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

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

#121

Post by acituan »

bb88 wrote: post #119
acituan wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, GLF focused on idealistic purity rather than expertise 1986 USSR bureaucracy didn’t fail only for a lack of expertise either. > There are also a lot more agricultural experts in the US than nuclear experts. It is not a numbers game of that sort. If anything, public misinformation being amplified in influence through social media affects expert based political will negatively insofar the topic is ripe for emot…

> 1986 USSR bureaucracy didn’t fail only for a lack of expertise either. I think you're talking Chernobyl here, without actually saying Chernobyl. Again they were arguably pushing ideology over science -- in many ways to save cost. Then making any criticisms about safety state secrets so no one could know about them. It's worth noting that Gorbachev believed that Chernobyl led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1…

> I think you're talking Chernobyl here, without actually saying Chernobyl

Yes.

> True, but that cuts your argument. As it turns questions of science into ideological ones.

That’s fair enough. If I am understanding correctly, you’re saying the institutional mistrust and failing public discourse we are experiencing today would render existing nuclear dangerous too. No matter if we have expertise or not (I believe we do) we can’t navigate our way to it in the presence of so much other BS.

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

#122

Post by SCAQTony »

Factfull wrote: post #120
SCAQTony wrote: post #115

I read the article, and looked at his bio. He is not a nuclear scientist nor a analytics professional. His previous articles are pro nuke, which is fine, but to take his words wholesale with no bibliography or links is asking too much for this reader. Most of all, he quantifies stress and exhaustion as a primary cause of death for those evacuated. How did he figure that out?

Do you mean the author of the article or the study? The author provides links to the study. You can also just google NREFS.

Yes, he did. The NREFs page was an Overview, which contained links to a lecture, background on the study, and and about thirty bibliography links. I suggest his opinions, at the very least, have asterisks and links to specific study as to how he arrived at his opinions.

http://www.nrefs.org/publications/

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

#123

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

SCAQTony wrote: post #115

I read the article, and looked at his bio. He is not a nuclear scientist nor a analytics professional. His previous articles are pro nuke, which is fine, but to take his words wholesale with no bibliography or links is asking too much for this reader. Most of all, he quantifies stress and exhaustion as a primary cause of death for those evacuated. How did he figure that out?

Yeah, I thought this article was decent in some respects, but the larger issue was that it completely ignored human nature when it comes to risk assessment. Does he honestly think it would have worked to tell those living near Fukushima, "Don't worry, on average you'll only lose about 3 weeks of life, so don't worry about it!" Of course, very few people are hit by the "average": most people have no I'll effects while others develop cancer and die soon. Taking a purely mathematical approach to risk assessment, and using that assessment alone to guide public policy, is unwise.

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

#124

Post by baix777 »

There is that old saw that generals fight the last war, and this article misses the modern risk of nuclear. With the development of cheap attack drones the risk of nuclear has increased over what is was. There is no effective way to completely protect against drones. Drones have already been used in an attack against a centralized energy facility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Abqaiq%E2%80%93Khurais_at...

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

#125

Post by EricE »

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…

or instead of burying the majority of it, burn it in different reactor technologies?

90% of what we are burying could be re-burned in different technology reactors. Note I didn’t say new, because the tech isn’t new. It just wasn’t prioritized because the current reactors byproducts could be used for weapons too.

And the stuff that is left over from these other reactors isn’t nearly as nasty or as long lived either, so no need for ridiculously over-engineered holes in the desert either.

The anti-nuke hysteria of the last 40 years has prevented having even remotely rational discussions about the true clean energy source out there.

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

#126

Post by ethanwillis »

coldtea wrote: post #72
andbberger wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Waste was never really a problem and has been definitively solved. You bury it in a deep unmarked hole. Yeah, too bad it doesn't work in practice.

How does it not?

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

#127

Post by tuatoru »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #39
sjwright wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer it’s radioactive lifespan, the less dangerous it is.

Exactly! In the extreme, things like mercury have an infinite half-life and are toxic forever. Yet nuclear waste always gets the bad reputation because it becomes less dangerous with time. Odd.

Not odd at all. Just very, very successful propaganda.

The coal industry's astroturfed anti-nuclear campaign in the 1960s and 1970s has warped thinking on this for generations.

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

#128

Post by tuatoru »

sjwright wrote: post #20
ysleepy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they teach you where the nuclear waste goes too?

The worst plausible answer couldn’t possibly be worse than pumping it directly into the air we breathe, as we do with diesel and coal.

And leaving it in huge open air and waterside windblown heaps, in the case of the ash.

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

#129

Post by stallmanite »

StreamBright wrote: post #97
labawi wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1 million old technology (burning) AFAIK nuclear is older than oxidation/burning. On a more serious note, burning has been a source of power only since about the steam engine, so about 300 years.

You are discounting cave man with camp fire. Also nuclear _technology_ as of being controlled by humans is not as old.

I’m pretty sure the parent is pointing out that the chemical combustion in eg a caveman’s campfire required many millions of years of stars performing nuclear fusion to create any elements with higher atomic numbers than 2, oxygen included.

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

#130

Post by bb88 »

acituan wrote: post #121
bb88 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1986 USSR bureaucracy didn’t fail only for a lack of expertise either. I think you're talking Chernobyl here, without actually saying Chernobyl. Again they were arguably pushing ideology over science -- in many ways to save cost. Then making any criticisms about safety state secrets so no one could know about them. It's worth noting that Gorbachev believed that Chernobyl led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1…

> I think you're talking Chernobyl here, without actually saying Chernobyl Yes. > True, but that cuts your argument. As it turns questions of science into ideological ones. That’s fair enough. If I am understanding correctly, you’re saying the institutional mistrust and failing public discourse we are experiencing today would render existing nuclear dangerous too. No matter if we have expertise or not (I believe we d…

Not only that, but in the past when a nuclear accident happens, TEPCO - a private company, and the USSR/Russia (twice now) have hidden information from the public during the accidents.

This makes the entire situation worse. Who does the public trust? The press? Watchdog groups?

It's bad enough it happens at all, but could it happen in the US? I would have said no until the last few years.

I kind of think this would be a good board game, actually. Kind of like pandemic but for a nuclear accident, and trying to make decisions based upon imperfect information.

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