By Mike Smith
There is no question that the events in Japan are ongoing and serious. That said, I believe a lot of people are being misled by much of the news coverage. Take a look at these headlines from the Christian Science Monitor and from Channel News Asia, respectively,
and,
“Three Mile Island” and “Chernobyl” sounds scary, right?
Let me ask a couple of questions? How many were killed by the Three Mile Island incident?
100?
10,000?
100,000?
Answer here
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TonyG (formerly just Tony) says: March 15, 2011 at 4:53 am
What the skeptics need to do is to stop fighting and let the Greens have their way,
Shut down ALL nuclear. Shut down ALL coal. Shut down ALL oil. Green energy ONLY.
Whilst I knew that wind was a problem, the rolling blackouts and shear immensity of the economic damage caused by power outages hadn’t really struck home until this disaster.
Whilst the lives lost are clearly the biggest disaster, the next worst appears to be the loss of electricity! Simply not having the power to turn the wheels of the economy is far more damaging than I could ever have imagined. It’s almost a pro-rata reduction in size of the economy – a loss of economic activity which simply cannot ever be replaced.
It will be the same when we’ve gone so far into the mire of wind power that it won’t take an earthquake, just a high pressure sitting over us for a few days and the country will come to a standstill. It’s already making my blood boil that conceivably we could have the same economic disaster looming – not because of some “act of god”, but because of some damned stupid act of moronic politicians!
kbray, although at first glance dropping something cold and not containing H on it seems a better idea I think there could be some pitfalls
1. It probably doesn’t have as much capacity to absorb energy as well as water
2. Because of the above you would need an awful lot of it. They seem to be having enough trouble with lots of sea water right next to the plant.
3. You would make a lot of pressure that has to be controlled.
I’m sure more scientific nuclear people on here can add more meat to my thoughts.
Andy
Scottish Sceptic says:
Whilst I knew that wind was a problem, the rolling blackouts and shear immensity of the economic damage caused by power outages hadn’t really struck home until this disaster.
Whilst the lives lost are clearly the biggest disaster, the next worst appears to be the loss of electricity! Simply not having the power to turn the wheels of the economy is far more damaging than I could ever have imagined. It’s almost a pro-rata reduction in size of the economy – a loss of economic activity which simply cannot ever be replaced.
I seem to recall reading a book where pretty much exactly that happened. I think it was by some Russian woman.
Sadly, I fear that’s about what it will take to get some sense back into things.
TonyG (formerly just Tony) says:
March 15, 2011 at 4:53 am
Shut down ALL nuclear. Shut down ALL coal. Shut down ALL oil. Green energy ONLY. That’s what they want, isn’t it? So let them have it.
I suspect it won’t last very long.
Even if that were so, it would result in a social and economical disaster we’d all have to clean up for decades to come, and I’d rather not have to.
New site, no hype:
http://mitnse.com/
Read this:
Modified version of original post written by Josef Oehmen
http://mitnse.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/
Original post was “Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors” by Dr Josef Oehmen.
Very good review of the design of the plants and what has happened them, with updates.
anorak2 says:
Even if that were so, it would result in a social and economical disaster we’d all have to clean up for decades to come, and I’d rather not have to.
Leave it to the grandkids, then?
I’d say we’re already seeing some of the results of going the slow route. The problem is, by the time enough people are aware, it may be too late. At least my way, people see the end result NOW, instead of 50 years from now.
Peter Taylor,
Thank you for that very candid feedback. I am sure you are correct that there was much that was wrong with the attitude of early generations of nuclear management towards the environment and a criminal disregard for the safety of the public. Such attitudes were endemic across industry in general. I recall a tv documentary about the senior management of a car manufacturer. They had covered up data that showed a particular car had a design flaw that caused it to catch fire if involved in certain types of collisions.
