21–30 of 157 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> an excuse to paint nuclear power as completely unsafe and dangerous 50 people sacrificing their lives so that anything even shittier would not happen "is safe and not dangerous"? I fail to imagine what you really find "unsafe and dangerous".
What people are you talking about?
These: http://streaming.tepco.co.jp/tepco_people/index-j.html
From here: http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/g3zel/breaking_ex...
At Chernobyl, this actually happened inside the containment vessel and the resulting explosion ruptured the vessel, leading to a serious release of core radioactives – though this has had basically zero effect on the world in general nor even much impact on the area around Chernobyl. Even just as a matter of rhetoric and persuasion, I think trying to argue that Chernobyl wasn't all that bad isn't the route you want t…
The effects of the Chernobyl catastrophe are still being felt today—whole towns
lie abandoned, and cancer rates in people living close to the affected areas
are abnormally high
But it turns out that the radioactive cloud may have a silver lining. Recent
studies suggest that the 19-mile (30-kilometer) "exclusion zone" set up around
the reactor has turned into a wildlife haven.
Plus, as told in other comments, this article dates back to yesterday and recent news are less and less reassuring (e.g. the containment vessel is now broken in one reactor).
Thank you.
... I'm not one of the "OMFG LOOK AT THE NUCLEAR ANGEL OF DEATH" people, but can we wait for this crisis to reach some resolution before we make loud proclamations either way? The main information that concerns me right now is that there appears to be a consistent radiation leak of 400 mSv/h at the plant. While not Chernobyl by any measure, this is quite a bit of radiation, considering one's yearly dose limit is 1 mS…
"considering one's yearly dose limit is 1 mSv total." In Ramsar, Iran the background radition is around 200 mSv/Y (compared to a worldwide average of 2.4 mSv/Y) and _according to wikipedia_ this "high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area". Call me confused. Is the 1 mSv/Y total one of those made-up safety guidelines?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. It is nice, however, to read coverage of the event that's devoid of sensationalism.
When an editorial is so desperate to take a contrarian view to what everyone else is saying it starts claiming Chernobyl didn't affect the area much (linking as supposed evidence to an article whose second page is entirely devoted to observed negative effects of the radiation on the wild animal population two decades later...) it's ill-researched sensationalism itself. I realise The Register may have published the st…
... I'm not one of the "OMFG LOOK AT THE NUCLEAR ANGEL OF DEATH" people, but can we wait for this crisis to reach some resolution before we make loud proclamations either way? The main information that concerns me right now is that there appears to be a consistent radiation leak of 400 mSv/h at the plant. While not Chernobyl by any measure, this is quite a bit of radiation, considering one's yearly dose limit is 1 mS…
"considering one's yearly dose limit is 1 mSv total." In Ramsar, Iran the background radition is around 200 mSv/Y (compared to a worldwide average of 2.4 mSv/Y) and _according to wikipedia_ this "high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area". Call me confused. Is the 1 mSv/Y total one of those made-up safety guidelines?
So no, if you got blasted with 10 mSv all at once you shouldn't expect to vomit blood or fall over dead, but it's still a sizable amount of radiation.
Also, 400 mSv/h is 3,504,000 mSv/Y (aka 3504 Sv/Y, aka 17,000 times the radiation output in Ramsar, Iran). Of course, one doesn't expect this radiation leak to last for a whole year, but the dose rate does matter. Sucking in 400 mSv over an hour is many, many times worse than getting it over a matter of years or decades.
... I'm not one of the "OMFG LOOK AT THE NUCLEAR ANGEL OF DEATH" people, but can we wait for this crisis to reach some resolution before we make loud proclamations either way? The main information that concerns me right now is that there appears to be a consistent radiation leak of 400 mSv/h at the plant. While not Chernobyl by any measure, this is quite a bit of radiation, considering one's yearly dose limit is 1 mS…
"considering one's yearly dose limit is 1 mSv total." In Ramsar, Iran the background radition is around 200 mSv/Y (compared to a worldwide average of 2.4 mSv/Y) and _according to wikipedia_ this "high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area". Call me confused. Is the 1 mSv/Y total one of those made-up safety guidelines?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert#Symptom_Benchmarks [2] http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/14/radiation-dose-and-r.ht...
Enough articles "everything is fine" for my tastes circulating onto Hacker News, while instead the facts created more and more concerns. I think it's better to just wait, and hope, instead of blabling about things that even the top experts of the world are having an hard time to figure. There will be a time, in a few weeks, and hopefully after a disaster was avoided, to speculate about the real security of nuke power…
The hysteria over this is caused by the anti-nuclear people and groups trying to use this as a case against nuclear power, blowing everything out of proportion before any facts are known.
I think a few articles calling for calm balances the shrieking cries of "meltdown imminent".
At Chernobyl, this actually happened inside the containment vessel and the resulting explosion ruptured the vessel, leading to a serious release of core radioactives – though this has had basically zero effect on the world in general nor even much impact on the area around Chernobyl. Even just as a matter of rhetoric and persuasion, I think trying to argue that Chernobyl wasn't all that bad isn't the route you want t…
> So what Chernobyl has taught us?
> That nuclear energy is the safest source of energy currently available. The Chernobyl disaster was the worst we can imagine a nuclear power plant. In addition, Chernobyl defied every rule of safety. This property was one big scandal. But that's not all. Following the outbreak of the reactor were released into the atmosphere huge amounts of radioactive substances, which reached even to Antarctica. And what? And nothing. Killed 31 people - less cluttered than in January hall in Chorzow. Dangerously contaminated was less than a square kilometer of land.That's it!