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Japan Confirms First Radiation-Linked Death Out of Fukushima (bbc.co.uk)
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare announced for the first time that a man employed at the Fukushima nuclear power plant died of lung cancer linked to radiation exposure. "The man, who was in his 50s, died from lung cancer that was diagnosed in 2016," reports the BBC. "Japan's government had previously agreed that radiation caused illness in four workers but this is the first acknowledged death." From the report: The Fukushima reactor suffered meltdowns after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami in March 2011. Cooling systems were wrecked at the plant on Japan's north-east coast and radioactive material leaked out. The employee who died had worked at atomic power stations since 1980 and was in charge of measuring radiation at the Fukushima No 1 plant shortly after its meltdown. He worked there at least twice after it was damaged, and had worn a face mask and protective suit, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said. After hearing opinions from a panel of radiologists and other experts, the ministry ruled that the man's family should be paid compensation.
Indeed. Objecting to nukes because of safety is silly.
Objecting to nukes because of economics makes much more sense. They are far too expensive, and the cost is going up while the cost of solar, wind, and storage is falling.
You jest, but at this point, I think we'd get a lot more out of shuttering all our coal-based power-plants than yanking tobacco.
Most of the boomer smokers, many of whom took 'Tobacco is good for you' to their graves, are dead. Folks who smoke *today* don't only know they have it coming, but they've been told all about it by their doctors, teachers, and television for most if not all their lives. They're doing it to themselves and they know it.
What we need to address that problem is more education and recovery programs for tobacco addicts, just like with any other terribly addictive drug. (Opiate crisis deniers, I'm lookin' at you here.) Smokers need help. Blanket bans and kneejerks won't accomplish much.
While Nuclear plants need a hell of a lot more scrutiny than they're getting (Fukushima Daichi was a lot worse than it had to be because folks at Tokyo Electric Power Co were cuttin' corners to maximize personal profits -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...), they are, in general, ANGELS compared to the Coal industry.
For individuals, coal work is pretty damn deadly all on its own. Besides the twenty-odd thousand deaths from Black Lung (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalworker%27s_pneumoconiosis) each year, there are thousands of accidental deaths around the world in coal mines. We're actually a low point as safety regulations and technology advances. China is a pretty poor example compared to the U.S., which actually stays in the double digits these days. In 2013, the last year China has on public record, there were more than a thousand accidental deaths in coal mines. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_in_China#2013)
For communities, Coal Seam Fires are pretty damn serious problems, making whole towns uninhabitable. Coal fires dump 40 tons of mercury into the atmosphere, yearly, and are responsible for 3% of the worlds total CO2 emissions. They are, of course, almost, but not always triggered and/or made worse by mining. Imagine that!
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_seam_fire)
For the world as a whole, one of the major producers of CO2 emissions are hydrocarbon-/fossil fuel-burning electrical power plants. In the U.S., a little less than a third (28%) of our total CO2 emissions are from generating electricity. (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions) Additionally, about a third of our power is generated by Coal, and another third is generated by other fossil-fuel hydrocarbons including Natural Gas and Petroleum. (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)
Happily, the amount of renewable energy generated is growing and the amount of fossil-fuel energy is dropping. It's not enough, though. Nowhere NEAR enough.
If we just *bam* shut down all coal power-plants, (or better yet, Natural Gas plants too) and dealt with the economics of the situation, we'd take a massive bite out of our greenhouse gas emissions. I think the U.S. and most of Europe could do it as a whole, but that it may not be in the 'industrializing' world. We can hope that China manages. They talk a big gain, but, well, we know what kind of game China actually plays.
tl;dr: Global Warming is going to get a WHOLE lot worse before it gets better, and shutting down all our coal production would help a lot, and not just in that area.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
First hand collected scientific data.
I collected data with a calibrated geiger counter and wrote a paper on it. Admittedly in High School. I grew up near Three Mile Island. By "near", I mean, I could literally see it every day. Naturally, it was kinda mentioned in school quite a few times. One of the projects was literally going to the location where the the damaged reactor was removed, near the live reactor, across the river at the visitor/training center. I also included data points from my house. Radiation was near background. Close enough it was within the error of margin of a pretty decent geiger counter. Even within literal stone's throw from the worst civil nuclear incident in American history.
Because I wanted to do something bit different, I also included data from a coal plant and an incinerator down the river a couple miles. Incinerator was less radioactive than a smoke alarm. New facility, they filter the hell out of the output and check for that sort of thing. In case someone tosses a load of smoke alarms in their trash, as one example they mentioned. Coal plant was older and put off (from memory, so give me a bit of leeway) roughly between 3x and 5x background downwind. This was due to uranium and thorium traces in the coal. Very very tiny amounts. But builds up when you're burning a lot of coal. I didn't do an extremely through pattern, it was every quarter mile of a road for like two miles. Coal plant verified, and explained it was within allowed levels and they do have radiation monitors to shut things down if it went too high. There was actually a lot of cooperation between the local coal plants and TMI out of necessity as coal plants in the area can set off extremely sensitive internal alarms at TMI.
I probably realize I sound overly enthusiastic about nuclear power, but having grown up nearing the radiation alarms being tested every noon on Saturday for several years, I'm well aware of the potential risk.
The USAF ref I made was Constant Phoenix. Buddy of mine I know was formerly a pilot of it. His job was to fly through a nuclear weapon plume. Mostly they flew downwind from countries being suspected of developing rogue nuclear weapons. Obviously NK, but other countries as well. US coal plants were better than most back in his day, and better now. Other countries do not filter NEARLY as well, and shot out insane amount of uranium and thorium into the air in fly ash plumes. Obviously an aircraft designed to find signs of underground nuclear testing could see it, as it was designed for that specific purpose. So, they could and did navigate using it.