimsache-
radioaktiv-verstrahlte-Wildsaeue.html)

[http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/tschernobyl-
folgen-r...](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/tschernobyl-folgen-
radioaktive-wildschweine-in-bayern-13484151.html)

[http://www.umweltinstitut.org/themen/radioaktivitaet/tschern...](http://www.umweltinstitut.org/themen/radioaktivitaet/tschernobyl/lebensmittelbelastung.html)

~~~
tasuki
Genau - danke schoen :)

------
Lasher
Aren't radioactive wild boars (or rats) the first enemy you encounter on
pretty much every post apocalyptic video game ever? Funny how things turn
out...

------
jlebrech
Maybe we should relocate endangered species to Fukushima or Chernobyl.

Noone's going to buy a radioactive tusk.

~~~
maxerickson
I think lots of people would buy radioactive tusk, often because they wouldn't
even know it was radioactive.

~~~
jlebrech
and the rumours will do the rest of the work.

~~~
maxerickson
It won't be all that radioactive so there won't really be rumors.

------
mholmes680
Isn't this just nature trying her best to redistribute the radiation threat?
Or does radiation not work that way?

~~~
andygates
That's remarkably goal-orientated for a bunch of competing randomness. No,
it's just that wildlife doesn't care about moderate contamination, doesn't
especially care about stillbirths and birth defects, won't sue and can't be
kept out.

~~~
mholmes680
I was only being half-flippant - maybe there's a better way to leverage this
situation. Alas, tho, I don't have one.

------
marze
Did anyone see a measurement on just how radioactive the boars are?

------
btreecat
Can we name one Bebop?

------
MrFantastic
Do you want orks? Because that's how we get orcs.

~~~
n00b101
Or Bebop [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebop_and_Rocksteady](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebop_and_Rocksteady)

