4 ms·

So what if they died of the evacuation, the nuclear accident caused the evacuation. I find this argument mind-boggling, because people didn't die directly of ra

So what if they died of the evacuation, the nuclear accident caused the evacuation. I find this argument mind-boggling, because people didn't die directly of radiation exposure it is somehow ok that Japan had to evacuate a significant population? If this would happen e.g. to Krümmel you'd have to evacuate the second largest city in Germany, that's 2 million people.

barney54 5y ago
The point is that the people didn’t need to be evacuated.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  Some of them likely would have been completely fine and completely unexposed to dangerous levels of radiation.. but not all of them.. and it was impossible to know which were which until weeks and months later when they did more thorough testing. Many local areas were reporting over radiation of >500 millisieverts/year, which is ~150x the typical background dose. The famous XKCD Radiation chart shows a bunch of Fukushima related doses -- it was actually pretty dangerous for people close to the exclusion zone! https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/
- Ma8ee 5y ago
  Why do you think so? To me the argument sounds like: > no one died of radiation, since they were evacuated. The people who did die, because of the evacuation, shouldn’t count because they didn’t die from the radiation. The evacuation wasn’t necessary, which is proven since no one died from radiation. And the notion that more people would have died from the radiation if they didn’t evacuate is just ignored. Well, no one died in the fire. The only people that died did because they jumped from windows. But that no one died in the fire proves that the fire wasn’t dangerous and they didn’t need to jump in the first place.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    The downside of nuclear power is, potentially & in rare circumstances, a large number of people have to move. I don't want to trivialise that - it is a big cost. But it isn't exactly like we're talking a threat to anyone's health and well-being. And when I say "rare" I mean once, globally, every 25 years with 1970s plant designs. It is quite a bit safer now with the absurd safety standards people make nuclear keep. Basically, although costly, it is a tiny risk once we estimate [danger x likelihood = risk].
    - Ma8ee 5y ago
      The biggest downside right now is that it is to slow and to expensive to build new plants to make any meaningful impact in either gas deliveries from Russia or climate disaster.
    - _0w8t 5y ago
      The problem with nuclear plants is the risk is really unknown. One cannot say it is small. For example, nobody considered that Russia would fire artillery against nuclear reactors. And now a threat of attacks with powerful conventional weapons against nuclear reactors and waste processing/storage has to be considered very seriously. Similarly we cannot assume that technological progress would not allow a single terrorist with right equipment to trigger another Chernobyl.
      - roenxi 5y ago
        > For example, nobody considered that Russia would fire artillery against nuclear reactors. I think in that sentence, the scary part is not the nuclear reactor part. And my understanding is nuclear plant design includes consideration of missile impacts.
godelski 5y ago
> So what if they died of the evacuation, the nuclear accident caused the evacuation. I wasn't aware that the nuclear accident caused massive flooding (the person you're responding to is saying that everyone died from the tsunami, not the radiation). Your point still stands about large economic costs to exclusion zones, but I don't feel you responded in good faith. As per the article (and as someone who actually did study nuclear physics), the risk of creating an exclusion zone in Germany is extremely small. Last I checked German doesn't have many earthquakes nor large bodies of water that could lead to danger from tsunamis. Germany seems fairly stable from an environmental standpoint, so the only real causes for a nuclear disaster would be from a freak accident. Considering we've learned a lot about safety in the last decade (and way more since Chernobyl), this risk is pretty small.
- nl 5y ago
  In Ukraine a nuclear power station was recently shelled with artillery. If a power station was shelled in Germany what measures would avoid an exclusion zone? And to be clear, there are plenty of groups that would deliberately cause an issue exclusion zone.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    How is it different than shelling a water dam? I would wager it is much easier to do huge harm that way than to shell a concrete hull made to withstand two planes simultaneously hitting it, or even cutting the main pipe in half, which will still safely shut down the plant. The only real (and exceptionally tiny) risk with modern nuclear plants is some contamination, but it needs several several fuckups to happen even with a goddamn tsunami hitting it
    - nl 5y ago
      No exclusion zone is needed after a dam breach. A reactor rupture causes widespread contamination even with modern reactors. There is nothing at all in modern designs that stops that.
belorn 5y ago
A few years after Fukushima we had a even large evacuation done in California, 180,000 people (and the relocation of a fish hatchery) compared to 150,000 people in Japan. It did not make international news, the death toll was not estimated, and things went back to normal fairly fast. Large evacuations are rare but they aren't that uncommon. It just doesn't get the news attention. It is a bit like traffic deaths, which might also be a significant portion of the deaths caused by the evacuation. Force 180,000 to take to the road and some will not return back alive. Living downstream of a hydro power dam is actually more dangerous than living near a nuclear plant. The destructive forces of a dam is barely being maintained by a thin layer of concrete, and it only takes a bit of human mistakes and bad weather to cause mayhem and death.
- ivan_gammel 5y ago
  Disasters like flood or fire don’t usually render large areas uninhabitable - people can return home, rebuild and live as usual. Nuclear incidents on the contrary have long term economic effects and public health dangers. My Russian grandfather died from cancer after unknowingly spending some time in unrestricted area of radioactive fallout 15 years after the incident (see Mayak plant [1] and Techa river [2]). The local population of Muslumovo there was resettled long after the catastrophe when the details of the incident were made known. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techa
  - belorn 5y ago
    The discussion around Fukushima is not about the loss of land that got rendered uninhabitable, it is exclusively focused on the loss of life. If you want to change the discussion into be about the loss of land we also need to consider how an hydro power dam changes the landscape, turning habitable land into uninhabitable lakes or turning arid land into deserts by changing water flows. For the amount of energy that nuclear power produce, I am uncertain if land usage that can't be used for housing/farming is something that should be argued as an point against it. It sad that your Russian grandfather died because the government was dishonest and didn't protect their citizens. I know similar stories from mining towns where especially radon tend to be of such high levels that people end up getting cancer and die. Most nations have regulations to prevent that but it took many lives before those regulations where in place. Fossil fuels are particular guilty in creating large uninhabitable areas because of increase radiation risks, but basically any mining has been guilty. Cut into the ground and significant amount of radioactive material will end up in the air and water.

