Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

mitnse.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 136 posts

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#101

Post by NickPollard »

moe wrote: post #95
NickPollard wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plane falling happens a lot more often?

Are you serious? According to [1] roughly 15k people died in plane accidents over the past decade. It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that Chernobyl killed many more than that. Furthermore a nuke meltdown renders a large area uninhabitable and leaves an economic footprint "slightly" bigger than a few planes coming down every year. Quote from [2] (page 33): Coping with the impact of the disaster has placed a huge…

Yes, I am serious. I said the plane falling happens more often, not that it is worse as a singular event.

Unfortunately it is a problem with human psychology that we respond more strongly to a singular large event than to consistent low-level events.

Some of the discussion on this page has suggested Chernobyl killed around 60k, directly and indirectly. Certainly a tragedy, and a huge one at that, but it is also the only major nuclear disaster. The second worst (until we fully understand the current Japanese incident at least) remains Three-mile island, where there are no confirmed deaths I am aware of.

So, we're comparing approx 60k deaths, over the course of approximately 60 years, which works out as about 10k deaths a decade, against aviation accidents of, as you said yourself, approximately 15k a decade.

By those numbers, approximately 50% more people die each year from aviation accidents than from nuclear-power-related injuries. It's just that Chernobyl is a big story, but we hear about plane crashes all the time.

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#102

Post by _delirium »

moe wrote: post #81
cperciva wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the "wide concrete tray" will capture the waste. Maybe it won't. Maybe the laws of physics will change, but I'd be willing to bet that they won't. But in the meantime, you're hoping that there's not a secondary fire from the heat Concrete doesn't burn. or a steam explosion At the point when the nuclear fuel melts, all the water has boiled off 1000 degrees ago. or some other kind of explosion that flings radioac…

Concrete doesn't burn. No. But concrete can crack during, say, an earthquake. And I assume concrete can also lose integrity (melt? vaporize?) under very high temperatures.

Wikipedia has some details on the typical interactions here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_(nuclear_reactor)#Corium...

The summary is that yes, typically concrete would melt at temperatures anywhere in the range that you'd expected a molten core to be at.

My understanding is that newer designs have a "core catcher" under the reactor made of something more resistant than concrete, but this unit doesn't.

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#103

Post by daniel-cussen »

moe wrote: post #79
brazzy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

total number of causalities of 35, all in Chernobyl Wrong, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster - 31 dead from acute radiation poisoning within months - 216 non-cancer deaths until 1998 - Between 9,000 (official government report) and 60,000 (TORCH report) cancer deaths overall

60,000 (TORCH report) cancer deaths overall Thanks for pointing that out one more time. I'm not an anti-nuclear zealot but I'm getting extremely tired of supposedly intelligent people citing the "35 deaths" bullshit-figure on HN in each japan-thread. If there had been only 35 or 4000 deaths then Chernobyl would not be considered a catastrophic event up to this day. Instead it would be considered a testament to the sa…

>If there had been only 35 or 4000 deaths then Chernobyl would not be considered a catastrophic event up to this day. Instead it would be considered a testament to the safety of the technology.

Doubt it. Nobody says Three Mile Island was a testament to the safety of nuclear power, and the harm was pretty small, unambiguously less harm than 35 dead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Heal....

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#104

Post by Groxx »

Duff wrote: post #23

I'm really kind of sick of listening to people talk about how everything is hunky-dory. I heard one supposed expert on CNN basically state that a nuclear meltdown is no big deal. The lesson to learn here is when a government tells you everything is ok regarding an event with potential regional impact, get the hell out of town. I'm assuming the reactors are melting down and are out of control. Pumping seawater in may…

CNN seems to have been doing everything in their power to make things more confusing and worse than it actually has been. To make matters worse, right in the middle of them stating that the reactors were experiencing a meltdown (this is over a day ago), they cut back and forth between videos of the explosion and videos of a natural gas refinery on fire. Classy act, that; clearly they're interested in journalistic integrity and accuracy. The expert they had on was attempting to do away with some of the insane sensationalism they were trying to lead him to admit had minor accuracies in them.

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#105

Post by forgotAgain »

kitsune_ wrote: post #50

This is BULLSHIT, the guy (Oehmen) is a mechanical engineer with a management focus. He worked at my alma mater (ETHZ). His field of experties is supply chain risk management. Look up his papers, he isn't a nuclear physicist. I'd say he's about as qualified to make a comment on the situation as I am. The "essay" by Oehmen was first published by a notorious nuclear lobbyist, Jason Morgan. Look at this: http://nuclearf…

Some supporting background information here. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/03/the-strange-case-of-jos...

