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My whole life was altered by a nuclear power accident, and I was lucky to "just" spend summers far from home (so as to not be outside in the contaminated area)

My whole life was altered by a nuclear power accident, and I was lucky to "just" spend summers far from home (so as to not be outside in the contaminated area) for years before my family moved away. Millions of people developed health issues, and many, many people died, although the "official" statistics will tell you thousands. If you're not afraid of nuclear power, you're a fool. If you're not afraid of environmental and habitat destruction through all the various different means, you're a fool.

jakehop 6y ago
Where was this? I feel rude to object to your personal history, but no major, trustworthy institution has reported anything like this. The worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl, had around 50 casualties. This was mostly due to the handling by the Soviet Union, not something inherent to nuclear power itself (other than the obvious radiation involved, but the secrecy, lack of knowledge, etc. is 100% a political issue).
- sam_lowry_ 6y ago
  To be precise, Chernobyl had 31 casualties and around 4000 statistically estimated death toll. That is, life expectancy reduced because of radiation exposure.
  - acidburnNSA 6y ago
    You're downvoted because it's an unbelievable statement. You gotta provide credible sources when you say something that incredible. People are usually blown away when they read the UN assessments of Chernobyl because of how different the science is compared to the pop culture. [1] https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    According to Vyacheslav Grishin of the Chernobyl Union, 25,000 of the Russian liquidators are dead and 70,000 disabled, about the same in Ukraine, and 10,000 dead in Belarus and 25,000 disabled" Which makes a total of 60,000 dead and 165,000 disabled (by now). The organisation Médecins pour la prévention de la guerre nucléaire estimated that 10,000 babies had born in Europe with malformations attributable to Chernobyl, and 5,000 sucklings died by the effects of radiation. The "but just 31 people died" statement, that conveniently forgets about the long and middle term health effects suffered, or about the effects on babies and pregnant women, is incredibly disrespectful for the victims.
    - Supermancho 6y ago
      More than 31 people died that day. There were emergency personnel and journalists filming molten containment rods (which was filmed), and they must be included in that 4000 because they are definitely dead. With that 70s technology and understanding, which would you rather be a responder for, Chernobyl or The World Trade Center (after the second collapse)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di... It's not up for debate, that the UN numbers are low, despite the downvotes.
      - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
        You will be amazed to know that even the 3 kamikaze that swimmed in radioactive water and drank vodka to celebrate survived.
    - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
      I lived in Minsk, 400km from Chernobyl when it happened, so I should count as one of those "victims". Still, I would rather maintain the deathcount of 31 people and the International Atomic Energy Agency figure of 4000 projected deaths. Crooks will tell you anything in exchange of funds and media attention.
      - pvaldes 6y ago
        This deathcount is just for people dying by acute poisoning radiation before 90 days. Leaving cancer and middle term effects out of the statistics is not a realistic way to measure mortality here.
        sam_lowry_ 6y ago
        This is included in the 4000 estimate.
  - MertsA 6y ago
    That's basically on par with the casualties resulting from 9/11. Blaming Chernobyl on inherent dangers of nuclear power feels a lot like blaming 9/11 on skyscrapers. The USSR was absurdly reckless and incompetent. It wasn't just some freak chance that everything went wrong, even the designers of the RBMK reactor knew that operating it in the way the operators did would be catastrophic. Any competent reactor operator should have understood why the power level dropped so much at Chernobyl and should have understood why just removing the control rods was such a terrible idea to "fix" it.
    - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
      >The USSR was absurdly reckless and incompetent. How did it built the reactors to start with, then? The reality is never that simple. One interesting remark that comes often in the Legasov notes is that military handled these reactors safely, but since reactors of exactly same design were put into civil use, safety culture was not transferred, out of secrecy-induced ignorance.
      - MertsA 6y ago
        Sure, there was some details about the reactor design that were not disclosed because "state secrets" but the very glaring error occurred after the operator deliberately ignored the safety limits that were shared and knowingly exceeded that by withdrawing all of the control rods. I'm not saying the USSR didn't have any capable nuclear engineers, but that operator should never have even stepped foot in a control room with their lack of knowledge of nuclear physics and a blatant willingness to just push forward when they know they don't understand what the reactor was doing. Add on top of that management insisting that they push on and get the reactor up to power, to hell with the consequences. Xenon poisoning after high output operation was not some secret safeguarded knowledge. The reactor operating limits were known to the operator, he decided to blow past them anyways. I'd call their behavior, both management and the operator, reckless and incompetent. Even in the original design to forego a full containment structure, that was predicated on making sure that the operating limits specified were never exceeded and no one bothered to check to see if the night shift guy was clueless or not. It'd be one thing if they followed up the design to forego the containment structure with rigorous controls around ensuring competent operators and hard physical limits on reactor operations but they didn't.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  Chernobyl had many more casualties than reported, and the health effects for millions of people who live in affected areas is simply immeasurable. Geiger counters were illegal to own, by the way.
Aachen 6y ago
So because I was in an airplane crash and developed a fear of flying, which doesn't seem unreasonable, everyone who isn't afraid of flying is now a fool? Nuclear is not free of risks, that goes without saying. But the risks in mining uranium, operating the plants, and storage or repurposing of the waste are still lower than a million people installing solar panels on rooftops. Accidents happen and we should minimize them. Trying to live zero risk by cutting out what bit you before rather than what bit a lot of other people does not make sense. I'm not against solar, I'm not against nuclear. I'm for reducing the biggest sources of damage (coal, gas, cows, planes, etc.). We, densely populated Europe in particular, seem to be having a lot of trouble deploying land-consuming technologies like solar and wind at a rate that makes us likely not to trigger any runaway climate-affecting processes. I see nuclear as an option, on the expensive side but definitely not beyond what our western society can pay, that would make a big step ten years from the moment we commit to it (and cost-wise roughly on par with off-shore wind, cheaper or more expensive depending on who you ask, so cost is apparently not the problem in any country that deploys significant amounts of off-shore wind). I just can't decide whether there's still hope of rationality in this debate, especially being involved with brainwashed climate activists that somehow convinced themselves it's super dangerous (that's demonstrably untrue) and a few of them know details like that it's more expensive (but never know by how much (~2x according to UK and USA studies, I can lookup the links tomorrow (1:30am here)), nor can they explain how France doesn't have crazy energy prices (<2x compared to countries with nearly zero nuclear) with 70% of the power coming from nuclear, nor are they opposed to other solutions that would mean increasing the cost by as much if that gets us to CO2 neutrality)...

