Whales, Wind Turbines and Fukushima

A picture speaks a thousand words. But those words may not be the ones intended by those whose action inspired the image.

Here we have a sad image of a dead whale lying on a Lincolnshire beach. Evidently a pod became confused and made the fatal mistake of swimming into ever shallower water. Their food supply diminished and they probably died from dehydration. (Whales get the fluid from their food)

Whales becoming confused and dying is sadly a natural event. It occurs many times a year all over the world. These events have happened over many millenia.

But why did these Whales get confused? What possible man-made influence could have affected this tragedy?

There are those who idiotically believe that any such event must always be the fault of man. These events are always man-made and they believe that without question.

Driven by their fashionable paranoia, they always quick to point fingers at their standard bogey men. "The Military", "The Oil Industry" are to name but two.

But it takes a particular type of vacuous idiot to scrawl "Fukishima" (sic) on a dead whale that died 9000 Kilometers away from a contained accident that happened nearly five years ago.

Especially as the idiot studiously ignores a more probable cause that can be clearly seen in the background of the photograph. (It would also be a good idea if the idiot learned to spell Fukushima as well).

So, is it likely that nearby ineffective offshore windfarms caused this tragedy?

True - offshore windfarms have massively unreliable gearboxes and produce ridiculously expensive intermittent electricity. But are they Whale killers?

Probably not.

These useless totems to stupidity would obviously be a more realistic contender than a 5 year old nuclear accident that happened half a world away.

But the death of these whales is most probably just another random act of nature.

Sendai Restart and an Early Christmas Gift

The anti-nuclear lobby is getting all bent out of shape by the restart of one of the two reactors in Sendai in Japan. The restart of one of the worlds most effective anti-greenhouse-gas and anti-pollution power generation methods really rubs their medieval superstitions right up the wrong way.

Not to be outdone by the Sendai reactor, I thought I would indulge in a bit of Luddite antagonism as well.

Of course the best way to antagonize a superstitious hysterical self feeding fear monger is by referencing some impeccably researched and peer reviewed science and then to couple that to a small amount of simple mathematics to show that nuclear actually saves lives.

So here goes....( all figures rounded to one decimal place)

Take one Pressurised Water Reactor. As it has just restarted, we'll use the Sendai Reactor - See Wikipedia Here

The Sendai reactor produces just short of 13TWh of electricity per year. As they have only started one of the two reactors on the site then that will be around 6.5 TWh.

Or to look forward to the festive season: 2.2TWh by Christmas.

Now as for out impeccably researched and peer reviewed let us take this table from a paper by Markyanda & Wilson (published in the Lancet, referenced by Jim Hansen among others) (Full Paper Here)

I suppose we should figure out what fossil fuel the Sendai nuclear reactor displaces .... From an earlier post here we have the break down of what has replaced nuclear during the shutdown in Japan. (Post is Here)

Basically it breaks down as follows. Nuclear in Japan during the shutdown was replaced by:

46% Coal
47% Gas
7%   Oil

So the single restarted Sendai reactor (6.5 TWh/yr) will displace approximately 3 TWh coal, 3 TWh gas and 0.5TWh oil in a year.

Or if we want to get into the festive spirit, the Sendai restart will displace approximately 1 TWh coal, 1 TWh gas and 0.2TWh from oil by Christmas.

Lets rephrase these figures into death and illness using the table above.

The deaths, disease and illness prevented in a year from the single unit restarted at Sendai ( i.e. half of a solitary nuclear power plant) will cut pollution by such an extent that it will:

Prevent the deaths of 90 people
Prevent serious illness (hospitalization) of 840 people
Prevent minor (time of work) illness of 45000 people (yes you read it right - 45 thousand)

Or to simply look to Christmas 2015. This single restart late in the year (August) will.

Prevent the death of 10 people
Prevent serious illness in 91 more
and prevent minor illness in no less than 15000 people

Now whether you are a Luddite or not, that is a hell of a Christmas present for 15100 folk in Japan this year.

