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The Panic Over Fukushima

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Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#91

Post by pheon »

nacker wrote: post #72
pheon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"that the myth of the necessity of nuclear power in Japan is just that. A myth" This is just wrong. Japan is importing natural gas at prices x2-x5 higher than before. Causing Japans Trade balance (positive for nearly 30 years) to swing negative which is going to cause un-known and negative consequences for economy if this continues. Energy both in availability and price is the economic engine that drives developed na…

"This is just wrong. Japan is importing natural gas at prices x2-x5 higher than before. Causing... ". Correlation, causation... You might want to take into account that there are many other economic factors which influence that, such as the ongoing global banking crisis, and Japan's debt ratio of 220 percent of gross domestic product, according to the International Monetary Fund, by far the largest ratio of any Group…

Japans debt is largely domestic (Japan Post / JGB) thus has little influence on the trade balance.

Banking crisis has been going on since 2008 thus why didnt the trade balance suddenly fall this year instead of 2008/2009/2010

What is your explanation for the sudden change in trade balance?

Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#92

Post by nacker »

pessimizer wrote: post #84
nacker wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. I'm sorry you interpret my capitalization as "angry". It's a typing style I'm used to. I'm 52, and I've been on the net since the late 80's, if you want to suggest a simple italicization trick for HN, please let me know. As far as the rest of your question, I am completely dumbfounded, gobsmacked, and bewildered as to WTF you are saying.

Surround what you're typing by asterisks . It feels awkward to me after spending a long time _underlining_ things, but it certainly looks better.

But Holy Skeet, youngsters, I'm now off to the "Why time appears to speed up with age" thread!

No time to lose!

Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#93

Post by tsotha »

rbanffy wrote: post #67
justincormack wrote: post #20

The opposition into Japan is not about the exact number of cancers or deaths. It is about trust. To quote the official report [1]: ...the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster – that could and should have been foreseen and prevented. And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response. Ho…

> If your government and industry had failed you like that would you trust them to continue with nuclear power without fixing the underlying problems? And yet, the hottest spots seem to be healthier places to live than Denver... Is that a really big problem?

Sure, but who in his right mind would live in Denver?

Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#94

Post by tsotha »

justatdotin wrote: post #69
tikhonj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The low-background steel seems to be a factor of nuclear weapon testing rather than nuclear reactors. Even the most ardent of nuclear power supporters don't argue for detonating more nuclear weapons! Besides, essentially everything people do at any scale has altered the planet in permanent or semi-permanent ways. It is an issue, but it is not an issue unique to nuclear power.

I am convinced that the nuclear power industry remains not only inextricably linked to nuclear WMD programs, but its expansion is in fact driven by the desire for the materials, technology and capability to develop nuclear weapons

Perhaps in places like Iran and Pakistan. For the last few years we've been using old Russian warheads as fuel here in the US, which is the opposite situation.

Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#95

Post by tsotha »

justsee wrote: post #75
alanfalcon wrote: post #62

Handy radiation dose effect chart provided by Randall of XKCD (note: 1 microsievert = 0.0001 rem) http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/ Perhaps an interesting meta-discussion is the phenomenon of how choice of units affects the framing of a discussion. 0.1 rem doesn't sound nearly as dangerous as 1,000 μSv, though of course both numbers are completely meaningless to most lay people.

TEPCO measured radiation levels of 10 Sv in the basement of Reactor 1 in June this year [1]. In March TEPCO measured radiation levels of 73 Sv/h in the container vessel [2]. A Fukushima worker tweeted a radiation level estimation of > 1000 Sv for another part of the reactor (the endoscope used for radiation testing is only rated to 1000 Sv, so cannot be used) [3]. The radiation level next to Chernobyl immediately aft…

>...but the history since then appears to indicate that the extreme concern over Fukushima radiation is depressingly justified.

If you're living in the reactor containment vessel.

Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#96

Post by tsotha »

jackpirate wrote: post #10
radu_floricica wrote: post #7

> Looking back more than a year after the event, it is clear that the Fukushima reactor complex, though nowhere close to state-of-the-art, was adequately designed to contain radiation. New reactors can be made even safer, of course, but the bottom line is that Fukushima passed the test. He made a good argument that new cancer cases are statistically few, but I can't see what test Fukushima passed. As far as I know th…

But it could have been much worse, say like Chernobyl, and it wasn't due to good engineering.

You wouldn't get the graphite fly ash that turned Chernobyl from a localized problem into an international headache, so no, it wouldn't have been as bad as Chernobyl. But it could have been much worse than it was.

Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#97

Post by tsotha »

gwern wrote: post #16
mbateman wrote: post #6

Maybe I was being ridiculously optimistic, but ~200 projected additional cases of cancer seems pretty bad.

It is pretty bad, but people have seriously argued that the evacuation itself killed more people: Japan (like any other highly populated First World country!) is stuffed full of old or sick people, and when you force them to evacuate quickly and be separated from all their stuff, their doctors and medical records, their local pharmacies, and subject them to a ton of stress in every respect - well, quite a few people…

I think the evidence on that point is incontrovertible. On the other hand it would have been politically impossible to refuse to evacuate people in the area.

Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#98

Post by nacker »

pheon wrote: post #91
nacker wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is just wrong. Japan is importing natural gas at prices x2-x5 higher than before. Causing... ". Correlation, causation... You might want to take into account that there are many other economic factors which influence that, such as the ongoing global banking crisis, and Japan's debt ratio of 220 percent of gross domestic product, according to the International Monetary Fund, by far the largest ratio of any Group…

Japans debt is largely domestic (Japan Post / JGB) thus has little influence on the trade balance. Banking crisis has been going on since 2008 thus why didnt the trade balance suddenly fall this year instead of 2008/2009/2010 What is your explanation for the sudden change in trade balance?

Could it be that you just replaced your Toyota to a expensive but nice BMW?

Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#99

Post by ScotterC »

Someone wrote: post #66
ScotterC wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd happily ingest as much plutonium as you would caffeine.

Are you sure? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium#Flammability , to me, indicates that it may not be a wise idea to drop the stuff in the acid inside your stomach, even if it is only, say, a gram a day.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply daily. As professor Bernard Cohen meant it, as a competition with Ralph Nader, I was a one off meant to show that the equivalent mg dosage of caffeine would kill you much faster then plutonium. A daily ingestion is much different.

Re: The Panic Over Fukushima

#100

Post by rerkh »

With 2 reactors online and several thermal plants taken offline Japan is more than meeting it's current demand even though an exceptionally hot summer.

(Yes, I've been keeping an eye on the demand & availability numbers. Not just making stuff up in advance like others here.)

In fact if you took the 2 reactors offline they would still meet demand.

Now as the renewable energy industry actually gets a chance, rather than being squashed by the nuclear industry stranglehold on government the reactors are becoming clearly unnecessary long term.

Statements like many of the blog posts here are frankly ridiculous propaganda.

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