6 ms·

And yet, given the amount of power it generated Fukushima still didn't kill any more people than a typical coal power plant.

jhanschoo 11y ago
Hi, I'm inclined to believe you, but can you quote some numbers to back your assertion?
- arm85 11y ago
  I don't know where he got his reference from, but, renewable energy without the hot air, has something similar, it calculates the number of deaths per GWy, for different sources[0]. Coal is certainly near the top (second to oil)[0]. Although I believe it was published after fukushima, and people might be suffering illness not accounted for in the book, I imagine that fukushima won't have dented the stats very much. [0] http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml
- overdrivetg 11y ago
  Here's a simple chart, with what look like credible sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de...
- Symmetry 11y ago
  Sorry, should have included a link with that. http://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2013/12/fukushima-vs-coal.html http://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2013/12/fukushima-vs...
  - tobltobs 11y ago
    "So it was a disaster that killed roughly 180 people." Just if somebody don't want to read all the glorification of nuclear power of this guy but want to know which numbers he used for his theory. "Over it's lifetime Fukushima generated 877,692 Gigawatt-Hours of electricity .." Subtracting the energy required to build, maintain, dismantle a nuclear reactor and store the waste for the next few thousand years would be nitpicking.
  - Symmetry 11y ago
    Since I wrote that the estimate of the number of deaths caused by the evacuation itself has gone way up and so the overall Fukushima disaster killed something like 5 times as many people as a coal power plant's normal operation.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
oska 11y ago
The economic cost of dealing with the disaster and its cleanup, to Japan's present and future generations, is immense. The loss of land in a crowded country where inhabitable land is at a premium is also a very heavy blow, which could have easily got much worse if the disaster had cascaded down to reactors closer to Tokyo, as the Prime Minister at the time very much feared as a real possibility. Measuring the scale of disasters simply in loss of life is simplistic and also sometimes, as I think here, disingenuous.
- Symmetry 11y ago
  I think you're drastically underestimating the environmental cost of coal power if you think the damage done by Fukushima is incompatibly larger. Currently[1] the radiation in the evacuated area is as high as 3uSv/hr which works out to 26 mSv/yr. That's a lot compared to what most of us get but it's lower than the permitted dose for nuclear plant workers and it's much lower than the inhabitants of Ramsar, Iran, experience and they don't have a particularly higher cancer incidence than other populations. That doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't a lot of cleanup to do or that there aren't hotspots to stay away from but the area that's uninhabitable is very small. There was a certain amount of luck involved in where the wind was blowing but on the other there was also a certain amount of bad luck in the plant being struck by such a [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#/media/File:Fukushima_I_radiation,_Fukushima_Prefecture_2,_March_2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
  - oska 11y ago
    Believe me, I most certainly don't underestimate the environmental cost of coal power. Coal or nuclear power is a false dichotomy but one that is continually trotted out by nuclear boosters such as the author of this piece. > there was also a certain amount of bad luck No, it wasn't bad luck. They built the reactor right next to a coastline that is famous for tsunami risk and where there are historical markers of previous tsunamis. They ignored safety concerns that were raised on a number of occasions [1]. That is not bad luck, that is bad and corrupt management. The nuclear industry, being necessarily a highly centralised, capital intensive industry has very close links to Japan's less than transparent government. It is a corporate model ripe for corruption and that is what the Fukushima disaster (and previous incidents in Japan) exposed. The Japanese people, sensibly, don't trust it and demonstrated in large numbers against it, something that is quite unusual in Japan. And yet numerous arm-chair nuclear boosters around the world tell the Japanese people that they should just suck it up and keep exposing themselves to this existential risk. [2] As I said above, I'm not terribly concerned about the radiation risks and loss of life from this disaster. I'm more concerned by its economic impact, loss of valuable land and community impact. The costs of rehabilitation have been estimated at between $250 billion and $500 billion. [3] That huge amount of money would have bought a very sizeable amount of solar and wind power to Japan. Now it's wasted on the very non-productive clean-up of a disaster. The nuclear industry has continually proved itself to be a black hole for money that could have been spent on sustainable development. This is the guy you hired who sexually harassed the secretary, wrote false invoices to his benefit and burnt down the regional office. He says he's ‘learnt his lesson’ and deserves another go. He's obviously sick and disfunctional but what about the people who stand up for him? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Safety_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/asia/japan-considered-tokyo-evacuation-during-the-nuclear-crisis-report-says.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/asia/japan-considere... [3] http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/responses/costs-and-consequences-of-fukushima.html http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-heal...
tobltobs 11y ago
Did you include the number of deaths caused by radioactive waste over the next few thousand years?
- tobltobs 11y ago
  A question to the downvoters: Whats your solution to this problem? It seems that you know a way which does exclude any risk of polluting the groundwater. I really would like to hear your ideas.
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    The solution? Stop labeling usable fuel as "waste". We only extract a few percent of the usable fission energy in current reactor designs. We've had plans for numerous other designs for years, but anti-nuclear hysteria and high-inertia bureaucracy have been very efficient at preventing new types of reactors from being built.
    - tobltobs 11y ago
      Maybe this might be true, but it is hard to believe that if those designs would really exists that there wouldn't be one state which would enable such a project. China, Russia, most countries in Asia not exactly full of "anti-nuclear hysteria and high-inertia bureaucracy". They just would build one of your magic nuclear reactors. At the moment there are over 60 new reactors being constructed in 13 countries (eg. in China, South Korea, UAE and Russia). And they are all not of this magic type. I think you are falling to some crude propaganda of the nuclear industry which would love to get more tax money. But yeah, stop labeling deadly waste as waste is an easy way to avoid handling waste.
      - yongjik 11y ago
        Can't speak of other countries, but anti-nuclear paranoia is alive and strong in South Korea. (After all, we're right next to Japan.) Also bear in mind that it involves the same technology that could be used in preparing nuclear weapons. You don't just have to overcome your garden variety environmentalists. You also have to get the approval of Uncle Sam. (Well, maybe not for China or Russia, but in their case, they have enough unused land and a forceful government, so they can just shove the "waste" somewhere deep in the desert and that will be last anybody hears about it.)

