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And it's important to remember that the Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused one confirmed death so far. I'm not saying that it wasn't a horrific disaster, but

And it's important to remember that the Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused one confirmed death so far. I'm not saying that it wasn't a horrific disaster, but it's like comparing one dramatic aeroplane accident to the totality of road vehicle deaths worldwide—one plane is newsworthy; whereas the vehicle death toll is normalised and ignored. Worldwide, around 50 to 500 people die in planes each year. Worldwide, over 1 million people die in cars each year.

remontoire 7y ago
Do you remember what else happend that day at Fukushima? 15k people died from the tsunami. Yet people could not tell you anything about the tsunami except that it caused problems at the reactor.
- mikekchar 7y ago
  Well, to be fair, people in Japan mostly remember the tsunami. In the town where I live beach front property is half the price of property on top of the hill these days. People are also concerned about nuclear reactor safety. I live about 6 km from a nuclear reactor and there are repeated calls to dismantle it. I frequently get visits from PR people from the power company to try to convince me that the nuclear reactor is necessary. It's a short conversation: I'm very much more inclined to welcome the nuclear power plant than more natural gas! However, this particular power plant has been closed down for almost 15 years. Note this is significantly longer than the time period since the Tohoku earthquake. To be frank, the power company was not able to pass safety checks for years prior to the tsunami. Although it has been significantly upgraded, I'm not surprised that people in the area are afraid. Even with this, I can tell you that the land literally next door to the power plant is significantly higher priced than the land next to one of the nicest stretches of white sand beach in this part of Japan. People here have a pretty good handle on what's more dangerous.
redis_mlc 7y ago
> And it's important to remember that the Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused one confirmed death so far. I wish nuclear apologists with an agenda would stop repeating this. 250,000 residents were displaced, many spending their final days in gyms and other camps as rufugees in their own country. An entire army will spend decades and likely trillions of dollars trying to do something with the shattered remains of the Fukushima complex.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > 250,000 residents were displaced, many spending their final days in gyms and other camps as rufugees in their own country. For which overreaction to the powerplant failure is partially to blame.
- sjwright 7y ago
  Calling people who disagree with you "apologists with an agenda" isn't really within the spirit of Hacker News, nor is it conducive to healthy discussion. The disaster that hit Fukushima was a tsunami. Only a very small section of the prefecture is still affected by the fallout and most of that area is for an abundance of caution. Most of the leaked radioactive material went in the best possible place for it—dispersed into ocean water. Ocean water already contains naturally occurring radioactive material, in quantities many orders of magnitude greater than humans could ever hope to disperse "by accident". Meanwhile, the disaster being faced now could have been similar or ever massively worse if the tsunami had hit and damaged chemical storage plants instead.
oska 7y ago
The Fukushima nuclear disaster came close to forcing the Japanese Prime Minister to shut down and evacuate Tokyo. [1] Also, you are making an error in how you calculate risk. It's not just how many fatalities are caused by each source of risk on an annual basis. It's also how much potential a risk-source has to scale. Nuclear can potentially scale into causing a massive number of fatalities and that is why people, correctly, identify it as a serious source of risk. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/asia/japan-considered-tokyo-evacuation-during-the-nuclear-crisis-report-says.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/asia/japan-consider...

remontoire 7y ago

Do you remember what else happend that day at Fukushima? 15k people died from the tsunami. Yet people could not tell you anything about the tsunami except that it caused problems at the reactor.

mikekchar 7y ago
Well, to be fair, people in Japan mostly remember the tsunami. In the town where I live beach front property is half the price of property on top of the hill these days. People are also concerned about nuclear reactor safety. I live about 6 km from a nuclear reactor and there are repeated calls to dismantle it. I frequently get visits from PR people from the power company to try to convince me that the nuclear reactor is necessary. It's a short conversation: I'm very much more inclined to welcome the nuclear power plant than more natural gas! However, this particular power plant has been closed down for almost 15 years. Note this is significantly longer than the time period since the Tohoku earthquake. To be frank, the power company was not able to pass safety checks for years prior to the tsunami. Although it has been significantly upgraded, I'm not surprised that people in the area are afraid. Even with this, I can tell you that the land literally next door to the power plant is significantly higher priced than the land next to one of the nicest stretches of white sand beach in this part of Japan. People here have a pretty good handle on what's more dangerous.

redis_mlc 7y ago

> And it's important to remember that the Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused one confirmed death so far. I wish nuclear apologists with an agenda would stop repeating this. 250,000 residents were displaced, many spending their final days in gyms and other camps as rufugees in their own country. An entire army will spend decades and likely trillions of dollars trying to do something with the shattered remains of the Fukushima complex.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> 250,000 residents were displaced, many spending their final days in gyms and other camps as rufugees in their own country. For which overreaction to the powerplant failure is partially to blame.
sjwright 7y ago
Calling people who disagree with you "apologists with an agenda" isn't really within the spirit of Hacker News, nor is it conducive to healthy discussion. The disaster that hit Fukushima was a tsunami. Only a very small section of the prefecture is still affected by the fallout and most of that area is for an abundance of caution. Most of the leaked radioactive material went in the best possible place for it—dispersed into ocean water. Ocean water already contains naturally occurring radioactive material, in quantities many orders of magnitude greater than humans could ever hope to disperse "by accident". Meanwhile, the disaster being faced now could have been similar or ever massively worse if the tsunami had hit and damaged chemical storage plants instead.

oska 7y ago

The Fukushima nuclear disaster came close to forcing the Japanese Prime Minister to shut down and evacuate Tokyo. [1] Also, you are making an error in how you calculate risk. It's not just how many fatalities are caused by each source of risk on an annual basis. It's also how much potential a risk-source has to scale. Nuclear can potentially scale into causing a massive number of fatalities and that is why people, correctly, identify it as a serious source of risk. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/asia/japan-considered-tokyo-evacuation-during-the-nuclear-crisis-report-says.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/asia/japan-consider...