barney54 5y ago

The point is that the people didn’t need to be evacuated.

mikeyouse 5y ago
Some of them likely would have been completely fine and completely unexposed to dangerous levels of radiation.. but not all of them.. and it was impossible to know which were which until weeks and months later when they did more thorough testing. Many local areas were reporting over radiation of >500 millisieverts/year, which is ~150x the typical background dose. The famous XKCD Radiation chart shows a bunch of Fukushima related doses -- it was actually pretty dangerous for people close to the exclusion zone! https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/
Ma8ee 5y ago
Why do you think so? To me the argument sounds like: > no one died of radiation, since they were evacuated. The people who did die, because of the evacuation, shouldn’t count because they didn’t die from the radiation. The evacuation wasn’t necessary, which is proven since no one died from radiation. And the notion that more people would have died from the radiation if they didn’t evacuate is just ignored. Well, no one died in the fire. The only people that died did because they jumped from windows. But that no one died in the fire proves that the fire wasn’t dangerous and they didn’t need to jump in the first place.
- roenxi 5y ago
  The downside of nuclear power is, potentially & in rare circumstances, a large number of people have to move. I don't want to trivialise that - it is a big cost. But it isn't exactly like we're talking a threat to anyone's health and well-being. And when I say "rare" I mean once, globally, every 25 years with 1970s plant designs. It is quite a bit safer now with the absurd safety standards people make nuclear keep. Basically, although costly, it is a tiny risk once we estimate [danger x likelihood = risk].
  - Ma8ee 5y ago
    The biggest downside right now is that it is to slow and to expensive to build new plants to make any meaningful impact in either gas deliveries from Russia or climate disaster.
  - _0w8t 5y ago
    The problem with nuclear plants is the risk is really unknown. One cannot say it is small. For example, nobody considered that Russia would fire artillery against nuclear reactors. And now a threat of attacks with powerful conventional weapons against nuclear reactors and waste processing/storage has to be considered very seriously. Similarly we cannot assume that technological progress would not allow a single terrorist with right equipment to trigger another Chernobyl.
    - roenxi 5y ago
      > For example, nobody considered that Russia would fire artillery against nuclear reactors. I think in that sentence, the scary part is not the nuclear reactor part. And my understanding is nuclear plant design includes consideration of missile impacts.

