I have watched a TV programme called ‘Fear Factor.’ In the series there are contestants who have to confront their worst fears to see who bails out and who can fight the fear and get through.
People who are afraid of heights are made to Bungee-jump off a high bridge, and people who are scared of spiders or insects are made to get in a bath full of spiders.
In virtually all cases the contestants later say that the fearful experience was not actually as bad as they feared. So the fear of the fear was greater than the fear itself ‘when the chips were down.’
This is often the case in life, that the fear of some factor turns out to be worse than the experience itself. The human mind builds a very scary image in the imagination. The imagination then feeds the fear.
If the picture in the imagination is not very specific or clear it is worse, because the fear factor feeds on the unknown.
This is what has happened in the public mind concerning nuclear power over the last half century. Concepts concerning nuclear reactions and nuclear radiation are in themselves complicated and mysterious.
Over the last couple of decades physics advances in fields such as quantum mechanics, which is linked to nuclear processes has compounded matters for the public. The image of strong and mysterious forces and effects is now well entrenched. There are Hollywood movies and TV programmes about space travellers or alien invaders who use time travel and quantum forces, and then battle to evade the dangerous intergalactic nuclear zones.
A consequence of all this is that internationally the public is now really ‘spooked’ when it comes to the topic of nuclear power. A real ‘fear factor’ looms over the mere word ‘nuclear.’ Newspapers love this, and really push imagery like; ‘nuclear leak’ or ‘radiation exposure.’
To a nuclear physicist like me, I look upon such public reaction half with amusement and half with dismay. The amusement comes from the fact that so many people can be scared so easily by so little. It is like shouting: “Ghost in the bedroom,” and everyone runs and hides in the hills.
The dismay reaction is that there is a body of anti-nuclear activists who do not want the public to know the truth, and the anti-nukes enjoy stoking the fear factor and maintaining public ignorance.
Let us now ponder the Fukushima nuclear incident which has been in the news again lately.
Firstly let us get something clear. There was no Fukushima nuclear disaster. Total number of people killed by nuclear radiation at Fukushima was zero. Total injured by radiation was zero. Total private property damaged by radiation….zero. There was no nuclear disaster. What there was, was a major media feeding frenzy fuelled by the rather remote possibility that there may have been a major radiation leak.
At the time, there was media frenzy that “reactors at Fukushima may suffer a core meltdown.” Dire warnings were issued. Well the reactors did suffer a core meltdown. What happened? Nothing.
Certainly from the ‘disaster’ perspective there was a financial disaster for the owners of the Fukushima plan
t. The plant overheated, suffered a core meltdown, and is now out of commission for ever. A financial disaster, but no nuclear disaster.
Amazingly the thousands of people killed by the tsunami in the neighbouring areas who were in shops, offices, schools, at the airport, in the harbour and elsewhere are essentially ignored while there is this strange continuing phobia about warning people of ‘the dangers of Fukushima.’ We need to ask the more general question: did anybody die because of Fukushima? Yes they did. Why? The Japanese govern
ment introduced a forced evacuation of thousands of people living up to a couple of dozen kilometres from the power station. The stress of moving to collection areas induced heart attacks and other medical problems in many people. So people died because of Fukushima hysteria not because of Fukushima radiation.
Recently some water leaked out of the Fukushima plant. It contained a very small amount of radioactive dust. The news media quoted the radiation activity in the physics measure of miliSieverts. The public don’t know what a Sievert or a milliSievert is. As it happens a milliSievert is a very small measure.
Doubling a very small amount is still inconsequential. It is like saying: “Yesterday there was a matchstick on the football field; today there are two matchsticks on the football field. Matchstick pollution has increased by a massive 100% in only 24 hours.”
The statement is mathematically correct but silly and misleading.
At Fukushima a couple of weeks ago, some mildly radioactive water leaked into the sea. The volume of water was about equal to a dozen home swimming pools. In the ocean this really is a ‘drop in the ocean.’
The radiation content was so little that people could swim in the ocean without the slightest cause for concern. Any ocean naturally contains some radioactivity all of the time anyway. There is natural radiation around us all of the time and has always been there since the birth of the earth.
Understandably the general public do not understand nuclear radiation so the strangest comments occur. On an internet blog some person stated that people on the north coast of Australia must be warned about the radiation in the sea coming from Fukushima. Good grief!
Meantime the Fukushima site now looks like an oil refinery. A lot of storage tanks have been built there to hold water that has been flushed through the damaged reactors to aid in cooling. Quite frankly, scientifically speaking, the best thing to do with the mildly radioactive waste water would be to intentionally pour it into the sea. The water which is currently in the new Fukushima storage tanks has already been filtered to remove radioactive Caesium.
All that is left is a bit of radioactive Tritium. Tritium is actually part of the water molecule anyway…so what we really have is…well, water in water. The Tritium atom is a hydrogen atom, 
which has two neutrons in its nucleus which is a normal but rare variation in the hydrogen atom. Most hydrogen atoms have only a single proton in the nucleus and no neutrons. A rare hydrogen variation is called Deuterium and such atoms have one proton plus one neutron. Even rarer than Deuterium is the Tritium form of hydrogen which has one proton plus two neutrons. These variants are known as isotopes. Water is H2O and water molecules in which the Tritium isotope of the hydrogen atom is found are molecules referred to as ‘Heavy Water.’ It really is just water, so you can’t filter it out of the normal ‘light water.’
The Tritium heavy water is very mildly radioactive and is found normally in the sea all over the world all of the time. This Tritium concentration in the one thousand storage tanks at Fukushima is higher than that found naturally in the sea, but is still so low as to pose no real danger at all.
No doubt the Japanese government is too scared to release this water into the sea because of the howl of criticism which would no doubt follow.
A further complication is that in the last couple of weeks the press has reported further spillage of water. These reports are such that it looks like a continuous failure of the Fukushima engineers to contain the situation.
The latest spillage was about 400 litres of water, which is about as much liquid as would fill four motor car fuel tanks. Reportedly, one of the one thousand storage tanks was not totally horizontal when it was built so when it was filled to the top some water overflowed on one side.
As soon as the spillage occurred they fixed the problem. But the rules require the incident to be reported, even though the spillage was not of any biological consequence to anyone, or to any fauna or flora.
The Fukushima incident will continue to attract media attention for some time to come, I imagine. It has become such a good story to roll with that it will not just go away. However, in sober reflection and retrospection one has to come to the conclusion that far from being a nuclear disaster the Fukushima incident was actually a wonderful illustration of the safety of nuclear power.
The largest earthquake and consequent tsunami on record struck an ageing nuclear power plant which was built to a now obsolete boiling water reactor technology, and no nuclear damage resulted to people and property in the neighbourhood.
Poor management systems compounded matters and were implicated in the failure of the cooling circuit. The reactor cores suffered a meltdown. Due to the magnitude of the tsunami disaster there were no emergency services able to help, they were deployed elsewhere or paralysed because there were no roads or infrastructure available.
Hydrogen gas leaked out of a reactor, collected under the building’s roof and then exploded, blowing the roof off in front of the world’s TV cameras. Fukushima had devices called ‘recombiners’ designed to prevent the hydrogen build-up but they were not working because they needed an external electricity supply.
Financially speaking and operationally speaking the reactors were wrecked, but nobody was killed or injured by any nuclear radiation.
Fukushima showed that a nuclear power plant can take the maximum punch of nature’s brutality, and yet the surrounding population does not fry and die as so often dramatically predicted by the fear factor enthusiasts.
____________________________________
Very interesting article. As much as I know that media bias exists, I did not realize that this was so exaggerated. Thank you for explaining it so that people without nuclear physics degrees can understand the truth.
Physicists aren’t taught the physiology of how dangerous nuclear radiation is to human health.
To learn how dangerous nuclear raidation is to humans, Google and read:
“Nuclear Radiation: There is No Safe Dose” by Dr. Romeo F. Quijano
Aren’t the effects of high-intensity radiation not normally felt or seen until about 10 – 20 years after the incident?
Yes…there are now a number of long run studies of Chernobyl emerging that are starting to capture the impact of the radiation.
Generally correct, and that’s what they are banking on, makes the illnesses impossible to PROVE!! ie. they are off the hook!!!!
Best comment here. Sure, it is perfectly correct to say that physical damage and deaths from Fukushima were non-existent when compared to the earthquake impact. However, the impact of raised levels of background radiation will be insidious and multi-generational and it is disingenuous to suggest that raised radiation levels are not of relevance. This person has been a lobbyist for the nuclear industry and he has no background, as far as I can see, regarding the effects of radiation on biological systems.
More propaganda. There’s plenty of natural radiation sources, and if you were right then smoke detectors…
Of course there are. This has the potential to be more than normal background radiation though.
Even background radiation can be a problem – studies have shown that naturally occurring Radon in unventilated spaces will raise the incidence of lung cancer. But you live in your deluded world. It’s your choice.
Nexusfast123, you have an insult for everyone, don’t you.
newsbot9 ….foolish words , get educated then write… what you are saying is that we are already being poisoned so dont worry about more? dumb logic!
You’re an easy mark, Mike….
Potential?? I choose to live with facts, not maybe’s of a slim possibility. If you choose to worry about F-D, how do you explain the vibrancy of life in the Pacific region after the nuclear bomb tests in the South Pacific (1947-62)? Cousteau found lots of sea animals. Or the wildlife preserve around Chernobyl?
There is a safe dosage for radiation – higher than IAEA guidelines.
You are obviously ignorant of the difference between “natural” radiation and man-made nuclear radiation.
Please learn the difference.
brain Death becomes you.
So many pRogressive Fools; so little Time.
“Physicists aren’t taught the physiology of how dangerous nuclear radiation is to human health.”
Sorry, but this is simply incorrect. Anyone that ever deals with radioactive materials MUST take a course in the physiology of radiation.
Explain Hiroshima, then. Why isn’t there a cancer epidemic?
There was and is!
……….. BULL
You don’t know what you are talking about. Effects of radiation on human body is part of the curriculum of nuclear physicists, radioprotection physicists, nuclear medicine physicists and most physicists in a field related and/or using radioactive material.
Nice try to discredite nuclear physicists. They are among the ones with most knowledge in the field.
If you really, seriously, actually believe that there is no safe dose of radiation, then it is your moral duty to insist long and loudly that the city of Denver be immediately evacuated.
Because the citizens there receive 7 milliSieverts just from living next to that ginormous pile of granite called the Rocky Mountains. And they get a few more if they have a granite countertop, and radon in the basement. And fly off to see the grand folks once a year.
Hmmm… that’s odd. I don’t hear you shouting in panic and rage from your flung-open window.
The statement “there is no safe dose” is just simply flat-out factually incorrect. Period. It’s fear-mongering propaganda and nothing more.
A yearly dose at or below 100 milliSieverts results in no uptick in cancer rates. Google the 2012 report from United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).
Long story short – the Linear No-Threshold Theory (LNT ) harped on by the anti-nuke crowd is not a theory at all. It’s a hypothesis, and an unproven one at that. It’s just a wild-ass guess that Dr, Mueller, a nobel prize winner, came up with in 1947, that the anti-nuke folks glommed onto and haven’t let go.
Period. End of discussion.
There is now a major conflict about the health effects of Chernobyl. The professional health scientists have reached the conclusion after much research and collection of data, that the impact on the civilian population was fairly small. But, the anti-nuclear activists continue to insist that it was much greater. Actually, current scientific thinking is that low doses of radiation do no harm. We are exposed to low doses every day and our bodies have learned to deal with them.
………………… BULL
dont beleive this crap! it is propaganda . look into it further please.
Very clearly stated, Dr. Kemm. Other prominent debunkers of the nuclear scare story include Dr. Richard A Muller of BEST, George Monbiot the green activist, and definitely not least Dr. James Lovelock, proposer of the Gaia Hypothesis.
Who will start the next wars? It’s likely those who attempt to rely on moon beams for the energy to power their economies.
Excellent review.
Anyone interested in the real dangers of radiation should visit radiationandreason.com where Prof Wade Alison shows that levels 200 times higher than the regulated amount are safe.
dont know if I fully believe the slide show, I do remember watching a nature show about the crittors around chenobyle, my question was why is it safe enough for animals but not for people? unless the fear of radiation is being used to push people out of targetted areas (such as agenda 21 stuff I remember seeing a show about an island that was used in the past for nuclear testing and the animals were there, the plants were growing like normal and fish in the sea, if it is safe enough for animals why not for people? unless the fear of radiation is ued to keep people off the island? plants do absorb radiation, seen an article about using sunflowers to absorb it then burying the plants, so who to believe?
Uh, because the critters don’t read newspapers?
It is safe for critters because their life span is shorter. No time for the stochastic effects of exposure to show.
You might want to do some reading on this subject. For example, read about the long term effects of extreme exposure such as Hiroshima etc and it’ll become clear that the hysterical reactions to Fukushima and even Chernobyl were and are unjustified.
http://k1project.org/weapons/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-the-long-term-health-effects/
exactly we were told of death clouds circling the globe if nukes were used, well we used them and no death clouds happened, in fact MOST of the people in both nagasaki and hiroshima suvived!
Even a guy who was bombed with BOTH weapons lived to 93.
I read about that I have also read a few articles about skydivers who survived the fall after their chutes failed. A single data point does not a study make.
I don’t know who ‘we’ is or from where ‘death clouds’ comes.
Radiation Effects Research Foundation. Retrieved Sept. 18, 2007. “total number of deaths is not known precisely … acute (within two to four months) deaths … Hiroshima … 90,000－166,000 … Nagasaki … 60,000－80,000”
Many more suffered long term disability, illness and death later.
clearly you dont “know” much of anything on this entire topic, other than LIES media have told you……LEARN the physics involved so you dont have to depend on others.
