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About the International Nuclear Event Scale

by Brian Dunning, Apr 14 2011

I’m writing this on the evening of Monday, April 11, 2011. As Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis is an ongoing event, things will change by then; and if it’s necessary to update this post by the time it goes live on Thursday, I shall so notate.

Today I received at least a dozen emails, Facebook messages, and tweets telling me that the INES (International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale) severity level, which had been a 5 (same as Three Mile Island) for some weeks, had been raised to a 7 (same as Chernobyl). I was a bit surprised, because I’m following a number of sources pretty closely, and it seems impossible that this would have escaped my notice. So I searched around a bit and followed all the popular reports back to their source. Here’s what happened.

Slowly but surely, they’ve been getting the crisis sorted. It’s going to be a long, slow process, which is not terribly newsworthy from a headlines standpoint. However, earlier today, a Japanese media report stated that some within Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission were calling for it to be raised from a 5 to a 7, but it wasn’t actually done (yet). Happy to have some sensational news to report, since nothing interesting had happened at the plant for a week or so, worldwide media picked it up. Even the front page headline at CNN.com shouted that JAPAN’S NUCLEAR CRISIS MAY REACH THE HIGHEST THREAT LEVEL IN HISTORY!!!

The sources I follow do not include those which re-report, speculate, sensationalize, or invent their own interpretations of the news. So I had been mercifully shielded from the misinformation onslaught until later in the evening, when Japan’s NSC finally did make the change (albeit “provisional”, not that that means much). But, predictably, I got the usual deluge of gloating emails laughing at how wrong I was, now that the event was formally a Chernobyl-scale disaster.

Or, more accurately, not.

The INES scale is an internationally agreed-upon standard. Signatory nations are themselves responsible for interpreting the scale and assigning numbers to their own incidents. There is not a single international body that does this. Indeed, from the INES web site:

What the Scale is Not For
It is not appropriate to use INES to compare safety performance between facilities, organizations or countries. The statistically small numbers of events at Level 2 and above and the differences between countries for reporting more minor events to the public make it inappropriate to draw international comparisons.

Nuclear incident severity levels. Click on it to see it in full readable size.

With apologies to CNN and other major media outlets, the INES number is not a “threat level”. It’s a rough assessment of the scale of a mess that has been created. It does not portend coming danger, it characterizes an incident.

Within Japan, it’s the NSC (Nuclear Safety Commission) that has responsibility for classifying its incidents. When they say Fukushima is a 7, it doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as what the USSR considered to be a 7 in 1986. Why not? Because there are many different aspects to a nuclear incident. There are health effects, potential health effects, environmental effects, measurements of radiation released, and so on. Click on the little graphic to see a regular-human-readable description of all the levels and what general guidelines should be used for assessing each.

The scale boils all these factors down to a single number, which to me, is a misguided effort:

0 – No safety significance
1 – Anomaly
2 – Incident
3 – Serious incident
4 – Accident with local consequences
5 – Accident with wider consequences
6 – Serious accident
7 – Major accident

I certainly agree that Fukushima is a 7, a major accident, considering its type of reactor. Chernobyl was a Generation 0 atomic pile, not really what you’d call a nuclear reactor, and I’m surprised it didn’t blow up half the continent.  For a proper nuclear reactor, I think Fukushima is about as bad as things can get.

But notice, it does not fulfill some of the qualifications of a 7, or even of a 4. For example, people start dying from radiation as early as 4 on the scale. Nobody has died from radiation at Fukushima (three were killed by the tsunami), and nobody was hurt at all at Three Mile Island which was a 5. The grimmest rational estimates of Chernobyl put its eventual death toll from cancer at 4,000.

But it does fulfill the other qualifications of a 7; notably:

Major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures.

For sure it has done that. Japan is really good at handling this kind of thing. They’ve imposed an evacuation zone that includes any town (at any distance) where a resident might expect to get the same exposure to radiation in one year that an airline pilot gets in four to seven years (20 millisieverts). They’ve stopped exporting crops and dairy from the region and are aggressively testing food products elsewhere to make sure nothing contaminated gets into the system. And in response to the unfortunate need to release low-level, short half-life radioactive water directly into the ocean, they’ve created a no-fishing zone that’s far beyond the point at which it’s diluted to normal background levels.

