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The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

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Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#101

Post by oh_sigh »

precisioncoder wrote: post #45
swamp40 wrote: post #9

Don't think I'd be quoting Madame Curie, if I were her.

Why not? I'm assuming you're implying that Marie Curie's research shortened her life. Marie Curie lived until age 66 in 1934. Life expectancy according to this ( http://ourworldindata.org/data/population-growth-vital-stati... ) random google search for 1935 in France was 58.09. This means that Marie Curie's life was 113% longer then usual for her time. The current life expectancy in the USA is 78.74 according to the…

The question isn't how long someone lives relative to their peers, it is how long they would have lived if they had not been exposed to whatever harmful thing. Considering it was aplastic anemia most likely due to radiation exposure which killed Madam Curie, she would have certainly lived longer than 66 years if she had not been exposed to the ionizing radiation. Not that she could have known any better.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#102

Post by guscost »

jjoonathan wrote: post #99
dragonwriter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear opponents propose shutting down old reactors and not building new reactors -- but they haven't been able to find viable economic alternatives to the old reactors To the extent this is true, neither have nuclear proponents or the nuclear industry; the reason new nuclear reactors aren't built isn't because of nuclear opponents, its because the nuclear industry won't build them without special liability protec…

> its because the nuclear industry won't build them without special liability protections. You say "liability protections" as if the dispute were over indemnification in case of a meltdown or accident. That's not what has made nuclear reactors too "risky" to be built in the US. The "risk" in question is that anti-nuclear factions will be able to indefinitely stall construction by repeatedly coming up with new "safety…

Not to mention that arguing about the degree of liability the owners face is effectively the same as arguing about the cost of their liability insurance. If the insurance is expensive enough to make it impossible to turn a profit, that is just as effective as a regulator causing endless delays by fiat.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#103

Post by allendoerfer »

mikeash wrote: post #98
allendoerfer wrote: post #66

My problem with nuclear disasters or really any kind of bigger scale environmental damage is, that you have no control over other people's actions and failures. You therefore can not argue, that the technology is fine as long as we all use it securely, because you simply can not ensure that for countries you have no control over. And it is not only the small countries. We trust developed nations with nuclear technolo…

I see the free rider argument for nuclear safety. But it also seems to apply to nuclear prohibition. Whether your approach is to make nuclear power safer or simply to eliminate it, you face the same problem when it comes to ensuring that everyone follows along. So while I see it as a problem, I don't see how it's an argument in favor of elimination over safety as you seem to be making. The waste problem is greatly ov…

My argument is not, that we should not enhance security. We definitely should, the fact, that even the most developed industrial powers can not handle it in a manner that satisfies me personally is my argument for eliminating it. I am personally just not comfortable with even a tiny chance of a massive and unfixable catastrophe. This is just my subjective feeling.

To your second point: I always forget how this rhetoric figure is called and I would be grateful for a link, but it is easily dismissed: Something even worse does not justify not acting on something bad. We have quite a few people on this earth and can tackle multiple issues at once.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#104

Post by grecy »

joshvm wrote: post #25
grecy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and it was maxing out her meeter, which I think was showing 100 mSv/h, wasn't it?

Yes, but radiation sickness is caused by prolonged exposure - that is, 100mSv/h for two hours (dimensions are important here, dosage is in Sv). Additionally that's for a full body dose and she was mostly irradiating her fingers.

ahhh, Thankyou.

I thought it meant that if you're exposed to 100mSv/h, you'll get sick around 2 hours later... but what it means is a full body dose for 2 hours is enough to make you sick.

Therefore 5 minutes to the fingers is probably OK.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#105

Post by allendoerfer »

guscost wrote: post #100
allendoerfer wrote: post #66

My problem with nuclear disasters or really any kind of bigger scale environmental damage is, that you have no control over other people's actions and failures. You therefore can not argue, that the technology is fine as long as we all use it securely, because you simply can not ensure that for countries you have no control over. And it is not only the small countries. We trust developed nations with nuclear technolo…

By this logic it doesn't matter which way you argue, or whether you argue at all, right? Those actors who you have no control over will do what they want. I don't see what I'm supposed to take away from it.

