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Heroism Is Part of a Nuclear Worker's Job
Hugh Pickens writes "In 1988, Michael Friedlander was a newly minted shift technical adviser at a nuclear power plant near the Gulf Coast when Hurricane Gilbert, a Category 5 storm, was bearing down on the plant. They received word that all workers should leave except for critical plant personnel, and there was never a question: 'my team and I would stay, regardless of what happened.' 'The situation facing the 50 workers left at Fukushima is a nuclear operator's worst nightmare,' writes Friedlander. 'But the knowledge that a nuclear crisis could occur, and that we might be the only people standing in the way of a meltdown, defines every aspect of an operator's life.' The field attracts a very particular kind of person, says Friedlander, and the typical employee is more like a cross between a jet pilot and a firefighter: highly trained to keep a technically complex system running, but also prepared to be the first and usually only line of defense in an emergency. 'We will likely hear numerous stories of heroism over the next several days, of plant operators struggling to keep water flowing into the reactors, breathing hard against their respirators under the dim rays of a handheld flashlight in the cold, dark recesses of a critically damaged nuclear plant, knowing that at any moment another hydrogen explosion could occur.'"
The severity rating of the crisis has now been raised from 4 to 5 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, and Japan's Prime Minister called the situation "very grave."
There have been hydrogen explosions in a plant that has uncooled, exposed nuclear waste directly next to the explosions. 30km away radiation levels are 10 times higher than normal. The workers have been evacuated more than twice due to obscenely high radiation levels. I think you need to do your research.
I might be a little dramatic, but the increase in cancer occurrence is statistically noticeable at over 100 mSv/yr. The new limits in Japan are 250 mSv. The operators won't all get cancer and die, but staying has the potential to cost some operators a great deal many years down the road. It doesn't do any good to overstate the risk, but lets not sell them short either.
Go read the link in this comment:
The earthquake and the follow-on tsunami caused serious problems with several reactors. The problems built up over hours and days, requiring a lot of effort to mitigate them.. They are going to be expensive to fix, and to date have killed tens of people.
The earthquake also caused a dam to collapse, destroying 1800 houses in an essentially unstoppable catastrophe. Right now, nobody knows how many people were in those homes - if 1% of them were occupied, that dam has killed more people than all the reactors.
People on slashdot favor nuclear power because a lot of them have an engineering mindset - everything we do has tradeoffs, and nuclear in general has the best ones for big sources of electricity.
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The fact that a 40 year old plant, with technology two generations behind new reactors, has been hit by a magnitude 9 earthquake, and a tsunami has not caused a disaster (obviously, yet) is very reassuring.
You talk about someone else being plain ignorant, in a post that is packed to the rafters with hyperbolic attempts to overstate the events so far. No one who knows anything about radiation is worried about radiation levels reaching 10x background. That's 0.05mSv per day, less than what you pick up every fortnight.
I think using an ongoing event like this as a pro- or anti-nuclear is wrong. There will be lessons to learn later, and if it finishes without a disaster, I personally will be more confident in the safety of current and future nuclear plants.
250 mSv isn't a "new limit". The international limit for radiation exposure for nuclear workers is 20 mSv per year, averaged over five years, with a limit of 50 mSv in any one year, however for workers performing emergency services EPA guidance on dose limits is 100 mSv when "protecting valuable property" and 250 mSv when the activity is "life saving or protection of large populations."
You can argue whether or not what they're doing is "life saving or protection of large populations", but saying it's a "new limit" is a bit disingenious. It's an internationally agreed limit that was in place well before this disaster.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley