Comment by mariusz79 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mariusz79 | Hacker News Reader

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Fear mongering? Let's see:

First of all, Chernobyl Exclusion zone is about 1000 mile^2. [3] Life is not doing just fine there. And the effect of Fukushima meltdown are not going to be known for the next few years, but there are indications that it may not be as harmless as we are led to believe.[4]

There are currently 62 commercially operating nuclear power plants with 100 nuclear reactors in 31 states in the United States. [1]

A recent study led by European researchers found Fukushima is not alone, as 22 other plants around the world may be similarly susceptible to destructive tsunami waves, with most of them in east and southeast regions of Asia. [2]

The World Nuclear Association estimates that 20 percent of nuclear reactors worldwide operate in areas vulnerable to earthquakes.[5]

[1] http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=207&t=3 [2] http://news.discovery.com/earth/plants/nuclear-plants-at-tsu... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant_... [4]http://fukushima-diary.com/2014/07/nuclear-expert-fukushima-... [5]http://www.frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/how-many-us-nucle...

Actually life is doing better in the Chernobyl zone than it was when there were humans there. Humans stay away because they don't like slight increases in cancer probability, not because life is impossible.

one more point

"Some claim that the populations of traditional Polesian animals (such as wolves, badger, wild boar, roe deer, white-tailed eagle, black stork, Western marsh harrier, short-eared owl, red deer, moose, great egret, whooper swan, least weasel, common kestrel and beaver) have multiplied enormously and begun expanding outside the zone. These claims, however, are not substantiated by any systematic census of any animal taxon."[41] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant_... [41] Møller, A P; T A Mousseau; F de Lope; N Saino (2008). "Anecdotes and empirical research in Chernobyl". Biology Letters 4 (1): 65–66. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2007.0528. ISSN 1744-957X. PMC 2412943. Retrieved 2012-02-07.

Life is possible in many extreme environments. I should probably be more clear and indicate that I meant higher forms of life (i.e mammals)

I was more interested in your claim of "Life on Earth would become impossible". You've shown that there are reactors, and that there is a risk involved with having them. But the claim that a few earthquakes in some parts of the world would wipe out all life on earth seems so to me an exaggeration, and I consider that fear mongering.

Perhaps, you're forgetting about spent fuel pools, rods and other nuclear waste that is often kept at the plants.

" All the fuel in all the reactors and all the storage pools at this site (1760 tons of Uranium per slide #4) would be consumed in such a mega-explosion. In comparison, Fat Man and Little Boy weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained less than a hundred pounds each of fissile material."[1]

"Accordingly, the worst case scenario at Fukushima will not make the northern hemisphere uninhabitable and the total doom/ death of life on earth predicted by some is impossible. The most likely outcome would be catastrophic contamination of northern Japan forcing total evacuation of the population. The main global consequence will be serious contamination of the Pacific which may catastrophically affect Pacific biota." [2]

If "catastrophically affecting Pacific biota" would not cause the whole ecosystem to collapse,and make life impossible, I'm not sure what would.

If few nuclear plant meltdowns occurred at the same time, and there would be a problem with the cleanup effort (i.e EMP in the States) we could expect spent fuel explosions to release massive amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

[1]http://www.dcbureau.org/20110314781/natural-resources-news-s...

[2]http://www.llrc.org/fukushima/subtopic/fukuworstcase.pdf

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