"The IAEA has a detailed briefing on their Facebook page."

Sometimes I think the future is stupid.

@1: Indeed! It's actually quite appalling.

As Dr. Golub will tell you, scientists can detect incredibly small amounts of radioactivity.
Way, way, way (and then some) below levels that do detectable harm to people.
Most people understand the general concepts, but the devil's in the details (i.e. the levels of contamination) here.

@1, 2: Just go here then:

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsun…

Goldy,
You used the word "Japan" in your post. Therefore I hate you.

Has a single person actually gotten sick from radiation at Fukushima yet?

Comparisons to TMI are ludicrous. As noted, very little got released into the environment in the Three Mile Island fuck-up. Fukushima Daiichi has already spewed, and is spewing now. It hasn't stopped spewing, and nobody is quite sure how or when it will. If and when it does stop, well... then all that stuff is out there -- it isn't going to magically unspew. The I-131 will decay over a few months to inconsequential levels, but the I-129 won't. Neither will the Cs-137, the Sr-90, the Pu-239 or any of the other nasties.

I appreciate everyone wanting to emphasize the utter cock-up that was Chernobyl by resisting comparisons to it. Chernobyl was a spectacular fuck-up by any standards, but the fact remains that it involved one reactor, not a cluster, no waste pools, not six, and far less total nuclear material. And, while we didn't have any out-of-control reactors at the start of this mess, we're getting spontaneous fission in the dried-out spent-fuel pools for chrissakes! And, if you'll allow me to be just a teensy bit more alarmist, the stuff in those spent-fuel pools is more hazardous than brand new, fresh nuclear fuel as supplied to reactors. And there's a lot more of it, too.

Andrew @3,

You're welcome to eat all the Fukushima grown spinach you want.

Much worse. Two nuclear blasts. Seeping fuel in air and water supply. Too late for coastal people.

For a nation so technologically advanced and so dependent on nuclear power, the Japanese government's response to the nuclear crisis was remarkably inept. They pretty much left TEPCO to their own devices as far as what info to reveal and what steps to take. The government didn't seem able to deploy teams to monitor radiation in the environment across wide areas or to provide unmanned aerial surveillance of damaged reactors until arrival of experts from the IAEA and the U.S. These functions would be almost completely separate from anything needed for tsunami search and rescue. The prime minister wanted involvement of the other political parties in a "recovery cabinet" and has so far been rebuffed and left twisting in the wind. I'm guessing that even the stoic Japanese will be asking a lot of hard questions in the months and years ahead.

Not that we in the U.S. have anything to feel smug about. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission here, like the Minerals Management Service and offshore drilling, has essentially not regulated for the last 15 years, because of extralegal arm-twisting by members of Congress at the behest of the nuclear industry. And a comparable disaster here would lead to a lot more reprehensible behavior by our me-me-me-me citizenry.

There is a window for us to get our shit together. Will we? Well, has anyone heard word one about the MMS cracking down, other than the public sop of temporarily halting offshore drilling permits?

The radiation in the foodstuffs is probably iodine, which is about the scariest form of radiation thrown off. But it has a half-life of 8 days. Meaning that milk from those cows and spinach from that soil should be clean in about 6 months.

But Goldy will still be a cunt.

That's a really fine link, @11. A terrific illustration.

Thanks, it's the best I've seen thus far.

The amount of radiation is low, but letting it out would create public hysteria. Not worth it. Have the government buy up all the spinach and milk within 10 miles. Bury it in a pit. In 6-months, it will no longer be radioactive. Depending on the bacteria in the pit, it will either be harmless mulch, or the most awesome kimchee ever created.

@8 As of right now I would probably eat the spinach without hesitation. We need to know more about the radiation other than a vague past particle such as "contaminated." You eat food every day that is contaminated with full blown uranium.

Also 1 kilogram of uranium generates about as much electricity as 4,000 tons of coal. Would you rather have 1 kilogram of radioactive waste to deal with or 4,000 tons of coal burning? You should consider that 4,000 tons of coal produces about 600,000,000 gallons of co2.

@10 The government officials are not nuclear engineers for the most part. Why should they butt into the process with being a backseat driver? Why not let the experienced engineers run the show?

@11 That chart is awesome. As someone who already has context for how relatively low the exposure from Fukushima is I have struggled to explain this with words only to everyone around me.