Consequently, there are still zero predicted eventual deaths from Fukushima Daiichi.

But the environmental effects are going to be terrible. The region within some kilometers of the plant is probably going to be restricted for years, though it’s impossible to say how big or low long at this point. The cleanup at the plant itself is probably — certainly — going to be the most expensive nuclear cleanup in history. It definitely qualifies as a 7 in that respect. The health effects mentioned in the description of a 7 are yet to be seen, but they absolutely have required countermeasures in the form of evacuations and distribution of drugs for the treatment of potential radiation sickness. Hopefully these efforts will ultimately prove successful. Anyone who pretends to know the answer at this early stage is making things up.

So, it’s now a 7. I don’t apologize for not calling it a 7 when it was still a 5.

58 Responses to “About the International Nuclear Event Scale”

  1. prasad says:

    Every country and every one knows that earthquakes are common in Japan so why did they built nuclear power plants? they know very well if they blasts what will be happened. Now they facing that situation it is very bad and unfortunate. Most powerful countries in this world like Russia, America, China and other European countries should help Japan to come out from this situation.

    • Why build anything if you’re in a fault zone? By no stretch of the imagination are nuclear power plants the biggest threat to the environment or to public safety in the face of a disaster.

      • Max says:

        As we can see in Japan, the LAST thing people need after a major natural disaster is a major industrial disaster.

      • tmac57 says:

        Yeah,besides the initial toll on lives and property,I am trying to think of something worse than a nuclear facility,that could have been in the path of the earthquake/tsunami that would require 10 years of clean up with a 10 billion dollar price tag (estimate). Health consequences still unknown (hopefully low).

      • Here’s one: Dupont’s 1984 industrial catastrophe in Bhopal. 3,787 killed, 558,125 injured. I’ll take an expensive cleanup with 0 killed, 0 injured any day of the week.

      • tmac57 says:

        Yes,having a potentially dangerous industrial facility in an area prone to earthquakes and subject to catastrophic flooding would be a bad idea.

      • Max says:

        The Bhopal disaster was caused by Union Carbide, not DuPont. Union Carbide was subsequently bought by Dow Chemical, which managed the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in the 50s and 60s when it leaked plutonium.

      • Because if you prohibit building anything in a fault zone, well, you’ve basically prohibited building anything in Japan…or California, for that matter…or most of the Pacific rim. It’s *all* fault zone.

  2. citizen wolf says:

    I think that we should have a level 8 – for when Godzilla appears and starts stomping about the place.

  3. Max says:

    Journalists don’t write the headlines.

    Here’s what you missed:
    “Hidehiko Nishiyama, the chief spokesman for NISA said the amount of radiation released is a tenth of what was released at Chernobyl.”
    Clear enough?

    And this:
    “During the early part of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, Japanese officials treated each stricken reactor as a separate incident, each with its own rating, according to IAEA officials. One reason for today’s rise in the index… is that the damage to three of the four stricken reactors now is being treated as a single event…”

    Who would’ve thought to treat this a single event?
    Well, on March 24th, Greenpeace said, “Taking all the releases from the Fukushima-daiichi reactors together, this event obviously [is] an INES 7 with the possibility that it is three INES 7’s, taking each reactor separately which results in a release of 100,000 Tbq each.”

    We need a graph of the growing estimates of the radiation leak, like the following graph of the growing estimates of the BP oil leak:
    http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/chart-of-the-day-evolving-estimates-of-gulf-oil-leakage.php

    Or at least a record of the assessments:
    -At least there was no explosion.
    -Ok, there were explosions, but at least there’s no leak.
    -Ok, there’s a leak, but at least it’s not widespread.
    -Ok, it’s widespread, but at least there are still zero predicted eventual deaths.
    – …
    -Ok, but at least it’s not as bad as burning coal.

    “The grimmest rational estimates of Chernobyl put its eventual death toll from cancer at 4,000.”

