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The day after the Fukushima nuclear incident, the top-voted article on HN was an extremely confident-sounding article by an expert about how this was a minor in

The day after the Fukushima nuclear incident, the top-voted article on HN was an extremely confident-sounding article by an expert about how this was a minor incident, sure to be contained and forgotten. The comments in the article were dismissive about alarm. I remember feeling a sigh of relief that the experts had pronounced it a minor incident. As the days rolled by, the news about Fukushima turned from bad to worse to horrible. Unfortunately, my archive.org skills were not good enough to dig up the front page of HN around that time to show you the article in question. A closer tale about experts being wrong, and persistently so is the tale of the Japan Bonds' "widowmaker" trade: apparently, a lot of smart people have been wrong about this: http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-funds-feeling-confident-about-the-widowmaker-trade-in-japan-2012-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-funds-feeling-confident...

zeamaize 9y ago
But Fukushima was a minor incident...
- Nition 9y ago
  Your comment goes pretty hard against the popular opinion of what happened. It would be good if you could explain your reasoning.
  - xrange 9y ago
    Not the OP, but 15,000 people died because of the tsunami. No one died from the radiation release at Fukushima and: "A comprehensive assessment by international experts on the health risks associated with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) disaster in Japan has concluded that, for the general population inside and outside of Japan, the predicted risks are low and no observable increases in cancer rates above baseline rates are anticipated." http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/fukushima_report_20130228/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/fukushima_...
    - Nition 9y ago
      Thanks xrange.
    - alphonsegaston 9y ago
      No one dying quite glibly ignores the economic and social consequences of displacing somewhere in the neighborhoods of 120,000 people. That aside, are we to believe that no one's medical conditions were made more severe by the stress and displacement caused by this disaster? And no one died as a result? Something of the scale of Fukushima can't be so easily dismissed by this kind of cursory analysis of radiation related health risks.
      - stouset 9y ago
        As yongjik commented elsewhere, an order of magnitude more people died as a result of the evacuation than the WHO predicts would die of additional cancer deaths. And that's assuming a linear no-threshold model of radiation exposure, when current thinking is that a threshold-based model is more accurate. As s/he summarizes, more people died as a result of running away from the disaster than would have died if they'd stayed put.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      Are those experts in any way affiliated with the nuclear industry? I don't think there's room for many independent experts in such a space that can call a spade a spade. (And government officials in Japan were caught again and again to downplay the incident to save safe).
- skookum 9y ago
  Not sure if you are trying to be sarcastic, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale#Level_7:_Major_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Sc...
  - csours 9y ago
    Fukushima and Chernobyl are both classed as 7s, but the amount of radiation released at Fukushima was at least an order of magnitude less than Chernobyl, with 80% of that falling on the ocean. Fukushima caused half as many people as Chernobyl to evacuate. No one died as a direct result of Fukushima, as opposed to 2 immediate + 28 cleanup deaths from Chernobyl. Fukushima definitely deserves to be taken seriously, and it belongs in the same class as Chernobyl, but at the other end of that class.
    - adrianratnapala 9y ago
      Another difference is that Fukushima was just one result (and by far not the worst result) of a huge natural disaster.
  - xrange 9y ago
    If Fukushima is a major event, with no fatalities, what does one consider the Banqiao Dam event, with 170,000 fatalities? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
    - mistermann 9y ago
      "That's different!"
    - adrianN 9y ago
      Also a major event, but in a category that is almost completely irrelevant to the current discussion.
    - vkou 9y ago
      A sign that we should shut down every single hydroelectric power-plant in the world. Or, we could be reasonable about these things, and understand that power generation at an industrial scale will kill people.
- alphonsegaston 9y ago
  Thousands of families have forced out of their homes and displaced by a radiation-polluted landscape, which the conservative government is trying to pass off as safe so they can pull their disaster relief subsidies: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/10/japan-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-evacuees-forced-return-home-radiation https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/10/japan-fukushim... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-japan-three-years-families-uprooted https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/fukushima-nucl... I pray that nothing similar happens to you or that you have to suffer the indignity of people glibly dismissing your misfortune.
  - xrange 9y ago
    I wonder how much atmospheric carbon dioxide has been avoided by the use of nuclear power over the last 70 years?
TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
Probably this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326726 The linked article headline "Fukushima is a triumph for nuke power: Build more reactors now!"
- Animats 9y ago
  That's from the former editor of The Register, Lewis Page. See some of his other articles.[1] [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/93 http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/93
yongjik 9y ago
The really infuriating thing about Fukushima disaster, in my opinion, is how many people died as a result of evacuation. From wikipedia: > A survey computed that of some 300,000 evacuees, approximately 1,600 deaths related to the evacuation conditions, such as living in temporary housing and hospital closures that had occurred as of August 2013, a number comparable to the 1,599 deaths directly caused by the earthquake and tsunami in the Prefecture. Contrast that with the actual death that occurred/will occur due to radiation: > In 2013, WHO reported that area residents who were evacuated were exposed to so little radiation that radiation induced health impacts were likely to be below detectable levels. (...) According to a linear no-threshold model (LNT model), the accident would most likely cause 130 cancer deaths. In other words, if the Japanese government had told everyone that this was a minor incident and everyone should stay at home, it's likely that less people would have died as a result. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and even with perfect information it would have been political suicide anyway. Such is the danger of nuclear power. The world's second worst nuclear disaster was literally less dangerous than running away from it.
- willj 9y ago
  Question: your second quote says: > residents who evacuated were exposed to so little radiation It does not say anything about residents who did not evacuate. How can we know how many cancer deaths would have happened if nobody had evacuated, and whether that would be less than the amount that died due to poor evacuation procedures?
  - yongjik 9y ago
    Given the difference of ~130 vs ~1600 in actual deaths, I'm naively assuming that staying at home would not have increased radiation exposure tenfold. (There are ways to limit radiation exposure even if you're in the middle of a lightly contaminated region. I think delivering clean food would have been easier than trying to accommodate 300k additional refugees after tsunami.)
dang 9y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14414563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14414563 and marked it off-topic.

zeamaize 9y ago

But Fukushima was a minor incident...