I’m depending on others b/c I provide citations? ha!
not safe for animals either – they died, got ill, had DNA damage, and many studies have been done…. many thousands more than compiled in this study.
free download of the book
“Chernobyl:
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the
Environment”
Alexey Yablokov, Vasily Nesterenko and Alexey
Nesterenko
NY Academy of Sciences, Volume 1181, 2009.
5,000
Slavic language studies reviews, over 1,400
cited.
http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov_Chernobyl_book.pdf
hard
copy now available at Greko Printing P:734.453.0341; F: 734.453.5902;
email: [email protected]
That study is a well known fraud, typical Greenpeace. When physics doesn’t agree with you, make it up.
http://atomicinsights.com/challenging-nyas-decision-to-keep-yablokovs-chernobyl-fiction-online/
No fraud. Peer reviewed in Europe; very highly reputable men of science. and nothing to do with Greenpeace.
You’re a liar. Period.
Some of us are actually in Europe, you know, and understand other languages than English, not that there is a lack of info on this fraud in English. The lead author indeed is a co-founder of Greenpeace Russia – http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/center_for_safe_energy2/
WRONG, the animals did NOT die they are thriving………that study was 100% BS…actually some older folks STAYED there and lived their normal lifespan, some are still there and alive today!
and a lot died, a lot have dramatic genetic malformations… nuclear does not have a 100% kill rate, however, where the population once had 80 to 90% healthy children, post-Chernobyl it dropped to 20% and then to ZERO.
Animals die, cannot reproduce or when they do, their offspring are not viable. A vacuum exists and other animals drift into and fill up the area, but then they also get sick and become diseased, ill and/or die. THAT is what occurred… you’d have to actually read the book cited… or at least the section on fauna to get that.
The Yablokov book is junk science.
“A devastating review in the journal Radiation Protection Dosimetry points out that the book achieves its figure by the remarkable method of assuming that all increased deaths from a wide range of diseases – including many which have no known association with radiation – were caused by the accident. There is no basis for this assumption, not least because screening in many countries improved dramatically after the disaster and, since 1986, there have been massive changes in the former eastern bloc. The study makes no attempt to correlate exposure to radiation with the incidence
of disease.”
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/04/04/evidence-meltdown/
I do not agree with that review. You go ahead and believe the propaganda that denies over 5,000 studies by hundreds of scientists. Ignore decades of research, including by Nobel prize winners, like Herman Joseph Muller, specifically for demonstrating how lethal radiation is. The research is solid. It was first published in Russian, and so well received, scientists urged that it also be published in English.
“I do not agree with that review”
Is that because it contradicts your preconceptions?
Sound science is not “propaganda”.
“Ignore decades of research”
No-one is ignoring research. By all means if you want to cite some research (preferably in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, or published by a reputable scientific body) then please do so.
“It was first published in Russian, and so well received, scientists urged that it also be published in English.”
It was shown to be deeply flawed, as detailed in this paper in the journal _Radiation Protection Dosimetry_:
http://rpd.oxfordjournals.org/content/141/1/101.full
Today Dr. James Conca published a good synopsis of the scientific consensus:
– 2 immediate, non-radiation deaths
– 28 early fatalities from radiation within 4 months,
– 19 late adult fatalities from radiation over the next 20 years, and
– 9 late child fatalities from radiation resulting in thyroid cancer.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/04/26/will-the-truth-about-chernobyl-ever-come-out/#3f487ae81b50
“… If you pollute when you do know there is no safe dose with respect to causing extra cases of deadly cancers or heritable effects, you are committing premeditated random murder.”
– John W. Gofman, Ph.D., M.D. (1918-2007), associate director, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 1963-1969) — Comments on a Petition for Rulemaking to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, May 21, 1994.”
The idea that there is “no safe dose” of radiation is an assumption made by regulators, not science.
Studies of peoples living in areas with naturally high levels of background radiation (Example: Kerala, India) demonstrate this.
Scientific finding, including by the BEIR committee. LNT model accepted after decades of discourse between scientists.
Kerala is a prime example of damage to the population by continual low level radiation exposure. “There is an area in Kerala in India, where there is naturally occuring thorium monozite sand, a kind of black sand. There are 44,000 people living there, many for generations. Over the last two years we have collected information on illness among the families living on this radioactive sand compared with families living on natural sand in the same area.
What we found on the radioactive soil was four times the expected level of Down’s Syndrome or mongoloid children. Also mental retardation, epilepsy, congenital blindness and deafness, cleft lip and cleft palate, skeletal abnormalities and childless couples.” Sister Dr. Rosalie Bertell
“NT model accepted after decades of discourse between scientists.”
No. It is a hypothesis that has been accepted for regulator purposes.
Can you find a reference to the claims of Rosalie Bertell in the peer reviewed literature?
Aaron, not sure if you’ve ever heard of this female crank Rosalie Bertell, she is the kind of person who believes that we are being sprayed by unknown entities for unknown reasons using unknown aircraft, spraying chemtrails, I kid you not.
Maybe our funny correspondent also believes in the chemtrail fantasy, who knows?
Here is some entertaining proof of this crank’s ideas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st3lHWZTrwQ
BEIR VII Slide presentation, Slide #31
“BEIR VII Committee Conclusions
→ Linear Non-Threshold model of cancer risk prediction validated
→ No evidence of a threshold below which no cellular damage occurs”
Slide 31 from BEIR VII presentation:
“BEIR VII Committee Conclusions
→ Linear Non-Threshold model of cancer risk prediction validated
→ No evidence of a threshold below which no cellular damage occurs”
Sorry, but I’d really like to see a reference to the peer-reviewed scientific literature to back up thic claim, not some vague reference to a slide somewhere!
http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/beir_vii_final.pdf
fsi-media.stanford.edu/evnts/4371/Abrams_-_BEIR_VII_PPT_V2.ppt
Herbert L. Abrams … Linear Non-Threshold model of cancer risk prediction validated; No evidence of a threshold below which no cellular damage occurs.
Image of slide presentation
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/199dd3f7900fa08d4be13b725a0947e534b4a62803af85ab96172a7abab172fc.png
Additional research:
NY times — about Chernobyl 1996
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/25/world/inherited-damage-is-found-in-chernobyl-area-children.html
Inherited Damage Is Found In Chernobyl Area Children
Congenital-Malformations-NY-April 1959
“1 % mortality increase in Newborns per 0,00001 Gray (Thorium)”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1372765/?tool=pmcentrez
Environ Health Toxicol. 2016 Jan 20;31:e2016001. doi: 10.5620/eht.e2016001. eCollection 2016.
“Genetic radiation risks: a neglected topic in the low dose debate”
Schmitz-Feuerhake I1, Busby C2, Pflugbeil S3.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1372765/pdf/amjphnation00320-0057.pd
So why did, e.g.Siegel et al. find the LNT to be invalid?
Siegel JA, Pennington CW, Sacks B, Welsh JS. (2015) The Birth of the Illegitimate Linear No-Threshold Model: An Invalid Paradigm for Estimating Risk Following Low-dose Radiation Exposure. Am. J. Clin. Oncol. 2015 Nov 3.
Would you like more examples?
Multiple scientists, academics… discussed it at length … twenty years debating, testing, analyzing… among including the BEIR VII committee supported by DOE, NRC, EPA… I feel very confident in their acceptance of the LNT model. It’s accurate. and honestly, after 3 weeks, I’m done her.
Thank you for the conversation – Good day!
” I feel very confident in their acceptance of the LNT model”
I think you are accepting that for ideological reasons. Again: there is a large body of evidence in the peer-reviewed literature that disagrees. Here’s another example:
http://www.jpands.org/vol13no3/cohen.pdf
Cohen B. (2008) The Linear No-Threshold Theory of Radiation Carcinogenesis Should Be Rejected. ournal of American Physicians and Surgeons 13(3):70-76
You can’t ignore science just because you don’t like the conclusion.
dude, it’s a plea to reject what has already been proven.
“it’s a plea” No. It uses numerous lines of –evidence– to reject the LNT. You can choose to ignore that evidence if you wish. But that does not stop it from existing.
And that evidence led the 6,000-member Health Physics Society, the principal organization for radiation protection scientists, issued a position paper stating: “Below 10 rad…risks of health effects are either too small to be observed or are nonexistent.”
Which really says a lot about the integrity of the HPS they make more money & have more jobs if they uphold LNT… think about it .
it’s a plea to reject the scientific conclusion of LNT applied to radiation causing cancer. That was long accepted cause-effect, even before BEIR VII also accepted LNT model. One paper will not undue decades of scientific conclusions of direct relationship.
“it’s a plea to reject the scientific conclusion” Once agin: it is not a “plea”. It cites a plethora of evidence for rejecting the LNT.
“That was long accepted cause-effect,” No, it was a regulatory assumption.
“One paper” Once again: there are MANY papers. And furthermore, there are FEW papers that lend credence to the LNT. That’s why the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements stated that “Few experimental studies and essentially no human data can be said to prove or even provide direct support for the [LNT] concept”.
Reference: National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. Principles and application of collective dose to
radiation protection. NCRP Publication 121. Bethesda, Md.; 1995.
LNT-based radiophobia fuels needless evacuations, inspires avoidance of life-saving medical procedures, and promotes nuclear fear. Considerations of the basic sciences of biology, physics, chemistry, and other natural sciences should be either the source or the final arbiter of scientific hypotheses about ionizing radiation, and not sterile epidemiological studies, designed to yield mathematically convenient relationships, that ignore the manifold findings of those basic sciences and rest their conclusions on circular reasoning. Failure to take proven biological reality into account leads to counterproductive statistical exercises, sometimes fraught with numerous errors, that carry the misleading appearance of erudition through mathematical complexity. These studies are not benign; they do not err on the safe side; and they have deadly consequences.
This unscientific practice must end, for the sake of much of humanity . https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13752-016-0244-4
“There is no safe low level of radiation.”
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan May 12, 2011
Appeals to authority are not particularly of interest to me. But if you like appeals to Authority, then consider:
Marcus CS (2015) Time to Reject the Linear-No Threshold Hypothesis and Accept Thresholds and
Hormesis: A Petition to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Clin. Nucl. Med. 40(7):617-9. doi: 10.1097/RLU.0000000000000835.
Abstract
On February 9, 2015, I submitted a petition to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reject the linear-no threshold (LNT) hypothesis and ALARA as the bases for radiation safety regulation in the United States, using instead threshold and hormesis evidence. In this article, I
will briefly review the history of LNT and its use by regulators, the lack of evidence supporting LNT, and the large body of evidence supporting thresholds and hormesis. Physician acceptance of cancer risk from low dose radiation based upon federal regulatory claims is unfortunate and needs to be reevaluated. This is dangerous to patients and impedes good medical care. A link to my petition is available:
http://radiationeffects.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Hormesis-Petition-to-NRC-02-09-15.pdf,
and support by individual physicians once the public comment period begins would be extremely important.
Herman Joseph Muller 1946 Nobel prize for paper written in 1926 and published 1927 — exposure to radiation damages genetic stability, shows up in future generations, destroys cell lines, accelerating extinction.
You’re the nonsense winner for denying actual science, proven again and again.
John F Kennedy 1963 also spoke about the genetic mutations, cancers that will also come because radioactive fallout arrives on all sides.
The thing about science is that you don’t get to pick and choose. There is no excuse for ignoring more up to date science that shows the LNT to be unfounded.
“BEIR VII develops the most up-to-date and comprehensive risk estimates for cancer and other health effects from exposure to low-level ionizing radiation. It is among the first reports of its kind to include detailed estimates for cancer incidence in addition to cancer mortality. In general, BEIR VII supports previously reported risk estimates for cancer and leukemia, but the availability of new and more extensive data have strengthened confidence in these estimates. A comprehensive review of available biological and biophysical data supports a “linear-no-threshold” (LNT) risk model—that the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and that the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”
[altho they do limit analysis to cancers and only for a limited time, it still shows a correlation — long-term future generations are showing greater genetic mutations]
http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/beir_vii_final.pdf
“BEIR VII develops the most up-to-date and comprehensive risk estimates for cancer”
Well, no. There has been a lot of research besides what is discussed in BEIR VII (Published 2006). You can ignore it if you like. But that doesn’t stop it from existing.
You sure you wouldn’t rather quote Helen Caldicott and Arnie Gunderson, nitwit?
Factually incorrect, and based on no real science — just like most of your moronic opinions.
http://mieuxprevenir.blogspot.com/2014/04/world-health-organization-fukushima.html
“Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.” – W. Edwards Deming
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CyFAOpYUcAAIZ6N.jpg
NRC FOIA doc #s are on the images
just a sample https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/acbb569a8eb72694f5c119320b92b85eae537dbf17bface687731a1bba23778b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99cca1f68e05cd8afaa28b11aa2707c15e803d719c382f099bb72b403d945404.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/915b8e9c38cbe442e0191e6a1e6307ea791a50ce9fefcc82408c8c1c94e71170.jpg
Workers are better protected from radiation in a nuclear power plant than in wind/solar and coal industries.
“By far the largest collective dose to workers per unit of electricity generated was found in the solar power cycle, followed by the wind power cycle. The reason for this is that these technologies require large amounts of rare earth metals, and the mining of low-grade ore exposes workers to natural radionuclides during mining.”
“a study has been done that shows that of most of the options to generate electricity, nuclear actually releases the least amount of radiation.”
“Coal … is also a strong emitter of a range of pollutants (including radiation)”
http://mzconsultinginc.com/?p=846
http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/2016/A-71-46_e_V1604696.pdf
“Want to minimize radiation from power generation – build more nuclear”
“A flight between Europe and North America, expose you to more radiation than hanging with friends around nuclear waste”
https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13668977_1729700707270813_8596594517742808553_n.jpg?oh=b86c569c1930075ada951f4515ca9087&oe=5893CDB4
DNR, since you are a known ignoramus and troll.
