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
Re: How many were killed by the Three Mile Island incident?
Nobody knows the long term answer to that question….
*****
Pull My Finger says:
March 14, 2011 at 4:29 am
I think the fact that Nuclear has proven so safe, TMI and Chernobyl were both human caused disasters. TMI workers ignored warning signs, Chernobyl workers actively worked towards blowing plant up. The fact that the Japanese plants are still relatively safe despite a biblical magnitude earthquake speaks pretty highly of the quality of construction. Let’s hope they avoid the meltdown, it’s been a bad enough week over there. But of course, hyperbole is the rule of the day when it comes to nukes.
*****
Good post.
Early in the days of steam-plants, boiler explosions wreaked havoc on personnel & even bystanders. This is why the ASME boiler-codes were implemented & continue today — all without the help of government! Later the state govs got into the safety standards.
If the precautionary principle had been used, we wouldn’t have steam-plants today & our electricity-for-anyone society wouldn’t have developed.
It’s a symptom of mass-hysteria when people are scared-stiff of somewhat-damaged but still intact nuke plants (from which not a single person has died), and ignoring the thousands dead around them from the crushing effects of an earthquake-tsunami. The MSM invents & reinforces this hysteria.
Knowledge & developed procedures can defeat this hysteria. Military “rad-monitoring” crews in the 1950s had it down so well that they could enter the very “hot” ground-zero area of a tower or air-burst from a nuke test within 30 mins to take samples in a stripped-down jeep (for ease of decontaminating) in their protective coveralls & filter masks. They just had to carefully monitor their Geiger-counters & limit their time-exposure, then employ the usual decontamination procedures immediately afterwards. Later, their personal rad-exposure “badges” were analyzed to indicate how much they had exposed to, and how much more they could safely tolerate. Similar procedures for pilots flying directly thru the radioactive mushroom clouds to take fission-product samples for bomb-analysis.
It strikes me (upside the head) that the folks here who are talking of the “possibility” of nuclear problems from a generating plant hop happily into the family car and buzz to the store – and yet the car is one of the most dangerous (and polluting) items on the planet. There is a lack of perspective in their concern.
On the Precautionary Principle – as I understand it, this principle is supposed to take over when common sense is exhausted, according to one poster. That’s all fine and good I suppose, because Mark Twain once said common sense is neither common nor sense. Still, the difference between not dumping motor oil into the storm sewer because it “might” hurt someone down stream and fighting a nuc plant because it “might” irradiate someone sometime I think is a bit of a stretch…
Oh, one final thing – Japan was hit by two blockbusters – the quake and a resulting Tsunami. To say that “all they need to do is (add your favorite fix here)” is just blowing smoke – the conditions there have to be beyond our imagination and I suspect some really smart people are working their butts off to keep the “lid” on and restore what they can. It’s really easy to pontificate on such things from the quiet and comfortable den or computer room, quite another to be in the center of chaos.
Mike
Workers
From http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Battle_to_stabilise_earthquake_reactors_1203111.html
“A seriously injured worker was trapped within Fukushima Daiichi unit 1 in the crane operating console of the exhaust stack and is now confirmed to have died. Four workers were injured by the explosion at the same reactor and have been taken to hospital. A contractor was found unconscious and taken to hospital.
Two workers of a ‘cooperative firm’ were injured, said Tepco; one with a broken bone. A Tepco employee who was unable to stand and grasping his left chest was taken to hospital.
At Fukushima Daiini unit 3 one worker received a radiation dose of 106 mSv. This is a notable dose, but comparable to levels deemed acceptable in emergency situations by some national nuclear safety regulators.
The whereabout ( sic ) of two Tepco workers remains unknown. ”
I have a lot of respect for the Japanese with Nuclear. The companies running the plants obey the rules in building the reactors and report what is going on to the government when things are going tits up. Their Government follow long practised rules and move the populace when required. As someone from the UK that knows people living near UK plants I am sorry to say the public have no such information or practices in order. Does the U.S practice even after TMI? Just asking!
Ripper says:
March 14, 2011 at 6:05 am
“Ironically , the treatment for thyroid cancer is a thyroidectomy and a drink of radioactive iodine.”
!!! Please stop it!
From the same link I have posted!
“To protect the public from potential health effects of radioactive isotopes of iodine that could potentially be released, authorities have made preparations to distribute tablets of non-radioactive potassium-iodide. “
I should have added that Thyroid cancer has nothing to do with this post!
