Japan's Radiation Disaster Toll: None Dead, None Sick 319
An anonymous reader writes "This article discusses a recently-released U.N. Scientific Committee report which examined the health effects of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Their conclusion: 'Radiation exposure following the nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi did not cause any immediate health effects. It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers. ... No radiation-related deaths or acute effects have been observed among nearly 25,000 workers involved at the accident site. Given the small number of highly exposed workers, it is unlikely that excess cases of thyroid cancer due to radiation exposure would be detectable.' The article even sums up the exposure levels for the workers who were closest to the reactor: 'Of 167 exposed to more than the industry's recommended five-year limit of 100 mSv (a CT scan exposes patients to up to 10 mSv), 23 recorded 150-200 mSv, three 200-250 mSv and six up to 678 mSv, still short of the 1000 mSv single dosage that causes radiation sickness, or the accumulated exposure estimated to cause a fatal cancer years later in 5 per cent of people.' The report also highlights the minute effect it's had on the environment: 'The exposures on both marine and terrestrial non-human biota were too low for observable acute effects.'"
Japan doesn't need nuclear power (Score:4, Informative)
They have more than enough power projected to meet summer demand despite having only 2 of 50 nuclear power plants online:
http://japandailypress.com/no-electricity-austerity-measures-for-japan-this-summer-0926652 [japandailypress.com]
Anyone know how they made up the slack besides conservation? More coal? The article mentions "electric power companies have been looking to thermal power generation for their supplies", but it's not clear what that means - geothermal?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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Natural gas is pretty cheap (Score:2)
Low capital costs, and at current prices low fuel costs.
Re:Japan doesn't need nuclear power (Score:5, Informative)
A new nuclear plant costs billions of dollars, and the only way they ever get built at all is if the government guarantees to backstop disaster liability with taxpayer dollars. Otherwise private investors would never touch them.
That doesn't sound particularly cheap to me. And in fact it isn't [ucsusa.org].
Re: Gov't "Added value" vs. Real Cost? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Japan doesn't need nuclear power (Score:4, Informative)
Additionally Hydrelectric potential is limited and most of it is already being used to its limit in countries that have rivers with both fall and volume to make it usable.
Eolic potential isn't sufficient to provide any significant percentage of the required energy in most countries.
Re:Japan doesn't need nuclear power (Score:4, Interesting)
As for safest, it's debatable. Is it really safe if people have to vacate largish areas of land to avoid getting ill and dying??? Because that's what's happened at both Chernobyl and Fukushima; and it was largely luck that that didn't happen like that at 3 mile island.
The claim was "safest", not safe. How safe is hydroelectric when the dam breaks? How often does that happen, compared to the same electric capacity of nuclear plants? Just the first on this list [wikipedia.org] have more deaths than nuclear power has to date, with, apparently, comparable worldwide installed capacity.
I know this post comes off as defensive, especially given the context of the discussion, but I really want to know which is the safest, if that question even makes sense.
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Not energy saving (at which they are quite bad, as I can see living here), but burning coal is why they only need 2 power plants.
Re:Japan doesn't need nuclear power (Score:5, Informative)
No, thermal usually means coal [wikipedia.org].
Re:Japan doesn't need nuclear power (Score:4, Insightful)
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Shades of Foundation here. Asimov was goddamn prophetic. We mismanage nuclear power and the response is not to learn and improve but to regress.
Coal ash is highly radioactive (Score:5, Informative)
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Well, nuclear reactor designs may have improved, but the newer designs are not being built. So we are stuck with the old ones.
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The trouble is coal-fired power stations emit more radiation [scientificamerican.com] than nuclear reactors do. From the article: "fly ash emitted by a power plant [...] burning coal for electricity carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." That statistic is from 1978, and nuclear reactor technology has greatly improved since then (and continues to improve).
Coal plant ash filtering has improved since 1978 as well, it would be interesting to see more recent numbers.
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And then the fly ash goes where? Clearly not to the nuclear disposal facility where low level waste from a nuclear plant must go.
Re:Japan doesn't need nuclear power (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone know how they made up the slack besides conservation?
Yes.
Japan takes on more Iranian crude oil [upi.com]
Japan’s energy costs spiral higher [ft.com]
Trade Deficit in Japan Hits Record [nytimes.com]
Japan's energy imports may outweigh stimulus gain [chicagotribune.com]
Skyrocketing energy imports increase Japanese trade deficit [dailymotion.com]
Re:Japan doesn't need nuclear power (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone know how they made up the slack besides conservation? More coal?
Yes coal. In fact they've been buying long-term contracts, or outright buying mines in Western Canada to supply their energy needs, though the fact that we are dripping in coal up here is of no consequence. One of the mines(Grande Cache Coal) where my sister lives(Grande Cache, AB) was bought out simply for that. And GC coal is now on the road to open a 2nd and 3rd strip mine, I believe that the agreements are complete, though I may be wrong. Oh and all this stuff is shipped by train, to the west coast.
I did find it funny there, there's so much oil, coal, and tar sands around there that you can watch it either ooze up from the ground, or right into the river. Oh and I can't forget natural gas, there's a reason the entire area from there to Grande Prairie is known as sour gas alley.
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No brownouts or blackouts for the last 1.5 years here (north of Tokyo), I assure you! (and before that in the 60Hz-half of Japan).
Oh noesss (Score:3, Funny)
The true message of this article should be quite different: All nuclear power must be abandoned this instant, forever, because, well, umm, if all the millisieverts were put together and given to a baby, it might get radiation sickness.
Won't somebody think of the children?
And for those who are mentally challenged: .
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For a second there I thought you wrote 'millicivets [wikipedia.org]' and thought 'how cute'. :)
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Lost the /satire tag...
Thanks... I've been trying to interpret your .sig as some kind of satire warning.
And meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
And meanwhile, foreign media all but ignore the close to 20 000 dead from the tsunami; that was the real disaster.
Not just foreign media (Score:4, Insightful)
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Uh no earthquake and tsunami fatalities can be prevented as well. Building codes come to mind. Civilian disaster warning systems. Etc.
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All nuclear accidents can be prevented with enough planning and prevention.
Sure. Don't have nuclear power. That's how you prevent most nuclear accidents. But if you want an industrial civilization, which most people do, then there are drawbacks, such as nuclear accidents or the variety of drawbacks to other choices for power generation.
I think it's a case of having blinders on to focus on one sort of risk while ignoring the rest. We can do the same for other sorts of risks, such as automobile traffic accidents. In order to completely prevent automobile accidents, simply don't h
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There is something that can be done (Score:2)
They're used to earthquakes and tsunamis and know that there isn't that much that can be done to prevent those disasters.
There isn't much that can be done... except of course for building a huge sea wall [dailymail.co.uk].
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Local media cover both much more evenly, with lots of coverage about rebuilding efforts (or failures to do so), lives of survivors and so on. Asahi Shinbun even has a regular one- or two-page section dedicated to nothing else.
Step down from the soap box... (Score:3)
And meanwhile, foreign media all but ignore the close to 20 000 dead from the tsunami; that was the real disaster.
Nobody is ignoring the tragic lose of life from the tsunami. This story is about the nuclear power plans and the ability of the Japanese people to adjust to other forms of energy (including dirty coal).
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Though I'm not sure what's the point any more. There is a portion of the population that extends far beyond the viewership of Fox News that refuses to base any decisions on anyth
it was sickening (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all the more screwed up seeing as how the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill happened just a year before. Eleven people died, instantly. Because unlike a modern nuclear reactor, oil will in fact explode with a giant fireball if something goes wrong. Unlike Fukushima, the ensuing geiser of oil quickly polluted hundreds of thousands of square miles to an extent that it was easily and prominently seen from space. Our solution to this was to dump millions of gallons of toxic and carcenogenic chemicals on top of it until we couldn't see the oil any more. Problem solved! Out of sight, out of mind. Meanwhile, how many billions of sea creatures perished and how many new cases of cancer are we going to see in the decades to come? We'll probably never know, because oil disasters just aren't sexy like nuclear disasters are.
Oh yeah, and I am sick and fucking tired of not being able to eat large amounts of the tastiest fish in the sea because they are contiminated with huge amounts of mercury, primarily (from my understanding) through the burning of coal. Imagine the hysteria we'd see if the fish were actually mildly radioactive instead of merely full of toxic heavy metals that, unlike most radioactive sources, linger in your body unless you undergo chelation therapy.
