Achdizzy1099, you have given an overall good summary. And there is certainly no reason to, nor any benefit to be derived from, panicking (in Taiwan or elsewhere). But i think you are unrealistically optimistic with the following:
You may doubt it, but it is a fact that in general any junk that is put into the atmosphere can eventually show up anywhere else on earth (there are more likely places and less likely places, depending on where the stuff is injected, but there is no absolutely safe place). The same goes for the ocean. For example, radioactive remnants from the junk that blew out of Chernobyl have been found and are still found all over the world. And beyond that generality, a more specific point: winter is not over yet, and in winter the wind does sometimes blow across Japan and down to Taiwan. Of course, you are right about dilution, etc., but it is plainly not true that the risk of fallout in Taiwan is zero.
And (a general remark, not specifically aimed at achdizzy1099): we don’t need any more talk about “safe levels” of radiation. Yes, there can be exposure to low levels of radiation where people don’t die or get sick immediately, but radiation damage is cumulative and some damage is done with each exposure, even if the long-term effects only show up in statistics many years later. There is no “safe level” when it comes to radioactivity, and a particularly insidious source of radiation is radioactive dust that enters the body through inhalation and stays in the body for a long time - especially Plutonium is not easily eliminated from the body once it has been taken up. Such dust is created by explosions of certain types of nuclear bombs and by nuclear reactors that suffer accidents where the core melts and core material escapes into the atmosphere. Plutonium, in particular, enters the atmosphere via accidents of reactors that use MOX fuel - as it happens, one of the damaged reactors in Fukushima has been using MOX fuel since last fall.
(All this information can be found in chemistry books and on the web; i am no more a specialist than anybody else here, just someone who has had an ongoing interest in these matters since being a school student who majored in math and chemistry.)
This seems a bit overdone to me, or at least careless use of language, on a par with those who insist their food be “chemical free” (so no carbon, no H20, then?). My computer screen gives me radiation, my microwave does, my concrete walls do, and of course the sun does: and personally, I kind of value all that heat and light. Technically, yes, exposing myself to light is I suppose increasing the chance that an errant UV particle will hit my DNA just the right way and cause cancer, but to say that there’s no such thing as a safe level of radiation makes no sense at all. Of course there’s a safe level - we all live with it every day, and always have, and always will. When the sun goes out, then our exposure to radiation will decrease quite a bit, but I suspect we’ll have bigger problems on our plate by then.
It’s deliberate - and the information is well supported. My words will stay here for as long as the moderators leave them, so in the next few days/ weeks/ months, more people will learn more about radioactivity than they ever thought they wanted to know. And if you read up on the applicable chemistry, biology, and medicine you’ll find that what i have written is where it’s at. I’l leave it at that for this thread.
Microwaves do not count under “radioactivity”, though the present their own dangers at high enough level. A computer monitor, if it has a picture tube, emits gamma rays, yes.
Indeed, concrete is a source of radioactivity.
Thanks to the cooperation between the magnetosphere and atmosphere we are safe enough from the radioactive components of what comes from the sun, non-radioactive radiation also exists and is another problem (see UV and “ozone hole”, etc.).
Sure… “making no sense” is understandable as a first reaction - if you like, inform yourself (and make sure you know who your sources are). I stand by what i have written, regardless of what nuclear industry spokespeople and politicians like to tell us. In a few days, when i have more time, i’ll present some credible sources that support my words.
There are levels, depending on the kind of natural radiation (alpha, beta, and gamma of varying hardness) that living organisms have learned to cope with (self-repair on the cell-level, etc,), but even so there is a statistically non-zero chance that plants and animals (including humans) get illnesses related to radioactivity. With humans having re-introduced radioactive material into the biosphere, from which it had been largely removed by natural processes, this non-zero value has been going up, and with the nuclear waste that exists, and given that there is no safe way of dealing with it, we need to expect this value to increase further in the future - to what extent that will threaten the existence of “higher life forms” is another question that is beyond this topic. And we are free to define any level (natural or otherwise) as “safe” for practical purposes, but where that level is, is more a matter of politics than of science. Anyway… so far in this thread…
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The USSR was outed by the Finnish or Swedish. This was 4 days after the event. The cloud went across the Baltics and then south where it met the Atlantic drift, and pissed down rain over the UK and Ireland
Remember the radioactive sheep, I do, as we had to cull them.
