
Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear - nixass
https://medium.com/generation-atomic/for-the-first-time-world-learns-truth-about-risk-of-nuclear-6b7e97d435df
======
mcjiggerlog
Not sure I've seen a HN post before where so many people in the comments have
clearly not read the article. Not even the summary of key points right at the
top.

The piece is not anti-nuclear.

Also, risk is not binary. Finding out the true risk of something does not mean
it's high risk and therefore negative. You can assess the risk of something
and conclude that the risk is low and generally overblown, which is the point
of the article.

~~~
indymike
Perhaps because you have to have a Medium account to read the article? I'd
love to read it, but I don't love the idea of logging in to Medium to do so.

~~~
Melting_Harps
> Perhaps because you have to have a Medium account to read the article?

I'm anti-Nuclear (On Earth), but would prefer most people read it before
commenting on it. So, I archived it.

[http://archive.vn/OmALl](http://archive.vn/OmALl)

~~~
indymike
Thank you. A pretty good read, and honest.

------
lucb1e
Title doesn't seem to match the article's contents. It concludes:

> If there was a meltdown tomorrow in the UK, France, US or elsewhere, it’s
> likely that our failure to adjust our thinking in light of the experiences
> at Fukushima and Chernobyl would mean we evacuate too many people for too
> long. People would die as a result.

Indeed, evacuate too many. The "learning about the risk of nuclear" we did
"for the first time" is a study about the effects of the evacuation versus if
they had stayed. In both nuclear disasters we ever had, the overreaction was
apparently huge and it cost many thousands of lives in direct and indirect
consequences. It might be a bit too soon to say, but in a way, the long-term
repercussions of overreacting (expanding fossil fuel burning in favor of
nuclear, the public reputation of nuclear) will likely be felt for
generations. I'm not sure we'd ever have made 1.5°C, but now we definitely
won't. (We have to still limit by how much we go over, of course, but it would
have been great if we could avoid the tipping point.)

~~~
lucb1e
To be clear, the title used to match the article's and was a bit weird. +1 for
changing it on HN.

------
ysleepy
Ah yes, decidedly pro-nuclear stance here.

The first obvious omissions that come to mind are:

1\. The evacuations took place while the meltdown was ongoing, evacuating was
the sane choice given the available knowledge at the time.

2\. There is no data on how not evacuating would have affected the people,
since that was not done, making that comparison with such certainty seems a
bit overconfident.

Nuclear in general:

How about showing me a sound final (100k yr) storage for nuclear waste, built
and ready, before you operate any more nuclear reactors?

I'm not totally against the technology, but storing all the nuclear waste in
metal cans on parking lots (yes, thats where a majority of nuclear waste
resides) is not a valid solution.

The trend of externalizing cost to future generations is something that pisses
me off to no end.

~~~
andbberger
Waste was never really a problem and has been definitively solved. You bury it
in a deep unmarked hole. [1]

Go ahead and keep arguing about whether or not nuclear is a good idea. Earth
doesn't care. The water will be lapping at your feet soon. How's that for
externalizing a cost to future generations?

I am, and will continue to be blown away that the world found out how to make
rocks so spicy they can power our civilizations for thousands of years with no
carbon 50+ years ago....... and decided to keep burning dead dinosaurs. Fuck
big oil, fuck greenpeace, and fuck anyone who is STILL anti-nuclear energy.

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

~~~
coldtea
> _Waste was never really a problem and has been definitively solved. You bury
> it in a deep unmarked hole._

Yeah, too bad it doesn't work in practice.

~~~
ethanwillis
How does it not?

