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Comment by nihonde | Hacker News Reader

Yes. Not sure why I’m being downvoted. There is no question that if the spare/spent fuel were exposed to air, the resulting radiation would have required evacuation of a 150+ mile radius. They originally brought in an elite firefighting team to refill the pools for this exact reason.

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No question that they would have evacuated, sure. But also little question that it would not have been required.

It's interesting how fearful nuclear energy makes people. The worst disaster in the history of nuclear energy, Chernobyl, will over the full course of time cause 4,000 premature deaths as estimated by the IAEA. This figure includes first responders sent in by the USSR with inadequate protections.

"A United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) study estimates the final total of premature deaths associated with the disaster will be around 4,000 mostly from an estimated 3% increase in cancers, which are already common causes of death in the region." Interestingly, the most common cancer it caused was thyroid (due to the Iodine-131 released), which has a 98% survival rate. [1, 3]

Whereas, currently, burning of fossil fuels is killing 7.3 million (1825 Chernobyls -- 4x the total number of civil nuclear reactors on Earth) per year.

"According to the World Health Organization in 2012, urban outdoor air pollution, from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass is estimated to cause 3 million deaths worldwide per year and indoor air pollution from biomass and fossil fuel burning is estimated to cause approximately 4.3 million premature deaths."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

[3] https://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/thyroid-cancer/statistic...

Is that what this downvoting bloc is about? Very odd and misplaced, since I have no bias whatsoever against nuclear power.

I’m stating facts about the response to the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini incidents.

Here’s another little known fact: the plant was designed by GE, including the placement of power supply units needed to run the pumps. This design was challenged but TEPCO chose to defer to GE’s expertise and stick to their design for the site.

It is not just directly related deaths, but also the area of land made un-inhabitable and the duration for which it will remain un-inhabitable. And the fact that we have no workable way of dealing with the waste. Sure it only take a small storage space, but it will be lethal for a million years to come.

I think there would be if we chose to invest in it, but it's a chicken and egg problem. The optics preclude investment which precludes development of ways of dealing with the waste. Nuclear power is sort of on hiatus. For instance, Thorium cycle reactors require no enrichment, product two to three orders of magnitude less nuclear waste (whose products have much shorter half-lives) and are much safer than Uranium cycle reactors -- though research only really resumed in 2008 after a 30 year break.

One ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tons of Uranium, or 3,500,000 tons of coal.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

Wildlife gets another chance with the land being uninhabitable by humans for 300 years until Cs137 and Sr99 pass 10 lifetimes. A million years is a gross exageration. There are also people currently living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. They even have a name: samosely.

They actually continued to operate two of the other reactors at the Chernobyl power plant until Unit 2 was closed in 1991 and Unit 3 in 2000. [1] How crazy is that?

[1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chernobyl-1-3-en...

Well, it was the USSR.

'Gorbachev states, “The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later”'

http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2017/8/21/the-reaso...

Where can I find information about the potential requirement for evacuation within a 150+ mile radius? I didn't downvote, just interested in learning more.

I recommend the Nova episode about the 3/11 incident, which is streaming on Amazon Prime. Also, lots of sources online discuss the machinations behind the press conferences: http://world.time.com/2012/02/29/panel-government-told-peopl...

More like 80 km or 50 miles US Advisory Zone and a 20-30 km evacuation zone initially. The actual pattern is a 50 km by 12 km trace extending NNW.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushi...

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