Text 15611, 112 rader
Skriven 2011-03-22 00:58:03 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
     Kommentar till en text av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Japan
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Hello Robert,

On Sunday March 20 2011 17:14, you wrote to me:

 MV>> Of course. What happened in japan, will not happen in Germany in
 MV>> the foreseeable future. No eathquakes and tsunamies in Germany.

 RB> Whew! At least _one_ who admits it!

I think no one claims earthquakes and tsunamies are a serious risk in Germany.

 MV>> The worrysome part though is how easely potential dangers are
 MV>> overlooked.

 RB> Life is dangerous, Michiel. You and I could be dead tomorrow.

Sure. But one always tries to reduce the risks and to do that one first has to
KNOW the risks. The disaster in Japan shows that some risks were badly
miscalculated and some potential scenarios were overlooked or ignored.

Although the reactions are not rational, I can understand them. People fear
what they do not understand. Radiation is invisible and the man in the street
does not know the difference between a milli Sievert and a micro Sievert. He
does not know the difference between gamma radiation and the radiation from a
cell phone. You can not see it, you can not hear it, you can not smell it, but
he has heard that it can be deadly and he does not know how to protect himself
against the dangers. And so he is in fear and reacts in panic.

I have a piece of paper somewhere in the attic, or the cellar, that says I am
qualified to handle radioactive material. In any form, solid, liquid or
gaseous. It says I am qualified to deal with contaminations and to judge if a
contaminated area is safe to enter with what measures of protection. It says I
know about the effects of radiation on the human body.

It is over thirty five years old and issued in an non European country, so it
probably does not mean much officially here and now. Plus that nuclear reactors
are not my specialty, my specialty was nuclear medicine. But I do know how to
interpret the readings of a radiation meter and I know when I have time to
finish my drink or when I should forget about getting dressed and run like
hell. Or when I need not bother any more, since I will die anyway.

The average man in the street does not know all that, he just panics when he
sees the pictures of the smoking reactors in Japan.

 RB> They never thought of the graphite reactor at Chernobyl catching fire
 RB> either. There are always imponderables.

It was well known that using graphite as a moderator carries the risk of it
catching fire. It is one of the reasons why "the west" had abandoned that type
of reactor long before Chernobyl.

 RB> Still, we don't ground all aircraft because human error is possible.

No, but we DO ground all aircraft of the same type when an accident happens and
we do not know why it happened. Just to make sure the same thing does not
happen again.

 RB> If we wanted to exclude all possibility of human error, we'd have to
 RB> go back to plowing with horses and eating raw turnips in an unheated
 RB> shack.

Agreed. And I do agree that shutting down the German reactors three month
earlier than planned is a panic reaction. But understandable given human
nature...

 MV>> So the question is not, "can this happen in Germany", the question
 MV>> is "what else was overlooked that CAN happen in Germany?"

 RB> Practically everything (if you can see into the future).

No. It certainly makes sense to periodically look at things with the focus on
"what could we have overlooked".  What happened in Japan can be a wake up call
to look again with enhanced scrutiny.

 RB> So close all the airports, block off all the autobahns, close all
 RB> filling stations (danger of explosion), stop all motor vehicles and
 RB> otherwise cease modern civilization. Take things to their logical
 RB> conclusions and that's the result.

The risks of all in that list are pretty well known. There is a large pool of
incidents to draw from. The problem with nuclear incidents is that the pool of
accidents that can contribute to the learning curve is very small. Lethal car
accidents happen every day. We know what the risks are. Lethal accidents with
nuclear reactors happen once a decade. The learning curve is shallow...

 RB> What some people apparently can't accept is that there's a certain
 RB> amount of risk associated with modern life

Yes, that is a problem. People want a zero risk society and that is not
possible .

 RB>  - and by "modern" I mean even since the early 1900's. Did you know
 RB> that Pierre Curie was killed in a traffic accident - in 1906 - with a
 RB> horse-drawn truck?

Yes I know.

 RB> Amazingly, there were no public protests demanding that the government
 RB> ban horse-drawn trucks...

Did you know that John Glenn, US first orbiting astronaut, slipped in his bath
room, was seriously injured and had to abandon his political career because of
it?

There was no ban on bath rooms either. But then bathrooms do not have the
potential to kill many thousands in a single incident. Nuclear reactors do...
3

Cheers, Michiel

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