10 ms·

> „If Japan can’t control the technology nobody can“. I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? Which are essentially non-existe

> „If Japan can’t control the technology nobody can“. I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? Which are essentially non-existent in Germany? In my opinion Fukushima should be an argument _for_ nuclear power. The death toll was really low, roughly 2000, and many of those death were caused by the evacuation rather than radiation. The death toll of the tsunami/earthquake was 15000 according to wikipedia. What should really put this into perspective is that air pollutions is estimated to kill millions every year. And all of this is with reactors that are really old. If we would put the same amount of engineering resources into nuclear as we put into chips I am sure the number of deaths would go down a few order of magnitudes.

mxscho 4y ago
> I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? I think the argument would be that the risk wasn't mitigated although it should've been known. There may be other known risks as well.
JohnBooty 4y ago
I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? Chernobyl has often been characterized as the result of a corrupt and incompetent late-stage USSR, whereas post-WWII Japan is seen as a generally well-run country. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that, just trying to describe public opinion.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  You’re not countering the implicit argument that Germany won’t have a problem with earthquakes ruining their nuclear powerplants. Germany is also a “well-run country” if you want to run with the old anti-Soviet argument.
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    It's not fully an objective argument, butnan emotional. "Even Japan can't run them safely!" Where Japan is known for its precision and strict following of rules (perception!) Yes, rationally the maths is a lot different, but countering emotions with facts is hard. (And then consider facts like long term deposition of nuclear waste etc.)
    - avgcorrection 4y ago
      > Where Japan is known for its precision and strict following of rules (perception!) As compared to the Germans? Supposed rule-sticklers without earthquakes.
  - karamanolev 4y ago
    FWIW, I'm a fan of nucear, but ... they don't have to counter that argument. It doesn't have to be earthquakes - it can be 1 of 100 problems. Japan knew they have to deal with earthquakes and didn't. What should make people more comfortable that Germany will be able to safeguard against their known risks?
    - metadat 4y ago
      What are the remaining 95 potential uncontrollable problems beyond earthquake, fire, flood, war, human incompetence? Given appropriate attention and care, these can be accounted for through planning processes and protocols.
      - nosianu 4y ago
        See France and its maintenance issues with not just one but many of their power plants, accumulated over decades and now greatly contributing to the European energy problems. (https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/10/13/frances-nuclear-reactors-will-not-work-as-normal-any-time-soon https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/10/13/frances-nuclear-...) Some issues I see are accountants, management, laziness, "somebody else's problem", etc. Those are businesses and they will try all the well-known ways to save money. Which the politicians will also encourage, because nuclear power will need to be justified continuously (like all other forms). There also are water issues, not just river temperature (France, this summer), we also had a lot of European rivers with barely enough or not enough for most of the normal uses of those rivers this summer - and predictions are we'll have more such extremes. So, ensuring water supplies will be adequate at all times will become harder too, and much more expensive. Not to mention that Russia - Rosatom - will again play a big role in Western European energy when it comes to nuclear. (https://www.investigate-europe.eu/en/2022/russias-multi-million-euro-nuclear-exports-untouched-by-eu-sanctions/ https://www.investigate-europe.eu/en/2022/russias-multi-mill...) Air plane and human space flight accidents are extremely rare but they still occur despite all the rules and regulations and the training and the many levels of precautions, but nuclear has to be even better.
        belorn 4y ago
  - fomine3 4y ago
    So the lesson is that don't put together single impression for everything in a country (except communist country?). TEPCO (and some other nuclear corps in Japan) was known for hiding incidents, even prior the earthquake.
- 6thaccount 4y ago
epivosism 4y ago
There was 1 disputed radiation/nuclear related death from Fukushima. And mention of 2200 related to the (post-tsunami) evacuation. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_ac...
- karamanolev 4y ago
  That aside, what about price? Completely cleaning up and taking apart the plant could take a generation or more, and comes with a hefty price tag. In 2016 the government increased its cost estimate to about $75.7 billion, part of the overall Fukushima disaster price tag of $202.5 billion. I'm a fan of nuclear, but those are eye-watering numbers.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    Anybody knows why they are completely cleaning up that plant instead of just cordoning it off and marking it as "deadly land, nobody allowed in". You know, an exclusion zone like Chernobyl. Is land that expensive in Japan? Or is it some sort of ambition to prove they can repair that fuckup? O maybe there is a lot of money to be made in a cleanup operation?
    - cedilla 4y ago