I do believe, however, that things have moved on tremendously since those days. Social responsibility is one of the factors corporations are expected to address in PEST analysis (Politics, Economics, Social and Technology). Today, requirements and expectations on new nuclear projects are much higher. The pendulum has swung from an arrogant and cavalier attitude towards safety, towards one of great trepidation and cautiousness. I do believe that there is no realistic alternative to some form of nuclear, although I would prefer it to be thorium based. Hopefully these concerns will push more effort in that direction.
There are suggestions that GE knew of design flaws in the Mark 1 reactor design in ’75:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287
Perhaps the President will have to go all postal on GE because there could be too much shit being flung at GE.
Drudge is running the Kyodo News story that says Japan is no longer a 4 and should now be labeled a 6 (on the 1-7) scale, with the real possibility of hitting 7. Is there any reason to disbelieve this? Also, with 3 reactors, would a 7 make this worse than Chernobyl?
I’m not saying I know either way. I’m just curious what the balanced news is here. Should I buy iodide like the surgeon general is saying (living in California).
Hi Wondering Aloud,
“Alexander my question on your argument is why? When and how the dose is delivered is what is important. The source of the dose is not. You are not safer or less safe because the dose comes from fallout or background nor because it is from fission or fusion or activated nuclei.”
The original postings ran along the lines that the was no long term porblem in Hiroshima, which is the case. There was also very little short term problem in Hiroshima, the radiation produced decayed very rapidly.
They need to determine whether there was a significant hazard at the devasted cities, particularly Nagasaki as its port was need, about 6 weeks after detonation they surveyed the cities and determined the threat level. Meanwhile experiments were undertaken to determine the nature of the threat in terms of remaining isotopes. It was determined that all but two of the produced isotopes had already decayed and presented no threat. Of the other two, one had a half-life of ~5 years the other ~1 year. This is a reason why the site returned to normal levels rapidly and why it was deemed to be save to use the Nagasaki port facilities.
This is quite different to the case where there has been heavy contamination with either bomb fallout or the Chernobyl case.
In the case of Nagasaki, the situation was reassonably safe within weeks and save to a degree that has neither occurred around Chernobyl as yet or for a long time to come.
It would seem reasonable to associate massive local contamination with the Nagasaki bomb but this was not the case. Many people were irradiated at the time of the detonation and doubtlessly in the immediate aftermath, but the problem was transient in a way that the Chernobyl incident was not. The nature of the health hazards are very different between the two cases, and as you rightly say how much and when is important, these profiles differ starkly between the two cases hence it is unsafe to argue using a “Well Nagasaki/Hiroshima are thriving” line when discussing fallout from a reactor core.
FWIW I believe that Hiroshima was not considered such a priority as the harbour area was heavily mined.
Alex
It’s not the # of people who died, it’s the impact these accidents have on the overall well-being and quality of life of people on the macro-scale. Chernobyl affected everyone, the plumes went global and we were all exposed to the stuff to some degree. Did we all die?? No!! Might it have had detrimental impacts on our immunity system and all the other myriad complicated tasks are body does. Very easily! IT is simply not wise to assume that just because a single event doesn’t KILL someone immediately (or even directly give them cancer in a few years) that there’s nothing to be concerned about. I know it’s in vogue on this blog to bash tree huggers and all those who believe the in the urgency of global warming, but all that aside, there are definitely some tell tale signs that we really do need to strike more of a balance with nature in the way we live. Time to open your ears and eyes, turn on your brain. Stop telling to yourself that power from fossil fuels and nuclear is just fine and dandy, and anyone who says otherwise is an alarmist sheesh!
Mike —
Can you do an article on the Thorium reactors you mention in the article? How are these different and why are they safer? What is their status?
Thanks!
From Kyle Anders on March 15, 2011 at 6:05 pm:
Practice what you preach. Your comment displays about as much intelligence as those saying the tsunami was caused by global warming.
