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Comment by Moldoteck | Hacker News Reader

Radiation data was known. Due to sensors outside of the plant area. Jp govt ignored it.

Even more so, after the accident when the situation was certain, evacuation orders weren't immediately cancelled to let people back into their homes despite the dose being very low, in some cases even below natural background radiation levels in other areas of Japan

Unnecessary evacuation killed over 2.3k people. That's half of waht are expected to die fron Chernobyl accident over a century per UN or about 5 times more vs nr of expected deaths per updated UNSCEAR reports. Fear of nuclear killed more people than nuclear itself ij this case

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You’re still missing the point.

Radiation data was known. But that assumes that it can’t change.

How can you assume that nothing will change for nuclear plant undergoing hydrogen explosions which you’ve lost all control over?

I think you know this, which is why your stuck in hindsight and trying to shift the discussion to other topics.

There's no need to do such harsh rushed evacuation even if situation was much worse as Chernobyl proves. Many that died from evacuation were old or sick people that wouldn't have had symptoms even if it was as bad as Chernobyl (even though it would be physically impossible to have uranium burning into clouds there like in Chernobyl due to design difference)

What's worse, after situation was known and stabilized, government didn't cancel evacuation orders but kept them for years even though the dose was small.

I'm not shifting the discussion but telling the reality, a reality that killed many people even though they could have lived https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014919702...

Which is again hindsight trying to downplay what was at hand.

How do you know it wouldn’t become worse than Chernobyl when you have lost control?

This is all hindsight speaking trying to downplay what risks nuclear power poses, because accepting them means letting go of your precious.

All nuclear planes plan ahead. Evacuation zones. Handing out emergency radius, iodine tablets.

When faced with a situation that is out of control you execute the plan. You don’t second guess if it is actually needed.

That for the incident report to specify, and then update the plan.

The response to Fukushima was even wider evacuation plans. Stress testing them. Better resiliency for the plants.

We did change. But not in the direction you want when attempting to downplay Fukushima.

Why are you so afraid of renewables and storage?

Because you can't have Chernobyl by design. Like physically.

Nobody is downplaying the risks- not evacuating sick people and old people would have done far less damage regardless of the incident outcome. They just wouldn't have lived enough or a very small nr would have been affected

And as said, what's worse. When incident was tackled and radiation levels known, govt didn't rush to lift the orders causing even more deaths.

I'm not afraid of renewables and bess and never said that, don't put words in my mouth. I just realize that without nuclear countries will be bound to expanding gas firming if they dont have hydro, just like Germany. We can make a bet that even in 30y German emissions per kwh will still be worse than french ones due to this firming. In other words due to antinuclear policy in 50y of energiewende Germany will still have worse emissions vs France which did the job in about 20y of Messmer

Still. What the industry learnt after Fukushima was to tighten the and stress test the plans. An even stronger mandate to "within this area always evacuate".

Looking at what is happening gas usage is cratering all over Europe. What you are saying is someone assuming nothing will ever change. Even though BESS and renewables are completely reshaping the markets.

Justifying your standpoint by that the renewable industry in the early 2000s didn't deliver enough results.

But you do realize that we live in 2026 right? That is an entirely different beast. That is the industry that is delivering all new capacity globally and causing Indias and Chinas coal usage to decline in absolute terms.

And that industry will continue to scale. While you're stuck advocating for the technology that doesn't even complement it.

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