Nuclear sucks, it has security issues (although it could also safely and usefully dispose of all the Uranium 235 in the world, an angle I rarely hear anyone mention), and it's not renewable. But it would be so, so nice if people would fucking grow up and make even a token effort at objectively evaluating opportunity costs instead of continually screaming at the top of their lungs about pet issues.
Re:it was sickening (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear sucks
How so?
it has security issues
Not really with integral fast reactors; it's too hard to get at the nuclear material without being killed by the radiation.
(although it could also safely and usefully dispose of all the Uranium 235 in the world, an angle I rarely hear anyone mention)
Quite.
and it's not renewable.
Nor is virtually anything. Solar power is using up the sun's energy. But, like solar, we do have an extremely large supply of fuel for it that would last us many thousands of years at the bare minimum.
So I'm still not really seeing any justification for your "it sucks" angle.
helpful benefits too (Score:2)
In another story the families of the irradiated workers are claiming how nice it is to have a night light for free...
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"There is no radiation related problems", said the committee chairman, as ge gesticulated wildly with his tentacles.
Listen to him. Anybody that has two heads must be pretty smart.
We unfortunately cannot rely on the numbers... (Score:5, Insightful)
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From your citation, there were 5 people so affected, and the exposures could have been as much as 30% low as a result of the 3mm lead shields in question.
Assuming that the five in question were among the six that TFA says got up to 678 mSv, then it's possible that one or more of those five might have gotten ALMOST 1 Sv, which is the single dose (lower) limit for acute radiation sickness.
Assuming, of course, that one or more of tho
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Well, you are allowed to question, but we (nuclear scientists) hope that you know what you are talking about and bring something insightful comments to the table.
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The study isn't about received radiation, but observable health effects.
The wingnuts (Score:2)
But there are still wingnuts who claim they can detect the radiation as far as California, that all tuna in the oceans are radioactive, etc.
The blinding stupidity of the human race and it's gullability for what they read/see on the internet will never cease to amaze me.
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But there are still wingnuts who claim they can detect the radiation as far as California, that all tuna in the oceans are radioactive, etc.
That's the beauty of the Internet; it turns the million-monkeys-on-typewriters idea from a thought experiment into an actual everyday experience.
For any idiotic idea you can think of, there's someone on the Internet proclaiming it as true.
I wouldn't use that as a method for judging the intelligence of the entire human race, though.
Emergency Safety Measures Work (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article:
A swift evacuation of 200,000 residents within a 20-kilometre radius of the plant helped protect them â" WHO estimated most residents of Fukushima prefecture received doses of 1-10 mSv in the first year.
[...]
About 1000 deaths have been attributed to evacuations. About 90 per cent were people older than 66, who suffered from the trauma of evacuation and living in shelters. Sadly, those of them who left areas where radiation was no greater than in naturally high background areas would have been better off staying.
Philosophical Question: Do those 1000 deaths not count because they were not directly due to radiation poisoning? I mean, they wouldn't have happened if there had been no meltdown...
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Philosophical Question: Do those 1000 deaths not count because they were not directly due to radiation poisoning?
How about a practical question? How many of those "attributed" 1000 deaths actually did happen as a result of the evacuation from the nuclear accident as opposed to other causes? I wager it's a lot closer to 0 than to 1000.
And let us not forget that a national-scale disaster, an earthquake and crippling tsunami happened during that time period.
About 90 per cent were people older than 66
In other words, people who probably would have died during the time period in question actually did die during the time period in question.
I mean, they wouldn't have happened if there had been no meltdown...
You know this how? What
Fukushima radiation disaster no injuries? (Score:2, Informative)
Apr 2011: "On March 24, three workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant were exposed accidentally to high localised radiation while standing in contaminated water". link [thelancet.com]
Jul 2011: "A newly released document says the Japanese government estimated in April that some 1600 workers will be exposed to high levels of radiation in the course of handling the reac
Re:Fukushima radiation disaster no injuries? (Score:5, Informative)
And yet, no one seriously injured. Even the 3 people that were standing in highly radioactive water, they only had some redness that went away after a few days. They are just fine now.
Mar 2011: "Tokyo Electric, the owners of the plant, said five workers had been killed at the site, two were missing and 21 had been injured."
When a fucking crane collapsed on them because of the earthquake and tsunami! Some others drowned or were swept away. Yes sir, the tsunami was because of nuclear power! Maybe you should blame the 20,000 people that died on nuclear power too???