We can’t get enough energy from other energy sources. Period. Wind and solar can’t cut it. We can’t grow enough biomass. Hydroelectric sounds nice, but if you’re worried about sudden catastrophic destruction then you wouldn’t want hydroelectric dams, and if concerned about greenhouse gas emissions then you should be aware that hydroelectric dams cause significant GHG emissions, sometimes several times that of burning an equivalent amount of oil for electricity (reference, one of many).
Fossil fuels are burned very efficiently these days. There are problems that have been identified, such as sulfurous emissions and carbon monoxide production, with remedies devised and used. But carbon dioxide has not been shown to be a problem.
Nuclear power is different. It uses a very potent energy source. The reactors in Japan that are in trouble are of early designs, using an enriched fuel that must be restrained from producing too much energy, that generates byproducts suitable for use in atomic bombs as was desirable during the Cold War. Reactors wouldn’t be built like that these days, we know better. And even then, it took the combination of a monster earthquake and a killer tsunami to bring about this crisis. Natural disasters can take out any generator of energy. Given what they’ve gone through, considering everything together, those reactors have done admirably well.
The problem was ultimately a lack of back-up power, due to what-proved-to-be inadequate protection of the diesel generators. We have learned from this, and will learn even more. The older reactors will be made safer, more secure. We have newer, more inherently-safer reactor designs, with built-in protection against meltdowns. We also have the proven CANDU reactor design which does not require enriched fuel, thus eliminates the greatest source of problems with traditional reactors, which can even directly burn the “spent fuel” from traditional reactors thus reducing that hazard. Indeed, we can now build, and have built, reactors where if you want to prevent a nuclear accident like a meltdown, you could just turn off the power and leave them alone, they’ll cool off just fine on their own. Seriously.
Conflating the real yet addressable dangers of nuclear power, with the hypothetical and imagined dangers of carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels, is, frankly, stupid.
You say: “Time to open your ears and eyes, turn on your brain.” Follow your own advice. With nuclear we have a nigh-unlimited supply of fuel. We have seen reactors from the infancy of reactor design needing a natural disaster of unimaginable proportions to bring them down, and have learned from those designs, and gotten better. We have a planet mired in misery, caused by and/or exacerbated by energy poverty. To help them the best way possible as quickly as possible, will require the burning of much more fossil fuels, or nuclear power, likely a combination of both. We here in the developed world do not have the ability to maintain our standard of living without fossil fuels, and definitely not without both fossil fuels and nuclear power. And that doesn’t mean holding on to SUV’s and plasma TV’s, but “necessities” like continuous reliable refrigeration and electricity and heating and clean water for indoor plumbing.
If you really are so worried about fossil fuel burning that you want to stop or greatly restrict it, then you must support nuclear as a replacement. There is no other practical alternative. And, if we turn our backs on fission nuclear, how will we gain sufficient support for fusion nuclear when it arrives?
We have a choice with nuclear. We can take our lumps, learn our lessons, and move forward with the practical knowledge we have gained into a future of nigh-limitless energy from nuclear, growing ever-safer until practically any sort of nuclear accident really is impossible. Or we can be frightened and run away to what feels safe yet won’t provide us with what we need, ever.
China isn’t running away. Many other countries are not running away. Why should we?
RE: wayne says:
March 14, 2011 at 10:42 pm
In relation to:
Thank you fellows so much for taking my words totally out of context. It was said based on the news of that moment that was passing in the media. And if that would have been the end of it, I stand by those words.
And AndyW35, I would gladly go to join them. I have friends and the relatives of close neighbors in Japan and we have been talking on the feasibility of getting flights into Japan at this moment. Passports are a problem and we might just end up in the way with language barriers to consider. I have worn radiation badges, worked by particles counters spinning so fast the last nine digits are but a blur. I do heed radiation when it is a real threat, absolutely. It is what the media is not telling everyone that ticks me. The fact it disperses at the inverse of distance squared. If you also include height, cubed, though that should not be included. At 20km it is generally 1/400th what it is one kilometer from the plant. And they were correct to back everyone up for safety.