Risk is the thing. The thing about Chernobyl is that it potentially could have rendered all of Europe un-inhabitable. Never heard that before??? No, neither did I. Unitil I invested the time and watched an in-depth French Documentary about Chernobyl (yes I’m aware of Anti-Nuke propoganda). If it wasn’t Gorbachev who said it, i’d never believed it. That is what Gorbachev knew. That’s why he decided to dismantle the S0viet Union(among things). Because such a threat to humanity had to be learned, even by him, via Nuclear workers in Sweden tripping the radiation scanner when coming IN to wotk their shift. THey had to trace the source of their radiation which they got while sitting at home, etc. A castrophe hunt was started to find out there this radiation had and could come from.
DAVIS BESSIE. Anyone know anything about DAVIS BESSIE. No, it’s not Al Gore’s bit on the side. It’s a Nuclear Power Station sitting on the shore of one of the great lakes. Nuclear Power is in the stranglehold of Nuclear Money which is in the hands of Continuous operation at any costs; no matter how much corrosion shows up in the filters. Correct me if i’m wrong: the containment vessel at DAVIS BESSIE had corroded to within 1/8th of an inch of complete eat through. The corrosion particles had been showing up in the filters for years. Doh-I wonder where these could have come from?? Shut down to find out?? Not on your life. With this much cash at stake? You kidding me?
Jeremy says:
March 14, 2011 at 6:24 am
Imagine! This is the UK’s Guardian! Monbiot must have had a sh/te fit!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/18/nuclear.russia
Interesting how it is hard to get “up to the minute” information, despite the internet.
I’m rather suprised at myself, as I stayed up to 2AM last night, haunting the internet.
A former nuclear worker (Engineer), this struck some sort of “deep cord” in my being. I didn’t “feel” agitated, but I could not get to sleep. (Normally to sleep about 11PM.)
The footage of the second explosion concerns me. I was thinking “prompt critical” for a while, but then I realized the “rods are in”, and this would be difficult. Although the overheat of zirconium clad fuel rods, combined with steam…can and does generate a high amount of H2. Question is, how does one get an optimal O2 and H2 mix? It did happen at TMI, and gave a 30 PSI overpressure in the containment. Presuming an “optimal mix”, there might have been a 50 PSI pulse.
This would knock the walls out, but the resultant vertical plume? I’m struggling with that.
Max
Hey… No Fair! I blogged this first!!!!!
On Three Mile Island, I noted this:
Here is a question few are asking:
How many people died or got ill due to the radiation leaked from TMI?
Answer:
NOT ONE!!!
Yep.
Nadda. None. Zilch.
In fact, the only thing that can be proven to have died as a result of the Three Mile Island accident…. was the U. S. nuclear power industry!!!
It is not corrrect to base arguments on nuclear fallout on the examples of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Both explosions were airbusrt detonations above their critical height for contaminating ground zero with fallout (fission products from the detonation). For explosions above their critical height the fission products are initially contained in the ascending column and cap produced by the explosion.
The radiation that did impact around ground zero comprised the intense gamma ray flash and neutron bombardment. One effect of the neutron bombardment is the activation of materials already at ground zero by neutron capture to produced radioactive isotopes. These do not have the same chemical profile as the fallout and do not decay in the same manner, nor are they clumped into hot spots like the fallout from a reactor explosion.
Fallout was produced by these explosions and it reached the surface as it rained out which did not commence until after the cloud had been swept away from the devasted area. In the case of Nagasaki the rainout commenced over a reservoir to the east of the city. I do not know where the majority of the fallout ended up but most likely in the Pacific, and the same for Hiroshima.
The differences between the radiation decay modes between fallout and activated components was used to confirm that there was no measurable fallout in the devasted areas.
The radiation in the devasted area is quite different to the fallout produced by the denonation which is in turn different from the fallout produced by a reactor accident in which fission products are released. It is quite wrong to argue from evidence of one of these cases to implications in another.
Alex
I read through the article(s) and found the bottom line:
“There is no source of energy that is without some risk. The challenge is to properly balance the risks.”
I worked in line clearance, trimming trees around high power lines, then later as a lineman for the power company. Electricity is terribly, terribly dangerous. We use it every day. I have a first cousin who was horribly burned from a gasoline fire, her skin grafts are ongoing even after nearly 40 years. We are awash in dangers related to power and energy. It is one of the prices to be paid for harnessing the dynamo. The tragedy is that some pay the price while others live out their entire lives, oblivious to the awful costs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4vMTdSAm1w
The top one is #3/11 and the bottom clip is #2/11.
