6 ms·

Cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures: potentially 100s. https://www2.ans.org/misc/FukushimaSpecialSession-Caracappa.pdf https://www2.ans.org/mi

Cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures: potentially 100s. https://www2.ans.org/misc/FukushimaSpecialSession-Caracappa.pdf https://www2.ans.org/misc/FukushimaSpecialSession-Caracappa....

account42 2y ago
Ok, now do cancer deaths and other health issues from coal plants run in countries that have shut down their nuclear plants.
sam_lowry_ 2y ago
For Chernobyl, the projection is ~4000 such "statistical deaths". The deaths directly attributed to the Chernobyl accident are... surprise-surprise... 30 [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...
- threeseed 2y ago
  And the number of people whose death is directly attributed to smoking is 0. But of course just like with Chernobyl and Fukushima you need to factor in the increased cases of cancer.
  - sam_lowry_ 2y ago
    That's the 4000, essentially.
GJim 2y ago
A study that made very questionable assumptions. Links here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fuk... Regardless, even if deaths were in the 100's, the deaths per GWh remain safer than that of coal and even, gasp! hydroelectric. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
- threeseed 2y ago
  Why not just skip nuclear then and go straight for solar which is the safest: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy Also happens to be by far the cheapest.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    For power production, I agree, but you need batteries to be able to replace carbon or nuclear energy sources. Honestly, I don't know about the cost of adding batteries to a major solar installation.
    - threeseed 2y ago
      Solar and batteries is much cheaper than nuclear.
  - ericd 2y ago
    The intermittency is really bad/hard to deal with unless you have a large geographic distribution with long distance transmission that can handle that level of power. Even if you can handle weeklong cloudy stints, winter is especially rough due to shorter and less intense sun with much longer shadows potentially knocking out whole strings. Right now our home array gets maybe 4-6 hours of reasonably good generation per day, and it’s simultaneously the highest amount of load we see all year, due to heating needs. We could try to overpanel so that winter load is met, and overcast generation is more sufficient, but it’s still challenging and would need an extreme amount of energy storage and land.
- myrmidon 2y ago
  The article you quoted also states an estimate of ~1600 deaths from the evacutation alone, and widespread rise of depression, anxiety and stress disorders among the affected population (also suicides). Also note that death per GWh on hydroelectricity are complete BS. This is easy to get wrong, but these are typically dominated by deaths from floods and dam failures (which would've happened regardless of hydroelectric use, and the dams would've been required for flood control without having turbines installed, too). I think environmentalists do have a strong point here: If a country like Japan (known for stability and diligence) can not be trusted to be able to prevent meltdowns (flooding was a known risk after all), how could you ever suggest them as primary power source in countries where regulation and monitoring would be a corrupt shitshow, like Italy, Spain, Africa etc?

Cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures: potentially 100s. https://www2.ans.org/misc/FukushimaSpecialSession-Caracappa.pdf https://www2.ans.org/misc/FukushimaSpecialSession-Caracappa....

account42 2y ago

Ok, now do cancer deaths and other health issues from coal plants run in countries that have shut down their nuclear plants.

sam_lowry_ 2y ago

For Chernobyl, the projection is ~4000 such "statistical deaths". The deaths directly attributed to the Chernobyl accident are... surprise-surprise... 30 [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...

threeseed 2y ago
And the number of people whose death is directly attributed to smoking is 0. But of course just like with Chernobyl and Fukushima you need to factor in the increased cases of cancer.
- sam_lowry_ 2y ago
  That's the 4000, essentially.

GJim 2y ago

A study that made very questionable assumptions. Links here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fuk... Regardless, even if deaths were in the 100's, the deaths per GWh remain safer than that of coal and even, gasp! hydroelectric. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

threeseed 2y ago
Why not just skip nuclear then and go straight for solar which is the safest: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy Also happens to be by far the cheapest.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  For power production, I agree, but you need batteries to be able to replace carbon or nuclear energy sources. Honestly, I don't know about the cost of adding batteries to a major solar installation.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    Solar and batteries is much cheaper than nuclear.
- ericd 2y ago
  The intermittency is really bad/hard to deal with unless you have a large geographic distribution with long distance transmission that can handle that level of power. Even if you can handle weeklong cloudy stints, winter is especially rough due to shorter and less intense sun with much longer shadows potentially knocking out whole strings. Right now our home array gets maybe 4-6 hours of reasonably good generation per day, and it’s simultaneously the highest amount of load we see all year, due to heating needs. We could try to overpanel so that winter load is met, and overcast generation is more sufficient, but it’s still challenging and would need an extreme amount of energy storage and land.
myrmidon 2y ago
The article you quoted also states an estimate of ~1600 deaths from the evacutation alone, and widespread rise of depression, anxiety and stress disorders among the affected population (also suicides). Also note that death per GWh on hydroelectricity are complete BS. This is easy to get wrong, but these are typically dominated by deaths from floods and dam failures (which would've happened regardless of hydroelectric use, and the dams would've been required for flood control without having turbines installed, too). I think environmentalists do have a strong point here: If a country like Japan (known for stability and diligence) can not be trusted to be able to prevent meltdowns (flooding was a known risk after all), how could you ever suggest them as primary power source in countries where regulation and monitoring would be a corrupt shitshow, like Italy, Spain, Africa etc?