[sparky]

.
Back to Fukushima , anyone died from it ?
thousands died from the Tidal wave including some hundreds in pretty average refineries and industrial plants
from the nuclear power plants , no one !

as for the worst enemy of nuclear power being the coal industry linking with the Greens
Australia has rabid anti Nuclear lobby and is the most heavily user of coal ,
it is also the biggest coal exporter of coal in the WORLD

as for nuclear weapons , what as this got to do with anything ,

Hamburg was the first city to experience a bomber created firestorm
"The tornadic fire created a huge inferno with winds of up to 240 kilometres per hour (150 mph) reaching temperatures of 800 °C (1,470 °F) and altitudes in excess of 300 metres (1,000 ft), incinerating more than 21 square kilometres (8 sq mi) of the city. Asphalt streets burst into flame,limestone building burned , A large number of those killed died seeking safety in bomb shelters and cellars, the firestorm consuming the oxygen in the burning city above. The furious winds created by the firestorm had the power to sweep people up off the streets like dry leaves
a witness said "the wind was howling like the devil laughing "

Dresden a beautiful city was destroyed in a firestorm , for no particular reasons , the war was won
the death estimate is about 50.000 nobody will know because the city was declared an open city , IE undefended , and was full of wounded and refugees

the firebombing of Tokyo ,Operation Meetinghouse ,the butcher bill was anywhere around 100.000
Curtis Le May insisted nuclear bombs were pointless he could kill ,starve and burn more Japanese cheaper with his bombers

As for Nukes ,instead of killing poor soldiers , it threaten headquarters !!! Generals and politicians are in the front line for a change
nuclear weapons kept the peace for 70 years and counting , the only weapon system to have such a record

[Outcast_Searcher]

Back to Fukushima , anyone died from it ?
thousands died from the Tidal wave including some hundreds in pretty average refineries and industrial plants
from the nuclear power plants , no one !

(red font mine, for emphasis).

If many people have shorter lives due to additional radiation exposure caused by the Fukishima plants (through contaminated air, water, soil, food, etc), whether in a few years or several decades, it's NOT like they will have signs around their necks stating this.

I don't think you can say no one has died from it, and you certainly can't credibly imply no one will.

Since there appears to be no short term crisis, naturally, aside from shutting down some nuke plants (for a while anyway) -- society is naturally mostly IGNORING the problem. (And heaven forbid proactively dealing with serious issues like massive amounts of spent nuke fuel stored IN active power plants that are in earthquake zones, etc -- as THAT would cost money!)

...nuclear weapons kept the peace for 70 years and counting , the only weapon system to have such a record

If "the peace" means the lack of a world-ending WWIII, then, yes. However, virtually ANY time I look at the news, there are small wars, skirmishes, genocides, etc. going on, JUST AS USUAL. If that is "peace", it says something pretty sad about the normal state of human affairs.

[sparky]

.
"it says something pretty sad about the normal state of human affairs"
the normal state of human affairs has very little to do with morality and everything to do with growth and decay

as for unquantified conjectural casualties , it would need a bit of numbers behind it , the usual markers are rate of cancers in young children , so far , no statistics prove this .
so , again , before making sweeping statement , a modicum of evidence is required .

[Outcast_Searcher]

.
"it says something pretty sad about the normal state of human affairs"
the normal state of human affairs has very little to do with morality and everything to do with growth and decay

as for unquantified conjectural casualties , it would need a bit of numbers behind it , the usual markers are rate of cancers in young children , so far , no statistics prove this .
so , again , before making sweeping statement , a modicum of evidence is required .

Why do you make such sweeping generalizations as "cancers in young children", and then imply case closed?

ALL I implied is "we don't know yet", and I stand by that.

First, if the effect is minor, I'd expect it to show up more strongly in adults, who have had long exposure, to, say, eating slightly tainted fish, perhaps for decades.