NRC FOIA good enough for me.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3157df0988431f1950fbd884154eaf5111fe0ee492b5a21cb19814291a0b8e85.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99cca1f68e05cd8afaa28b11aa2707c15e803d719c382f099bb72b403d945404.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/acbb569a8eb72694f5c119320b92b85eae537dbf17bface687731a1bba23778b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d7e77f60fae356c638c4a6b9030b13f94ee7ca4fd06bbf47244e3040a7e2eb3c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/915b8e9c38cbe442e0191e6a1e6307ea791a50ce9fefcc82408c8c1c94e71170.jpg
Abrahms – stanford- beir vii – google
There was no Fukushima disaster is absolutely ridiculous. We had fallout across North America reported by all major news channels. Radiation is damaging.
Slide 31 from BEIR VII committee presentation:
“BEIR VII Committee Conclusions
→ Linear Non-Threshold model of cancer risk prediction validated
→ No evidence of a threshold below which no cellular damage occurs”
“We had fallout across North America reported by all major news channels.”
I invite you to nominate the changes in background radiation due to this “fallout” and then compare to natural background radiation dose rates.
One again, “Slide 31 from BEIR VII committee presentation” is a very vague reference. I’d really like to see a reference to the peer-reviewed scientific literature to back up this claim.
Abrams – Stanford – BEIR VII committee member – google
Because few people care if animals die of cancer.
These kinds of ridiculous statements costs people their health and lives! It was proved in 1927 by Mueller (who won a Nobel prize) that even the smallest exposure, like one xray, damages DNA! The government has always known that nuclear promotion has been solely for military purposes under the guise of nuclear security… thus the IAEA agreement that overrides all WHO work for public health – but not regarding the nuclear issue.
It’s long past time that the nuclear industry is recognized for what it is – a military program that was legitimized to keep the health consequences under wraps without informing the public.
DNA damage happens all the time. Even your DNA contains natural radioactive isotopes which cause several mutations every day due to splitting of atoms in the strand itself. However, your body has defenses against that: mutations are mostly happening in inactive segments of DNA so they don’t really matter, DNA repair mechanisms fix the errors, and cells are killing themselves when the mutations are too severe.
There are theories that DNA repair mechanisms becomes more active when there’s more damage occurring. That assumption seems logical because people living on areas with higher natural background radiation do not seem to suffer more of radiation linked diseases and neither is their life expectancy shorter than of those living on areas with lower radiation.
So, doubling a dose does not necessarily double your risks of developing e.g. cancer, at least if doses are low enough. Making radiation 200 times stronger may elevate the probability of some disease a little bit but it does not mean that the area would be uninhabitable or food produced on that area should not be consumed at all.
Making other healthy choices in the life are probably many times more effective than avoiding slightly elevated radiation levels at all cost. For example, the x-ray you mentioned, might reveal a tumor in your body – in which case a controlled dose of radiation has certainly done only good for you.
True, that! Marushka might want to research “the J-curve”, which kind of addresses that issue. If damage is VERY low, the body’s defenses can’t detect it and can’t repair the damage. If the damage is very HIGH, it overwhelms the body’s defenses and it loses the battle.
But there IS a middle ground where the body’s defenses CAN detect AND overcome damage and/or invasions and repair itself quite successfully.
And radiation damage is one of those kinds of things, too.
Um, actually the real curve goes the other direct: low doses not only have no deleterious effect, they appear to be somewhat beneficial. That may account why we in nicely radioactive Colorado have a low cancer rate.
How about the effects in Fallujah from all the depleted uranium from the wars there? 80% of the babies born with horrific birth defects. Thats your low dose radiation effect
If this is true, then you should look into the chemical effects of any metal poisoning rather than talk about radiation, something that you clearly are not too familiar with.
Uranium-238 has very little radiation, due to its extremely long half-life. And uranium, like most metals, is poisonous to living things.
It’s quite fun to see all the kneejerk reactions to anything that has the word “radiation” in it. Have you ever done an MRI scan? Do you know what that “R” stands for?
MRI has nothing to do with anything yes i know the R is not radiation in MRI Magnetic Resonance Imaging It is not a kneejerk reaction I have serious concerns about what has gone on at Fukushima like thousands of others, and calling everyone with the same concerns fearmongerers makes you look less credible, there are many people worried and rightfully so because you know damn well the effects of what can happen when something goes wrong with nuclear. There is a mass media cover up on this event and i think you know that. I am tired of the whitewashing from PR firms in this industry trying to keep the public in the dark so they can keep collecting their billions and continue polluting the earth. Bioaccumulation is real
Well yes, the R stands for resonance, but another name for MRI is NMRI or nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. So you would favour MRI vs CAT scans because one uses radiation, while the other not? Can you not see that radiation is used to save lives, not to harm them?
Yes, I do know damn well the effects of what can happen when something goes wrong with nuclear, such as in Fukushima, where *ZERO* people died of radiation, and most likely *ZERO* people will die in the future, given the very low level of radiation escaped from the damaged plant. These figures have been not given by TEPCO, but by the WHO.
No, there is no mass media cover up on Fukushima. There just are no interesting news for the non-nuclear geeks, because it’s all very boring these days.
(1) cite it. (2) Uranium is a heavy metal poison. Depleted uranium is not very radioactive at all.
The one study (http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/pdf) makes it clear they can’t blame uranium.
the kinds of radiation we evolved with, died down enough for 1.) our bodies to repair what we evolved with 2.) died down enough for our own and other species to exist long enough to pro-create.
But this vast amount of lethal, man-made radionuclides are all new to our biology and those of many other species, we have very little ability to recover from exposure. Acute exposure kills us or it doesn’t. Likely will vaporize or burn… and we’ve learned that low dose exposure is profoundly hazardous genetically and hazardous as it promotes the Dysfunction systemically – entire biological systems collapse.
Linear Non Threshold There is always risk, there is no threshold without risk. There is an absence of linear relationship, so to speak. An Acute dose may kill you within hours or weeks. A chronic, low-dose exposure would kill millions over time — maybe half in 10 years and the remainder over an additional 40 years. In Japan, just cancers alone are being estimated to reach 1 million – easily. Doesn’t include all the myriad ways damage and death can also occur – miscarriages, stillbirths, spontaneous heart attacks (one the increase, especially under age 19), cardiovascular disease (incloudes nose bleeds to aneurysms, brain and nervous system disorders, diabetes,… too long a list for me to easily remember off the top of my head.
Better stay inside and away from that big yellow ball in the sky if you’re so afraid of the tiniest bit of radiation, champ.
Unfortunately for the paranoid, staying inside could expose them to even more radiation from radon gas etc. The good thing is our species, and all species for that matter, evolved in a bath of radiation and thus are very tolerant of it. Perhaps there is a good reason that while we respond to excess heat or cold etc, we have no sensory responise to radiation?
No, the military promoted it – specifically, Admiral Rickover – to try to get it to reform power generation as a whole, as it is the safest and cleanest option. You want to talk about radiation damage? Don’t ever fly in a plane.
You want to talk about spreading radioactive contamination? Don’t live near a Coal Plant.
You want to talk about Nuclear Power? Educate yourself with reasonable sources written by reasonable people.
Not assumptions or lack of context, which is precisely what you’re doing.
You’ve got Google. Use it properly.
Don’t worry… they won’t.
Nuclear power is the cleanest and safest form of energy? Sorry to disappoint, but free point energy from the quantum flux field has far more energy than nuclear and doesn’t leave any footprint. Seems like you like to make blanket statements. That’s cool tho…a lot of that is going around these days.
Great! Care to tell us all how many commercial installations of such “free point energy from the quantum flux field” powerplants exist today? Inquiring minds want to know…
So tell me something Mr. Pro-science, pro-nuclear power, libertarian Bertagnolio. What are your doing with waste from these plants.. Your taking a shit with no proper way to dispose of it. But i guess you can bury it right? Out of sight, Out of mind let the future generations deal with our problems.
They are fine with tossing it in the ocean and water supply. No big deal right!! Hypocrites!
No, it doesn’t, because right now harnessing it requires vast amounts of energy much of which come from Coal. Even then, the best we can get out of Zero Point Energy devises is enough to power… well, nothing, really.
So, actually, to correct your statement, Fusion is, as one company has managed to get Fusion to produce more energy than it consumes. Now, it’s not economically feasible.
When it’s viable and produces more energy than it consumes to get the process going, yes, zero-point energy will probably be the best energy source we can get.
However, I didn’t think I needed to make the statement “currently viable,” in my comment. I figured everyone would realize that I’m not going to waste everyone’s time with half-thought-out semantics, but that’s cool, though, I guess that’s going around these days.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/january/jacobson-world-energy-012611.html
Stanford Report, January 26, 2011
The world can be powered by alternative energy, using today’s technology, in 20-40 years, says Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson
A new study – co-authored by Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson and UC-Davis researcher Mark A. Delucchi – analyzing what is needed to convert the world’s energy supplies to clean and sustainable sources says that it can be done with today’s technology at costs roughly comparable to conventional energy.
WWS = Wind, Water, Solar (NO Nuclear, No Oil) Change the infrastructure, long-term changes = much lower costs, truly clean atmosphere and far better for life… we will still have to deal with the legacy of contamination from nuclear, petrochemicals… but at least we can stop the damage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XCYlCF3QuQ
Nuclear is still safer. Fewer deaths per kw/h.
Part of that is because of how much training is involved and how careful nuclear operators have to be.
The other great part about nuclear is how much industry and intellectualism it drives in just simply manning them. It’s a great white-collar and blue-collar work force, and it’s incredibly cost-effective and only getting better. (They’re expensive to build, but after that incredibly cheap and pay themselves off quickly)
Wind is actually one of the least economical methods and is only good on small-scales. Large scales actually do a number to the environment.
Water, agreed, but that requires far more development – and that requires money.
Solar? Yeah, solar is great.
But so is nuclear power.
Particularly newer ones. I agree, a lot of the old ones need to be shut down. Not all of those are safe… but there is no reason to not include Fission Power from Clean Energy of the Future ideas. Especially if you use Thorium. I’d LOVE to see you come up with an argument against Thorium reactors. That’d be interesting… considering I don’t think there really is one.
Mark Z. Jacobsen is not exactly honest. He considers the carbon cost of a burning city to be built into the carbon cost of nuclear energy – this fallacy being the only way he could even justify his work.
How could he prove damage in 1927 to something whose structure wasn’t known until 1953?
Dr. H.J. Muller did not know about DNA 1927. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946. It was for “the discovery of the production of mutations by means of X-ray irradiation” (Nobel Prize). “one X-ray” is pretty hard to find, Dr. Muller never stated (nor proved) that “one X-ray” causes mutation.
“The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1946”. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2013. Web. 16 Oct 2013.
than you for verifying “the mutations by xray” paper… and
Nobel Prize, for his work presented in 1927.
You mean the one you didn’t understand and misquoted?
Discovery of X-ray mutagenesis[edit]
1926 marked the beginning of a series of major breakthroughs. Beginning in November, Muller carried out two experiments with varied doses of X-rays, the second of which used the crossing over suppressor stock (“ClB”) he had found in 1919. A clear, quantitative connection between radiation and lethal mutations quickly emerged. Muller’s discovery created a media sensation after he delivered a paper entitled “The Problem of Genetic Modification” at the Fifth International Congress of Genetics in Berlin; it would make him one of the better known public intellectuals of the early 20th century. By 1928, others had replicated his dramatic results, expanding them to other model organisms such as wasps and maize. In the following years, he began publicizing the likely dangers of radiation exposure in humans
BTW for all your deletorioeus comments, you provide no proof, no citations.
Artifical Transmutation of the Gene
[as in man-made, the Xray]
‘regarding the types… the lethals greatly outnumbered the non-lethals (recessive for the lethal effect…) … producing a visible morphological abnormality. There were some ‘semi-lethals’… these were not nearly so numerous as the lethals.
… obtain evidence in these experiments for the first time, of the occurrence of dominant of dominant, lethal genetic changes, both in the X and other chromonsones.
effects on the sex ratio
‘partial’ sterility in males
subsequent generation, sterility
changes produced by Xray, rearrangement of the order of genes, (without which would occur at much greater rarity). which we believe furnish the building blocks of evolution.”
http://www.esp.org/foundations/genetics/classical/holdings/m/hjm-1927a.pdf
“A gene mutation is a permanent change in the DNA sequence that makes up a gene. Mutations range in size from a single DNA building block (DNA base) to a large segment of a chromosome.”
OK, Marushka, you’ve made it abundantly clear that you believe pretty much every fear-inducing report you read and in addition, NO amount of data, information OR knowledge, supplied by ANYONE, will change your mind.
So this alleged “conversation” will go nowhere at all, no matter how many posts you make or how many people reply to your posts.
I’ve found that to be pretty common in several blogsites. I first noticed it at current.com in the early days, when if you were anything but a devout liberal Gore-lover, your comments were derided and you were attacked ad hominum in post after post.
Lately, I’ve also bailed on one of the Linked In White House groups for the same reason. There could be tens of thousands of posts in one thread over a year or two, and pretty much “to a man” (and including many women, too), nobody’s mind has been changed, nor has anyone’s posts changed anyone else’s mind.
So, have fun, carry on, blog away, but I, for one, will not play your game. There is nothing I can write, nor is there ANY link or quote or data that I could possibly produce which would move you off your position.
Enjoy! Cheers! Ciao!
current.com? ‘early days” ‘Linked In”
I don’t know who you’re talking about, but not me.
I think the closed-minded person you’re describing is more like yourself.
