The opposition into Japan is not about the exact number of cancers or deaths. It is about trust. To quote the official report [1]:
...the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster – that could and should have been foreseen and prevented. And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response.
How could such an accident occur in Japan, a nation that takes such great pride in its global reputation for excellence in engineering and technology? This Commission believes the Japanese people – and the global community – deserve a full, honest and transparent answer to this question.
Our report catalogues a multitude of errors and willful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11. And it examines serious deficiencies in the response to the accident by TEPCO, regulators and the government.
For all the extensive detail it provides, what this report cannot fully convey – especially to a global audience – is the mindset that supported the negligence behind this disaster. What must be admitted – very painfully – is that this was a disaster “Made in Japan.”
Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.
(the rest is worth reading too)
If your government and industry had failed you like that would you trust them to continue with nuclear power without fixing the underlying problems?
The author of the submitted article, Richard Muller, is the developer of a Physics for Future Presidents course at UC Berkeley, author of a book with the same title as the course, and author of a new book Physics and Technology for Future Presidents: An Introduction to the Essential Physics Every World Leader Needs to Know
that is well worth a read. In other words, Muller has been thinking about how to apply the facts of nature to the contentious issues of public policy for a long time, and has a good sense of economic and political trade-offs in policy- making. The article submitted here is a great example of clear thinking on a scary issue, and I endorse it as well worth reading and thinking about.
P.S. I have just been to Colorado Springs, Colorado, transiting the Denver, Colorado airport to get there, and I am not worried about increasing my cancer risk by returning to the Front Range each year for the business that brought me there.
I checked some of the statements made in other comments in this thread since posting this, and I can't find any confirmation that the country-wide shutdown of nuclear plants in Japan has been anything other than bad for the country. While Japan continues to need electricity (for life-saving medical technologies, among other uses), and until other sources of electricity become less expensive, it makes sense for Japan to be open to restarting the other nuclear plants in the country.
P.P.S. I live in one of the states of the United States in which an exceptionally large percentage of electricity is generated at nuclear power plants. Both plants are located along the Mississippi River, as is most of Minnesota's population centers. Electricity is unusually inexpensive here, and health statistics are unusually good here, compared to other parts of the United States.
You are correct that the shuttering of the plants has been bad for everybody. Power is already more expensive and another rate increase (10% or so) is imminent. The air is dirtier. The whole place is a lot more uncomfortable (to comply with mandatory energy cuts, the Tokyo office in which I am typing this very post no longer has any climate control on weekends... I have a frozen gel-pack wrappped around my head and sweat is still running down my back).
As a resident and rational human being, I want those gigawatts back. Modern Tokyo is an especially sad place without enough power.
But I want the gigawatts without the staggering incompetence and the gross negligence and the collusion and collossal failure of oversight. I want the nuclear plants to be equipped with modern emergency procedures that don't start with faxing a fucking paper form to City Hall.
And despite all the controvery and debate, I don't hear much about fixing those things. In terms of whether to turn the juice back on, those things are the problem, more than the accident itself. And that is the point that the well-written article by Dr. Muller misses.
Yes, it is rational for a thinking person to be open to using nuclear energy, despite the inherent risks. I think it is rational if, say, we really do a decent job of trying to mitigate those risks, to have functional regulatory oversight, and make decisions in a reasonably transparent, fully informed, democratic manner.
But when you feel (as I think the public here feels) that there is just no way that part is going to happen, then it becomes less rational to support the nukes.
Personally I love nuclear power. What a fucking thing! Incredible! And, it makes the 1 MW·h or so I personally use each month cheaper and even potentially cleaner.
So in theory sure, I support nuclear energy initiatives. I think you are right, it does make sense for Japan to be open to that.
But instead in Japan (and elsewhere, probably) I think the question actually is: "Do you support nuclear energy in the absence of competent oversight, with reliance on the for-profit provider's self-inspections, with safety precautions that are insufficient to protect from predictable natural disasters, and outdated fax-machine-based emergency procedures?"
Coping with summer heat is actually possible without air conditioning. I know because I live now in a country where air conditioning is virtually inexistent in spite of summer temperatures comparable to Tokyo's (although usually less humid).
Insulation is a major factor and probably a main reason why you consider air conditioning in Tokyo that important: Insulation is virtually virtually virtually, i.e. air conditioning becomes more of a necessity and waste more energy. In the winter time, on the other hand, heating in Japan is very inefficient as well. During my last stay in Japan, I was happy to see at least some new building with better insulations, that is a beginning!
