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The "super duper radioactive material" you're so afraid of is what's left of the fuel. It's full of energy. The precious fuel is so full of energy that it gets

The "super duper radioactive material" you're so afraid of is what's left of the fuel. It's full of energy. The precious fuel is so full of energy that it gets hot ("decay heat"). Without cooling, it melts. Cooling was lost during the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, the fourth most powerful earthquake ever recorded anywhere. The "Great East Japan Earthquake" and its tsunami killed 19,759 people. The earthquake was a terrible tragedy. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an... Meanwhile, the precious fuel remained safely entombed within the concrete and steel vessel that was designed to contain it. Without cooling, the fuel got hot ("decay heat") and melted, always safely enclosed within the vessel. Unfortunately, during attempts to cool the fuel in the aftermath of the earthquake, some radioactive fission products were released into the environment: caesium, iodine, xenon, etc. These fission products have been diluted and are harmless. See the section "Radionuclide release" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident How much harm did the radioactive fuel cause? Quoting Wikipedia: No adverse health effects among non-worker Fukushima residents have been documented that are directly attributable to radiation exposure from the accident, according to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Insurance compensation was paid for one death from lung cancer (4 years later), but this does not prove a causal relationship between radiation and the cancer. Six other persons have been reported as having developed cancer or leukemia. Two workers were hospitalized because of radiation burns, and several other people sustained physical injuries as a consequence of the accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident

philipkglass 2y ago
The "super duper radioactive material" you're so afraid of is what's left of the fuel. It's full of energy. This precious fuel is so full of energy that it gets very hot ("decay heat"). Fresh reactor fuel is even more full of potential energy but it doesn't get hot because uranium 235 and 238 have very long half lives. Fuel that has been used in a reactor gets hot primarily due to fission products (lighter elements formed when fuel atoms split apart) that undergo faster radioactive decay. There's also some decay heat from the production of transuranic elements (elements heavier than uranium, generated by neutron capture). But the fission product decay heat dwarfs the transuranic element contribution until several decades have passed. It makes sense to be more afraid of the super duper radioactive material from spent fuel than the slightly radioactive material in brand new fuel. The radiotoxicity is vastly higher, the heat generation complicates handling/storage, and the chemical composition has gained dozens of elements scattered around the periodic table. In terms of usefulness, a fresh fuel rod is like a clean cardboard box and a used rod is more like a cardboard box that held a hot pizza. It's so dirty that it costs more to recycle it into something usable than to just sequester it and start with fresh material.
- klyrs 2y ago
  Forgive my ignorance, but isn't that "used pizza box" fuel more or less ideal for a breeder reactor?
  - philipkglass 2y ago
    It could be reprocessed for use in a breeder reactor, but breeders are not attractive at present or foreseeable uranium prices. They make the expensive part of nuclear power (capital costs) even more expensive to save money on the part that doesn't cost much at all (making fuel from mined uranium). If nuclear power expanded drastically then breeders might be more affordable than exploiting really marginal uranium sources, but otherwise they make the economics of nuclear power worse.
natmaka 2y ago
Deaths (nuclear accident): 1 confirmed from radiation (lung cancer, 4 years later), and 2,202 from evacuation. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... Long-term effects on health are disputed: http://csrp.jp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2013-UNSCEAR-Report-on-Fukushima-a-critical-appraisal1.pdf http://csrp.jp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2013-UNSCEAR-Repor... http://www.fukushima-disaster.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/english/Akzente_Unscear2014.pdf http://www.fukushima-disaster.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/e... https://apjjf.org/thierry-ribault/4761/article https://apjjf.org/thierry-ribault/4761/article The nuclear accident cleanup cost is very high ad raising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_cleanup#Scope_of_cleanup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_cle...
- defrost 2y ago
  > and 2,202 from evacuation. The primary source for that wikipedia quote argues that the act of evacuating "just in case" caused deaths and that had people remained in place no such deaths would have occurred. Over 65,000 people were evacuated from the vicinity. One such death, for example, was 102 year old Fumio Okubo who lived 30 km inland and hanged himself after being forced to move for no good reason. There were 2,202 disaster-related deaths in Fukushima\*, according to the government’s Reconstruction Agency, from evacuation stress, interruption to medical care and suicide; so far, there has not been a single case of cancer linked to radiation from the plant. That is prompting a shocking reassessment among some scholars: that the evacuation was an error. The human cost would have been far smaller had people stayed where they were, they argue. The wider death toll from the quake was 15,895, according to the National Police Agency. Of the disaster-related deaths, 1,984 were people over the age of 65. ~ https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b18... \* technically not "in Fukushima" but any deaths over the following seven years in the group evacuated from Fukushima.
  - natmaka 2y ago
    Obtaining the amount of victims of an evacuation is difficult, and official figures are conservative for many reasons, the main one being that each victim's family obtained financial reparation (see also the "Limitations" section of a pertinent study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666765722000837 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266676572... ). During the Fukushima nuclear accident information was scarce and volatile, specialists said that evacuating up to Tokyo may prove necessary (this was revealed by Kan Naoto, then Japan's Prime Minister: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-odyssey-of-naoto-kan-former-japan-prime-minister-during-fukushima/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-ody... ). This is biz as usual: after a war many armchair experts, especially those acting upon one of the parties, are quite sure that "tackling this was easy". During the event, they are nowhere to be found.
cedws 2y ago
Yeah it’s all fine, it only displaced a few thousand people from their homes and made an area an uninhabitable wasteland. It’s only going to cost ~$500 billion in total for cleanup[0]. Nevermind the capital loss from the destruction of the power plant itself. Nuclear is definitely a great idea. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_cleanup https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_c... Sarcasm aside, it's extremely frustrating when deaths are the only dimension people use to compare with other electricity sources. You can't just put on a blindfold and ignore all of the other factors. Just because only a handful of deaths can be directly attributed, doesn't mean nuclear isn't an absolute nightmare when it goes wrong.
- immibis 2y ago
  Directly attributable deaths, at that. Who knows how many equivalent nondeaths occurred by subtracting half a year from a hundred people?

