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Bhopal disaster

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Re: Bhopal disaster

#61

Post by shalmanese »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

It's really surprising that this and the Banqiao dam failure that killed 230,000 are fairly unknown to the west while Chernobyl is a household name, which killed ~60 first responders and "up to 4000" from early cancer deaths (using conservative linear no threshold models of dose response) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

Similarly, we have paid much more attention to the ~10s of deaths from the Fukushima nuclear disaster but somehow conveniently ignore the ~20,000 deaths from the tsunami that caused the disaster.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#62

Post by ncmncm »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #59
ncmncm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same happened after the Three Mile Island meltdown. Huge amounts of radioactive krypton gas were "vented", and, being much heavier than air, it all ran downhill and pooled invisibly at the nearest dam where, conveniently, only poor people lived. No effort was expended to warn or evacuate them, or to catalog the deadly maladies they suffered in their thousands afterward. To this day it is easy to find people insis…

That's highly outside the norm of scientific understanding on TMI. Please provide a citation suggesting the dose and dose rate that you think those downwinders received. I can help compare dose rates to expected biological damage and we can look into the likelihood of anyone being injured by it. Here's a 1984 study saying the dose from Krypton (vented years after the accident) was insignificant compared to the initia…

"Downwind" assumes dispersal by turbulent airflow over a large area.

But krypton gas is 3x as dense as air. Xenon is 5x. They don't mix eagerly with air, but run downhill more like a (fluffy) liquid. Riding above the water, they run freely over low obstacles to water flow, and spread out far beyond the water's edge. These gases would have run down the Susquehanna River and spread out in the bottom lands along it.

The paper cited in [1] is extremely guarded in its estimates of exposure to Kr radioisotopes, particularly concerning the more active ones like Kr87, 88, and 79. They note that helicopter sampling would produce unreliable measures, and the first measurements of any kind did not occur until 2 days after the incident, when the most active would have largely decayed, and (anyway) run downstream.

The peer-reviewed "A reevaluation of cancer incidence near ..." by Wing et al. ( https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/pdf/10.1289/ehp9710552 ) concludes that increased incidence of cancer around the plant is not consistent with published estimates of releases.

Evacuation was not suggested until two days after the event, and few did, as there were numerous assurances that it was safely contained.

Disingenuous disavowals of harm no not increase credibility.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#63

Post by joezydeco »

WalterGR wrote: post #6

Dow later purchased Union Carbide Corporation. Interestingly, they have a page about the disaster. https://corporate.dow.com/en-us/about/legal/issues/bhopal.ht...

UC also sold off Eveready Battery to help pay for the original settlement.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#64

Post by ncmncm »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #60
ncmncm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tl;dr the census accurately counted a deficit of millions of people, so the census takers were executed. There is no telling how many of the "before" count had existed, as previous counts were systematically inflated.

Fortunately we have dose maps from Chernobyl and have a rough understanding of biological damage vs. dose. Using conservative models, plus the medical records and interviews (WHO and UN got excellent access a few years after Chernobyl happened), we can build pretty good understandings even if census data was questionable. This was accounted for by UNSCEAR, who says "Up to 4000 may die early from Chernobyl" [1] [1] ht…

Chernobyl did not have a reactor in 1937...

Re: Bhopal disaster

#65

Post by acidburnNSA »

ncmncm wrote: post #62
acidburnNSA wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's highly outside the norm of scientific understanding on TMI. Please provide a citation suggesting the dose and dose rate that you think those downwinders received. I can help compare dose rates to expected biological damage and we can look into the likelihood of anyone being injured by it. Here's a 1984 study saying the dose from Krypton (vented years after the accident) was insignificant compared to the initia…

"Downwind" assumes dispersal by turbulent airflow over a large area. But krypton gas is 3x as dense as air. Xenon is 5x. They don't mix eagerly with air, but run downhill more like a (fluffy) liquid. Riding above the water, they run freely over low obstacles to water flow, and spread out far beyond the water's edge. These gases would have run down the Susquehanna River and spread out in the bottom lands along it. The…

Your link gives me a 404, but it looks like you're referring to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1469835/ right? This article does not mention krypton at all, by name. Do you have anything that talks about this statement you made, in particular?

