Fukushima finally wins Gold

[Glenn Black]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

Here is some info on the real effects of nuclear radiation. 50 dead, more than 250,000 made seriously ill in Japan from their peaceful use of nuclear electrical generation.

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...-1970-not-2011

[sunskyfan]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

You keep talking about this situation like it was an airplane crash and not many people were hurt. The Japanese company and government have not, while truthful, not at all forth coming. I agree, that we have tough decisions and that people in Chicago are not about to melt but let's face it this is a disaster. The engineering assumptions were WRONG. The design for the site was WRONG. The response is confused. This DOES NOT look good for any industry let along the nuclear power industry. The consequences of this event are still hard to grasp. Sure, they may not affect you but they will be felt for many years by many people. The arrogance of those in the nuclear power community are its greatest flaw and why Chernobyl and Fukushima happen. Your attitude does not give me confidence.

[don]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

wolves of Chernobyl

[sunskyfan]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

A man walks around Hiroshima ... BFD ... what's your point?

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

This so-called, "50 dead", what did they die from? Old age? Cigarette smoking? Auto accidents?

Where did you get the statistics? The frauds at Greenpeace? The Sierra Club? BBC News? CBC News? The EPA? Modelling? Forecasts? Lawyers? Fund-raisers? Jane Fonda? Which rock concert is pedalling these statistics?

Being the slow learner here, I'll stay after class so that you might explain where you got these figures. If you saw them on some wall or in some book, where did they get the statistics?

We were told for decades by so-called, "experts" that plutonium was not a natural element on Earth. Well guess what: Plutonium is found in trace amounts everywhere within the Earth because nuclear reactions occur naturally within the Earth itself. Most of the geo-thermal heat of the Earth is due to fission occurring naturally within the Earth; it's not due to pressure. All kinds of fission and possibly fussion reactions occur naturally within the Earth.

So deaths from radiation? Your story doesn't even pass the smell test at this point.

My information comes from Webster's New World Encyclopedia, (1992) page 888, plutonium.

And one more point: We now know that the human-body repairs damage done to cells by radiation. So if the exposure is low, radiation might even be healthy for human-beings and all living-things. This is why predictions about deaths from radiation turn-out to be wrong, because the predictions were made from assumptions about radiation that are not true.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

We are talking about nuclear power-plants, not nuclear war. By the way, the deaths near Fukushima were from the tsunami, not the nuclear power-plant. A 30-foot tsunami rolling in from the sea is NOT something caused by nuclear power at Fukushima.

So far, we might have ONE death at Fukushima at its nuclear power-plant: a crane fell on someone. As far as radiation killing anyone at Fukushima, no-one has been killed.

Let's keep our facts straight.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

I know very well what WE are talking about. My point was that I can find a picture of someone walking through Hiroshima days after the bomb was dropped or wolves at Chernobyl does not mean that "all is okay". Zero risk is, of course, impossible but exposing people to risk without their choice or consent is immoral. Much, if not most, of the social contract between human beings is about the consequence of this premise. This is why we use the term "Act of God" to describe natural events that destroy property or take lives. The idea that Fukushima only has directly caused one death so far is trivializing the potential for what it will cause. Yes, the tsunami was an "act of God" but building the plant at the location and the design was an act of man that had the clear potential of exposing many people to a risk they did not understand or agree too. Even if one person dies in the US, Korea, China, or somewhere else it has the same moral weight and culpability as someone across the street being killed from a stray bullet in a bar fight.

[Shakespear]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

Let's keep our facts straight.

I take it you are the one that has his facts straight and anyone else with a different take on the situation does not.

By the way, the deaths near Fukushima were from the tsunami, not the nuclear power-plant.

Most people I suspect recognize that radiation is not like a "zap-gun" from Flash Cartoon. The effect is long term, hence to say all is fine after a month of this is not to have ones facts straight.

Reading some comments on Fukushima is like listening to a White House spokesperson. You get nothing but facts.

[Glenn Black]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

The link in my above posting ( http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...-1970-not-2011 ) provides a YouTube version of a Japanese documentary which had been previously shown on television, which I summarized in the above posting.

Did you watch the documentary? I guess not.

It is my understanding the that 50 dead and 250,000 disabled in Japan were from nuclear power plant radiation sickness (ie. exposure to excessive radiation levels, some of whom had direct contact with radioactive waste, and others who ingested radioactive emissions during their employment as casual laborers in the Japanese nuclear industry).