Luckily, wrapping your head in aluminum foil will help protect your brain from all that radiation.
you’ve tried that have you? again, lobbing ridiculous childish ‘attacks’ that have no substance.
….sure it’s safe…..have some for lunch.
In 1962 the AEC told president Kennedy the Thorium Molten Salt ReCtor was the technology for civilian energy, as it couldn’t melt down, blow up and was walk away safe. It was useable of weapons and was shelved. China is on a crash program developing the Th-MSR developed in the 1960s at ORNL. NRC and DOE need to allow MSR development. energyfromthorium.com
we now have the technology to make these reactors BURN what we used to call nuclear waste, some of them can be used to desalinate water as a by product….and indeed the thorium reactors CANT melt down.
so many opinions I do not know what to believe, these people have a incentive to under state the threats of nuclear energy because they do not get any revenue from oil and gas and have the rights to the technology but no way to make any money. oil and gas people have an incentive to lie, the gov has incentive to lie about global warming, terrorism, wars, obamacare blowing the threats and risks and costs over board to get what they want. all these people have strong incentives to lie for or against something, so who to believe?
It’s informative when people’s behaviour does not match the beliefs that they, or their patrons, claim. Can you spot an example at http://www.projectthinice.org/blog/view/3444/ ?
Hint: look at the sponsor’s name on the masthead, top right. Look at the boat the man is pretending to tow. Guess wildly.
I have spent the last 5 years assembling a massive interactive PowerPoint slide show on that most contentious of subjects – climate change. Although it’s addressing an Australian audience, nevertheless it’s fundamentally international. There’s quite lot of information on power generation, including nuclear, as well as some interesting information about a new product which would seem to be a ‘magic bullet’ to deal with many types of pollution, including radionuclides.
Perhaps you might like to take a look? You may download it at http://galileomovement.com.au/media/ReconsideringClimateChange.ppsx. It’s a big show, about 74Mb, and will run with up-to-date computers with PowerPoint loaded, both Microsoft and Apple. If you have an older operating system, such as Windows XP you will need to download and install the latest Microsoft PowerPoint viewer. Here’s a good link: http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-powerpoint/archive/2012/05/09/powerpoint-viewer-available-for-download.aspx
Please give me feed-back about the show.
Thanks!
An aspect of the situation that Kemm doesn’t go into is the economics, from a government’s point of view, of a choice between nuclear fuel and fossil. The world ocean contains 300,000 fukushimas’ worth of uranium, and Japan has demonstrated its extraction at a cost that, at scale, is projected to be $0.60/MMBTU.
This means it cannot compete with uranium mines on land, which are still profitable with uranium prices now at something like $0.18/MMBTU.
But it is *very* competitive — very competitive indeed — with the import of natural *gas*, for which Japan has been paying $16/MMBTU (and natural gas prices are commonly discussed in terms of the otherwise obsolete MMBTU energy unit, which is the energy taken up by a million pounds of water when its temperature rises by 1°F).
But what if the Japanese government takes an eighth of the natural gas price as an import duty, or an excise tax, or a royalty, or a throngor? (A tax is a tax. There are various names. “Throngor” I made up, but maybe it’s real.) The US government takes, if I recall, three-sixteenths (used to take just an eighth).
If it takes that typical rate, then the shutdown of its citizens’ nuclear power industry has given it a $500-million-per-month windfall.
Now, Japan has some sad experience with natural gas. In the 70s there was whole Tokyo department store that was lifted by a gas explosion and then collapsed into its basement, killing dozens of people, and during the great Tohoku earthquake several huge, deadly natural gas or LPG blasts and fires occurred.
But $2/MMBTU, $500 million a month …
“No doubt the Japanese government is too scared to release this water into
the sea because of the howl of criticism which would no doubt follow” — no doubt it would follow, and no doubt many of the howlers would be on government payrolls, and would howl without the slightest fear for their careers. Indeed, it might be worse for them if they kept silent.
How’d you come up with throngor?
I generally know whether a word exists or not, and can make up one that doesn’t — or anyway, that to my knowledge doesn’t.
Total private property damaged by radiation….zero
How would you define zero damage. I would say that zero damage would mean that the following statement is true:
“There is ZERO contamination of surrounding countryside, farms, property by radioactive substances from the plant. ZERO additional radiation above the background radiation is present. ZERO non-natural nucleotides from the fukushima plant are present in the area.”
If this is true, then there is no problem with moving everyone back home, planting and harvesting the farms, and returning to normal life, correct?
So, is the above statement true? Or would you need to qualify it? What qualifications would you use?
As the article points out, tiny amounts are not zero. They are also not harmful and do not constitute damage.
Then you’d be claiming that everything everywhere is damaged. There is no place where there’s no radiation.
What part of my statement didn’t you read, all of it?
I guess Japan has a permanent evacuation zone and displaced hundreds of thousands people for no reason then?
Yes! Finally you got one statement right out of all the rubbish you have been writing in the last hour or so! :-D
Yup.
Because Japan (understandably so) freaks out more than even you do over such things.
It was a faux paux BEFORE Fukushima to even say “Reactor” or “Nuclear” in Japan. We were specifically instructed not to talk about it at Indoc due to fears about it by the Japanese people. Us nuclear operators were suggested to lie about what our jobs were or just say “I work on the engines (often true, as some of us do work on the engines),” simply to avoid awkward scenarios or hatred.
No, we were not lying about the presence of two nuclear reactors along Tokyo Bay.
By that definition, I don’t know if I’d say zero, but still minimal. Still enough that I find it astounding that Anti-Nuclear Freak-outs caused more deaths through negligence.
there can NEVER be zero radiation at ground level there…….your expectation is FALSE and ignores what is being told here, radiation is all around YOU every day………the POINT made was NO dangerous levels of radiations exist on the land around fukashima…..but again there and everywhere else radiation is found.
“If this is true, then there is no problem with moving everyone back home, planting and harvesting the farms, and returning to normal life, correct?”
Technically, yes. Politically, no. There’s a lot of dumb fear to overcome.
That said, some people _have_ returned to their homes. Others have not.
First look who this author works for! Second check out http://enenews.com unless all these artlcles are lying, which i seriously doubt.
You do not seriously doubt it.
I don’t do
ubt that there is a masses amount of radioactive waste polluting the ocean and the norther hemisphere.
Define massive. Define trace amounts.
ENENews is iffy and apparently biased. A honest news website should tell you who and where the publisher is. No, they refuse to provide such information. Remember: anyone can create a website these days with some money and time, and no one can stop you from posting anything on your website.
As this Berkeley forum pointed out, ENENews exaggerated the seriousness of its news and avoided critical information.
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/who-behind-enenews.2011-06-14
Yes, Dr. Kelvin Kemm works for the nuclear industry. Would you rather than an article related to nuclear would come from a milkman maybe?
Why is it that when people have studied nuclear physics or engineering, then all of a sudden they must only shut up and silently repent?
Clearly @d723c0c46ee030627c63d2b1cce846e9:disqus is one of those who prefer that articles about nuclear come from anybody as long as they do not know the science and technology about nuclear.
How reasonable.
Its not so much that he is educated/experienced, but when scientists in any field are backed by an organization that has an agenda, you have to take it with a grain of salt. People love to quote only the small amounts of science that backs their ideas and such being skeptical is the best thing you can be in science.
Yes, working in an industry can bias a person on matters involving said industry; but the author is stating well-known information about radiation. If you don’t believe him, look up the facts about ionizing radiation. Learning about radiation and nuclear power is not as easy as simply dismissing Kemm’s article because he works in the nuclear industry, but it is much more gratifying.
EneNews is a pretty strongly biased source.
Just like Three Mile Island, no one died, no one was hurt (other than financially) and all it proved was the inherent safety of nuclear power. Consider all the casualties of all other sources of energy.
Yeah.. just look at all those horrible deaths caused by wind and solar energy.
Just look at them….
…. and when you find them, let me know so I can also look at them.
No need to be a smart ass. Of course wind and solar are safe. They cannot produce on a large scale. Pretty sure Leigh was talking about coal, oil, and natural gas. Those cause large casualties.
I think you should see how much energy actually is produced by wind and solar before making such an erroneous statement.
you have that correct – enough for the world without coal, nuclear or oil – http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/january/jacobson-world-energy-012611.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
Nuclear is still safer, contaminates the least, and is our best bet at reducing the carbon footprint. They’re even planning on installing CO2 scrubbers on the Cooling Towers of Nuclear Power Plants (so Nuclear Power will have a NEGATIVE carbon footprint) … you know, those things that provide Nuclear Power’s only emission – Water Vapor?
Recent studies show Tuna spawned near Fukushima is also only a danger because of mercury. It would take 100kg of Fukushima tuna to equal the same levels of radiation as one banana.
Of the water that is due to reach the California Coast in the next few years, you’d have to drink your yearly amount of water just to get the same amount of contamination from Fukushima as you would a single banana.
Hey….why waste your time building a carbon footprint when you can have a nuclear footprint instead? You ought to try listening to yourself sometime.
You ought to try educating yourself sometime.
Coal is irradiating the world TEN THOUSAND times more than Fukushima, but you don’t hear anyone complaining about that. You get more radiation from coal than you do from nuclear power. Three times as much when living within 50 miles of one, and I’m pretty sure that doesn’t factor in the curvature of the earth – which makes a difference for nuclear power, cutting it to nill (it’s already virtually nothing at all, less than if you ate a single banana, versus living next to one for a year), whereas it doesn’t hurt Coal’s irradiation factor at all.
Note how each of the reactors that has melted down was old; designed in the ’50s. Comparing them to new ones would be like comparing the old room-sized computers of the ’50s to the massive server-farms we have now and expecting the same computing power.
New ones, particularly Thorium, are remarkably safe.
So, yeah, I do listen to myself. You might try listening to me, too.
You want a lower nuclear footprint? Then go nuclear and cut coal. You’ll irradiate everyone less. Go figure. One spews carbon dioxide, mercury, and uranium during regular operation, the other emits water vapor.
Education. Get some. It’ll help you keep from using ridiculous assumptions.
What is this fascination you seem to have for bananas?
I don’t feel the need to “educate myself”. I might end up like you. There are enough people like you around; educated beyond their intelligence and lecturing to mankind from their “divine source” of information. You or any boffin like you cannot convince me that utilizing high tech science to boil water is at the apex of power generation science. You’re so full of yourself that you can’t see how ludicrous that idea is. I also know that coal isn’t a good idea either. I don’t use it. I don’t advocate it. Energy generation is about money and politics; not necessarily about need and certainly not about intelligence.
Get over yourself Einstein.
Right, you don’t use coal. Nor any other kind of fossil fuel nor, God forbid!, nuclear. Right.
Tell me again, do you wash your clothes by hand?
Maybe looking at this video and listening to the presentation might make you think a little more before saying silly things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoKfap4g4w
Oh, education is not such a bad thing, you know.
button it Lucy
What is this world coming to when people actually value stupidity?
If you can’t be convinced by logic and fact, very well. Good luck having success. Or advancing the human race.
You’ll be happy to know, if you’ve read any of my other comments, that my “Divine Source,” is myself. I’m a qualified Reactor Operator. I’ve seen the math at play, I know the science. I was in Japan during The Great Earthquake of ’11 – and still remain in Japan today – and was ever so very fortunate to take surveys in the Tokyo Area. Needless to say, I know what I’m talking about, not from a “Divine Source.” We calibrated our own equipment. I saw my results of internal dose, saw the results of what was actually present, and what is present today.
‘
Also, the notion that there is one singular “Divine Source,” is humorous, especially since I’ve been a part of truthful fact generation and dispersion of information.
Why bananas? Because you don’t freak out over them. Many recommend eating them pretty much daily. Yet, they do more to you than even a nuclear meltdown will, unless you’re in the exclusion area. They also have wonderful comparisons that make the Anti-Nuclear argument look very silly.
For instance, if you’re worried about dose, you could eat 20kg(44 pounds) of Tuna that spawned near Fukushima, or you could get a similar dose from one banana.
Likewise, you’d get 1 BED (Banana Equivalent Dose, not a common measurement, because it’s so small and has so little applications except to give people perspective on nuclear power) if you were to have your entire water-consumption come from unfiltered Pacific Water – for an entire year and a half. 1 Cubic Meter. 260-something gallons.
Brazil nuts are actually one of the “worst,” foods for you when it comes to radiation dose received. Far worse than bananas.
So why bananas? Because they’re so very fun to disprove you with. They point out that your argument is, well, bananas.
So, what’s your Divine Source?
….I’m impressed by your credentials. Actually I’m not. I wanted to tease your ego a bit. :P
You will most likely go through your life thinking that education equals intelligence. Have fun with that.
I’m not going to get you to see my viewpoint, and you won’t get me to see yours. That’s really not important anyway.
If nothing else comes from this affair I sincerely pray that the world community learns not to build nuclear power plants on major earthquake faults in future.
I don’t want to continue with the back and forth gamesmanship. I’ve had enough through the years. I want to enjoy what is left of my life without getting into a contest of wills with anybody. It takes too much of my energy.
I have come to a few conclusions in the last day or so about what is most important to me.
Whatever your reality is, make the most of it.
Good luck to you and anybody else who might be reading this thread in your future(s).
I mean that sincerely.
Considering I don’t even have a degree myself, merely qualifications (that, admittedly going back against my own argument, some colleges will accept as a degree should I go about taking some GenEds), I find your claim that I assume “education = intelligence,” laughable. The two often go hand in hand, as education is one of the easiest ways to exercise the brain.
I do love it when people who know nothing about an issue try to argue with those who do.
I might as well go advise some surgeons on how to remove cancer, or go tell my airline pilot how to fly a plane the next time I travel.
