4 ms·

Germany abandoned nuclear after we all could see the risks of nuclear in Fukushima. And I think it’s preferable to have a government that does what its people w

by lysium 8y ago

Germany abandoned nuclear after we all could see the risks of nuclear in Fukushima. And I think it’s preferable to have a government that does what its people want or can convince them of alternatives.

WillPostForFood 8y ago
The risk of tsunamis in Germany is high?
- kuschku 8y ago
  Rivers can spontaneously flood, too. And German nuclear plants happen to be located on such rivers. And many of them are first generation LWRs with significant safety issues. The town neighboring one of the reactors producing energy for Hamburg has for some unknown reason the world's highest rate of child leukemia.
  - nukemandan 8y ago
    got as source with statistics to back that claim?
    - kuschku 8y ago
      https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch
      - nukemandan 8y ago
        From that: >Euroclus study In contrast to the above-mentioned studies, which focus on the Elbmarsch geographical area, the EUROCLUS study attempted to find matches between the 240 leukemia clusters identified in the study. The evaluation of the study showed that environmental factors such as proximity to nuclear power plants, military airfields or other facilities often causing pollutants do not correlate with the occurrence of leukemia cases, but that demographic factors are the most significant characteristics in which they were studied Clusters match.
      - nukemandan 8y ago
        I am not a statistician - but 14 total instances in all studies? This seems like a study group too small to analyze with meaningful significance - the expected variance is very large with such a small sample. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892150/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892150/ And not to downplay at all - but 14 cases being the total possible over a ~30 year time-frame seems like a mute issue compared to any other life threatening issues.
  - StreamBright 8y ago
    Are you comparing a river flood to a tsunami seriously?
    - kuschku 8y ago
      Yes, because for this purpose they're both equivalent: they both have the potential to disable the emergency generators. The reactor Krümmel actually had incidents in the past where the emergency generators failed, and where the connection to the grud failed. Just by sheer luck never at the same time.
mindfulplay 8y ago
That's not a good argument. We might give up on tall buildings too as they got demolished in earthquakes...
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  The irony is that tall buildings do significantly better in earthquakes because they are built to a higher standard of safety.
acidburnNSA 8y ago
Respectfully, they overreacted. Fukushima killed effectively no-one from radiation, though fear of radiation did definitely kill people (as they evacuated). Meanwhile air pollution from fossil fuel is killing hundreds of thousands per year from air pollution. Now factor in potential impacts from climate change... fear of nuclear for safety purposes is real but doesn't stand up to the actuary test. And the fact is that this fear translates into extra regulations and safety systems that cost a lot so it's not just "but nuclear is expensive". A better solution is like TerraPower is taking, just design inherently safer reactors that don't need the safety systems.
- VyperCard 8y ago
  Because the wind blew to the sea instead of mainland japan.
  - killjoywashere 8y ago
    Hi, so, I was actually deployed to Japan and discussed the wind predictions with the modelers at Lawrence Livermore who ran the simulations and I saw the isotope sampling data collected from the planes flying through the atmosphere over Fukushima. Getting a re-entrant flow for enough time get any meaningful amount of radiation over any populated area was never going to happen. Like, ever. Like, they seemed really apologetic for having ever run the simulations, but the question national leadership posed was "how long would you need re-entrant flow to get significant exposure?" So they had to sustain an irrational model until they got a time. And based on that we spent a huge chunk of Operation Tomadochi's $90M on keeping sealift resources on standby off the coast in case of a Vietnam-style evacuation.

by lysium 8y ago

WillPostForFood 8y ago

The risk of tsunamis in Germany is high?

kuschku 8y ago
Rivers can spontaneously flood, too. And German nuclear plants happen to be located on such rivers. And many of them are first generation LWRs with significant safety issues. The town neighboring one of the reactors producing energy for Hamburg has for some unknown reason the world's highest rate of child leukemia.
- nukemandan 8y ago
  got as source with statistics to back that claim?
  - kuschku 8y ago
    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch
    - nukemandan 8y ago
      From that: >Euroclus study In contrast to the above-mentioned studies, which focus on the Elbmarsch geographical area, the EUROCLUS study attempted to find matches between the 240 leukemia clusters identified in the study. The evaluation of the study showed that environmental factors such as proximity to nuclear power plants, military airfields or other facilities often causing pollutants do not correlate with the occurrence of leukemia cases, but that demographic factors are the most significant characteristics in which they were studied Clusters match.
    - nukemandan 8y ago
      I am not a statistician - but 14 total instances in all studies? This seems like a study group too small to analyze with meaningful significance - the expected variance is very large with such a small sample. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892150/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892150/ And not to downplay at all - but 14 cases being the total possible over a ~30 year time-frame seems like a mute issue compared to any other life threatening issues.
- StreamBright 8y ago
  Are you comparing a river flood to a tsunami seriously?
  - kuschku 8y ago
    Yes, because for this purpose they're both equivalent: they both have the potential to disable the emergency generators. The reactor Krümmel actually had incidents in the past where the emergency generators failed, and where the connection to the grud failed. Just by sheer luck never at the same time.

mindfulplay 8y ago

That's not a good argument. We might give up on tall buildings too as they got demolished in earthquakes...

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
The irony is that tall buildings do significantly better in earthquakes because they are built to a higher standard of safety.

acidburnNSA 8y ago

Respectfully, they overreacted. Fukushima killed effectively no-one from radiation, though fear of radiation did definitely kill people (as they evacuated). Meanwhile air pollution from fossil fuel is killing hundreds of thousands per year from air pollution. Now factor in potential impacts from climate change... fear of nuclear for safety purposes is real but doesn't stand up to the actuary test. And the fact is that this fear translates into extra regulations and safety systems that cost a lot so it's not just "but nuclear is expensive". A better solution is like TerraPower is taking, just design inherently safer reactors that don't need the safety systems.

VyperCard 8y ago
Because the wind blew to the sea instead of mainland japan.
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  Hi, so, I was actually deployed to Japan and discussed the wind predictions with the modelers at Lawrence Livermore who ran the simulations and I saw the isotope sampling data collected from the planes flying through the atmosphere over Fukushima. Getting a re-entrant flow for enough time get any meaningful amount of radiation over any populated area was never going to happen. Like, ever. Like, they seemed really apologetic for having ever run the simulations, but the question national leadership posed was "how long would you need re-entrant flow to get significant exposure?" So they had to sustain an irrational model until they got a time. And based on that we spent a huge chunk of Operation Tomadochi's $90M on keeping sealift resources on standby off the coast in case of a Vietnam-style evacuation.