    The Chernobyl Forum’s prediction of 9,000 cancer deaths is irrationally high? What about the Greenpeace estimate of 93,000 cancer deaths and 200,000 total deaths? Or Yablokov’s and Nesterenko’s prediction of almost a million deaths?
    Dr. David Brenner didn’t rule out a million deaths, considering the large number of people exposed, but what does he know.

    • I said the grimmest RATIONAL estimates. Meaning, those based on science. More often than not, that will exclude anything coming from Greenpeace.

      • Max says:

        Oh I’m sure they’re no worse than JunkScience and the Heritage Foundation. Greenpeace was right about the INES rating after all.
        Care to point out what’s irrational in their report?

        Or these reports?
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/10/chernobyl-nuclear-deaths-cancers-dispute

        “The International Agency for Research on Cancer, another UN agency, predicts 16,000 deaths from Chernobyl; an assessment by the Russian academy of sciences says there have been 60,000 deaths so far in Russia and an estimated 140,000 in Ukraine and Belarus. Meanwhile, the Belarus national academy of sciences estimates 93,000 deaths so far and 270,000 cancers, and the Ukrainian national commission for radiation protection calculates 500,000 deaths so far…
        Controversy rages over the agendas of the IAEA, which has promoted civil nuclear power over the past 30 years, and the WHO. The UN accepts only peer-reviewed scientific studies written in certain journals in English, a rule said to exclude dozens of other studies.”

        And check out the WHO/IAEA agreement of 1959.

        http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Agreement_between_the_World_Health_Organisation_and_the_International_Atomic_Energy_Agency

        “The IAEA and the WHO agree that the measures to be taken by them, within the framework of any general arrangements for co-operating in regard to personnel matters which are made by the United Nations, will include (a) measures to avoid competition in the recruitment of their personnel; and (b) measures to facilitate interchange of personnel on a temporary or permanent basis, in appropriate cases, in order to obtain the maximum benefit from their services…”

        Do I smell a conflict of interests?

      • While I don’t think Fukushima will ever be as bad as Chernobyl, to say that there are no deaths from Fukushima is premature and a “snapshot.” Better to say there are “no deaths YET” from Fukushima.

        That said, in terms of big non-nuclear potential disasters in a fault line, how well built is Chevron’s big refinery complex at Richmond, Calif.?

      • Max says:

        I don’t know how disaster-proof the oil refinery is, but AFAIK it’s not involved in generating electricity, so it doesn’t compete with nuclear power.

      • True on the oil refinery not generating electricity; I just cited it as part of the sub-vein of discussion about non-nuclear construction stupidities in fault zones. Another would be the Upper and Lower Chrystal Spring reservoirs just south of San Francisco. If the “right” quake hits, SF gets flooded then runs out of fresh water. (The reservoirs are filled in large part by the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct from Yosemite.)

  4. John says:

    Great post Brian. Its refreshing to hear some sane response in contrast to all the panic-mongers in the media.

  5. Beelzebud says:

    “Consequently, there are still zero predicted eventual deaths from Fukushima Daiichi.”

    I honestly don’t see how you come up with that. There is an opposing reaction to scaremongering, and this is it…

    • Max says:

      It’s so refreshing to stick your head in the sand.

    • I’m afraid you’re giving me a little too much credit. I’m not in charge of calculating future health effects; that would be the World Health Organization. I merely report.

      • Beelzebud says:

        Then give credit to where you’re getting this info from. You seem to have a problem with sourcing data, and given some of your past sources (DDT – Junk Science) forgive me for not believing everything you say without evidence to back it up…

  6. oldebabe says:

    The most outrageous, frightening, etc., regardless of its truth, is sure to be broadcast (and broadcast and broadcast) via the media. It `sells’.

    Thanks for a common sense appraisal.

  7. As I said on Canadian radio Tuesday night, the world exploding would also be a 7. 7 is as high as the scale goes, meaning simply “major accident”. That hardly means that all “major accidents” are comparable to one another.

