Nuclear Power Radiation — Part 2

Radiation from Facility Accidents, Man-made Disasters, and Natural Disasters  

John Droz jr. May 07, 2024 @ Critically Thinking About Select Societal Issues

Recently, I posted a commentary arguing that there are good reasons to categorize Nuclear power as a “renewable” source of electrical energy, followed by another post: Nuclear Power Radiation — Part 1. That outlined radiation from normal nuclear power operations, waste, and misc. This Part 2 will briefly cover the rest of the well-known nuclear radiation possibilities…

1 - Nuclear Power Accidents

US nuclear power facilities are built to be extraordinarily safe. Even when there are accidents, there are backup systems — and often backups to the backups. The most familiar nuclear accident to us is the Three Mile Island problem in 1957. This summary states it well:

“A cooling malfunction caused part of the core to melt in a reactor, resulting in a limited off-site release of radioactivity over a multi-state area. Doses off-site were less than normal background radiation.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined the accident “led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community.”

Considering the consequences, the rhetoric about this event seems out of proportion.

2 - Nuclear Power Man-Made Disasters 

The most famous case here was in Chernobyl (Ukraine: 1986). What is rarely covered by mainstream media (surprise!) is: a) there are no other nuclear reactors in the world that have the Chernobyl design, and b) the reactor failure was reportedly caused purposefully — i.e., it was not an accident.

The truth of what happened may be as evasive as the full story of the Kennedy assassination. My understanding (from reliable sources), was that there was a dispute within the facility between two groups (let’s say engineers and administrators). The issue reportedly was who was really in charge? Each group tried to “prove” to the other that they were in control — and in the process they purposefully shut off several safety mechanisms. The 100% predictable result was a catastrophic failure.

This is a reasonable account about this disaster (which soft-pedals the dispute part). Despite all the alarmism, the official total is only 45± deaths:

The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has concluded that:

a) two Chernobyl plant workers died due to the explosion on the night of the accident,

b) 28 people died within a few weeks as a result of acute radiation syndrome, and

c) there have been 15 fatalities from thyroid cancer. Other than those 45± deaths, "there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure 20 years after the accident."

3 - Nuclear Power Natural Disasters  

The classic case here is Fukushima (Japan: 2011). Again, my understanding (from reliable sources) is not what has generally been reported. The two indisputable facts are: a) Japan was hit by a tsunami, generated by a record undersea earthquake, and b) the tsunami was so large that it flooded the diesel backup power units (sitting on the ground), that were there to properly shut down the core in an emergency.

The part that I heard was that Japanese officials had been advised prior to this event, that to be extra safe, they should elevate the backup diesel generators off the ground. That had not been done. If it had been there very likely would have been no nuclear power failure. That said, considering that there never had been anything remotely like that tsunami, their delay is understandable.

Let’s keep things in perspective:  

a) there were about 20,000 deaths due to the tsunami, and  

b) less than ten fatalities due to the nuclear power plant failures. Here is a reasonably balanced discussion of the Fukushima nuclear disasters

Takeaway Regretfully, what the mainstream media reports on any nuclear facility problem, is not an objective, factual explanation, but rather an alarmist exaggeration of reality. In other words, once again political science is trying to take over Real Science.

Considering that there are some 435 operating nuclear power facilities (worldwide), and almost all are operating basically 24/7/365, the safety of nuclear power is exceptionally good. Worldwide, over the last 60± years, less than 100 people have died from a nuclear power plant failure.

By comparison, there have been WAY more deaths related to industrial wind turbines! (See this table, where the good people tabulating the data stopped keeping track in 2012, due to the huge increase in workload.)

Another perspective is that 40,000± people die annually from US car accidents, that would roughly translate to 2 million deaths over the same 60± year period.

This is yet another example of why having critically thinking citizens is the best defense against dishonest and ignorant purveyors of information. Remember that fear is the primary tool used to control people…

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Here are other materials by this scientist that you might find interesting:

• Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.
• WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.
• C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.
• Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.
• Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2023 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?

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