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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Mar 23, 2011 - 11:39am PT
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This graphic captures alot about the health effects of radiation in an easy-to-digest way. Click on it to see a readable version.
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
May have been posted before, it is hard to wade through all the noise on this thread.
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Aya K
Trad climber
New York
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Mar 23, 2011 - 11:41am PT
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So Adam, could people in Tokyo, where people have recently been advised not to let children drink water, conceivably stock up on a bunch of tap water and have it be safer to drink, say in a week or two, when there REALLY isn't any bottled water left?
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 23, 2011 - 11:44am PT
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I can't answer that, as I don't know exactly what is in the tap water... If it were just radioiodine, then yes, after a given amount of time divided by the half-life (8 days). Cesium has a MUCH longer half-life, measured in years.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 23, 2011 - 11:46am PT
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Radiation: Facts Versus Fears, from...
This really is a MUST read for any and all who do not understand the details, and to see what really is considered 'negligable', relative to what many people get naturally. (E.g., just smoking a pack a day gives one an intake with a dose of WELL OVER 1 Rem/year [1,000 mRem], or about 8-9 times the dose of the average nuke worker)
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corniss chopper
climber
breaking the speed of gravity
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Mar 23, 2011 - 02:39pm PT
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Is this right?
Radio Iodine has a half life of 8 days. If no more new fallout gets into the
water supply from Fukushima the present 'twice the safe limit' will drop
to 'half the safe limit' in 16 days. Making the water sort of safe to drink.
16 days is a long time to be thirsty.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 23, 2011 - 03:06pm PT
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Half-life is 8.0197 days
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine-131
And, again, limits set by regulatory agencies tend to be extremely conservative, because they just don't know for sure... So it is a "conservative limit", which is most likely far lass than the "safe limit".
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cleo
Social climber
Berkeley, CA
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Mar 23, 2011 - 09:14pm PT
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Scientists figure the tsunami was so huge because the sea bed on the Asia plate raised up 500 meters (1,500 feet) at one point. Then when the Pacific plate slipped underneath, the Asian plate settled down again along a 200 mile swathe of eastern Japan.
wait, WHAT? Where did you hear that? I've never heard of anything like that, and I know quite a bit about plate tectonics.
Also, if that were true, the tsunami would've have been a helluva lot bigger, methinks.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Mar 23, 2011 - 11:01pm PT
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This whole thing is scary. I understand how "limits" for all manner of chemicals and rad materials are derived, I have worked around the nastiest chemicals that man has ever made (Sarin and VX) and I still find this incredibly sad. I am surprised that the EDG's (Emergency Diesel Generators) were in a low lying area at the plant. So even though I work for DOE and have a wealth of knowledge of how decisions are made and safety is factored into plant design, I am still very upset for the people of Japan.
The technical side of me though, says that we (Americans) must be smart about how we decide what our Electrical Power source is. It never pays to let emotions factor into these decisions (although I did factor it in below). I have been thinking about the wealth of data out there on deaths attributed to various power sources (e.g. coal fired power plants, nuclear). And the environmental costs of using various power sources.
It seems logical to me that we can rank various electrical power sources. The factors that must be considered are (not in any particular order (must include all lifecyle impacts/costs such as extraction - coal mining):
1. Safety to Human Health (What are the known impacts directly attributed to any poweer source); must include long and short term and also extraction.
2. Environmental Impacts (Long and short term impacts) these would include wastes generated such as Green Housee Gases, Solid and Liquid Wastes. danger to the Ecolgy (e.g. Salmon killed due to dams); loss of useable surface area (e.g. Wind farms, Solar take huge land areas)
3. Cost per MW (or other unit of Power) Generated - this must include lifecyle costs such as waste disposal and decommissioning the plant.
4. Reliability - We are spoiled and expect that power is always there.
5. Stakeholder (Public) Acceptance - (Obviously today Nuclear has some challenges)
6. And the real Wildcard? Politics which is somewhat related to #5.
There could be other factors. I dont presume to have all of them listed. All of this is doable. For uncertainties? Thesee could be ranked much like a project Risk Management Plan (Probability and Impact Analysis).
After taking all this into account, it would be very illustrative in terms of understanding how various power sources stack up against each other.
It never pays to let emotion settle things whether you are arguing with your spouse (or other ST Users!). And yet, as logical as I think I am, in this situation I do feel my emotions factoring into things.
