Marecki on 1/5/2007 at 17:21
Quote Posted by BR796164
Some civilians even lived long years in the Zone after the accident - with
significant deterioration of their health.
Given the massive evacuation of not only the vicinity of the power plant but large areas further away in which the radiation level got even marginally above the average (so much for "nothing serious has happened, move along" Soviet propaganda, eh?), you'd better have good evidence to back both of these claim... i.e. not only that such ill effects were observed but that civillians lived in the Zone at all.
Rogue Keeper on 2/5/2007 at 10:40
I am beginning to wonder whether you are really so much ignorant about the circumstances of this event, or are you just playing it.
Since you seem to hold opinion that it was safe for the workers to operate the remaining reactors for 15 years after the accident without serious impact on their health, don't you also think it is completely useless to have any exclusion area? Do you think that isotopes of Caesium, Strontium and other radionuclides in the soil and circling in food chain can't cause any heightened risk of cancer for people to live there, as well as less notable mutations in their genome? Luckily they don't reproduce - much.
As for the initially reckless and secretive approach of the regime, Soviet officials, unable to conceal the accident from the world, reluctantly acknowledged the accident during an evening news broadcast in Moscow on April 28, and in brief newspaper accounts on April 30. In the meantime, heightened levels of radioation were already measured in Sweden.
From various statements of the evacuated people it seems that they were only marginally informed about what happened in the power plant and what danger they are facing. During the evacuation they have been told that they will return back in few days, what of course never happened.
A little bit old report abouth health effects on the liquidators, still notable.
(
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Fifteen+Years+Later.+Living+After+Chernobyl-a074583358)
Quote:
During the last few years, UNSCEAR has undertaken a broad review of the sources and effects of ionizing radiation. The Committee has just adopted its 2000 report to the General Assembly, summarizing the developments in radiation science in the years leading up to the new millennium. (..)
Of the 600 workers present on the site during the early morning of 26 April 1986, 134 received high doses and suffered from radiation sickness. Of these, 28 died in the first three months and 2 soon afterwards. In addition, about 200,000 recovery operation workers received doses between 0.01 and 0.5 Gray. This group is at potential risk of late consequences, such as cancer, and their health will be followed closely.
Some more UN stuff on current living conditions in the area :
(
http://www-ns.iaea.org/appraisals/chernobyl-living-advice.htm)
Quote:
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_alienation)
The poaching of game, illegal logging, and metal salvage are the current problems of the zone. Despite certain police control, the unemployed from outside sometimes infiltrate the perimeter and remove polluted materials.(...)
Dozens of people (mostly the elderly) refused to be evacuated from the zone or illegally returned there later. After recurrent attempts at expulsion, the authorities became reconciled to their presence and even allowed limited supporting services for them. These people (known as "samosely", translated as "self-settlers") declare their strong commitment to the surrounding nature and rural lifestyle. This population includes some vagabonds and other marginalized persons from the outside world, such as war refugees from parts of the former Soviet Union. Samosely usually deny or are resigned to any significant damage to their health resulting from the high levels of radiation in the environment.
Some interviews with people who were allowed to live in the exclusion zone are available, this is just one of them :
(
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,412954,00.html)
Several remarkable documentary movies have been made about the accident, containing interviews of the remaining liquidators, former workers of the CPP and military personnel who were organizing the evacuation. In one of them I had luck to watch, a former liquidator has said that his collegues were quite confused about the true level of radiation near the power plant, as they have been equipped with old dosimeters with insufficient measurement scale. They are airing them from time to time on any good documentary TV channel near you.
I have discovered a particularly interesting one of Spanish production available for download, "Radiophobia" made in 2005. It interviews several people who were living in Pripyat back in 1986 as well as workers currently monitoring the power plant and a director of the plant back in 1986 who has been found guilty and sentenced, while it's quite obvious there has been significant bureaucratic and political pressure on the staff from the high officials. Some people living in the exclusion zone have been interviewed as well.
You can get it from :
(
http://www.pripyat.com/en/media/video_news/2006/12/22/1434.html)
Low Res, 112MB WMV, right click "Save As" and don't forget to add .WMV behind the filename. Unfortunately the server is very slow (9kbps for me), so downloading of the hi-res version can be pain in the ass. Also you should understand Ukrainian/Russian at least little bit, as most of the parts are in Ukrainian/Russian. Anybody interested can better look for it on p2p services - the film contains excellent footage of the areas as the have been portrayed in the game.
