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"...killed by the only fatal reactor accident in US history." Is that really true? '“Nobody died at Three Mile Island” — unless you count babies.' http://www

"...killed by the only fatal reactor accident in US history." Is that really true? '“Nobody died at Three Mile Island” — unless you count babies.' http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/27/cancer-and-infant-mortality-at-three-mile-island/ http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/27/cancer-and-infant-mor...

tdicola 11y ago
TMI's radioactive gas release was nothing compared to the years of above-ground nuclear tests in the 50's and 60's. There are plenty of non-nuclear superfund sites that have done more harm too.
droiditecH 11y ago
> Nobody died at Three Mile Island” — unless you count babies Seems consistent with liberals...
illumen 11y ago
Can someone change the obviously untrue headline?
rosser 11y ago
It's certainly debatable, but as I understand it, there's a distinction made between accidents in which people are killed, and those because of which people are killed. This is one of the former. It's a very small set. Deaths from radiation poisoning, which is the deadly thing most strongly associated with nuclear accidents, tend to number among the latter, because it's the radiation, a consequence of the accident, that kills those victims, not the accident, itself. Again, it's a debatable distinction, but it's the one we've chosen to make. You conflate them either out of ignorance, or because you're fearmongering.
- illumen 11y ago
  "You conflate them either out of ignorance, or because you're fearmongering." It's a valid argument that people die because of multiple nuclear accidents in the USA. In a car accident if someone dies two days after in hospital as a result because of injuries (a consequence of the accident), people say that they died of a car accident. Radiation poisoning is obtained as a result of a nuclear accident. In exactly the same way as injuries obtained as the result of other accidents. To draw a distinction, and claim there is a difference is being ambiguous. Many people will misunderstand the difference because it makes no sense, and is not the way everyone else uses the language. To claim people understanding the statement in a sound way are fearmongering or being ignorant is silly. The headline is misleading. ps. "only fatal reactor accident in US history" claim, apart from the other deaths within the USA, the recent (and still ongoing) Fukushima accident used a General Electric design from the USA.
  - rosser 11y ago
    In a car accident if someone dies two days after in hospital as a result because of injuries (a consequence of the accident), people say that they died of a car accident. Yes, exactly. We say they died of a car accident. Not in one. See the difference?
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    You're not going to make any headway here, this is a very pro-nuclear crowd. Google some of the Fukishima threads here to really understand it. IMO, nuclear power generation in the U.S. is an overly secretive industry running obsolete on arrival technology that is a public health hazard. Just like coal, the industry enjoys a very cozy relationship with government that enables it to weasel around their pretty obvious risks and problems they bring.
    - alextgordon 11y ago
      Few will dispute any of that. I don't think there's a person here who wouldn't like ubiquitous solar power! But when the alternative is coal, nuclear power is less polluting, less radioactive and less likely to kill you.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        And we can't have ubiquitous solar power out of energy density issues, and even if we managed to set aside enough land, we probably won't be able to do that in time to matter. That's why nuclear is a good option - its clean and energy-dense and good enough to cover not only our present needs but future as well. Also, solar and nuclear are not mutually exclusive.
        paulmd 11y ago