By using a process like the one above, one may argue about data used in the model, or factors, or uncertainty of teh data, but I believe that the process is sound.
I live in an area where within a 50 mile radius we have Wind Farms, Nuclear, Hydro (damns), Coal fired and gas fired power plants. It is a relatively rural area and I know damn well we supply tons more power than we use. I have a thought that if cities were responsible for all of thier own sh#t (such as power, waste, etc.) then people may actually think about these things. Such as it is, the population centers just assume that their crap should be dealt with in a rural area and no more thought is provided. Just my opinion.
Anyway, thoughts are with the impacted people of Japan.
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Brandon Lampley
Mountain climber
Boulder, CO
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Mar 23, 2011 - 11:49pm PT
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Golsen
Environmental racism and environmental socioeconomic discrimination are the facts of life. NIMBY is everyones natural response, density rules. Poor rural areas get the generation, we'd offshore it if we could. We all share in global climate change, but SOx, NOx, and especially particulate are relatively local.
If only we made generation and siting decisions as you wish we would. Regulatory agencies just don't have that power (yet). And profitability is the 800 lb industry gorilla that matters.
Oh, and is it not obvious to more folks yet there are multiple meltdowns, primary containment breaches, and spent fuel burning and blowing around over there?
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Mar 24, 2011 - 11:20am PT
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David J. Atkinson:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s published standard for Iodine-131 contamination in drinking water is 3 picocuries per liter, which is equal to about 0.1 becquerels per liter. The drinking water in Tokyo has been tested at 210 becquerels per liter which we are told is "safe" for adults if consumed only temporarily. Do you think 2,100 times the US standard is safe?
David Atkinson is a NASA program manager, colleague and friend, who was in Japan with his family at the time of the earthquake. They managed to fly home a few days later.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 24, 2011 - 12:40pm PT
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Where did you get that it is still 210 Bq from?
Ah... Your friend's write up is dated.
Did you read the article?
Tests from 6 a.m. at the Kanamichi Water Purification Plant, which provides water to 23 wards in Tokyo as well as five other cities, showed 79 becquerels of radioactive iodine per kilogram of water, the city government said in a news release.
A becquerel is a measurement of radioactive intensity by weight.
This is below the 100 becquerel level, the maximum considered safe for infants ages 1 and younger. And it is well below the 210 becquerel reading measured Tuesday night.
And where is he getting 3 X 10^-12 Ci from?
In fact, he seems to be off by several orders of magnitude from the actual EPA limits or radioiodine:
4 Becquerels per liter (108 pCi/L) http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/iodine/standards_regulations.html
In fact, the FDA seems to even support the numbers on the article:
170 Becquerels per kilogram (4,600 pCi/kg) (same source as above)
Perhaps you should redo the math with the correct numbers. (I.e. current levels and appropriate limits) Then, you may wish to correct your NASA friend.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Mar 24, 2011 - 01:44pm PT
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Another confusing and worrisome day in Japan.
Children under ten and pregnant women are being supplied free bottled water by the Japanese government. Spots of high radiation are being found in unexpected places due to local wind patterns. The American government continues to evacuate non essential personnel.
Two Tepco employees ended up in the hospital with radiation burns from a bizarre accident that inspires little confidence in either the employees or management of Tepco. They went into the reactor wearing only short rubber boots and then had water seep in over the tops of them. Since the water was radioactive, they got burned. The question is how would anyone assume that the water below the rods was safe after the imprecise spraying that has been done?
Meanwhile, various professors who specialize in radiation studies are trying to reassure the public that it's not too bad, by drawing comparisons to Chernobyl. However, to tell people that Fukushima is not unusual, random patterns of radiation were detected in Chernobyl also, does nothing to reassure. So far no one has had the courage to even mention that typhoon season with its 150-200 mph winds will officially begin in May. Imagine what one of those will do to scatter radiation if they don't get a lid on it by then?
And final good bit of news for the day is the news that as more and more sea water is pumped in and boiled off, the more salt is stuck on the insides of the pipes which will eventually raise the pressure again. One wonders when an outside agency will tell them to stop trying to save face and just incase the monster in sand and concrete?
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 24, 2011 - 01:47pm PT
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All of my radiation survey measurements (last week until now) with my calibrated CDV-700 have all been within normal background levels (0 - 0.05 mR/hr).
Regarding your specific survey meter...