~~~
coldtea
[https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-town-didnt-want-to-be-a-
rad...](https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-town-didnt-want-to-be-a-radioactive-
waste-dump-th-1834789264)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-
environment-i...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-environment-
idUSKBN18M2OP)

[https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry...](https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/kentucky-
towns-illegally-dumped-radioactive-waste/)

[https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2008-09-20-year-
long...](https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2008-09-20-year-long-german-
nuclear-leak-scandal-engulfs-country-and-disturbs-europe)

[https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-10-30/scotland-
expos...](https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-10-30/scotland-exposed-
scandal-nuclear-leaks-plant/)

[https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/un-atomic-agency-probing-
del...](https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/un-atomic-agency-probing-delhi-
radioactive-waste-scandal-416832)

[https://apnews.com/ba820f02074247fc8486b63b7c87d6cb/russias-...](https://apnews.com/ba820f02074247fc8486b63b7c87d6cb/russias-
nuclear-nightmare-flows-down-radioactive-river)

[https://www.upi.com/Energy-News/2008/09/08/Nuclear-waste-
sca...](https://www.upi.com/Energy-News/2008/09/08/Nuclear-waste-scandal-in-
Germany/41831220906136/)

[https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-
april-23...](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-
april-23-2018-1.4628764/nuclear-waste-disposal-in-canada-is-an-accident-
waiting-to-happen-says-indigenous-leader-1.4629258)

[https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/02/oregons-
response...](https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/02/oregons-response-to-
illegal-radioactive-waste-dumping-is-a-joke.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27Ndrangheta)

~~~
verall
I think there needs to be real storage plans for radioactive water before
terrestrial fission is a major power source but it is certainly telling that
in 3 of those cases the radioactive waste was from fracking and not a reactor.

------
Barrin92
Seems like a very one-sided article that focuses predominantly on health risks
and points out that relocation might not have been warranted and seems to
suggest that this shifts the calculus.

There's however not just health risk but also economic risk. There's different
estimations of how much the entire Fukushima catastrophy cost but estimates
range from dozens of billions of dollars to hundreds of billions[1]. And even
if relocation hadn't been mandatory I'm not so sure regions that get the
stigma of being radiated would survive anyhow and I can imagine a lot of
voluntary exodus and as a result further economic and property damage.

Regardless of what particular number one picks, it was economically absolutely
devastating.

[1]h[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-
radi...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-radioactive-
rubble-heap-that-was-fukushima-daiichi-7-years-on/)

~~~
merpnderp
Those economic costs are tied to the health risks aren’t they.

~~~
Barrin92
not necessarily. Dismantling a nuclear plant or in this case waste clearage
itself is a gargantuan effort. Scrapping ordinary nuclear plants already costs
billions.

------
ksaj
The article doesn't fairly compare with the risks of say, oil. Look at Exxon
for a good example of how costly (and seemingly never ending) the damage and
cleanup can be. And what to make of the earthquakes caused by fracking?

I live in an area with multiple nuclear plants. We've never had an issue with
them, although there was one false alarm. Even then, nobody seems to feel very
unsafe about it around here. Property values are just as high as they always
were.

We did have a natural gas plant blow up. So I'm not very convinced of the
nuclear dangers by comparison. Especially since nuclear technology keeps
getting better, safer, and more efficient. That can't be said for much of the
fossil fuel industry.

~~~
StreamBright
Especially if you view the right metric.

[https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-
energy](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy)

The reason why nuclear is safe and a great option is energy density. You
cannot really beat that with fossil fuels or renewables. We have to make
nuclear safe in the sense that not even an earthquake can trigger an accident
like Fukushima but we already made nuclear the safest source of energy based
on the number of deaths per twh produced.

------
SCAQTony
I read the article, and looked at his bio. He is not a nuclear scientist nor a
analytics professional. His previous articles are pro nuke, which is fine, but
to take his words wholesale with no bibliography or links is asking too much
for this reader.

Most of all, he quantifies stress and exhaustion as a primary cause of death
for those evacuated. How did he figure that out?

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Yeah, I thought this article was decent in some respects, but the larger issue
was that it completely ignored human nature when it comes to risk assessment.
Does he honestly think it would have worked to tell those living near
Fukushima, "Don't worry, on average you'll only lose about 3 weeks of life, so
don't worry about it!" Of course, very few people are hit by the "average":
most people have no I'll effects while others develop cancer and die soon.
Taking a purely mathematical approach to risk assessment, and using that
assessment alone to guide public policy, is unwise.

~~~
rhn_mk1
The analysis was related to both sides of the coin. I imagine the presentation
would offer alternatives: stay and lose 3 weeks, evacuate and lose 4 weeks, so
which one do you worry about more?

------
bawolff
I just skimmed, but they seem to be comparing stress of evacuating vs health
risk of staying. What about the stress of knowing you live on nuclear
contaminated land. Surely that must be stresful enough to be comparable to the
stress of evacuating?

