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

Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 265 posts

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#51

Post by benihana »

veidr wrote: post #22
lmm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Except that the Fukushima disaster is about 100 times worse than the New Horizon spill. Really? Everyone is terrified of the radiation bogeyman, but I'd bet there were more injuries and deaths as a result of New Horizon.

Yeah, well, it's easy to make bets on events that will still be playing out hundreds of years after we are all dead, isn't it. Radioactive contamination of the food supply, the oceans, and tens of thousands of people exiled from their hometown for the rest of their lives. 17 injured and 11 dead rig workers is easily comprehended and instant. Doesn't really mean that disaster was worse, though. Just easier to contempl…

>Yeah, well, it's easy to make bets on events that will still be playing out hundreds of years after we are all dead, isn't it.

Is that why you lead off with a fine example of it when you said that Fukushima was "about 100 times worse" than New Horizon?

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#52

Post by mbq »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #38
jre wrote: post #16

I think there are similarities between the nuclear power debate and the GMO debate. In both case, I think it's stupid to be fundamentally opposed to the technology/research itself. But in both case, the industry is so fucked up (lies, too close ties with control authority, ...) that I don't trust them at all. It seems to me this is partially a failure of our current economic system, where the incentives for the indus…

I'm not sure the government would lie any less in this situation so that only leaves one option, no nuclear.

The gov can kill you equally well with nuclear power as with bad food/water supervision, wrong medical policy (like inoculation strategy), chemical plants, mining operations, waste management, insufficient or corrupted law enforcement, finally by causing some war or economic collapse.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#53

Post by yaix »

jre wrote: post #16

I think there are similarities between the nuclear power debate and the GMO debate. In both case, I think it's stupid to be fundamentally opposed to the technology/research itself. But in both case, the industry is so fucked up (lies, too close ties with control authority, ...) that I don't trust them at all. It seems to me this is partially a failure of our current economic system, where the incentives for the indus…

Its both cases of failing government oversight of these industries. Fukushima got worse and worse, because the company was basically doing and saying whatever they wanted (and seemingly still is) with the government just repeating it.

Same goes for GMO. Its a good but potentially very dangerous technology. We should not simply allow it because a few billion USD in turnover and GDP growth are promised.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#54

Post by api »

jre wrote: post #16

I think there are similarities between the nuclear power debate and the GMO debate. In both case, I think it's stupid to be fundamentally opposed to the technology/research itself. But in both case, the industry is so fucked up (lies, too close ties with control authority, ...) that I don't trust them at all. It seems to me this is partially a failure of our current economic system, where the incentives for the indus…

Both of these things are tests of our ability to be conscientious, honest, and to take the power we have seriously and act accordingly. They're tests of maturity and responsibility -- at a civilization level.

So far on the nuclear front we've failed that test. Fukushima had its backup generators in the basement -- in a tsunami zone. There is no global nuclear emergency response team. There is no long-term waste solution in many countries including the USA. Managers of plants routinely slack off on safety, reporting, etc.

We are quite simply too irresponsible and immature for such toys... yet. Humanity has a little bit of growing up to do.

I don't think GMOs are an exact comparison, as I think the risk is much smaller there (at least with most GMO technologies). But it's the same class of thing-- a technology that demands maturity and responsibility. I'd extend that to biotech in general.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#55

Post by DennisP »

Although it's possible this is really bad, I'm surprised by the lack of skepticism in this discussion so far. Mycle Snyder is described as an "independent consultant," with no mention of scientific or engineering credentials. There are quite a few people who make a living as consultants by exaggerating nuclear dangers.

The article also didn't give any numbers at all. How much radioactivity are we talking about here? Talking about "tonnes of radioactive water" is meaningless.

Presumably someone has measured actual radioactivity levels in the nearby ocean. Where are those numbers?

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#56

Post by lispm »

zsombor wrote: post #47
veidr wrote: post #2

I'm so fucking sick of this. This level of ass-clownery makes Japan look so bad, and so diminishes its national prestige in the world, that it's almost like when Bush the junior was president of the USA. Yes, TEPCO is a private company. But it reflects on Japan the same way it would if the US government just left BP and Halliburton to decide entirely for themselves how to clean up the New Horizon oil rig disaster, wi…

By what standard do you see Fukushima as being worse? Number of casualties? Number of people who had their livelihood directly affected? The effect on the biosphere?

Let's just say that hundreds of people will work in extreme conditions (high radiation, damaged nuclear material, damaged buildings) for the next 20 years to keep this thing from collapsing/... before the next heavy earth quake hits.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#59

Post by potatolicious »

samatman wrote: post #50
jre wrote: post #16

I think there are similarities between the nuclear power debate and the GMO debate. In both case, I think it's stupid to be fundamentally opposed to the technology/research itself. But in both case, the industry is so fucked up (lies, too close ties with control authority, ...) that I don't trust them at all. It seems to me this is partially a failure of our current economic system, where the incentives for the indus…

I can think of one thing, and no one will swallow it in our society: The engineers who work on nuclear plants must pledge their lives for its safety, and ritually kill themselves in the event of an incident. I'm perfectly serious, in that it's within the human experience and it would work. I also suspect our world society can't wrap its head around that kind of medieval pact, and I'm not even sure I want to live in t…

Mistakes aren't deterministic, they are largely probabilistic.

While ritual suicide might make the victims of an accident feel better, they are ultimately unproductive - there are many classes of disastrous errors that have nothing to do with negligence.

Not to mention also, even in incidents with a preventable cause, it is exceedingly rare for there to be a singular cause. Chernobyl, for example, was the culmination of a vast number of errors and safety lapses. Should the entire plant workforce kill themselves?

Things like nuclear meltdowns are black swan events, with a multitude of causes and guilt. What you're basically suggesting is that, in the case of such a black swan event, we will kill off a large proportion of the only people who can prevent it from happening again.

Re: Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

#60

Post by Symmetry »

Symmetry wrote: post #37

Have we gotten to the point where the Fukushima disaster has caused as many deaths as an equivalent megawattage of coal powerplants operating over Fukushima's lifetime would have?

Ok, so the lifetime output of the plant is 188 GW-years. Most estimates for the expected cancer deaths due to radiation are around 120. The evacuation itself caused 46 deaths due to disruption in medical care and suicide.

That means that Fukushima had .88 deaths per GWyr. That's 1/3 the death rate of coal according to an EU study, but twice the death rate of coal according to another study that looked at a different set of countries. Which I guess makes sense, most coal related deaths are going to be due to mining safety and particulate emissions which rich countries can do a lot to combat by investing in technology for safer money and scrubbing coal emissions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml

Post reply on HN