Now, get back to burning more coal! Burn baby burn!
For those that say Japan doesn't need nuclear power, you people don't know about economics. Japan is basically in a trade deficit because they have to import coal, oil and gas. Nuclear power saves Japan $50B (not yen, dollars) a year. Not only that, the money spent on nuclear power is spent on local employment using local currency. Coal, oil, and gas have to imported from outside Japan using up foreign reserves. They also create jobs outside Japan, while increasing local unemployment and poverty.
Japan has a choice. It will remain nuclear powered, or it will be taken down a few notches on standard of living scale.
It has only been 2 years... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1356259/ [nih.gov]
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Well, there is data that would give a basis for this prediction.
http://www.houseoffoust.com/edano/Scribble_Japan_Earthquake/pdfs/tceer.pdf [houseoffoust.com]
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In a 2004 study on this very subject, it was determined that the mean latency period for thyroid cancer to appear after radiation exposure was over 30 years. Some appear sooner, of course, but many appeared much later than that. What is the point of this report? At best, the proclamation of not causing any noticeable immediate harm is premature. But saying that the exposure is "unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future" borders on irresponsible, and seems driven by an agenda...
There's no agenda and it isn't irresponsible in the slightest. Going by their age demographics and the probabilities of death by causes other than cancer (car accidents, home accidents, other diseases, etc.) , a large number of these people won't be around to be accounted for one way or the other. Those that do make it to the 30 year threshold would still need to pass the sniff test (do their families have a history of cancer, did they work with carcinogenic materials, did they need surgical work that requ
Exclusion zone? (Score:2)
687 vs. 2.500.000 dead (Score:4, Informative)
As far as I remember in the whole history of civil nuclear power there were roughly 687 fatalities recorded by civil nuclear power, even if one includes cases of long term neglected diseases.
On the other hand, in the same time around 2.500.000 people died of hydropower with 250.000 alone in one major dam bust 40 years ago in china.
As nuclear power produced roughly 10 times as much energy in the same time based on "deaths per watt" hydropower is 35.000 times more lethal than nuclear power.
Tell this to the believers of the anti nuclear church and they will nail you to a cross... always look on the bright side of life...
Re:bs meter - yellow (Score:5, Insightful)
On which side of the argument? 0 sick or with a minutely increased chance of cancer sounds a bit low, but closer to the truth than the media hysteria immediately following the event.
Re:bs meter - yellow (Score:5, Funny)
On which side of the argument? 0 sick or with a minutely increased chance of cancer sounds a bit low, but closer to the truth than the media hysteria immediately following the event.
Stop it! Just, stop.
How in the hell are we going to get the dumb masses whipped up into a hysterical advertisement-selling frenzy of fear and framed debates and phoney controversy if you keep injecting rationality into the discussion? For that matter, how the hell are we going to perpetuate our addiction to Middle Eastern fossil fuels if you act all calm and rational about nuclear energy? For fuck's sake man, if you aren't REALLY CAREFUL you might even encourage critical thinking. Think about what that would do to the marketing and PR industries!
Don't you understand? Don't you get it?! We have huge investments in the status quo. Don't rock the boat! I mean, it's not like we were going to put someone like you on mainstream television anyway, so all you gotta do is stop being rational on this Internet thingy that we can't dominate and be the gatekeeper for, and we're fine.
Signed,
The Five Corporations Controlling American Mass Media
Oil and nuclear are separate markets (Score:5, Informative)
There's almost no oil consumption for electricity generation, and until we get a large fleet of electric cars nuclear electricity will displace very little oil burning.
What nuclear power does is displace coal, thus saving thousands of lives every year.
Re:Oil and nuclear are separate markets (Score:5, Insightful)
If it gets rid of coal and prevents natural gas' rise, it's damn worth it. Clean electric cars would be the icing on the cake.
Re:Oil and nuclear are separate markets (Score:5, Informative)
Actually Japan increased consumption of oil for power generation by over 105k barrels per day post-quake: Japan’s fossil-fueled generation remains high because of continuing nuclear plant outages - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) [eia.gov]. Prior to the quake they consumed ca. 100k barrels per day on average. Like the rest of the OECD they purged most of their burning of petroleum products for power 30 years ago in the wake of the oil price spike that occurred at the end of the 70s, but hung on to its use in limited and ever-diminishing quantities.