Have you seen the dispersal model from NOAA??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnP5t_PaxOQ
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20131221_02.html
This sort of thing happen a lot when there isn’t any radiation leaking?
…..probably just a bunch of whiners right dave?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2527306/Number-US-sailors-allegedly-poisoned-radiation-jumps-51.html
….good thing there wasn’t a nuclear disaster at Fukushima….or we might need to worry.
http://rt.com/news/fukushima-record-radiation-leak-616/
I’m a qualified Reactor Operator. Big deal….so is Homer Simpson. :P
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fake-science-alert-fukushima-radiation-cant-be-compared-to-bananas-or-x-rays/5329369
and I believe that article as much as I believe some douchebag who says “I’m in the navy, I’m a nuclear operator.” Who also seems to be trolling every article about fukushima.
Excellent… I am a media analyst, and I couldn’t help but notice this banana science republic. Good article you have there…this piece of work has been exposed. Industry paid propagandists.
Thorium nuclear reactors and fusion reactors being worked on now are much more likely to solve that problem than solar and/or wind.
The Stanford guy left out one item… economic and social feasibility. NIMBY is already keeping a LOT of wind farms from being built, even if the financial risks are largely borne by willing investors. Let alone conservationists concerned with desert creatures being disturbed by the construction and shade provided by solar panels en masse.
And I’ve often wondered about wind and tidal and hydrothermal generators positioned off the US’ east coast… sucking all that energy out of the wind and water and moving it as electricity to the hungry denizens of the US… with less kinetic and thermal energy left, would that seriously affect the Gulf Stream’s ability to bring warm waters and temperate climatic conditions to… say… the UK?
If the effects are negative, can the UK sue the US for warmer weather?
Nobody thinks about unintended consequences of their “dream solutions” any more… so sad.
Thank you, Marushka… I just had fun clicking that link and delving a bit deeper under the covers…
Try their “about” link and see what the description of “their work” amounts to… publishing stuff for people to read… and LOTS of page views per month to show how great they are.
THEN, go to http://whois.domaintools.com/enenews.com and read ABOUT their habit of changing servers multiple times, registering as “PRIVATE REGISTRANT” (wonder if that’s what their birth certificate says…) and some more data about which metropolis in UTAH they currently reside in.
Or are YOU the “private registrant,” just trying to build stats for page views from innocents like us? LOL… sorry, but LOL.
It’s up to about 2% now after huge costs and all it does is produce very very expensive power that it completely unreliable, thus requiring 100% backup of a dependable source such as coal or gas. Only the elites can afford such foolishness as the poor really are sufferring from the high power rates to the extent that some are freezing to death in winter in both Germany and UK. Industry that requires significant amounts of power are leaving such jurisdictions in droves. Withness this in Germany, Spain, Ontario, etc. Now those same elites want to use the influence of the UN to force the poor of Africa to suffer from lack of reliable power. If their objective is truly evil and they want to keep them perpetually poor, there is no better way to do it.
The whole thing reminds me of the infamous statement, “let them eat cake”.
It kind of went right over C.W.’s head so calling him a “smart” ass probably is wrong. I was thinking of the viable alternative sources that you refer to as wind and solar are not viable. Wind farms are sure decimating birds though. I first saw this near Bakersfield CA long ago and have seen the ravages of them at all the ones i have toured. We now find that the damage isn’t limited to birds with bats being killed by the billions too. In regard to nuclear power generation, I can’t think of a single industry with the stellar safety record it has.
BY THE BILLIONS?!?!?? By wind farms?!?!?!?
Link to your source, please?!
There is plenty. Thousands of workers are killed installing solar and wind farms (which is more complicated than and requires more climbing than building nuclear power plants). Solar cell production also uses a lot of poisonous chemicals. Hydro killed six people at the same earthquake where Fukushima killed none.
You are clueless. Five TEPCO employees died on 311 from lethal rad exposure.
It’s in the NRC documents. That was Day 1.
Looks like most of us here who know about nuclear are clueless, then. The official death toll related to nuclear radiation is *ZERO*. Zilch. Zippo.
Day 1 of what, if I can? Day 1 of the tsunami, maybe, when there had been no explosions yet? Or day 1 when a modest release of some radionucleids happened?
It would help if you could provide a link to such NRC document, you know. Your claims have *ZERO* validity if you cannot provide a document for us to read. Not 10 documents, not 100 documents. Only one. It should not be hard for you to provide us with such document, right?
day one 311. earthquake, tsunami, kapow, explosions within hours of loss of power
70 GE employees happened to be there and 40 gave aid they received enough radiation to be whisked away ASAP thru state dept channels
pg 162 begins with McDermott… one little nugget…
pg 163… “We understand that out of the 40 people,
4 four were contaminated, but the State Department and
5 GE are working to pull them back to Tokyo and to get
6 them whatever assistance they need to get back to the
7 States.” http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1205/ML12052A100.pdf
another source “pg231 there were about 70 GE staff there and they were exiting the sitewhen the tsunami hit… accounted for all staff but their housing
collapsed. using microwave phones to communicate.
Corporations used simulators but real time data was not possible because of evacuation
it appears that because the plants in Japan
were not below ground
they sustained damage that caused them to
leak and that’s why they ended up – and loss of power – that’s why they blew” http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1205/ML12052A099.pdf
UNIT 1 “CHAIRMAN JACZKO: Okay.
20 MR. DORMAN: We have not gotten any direct
21 reporting. We’re just — we’re still working off of
22 what we got on the media, but it is a very disturbing
23 image.
24 CHAIRMAN JACZKO: What would you — how
25 would you characterize that? What does it mean?
PAGE 331 MR. DORMAN: Well, what we’re inferring
2 from that image is that it’s
a catastrophic failure of
3 the primary containment.” full nuclear meltdown
page 131
5 When the explosion took place, we
6 understand that the dose rate at the site boundary
7 increased to 100 MR per hour, and then shortly after
8 that, it dropped to 7 MR per hour.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/japan-foia-info.html
ML12052A100
– FOIA/PA-2011-0118, FOIA/PA-2011-0119, FOIA/PA-2011-0120 – Resp 43
– Partial – Group Letter ZZ. Part 2 of 10. (310 page(s), 3/11/2011)
“14 note that NISA reported to IAEA an explosion in the
15 reactor building.”
Part 3 of 10 http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/japan-foia-info.html
dose on Japanese ship transferred to feet of helicopter staff
23 MR. WEBER: We heard that helos making
24ferry runs back and forth from the Ronald Reagan
25came back and were discovered to be contaminated.
page 82
1They were in the vicinity of the Fukushima reactors
2and personnel on those helos also were contaminated,
8are addressing that piece of it, but also the — one
9of the helicopters had landed on the Japanese
10command ship and people — the people who stepped on
11the decks of that command ship came back with some
12elevated counts on their feet and clothing.
[Redacted
Page 83
24MR. GUNN: Admiral Donald?
25ADMIRAL DONALD: Yes, Admiral Donald.
PAGE 84
MR.GUNN: Hi, yes sir. I have Mr.Ponemanon the phone.
ADMIRAL DONALD: Okay.
MR.GUNN: All right gentlemen. You all are now connected.
Earlierthis evening, as the USS RonaldReagan
was operating off the coast of Japan, we —
theship just arrived. We had given the ship some
guidanceas far as positioning was concerned to stay
clear of the area of the potential plume, basically
told her to stay 50 miles outside of the radius of
the – 100 miles — excuse me — 50 miles radius
outside of the plant — damaged plant — potentially
damaged plant, and then 100 miles along the plume
with a vector of 45 degrees.
The ship was adhering to that
[redacted]
Page 85
1requirement and detected some activity about two and
2a half times above normal airborne activity using
3 on-board sensors on the aircraft carriers.
4So that indicated that they had found
5the plume and it was probably more significant than
what we had originally thought.
7The second thing — the second thing
8that has happened is we have had some helicopters
conducting operations from the aircraft carrier and
10one of the helicopters came back from having stopped
11on board the Japanese command ship in the area, and
12people who had been on — were on the helicopter who
13had walked on the deck of the ship, were monitored
14and had elevated counts on their feet, 2500 counts
15per minute.
MR. PONEMAN: Yes, 5,000 dpm.
[redacted]
as for the day GE employees were evacuated for concern over exposure. that was the same day that 5 Japanese Tepco employees…
As for FIVE reported to received lethal dose
http://enformable.com/2012/01/march-16th-2011-japan-reports-5-persons-have-received-lethal-radiation-doses/
So the source of your statement is a piece of news from a website that defines itself like this:
“Enformable is focused on providing critical information about energy related topics for readers around the world.”
Right, an antinuclear website tells you that, and there are no traces of the source of the information. As I suspected, a heap of BS.
And just so you know, the explosions did not happen on 3-11.
You asked for the citations… provided.
NRC docs in a form you can easily READ
and direct citations that can be verified.
I cannot find any single reference to lethal doses in the two PDF files that you have linked in your message. The only time I see “lethal” in your message is when you refer to the article on enformable, not to any FOIA NRC document. So you have copied something, but not from any FOIA NRC document, as far as I can see. And quite frankly, I don’t really need to care about NRC documents, as they were directed by a political puppet, and not by a person who should be versed in technology. No wonder Jazcko was removed from the NRC top role a while ago, thankfully.
There have been *ZERO* deaths from Fukushima Dai-ichi due to radiation, exactly *ZERO* deaths. No more, no less than *ZERO* deaths. This is a fact that is well understood and clear for everyone who has enough knowledge of what exactly happened at Fukushima Dai-ichi.
Would you live in an area that has been contaminated by a nuclear accident such as Chernobyl or the Fukushima prefect? Would you live there if your wife was pregnant or your children were young and playing outside in the backyard everyday? Would you eat produce or meat that has been grown or raised in a highly contaminated area? I don’t think anyone has the right to say that nuclear power is safe until they’ve lived in these contaminated conditions for 25-30 years, maybe even longer. Until you’ve raised your kids in a toxic environment and personally witnessed what really happens. It’s easy to say that nuclear power is safe when you live in a part of the world that has never been affected by a nuclear accident. But I’m pretty sure that the people living in Chernobyl and surrounding areas would have a different opinion about nuclear energy. Japan is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world and yet look at what’s happened to the Fukushima prefect. With nuclear energy comes the risk of nuclear accidents, releasing radioactive materials and contaminating the only world we live and raise our children in. As a wife, mother and a human being I ask but one simple question- why use such a dangerous and poisonous method to simply boil water to make steam to run the turbines thus making electricity? Is it really worth it?
For me the answer is simple, yes!
I didn’t ask if you were willing to live close to a currently operating or even a safely decommissioned nuclear power plant. I asked you if you would live with your family in an area that had been highly contaminated by a nuclear accident? Your children playing outside, eating food grown locally and spending the bulk of your time living and working within an area of high contamination? Would you continue to reside at your current address if the nuclear plant five miles away experienced an accident similar to Chernobyl or Fukushima? Here in Ontario, Canada- nuclear energy provides very little of the overall percentage of power consumed by the province ( I believe it’s approximately 15%). For such a small slice of the pie, it doesn’t seem worth the potential risk to Canadians. No one can predict the future and as such can never state with certainty that a nuclear accident is not possible here and will never happen. Unfortunately when these accidents do happen they contaminate the land, air and water that we as humans depend on and are ultimately connected to. I live close to 3 different nuclear power stations, one of which is the largest in the world boasting 8 functioning reactors. I would hate to see this beautiful, beneficial part of Ontario, Canada be contaminated and rendered uninhabitable for hundreds of years for a 15% slice of the overall provincial energy pie. When nuclear tragedies happen the consequences are devastating and long lived- nuclear power is simply not worth the risk.
What area has been “highly contaminated”? Yes, I would live in the evacuated areas in and around Fukushima, yes, I would even live in Denver, which has much higher radiation levels! Radiophobia is scary and not very healthy. Don’t be taken in by the fear mongers!
Thanks for the info on nuclear power providing more than 50% of ontario’s total power consumption, I’m going to look into that further. I’m new to this and have only been researching nuclear history for a short time. From what I’ve seen and read so far, Japan has only officially sanctioned off 20-30 kilometres surrounding Fukushima daiichi as a “no go zone”. Obviously, this area is considered completely uninhabitable for people for many years to come. But I’ve also seen some really high readings of cescium, iodine and other various radioactive materials in the soil as far away as 400 kilometres from the plant. Although the media will inevitably focus on hot spots in an effort to stoke fear amongst the public, some credit should be given to these readings. No one knows for sure exactly how much radiation was released during the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns of 2011 and no one ever will. But I don’t think 30 kilometres is a safe and acceptable distance for the Japanese people living in the affected areas. The affects of long term radiation exposure even at low amounts is known to increase your risk for cancer. The people surrounding Chernobyl have been living with the affects of constant exposure to what their government would consider acceptable levels of radiation for 30 years now. There’s a lot of children and young people suffering with various types of cancer and heart conditions that are known to be caused by radiation. Just because the negative and sometimes fatal effects don’t show up for 10-30- maybe even 50 years after the event doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Highly contaminated is when living somewhere long term will most likely make you sick or cause death.
I would guess your idea of highly contaminated is different than mine. I would live within 10 kilometers of the Fukushima plant without a problem. There are many people who earn their living from the fear they can generate, there have not been any significant increase in cancer and according to the experts, none is expected. For good (accurate) updated information about Fukushima, without the hype, I recommend http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-accident-updates.html http://jciv.iidj.net/map/
For background, I have been a qualified radiation worker for over 35 years. I am not paid to comment, my motivation for being pro-nuclear is a strong desire for a cleaner, better future and a strong distaste for all the fear mongering misconceptions which are promoted way too often. I am an I&C technician and could work in almost any industry, but I choose to work in the nuclear power industry because it’s safer, cleaner and rewarding.