Fortunately, the true magnitude of the threat by Chernobyl is immortalized by Gorbachev in person, on camera.
I knew nuclear power is not save…
(unless they use thorium, but I’m not sure how far they are with implementation. Does somebody know?)
Also, as it stands at the moment, it uses a lot of water for cooling which causes
1) more GHG
2) the returned warm water (minus O2& CO2) kills all the fish and other ocean life
better go for coal (minus (CO, SO2 and heavy metals) or even better, gas.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
I think some of us have lost sight of what is real and what is not. The following scenario is “real”. There are five monster buildings lined up in a neat row. We all agree that there is some very dangerous stuff caged in the bowels of each of those buildings. Some of us are sure that dangerous stuff cannot get out and harm us. Others of us are not so positive. As we watch those buildings through heavy lenses, the following occurs:
1) Men in radiation suits begin pouring out of those buildings, rigging up pumps, hoses and other paraphernalia and begin pumping sea water into the buildings.
Some of us say, “Not to worry. These folks know what they’re doing.” Others of us say, “Sea water will ruin the ‘stuff’! These guys must be desperate!”
2) Suddenly, the roof and walls blow off one of the buildings. Some of us say, “Not to worry! That building was just cosmetic anyway.” Others of us say, “WTF?”
3) More men in radiation suits run outside the buildings. Everyone without a suit is told to leave the area, PRONTO! U.S. Navy fighting ships off shore of the buildings relocate away from downwind.
4) Suddenly, the roof and walls blow off a second of the buildings. The men in radiation suits tell us to keep an eye on building number three if we enjoyed watching the first two explode.
5) Some of us say, “Everyone is over reacting.” Others of us say, “You have to be kidding me!”
“The Japanese archipelago is called a “volcanic island arc.” The events that happened over the last few days are predictable and certain. A large mega-thrust earthquake is certain to happen again since only a small portion of the Pacific tectonic plate ruptured.”
All true. But you do understand that plate tectonics was brand new, and poorly understood when those plants were designed? If anyone had told the plant designers that a magnitude 9.0 or greater earthquake near the reactor site was not only possible, but likely, I think that the response would have been prolonged dead silence.
At Fukushima Daichi, four workers were injured by the explosion at the Unit 1 reactor, and there are three other reported injuries in other incidents. In addition, one worker was exposed to higher-than-normal radiation levels that fall below the IAEA guidance for emergency situations. At Fukushima Daini, one worker has died in a crane operation accident and four others have been injured. See Japan Earthquake Update (13 March 2011 02:35 CET) — Corrected .
Six people have been in second injured Unit 3 reactor. See Japanese Earthquake Update (14 March 07:00 CET).
http://www.iaea.org/press/
There’s a little known program in the US called ERAMS. It’s been functioning for decades and measures the amount of radiation floating around in the air all over the country. I once got to look at the data for this program. What was impressive, was the amount of radiation floating around during the nuclear weapons test era of the 50s-60s … gigantic …. like some 10-100 times greater than the little blip that showed up after Chernobyl.
I think these kinds of accidents are pretty serious for the people living in the immediate area …. but the rest of the world need not worry much.
Ah, once more, where to begin.
Did anyone notice that there was a huge explosion at the site, one that blew the entire top of a building to smithereens, and after the dust cleared, there was the reactor containment structure, unfazed? Solid pre-TMI design from half a century ago.
And yes, 56 is probably a good number for Chernobyl deaths. Intense radiation, radiation sickness, dead heroes. If you survive the initial sickness, you recover, you live your life. The body has mechanisms for repair: if it didn’t, we wouldn’t survive as a species. Some damage results in cancer a long time later, just as getting lots of sunburns as a kid will. The people exposed are being tracked, at least as well as a government-run health system can manage, and like the CAGW scenario, the terrible numbers just aren’t there.
I was around for TMI, and got to hear all the alarmists on tv saying how a zillionth of a percent increase in radiation was going to result in x number of extra cancer deaths. It was all bogus linear extrapolations down to zero, and frankly, at the margin of error involved, a decrease in cancer deaths would be within the margin. The only physical result of TMI was the trashing of a couple hundred million bucks worth of hardware. Flooding the Japanese containments with sea water is going to do the same thing.
