Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear • Hacker News Board

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#61

Post by sradman » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #7

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?

I think the J-Value approach is important for guiding policy but bawolff's criticism is valid. The article states:

> Sadly, of the 160,000 people evacuated due to radiation fears, there were 1,121 deaths in the first 3 years from physical and mental exhaustion.

When the public’s perception of risk is misaligned with official messaging, this logically will increase anxiety levels. Well informed high-trust societies should do best with a transparent and well communicated J-Value based policy. Measuring trust and refining communication practices seem like important aspects of the public response.

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#62

Post by roenxi » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #34

734129837261 wrote: post #3

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 Chernobyl was ancient and outdated, which caused issues.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 cau…

Wind turbines kill a negligible number of birds compared to other threats. https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-scienc... 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 Nuclear is not clean. There is still no solution to nucl…

> 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...

I think they've done their insurance calculations wrong; it seems they've divided (cost of Fukushima cleanup) by (energy produced by Fukushima) and concluded that the insurance cost is ~$3/kWh. That seems to be accidentality assuming both that Fukushima was 100% of the Japanese power industry and also that it is certain all nuclear plants end with a meltdown. Neither of those is true - insurance works by probabilities and spreading the risk.

Fukushima specifically was likely a net economic loss; when amortised over the entire Japanese nuclear industry their "insurance" estimates are far too high and nuclear power was probably a net win. Also their cost estimates are from English-language newspapers articles which is reasonable but doesn't scream careful research.

They reference an IEEE report (on pg 7) of $0.06/kWh - that is a much more trustworthy figure and roughly in line with Japan's $0.01/kWh actual insurance. Which is pretty reasonable given that probabilistically there wasn't going to be a bad plant meltdown. If Japan had been charging 0.06c/kWh they'd have been being far too conservative from an actuarial standpoint.

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#63

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #57

sfifs wrote: post #54

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 cance…

> 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.

[deleted]

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#64

Post by sesuximo » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

ysleepy wrote: post #6

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: H…

How about you show me where to put all the carbon waste before we build another car/gas plant?

Making orders of magnitude less waste that stays in one place seems obviously better... it’s in parking lots because there isn’t much of it

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#65

Post by SagelyGuru » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

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?

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#66

Post by sesuximo » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #58

semaj111 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily the amount of waste that is the problem, it's the incredibly long duration of its radioactivity. At some point we will need super long term storage, and it's true that there is no viable solution out there yet. Even the most sophisticated facilities can not guarantee that no leakage will contaminate the surroundings at some point. But as I said, I think finding a solution for this should not be o…

> It's not necessarily the amount of waste that is the problem... You might change your mind on that after a bit of reflection; it doesn't make sense. We produce a bunch of things that are going to be hazardous forever - I always point to lead when nuclear comes up. The only reason anyone talks about nuclear waste is because 1 football field is small enough that we could contain it forever. Most industrial processes…

Just look at the sludge that comes with aluminum mining. It’s definitely dangerous and should be handled... but doesn’t mean we should ban aluminum...

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#67

Post by luckylion » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #48

mnemonicsloth wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way politicians build bridges and operate air traffic control systems: by hiring experts to do it.

I feel you're being pedantic here. When bridges fail, they don't affect potentially millions of people's health. Nor does when an ATC system fail at an airport -- traffic can just be rerouted to other airports.

Meh, when major industry things fail, and e.g. a refinery just breaks and releases all of the oil and other stuff into the next best river, it will affect potentially millions of people's health if it's located right.

That's why we're trying to make extra extra sure that it doesn't happen and hire experts, and learn from mistakes (and there were plenty, and I'm sure there will be more).

"If this fails it's just too horrible, we mustn't attempt it" doesn't sound like the most helpful attitude when dealing with large projects that have gigantic benefits but can also cause gigantic issues when they explode.

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#68

Post by StreamBright » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 3:31 PM UTC

ksaj wrote: post #45

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…

Especially if you view the right metric.

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.

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#69

Post by StreamBright » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

andbberger wrote: post #18

ysleepy wrote: post #6

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: H…

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 civil…

Yep. It is quite unbelievable how we use a 1 million old technology (burning stuff) and try to argue that the new way of producing energy (which is already much safer if you check number of deaths per twh) is somehow dangerous and bad. In 50 years of nuclear energy we already made is super safe. Now we can make it safe for being used in location which have pretty serious earthquakes or as a resource for flying (even for spaceships some day).

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#70

Post by StreamBright » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

ysleepy wrote: post #6

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: H…

You might be surprised but burning coal also produces nuclear waste. We jut don't care.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...