      We're talking about highly toxic soil here. Soil doesn't stay where it is, it moves with water and wind. You have to fix it, somehow. Just putting a bit of warning tape around it doesn't cut it. This isn't a theoretical point, either, wild mushrooms are still unsafe to eat in some parts of central Europe, almost four decades after Tchernobyl. The whole Fukushima disaster is another lesson in the prevention paradox. We see low death and disease numbers, and somehow many people think that's because the disaster wasn't that bad after all, completely ignoring the literal tens of billions of dollars that the Japanese government and TEPCO expended to keep them that low.
      - fomine3 4y ago
wlll 4y ago
> In my opinion Fukushima should be an argument _for_ nuclear power. The death toll was really low, roughly 2000, and many of those death were caused by the evacuation rather than radiation. The death toll of the tsunami/earthquake was 15000 according to wikipedia. Isn't the pacific now significantly polluted by radiation from the plant? That seems like a pretty bad outcome, even if the direct number of deaths was relatively low.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  Has there been a spike in mutations in sea life? Humans? I have my doubts. The amount of radation dumped from fukushima is literally a drop in the ocean.
- ohgodplsno 4y ago
  The pacific's radiation levels have increased by about 0%. The total releases from all of Fukushima was on the order of 30 PBq. Water has a natural radioactivity of 13 Bq/L. So, if you want to only double the natural radioactivity of water (which is still basically nothing), you need to dilute ask this radiation in 2e15 L of water. The entire pacific is 7.10e20 L of water. Even the area around Japan is thousands of times more liters of water. To give you an idea, in 2011, 41% of caught marine species on the coast of Fukushima had Cs137 concentrations higher than the normal limits (100bq/kg, which is still really damn low). In 2015, that was 0.05% So, no, the pacific doesn't give a damn about Fukushima. And so do the people. You're exposed to about 2100Bq in a year.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    It's worth noting that oceanic water is actually very poorly mixed, with only the first 200m or so mixing well with the atmosphere, so the radioactive emissions likely wouldn't increase in the deep ocean water. On the other hand, that basically only lops a zero off your number.
fweimer 4y ago
There's moderate seismic activity in the South-Western part of Germany, higher once you get closer to Basel (which was destroyed by an earthquake in the 14th century). Curiously, the French Fessenheim nuclear power plant is in this area as well.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Most nuclear accidents are caused by greed, laziness and shortsightedness. Japan seems to be one of the few societies (possibly the only wealthy one) that doesn't suffer too badly from these issues. When I worry about nuclear power here in the UK, I don't worry about earthquakes, I worry to PMs cousin will get a billion pounds to build a containment unit and not do it. Or the reactor will need to be shut down but the CEO will decide to keep it running because safety and maintenance are just "cost centres"...
llsf 4y ago
Only one death related to radiation. All the 2,000 deaths mentioned are "disaster-related deaths" (evacuation, stress, etc.). source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
baxtr 4y ago
I don’t want to argue your positions but you gotta realize that this argument you’re making is fact based one. OP is talking about triggered emotions which are much more complex to dissect and understand.
laurencerowe 4y ago
> If we would put the same amount of engineering resources into nuclear as we put into chips I am sure the number of deaths would go down a few order of magnitudes. Nuclear reactors probably have more in common with the fabs where chips are made. Both are enormously complex engineering challenges where each plant costs tens of billions of dollars and gets more expensive with each new generation of technology. Whereas solar panels have followed the path of silicon chips and gotten cheaper as they are produced in ever greater numbers, to the point where the panels themselves make up less than half the build cost for utility scale solar.
metta2uall 4y ago
I think the point is that indeed Japan is known for earthquakes & tsunamis, and yet they still failed to do the work of making their reactors tsunami-proof. Thus people think that if Japan, with a reputation valuing "high quality", takes such brazen shortcuts, can their own government be trusted to responsibly operate nuclear power? It's quite tragic since nuclear is a great technology in many cases, especially where there is high density populations but not much land for renewables. Re. the low death toll, perhaps it's quite low because people were forced to evacuate. Evacuation and the marking of land as contaminated by radioactivity is considered a very high price to pay.
- atoav 4y ago
  > Evacuation and the marking of land as contaminated by radioactivity is considered a very high price to pay. Especially in dense Europe. In the US there is more space for surch things to happen and have it only affect a stretch of uninhabitated wildland.
solarkraft 4y ago
> isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? Japan is known for being technologically advanced and safe, so the earthquake shouldn't have mattered. > What should really put this into perspective is that air pollutions is estimated to kill millions every year. This is certainly a great point, one I tend to find convincing, but it seems very hard to convince others on similar grounds: Radiation is just way more immediately scary.

mxscho 4y ago

> I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? I think the argument would be that the risk wasn't mitigated although it should've been known. There may be other known risks as well.