Another factor are long commuting times in Tokyo, another contributing factor to energy consumption.
And there is of course always the possibility of a siesta. The Japanese have somehow a reputation for Coping with summer heat is actually possible without air conditioning. I know because I live in a country where air conditioning is virtually inexistent in spite of summer temperatures comparable to Tokyo's.
Insulation is a major factor and probably a major reason why you consider air conditioning in Tokyo that important: Insulation is virtually inexistent, i.e. air conditioning becomes more of a necessity and waste more energy. In the winter time, on the other hand, heating in Japan is very inefficient as well.
Another factor are long commuting times in Tokyo, another contributing factor to energy consumption.
And there is of course always the possibility of a siesta. The Japanese have somehow a reputation for long and busy workdays, however, most of it is inefficiently spent office time. A siesta would therefore easily be possible or just try to be more efficient and spend less time in a warm office.
Do I like to work in a warm office in the summer? No but coping with summer heat is much easier than with winter cold … I hope the Japanese will get the priorities sooner or later right, despite the lamentable state of the country (and that began not with Fukushima). and busy workdays, however, most of it is inefficiently spent office time. I often compare the Japanese with the Italians in regard to their work ethic although the Italians at least admit that they are not efficient … anyway, a siesta at least would easily be possible or just try to be more efficient and spend less time in a warm office.
Do I like to work in a warm office in the summer? No but coping with summer heat is much easier than with winter cold … I hope the Japanese will get the priorities sooner or later right, despite the lamentable state of the country (and that began not with Fukushima).
Japan reduced energy usage fairly significantly in the summer following 3/11, to cope with the energy shortage from the missing nuclear plants. Remember, they started with rolling blackouts, and eventually got things to the point where they could cope without them.
They did this using a lot of the simple things you suggest, turning off stuff (many places got downright dim), reducing cooling, people wearing less clothing, reduced train frequency, etc.
Unfortunately this summer they seem to have given up all of that, and are simply burning a lot more oil generating electricity. I'm not sure why they didn't try to maintain the "save electricity" campaigns, because they actually were effective (some of that, no doubt, due to the implied threat: "if you don't, back to the rolling blackouts!").
[I think the "Japanese heating is inefficient" is a bit misleading -- Japanese houses are traditionally pretty poorly insulated, but they're also not very large, and tended to use localized heating (everybody huddling around a heater) instead of keeping the whole place toasty. The ultimate expression of this, of course, is the kotatsu, which reduces heating needs to a well-insulated 0.2 m^3 space focusing on everybody's feet! :) Newer buildings tend to be better heated, and hopefully they can match that with better insulation.]
"I can't find any confirmation that the country-wide shutdown of nuclear plants in Japan has been anything other than bad for the country. While Japan continues to need electricity (for life-saving medical technologies, among other uses), and until other sources of electricity become less expensive, it makes sense for Japan to be open to restarting the other nuclear plants in the country."
OK, I don't know if anyone else finds this to be a strange statement, but I do.
First, no one is saying that shutting down 50 of 52 nuclear power power plants, providing 30% of Japan's electricity supply is an economic benefit. Would that even make sense?
But "bad for the country" is a very different proposition.
"Japan has shut down over 95% of the power plants which produce radioactive waste which lasts for thousands of years."
Bad for the country?
While Japan continues to need electricity (for SHORT TERM CONVENIENCE) , and until other sources of electricity become less expensive, it makes sense for Japan to be open to restarting the PRODUCTION OF ENERGY WHICH RESULTS IN RADIOACTIVE WASTE THAT IS LETHAL FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS).
Yeah. Right.
What IS good for the country? Short term consumption, or long-term sickness, death and mutation? What would Hoppe say, in terms of a time preference analysis?
The concept of a half-life explains why LETHAL FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS is a bit of an overselling of the situation.
The more radioactive a substance is, the shorter its half life. That is, the sooner it will become less radioactive. And vice versa: if a substance has a long half life, it will simply emit less energy per unit of time.
It's just inverse formulae. Nothing magical.
But people imagine high-powered radioactivity lasting for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. It just doesn't happen like that.
Jacques, I feel reluctant to disagree with you, because to search out the supporting references is a bit of a chore, but I had a good education in physics, I was a very good student, and I am confident that lethal for thousands of years is not overselling of the situation. If anything, thousands of years is underselling, as hundreds of thousands would be more accurate.
Let me help you with that. Jacques is correct in his description of activity. I just checked my radiation detection text book to make sure (that would be embarrassing wouldn't it!)