jakehop 6y ago

Where was this? I feel rude to object to your personal history, but no major, trustworthy institution has reported anything like this. The worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl, had around 50 casualties. This was mostly due to the handling by the Soviet Union, not something inherent to nuclear power itself (other than the obvious radiation involved, but the secrecy, lack of knowledge, etc. is 100% a political issue).

sam_lowry_ 6y ago
To be precise, Chernobyl had 31 casualties and around 4000 statistically estimated death toll. That is, life expectancy reduced because of radiation exposure.
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  You're downvoted because it's an unbelievable statement. You gotta provide credible sources when you say something that incredible. People are usually blown away when they read the UN assessments of Chernobyl because of how different the science is compared to the pop culture. [1] https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
- pvaldes 6y ago
  According to Vyacheslav Grishin of the Chernobyl Union, 25,000 of the Russian liquidators are dead and 70,000 disabled, about the same in Ukraine, and 10,000 dead in Belarus and 25,000 disabled" Which makes a total of 60,000 dead and 165,000 disabled (by now). The organisation Médecins pour la prévention de la guerre nucléaire estimated that 10,000 babies had born in Europe with malformations attributable to Chernobyl, and 5,000 sucklings died by the effects of radiation. The "but just 31 people died" statement, that conveniently forgets about the long and middle term health effects suffered, or about the effects on babies and pregnant women, is incredibly disrespectful for the victims.
  - Supermancho 6y ago
    More than 31 people died that day. There were emergency personnel and journalists filming molten containment rods (which was filmed), and they must be included in that 4000 because they are definitely dead. With that 70s technology and understanding, which would you rather be a responder for, Chernobyl or The World Trade Center (after the second collapse)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di... It's not up for debate, that the UN numbers are low, despite the downvotes.
    - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
      You will be amazed to know that even the 3 kamikaze that swimmed in radioactive water and drank vodka to celebrate survived.
  - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
    I lived in Minsk, 400km from Chernobyl when it happened, so I should count as one of those "victims". Still, I would rather maintain the deathcount of 31 people and the International Atomic Energy Agency figure of 4000 projected deaths. Crooks will tell you anything in exchange of funds and media attention.
    - pvaldes 6y ago
      This deathcount is just for people dying by acute poisoning radiation before 90 days. Leaving cancer and middle term effects out of the statistics is not a realistic way to measure mortality here.
      - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
        This is included in the 4000 estimate.
- MertsA 6y ago
  That's basically on par with the casualties resulting from 9/11. Blaming Chernobyl on inherent dangers of nuclear power feels a lot like blaming 9/11 on skyscrapers. The USSR was absurdly reckless and incompetent. It wasn't just some freak chance that everything went wrong, even the designers of the RBMK reactor knew that operating it in the way the operators did would be catastrophic. Any competent reactor operator should have understood why the power level dropped so much at Chernobyl and should have understood why just removing the control rods was such a terrible idea to "fix" it.
  - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
    >The USSR was absurdly reckless and incompetent. How did it built the reactors to start with, then? The reality is never that simple. One interesting remark that comes often in the Legasov notes is that military handled these reactors safely, but since reactors of exactly same design were put into civil use, safety culture was not transferred, out of secrecy-induced ignorance.
    - MertsA 6y ago
      Sure, there was some details about the reactor design that were not disclosed because "state secrets" but the very glaring error occurred after the operator deliberately ignored the safety limits that were shared and knowingly exceeded that by withdrawing all of the control rods. I'm not saying the USSR didn't have any capable nuclear engineers, but that operator should never have even stepped foot in a control room with their lack of knowledge of nuclear physics and a blatant willingness to just push forward when they know they don't understand what the reactor was doing. Add on top of that management insisting that they push on and get the reactor up to power, to hell with the consequences. Xenon poisoning after high output operation was not some secret safeguarded knowledge. The reactor operating limits were known to the operator, he decided to blow past them anyways. I'd call their behavior, both management and the operator, reckless and incompetent. Even in the original design to forego a full containment structure, that was predicated on making sure that the operating limits specified were never exceeded and no one bothered to check to see if the night shift guy was clueless or not. It'd be one thing if they followed up the design to forego the containment structure with rigorous controls around ensuring competent operators and hard physical limits on reactor operations but they didn't.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
Chernobyl had many more casualties than reported, and the health effects for millions of people who live in affected areas is simply immeasurable. Geiger counters were illegal to own, by the way.

Aachen 6y ago

So because I was in an airplane crash and developed a fear of flying, which doesn't seem unreasonable, everyone who isn't afraid of flying is now a fool? Nuclear is not free of risks, that goes without saying. But the risks in mining uranium, operating the plants, and storage or repurposing of the waste are still lower than a million people installing solar panels on rooftops. Accidents happen and we should minimize them. Trying to live zero risk by cutting out what bit you before rather than what bit a lot of other people does not make sense. I'm not against solar, I'm not against nuclear. I'm for reducing the biggest sources of damage (coal, gas, cows, planes, etc.). We, densely populated Europe in particular, seem to be having a lot of trouble deploying land-consuming technologies like solar and wind at a rate that makes us likely not to trigger any runaway climate-affecting processes. I see nuclear as an option, on the expensive side but definitely not beyond what our western society can pay, that would make a big step ten years from the moment we commit to it (and cost-wise roughly on par with off-shore wind, cheaper or more expensive depending on who you ask, so cost is apparently not the problem in any country that deploys significant amounts of off-shore wind). I just can't decide whether there's still hope of rationality in this debate, especially being involved with brainwashed climate activists that somehow convinced themselves it's super dangerous (that's demonstrably untrue) and a few of them know details like that it's more expensive (but never know by how much (~2x according to UK and USA studies, I can lookup the links tomorrow (1:30am here)), nor can they explain how France doesn't have crazy energy prices (<2x compared to countries with nearly zero nuclear) with 70% of the power coming from nuclear, nor are they opposed to other solutions that would mean increasing the cost by as much if that gets us to CO2 neutrality)...