How much for a nuclear power plant?

[nismaratwork]

'Those' refers to what? Cancer?
First, 'we' are not; I was pointing out the cancer consequences of radiation. Second, why? In what context is it 'best'? Based on what dependencies (is what?) 'best'?

Mostly no, coal-fired plants cause death in people with respiratory ailments, although for coal miners pneumosilicosis can lead to cancer as a means of death.

To your second, do you KNOW what the cancer "consequences" of a given level of radiation exposure are? How about exposure/time, or over a lifetime? I sure as hell don't, and AFAIK you're not going to find hard statistics. I mean that it's best to talk about the cause of action we can identify directly with radiation, much as you would want me to stick to known facts regarding coal.

So, what is best is when we have some clue as to what we're talking about; if you have some novel research on the subject to share, then "best would change; by all means, share this knowledge.

 

[JaredJames]

I have to agree with nismaratwork, assuming I'm reading the post correctly that is.

Looking at death rates, you can only include those which are proven to be attributed to the claimed cause (radiation exposure etc). Any others are purely speculative unless evidence can be provided to show it as the direct cause.

So when we compare the death rates at various plant types, we should only use deaths that can be directly shown to be caused by the plant.

Perhaps an updated set of 'Toastie' statistics could reflect this? (I just want the Toastie back!).

 

[Gokul43201]

Mostly no, coal-fired plants cause death in people with respiratory ailments, although for coal miners pneumosilicosis can lead to cancer as a means of death.

Might be a comprehension issue on my part, but how does "Mostly no" answer the question "does 'those' refer to cancer?"

To your second, do you KNOW what the cancer "consequences" of a given level of radiation exposure are? How about exposure/time, or over a lifetime? I sure as hell don't, and AFAIK you're not going to find hard statistics. I mean that it's best to talk about the cause of action we can identify directly with radiation, much as you would want me to stick to known facts regarding coal.

So, really all we can say is that the numbers derived from the causes that are well understood provide a lower bound on the deaths, and the error bar in the location of the upper bounds increases with how poorly the other causes are quantified.

It's two different things to say we know the upper bound is very likely below X, and to say that we have no good understanding of the upper bound, so let's stick with the lower bound estimates.

 

[JaredJames]

OK then, can someone give a figure for the minimum radiation dose that can potentially cause damage to the human body and then applying the same logic as previously, using the radiation output from Chernobyl (600,000 Sv from above) give an idea of the maximum number of people who could potentially be affected.

At least then we could compare the 100,000 death figure to that number and then with rough allowances (for radiation that wouldn't get to a human and so is effectively lost) come up with a maximum potential damage figure.

It would give us an idea of where this 985,000 figure comes from and how relevant it is.

I know this isn't an accurate representation, but I think it's the best we could do. It would give you numbers to work with (best to worst case for that level of radiation). I would do it myself but I don't know much about radiation exposure.

 

[nismaratwork]

Might be a comprehension issue on my part, but how does "Mostly no" answer the question "does 'those' refer to cancer?"

So, really all we can say is that the numbers derived from the causes that are well understood provide a lower bound on the deaths, and the error bar in the location of the upper bounds increases with how poorly the other causes are quantified.

It's two different things to say we know the upper bound is very likely below X, and to say that we have no good understanding of the upper bound, so let's stick with the lower bound estimates.

We have no good understanding of the upper bound even with decades of experience, and that upper bound is a factor of so many elements that are not understood that to discuss it is absurd. So yes, we discuss, not the LOWER bound, but the only number that can confidently be discussed at all. After all, someone who receives a nearly fatal dose of radiation is going to be undergoing full body scans on a regular basis for the rest of their life. They may develop cancer, but who's to say it will kill them? Even more, because of the nature of the enormous disparity in reactions to an "instant" vs. fractionated dose, you can't even tally the numbers for someone and say, "ahhh, their risk increases by n".

I want to emphasize that when we're talking about near-lethal exposures (4-5.5 Sv) from a single incident, that lower bound seems to be VERY near the crude estimates of an upper bound. The one thing you can say for certain is that if you get 6+ Sieverts in a single blow, you're almost certainly going to die within a month, but if you take that and make it 1 Sv per year, over 6 years, you almost certainly will NOT die unless you develop aplastic anemia, cancer, etc. Radiation just isn't simple... it'd be like you track everyone who survives a bullet wound and tried to factor in how it contributed to their death after 10, 20, 30... years. It's just... different... I don't know any other way to put it, and that assumes that you account for the REAL total absorbed dose to given regions of the body! Sorry, there just haven't been that many people who've been exposed to just the right amount of radiation to NEARLY die, but pull through. Then again, we have victims of Dioxin poisoning who you'd expect would be dead in a few years, but last decades or longer.