But as you now know things are not turning out as those early reports that were released, and my thoughts and prayers are with all of the Japanese people, especially those at the plant fighting the battle to bring everything under control. They have their hands full.
@ur momisugly kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
March 16, 2011 at 10:14 am
China isn’t running away. Many other countries are not running away. Why should we?
—–
REPLY Not so sure about China….
http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/default.aspx
Nuclear plants are usually specced to have about 1 core damage instance in 10 000 years of operation and the IAEA aim is to rise the latter number to 1 000 000 in the future.
Many nuclear plants are set up in similar places as Fukushima – on the coast, in tectonic plate edges. Failing completely in the 2nd most powerful event in 10 years gives some perspective, doesn’t it? The tsunami and quake that crippled this plant were considerably smaller than the 2004 quake and its tsunami, which peaked at about 3x higher than this. This means the plant was brought to its knees by a force that was a fraction of the known worst case scenario. Claiming that this was an unimaginable occurence is thus a pretty poor explanation… no need to imagine when this already happened before, recently.
Hopefully the message gets throught this time and results in better “imagination”.
From CRS, Dr.P.H. on March 16, 2011 at 5:42 pm:
I had noticed that somewhere, right after I posted. What was announced was the minimum acceptable action in the current news climate. The Chinese government is not completely insensitive to international opinion, they felt compelled to do something.
I well remember the outrage, both international and within China, over their great Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric project. It still continues, and not just for the heavy-handed way they forced the project through:
2007, disaster in the making, China admits.
2008, becoming a disaster.
2010, it is an environmental disaster.
Also, there is currently great concern about nuclear power plants and earthquakes. As read in the linked 2008 Scientific American piece, hydroelectric dams are linked to temblors, it’s called reservoir-induced seismicity. Yup, the weight of all that reservoir water causes earthquakes.
The Chinese government is also sensitive to criticisms about their GHG emissions, it was one of the reason they pushed through Three Gorges Dam. As I mentioned above, hydroelectric dams cause significant GHG emissions, may even be worse than burning fossil fuels.
They’ve been dabbling in wind and solar, and I can well believe that’s mainly to perfect the technology they’ll be selling to gullible nations. As countless manufacturers have discovered, first you build something in China, then they build it instead of you, undercut your prices, and steal away the market.
So, China needs energy. Their major choices are down to nuclear and coal. They’re catching flak over their coal plants. Thus, China will be pursuing nuclear.
They had to announce a review. Then they will announce everything is fine and continue as they have been doing, as is expected with China.
From Volt Aire on March 17, 2011 at 1:45 am
The 2004 Chūetsu earthquake?
Bold added:
No tsunami in mentioned as having arisen from this earthquake.
The big 2004 combination was the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of December 26. As a matter of debate, it was between 9.0 and 9.3 in magnitude. Such earthquakes are exceedingly rare:
For Japan, the March 11 earthquake and subsequent tsunami were unimaginable. No earthquake that strong had struck Japan within living memory. Such earthquakes are exceedingly rare, and the big Indian Ocean one had just occurred in 2004, which was over 30 years after the troubled reactors were planned.
No. This was an exceptionally rare and unexpectedly powerful earthquake, whose energy was released very close to Japan, in a way that yielded a powerful tsunami (not all sub-sea earthquakes cause tsunamis, and they can be rather weak ones). For Japan this exceeded the known worst case scenario, especially when the reactors were planned and built.
But now that they know by experience how bad it can get, they will do better.
Official Chernobyl Death Toll:
UNSCEAR 2006 Report Summary (PDF) (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation)
28 – Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS)
2 – Injuries Suffered at Unit 4 Unrelated to Radiation
1 – Coronary Thrombosis
19 – Various Causes Between 1987–2004 Not Attributable to Radiation
15 – Thyroid Cancer *
————————-
65 – Total
* Increased thyroid cancer screening and better reporting rather than radiation exposure cannot be ruled out as the cause of some if not all cases.