jhanschoo 11y ago

Hi, I'm inclined to believe you, but can you quote some numbers to back your assertion?

arm85 11y ago
I don't know where he got his reference from, but, renewable energy without the hot air, has something similar, it calculates the number of deaths per GWy, for different sources[0]. Coal is certainly near the top (second to oil)[0]. Although I believe it was published after fukushima, and people might be suffering illness not accounted for in the book, I imagine that fukushima won't have dented the stats very much. [0] http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml
overdrivetg 11y ago
Here's a simple chart, with what look like credible sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de...
Symmetry 11y ago
Sorry, should have included a link with that. http://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2013/12/fukushima-vs-coal.html http://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2013/12/fukushima-vs...
- tobltobs 11y ago
  "So it was a disaster that killed roughly 180 people." Just if somebody don't want to read all the glorification of nuclear power of this guy but want to know which numbers he used for his theory. "Over it's lifetime Fukushima generated 877,692 Gigawatt-Hours of electricity .." Subtracting the energy required to build, maintain, dismantle a nuclear reactor and store the waste for the next few thousand years would be nitpicking.
- Symmetry 11y ago
  Since I wrote that the estimate of the number of deaths caused by the evacuation itself has gone way up and so the overall Fukushima disaster killed something like 5 times as many people as a coal power plant's normal operation.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

oska 11y ago

The economic cost of dealing with the disaster and its cleanup, to Japan's present and future generations, is immense. The loss of land in a crowded country where inhabitable land is at a premium is also a very heavy blow, which could have easily got much worse if the disaster had cascaded down to reactors closer to Tokyo, as the Prime Minister at the time very much feared as a real possibility. Measuring the scale of disasters simply in loss of life is simplistic and also sometimes, as I think here, disingenuous.

