6000% Increase in Cancer Rates at Fukushima Site

43 Comments on "6000% Increase in Cancer Rates at Fukushima Site"

welch on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 9:40 am 



This is a complete load of be. Why is this crap posted here?

welch on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 9:41 am 



Sorry…bs.

Nickto on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 10:18 am 



ENENews is the supermarket tabloid of online energy hype and hysteria. Did you know Bruce Jenner gave birth to an alien baby?

shortonoil on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 11:30 am 



Fukushima will go down in history as one of the great disasters of modern times. The gift that keeps on giving; for the next ten thousand years!

Plantagenet on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 12:34 pm 



Plans to building more nukes in China, the US, and other countries are moving ahead because

(1) Nukes emit no CO2. China hopes it can reduce the horrid pollution from coal-fired plants. The US promotes nukes to reduce CO2 emissions and fight AGW.

(2) Nuclear technology keeps improving. The clunky Russian reactor that went critical at Chernobyl would never be built today, and the moronic decision by Japan to build nukes in tsunami zones would never be replicated.

Dredd on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 12:43 pm 



Fukushima & nuclear industry propaganda are inseparable.

It is like being naked with clothes on.

bobinget on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 12:52 pm 



Radiation Scares.

Maybe we are slow learners when it comes to nukes.

When the first commercial (British) Comet jet airliners crashed after a given number of hours we learned all about metal fatigue.
Nearly every time we lose another passenger aircraft, we learn about something Not to do.
We didn’t give up on flying.

As HRH truly says, new Nukes won’t be
sited in tsunami zones or along known fault lines.

Most US plants have already exceeded their license
period life expectancy. We are going to need to decide what to do soon. I’m hoping for more decentralized, point of use power generation.

meld on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 12:58 pm 



why is it bs welch?

Plantagenet on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 1:35 pm 



Bob is right

Smaller, safer, decentralized, point of use nukes are definitely in the planning stages now

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/tikkavarapu1/

ghung on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 2:11 pm 



Bob: ” We are going to need to decide what to do soon.”

I decided shortly after leaving the submarine service. It was clear then that humans, collectively, aren’t smart enough to control their wastes, short or long term. That was thirty years ago, and humans still haven’t figured out how to control their wastes; too many other priorities. Most folks don’t care where their power comes from, or what the long-term consequences are. All they care about is their cost, and having as much energy as they can muster on-demand. Am I supposed to trust the ‘collective wisdom’ of an economy that’s already proven itself to be untrustworthy? Sure… Fuck your Faustian bargains.

Considering the path we’re on, globally, if it can’t be turned off and walked away from without tremendous (guaranteed) risks, it won’t get my support.

And the economic costs? Not funny that the first new units being built in the US in decades, the ones that were supposed to prove that nuclear power plants could be built on time and on budget are over budget and delayed by at least a couple of years. Maybe the rate payers won’t notice. Shit, we still don’t know what the full costs of decommissioning and waste disposal of the old plants will be. Seems like pretty bad business to me.

GregT on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 2:43 pm 



We shouldn’t be screwing around with things that we don’t fully understand. It is completely irresponsible of us to leave these toxic waste dumps for future generations to deal with.

Davy on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 2:45 pm 



Second the thoughts G-man.

Planter/Bobby, considering complexity and energy intensity are heading for a cliff the LAST thing we need now is more NUKs of any size or kind. We should be putting maximum effort into “long enough” waste management efforts. We just dont have the time nor money to do more. We especially don’t have time nor money to create more deadly substances.

doug nicodemus on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 3:22 pm 



this is a bunch of hooey and i am no nuke fan…

GregT on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 3:36 pm 



Why is this a bunch of hooey doug?

GregT on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 4:03 pm 



Bob said:

“We are going to need to decide what to do soon.”

We decided what to do decades ago Bob. The consequences of making the wrong decision have still not fully come to fruition. But they will.

Rodster on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 4:37 pm 



GregT- Why is this a bunch of hooey doug?

Come on Greg, we all know spent fuel rods are perfectly safe. I have two in my living room giving off a nice glow.

Apneaman on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 4:55 pm 



Plant sucks monkey cock

Cheers!