  8. DeLong says:

    What about prohibiting homes and businesses within 2 – 5 miles of the ocean that are at less than 100′ elevation? That is the true danger zone! The tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 killed an estimated 250,000 people, the hurricanes in Louisiana in 2005 killed more than 1,700 people, and the tsunami in Japan killed 10,000 (and still counting). The problem with the nuclear plants in Japan was that the backup generators were not physically located in an area that was protected from the effects of the tsunami. (I don’t know if there was a location that would have been safe from the tsunami.)

    It is apparent that the greatest risk is living within 1 – 5 miles of an ocean at less than 100′ elevation. (the History channel recently aired a show that highlighted the risk of a major tsunami to the Eastern coast of the U.S.)

    Are governments around the world going to make everyone abandon the inundation zones for a tsunami? Not likely. The issue of a nuclear power plant problem is the least of all problems.

    I do not work for, or have any monetary interests in the nuclear power industry.

  9. Alan says:

    “Consequently, there are still zero predicted eventual deaths from Fukushima Daiichi”

    I don’t see how someone could look at this accident and conclude this statement is correct.

    Beyond reliable, if back-channel, sources like reports from an expert on site who is a relative of a friend of mine who reports that deaths are guaranteed, there are other more mainstream sources that at least strongly suggest deaths have come or are coming soon (since radiation doesn’t kill quickly except at very high levels).

    To conclude that no deaths “are predicted” — with the clear implication that the odds of such will continue to be the same — borders on self-delusion at this point, IMHO. Sure, we shouldn’t exaggerate things; this isn’t another Chernobyl. But, your reaction seems to be an example of taking things to the other extreme — claiming everything is just fine until the evidence to the contrary becomes absurdly overwhelming.

    • Max says:

      Reminds me of Comical Ali.
      The amount of radiation released at Fukushima is estimated to be a tenth of what was released at Chernobyl, but the population density there is a lot greater than in the rural area around Chernobyl. Japan handled the situation better than the Soviets, but Japan’s nuclear crisis follows a major natural disaster, which makes the population vulnerable.

    • Andrew says:

      “Beyond reliable, if back-channel, sources like reports from an expert on site who is a relative of a friend of mine”

      Forgive me if I don’t accept the relative of a friend of a random person on the internet as a reliable source.

    • Mat says:

      As I understand it, plenty of people will die of cancer over the next, say, fifty years. The number due to this incident maybe too statistically insignificant to notice. Although, I agree “zero… deaths” seems to over simplify the situation (perhaps a little prevocatively?)

      I guess most guys on here have heard the latest “point of inquiry” podcast. Definitely worth a listen…

      • Max says:

        Check out the interview with Dr. Alexey Yablokov, who estimates a million deaths so far from Chernobyl.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-hHTFWXr90

        At the end, he compares Chernobyl with Fukushima, and points out some ways in which Fukushima is worse:
        1. Four reactors damaged, versus one at Chernobyl.
        2. Reactor 3 uses the Plutonium-Uranium MOX fuel.
        3. There’s more radiation inside the spent nuclear fuel pond than inside the reactor.
        4. Perhaps most significantly, it’s near a heavily populated area.

        He cites Christopher Busby’s estimate of 120,000 future deaths due to Fukushima, but I don’t trust Busby.
        He also says that long-term low-dose radiation can be more harmful than short-term high-dose radiation.

        It’s food for thought, but take it with a grain of salt.

      • Alan says:

        I have reports from an expert on the scene (via a friend whose relative this expert is) and he believes that a number are liable to be dead within months (if not less) while many others have had their life expectancies lowered to the single digits in years. And, yes, there are some who likely won’t see the effects for decades, but will nevertheless had appreciably higher rates of cancer. Other “mainstream” sources suggest this at times as well, although usually in a way that makes it easy to ignore it as mere guesswork or as simply overly alarmist.

        However, this source is NOT some bit of gossip heard from a guy who knows a guy who spoke to a guy, etc. Instead, it is from someone I personally know (athough not well) who is a close relative of a good friend of mine. He is an expert in the field of nuclear safety and is well placed to see the potential radiation effects.

