What he's saying is that nobody is offering you the choice to "stand next to" radioactive byproducts from coal emissions. If you breathe the air on planet Earth, the decision has been made for you.
By the way, yes, you've shown me "numbers", but my point is that numbers referring to the masses of radioactive material released by various events are not, in themselves, meaningful.
So, if you insist, here are my numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, 69, 105, 3.1416, 2.718, 1.414, 12. They're just as useful in this discussion.
No. I have seen no evidence that the one-time release of a small amount of radioactivity into the ocean five thousand miles away could possibly be a significant threat to my health.
If I were worried about "orders of magnitude difference," I would be much more concerned the long-term effects of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific than I would be about Fukushima.
... don't undersell the very real risk of idiots in charge of large dangerous equipment.
Indeed, no argument there.
But at least the potentially-dangerous incidents you mention were documented by someone, even if they ended up buried in an obscure NRC report. These reports don't always make the five o'clock news, but they are certainly useful to the regulators, engineers, and environmental scientists involved with designing the next generation of nuclear power plants.
On the other hand, nobody is documenting what happens when you and I inhale radionuclides that were released into the atmosphere by fossil-fuel combustion, potentially thousands of miles away from us. We can draw general conclusions about pollution levels and trends, but at the point where the damage is actually done, it always goes unnoticed. The prevailing attitude in the media is, "Hey, nobody saw it. It must not be a problem, right?"
That's the point that has to be made in threads like this one, over and over, to keep everyone honest.
Actually it reflects my understanding, which is backed by scientific evidence, that particulates spewed into the air by coal plants as far away as mainland China are more likely to end up in my body than emissions from the damaged containment structures at Fukushima or Chernobyl.
Do you have evidence to the contrary that you'd like to share with the class?
In Japan even people who moved away are shunned and have trouble with employment and in school.
Are you seriously suggesting that nuclear technology should be blamed for this?
This is only a partial list from the linked page.
That site has all the credibility of Art Bell, Jenny McCarthy, and the Drudge Report, all rolled into one. I would like to see specific peer-reviewed studies in credible literature, not vague hand-waving gestures from people who don't understand the difference between correlation and causation.
What, do I look like a librarian? It's the glasses, right?
Operational power reactors, worldwide: Approximately 430
Research reactors: Approximately 250
Ship/submarine reactors: Approximately 180
Formerly operational but decommissioned commercial and research reactors: Approximately 350
Total # of scary asploded nucular reactors I can think of offhand: 3 (including Three Mile Island which resulted in negligible radiation leakage and no deaths)
Source: Yahoo Answers and associated links to world-nuclear.org
Prior to joining Electronic Arts, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the worldwide bakery division at Sara Lee Corporation. He also served as President and CEO of Wilson Sporting Goods Co. and held executive positions at Haagen-Dazs, PepsiCo, Inc. and The Clorox Company. Mr. Riccitiello holds a Bachelors of Science degree from University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Riccitiello lives with his wife and children in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I guess he decided to apply at EA after he made his mark on the ice cream, bleach, sugar water, and coffee cake industries.
Sounds like a real gamer's gamer. I wonder where he'll end up next? Monsanto? Amway? JC Penney? General Motors?
I posted a reply to a comment in a story a few days ago where I pointed out the same thing, namely that peoples' common sense and ability to assess risks both go straight out the window when the word 'nuclear' is mentioned.
But further down the thread, someone responded with some fairly disturbing links describing what sounds like an extremely high incidence of thyroid damage (or at least potential damage) in children near the Fukushima site. How seriously are these claims being taken? If even some of this stuff is true, perhaps we aren't doing a good enough job at gathering data about the effects of the Fukushima accident. If that's true, then my existing opinion becomes harder to support.
The truth was certainly the first casualty at Chernobyl. In addition to the usual prompt pronunciations of global doom from the simply-uninformed, other people with specific political motives waved monstrous images of deformed children around, claiming that they were harmed by radiation during pregnancy. Only later did it come to light that the photos were taken in an existing home for special-needs children who were nowhere near Chernobyl and whose health problems had no possible connection to it.
So... is someone trying to pull the same bullshit again... or should ozmanjusri's post be taken seriously?
Radiation in Fukushima was manmade, and the inadequate safety features and inept management seem to be common problems with nuclear (and other) power plants.
Yeah, for definitions of "common" of perhaps one in a thousand.
Of course, coal plants kill people when working as intended, but it doesn't look scary on CNN, so nobody cares.