Makati1 on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 6:52 pm 



Recent news:

“Nuclear Power’s Last Tango: Industry’s Promise Fails to Outrun Crippling Costs”

“Running in reverse: the world’s ‘nuclear power renaissance'”

“Obama and Modi want to sell nuclear power to India that is too dangerous and expensive even for US”

“Hundreds of Contaminated High-Risk Former Nuclear Facilities Still Awaiting Cleanup”

“Further delays strike US nuclear plant construction”

“Time isn’t on reactor’s side”

“S.Africa’s power supply limited after fault at nuke plant”

“Work begins on interim storage facilities for nuclear waste in Fukushima”

“Tepco unlikely to complete ice wall by March”

http://ricefarmer.blogspot.fr/

And on and on…

And there are 100+ Fukushimas in the US alone, just waiting to happen. Not to mention a lot of other nuclear processing sites and dumps over the last 75 years. Radiation, the silent killer.

gdubya on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 7:00 pm 



I have not even read this, but I know that if something is 60 times bigger it always sounds more impressive when you multiply it by 100 then divide it by one hundred.

gdubya on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 7:10 pm 



Here is my question for the day- if nuclear energy is roughly a million times more sense than fossil fuels; what are the odds that it costs exactly the same amount as burning coal? The plants cost exactly 1 million times as much?
I think nuclear power is the perfect solution to humanity’s electricity wants. If there were no humans involved and the goal was not to make money.
Now if we could just get someone to take out the trash.

gdubya on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 7:11 pm 



That’s dense, not sense. I love virtual keypads & fat fingers.

TemplarMyst on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 9:48 pm 



Well, been a while since I indulged my PO fix. Too much work and no play makes Johny well, tired! 😉

I downloaded the vid and will look at it in full some time next week, after a bit of vacation. I couldn’t find any medical information about the Fukushima Collaborative Clinic in a quick search, but I’ll dig deeper later. The vid is about an anti-nuke conference that took place in San Luis Obispo Jan 24 and 25. A quick scan of it indicated no medical personnel were featured. At least one link I found indicated at least a part of the statistics were generated by surveys. By whom, I don’t know yet.

In my own quest to figure out whether WHO’s estimate on Chernobyl, at around 4,000 long term potentially affected, and Helen Coldicott’s claim of about a million, I wound up reading Caldicott’s source material and found it less than convincing (Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, and Alexey V. Nesterenko if anyone’s interested).

But I’ll see what I can find out about this one. So far the vid and claims have made the rounds of the standard conspiracy sites, but I haven’t seen anything on it from the mainstream scientific or medical community. Everything they seem to be saying indicates there really hasn’t been much effect from Fukushima at all, and that folks are asking whether they can move back. The article implies they’re being forced to. Can’t source where they’re making that assertion from.

Well, another thing to look at. I don’t think nuclear power will do much in the US anytime soon, but it does seem to have some appeal in Asia. I guess we’ll see.

Personally, I think CC and FC are far more imminent threats, but I could be wrong about that…

Dave on Sat, 7th Feb 2015 11:02 pm 



Plant you’re playing kind of loose and fast with the facts on the US nuclear scenario. We’ll be closing down nearly as much as we’re adding over the next several years, take Vermont Yankee (Entergy) for example. Also the plants under construction are experiencing large cost overruns and are behind schedule.

Go Speed Racer on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 3:03 am 



Gee Plant, you gotta keep working on your writing style. Life is a growth experience. Don’t be so confident in your declarations. You say the Chernobyl pile of klunky Russian junk would not be built today. Says who? The Russian RBMK is a big reactor that can produce a lot of power and its cheap to build. Who says the rooshins wouldn’t build another one, right now? And if the guys who ran the control room at Chernobyl were still alive to be hired, they’d probably put them at the controls all over again. Why do you have such confidence in the human race?

Next you say that nobody would put a nuke in Tsunami zone? why do you say that? You think the pathological murderous psychopaths typical of leadership have suddenly grown some morals, a conscience, or developed integrity? You think suddenly John Boehner is going to tiptoe thru the tulips and hand out lollipops to babies at the park?

I just don’t think so. Try a little more uncertainty in your outlook. Try a little more skepticism of your pathetic evil rich ruling class. Try not being such a mouth for John Boehner, Jesus, the Republican party, and G.E. nuclear reactor division incorporated.