All the nuke plants in Japan will be further reinforced and have their emergency cooling diesels moved upstairs, along with extra coolant tanks. Good. Japan has neither oil nor natural gas, so it must have nukes, and they must be near a seriously active fault.
Fukushima is the least of Japan’s worries right now.
Peter Taylor says:
March 14, 2011 at 3:20 am
“Deekaman – you take an uneducated swipe at the Precautionary Principle – I spent ten years at UN conventions making sure it became law – and am glad of it.”
The Precautionary Principle should be renamed the “Hysterical Principle.” According to the principle, if I must make a decision and neither science nor accumulated experience can provide evidence that would guide this decision then I must choose to avoid risk even if the chance of triggering something harmful is vanishingly small.
It is quite easy to criticize this principle by pointing to the absurd consequences that follow upon its application. For example, this principle would require an end to all space exploration immediately. Who knows what awful bug might be brought back to Earth?
In addition, it is quite easy to criticize this principle on the basis of its intellectual pedigree. After all, it is simply a version of Pascal’s Wager, something that William James explained when he embraced it. In either formulation, Pascal’s or James’, the principle has been roundly rejected for three hundred years or so.
It is quite easy to criticize the principle on the ground that all who hold it refuse to apply it to themselves. Given Pascal’s Wager, do you attend church every Sunday?
But the real problem with the principle is that it invites people to make judgements about science and accumulated experience that make a mockery of both. Science is not static. It is constantly changing. Applying the Precautionary Principle requires that science and technology must be static, at least for the time that the Principle is applied. Furthermore, neither science nor technology is passive. Yet those who apply the Principle have chosen to forgo new scientific exploration or technology development.
All in all, the Principle has nothing to recommend it. That is, nothing except that is satisfies the hysterical.
In India 200000 people die in traffic accidents; many more get wounded. Should they all switch back to walking?
No: learn by trial and error and from other countries how to reduce these numbers and risks.
Questions answered from an ex-Navy who served in the Navy nuclear power program. He was an instructor in nuclear power:
Arijigoku says: “When you post articles about how radioactive bananas are it doesn’t illustrate how safe nuclear power is, but shows how poorly “absorbed dose” measures the true danger of radiation. How would you rather receive your dose: in bananas or plutonium?”
I have had the privilege of working with a number of people who did some of the original research on Plutonium. Many of them had a body burden of various actinides, as the rules for working with actinides were being written during the time they were actively working with plutonium, uranium, and such. I have never heard of anyone dying from inhaling actinide particles, and the men I worked with were extremely healthy. Most of them never got a cold or flu, and many are still actively working, well past the age that most men retire. The only deaths I have known about (including Chernobyl) were because of criticality incidents, and that is dependent on three things, which are time, distance, and shielding. The men who were sent in to deal with the industrial accident were there too long for the distance they had to work at. If they had been cycled out, it is possible that many, other than those killed in the industrial explosion, would have survived.
I would not suggest that eating plutonium (or rather, breathing it in) would be a sensible way to lengthen your life and improve your health. Nor do people eat bananas to increase their radioactive potassium levels. But I would like to see better reporting of the true problems, rather than a generic “radiation levels are 1000 times normal.” When radioactive steam is vented, what isotopes are present, and what are their half-lives? When I receive radioactive iodine as part of a test procedure, I can see the radiation emitted from it dropping off in a matter of hours. When there is a forest fire, you can see the radiation levels rise, and then fall, again within a few hours.
I think we should be more concerned about these survivors getting immediate care in the form of food, water, and shelter. They will definitely die without those things. They will probably not die over a slight increase in radiation. To agonize over radiation, without even knowing specifics about isotopes and actual readings, is to divert energy and thought from what is really important to the survivors, and to those people who wish to aid them.
Jordan says:
March 14, 2011 at 5:08 am
I’m with Volt Aire. Take this post down. It is bad for WUWT.
In my country, we give respite visits to groups of children from the affected region. We don’t need a crude and oversimplistic assessment of immediate deaths, or academic report to see the harm.
The crude and oversimplistic assessment of immediate deaths has been spewing forth without abatement from the 24 hour rolling news providers, with scarcely concealed ghoulish delight underlying their spurious sepulchral delivery.
This thread provides useful, educative academic reports that are garnished in the main by thoughtful and sympathetic comments and questions, that in no way could be considered disrespectful or careless to the plight of the Japanese people.
Open your mind, exorcise your daemons, confront the realities that inevitably happen in life, and above all, learn.