Interesting how I'm suddenly the guy committing logical fallacies, while the comment thread in question began when someone invoked the "typical engineer mentality."
You want central planning, right? You want education to be controlled from the top down, by people you have never even met, right? You want the system to be enforced through the coercive power of government, right?
In cases where it's the only way to give children equal opportunties in life? Yes. It's clear that anything other than centrally-planned K-12 education results in children in Kentucky being taught false things while children in New York are taught true things. That's not OK.
I believe that corruption and negligence are what allow some plants to be built in unsafe places, using unsafe methods, and operated under unsafe conditions. Plants that are operated according to known best practices simply do not fail catastrophically.
If you want to refute that, you need to propose an alternative explanation of why most nuclear plants never experience life-threatening emergencies while a few others almost seem to have been engineered to fail. Since we clearly know how to do the job, what else but corruption and negligence explains a Chernobyl or Fukushima?
Unfortunately, reality is not on your side in this debate. The fact is that you're subjected to natural ionizing radiation twenty-four hours a day, regardless of where you live or how far from civilization you are. Deal with it and get over it. The rest of us already have.
The objectionable aspect of radionuclide emissions from coal plants is exactly the same as the overall problem with carbon-based energy sources in general. As long as the coal is left in the ground, its combustion products don't end up in our atmosphere, and in our lungs.
I'm not familiar with regulations pertaining to acceptable radionuclide leakage from nuclear plants, so will not comment on that except to point out that again, we already have to live with ionizing radiation in our environment, and we have evolved to handle small amounts of it without extensive damage. The old 60s-era saw "There is no safe dose of radioactivity" is total BS.
Interesting links, but have you seen the other articles on the front page of businessinsider.com? If you have anything more credible that backs up the claims of widespread thyroid cysts in children, I'd genuinely appreciate a pointer to it.
Oh, sorry, I thought the subject of the subthread was whether coal plants emit more radioactive pollution, on a becquerel for becquerel basis, than malfunctioning nuke plants. I really should read more carefully.
Slashdot Mirror
What he's saying is that nobody is offering you the choice to "stand next to" radioactive byproducts from coal emissions. If you breathe the air on planet Earth, the decision has been made for you.
I'll hold you to the same standard: you show me the peer reviewed articles that there is not a problem
I'll get around to that as soon as I document the nonexistence of God to settle an argument with some creationists two stories down.
Lots of scary-sounding talk, no citations as usual.
By the way, yes, you've shown me "numbers", but my point is that numbers referring to the masses of radioactive material released by various events are not, in themselves, meaningful.
So, if you insist, here are my numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, 69, 105, 3.1416, 2.718, 1.414, 12. They're just as useful in this discussion.
Sorry, I'm not a researcher. Any actual figures are going to have to come from you, or a source you trust, not me.
No. I have seen no evidence that the one-time release of a small amount of radioactivity into the ocean five thousand miles away could possibly be a significant threat to my health.
If I were worried about "orders of magnitude difference," I would be much more concerned the long-term effects of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific than I would be about Fukushima.
... don't undersell the very real risk of idiots in charge of large dangerous equipment.
Indeed, no argument there.
But at least the potentially-dangerous incidents you mention were documented by someone, even if they ended up buried in an obscure NRC report. These reports don't always make the five o'clock news, but they are certainly useful to the regulators, engineers, and environmental scientists involved with designing the next generation of nuclear power plants.
On the other hand, nobody is documenting what happens when you and I inhale radionuclides that were released into the atmosphere by fossil-fuel combustion, potentially thousands of miles away from us. We can draw general conclusions about pollution levels and trends, but at the point where the damage is actually done, it always goes unnoticed. The prevailing attitude in the media is, "Hey, nobody saw it. It must not be a problem, right?"
That's the point that has to be made in threads like this one, over and over, to keep everyone honest.
You choose this post, which reveals your bias
Actually it reflects my understanding, which is backed by scientific evidence, that particulates spewed into the air by coal plants as far away as mainland China are more likely to end up in my body than emissions from the damaged containment structures at Fukushima or Chernobyl.
Do you have evidence to the contrary that you'd like to share with the class?
Lone hero gathers friends to save the universe while romancing the cute members of the party.
That does seem to be a common plot. Somebody should look into it.
In Japan even people who moved away are shunned and have trouble with employment and in school.
Are you seriously suggesting that nuclear technology should be blamed for this?
This is only a partial list from the linked page.
