Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Nuclear Accident Study Puts Risks Into Perspective
An anonymous reader writes: A Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) study has concluded that there would be no detectable increase in cancer risk for most of the population from radiation released in a hypothetical severe nuclear accident. The CNSC's study is the result of a collaborative effort of research and analysis undertaken to address concerns raised during public hearings on the environmental assessment for the refurbishment of Ontario Power Generation's (OPG's) Darlington nuclear power plant in 2012. The draft study was released for public consultation in June 2014. Feedback from the Commission itself and comments from over 500 submissions from the public, government and other organizations have been incorporated in the final version. The study involved identifying and modelling a large atmospheric release of radionuclides from a hypothetical severe nuclear accident at the four-unit Darlington plant
is grab the car key
From the study: "The radiological exposure to people (beyond the first seven days) and its resulting short and long-term health impacts are not assessed in this study."
In other words, the flow of radionuclides through the environment, and expected specific dispersal and concentration pathways resulting in human exposure and the resulting cancers risks were not studied.
Damn, I knew we forgot something!
Back to the drawing board guys, we completely forgot the part where the entire population of the country is required to march single-file through ground zero!
But seriously: there's absolutely no question that being at ground zero is going to ruin your day, month, and probably even your year. But if you aren't right there or immediately downwind where the worst of the toxic heavy metals settle out of the air, the radiation becomes just slightly-above-background-level pretty quick.
There are four the types of arguments, of increasing power:-
1. Detailed technical arguments.
2. Simplistic factual arguments.
3. Emotional arguments.
4. Authoratative arguments.
Mugs like me tend to rely on detailed technical arguments. Simplistic factual arguments are much more powerful, but will always be trumped by an argument that appeals to people emotionally. And arguments from respected people in authority (like film stars) trump everything else.
So Nuclear = Nuclear Bombs = Satan. No amount of geeky statistical analysis can change that.
Nope. We NEED nuclear power to tide us over while 'alternative' sources of energy ramp up, to get us off fossil fuels as soon as possible. Even 'alternative' sources are just another level of 'band-aid' until practical fusion power is developed. In the meantime everyone needs to haul their internal-combustion vehicles to the scrapyard and go out and get an electric vehicle and have a charging station installed at home. Severe sanctions against countries that don't follow suit. If we jump on it right away we might be able to save the planet from being turned into a clone of Venus.
Funny, since the sun is actually nuclear energy.
Basically, it should have compared it to coal, as coal releases more radioactivity than nuclear. Small bits of radioactive thorium are found in coal mines, and when you mine the coal, you release it from the entombed safety. Then when you burn the coal, you release even more into the atmosphere. The radioactivity risk in the immediate vicinity of a coal burning plant is significantly greater than that of all nuclear power plants. Coal miners and plant workers are more likely to die of cancer than uranium miners and nuclear power plant workers (note, this only applies to the US industry, other countries may have different rates due to different regulatory strengths.).
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
how they could come to such a conclusion defies logic. As accidents, by their very nature are unpredictable.
Actually they aren't as unpredictable as you think. Predicting accidents and fallout scenarios underpins the entire process safety movement of modern process plants. The nuclear industry has some 50 years of experience and data on exactly how often every abnormal operating condition happens. They simple extrapolate as to what would happen if the abnormal operating condition is unable to be corrected (the hazard).
Have they factored in the lid of the containment vessel blowing off
Why would they? Primary containment explosion is an incredibly rare event. The only time an event has ever escalated to that level was with a 50 year old reactor design which had it's safety features disabled on purpose and was then run at an operating point that was known to be unstable on purpose. It was also done on a graphite moderated reactor with a huge positive power co-efficient which caused a runaway reaction. By comparison the reactor being talked about is a CANDU reactor which has a really low and only slightly positive power co-efficient making an explosion from within the containment vessel very unlikely. And that's before taking into account that the reactor commissioned in the 90s has very different and way better safety systems than one in the 70s.
Canadian nuclear accidents are polite and civilized. There is no way one would be so obnoxious as to actually cause anyone cancer.
Wow. I'll guarantee you there was a lot of politcking that went on behind this *COUGH* *COUGH* study. No way it was going to warn people of a potential for disaster. That would have been nipped at the bud from the outset.
PRO-TIP: The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission wants people to use nuclear power. Just "safely."
And for perspective, up to 2011only about 15 people had actually died of their thyroid cancer, out of a possible 10,000 affected. In fact, more people died in the initial explosion.
For even more perspective, twice as many people killed by guns in the US every day than died to thyroid cancer caused by Chernobyl in the entire time since the disaster.
We need to stop all forms of energy production until all the complaining idiots stfu and beg to turn it back on so the rest of civilization can advance unencumbered.
It would be totally worth the one or two day sacrifice. ZE day (zero energy day). Never forget.
Then come back and talk about it once we have a world power grid in place.
Until then, the fact that central Wath Libya, Papunya Australia and Kayenta Arizona are perfect environments for generating massive solar power doesn't help people in Patlong Lesotho, Christchurch New Zealand or Bangor Maine.
It's what's known as "putting the cart before the horse".
Sure, small-scale stuff gets done. But not everyone can afford to drop the cash for a solar array or a wind turbine.
And not every place is suitable for doing so. Or should homeowners in Chicago be forced to climb out on their second and third story rooftops after a blizzard, risking life and limb, just to sweep off their panels? The main problem is that the current grid system(s) (PLURAL) simply aren't built for the sort of distributed input that renewables represents.
Fission nuclear power works NOW. And can tide us over on base load as we ramp up a modern power grid and increase renewables production to handle peak loads. Together, they can tide us over until we can perfect fusion or another form of clean power (vacuum energy extraction anyone?)
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Nuclear accident = uninhabitable area
Coal under normal use = uninhabitable planet
I'm not pretending Nuclear is perfect but given the choice, I vote for Nuclear.
Nuclear energy is the last thing the public needs to worry about. The world pretty much has been poisoned over the last 100 years with toxic chemicals made by DuPont and 3M. Cancer, high cholesterol, endocrine disruption, diabetes, mental health....death. Poorly regulated chemicals are orders of magnitude more dangerous than the highly regulated nuclear industry.
Thyroid cancer in these individuals is caused by iodine-131 that was absorbed by the thyroid shortly after the Chernobyl incident. Anyone who is wearing a Chernobyl necklace was exposed to fallout within mostly the first eight days after the incident or to put it another way anyone who was in the area of fallout after May 5th, 1986 is unlikely to wear one.
Your statement is rather pointless as it does nothing to refute his point regarding long term habitation in the area post accident.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
And what has that got to do with primary containment failure?
The problems at Fukushima weren't that they didn't consider the risks, it's that they under-engineered the solutions. There was a tsunami wall, and the building was designed to withstand an earthquake. The up front risk assessment was not the problem.
We could just look up the home addresses of every person who sues to stop a power plant being built and just remove their power meters.
It would show how much they care about the environment to see how long they go without power.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?