5 ms·

A voice of reason speaks of the tragedies in Japan.

e40 16y ago
I think the reason people are focusing on the nuclear threat is that it is still in the future, whereas the tsunami is done and is no longer threatening. Sure, the carnage left in its wake is still there, but you don't need to fear it.
- tptacek 16y ago
  People in the US don't need to fear either event, and yet they covered the nuke crisis almost to the exclusion of the tsunami. Is the point the article makes.
  - vacri 16y ago
    I don't get that from the article at all. The article mostly seems apologism for nuclear power, and neatly sidesteps how such a disaster can make large areas uninhabitable. When you're the size of Russia, losing an area like Chernobyl is barely a scratch. When you're the size of Japan, with people squished in everywhere, there is no space to lose.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      You might try the lede: The apocalyptic visions of destruction brought by the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami have been largely replaced in the media this week by reports of the struggle to control radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. Japan hasn't lost any area. Unlike Chernobyl's reactors, which were still fissioning at the time of the disaster, Japan's were not stuffed full of burning graphite.
      - patio11 16y ago
        It may not be obvious from media reports, but Daiichi's 1, 2, and 3 reactors were in full operation when hit by the earthquake, and all three successfully executed emergency shutdowns within a matter of seconds. This was the single most important thing to happen, since It reduced the heat generation virtually immediately, without which it it is highly likely that at least one would have lost containment prior to emergency measures of the last few days working. The lack of graphite may have made that survivable for Japan, but the plant itself would have been virtually impossible to recover, and continuing failures would have been very, very bad for neighboring communities. (They'll probably all get to go back a few weeks after the plant is secured.) Some minutes after the earthquake, the tsunami physically hit Daiichi and Daini. (You haven't heard of Daini in about a week because we've reestablished control there.) It wiped out their diesel generators and external power lines, because both had tolerances in the five to six meter range for tsunamis and the actual wVe was nine to ten. Things, incredibly, still didn't go to pot immediately. They worked on battery backup for a few hours, but couldn't get an emergency plan in operation in time without power. That's when things started to get bad, principally with overheating from waste heat causing radioactive steam/hydrogen explosions, which were the first cause of radioactivity spikes and have complicated all the disaster response since. (Though, perversely, the fact that Daiichi 3 had a steam/hydrogen explosion blow the roof off made the spent fuel pool accessible to water delivered without entering the building, without which getting a hose inside would have been a one-way trip.)
      - lutorm 16y ago
        There would not be any burning graphite in any case, because those reactors don't have any graphite... That, however, doesn't imply that there won't be any radioactive contamination. It would certainly be a lot less than Chernobyl, though.
- patio11 16y ago
  The tsunami killed more people today than that radiation will ever, because a lot of Japanese older folks had their meds disrupted for a week (some continuing), were hit with hypothermia or close to it, and took massive shock. More people die of those effects every day, and that will continue for months. Lack of meds/medical care was one of the first problems identified with the relief effort and it is the hardest one to address since emergency rations/H2O/heating oil works for everyone but a box of emergency medicine which doesn't contain the drug you need helps you not at all. (You can also imagine the issues with finding the right prescription for a 75 year old man whose doctor is now himself a refugee and whose paperwork is in the ruins of an office under 300 tons of sludge. Now parallelize that problem over about a hundred thousand people.) Thinking the radiation has future higher expected harm than the tsunami is pretty much solely a problem of cognitive biases.
paganel 16y ago
> It has been estimated that 17 million were exposed to significant radiation after Chernobyl and nearly 2,000 people have since developed thyroid cancer having consumed contaminated food and milk as children. Citation needed for this one, other than one coming from an industry-lobbyist like IAEA.
- paganel 16y ago
  Me replying to me own comment, and because I've just seen that he's posted an Update linking to an UN study, here's a link to a book written on the effects of Chernobyl which presents a much bigger number: http://books.google.com/books?id=g34tNlYOB3AC&lpg=PA186&ots=O15TiPU2a8&dq=romania%20cancer%20rates%20chernobyl&pg=PA185#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=g34tNlYOB3AC&lpg=PA186&... I can tell you that in the case of my country, Romania, the numbers are probably even higher because of a lot of mis-reporting (voluntary or not), or just plain stupidity from the doctors when it came to diagnosing (just fyi, we had close to 7,000 kids "accidentally" infected with HIV at at the end of the '80s).
  - paganel 16y ago
    And also, a very interesting extract from Wikipedia's entry on one of the authors of the above book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassili_Nesterenko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassili_Nesterenko > Because of his activities, he lost his job and got problems with the State Security Agency of Belarus, which threatened him with internment in a psychiatric asylum. Later, however, the Belarusian government tried to soften him proposing him to get back a job in a state institute, "at the condition that he would not work on Chernobyl anymore." He escaped two assassination attempts.[1] > Nesterenko intervened immediately after news of the accident in the nuclear power plant started to spread. As an expert on the subject and with his experience as a fire fighter, he threw liquid nitrogen containers from a helicopter on the burning reactor core. To do this he had to move into the middle of radioactive smoke. Despite the heavy radioactive contamination of the area, Nesterenko survived. However, of the four passengers of his helicopter, three died from radioactive irradiation and contamination.[1]
- tptacek 16y ago
jim_h 16y ago
In light of all the news on the Japanese nuclear power plants, I found this (below) radiation dose chart (from xcd) helpful. It does not seem like there's too much to be concerned about regarding radiation. They unfortunately have bigger issues to deal with. http://xkcd.com/radiation/ http://xkcd.com/radiation/
- groks 16y ago
  http://www.peakoilblues.org/blog/?p=2630 http://www.peakoilblues.org/blog/?p=2630

e40 16y ago

I think the reason people are focusing on the nuclear threat is that it is still in the future, whereas the tsunami is done and is no longer threatening. Sure, the carnage left in its wake is still there, but you don't need to fear it.