That site has all the credibility of Art Bell, Jenny McCarthy, and the Drudge Report, all rolled into one. I would like to see specific peer-reviewed studies in credible literature, not vague hand-waving gestures from people who don't understand the difference between correlation and causation.
Nobody cares about total radiation emitted. Nothing matters except where the radiation ultimately ends up.
What, do I look like a librarian? It's the glasses, right?
Operational power reactors, worldwide: Approximately 430
Research reactors: Approximately 250
Ship/submarine reactors: Approximately 180
Formerly operational but decommissioned commercial and research reactors: Approximately 350
Total # of scary asploded nucular reactors I can think of offhand: 3
(including Three Mile Island which resulted in negligible radiation leakage and no deaths)
Source: Yahoo Answers and associated links to world-nuclear.org
I love the CEO's bio:
I guess he decided to apply at EA after he made his mark on the ice cream, bleach, sugar water, and coffee cake industries.
Sounds like a real gamer's gamer. I wonder where he'll end up next? Monsanto? Amway? JC Penney? General Motors?
I posted a reply to a comment in a story a few days ago where I pointed out the same thing, namely that peoples' common sense and ability to assess risks both go straight out the window when the word 'nuclear' is mentioned.
But further down the thread, someone responded with some fairly disturbing links describing what sounds like an extremely high incidence of thyroid damage (or at least potential damage) in children near the Fukushima site. How seriously are these claims being taken? If even some of this stuff is true, perhaps we aren't doing a good enough job at gathering data about the effects of the Fukushima accident. If that's true, then my existing opinion becomes harder to support.
The truth was certainly the first casualty at Chernobyl. In addition to the usual prompt pronunciations of global doom from the simply-uninformed, other people with specific political motives waved monstrous images of deformed children around, claiming that they were harmed by radiation during pregnancy. Only later did it come to light that the photos were taken in an existing home for special-needs children who were nowhere near Chernobyl and whose health problems had no possible connection to it.
So... is someone trying to pull the same bullshit again... or should ozmanjusri's post be taken seriously?
Radiation in Fukushima was manmade, and the inadequate safety features and inept management seem to be common problems with nuclear (and other) power plants.
Yeah, for definitions of "common" of perhaps one in a thousand.
Of course, coal plants kill people when working as intended, but it doesn't look scary on CNN, so nobody cares.
Interesting how I'm suddenly the guy committing logical fallacies, while the comment thread in question began when someone invoked the "typical engineer mentality."
You want central planning, right? You want education to be controlled from the top down, by people you have never even met, right? You want the system to be enforced through the coercive power of government, right?
In cases where it's the only way to give children equal opportunties in life? Yes. It's clear that anything other than centrally-planned K-12 education results in children in Kentucky being taught false things while children in New York are taught true things. That's not OK.
Not if the authority is qualified. Otherwise, why bother consulting a doctor or lawyer on a medical or legal matter?
(Shrug) I'm fine with that. You can lease the necessary space from me.
Yeah, that's really helpful.
I believe that corruption and negligence are what allow some plants to be built in unsafe places, using unsafe methods, and operated under unsafe conditions. Plants that are operated according to known best practices simply do not fail catastrophically.
If you want to refute that, you need to propose an alternative explanation of why most nuclear plants never experience life-threatening emergencies while a few others almost seem to have been engineered to fail. Since we clearly know how to do the job, what else but corruption and negligence explains a Chernobyl or Fukushima?
Unfortunately, reality is not on your side in this debate. The fact is that you're subjected to natural ionizing radiation twenty-four hours a day, regardless of where you live or how far from civilization you are. Deal with it and get over it. The rest of us already have.
The objectionable aspect of radionuclide emissions from coal plants is exactly the same as the overall problem with carbon-based energy sources in general. As long as the coal is left in the ground, its combustion products don't end up in our atmosphere, and in our lungs.
I'm not familiar with regulations pertaining to acceptable radionuclide leakage from nuclear plants, so will not comment on that except to point out that again, we already have to live with ionizing radiation in our environment, and we have evolved to handle small amounts of it without extensive damage. The old 60s-era saw "There is no safe dose of radioactivity" is total BS.
Interesting links, but have you seen the other articles on the front page of businessinsider.com? If you have anything more credible that backs up the claims of widespread thyroid cysts in children, I'd genuinely appreciate a pointer to it.
Of course!
Oh, sorry, I thought the subject of the subthread was whether coal plants emit more radioactive pollution, on a becquerel for becquerel basis, than malfunctioning nuke plants. I really should read more carefully.