I'm not touting the veracity of this link. I'm only trying to show that the intent of the original article should be questioned.

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#106

Post by rimantas »

moe wrote: post #79
brazzy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

total number of causalities of 35, all in Chernobyl Wrong, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster - 31 dead from acute radiation poisoning within months - 216 non-cancer deaths until 1998 - Between 9,000 (official government report) and 60,000 (TORCH report) cancer deaths overall

60,000 (TORCH report) cancer deaths overall Thanks for pointing that out one more time. I'm not an anti-nuclear zealot but I'm getting extremely tired of supposedly intelligent people citing the "35 deaths" bullshit-figure on HN in each japan-thread. If there had been only 35 or 4000 deaths then Chernobyl would not be considered a catastrophic event up to this day. Instead it would be considered a testament to the sa…

> If there had been only 35 or 4000 deaths then Chernobyl > would not be considered a catastrophic event up to this > day.

It wouldn't. Oil and coal industry killed waaay more people. Heck, take Banqiao Dam alone. Nobody cares. Water is safe, nuclear is scaaaaaary.

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#107

Post by Travis »

moe wrote: post #95
NickPollard wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plane falling happens a lot more often?

Are you serious? According to [1] roughly 15k people died in plane accidents over the past decade. It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that Chernobyl killed many more than that. Furthermore a nuke meltdown renders a large area uninhabitable and leaves an economic footprint "slightly" bigger than a few planes coming down every year. Quote from [2] (page 33): Coping with the impact of the disaster has placed a huge…

I looked at your first source, and immediately noticed that the 2001 death toll does not count those who died in the WTC collapse (article states for 2001, 200 accidents, 1534 dead, so it doesn't include ground zero casualties). In order to make an apples-to-apples comparison, you really need to include the deaths of those in the buildings, those in the planes, the rescue workers with respiratory problems, and anyone else exposed to pollutants at ground zero.

After all, we're counting the fallout from Chernobyl, so we have to count the fallout from 9/11. Both are huge, (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime occurrences with massive secondary casualty counts.

And as far as economic costs, I believe you have to address the 9/11 costs.

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#108

Post by adlep »

icarus_drowning wrote: post #65
adlep wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is all in the original title. The author's conclusion of "Why I am not worried" was based on the facts listed in his article. However, given the gravity of the current situation at the power plant we can assume that even though the facts listed in the article were all correct the author has misinterpreted them and reached a conclusion that that is wrong. Edit: Think of it as a physic text homework problem. Y…

Again, I'd posit that given the facts available 3/12, it was the right conclusion .

Well, my conclusion was totally different - right after the first explosion. Edit: I think you should really stop arguing this by now :) Unfortunately, I can not give you a credit for that problem - there is no partial credit, the answer is wrong so it is an "F".

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#109

Post by burgerbrain »

timinman wrote: post #71
icarus_drowning wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I'd posit that given the facts available 3/12, it was the right conclusion .

It was never the right conclusion to believe this kind of energy can be indefinitely managed.

Nuclear reactors are not velociraptors.

Re: The 'why I am not worried' article, edited by MIT nuclear scientists

#110

Post by moe »

NickPollard wrote: post #101
moe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? According to [1] roughly 15k people died in plane accidents over the past decade. It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that Chernobyl killed many more than that. Furthermore a nuke meltdown renders a large area uninhabitable and leaves an economic footprint "slightly" bigger than a few planes coming down every year. Quote from [2] (page 33): Coping with the impact of the disaster has placed a huge…

Yes, I am serious. I said the plane falling happens more often, not that it is worse as a singular event. Unfortunately it is a problem with human psychology that we respond more strongly to a singular large event than to consistent low-level events. Some of the discussion on this page has suggested Chernobyl killed around 60k, directly and indirectly. Certainly a tragedy, and a huge one at that, but it is also the o…

Unfortunately it is a problem with human psychology that we respond more strongly to a singular large event than to consistent low-level events.

I agree with that in general, although my opinion on this particular comparison differs.

we're comparing approx 60k deaths, over the course of approximately 60 years

Sorry to be nitpicking, but I'm not sure where the 60 years are coming from. However, since there's no hard data to rely on I'll even concede that plane accidents may have accounted for the same or slightly more "directly related" deaths in the same timeframe.

But: This is only a single datapoint. And a relatively "lucky" one.

The surrounding area around Chernobyl was sparsely populated and quickly evacuated. This is not representative for the locations of the majority of nuke plants, and certainly not for the Fukushima area.

If we imagine a worst-case scenario in Japan, with Tokyo right around the corner, then the second data-point could already change the equation in a drastic way.

This is why I think analogies to plane-crashes or traffic-accidents are invalid.

Post reply on HN