10 ms·

Fukushima: A second Chernobyl?

74 points by cJ0th 10y ago

mpweiher 10y ago
So as usual, the most significant damage is not from radiation, but from fear of radiation.
- veidr 10y ago
  And the most significant benefit is awesome photographs...
- OscarCunningham 10y ago
  Looking at these photos it's sad to see so much of value being abandoned out of unnecessary fear.
- merb 10y ago
  there was damage done. but most the radiated stuff fall into the ocean, where people just didn't cared / cared enough. tepco actually hide most of it and didn't took that seriously, as of today it's still not clear how much contained material was going to the ocean. Just reading Wiki: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Water_releases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fuk... I mean diggin deeper makes this actually worse. I mean like nearly no news about that, just like "if it doesn't affect us we don't care". I mean seriously? Why does nobody takes this more serious? Most people analyze the air, yeah great that's serious, but we should also take more care about things which basically don't affect us "directly". nuclear plant's in earthquake or landscape's which are effected by nature catastrophes once in a while should be forbidden.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    What risks of the radiation water release worries you, in terms of actually expected negative effects?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    People don't care about the stuff going into the ocean because the ocean dilutes it to the point where it just doesn't matter. This isn't something we want to be doing regularly, but for a one-off event it is ignorable.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    If nobody knows how much stuff was dumped into the ocean, it is because the amount wasn't measurable. If people repeat the dumping often enough, it may become a problem (or may not - no idea, the oceans are big). But this one time case is not a global problem.
- QuercusMax 10y ago
  Betteridge's Law of Headlines strikes again?
  - mpweiher 10y ago
    Well...not really. Although the radiation damage at/from Chernobyl was more significant, the damage from fear was higher yet. So in that sense: yes, a second Chernobyl.
- mkesper 10y ago
  Sorry but living in a zone with 3mSv/h and more is absolutely not healthy. See Wikipedia: 1mSv/h: NRC definition of a high radiation area in a nuclear power plant, warranting a chain-link fence.
  - OscarCunningham 10y ago
    About half of the exclusion zone is under 5 micro Sv/h, which adds up yearly to less than the US occupational dose limit of 50mSv
cthalupa 10y ago
This article comes across as fairly exploitative to me. It's full of constant self promotion, hyperbolic parallels being drawn, and leading questions. The photographs are certainly fantastic, but the idea that Fukushima is anything like Chernobyl just isn't even remotely scientific. It's hard to believe the author's claims that this is done for the people that have suffered through this when you juxtapose those claims against the repeated mentions of just how popular his work has been and how many people have seen it and how important it is. Am I the only one that feels this way?
- 2AF3 10y ago
  In what way is it not worse than Chernobyl? Fukushima is a triple meltdown and the cores are not entombed in concrete. If people die from Fukushima they will die of cancer and not 'radiation' so we won't know the real mortality numbers for a long time.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    > If people die from Fukushima they will die of cancer and not 'radiation' so we won't know the real mortality numbers for a long time. We likely won't ever know the real numbers because they will be well within the statistical noise. This is why the linear no-threshold model is so difficult to test.
  - zymhan 10y ago
    Because Chernobyl spread a radioactive gas cloud across Europe that likely caused tens of thousands of extra cancer cases and deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disas... As another poster pointed out, so many more people died from the actual tsunami than have or will die from the Fukushima meltdown.
    - 2AF3 10y ago
      The other poster doesn't know how many people will die from the meltdown especially since there's no agreement on estimating Chernobyl deaths. The pro-nuclear crowd proudly boasts the number is zero which I don't believe, the plant manager died of radiation as many of the sailors on the USS Reagan, which brings the total up from zero.
jessriedel 10y ago
Echoing mpweiher's comment ("the most significant damage is not from radiation, but from fear of radiation"), keep in mind that no one died from radiation during or in the immediate aftermath of the accident: > Though there have been no fatalities linked to radiation due to the accident, the eventual number of cancer deaths, according to the Linear no-threshold theory of radiation safety, that will be caused by the accident is expected to be around 130-640 people in the years and decades ahead.[12][13][14] The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation[15] and World Health Organization report that there will be no increase in miscarriages, stillbirths or physical and mental disorders in babies born after the accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an... The expected statistical increase in cancer deaths (~hundreds) can be compared to the 15,000 people killed in the rest of Japan due to the Tsunami.
- berntb 10y ago
  That is also assuming that cancer treatments won't get better with time, right? Also, "Linear no-threshold theory of radiation safety" sounds strange? For e.g. gamma radiation, cancer risk is very far from linearly correlated. Edit: Iirc from course literature a long time ago, a DNA break from gamma radiation is repairable. So for a permanent mutation to happen, there had to be two hits of radiation close together before the first damage could be repaired. (Also, as links were given in comments, the self repair functions seem to be healthy. So when radiation forces a start of the helpful self repair mechanism, the end result for low radiation levels might be better for health if the repair mechanism adds more to health than the radiation harms.)
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    It isn't strange, it's widely discussed. It is more conservative than other proposed models in the sense that it ascribes the more danger to low dose exposures. A common approach when considering safety is to look at the result of the most conservative information available.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
guscost 10y ago
Not even close. Comparing the two events in such a way is extremely irresponsible. https://guscost.com/2011/03/14/nuclear-meltdowns/ https://guscost.com/2011/03/14/nuclear-meltdowns/
ggreer 10y ago
This looks like an update to his original post about Fukushima (http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/ http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/) which was discussed on HN last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10256419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10256419
chrishacken 10y ago
"When protesting against the construction and re-starting of subsequent nuclear power plants," This mindset really aggravates me. Instead of restarting nuclear power plants with additional safety precautions, you'd rather have CO2 emitting fossil fuel plants running instead? Those are arguably much more harmful to the collective health of Japan, and the world, in the long run.
dmh2000 10y ago
no one was killed but the outcome was pretty expensive. Was it worth it?
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  The outcome was expensive because it as a gross overreaction.
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  Nope, it's pretty clear that the massive anti-nuclear freakout was not in any way worth it.
wongarsu 10y ago
For me, the most interesting part were the two very contrasting television reports at the end of the article (both with english subtitle). The Japanese video focusing on how evacuees have found a new life, and how some are hoping to come back within a few years, and the German video focusing on the destruction and how a complete cleanup will take decades.
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  I tell people that based on Chernobyl and Three Mile Island they will be dealing with cleaning up Fukushima for the next fifty years. From memory it wasn't until the early 90's that they finished removing the fuel from TMI. Chernobyl they are still finishing up the New Safe Confinement. Would not surprise me (if I was still around, which I won't be) that they'll still be working on clean up in the next century.
pitaj 10y ago
No. This kind of exaggerated spin on nuclear "disasters" is not only misleading, but harmful. If nuclear power was more prevalent, it would result in economic growth due to practically free power, and would also reduce our dependence on fossil fuels drastically.
mzw_mzw 10y ago
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." - Betteridge's Law of Headlines