Nition 9y ago
Your comment goes pretty hard against the popular opinion of what happened. It would be good if you could explain your reasoning.
- xrange 9y ago
  Not the OP, but 15,000 people died because of the tsunami. No one died from the radiation release at Fukushima and: "A comprehensive assessment by international experts on the health risks associated with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) disaster in Japan has concluded that, for the general population inside and outside of Japan, the predicted risks are low and no observable increases in cancer rates above baseline rates are anticipated." http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/fukushima_report_20130228/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/fukushima_...
  - Nition 9y ago
    Thanks xrange.
  - alphonsegaston 9y ago
    No one dying quite glibly ignores the economic and social consequences of displacing somewhere in the neighborhoods of 120,000 people. That aside, are we to believe that no one's medical conditions were made more severe by the stress and displacement caused by this disaster? And no one died as a result? Something of the scale of Fukushima can't be so easily dismissed by this kind of cursory analysis of radiation related health risks.
    - stouset 9y ago
      As yongjik commented elsewhere, an order of magnitude more people died as a result of the evacuation than the WHO predicts would die of additional cancer deaths. And that's assuming a linear no-threshold model of radiation exposure, when current thinking is that a threshold-based model is more accurate. As s/he summarizes, more people died as a result of running away from the disaster than would have died if they'd stayed put.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Are those experts in any way affiliated with the nuclear industry? I don't think there's room for many independent experts in such a space that can call a spade a spade. (And government officials in Japan were caught again and again to downplay the incident to save safe).
skookum 9y ago
Not sure if you are trying to be sarcastic, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale#Level_7:_Major_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Sc...
- csours 9y ago
  Fukushima and Chernobyl are both classed as 7s, but the amount of radiation released at Fukushima was at least an order of magnitude less than Chernobyl, with 80% of that falling on the ocean. Fukushima caused half as many people as Chernobyl to evacuate. No one died as a direct result of Fukushima, as opposed to 2 immediate + 28 cleanup deaths from Chernobyl. Fukushima definitely deserves to be taken seriously, and it belongs in the same class as Chernobyl, but at the other end of that class.
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    Another difference is that Fukushima was just one result (and by far not the worst result) of a huge natural disaster.
- xrange 9y ago
  If Fukushima is a major event, with no fatalities, what does one consider the Banqiao Dam event, with 170,000 fatalities? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
  - mistermann 9y ago
    "That's different!"
  - adrianN 9y ago
    Also a major event, but in a category that is almost completely irrelevant to the current discussion.
  - vkou 9y ago
    A sign that we should shut down every single hydroelectric power-plant in the world. Or, we could be reasonable about these things, and understand that power generation at an industrial scale will kill people.
alphonsegaston 9y ago
Thousands of families have forced out of their homes and displaced by a radiation-polluted landscape, which the conservative government is trying to pass off as safe so they can pull their disaster relief subsidies: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/10/japan-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-evacuees-forced-return-home-radiation https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/10/japan-fukushim... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-japan-three-years-families-uprooted https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/fukushima-nucl... I pray that nothing similar happens to you or that you have to suffer the indignity of people glibly dismissing your misfortune.
- xrange 9y ago
  I wonder how much atmospheric carbon dioxide has been avoided by the use of nuclear power over the last 70 years?

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

Probably this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326726 The linked article headline "Fukushima is a triumph for nuke power: Build more reactors now!"

Animats 9y ago
That's from the former editor of The Register, Lewis Page. See some of his other articles.[1] [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/93 http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/93

yongjik 9y ago

The really infuriating thing about Fukushima disaster, in my opinion, is how many people died as a result of evacuation. From wikipedia: > A survey computed that of some 300,000 evacuees, approximately 1,600 deaths related to the evacuation conditions, such as living in temporary housing and hospital closures that had occurred as of August 2013, a number comparable to the 1,599 deaths directly caused by the earthquake and tsunami in the Prefecture. Contrast that with the actual death that occurred/will occur due to radiation: > In 2013, WHO reported that area residents who were evacuated were exposed to so little radiation that radiation induced health impacts were likely to be below detectable levels. (...) According to a linear no-threshold model (LNT model), the accident would most likely cause 130 cancer deaths. In other words, if the Japanese government had told everyone that this was a minor incident and everyone should stay at home, it's likely that less people would have died as a result. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and even with perfect information it would have been political suicide anyway. Such is the danger of nuclear power. The world's second worst nuclear disaster was literally less dangerous than running away from it.

willj 9y ago
Question: your second quote says: > residents who evacuated were exposed to so little radiation It does not say anything about residents who did not evacuate. How can we know how many cancer deaths would have happened if nobody had evacuated, and whether that would be less than the amount that died due to poor evacuation procedures?
- yongjik 9y ago
  Given the difference of ~130 vs ~1600 in actual deaths, I'm naively assuming that staying at home would not have increased radiation exposure tenfold. (There are ways to limit radiation exposure even if you're in the middle of a lightly contaminated region. I think delivering clean food would have been easier than trying to accommodate 300k additional refugees after tsunami.)

dang 9y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14414563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14414563 and marked it off-topic.