Why you should not worry about Japan's nuclear reactor problems.

by beatthesystem 56 Replies latest social current

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  Snoozy
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  Snoozy
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  Snoozy
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  Snoozy

  OK..this is wierd..I cut and pasted a article about Times Beach and each time it came up error when I hit transmit to post it. Then I go back to edit and it says error..won't even let me pull it up.

  Big Brother watching me?...lol
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  villabolo

  Moshe: ". . . I received my 1000 millrems in 10-12 jumps- then I was done for the quarter- so that equals 1 rem."

  Below I quote from Cresson Kearny's classic book, Nuclear War Survival Skills (Chapter 12). I don't like the way he phrases the exposure to 1 rem as being acceptable "under war conditions". Please note that the 1 rem (=1 rad) you received, is 1/400 th the dose that is lethal to many.

  The only good news would be that your "10-12 jumps" have been (I assume) spaced out over a period of several days. That may reduce the severity of the acquired dose.

  http://www.homelandcivildefense.org/nwss/nwss.pdf

  "For example, assume the shelter is in an area of heavy fallout and the dose rate outside is 400 R/ hr-enough to give a potentially fatal dose in about an hour to a person exposed in the open. If a person needs to be exposed for only 10 seconds to dump a bucket, in this 1/ 360th of an hour he will receive a dose of only about I R. Under war conditions, an additional I-R dose is of little concern."

  "Also, the escaped radiation/contaminats is likely to be a heavy alpha particle emitter which is 20x more dangerous to the body than the same radiation you get from an X-ray- alpha radiation is bad stuff, if it is coming from inside your body!"

  My understanding is that alpha particles are short lived compared to other radiation. However, for he sake of discussion, a small amount of radioactive fallout from nuclear explosions, deposited on your skin, can cause nasty burns. Even if you wash it off before the gamma radiation can do much harm.

  Villabolo
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  villabolo

  Snoozy:

  "OK..this is wierd..I cut and pasted a article about Times Beach and each time it came up error when I hit transmit to post it. Then I go back to edit and it says error..won't even let me pull it up."

  You're not alone Snoozy. However, when similar things happen to me, the JWN thugs ridicule it.

  JWN just seems to have a lot of glitches.

  Villabolo
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  Snoozy

  Thank you Vill..I never had this happen before but it seems odd things have been happening since Simon has been working on his "New Board"...
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  moshe

  I am not so worried about external radiation, you can measure it and shield against it and keep your distance from it- it's the unknown injested radiological contamination that will kill you. Just drink some milk with stronium 90 or eat a salad with cesium 137 on the lettuce and your luck could run out very fast.
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  freydo

  Radiation hampers efforts to restore power to nuclear plant in Japan

  "Efforts to try to restore power to reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi complex are interrupted as high radiation forces the withdrawal of workers. But it's unclear whether a return of power will help. Spent fuel rods remain the biggest concern.

  Officials of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the facility 140 miles north of Tokyo, said they hoped to have power connected to reactors No. 3 and 4 by Sunday. Reactor building No. 4 is now the source of the biggest concern at the site because it contains spent fuel rods that may have boiled dry and are releasing large amounts of radiation into the environment.
  
  The spent-fuel pool does not have a containment vessel, so if the fuel rods heat up and start burning, the radioactive ash will be released directly into the environment. Workers made a second series of attempts Friday to cool the fuel rods, dumping water from helicopters and using water cannons operated by Japan's Self-Defense Forces to spray water into the pool, which sits in the upper level of the building housing reactor No. 4. The reactor itself had been shut down for maintenance before the earthquake, so it does not pose a problem.
  
  But photographs taken by helicopters and a Global Hawk drone operated by the U.S. Air Force indicate the water is not lasting very long in the pool, suggesting that there is a major breach in the walls of the vessel holding the fuel rods, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.........."

  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-japan-reactor-damage-20110318,0,7832119.story
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  villabolo

  Moshe: "Just drink some milk with stronium 90 or eat a salad with cesium 137 on the lettuce and your luck could run out very fast."

  Slightly off topic, but it should be emphasized. Those posters that are wailing about the bias of the media and the anti-nuclear agenda of some, are themselves parroting the propaganda of the nuclear power industry. A classic example of this deception is the old BANANA BS about its consumption giving you higher doses of radiation than what you would get from fallout. Those posters don't even realize that the radioactive element in bananas, Potassium 40, is very different than Iodine 131.

  The issue of whether radiation can cause damage to the human body is not as simple as measuring the radioactive levels and then making a cross comparison with another radioisotope with the "same" levels. One has to take into acount three factors:

  1. The specific radioactive element. Different elements can have different effects on the body regardless of whether they happen to register the same on a geiger counter. Some elements stay in the body for extended periods, others don't. Those that do stay in the body continue to dose the cells in a steady bath of radiation.
  2. The specific type of radiation. All forms of radiation are not equal. There's Gamma radiation as well as Alpha and Beta radiation. They are each dangerous in different ways; as well as emitted in different quantities depending on the radioisotope. Also, while the isotope is decaying, it transforms itself from one form to another.
  3. The amount of radiation emitted. This is the only aspect of radiation that unknowledgeable people take into account. This leads to simplistic and outright false conclusions. You have to take all three factors together into account.

  Therefore the "amount" of radiation in a banana, as measured by some, is irrelevant to the issue of whether such and such a radioactive isotope is dangerous or not. Potassium 40 in bananas simply does not have the potential to cause the type of harm that Iodine 131 and Cessium 137 does. A major reason for this is the fact that Potassium is rapidly excreted by the human body whereas Iodine and Cessium are not.

  In fact, most foods have minimal amounts of radioactive elements but they do not act the same on the human body as man made nuclear isotopes. For those man made radio isotopes that are the same as their natural counterpart, there can be a much greater exposure in quantity than nature gives us.

  Villabolo