Fukushima

[Dan Hintz]

My favorite from XKCD's chart is you are actually being irradiated if you sleep next to someone... what a lonely life to stay healthy!

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

[Dave Sheldrake]

It's the bananas Dan, Bananas will kill us all!!

cheers

Dave

[Dave Sheldrake]

Just had an Email from Kim and she kindly provided a few more mythbusters

http://deepseanews.com/2014/01/is-th...-radiation-no/

http://deepseanews.com/2013/12/three...ting-syndrome/

cheers

Dave

[Kelly Craig]

Actually, that may not be wholly true. As I was pointing out to someone the other day, just take some moments out and wander the history of governments. That would include a review of the experiments they have done on their own people, the times they knowingly ignored danger and so forth.

When I worked at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in Bremerton, Washington, I found myself working near laggers (the insulation boys) tearing out insulation. Often, they had little more than a nuisance dust mask and a six inch air, suction hose to deal with the crap they were throwing in the air. Those of us next to them had nothing. The government knew the dangers of asbestos decades earlier, but still took no precautions.

Sailors often suffered lead poisoning chipping off the paint from the sides of ships. They've known about lead for a long time too.

Some of the danger comes from ignorance at the lower levels and on up. Some comes from greed (keep costs down). Here, we could have all kinds of "let's not panic the public" or "what will it do to foreign relations" crap going on. From years of dealing in administrative law, I've learned government is often out for its [artificial] self. Except for the FDA, which could never be influenced by drug companies, or the IRS, or ..........

In short, we don't know what's going on. It'd be interesting to know a few someones with Geiger counters, or whatever they are using these days, on the West Coast.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Hiya Kelly,

Governments may well have a jaded history but silencing a few hundred thousand Physicists would be impossible as their expertise crosses governmental boundaries. Respected members of the community would be screaming blue murder from the roof tops if there was any real perceived threat.

The warnings that have been made public much of the time have been taken out of context by the press. One well known physicist did extrapolate a possible problem with the spent fuel pool in reactor 4 but the reporters neglected to mention the chance of it happening are the same as winning the lottery every week for 6 months.

cheers

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

the chance of it happening are the same as winning the lottery every week for 6 months.

Where do I sign up for THOSE odds?!!!

[Dave Sheldrake]

Where do I sign up for THOSE odds?!!!

Was something from memory like

If there is another quake &
If it is above a given magnitude &
If the epicentre is within X distance of the fuel pools &
If the building integrity is below XXX &
If certain supports collapse &
If the spent fuel is exposed &
If there is no water supplied for XX time &
If the fuel reached thermal runaway &
If no action is taken for XX time
etc etc etc

There was a small chance that a *dirty bomb* event could happen. The media just reported Professor Kaku's synopsis as "Another quake will nuke half the northern hemisphere" without mentioning to qualifying factors or the fact that reactor fuels don't have the required enrichment to sustain a *bomb* reaction (3-5% enriched compared to 90% enriched in bombs) not forgetting the cross sections of 235 and 238 are unbalanced in a reactor environment when compared to nuclear explosives.

cheers

Dave

[David Weaver]

In short, we don't know what's going on. It'd be interesting to know a few someones with Geiger counters, or whatever they are using these days, on the West Coast.

You might find yourself locating high background radiation from natural sources and getting upset over nothing - just like the folks in san francisco (?) have done the last couple of weeks. Nothing from fukushima, but they sure made a big deal about it, anyway. Even now that it's known that it has nothing to do with fukushima, the articles written about it still imply it does because they can't resist ad revenue no matter how misleading they need to be to get it.

[Mike Cutler]

In short, we don't know what's going on. It'd be interesting to know a few someones with Geiger counters, or whatever they are using these days, on the West Coast.

The equipment required is very expensive, manufactured by only a handful of companies world wide, very sensitive to calibrate, and would have to be set up for the detectors and associated circuitry to discriminate the anticipated isotopes that would be postulated to have come from a reactor that had melted down.
A "geiger counter" type of device would indicate a broad spectrum of energy, and there would be no way of knowing where it came from.

I install, repair, and calibrate, the equipment that would be required on a daily basis for the day job. The math/electronics can be intensive.

As an aside I know that there are ongoing repair activities at the site. We just flew in some cable testers to test out our cables and they were at Fukushima testing their cables. Another very weird science.