Are we overly worried about Radiation?

That was a great article. Worth the read!

 

how much is TOO much? they found radioiodine in massachusetts today, we're talking about it, but i'm not going to lose any sleep.

 

It's very unlikely that we will see significant amounts of Japanese radiation in the US unless there is a massive explosion that pushes the mess up into the jet stream. Even then, there probably wouldn't be much that reached the US.

 

exactly.

 

Here is a link to a document that gives details on radiation units, in the context of the Japanese incident.

http://www.psr.org/resources/health-risks-releases-radioactivity.pdf

We in the US have little to worry about now; I believe minimal risk even if conditions deteriorate. I am less sanguine about the people in Japan, however.

 

I'm more worried about making my mortgage payment every month than about radiation.

 

This accident is Japan was always more likely to be a 3 mile Island (US) type accident and not a Chernobyl type disaster, but the point is that the estimate was *likely*, not assured.

 

At our very core, humans are not rational creatures. Much of our thinking is influenced heavily by what we call gut reactions. This is especially true when it comes to evaluating risk.

We discount everyday risk, regardless of the severity. Car driving is a classic example. Instead of being terrified every time we drive a car, we instead drink coffee and talk on cell phones, thereby increasing the risk. It doesn't seem like a bad risk, since we do it every day and get away with it.

Sensational risks are another story: airplane crashes, nuclear accidents, shark bite, and terrorist bombings are good examples. They don't happen very often. The odds of being involved are vanishingly small, but we fear them because they are sensational. Asked to rate the risk, most humans perceive an elevated risk for sensational disasters.

Tom

 

I think you need to evaluate the reality of your situation. No more, no less. But the dumbing down of America, has lead to ridiculous amounts of panic based on sensational news reports.

A guy at work was telling me how his friend had jumped on the internet and paid a huge amount for a supply of Iodine Pills.

I'm awaiting the future CBS news reports when Japan starts exporting Prius again. I foresee Dianne Sawyer approaching a Prius with a Geiger Counter...

Unintended Radiation Anyone?

 

Humans are definitely irrational. The media also milks tragedies like this to death. There is a new wave of anti nuke hysteria and people have drained the stores of products that they think will "protect" them from radiation which 99% of them don't need to be concerned about. What should I be afraid of, radiation or hysterical people? No one wants to give up their electronic devices and comforts but they want to abolish all nuclear energy. I am going to drive my car now and hope some fool driving with a cell phone to their ear in their oversized SUV doesn't wipe me out.

 

I suppose this this conversion would be totally different if we were all within 20-30km of the Fukushima plant.

 

and if the idiot starts taking those iodine pills he's going to cause way more damage than the tiny amount of I131 in the atmosphere.

the problem w/humans is the amygdola. Damn thing should be cut out at birth. lol

The media have really embraced fear as a revenue stream and people who can't recognize that are controlled by it.

 

In that case we would have reasonable cause for concern. Not because of an abstract fear of radiation, but because of a real threat nearby. Small odds are cold comfort if your number comes up.

Tom

 

If we were within 20-30km of Fukushima, then there would be cause for concern and a valid reason for buying potasium iodide pills. However, instead of more concern for the thousands of people who have died in Japan....I see more stories and posts asking "Are Americans safe from the radiation fallout of Fukushima?" No matter how much reason is shown (that the Fukushima accident was not the scale of Chernobyl, that radiation cannot travel that far...even when taking the jetstream into account, and that hysteria of Chernobyl in Europe turned out to be overly reactionary as well)....I'm still seeing more concern about Fukushima rather then the wellfair of Japan

 

I assumed OP was talking about the Japanese and not himself. Americans worried about effects in the US are idiots, pure and simple.

 

If there is a meltdown that burns through the containment vessel ,and reaches ground water .
There then would be a steam explosion which would rise to the jetstream,carry radioactivity east, and dump radioactivity with every raindrop.

 

The farthest downwind report of detectable radioactivity I have seen is Iceland, and frankly that suprised me. The lifting force available for the pressurized water reactor design is (or would be) indeed superheated steam, and that cannot get the material above the troposphere. Not enough lifing force

Troposphere is the lower part of the atmosphere, and this is where the rain and snow happens, and those processes are very effective at removing particles and gases from the atmosphere. This is why I am suprised by Iceland.

Chernobyl reactor had graphite rods and very poor containment vessel. The core+graphite fire was hot enough to transfer part of the stuff into the stratosphere. From there, it circled the globe at least twice. No rain in the stratosphere means that once stuff gets up there, the mechanisms for getting it back down are slow and inefficient.

But even at Chernobyl, most material was depositied very locally. They have a 30-km exclusion zone which is still pretty hot.

Fukushima will necessarily be local, and if any knowledge source about reactor design has said otherwise, please post the link. How hot it gets, with 10, 20, 50 km depends on releases that have not yet happened. As ever, here's hoping there are not much.

If they accidentally or decide to release a lot of radioactive water into the sea, there will be a fisheries problem which is hard to scope at present.

But most of the non-volatile isotopes will remain in the containment vessels, eventually to be either entombed on site or removed robotically and entombed somewhere else. The seismic setting of the site is probably the only good reason to consider removal.

 

Most likely this is an indication of how sensitive modern sensors have become. I don't see any lifting mechanism allowing for large amounts of material above the troposphere, so I assume the trace amounts are from random diffusion and mixing.

Tom