~~~
ali_m
I wonder how that compares to the stress of knowing that you live on land
that's prone to earthquakes and tsunamis that kill tens of thousands of
people?

~~~
grogenaut
Generally I've found people learn to deal with common systemic risks but have
issues with systemic risks they're not used to. Case in point:

I moved from St. Louis (Tornado Alley) to Seattle. There are really no
earthquakes or volcanos in St. Louis (except from newmadrid which is a dooozy,
but rare). I had trouble understanding earthquakes and they scare me a lot.
But I was having a conversation with the Northwesties about Tornados. When I
explained just how bad they could be, it terrified the Northwesties. There are
no bad storms up here; lightning makes the news. To add to that
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado)
happened the next day. This terrified all of the northwesties. To me tornados
are a part of life, and I'm more ok with them than earthquakes as you "get a
warning", and you have a chance to move away from them (it's only a chance).

At the end of the day we all, except maybe Ray Kurzweil, have to deal with the
ultimate risk of death. Many of us just ignore it for our whole lives as a way
of coping. Others stare it in the face and logic it away, which is essentially
the same thing. Why are we all not constantly panicked with the existence of
death?

------
neilwilson
"As governments only have a limited amount of money to spend on all the
services they provide, this means that there are not infinite funds to be
spent responding to a nuclear accident; £1 spent on evacuating residents is £1
less that is spent on schools, hospitals and roads."

Which is of course completely flawed. Firstly it is in monetary terms, when
there is a dynamic amount of money. Pulling the furlough pay rabbit out of the
hat put the myth of a fixed amount of money to bed forever. Money is an
endogenous concept designed to allow all the resources of a currency area to
be engaged usefully.

Secondly even if you reassess it in the correct real resource terms, it
assumes that there are no unemployed resources and that all current uses of
resources are the most socially advantageous uses.

The one thing we have learned from the Covid crisis is exactly how few people
we need working to maintain the population, and how much of what we call work
is an activity that is somewhat less important than your average football
match.

~~~
Factfull
If the argument is completely flawed, then that would mean there is an
infinite amount of money to spend reducing very small risks. That doesn't seem
right. We can't, for example, spend infinite amounts on making cars safer,
because they would become unaffordable and more polluting (heavier) very
quickly. We would end up with no cars. Ironically, this kind of is the path
that nuclear is on: the things are made so safe that no one can afford them
anymore. The opportunity cost of no nuclear is seldom brought into the
argument.

~~~
neilwilson
"hen that would mean there is an infinite amount of money to spend reducing
very small risks."

There is. But there isn't an infinite amount of stuff. And since to spend you
have to have something to buy the spending stops when the real resource runs
out. That's the actual limit - until you use some sort of power dynamics to
start moving physical resources from their current uses.

Hence the shortage of PPE at the start of the Covid crisis. All the money in
the world; not enough masks to go around. There was "demand", but no
"effective demand".

Money is essentially inductively connected to the real economy, not directly
connected. As an analogy in electrical terms money is apparent power, and the
stuff it buys is real power.

------
ryosuke
This article set off a number of red flags for me, and by the end I found it
very hard to believe that this was done by a group of impartial researchers.

And sure enough, Phillip Thomas, the lead researcher for this study, comes
from a 20+ year career with the chemical and nuclear industries. I would take
everything in this article with a grain of salt.

[http://www.bristol.ac.uk/engineering/people/philip-j-
thomas/...](http://www.bristol.ac.uk/engineering/people/philip-j-
thomas/index.html)

------
ascat
I was also wondering like how the article says that relocating people near
Chernobyl in such great extend isn't the right thing to do (taking the 9
months life expectancy limit in mind) but I am really confused here, because
when I see movies or videos showing the Chernobyl accidents they show people
feeling the burning sensation, vomiting, getting extremely sick and new babies
being born with ill health, which is really scary. So if people don't re
locate then they will constantly have this fear, right?

~~~
AngryData
Well obviously the people closest definitely should leave. But they eventually
cleared out far more area than just the nearest town of people that were given
large exposures.