philipkglass 2y ago

The "super duper radioactive material" you're so afraid of is what's left of the fuel. It's full of energy. This precious fuel is so full of energy that it gets very hot ("decay heat"). Fresh reactor fuel is even more full of potential energy but it doesn't get hot because uranium 235 and 238 have very long half lives. Fuel that has been used in a reactor gets hot primarily due to fission products (lighter elements formed when fuel atoms split apart) that undergo faster radioactive decay. There's also some decay heat from the production of transuranic elements (elements heavier than uranium, generated by neutron capture). But the fission product decay heat dwarfs the transuranic element contribution until several decades have passed. It makes sense to be more afraid of the super duper radioactive material from spent fuel than the slightly radioactive material in brand new fuel. The radiotoxicity is vastly higher, the heat generation complicates handling/storage, and the chemical composition has gained dozens of elements scattered around the periodic table. In terms of usefulness, a fresh fuel rod is like a clean cardboard box and a used rod is more like a cardboard box that held a hot pizza. It's so dirty that it costs more to recycle it into something usable than to just sequester it and start with fresh material.

klyrs 2y ago
Forgive my ignorance, but isn't that "used pizza box" fuel more or less ideal for a breeder reactor?
- philipkglass 2y ago
  It could be reprocessed for use in a breeder reactor, but breeders are not attractive at present or foreseeable uranium prices. They make the expensive part of nuclear power (capital costs) even more expensive to save money on the part that doesn't cost much at all (making fuel from mined uranium). If nuclear power expanded drastically then breeders might be more affordable than exploiting really marginal uranium sources, but otherwise they make the economics of nuclear power worse.

natmaka 2y ago

Deaths (nuclear accident): 1 confirmed from radiation (lung cancer, 4 years later), and 2,202 from evacuation. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... Long-term effects on health are disputed: http://csrp.jp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2013-UNSCEAR-Report-on-Fukushima-a-critical-appraisal1.pdf http://csrp.jp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2013-UNSCEAR-Repor... http://www.fukushima-disaster.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/english/Akzente_Unscear2014.pdf http://www.fukushima-disaster.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/e... https://apjjf.org/thierry-ribault/4761/article https://apjjf.org/thierry-ribault/4761/article The nuclear accident cleanup cost is very high ad raising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_cleanup#Scope_of_cleanup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_cle...

defrost 2y ago
> and 2,202 from evacuation. The primary source for that wikipedia quote argues that the act of evacuating "just in case" caused deaths and that had people remained in place no such deaths would have occurred. Over 65,000 people were evacuated from the vicinity. One such death, for example, was 102 year old Fumio Okubo who lived 30 km inland and hanged himself after being forced to move for no good reason. There were 2,202 disaster-related deaths in Fukushima\*, according to the government’s Reconstruction Agency, from evacuation stress, interruption to medical care and suicide; so far, there has not been a single case of cancer linked to radiation from the plant. That is prompting a shocking reassessment among some scholars: that the evacuation was an error. The human cost would have been far smaller had people stayed where they were, they argue. The wider death toll from the quake was 15,895, according to the National Police Agency. Of the disaster-related deaths, 1,984 were people over the age of 65. ~ https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b18... \* technically not "in Fukushima" but any deaths over the following seven years in the group evacuated from Fukushima.
- natmaka 2y ago
  Obtaining the amount of victims of an evacuation is difficult, and official figures are conservative for many reasons, the main one being that each victim's family obtained financial reparation (see also the "Limitations" section of a pertinent study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666765722000837 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266676572... ). During the Fukushima nuclear accident information was scarce and volatile, specialists said that evacuating up to Tokyo may prove necessary (this was revealed by Kan Naoto, then Japan's Prime Minister: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-odyssey-of-naoto-kan-former-japan-prime-minister-during-fukushima/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-ody... ). This is biz as usual: after a war many armchair experts, especially those acting upon one of the parties, are quite sure that "tackling this was easy". During the event, they are nowhere to be found.

cedws 2y ago

Yeah it’s all fine, it only displaced a few thousand people from their homes and made an area an uninhabitable wasteland. It’s only going to cost ~$500 billion in total for cleanup[0]. Nevermind the capital loss from the destruction of the power plant itself. Nuclear is definitely a great idea. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_cleanup https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_c... Sarcasm aside, it's extremely frustrating when deaths are the only dimension people use to compare with other electricity sources. You can't just put on a blindfold and ignore all of the other factors. Just because only a handful of deaths can be directly attributed, doesn't mean nuclear isn't an absolute nightmare when it goes wrong.

immibis 2y ago
Directly attributable deaths, at that. Who knows how many equivalent nondeaths occurred by subtracting half a year from a hundred people?