I mean cheezus fukcin Krist, what is in it for you Plant? do they pay you for each sentence you write, praying to John Boehner and worshipping Jesus Republican the Christ and shining your gun collection? Does it really benefit you to drive a monster truck that gets 8 mpg just to prove you are a good Christian god fearing american whatever the funk?

Raelly just hoping the best 4 U, for waht reason all the praying to the republicans and their nuclear reactors, of all places on a peak oil website?

Do you think nobody got cancer from Fukushima? Oh, well then I guess you are right. Thanks for informing me.

Since the republican conservative christian media realized taht Chernobyl was bad P.R., THIS TIME they magically arranged there would not be any bad P.R. about fukushima. No cancer cases, not this time, uh uh no way. OK.

Go Speed Racer on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 3:09 am 



Oh, and now its ‘small safe decentralized nukes’. Oh how joyful, your very own nuclear waste dump in every subdivision, on every street corner, next to every elementary school playground. Jesus loves the little children so much the republican party is going to give them a nice dosage of neutrons from the vacant lot right next door. Oh boy, brilliant, how can I be so brilliant as you? If i accept Jesus into my heart, then can i have a gun collection and million dollars and a monster truck and a really big house, and be just like you? And have my own nuclear reactor in my backyard too? Sign me up, from now on I am voting for Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, Jeb Bush. Rah rah nuclear reeactors monster trucks and a gun in every lunch pail. God Bless the Republican Party. George Bush Jr is the Lord. Pray to Him and He will give you lots of Money. Fight the Good Fight ! More Nukes !

welch on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 9:16 am 



meld – Read “Radiation: What it is and What You Need to Know” by Gale. It cuts through the bs and fearmongering. Certainly there’s a risk to nuclear, but at the end of the day fossil fuels andther externalities are fairly clearly far worse. The claims in this article contradict the published science to date.

Longtimber on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 11:53 am 



The earthquake and Tsumni doomed the plant. It was the lack of power that caused a Level 7 event. The diesel gensets on deep water horizon self destructed when the fuel air ratio was anormal. I work daily with diesel gensets in the marine business. Worse thing you can do is not have them running 24×7.

longtimber on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 1:45 pm 



How many Reactors in Japan are producing right now?

SilentRunning on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 3:19 pm 



Of course, a 6000% increase in a tiny rate is still a pretty small rate. But it sounds a lot more terrifying to say “the cancer rate went up by 6000%!” than to say “the thyroid cancer rate went from an expected .0005% to 0.03%” Over 99.97% of children have no cancer and no cancer symptoms.

SilentRunning on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 3:25 pm 



I still am waiting to hear from these people how this ends up being a “global extinction” event. Where is the even remotely plausible set of events that make this turn into such a cataclysm?

welch on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 4:36 pm 



Silent….a great point.

GregT on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 5:18 pm 



Chernobyl happened in 1986. 28 years later, 1.5 billion dollars is being spent on a new containment structure. If systems inside the structure can be kept operational to control humidity levels, it is hoped that the new structure can be maintained for 100 years. It is also hoped that decommissioning can be achieved by 2070.

Given the likelihood of modern industrial society not lasting for another 60 years, and the prospects for a vastly reduced energy future, the 2070 timeframe appears unrealistic. We can’t even figure out a way to safeguard nuclear waste now, at the apex of human technological advancement. What are future generations going to do for the next thousand years or so, with not one, but hundreds of these sites to safeguard.

We never should have screwed around with things that we don’t fully understand. Dr. Gale’s conclusions in regards to the long term health concerns stemming from nuclear radiation, are not shared throughout the medical and scientific communities. It is very well understood that heightened radiation exposure leads to genetic damage of DNA, and is trans-generational.

It is completely irresponsible of us to leave these problems for future generations to deal with, just so that we can enjoy more creature comforts today. The same can be said for burning fossil fuels.

Makati1 on Sun, 8th Feb 2015 8:19 pm 



FYI:
“Skeptical Fukushima residents monitoring radiation levels in their communities”

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201502080025

sandwich on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 12:52 pm 



As was pointed out above by gdubya, that “6000% increase” of Fukushima thyroid cancers was sufficiently dodgy to discredit the entire article.