My point isn't that radiation won't drastically increase your risk of later ailments, but that anyone claiming to draw a hard number from current medical science is LYING.

As for mostly no, yes, I was referring to cancer. There are coal fired plants in the USA, and their effects, and then there's burning of coal in homes in rural China, where you have healthy non-smokers with a ridiculously high rate of lung cancer. It's a much simpler issue, but even it is pretty broad. For instance, the burning of Bunker Fuel for shipping is estimated to contribute to 80,000 deaths worldwide, but this isn't a body count, it's a statistical model. When you get into the realm of radiation exposure, you can't just sample the liver post-mortem and say, "ah ha, this man was a mess".

So, JarednJames that's exactly what I'm saying; numbers beyond what can be attributed to acute exposure are guesswork. This goes to your last post... you see, some people believe that minimal radiation exposure is in the same linear relationship with mortality as larger doses. OTHERS believe that small doses of radiation result in hormesis, which actually STRENGTHENS someone against further exposure. Thus far, the debate goes on, so no, there's no lower limit to damage, but there is an index of observable symptoms vs. acute exposure.

Personally, I don't buy the hormesis argument and would err on the side of caution along with regulatory agencies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis

For a very rough guide, Wiki strikes again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning

I've researched this subject far beyond anything wiki for years, and nothing I've ever read leads me to understand how one can arrive at such a vast number. To do so would require a MASSIVE longitudinal study the likes of which does not exist for radiation exposure of this type.

I will add my 2 cents however, and that's simply that Vanadium is almost certainly within an acceptable margin of error here, because I find it hard to believe that the TOTAL radiation output is absorbed evenly and completely by PEOPLE! If you empty a machinegun into a group of soldiers, you miss some (which we equate to a low dose), you hit others wounding them (medium dose), you kill others with a single shot (6 Sv or more), but you ALSO riddle some with maaaaaany bullets, and some end in the dirt or trees. In the case of ionizing radiation, the same is true, but the variables are far greater. I find it absurd to assume that the equation is a clean 600K/6 = Max possible in a real world situation, because that's 100% efficiency... with 50% dead without medical care, and most if not all dead without.

In reality, if that output is accurate then some is lost in critters, trees, rocks, dirt, air (poor shielding, but there's a lot of it) and so forth. Some people probably absorbed more than 6 Sv, and others less. Vanadium gives a relatively clean maximum death count, but for the purposes of bringing this closer to reality, I suspect the deaths would be far less than 100,000 attributable, not more.

That finishes it with Gokul's point about lower and upper bounds... this is a real, but purely academic "upper bound", constructed as though each person were given 6 Sv lying on a table, then moving on to make way for the next victim. In life, this is not the case, so 100,000 is more of an UPPER bound than a lower bound in my opinion, and nearly 1 million is not only impossible, but genuinely laughable. If that were the true state of affairs, pilots and frequent fliers would all be cancer riddled husks, as would many recipients of radiation therapy, etc... etc... I don't buy it. I don't even understand HOW that kind of number is arrived at... not at all.

 

[robinson]

Does the author of your source realize that a "full-scale catastrophe" like Chernobyl is impossible in modern nuclear plants?

Hindsight is often 20/20, and in this case, reading this 'old' topic was illuminating on several levels. We now know 'modern' plants, with reactors and fuel ponds stacked right next to each other, can be far worse than Chernobyl, which used to be the touchstone of disasters. Not that any final word on Fukushima can be had yet, but certainly the astute observer knows that if things had gone slightly worse early on, the disaster would be beyond any reckoning. This is, of course, still possible, but we all hope not.

Looking at death rates, you can only include those which are proven to be attributed to the claimed cause (radiation exposure etc). Any others are purely speculative unless evidence can be provided to show it as the direct cause.

When discussing risks and costs, often coal plants are used as an example of how deadly the pollution from fossil fuels can be, with numbers like 30,000 deaths a year from particulate matter from smokestacks. These numbers are estimates, concluded by statistics and in now way reflect any causative correlation, with corresponding legal remedies employed. So when the shoe fits it is quite possible to guess at the numbers of deaths from a known cause.