At this point, the Japanese authouriteses seem literally to be firefighting one problem in a reactor, only to be ambushed by another fire/explosion in another reactor. Either they don’t understand what is really is going on (the actual causations and events happening inside), or do and are resigned to reacting to each event as it happens.
Perhaps now countries should be damaging experts be brought in from outside Japan. This is not a problem limited to Japan. Perhaps now is time to start dumping sand or boric or someother supressor right on top of the entire plant
The Japanese government seems coy and statements are limited or contradictory. They botched up years ago with the MAD COW DISEASE, where their statements created confusion and panic, and a complete distrust in them.
There are lots of so called experts talking on TV, and headlines in the newspaper - China Post reads “Japan facing radiation catastrophe” - but little experts/commentators seem to understand (I don’t either) the effects of radiation and factors(proximity, levels, weather/winds, type of radioactive and all the other stuff). This then only creates the conditions for more panic and more confusion
Has anyone phoned up trade offices and ask about the evacuation plan for their citizens?
[quote]The USSR was outed by the Finnish or Swedish. This was 4 days after the event.[/quote]Yep, the bastards had no intentions on telling anyone about this. It took two days for the radiation to travel 1100KM where it was picked up on gauges at a nuclear power plant in Sweden. First they inspected their systems to rule out their own power plant as the source and then they tracked the radiation all the way to western USSR. By the time the world found out about it, an entire city nearby Chernobyl had already been evacuated.
As for what’s happening in Japan and the discussions about wind directions, I agree that the wind makes a difference in directing the fall out. However, radioactive particles are still blown in all directions. According to my own outlook, it is IMPOSSIBLE that Taiwan will not be affected. In fact, I’m pretty certain that we’re already breathing it in. Again, to what extent, I’m not sure.
Here’s a map of where the radioactivity traveled after Chernobyl. While most of the fall out was blown toward Belarus, the stuff was still found all over the place in multiple continents only 9 days later.
The stuff blew in all directions in distances that are far greater than the distance between Taiwan and Japan. So you can talk about wind direction until your blue in the face, but as you do that, you’re already breathing in radioactive particles that will remain inside your body for the rest of your life, and potentially affecting your health in the long term.
Now look on the bright side. It is estimated that the amount of radioactive matter released in the atmosphere when the plant exploded in Chernobyl could be as low as 1000 times less than the amount released in the atmosphere during the nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s. Will the stuff reach Taiwan. Yes. Will it be enough to be a health concern? I don’t know but I hope not.
[quote=“Tempo Gain”][quote=“lostinasia”]
I haven’t been able to find records of “life-years” lost in Chernobyl, but from quickly looking at Wikipedia: a UN committee estimated 4,000 additional deaths (but later considered this number overstated) as a result of Chernobyl… Greenpeace on the other hand suggests as many as 200,000 additional deaths - with provisos that the authors may “selectively use non-peer reviewed papers and only those non-peer reviewed papers as their source material”.[/quote]
How do they define an “additional death?”[/quote]
“Additional” death because people are always dying from cancer anyway; these reports try to figure out how much the cancer rate increased because of Chernobyl. Suppose 100,000 would have died anyway, but 104,000 died; the extra 4,000 is attributed to Chernobyl.
(Note as well that the scale of these numbers has a dramatic effect on psychological impact. If deaths jump from 0 to 4,000, it seems terrifying; if they jump from 9,663,000 to 9,667,000, it seems trivial, even though the “absolute” casualties are identical.)
If someone in Sweden died of cancer in 2006, it’s near-impossible to say whether or not that particular case of cancer came from Chernobyl radiation, or from other sources. Whoever writes these reports need to look at statistics and figure out, very carefully, how many people “should” have died and how many did die - and the difference is the additional deaths, although of course in situations like this other variables are always an issue. I assume that for Chernobyl one massive complicating factor is that health and life expectancy in the former USSR took a nosedive after 1989: dividing “mortality from Chernobyl” from “mortality from general f*cked-up-ed-ness” would be very difficult.
Note that what I’m listening to on BBC now says the Chernobyl death toll is expected to perhaps reach 4,000, one day, but not yet.
EDIT: Interesting NYT article comparing Chernobyl’s health impact with the possibilities in Japan: main idea is that, even if the worst happens - and another NYT article says that Chernobyl is the upper bound for how serious it can get - the health ramifications won’t be as bad. The biggest issue in Chernobyl was thyroid cancer in children, which is actually quite easily preventable, if for example the government, oh, stops giving local milk to all the children. I hadn’t realized how criminal the neglect from local Chernobyl authorities had been.