Second, if you want to state that human affairs is all about "growth and decay" -- feel free. Somehow though, I don't see that making the top 5 or even top 20 list on a poll of concerns in any country I can think of in the first world. There are more aspects to the human experience than peak oil and doom, even if in, say, several hundred years, the doomers turn out to be right.

[sparky]

.
I imply nothing , a population health problems leave some tracks in the statistics , one of the most reliable is unexplained spikes in the number of cases of diseases in children ,
the Chernobyl accident lead to an increase in children thyroid cancers ,
it's a pretty rare cancer amongst continental populations , obviously something was happening .
for Fukushima , so far after a few years , nothing ... nada ... rien ...nitchevo !
so unless there is something else which turn up , it is pretty reasonable to assume the heath effect of the Fukushima accident had less impact than various other mishaps , such as dogs attacks

[Tanada]

.
I imply nothing , a population health problems leave some tracks in the statistics , one of the most reliable is unexplained spikes in the number of cases of diseases in children ,
the Chernobyl accident lead to an increase in children thyroid cancers ,
it's a pretty rare cancer amongst continental populations , obviously something was happening .
for Fukushima , so far after a few years , nothing ... nada ... rien ...nitchevo !
so unless there is something else which turn up , it is pretty reasonable to assume the heath effect of the Fukushima accident had less impact than various other mishaps , such as dogs attacks

Even that spike from Chernobyl was short lived, and sadly it was entirely preventable. If the USSR had been feeding their citizens iodized salt like the USA adopted many decades ago the number of cases would have been much smaller, and issuing iodine tablets the day of the accident would have prevented almost all of them.

[sparky]

.
Let's keep in mind that playing around megawatts level of power is not to be taken lightly .
Radiations , at large levels ,have a solid record of evidence as being unhealthy ,
as a very rough rule of thumb , an exposure of one Rad for one minute get you a 50% chance of being dead
that for the acute side , for the persistent level it's really hard to tell where the maximum long term exposure level is
it is not appreciated that the 50.000 dead of Hiroshima died of the explosion and burns not so many of the radiation itself
an Australian senator was a war prisoner in Hiroshima , about one mile from ground zero when the bomb fell , he and his comrades were collecting bodies and clearing roads ,he stated that whole street blocks were incinerated
he was the most irradiated Australian , came back went into politics and died at a very old age .

[sparky]

.
an interesting article on the debate of low level exposure , that's the very best I've seen and read
it come out in strong support for the LNT standard
It's a long article but well worth the time for having an informed discussion on the subject

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/26/low ... 5DRS3%2F26

briefly , the model currently used is the "linear no threshold" or LNT ,the risks are proportional to exposure at any level
"
In 1979, scientists working on the National Academy of Sciences’ third BEIR (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation) report were divided sharply over how to estimate these low-dose cancer risks. Some scientists thought there was still a “safe” threshold of exposure; others asserted that the risks of low-dose radiation were exponentially smaller than those of higher doses. But BEIR Committee Chairman Edward Radford argued heatedly that, proportionately, the risks were the same at high and low doses. He said that the best solution was to extrapolate, all the way down to zero, the linear relationship between dose and effect observed at higher doses. Although the report ultimately presented all sides of the debate, by the next BEIR report, in 1990, Radford’s view had won out. The LNT model has remained in the report ever since and has guided decisions not only in the United States, but around the world."

this is based on sound scientific reasoning and studies , foremost is the Life Span Study of thousands of Japanese over decades and the Techa river study

" As the Cold War ended, scientists in the United States and Western Europe gained access to the Techa River cohort—29,800 people who lived on a small river that passed by the Soviet Union’s Mayak nuclear weapons complex. After the plant began producing plutonium, its waste was dumped from 1949 to 1956 into the river, where it seeped downstream, went into the water table, and contaminated the population’s drinking and bathing water, as well as its food crops.