tptacek 16y ago
People in the US don't need to fear either event, and yet they covered the nuke crisis almost to the exclusion of the tsunami. Is the point the article makes.
- vacri 16y ago
  I don't get that from the article at all. The article mostly seems apologism for nuclear power, and neatly sidesteps how such a disaster can make large areas uninhabitable. When you're the size of Russia, losing an area like Chernobyl is barely a scratch. When you're the size of Japan, with people squished in everywhere, there is no space to lose.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    You might try the lede: The apocalyptic visions of destruction brought by the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami have been largely replaced in the media this week by reports of the struggle to control radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. Japan hasn't lost any area. Unlike Chernobyl's reactors, which were still fissioning at the time of the disaster, Japan's were not stuffed full of burning graphite.
    - patio11 16y ago
      It may not be obvious from media reports, but Daiichi's 1, 2, and 3 reactors were in full operation when hit by the earthquake, and all three successfully executed emergency shutdowns within a matter of seconds. This was the single most important thing to happen, since It reduced the heat generation virtually immediately, without which it it is highly likely that at least one would have lost containment prior to emergency measures of the last few days working. The lack of graphite may have made that survivable for Japan, but the plant itself would have been virtually impossible to recover, and continuing failures would have been very, very bad for neighboring communities. (They'll probably all get to go back a few weeks after the plant is secured.) Some minutes after the earthquake, the tsunami physically hit Daiichi and Daini. (You haven't heard of Daini in about a week because we've reestablished control there.) It wiped out their diesel generators and external power lines, because both had tolerances in the five to six meter range for tsunamis and the actual wVe was nine to ten. Things, incredibly, still didn't go to pot immediately. They worked on battery backup for a few hours, but couldn't get an emergency plan in operation in time without power. That's when things started to get bad, principally with overheating from waste heat causing radioactive steam/hydrogen explosions, which were the first cause of radioactivity spikes and have complicated all the disaster response since. (Though, perversely, the fact that Daiichi 3 had a steam/hydrogen explosion blow the roof off made the spent fuel pool accessible to water delivered without entering the building, without which getting a hose inside would have been a one-way trip.)
    - lutorm 16y ago
      There would not be any burning graphite in any case, because those reactors don't have any graphite... That, however, doesn't imply that there won't be any radioactive contamination. It would certainly be a lot less than Chernobyl, though.
patio11 16y ago
The tsunami killed more people today than that radiation will ever, because a lot of Japanese older folks had their meds disrupted for a week (some continuing), were hit with hypothermia or close to it, and took massive shock. More people die of those effects every day, and that will continue for months. Lack of meds/medical care was one of the first problems identified with the relief effort and it is the hardest one to address since emergency rations/H2O/heating oil works for everyone but a box of emergency medicine which doesn't contain the drug you need helps you not at all. (You can also imagine the issues with finding the right prescription for a 75 year old man whose doctor is now himself a refugee and whose paperwork is in the ruins of an office under 300 tons of sludge. Now parallelize that problem over about a hundred thousand people.) Thinking the radiation has future higher expected harm than the tsunami is pretty much solely a problem of cognitive biases.

paganel 16y ago

> It has been estimated that 17 million were exposed to significant radiation after Chernobyl and nearly 2,000 people have since developed thyroid cancer having consumed contaminated food and milk as children. Citation needed for this one, other than one coming from an industry-lobbyist like IAEA.

paganel 16y ago
Me replying to me own comment, and because I've just seen that he's posted an Update linking to an UN study, here's a link to a book written on the effects of Chernobyl which presents a much bigger number: http://books.google.com/books?id=g34tNlYOB3AC&lpg=PA186&ots=O15TiPU2a8&dq=romania%20cancer%20rates%20chernobyl&pg=PA185#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=g34tNlYOB3AC&lpg=PA186&... I can tell you that in the case of my country, Romania, the numbers are probably even higher because of a lot of mis-reporting (voluntary or not), or just plain stupidity from the doctors when it came to diagnosing (just fyi, we had close to 7,000 kids "accidentally" infected with HIV at at the end of the '80s).
- paganel 16y ago
  And also, a very interesting extract from Wikipedia's entry on one of the authors of the above book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassili_Nesterenko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassili_Nesterenko > Because of his activities, he lost his job and got problems with the State Security Agency of Belarus, which threatened him with internment in a psychiatric asylum. Later, however, the Belarusian government tried to soften him proposing him to get back a job in a state institute, "at the condition that he would not work on Chernobyl anymore." He escaped two assassination attempts.[1] > Nesterenko intervened immediately after news of the accident in the nuclear power plant started to spread. As an expert on the subject and with his experience as a fire fighter, he threw liquid nitrogen containers from a helicopter on the burning reactor core. To do this he had to move into the middle of radioactive smoke. Despite the heavy radioactive contamination of the area, Nesterenko survived. However, of the four passengers of his helicopter, three died from radioactive irradiation and contamination.[1]
tptacek 16y ago

jim_h 16y ago

In light of all the news on the Japanese nuclear power plants, I found this (below) radiation dose chart (from xcd) helpful. It does not seem like there's too much to be concerned about regarding radiation. They unfortunately have bigger issues to deal with. http://xkcd.com/radiation/ http://xkcd.com/radiation/

groks 16y ago
http://www.peakoilblues.org/blog/?p=2630 http://www.peakoilblues.org/blog/?p=2630