The US still burns a small amount of oil in Hawaii for power. "Small" in this instance means "only" around 300k barrels per day, last time I checked. It's a pittance when you consider we consume ca. 18 million barrels per day total.
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Because uranium mining is so clean and harmless. I prefer electricity from cleaner sources like hydroelectric, wind and solar. Sure, they might not be as cost-efficient, but people should also learn to use less electricity, from efficient light bulbs, TVs and computers to better window insulation, solar water heaters, etc, etc. It will be by far the best change we can do to help the environment.
Re:Oil and nuclear are separate markets (Score:5, Informative)
Hydro: probably going down over the coming decades as we decide that the damage to fish populations outweighs the other positive impacts (at least for smaller dams)
Wind: hardly free of environmental impacts (steel and rare earth mining and refining) and until we get an economically viable storage mechanism it won't supply base load and so is almost worthless. Interestingly with a smart grid and a large fleet of electric vehicles you can get a fairly significant amount of distributed storage but at this point electric cars are too expensive.
Solar: Why 90% of the power in the desert SW doesn't come from stored solar I have no clue, they're already paying some of the highest rates in the country, to the point where unsubsidized pv solar makes sense if you're in the top two tiers of consumption so stored thermal solar has to make sense since it's so much more efficient.
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Regarding base load: you don't need base load. That's a myth. You need a large grid, multiple power sources, an abundance of plants and some amount of storage, e.g. hydro (pumped isn't necessary, you just need to be able to have a buffer) or natural gas, could be biogas. I've seen three independent studies come to this conclusion.
The primary problem with nuclear power is cost. It's really expensive. There was an article in Bulletins of Atomic Scientists that covered this in depth, "How to close the US nucle
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There's almost no oil consumption for electricity generation
Actually the world wide oil is still a major and expensive way to make electricity. In the USA 1% of generation is Oil based which isn't much until you realise that's 10 times more than the current solar production capacity.
In the rest of the world (especially Arabian countries) the number is quite a bit higher. Wikpedia cites 5% globally. Just under half as much as nuclear.
Don't discount the footprint of oil for generating electricity.
Re:bs meter - yellow (Score:4, Informative)
I live in Japan. I have been here for eleven years, and I've been through the earthquake/tsunami and all the aftermath.
I call your post bullshit. Cite your references/sources if you want to be taken seriously.
Re:bs meter - yellow (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess you don't read the Japan Times [japantimes.co.jp].
Re:bs meter - yellow (Score:4, Informative)
And I guess you choose to ignore those paragraphs that conflict with your confirmation bias. From the article you quoted:
Researchers at Fukushima Medical University, which has been taking the leading role in the study, have said they do not believe the most recent cases are related to the nuclear crisis.
Last month, U.N. scientists assessing the health impact of the Fukushima nuclear crisis said the radiation dose for residents in the region was much lower than Chernobyl and that they do not expect to see any increase in cancer in the future.
Re:bs meter - yellow (Score:5, Informative)
12 Thyroid Cancer Cases Confirmed in Fukushima Children: Preliminary Results of FY2011/FY2012 Fukushima Thyroid Examination
The Eleventh Planning Committee of the Prefecture Health Management Survey met on June 5, 2013. The preliminary data for the thyroid ultrasound examination was released to the press at the meeting.
Overall, a higher percentage of Fukushima children, tested in the Fiscal Year Heisei 24 (FY2012), are showing thyroid ultrasound abnormalities than the Fiscal Year Heisei 23 (FY2011) in all assessment categories. In addition, the average diameter of the tumor increased.
Higher percentages of children have nodules larger than 5.1 mm or cysts larger than 20.1 mm, which put them in the assessment B category, qualifying for the secondary examination consisting of thyroid blood tests, a more detailed thyroid ultrasound examination, and a fine-needle aspiration biopsy if warranted.
The press is reporting that there are 28 cases suspected of thyroid cancer out of 174,000 children tested and that 12 of the 28 have been confirmed to have papillary thyroid cancer. This is a bit misleading, as not all the children in the B assessment category in the Fiscal Year 2012 have finished or even begun the process of secondary examination. In other words, there could be more cases of thyroid cancer diagnosed in these 174,000 children.