Fukushima – the Hidden Epidemic

I hope to show in this post how the events at Fukushima and the subsequent actions of the Japanese government effectively signed the death warrant for thousands of Japanese people and consigned many more to ill health and premature death. I will also show that sadly, this is a continuing and on-going problem with no end in sight.

A great deal of lurid speculation has surrounded the melt downs at Fukushima. But surprisingly, (it is now two years since the Tsunami) there has been no indication of any actual loss of life from radiation from any reputable body.

But significant loss of life there has been. Without a doubt.

The press and media have distracted people from this silent epidemic by their lurid (often fictional, usually ignorant)  sensationalist news reports. The result is that most people are now focussing on the wrong issue.

To get a handle on this epidemic we  need to consider events that took place all across Japan immediately after the Tsunami. Particularly we need to see what happened to Japanese power generation.

After the melt downs,  the Japanese government ordered the shutdown of all nuclear plant in Japan. Today, two years on, only two reactors are in operation. As Japan relied on nuclear power for close on to 30% of its electricity, these shut downs left a very large hole in Japan's generation capability. A hole that had to be filled by other generating capacity.

Here is a a set of tables up to end 2011 of  Japanese fossil energy usage for electrical generation

From this you can see Natural Gas generation rose by 58 TWh, coal by 57 TWh, and Oil by 9 TWh through 2011.  It would seem reasonable to assume the split remained much the same through 2012, if not somewhat higher in total

Now we come to some highly regarded published and peer reviewed papers

The first paper (published in Environmental Science and Technology paper available HERE) is by Hansen and Kheracha (if you don't know who Dr Jim Hansen is then you must have been asleep for the last ten years)

They reference a second paper (published in The Lancet medical journal - paper available HERE) by Markandya and Wilkinson. Both papers revolve around this table showing the number of deaths caused by electrical generation. While this table refers to Europe, I would argue is equally valid for Japan.

The extra Coal based electrical generation, (displacing Nuclear) kills through air pollution, 24 people per TWh of generation. Over the two year period that comes to (24 x 57 x 2) = 2736 deaths, 25,000 serious illnesses and untold minor ailments.

Extra Natural Gas based electrical generation has caused (3 x 58 x 2) = 348 extra deaths, 3400 serious illnesses and  again thousands of minor illnesses

Oil based electrical generation statistically kills 19.2 people per TWh. So the additional oil based generation has caused the deaths of ( 19 x 9 x 2) = 342 extra deaths, 2900 serious illnesses and another legion of minor illnesses.

Assuming Nuclear would have originally handled all this (i.e. 57 + 58 + 9 = 124 TWh),  then the statistical deaths from nuclear would have amounted to (0.052 x 124 x 2) = 12 deaths and 54 serious illnesses.

So there we have our hidden plague. Death brought about NOT BY nuclear power, but brought about by NOT HAVING nuclear power. An epidemic killing almost 3500 people in two years ( that is nearly 33 a week) and leaving many times that number ill and incapacitated.

Of course, this slaughter can be stopped within a few days. But that requires political courage and an honesty beyond that seen so far in Japanese politics.

Basically somebody has to stand up, explain the statistical risks to the Japanese people from nuclear power. Then detail the continuing carnage from the fossil fuel replacement.

Then they need to turn the nuclear plant back on.

(my figures are highly conservative. The most likely death toll from this silent plague is considerably higher)

Keeping the lights on with Nuclear

You may have noticed that I am an unashamed supporter of nuclear power generation.

I do however, believe nuclear materials needs to be treated with respect. But that is true of 100's of other materials we also need for our daily needs. We need to keep things in proportion.

Nuclear energy has the potential to transform power generation around the world. It is the only viable generation source that can displace coal and even gas. It is safe and secure and remarkably resilient to even massively catastrophic events - like the recent Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami (including the clapped out 50 year Fukishima plant).