Official project site : (
http://www.lunapictures.com/radiophobia/radiophobiaIndex.htm)
Marecki on 2/5/2007 at 19:56
Quote Posted by BR796164
I am beginning to wonder whether you are really so much ignorant about the circumstances of this event, or are you just playing it.
Mainly I was hoping you would finally provide more arguments to back the slogans... What you have provided so far does not convince me and neither do the "ignorance" or "propaganda style".
Quote:
Since you seem to hold opinion that it was safe for the workers to operate the remaining reactors for 15 years after the accident without serious impact on their health, don't you also think it is completely useless to have any exclusion area?
As a matter of fact, I do - there are opinions of preeminent scientists that the widespread evacuation was a panic reaction and even Pripyat should have been resettled shortly after the incident (the main reason for its evacuation was to protect the people from possible further explosions, not out of fear of radiation), and the evidence they present is convincing enough for me. That is not the point, though - I was asking you to prove your statement, not presenting mine.
Also, this looks like a good place to make one important comment: a lot of studies of Chernobyl effects have been based on data collected in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The catch? Completely different kind of irradiation, as the Japanese were hit by a dose of an order of magnitude higher in around
one two billionth exposure time. We're talking acute vs. long-term exposure effects here, and since the Chernobyl incident has been the first and so far the only one to provide us with data about the latter, any "extrapolations" of this sort are questionable at best.
Quote:
Do you think that isotopes of Caesium, Strontium and other radionuclides in the soil and circling in food chain can't cause any heightened risk of cancer for people to live there, as well as less notable mutations in their genome?
Not really, given the radiation levels at Chernobyl were even right after the incident (around 2.4 mSv per year, of which by the way less than 2% came from the incident) over two orders of magnitude lower than the natural dose in many parts of the world... and I'm not talking the Third World here, among those parts are such places as southwestern France, with over 700 mSv per year. Hell, even the Grand Central station in NYC has got radiation levels about five times as high as Chernobyl!
For the record, you can find these numbers in the UNSCEAR 2000 report, some of them in the Chernobyl Forum report as well.
You should read these two carefully, you know; they match what I'm trying to tell you really well... As for your argument:
- indeed you have shown people live in the zone - except the materials you have provided mention people living quite a long way away from the zero point... That however was in fact a brain fart on my behalf, as somehow while saying "the zone" I kept thinking about the first-order evacuation area rather than the whole thing - my bad;
- other than the thyroid cancer issue, which is clearly stated as no longer a risk (at least to adults anyway), I have found no mention of radiation-induced health problems!
Speaking of health effects, you may want to check this thing out: V.K. Ivanov, A.F. Tsyb, S. Ivanov and V. Pokrovsky, 2004, "Medical Radiological Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe in Russia", NAUKA, St. Petersburg, p. 1-387. These guys have had direct access to a lot of relevant medical data, plus have also documented their method quite well instead of providing hand-waving arguments.
Last but not least, I have looked into the "10% out of 600000 liquidators are deceased now" issue. As far as I can tell, this may be true. How? Let's make some simple calculations:
- the average (i.e. country-wide) mortality rate in the three affected countries was 1.5 % in 2000, let's assume the number hasn't changed significantly since 1986 (or if it did, it got smaller since then - a fairly reasonable assumption since we're talking Eastern Europe here) and use it;
- as for time, let's take the period from 1990, when liquidation work (or at least the bulk of it - not sure about the details here) has been completed, to 2005, a year before the aforementioned claim has been made. All in all, 15 years;
- 15*1.5 = 22.5% . This is of course a rough approximation, not taking into account demographic difference between the nations involved and the liquidators (which on the other hand could slide the result either way - there were probably more young and fewer old people in the sample than in the reference group, but there were also more men than women in it - and so on, there are many such factors to take into account here); even so, we've still got a factor of over two to go down by before we go below the quoted 10%.
In other words, with the data provided by Union Chernobyl it is not implausible that the 28 first-order victims aside (the other three out of the 31 have been killed by burns and so on),
none of liquidators' deaths have been caused by radiation! Gotta love statistics.
Last but not least, disclaimer - just to make things clear. I don't and most likely will not (due to lack of qualifications) work in the nuclear energy sector. Neither do or will any (current) friends or relatives. I don't get any money from the nuclear lobby. I don't rely on nuclear power plants in my work any more than on other types of power plants. I like renewable power supplies and would like to see them used in as many places as it is feasible. I just don't believe in handwaving and scare tactics.
