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FUKUSHIMA


                                                September 23, 2013

I guess I gotta say something about Fukushima,
though I can't say I feel like all the facts
are in, even two years later...

But I'm still talking my
pro-nuclear line, and anyone
who hears me presumably things       How can I remain unshaken by
this is crazy, if only because       yet another Nuclear Disaster
of Fukushima.                        Which Threatens To Kill Us All
                                     And May Mean The End Of All of
                                     Civilization In Japan If Not
                                     The Entire Pacific Rim, And
                                     Haven't You Heard It's Leaking
                                     Leaking Leaking--
                                                           Sorry.



  In summary: I can be be reasonably
  sure I'm going to learn nothing
  about Fukushima that turns me
  against nuclear power, because of
  the sheer magnitude of the other
  problems that we have.

  Would it be worth a Fukushima every
  few decades if it meant we could           Could nuclear power be
  do away with, say, coal burning?  Yes.     made increasingly safe,
                                             so that we could expand
  Coal exhaust kills ~20k annually           it's use without any
  in the US.  It's also one of the main      Fukushima's at all? Yes.
  sources of greenhouse gases.



                                                  We've just seen a spate
  Sure, Fukushima sucks, and I                    of rail and plane accidents
  hope the now-established leakage                that have killed people--
  doesn't hurt too many people,                   I haven't heard anyone
  but nuclear material isn't some                 suggest that this means
  magically evil demonic substance                we must abandon trains
  that destroys all who dare to                   and planes.  Instead,
  tamper with it.                                 we investigate the causes,
                                                  and work out improved
  I have my doubts that we should                 safety proceedures.
  really be calling the Fukushima
  incident a "disaster"...                                        (Oct 24, 2014)
                                                     With Fukushima, there don't
  An earthquake and tsunami that kills               seem to be any deaths from
  20,000 people, now *that's* a disaster.            rad exposure. (None. That's
                                                     zero. Got it?  Can you
      I've talked to people in San Francisco         remember that?)  There are
      who are freaked out that some Fukushima        however deaths due to the
      contamination is supposedly detectable         evacuation.
      on this side of the ocean... but:
      (1) at this point, we can detect angels
      farting on the head of a pin,
      (2) radioactives are one of the easiest        Wouldn't it be cool
      things to detect.                              if we couild make
                                                     *all* poisons
      And more to the point, if you're living        radioactive?
      in San Francisco, the thing you should
      really be worrying about, the lesson           It'd be nice to know
      you should take away from all this is          immediately where all the
      "how are my earthquake supplies?".             agricultural pesticide
                                                     runoff is going...
      Japan got hit by a magnitude 9 earthquake.
      The Loma Prierta earthquake that had everyone
      in the Bay Area in a tizzy back in 1989?
      That had a magnitude of 7.  (actually: 6.9)
      Japan got nailed by one a 100 times
      stronger, and that could happen here at
      any time.





Some remarks of mine from May 31, 2013
(posted to slashdot):

   Obvious point to learn from Fukushima:
   the emergency pumps need to be up above
   the flood line.  One would hope that's          Instead, it sounds like
   easy enough to understand and fix, and          they're shutting down all
   one would hope they don't drag out the          nuclear facilities in
   necessary changes for too long.                 Japan.  It's not clear to
                                                   me that this is intended
                                                   to be permanent, but it
   There's admittedly a harder problem             could be.
   to solve pointed at by Fukushima:
   how do you prevent "regulatory
   capture"?  What can you do to make      A lot of the panic about this
   sure that watchdog agencies really      incident could be allayed if
   watch?                                  only people felt that the
                                           authorities would be straight
       (My impression is that              with them, and tell them what's
       the vulnerability of the            really going on.  Everyone
       cooling pumps to flooding           worries they're being lied to,
       was known, and ignored.             and not without reason.
       If that's not the case,
       then I've been suckered.)               You go around conning people
                                               and you end up with "credibility
                                               problems".  Funny thing, eh?


              Unfortunately, the fundamental
              problem here is hardly limited to
              the nuclear power industry.

                               It's difficult to see how to structure a
                               modern industrial society without regulatory
                               agencies, but over time there's a real risk
                               they'll become neutralized and gradually
                               become ineffective.


              Is there something inherently difficult
              about the case of nuclear power that
              exacerbates these problems?  Well, no,
              apparently not.  If you use any halfway
              reasonable metric for safety in power
              generation, like say deaths per kilowatt
              per year, nuclear power looks pretty good,
              and I predict it will still look pretty
              good, after the Fukushima incident plays
              out completely.


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