- #1
Arm_Chair_QB
- 4
- 0
It will be a bad thing from different perspectives, to both overestimate or low-ball the severity of the ongoing disaster at Japan.
We know the Japan disaster was recently revised to a level 7 disaster rating on par with the Chernobyl disaster. Naturally we are interested if the current disaster is really on the same severity level as the past disaster and what this means to the health/economy/ecology/environment and so on; especially when the disaster scale is quite arbitrary to begin with.
However I am observing a recent trend by those with technical backgrounds as well as journalists (perhaps paraphrasing them) that loudly proclaim the 'huge' differences of severity between the Fukushima incident and the Chernobyl incident and specifically stating that the severity in the still ongoing Japan disaster is not near as bad as the Chernobyl incident.
What is your opinion on this?
First of all, the disaster is still ongoing. I think it is irresponsible to make positive spins on predicting the likely outcome at this point in time. The talking points people keep raising is that Chernobyl had an explosion and fire that released large amounts of radiation into the environment and that the soviet reactors did not have containment designed in place to begin with. We know of these technical differences. But it seems to be trivializing the current disaster.We also have to look at the human decisions and response to the disaster as well as the difference in geological location and transport mechanisms between the two areas to determine overall human/ecological/environmental impact.
In Japan there are 3 reactors + 1 spent fuel pont with cooling problems - that's four simultaneous disasters. The reactors have primary containment but the extent of damage is unknown as well as the state of the fuel rods. We already know the secondary containment has failed in the reactor buildings and even exploded. There is also problems with a filled spent fuel pond that holds even more quantities of radioactive elements that are of more environmental/health concerns than partially spent fuels from the reactor with lower concentration. We also know there is local and to a degree global contamination already. Then there is the human decision to pour contaminated water into the ocean. There are also numerous aftershocks that will continue for a long period of time which can further cause future unpredictable complications down the road. And I stress again, the situation is ongoing. It is also important to point out the release from Chernobyl is from fuel that is at best partially reacted versus partially reacted fuel + spent fuel in Japan.
If they are unable to contain the ongoing disaster and there is a long term steady but low rates of release, it can soon catch up and maybe even exceed Chernobyl in terms of overall radioactive material released. So overall, isn't it a little questionable and premature to be painting a positive spin on the still ongoing disaster when compared to Chernobyl?
We know the Japan disaster was recently revised to a level 7 disaster rating on par with the Chernobyl disaster. Naturally we are interested if the current disaster is really on the same severity level as the past disaster and what this means to the health/economy/ecology/environment and so on; especially when the disaster scale is quite arbitrary to begin with.
However I am observing a recent trend by those with technical backgrounds as well as journalists (perhaps paraphrasing them) that loudly proclaim the 'huge' differences of severity between the Fukushima incident and the Chernobyl incident and specifically stating that the severity in the still ongoing Japan disaster is not near as bad as the Chernobyl incident.
What is your opinion on this?
First of all, the disaster is still ongoing. I think it is irresponsible to make positive spins on predicting the likely outcome at this point in time. The talking points people keep raising is that Chernobyl had an explosion and fire that released large amounts of radiation into the environment and that the soviet reactors did not have containment designed in place to begin with. We know of these technical differences. But it seems to be trivializing the current disaster.We also have to look at the human decisions and response to the disaster as well as the difference in geological location and transport mechanisms between the two areas to determine overall human/ecological/environmental impact.
In Japan there are 3 reactors + 1 spent fuel pont with cooling problems - that's four simultaneous disasters. The reactors have primary containment but the extent of damage is unknown as well as the state of the fuel rods. We already know the secondary containment has failed in the reactor buildings and even exploded. There is also problems with a filled spent fuel pond that holds even more quantities of radioactive elements that are of more environmental/health concerns than partially spent fuels from the reactor with lower concentration. We also know there is local and to a degree global contamination already. Then there is the human decision to pour contaminated water into the ocean. There are also numerous aftershocks that will continue for a long period of time which can further cause future unpredictable complications down the road. And I stress again, the situation is ongoing. It is also important to point out the release from Chernobyl is from fuel that is at best partially reacted versus partially reacted fuel + spent fuel in Japan.
If they are unable to contain the ongoing disaster and there is a long term steady but low rates of release, it can soon catch up and maybe even exceed Chernobyl in terms of overall radioactive material released. So overall, isn't it a little questionable and premature to be painting a positive spin on the still ongoing disaster when compared to Chernobyl?