@ur momisugly Poptech:
Did you even bother to read the document you posted? Pages 7-8:
“It is impossible to assess reliably, with any precision, numbers of fatal cancers caused
by radiation exposure due to the Chernobyl accident — or indeed the impact of the
stress and anxiety induced by the accident and the response to it. Small differences in
the assumptions concerning radiation risks can lead to large differences in the predicted health consequences, which are therefore highly uncertain. An international expert group has made projections to provide a rough estimate of the possible health impacts of the accident and to help plan the future allocation of public health resources. The projections indicate that, among the most exposed populations (liquidators, evacuees and residents of the so-called ‘strict control zones’), total cancer mortality might increase by up to a few per cent owing to Chernobyl related radiation exposure. Such an increase could mean eventually up to several thousand fatal cancers in addition to perhaps one hundred thousand cancer deaths expected in these populations from all other causes.”
Those thousands of deaths do not include a projection of the added cancers in the fallout zones outside the “strict zones” described above. These other areas are the geographical marjority of affected areas and cover over 100 000 000 people. An additional cancer rate of even promilles has a very huge impact for the death toll, even if it is impossible to figure out which cases were caused by this radiation. Cesium-137 has a halflife of about 30 years so we still have a bit over half of the radiation left where I live. There are still big differences in radiation depending on where the rains fell after Chernobyl and the background radiation is in many places 10 times over the average value.
@ur momisugly kadaka
In the 1923 quake 10m tsunami height was recorded a few hundred kilometers form Fukushima. That was a tsunami high enough to cripple Fukushimas diesels so they were not prepared for even a scale 8 quakes tsunami. After that there have been several instances of over 9 scale events globally. Even though Japan has not been hit by a 9 magnitude quake in the recent past, there should have been NO reason whatsoever to assume those events only happen to other countries.
It is an insult to anybodys intelligence to claim that they had no idea about this kind of disasters. They were plain and simple looking at the odds and figuring quarterly winnings were more important than investing in security.They were betting that it wouldn’t happen. Heck, just look where the backup diesels were located… closest structures to the sea, lowest level. 6 years after the indian ocean tsunami.
Yes I read the document which says,
“there is no clearly demonstrated increase in the incidence of solid cancers
or leukaemia due to radiation in the most affected populations”
Those “thousands of deaths” have not happened and are projections based on assumptions and not empirical evidence.
It goes on to say,
“The number of deaths attributable to the Chernobyl accident has been of paramount interest to the general public, scientists, the mass media, and politicians. Claims have been made that tens or even hundreds of thousands of persons have died as a result of the accident. These claims are highly exaggerated. Confusion about the impact of Chernobyl on mortality has arisen owing to the fact that, in the years since 1986, thousands of emergency and recovery operation workers as well as people who lived in ‘contaminated’ territories have died of diverse natural causes that are not attributable to radiation. However, widespread expectations of ill health and a tendency to attribute all health problems to exposure to radiation have led local residents to assume that Chernobyl-related fatalities were much higher.”
The fact remains at best 65 people have died relating to Chernobyl.
It appears that this thread has attracted a lot of attention from the very-low-levels-of-radiation-still-cause-cancer alarmist camp. The foundation for their position & concerns is the “linear-no-threshold” theory of radiation induced cancers. Basically, this theory, which has never been proved (to the best of my professional knowledge as a chemical physicist), indicates that for a very large population of people who are exposed to even an infinitesimal radiation dose above background, there will be some induced cancers.
The observations of general cancer rates (excluding thyroid) in the aftermath of Chernobyl tell a completely different story and point very strongly to the existence of a threshold for cancer induction which is well above background. There are many 1000s of inhabitatnts of the region who received doses well in excess of 100mSv (standard annual limit of exposure = 50mSv) but there has been to date no statistically significant increase in either mobidity & mortality due to non-thyroid cancers with comprehensive monitoring programs still in place.