        This information is out there, but isn’t making most of the “front page stories” of most big-time news sites so it’s easy to dismiss it if you otherwise have a reason to do so. But, that’s more a matter of not looking closely into the matter and/or just going with the answer that sounds better to you rather than entertaining something that isn’t what you want to hear.

        Mind you, I’m not suggesting there is a “big C” conspiracy at work (after all, this information is out there). Rather, there are a number of predictable factors at work that encourage people to readily accept the most upbeat conclusion to this disaster — that the Japanese (for business and cultural reasons) are naturally trying to softpedal the seriousness to “save face”; that the nature of radiation damage makes it easy to dismiss reports of major exposure since the effects can take months or years to manifest; the natural tendency for all involved not to sound alarmist; the natural tendency for many skeptics like Brian to distrust any conclusion that seems to ape the sort of extreme claims we hear from fringe environmentalists; and so on. This all combines to make it easy for people to accept the upbeat conclusions they hear while dismissing all others.

        What I suspect will happen is that as the disaster is dealt with and the story fades into history the gruesome details (which, take note, are not apocalyptic — we are talking at worse about maybe a hundred or two people) will come out. Ten years from now we’ll know that the death toll was a good deal greater than “zero”, but by then most people won’t care about it much anyway.

      • gdave says:

        “…this source is NOT some bit of gossip heard from a guy who knows a guy who spoke to a guy, etc. Instead, it is from someone I personally know (athough not well) who is a close relative of a good friend of mine. He is an expert in the field of nuclear safety…”

        Thank you for clearing that up. However, I still remain just a bit skeptical of an assertion by an anonymous blog commenter about an assertion by an unidentified expert. I hope you’ll understand.

      • Alan says:

        Actually, I don’t — basically, since I have been emphatic in my reports, your reply amounts to straight out calling me a liar.

        However, you have no good reason to say so given that I have no profit motive nor any grudge against nuclear power (if anything, I am a supporter). No good reason, that is, than perhaps a desire to conveniently dismiss any reports that might conflict with what you want to be true.

        I could give the name of my source, but not only would that be an invasion of his privacy it would also be meaningless as you wouldn’t recognize it anyway. All I can say is that the individual in question is an expert on nuclear safety who was brought over to Japan because of his background with that type of reactor. He’s seen the situation firsthand and has the necessary professional knowledge to properly interpret what’s going on.

        Thus, you have to decide if I am just flat-out lying to you (despite having no reason to do so) or that just maybe these reports are accurate (at least based on the guy’s own experiences). Frankly, in the absence of any definitive evidence to the contrary, the second is the most logical and reasonable conclusion.

        That does not mean my source is infallible — maybe he is being overly pessimistic. But, don’t doubt that these reports came from an expert in the field who has seen the disaster firsthand. The only reason to believe otherwise, IMHO, is that you are looking for an excuse to do so.

      • gdave says:

        Alan:

        Um, wow. I stated that I am a bit skeptical about an assertion by an anonymous blog commenter about an assertion by an anonymous expert. From that, you conclude that I am “straight out calling [you] a liar” due to “a desire to conveniently dismiss any reports that might conflict with what [I] want to be true” and that the only reason I am being at all skeptical is that I am “looking for an excuse to do so.”

        Sir, you have no good reason to say so given that I have no profit motive nor any bias in favor of nuclear power (if anything, I am an opponent, at least until the problem of safely disposing of nuclear waste can be solved). No good reason, that is, than perhaps a desire to conveniently dismiss any skepticism of what you want to be true.

        As to you flat-out lying, well, you could be. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what your motives are. But there are, of course, other possibilities. Your source might be lying to you. He might be mistaken. You might have misunderstood what he told you. Or, of course, he might be completely right, and you might be relaying his conclusions with complete accuracy and precision. I don’t know which, if any, of the above is true.

        I am not calling you a liar. I am not saying you, or your source, are wrong (I don’t have any particular evidence to the contrary or any particular expertise in the field). I am simply saying that I am a bit skeptical of an assertion made by an anonymous blog commenter about an assertion by an unidentified expert.

