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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.
The first two were found in the basement turbine room a few days after the accident. But if "out of Fukushima" implies "out of" as opposed to "in", sure.
However, this was the worst accident and it required ppl to go in due to screw-ups. So, yeah, there will be more.
This is why we need SMRs, or 4th gen reactors, that will not have these issues.
Problem is, that 3rd gen reactors continue to be built. Worst, we have given the tech for 3rd gen to China and they, with their quality, are now building those reactors.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
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This death is not medically attributed to Fukushima. It is simply the result of a legal requirement that all cancers in workers who worked at Fukushima and got a certain level of exposure be attributed to Fukushima so that they cover medical costs. Its a social/cultural thing they do,
... ipad-share1
‘Safety regulators say workers can be safely exposed to up to 50 millisieverts a year, but if a worker with an accumulated 100 millisieverts develops an illness after five years of exposure, that can be ruled an occupational injury. According to an expert cited by the Mainichi Shimbun, a daily newspaper, the man had been exposed to 74 millisieverts at the Fukushima plant since the accident.’
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...
Medical science tells us that such a cancer is highly unlikely to be caused by exposures at these levels. There is a huge body of science to back this up.
Too easy to fool the media. Does anybody even think about the details.