CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
Seems like the end of the world on Youtube...
Fukushima-How bad is it?
- Thread starter CavLancer
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Timsup2nothin
Deity
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This again? Hasn't this come up before in the tin foil hat rotation?
CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
Tin foil hats protect from HAARP a n d radiation? All hor the price of a roll of Reynolds wrap, what a deal!
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
The Fukushima incident happened 6 years ago...
CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
Its getting worse, recent announcement. As bad as when it first happened supposedly. 
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
What announcement?
CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
Thorgalaeg
Deity
It continues happening.
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
So there are complications regarding decommissioning.
It's not getting worse or releasing of contamination ala 2011. Let's try to not be so sensationalist.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
Yep, they only need to remove thousands of fuel rods spread all around the place, find out where the hell three molten cores are... You know, normal complications regarding decomissioning.
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From what I know, the situation is still quite bad, but fixable. And it's not as serious as Chernobyl disaster.
By the way, last year a new containment arch was completed over Chernobyl plant, over old Soviet-made sarcophagus. A good example of international cooperation.
By the way, last year a new containment arch was completed over Chernobyl plant, over old Soviet-made sarcophagus. A good example of international cooperation.
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
No it's not normal complications. There was a meltdown.
CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
Much worse than Chernoble I hear, and impossible to contain. Just keeps seeping radiation into the Pacific. Tuna sandwich anyone?
Well, 600 Sv/Hour (can inflict a deadly dose in less than a minute) is indeed crazy high level of radiation, especially 6 years after the accident. And considering that in Chernobyl the highest measured levels were about twice lower right after the explosion...
It may probably indicate that nuclear reactions haven't stopped. If Fukushima continue to release medium and long lived isotopes, such as Caesium-137, we are in trouble.
Total release of radioactivity in Chernobyl estimated to be several times higher than in Fukushima. But in both cases most of it were short lived isotopes and decayed in next few months.
It may probably indicate that nuclear reactions haven't stopped. If Fukushima continue to release medium and long lived isotopes, such as Caesium-137, we are in trouble.
Total release of radioactivity in Chernobyl estimated to be several times higher than in Fukushima. But in both cases most of it were short lived isotopes and decayed in next few months.
I like radioactive things. There's a whole lot you can just kind of buy online with no requirements. I have several 1 uCi sealed isotope samples (Cs-137, Na-22 (emits antimatter!), Mn-54, Tl-204, Po-210, and soon to get Co-60 too), and I was just playing with thorium and uranium ores plus a couple of their compounds (ThO2, Th(NO3)4, (NH4)2U2O7) only yesterday! The occasion was that I had just gotten a fairly cheap Russian-made gamma spectrometer, which means I can identify all sorts of gamma-emitting isotopes in the thorium and uranium decay chains along with the little isotope sources I bought, rather than just having to rely on my Geiger counter. Nonetheless, just putting all the stuff in a dresser drawer leaves radiation levels in my apartment at very near background, and much lower than those mutants in Denver who get twice as much background because they have less atmosphere to shield them from cosmic rays. To say nothing of pilots and flight attendants!
I took a Geiger counter with me on a recent flight to see friends in Texas. It was really impressive how much more radiation there is at altitude. Background rates went from ~15 counts per minute at the ground to ~400 counts per minute at 37000 feet. Pilots get more radiation exposure per year than nuclear plant workers by far, and about as much as uranium miners.
I really hope that there's a meltdown near me because then the money Iwasted on stuff I couldn't afford spent pursuing my interests would suddenly come in very handy! Always wanted to find some iodine-131, and I have plenty of potassium iodide for myself and anyone around me to help block uptake if it were to come to that. My wet dream is finding enough plutonium after an accident that I could surround it with beryllium and use it as a neutron source, but nearly all reactors use low-enriched uranium, so that's not likely to happen.
Granted, nuclear meltdowns are always a mess, and I wouldn't really want to live anywhere near the Fukushima exclusion zone. But the overall release of radiation into the environment hasn't been too bad, given the scale of the disaster. Radiation scares people about 10,000 times as much as it should for its toxicity: we're talking elevated cancer rates on the order of 5.5% per sievert, and the sievert is an enormous unit of radiation equivalent to 1/4 the median lethal dose if it is taken all at once. It has this perfect combination to freak people out: it's invisible but really easy to detect with a Geiger counter, and Geiger counters near sources freak people out at levels far lower than anything dangerous.
I took a Geiger counter with me on a recent flight to see friends in Texas. It was really impressive how much more radiation there is at altitude. Background rates went from ~15 counts per minute at the ground to ~400 counts per minute at 37000 feet. Pilots get more radiation exposure per year than nuclear plant workers by far, and about as much as uranium miners.
I really hope that there's a meltdown near me because then the money I
Granted, nuclear meltdowns are always a mess, and I wouldn't really want to live anywhere near the Fukushima exclusion zone. But the overall release of radiation into the environment hasn't been too bad, given the scale of the disaster. Radiation scares people about 10,000 times as much as it should for its toxicity: we're talking elevated cancer rates on the order of 5.5% per sievert, and the sievert is an enormous unit of radiation equivalent to 1/4 the median lethal dose if it is taken all at once. It has this perfect combination to freak people out: it's invisible but really easy to detect with a Geiger counter, and Geiger counters near sources freak people out at levels far lower than anything dangerous.
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Timsup2nothin
Deity
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You need to stop "hearing" from people who sell aluminum foil for a living.
Fukushima is likely leaking radioactive isotopes into the ocean which is bad.
It has not stopped and some believe it may be getting worse
Timsup2nothin
Deity
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The ocean contained tons of radioactive isotopes before Fukushima was even built. Where were the tin foil hatters then?
Come to that, YOU contain several radioactive isotopes, and no one seems to be worrying about you.
Lohrenswald
世界的 bottom ranked physicist
billions lol
The radioisotopes that Fukushima has discharged make for interesting tracers to study fish migration and the transport of nutrients across the ocean as fish eat each other. Some marine biologists used cesium-134 and cesium-137 to do this, and were able to find detectable levels in fish off the West Coast within a year or so.
Of course their paper was found by radiophobes and used to scare people, even though the cesium isotopes were present at levels far below that of the potassium-40 that is in every living thing.
One of my favorite youtube geeks actually did measure cesium-137 in his rainwater in the US after Fukushima. It took over a month of collecting rainwater and evaporating it down, and he was just barely able to make the detection. Rain is actually often surprisingly radioactive, but it all comes from natural radon that gets pulled up into clouds by updrafts. He shows how strong the signal is from all the radon decay products, and how weak the Cs-137 is by comparison.
Of course their paper was found by radiophobes and used to scare people, even though the cesium isotopes were present at levels far below that of the potassium-40 that is in every living thing.
One of my favorite youtube geeks actually did measure cesium-137 in his rainwater in the US after Fukushima. It took over a month of collecting rainwater and evaporating it down, and he was just barely able to make the detection. Rain is actually often surprisingly radioactive, but it all comes from natural radon that gets pulled up into clouds by updrafts. He shows how strong the signal is from all the radon decay products, and how weak the Cs-137 is by comparison.