Compare Fukishima to the Banquao disaster, (Wikipedia page here) where a hydroelectric plant failed in China in 1975 resulting in at least 200,000 deaths. Nobody believes we should shut down our hydroelectric plants even after the catastrophe at Banquao. Neither should we shut down our nuclear plants because of the failure of one 50 year old, obsolete plant under ultra extreme conditions.

Particularly we should shun the insane German decision to shut down nuclear and build polluting coal plant to replace it.

But what about the risks of Nuclear? If it is so safe why did they evacuate Fukishima? Why was Three Mile island treated so seriously although nobody died?

Once, a long time ago in I heard a analogy regarding nuclear safety and the extreme precautions that are taken.

The analogy revolves around the question: "Why, if nuclear power was so safe, do we have to take so many precautions?"

Here is the analogy:

A man had two children. His children were frightened of the dark. The children believed there were ghosts and goulies waiting in the dark. Unfathomable horrors waiting for them.

Consequently, to allay their fears, their father left on the hall light. He knew there were no ghosts. But he also knew that without the light, his children would be frightened.

He took the precaution.

Much of the  rigorous safety precautions surrounding nuclear and the extreme low dosimetry involved are the equivalent of putting the hall light on.

The irony of the fathers compassionate decision was that by lighting up the hall he would reinforce the fears of his children that there actually were ghosts and ghoulies waiting in the dark.

After all why would he put the light on unless there really were bad things waiting in the dark?

Why should they believe their fathers protestations that there were no ghosts? After all he is the one that puts the hall light on.

One day the father and his children would have to confront the issue, or continue wasting resources on the unneccessary light.

For us today the stakes are much higher than a single light bulb.

But perhaps it is time the nuclear industry stopped pandering to the childish fears about nuclear power that infect our society.

Professor Wade Allison of Oxford University makes a compelling case far a more mature approach to nuclear risk in his book Radiation and Reason. It is available at Amazon (here) I also have a number of other links related to this book/reviews/websites  On This Post Here

Perhaps it is also time we treated the ridiculous and immoral scare-mongering claims made by the anti-nuclear lobby (See this Post), with the contempt and derision they deserve.

Nuclear Accident Casuality Figures

What are the real casualty figures for the nuclear accidents we have had so far? Can we trust the official figures produced? Or should we trust the anti-nuclear lobby instead?

Will Fukishima cause 1 million deaths? Has Fukishima already caused over 14,000 deaths in the USA as recently claimed?

Or have there been no radiation deaths caused by Fukishima?

Did Chernobyl cause 1 million deaths as claimed by the same people making the Fukishima claims?

Or were there less than 100 fatalities as found by the International committe that
evaluated the disaster?

How can we at least, get a feel for ourselves as to what the real consequences have been?

Fukishima is a recent event, so whatever claim is made and however outlandish it is, the recency of the event obscures any clear decision in the short term.

With Chernobyl, the poor Soviet era health and social care and the consequent closer monitoring of public health post Chernobyl also obfuscates the situation. It allows those with an agenda (whatever it is) to muddy the waters.

Also, we have to contend with those who fervently believe that there has been a grand conspiracy to hide the true casualty figures from Chernobyl.

To me, this proposed suppression of the "truth"  sounds exactly like the type of paranoia you get with a bad case of climate science denial. Why an international committee of world renowned experts would seek to hide the truth and fake the casualty figures is beyond me.

But there is greater clarity surrounding Windscale fire in 1957. The Windscale fire was the world's worst nuclear accident before Chernobyl. Even today is still ranked at number three.

Next post I will be looking at the 1957 Windscale fire - and I'll go looking for the bodies.

If the lurid claims for Chernobyl and Fukishima are correct, there must be hundreds of thousands of them.

Infant Mortality and Fukushima

I am prompted to write this post after a commenter on another post ( See Here ) referred to two studies on the medical effects of radiation.