Anyways, the German government will close down the seven oldest reactors, 2 permanently, the other five temporarily … not because they are worried about a possible repeat over there … just out of concern that the Left, Green and other parties going to win the regional elections later this year …
Indeed, concrete is a source of radioactivity.[/quote]
I can’t help but be reminded of something. Dr. Wei-Li Chen, who is apparently one of Taiwan’s leading experts on radiation and its effects, participated along with other experts in an survey of the effects of living in radioactive apartments here in Taiwan, which survey concluded:
Now, I wish I could be bicultural about this, but . . . .
[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“Ducked”]I think you’re probably correct, but I don’t much like your line of argument.
You seem to be implying that these scenarios are implausible simply because they are so awful. [/quote]Not quite. They very well may be plausible for all I know. My point is simply that if evacuation becomes necessary, the situation elsewhere will already be so awful that bugging out won’t be feasible. Doesn’t mean the worst won’t happen; but if it does, well, have you read The Road?[/quote]
Ok, I misread you then, probably because there’s so much denial about.
I’d probably say the same for the oft-repeated assertion that it won’t (can’t) be worse than Chernobyl.
Chernobyl was essentially a point source. A cracked stove.
The rest of the site, and the society at large, was intact, and the Soviet Union, and in particular, the Red Army, was able to concentrate (and sacrifice) lots of personnel and equipment to contain it.
This is a fire in a devastated atomic timber-yard, in a devastated country, with 50 people reported as attempting to contain it.
Here is something to consider: “Bungling, cover-ups define Japanese nuclear power” hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ … R_SCANDALS
Now, how much trust should one have in the integrity of governments and industry in the rest of the world?
By the way, the expression “panic” is in the news a lot lately. I think that is primarily the result of a “western” way of interpreting what has been happening in Japan. If one does not know much of the language and culture of the society one lives in, then extraordinary circumstances can easily produce a sense of panic or a panic reaction - but as regards the people of Japan themselves, i haven’t heard or read anything (in the Japanese media or in foreign media) during the last week that deserves the label “panic”…
[quote=“netuser”]This is just a post and not my opinion:-)
=====
Fear of Japan’s nuclear crisis far exceeds actual risks, say scientists csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pac … scientists[/quote]
What those scientists with their blinkers on can’t understand is that the fear is much more the result of things like this:
“Lax oversight, ‘greed’ preceded Japan nuclear crisis” csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pac … ear-crisis
People (not only in Japan) know that they can’t trust the alliance of politicians and industry. Nuclear energy systems require BIG MONEY, and wherever/ whenever BIG MONEY is involved you find deceit and fraud.
This is nothing new - it has always been like that, and we, the people, trust our collective experience more than any of sweet words we hear.
We don’t believe the industry spokesmen when they tell us things are under control.
We don’t believe the politicians when they tell us we need not worry.
We don’t believe the PhDs who tell us that nuclear energy is the safest, cleanest, cheapest form of energy we have.
We don’t believe the engineers who tell us that they know how to safeguard radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years to come.
The issue is not science, it is human nature: greed, deception, exploitation, hunger for power, conflict, wars - these are the things we understand (from experience since the dawn of history), and these are the things we are up against again today.
The fear is out of proportion with the danger? Someone’s seriously out of touch with reality: the sad fact is that we, the people, aren’t suspicious enough and want to believe that the world is better than it is, and we want our creature comforts, and living in fear is stressful, and taking responsibility for everything in our lives is rather draining, so we leave many things to politicians who, predictably, make sure that BIG MONEY gets away with murder again and again. But when things go wrong, our natural instincts re-awaken and we rediscover the fear we should never have ignored in the first place.
Of course, i’m not holding my breath that anything will change soon.
[quote=“yuli”][quote=“netuser”]This is just a post and not my opinion:-)
=====
Fear of Japan’s nuclear crisis far exceeds actual risks, say scientists csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pac … scientists[/quote]
What those scientists with their blinkers on can’t understand is that the fear is much more the result of things like this:
“Lax oversight, ‘greed’ preceded Japan nuclear crisis” csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pac … ear-crisis
People (not only in Japan) know that they can’t trust the alliance of politicians and industry. Nuclear energy systems require BIG MONEY, and wherever/ whenever BIG MONEY is involved you find deceit and fraud.
This is nothing new - it has always been like that, and we, the people, trust our collective experience more than any of sweet words we hear.
