Hungary and Romania face energy crisis as record-low river levels force atomic power plants to reduce output
    • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      23 days ago

      How many times am I going to hear about Chernobyl or Three Mile Island?

      Until you realize that a water dam is very different from a solar panel.

      • Forester@pawb.socialEnglish
        12·
        22 days ago

        Right? So now we’re comparing Soviet weapons labs to power generation. Okay fine, I’ll play ball.

        Casualties 270,000-500,000+ affected . 10,000–12,000 evacuated . At least 200 people died of radiation sickness, unknown estimated future death toll from radiation induced illness. 66 diagnosed cases of chronic radiation syndrome

        that’s 266+ dead and another 25 to 100 likely from long term exposure and contamination casualties over the next century.

        How many die each day from petrochemical fumes?

        • TanteRegenbogen@feddit.orgEnglish
          2·
          22 days ago

          More like 10k to 50k long term deaths due to effects of radiation exposure like cancer. Cancer rates among those affected by radiation are way higher than you assume.

          • Forester@pawb.socialEnglish
            1·
            21 days ago

            Want to source that? Chenrobyl is the worst disaster nuclear has had by far and… it basically slightly raised background exposure by a few % if you lived in poland ukraine or russia . The Kyshtym exclusion zone may sound scary but the effective dose of radiation in Ozyorsk isabout 0.1 mSv a year, which is harmless compared to a natural radiation background of about 2 mSv a year. AKA living on granite or marble is worse than living in the exclusion zone.

            Enormous amounts of radionuclides entered the air from the burning reactor. Yet the total emission was 200 times less than from all of the 543 nuclear warheads exploded in the atmosphere since 1945. The highest estimated radiation dose exposure to the world population from these explosions was 0.113 mSv recorded in 1963 (UNSCEAR 1988). The radiation doses from Chernobyl dust were estimated and compared with natural doses by UNSCEAR (2000a). During the first year after the accident the average individual dose received by inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere was estimated by UNSCEAR as 0.045 mSv, i.e., less than 2% of the average global annual natural dose (2.4 mSv per year). During next 70 years the global population will be exposed to a total Chernobyl dose of approximately 0.14 mSv, or 0.08% of the natural lifetime dose of 170 mSv. People living in the most contaminated areas of the former Soviet Union received an average annual whole body radiation doses in 1986 –1995 of 0.9 mSv in Belarus, 0.76 mSv in Russia, and 1.4 mSv in Ukraine (UNSCEAR 2000b). Average doses estimated for the period 1986 – 2005 are 2.4 mSv in Belarus, 1.1 mSv in Russia, and 1.2 mSv in Ukraine (UNSCEAR 2008). All these doses dwarf in comparison with natural radiation doses in some parts of the world which, for example, in Ramsar, Iran reach >400 mSv/year (Mortazawi et al 2006) and in Brazil and southwestern France reach up to more than 700 mSv per year

        • jenesaisquoi@feddit.orgEnglish
          1·
          21 days ago

          How many die each day from petrochemical fumes?

          Ha, so nuclear is so bad, we have to compare it to the petrochemical industry, which is the most polluting on earth? That says a lot, but not the way you’d probably like