However, "lethal" is a bit of an ambiguous term when applied to the waste from the nuclear power generation. After cooling down, the fuel assemblies will most certainly be emitting ionizing radiation that will be detectable for hundreds of thousands of years, as you suggest. This does NOT mean it is "lethal" for this time period. UNLESS you open one of the assemblies and make an industrial waste smoothie. Most of the long lived isotopes contained in the assembly will be deadly as heavy metals. So there is still danger, but it is easily manageable, just like the waste from many other industrial processes (like making solar panels, or batteries for hybrids for instance).
Really? If that were true, you'd be able to answer him easily with facts and explanations that draw on those facts to provide an integrated understanding of reality.
I have a friend that just graduated from a nuclear engineering program. He is well-educated in physics.
Your angry capitalization does not substitute for understanding of where the waste will go and what the actual health impact would be. We have actually had some time to see how this goes, what are the results so far?
Oh please. I'm sorry you interpret my capitalization as "angry". It's a typing style I'm used to. I'm 52, and I've been on the net since the late 80's, if you want to suggest a simple italicization trick for HN, please let me know.
As far as the rest of your question, I am completely dumbfounded, gobsmacked, and bewildered as to WTF you are saying.
> RADIOACTIVE WASTE THAT IS LETHAL FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS
Honest question, isn't the fuel also lethal, and decaying it makes it less lethal? I understand storing the waste might be somewhat problematic, but is it really that hard to put it somewhere safe?
Damien, to be honest, once radioactive fuel is "in the country", as far as I know, feeding it into a reactor produces more radioactive waste than the original material.
But I could be wrong about that. I'm sure some of the nuclear experts, and captains of industry, and Wall Street apologists whose jobs depend on it would be able to give you a more scientific answer ;)
As far as I am aware, the safest policy for "the country", whatever that territory might be, is to get any radioactive material "outside" ASAP.
Also, as far as I am aware, there is no shortage of governments who are willing to be the hosts of such long-term poisons/weapons material, which doesn't really say much for them morally, does it?
Reprocessing some kinds of nuclear waste actually reduces long-term radiation levels. TRUEX, from Argonne National Laboratory, can remove (and then burn up) transuranic alpha emitters, and basically you end up with short-lived high activity isotopes (safely stored above ground for decades in fuel ponds on-site) and long-lived low-activity isotopes (fairly similar to the natural ores, and could be stored underground long-term, or in subduction zones in the mantle). The problem is that doing this has a proliferation risk, but I have zero fear of the Japanese developing a nuclear weapon, and as far as the US, UK, FR, CN, RU doing so, well, that ship sailed in the middle of last century.
"It is remarkable that so much attention has been given to the radioactive release from Fukushima, considering that the direct death and destruction from the tsunami was enormously greater. Perhaps the reason for the focus on the reactor meltdown is that it is a solvable problem; in contrast, there is no plausible way to protect Japan from 50-foot tsunamis."
It's amazing to be able to take such an arrogant attitude. The outrage regarding the Fukushima disaster is exactly that there would have been no fallout if not for several human errors leading up to the disaster -- and the lies and misinformation following the disaster. There is a complete and justified lack of trust in the government and the industry -- and no indication that there will be no further accidents -- whether induced by natural disasters or just poor maintenance.
So yes, over engineering does indeed work -- and is a necessary measure when dealing with potential radioactive fallout -- but even then accidents do happen. I've seen people claim that the fact that human error is behind this and other accidents "proves" that nuclear power is safe -- this is of course rubbish. Human error will always be a big risk factor in any engineering project.
The author also ignores the fact that Japan has done an unprecedented job of mitigating the damage tsunamis can do -- but that the effort had been scaled towards what was assumed to be the likely threat -- a tsunami smaller than the one associated with this earthquake. He implies that this effort was for nothing -- which isn't true. It simply wasn't effective along large parts of the coast as it should (could) have been.
Consciously allowing a potentially huge risk -- the long time destruction of farmland and populated areas by radioactive contamination -- versus not mitigating all possible natural disasters and risks of war -- is a false dichotomy.
The problem with nuclear power isn't that a lot of people might die from cancer -- it's that generations might be affected by a single accident -- and will be burdened with containing spent fuel for longer than human civilization have existed.
Finally, if it turns out that geothermal power is a viable alternative -- then it should be possible to fulfil Japan's energy need without any risk of nuclear fallout.