We don’t believe the industry spokesmen when they tell us things are under control.
We don’t believe the politicians when they tell us we need not worry.
We don’t believe the PhDs who tell us that nuclear energy is the safest, cleanest, cheapest form of energy we have.
We don’t believe the engineers who tell us that they know how to safeguard radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years to come.
The issue is not science, it is human nature: greed, deception, exploitation, hunger for power, conflict, wars - these are the things we understand (from experience since the dawn of history), and these are the things we are up against again today.
The fear is out of proportion with the danger? Someone’s seriously out of touch with reality: the sad fact is that we, the people, aren’t suspicious enough and want to believe that the world is better than it is, and we want our creature comforts, and living in fear is stressful, and taking responsibility for everything in our lives is rather draining, so we leave many things to politicians who, predictably, make sure that BIG MONEY gets away with murder again and again. But when things go wrong, our natural instincts re-awaken and we rediscover the fear we should never have ignored in the first place.
Of course, I’m not holding my breath that anything will change soon. [/quote]
Yuli, you don’t want nuclear power what do you want. Oil? Renewables that could supply 10-20% of world’s demand at most? You know what would happen with no nuclear power, wars!
Anyway it’s chalk and cheese comparing an old faulty design with a newer one. Yes it has it dangers but as others have pointed out we are cooking the earth at the moment just like a frog in a boiling pot of water.
Then you can argue we can live without electricity, but how? We need it for offices, heating, computers …almost everything! In fact whole populations in Northern regions would die without sustabinable electricity supplies (just like we see the very difficult situation in Japan now with no heating due to the cold). There would be famines all over the world.
Let’s also not criticise ‘scientists’ out of hand, scientists who study this are the experts, but of course they have a diversity of opinions. I think the issue is ignorance, as in people overreacting to the situation. Yes nuclear power can be dangerous, but generally only when people make OBVIOUS mistakes like building reactors on a tsunami prone coastline with no passive cooling system!
well the germans wont really close them they just postponed the life time extension by three months… enough to forget about japan and curiously right after the time of the next elections after that we will start them up again. no worries there. and some of the ones that they have taken off the grid now are really really bad and far from the most secure in the world. the one in hamburg is already only running half of the time because there are accidents all the time (and thats only the ones that they tell us… and not the ones that we find out about after several years which frequently happens)
The question of how many people died due to the Chernobyl disaster is so disputed that I don’t know what to think, but it would appear that at least the UN thinks 4,000 to 9,000 or so, or in the ballpark of who have died from coal power irradiation in the same period.
[quote=“headhonchoII”][quote=“yuli”][quote=“netuser”]This is just a post and not my opinion:-)
=====
Fear of Japan’s nuclear crisis far exceeds actual risks, say scientists csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pac … scientists[/quote]
What those scientists with their blinkers on can’t understand is that the fear is much more the result of things like this:
“Lax oversight, ‘greed’ preceded Japan nuclear crisis” csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pac … ear-crisis
People (not only in Japan) know that they can’t trust the alliance of politicians and industry. Nuclear energy systems require BIG MONEY, and wherever/ whenever BIG MONEY is involved you find deceit and fraud.
- sceptical appraisal of nuclear power, etc see above
Of course, I’m not holding my breath that anything will change soon. [/quote]
Yuli, you don’t want nuclear power what do you want. Oil? Renewables that could supply 10-20% of world’s demand at most? You know what would happen with no nuclear power, wars!
[/quote]
Well, thats a good counter example to the “OK, yeah, now that its actually happened (as opposed to the week before last when we said it could’nt, or last week when it was actually happening and we said it wasn’t) maybe nuclear power is a little bit unsafe in a tsunami zone, but its OK everywhere else” apology.
What about combat zones? You going to guarantee a war-free area we can put all our nuclear reactors? Switzerland?
There’d be a few bob in it for them. They might not want to keep the money in a Swiss bank though. Somewhere safer, where they could get at it in a hurry if “the unthinkable” (that is actually very easy to think about, because its so BLEEDING OBVIOUS, but we dont want to think about it) happened.
Oh, I forgot. Nuclear power guarantees peace and stability. (Note: THIS IS IRONY. Note to self: Remember your audience)
[quote=“headhonchoII”]
Anyway it’s chalk and cheese comparing an old faulty design with a newer one. [/quote]
No. It would be chalk and cheese comparing an old faulty design with a new, perfect, infallible one, but no such design is or will be, available. New designs, though doubtless better, are a product of, and more importantly, are regulated, by, the same system that allowed the blatantly unsafe old designs to be commissioned and remain in operation.
