Fukushima vs Deep water

[ferrelhadley]

Which one do you believe is the greater disaster?

 

[TruXta]

In terms of what?

 

[stuff_it]

It depends if you are a pelican or a people....

 

[elbows]

I think they are pretty similar in many ways, but we are lacking a lot of info about both of them, and the real impact will only be judged by the consequences over many decades anyway.

 

[spacemonkey]

I think Japan will clean up Fukushima better than BP and the US will clean up the gulf of mexico sea bed.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

They are both terrible disasters of a very different sort. The human life / livelyhoods lost and the uncertain future of north Japan is horrific and perhaps more visible than BPs cock up. Dead people are still floating around, every day I see terrible terrible stories on the news all day. The Fukushima plant itself is not visibly such a huge disaster.

 

[stuff_it]

I think Japan will clean up Fukushima better than BP and the US will clean up the gulf of mexico sea bed.

Japan may well end up putting in more time, money and effort into the clean-up, but whether that will mean that the end result has less long term effect on the environment is a matter of conjecture as we don't really know how bad it will get first.

 

[xes]

There's still loads of BP stuff going on. They found corexit in human blood, so I don't think we've heard the last of it. (well, in media terms we have, because there's been a total blackout on the shit going on out there) Enviromentally, I think Deepwater will have the longest lasting effects. I guess as Fukishima is on the ground, it'll be that much easier to eventually fix. But they're both pretty large enviromental dissasters.

 

[xes]

It depends if you are a pelican or a people....

http://current.com/news/93090046_th...lean-up-crew-are-dying-video-of-the-dying.htm

People are dying from Deepwater.

 

[xes]

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/201138152955897442.html
http://bpoil.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/health-concerns-persist-over-gulf-coast-oil-spill-al-jazeera/
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/gsolomon/when_a_community_is_sick_gulf.html

 

[stuff_it]

http://current.com/news/93090046_th...lean-up-crew-are-dying-video-of-the-dying.htm

People are dying from Deepwater.

Yes but far more people are likely to have adverse health effects from Fukushima, is just that they will have more trouble proving to what extent. Effects of radioactive spread are so much harder to quantify and cover more of the globe.

 

[xes]

That also, sadly, is very true.

 

[ferrelhadley]

I think Fukushima will have no discernable impact on the natural world. At worst it will put an area 30km around the plant out of human habbitation for a generation.

Deep water did have a major impact on the local ecology but one that it can recover from. The warm water and open ocean that the disaster occured in will mean the oil will largly be broken up and consumed by bacteria over the medium term.

I think they are both like train crashes, we notice them when they happen, but like the constant drum beat of car deaths its the day to day pollution and toxins that are causing the real problems.

 

[spacemonkey]

I think they are both like train crashes, we notice them when they happen, but like the constant drum beat of car deaths its the day to day pollution and toxins that are causing the real problems.

Spot on. I think this is the same reason nuclear power seems to generate far more public hostility than coal, oil and natural gas.

 

[dilute micro]

I think Fukushima will have no discernable impact on the natural world. At worst it will put an area 30km around the plant out of human habbitation for a generation.

Deep water did have a major impact on the local ecology but one that it can recover from. The warm water and open ocean that the disaster occured in will mean the oil will largly be broken up and consumed by bacteria over the medium term.

I think they are both like train crashes, we notice them when they happen, but like the constant drum beat of car deaths its the day to day pollution and toxins that are causing the real problems.

I think it's worth remembering that there were essentially 2 spills in the gulf - one was oil and the other was the oil dispersant Corexit which we have no clue what it will do. It was all a chemistry experiment which will take decades to result. But I voted for Fukushima because we know what it will do. Maybe 20 years from now I'd change my opinion. Wrecked nuclear power plants weird me out though.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Another perspective

Radiation dose rates at Iitate dropped below 10 microsievert/hour as of March 25 and are now below 5 microsievert/hour. If the Iitate dose rate stabilised permanently now, people living there would sustain annual dose rates of 44 millisievert. If levels continue to descend along the curve seen thus far the dose in the first year would be below 20 millisievert and less thereafter.

For comparison:

Nuclear powerplant workers, whose cancer rate is somewhat lower than in the general population (probably because they don't smoke so much) are allowed to sustain 50 millisievert in any one year in normal times and average doses across five years of 20 millisievert/yr.

More than 140,000 people who live in the Indian states of Kerala and Madras receive average doses above 15 millisievert every single year of their lives from background radiation. Many Brazilians and Sudanese sustain background doses up to 40 millisievert/year: at some locations the annual background dose rises above 50 millisievert. The 70,000 residents of the Iranian resort town of Ramsar on the Caspian Sea can sustain annual doses of 250 millisievert, due to the presence of radiactive hot springs in the area.

None of these areas are being evacuated, though they are much more radiologically dangerous than the area around Fukushima Daiichi. Even at the plant fence the dose rate measured yesterday (24 microsievert/hour) is less than a resident of Ramsar sustains normally.

link

 

[elbows]

Thats just a dose rate at one particular location in Iitate. The comparisons are ok but not if they are taken on their own.

One important thing thats usually missing is the nature of what exactly is causing the dose of radiation. Is it a substance that has landed on the ground and may be present at much higher levels in certain points, or may enter the food chain, be eaten or breathed in by a human?Because if it ends up inside you then the comparisons in that article dont do the subject justice or give a reasonable sense of the risks.

I continue to find the countermeasures to be just as good, if not a better, guide to the realities. For example:

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/n...o-remove-radiation-tainted-topsoil-at-schools

Tokyo - Local authorities in north-eastern Japan are to remove radiation-tainted topsoil from school grounds amid the ongoing nuclear crisis so that children can resume outdoor activities, a news report said Tuesday.
The city of Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture is to get rid of the top 1 to 2 centimetres of topsoil from schoolyards this weekend, public broadcaster NHK reported.
The city is located about 50 kilometres west of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which was damaged by a magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, and has been leaking radiation ever since.
The institutions subject to the move are 15 elementary and junior high schools and 13 nursery schools, NHK reported.
The city is to let these schools restart using their grounds for up to one hour daily after confirming their safety by measuring the level of radiation, the report said.

 

[elbows]

Gulf seafood deformities are quite horrific to read about:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/04/201241682318260912.html

 

[xes]

And that shit is being fed to people

(thread started today by moi, on that very linky)

 

[MikeMcc]

I believe Fukushima was worse, not because of the direct effects of the contamination, but because of the political fallout, with Japan shutting down it's nuclear plants, Germany closing theirs down completely, and the difficulty in getting new plants built and development of new systems. Meanwhile after the Gulf disaster it's already back to business as usual in the oil industry.

 

[elbows]

The psychological effects of Fukushima are worse.