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This is a vastly skewed measurement that excludes 99% of the deaths from chernobyl and fukuhsima which are diffuse and externalised. That aside, nuclear in its

This is a vastly skewed measurement that excludes 99% of the deaths from chernobyl and fukuhsima which are diffuse and externalised. That aside, nuclear in its current form remains safe enough (probably still the safest). However, this stops being true the moment we blindly accept it and let chevron build a nuclear reactor with no oversight in brazil. The 'unfounded hysteria' is the only thing keeping the industry to account.

wyager 4y ago
> This is a vastly skewed measurement that excludes 99% of the deaths from chernobyl and fukuhsima which are diffuse and externalised. Only the most rudimentary linear models predict non-negligible diffuse loss of life from these events. More robust models predict minimal impact, or even a net positive impact on health! E.g. radiation hormesis models.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Wow. Radiation and having enough money drained from the public purse for cleanup to shut down every fossil fuel plant in the country is good for you acshuallly. That's a new one. Props on winning the gaslighting olympics there. Additionally 'negligible' in the context you used is still hundreds which is a great deal bigger than 1
LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
"The total number of deaths already attributable to Chernobyl or expected in the future over the lifetime of emergency workers and local residents in the most contaminated areas is estimated to be about 4000. This includes some 50 emergency workers who died of acute radiation syndrome and nine children who died of thyroid cancer, and an estimated total of 3940 deaths [...] lifetime of about 600,000 people under consideration." - WHO https://apps.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/index1.html The older Linear-No-Threshold model had predicted that small doses of radiation would have a small chance of causing harm. From watching Hiroshima, Chernobyl, and nuclear accidents, our new models have thresholds below which radiation has no observable effect over the lifetime. Chernobyl was a disaster but its death toll is equivalent to a month of North America's opioid epidemic.
- chordalkeyboard 4y ago
  Linear No-Threshold doesn't account for bioaccumulation of radioisotopes which is the more likely source of radiation-related disease and death.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  That estimate is contested by many people including the scientists who did the work it was based on. But it's more than enough to make my point. The hypervigilance around nuclear is the only thing stopping monthly chernobyls, as evidenced by the sheer malice and incompetence exhibited in every nexus of power and danger we are not that hypervigilant about. Bringing up the opioid epidemic makes that point pretty clearly. It's like arguing that dimethyl mercury is perfectly safe and should be used to fuel passenger liners in spite of costing many times as much and requiring you to bring your exhaust with you because the one time someone tried to use it as a rocket fuel someone with sense told them to go f themselves and to never call the chemistry lab where it was made again.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    > That estimate is contested Find the deaths. We'd love to see better research. > hypervigilance around nuclear is the only thing stopping monthly chernobyls A few airliners caused thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of damage. Turns out that a lot of our infrastructure is dangerous. You should learn about dams! But this is a reason to double-down on nuclear. Pretty much every existing reactor is bespoke because we didn't build all that many and technology was being developed the whole time. And they're still safer than everything else. Volume building would let us improve our design and perfect our execution. > Bringing up the opioid epidemic makes that point pretty clearly. Yes, virtue-signalers are the biggest problem in both cases. In nuclear it's the "green" fear mongering and in the opioid epidemic it's the "compassionate" free-drugs movement.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      > Find the deaths. We'd love to see better research. LNT is used at the low levels of nuclear accidents because the deaths are impossible to find (and because LNT is mechanistically plausible). They are lost in a sea of ordinary cancers, statistically undetectable by any practical experiment. Note that there is no good evidence that LNT is incorrect. The NRC responded to a recent petition to abandon LNT with a polite slapdown of the petitioners, for this reason. This does NOT mean cancers predicted by LNT can ignored. Regulation is not a game of technologies being innocent unless proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If anything, nuclear stans should fear abandonment of LNT. Without it, the regulatory framework could become more conservative, with the assumption that the number of cancers caused is the maximum not ruled out by evidence. For low levels of radiation, this would result in LARGER estimates than from LNT.

wyager 4y ago

> This is a vastly skewed measurement that excludes 99% of the deaths from chernobyl and fukuhsima which are diffuse and externalised. Only the most rudimentary linear models predict non-negligible diffuse loss of life from these events. More robust models predict minimal impact, or even a net positive impact on health! E.g. radiation hormesis models.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Wow. Radiation and having enough money drained from the public purse for cleanup to shut down every fossil fuel plant in the country is good for you acshuallly. That's a new one. Props on winning the gaslighting olympics there. Additionally 'negligible' in the context you used is still hundreds which is a great deal bigger than 1

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago

"The total number of deaths already attributable to Chernobyl or expected in the future over the lifetime of emergency workers and local residents in the most contaminated areas is estimated to be about 4000. This includes some 50 emergency workers who died of acute radiation syndrome and nine children who died of thyroid cancer, and an estimated total of 3940 deaths [...] lifetime of about 600,000 people under consideration." - WHO https://apps.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/index1.html The older Linear-No-Threshold model had predicted that small doses of radiation would have a small chance of causing harm. From watching Hiroshima, Chernobyl, and nuclear accidents, our new models have thresholds below which radiation has no observable effect over the lifetime. Chernobyl was a disaster but its death toll is equivalent to a month of North America's opioid epidemic.

chordalkeyboard 4y ago
Linear No-Threshold doesn't account for bioaccumulation of radioisotopes which is the more likely source of radiation-related disease and death.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
That estimate is contested by many people including the scientists who did the work it was based on. But it's more than enough to make my point. The hypervigilance around nuclear is the only thing stopping monthly chernobyls, as evidenced by the sheer malice and incompetence exhibited in every nexus of power and danger we are not that hypervigilant about. Bringing up the opioid epidemic makes that point pretty clearly. It's like arguing that dimethyl mercury is perfectly safe and should be used to fuel passenger liners in spite of costing many times as much and requiring you to bring your exhaust with you because the one time someone tried to use it as a rocket fuel someone with sense told them to go f themselves and to never call the chemistry lab where it was made again.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  > That estimate is contested Find the deaths. We'd love to see better research. > hypervigilance around nuclear is the only thing stopping monthly chernobyls A few airliners caused thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of damage. Turns out that a lot of our infrastructure is dangerous. You should learn about dams! But this is a reason to double-down on nuclear. Pretty much every existing reactor is bespoke because we didn't build all that many and technology was being developed the whole time. And they're still safer than everything else. Volume building would let us improve our design and perfect our execution. > Bringing up the opioid epidemic makes that point pretty clearly. Yes, virtue-signalers are the biggest problem in both cases. In nuclear it's the "green" fear mongering and in the opioid epidemic it's the "compassionate" free-drugs movement.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    > Find the deaths. We'd love to see better research. LNT is used at the low levels of nuclear accidents because the deaths are impossible to find (and because LNT is mechanistically plausible). They are lost in a sea of ordinary cancers, statistically undetectable by any practical experiment. Note that there is no good evidence that LNT is incorrect. The NRC responded to a recent petition to abandon LNT with a polite slapdown of the petitioners, for this reason. This does NOT mean cancers predicted by LNT can ignored. Regulation is not a game of technologies being innocent unless proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If anything, nuclear stans should fear abandonment of LNT. Without it, the regulatory framework could become more conservative, with the assumption that the number of cancers caused is the maximum not ruled out by evidence. For low levels of radiation, this would result in LARGER estimates than from LNT.