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FUKUSHIMA_EVACUATION

                                                     May 16, 2014

One of the worse things I've heard about
the Fukushima nuclear incident is the
large scale evacuations around the area,
and the fact that people have been prevented
from returning to this day.

I sometimes see my fellow pro-nuclear
people trying to dismiss this, arguing
for example, that it wasn't necessary to     It does often seems like
evacuate that large an area, that they       anti-nuclear activists do their
probably could let most return at this       best to whip people up into
point, and so on.                            hysteria, and then point to the
                                             hysterical reactions they achieve
                                             as a point on their side--

This seems to me to be
overstating the case to me.

By definition, when something like the
Fukushima incident is going down, something
really strange is happening-- there's a
problem happening that wasn't supposed to be
able to happen, things are in a worse state       It apparently took many
than anyone planned, and there's bound to be      months to establish that
a tremendous amount of uncertainty.               there's a continuing
                                                  leak, and years to pin
Under conditions like that, how are               down the point where the
you supposed to intelligently                     leak is happening.
estimate an evacuation radius?



              (On the other hand, a refusal to let most
              return is most likely largely a politically
              motivated decision-- consider the spectacle of
              needing to exercise caution about potentially
              contaminated milk and produce.  I would guess
              it's not that difficult to work out ways of
              living in the area safely, but the headaches
              involved in recommending radiation surveys and
              dosimeter checks and so on and trying to
              reassure people it's not *that* big a deal, but
              it's worth being cautious...)



   The usual angle I take on issues like
   this is to insist that people make an
   effort to do a fair accounting of lives    In other words, I think
   lost and economic and environmental        we should take a "risk
   damage, and average it out over the        neutral" approach to
   entire nuclear power industry.             decision-making.


   The Fukushima evacuations are an example
   where I don't think it would be easy to
   quantify the social trauma involved.          You might take this
                                                 as an area where
       Utilitarian calculus has                  it's sensible to be
       some problems...                          "loss averse".





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