In addition, we as mankind know how to deal with the aftermath of a tsunami: We clean up, rebuild and so on …
After a nuclear disaster, we mostly remain helpless observers. As of today, the Japanese neither fully know what actually happened and still have no idea how to deal with the Fukushima aftermath in a long-term. The same goes for Tschernobyl and many other sites with nuclear fallout and waste. Nuclear energy is like a dragon awoken without any possibility to put him at sleep ever again.
> Looking back more than a year after the event, it is clear that the Fukushima reactor complex, though nowhere close to state-of-the-art, was adequately designed to contain radiation. New reactors can be made even safer, of course, but the bottom line is that Fukushima passed the test.
He made a good argument that new cancer cases are statistically few, but I can't see what test Fukushima passed. As far as I know there were multiple meltdowns and dumping radioactive water into the ocean. From an engineering point of view, it was a clear-cut failure. If not of implementation, then at least of specifications and margins.
I think the idea was that even if it was an engineering failure, it turned out not to be so dangerous. In a sense, it passed the tests of "What if things go wrong? What if the engineering wasn't so good? What if there's human error? What if events happen that weren't initially predicted?"
They were not designed to be able to resist an earthquake of that magnitude so I fail to see how it can be an failure from an engineering perspective (the fact that most plants handled it fine should if anything suggest that, from an engineering perspective, it was a success).
They had a disaster much bigger than was planned for, multiple failures, both human and machine and even so nobody died from it. At worst, some might eventually succumb to cancer someday.
But it's radiation, so people are still more scared of it than the tsunami that killed everyone. I mean, nobody is talking about how to make sure that we're better prepared for the tsuanmis that kill thousands of people and utterly devastate so much land.
That's a good point. I wonder how many more lives they could save by taking the money they're planning to use to phase out nuclear power and using it to build stronger tsunami walls.
The damage that actually occurred is not that serious. The oceans are large, and eventually the authorities will pick out what's left of the fuel rods and store it safely. This is what was done at Three Mile Island.
But the reality is they only very narrowly avoided a catastrophe that would have been orders of magnitude worse, since they were only able to regain control of the site by putting people there to add water. That was mostly luck.
The Chernobyl reactor also had no containment vessel, so the initial core failure blew a cloud of radioactive fire into the air. The Fukushima containment vessel kept most of the crap in one place until it could melt into a cohesive mass.
You wouldn't get the graphite fly ash that turned Chernobyl from a localized problem into an international headache, so no, it wouldn't have been as bad as Chernobyl. But it could have been much worse than it was.
As an experiment, I volunteer to expose myself, my wife and my children to a yearly dose of radiation that is three times the maximum safe-level recommended by The International Commission on Radiological Protection. i.e. we happily live in the Denver area ;-)
1. The paper you link to does not discus ingestion. Ever. It clearly described to the dosimetric estimates of gamma and neutron, but no information on metabolic pathways.
I hate to tell you sir, but you in fact do test this every day you breathe, drink and eat. There ARE in fact many natural sources of radioactivity, that we have been eating for quite some time, with never a though of cancer.
Radioactive isotopes are one source of radiation, insolation and cosmic background radiation are others. In this case the OP was referring specifically to maximum radiation exposure levels as defined by some big-"I" international organization.
No. It is not. There is alpha, gamma, beta+ and beta-. And there is a huge difference. And how healthy it is strongly depends on the area of you body that is exposed. If Your skin is exposed to alpha radiation it can be as harmless as a sunburn (it's a matter of the dosis). If you get alpha radiator into your bloodstream that's a whole different story at the same dosis.
That still confuses radiation with radio-isotopes which are sources of radiation. If you consumed a highly radioactive isotope you would likely get more radiation not different radiation.
If a single bioloogically consumed radio-isotope molecule put out the same amount of radiation as the annular insolation in Denver, then you would likely get more localized damage from the ionizing radiation at its point of binding. If it were multiple molecules (measured in parts per billion) and they in aggregate summed to the annual insolation in Denver, then its no more dangerous than the annual insolation in Denver.
Alpha particles and energetically ejected electrons and positrons are ionizing radiation just like gamma rays, and its the amount and concentration, not the source, that matters.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply daily. As professor Bernard Cohen meant it, as a competition with Ralph Nader, I was a one off meant to show that the equivalent mg dosage of caffeine would kill you much faster then plutonium. A daily ingestion is much different.
Radiation and contamination are different, you can't just compare dosage levels in different scenarios.
If you wore a mask and suit all the time living next to Fukushima, it would not change how much radiation you get because plastic suits don't block radiation. But you would be vastly more healthy because you would avoid the contamination.