        What you are offering simply isn’t persuasive evidence. It isn’t even hearsay, since I don’t even know who the supposed original source is.

        When I state that, I am not making a personal attack on you or your personal integrity. I am simply saying you haven’t persuaded me.

        But, of course, I could be wrong.

        And just for the record, yes, I do “want” you and your source to be wrong, in that I am hoping that the eventual death toll will be zero.

  10. Prasad says:

    The people where the Nuclear Plant blast occurred should be shifted to safety zone where they can live without any deceases without radiation. Japan government take the help from other countries like America, Russia so they can come out as early as possible.

  11. Mat says:

    So nuclear energy can provide us with huge amounts of low carbon energy and (even if you accept Max and Alan’s position) is orders of magnitude less risky than sun exposure/driving a car/eating a high fat diet/drinking too much/etc.

    Life is “risky” as soon as you are born. There may be plenty of reasons to oppose nuclear power but ‘risk to humans’ seems to be an irrational one.

    And as we look to the future, plant design and function will improve (as will cancer treatments).

    • Max says:

      Russians do drink a lot, so I guess that justifies Chernobyl.

      • Max says:

        The point is that this irrational line of reasoning is used to justify self-destructive behaviors: “I’ve already taken so much risk and spent so much money, what’s a little more?” This way, risks are used to justify more risks, and it spirals out of control.

      • Jason M says:

        Max, your argument against this line of reasoning is itself a fallacy: the slippery slope. By your logic we shouldn’t makes comparisons of the relative risk of different things or else we risk “justifying self-destructive behaviors”. Again, you’re the one who is displaying absolutist, black-and-white thinking on this issue.

      • Max says:

        It’s funny when the reasoning of addicts is presented as being rational.
        If tolerance for additional risk DECREASES as risk accumulates, the negative feedback keeps you out of trouble.
        If tolerance INCREASES, the positive feedback gets you into trouble.

    • Max says:

      The counter to this relativistic argument is that life is risky enough as it is, so we shouldn’t pile even more risks on top.
      For example, when they reassure you that the cancer mortality due to XYZ is small compared to the 40% overall cancer mortality, it implies that XYZ would be even less significant if the overall cancer mortality were 90%. Or would XYZ be MORE significant by eating away at that last 10%?

    • Compared to the amount of lives lost, lives disrupted, etc. that we will get with C02 passing 450, or even 500 …. I’m ready to accept more nuclear power plants.

      I’m even more ready to preach energy efficiency, conservation, etc., though.

      • Max says:

        It makes sense to compare nuclear risks with coal risks, because there’s a choice between the two.
        It makes less sense to compare nuclear risks with the risks of sun exposure or drinking too much because a greater use of nuclear power doesn’t reduce these unrelated risks, unless you’re the kind of person who sees a power plant nearby and decides to drink less in order to keep total risk in check.

  12. Beelzebud says:

    This post reminds me of Leslie Neilson from Naked Gun, standing in front of the exploding fireworks factory shouting: “Nothing to see here! Move along!”.

  13. People used to die horrible deaths from scalding when steamboat boilers would explode. Therefore modern transportation should be banned.

    • Beelzebud says:

      You’re starting to act like the people on twitter you were whining about last week. You’re just on the opposite side of the coin…

    • Max says:

      Anyone who questions rosy assessments of a new technology is a Luddite who wants to ban new technology.

      Repost from the “People Suffering? Yippee!!!” thread:

      Brian can’t take criticism, and responds with strawmen, ridicule, and slander. The Skeptoid listener feedback episodes are nothing but ridicule. In his follow-up to the DDT episode, Brian dismissed almost all criticism as a political attack on libertarianism. Earlier, he lashed out against a critical blogger for dragging the boat instead of paddling. Now he’s calling his critics “arrogant sickos” and “bottom feeders” for saying “I told you so.”
      To tell deniers from skeptics, I look at how they handle criticism, and Brian’s record is spotty.