There were 205, of 40,302 examined, qualifying for the secondary examination in FY2011, and 7 of the 12 suspected cases were confirmed to have papillary thyroid cancer. In FY2012, 16 were suspected of having thyroid cancer, and 5 of them were confirmed to have papillary thyroid cancer. However, 16 is not by any means the final count for the FY2012 group, as only 27.3% of the eligible 935 children have begun the process of the secondary examination.
Notable is the fact that 442 of 935 eligible for the secondary examination are from Koriyama, where the appeal for a group evacuation was denied recently. To date, only 1.1% or 5 of the 442 Koriyama children underwent secondary examination, yet 2 are already suspected of having thyroid cancer.
http://fukushimavoice-eng2.blogspot.com/2013/06/12-thyroid-cancer-cases-confirmed-in.html [blogspot.com]
Potassium iodide prevents thyroid cancer (Score:5, Informative)
Given the small number of highly exposed workers, it is unlikely that excess cases of thyroid cancer due to radiation exposure would be detectable.
If plant management had any competency at all, the workers were given potassium iodide doses, which proved highly effective at preventing thyroid cancer in people exposed to Chernobyl's radiation.
Re:Potassium iodide prevents thyroid cancer (Score:4, Funny)
>Tepco
Pick one.
I wouldn't trust these guys to feed a goldfish, much less run a nuclear plant. But they have a state granted monopoly, so they don't need anything but pull in the government to continue to operate.
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0 sick or with a minutely increased chance of cancer sounds a bit low,
Not if you actually looked at the radiation dose recieved by the few workers (~3?) who got the highest doses.
IIRC it was between 150-300mSv for most of the workers, which is generally "you should probably let a hospital check you out, but youre gonna be fine".
Let me google that for you (Score:4, Informative)
Re:12 people have a cancer (Score:4, Informative)
This story is not true.
12 people have a cancer by radiation.
If you look at enough people anywhere, you'll find cancer cases, but not necessarily from radiation:
Thyroid cancer found in 12 minors in Fukushima [japantimes.co.jp]
FUKUSHIMA – An ongoing study on the impact of radiation on Fukushima residents from the crippled atomic power plant has found 12 minors with confirmed thyroid cancer diagnoses, up from three in a report in February, with 15 other suspected cases, up from seven, researchers announced Wednesday.
The figures were taken from about 174,000 people aged 18 or younger whose initial thyroid screening results have been confirmed.
Researchers at Fukushima Medical University, which has been taking the leading role in the study, have said they do not believe the most recent cases are related to the nuclear crisis.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:12 people have a cancer (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. But they confirmed 5 cases out of 174.000 tested children... when the prevalence rate of thyroïd cancer is less than 2 in 1.000.000 in this area of Japan and age range, according to the article you are citing.
Smells fishy to me.
When you screen 100% of a population for a disease there's going to be a higher incidence rate than when only those showing obvious symptoms are found... especially for a disease like thyroid cancer, which is typically slow growing so it may not be discovered for years.
The 2 in a million rate is for "those aged 10 to 14 in Japan", while the screenings were for "174,000 people aged 18 or younger". A big difference in age range.
Would it have shown up so soon? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't there a long delay between exposure and visible cancer? Does the fact that the cases are visible now imply that they must have started before the accident?
Yes. This is about establishing a baseline. (Score:3)
Testing for cancers in a population at this time is all about establishing exactly what cancers existed before the problem. so you can accurately determine what effect the plant's failure will cause.
As the numbers seem slightly high, I suspect regression toward the mean will cause a drop in the number. That will cause confusion in the masses!
Re:Would it have shown up so soon? (Score:5, Insightful)
Great article here on the effects of Cherynobyl: http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/index.html [who.int]
It does indeed say many thyroid cancers took years to turn up - but the number STARTED to increase right away, and it's fair to report that hasn't happened.
It seems unlikely that any effects of Fukushima will forever be impossible to count by keeping statistics. You cannot, even with Cherynobyl, ascribe a *particular* cancer case to the one cause, even there they can only say that "the cancer rate is higher by X%". They figure that some extra 4000 will die of cancer (than would have gone on to die of other causes later, of course) - but this is across hundreds of thousands exposed, so it's an increase in cancer rates of 3%-4% on that large group.
Chernobyl had the problem that they DIDN'T STOP DRINKING THE MILK in the area, the contaminated milk. Nobody made that mistake with any food near Fukishima. Worse yet, the kids in the area were iodine-deficient!