You have economical influence over prices and I would argue, that ensuring that something is not there is much easier than ensuring that something is built securely.

But you are right, it is difficult.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#106

Post by allendoerfer »

soperj wrote: post #95
john61 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germanies currently installed photo voltaic systems have the power output of 21 nuclear reactors on sunny days.

And still rely on france to provide nuclear power when it isn't.

Germany relying on France is not a bad thing at all. It is called European integration. We do it in other areas, too, because the benefits way outweigh the costs. They could for example crash our currency or stop to sell us food. We could not feed us on our own. Remember, Germany is tiny by US standards.

Somebody has to be the first mover. Once France follows, we will provide them with renewable energy of the finest quality.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#107

Post by mikeash »

allendoerfer wrote: post #103
mikeash wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the free rider argument for nuclear safety. But it also seems to apply to nuclear prohibition. Whether your approach is to make nuclear power safer or simply to eliminate it, you face the same problem when it comes to ensuring that everyone follows along. So while I see it as a problem, I don't see how it's an argument in favor of elimination over safety as you seem to be making. The waste problem is greatly ov…

My argument is not, that we should not enhance security. We definitely should, the fact, that even the most developed industrial powers can not handle it in a manner that satisfies me personally is my argument for eliminating it. I am personally just not comfortable with even a tiny chance of a massive and unfixable catastrophe. This is just my subjective feeling. To your second point: I always forget how this rhetor…

Does that mean the free rider problem does not apply? If the argument is that it can't be handled with sufficient safety regardless, that's a reasonable one (albeit one I disagree with), but separate from the shared resource/free rider thing.

For the waste, I apologize, I didn't mean it as the usual "X is worse, so Y can be ignored." What I meant to say by that was that the dangers of waste are exaggerated, and it can be dealt with without a great deal of difficulty. The "generations to come" stuff is generally stated to make nuclear waste sound really bad, much worse than other things, but in fact that makes it a lot better than more mundane sorts of waste. The fact that we can deal with waste that is much more poisonous, generated in much greater quantity, and lasts much longer than nuclear waste tells me that nuclear waste isn't a difficult problem to solve (except for the political aspects). I don't mean to argue for not acting on it, merely that acting on it isn't a showstopper.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#108

Post by tedivm »

allendoerfer wrote: post #106
soperj wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And still rely on france to provide nuclear power when it isn't.

Germany relying on France is not a bad thing at all. It is called European integration. We do it in other areas, too, because the benefits way outweigh the costs. They could for example crash our currency or stop to sell us food. We could not feed us on our own. Remember, Germany is tiny by US standards. Somebody has to be the first mover. Once France follows, we will provide them with renewable energy of the finest…

No one is complaining about one country cooperating with another, they're simply pointing out that Germany isn't as nuclear free as some claim as it uses nuclear energy from France on days when it's not "sunny".

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#109

Post by scott_karana »

michael_h wrote: post #79
precisioncoder wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? I'm assuming you're implying that Marie Curie's research shortened her life. Marie Curie lived until age 66 in 1934. Life expectancy according to this ( http://ourworldindata.org/data/population-growth-vital-stati... ) random google search for 1935 in France was 58.09. This means that Marie Curie's life was 113% longer then usual for her time. The current life expectancy in the USA is 78.74 according to the…

13% longer, not 113% longer. I know, nitpicky.

Not so nitpicky! I had the same feeling and wondered for a moment, "was life expectancy then just 33 years? Did I misread?"

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#110

Post by jdthomas »

Sort of related to this post; I recently read Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima [0]. I was not expecting much from the book, but it turned out to be FANTASTIC, would highly recommend if you have any interest in nuclear accidents or nuclear energy in general; I learned a lot from reading it.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1605986801/

edit: formatting

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