If one is willing to uncritically accept the dire predicitons of the UN IPCC but reject the UN official report on the Chernobyl death toll which still stands 24 years after the event, then that is irrational. I guess Walgreens will be doing a roaring trade in iodine tablets after all.
The Chernobyl Disaster and How It Has Been Understood (PDF) (2010) (Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D. Ph.D. D.Sc. Former Chairman, Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Poland)
“The Chernobyl accident was probably the worst possible catastrophe of a nuclear power station. It was the only such catastrophe since the advent of nuclear power 55 years ago. It resulted in a total meltdown of the reactor core, a vast emission of radionuclides, and early deaths of 31 persons. Its enormous political, economic, social and psychological impact was mainly due to deeply rooted radiophobia induced by the linear non-threshold (LNT) assumption on radiation health effects. It was an historic event that provided invaluable lessons for nuclear industry and risk philosophy. The accident demonstrated that using the LNT assumption as a basis for protection measures and radiation dose limitations was counterproductive, and led to sufferings and pauperization of millions of inhabitants of contaminated areas. The projections of thousands of late cancer deaths based on LNT are in conflict with observations that in comparison with general population of Russia, a 15% to 30% deficit of solid cancer mortality was found among the Russian emergency workers, and a 5% deficit of solid cancer incidence among the population of most contaminated areas.“
@laurence scaduto M. Sheehan, PE says:
March 14, 2011 at 2:20 am
“… Plus the fact that when an earthquake of more than about 7.5 magnitude occurs closely and at shallow depth, meltdown happens.
Petroleum, coal and natural gas (methane) look better and better, and for the sake of a food supply, more CO2 is greatly needed.”
Larry, what is your P.E. specialty? Are you a C.E or S.E.?
I was going through Cal Poly, SLO’s B. Architecture program during the design and initial construction of Diablo Canyon. PG&E was ignoring the Hosgri Fault, we managed to stop All of the construction until they properly designed the containment and all of the associated equiptment – the result is capable of over twice the loading of that of the original design.
Normally, when I design a structure, I use an equivalent safety factor from 1.5 to 2.0 as I do not normally have full time inspection and testing of in place work… nukes are inspected constantly and have significant safety factors.
Our concerns regarding the Diablo facility were related to associated equiptment as some of our students were actually working on the plant and had noted what appeared to be inadequately sized and installed hangers and other relatively mundane devices – but very important to maintain the overall integrity of the facility.
I am completely baffled by the Japanese utility not having multiple electrical feeds in place as well as back up pumps – since continued cooling is so critical.
The back-up generators could have been placed on the roof of the containment structures – or at any rate at a significantly higher elevation – I am unaware where there 22′ high tsunami wave height came from?
I also expected Japan to have All of the construction / industry pumps, generators and equiptment available to be deployed by Saturday to the site – just now bringing the pumps – sounds like a leadership issue?
BTW-all of my structures took the Loma Prieta (World Series) earthquake in 1989 in stride – where there were significant issues with projects done by other engineers and architects.
I continue to advocate for Passive Solar Design and Retrofits as a means to reduce the building sectors energy load by about 50% – before resorting to active solar, wind or other systems requiring subsidies to be actualized.
@ur momisuglypoptech
The papers you cite paint a very diferent picture to that claim of yours. I consider both very good and suggest everyone read them through with care. They go on about widespread cancer problems in several occasions with valid reasons why the exact number of fatalities can never been known.
@ur momisugly hamish
Do you agree that radiation causes cancers?
If you agree, what is the method by which it does that?
Maybe by damaging genes within cells and thus sometimes causing mutations, as the current theory goes? Or is there a different mechanism which requires a certain amount of radiation to cause the single gene mutation in the single cell?
The current view is that any single mutation is a potential starting point. It only takes one unfortunate “hit” to cause. This leads to acceptance that there is no lower limit, no safe radiation as long as it can penetrate a cell. The more there is, the more there are going to be cancers. To dispute that you would have to find a new method of causation or deny that radiation causes cancers at all.