(from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42324053/ns/us_news-environment/)

â??Long before the nuclear emergency in Japan, U.S. regulators knew that a power failure lasting for days at an American nuclear plant, whatever the cause, could lead to a radioactive leak. Even so, they have only required the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors to develop plans for dealing with much shorter blackouts on the assumption that power would be restored quickly.

In one nightmare simulation presented by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009, it would take less than a day for radiation to escape from a reactor at a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant after an earthquake, flood or fire knocked out all electrical power and there was no way to keep the reactors cool after backup battery power ran out. â??

What would you say the threat from radiation is for people within the following radii from Daiichi– 10km? 20km? 50km? 100km? 200km? For how long?

Is your view that the materials with longer half-lives won’t migrate far from the plant? If so, what evidence from other examples of unintended dispersion of radionuclides are you basing your conclusion on?

Would you say that having to leave the village where your family has lived for three, or four or five generations, and never being able to return, constitutes a personal horror, even if you suffer no illness or other injury?

“I prefer reality”

As do we all. To repeat the point I’ve been trying to make (and failing I guess) is that nuclear advocates, especially those who have devoted years to study and work in the field, have a lot invested in maintaining a narrative that is based on the premise that nuclear reactors are basically safe and reliable. This represents more than making reasoned judgements based on evidence– it represents (sorry to get fancy)a series of existential commitments, a web of beliefs about the world and self. To challenge the belief system about the world threatens the view of self that makes sense to them — ‘I’m a smart, well-educated, well-informed person who makes rational decisions devoid of emotion and self-interest’.

Stated differently, to question assumptions about what is ‘safe’, and what constitutes ‘acceptable risk’ is like saying ‘you’re view of youself and your beliefs about the world– what you’ve held to be axiomatically true– may need to be reconsidered’. Or, despite your expertise and confidence in your views, some of your conclusions may be based on faulty assumtions. Leading to incorrect conclusions. Are you open to that? I’m watching and reading about thousands of people being forcibly evacuated from around Daiichi. Why is that happening, in your view? And why is that not relevant to Indian River, or Diablo Canyon?

The reality, which you say you prefer, is that there are dozens of ‘incidents’ that occur at nuclear reactors every year, including in the US, and that there are ‘accidents’ several times a year in which emergency actions are required, and that catastrophic failures (radioactive materials released into the environment) have occurred at least once every ten years since 1957.

I guess for the same reasons Greg needs to read “shut up” in other stuff I’ve posted, in which I never said that.

Oh well, I prefer reality.

Enjoy the cult.

… soooo.. you want me to shut up about things that we expect to happen? Interesting.

I never said to shutup about Fukushima.

You just did.

If one of your main functions is to address the meta-issue that I’m completely missing….why not have a post about the meta-issue?

I have written extensively about it.

Please provide the date/time of such a blog. Maybe you are failing at your main function and that is why I’m missing it.

My main function certainly is not doing the homework of the guy who keeps telling me to shut up.

I never said to shutup about Fukushima. Please provide the date/time of such an imagined comment. I have posted plenty…so it should be easy. When you can’t, you’ll realize you’re delusional.

I don’t see the world as us versus them on nuclear power. For a given set of circumstances I’m anti-nuclear power, for another set I’m pro-nuclear power. I think most people are of the same mind set.

Since you are not providing a reasonable context, I decided to comment. If you provide a reasonable context, I’ll have no need to comment. Blog about Fukushima, and enjoy that energy consumption.

If one of your main functions is to address the meta-issue that I’m completely missing….why not have a post about the meta-issue? I haven’t seen that term used in the last few blogs I’ve read. Please provide the date/time of such a blog. Maybe you are failing at your main function and that is why I’m missing it.

How is this stigmatizing anything? It is a simple statement of fact, and to be more exact, it is a simple statement of what the engineers at Fukushima have stated in their public communication.

“All this talk about radiation” is primarily originating with you(on Science Blogs website). See the irony?

Well, no, it isn’t the case that the primary source of conversation on the plane earth about Fukushima vis-a-vis radiation (and there is quite a bit of it) originates from this blog or scienceblogs.com in general. And you totally missed the point. In fact, if you were not blinded by your own excssive whitewashing, you would have recognized this statement for what it is … something you might actually agree with. A statement about how people need to not just focus on the radiation, which is this scary word that means many things, many of which are not bad compared to other things. Are you seriously telling me that when I need to shut up about Fukushima because food poisoning kills more people, but when I divert attention away from radiation and on to something else I also need to shut up? WTF?

This is perjorative:

“I’m not sure which is worse, a zillion gazillimsuts of extra radioactive dihydrogen oxide they didn’t know about, their ability to selectively not mention very important things for very long periods of time, or the astonishing incompetence demonstrated by ignorance. I guess we’ll find out eventually.”

Duh. Indeed it is. I find it inexplicable that this problem (and they, not me, are calling it a problem) could have been suddenly noticed. I’m calling bullshit. You’re telling me to shut up. I’ve got a valid question about their methods, their rhetoric, their communication of the situation, and you are white washing.

A “zillion gazillimsuts” is funny, but grossly inaccurate.

I thought it was hysterical. It is not even a tiny bit inaccurate. How can an over the top absurdity meant to make people laugh be accurate or inaccurate?

The “they didn’t know about”…as if they’re a bunch of Homer Simpsons stumbling about.

Sometimes it looks that way. I’m watching, I’m calling it like I see it, asking questions, criticizing now and then. You are telling me to shut up. I am engaging the issue, you are whitewashing.

Now I’d call those examples of stigmatization, that you are doing just from this post. You’ve done similiar on others. But I do commend you for posting my comments.

I think you don’t know what stigmatization means, and I don’t actually think you know what intellectual honesty means either.

I also don’t think you know how to engage in an argument, make a point that people will listen to, or, and this is important, recognize who is agreeing with you vs. those who are not. YOU, not me, have stigmatized … you see the world as an us vs. them dichotomy when it comes to nuclear power, you think you know what constitutes membership in each camp, and you think you can identify someone as being in one camp or another. Yet you are utterly wrong. You are abysmally wrong. Embarrassingly wrong.

The very last thing I need is your commendation for posting your comments. One of the main functions of my blogging on this issue is to address the meta issue that you are utterly missing. Your comments fit in nicely. You demonstrate a certain perspective. I’m glad to have that documented here.