        Not just energy density, it's also a stability issue. A significant chunk of energy usage is constant (base load), and there's also a fraction that varies over time as everyone comes home after work and turns on their air conditioners and ovens (peak load). Base load is ideally handled by an energy-dense approach that produces a very stable level of power. Peak load can be handled with more variable sources of energy, but at the end of the day these are usually backed up by gas-fired plants that can be quickly spooled up to match demand. The problem with photovoltaic solar is that its capacity undergoes a significant level of variance on both an instantaneous and a medium-term scale (time of day). As such it's best treated as a peak source. Otherwise you need enormous, enormous batteries to try and smooth the load. Using electric car batteries and so on is a good idea from the perspective of the utility, but it's a raw deal for the consumer. The lifetime of a battery is limited by charge/discharge cycles as well as time, and they're stealing your cycles. A replacement battery is an enormous chunk of change, it's about the same cost as replacing an engine. Note that this is not true of all solar techniques. For example, there's a solar-concentration technique that stores heat in molten salt, which helps to smooth out short-to-medium variation. When you lose the sun, you get a smooth curve that deteriorates over a period of hours to days rather than an instant dropoff. This is suitable for use as a base source.
- jameshart 11y ago
  If you agree that "it's a debatable distinction" then you probably shouldn't then just baldly assert that taking one side in that debate amounts to "ignorance, or... fearmongering".
  - rosser 11y ago
    I didn't say that taking a side in the debate is "ignorance, or... fearmongering". I said that conflating deaths in nuclear accidents and deaths from nuclear accidents was. If you want to take a position on the distinction, that's one thing. Not even seeing it — or, worse, ignoring it for intellectually dishonest purposes — is something else entirely.
    - jameshart 11y ago
      Oh. That kind of debate. The kind where people who think that drawing a distinction between deaths during the accident and deaths caused by the accident is itself intellectually dishonest and accuse those who insist on making such a distinction of being arrogant and shilling for nuclear power lobbyists; and the other people who think that there is a meaningful distinction to be drawn between the immediate impact of an accident and its aftermath accuse people who would conflate the two of ignorance and fearmongering. Yes, it's 'debatable' that way too.
      - rosser 11y ago
        Wow. Yeah, there's no discourse going to happen here, is there?
        jameshart 11y ago
        I am trying to point out that your attempts to sound reasonable were, from the start, undermined by your stating that while the distinction between immediate and indirect deaths caused by nuclear accidents might be debatable, you were going to enter that debate from the start by positioning anybody who thought there wasn't really much difference as an ignorant fearmonger. So yeah, you kinda headed off the prospect of civil discourse a bit there...
rdl 11y ago
Somewhat crazy, but: One more level of abstraction, and lots of people die at nuclear plants because they're not built yet (or existing ones were delayed, or in maintenance), due to the coal power which they would displace.
- rimantas 11y ago
  And coal power plants spread more radioactive material than nuclear ones.
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    And that's not counting the coal miners that die in accidents or get silicosis aka black lung
    - pgeorgi 11y ago
      Family of mine worked in uranium mines. Lots of people died there as a result of radioactive particles that ended up in their lungs (plus the typical mining accidents).
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Even weirder, the rates of cancer are higher around nuclear power plant locations. Even when the plants haven't been built yet. Turns out, such things tens to get built in old industrial areas that are already heavily contaminated.
  - iwwr 11y ago
    If anything causes people to get medical check-ups more often it's still beneficial, even if the reason for doing it may be irrational (fear of radiation leaked from a nuclear reactor). Such fears may even trigger a statistical increase in cancer rates from increased detection.
  - HCIdivision17 11y ago
    This is going to be my go-to factoid on nuclear plant nimby-ism. My uncle had an interesting experience in this vein. It was well understood that high voltage power lines caused all manner of health issues, from cancer to various degenerative diseases. He understood that EM radiation from the lines really shouldn't be very dangerous, though, and didn't think much of the leg of a line tower in his back yard. Then one day the power company came through to clear out the underbrush growing around the base of the line's tower. In just two days after the spraying all vegitation was thoroughly dead. Turns out they spray an Agent Orange-like chemical to keep the towers maintained from plant overgrowth. You can bet he moved shortly after noticing that. (This was some years ago, and likely has been (hopefully) rectified.)