------
gwbennett
The US Navy has trained thousands of 18-25 year old men and women to operate
hundreds of reactors around the world safety for over 60 years. I was one of
them. I have not been an operator for many years, but the latest reactor
designs are amazingly safe and reliable. The world needs more safe, clean,
cheap and reliable power. Nuclear power is one of the answers.

~~~
ysleepy
Did they teach you where the nuclear waste goes too?

~~~
sjwright
The worst plausible answer couldn’t possibly be worse than pumping it directly
into the air we breathe, as we do with diesel and coal.

~~~
tuatoru
And leaving it in huge open air and waterside windblown heaps, in the case of
the ash.

------
baix777
There is that old saw that generals fight the last war, and this article
misses the modern risk of nuclear. With the development of cheap attack drones
the risk of nuclear has increased over what is was. There is no effective way
to completely protect against drones. Drones have already been used in an
attack against a centralized energy facility.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Abqaiq%E2%80%93Khurais_at...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Abqaiq%E2%80%93Khurais_attack)

~~~
Integer
There was no increase of nuclear risk because of drones, and no need to
increase the protection of the powerplants, for the very simple reason that
there is nothing a drone can do against meters of reinforced concrete
protecting the reactor. A drone big enough to do more than scratch the paint
would be classified as a cruise missile, and that risk was understood since
before the first nuclear powrplant was turned on.

------
734129837261
Not sure what to make of this article. Nuclear power is by far the cleanest
and safest way of generating energy for both humankind and nature. Chernobyl
was ancient and outdated, which caused issues. And Fukushima had to withstand
an earthquake and tsunami. And even then the radiation only killed 1 person.

Even wind-turbines cause more damage by killing many, many birds. They aren't
as reliable and they certainly cause a lot of noise pollution. And they aren't
all that pretty, either.

The risk of nuclear is low to none, barring any unforeseen freak accidents.

Yes, if a tsunami hits the nuclear plant, it might break down. If a meteor
hits it, it might break down.

By that logic we shouldn't build cities. After all, if a tsunami hits a city
many people will die.

I wish politics around the world would just leave the decision-making up to
smart people instead of vote-gatherers.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Wind turbines kill a negligible number of birds compared to other threats.

[https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-
scienc...](https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/wind-
turbine-kill-birds.htm)

It's not actually known definitively how many people Fukushima killed, but it
is known definitively that the final economic costs wildly outweighed the
"cheap" energy it produced.

[https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/12/1301/pdf](https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/12/1301/pdf)

Nuclear is not clean. There is still no solution to nuclear waste, which makes
it impossible to cost the TOC of nuclear.

And considering the number of accidents to date - and their economic cost -
nuclear certainly isn't safe either. Is it really a good idea to create pools
of extremely toxic heavy metal waste which is _also radioactive_?

It also isn't cheap. Renewables have been consistently undercut the cost of
nuclear electricity, and that's without any significant push towards an
improved smart grid, a combination of centralised and local distribution, and
clean pumped storage facilities that would be possible with a Green New Deal.

As you say - these decisions should be left to smart people, and not to an
industry which has consistently overpromised and underdelivered.

~~~
StreamBright
>> Nuclear is not clean. There is still no solution to nuclear waste, which
makes it impossible to cost the TOC of nuclear.

Totally.

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-
more-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-
radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/)

"According to U.S. NCRP reports, population exposure from 1000-MWe power
plants amounts to 490 person-rem/year for coal power plants, 100 times as
great as nuclear power plants (4.8 person-rem/year). The exposure from the
complete nuclear fuel cycle from mining to waste disposal is 136 person-
rem/year; the corresponding value for coal use from mining to waste disposal
is "probably unknown".[24]"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Coal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Coal)

------
sfifs
This appears to be really shoddy research and once again illustrates why a
macro economic approach to this problem simply doesn't work and why public
have stopped listening.

The researchers are trying to use a system level risk returns balance and
using very high level average metrics like risk of reduction in lifespan. How
about the distribution around the mean and how about the suffering of people
who undergo cancer treatments and survive? Having seen a close relative battle
cancer and the family suffering, i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy and
their families.

The other piece these macro economic approaches miss is that while a system
level cost isn't much, for most people their property, their job and their
neighbourhood social networks ARE the major assets they have in life and in
the case of nuclear accidents, they lose everything. This fundamentally
Behavioral Economics view of consequences is what drives the recent popular
opposition to nuclear power and unless nuclear proponents start analyzing
nuclear power through a Behavioral Economics lens, they're likely going to be
ignored by the population. Comparing risk of death against statistical
correlations with air pollution isn't going to cut it.

On nuclear, we're barking up the wrong tree by pushing for economic analysis
of old style nuclear. We need to develop and qualify designs that are
passively safe with no risk of driving people away from their property and
society before the industry will be taken seriously, otherwise the only
interest will be in weapons research.