You have been here at itulip for quite some time. It would seem that you are open to considering something other than the thin gruel served by official government reports and MSM (Main Stream Media).

Look at how TEPCO dribbles out information, only admitting what is already known through discovery elsewhere. Has TEPCO been open, honest, and transparent with the Japanese and the rest of the world? I think not.

It appears from this documentary that all or most of the Japanese nuclear power industry (TEPCO and others) has had a big, dirty secret for the past 40 years.

Perhaps you can consider this documentary and what it has to say before dismissing it without any consideration.

[LorenS]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

It appears from this documentary that all or most of the Japanese nuclear power industry (TEPCO and others) has had a big, dirty secret for the past 40 years.

What is the credibility of this source?

[Shakespear]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

What is the credibility of this source?

I say probable better than this,

So far, we might have ONE death at Fukushima at its nuclear power-plant: a crane fell on someone. As far as radiation killing anyone at Fukushima, no-one has been killed.

[c1ue]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

It is my understanding the that 50 dead and 250,000 disabled in Japan were from nuclear power plant radiation sickness (ie. exposure to excessive radiation levels, some of whom had direct contact with radioactive waste, and others who ingested radioactive emissions during their employment as casual laborers in the Japanese nuclear industry).

Let's say this is true. Scaled over 40 years - this is 1 death/year and 60,000+ disabled - though I am quite unclear how you get merely disabled by radiation. Does radiation permanently weaken bones like mining high flouride coal in China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_fluorosis)?

Cancer is generally a live/die proposition. I'd not be surprised if 'disabled' in this context meant 'had been exposed to legal limit and thus were entitled to a disability pension'. Even for those who have survived cancer and were permanently damaged as a result - how many of these cancers would have occurred anyway? As the Robert Parker/Spiegel article showed - the 18 million Japanese expected to die (not just get) cancer in the next decades makes even a theoretical 20,000 extra cases very hard to even detect.

But more importantly, what are the comparable numbers for coal fired electricity plants? i.e. miners killed, industrial accidents, sulphur/black carbon emissions, water pollution, etc etc?

What about for oil? natural gas?

For that matter, farming?

driving in cars?

riding on trains?

cooking food?

typing letters?

The problem with breathless exclamation of large numbers is the missing context.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

I take it you are the one that has his facts straight and anyone else with a different take on the situation does not.

Most people I suspect recognize that radiation is not like a "zap-gun" from Flash Cartoon. The effect is long term, hence to say all is fine after a month of this is not to have ones facts straight.

Reading some comments on Fukushima is like listening to a White House spokesperson. You get nothing but facts.

We now know that human cells repair damage done by radiation, so radiation is not deadly; atleast, radiation in moderate amounts is not deadly. The threshold amounts of radiation that cause death are much higher than previously believed.

[aaron]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

One death from a crane at Fukushima. So after a 9.0 mega-quake and a 30-foot high tsunami, one death from a crane at Fukushima is a statistic that speaks quite well for the nuclear power industry, thank you.

I agree with this.

- They are using a really old design.
- They built it in a bad place
- They let it run too long
- They let FIRE get involved
- From the sounds of it, the company neglected safety in the past.

It looks like an accident waiting to happen.

And it did. The largest earthquake in history hit nearby AND one of the largest tsunamis.

One of the shittiest designed reactors, in the most dangerous areas of the word, run by a careless company, was hit by two of the largest disasters possible. Anything short of Northern Japan becoming uninhabitable speaks volumes.

In other words, with all the stupidity of man and the full wrath of mother nature, the cores are still standing. It makes me optimistic that the industry as a whole is quite safe (and will get better).

[seanm123]

Re: Fukushima finally wins Gold

We now know that human cells repair damage done by radiation, so radiation is not deadly; atleast, radiation in moderate amounts is not deadly. The threshold amounts of radiation that cause death are much higher than previously believed.

I will agree with you Steve. At the cellular level cells that are exposed to ionizing radiation are actually damaged by radiation exposure, but they can repair the damage and operate normally.

However they can also operate abnormally after repairing themselves, since their DNA was altered, so these cells may no longer be able to reproduce themselves or may reproduce at an uncontrolled rate.

Uncontrolled cellular growth rate starts at exactly what exposure?