I believe the evacuation area was way too large and actually caused more harm than good. It’s my opinion, but it’s based on solid information. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isnt-the-real-risk.html?_r=0
Steve Aplin from Ontario has a blog http://canadianenergyissues.com/ which has a live tracker on the different sources of Ontario electricity.
Saying there are “high readings” is meaningless unless also you know that those represent some sort of health threat. There is no such support for the levels discovered. Any time you see a big number, don’t forget to look to see what units it is expressed in, because the SI system allows any reading to be expressed as a big number, by choosing among the “pico”, “nano”, “micro” prefixes.
The stories about suffering children and young people near Chernobyl are bogus fund-raising scams – or, at best, they are deeply misguided campaigns based on someone’s irrational fears. There are no radiation-caused illnesses there among those under 28. Not “few” – “none”.
Hi heather c , I’d like to chime in with a short reply first because you replied to a message of mine from 2 years ago, but most importantly because you did make some good points and asked questions politely, which is not a given when this kind of topic is “discussed”. I’m sure you have seen the tone of many messages on this thread-that-would-not-die already!
You have a very good question in asking about the “contaminated area” which someone still calls a “radioactive wasteland” which will be inhabitable for thousands of years, which is a contradiction in terms as both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which *really* received a high dose of radiation and neutrons during the sad WWII atomic blasts, are two perfectly normal cities, and have been for decades already.
So one thing has to be said first: we know radiation, we know how to manage the risk, and we know how things should be handled.
Unfortunately there are also other factors which come into play, like in the case of the Fukushima accident, and when politics and policies come into action, then often they take the wrong kind of action which is more dangerous in the longer term. And often even in the shorter term, like in this case.
You’re wrong when you say that no one knows how much radiation has left the damaged reactors and reach the surroundings. There are people who do this for a living, and the whole evacuation procedure keeps their input very much into account.
I agree with Michael Mann on the fact that the evacuation could have been either much smaller, or even avoided completely, especially in Japan where citizens still hold their government as a trusted source of information, something that we in the Western world cannot say any longer.
I say this because the really dangerous phase of the “contamination” which you describe is really only 3 months long, and life could be kept almost identical, with a few precautions, even during these 3 months, if people would trust and follow the indications provided by the experts in radioprotection.
Why 3 months? Because that’s 10 times the radioactive half-life of iodine-131, one of the nastiest isotopes which is found after an accident. After 3 months there is barely no iodine-131 left in the environment, of course provided that there is no leak any longer, which was the case for Fukushima.
The area surrounding the damaged power plant has been slowly but surely reopened to local inhabitants, and in many cases it is now possible to live 24/7 in areas which were previously sealed off. Of course you don’t read this kind of information because it’s positive news, and positive news don’t help sell advertisement, so the media don’t care.
Finally, on the possibility of people developing cancer after many years, yes, there surely is a possibility, but it is also possible that these people would have developed a cancer even if there would have been NO nuclear accident, so no one can be sure, as it is impossible to trace a root cause precisely in the domain of cancer development.
So yes, there can be an additional risk, and the risk has been quantified, but it’s also been found very small, so much so that even the WHO has confirmed that there are likely no measurable increases in the years to come. Here is a link if you’re interested, it is a little technical but it’s well done:
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/
Please keep asking good questons, all the people who are knowledgeable on the nuclear topics like to answer when there is a sincere interest in the most advanced yet most badly known form to generate vast amount of clean energy in the cheapest possible way.
Thanks,
Luca
Hi Luca, thank you for your brief response to my questions about Fukushima. I followed the link you provided which led me to additional links and a wealth of valuable information. You were right about iodine having a very short half life which is definetly a positive for the people of the Fukushima prefecture. But I still have some strong concerns about the caesium. It seems that it has a much longer half life and it appears to find its way into the food chain quickly and easily. From what I read, the Japanese government and the WHO are educating the public about the dangers of eating contaminated food in highly affected areas of Japan. They are also educating people about how to prepare these foods so the contamination risks are minimalized. For many of these people, the land they live on is all they’ve got. They live and possibly work on this land as well as perhaps raise livestock and grow some of their staple foods there. When nuclear contamination like Chernobyl and Fukushima occurs, these poor people don’t have many options. Either stay and risk the long term health of themselves and their families or pack up quickly and relocate to a “safe zone”. For some, this means leaving everything behind for absolutely no fault of their own. The power companies and the government offer virtually no physical or financial assistance yet they are the ones to reap the benefits of what they promote as “safe and affordable energy”. Seems like a pretty good situation for the “tepco’s” of this world with no accountability to the Japanese people or Mother Earth. I have another question for you regarding the sustainability of nuclear power pertaining to nuclear waste. From what I understand, it’s cheap to make nuclear power but extremely expensive to dispose of what’s leftover? So where is all of this nuclear waste going and is there a safe way to really dispose of it besides burying it miles under ground?
@disqus_bGUMPpuCov:disqus once again excellent questions, so I will gladly invest some time to try to address the points you raised.
First, a word on isotopes and radioactivity. For some reason which escapes me, people think that isotopes which have a very long radioactive half-life are quite dangerous, while in fact the opposite is true! It’s the isotopes like iodine-131, with a radioactive half-life of 8 days, which are more dangerous than, say, caesium-137 with a half-life of 30 years. Plutonium-239, with a half-life of 24500 years is barely radioactive, while uranium-238 with its half-life of 4.5 billion years is almost non-radioactive, that is, is almost like a stable non-radioactive element.
So, albeit more atoms of caesium-137 might remain in the environment in case the area is not decontaminated (which is *NOT* the case for the area around the damaged powerplant in Japan), they are much less dangerous than iodine-131.
There is another important concept to know, and it’s that of the biological half-life, which is quite different from the radioactive half-life.
Our body in fact takes in a lot of different elements, but keeps expelling some and replenishing the amount with fresh supply. The biological half-life is the time after which half of the amount of a specific element or isotope has been taken and expelled from the body. Again, 10 times after the biological half-life you can safely say that almost all of the original element or isotope has passed thru the body.
The biological half-life for caesium is 2-3 weeks, and thus the possible exposure to the effects of radiation from having some caesium-137 in the body is much less than what people think, simply because the body gets rapidly rid of the caesium in a very natural way.
Obviously there are different biological half-lives for different elements and different organs in the body, but this is what happens with radioactive caesium.
On the foodstuff grown around the damaged powerplant, the levels of the different isotopes has been measured since very early after the accident, and rice has been found “clean” of any traces of radiation since at least three years, and so have all the other crops grown in the Fukushima area. This is also due to the good effects of the massive decontamination effort performed by the Japanese.
On the help to the evacuees, I am not sure where you are taking the information that TEPCO has not provided any financial aid, because that information is simply not true. TEPCO has provided very large amounts of money to those displaced by the nuclear crisis, though I am not sure if they are still doing it, as there was a maximum time by which the evacuees would receive such dole.
On your final question of what to do with the used nuclear fuel, I believe that right now it is perfectly safe to keep it stored in secured environments like the nuclear power plants, before a good decision on what to do is taken, and I am specifically talking about the US right now.
In France, since 40 years the used nuclear fuel is recycled at a highly sophisticated plant in La Hague, and the “good stuff” is separated by the “nasty stuff” with different processes.
The “nasty stuff” is highly radioactive, but it’s also very very tiny in amount. Presently in France they store sealed canisters of the nasty stuff, in vitrified form, inside of a secure building as big as two basketball courts. Not a very large building, thus. Here, they are storing decades of highly radioactive waste, and they have room for many decades still.
The “good stuff”, like plutonium-239 and uranium-238, is stored or used to produce new nuclear fuel.
This is a very quick answer, and I hope that it gives you more context to better understand the complex yet fascinating physics and technology behind nuclear.
Let me know if there any other aspect that you’d like me to address.
Don’t listen to the pimp unless you want to spend time learning the lies of nuclear and there are many!
Thanks for the heads up! I believe it’s important to learn about both sides of the issue so that one can make an educated decision regarding Fukushima and nuclear safety in general. I appreciate the feedback that I’ve received so far but no matter what these gentleman say- I don’t feel that nuclear power is safe. Most pro nuclear people leave out or flat out deny the human consequences following an accident like Fukushima or Chernobyl. What good is power for the people if the end result is that following one of these disasters, the land is not fit for people? Thank you for your encouraging reply, all of this keeps me questioning and researching our nuclear past, present and unfortunately our nuclear future…
I have an MSME from Michigan and 11,000 hours experience in nuclear, power, and radiation. Believe me, nuclear is 98% lies, and they know exactly how they are lying. Even the “true believers” still know how they spin things to minimize the appearance of danger and damage.
Frank Energy is one of multiple aliases of a person who owns and operates an anti-nuclear website. I have found no evidence that he has any nuclear experience other than running the NukePro website. I have over 35 years experience as a qualified radiation worker, I post under my real name and allow people to see my profile and all of my previous comments. Some of Frank Energy.’s confirmed aliases are: PacE, SteveO, NukePro, Confirmer, I’m pretty sure there are several others. Fear has been shown to be more dangerous than the levels of radiation released, but fear is what Frank is selling….,
Ah see, the pro nukists do not want people to heave real information, only the lies of the party line.
Mike works for Ginna plant. They were convicted of defrausing the ratepayers and had to pay an amazing $240M fine.
Then just last year, under “tough financial conditions” they manipulated the political process to jack up the amount paid to Ginna, by the ratepayers to “keep Ginna in operation”….the net effect of that increase? $240M
hmmmmmmm, this blatant a level of corruption, while poisoning the nearby areas, is really beyond belief.
Sure explain to me how an Instrument technician in a power plant had something to do with utilities power sales on the wholesale and retail market. It’s like saying I do my banking at Chase Morgan so I had something to do with price fixing dollars and Euros… give me a break. Just what is your point about bringing up old history of a parent company that I didn’t even know about until you brought it up? What does it have to do with the fact that you promote outrageous fear mongering stories and continuously lie to people in hopes of getting them to click on your crappy website, causing fear uncertainty and doubt, which in turn may cause mental and physical injury to those very people you pretend to care about?
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2016/02/owners-of-ginna-nuclear-plant-convicted.html
So you can’t, I didn’t think you could, I know I had nothing to do with or even knew anything about it. All you can do is a weak attempt to lure me to your website? I told you I will not go to that crappy site ever again, it is worthless and it allows you to gather information about my IP address and maybe more, I have serious reservations about your intentions.
You live 2.6 miles from Ginna, you told me so, …come on, IPs mean nothing.
You just want to keep people away from the truth.
Nuclear power meets more than 50 per cent of Ontario’s electricity needs
Aplologies Michael, I’m brand new to this forum and I thought I had replied to the person I sent the message to last night. But considering your response to my initial questions to Luca, my questions to you would be the same. I would question anyone in favor of nuclear power as to whether or not they would live in a highly contaminated area following a nuclear accident.
I can only answer for myself, but the answer you are looking for is yes, I would have no qualms about moving into the Fukushima area. Your term “highly contaminated” bothers me, because there are very few “highly contaminated areas” much less than you would think. You seem to think there is something I should be afraid of in Fukushima, the fear of radiation is much more dangerous and far reaching than the radiation is….I do hope this helps you get over your fears.
I do live near the R.E. Ginna nuclear power plant, look up what happened in 1982 The levels we are talking about are nothing to be afraid of… the fear is more dangerous than the radiation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginna_nuclear_power_plant
Heather, as you have probably noticed I am very pro-nuclear power, there are many reasons for this. Nuclear power has proven to be the safest way to make electricity, per unit of energy produced. It is a very clean way to make electricity with minimal carbon production (currently about the same as wind power) very little pollution and a much smaller physical footprint than any other way to make electricity. It is also very reliable and provides power, on demand, 24/7 this is very important. I calibrate and maintain the equipment which controls and monitors how a nuclear power plant operates safely so I am very familiar with the level of risk involved. The bottom line is with the education, experience and knowledge I have attained in 35 years as a qualified radiation worker, I believe nuclear power saves lives, improves the standard of living and helps mitigate climate change. https://cna.ca/news/nuclear-power-saves-lives-six-quick-facts/
It’s always ZERO on the books because they know how to manipulate the data. True figures of damages from Chernobyl estimated at a million plus. There are books written on the subject by well respected people …. Birth defects miscarriages and unprovable cancers have, can, and are continuing to occur from Chernobyl which was a fraction of the severity of FUKUSHIMA.
You and the glorious nuke industry KNOW THAT THE CANCERS ARE UNTRACEABLE BACK TO THEIR SOURCE…. cancers occurring 10 – 50 years later go undisclosed as to their cause!!!!! It’s your ace in the hole isn’t it, you are destroying lives!
The fear-exploitation activists love that they can pretend any random illness is due to radiation. They are perfectly willing to lie about and exploit those with cancer, heart illness and congenial defects.
They are scum.
~s/lethal rad exposure/electrocution/
FTFY.
Less complicated. How retarded
…..hahahahahahahahaha….good laugh. I can always count on the ijits for a chuckle or two.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
Nuclear is the safest. Just like nuclear experts have been saying all along.
The cancers are coming.
To who? The only five or six individuals who actually received a large enough internal dose to have an increased risk of cancer? Considering we actually know what everyone got?
@C.W. per your request for “horrible deaths caused by wind and solar
energy”: see below for the data. Note, still, there have been zero
death’s attributable Fukushima radiation.
Here is a discussion of fatalities in the solar power industry: http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/ohb-face/Pages/Solar.aspx
Here is comparison of fatalities per trillion kilowatt hour by energy source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
Note from the link above:
Solar (rooftop) 440 deaths/trillion kWhr
Wind 150
Nuclear – global average 90
Or perhaps the 25k deaths annually attributable to lung disease caused by coal pollution. Or the projected deaths from climate change.
