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Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

english.aljazeera.net

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Re: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

#71

Post by smackfu »

3am wrote: post #37
berntb wrote: post #16

In addition to the other criticism. From the article: TEPCO announced that the accident probably released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl, making it the worst nuclear accident on record. Is there a reference supporting this? I've only seen values for Fukushima radiation as a fraction of Chernobyl (and if I remember correctly, not as bad isotopes)? A while ago, I got multiple comments mod…

With zero effort, I found this for you: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110413005584.htm ; "Junichi Matsumoto, acting head of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Nuclear Power & Plant Siting Division, acknowledged the seriousness of the Fukushima accident at a press conference Tuesday. 'Although the details of the [Chernobyl and Fukushima] accidents are different, from the standpoint of how much radiation has been relea…

I still have doubts about that claim. Didn't Chernobyl release clouds of radioactive fallout over Europe?

Re: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

#72

Post by nandemo »

glhaynes wrote: post #23
nandemo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Fukushima caused a 35% spike in infant mortality in the US , you gotta wonder what was the effect in Japan. Did they bother to check?

But it's not at all proven that "Fukushima caused a 35% spike in infant mortality in the US", is it? It seems sort of unlikely that no one would have noticed a tremendous spike in the amount of environmental radiation (such as would presumably be necessary to cause such an increase in infant mortality) in these northwestern US cities. Either way, though, that seems surprising to me that there'd be a 35% increase in i…

> But it's not at all proven that "Fukushima caused a 35% spike in infant mortality in the US", is it?

I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear, but that's my point, it's so implausible. US is very far from Japan, so if there was a 35% spike there then the researchers' first reaction should have been to check the corresponding stats for Japan. If they didn't it smacks of intellectual dishonesty.

Re: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

#73

Post by tensor »

nobody_nowhere wrote: post #3

The quick onslaught of the "it couldn't possibly be a meltdown" message in the mainstream media and the "MIT professor says" emails/webpages, etc all smacked of a propaganda campaign to me. All the while the fuel rods were sitting in a puddle at the bottom of the reactor... and probably leaking through into the ground. Of course, it's more likely that it was a lot of people not willing to believe the scope of the cat…

Except it's not a total meltdown. The last reports I've seen suggest it may be a partial meltdown that is still fairly well contained.

And people did not say it could not melt down. They claimed that even if it did, it would not be a Cherynobl like event. The claim was that the reactor design includes some form of containment in the event of a meltdown. Unless I'm missing some new news, all these claims have held.

Your comment bothers me for another reason. The above comments are based on the claims of the engineers who built the reactors. I don't think any of the commenters here have actually designed the nuclear reactors in question.

In other words, you are criticizing people for accepting the experts analysis as being unreasonable. Meanwhile, on what do you base your obvious opinion to the contrary? What analysis have you done? Why should anyone value your input?

Re: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

#74

Post by nandemo »

srl wrote: post #24
nandemo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Fukushima caused a 35% spike in infant mortality in the US , you gotta wonder what was the effect in Japan. Did they bother to check?

I think it's too easy, with all this talk about nuclear meltdown and the world's worst industrial disaster (really?), to loose the following nugget of context: Japan just got hit by the fifth largest earthquake since 1900. They have bigger problems - at least in the short term - than radiation. One of the most frequent complaints that comes up is the lack of safety mechanisms built into the reactor. Sure, they could…

I agree with most of that, I'm just not sure why you wrote it in reply to my comment. I'm not criticizing Japan at all, my issue was with the "35% spike caused by Fukushima" hypothesis. If it were true, then I take it there wouldn't have been many surviving babies in Japan. That would have been a huge problem indeed.

Re: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

#75

Post by RandallBrown »

dreamux wrote: post #5

"Most of the reactors in Japan were designed by US companies who did not care for the effects of earthquakes," As an Engineer I call bullshit on this.

Yeah, this is when I stopped taking the article seriously. The reactors handled the earthquake just fine. It was the tsunami wiping out all the backups that screwed it up.

Re: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

#76

Post by tensor »

pohl wrote: post #25
burgerbrain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just think of it as a natural counterweight to all the people who equate meltdown with a nuclear explosion.

Where are such people? From my perspective, you're suggesting a natural counterweight to nobody.

Where are the "this is not a problem" people? I dont' recall a single person claiming the failure at the plant wasn't a problem. As I recall it, there was a "this is not Chernobyl" camp.

Re: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

#77

Post by orblivion »

PaulHoule wrote: post #69
gojomo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radioiodine from the accident has almost completely decayed Given that the accident isn't over – fission is continuing without the normal containment – isn't more radioiodine being created, and at risk of further wide release, every day?

There is no more criticality and no more fission than natural spontaneous decay. Other kinds of radioactive decay continue to release heat in the fuel, which could drive material transfer, but the production of radioiodine is long over.

So why are these things still hot?

Re: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

#79

Post by fleitz »

ahoyhere wrote: post #66
jdp23 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this the kind of argument that Paul Graham charcterizes as "ad hominem" and usually gets voted down on Hacker News? Don't get me wrong, personally I think it's very valid to bring up and important to keep in mind while reading their article. But it seems like a double standard to me.

Motive is incredibly important. Saying someone has a reason to be biased is not ad hominem. Saying they're a fucking hippie is.

Totally agree with you, the thing I don't understand is why bias is so important, everyone is biased because people rarely talk about things in which they are disinterested.

Re: Fukushima: It's much worse than you think

#80

Post by NoItAll »

jrwoodruff wrote: post #26
klenwell wrote: post #10

"In the US, physician Janette Sherman MD and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published an essay shedding light on a 35 per cent spike in infant mortality in northwest cities that occurred after the Fukushima meltdown, and may well be the result of fallout from the stricken nuclear plant." "The eight cities included in the report are San Jose, Berkeley, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, and Boise…

I was very surprised to see statistics like that so soon after it happened. Typically reliable statistics for data like infant mortality are not available until awhile (read: a year) after the event. And, frankly, even then it seems very early to draw a conclusive connection to Fukushima. Correlation != causation.

jr, mom says to get off the computer and stop bothering people.
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