Essentially if you inhale radioactive particles they stay inside you and continue to radiate, and the substances themselves are often very toxic. This is the main concern.
Lately I've been reevaluating my predictable sci/techy pro-nuclear stance. I still roll my eyes at folks who don't really know what radiation is but think it's inherently bad, and I still think nuclear power is probably a lesser evil than fossil fuels. But two things I learned this week gave me pause:
And maybe those are both insignificant. But I think they both serve as non-partisan evidence that we can and have semi-permanently altered the planet with each nuclear mistake we've made.
The low-background steel seems to be a factor of nuclear weapon testing rather than nuclear reactors. Even the most ardent of nuclear power supporters don't argue for detonating more nuclear weapons!
Besides, essentially everything people do at any scale has altered the planet in permanent or semi-permanent ways. It is an issue, but it is not an issue unique to nuclear power.
I am convinced that the nuclear power industry remains not only inextricably linked to nuclear WMD programs, but its expansion is in fact driven by the desire for the materials, technology and capability to develop nuclear weapons
Perhaps in places like Iran and Pakistan. For the last few years we've been using old Russian warheads as fuel here in the US, which is the opposite situation.
Yeah, I think you're probably right about that. But there are already some 400 nuclear power plants around the world. As much as I'd rather the Iranians not have one, it's pretty difficult to say "Sure, we have 104 nuclear reactors in the US, but you guys aren't allowed to have any."
Physicist Richard Muller should clearly demonstrate his beliefs by moving to Fukushima, instead of discussing the panic from the other side of the world. And he should also put nuclear risks in perspective, and contradict Seaborg:
I'm not sure what you mean. My point was that challenging him to move to Fukushima doesn't show his hypocrisy or anything. He has very good reasons not to move to Fukushima that have nothing to do with the threat of radiation.
Perhaps an interesting meta-discussion is the phenomenon of how choice of units affects the framing of a discussion. 0.1 rem doesn't sound nearly as dangerous as 1,000 μSv, though of course both numbers are completely meaningless to most lay people.
TEPCO measured radiation levels of 10 Sv in the basement of Reactor 1 in June this year [1].
In March TEPCO measured radiation levels of 73 Sv/h in the container vessel [2]. A Fukushima worker tweeted a radiation level estimation of > 1000 Sv for another part of the reactor (the endoscope used for radiation testing is only rated to 1000 Sv, so cannot be used) [3].
The radiation level next to Chernobyl immediately after the meltdown was 300 Sv/h.
Also in March, Arnie Gundersen of FaireWinds went to Tokyo to collect soil samples from parks and streets, and on testing the samples back in the US concluded they would be considered radioactive waste in the United States. [4]
The XKCD cartoon was produced during the perceived hysteria following the aftermath and reporting of the Fukushima radiation and fallout, but the history since then appears to indicate that the extreme concern over Fukushima radiation is depressingly justified.
Unit 4 has significant structural damage, and contains the most (and most recently used) fuel rods, stored outside the containment wall. Another 7.5 earthquake could cause a collapse triggering a fuel rod fire that could not be put out. TEPCO's plan states that they cannot begin removing fuel rods until 2013, or possibly 2014. [1]. "There is as much cesium in the fuel pool at Unit 4 as there was in all of the atomic bombs dropped in all of the tests in the 1940's, the 1950's, the 1960's, and into the 1970's."
All that is required for a catastrophic release of radiation across the northern hemisphere is a significant seismic event.
Fukushima is now classed alongside Chernobyl as a category 7 reactor event, the area surrounding Fukushima will take decades to clean up, and the Japanese Government has admitted major human error within regulatory bodies, and within TEPCO and credulous government acceptance of the Nuclear industry's unfounded safety claims. [2]
And Muller claims that "Fukushima passed the test". You can't make this stuff up. But you can call it what it is, historical revisionism by an ardent supporter of the nuclear industry.
Considering the still perilous situation, it is a breathtakingly irresponsible and insensitive article to write. Truly astonishing.
Or maybe it's just a rational one. None of what you've brought up contradicts my point. The problem isn't ignorance on my part, but rather hysteria on yours. Really, if this is the way you approach life I'm surprised you have the courage to get out of bed in the morning.
>Unit 4 has significant structural damage, and contains the most (and most recently used) fuel rods, stored outside the containment wall. Another 7.5 earthquake could cause a collapse triggering a fuel rod fire that could not be put out.