The cancer rate increase from Fukishima could be, say, a hundredth of Cherynobyl's (it's probably less), and be 0.03-0.04% ... you'll never be able to say whether the number is higher or not, because the error bar on just COUNTING cancer deaths (when Grandma has cancer and dies of a heart attack, would she have had the attack without the cancer? A doctor's call on that can change the outcome.) is much higher than 0.05%.
The cancer rate around Fukishima could be, say 100,000 dead out of 300,000 people when we add them all up 60 years from now - when the stats said it should have been 101,000. Then some stats guy will have to wearily explain that it was really 101,000 plus or minus 4,000 - and if only 100,000 died, then in that area's case it would have been 99,890, because by 2020, researchers using the disputed "no threshold" model had put the probable deaths at 150.
So our real story here, is why are we caring about a death rate that is smaller than a statistical error bar that nobody gives a crap about, at least as a news story.
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Im not an expert, but doesnt cancer from radiation take YEARS to develop?
Sorry, not gonna buy a "i got cancer in two years" narrative.
Re:12 people have a cancer (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps OP should have included the next sentence in the article in question:
They point out that thyroid cancer cases were not found among children hit by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident until four to five years later.
IN other words, check back in a few years, but until then, chill....
Re:12 people have a cancer (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many people would have gotten lung cancer if this reactor had never existed and they'd been burning oil or coal all of this time? Nuclear power is the safest practical form of power we have right now. This was one of the oldest designs for a reactor that's still in use, it was hit by one of the largest natural disasters in history, the aftermath was poorly handled and it still survived. One of the most astonishing things about this entire event is that people still call it a disaster. This reactor performed exactly as it was designed. It did not melt through the containment vessel, sink down to the water table and cause a radioactive steam explosion (like Chernobyl)
Lastly, comparing this event to Chernobyl in anyway is outright ridiculous. Go read up on the event... Chernobyl was a real disaster. This event was a success in that the safety systems prevented something far more terrible from happening.
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Nuclear is good, but old reactor designs are spectacularly bad. Too bad restrictions on all things nuclear are so severe that spent fuel has to be stored on site, and new reacto
Re:12 people have a cancer (Score:4, Informative)
If Fukushima is a success story, then so is Chernobyl (they managed to build a containment dome, which Japan has failed to do), and I don't want to see what you would consider a disaster.
You're comparing a minor loss of containment (Fukushima), to a complete and total loss of the containing vessel and a radioactive fire to help turn a fixed radiating source into an airborne radiation containment that spread over half of Europe (Chernobyl).
If you think these events are remotely comparable in scale you must be devoid of all capabilities for rational thought.
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Bull. They admit the comfort women, it was even explicitly mentioned in an ill-posed statement by the mayor of Osaka.
Re:12 people have a cancer (Score:4, Insightful)
In a homogenous society like Japan
What the hell is that even supposed to mean, except for "I don't want to believe this"?
Re:12 people have a cancer (Score:5, Insightful)
This story is not true.
Now you're arguing with UN scientific research just like those "anti-science" AGW sceptics.
Yay for cherry picking your preferred science.
Re:lol... (Score:4, Funny)
Must be awesome to be someone with "vested interest in downplaying any serious problems". Just imagine!!!
Child: Mommmmmmm! I cut my leg with a chainsaw!
Mom: Nah, it's Ok.. you still have another one.
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And JFK was killed to prevent alien contact disclosure and the free energy is being oppressed by the Highlanders than run energy companies.
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Tesla's free energy being suppressed is hardly a stretch of the imagination. Yet my understanding is less sinister and way more moronic. "I have plans to distribute free electricity to the whole world", "yes, but how do I profit from this?", "The whole world will have power, for free, that is the profit. Free light, heat, refrigeration! For everyone!", "uhuh, but how to *I* profit from this?", "Well the entirety of the world will be better positioned to fight the elements and remain free from the common dru
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Re:lol... (Score:5, Funny)
There will probably be a slight increase in thyroid cancer rates. Luckily, thyroid cancer is one of the most-survivable types, especially when detected early, and people who were in the area will be checked regularly. The number of cancer deaths statistically-attributable to this will be very low, and as someone further down noted, the 20,000 dead by the tsunami will far-exceed them.
