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Just a quick point of order: study after study on Chernobyl found major exposure by just about everyone. It was serious business. This is where, without any con

Just a quick point of order: study after study on Chernobyl found major exposure by just about everyone. It was serious business. This is where, without any containment vessel at all, the fuel caught fire and the radioactive ash spread all over the place. But you are right about Three-Mile Island.

dublinclontarf 16y ago
Yes there was exposure, certainly those 4000 children recieved high enough levels. However this is a far cry of hundreds of thousands of dangerous exposures, massive increases of cancer rates and birth defects that are still happening that most people think of. I myself thought just that until recently after investigating it.
- sterling 16y ago
  I was studying in Russia when Chernobyl occurred, and I dated a woman from northern Ukraine who was a teenager at the time of the accident. I saw the results of the accident firsthand - basically everyone under the age of 10 was affected - hair loss, skin rashes and nausea in the immediate years after, cancer and early death later. But even so it isn't fair to judge the safety of nuclear power by Chernobyl. Chernobyl happened because the Soviet system had become incredibly incompetent, and technical decisions were being made by thugs.
  - brazzy 16y ago
    The capitalist system quite often also becomes incredibly incompetent and has its technical decisions made by thugs. Tepco, the company that runs the Fukushima plant, has a long history of corruption, faked security reports and blatant incompetence. What makes nuclear power unsafe is human error more than technical failure. That's the aspect the naive technocrats (like the guy who wrote this article) always ignore.
- jshen 16y ago
  Are you saying that only 4000 people were affected?
  - dublinclontarf 16y ago
    Read the reports.
    - jshen 16y ago
      You didn't answer the question, nor did you link any reports. Are you saying that only 4000 people were affected?
      - dublinclontarf 16y ago
        I'm saying what the reports are saying. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326129 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326129
        jshen 16y ago
        What SOME reports are saying. You are cherry picking the lowest counts. "But other reputable scientists researching the most radiation-contaminated areas of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are not convinced. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, another UN agency, predicts 16,000 deaths from Chernobyl; an assessment by the Russian academy of sciences says there have been 60,000 deaths so far in Russia and an estimated 140,000 in Ukraine and Belarus. Meanwhile, the Belarus national academy of sciences estimates 93,000 deaths so far and 270,000 cancers, and the Ukrainian national commission for radiation protection calculates 500,000 deaths so far."
        pella 16y ago
        http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.22037/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.22037/full "Models predict that by 2065 about 16,000 (95% UI 3,400–72,000) cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 (95% UI 11,000–59,000) cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident, whereas several hundred million cancer cases are expected from other causes. Although these estimates are subject to considerable uncertainty, they provide an indication of the order of magnitude of the possible impact of the Chernobyl accident. It is unlikely that the cancer burden from the largest radiological accident to date could be detected by monitoring national cancer statistics. Indeed, results of analyses of time trends in cancer incidence and mortality in Europe do not, at present, indicate any increase in cancer rates—other than of thyroid cancer in the most contaminated regions—that can be clearly attributed to radiation from the Chernobyl accident."
vegai 16y ago
Then again, I've understood that the worst casualty of Chernobyl was the roughly 200 000 babies who were needlessly aborted because of fears of radiation poisoning.
OpieCunningham 16y ago
But you are right about Three-Mile Island. He's not right about TMI, either. The results of TMI are debated to this day with some studies claiming minimal or no adverse health affects and some studies claiming significant adverse health affects.
- serichsen 16y ago
  Just because someone disagrees, an issue is not necessarily controversial. You have to take the substantial merit of the arguments into account.
  - OpieCunningham 16y ago
    Of course you're right. But there is no indication in the OP that he has done that in any way. Nor amongst the literally dozens of identical claims regarding TMI I've seen on HN in the past few days.

dublinclontarf 16y ago

Yes there was exposure, certainly those 4000 children recieved high enough levels. However this is a far cry of hundreds of thousands of dangerous exposures, massive increases of cancer rates and birth defects that are still happening that most people think of. I myself thought just that until recently after investigating it.

sterling 16y ago
I was studying in Russia when Chernobyl occurred, and I dated a woman from northern Ukraine who was a teenager at the time of the accident. I saw the results of the accident firsthand - basically everyone under the age of 10 was affected - hair loss, skin rashes and nausea in the immediate years after, cancer and early death later. But even so it isn't fair to judge the safety of nuclear power by Chernobyl. Chernobyl happened because the Soviet system had become incredibly incompetent, and technical decisions were being made by thugs.
- brazzy 16y ago
  The capitalist system quite often also becomes incredibly incompetent and has its technical decisions made by thugs. Tepco, the company that runs the Fukushima plant, has a long history of corruption, faked security reports and blatant incompetence. What makes nuclear power unsafe is human error more than technical failure. That's the aspect the naive technocrats (like the guy who wrote this article) always ignore.
jshen 16y ago
Are you saying that only 4000 people were affected?
- dublinclontarf 16y ago
  Read the reports.
  - jshen 16y ago
    You didn't answer the question, nor did you link any reports. Are you saying that only 4000 people were affected?
    - dublinclontarf 16y ago
      I'm saying what the reports are saying. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326129 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326129
      - jshen 16y ago
        What SOME reports are saying. You are cherry picking the lowest counts. "But other reputable scientists researching the most radiation-contaminated areas of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are not convinced. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, another UN agency, predicts 16,000 deaths from Chernobyl; an assessment by the Russian academy of sciences says there have been 60,000 deaths so far in Russia and an estimated 140,000 in Ukraine and Belarus. Meanwhile, the Belarus national academy of sciences estimates 93,000 deaths so far and 270,000 cancers, and the Ukrainian national commission for radiation protection calculates 500,000 deaths so far."
      - pella 16y ago
        http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.22037/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.22037/full "Models predict that by 2065 about 16,000 (95% UI 3,400–72,000) cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 (95% UI 11,000–59,000) cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident, whereas several hundred million cancer cases are expected from other causes. Although these estimates are subject to considerable uncertainty, they provide an indication of the order of magnitude of the possible impact of the Chernobyl accident. It is unlikely that the cancer burden from the largest radiological accident to date could be detected by monitoring national cancer statistics. Indeed, results of analyses of time trends in cancer incidence and mortality in Europe do not, at present, indicate any increase in cancer rates—other than of thyroid cancer in the most contaminated regions—that can be clearly attributed to radiation from the Chernobyl accident."

vegai 16y ago

Then again, I've understood that the worst casualty of Chernobyl was the roughly 200 000 babies who were needlessly aborted because of fears of radiation poisoning.

OpieCunningham 16y ago

But you are right about Three-Mile Island. He's not right about TMI, either. The results of TMI are debated to this day with some studies claiming minimal or no adverse health affects and some studies claiming significant adverse health affects.

serichsen 16y ago
Just because someone disagrees, an issue is not necessarily controversial. You have to take the substantial merit of the arguments into account.
- OpieCunningham 16y ago
  Of course you're right. But there is no indication in the OP that he has done that in any way. Nor amongst the literally dozens of identical claims regarding TMI I've seen on HN in the past few days.