I don’t see how that’s relevant. If the entire rest of the population evacuated due to traces of puppy DNA, I’d evacuate also. It would be hard to eat and get access to other essentials otherwise. Not to mention the possibility of the police simply kicking me out.
…I’m aware of that.
But if we are going to quibble about “disaster” then I’m going to quibble about “continued evacuation.” And there is no continued evacuation right now.
I don’t really care about the US occupational limits, and a document produced by the US Department of Energy titled “radiation in perspective” kinda makes me think of this:
I think what’s more relevant here are the assessments of the local authorities, which, from your cite:
You’ve given me no reason why I should trust your risk assessment here over the ones the local authorities have made. And if you want to characterize it as “dumb” you really need something stronger and more specific than a line-item from a pamphlet.
Do you have a cite for the idea that serious engineers who had actually run the numbers (ie, not pundits or politicians speaking out their ass) seriously feared a Chernobyl scale disaster at any point?
I read through the IAEA log for March 11-14th and never saw mention of such a fear.
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/fukushima-nuclear-accident-update-log-12
If you want to quibble over mention of “Chernobyl”, I understand, it’s that type of thread. But what I actually said is that evacuation was required because it wasn’t clear how bad things would get. Uncontroversially, the initial days were dominated by intense efforts to contain the disaster, as well as uncertainty as to how successful the containment would be.
Broader point being - evacuation was necessary. The core wasn’t exposed and spraying graphite into the sky, that much was known, but neither could anyone say it was safe to remain in the area. Of course evacuation was necessary, I don’t see on what basis anyone can suggest otherwise (if that’s what I’m hearing).
Seriously? I mentioned earlier that it seemed to me that most of the arguments for the severity of the Fukushima situation were aesthetic in nature, not rational analysis. I didn’t think I’d get such a fantastic example.
Despite the fact that the Fallout series exists, there is in fact nothing wrong with looking at radiation and the dangers sorrounding it in perspective. Failure to do so leads to being this guy:
Don’t be that guy.
It’s not a quibble, damn it.
Multiple posts in this very thread demonstrate, again and again, how many of us suffer from an irrational fear of radiation and nuclear power. The fear demonstrated is orders of magnitude out of proportion to the danger posed, because people’s sense of proportion when it comes to these matters is all out of whack.
Proportion is the issue, and that’s why I’m so adamant that proportionality be kept in mind. Comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl is like comparing an ant to an elephant. It’s a difference of degree so great that it becomes a difference of kind.
…“it seemed to me” doesn’t really appear to be an objective measure of anything. It seems to me that the municipal office of Futaba would have much more evidence and data on which to make important decisions than either you or I with our “reckons.”
Fortunately, nobody here is being “that guy” here in this thread. But lets not pretend that the pamphlet that was cited was, in essence, essentially propaganda. I’m not claiming that any of the science or the numbers were incorrect. But it had a very clear and open agenda, and it shouldn’t be used to dictate (even in hindsight) what the correct response should have been during a disaster.
Quibble acknowledged. I will say “the integral of evacuatedness over time scaled by population and differential harm” from now on.
Well yes, that’s what they chose. That isn’t under debate. The question is if their threshold makes sense. Evidence suggests that it was set far lower than is reasonable, and they experienced both human and economic harm as a result.
Hindsight is the issue.
You are talking with 2023 knowledge.
They did not know what you know in 2011. They HAD to err on the side of caution.
How many reactors melted…three? That is not a small or minor thing.
They had to keep people out of the area for a short time afterwards, if nothing else because the tsunami damage itself left a lot of uncertainties. The reactor uncertainties were resolved before the tsunami damage uncertainties were.
One could read this as the plant operators thinking:
- We are certain all is well
Or…
- We are certain we are screwed
I’d think they thought the latter.
…the decisions made by the Japanese municipal authorities was based on the evidence. I’ve seen very little evidence in this thread that suggest they got things wrong. Your own cite shows that the threshold the experts were working too weren’t the same as the “US occupational limits.” There would be a reason for that. Perhaps the Japanese authorities got it wrong.
But I’m not an expert. So I’m really not in the position to argue that the Japanese authorities have gotten it right or wrong.
But if you are going to argue that they not only got it wrong, but the entire thing was “dumb”, (which is a different thing from “set far lower than reasonable”) and this is what the evidence suggests, then that evidence better be more than what you’ve presented here.
There was a crisis for a while. Then the crisis was fixed, and wasn’t a crisis any more. This happened very quickly.
…there was a crisis for a while. After the crisis the Japanese municipal authorities had a relatively minor exclusion zone, that got increasingly smaller over time, that they maintained until experts deemed it was no longer required.
The sentence you quoted wasn’t referring to Japanese officials in 2011, it was referring to the way people today describe the so-called “nuclear disaster”.
Here’s the thing: The thread title says “There was no nuclear disaster at Fukushima”. Emphasis mine. There most definitely was a disaster in 2011. If the title had said “There is no nuclear disaster at Fukushima” then I think a lot more would be agreeing with you.
The correct emphasis is, “There was no nuclear disaster at Fukushima”.
I’ll do you one better. There most definitely were two disasters at Fukushima in 2011, and both were catastrophic, worst of their kind in modern Japanese history. First there was a massive earthquake. Then there was a massive tsunami. Two catastrophic natural disasters.
What did not happen was a nuclear disaster, as the OP claims.
Do you think the people in 2011 thought a nuclear disaster was a distinct possibility? Maybe why they ordered evacuations?
Sure! And if significant enough damage was caused as a result of their panic, you could even describe it as a disaster! But that would be a human-caused logistical disaster, not a nuclear disaster.
So, you would not evacuate people in 2011 after the tsunami and when the power plant was headed for a meltdown?
Really?
No 2023 hindsight. You are in 2011…the reactors are overheating with no fix in sight. You’d tell people nearby to stay put?