One of these (the KiKK report) was legitimate science. I will come back to this in another post, because there are still some well known issues with it.

But today I want to make some observations on the other report, which proposes that the Fukushima meltdowns caused a large number of deaths in the USA in the fourteen week period immediately after the Tsunami.

The report ( Press Release Here) claims that there have been 14000 deaths in the USA in the first 14 weeks  after the Japanese Tsunami including 822 infants. It attributes these deaths to Nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima in Japan.

Scary stuff - if it were true.

Rather than having me, a mere bog standard engineer moaning about the dismal and probably dishonest methodology of the paper, you would be better off reading ( This Link ) by the illustrious Mike Moyer (Editor in charge of technology coverage at Scientific American).

If you want a complete demolition of the pseudo-statistics that forms the base of this report try This Post.. The is some more incisive  Informed Commentary Here.

 

But what I am going to do is make some observations on the consequences if this claim is true. We can then see how much this proposed increase in infant mortality has on the annual USA infant mortality rate and then see how this fits in with the infant mortality trends over the last 50 years.

The report "calculates" 14000 people have died from radiation effects in the USA from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. They also state that infants have been particularly badly affected with an additional 822 dying in the 14 week period.  So if this was maintained for a year the excess number of infant deaths would be over 3000. So I am going to assume a conservative figure of an increase mortality of 2000 children between 0 -1 year over the full year. The figure is not critical. Use you own if you like.

The following maths is simple enough.

The CIA fact book (Here) tells us that there are about 4.35 million births in the USA per year. The world bank graph of USA infant mortality rate shows 2010 as 6.5 deaths per 1000 births.

That means there are 28275 deaths of infants in the USA in a year.

(4,350,000 /1000) x 6.5 = 28275

So using this study as a base, infant mortality in the USA has, from 2010 to 2011 jumped from 28275 to about 30275. All in one year.

How does our 2000 extra deaths affect the annual infant death mortality rate?

we know  28275 deaths equates to 6.5 deaths per 1000 live births

So our new rate is  (30275/28275) x 6.5 = (as near as dammit) 7 deaths per 1000 live births

Even if the 822 deaths was the maximum and the radiological mortality stopped mysteriously at the 14 week boundary this would still push the annual infant mortality rate up to 6.7 per 1000 live births.

Do you find this plausible?

Why have the thousands of front line medical staff in the USA not noticed what amounts to a huge jump in infant mortality? Especially when we are talking about the first 800 or so casualties occurring in the such a short time.

Are all USA paediatricians asleep on the job?

Seriously, do you think it even remotely realistic that nobody has noticed the undoing nearly ten years of improvement? Except for the two anti-nuclear campaigners who discovered it in their cherry picked data?

This is the World Bank graph of infant mortality in the USA over the last few decades. This Link takes you to an interactive version so you can explore the rate year by year. Notice how the infant mortality rate has continuously declined, following a roughly exponential decay from the mid 1960's to the late 1980's .

Notice how it then heads on down (post Chernobyl) at a slightly increased decline rate. 

Let us look for some events.

Notice 1979 - Three Mile Island.

Can you see anything? To me it looks like there is no discontinuity let alone a prolonged spike.

Now look to 1986 - Chernobyl.

The only noticeable thing on the graph around this time is that the rate of decrease (i.e. improvement) accelerates towards the 1990's. Maybe the extra vigilance due to the fear of Chernobyl led to this small acceleration in decline?

Over the whole fifty year period, at no time does the infant mortality rate increase.

Of course, there will be variations month by month, day by day and location by location over the year. But this only turns into an increase and epidemic if you cherry pick your data and have an agenda.

If this report is correct we should expect the first increase in the annual infant mortality rate the USA in the last fifty years, and a large increase at that.