By just the third paragraph the article warns us: ‘You can watch an over hour-long report that goes into detail, but to sum it up, people can’t even turn on their gas-stoves near Fukushima because “it would be like burning radioactive fuel in their kitchens.” ‘

But being fossil fuel people, we should ask them: So, just how common are gas stoves in Japan, which as a volcanic island has very minimal fossil fuel resources of either gas or liquid? And even if the gas fuel is imported, how would that fact be relevant to burning any of it in the vicinity of Fukushima.

Meanwhile, back in the realm of reality, a recent paper in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that The Republic of Korea also has experienced a high rate of thyroid cancer increase.

That paper puts the increase at just “15 times” rather than hyping it at “1500 percent”. And the increase is attributed to increased ability to diagnose the problem over the last few decades.

See:
“Korea’s Thyroid-Cancer “Epidemic” — Screening and Overdiagnosis”

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1409841

The lesson is, PO would do well to just reporting information related to PO, and leave the woo posting to others.

TemplarMyst on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 1:02 pm 



The key point, I think, is what danger lower levels of radioactivity pose, both to nature and humans. No one debates high doses are very detrimental. The debate revolves around the levels seen in the Chernobyl and Fukushima countryside.

The debate is still ongoing within the scientific and medical communities. With the new BEIR report getting underway we’ll have to see if there is any movement away from the LNT proposition.

Nuclear power has quite a number of drawbacks, obviously, but it has a pretty decent number of advantages, most important of which are zero emissions (once constructed) and extremely high energy densities.

None of which would be essential if it were not for Climate Disruption. If I understand Hansen et al, we have to go *backwards* on CO2. We can’t just slow and then stop emission. We have to go in reverse.

Cannot figure out how to do that without nukes. Neither can Hansen and a host of other environmentalists. Risk/reward in this case has danger of radiation on the one side and mass extinction on the other.

Hell of a choice, eh?

TemplarMyst on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 2:11 pm 



To the issue of waste and disposal, the first thing we could do to benefit future generations (assuming there are any) is train them on it. The spent fuel rods from US (and some other) reactors are actually future fuel. Only a tiny fraction of their energy has been used. We don’t reprocess them for fear of proliferation. If we’re to tackle CC we would want proliferation – of power plants.

My understanding is it is quite difficult to create a bomb from the fuel elements in the fuel rods. Not nearly enough fissle material, by design. Someone intending harm would be better off with a low tech, low cost, high impact technology. Airplanes did the job on 9/11. Al Qaeda could have tried to hit Indian Point. I don’t know if they considered it, but it is not an easy target at all. For details see Rip Anderson’s analysis embedded in Power to Save the World by Gwenyth Cravens.

Post-reprocessing the amount of waste remaining is tiny compared to other energy sources. Reasonably safe disposal is available in particular parts of the deep ocean and in salt deposits on land. Ref. the same work for a lot of details.

Also, the only meaningful way to dispose of nuclear warheads is in a nuclear reactor. We’re doing that already. The more we burn the fewer the kids/grand-kids will have to be concerned with.

Cross-generational, I think nuclear still provides options other techs do not. See the above reply on Climate Disruption for the most important of those.

TemplarMyst on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 2:46 pm 



Heck, while I’m on it. GregT, would suggest searching on the studies done on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is no evidence for the transmission of gene abnormalities across generations in the extremely well funded, documented, and ongoing studies conducted jointly by the Japanese and the Americans.

In vitro studies on single and multiple cells demonstrate the inheritance you are referring too. In vivo the effect does not appear to be significant, if it is there at all. This is an area of ongoing study.

What you may be referring to are the studies done in the middle of the last century on fruit flies. However, that study involved very, very high levels of radiation. That study played a role in the formation of the Linear No Threshold assessment of radioactivity, despite the fact it made no attempt, nor did it ever claim to have made any attempt, to directly study the effects of much lower levels of radiation. That was an extrapolation.

As I mentioned above, the debate over the health effects of radioactivity is still quite warm and ongoing. No serious person questions the dangers of high levels of radioactivity. Just trying to point out a couple of items within that debate on the lower end of the scale.

GregT on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 2:52 pm 



Templar,

I happen to agree with Hansen, nuclear is the most viable option for a transitional energy source. That should speak heaps about the mess that we have created for ourselves.

Still, electricity will not replace fossil fuels. Nuclear will only allow us to keep the lights on for as long as it takes us to no longer have access to other finite resources. Many of those other resource are already becoming increasingly difficult to access, even while we still have an abundance of fossil fuels.