When properly calibrated, the response of this instrument is within the range of plus or minus 15 percent of the true gamma radiation dose rate from Cobalt 60 or Cesium 137 radioactive sources. I hope you know that this means that for radionuclides OTHER than C0-60 and Cs-137 (although Ir-192 gammas are about the same energy as Cs-137, so it will be just as accurate for that as well), it will be well outside that +/- 15% accuracey.
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 24, 2011 - 01:55pm PT
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Interesting analysis Jan ...thanks.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 24, 2011 - 03:13pm PT
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Two Tepco employees ended up in the hospital with radiation burns from a bizarre accident that inspires little confidence in either the employees or management of Tepco. They went into the reactor wearing only short rubber boots and then had water seep in over the tops of them. Since the water was radioactive, they got burned. The question is how would anyone assume that the water below the rods was safe after the imprecise spraying that has been done?
I'm not quite understanding some of this, so if you could please clarify...
They went into the reactor wearing only short rubber boots and then had water seep in over the tops of them.
I have to assume you mean "Went into the reactor building", as nobody can go into the reactor, ever... Unless it is offloaded, and full of water, then divers in dry-suits have on occasion gone in, but stay clear of the lower internals. Usually they send in a submersible ROV.
Since the water was radioactive, they got burned.
What was the source of this water? Are we sure it wasn't thermal burns, rather than radiation burns?
The question is how would anyone assume that the water below the rods was safe...
Nobody would, and I can't for the life of me see how someone would get into contact with water from "below the rods". This is the part I don;t understand the most, so can you please clarify.
And thanx for the updates, Jan... It is appreciated.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 24, 2011 - 03:17pm PT
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So where can the public watch on-line this Livermore Lab tracking of the radiation plumes?
Ed, would you know?
not sure it's available for public realtime tracking, but you can go to the NARAC page...
https://narac.llnl.gov/
It is really a tool for response organizations...
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
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Mar 24, 2011 - 03:55pm PT
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rrrAdam,
3 nuke workers exposed to high radiation, 2 sustain possible burns
Submitted by Saidani on 2011年3月25日
From Kyodo
Three workers were exposed to high-level radiation Thursday while laying cable at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and two of them were taken to hospital due to possible radiation burns to their feet, the nuclear safety agency and the plant operator said.
The three men in their 20s and 30s were exposed to radiation amounting to 173 to 180 millisieverts while laying cable underground at the No. 3 reactor’s turbine building. Exposure to 100 millisieverts is the limit for nuclear plant workers dealing with a crisis but the limit has been raised to 250 millisieverts for the ongoing crisis, the worst in Japan.
The two hospitalized are workers of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s subcontractors and had their feet under water while carrying out the work from 10 a.m., according to the utility known as TEPCO and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
The two, who were diagnosed with possible beta ray burns at a Fukushima hospital, will be sent to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba Prefecture by early Friday and will stay there for about four days, the agency said.
As the workers had stepped in a 15-centimeter-deep puddle, radioactive water may have seeped through their radiation protective gear, causing radioactive materials in the water to stick to their skin, TEPCO said, adding that the burns are caused by direct exposure to beta rays.
The technicians were wearing nonwoven protective suits of U.S. chemical firm DuPont Co.’s Tyvek brand, full-face masks and rubber gloves, but the two later hospitalized were not wearing boots, letting radioactive water in their shoes, according to the utility and the agency.
Radiation at the surface of the puddle stood at 400 millisieverts per hour, while the amount in the air reached 200 millisieverts per hour.
TEPCO said Wednesday there was no puddle at the site and the radiation level was just around a few millisieverts per hour. The workers did not measure the radiation amount before starting the cable-laying work on Thursday, it said.
Following the incident, workers at the first and the basement floors of the No. 3 reactor’s turbine building were told to evacuate the area.
The radiation levels the three were exposed to this time are lower than the maximum limit of 250 millisieverts set by the health ministry for workers tackling the ongoing emergency at the Fukushima plant. The accumulative amounts of radiation to which they have been exposed are also below this criteria, TEPCO said.
Usually in Japan, the upper radiation exposure limit for nuclear plant workers is set at 50 millisieverts per year, or 100 millisieverts within five years, but the level comes to a cumulative 100 millisieverts in the event of a crisis. The health ministry has further relaxed these standards to deal with the crisis in Fukushima.
With the latest exposure cases, the number of TEPCO workers who have been exposed to radiation exceeding 100 millisieverts at the plant comes to 17, the operator said. None of them have been exposed to radiation exceeding a cumulative 250 millisieverts, the agency said.
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