> it all ran downhill and pooled invisibly at the nearest dam where, conveniently, only poor people lived

There's also a pretty good critique of the paper you cited here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1469856/pdf/env...

Re: Bhopal disaster

#66

Post by MaxBarraclough »

zelos wrote: post #41
acidburnNSA wrote: post #21

It's really surprising that this and the Banqiao dam failure that killed 230,000 are fairly unknown to the west while Chernobyl is a household name, which killed ~60 first responders and "up to 4000" from early cancer deaths (using conservative linear no threshold models of dose response) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

Bhopal was a major case study in the Safety course in my UK Chemical Engineering degree, so at least the lessons learned are taught in the West.

If I understand correctly, the Bhopal disaster was the result of irresponsible cost-cutting throughout upper management.

It's not enough that the engineers know what they're doing, if it's a clueless MBA making the policy decisions, no? Especially when they're chasing a bonus, and know they have full legal immunity if they kill people.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#67

Post by ozmaverick72 »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #52
ozmaverick72 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the HBO series on Chernobyl the Russians deliberately kept no statistics on radiation related illness and deaths related to the accident. They said estimates ranged from the number you quoted to upwards of 90 000 deaths. Thanks for telling us about the Banqiao dam failure I will read more about it.

HBO is not a great reference in this case. The teams of experts from the UN and WHO said "up to 4000" using conservative models after decades of study. One small Ukrainian team said 90,000, and that's the number HBO and Greenpeace use. Actually HBO said: "Between 4,000 and 90,000", which really pissed me off. The scientific consensus number is up to 4000. https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html The crazy th…

It's pretty hard to have scientific consensus when you don't have any reliable information to base it on.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#68

Post by acidburnNSA »

ozmaverick72 wrote: post #67
acidburnNSA wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HBO is not a great reference in this case. The teams of experts from the UN and WHO said "up to 4000" using conservative models after decades of study. One small Ukrainian team said 90,000, and that's the number HBO and Greenpeace use. Actually HBO said: "Between 4,000 and 90,000", which really pissed me off. The scientific consensus number is up to 4000. https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html The crazy th…

It's pretty hard to have scientific consensus when you don't have any reliable information to base it on.

It's certainly softer science than 1900s physics. There are a few big science-related questions that require practical approaches to that aren't 100% black and white. So consensus has to allow for a few more outlier positions than usual.

Interestingly, climate change and Chernobyl health effects have a lot of parallels. They've both been broadly studied by various teams of scientists. Society has turned to using large internationally-respected UN and WHO-organized group of experts to deal with the these kinds of questions. For Chernobyl, this group is called UNSCEAR [1]. For climate change it's called the IPCC [2].

[1] https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html [2] https://www.ipcc.ch/

In both Chernobyl and Climate change, there are people who passionately disagree with the international UN teams of scientists. In climate change, we call them climate-change deniers. In Chernobyl, we call them Greenpeace. In the name of the scientific method, it's worth listening to what these people have to say and testing some hypotheses. If the hypotheses turn out to be hard to support, we begin to move on with a mainstream consensus.

The odd thing is that these groups of people (climate change deniers and Greenpeace) have very little else in common.

Re: Bhopal disaster

#69

Post by rudiv »

linksnapzz wrote: post #58
rudiv wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll understand when we derive schadenfreude from the slow implosion of the hegemon.

Sure I understand. Schadenfreude is the only motivating principle the anti-american left has remaining, after all. I just wish that, if American decline was a source of such joy for them, that they would do us the courtesy of not agitating for more work visas and American residency permits....

Not an American, have lived there and have no desire to return. Thanks.
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