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Interesting references thanks yet "official deaths" inherently underestimates the caused by nuclear energy. For instance there are only 28 official deaths for t

by zik 11y ago

Interesting references thanks yet "official deaths" inherently underestimates the caused by nuclear energy. For instance there are only 28 official deaths for the Chernobyl disaster [1]. The WHO gives the number as "up to 4000 could eventually die" [2]. And some researchers give the number as "985,000, mostly from cancer" [3]. Since it's so hard to tally long term harm from such a hard to pin down source such stats are very hard to accurately quantify. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di... [2] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/ [3] http://www.globalresearch.ca/new-book-concludes-chernobyl-death-toll-985-000-mostly-from-cancer/20908 http://www.globalresearch.ca/new-book-concludes-chernobyl-de...

rtpg 11y ago
even with your highball estimate of 200x the WHO amount, that still puts Nuclear at <10% of the Coal amount
brownbat 11y ago
You're right that it's often hard to pin down long term impacts, but I don't think this is a debate with quite as wide a field of credible estimates as you suggest. The 985,000 figure comes from an interesting source. It originated in a book that peer reviewers savaged, for, among other things, making up numbers without providing any justification whatsoever and ignoring the scientific method. M. I. Balonov decried the book, claiming "it has very little scientific merit while being highly misleading to the lay reader." He called it science fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment#Reviews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the... While you're right that there are hard problems in long term forecasts, but there are entire fields of study, dosimetry and epidemiology, that have had smart people toiling away on those problems for their entire career, and this is maybe the most widely studied industrial disaster in history. We have made enormous strides in how to measure environmental radiation, doses received, and the correlation between those and increases in mortality. Individuals are hard, but population estimates are actually easier to calibrate over time. So if you write a book containing a sensationalist number to get some headlines, researchers will be able to tell you're pulling their leg. As rtpg says though, this is a bit of a moot point, because, sure, let's call it 985,000, then nuclear remains still the safest form of power by an enormous margin.

by zik 11y ago

rtpg 11y ago

even with your highball estimate of 200x the WHO amount, that still puts Nuclear at <10% of the Coal amount

brownbat 11y ago

You're right that it's often hard to pin down long term impacts, but I don't think this is a debate with quite as wide a field of credible estimates as you suggest. The 985,000 figure comes from an interesting source. It originated in a book that peer reviewers savaged, for, among other things, making up numbers without providing any justification whatsoever and ignoring the scientific method. M. I. Balonov decried the book, claiming "it has very little scientific merit while being highly misleading to the lay reader." He called it science fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment#Reviews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the... While you're right that there are hard problems in long term forecasts, but there are entire fields of study, dosimetry and epidemiology, that have had smart people toiling away on those problems for their entire career, and this is maybe the most widely studied industrial disaster in history. We have made enormous strides in how to measure environmental radiation, doses received, and the correlation between those and increases in mortality. Individuals are hard, but population estimates are actually easier to calibrate over time. So if you write a book containing a sensationalist number to get some headlines, researchers will be able to tell you're pulling their leg. As rtpg says though, this is a bit of a moot point, because, sure, let's call it 985,000, then nuclear remains still the safest form of power by an enormous margin.