Japan Earthquake

Japan Earthquake | Page 2630

seriously, is there a biological difference in radiation you get from potassium 40 and the kind you get from cesium? My understanding is that as far as immediate death and sickness is concerned, it's just the amount of radiation that counts, with 1000 msv being enough to make you obviously sick. Anything less is a cancer issue, and Khalil noted that other than thyroid cancer due to iodine, nobody has a solid figure of anybody who has died from cesium contanimation.
by artnuke 11/10/2011 1:45:28 AM

it's the same with c-14, it's natural.
by Edano 11/10/2011 1:48:37 AM

@tippytoe Highest number of deaths attributable to radiation has to be suicides due to people who have lost homes and jobs. Nobody is counting them except people on this board, and I've never seen any attempt at a realistic estimate. Given that we can find a dozen or so ancedotes in the Japanese press, the actual number could be in the hundreds. 2nd place would be those neglected from evacuated hospitals. That fellow who had a "heart attack" had to travel hours to find a doctor, due to medical neglect attributable to radication evacuation conditions, though I'm willing to bet at least 25% chance radiation did affect him somehow.
by artnuke 11/10/2011 1:50:30 AM

@artnuke the body can recognise foods etc and deal with/use them other things it sees as alien and they trigger an auto immune response . When a bodies auto immune system is overloaded or confused it has dire consequences. I have a daughter who is a victim of her bodies auto immune response and whatever triggered its malfunctioning so trying to tell me that all radiation is ok because banana's have potasium in them is like waving a red rag at a bull
by elainekirk 11/10/2011 1:50:45 AM

I am surprised that more testing has not been done with animals, other than injecting a ton of cesium into a dog to see how much would kill it. I don't see any research which differentiates between the harm caused by getting 1 full SV in 1 hour vs getting 1 SV over the course of 1 or 10 years. I haven't seen any horror stories in Wikipedia of people who died a horrible death because they were exposed to 4 to 5 SV over their lifetimes, only those who got it all at once. Radioactive containminants are wierd because you want to concentrate most contaminants to get rid of it, like dirt. But cesium which might be harmless over many acres of land could kill somebody if it was all concentrated into one pit.
by artnuke 11/10/2011 1:54:40 AM

Did a quick look at site stats. We had 2176 views on Aug 31st. Over 90k since we started the site, fukushima status is our top search term people use to find us. Earthfiles.com seems to be what sent us all the traffic and it went to our home page and then to our story titled "radiation everywhere". Then lots of views on other pages.
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 1:54:44 AM

@artnuke do more research into Kyshtym and Semipalastinsk also Mayak. Mayak (russian nuke bomb facility) had data on acute high doses and ongoing high doses. Ironically we can find info on Mayak but Hanford data is classified.
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 1:56:42 AM

Hi All. @lillymunster The site stats are interesting to know. Thanks! I'll have to checkout the earthfiles.com web page.
by MaryW 11/10/2011 1:57:21 AM

Futuba political candidates struggle to located voters since they are evacuated. www.japantimes.co.jp
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 2:00:44 AM

@lillymunster those stats are interesting ty
by elainekirk 11/10/2011 2:01:01 AM

@MaryW I find something new every time I check them. It gives a good idea how people are finding us and can help determine how to let people know we exist.
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 2:01:31 AM

Idaho lab confirms 7 workers exposed to radiation from plutonium

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 9, Kyodo

Seven workers were confirmed to have been exposed to radiation during a plutonium radiation incident at the Idaho National Laboratory, two of them having inhaled radioactive material into their lungs, the nuclear research site said Wednesday.

''Seven employees showed external skin contamination and were immediately decontaminated, six of them had positive nasal swipes,'' the lab said in a press release.

The seven were among up to 16 employees who were potentially exposed to low levels of plutonium Tuesday, it said, correcting its initial reports that stated 17 workers were potentially exposed. english.kyodonews.jp
by Edano 11/10/2011 2:01:36 AM

plutonium in lungs is not nice.
by Edano 11/10/2011 2:01:54 AM

@Edano I wonder if they were running labs tests on plutonium samples from Japan?
by MaryW 11/10/2011 2:10:24 AM

I hope they are OK. They have not told the media of any sort of volume, radiation level etc of the people involved or the release itself. Inhaling plutonium is about the last thing you want to do with it.
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 2:11:56 AM

@lillymunster it does not sound good.
by Edano 11/10/2011 2:16:32 AM

I see Turkey had a 5.7 magnitude quake that struck only 9 miles (16km) from the city of Van this afternoon. Three killed, scores trapped after Turkish quake. www.reuters.com
by MaryW 11/10/2011 2:17:53 AM

More tests ordered for plutonium-exposed Idaho lab workers. Nov 09.2011 6:57pmEST reuters.com
by MaryW 11/10/2011 2:27:26 AM

www.reuters.com Hope this link work-sorry
by MaryW 11/10/2011 2:31:42 AM

Rumor that Fukushima produce will be used at Embassy parties using diplomatic channels to ship it. ex-skf.blogspot.com
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 2:33:07 AM

