At Pro Publica, in an article titled Even In Worst Case, Japan's Nuclear Disaster Will Have Limited Reach Abrahm Lustgarten
. . . spoke with seven top nuclear engineers and scientists to at least establish some boundaries for the disaster�s potential health and environmental impacts. The rough consensus: The long-term and most severe effects from radiation at the plant, where�four of six reactors are in crisis�and hundreds of tons of spent fuel is a risk, will be largely contained to the area around the plant, affect a relatively limited population and will likely not spread outside Japan.So what, as Reuters reports, if the
. . . unprecedented multiple crisis will cost the world's third largest economy nearly $200 billion and require Japan's biggest reconstruction push since post-World War II.Uncovered by insurance because it was an act of God (however Old Testament)? No problem.
The highly specialized German Nuclear Reactor Insurance Association (DKVG) partially insured Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant to the tune of tens of millions of euros. But the Cologne-based insurer won't be paying anything.Never mind that when it comes to building new reactors, the Independent reports that "some estimates suggest extra safety will add at least another 10 per cent."
"We do have a stake in the risks in Japan, generally speaking. But the property insurance and liability insurance policies exclude damages from earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions," DKVG chief executive Dirk Harbr�told Deutsche Welle.
The case will be made that the Fukushima reactors, despite how old they were, survived both an earthquake and tsunami with attendant explosions, fires, and loss of water to spent fuel rods with minimal (by some standards, anyway) leakage of radiation into the atmosphere. Fukushima could turn into the gift that keeps on giving for nuclear energy advocates.
Except for one small stumbling block: because neither Fukushima's nor any other reactors have been attacked by terrorists, it remains to be seen how one would stand up to subversion from within, assault by ground troops, or a plane loaded with explosives crashing into it.
First posted at the Foreign Policy in Focus blog Focal Points.
At last. A rational observation about the Japanese reactors. Despite a staggering difference in lost lives between the nuclear accidents and the Earthquake/tsunami (ten thousand plus versus one or two) the nuclear accidents receive far more attention and generate far more anxiety.
ReplyDeleteSomeone in the UK observed that comparing energy sources coal is 100% nasty and carries known negative consequences to health and the environment, whereas nuclear power, by contrast, has a much cleaner record.
When certainties are compared with accidents, the accidents always seem to get the worst spin, don't they? Think of smoking, substance abuse and various behavioral addictions for other examples. All are ubiquitous but none receives much attention except when there is an accident resulting in greater losses than the predictable "normal" amounts. In the case of the Japanese tragedy, an accident triggered by a natural disaster, the accident gets more attention than the earthquake/tsunami which receives little more coverage than a hurricane.
Notice also how rapidly the metric of cost is applied to accidents. In the case of accidents we love cost-benefit analysis but shy away in the case of predictably catastrophic everyday behavior. Why else do we continue to build communities in known flood plains (in the case of New Orleans, below sea level)?
Yes, take away the panic component and nuclear energy looks pretty good. Because of it's geological location Japan is the perfect location to test a worst-case scenario. That is exactly what happened. And thus far one person died when he fell off a ladder or something. As for sabotage, water supplies, HVAC systems and airplane flights over a few hours are far more vulnerable to biological and chemical dangers.
What? Cancer, you say? I stand to be corrected, but the histories of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and others,the health consequences have been measurable in the immediate locations but insignificant elsewhere. My layman's guess that cancers and deaths from sunburn, smoking, substance abuse and even medical accidents in hospitals arfe mathematically much more significant.
I suspect the industry's greatest problem is going to be NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). Here in Oregon NIMBY has stopped at least two of the three proposed LNG proposed ports.
ReplyDeleteJohn, the consequences of nuclear accidents have been covered up for 50 years,
ReplyDeletesee my comment over here
http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2011/03/japans-faustian-bargain.html#comments
In a nut shell:
"At an international meeting headed by Hans Blix held the year after the event the Russians estimated that there would eventually be 40,000 deaths directly caused Chernobyl. There was no estimate of disease or birth defects. The Western experts ardently dismissed the number, over the weekend they argued the Russians down to 4000, which was conveniently the number arrived at by the UN in 2006. There are no overall statistical studies available; but raw numbers such as that 200,000 of the 500,000 member cleanup brigade have died is a terrible indicator, the majority of those men were young healthy soldiers who replaced the robots when the radiation ionized the circuit boards." over a 1/3 dead by 40 years of age.
I don't pretend any expertise in these matters but even if the numbers you cited are worse, my two points remain:
ReplyDelete1.) Even the most catastrophic accidents (many avoidable) tend to get far more attention than routine behaviors and events, ALL correctable, resulting in an even greater number of casualties.
2.) Coal in particular may be the dirtiest fossil fuel on the menu, producing a longer list of lost life-years than nuclear energy. Coal is the poster child for environmental damage, sickness and mortality when burned, not counting mining itself resulting in death and sickness worldwide before the product is even used. Mine deaths are a so commonplace they rarely make news.
(And I presume every nuclear accident --like car and plane crashes-- teaches something about safety other than the abandonment of nuclear altogether. Or maybe not; twenty-five years may have taught nothing.)
The thrust of my post in the other thread is that as long as the nuclear industry and governments are able to hide the mortal costs of nukes, the pressure required to demand newer, safer tech will not be there. The light water reactors that are in the majority of plants in the world are based on requirements created by the US navy to build nuclear submarines, those specs are quite different than a civilian reactor, it's like the difference between a F-18's engine and a 777's, weight and performance or reliability and fuel efficiency. False date results in bad decisions.
ReplyDelete