In contrast to Japan’s bomb survivors, this group was exposed to radiation in dribs and drabs—exactly the sort of exposure that had been assumed, previously, to pose little threat. But over the past decade, an international team, connecting scientists in Russia and the United States, has found that these low doses, even if they were spread out over years, did increase the risk of developing cancer. The number of cancers was small: In one study, the researchers found that 3 percent, or 55 out of 1,836, of solid cancers that appeared in those tens of thousands of people near the Techa River were attributable to radiation. But it is significant that they showed up in the results at all—and that the relationship between dose and effect looked to be linear."

note that the critical factor is if a deviation from the statistics can be clearly identified ,
of particular interest is of course Children and medical exposure by X rays and such

" Although scientists know children are more vulnerable to radiation, they’re unsure exactly how much more. In 2013, the United Nations’ scientific committee on radiation effects said that children could be up to three times more sensitive “for some health effects but certainly not for all.” For a parent, however, doubling even a small risk to a child may well be unacceptable. And the health effects to which kids are clearly more susceptible are not to be understated: leukemia, as well as thyroid, skin, breast, and brain cancers.

The 2011 nuclear accident that unfolded in Fukushima, Japan, illustrates how these dangers play out in real life. When a World Health Organization panel assessed the health risks to the people exposed to radiation during the accident, it found that, overall, the increased incidence of cancer was likely to “remain below detectable levels.” But the panel also found that infants were at the highest risk. (While they were exposed to external and internal radiation like everyone else, they also would have ingested their mothers’ breast milk, where radiation concentrates.) "

[dissident]

Interesting information about LNT.

But for some reason chemical exposure does not get the same serious coverage that radiation does. As if death from inhaling coal power plant associated pollution is "natural". When we talk about radiation cancers we are talking about a less direct impact than what occurred during the 1952 in London and resulted in 12,000 deaths (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog). The radiation cancers don't just affect people in their prime at an early age while pollution affects only the weak and old (i.e. all of the sudden we all have the value set of Sparta). These radiation cancers will lead to deaths in old age and amongst the weak.

But one does not have to put up with any radiation cancers. They are not an intrinsic risk of nuclear power. But pollution from fossil fuel burning is intrinsic to the technology unless a way is found to fully process all the exhaust gases and aerosols. This task is vastly harder than doing nuclear power right in the first place. It is time to retire all water cooled nuclear power plants. Fukushima experienced meltdowns and hydrogen explosions because of this obsolete technology that has no passive safety features built in. Unpressurized molten metal vat designs are the way to go.

[sparky]

.
one of the big problem with LNT is that there is a lot of radiation exposure not related to fission
- there is the radon generated by concrete building , usually ignored but for poorly ventilated underground
-there is the radium and other nasty produced by burning coal
-there is medical isotopes and radiology
-there is all the smoke detectors and icing detectors
-there is all the depleted uranium ammunition, they are less active than natural uranium
-there is all the naturally occurring rocks formation ,is Maine to be declared unfit to human habitation?

Technically yes ,
however it is clearly understood that there is a trade off between strict assessment and political practicality ,
that's usually taken as some statistical spike clearly distinguishable from the background

[vox_mundi]

Fukushima robot stranded after stalling inside reactor

Decommissioning work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has suffered a setback after a robot sent in to a damaged reactor to locate melted fuel stalled hours into its mission and had to be abandoned.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said the robot stopped moving on Friday during its first inspection of the containment vessel inside reactor No 1, one of the three reactors that suffered meltdown after the plant was struck by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Tepco, which recently conceded that the technology for robots to retrieve the nuclear fuel had yet to be developed, said on Monday it would cut the cables to the stranded robot and postpone a similar inspection using a separate device.

Developed by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy and the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning, the robot was supposed to be able to function for about 10 hours even when exposed to radiation at levels that would cause ordinary electronic devices to malfunction.

The “transformer” robot, which can alter its shape depending on its surroundings, was sent in to photograph the inside of the reactor containment vessel and record temperatures and radiation levels.