~~~
roenxi
> On nuclear, we're barking up the wrong tree by pushing for economic analysis
> of old style nuclear. We need to develop and qualify designs that are
> passively safe with ...

Evidence is they figured that out in the 1980s. We haven't seen a bad meltdown
from any plant built in the last 40 years.

------
thedudeabides5
Interesting how they call out the potential to use the J value to make public
policy recommnedations but we’ve yet to really see them.

I for one, would love to see some analysis of the value of lockdowns across
society, i particular the prioritization of the older and more susceptible
healthwise, vs the young and economically vulnerable.

~~~
Factfull
The team already did that.

[http://jvalue.co.uk/covid-19.php](http://jvalue.co.uk/covid-19.php)

~~~
thedudeabides5
Amazing, thanks for sharing!

------
DangitBobby
IIRC we were incredibly lucky that Chernobyl didn't turn into a much more
severe global disaster. What happens in a worst-case scenario meltdown? I know
we have a very pro-nuclear crowd here, so I am ready for an onslaught of
information.

~~~
mpweiher
Hmm...Chernobyl pretty much was the worst case.

And, like Fukushima, the impact of the reaction was _much_ more severe than
the impact of the radiation.

[I looked at The WHO reports that were published every decade. Each one
downgraded the estimated impact from radiation dramatically, whereas the
health impact of the evacuation became more and more apparent].

~~~
DangitBobby
Didn't they have to sacrifice some guys to cover some melted core in concrete
to prevent much worse spread of radiation from happening? Or are you saying
that didn't matter?

~~~
mpweiher
a > b ⇏ b = 0

~~~
DangitBobby
You'll have to elaborate on what a and b are

~~~
mpweiher
a: (negative) aggregate health effects of evacuation

b: (negative) aggregate health effects of radiation

------
tinus_hn
Is there also research available on applying this method to COVID-19 and the
countermeasures?

~~~
Factfull
You're in luck. The lead author or the nuclear J-value author also applied the
method to COVID-19:
[http://jvalue.co.uk/covid-19.php](http://jvalue.co.uk/covid-19.php)

~~~
tinus_hn
Interesting. Unfortunately it appears the obvious choice, to try to keep the
R0 value below 1, is the worst option.

------
justatdotin
^Fthyroid

------
SagelyGuru
Of course this is a pro-nuclear article. It is by "UK Nuclear Institute", run
by UK nuclear industry. First published in their "Nuclear Future". Come on,
did you really expect it to be objective?

------
apple4ever
Many arguments for handling bad things often do not take into account the
unintended consequences of that specific handling. This is one of them.

The lockdowns for Coronavirus is another. I don't know which way it actual
falls (lockdowns still extended life expectancy or the reduced life
expectancy) but I will be curious in a couple of years what the data will show
us.

Some people are absolutely certain X will be the best way and either don't
take into account the downsides or hand-wave away the concerns. I wish we
could have actual debates to come to a solution instead of making it person or
political ("YOU WANT TO KILL PEOPLE" vs "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT PEOPLE"). But
tis life I s'pose.

~~~
atlantacrackers
This. Or, the unknowable lost opportunities that never materialized. How many
relationships never formed, how many business never created, etc is
unmeasurable but absolutely real and the impact from those lost opportunities
will be felt in some way shape and form...

~~~
apple4ever
Great point. There is a lot of lost opportunities that is probably
immeasurable.

I've always said there are tradeoffs to every solution. And we may not have
all the information to even know how bad or good a tradeoff is.

No solution is perfect.

