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I think you live on another planet. Union Carbide alone killed thousands and thousands of people. Like there are so many industrial disasters caused by corpora

I think you live on another planet. Union Carbide alone killed thousands and thousands of people. Like there are so many industrial disasters caused by corporations that it's patently absurd to act like the USSR did more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disasters#Industrial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disaster... Like on this list, the vast majority are done by corporations.

eru 1y ago
The Soviet Union was only one country. You'd probably want to normalise the industrial disaster score per capita (or even per dollar-equivalent of GDP). Would be an interesting research project. Look for cost of QALY-lost per capita or so from environmental damage.
timschmidt 1y ago
100,000 years from now no one will remember Bhopal as sad as that thought is. But Chernobyl will still be spicy.
- suddenlybananas 1y ago
  Chernobyl will be completely safe in 100 000 years. It's more on scale of centuries to a few millenia. Long time, but not 100 000.
  - timschmidt 1y ago
    I checked before I posted. The remaining Pu-239 will have only transitioned through 4 halflives leaving ~5% still actively radiating. Pu-242 will have only transitioned through 1/3 of a halflife. This is enough that excavation or otherwise disturbing the earth would be unwise.
    - Retric 1y ago
      Overall the area will be ~1/1,000th as radioactive in 100k years, and it’s not that dangerous today. The flip side of that 24,000 year half life is Pu-239 isn’t that hot. 5% of what little Pu-239 is there isn’t that spicy compared to many places people live without significant worry about the natural radiation dose. There’s just not enough Pu-242 to be a significant concern on its own outside of the reactor building which is unlikely to be left alone.
      - timschmidt 1y ago
        > it’s not that dangerous today. It's not the sort of place you want to spend any appreciable time at. Plenty of documented death and mutation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_exclusion_zone#Radioactive_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_exclusion_zone#Radio... > what little Pu-239 is there isn’t that spicy compared to many places people live without significant worry about the natural radiation dose. Walking around most of the 30km exclusion zone 100,000 years from now will be comparable to walking around a granite quary in terms of gamma dose. Which is still elevated compared to most of the planet, but usually not a worry. However, granite does an excellent job of sequestering the radioactive elements whereas I explicitly called out disturbing the earth as a risk due to inhalation and the compounded effect of internalized isotopes which is much greater at the Chernobyl site than elsewhere. Hence the need for a $2.1 Billion confinement structure which is only designed to last 100 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement No amount of inhaled Pu-239 is going to be fun for anyone.
        Retric 1y ago
        It only needs a 100 year lifespan because part of the new safe confinement project is to “facilitate the disassembly and decommissioning of the reactor.” That’s unrealistic for the entire zone, but I think we can safety assume people in 100k years aren’t going to randomly stumble upon the elephants foot. > death and mutation Even fairly recent studies are showing the legacy of past exposure in animal populations who lived through higher than current radiation levels and often carry that legacy through genetic damage across generations. Thus they overstate the exposure risk today. Obviously even 1/1,000th of the current risk isn’t zero but it’s swamped by other considerations. > No amount of inhaled Pu-239 is going to be fun for anyone. There’s no benefit, but start talking individual atoms and you’ll have trouble detecting it. I can’t find a paper on the topic but for a rough estimate, ~5-30% of the fuel was released, but not all of that remained local and some was removed etc. If something like 1/3 the fuel was nuclear waste and 0.8% of that was Pu-239 and 5% of that remains in 10k years. We’re talking well under 1kg Pu-239 across 2600 km^2. So your digger in 100k years is only inhaling and coughing up incredibly dilute material, we’re talking 10^-15 to 10^-20 kg Pu-239 in someone’s lungs depending on assumptions but even the high end is going to be swamped by normal background radiation.

eru 1y ago

The Soviet Union was only one country. You'd probably want to normalise the industrial disaster score per capita (or even per dollar-equivalent of GDP). Would be an interesting research project. Look for cost of QALY-lost per capita or so from environmental damage.

timschmidt 1y ago

100,000 years from now no one will remember Bhopal as sad as that thought is. But Chernobyl will still be spicy.

suddenlybananas 1y ago
Chernobyl will be completely safe in 100 000 years. It's more on scale of centuries to a few millenia. Long time, but not 100 000.
- timschmidt 1y ago
  I checked before I posted. The remaining Pu-239 will have only transitioned through 4 halflives leaving ~5% still actively radiating. Pu-242 will have only transitioned through 1/3 of a halflife. This is enough that excavation or otherwise disturbing the earth would be unwise.
  - Retric 1y ago
    Overall the area will be ~1/1,000th as radioactive in 100k years, and it’s not that dangerous today. The flip side of that 24,000 year half life is Pu-239 isn’t that hot. 5% of what little Pu-239 is there isn’t that spicy compared to many places people live without significant worry about the natural radiation dose. There’s just not enough Pu-242 to be a significant concern on its own outside of the reactor building which is unlikely to be left alone.
    - timschmidt 1y ago
      > it’s not that dangerous today. It's not the sort of place you want to spend any appreciable time at. Plenty of documented death and mutation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_exclusion_zone#Radioactive_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_exclusion_zone#Radio... > what little Pu-239 is there isn’t that spicy compared to many places people live without significant worry about the natural radiation dose. Walking around most of the 30km exclusion zone 100,000 years from now will be comparable to walking around a granite quary in terms of gamma dose. Which is still elevated compared to most of the planet, but usually not a worry. However, granite does an excellent job of sequestering the radioactive elements whereas I explicitly called out disturbing the earth as a risk due to inhalation and the compounded effect of internalized isotopes which is much greater at the Chernobyl site than elsewhere. Hence the need for a $2.1 Billion confinement structure which is only designed to last 100 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement No amount of inhaled Pu-239 is going to be fun for anyone.
      - Retric 1y ago
        It only needs a 100 year lifespan because part of the new safe confinement project is to “facilitate the disassembly and decommissioning of the reactor.” That’s unrealistic for the entire zone, but I think we can safety assume people in 100k years aren’t going to randomly stumble upon the elephants foot. > death and mutation Even fairly recent studies are showing the legacy of past exposure in animal populations who lived through higher than current radiation levels and often carry that legacy through genetic damage across generations. Thus they overstate the exposure risk today. Obviously even 1/1,000th of the current risk isn’t zero but it’s swamped by other considerations. > No amount of inhaled Pu-239 is going to be fun for anyone. There’s no benefit, but start talking individual atoms and you’ll have trouble detecting it. I can’t find a paper on the topic but for a rough estimate, ~5-30% of the fuel was released, but not all of that remained local and some was removed etc. If something like 1/3 the fuel was nuclear waste and 0.8% of that was Pu-239 and 5% of that remains in 10k years. We’re talking well under 1kg Pu-239 across 2600 km^2. So your digger in 100k years is only inhaling and coughing up incredibly dilute material, we’re talking 10^-15 to 10^-20 kg Pu-239 in someone’s lungs depending on assumptions but even the high end is going to be swamped by normal background radiation.