tdicola 11y ago

TMI's radioactive gas release was nothing compared to the years of above-ground nuclear tests in the 50's and 60's. There are plenty of non-nuclear superfund sites that have done more harm too.

droiditecH 11y ago

> Nobody died at Three Mile Island” — unless you count babies Seems consistent with liberals...

illumen 11y ago

Can someone change the obviously untrue headline?

rosser 11y ago

It's certainly debatable, but as I understand it, there's a distinction made between accidents in which people are killed, and those because of which people are killed. This is one of the former. It's a very small set. Deaths from radiation poisoning, which is the deadly thing most strongly associated with nuclear accidents, tend to number among the latter, because it's the radiation, a consequence of the accident, that kills those victims, not the accident, itself. Again, it's a debatable distinction, but it's the one we've chosen to make. You conflate them either out of ignorance, or because you're fearmongering.

illumen 11y ago
"You conflate them either out of ignorance, or because you're fearmongering." It's a valid argument that people die because of multiple nuclear accidents in the USA. In a car accident if someone dies two days after in hospital as a result because of injuries (a consequence of the accident), people say that they died of a car accident. Radiation poisoning is obtained as a result of a nuclear accident. In exactly the same way as injuries obtained as the result of other accidents. To draw a distinction, and claim there is a difference is being ambiguous. Many people will misunderstand the difference because it makes no sense, and is not the way everyone else uses the language. To claim people understanding the statement in a sound way are fearmongering or being ignorant is silly. The headline is misleading. ps. "only fatal reactor accident in US history" claim, apart from the other deaths within the USA, the recent (and still ongoing) Fukushima accident used a General Electric design from the USA.
- rosser 11y ago
  In a car accident if someone dies two days after in hospital as a result because of injuries (a consequence of the accident), people say that they died of a car accident. Yes, exactly. We say they died of a car accident. Not in one. See the difference?
- Spooky23 11y ago
  You're not going to make any headway here, this is a very pro-nuclear crowd. Google some of the Fukishima threads here to really understand it. IMO, nuclear power generation in the U.S. is an overly secretive industry running obsolete on arrival technology that is a public health hazard. Just like coal, the industry enjoys a very cozy relationship with government that enables it to weasel around their pretty obvious risks and problems they bring.
  - alextgordon 11y ago
    Few will dispute any of that. I don't think there's a person here who wouldn't like ubiquitous solar power! But when the alternative is coal, nuclear power is less polluting, less radioactive and less likely to kill you.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      And we can't have ubiquitous solar power out of energy density issues, and even if we managed to set aside enough land, we probably won't be able to do that in time to matter. That's why nuclear is a good option - its clean and energy-dense and good enough to cover not only our present needs but future as well. Also, solar and nuclear are not mutually exclusive.
      - paulmd 11y ago
        Not just energy density, it's also a stability issue. A significant chunk of energy usage is constant (base load), and there's also a fraction that varies over time as everyone comes home after work and turns on their air conditioners and ovens (peak load). Base load is ideally handled by an energy-dense approach that produces a very stable level of power. Peak load can be handled with more variable sources of energy, but at the end of the day these are usually backed up by gas-fired plants that can be quickly spooled up to match demand. The problem with photovoltaic solar is that its capacity undergoes a significant level of variance on both an instantaneous and a medium-term scale (time of day). As such it's best treated as a peak source. Otherwise you need enormous, enormous batteries to try and smooth the load. Using electric car batteries and so on is a good idea from the perspective of the utility, but it's a raw deal for the consumer. The lifetime of a battery is limited by charge/discharge cycles as well as time, and they're stealing your cycles. A replacement battery is an enormous chunk of change, it's about the same cost as replacing an engine. Note that this is not true of all solar techniques. For example, there's a solar-concentration technique that stores heat in molten salt, which helps to smooth out short-to-medium variation. When you lose the sun, you get a smooth curve that deteriorates over a period of hours to days rather than an instant dropoff. This is suitable for use as a base source.
jameshart 11y ago
If you agree that "it's a debatable distinction" then you probably shouldn't then just baldly assert that taking one side in that debate amounts to "ignorance, or... fearmongering".
- rosser 11y ago
  I didn't say that taking a side in the debate is "ignorance, or... fearmongering". I said that conflating deaths in nuclear accidents and deaths from nuclear accidents was. If you want to take a position on the distinction, that's one thing. Not even seeing it — or, worse, ignoring it for intellectually dishonest purposes — is something else entirely.
  - jameshart 11y ago
    Oh. That kind of debate. The kind where people who think that drawing a distinction between deaths during the accident and deaths caused by the accident is itself intellectually dishonest and accuse those who insist on making such a distinction of being arrogant and shilling for nuclear power lobbyists; and the other people who think that there is a meaningful distinction to be drawn between the immediate impact of an accident and its aftermath accuse people who would conflate the two of ignorance and fearmongering. Yes, it's 'debatable' that way too.
    - rosser 11y ago
      Wow. Yeah, there's no discourse going to happen here, is there?
      - jameshart 11y ago
        I am trying to point out that your attempts to sound reasonable were, from the start, undermined by your stating that while the distinction between immediate and indirect deaths caused by nuclear accidents might be debatable, you were going to enter that debate from the start by positioning anybody who thought there wasn't really much difference as an ignorant fearmonger. So yeah, you kinda headed off the prospect of civil discourse a bit there...

rdl 11y ago

Somewhat crazy, but: One more level of abstraction, and lots of people die at nuclear plants because they're not built yet (or existing ones were delayed, or in maintenance), due to the coal power which they would displace.

rimantas 11y ago
And coal power plants spread more radioactive material than nuclear ones.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  And that's not counting the coal miners that die in accidents or get silicosis aka black lung
  - pgeorgi 11y ago
    Family of mine worked in uranium mines. Lots of people died there as a result of radioactive particles that ended up in their lungs (plus the typical mining accidents).
InclinedPlane 11y ago
Even weirder, the rates of cancer are higher around nuclear power plant locations. Even when the plants haven't been built yet. Turns out, such things tens to get built in old industrial areas that are already heavily contaminated.
- iwwr 11y ago
  If anything causes people to get medical check-ups more often it's still beneficial, even if the reason for doing it may be irrational (fear of radiation leaked from a nuclear reactor). Such fears may even trigger a statistical increase in cancer rates from increased detection.
- HCIdivision17 11y ago
  This is going to be my go-to factoid on nuclear plant nimby-ism. My uncle had an interesting experience in this vein. It was well understood that high voltage power lines caused all manner of health issues, from cancer to various degenerative diseases. He understood that EM radiation from the lines really shouldn't be very dangerous, though, and didn't think much of the leg of a line tower in his back yard. Then one day the power company came through to clear out the underbrush growing around the base of the line's tower. In just two days after the spraying all vegitation was thoroughly dead. Turns out they spray an Agent Orange-like chemical to keep the towers maintained from plant overgrowth. You can bet he moved shortly after noticing that. (This was some years ago, and likely has been (hopefully) rectified.)