Or it could do nothing at all. You do realize they spent the first part of this year pouring concrete and putting in steel rods to stabilize that building, right? Did you think they've been drinking sake and shooting the breeze all this time?
>"There is as much cesium in the fuel pool at Unit 4 as there was in all of the atomic bombs dropped in all of the tests in the 1940's, the 1950's, the 1960's, and into the 1970's."
Yes, the reactors and pools are contaminated. And it will take a few years to get all that ugly stuff into completely safe storage. And? As long as the fuel doesn't go anywhere it doesn't matter how long it takes to clean up.
>Fukushima is now classed alongside Chernobyl as a category 7 reactor event, the area surrounding Fukushima will take decades to clean up
I find it amazing people can say (presumably) with a straight face that because shares some subset of characteristics with Chernobyl that it's OMG JUST AS BAD AS CHERNOBYL!!!! It's not as bad as Chernobyl by orders of magnitude. It never was.
As far as the exclusion zone goes, it's only 20 km. Even for a country as land-poor as Japan that's not much.
I wouldn't be so generous as to call your initial comment a point. More like an antagonistic expression of wilful ignorance.
That you would assert that the only people who need to be concerned with radiation are people 'living in a containment vessel' is simply absurd.
All you're doing now is applying the industry's standard response to rational concerns over a disastrous reactor incident: paint public concern as ignorant 'hysteria', engage in a bit of character assassination ("I'm surprised you have the courage to get out of bed in the morning"), and gloss over the seriousness of the situation, and impacts ("it's only 20 km").
Your stance also clearly indicates you've read little on the impact on the ground in Fukushima over the last year. I don't think there's much to be gained from discussing this issue with you, as at any point you'll be arguing with a concocted mental model of an opponent who is 'hysterical' and 'ignorant', and bring only arrogance and snark to the table. Boring.
I don't know of any authoritative resources on radiation->cancer risk, can anyone provide more information? The article starts out with a cool premise but I have a hard time swallowing the linear rem->%chance relationship described here
"If 25 rem gives you a 1% chance of getting cancer, then a dose of 2,500 rem (25 rem times 100) implies that you will get cancer (a 100% chance)"
Unfortunately, we don't have the data. Yep, it's non linear, but all of our data is basically on two ends of the spectrum. Low amounts of radiation on one end, accumulated from natural sources or working at nuclear plants, and high amounts of radiation on the other, accumulated from survivors of Hiroshima, Cherynobyl, and some nuclear accidents.
So, given those data points, with clusters on two ends of this spectrum you're stuck with interpolation. Ideally, we'd like a good, predictive, biological based model that explicitly showed how you go from biological damage to cancer or death. We don't have that (though there are people researching it), so we go with statistical techniques. This results in basically 3 different proposed models.
This is clearly wrong for very large doses, but is used mostly to try and estimate the effect of a small change in radiation exposure to predict increase in cancer incidence. This is very important for public policy. Of course, this makes all these models politically contested.
This model predicts that small amounts of radiation has zero effect on cancer incidence. According to this model, going to higher altitude, or taking a plane flight, won't increase your risk of cancer.
A little radiation is good for you! The biological argument is that your body gets used to dealing with damage from radiation. Don't tax it too hard and you'll be stronger. So take a plane trip, and enjoy the X-ray scans!
Hate to keep taking issue with your comments, but they are pattently wrong. Using a study of atomic bomb studies and an anti-nuke web site do not constitute science.
Studies Ive read, completely contradict your statements
(http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?artic...) for one. There are others, and I am sure that I will not be convincing you, but I didn't want your voice to be the only one on the issue here.
The LNT model is clearly wrong, but people like numbers even if they're wrong, which is why you see it used in planning and media reports. There are probably fewer cancer cases than LNT would predict, but beyond that we simply don't know.
That's about where the author lost me. Up to that point, he seemed to be pulling numbers from research, but then he makes a transition to pulling numbers and formulas out of his ass. For example, I'm not convinced that "if spread out over 1,000 people, so that everyone received 2.5 rem on average" is a valid deduction.
He then goes on to explain how "to know how many excess cancers there will be." I listened to an interview with a radiation expert [1] a couple weeks ago, and he made it very clear that we don't know how to make those calculations that the author of this article is claiming to know how to make. If I were to try to regurgitate the points from the interview, I'd risk spreading a misunderstanding of the issues. So instead, if you're interested in what the experts think on this subject, you can refer to the original source [1].