      • Jason M says:

        The feedback episodes on Skeptoid aren’t “nothing” but ridicule; you should try listening to one sometime Max. You also conveniently left out that Brian regularly does retraction shows where he addresses his mistakes in detail (that are mostly pointed out by listeners). Honestly, don’t you have anything better to do with your time than to repeatedly troll Brian’s posts?

      • Max says:

        Listener feedback episodes are an opportunity to seriously respond to criticism, to reflect, and to gain insight, but the ones I’ve heard were nothing but ridicule. Apparently, Skeptoid listeners get a big laugh out of them.
        In fact, I don’t remember the last time Brian refuted criticism in a thoughtful and respectful manner, as Steven Novella does.
        The retraction episodes are good, but they mostly retract inconsequential factual errors, not lame arguments like the “no victims” fallacy.

      • tmac57 says:

        The “Student questions” episodes are informative.But I have to agree with Max,I don’t ever remember hearing a feedback episode that wasn’t strictly aimed at the lame emails that Brian received,and then subjecting them to ridicule.Some of that is warranted and fun,but to do it every time,begins to look like “See how stupid all my critics are!” ,while ignoring earnest challenges.

      • He does NOT regularly retract stuff here; and on his shows, I’ve never heard him retract his libertarian claims about how white liberals hate poor sub-Saharan Africans to the point of banning DDT.

        For every butt-kisser of his, Jason, Brian needs a good skeptical rebutter. If that’s a “troll” in your book, so be it.

  14. Somite says:

    What I don’t understand why isn’t the energy plan a calculation of benefits and risk. Solar and wind have none of the potentially disastrous disadvantages of nuclear, oil and coal but may generate less energy/area. Why don’t we simply use solar and wind as much as we can and top it off with nuclear and carbon as needed.

    What skeptics should be about is the evaluation of the most sensible energy scheme. Not the categorical defense of one form against the other.

    • Mat says:

      One word: Ideology.

      • Max says:

        Funny thing about nuclear energy is it unites some global warming denying pro-industry types with GW alarming environmentalists, while dividing pro-industry types into fossil fuel and nuclear camps.

      • Max says:

        Oh yeah, and it divides the Greens into the anti-nuclear camp that hates nuclear bombs more, and the pro-nuclear camp that hates fossil fuels more.

      • Jason M says:

        I disagree with Mat’s comment. The reason why solar and wind will not take over oil and coal is anytime soon twofold: firstly, fossil fuels are still much more cost effective than solar and wind (oil is still black gold), and secondly, fossil fuel companies have developed a cosy relationship with the governments that need to be the primary leaders in the change.

      • I’ll counter with more word, followed by two others: “Capitalism” and “profit motive.”

        And, per both you and Somite, I’ll trump with: “Conservation.”

    • Somite says:

      Help me out here. Just came across this article about google financing the largest wind farm in the world “When completed in 2012 [the plant] will produce 845 MW of energy. This will be the first commercial wind farm in the U.S. to deploy, at scale, turbines that use permanent magnet generator.” About 900 MW output is the output number I always associated with nuclear power plants.

      If wind has none of the potentially catastrophic outcomes of nuclear; why do we even bother? I understand not all situations would be covered with a wind/solar scenario but we should use the non-potentially catastrophic methods first.

      • NIMBY. Look at RFK Jr leading opposition to the wind farm off Cape Cod. (You never saw deseg school buses go to Hyannisport, either, did you?)

        Beyond “looks” NIMBY, there’s noise NIMBY, a more realistic concern.

        But, both NIMBYs are fairly, tho not entirely, overblown.

  15. Max says:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110524/wl_nm/us_japan_tepco_reactors

    “Tokyo Electric Power Co said meltdowns of fuel rods at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant occurred early in the crisis triggered by the March 11 disaster.
    The government and outside experts had said previously that fuel rods at three of the plant’s six reactors had likely melted early in the crisis, but the utility, also known as Tepco, had only confirmed a meltdown at the No.1 reactor…
    Some analysts said the delay in confirming the meltdowns at Fukushima suggested the utility feared touching off a panic by disclosing the severity of the accident earlier.”