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Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

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Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

#41

Post by wuschel »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #19
cletus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a number of problems with nuclear power. 1. The world's uranium supply won't actually go that far [1]. 2. A lot of places aren't suitable for nuclear reactors (eg they're seismically active). 3. We have to trust either corporations or governments to run such plants. Corporations will tend to maximize short term profits at the cost of long term safety. Governments will tend to do the same for budgetary reaso…

Thanks for posting. I'm in the nuclear industry and would like to try to address some of these issues if you don't mind. 1. Uranium in seawater is replenished by erosion through streams at a rate faster than we could ever burn it. It is effectively totally sustainable and even renewable on a 4+ billion year time frame, even without breeder reactors. But really, breeder reactors will become a thing when uranium gets e…

Hi, interesting answers.

1) Could you tell me more about replenishment of Uranium in seawater, or point me towards your source?

Wouldn't it mean that we would reach a maximum saturation of Uranium in the ocean after some time (with precipitation of excess Uranium in the form of salts)?

Have you seen / access to estimates of Uranium electrode deposition cost from water? Are they cost competitive in any way in comparison to other energy systems that will be employed in the future?

At the end, you would need to use electrical energy converted from another source to gain Uranium. For me, that scenario is a bit 'fishy'.

Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

#42

Post by _urga »

tbrownaw wrote: post #13
kodfodrasz wrote: post #12

The interviews are interesting. I was a kid those days, and my mother keeps telling me that diary products were suddenly put on a sale (before the news release). I live in Eastern-Europe, in the former Warsaw Pact bloc. My father worked in a research institute, so managed to get a hold of the information before the official announcements. He told her not to buy any diary or vegetable for a while. ---- What troubles m…

Problem is, that wouldn't satisfy the "humans are evil, and the cause of all nature's ills" narrative that underlays much of the activism around climate policy and other environmentalist causes. The solution always has to be fewer humans and less human activity, with the possible exception of temporary "sorry, we were never here" cleanup efforts.

Would you prefer the "humans are basically good" narrative?

Do you honestly find that to be a better explanation of human history the past few thousand years than "humans are evil, and the cause of all nature's ills"?

Personally, I find the latter proves true to life. Better to accept it and deal with it, than to sweep it under the rug.

Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

#43

Post by makomk »

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #26
mkesper wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not taking into account all the people who didn't die immediately but long before their time because of cancer. “I know three women my age (between 30–40) who have experienced thyroid cancer. When one of them was surprised to get the diagnosis, her doctor told her they see women our age from the Soviet Union very frequently with the same. Not a coincidence.” — Z. K.

I think it should be kept in mind that the design of Soviet reactors was incredibly unsafe compared to their western counterparts. Fukushima had four meltdowns with only a few casualties.

If we do that, we also need to bear in mind that dams can be pretty safe if designed and operated correctly too.

Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

#44

Post by frik »

kodfodrasz wrote: post #12

The interviews are interesting. I was a kid those days, and my mother keeps telling me that diary products were suddenly put on a sale (before the news release). I live in Eastern-Europe, in the former Warsaw Pact bloc. My father worked in a research institute, so managed to get a hold of the information before the official announcements. He told her not to buy any diary or vegetable for a while. ---- What troubles m…

You tell us some short emotional story. And then provide a second completely contrary paragraph comment how bad the propaganda is and how great nuclear is. You know what, your tactic is called Zersetzung, and what you are doing is not nice.

Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

#45

Post by jacquesm »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #19
cletus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a number of problems with nuclear power. 1. The world's uranium supply won't actually go that far [1]. 2. A lot of places aren't suitable for nuclear reactors (eg they're seismically active). 3. We have to trust either corporations or governments to run such plants. Corporations will tend to maximize short term profits at the cost of long term safety. Governments will tend to do the same for budgetary reaso…

Thanks for posting. I'm in the nuclear industry and would like to try to address some of these issues if you don't mind. 1. Uranium in seawater is replenished by erosion through streams at a rate faster than we could ever burn it. It is effectively totally sustainable and even renewable on a 4+ billion year time frame, even without breeder reactors. But really, breeder reactors will become a thing when uranium gets e…

> Uranium in seawater is replenished by erosion through streams at a rate faster than we could ever burn it.

Isn't there a substantial energy cost associated with collecting that Uranium?

The same goes for gold, there is a huge amount of gold in seawater and yet, nobody has been able to extract it in a way that left money on the table after the process had run.

Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

#46

Post by mseebach »

mkesper wrote: post #22
jjoonathan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in terms of cost, risks, environmental impact and power output, hydro is hard to beat if it's an option. The death tolls tell a different story. You aren't alone in this belief, but I've never really understood it. Banqiao dam bursts and kills 170,000 people: hydro is fine, we should do more. Chernobyl melts down and kills 30: nuclear power is inherently unsafe! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure https://en.…

You're not taking into account all the people who didn't die immediately but long before their time because of cancer. “I know three women my age (between 30–40) who have experienced thyroid cancer. When one of them was surprised to get the diagnosis, her doctor told her they see women our age from the Soviet Union very frequently with the same. Not a coincidence.” — Z. K.

Even the heavily agenda-driven Greenpeace report on Chernobyl deaths gives an upper limit of 200,000 (and if we're counting non-lethal casualties, the benchmark is 11 million displaced, so let's not go there) - so the absolute insane, totally reckless and avoidable nuclear disaster was in the worst case as bad as a hydro disaster that most people haven't even heard of because everybody had just decided that it doesn't matter. I think GPs point stands.

Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

#47

Post by jacquesm »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #35
cletus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a number of problems with nuclear power. 1. The world's uranium supply won't actually go that far [1]. 2. A lot of places aren't suitable for nuclear reactors (eg they're seismically active). 3. We have to trust either corporations or governments to run such plants. Corporations will tend to maximize short term profits at the cost of long term safety. Governments will tend to do the same for budgetary reaso…

How can you list scarcity of uranium as an issue for nuclear, then advocate for hydro without mentioning the same? There are only so many suitable locations for hydro, and the further down the list we go the worse the incremental environmental impact.

Tidal is hydro and has barely been tapped.

Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

#48

Post by adrianN »

bitL wrote: post #28

This really strikes chord with how Fukushima was treated - nothing to be concerned about, citizen, move along and enjoy swimming on a Fukushima beach a year later... One would think this would happen only in communist societies but seeing it happening in Japan and everybody being fine with that was shocking. And then there were people pointing out xkcd and bananas, downplaying the effects and conflating radiation dus…

Fukushima is several orders of magnitude less severe than Chernobyl. Raising panic is not without risk either, people die because of evacuations.

Re: Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl

#50

Post by rasz »

doug1001 wrote: post #7

the OP is a sequence of brief (100 - 500 words) (skillfully edited & translated) vignettes from people who have first-hand memory of the events related to the Chernobyl disaster. i clicked and began reading the first one; two hours later and i just read the last one. The editor (who compiled, edited and translated these brief accounts) did a remarkable job, but stories themselves are extraordinary and compelling--man…

Maybe in contrast Polish authorities decided to go against our USSR occupation masters(first time in whole Warsaw pact?) and distributed stable iodine to 18 million people just 4 days after the accident.

There is even a documentary about it called 'Chernobyl. Four Days in April' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1904869

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl0pG3TPxeM https://www.cda.pl/video/6949094e?wersja=720p sadly no english subtitles.

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