The spreading out effect is a direct consequence of the linear no threshold model. If you have a total dose D spread over N people, then everyone receives a dose D/N. With some constant k converting individual dose to cancer rates, you end up with an expected number of k D/N * N cases of cancer. ( So it is almost certainly wrong, however it is not understood how wrong it is.)
Yeah, losing your present lifestyle and job to go live in one of the most xenophobic country of the earth, and one that doesn't have a lot of skilled English speakers at that, just to make a point, sounds like a good plan, right. You really have to be one of those "wapanese", people from the west who are obsessed with japan, to be insane enough to do such a thing through your own will. You don't have a choice if you're employed at a company that does business in Japan and you have to move there for a year or two. But someone who does it with nothing compelling him to ? Madness. Japan is the last country I'd want to live in, among the developed, industrial countries of the world.
People talk about racism in Europe and America. Well, of course racism is still alive and kickin', but they don't know what racism is until they take a look at Japan.
In the west we're at the point where we're taking in lots of immigrants from diverse background, be it educated or uneducated, from various countries and cultures in the world. That isn't the case in Japan. It's already kinda exceptional for an European to live in Japan.
It is ridiculous to expect anyone to go live in Fukushima just to make a point. Hell, it might be technically impossible. For a white foreigner to work in Japan, you have to take an upper class job, that is, something in engineering, education, entertainment.. or else you'll never get any work visa. But the thing is, there probably ain't a lot of those jobs in the evacuated area of Fukushima. So what you are asking him to do might even be impossible. There might be a way if that person is willing to travel long distances from home to the workplace.. who'd do that kind of stupid effort anyway just because some bloke on the internet asked him so ?
...the other trouble with sociopaths, is that they have no trouble making untrue statements: you shouldn't trust (because you simply can't) the exposure maps.
The German Embassy didn't either: they knew better by themselves.
You really have to put things in context, otherwise you get into the "think of the children" fallacy, where everything is worth the effort if it saves one life.
We die of three causes: cancer, heart problems and strokes. Well over 30% die of cancer. So this means some of those 200 will die of cancer before they die of something else (some of them will recover and live to die from heart attack later). This makes the new deaths a really tiny percentage, which means policy-wise it's hardly worth discussing.
I'm certainly not trying to imply any policy prescriptions. I'm strongly in favor of nuclear power. But if there's risk we should know what it is so it can be distributed/compensated for.
I'm not saying it's not worth the cost (or even trying to discuss things in those terms), but I'm not convinced this outcome is insignificant. If this article is right, many of these people will die N years sooner than they would have otherwise. How high does N have to be before it gets worth discussing?
It is pretty bad, but people have seriously argued that the evacuation itself killed more people: Japan (like any other highly populated First World country!) is stuffed full of old or sick people, and when you force them to evacuate quickly and be separated from all their stuff, their doctors and medical records, their local pharmacies, and subject them to a ton of stress in every respect - well, quite a few people are going to kick the bucket.
I think the evidence on that point is incontrovertible. On the other hand it would have been politically impossible to refuse to evacuate people in the area.
Over 15K people were killed in the quake and tsunami. On the scale of "badness", ~200 projected cases is not a scale tipper. Not to trivialize the additional projected cancer risks, just to put it in perspective.
what other industry gets to benchmark social license against this tsunami? What other unacceptable risks should be weighed up against 15,000 deaths "to put it in perspective"? On the scale of badness, how many deaths does an industry need to be responsible for until its "a scale tipper"? This is a very poor way of weighing up the very real ongoing risks and hazards presented by the nuclear power industry.
My main point in putting it "in perspective" was not to dismiss the statistically projected increase in cancer rates, but to show that if there is anything to panic about first in Japan, it is the systemic failures that may have lead to a higher death toll in the earthquake and tsunami, such as tsunami walls of insufficient height, and "safe zones" that were not safe enough for the surge height. The surge estimation, modeling, contingency and responsiveness "faults" for the general population were of the same kind that affected the unanticipated failure modes of the power plant.
The plant did not fail because "nuclear was bad", it failed because it wasn't designed to be hit by a tsunami of that magnitude; which if the same reason for many of the direct tsunami-related deaths. With that in mind, Japan needs to get better at tsunami planning and engineering, like they generally have with direct earthquake planning and engineering.
Now, as to comparing energy producing industries, the mortality metric would be deaths per kilowatt hour; in which nuclear fares extremely well compared to mainstays like coal, even if 200 additional cancer deaths out of a "normal" 4400 for the given population are added in.