Mike Moyer of Scientific American wrote this about the study, it's methodology and the authors:
[quote]
... a check reveals that the authors’ statistical claims are critically flawed—if not deliberate mistruths.” The authors appeared to start from a conclusion—babies are dying because of Fukushima radiation—and work backwards, torturing the data to fit their claims.
[unquote]

This report is appallingly flawed. But it also puts politics before science. It is dishonest, immoral and cruel. Such a distortion of the truth to suite political ends is a terrible indictment of the depths that sections of anti-nuclear lobby will sink to.

A Natural Experiment: The Fukushima Reactor

 First of all - What is a natural experiment? Wikipediea defines it rather well HERE.

Basically natural experiments are based on events as they happen rather than events that are planned.

The study of disease and infection are the most common uses of a natural experiment. The most famous related to a study in the 1850's that discovered the cause of a Cholera outbreak in London was due to foul drinking water.

So how does this relate to the drama unfolding around the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex in Japan, and all the other 55 nuclear reactors in Japan for that matter.

Well, I think there are three important natural experiments that can be conducted here. There are certainly, many more.

Here are my Pet three:

1. The first and most important would be, of course, related to the any potential health issues to the local population.
2. The second would be concerned with the resilience of Japans nuclear infrastructure to this massive earthquake.
3. The final one involves an assessment of the accuracy and honesty of the reporting that has gone on. 

So why these three and what should they cover? 

Without a doubt the first two are probably under way and brainpower massively more capable than that of the humble Billothewisp are formulating their criteria. 

But hey! this is my blog so this is what I think they should be considering.

The first natural experiment would consider the health consequences.

• How many people died from the damage caused to the reactors?
• What was the total radioactive release? 
• What are the short term health consequences from these releases for the local population?
• What are the long term health consequences from these releases for the local population?
• How long lasting will these affects be?
• How effective was the mitigation put in place by the Japanese authorities and how appropriate was it to the situation

The second natural experiment relates to the Japanese Nuclear Reactor Fleet

• How many plants were affected?
• How old were the worst affected plants?
• What was the cause of issues that arose?
• What was the real danger to the public?
• What level of control was maintained over the reactors?
• What were the chain of events that lead to the reported problems?

My final natural experiment, I regret to say unlikely to get done. Today's news may well be tomorrow's chip wrapper but the damage from propaganda and irresponsible reporting can last for years.

First here is my opinion of the reportage so far:

The reporting around the unfolding events has (to say the least) been lurid. Many of the reports have started from a pre-supposed position without any factual backup. The majority of the reportage has been inaccurate and sensationalist.

In true news-hack style, many of the worlds news agencies has not let the truth get in the way of a good story.

But that is just my opinion.

So what should out natural experiment consider? Bullet pointing what should be done in this case is less clear, but here are some ideas.

• First we should  let the media frenzy die down for a while. Then our natural experiment can begin by analysing the news reports and comparing them to the actual events, and the actual potential scenarios.
• We could trawl through them for accuracy and consider such aspects as event reportage accuracy and the accuracy of the quotations and their context. The end result of this would allow the general population to gauge the integrity of the various news bodies and verify their accuracy (or otherwise). These are essential aspects for future informed decisions by the worlds population.
• We can also judge the accuracy and "reasonableness" of the various experts quoted by the media.
  Those who provided accurate information can be applauded. Those who mislead or grandstanded on issues they knew little could be named and shamed. Again very important for the general public for future news assessment.

Meanwhile the chaos and trauma in the rest of Japan with its ever mounting death toll (now in excess of 10,000) has been virtually airbrushed out as the news media focus on the drama surrounding  the Fukushima Reactor complex.

I wait for the first results from the first two natural experiments with anticipation. It would be good if someone also did the third experiment, but I am afraid that is unlikely.

It appears our world press loves to make a drama out of a crisis. But the Japanese Earthquake, a crisis several orders of magnitude greater than the Fukushima drama was simply not compelling enough for them. 

Too mundane. 

Just another natural disaster. 

But a a sub issue in the main context of the Japanese Earthquake tragedy, a crippled nuclear reactor  - is much more juicy.