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This is the saddest misconception that keeps getting trotted out in opposition to nuclear power. People use Fukushima as an example that nuclear power isn't imp
by MertsA 7y ago
This is the saddest misconception that keeps getting trotted out in opposition to nuclear power. People use Fukushima as an example that nuclear power isn't improving in safety, when Fukushima was an old plant around even before Chernobyl. They didn't redesign the plant or substantially alter anything in the wake of Chernobyl. It was built to withstand loss of power, a massive earthquake, and a tsunami all at the same time. The fatal flaw was that when the plant was sited and built, scientific consensus was that a tsunami that large in that area was flat out impossible. As the science improved, no one went back and understood the implications on the design of the seawall that was now known to be inadequate.
Fukushima was a failure, and an expensive one at that, but in terms of the death toll almost all of it is solely from evacuation of the surrounding area and only one case of lung cancer that was likely caused by the accident. There were zero cases of acute radiation poisoning.
- ffhhj 7y ago"...it will run out of space by 2022, and then they will have to dump radioactive water directly into the Pacific Ocean. It is not known yet how much water would need to be put into the ocean." Yeah, put the dirt under the rug.
- jml7c5 7y agoIf all the stored water was dumped in a single year, the population's estimated radiation dose is around 0.02% of yearly background radiation. It's really not a problem. See https://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/decommissioning/pdf/20191121_current_status.pdf https://www.meti.go.jp/english/earthquake/nuclear/decommissi...
- MertsA 7y agoNot to mention that the tiny increase is almost a decade of stored water (but not a decade of Tritium coming out of the reactor due to the relatively short half life of tritium). If it was just releasing enough stored water to make room for more untreated water to be processed the level would be even lower. Also unless something has changed wasn't there a plan for injecting the treated water into some stable geologic structure? In which case no radioactive tritium would be released to the environment and by the time the water could possibly permeate out and up to aquifers the tritium would have already decayed. The "dump it in the sea" plan is only on the table because it would be pretty inconsequential, especially in comparison to the standards the fossil fuel industry is held to in regards to naturally occuring radioactive material.
- p_l 7y agoMeanwhile Scandinavian countries and big chunks of Scotland are already more radioactive than areas close to the closed Fukushima plant...
- simloo 7y agoYes, due to radon gas from the ground which is really a big problem in Scandinavia. Just making sure nobody thinks a big part of the accumulated dose when living here is due to Chernobyl.
- p_l 7y agoI lived in Aberdeen, and one of its claims to fame is "Granite City"... which also means the building exhibit more radioactivity than the norm.
- simloo 7y agoWe've got the same problem over here in Sweden, granite in a lot of places. We also, just for good measure, constructed a lot of buildings in the 50s and 60s from radioactive autoclaved aerated concrete made from alum shale containing high concentrations of uranium. Fun days. Apparently there's still half a million homes here exceeding the radon limit of 200 Bq/m3 indoors.
- emiliobumachar 7y agoPerfectly functioning coal plants dump radioactive soot into the air every day. We're just breathing it up.
- Ericson2314 7y agoAnd especially compared to the large death toll from the rest of the tsunami, it's even more trajic. Avoiding nuclear will kill more people with increased extreme weather events (a small portion of global warming's damage) than all nuclear accidents.