It had covered 14 of 18 locations when it stalled, about three hours after it began its journey around the vessel, officials said, adding that they had yet to establish the cause of the problem. (... Too much F'kin radiation, moron)

[sparky]

.
The Russian tech monitoring Chernobyl basement where the sand bed trapped the most radioactive of the melting fuel have used radio controlled toy cars with small cameras on top , they are cheap good fun to drive and they loose them at the rate of about one out of three ,

the Japs probably went all high tech , that's a mistake , keep it cheap and cheerful , those days any hobby enthusiast can rig a small drone remote controlled with goggle vision

[Tanada]

It appears the anti-nuclear fear mongering that started just over 4 years ago has worn off. The average citizen in Japan find nuclear fission power an acceptable electricity supply source once again.

67% of Japan’s adults say they would use nuclear powered electricity. 32% say they would not. Mizuho Information & Research Institute of Japan polled more than 3,500 Japanese in February, in anticipation of the deregulation of electricity. When the respondents were asked if they would use nuclear-based electricity if the rates were the same or lower than now, 67% said “yes” On the other hand, 32% said they would not use nuke-based power, no matter what the cost. When asked if they would exclusively use electricity produced by renewables, only 5% said yes. The most important factors on the issue (each respondent could choose more than one), 80% said stability of power supply, 70% said cost, and 60% said environmental friendliness. http://www.jaif.or.jp/en/only-one-in-tw ... clusively/ (Comment – So, why do all Japanese Press outlets continually say that a significant majority of the public doesn’t want nukes restarted? This seems to further verify that the Japanese Press has a decided antinuclear agenda.)

http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukush ... dates.html

[KaiserJeep]

It is kind of ironic that public apathy will now allow the right thing to be done in Japan: i.e. the return to safe and healthy nuclear energy.

This is way better than the fall back solution of extending the life of existing dirty coal plants for decades. Nor is anyone talking about the fact that burning coal releases more radiation into the environment than did the second-worst nuclear accident in history (Fukushima). Even the normally thoughtful Germans were panicked by Fukushima: YES they installed lots of solar panels and wind turbines, but also they built more coal plants, which will provide a legacy of death that the continued use of the nuclear plants would have spared them.

Nor is there any discussion of the other Chernobyl-style graphite pile reactors that remain in service in Russia. There were eleven of these RBMK's as of 2013, and these are second generation reactor designs at least fifteen years older than Fukushima's late-1960's design. The Russians maintain that these are "safe" after the post-Chernobyl modifications. Of course, they said that BEFORE Chernobyl happened as well, and the modifications DO NOT include building containment structures around the reactors to prevent spewing burning graphite over a wide area.

[sparky]

.
the Chernobyl accident happened when a very stupid administrative decision caused it .
operating a nuclear plant in the near failure mode resulted in a failure , big surprise !
the rest of the graphite /water plants are operated within specification and don't have problems .

[onlooker]

That is the thing that really gets me about nuclear it could go wrong in so many ways and we humans as you all know have qualities that preclude us from being very good custodians of these nuclear power plants.
Of course also a catastrophe with nuclear is a BIG deal.

[KaiserJeep]

The deathprint statistics say it all. Nuclear energy is the absolute safest form of power that exists anywhere on Earth. It is safer than coal, oil, or gas. It is even safer than the solar panels up on the roof of my house. It is way safer than hydropower dams that break and wipe out thousands or tens of thousands of people in a flood.

Maybe you know a better way to measure safety than by counting the number of people killed and injured, and then dividing by the amount of power generated? Because I certainly don't. Even looking at the raw casualty statistics does not show Nuclear is anything but safe:

#1 disaster: The Shimantan/Banqiao dam failure in China in 1975 killed 171,000 people.
#2 disaster: The Morvi dam failure in India in 1979 killed 1500 people.
#3 disaster: The Jess Oil pipeline explosion in Nigeria in 1998 killed 1,078 people.
#4 disaster: The Monongah Coal Mine explosion in West Virginia in 1907 killed 362 people.
#5 disaster: The East Ohio Gas Company Liquified Natural Gas explosion in Cleveland in 1944 killed 130 people.