Symmetry 11y ago
I think you're drastically underestimating the environmental cost of coal power if you think the damage done by Fukushima is incompatibly larger. Currently[1] the radiation in the evacuated area is as high as 3uSv/hr which works out to 26 mSv/yr. That's a lot compared to what most of us get but it's lower than the permitted dose for nuclear plant workers and it's much lower than the inhabitants of Ramsar, Iran, experience and they don't have a particularly higher cancer incidence than other populations. That doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't a lot of cleanup to do or that there aren't hotspots to stay away from but the area that's uninhabitable is very small. There was a certain amount of luck involved in where the wind was blowing but on the other there was also a certain amount of bad luck in the plant being struck by such a [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#/media/File:Fukushima_I_radiation,_Fukushima_Prefecture_2,_March_2011.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
- oska 11y ago
  Believe me, I most certainly don't underestimate the environmental cost of coal power. Coal or nuclear power is a false dichotomy but one that is continually trotted out by nuclear boosters such as the author of this piece. > there was also a certain amount of bad luck No, it wasn't bad luck. They built the reactor right next to a coastline that is famous for tsunami risk and where there are historical markers of previous tsunamis. They ignored safety concerns that were raised on a number of occasions [1]. That is not bad luck, that is bad and corrupt management. The nuclear industry, being necessarily a highly centralised, capital intensive industry has very close links to Japan's less than transparent government. It is a corporate model ripe for corruption and that is what the Fukushima disaster (and previous incidents in Japan) exposed. The Japanese people, sensibly, don't trust it and demonstrated in large numbers against it, something that is quite unusual in Japan. And yet numerous arm-chair nuclear boosters around the world tell the Japanese people that they should just suck it up and keep exposing themselves to this existential risk. [2] As I said above, I'm not terribly concerned about the radiation risks and loss of life from this disaster. I'm more concerned by its economic impact, loss of valuable land and community impact. The costs of rehabilitation have been estimated at between $250 billion and $500 billion. [3] That huge amount of money would have bought a very sizeable amount of solar and wind power to Japan. Now it's wasted on the very non-productive clean-up of a disaster. The nuclear industry has continually proved itself to be a black hole for money that could have been spent on sustainable development. This is the guy you hired who sexually harassed the secretary, wrote false invoices to his benefit and burnt down the regional office. He says he's ‘learnt his lesson’ and deserves another go. He's obviously sick and disfunctional but what about the people who stand up for him? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Safety_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/asia/japan-considered-tokyo-evacuation-during-the-nuclear-crisis-report-says.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/asia/japan-considere... [3] http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/responses/costs-and-consequences-of-fukushima.html http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-heal...

tobltobs 11y ago

Did you include the number of deaths caused by radioactive waste over the next few thousand years?

tobltobs 11y ago
A question to the downvoters: Whats your solution to this problem? It seems that you know a way which does exclude any risk of polluting the groundwater. I really would like to hear your ideas.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  The solution? Stop labeling usable fuel as "waste". We only extract a few percent of the usable fission energy in current reactor designs. We've had plans for numerous other designs for years, but anti-nuclear hysteria and high-inertia bureaucracy have been very efficient at preventing new types of reactors from being built.
  - tobltobs 11y ago
    Maybe this might be true, but it is hard to believe that if those designs would really exists that there wouldn't be one state which would enable such a project. China, Russia, most countries in Asia not exactly full of "anti-nuclear hysteria and high-inertia bureaucracy". They just would build one of your magic nuclear reactors. At the moment there are over 60 new reactors being constructed in 13 countries (eg. in China, South Korea, UAE and Russia). And they are all not of this magic type. I think you are falling to some crude propaganda of the nuclear industry which would love to get more tax money. But yeah, stop labeling deadly waste as waste is an easy way to avoid handling waste.
    - yongjik 11y ago
      Can't speak of other countries, but anti-nuclear paranoia is alive and strong in South Korea. (After all, we're right next to Japan.) Also bear in mind that it involves the same technology that could be used in preparing nuclear weapons. You don't just have to overcome your garden variety environmentalists. You also have to get the approval of Uncle Sam. (Well, maybe not for China or Russia, but in their case, they have enough unused land and a forceful government, so they can just shove the "waste" somewhere deep in the desert and that will be last anybody hears about it.)