Japan nuclear threat: The tsunami is the bigger tragedy

[RC]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12785274

18 March 2011 Last updated at 10:00 ET

Japan nuclear threat: The tsunami is the bigger tragedy

By David Spiegelhalter Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, Cambridge University

The apocalyptic visions of destruction brought by the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami have been largely replaced in the media this week by reports of the struggle to control radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.

This provides a gripping narrative - a brave team battling to contain the threat, warnings of catastrophe and claims of incompetence, families desperate to protect their children and leave the area.

But perhaps the media coverage tells us more about ourselves than it does about the threat of radiation.

>SNIP<

The perception of the extreme risk of radiation exposure is also somewhat contradicted by the experience of 87,000 survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who have been followed up for their whole lives.

By 1992, over 40,000 had died, but it has been estimated that only 690 of those deaths were due to the radiation. Again, the psychological effects were major.

Radiation does, however, feel acceptable when used in benign circumstances such as medical imaging. You can pay £100 ($160) and get a whole-body CT scan as part of a medical check-up, but it can deliver you a dose equivalent to being 1.5 miles from the centre of the Hiroshima explosion.

Because more than 70m CT scans are carried out each year, the US National Cancer Institute has estimated that 29,000 Americans will get cancer as a result of the CT scans they received in 2007 alone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12785274

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

1. really? I think the possibility of Tokyo becoming a Ghost Town is a pretty big deal.

13 Million People live there. It is 150 miles from Fukushima.

[Bonobo]

2. Recommended. Psychoogy is interesting, isn't it? nt

[RC]

5. I find Psychology quite interesting.

DU could be a good case study for someone's theses on what is needed for survival as a species vs "We're All Gonna Die of Radiation Poisoning" mentality of some.

The Earth cannot support the current population by Green means alone. The problem needs to be tackled with more logic then Humans at large seem to be capable of.
Our own arrogance about our supposed superiority is what will do us in.

[Dennis Donovan]

3. Yes, but you can rebuild after an eathquake/tsunami...

If the nuke plant has to be abandoned, the dead zone around it (30-40 mi radius) will be uninhabitable for centuries

[DCKit]

6. Sure, but just think of all the genetic improvements due to the toxic environment...

and the constant radiation levels.

Japan will become a nation of immortal supermen. :sarcasm:

[hunter]

4. The psychology of denial...

Focusing on the nuclear accident distracts from the far greater horror of the tsunami.

The consequences of building a nuclear plant in a tsunami zone were bad, the consequences of building cities, towns, and villages in tsunami zones were thousands of times worse.

[daleo]

12. All of Japan is a tsunami zone

As is much of the coast of North America.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. It's yet to play out, and far harder to measure, what the final ramifications will be,

Sounds like perception management (propaganda) to me.

I can only hope that the author is correct though.

[robdogbucky]

8. Correctomundo, HCE, and .....

What happened to that erudite Dr. Oehman and his learned opinion? That was all the rage, calming the ruffled feathers, until...the situation got much worse, and that thread was scrubbed.

Now, for some comforting news:

At California Nuclear Plant, Earthquake Response Plan Not Required

"As the world's attention remains focused on the nuclear calamity unfolding in Japan, American nuclear regulators and industry lobbyists have been offering assurances that plants in the United States are designed to withstand major earthquakes.

But the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which sits less than a mile from an offshore fault line, was not required to include earthquakes in its emergency response plan as a condition of being granted its license more than a quarter of a century ago. Though experts warned from the beginning that the plant would be vulnerable to an earthquake, asserting 25 years ago that it required an emergency plan as a condition of its license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fought against making such a provision mandatory as it allowed the facility to be built.

Officials at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility that operates Diablo Canyon, did not respond to calls seeking comment before the story was published. After publication, a spokesman for the company said the plant does have an earthquake procedure that had been implemented during a 2003 earthquake near the facility, and that staff are trained to respond. The company did not provide further details upon request.

As Americans absorb the spectacle of a potential nuclear meltdown in Japan -- one of the world's most proficient engineering powers -- the regulatory review that ultimately enabled Diablo Canyon to be built without an earthquake response plan amplifies a gnawing question: Could the tragedy in Japan happen at home?..."

http://m.aol.com/portal/file-01.do?file=N9992%2FN4133%2FN512344133%2Ftnsc-372415489.html

"...the commission is satisfied that the plant's structure will be able to withstand an earthquake in the area -- calculated as a maximum magnitude of 7.5...."


Really reassuring that such a decision was made by experts on the topic, eh?

Is it fascism yet?




"...Me, I'm waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I'm just trying to do my jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore..."

Jagger/Richards


rdb

[kenny blankenship]

9. This bulletin brought to you by the Committee For The Glowing Future

[meow mix]

10. Unrec, tasteless..

is it really the time for this? its not even over yet. fuck

[Johonny]

13. +1

[Bonobo]

16. You completely misread the thread IMO.

And you also seem to be one of the people that feels personally affronted when things don't fit into your "nuclear disaster" theme perfectly.

I do not understand it.

[jpak]

11. The nuclear crisis is not over and winds will spread high levels of radiation inland this weekend

Large - but yet unquantified - amounts of radionuclides have been dispersed over Japanese coastal waters - waters that produce Japan with nearly half its seafood.

There has been no assessment of fallout from Fukushima on Japanese rice production.

No one knows what the true magnitude of this disaster will be.

unreccing

yup

[RC]

14. Apparently facts that don't feed into the anti-nuke fear mongers

paranoia aren't welcome. If this were a story about the radioactive cloud sweeping toward Tokyo and leaving a dead zone behind it, ya'all be as happy as pigs in shit because it would be feeding into your delusions. Well sorry people, not everything happening over there is as black as you seem to want it to be.

[Bonobo]

15. That is exactly the thing. +1

I see, more and more, a kind of disaster porn mentality here.

Anything that spells doom or shows the tragedy gets recs and responses, anything putting it into perspective or suggesting a less than disastrous outcome gets unrecced and spit on,

As I said in an earlier thread ages ago it seems, there is something going on here psychologically that says much more about where the rest of the world is at then where Japan is at.

Disaster porn is the best way I can think of to describe it.

[Fumesucker]

17. Nuclear power is an emotional topic to a lot of people, like it or not..

When you stop and think about it something you cannot see, taste, smell or hear that will take you out is a pretty good emotional description of death itself.

People are very poor in general at risk assessment, this is just part and parcel of it.

And then part of it is (arguably justified) mistrust of government/industry in general, the good news is to an extent thought to be untrue propaganda.