JohnBooty 4y ago

I don't understand this argument, isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? Chernobyl has often been characterized as the result of a corrupt and incompetent late-stage USSR, whereas post-WWII Japan is seen as a generally well-run country. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that, just trying to describe public opinion.

avgcorrection 4y ago
You’re not countering the implicit argument that Germany won’t have a problem with earthquakes ruining their nuclear powerplants. Germany is also a “well-run country” if you want to run with the old anti-Soviet argument.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  It's not fully an objective argument, butnan emotional. "Even Japan can't run them safely!" Where Japan is known for its precision and strict following of rules (perception!) Yes, rationally the maths is a lot different, but countering emotions with facts is hard. (And then consider facts like long term deposition of nuclear waste etc.)
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    > Where Japan is known for its precision and strict following of rules (perception!) As compared to the Germans? Supposed rule-sticklers without earthquakes.
- karamanolev 4y ago
  FWIW, I'm a fan of nucear, but ... they don't have to counter that argument. It doesn't have to be earthquakes - it can be 1 of 100 problems. Japan knew they have to deal with earthquakes and didn't. What should make people more comfortable that Germany will be able to safeguard against their known risks?
  - metadat 4y ago
    What are the remaining 95 potential uncontrollable problems beyond earthquake, fire, flood, war, human incompetence? Given appropriate attention and care, these can be accounted for through planning processes and protocols.
    - nosianu 4y ago
      See France and its maintenance issues with not just one but many of their power plants, accumulated over decades and now greatly contributing to the European energy problems. (https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/10/13/frances-nuclear-reactors-will-not-work-as-normal-any-time-soon https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/10/13/frances-nuclear-...) Some issues I see are accountants, management, laziness, "somebody else's problem", etc. Those are businesses and they will try all the well-known ways to save money. Which the politicians will also encourage, because nuclear power will need to be justified continuously (like all other forms). There also are water issues, not just river temperature (France, this summer), we also had a lot of European rivers with barely enough or not enough for most of the normal uses of those rivers this summer - and predictions are we'll have more such extremes. So, ensuring water supplies will be adequate at all times will become harder too, and much more expensive. Not to mention that Russia - Rosatom - will again play a big role in Western European energy when it comes to nuclear. (https://www.investigate-europe.eu/en/2022/russias-multi-million-euro-nuclear-exports-untouched-by-eu-sanctions/ https://www.investigate-europe.eu/en/2022/russias-multi-mill...) Air plane and human space flight accidents are extremely rare but they still occur despite all the rules and regulations and the training and the many levels of precautions, but nuclear has to be even better.
      - belorn 4y ago
- fomine3 4y ago
  So the lesson is that don't put together single impression for everything in a country (except communist country?). TEPCO (and some other nuclear corps in Japan) was known for hiding incidents, even prior the earthquake.
6thaccount 4y ago

epivosism 4y ago

There was 1 disputed radiation/nuclear related death from Fukushima. And mention of 2200 related to the (post-tsunami) evacuation. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_ac...

karamanolev 4y ago
That aside, what about price? Completely cleaning up and taking apart the plant could take a generation or more, and comes with a hefty price tag. In 2016 the government increased its cost estimate to about $75.7 billion, part of the overall Fukushima disaster price tag of $202.5 billion. I'm a fan of nuclear, but those are eye-watering numbers.
- nickpp 4y ago
  Anybody knows why they are completely cleaning up that plant instead of just cordoning it off and marking it as "deadly land, nobody allowed in". You know, an exclusion zone like Chernobyl. Is land that expensive in Japan? Or is it some sort of ambition to prove they can repair that fuckup? O maybe there is a lot of money to be made in a cleanup operation?
  - cedilla 4y ago
    We're talking about highly toxic soil here. Soil doesn't stay where it is, it moves with water and wind. You have to fix it, somehow. Just putting a bit of warning tape around it doesn't cut it. This isn't a theoretical point, either, wild mushrooms are still unsafe to eat in some parts of central Europe, almost four decades after Tchernobyl. The whole Fukushima disaster is another lesson in the prevention paradox. We see low death and disease numbers, and somehow many people think that's because the disaster wasn't that bad after all, completely ignoring the literal tens of billions of dollars that the Japanese government and TEPCO expended to keep them that low.
    - fomine3 4y ago

wlll 4y ago

> In my opinion Fukushima should be an argument _for_ nuclear power. The death toll was really low, roughly 2000, and many of those death were caused by the evacuation rather than radiation. The death toll of the tsunami/earthquake was 15000 according to wikipedia. Isn't the pacific now significantly polluted by radiation from the plant? That seems like a pretty bad outcome, even if the direct number of deaths was relatively low.

