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From Nassim Taleb[1] """ The Japanese Nuclear Commission had the following goals set in 2003: " The mean value of acute fatality risk by radiation exposure re
by dmm 14y ago
From Nassim Taleb[1]
"""
The Japanese Nuclear Commission had the following goals set in 2003: " The mean value of acute fatality risk by radiation exposure resultant from an accident of a nuclear installation to individuals of the public, who live in the vicinity of the site boundary of the nuclear installation, should not exceed the probability of about 1x10^6 per year (that is , at least 1 per million years)".
That policy was designed only 8 years ago. Their one in a million-year accident almost occurred about 8 year later (I am not even sure if it is at best a near miss). We are clearly in the Fourth Quadrant there.
"""
--
Me:
Human beings are not capable of estimating the risks from Nuclear power plant operation. Take from that what you will.
[1]http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm
- tptacek 14y agoYou'd think Taleb would have an immediate intuitive sense of how "once in a million year" accidents fit our narrative biases, but the slow-motion devastation of large areas of the US and the deaths of tens of thousands of people attributable to inhaled fossil fuel pollution don't.
- dmm 14y agoI believe that nuclear power is much safer and less destructive to the environment than mining and burning coal(for example). But when Tokyo Power sought to build the nuclear plant at Ōkuma I guarantee you they didn't tell people, "this will totally kill fewer people than a coal plant would". They promised absolute safety. The Japanese nuclear regulatory agency didn't promise fewer deaths than the equivalent coal plant. They promised 1 death every million years. Nuclear power makes huge promises and when it fails to live up to them it tries to change the standard by which it's judged.
- tptacek 14y agoDo you get the sense that Taleb disagrees with that first sentence? I do.
- dmm 14y agoI think his point is the continual failure of humans to estimate risks involving complex phenomenon, not specifically about the appropriateness of nuclear power. Taleb seems to greatly respect empirical evidence as opposed to models and theories. If you presented him with the evidence that fossil fuel power plants kill thousands per year versus the deaths caused by nuclear power, I imagine it would go a long way towards convincing him that nuclear power was better.
- fnordfnordfnord 14y agoHumans aren't very good at recognizing and classifying the risks from any other form of energy, either.
- ars 14y ago1 fatality per million years? What kind of crazy number is that? It's completely impossible to make such an estimate, you'd need at least a hundred thousand years worth of data. I would be perfectly happy with 1 fatality per hundred years, and that's an estimate we can actually make. (Even one per decade is better than non-nuclear power.)