74 points by cJ0th 10y ago

mpweiher 10y ago

So as usual, the most significant damage is not from radiation, but from fear of radiation.

veidr 10y ago
And the most significant benefit is awesome photographs...
OscarCunningham 10y ago
Looking at these photos it's sad to see so much of value being abandoned out of unnecessary fear.
merb 10y ago
there was damage done. but most the radiated stuff fall into the ocean, where people just didn't cared / cared enough. tepco actually hide most of it and didn't took that seriously, as of today it's still not clear how much contained material was going to the ocean. Just reading Wiki: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Water_releases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fuk... I mean diggin deeper makes this actually worse. I mean like nearly no news about that, just like "if it doesn't affect us we don't care". I mean seriously? Why does nobody takes this more serious? Most people analyze the air, yeah great that's serious, but we should also take more care about things which basically don't affect us "directly". nuclear plant's in earthquake or landscape's which are effected by nature catastrophes once in a while should be forbidden.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  What risks of the radiation water release worries you, in terms of actually expected negative effects?
- mikeash 10y ago
  People don't care about the stuff going into the ocean because the ocean dilutes it to the point where it just doesn't matter. This isn't something we want to be doing regularly, but for a one-off event it is ignorable.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  If nobody knows how much stuff was dumped into the ocean, it is because the amount wasn't measurable. If people repeat the dumping often enough, it may become a problem (or may not - no idea, the oceans are big). But this one time case is not a global problem.
QuercusMax 10y ago
Betteridge's Law of Headlines strikes again?
- mpweiher 10y ago
  Well...not really. Although the radiation damage at/from Chernobyl was more significant, the damage from fear was higher yet. So in that sense: yes, a second Chernobyl.
mkesper 10y ago
Sorry but living in a zone with 3mSv/h and more is absolutely not healthy. See Wikipedia: 1mSv/h: NRC definition of a high radiation area in a nuclear power plant, warranting a chain-link fence.
- OscarCunningham 10y ago
  About half of the exclusion zone is under 5 micro Sv/h, which adds up yearly to less than the US occupational dose limit of 50mSv

cthalupa 10y ago

This article comes across as fairly exploitative to me. It's full of constant self promotion, hyperbolic parallels being drawn, and leading questions. The photographs are certainly fantastic, but the idea that Fukushima is anything like Chernobyl just isn't even remotely scientific. It's hard to believe the author's claims that this is done for the people that have suffered through this when you juxtapose those claims against the repeated mentions of just how popular his work has been and how many people have seen it and how important it is. Am I the only one that feels this way?