stjohnswarts 4y ago
Has there been a spike in mutations in sea life? Humans? I have my doubts. The amount of radation dumped from fukushima is literally a drop in the ocean.
ohgodplsno 4y ago
The pacific's radiation levels have increased by about 0%. The total releases from all of Fukushima was on the order of 30 PBq. Water has a natural radioactivity of 13 Bq/L. So, if you want to only double the natural radioactivity of water (which is still basically nothing), you need to dilute ask this radiation in 2e15 L of water. The entire pacific is 7.10e20 L of water. Even the area around Japan is thousands of times more liters of water. To give you an idea, in 2011, 41% of caught marine species on the coast of Fukushima had Cs137 concentrations higher than the normal limits (100bq/kg, which is still really damn low). In 2015, that was 0.05% So, no, the pacific doesn't give a damn about Fukushima. And so do the people. You're exposed to about 2100Bq in a year.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  It's worth noting that oceanic water is actually very poorly mixed, with only the first 200m or so mixing well with the atmosphere, so the radioactive emissions likely wouldn't increase in the deep ocean water. On the other hand, that basically only lops a zero off your number.

fweimer 4y ago

There's moderate seismic activity in the South-Western part of Germany, higher once you get closer to Basel (which was destroyed by an earthquake in the 14th century). Curiously, the French Fessenheim nuclear power plant is in this area as well.

LatteLazy 4y ago

Most nuclear accidents are caused by greed, laziness and shortsightedness. Japan seems to be one of the few societies (possibly the only wealthy one) that doesn't suffer too badly from these issues. When I worry about nuclear power here in the UK, I don't worry about earthquakes, I worry to PMs cousin will get a billion pounds to build a containment unit and not do it. Or the reactor will need to be shut down but the CEO will decide to keep it running because safety and maintenance are just "cost centres"...

llsf 4y ago

Only one death related to radiation. All the 2,000 deaths mentioned are "disaster-related deaths" (evacuation, stress, etc.). source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

baxtr 4y ago

I don’t want to argue your positions but you gotta realize that this argument you’re making is fact based one. OP is talking about triggered emotions which are much more complex to dissect and understand.

laurencerowe 4y ago

> If we would put the same amount of engineering resources into nuclear as we put into chips I am sure the number of deaths would go down a few order of magnitudes. Nuclear reactors probably have more in common with the fabs where chips are made. Both are enormously complex engineering challenges where each plant costs tens of billions of dollars and gets more expensive with each new generation of technology. Whereas solar panels have followed the path of silicon chips and gotten cheaper as they are produced in ever greater numbers, to the point where the panels themselves make up less than half the build cost for utility scale solar.

metta2uall 4y ago

I think the point is that indeed Japan is known for earthquakes & tsunamis, and yet they still failed to do the work of making their reactors tsunami-proof. Thus people think that if Japan, with a reputation valuing "high quality", takes such brazen shortcuts, can their own government be trusted to responsibly operate nuclear power? It's quite tragic since nuclear is a great technology in many cases, especially where there is high density populations but not much land for renewables. Re. the low death toll, perhaps it's quite low because people were forced to evacuate. Evacuation and the marking of land as contaminated by radioactivity is considered a very high price to pay.

atoav 4y ago
> Evacuation and the marking of land as contaminated by radioactivity is considered a very high price to pay. Especially in dense Europe. In the US there is more space for surch things to happen and have it only affect a stretch of uninhabitated wildland.

solarkraft 4y ago

> isn't Japan known for its earthquakes? Japan is known for being technologically advanced and safe, so the earthquake shouldn't have mattered. > What should really put this into perspective is that air pollutions is estimated to kill millions every year. This is certainly a great point, one I tend to find convincing, but it seems very hard to convince others on similar grounds: Radiation is just way more immediately scary.