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Do you believe what you read online?

 

Why would you think I believe everything I read online? What was the point of that comment?

 

Like most rational people, I judge whether or not to believe something based on how reputable the source is.

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Why would you think I believe everything I read online? What was the point of that comment?

 

Like most rational people, I judge whether or not to believe something based on how reputable the source is.

 

Wikipedia states

 

"The Banqiao Reservoir Dam (simplified Chinese: 板桥水库大坝; traditional Chinese: 板橋水庫大壩; pinyin: Bǎnqiáo Shuǐkù Dàbà) is a dam on the River Ru in Zhumadian City, Henan province, China. Its failure in 1975 caused more casualties than any other dam failure in history at an estimated 171,000 deaths and 11 million displaced."

 

Which one is true, or neither?

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Wikipedia states

 

"The Banqiao Reservoir Dam (simplified Chinese: 板桥水库大坝; traditional Chinese: 板橋水庫大壩; pinyin: Bǎnqiáo Shuǐkù Dàbà) is a dam on the River Ru in Zhumadian City, Henan province, China. Its failure in 1975 caused more casualties than any other dam failure in history at an estimated 171,000 deaths and 11 million displaced."

 

Which one is true, or neither?

 

Are you meant to be addressing these comments to me?

 

I said I read that nuclear causes less deaths (per TWh of power) than any other energy source. Somebody else provided figures which backed up what I read so I thanked them for that.

 

I'm not sure what dam failures in China have got to do with that?

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I said I read that nuclear causes less deaths (per TWh of power) than any other energy source. Somebody else provided figures which backed up what I read so I thanked them for that.

 

 

I can believe that nuclear power generation causes fewer deaths, but not by as great a margin as those figures suggest.

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I can believe that nuclear power generation causes fewer deaths, but not by as great a margin as those figures suggest.

 

What was the post about the failure of Chinese dams about?

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What was the post about the failure of Chinese dams about?

 

I was just pointing out that with the different numbers from the New Scientist, you do not know which source to trust.

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I was just pointing out that with the different numbers from the New Scientist, you do not know which source to trust.

 

I see. Yes there are often varying figures from different sources, particularly for events like this with large death tolls.

 

The full wikipedia article does however also quote the 230,000 figure which was the one that the New Scientist used. The new scientist article was also quoting the figure for all 30 dams which failed in that flooding, whereas quote you took from wikipedia was just for the Banqiao Reservoir Dam, which might explain the discrepancy.

 

Further down the wikipedia article however it does state this..

 

Although a large number of people were reported as lost at first, many of them later returned home. A 2005 book compiled by the Archives Bureau of Suiping county reports that more than 230,000 were carried away by water, in which 18,869 died. It has been reported that 90,000 - 230,000 people were killed as a result of the dam breaking.

 

It also later states..

 

According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province, approximately 26,000 people died at the province from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine.

 

Perhaps the New Scientist article was using the most sensationalist figure.

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I see. Yes there are often varying figures from different sources, particularly for events like this with large death tolls.

 

The full wikipedia article does however also quote the 230,000 figure which was the one that the New Scientist used. The new scientist article was also quoting the figure for all 30 dams which failed in that flooding, whereas quote you took from wikipedia was just for the Banqiao Reservoir Dam, which might explain the discrepancy.

 

Further down the wikipedia article however it does state this..

 

Although a large number of people were reported as lost at first, many of them later returned home. A 2005 book compiled by the Archives Bureau of Suiping county reports that more than 230,000 were carried away by water, in which 18,869 died. It has been reported that 90,000 - 230,000 people were killed as a result of the dam breaking.

 

It also later states..

 

According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province, approximately 26,000 people died at the province from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine.

 

Perhaps the New Scientist article was using the most sensationalist figure.

 

However you calculate it the hydro figure dwarfs the nuclear one.

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I can believe that nuclear power generation causes fewer deaths, but not by as great a margin as those figures suggest.

 

How does that work?

Are the numbers wrong? Can you discredit them somehow? Or are you just going to dismiss them because your gut says that they should be different?

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Wikipedia states

 

"The Banqiao Reservoir Dam (simplified Chinese: 板桥水库大坝; traditional Chinese: 板橋水庫大壩; pinyin: Bǎnqiáo Shuǐkù Dàbà) is a dam on the River Ru in Zhumadian City, Henan province, China. Its failure in 1975 caused more casualties than any other dam failure in history at an estimated 171,000 deaths and 11 million displaced."

 

Which one is true, or neither?

 

It depends on your source. The Chinese have a vested interest in keeping the number small out of saving face for a start. Other countries would prefer the reverse.

 

The best numbers I've seen are about 230,000 killed in the flooding and a total of 2 million extra deaths caused by the famine due to loss of crops and farmland. How good a number that 2 million is and how much is a result of the dam bursting and how much would have happened anyway due to the weather is very much open to debate. things like this invariably are tricky.

 

Greenpeace were once kicking around a figure of 630,000 deaths from Chernobyl. They've been caught lying many times before, and people rightly dismiss almost everything they say. Your figures above are 9000 which seems high from data seen ten years ago, but the source is not known for making foolish claims and I'd happily accept those figures. Well I wouldn't be happy about the deaths, but I'd be happy its a reasonably accurate number.

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How does that work?

Are the numbers wrong? Can you discredit them somehow? Or are you just going to dismiss them because your gut says that they should be different?

 

I cannot disagree with the outcome, like some do, without giving a really good explanation and backed up by facts.

The longest-lived plutonium-244, with a half-life of 80.8 million years; am I meant calculate the costs of its disposal ;)

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Yes.

The 'which power source is least dangerous' contest was won some posts back by nuclear.

We're now into the fine detail of exactly how many thousands of times more likely is it to get killed by renewables than by nuclear.

Does anybody care? Is it not enough that renewables are over a thousand times more dangerous; on top of being more expensive, unreliable and with a far higher effective CO2 output?

On this record and reality how did we end up with current government energy strategy?

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