Rather than focussing on how we will be able to maintain some semblance of BAU, we should be more concerned with the necessities first, such as food and water supplies. Both of which will become increasing more problematic, the longer that BAU is allowed to continue.

We are faced with a dilemma. Dilemmas don’t have solutions, only choices. None of those choices will have comfortable outcomes.

GregT on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 3:29 pm 



Also Templar,

My wife is a laboratory technologist/ pathologist. The majority of her work is in dealing with cancer. I hear about the debates within her field on an almost daily basis. Her associates and herself are mostly convinced that above ground nuclear testing was a large contributing factor in the growing incidence of cancers.

As I said before, we never should have screwed around with things that we don’t fully understand. The jury is still out, but I seriously doubt that we will find out that radiation is less harmful than some believe. As with most things that mankind has messed around with, my money is on quite the opposite.

TemplarMyst on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 3:34 pm 



GregT,

I think it very probable we are facing the dilemma. However, if there is even the slightest change we are not, and there are still decisions which could be made which would avoid disaster, I think we ought to at least look at them.

Granted, we probably won’t. Very, very probably won’t.

At the root of the problem, if problem it is, is our inability to grasp how nature recycles everything. We would need to embrace that on a level hitherto unseen by all but the most primitive tribes and cultures. What works/worked for them won’t work for us on the scale we are talking.

We’d need to scale up recycling and natural management on a vast scale. Probably won’t happen, but that’s what it would take. We have to manage our part of the carbon cycle, and let nature assist wherever possible. We’d have to do the same for land, sea, and air. The basic elements, well, most of them, anyway, don’t float away from the planet. They’re still hear. Transformed by us, but still here. Given sufficient energy, they can be transformed again.

CO2 and H20 can be converted to hydrocarbon chains. It takes a lot of energy, yes, but it can be done.

You get the basic idea. I’m not saying we’re likely to be able to do any of this. We’ve shown ourselves to be singularly incapable of managing our affairs when it comes to nature. I suspect that will not change, and we will face, er, very interesting times in the not too distant future.

I’m glad I don’t have kids.

TemplarMyst on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 3:45 pm 



GregT,

On the increase in cancer rates, I listen to both sides of the debate, as I’m sure your wife does. Given the high rates of cancer which happen spontaneously the ones which may or may not have been caused by weapons fallout is difficult to determine I think. It could be it is a significant factor, but the NAS does not think so.

Also, given BAU and the advances in medical technology, we can treat cancers we never could before. We can use radionuclides to diagnose diseases in ways we never could. We have CT, MRI, and X Rays. Great tools, all of which certainly come with risk, as your wife faces every day.

I looked through the America Cancer Society’s statistics not that long ago. Their graphs are very helpful I think, for a non-specialist like myself. Interestingly the cancers most associated with radiation, thyroid and leukemia, are not amongst the most common. Another reason leading me to think the effects of weapons testing may be small. Definitely not zero tho!

GregT on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 4:32 pm 



Sounds like we’re on the same page Temp.

DesertRat on Mon, 9th Feb 2015 10:19 pm 



“Hell of a choice, eh?”

Naw, it’s easy. I’ll either:

(A) Take my extinction risk w/o doubling down on the radiation risk,

or

(B) Realize that it’s a non-choice anyway: b1: we’re never going to afford any significant nuks in the west, we’re spending all our free cash on declining ERO[E]I and QE to infinity, and b2: it doesn’t matter how much solar or nukes we build, human nature and the economy being what they are, we are going to burn all the oil we can get our hands on either way, so again, why bother with the additional risk if we had the money to do it with? Not to mention the huge quantities of FF that goes into all that concrete and rebar – nuks & renewables are FF extenders, not replacements, so if carbon is your thing (as opposed to PO), this is just lying to one’s self.

I’m trying to convince myself that living like old-times is going to keep a whole lot of blood off my hands. Maybe, maybe not, but at least the kids won’t hate me. I have a really hard time not being pissed at my folks sometimes. Gives perspective on someone in some wasteland watching Americans on TV: the difference between what they got and what you get is hard to stomach some days. I’m happy just to stay employed. They got healthcare, pension, and vacations were putting 100g/day of gas in the boat to drive around in circles at full throttle. Ah, the glorious ’60’s…

Desert