Rogue Keeper on 3/5/2007 at 10:44
Quote Posted by Marecki
Mainly I was hoping you would finally provide more arguments to back the slogans... What you have provided so far does not convince me and neither do the "ignorance" or "propaganda style".
I'm not paid to convince you or anyone. I am just discussing another socially controversial topic. I just love it, mind you.
It seems you are heavily ignoring the political aspects of the accident, but ironically you are are serving the phenomenon of "Radiophobia" in a similar way as it has been used by Soviet regime.
Quote:
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia)
In the former Soviet Union many patients with radioactive sickness after the Chernobyl disaster were accused of radiophobia, perhaps in attempts to diminish the scale of the consequences. These claims were supported in some reports of experts from IAEA.
And yes, I have noticed the lack of references in your posts, too.
Quote Posted by Marecki
As a matter of fact, I do - there are opinions of preeminent scientists...
Every scientist can be preeeminent to somebody. Who are these?
Quote Posted by Marecki
...that the widespread evacuation was a panic reaction and even Pripyat should have been resettled shortly after the incident
I don't see anybody panicking on the Pripyat evacuation videos. At the time of the evacuation it was already too late to panic, as most citizens have received large doses of Iodine-131. It is obvious you lack the experience with specifics of the Communist regime. The feature of Communist rule was anything - reluctance, secretivity, deception of public - but NOT panic.
Also how shortly was Pripyat supposed to be resettled? Are they supposed to live and lead normal, riskless life (that includes consumption of localy grown food and reproducing healthy children) in area with more than 40 Ci/km2 of Cesium-137 ?
(
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/chornobyl_radiation96.jpg)
Quote Posted by Marecki
(the main reason for its evacuation was to protect the people from possible further explosions, not out of fear of radiation)
I'm afraid you don't find any reliable proof to back this up, as the whole evacuation has been heavily politically and bureaucratically influenced, and it is questionable to what extent were honest opinions of scientific authorities taken into account. I wouldn't be surprised if the responsible bureaucratic figures were well informed about true radiation levels in the area, but such shameful event has been unimaginable to reveal in full beauty to their own people, not talking about international scene.
Quote:
Many observers have argued that the accident at Chernobyl accelerated the transformation of the Soviet Union towards a more open society. Soviet officials, unable to conceal the accident from the world, reluctantly acknowledged the accident during an evening news broadcast in Moscow on April 28, and in brief newspaper accounts on April 30. This was followed by regular coverage focused on the clean-up efforts in the months that followed.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Yes, it is true that experts feared the second stronger explosion, which would be bigger than the first, and that the core would continue sinking into the ground, possibly contaminating water supplies to Kiev. There were also worries about the radiation releases rising again, and the fear was that the molten reactor core would either burn its way through the base of the reactor, or that the base would collapse, bringing the molten nuclear fuel into explosive contact with a reservoir of water beneath.
Oddly enough, the most worrying danger of such explosion wasn't a physical damage to a city 3 kilometres away (although to some extent such worries have been reasonable), and certainly not physical devastation of area with radius of 30 kilometres from the plant. The primary danger of such explosion would be the another wave of radionuclides and consequential radioactive fallout far away from the power plant, and eventual contamination of underground water supplies.
Quote Posted by Marecki
That is not the point, though - I was asking you to prove your statement, not presenting mine.
And I was asking you some questions too, in order to have more clear picture on your position. Am I allowed?
Quote Posted by Marecki
Also, this looks like a good place to make one important comment: a lot of studies of Chernobyl effects have been based on data collected in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We're talking acute vs. long-term exposure effects here, and since the Chernobyl incident has been the first and so far the only one to provide us with data about the latter, any "extrapolations" of this sort are questionable at best.
Too bad you didn't tell me exactly what studies do you have on your mind. What I'm curious about is whether you consider their authors as just as preeminent scientific bodies as those of your abovementioned evacuation argument which you like.
I am aware that explosion of a nuclear power plant and an explosion of a nuclear bomb can have different effects on the environment. Naturally, a one hour long stay in area contaminated with Cesium-131 doesn't have the same impact on organism as long-term living in the same area contaminated with Cesium-131.
