The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples • Hacker News Board

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#111

Post by allendoerfer » Wed, Apr 22, 2015, 6:26 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #107

allendoerfer wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

I thought of the free rider in this way: If we stop, everybody else is still doing it (free riding on our reduced risk) and we would be still affected by the risk they produce, but without the benefits of the energy, so lets just keep doing it.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#112

Post by john61 » Wed, Apr 22, 2015, 7:52 PM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #108

allendoerfer wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

No one claims that Germany is nuclear free, because they still have their own nuclear power plants.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#113

Post by unhammer » Wed, Apr 22, 2015, 7:56 PM UTC

RK wrote: post #11

Here's another interesting "radiation enthusiast", who visits nuclear sites and collects radioactive memorabilia. He actually works as a nuclear engineer. http://carlwillis.wordpress.com/ Highlights include Chernobyl trips, a trip to "Soviet Ground Zero", and a how-to for DIY uranium chemistry.

While we're onto nuclear enthusiasts, this is a great slightly-tongue-in-cheek (or possibly entirely serious) blog about nuclear science and fashion and stuff: http://rose-blogg.blogspot.com/

I like the recipe posts the best: http://rose-blogg.blogspot.de/2013/05/oppskrift-pa-naturlig-... ( https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr... )

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#114

Post by mpweiher » Wed, Apr 22, 2015, 10:30 PM UTC

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…

> Fukushima happened

Yes it did, and it finally pushed me over the edge into full support for a nuclear renaissance (I was leaning before). Let's recap what happened:

1. A Tsunami of unexpected size hit Japan, overwhelming sea walls and other technical infrastructure, and as a result killing somewhere between 15000 and 19000 people. Most drowned, but 165 died of fire.

2. One of the many pieces of technical infrastructure that was hit and wasn't able to cope was an old nuclear power plant with severe safety deficits.

3. Yet there have been zero casualties of the resulting meltdown (and future predicted casualties are somewhere between low and non-existent). That's despite the fact that Tepco and the authorities appeared to be woefully unprepared.

165 people died of fires resulting from the Tsunami, a number much, much larger then the casualties from the meltdown. Banning fire and flammable substances would be a saner response to the Tsunami than banning nuclear power.

Your source [1], the Wikipedia article on nuclear accidents is the most ringing endorsement of nuclear power I can think of. Did you have a look at the "fatalities" column? It reads 0 or 1 for all of the accidents except the one in Idaho falls, where the number is 3. Do you know what the death toll of other energy sources is? Forbes put together the statistics[2], and the results are staggering: even in the relatively safe USA, the death-rate per Trillion kWh for Coal is 15000. Worldwide it is 150000 and in China 280000. Nuclear is 90.

Again, the gap is so staggeringly huge as to beggar belief, but it tallies with other sources. Now I'd obviously prefer that number to be zero, but that option is not available on the menu, so I'd like the least bad option, and nothing else comes close (even solar and wind are higher).

In terms of waste, I just want to reiterate what others have stated: technically, it is a solved problem, the problems are purely political, because of an unreasonably scared populace and spineless populist politicians. Heck, ash from coal plants is more radioactive than nuclear waste[3][4].

Now there are problems, for example being stuck with a military reactor design that whose express purpose was to make bombs, whereas other designs are much, much safer and would burn waste[5], but those can be overcome and even with those problems it is a damn good option, so good that many thinking environmentalists have come around[6][7]. Alas in Germany everybody "knows" that nuclear is bad, so our Dear Leader decided to cave in to popular demand, no matter how brain-dead.

If you haven't seen it "Pandora's Promise"[8] is also really worthwhile.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_accidents_in_th...

[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de...

[3] http://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_is_coal_ash_more_radioa...

[4] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-r...

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor

[6] http://e360.yale.edu/feature/stewart_brands_strange_trip_who...

[7] http://archive.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2007/11/mo...

[8] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1992193/plotsummary

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#115

Post by sjg007 » Wed, Apr 22, 2015, 10:31 PM UTC

placeybordeaux wrote: post #75

ck2 wrote: post #74

If the 23 in her username is her age, she is going to get cancer before 50. BTW did that radiation from Japan make it to California? Because we all might be eating a little of that radiation if so. Unless rain somehow filters radiation but I doubt that.

Why do you say she will have cancer before 50?

exposure to ionizing radiation.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#116

Post by saalweachter » Wed, Apr 22, 2015, 11:44 PM UTC

iSnow wrote: post #91

chii wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps they do well, because the radiation kills off the weak ones relatively quickly (compared to other habitats), and thus the remaining population is actually stronger over time. For humans, that doesn't happen because we try to cure those afflicted which would've otherwise have been "naturally selected out", and so weakens the gene pool over time.

That does not make sense. If the radiation culled the weakest, then it would also affect the stronger individuals. Essentially, radiation would make the stronger weak and make the weak too unhealthy to survive.

More importantly, 'strong' and 'weak' only have meaning relative to a particular evolutionary niche. Adding massive radiation changes the niche so that strong means 'able to survive massive doses of radiation' and 'weak' means 'not'. There is no reason to assume this definition of 'strong' correlates with 'strong' outside a highly irradiated zone.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#117

Post by saalweachter » Wed, Apr 22, 2015, 11:52 PM UTC

tempodox wrote: post #86

Fascinating! However, the name of the publication (“Atlas obscura”) seems grammatically nonsensical. “Atlas obscurus” would look more credible.

Why not "Atlas kryptos"?

You could also interpret it as "Atlas, hide!"

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#118

Post by mikeash » Thu, Apr 23, 2015, 3:11 PM UTC

allendoerfer wrote: post #111

mikeash wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

I thought of the free rider in this way: If we stop, everybody else is still doing it (free riding on our reduced risk) and we would be still affected by the risk they produce, but without the benefits of the energy, so lets just keep doing it.

Right. My point is just that it applies both to stopping (other people might just keep using it) and to improving safety (other people might not spend the money on safety like we do). So while it's a problem, it doesn't seem to be an argument for one choice over the other.

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#119

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Apr 23, 2015, 6:15 PM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #28

chokolad wrote: post #26

seriously, 6 foot long catfish is a radioactive freak now? I lived in Uzbekistan from the time I was born (1976) till about 1990 and six foot catfish was really big but not uncommon. I have a photo of my dad holding 5 feet one by the gills somewhere in my albums (dated before 1976 for sure). I remember my dad buying smoked catfish slices about 5-7 inches across, those definitely came from pretty damn big specimens. A…

If you watch the video, she says the size of the catfish is most likely due to them having no predators.

The parent commenter was probably commenting on the attitudes that warranted that disclaimer (in both the video and the article).

Re: The Woman Who Ate Chernobyl's Apples

#120

Post by precisioncoder » Fri, Apr 24, 2015, 9:55 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #82

antimagic wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life expectancy is a tricky statistic to use correctly, because it is significantly dragged lower due to the high rate of death in birth / infancy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy ). Once that hurdle is gotten over, your life expectancy increases dramatically, so it's not sure as to whether or not Curie actually lived a long life compared to contemporary adults. Considering that we know that Curie's de…

This pdf has life tables for England (should not be ridiculously different than France, good enough to illustrate the point either way): http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/Eng/Docs/DEIP_Gallop.pdf In the 1930s, a 65 year old woman would expect to live an additional 12 or so years.

These are both excellent points about life expectancy, thank for for sharing this information, looks like I got to learn something today. The overall point however that Marie Curie did live a long fruitful life despite her research and could be considered an excellent role model. There is often a misconception that she died young due to her research, and often the subtext of disapproval because of it. I think it's sad that it's common to belittle someone for quoting her.