godelski 5y ago

> So what if they died of the evacuation, the nuclear accident caused the evacuation. I wasn't aware that the nuclear accident caused massive flooding (the person you're responding to is saying that everyone died from the tsunami, not the radiation). Your point still stands about large economic costs to exclusion zones, but I don't feel you responded in good faith. As per the article (and as someone who actually did study nuclear physics), the risk of creating an exclusion zone in Germany is extremely small. Last I checked German doesn't have many earthquakes nor large bodies of water that could lead to danger from tsunamis. Germany seems fairly stable from an environmental standpoint, so the only real causes for a nuclear disaster would be from a freak accident. Considering we've learned a lot about safety in the last decade (and way more since Chernobyl), this risk is pretty small.

nl 5y ago
In Ukraine a nuclear power station was recently shelled with artillery. If a power station was shelled in Germany what measures would avoid an exclusion zone? And to be clear, there are plenty of groups that would deliberately cause an issue exclusion zone.
- kaba0 5y ago
  How is it different than shelling a water dam? I would wager it is much easier to do huge harm that way than to shell a concrete hull made to withstand two planes simultaneously hitting it, or even cutting the main pipe in half, which will still safely shut down the plant. The only real (and exceptionally tiny) risk with modern nuclear plants is some contamination, but it needs several several fuckups to happen even with a goddamn tsunami hitting it
  - nl 5y ago
    No exclusion zone is needed after a dam breach. A reactor rupture causes widespread contamination even with modern reactors. There is nothing at all in modern designs that stops that.

belorn 5y ago

A few years after Fukushima we had a even large evacuation done in California, 180,000 people (and the relocation of a fish hatchery) compared to 150,000 people in Japan. It did not make international news, the death toll was not estimated, and things went back to normal fairly fast. Large evacuations are rare but they aren't that uncommon. It just doesn't get the news attention. It is a bit like traffic deaths, which might also be a significant portion of the deaths caused by the evacuation. Force 180,000 to take to the road and some will not return back alive. Living downstream of a hydro power dam is actually more dangerous than living near a nuclear plant. The destructive forces of a dam is barely being maintained by a thin layer of concrete, and it only takes a bit of human mistakes and bad weather to cause mayhem and death.

ivan_gammel 5y ago
Disasters like flood or fire don’t usually render large areas uninhabitable - people can return home, rebuild and live as usual. Nuclear incidents on the contrary have long term economic effects and public health dangers. My Russian grandfather died from cancer after unknowingly spending some time in unrestricted area of radioactive fallout 15 years after the incident (see Mayak plant [1] and Techa river [2]). The local population of Muslumovo there was resettled long after the catastrophe when the details of the incident were made known. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techa
- belorn 5y ago
  The discussion around Fukushima is not about the loss of land that got rendered uninhabitable, it is exclusively focused on the loss of life. If you want to change the discussion into be about the loss of land we also need to consider how an hydro power dam changes the landscape, turning habitable land into uninhabitable lakes or turning arid land into deserts by changing water flows. For the amount of energy that nuclear power produce, I am uncertain if land usage that can't be used for housing/farming is something that should be argued as an point against it. It sad that your Russian grandfather died because the government was dishonest and didn't protect their citizens. I know similar stories from mining towns where especially radon tend to be of such high levels that people end up getting cancer and die. Most nations have regulations to prevent that but it took many lives before those regulations where in place. Fossil fuels are particular guilty in creating large uninhabitable areas because of increase radiation risks, but basically any mining has been guilty. Cut into the ground and significant amount of radioactive material will end up in the air and water.