Further proof that the threat of all things nuclear is just a diversion to take our attention away from the true danger. Dihydrogen Monoxide [dhmo.org]. This is the true menace to mankind. If we would have rid this planet of this toxic substance years ago those 20,000 people wound not have died (in the tsunami). In fact we wouldn't even be talking about Fukashima at all right now.
Re:lol... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer a little under 3 months ago, I had surgery within 2 weeks of the diagnosis.It was diagnosed stupidly early because my GP decided to run a full blood panel when I had to go in to be tested for something entirely different (liver function due to a medication I was on, with previous history of liver issues triggered by prescription pharmaceuticals).
I've been told that due to the size of the tumour (about 8.5mm, too small to feel through the skin) and the fact that it presented as a single tumour only which had not metastasised even within the thyroid that survival rates is talked about in terms of 20 years - after which too many other factors can affect your survival that it can no longer be attributed to a 20+ year old cancer. It wasn't even recommended that I do radiation therapy.
In some respects I felt a bit of a fraud as I barely got sick (I was experiencing significant fatigue and feeling the cold a lot), but got all the 'Oh Noes, it's CANCER!!!111!!!' sympathy. The surgeon told me "If you have to get cancer, this is the one you want to get."
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WHO has a "vested interest in downplaying serious problems" now?
Re:lol... (Score:5, Informative)
Are you seriously citing a website about oil as a reliable source for the dangers of nuclear energy? If so, then you're a fucking retard. And can't even spell "Fukushima", but that's a different issue.
How could any "fallout" from the Fukushima plant affect you 10.000km from here? And how the hell could it kill 14.000 children there? How do you estimate that? Don't you realize that the article you cited doesn't make any fucking sense?
Looks like you're another of the Americans who love to live in fear and ignorance.
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Something seems maybe not quite right; wasn't there an engineer(s) who inadvertantly stepped in a pool of radioactive water, and got enough exposure to get skin burns? My google-fu is lacking, I can find references to the incident, but I can't find their estimated doses - I remember it being a big deal at the time, though...
Q: What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation? How long could I stay safely at the surface?
A: Assuming you’re a reasonably good swimmer, you could probably survive treading water anywhere from 10 to 40 hours. At that point, you would black out from fatigue and drown. This is also true for a pool without nuclear fuel in the bottom.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ [xkcd.com]
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Something seems maybe not quite right; wasn't there an engineer(s) who inadvertantly stepped in a pool of radioactive water, and got enough exposure to get skin burns? My google-fu is lacking, I can find references to the incident, but I can't find their estimated doses - I remember it being a big deal at the time, though...
Q: What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation? How long could I stay safely at the surface?
A: Assuming you’re a reasonably good swimmer, you could probably survive treading water anywhere from 10 to 40 hours. At that point, you would black out from fatigue and drown. This is also true for a pool without nuclear fuel in the bottom.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ [xkcd.com]
I think the XKCD case is quite different than what the grandparent poster said -- the XKCD case is talking about a purified water tank, while a random "pool of radioactive water" in a disaster zone is likely full of radioactive contaminants (not that the water itself is radioactive).
However, I haven't heard of the "stepped in a pool of radioactive water" cases. There were some reports early in the disaster of workers taken to the hospital with radiation exposure, but without enough detail or followup to kn
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There were some reports early in the disaster of workers taken to the hospital with radiation exposure,
The two workers were released from hospital a few days later. It wasn't splattered over the world news channels the way their admittance to hospital was.
Re:Stepped in a pool of radioactive water (Score:4, Informative)
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I thought they had like a death squad of volunteers to go fix something. Guess they did not die.
If you look at old videos of the Chernobyl incident. Helicopters falling out of the sky into the sarcophagus and people dieing hours after they got out of the building were the reactor was housed (they were sandbagging or pouring cement trying to seal it etc...)
I think Chernobyl was way worse then Fukishima. But I don't really trust the Japa
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Your right. I could have used more absolute terminology. I wouldn't say Fukishima is near as bad as Chernobyl. For starts people knew how to handle the situations vs rushing in blindly.
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Fukishima was a minor venting of material to prevent an explosion within the pressure vessel.
Chernobyl was a steam explosion that ruptured the containment vessel and blasted radioactive graphite and fuel rods from the reactor into the atmosphere and onto the surrounding land, and to a lesser extent, the globe.
Fukishima was a bad day.
Chernobyl was a disaster.
They are on such different scales that its not even a little bit close.
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