Other industries would of course be considered on merit. I don't know if any so thoroughly under attack from people with a poor grasp of the topic (or supported by people with such a poor grasp of the topic...)
What other industries would it be relevant to benchmark like this?
Every energy source kills people, even solar and wind kill people. This guy did a collection of statistics (I think they are each by a different body so they're not directly comparable but should still suffice for orders-of-magnitude.) http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so...
With 2 reactors online and several thermal plants taken offline Japan is more than meeting it's current demand even though an exceptionally hot summer.
(Yes, I've been keeping an eye on the demand & availability numbers. Not just making stuff up in advance like others here.)
In fact if you took the 2 reactors offline they would still meet demand.
Now as the renewable energy industry actually gets a chance, rather than being squashed by the nuclear industry stranglehold on government the reactors are becoming clearly unnecessary long term.
Statements like many of the blog posts here are frankly ridiculous propaganda.
Infertility and High Natural Background Radiation ...
"Conclusion: Findings of this study indicate that women's Primary infertility rate in the HBR residents was considerably less than in the area with ordinary background radiation."
"Y. Tabarraie , S. Refahi , M.H. Dehghan and M. Mashoufi , 2008. Impact of High Natural Background Radiation on Woman`s Primary Infertility. Research Journal of Biological Sciences, 3: 534-536."
Random question: Could the altitude of Denver contribute to its lower incidence rate of cancer? Your body does have to work a bit harder to live higher up. Just curious.
The conclusion of the WSJ was: "The great tragedy of the Fukushima accident is that Japan shut down all its nuclear reactors. Even though officials have now turned two back on, the hardships and economic disruptions induced by this policy will be enormous and will dwarf any danger from the reactors themselves."
The conclusion of The Corbett Report was: "Along with the tragic loss of life, the destruction of homes, farms, businesses and property, and the beginning of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami exposed the biggest secret of all: that the myth of the necessity of nuclear power in Japan is just that. A myth."
I read your links. I know the audio is almost an hour, so I don't expect you to have listened before you posted.
According to Mr. Corbett, who lives in Japan, the predicted shortages did not in fact materialize this summer, and in fact, a SURPLUS of power was reported. He doesn't assert that without the 50 plants currently offline there will be no power shortfall. Most of the report is about alternatives such as solar, geothermal, thorium, and wave power.
The point is that Japan has gone over a year now with almost NO nuclear power, and the sky has not fallen. There are alternatives. There are also large corporate/governmental interests who PREFER the present nuclear policy, and that policy is now opposed by a large number of the Japanese people.
Did you personally suffer any consequences? Are you perhaps suspicious of TEPCO, or the WSJ's motives?
Left out of that story are all the sacrifices people had to make to conserve power. That said, Thorium is a promising power source. Just don't tell anyone that it's nuclear power.
"that the myth of the necessity of nuclear power in Japan is just that. A myth"
This is just wrong. Japan is importing natural gas at prices x2-x5 higher than before. Causing Japans Trade balance (positive for nearly 30 years) to swing negative which is going to cause un-known and negative consequences for economy if this continues.
Energy both in availability and price is the economic engine that drives developed nations... we just replaced our Toyota to a expensive but nice BMW - somethings going to give.
"This is just wrong. Japan is importing natural gas at prices x2-x5 higher than before. Causing... ".
Correlation, causation... You might want to take into account that there are many other economic factors which influence that, such as the ongoing global banking crisis, and Japan's debt ratio of 220 percent of gross domestic product, according to the International Monetary Fund, by far the largest ratio of any Group of Seven country.
This is not a result of gas imports. I can only assume that you are not familiar with Japan's economic problems before Fukushima if you think they are.
Your personal car analogy is cute, but not very relevant.
...the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster – that could and should have been foreseen and prevented. And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response.
How could such an accident occur in Japan, a nation that takes such great pride in its global reputation for excellence in engineering and technology? This Commission believes the Japanese people – and the global community – deserve a full, honest and transparent answer to this question.
Our report catalogues a multitude of errors and willful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11. And it examines serious deficiencies in the response to the accident by TEPCO, regulators and the government.
For all the extensive detail it provides, what this report cannot fully convey – especially to a global audience – is the mindset that supported the negligence behind this disaster. What must be admitted – very painfully – is that this was a disaster “Made in Japan.”
Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.
(the rest is worth reading too)
If your government and industry had failed you like that would you trust them to continue with nuclear power without fixing the underlying problems?
[1] http://www.nirs.org/fukushima/naiic_report.pdf