Compare nuclear to what it’d replace, not to what it’d synergize with.
Look: http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/accidents.pdf
And in the future, try to make a habit of checking whether your intentionally stupid statements aren’t actually right, this is one Google search not diploma thesis.
Same with Chernobyl. Blame mismanagement, not radiation.
Even hydroelectric has killed many more than nuclear ever will judging by its safety record so far. Chernobyl is somewhat of a unique case as it was Soviet Era construction and design with no concern for the safety of the operators, residents etc. I was way out in the wilds of China when that accident happened and there wasn’t a peep in the news about it. Wonder why?
because it was the U.S.S.R.!!!
if you are old enough to know what that era was like, you wouldn’t ask such a question.
I was being facetious but I guess it went over your head. Not only am I old enough but I travelled in both the USSR and Comunist China so saw first hand what life was like for the residents of both. To those governments, lives of the average citizen were worthless.
“To those governments, lives of the average citizen were worthless”
Sounds just like the good ole excited states o’ ‘merica doesn’t it?
There’s lots of problems in the USA but in that regard, there is no comparison. An example of “cheap life” that comes to mind occured in China during one of my business trips there where we visited an oil well drilling rig. I’d been shocked by the total lack of safety gear and procedures that I’d seen but wasn’t really prepared for what I was told about a fellow working on the rig floor who’d slipped and fallen into the rotary table drive where his body just stayed till the hole was done (it was late fall so he didn’t rot too fast) at which time he was thrown into the slop pit. End of story and no effort was made to even contact family about this. That’s what I mean by life being cheap in some places.
USSR did not admit the accident right away. Swedish sensors were first ones which detected rising radiation levels two days after the accident.
Same reactor type what was in use at Chernobyl is still used at Leningrad Nuclear Power plant. There is Four of them. Reactor nr. 1 has partially melted once, but there is no valid information even now days.
A “partially melted” reactor doesn’t work without a complete core overhaul. If it’s operating, it’s fine.
Source: I’m a Reactor Operator. Not that guy that operates the water systems. Not that guy that operates the turbine generators. I shim the control rods. I watch reactor power. My watchstation is actually called “Reactor Operator.”
What was wrong with Chernobyl? The operators. They were trained for generating electricity far more than they were nuclear operation, as operators are now. Russia didn’t care so much, not like America did (we have Admiral Rickover to thank for extensive blankets of overprotection in our system. Before you sight TMI – nothing is perfect, and that wasn’t a harmful issue for anyone, apart from jobs). They were operating wrong on so many levels. They had stuff broken they shouldn’t have been operating with that no plant would get away with these days. They were operating outside of procedure, they knew it, they were doing things they knew were wrong… the list goes on and on. The design of the reactor was poor, but that’s not what did them in. They were all ridiculously stupid.
I don’t know about RMBK, it may be possible to repair them with an overhaul that is a lot smaller than the one that would be needed for a BWR/PWR. The French UNGG reactors of Saint-Laurent which were also graphite moderated, natural uranium based, but gas cooled, had 2 partial meltdowns, INES level 4 events, but could be repaired and restarted in a few years. Yes, those 2 meltdowns are much more significant than TMI but almost no one knows about them.
Chernobyl is the one nuclear disaster that has ever happened. And it was more than thirty years ago.
Pollution from coal kills as many people in a week.
Coal sucks too but that doesnt make this all OK. See what happened at WIPP? Plutonium – 24,000 year half life has just been released in New Mexico
Leigh! You can’t be serious, can you? All that was proved at TMI is that Big Nuke will lie to you to your grave, at all costs, to protect their phony market … can you spell Price-Anderson … which absolves the reactor manufacturers of any meaningful liability damages …. which ensures the reactors will be built shoddy and cheap … because when they do melt down and explode, the big boys have no skin in the game. This is called fascism, and it should be illegal. Or maybe these comments are above your level of intellect?
Memo to Leigh: Containment was breached at TMI. NRC lied about it. Same guy who sold that lie, Lake Barratt, an NRC staffer, is now selling lies for TepCo, wholesale. Go buy yourself some. They are red hot sellers. No one wants to hear a death sentence for everything they love. Go get yourself some nice, reassuring pro-nuclear lies.
Myself? I find the lying scumbags distasteful. Peace to you, girl.
Ned, I don’t know whether you are deliberately lying or just misinformed but you really need to educate yourself regarding nuclear energy, radiation etc. I’m a mechanical engineer with 40 years experience, quite a bit in power generation though I consult my older brother who worked in the nuclear power industry in Europe both building and commisioniing stations in France and elsewhere, for the details of radiation etc. I do know enough about radiation and its effects on us to know when to be concerned and when not to, something it seems you are rather lacking in judging by your hysterical rant. The world is awash in radiation, our species has evolved in this background radiation, thus within limits it really isn’t dangerous and some studies show it’s actually beneficial.
I repeat, “no one died from Three Mile Island’s failure”, just like no one died or will die from radiation from Fukushima.
Ned, you need to figure out what life’s risks are and quit being hysterical about the non-risks. You sound like one of those who are afraid to flyi in an airline but feel safe driving the same distance. You’re just not being realistic, whether deliberately or not is hard to tell.
Background radiation is not the same as weaponized isotopes and you know it. Quit equating nuclear isotopes to natural bg radiation from bananas, all the shills are saying that and it is NOT THE SAME!!!!!! Talk about the half life of Plutonium and Strontium and what it does in the human body! You obviously know?
Slept through your science classes, did you?
BTW, no one is suggesting eating or breathing in plutonium. You really are being hysterical rather than rational.
The leak of Strontium 90 into the ocean that is 8 million times the safe limit does not concern you? The US raising the acceptable level of cesium/iodine in food by 12x does not concern you? USA now takes food that Japan would consider ‘contaminated’. This is Fact. Maybe its time for a few people to start waking up. I am sick of the lies and all the pro nuke people saying nuclear is so wonderful and so harmless. They wont talk about uranium or plutonium EVER. Reactors have uranium and plutonium. Nuclear waste is being dumped into water supplies everywhere. Over 1000 isotopes released from Japan. Triple core meltdown released into the environment should concern everyone and it never stopped. http://enenews.com/tv-record-high-leak-at-fukushima-almost-8-million-times-legal-limit-extraordinarily-radioactive-since-it-was-from-early-in-disaster-meaning-it-was-more-toxic-alarm-went-of
One MILLION deaths attributed to Chernobyl.
Huge amounts of birth defects from Chernobyl also.
Watch the Legacy of Chernobyl:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/167593/legacy-chernobyl
Don’t be so absurd. Even the most hysterical predictions weren’t remotely as many as that and they’ve all been statistically shown to be greatly overstated. Some of them predicted tens or hundreds of thousands of additional cases of thyroid cancer but the stats show 15. The increase in lukemia cases didn’t materialize at all, and if there were going to be an increase it would have been obvious within a decade. The Wiki article provides a reasonable summary of the event…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster
that’s because the facts have been covered up for the last 30 years!
Safe yes…other than the tons of nuclear waste being buried in underground vaults, locked away to create a pandora’s box for future generations. This article is misleading in it’s own right. Sure…the field may only have a couple matchsticks on it…but by this authors logic, and if it where to be taken to heart, it would lead to a field COVERED in nothing BUT matchsticks over the long run. I mean, what the hell is three matchsticks? So no why not 4? Bah, lets bury them so no one sees them, and then say that there are NONE. Silly.
It appears to me that you do not have much knowledge about how the nuclear fuel cycle works. Used fuel can be recycled, and the really nasty stuff coming from the fission of nuclear fuel, the so called “fission products”, take very little space one they are processed and captured in a glassy substance which isolates the radioactive material.
Then the resulting glassy substance is put into secure containers that are placed in a storage facility the size of a basketball court, and are kept there temporarily, until a solution to the POLITICAL problem of what to do with radioactive waste is solved.
Meanwhile, in a room the size of a basketball court in France lie the radioactive waste coming from the safe operation of hundreds of nuclear power plans worldwide…
And for the height of your ignorance you call this… silly.
Time to go back to studying some, @1cdc44bd6a735ca17cb4485c4f560057:disqus. Ah, what’s in a (nick)name…
Want to learn more about how nuclear fuel reprocessing is done? In France, you can pay a visit to the factory where they have been doing this for 30 years. This is a short blog post on such a visit:
http://nuclearliteracy.org/day-72-the-grand-finale-arevas-la-hague-nuclear-reprocessing-facility/
A nice explanation about nuclear fuel reprocessing is visible in this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeCmPKYceAM
Then Luca why is OPG spending over a billion dollars to build a DGR that will hold 2000 cubic metres that is 2200 feet deep to bury low and intermediate radiative waste? This is not even touching the fuel rods. Look up Kincardine DGR.
Why? One word: politics.
In my view there is no danger to humans or other animals in storing such low and intermediate waste in a much less complicated way than digging holes underground.
This is offensive nonsense. I suppose the mass deaths of animals off Alaska and the huge rise in infant mortality rates on the West coast following Japan’s non-event are products of hysteria, right? If there is a lot of alarmist coverage in the American media about Fukushima, I wish the author would kindly direct me to it, because I have yet to see anything–including, most recently, the outcome of Typhoon Danas’ impact on Unit 4’s fuel rod pool as of 10/10/13–on US TV or print media since this episode began over two years ago. The last time I saw TV coverage about Fukushima was a glamorous woman on MSNBC (which is owned by GE, makers of the Japanese reactors) describing the interior of one of the damaged reactors as containing “nuclear stuff”–no joke, these are exactly the words she used. So much for the intimidating complexities of nuclear power (first described by Einstein as a dangerous and impractical way to boil water). In truth, nuclear plant design has not substantially improved since the 1960s. If it were so safe, then why does the Price-Anderson Act exist to limit plant owner liability in the event of a disaster to one dollar for every one hundred dollars of damage suffered by the public? The only reasons Westinghouse and GE agreed to build the first plants in the 50s was because of such a proviso, which guarantees ratepayers have to pay the bulk of the damage to life and property incurred by power providers’ actions. if homeowners’s insurance refuses to provide protection in the event of a metldown, then why should any of us tolerate it?
Mass deaths? Infant mortality? Hysteria. Point proven.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/japan-foia-info.html
try the truth of the disaster , then wonder why someone would lie about reality
About newborn death:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/06/21/are-babies-dying-in-the-pacific-northwest-due-to-fukushima-a-look-at-the-numbers/
About Alaska animal death:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/18/us-alaska-seals-radiation-idUSTRE81H03620120218
For those who don’t click the links, they debunk Rolf’s laughable propositions. Even in Chernobyl, (the worst nuclear disaster in history and worse by orders of magnitude than Fukushima) there were no fast die-offs hundreds of miles away.
Fukushima is far worse than Chernobyl
*
ECRR
= European Committee on Radiation Risk
Dr. Chris Busby, Scientific
Secretary wrote Introduction.
book, 2006, was co-edited with Dr.
Alexey Yablokov
“ECRR Chernobyl: 20 Years On”
the
book!! http://life-upgrade.com/DATA/chernobylebook.pdf
Spanish http://ciaramc.org/ciar/boletines/cr_bol226.htm
http://www.euradcom.org/2010/uraniumreport.htm
ECRR:
2010 Recommendations of the European Commission on Radiation Risk
The
Health Effects of Exposure to Low Doses of Ionizing
Radiation
http://www.euradcom.org/2011/ecrr2010.pdf
“Chernobyl:
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the
Environment”
Alexey Yablokov, Vasily Nesterenko and Alexey
Nesterenko
NY Academy of Sciences, Volume 1181, 2009.
5,000
Slavic language studies reviews, over 1,400
cited.
http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov_Chernobyl_book.pdf
hard
copy now available at Greko Printing P:734.453.0341; F: 734.453.5902;
email: [email protected]
This misses the bottom line cause, and the MSM never really paid attention to it either:
My understanding it that this was a DIESEL FUEL DISASTER: apparently all the emergency cooling systems were working, at the top of the hill, EXCEPT that some designer sited the Emergency Diesel fuel tanks near the shore line…. Was it for convenience of refueling from barges?? While the Diesel Generators were safely up the slope, with all the rest of it…
The tsunami never damaged a thing -except for the Diesel fuel tanks….
In 1994 the author, K Kemm, was appointed to a Washington Dc conservative lobby group…its name: committee for a constructive tomorrow (Cfact)….this right wing group has waged a long war against environmental activism. The committee interestingly has stated that it believes that additional carbon dioxide being emitted by China, India and other
developing countries could bring a major additional benefit: helping to
protect wildlife habitats, enhance oceanic biota and preserve crop
yields under sub-optimal climatic conditions
The authors twist in the present article is that Unless people die nothing has happened!
If these intellectually impotent com-mentors would study real scientific facts , before expressing an opinion about a subject they know nothing about, the world would be a safer place.
8 million times legal limit…
http://enenews.com/tv-record-high-leak-at-fukushima-almost-8-million-times-legal-limit-extraordinarily-radioactive-since-it-was-from-early-in-disaster-meaning-it-was-more-toxic-alarm-went-of
Sigh, can you explain what is “macabre” about no one dying? (Also, that Cfact existed and made unsubstantiated claims doesn’t seem to say anything about the article above.)
The author is part of the global nuclear village as he is a consultant and therefore a mouthpiece of the industry. He says there is no damage to property in Fukushima, try telling that to the 80,000 people who have been evacuated from the exclusion zone and have been living in Government shelters for the past three years. Thousands have lost their livelihood as they cannot farm or fish anymore. The ground soil is contaminated. He also advocates letting the contaminated water into the ocean, what arrogance. Fukushima is still raging and will continue to do so for a very long time. Mother Nature will teach humans about the enormous costs of abusing our blue planet.