Less electricity, not no electricity. Any area that was habitable before it went on the grid would be inhabitable now. I never used domestic heating in Scotland, and I never use domestic air conditioning here, in Southern Taiwan. Its a hardship, but it hasn’t killed me. There are already famines all over the world and its likely they will be worse, with or without nuclear power. They are a product of overpopulation, agricultural resource depletion, and socioeconomic organisation. Electricity does not make those things go away.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]
I think the issue is ignorance, as in people overreacting to the situation. Yes nuclear power can be dangerous, but generally only when people make OBVIOUS mistakes like building reactors on a tsunami prone coastline with no passive cooling system!
The Japanese will be forced to examine why they accepted the risk and FACE the risk now, their mentality was the problem. [/quote]
:roflmao: The old ones are the best. Doesn’t matter how often I hear it, this kind of stuff still kills me. (Perhaps literally eventually).
“Nuclear power is safe as houses, its those PEOPLE who design and operate (they usually leave out regulate) it that are the problem… er, Generally.”
Ok, a couple of selected nuclear highlights:
Windscale UK 1954, perhaps, I’m sorry to say, the most blatant example available. An air-cooled!!! graphite - moderated!!! reactor, with a striking (and, as it turned out, not coincidental) resemblance to a pot-bellied stove. One lone engineer made a real pain in the arse of himself and insisted they install filter galleries at the top of the airshaft/chimney. Phew! And the fire brigade skooshed water in it, and the water didn’t explode. Phew again!
But what can you expect from the Brits, eh? Culture of official secrecy, always stopping for tea, trying to maintain past glory with their very own Cold War A-bomb programme.
And engineering? Morris Marina. Nuff said.
Chernobyll 1986 Well known story: Graphite-moderated water cooled reactor with control system, procedural and containment flaws. Blew up and fire was contained with much difficulty and heroism.
But what can you expect from the Ruski’s eh? Slavonic fatalism, culture of official secrecy and infallibility, always stopping for vodka, desparately trying to match US nuclear supremacy in the Cold War.
and engineering? Lada. Nuff said
So what we need is a culture and people to whom correct, meticulous procedure is almost a religion. A people with profound historical reasons to be suspicious of, and careful about, radiation and matters nuclear. A people so strongly opposed to militarism that they refused to have an army for a period, and still limit its operations to conform to its Self Defence Force title.
and engineering? Toyota. Nuff sai…oh, wait
Maybe we could get the Swiss involved after all? There’d be a few bob in it for them.
You are much more likely to die (or kill someone else) in that death trap of a car you insist on driving than anything to do with power generation.
Not a fair comparison, Windscale was a military reactor that was hastily rejigged into an even more dangerous type of military reactor. You will not find much support in the scientific community for a device whose sole purpose is creating tritium for nuclear weapons.
As for a tsunami hitting the US and Hawaii and Taiwan that was a real risk as can be conclusively seen from the Christmas tsunami that travelled across the Indian Ocean a few years back.
I got my information from here, newscientist.com/blogs/short … e-fue.html. They state that there is no chance that the reactors can meltdown and spew radiaoctive material from a fire like Chernobyl. That’s because they don’t contain graphite. It looks like a partial meltdown in one the cards in a few or all the reactors, however it won’t neccessarily release much radiation The spent fuel rods themselves in the pools could catch fire but that wouldn’t release as much raw radioactive material as Chernobyl either
There are some fundamental problems in the design of the plant and the storage of the material. Why everything needs active cooling? I am also perplexed as to why it is so difficult to essentially add water to a pool? I also don’t like the Japanese secretive approach, it is not helping and it may have contributed to the disaster at it’s root.
@Ducked
I see your point with war, but we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. More reactors means, possibly, more chance for them to be immersed in a conflict zone. At the same time without nuclear power energy costs would rise rapidly and further wars for energy resource control and massive environmental damage will be caused. It is time that nuclear reactors were managed on a world basis, not a sovereign one, maybe they will indeed push us towards some type of world government…which is what is neccessary to manage the problems on our planet. As technology increases in it’s reach we cannot hide our heads in the sand and pretend it won’t affect us if we don’t build one or use it.
they just postponed the life time extension by three months… enough to forget about japan and curiously right after the time of the next elections