I thought it was a joke at first but it isn't. I wonder if the plan was to hold the parties, take plenty pictures and then announce the food source and the tweeter has spoilt the plans
by elainekirk 11/10/2011 2:37:59 AM

@elainekirk Not sure but someone in the govt thought exporting it all as food aid was a good idea also. I have to wonder if it was intended to be one of the showcase the good quality foods from the region, never mind they are likely contaminated. Sort of the postal service order forms strategy of promoting food.
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 2:40:20 AM

@lillymunster barmy
by elainekirk 11/10/2011 2:56:34 AM

There are links to the docs here but I havent checked the quality of tepco's response www.tepco.co.jp

Press Release (Nov 09,2011)
Report with regard to "Policy on the mid term security" for the Units 1 to 4 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (1) (revision)
by elainekirk 11/10/2011 3:00:28 AM

by elainekirk 11/10/2011 3:12:05 AM

g'night all
by elainekirk 11/10/2011 3:42:09 AM

Hi all
by bo 11/10/2011 3:47:38 AM

Hi Bo
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 3:51:43 AM

Hey Lilly
by bo 11/10/2011 3:53:33 AM

Good video below, very clear and accessible
by bo 11/10/2011 3:53:49 AM

Do you have Aeon grocery stores in Hiroshima?
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 3:54:00 AM

Oh yeah we do
by bo 11/10/2011 3:54:14 AM

They were the ones selling contaminated beef, right?
by bo 11/10/2011 3:54:28 AM

Not sure if they were way back, possibly they were the one(s) in the news. They started some internal food testing program. Was wondering how widespread they are.
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 3:55:36 AM

I don't really know, but I think they are national
by bo 11/10/2011 3:56:04 AM

Good to hear they are doing internal testing
by bo 11/10/2011 3:56:11 AM

Nuclear energy: a hotter topic than ever. Nov09.2011 10:33pm www.ft.com
by MaryW 11/10/2011 3:57:09 AM

Hoping maybe it sets an expectation and offers another source of double checking govt. claims. If they were the ones that had the big batch of bad beef they might have decided to do this to regain trust..
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 3:57:23 AM

I think that they were, so it might be just that. But I hope more and more people realize that it is up to us to do what we can because the govt. is missing in action. I actually have to run to my local grocery store to pick up some lunch. Be back in 15.
by bo 11/10/2011 3:58:20 AM

@bo have a good one. I was just headed off to sleep. :-)
by lillymunster 11/10/2011 3:59:51 AM

For the most part, this could be seen in that first helicopter fly-over. I don't know about the walls being 1 meter think, the pillars might be 1 meter thick (those were blown out in unit 3) and may the containment bulb might be a meter, but not the outer wall panels. They are steel in units 1 and 2, reinforced concrete in units 3 and 4, judging by all the rebar hanging where the walls used to be.

For the video below Mochizuki summarizes Imanishi’s comments:

* The wall and ceiling of Reactor No. 4′s building was completely blown off by “some explosion”
* “The spent fuel pool is totally left outside, out of control so what you can even see it from out of the reactor”
* “The wall of the reactors are about 1m thick of huge concrete mass. It is blown off.”
* “It shows how much the explosion(s) were more massive that they were announced by the government.”
by artnuke 11/10/2011 4:10:49 AM

www.ft.com

The result has been highly precautionary limits on artificial radiation exposure, such as an international safety standard for the public of just 1mSv in a year.

The problem for authorities is that it is next to impossible to judge exactly at what point it will be safer to move a population away from the radiation or to limit its exposure by, for example, keeping children indoors and closing schools. Such moves themselves have health risks: evacuation can kill the elderly and thrust younger people into unemployment. Disrupted education can mar children’s future careers. Loss of exercise habits makes people vulnerable to illness and obesity.

“Evacuation is terrible [and we] need to weigh the burden and benefit
by artnuke 11/10/2011 4:15:18 AM

Good night Lilly.
by bo 11/10/2011 4:17:00 AM

The FT piece brings out the same point I had before - the hard evidence from Chernobyl is not that somebody published a study that they think 1M people died, other than the folks who died right away from radiation sickeness, and the dozen from thyroid cancer, there are no hard numbers that anybody died from the kind of cesium contamination around the fukushima area. Clearly if hundreds committed suicide, and dozens died from medical evacuation, that is far more than could be attributed to radiation, even if we include poorly explained worker deaths.
by artnuke 11/10/2011 4:18:06 AM

The FT article below states: 'French government experts have suggested setting the evacuation trigger at 10mSv per year--although this could mean adding another 70,000 people to the 150,000-200,000 people evacuated from area around Fukushima Daiichi'.
by MaryW 11/10/2011 4:26:18 AM