Radiation is naturally occuring. Many things found in nature are naturally radioactive. The sun emits radiation for one. Fear is definitely a powerful thing as the author suggests. If people realized much they were exposed to daily mildest power would be no big deal. But the average person knows next to nothing about it do they glean all their information from the media.
Gas shills are still raging and will continue to do so for decades, ever more feebly … but some of them may have a crisis of conscience, and become nuclear promoters. It happens.
You should be ashamed and you certainly shouldn’t be allowed to speak on the subject of radiation safety. You have taken a serious disaster and have attempted to convince people it is harmless and nothing but a big hoax. Go crawl back in whatever slime hole you crawled out of and count the pile of money you made for making a fool out of yourself by deceiving others.
So a highly qualified academic nuclear physicist should not be allowed to discuss thel basics of nuclear physics and rationally explain the fundamentals of ionizing radiation?? Do you realise how fundamentally stupid that makes you?
Probably not.
Probably not.
try the truth then
spells out the disaster, the hazards, and began with 5 deaths on 311.
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/japan-foia-info.html
If the author’s has made errors in his facts, please correct him. All you’re doing is resorting to petty attacks.
Dear Kelvin,
Are you getting afraid that nuclear power will be banned or so? What else can be the reason that you lie ? You want to let us believe that there is no nuclear disaster because no one died ? That is the yard stick for you? Total private property damaged by radiation….zero? Really ? Everybody went back to their home and lived happenly ever after in the evacuation zone.
When IEAE comes to the conclusion that there were 3 of the highest level on the INES scale accidents, plus one 3 level ( is almost half way of the highest level, which is 7 ) and you dare to write down that “far from being a nuclear disaster the Fukushima incident was actually a wonderful illustration of the safety of nuclear power.”, than i know that there is something serious wrong here.
As you know Kelvin, radiation is a well known cause for cancers among many other nasty things, and we all know that you do not fall dead when you have a cancer. It will take a few years, how convient… And how are you going to prove that it came from radiation anyway ? you know that is not possible, how convinient!
You also know about the contaminated groundwater that flows to sea for the last 2 and half years to the sea ( that is a bit more than a swimming pool…), the spent fuel pool number 4 in a very precair state with devasting effects if it goes wrong, the high number of Fukushima kids who suddenly got thyrod cancer ( and suspected thyrods ) and so on, and so on ( the list is very long, but you know that too as a ), but you ‘forgot’ to mention that… Why is that Kelvin? It doesn’t suit your ‘ sientific theory’? I guess you rather have your take at the bad press that keeps ruining your business, how dare they !
Why do you not move to Fukushima with your family? And live over there for about 10 years and help a bit out in the evacuation zone, wearing nothing but your swimmingpants… no problemo over there, right? If no one died of your family or has develloped any cancer in those 10 years, I might start to think you are right. but for the time being, I rather stick with the specialists who have a very different sientific take at this nuclear disaster. I hope you do not mind that Kelvin and you can sleep well at night, after you exposed yourself in this article so badly. Nuclear powerplant that blow up, are actually safe, no one died !
Interesting reply, lots of conjecture and blather and your only facts become more speculation – “When IEAE comes to the conclusion that there were 3 of the highest level on the INES scale accidents, plus one 3 level ( is almost half way of the highest level, which is 7 ) and you dare to write down that “far from being a nuclear disaster the Fukushima incident was actually a wonderful illustration of the safety of nuclear power.”, than i know that there is something serious wrong here.” You know “something serious wrong here”, how? (You need to make an argument why 3 is so bad on a scale of 7, instead you bloviate). “The list is very long” – what list? who made ‘the list’? How do I know it wasn’t the ‘nuclear haters’ making the list? No argument to move me, but a weak attempt a logic – “Why do you not move to Fukushima with your family?” Is this an attempt to prove that since he won’t move there, you must be correct in your view? I understand the feeble attempts to make a point, but they have no value for the reader? If you are going to make an argument please stick to verifiable facts, make your points, and drop the op ed or you will continue to look like an uniformed child spewing and whining about what you don’t like. The emotion that runs thru your response tells me that this article challenges your position and agenda and you must strike back even without an argument…
So what about all he people that have worked in the nuclear industry, getting exposed to radiation daily for 30 some odd years that have not had cancer nor their offspring? I guess they are just rare people.
read NRC docs and then tell me
5 died on 311 (Japanese) and 4 were injured (American GE employees. Admiral in Japan wanted to evacuate the base, far south of Tokyo due to very high radiation readings.
That was just day 1
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/japan-foia-info.html
Read the lips (text) of someone who IS STATIONED THERE AS A NUCLEAR OPERATOR.
Nope.
They were not “High.” I saw them. They weren’t even for standards pertaining to nuclear operation, which are extraordinarily low. As in, you usually see less radiation as a nuclear operator than you would see as a construction worker outside in the Sun all day, so when you see levels that amount to ANYTHING it’s “high” by the NRC’s standards, even if the Sun is still of greater concern.
The Admiral is not a nuclear trained individual and was merely inquiring the NRC as to whether or not he should have.
That man you are talking about was my boss (many levels above me), and also consulted another one of my bosses (a few levels below him), the USS George Washington’s Reactor Officer. The answer was “No.”
The answer from those of us below him, actually taking the readings, many of which were used by the NRC, was “Why are we talking about evacuation?” and summary laughs about the notion of it – until we realized that people who were uneducated on nuclear power and it’s effects were serious, to which we responded with a facepalm and “Whyyyyy?” Because we knew we didn’t need to.
I’m educated on it. I took the surveys. I still was fighting our Admin to get my wife over here to where we live now on the Tokyo Bay. (They weren’t filling out the paperwork for other reasons and had been delaying it for months prior, not because of 3/11. The only related delay because of 3/11 was because of all of the OTHER people freaking out over nothing. She was finally admitted to come a little over a month later once everyone in the Navy stopped freaking out because we realized it was nothing.)
There was no evacuation!
Oh, but wait, the USS George Washington evacuated! Yes! That counts, right?
No, it doesn’t. Why not? Because of politics. The GW “evacuated” for a month because we have a 3-part agreement with the Japanese to operate our carrier out of Yokosuka:
1) No Japanese citizens will receive detectable radiation from a US Naval Reactor.
2) No RAM (Radioactive Material) will ever be present of Japanese Soil from a US Naval Reactor.
3) No detectable contamination will be discharged from our reactor.
Considering we can detect individual counts – as in, individual gammas or neutrons – “undetectable” levels are so low they pale in comparison to many household items you encounter every day – like your ceramic-ware.
As we could not prove the contamination we were getting on our ship was not from our own reactors (logically we knew that which was present wasn’t, but nuclear plants freak out about things the public would consider ridiculous and overzealous), or that future contamination wasn’t, we pulled out until the levels around Tokyo died down to a level that was so low it was no longer a concern even with our sensitive equipment… which took less than a month, I might add.
I guess we are just rare people. My husband works in nuclear power, and has done so for over 15 years. Commercial pilots receive more radiation exposure than he does. I think the term “nuclear” just puts fear in the hearts of those who are not educated on the topic.
Do they work on melted reactor cores?
He’s saying that there it’s not a “disaster” as most people would define a disaster, which is true.
More harm was done to Japan (FYI, I live here and was here for the Earthquake/Fukushima) over freaking out over the Reactors by neglecting the people than was done by the reactors themselves.
As I’ve commented before: Yes, there is contamination and radiation. It isn’t much.
An apt comparison I’ve used before is that there is water in the air, but you aren’t drowning. The levels are so low, those who evacuated Japan received more than those who stayed.
It didn’t blow up, FYI. (It had buildups due to radiolitic decomposition of water causing a buildup of hydrogen which caused “explosions” as pressure was vented – which was not done in the vicinity of the core.)
The fact that you suggest it did brings into question the validity of your statements.
Please, stop making assumptions. I find it funny how you’re asking him if it doesn’t fit into his “scientific” viewpoint and provide nothing of value yourself. Just crackpot conspiracy theories.
David, it is so great to see your comments. I frequently try to debunk radiation phobia on various sites, but I don’t have your credentials. We need nuclear power for so many reasons (air pollution, declining gas and oil supplies, global warming, ocean acidification, etc.). It’s crazy not to be investing heavily in generation IV reactor technology.
It would be great to see you comment on the Pandora’s Promise Facebook page and the many “scary” articles on the web about nuclear power and Fukushima. Keep up the good work.
David, thanks from me, too, for your patient, reasoned responses. Much more patient than mine…
I just recalled another factoid… after the Fukushima incident, Japan essentially shut down their nuclear generation infrastructure, right?
After that, they had to switch to fossil-fuel-burning generators to meet the basic electrical needs of the country!
Maybe Marushka has some data on the economic AND environmental damage THAT did to Japan… at a time when they really didn’t need the extra damage…
Radiation is also a diagnostic and treatment of cancer among other things.
Try googling ‘radiation therapy’ and ‘nuclear medicine’.
Dr Kelvin Kemm is the CEO of Nuclear Africa, a nuclear project management company based in Pretoria
Hmmmm…
did you not see the little red squiggly line under your word “convinient”? because I see them as I type. Use spell check, there is a less likely possibility of you coming off like an idiot.
who cares… don’t be a grammar troll, have you nothing better to say?
Yup. Its just like Lance Armstrong and all the other past great frauds of this world… “I didn’t do it I didn’t do it I didn’t do it I didn’t do it I didn’t do it I didn’t do it ……………… ok well maybe I did it”
The fallout in Vermont is a now closing nuclear facility that will be mothballed. This allows the new electricity monoplies to invite fracking gas proponents to turn our private property into transmission fields and high premium wind energy that blows up mountains.
Untill the author goes to live beside Fukushima and swims daily in the sea beside the reactors, as far as I am concerned hes full of BS
So if he doesn’t meet your demands, that automatically makes every other point he makes moot?
What a weak attempt at logic
Why are they all wearing protective suits.. Why are residents not allowed home.. someone should tell em it’s all ok…
Fukushima was done by the JEWS and HAARP.
The JEWS also used a Computer Virus designed by the JEWS.
More than 50% of the Nuclear Power stations are LEAKING Radio Active POLLUTION.
JEW
COMMUNIST New World Order promoted extremely dangerous Nuclear Power Stations
polluting the World.Coal is much safer.
Snowy
Cool story, bro.
You realize that you will receive far more radiation living near a coal fired power plant that you would if you lived near a nuclear power plant… right? The funny thing about radiation is that everything has its own natural radiation. This includes coal, and man does the stuff have its share of radioactive properties. When you burn the coal for power, you have to vent the exhaust into the atmosphere. Guess what- a large chunk of that radiation ends up in the air with the coal ash that escapes. Don’t believe me? Maybe you will believe the EPA- here, let me leave this link here… http://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm/coalandcoalash.html. Don’t believe the government? Here is a link to an article from the scientific american… http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste.
Bigotry has no place here.
How is an energy source that requires its waste to be stored indefinitely safe?
The requirement for indefinite storage might not be safety-related.
Does storage commonly require either electricity or diesel generators? What happens if neither of these are available?
(1) No.
(2) therefore nothing.
(1) No.
(2) therefore nothing.
I know of no instance where they are required for more than five years.
I’ve asked myself the same question, and found the answer: It is not “indefinitely”, the goal is set at 100 000 years, which includes an extra safety limit from the calculated 10 000 years. 10 000 years is the time it takes for nuclear waste do detoxify itself to the same toxicity level as the original uranium, if eaten. Personally I find that reasoning silly, how many people die from eating too much Uranium today (LD50 0,1g/kg), zero? Then why must something be safer than zero? And how is anyone supposed to eat something buried 500m deep? 600years would be good enough limit, where toxicity is reduced by 99%. Gamma radiation is reduced by 10^9 in just 1m of soil. http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter11.html
Compare this to any other energy source we use, where there is not only risk but several deaths each year. http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
I read somewhere that a coal plant releases more uranium into our atmosphere than a nuclear plant stores in barrels. How is it not safer to replace coal with nuclear then? Or what about industrial waste, mercury for example, that does not even have a half-life and will be indefinitely toxic?
It’s a good question. I mean, we can dig holes kilometers deep (we do it for fracking). So why not a single hole? I mean, there’s only about a Best Buy’s volume of waste, and 2km is deeper than any aquifer. Drill a hole, drop the waste. IMO, no need to even keep it in containment; just pour out the fuel pellets and if it reacts, so be it. We’ve set off bombs underground a mere 300 meters without releasing radiation. 2km and a pile not designed to be or enriched enough to be bomb-like wouldn’t harm anyone. Most energetic case: it’d melt itself and the surrounding earth until it fell into the mantle.
Interesting idea but I’d say it would be better to save that spent fuel and use it in an IFR or MSR. They will eat that “waste” for lunch and spit out 20 times more energy than has already been spent. No need to go to the mines for more raw fuel until that “waste” is burned.
Oh, absolutely. I was just outlining how simple the question of permanent disposal _could_ be, if people weren’t so OMG RAD PHEERZ about it.
The same way that we are safe from all the uranium and thorium under the ground naturally. (You’ve got to dig it up to be exposed.) But nuclear “waste” is a bit of a myth. Some generation IV nuclear reactor technology can use that waste as fuel. Generation IV reactors are also inherently safe (no human intervention nor engineered safety system needed). But we may never build generation IV reactors due to radiation superstition. (Odd that superstition seems to rule the day in the 21st century, just when we need a really clean and super-abundant energy source).
The requirement to indefinitely store spent fuel is a political one. The technically correct answer is to reprocess the waste into new fuel, store the tailings from that for 300 years, then reclaim the mineral resources to which it all decays.