Compared to the three major Nuclear accidents:

#1 disaster: Chernobyl killed 33 firemen in the Ukraine in 1986.
#2 disaster: Fukushima killed 0 people in Japan in 2011.
#3 disaster: Three Mile Island killed 0 people in Pennsylvania in 1979.

Since 2011, we have been adding to the nuclear statistics the number of people killed mining and refining and transporting Uranium fuel, and transporting spent fuel rods for disposal. That brings the nuclear deathprint up to an estimated 90 people worldwide.

When you divide the number of deaths by the amount of power generated, nuclear looks even safer, because nuclear power plants are huge and relatively few in number:

http://www.myscience.fi/index.php?id=516

and

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

=======> Using any form of power generation other than nuclear is the real disaster.

[Tanada]

That is the thing that really gets me about nuclear it could go wrong in so many ways and we humans as you all know have qualities that preclude us from being very good custodians of these nuclear power plants.
Of course also a catastrophe with nuclear is a BIG deal.

Actually it is not. If you look at Chernobyl or Fukushima as an unbiased observer you will notice something. Absent the hype nature goes on without batting an eye.

Let me be clear, the evidence is solid that HIGH dose radiation for more than a brief exposure is bad for you. If you have ever had an X-Ray taken or had a radioactive tracer injected for an MRI scan you have been exposed to a HIGH dose of radiation. However the radioactive tracers are cleaned out of your system within a few days and the X-Ray exposures are very brief, much less than a second in almost all cases.

There is also extremely reliable evidence that LOW dose radiation is harmless. Millions of human beings live in areas where background radiation very much higher than the WHO recommended safe limit. Statistical studies of these people show zero increase in death or illness rates from any cause over their neighbors living in lower background radiation areas. In addition there are hundreds of thousands of people who work in occupationally LOW background radiation environments chronically. Examples include aircraft pilots and crew who spend many hours each week above 20,000 feet flying from place to place. Statistical studies of Aircraft crew also show no increase in illness, though they have high stress jobs with confounding factors like breathing recycled air. They do tend to have a higher than average suicide rate, but no more cancer than anyone else. Another group of EXTREMELY well studied individuals are Cosmonaut/Astronaut cadre's who spend a lot of time flying and who in some cases have spent a year or longer in low Earth orbit above almost all of the atmosphere. Again no massive spike of radiation induced problems except for cataracts in the eyes occurring at a higher than normal rate.

Basically anywhere other mammals can live humans can live as well. The difference is we have people telling us how scary and dangerous it is to live in some of those places so we chose not too. 95 plus percent of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is now a lower background dose than living in Iran or Brazil, but people still believe the uninhabitable for 10,000 years hype that the media splattered all over in 1986.

Nuclear Fission is like Fire, it can burn and destroy you, or it can keep you warm in winter and cool in summer by powering furnaces and air conditioning. One day the Media will switch direction and suddenly be telling everyone it was safe all along. I do wish they would wake up and do so.

[KaiserJeep]

....and even when the media regains it's senses, we will still have to deal with the Hollywood legacy of hundreds of 1950's "B" movies that blamed atomic energy:


From giant ants caused by "atomic radiation" in 1954, to:

....To a certain fire-breathing dinosaur/dragon/whatever that likes to stomp on Tokyo, and who attacked NYC in 2014.

[onlooker]

Okay I do admit nuclear is way too complex for me to opine about and I will give you guys the benefit of the doubt and say your right about all your saying Kaiser and Tanada however what about the longevity of radiation is that not a problem? Also, do we not have some evidence of radiation being implicated in mutations both in the animal kingdom and among humans after some notable nuclear accidents? Specifically Cheronobyl and also Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Also, in a perfect world yes nuclear may have a place but look at the military application of it don't you think it is and always will be tempting to use it militarily? My information is mainly from Helen Caldicott, MD PHYSICIAN - AUTHOR - SPEAKER. I just think she makes a persuasive case.