Katrina and Chernobyl compared.

An interesting graphic from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2005/09/23/GR2005092300689.html

more than 60 deaths for Chernobyl.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060418/ap_on_re_eu/chernobyl_greenpeace

KIEV, Ukraine - Greenpeace said Tuesday in a new report that more than 90,000 people were likely to die of cancers caused by radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, countering a United Nations report that predicted the death toll would be around 4,000.

The differing conclusions underline the contentious uncertainty that remains about the health effects of the world's worst nuclear accident as its 20th anniversary approaches.

A reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded on April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive clouds over much of Europe. The fallout was particularly severe in northern reaches of Ukraine, western Russia and Belarus.

Areas immediately around the now-inoperative plant remain off limits, but people in other areas that received significant fallout are anxious about their health.

I love that comparison too! :rofl:

Overconfidence deserves to be put in big bold letters though.

What other reactor??

The Soviet Union had an explosion in 1957 at its weapons complex, Chelyabinsk. This was a chemical explosion resulting from allowing the nitrate containing waste to go dry. A broad area was contaminated with fission products. I have no idea if the authorities in question were the same. In any case it was not a reactor explosion.

There may have been smaller accidents with RBMK's that were covered up. I note the Soviets tried to cover up Chernobyl, but the scale was too large for this to succeed.

Chernobyl was no cakewalk, even when compared to Katrina:

- 18 years after the disaster, the true health costs of Chernobyl's radiation bomb are still unknown.

Up to 2,000 children later developed thyroid cancer as a result of radiation. While some experts believe the cancer rate has peaked, others warn that it could take decades for all cancers to be detected.

Thousands of other fatal illnesses have also been blamed on the disaster. Less controversially, it is widely accepted that the accident has caused great economic and psychological hardship, especially among the hundred thousand people who had to be resettled.

"Eighteen years after the Chernobyl disaster, we are still unable to give an exhaustive picture of the consequences of this accident and its health implications," said Denise Adler, a radiation expert at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. "It can't be compared to any other environmental disaster."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0426_040426_chernobyl.html

I would submit that air pollution in New York City also causes health effects and premature death.

The difference between air pollution in New York City and Chernobyl is that Chernobyl was a system failure and air pollution in New York City results from normal operations.

It makes no sense, of course, to say that "Chernobyl was no cakewalk" unless you can prove that global climate change is a cakewalk. I would submit further, that we do not know the results of the toxic pollutants released by Katrina in New Orleans and many thousands of other cities, or the toxic pollutants released by Rita (yes, there was more than one hurricane last year).

The focus on Chernobyl is a fetish, and nothing more.

You have been an advocate for nuclear here. I'm in agreement with the concept that it will become increasingly important. But you don't gain converts to this cause by dismissing the impact(s) of an earlier disaster.

Look, I'm with you on the need for nuclear energy during the coming decades. I don't believe you do much to service that vision by offering up a comparison of the results of two disasters, one (Katrina) due to poor levee design/construction and tragically poor disaster efforts by the US government; and one due to poor reactor design, along with poor operator training and/or judgement. You have already stated in previous posts that US reactors don't have the design shortcomings of Chernobyl. I agree. One of the largest employers in my state is the INL, formerly INEEL. There is an enormous amount of work being done here on Gen-IV reactor research.

How about keeping the focus on the positives to be realized from this technology, without simultaneously relegating the victims of past tragedies to the dust-bin?

Post.

I think he is making a point that needs making in my view. But that said, re-examining my post, I was snappish and apologize.

Nevertheless the fact is that Chernobyl gets far too much focus. It's been microexamined to death. It has become a fetish. In my position I get to talk about Chernobyl practically every damn week. It annoys the fuck out of me, to be frank, because it has reached the point of being absurd. It's why I have to post crap about every coal miner who gets killed, or every detail of the risk of global climate change.

I know that Chernobyl happened; I understand what was involved; and I am not saying it is should not have garnered any attention whatsoever. No one is saying that the victims do not matter but then again, the people injured by Chernobyl do not represent a magic set of individuals whose losses exceed the losses of other people injured by industrial practice, including energy practice. Chernobyl is not even close to being the worst environmental disaster in history. It sets the limit on the worst case in nuclear power, and the the important thing is that the worst case is not the worst environmental disaster in history.

Energy has an external cost. Again, I am sorry that I came at you but mostly I am used to people serving up Chernobyl as a constituent of the special anti-nuclear fetish. I insist, angrily often, that the discussion have a context. That is why I created this thread.

I am constantly being reminded of my poor personality - as if having a pleasant personality directly affects the truth of one's statements. I don't have a pleasant personality, but the truth or falsity of my position should not depend on that. People always say "you will not convince people if you're so damned nasty!" But I ask in response, are we so superficial these days that we can only hear what is said politely? If I say sweetly that "up is down" while you scream "up is up, you fuck!" does it affect the nature of "up?" Is anger about the nature of reality never appropriate? Many people - although I am not included - seem to think that George W. Bush is an affable, nice guy. Still he never tells the truth. He is a liar and a fraud. Is the fact that he makes jokes while sending people to die for Halliburton make it more palatable? I, on the other hand, am an angry man, and the nature of my anger should be clear to all who know me. I am telling the truth: We could better afford 20 Chernobyls than we could afford global climate change.

There are many disasters that do not get as much attention - Bhopal for instance, or as I indicated, the daily effects of air pollution. You cannot get anyone to even acknowledge the serial dam failures in China in August of 1975 that killed hundreds of thousands of people in a single night, and still we must debate a few fatal thyroid cancers over a period of two decades from Chernobyl endlessly. This is muddle-headed.