Quote Posted by Marecki
Not really, given the radiation levels at Chernobyl were even right after the incident (around 2.4 mSv per year, of which by the way less than 2% came from the incident) over two orders of magnitude lower than the natural dose in many parts of the world... For the record, you can find these numbers in the UNSCEAR 2000 report, some of them in the Chernobyl Forum report as well.
As I can see on the UNSCEAR Contamination map, the town of Chernobyl is in area with surface ground deposition of Cesium-137 between about 555-1480 kBq/m-2!
EDIT : Der Spiegel's Chernobyl Photo Gallery comments that "The town of Chernobyl is now largely empty. But a few thousand people do live here -- mostly forest service workers intent on preventing the irradiated forest from going up in flames. A detailed radiation map of the city shows where one can safely go and where to avoid. Workers are regularly rotated out to avoid overexposure. (...) The Orthodox church in Chernobyl has recently been restored and a priest now lives there full time. He is aware of the risks of his posting, but says it is easy to forget. "You can't see the dangers that lurk all around," he says. He feels it is his calling to care for the souls of the workers now posted in Chernobyl."
Regarding the article you are quoting, I have done some research on it's author Zbigniew Jaworowski and although he's former chair of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, it seems he has rather controversial aura in scientific community because of his climatic theories. Likewise „21st Century“ is not a recognized scientific journal. It is being published by LaRouche company owned by American political activist Lyndon LaRouche, a well known strong advocate of nuclear energy, former advocate of SDI project and directed energy technologies for ballistic missile defense. Those are some excellent preeminent scientists you have there, indeed.
Quote Posted by Marecki
You should read these two carefully, you know; they match what I'm trying to tell you really well... As for your argument:
other than the thyroid cancer issue, which is clearly stated as no longer a risk (at least to adults anyway), I have found no mention of radiation-induced health problems!
That's because, the document is, as you have hopefully noticed, focused primarily on question whether short-time visits to the contaminated area are risky or not. Summary says that
„There is certainly no significant hazard for short casual or tourist visits.“
„Special radiation protection conditions pertain to visits to the 30-km exclusion zone.“
(For a reason of safety, and if not, can you find a better explanation?)
Also, you should have read carefully the final paragraph : „While this advice is given in good faith, neither the Agency's Member States nor its Secretariat can be held legally responsible for its accuracy or applicability.“ Dear IAEA, I have urge to laugh.
Do I
really have to hand-feed you with proofs of long term risks of exposure to Cesium-137 ? Are we in basics school ?
Quote:
(
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/cesium.htm#affecthealth)
Like all radionuclides, exposure to radiation from cesium-137 results in increased risk of cancer. Everyone is exposed to very small amounts of cesium-137 in soil and water as a result of atmospheric fallout. Exposure to waste materials, from contaminated sites, or from nuclear accidents can result in cancer risks much higher than typical environmental exposures.
If exposures are very high, serious burns, and even death, can result. Instances of such exposure are very rare. One example of a high-exposure situation would be the mishandling a strong industrial cesium-137 source. The magnitude of the health risk depends on exposure conditions. These include such factors as strength of the source, length of exposure, distance from the source, and whether there was shielding between you and the source (such as metal plating).
Of course the old grannies and undereducated bums who live there deny all health problems and radiation. „Radiation? Where my son, I can't see it!“ is what they say. Yes, they have been advised to live in less contaminated areas, but then they don't even know what's hapening in their heads. A Simple psychological mater, they just don't want to be resettled from their homeland and have no motivation to do so.
Quote:
Speaking of health effects, you may want to check this thing out: V.K. Ivanov, A.F. Tsyb, S. Ivanov and V. Pokrovsky, 2004, "Medical Radiological Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe in Russia", NAUKA, St. Petersburg, p. 1-387.
Thanks, I have so many book recommendations lately I don't know where to start. Can you give me a brief resume of what you have realized from this study - if I can rely on your objectivity and neutrality?
Quote Posted by Marecki
none of liquidators' deaths have been caused by radiation! Gotta love statistics.
Semantically taken, no, not by radiation. Their deaths have been caused by health problems such as cancer as a consequence of exposure to heightened doses of radiation.
Quote Posted by Marecki
Last but not least, disclaimer - just to make things clear. ... I don't get any money from the nuclear lobby. ... I just don't believe in handwaving and scare tactics.
I don't believe controversial scientists publishing junk science articles in dubious, politically motivated magazines. What is your point ?
steo on 3/5/2007 at 13:12
Damn, that's quite some arguement you guys have got there, enjoy.
