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Posts Tagged Wade Allison

Slides for Wade Allison talk in Tokyo | Lenz Blog

Oct 10

Posted by sheffner in food + health, news, science & technology | 3 Comments

This popped up in my reader, and I’ve just downloaded the slides and quickly scanned them with my ol’ eagle eye, and my objective, expert opinion is that, if you are at all affected by the Fukushima disaster, or know anyone who is, then you would be well advised to read this.

My policy, based on an objective, unbiased and complete distrust of government announcements, has been to simply avoid buying and eating anything from Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate prefectures. As a result of reading Wade Allison’s slides, I’m rethinking my policy.

The slides are easy for a layman to read. They contain very interesting information and comparisons with Chernobyl. Since 3/11, I have been undergoing a forced education on nuclear reactors and radiation. I read these slides as part of that education.

Wade Allison, author of the excellent book “Radiation and Reason” I blogged about repeatedly, has given a talk about Fukushima earlier this month at the Foreign Correspondents Club Japan see this earlier post.

Now the slides for that talk are available at the “Radiation and Reason” website [direct link to the PDF]

via Slides for Wade Allison talk in Tokyo | Lenz Blog.

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Costs of switching nuclear off | Lenz Blog

Aug 22

Posted by sheffner in science & technology | Comments off

Prof. Lenz has some interesting things to say about the Fukushima nuclear crisis. As there is so much hyperventilating blogging going on (anxiety and unease sell, and they are also somewhat addictive), I like to read alternative views. Here’s a selection:

New York Times has an excellent article about some of the damage to the climate and Japan’s economy expected from slowing down nuclear energy.

They estimate about 3 trillion yen per year in extra fossil fuel costs, which will place a burden on the balance of trade. And they report on a government estimate of about 210 million tons of CO2 emitted over 1990 records, a 16% increase, while Japan is supposed to reduce by 6% under the Kyoto protocol.

I learned that Japan was the world’s largest importer of coal to begin with.

via Costs of switching nuclear off | Lenz Blog.

SPIEGEL has published an interview on radiation damage from the Fukushima accident with Shunichi Yamashita, who has been working as an adviser to the Fukushima prefecture government and plans to be involved in the large follow-up studies coming up.

He is reasonably well informed about the lack of danger from low doses, but still says that he doesn’t know for sure about the absence of risk under 100 millisieverts dose. I don’t agree with his position, which I think is much too generous to the irrational fear crowd. As far as I am concerned, at the very least the 100 millisieverts per month proposed by Wade Allison should guide all related decisions.

One thing I have learned from this interview is that people relocated from Chernobyl saw their life expectancy reduced from 65 to 58 years. That is a massive health effect from the evacuation, and it is mostly caused by irrational fear, leading to symptoms as depression, alcoholism, and suicide.

This story should not repeat itself in Japan.

SPIEGEL interview with Shunichi Yamashita | Lenz Blog.

Mainichi reports on a couple of cases where Fukushima residents’ health was damaged by fear-induced stress. They say that Fukushima Medical University plans to study the problem in a systematic way and will publish results of a survey in autumn of this year.

Since no one has got radiation exceeding a reasonable limit of 100 millisieverts a month, all the health damage from the accident is expected from this kind of nocebo effect, and none whatsoever from radiation.

via Psychological stress | Lenz Blog.

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