2AF3 10y ago
In what way is it not worse than Chernobyl? Fukushima is a triple meltdown and the cores are not entombed in concrete. If people die from Fukushima they will die of cancer and not 'radiation' so we won't know the real mortality numbers for a long time.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  > If people die from Fukushima they will die of cancer and not 'radiation' so we won't know the real mortality numbers for a long time. We likely won't ever know the real numbers because they will be well within the statistical noise. This is why the linear no-threshold model is so difficult to test.
- zymhan 10y ago
  Because Chernobyl spread a radioactive gas cloud across Europe that likely caused tens of thousands of extra cancer cases and deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disas... As another poster pointed out, so many more people died from the actual tsunami than have or will die from the Fukushima meltdown.
  - 2AF3 10y ago
    The other poster doesn't know how many people will die from the meltdown especially since there's no agreement on estimating Chernobyl deaths. The pro-nuclear crowd proudly boasts the number is zero which I don't believe, the plant manager died of radiation as many of the sailors on the USS Reagan, which brings the total up from zero.

jessriedel 10y ago

Echoing mpweiher's comment ("the most significant damage is not from radiation, but from fear of radiation"), keep in mind that no one died from radiation during or in the immediate aftermath of the accident: > Though there have been no fatalities linked to radiation due to the accident, the eventual number of cancer deaths, according to the Linear no-threshold theory of radiation safety, that will be caused by the accident is expected to be around 130-640 people in the years and decades ahead.[12][13][14] The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation[15] and World Health Organization report that there will be no increase in miscarriages, stillbirths or physical and mental disorders in babies born after the accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an... The expected statistical increase in cancer deaths (~hundreds) can be compared to the 15,000 people killed in the rest of Japan due to the Tsunami.

berntb 10y ago
That is also assuming that cancer treatments won't get better with time, right? Also, "Linear no-threshold theory of radiation safety" sounds strange? For e.g. gamma radiation, cancer risk is very far from linearly correlated. Edit: Iirc from course literature a long time ago, a DNA break from gamma radiation is repairable. So for a permanent mutation to happen, there had to be two hits of radiation close together before the first damage could be repaired. (Also, as links were given in comments, the self repair functions seem to be healthy. So when radiation forces a start of the helpful self repair mechanism, the end result for low radiation levels might be better for health if the repair mechanism adds more to health than the radiation harms.)
- maxerickson 10y ago
  It isn't strange, it's widely discussed. It is more conservative than other proposed models in the sense that it ascribes the more danger to low dose exposures. A common approach when considering safety is to look at the result of the most conservative information available.
- jessriedel 10y ago

guscost 10y ago

Not even close. Comparing the two events in such a way is extremely irresponsible. https://guscost.com/2011/03/14/nuclear-meltdowns/ https://guscost.com/2011/03/14/nuclear-meltdowns/

ggreer 10y ago

This looks like an update to his original post about Fukushima (http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/ http://www.podniesinski.pl/portal/fukushima/) which was discussed on HN last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10256419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10256419

chrishacken 10y ago

"When protesting against the construction and re-starting of subsequent nuclear power plants," This mindset really aggravates me. Instead of restarting nuclear power plants with additional safety precautions, you'd rather have CO2 emitting fossil fuel plants running instead? Those are arguably much more harmful to the collective health of Japan, and the world, in the long run.

dmh2000 10y ago

no one was killed but the outcome was pretty expensive. Was it worth it?

vonmoltke 10y ago
The outcome was expensive because it as a gross overreaction.
mzw_mzw 10y ago
Nope, it's pretty clear that the massive anti-nuclear freakout was not in any way worth it.

wongarsu 10y ago

For me, the most interesting part were the two very contrasting television reports at the end of the article (both with english subtitle). The Japanese video focusing on how evacuees have found a new life, and how some are hoping to come back within a few years, and the German video focusing on the destruction and how a complete cleanup will take decades.

Gibbon1 10y ago
I tell people that based on Chernobyl and Three Mile Island they will be dealing with cleaning up Fukushima for the next fifty years. From memory it wasn't until the early 90's that they finished removing the fuel from TMI. Chernobyl they are still finishing up the New Safe Confinement. Would not surprise me (if I was still around, which I won't be) that they'll still be working on clean up in the next century.

pitaj 10y ago

No. This kind of exaggerated spin on nuclear "disasters" is not only misleading, but harmful. If nuclear power was more prevalent, it would result in economic growth due to practically free power, and would also reduce our dependence on fossil fuels drastically.

mzw_mzw 10y ago

"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." - Betteridge's Law of Headlines