@16, engineers are awesome at engineering. But like scientists, they're most often abysmal leaders and poor communicators. They also usually work for private industry and so the scope of their activities is limited to what their bosses hired them for (almost never crisis management or unforeseen circumstances, and sometimes in conflict with general public good). Government functions [should] include knowledge and regulatory abilities equal to or greater than that of the industries operating within their borders; also, reassurance of frightened citizens.

Also, I have a sudden hankering for wilted spinach salad with warm bacon dressing.

@10,@17: You make good points about regulation here. MMS doesn't seem to be affected at all, in fact haven't we begun issuing permits again?

Also Yucca Mountain is no longer considered the permanent storage site for our nuclear waste. The policy of record is to store spent fuel on-site, which is part of the big problem with Fukushima.

@17, the problem isn't the communications skills of engineers and scientist. We communicate fine with each other. The problem is the comprehension skills of the ignorant masses.

Engineers are required to take LAS classes. I would wager that 99% of US-trained scientists were required to read Shakespeare to get their degrees. LAS majors, however, are not required to have even basic engineering literacy.

Ask the doctor operating on your tumor what the difference between "baroque" and "rococo" is. Then ask an artist if ten thousand volts of electricity will kill him.

Also, we work for private industry because that's where shit gets done. An engineer that builds a bridge is a happy engineer. There is no such thing as a happy EPA scientist. Their jobs are misery day in and day out. Government scientists and engineers are locked away in dark rooms for decades, and they serve at the mercy of a congress that detests quantitative information.

@16 I <3 you.

All the comparisions to TMI and Chernobyl are crazy. On a scale of public health endangerment, TMI was a 0, Chernobyl was 10. This is like 2.

And it doesn't take 6 months for it to be non radioactive. At absolute worst it would be one month - enough for five half-lives. But the levels they see now would be undetectable in a week or two.

@8:
"A person who consumed the tainted food continuously for a year would take in the same amount of radiation as a single CT scan, Edano said. That's about 7 millisieverts or double what an average person in an industrialized country is exposed to in a year, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration"

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03…

@20, Wow, this is quite smug while ignorant at the same time. My first question for you is: Have you actually served as a government scientist or engineer? Seriously. Second, name one invention you use now that isn't subsidized by government science at one point in time.

My engineering education basically consisted of teaching me how to be a cog in the management class machinery. It taught me to be unquestioning of the systems level perspective, especially within the corporate ecosystem. It also taught me to totally ignore human beings. Fortunately, I am an autodidact and continued past that degree so I didn't need to remain a cog. But most of the other kids just wanted the fucking degree and the money afterward. They didn't understand what being an engineer was like and they didn't really care about the "technology and society" classes or whatever you call it that were part of their curriculum. (Bless you if you paid attention.) And many did not care about science past their own specializations. I remember vividly being embarrassed because I was the only person in the graduate class on photonics who actually fucking understood the review material.

I admire your hubris though. I remain under the naive impression that denial seems hard to maintain until I hear from people like you.

Engineers are "awesome" at...? What? What? At engineering? Did I actually see someone here sucking engineer cock? Are engineers giving each other high fives at a time like this?

Fuck that shit. Engineers suck. Every working engineer today should be ashamed of what their fellows have done. Every one of these fucks should take a long hard look in the mirror and ask themselves if they suck shit as bad as the shitheads who built Fukushima. News flash: if your nuclear plant falls to shit in a natural disaster, that is not awesome engineering. That's all kinds of fail, fail, fail.

Oh, not all engineers suck. But every engineer should be deeply ashamed and embarrassed at the pathetic failure of their profession as a whole.

This is a time for soul searching and reform. First answer me the question: Why did engineers do such a piss poor job? And don't blame the public and management and politics and cost cutting and market forces. I want to know what you fucking engineers did wrong here. I'm guessing incompetent engineers and dishonest engineers and incompetent dishonest engineers played a starring role. No?

This reminds me so much of everybody in the Bush adminstriation was patting themselves on the back and pointing fingers after 9/11. Richard A. Clarke was the only motherfucker with the character to stand up and say "I failed you". One guy knew what his job was. One guy.

@23 First question, yes. I was technically a state employee, but funded by USDA money and spoke at USDA meetings on pesticide usage. That's how I know that there is no such thing as a happy EPA worker. Because everyone I met in the EPA told me exactly those words.

The second question is a deliberate misrepresentation of what I said. There's a difference between being an scientist employed by the government and being a scientist funded by the government.

@24-- You are not worth arguing with. From the forceps that pulled you from your mother's womb to the paddles that one day defibrillate your heart, all this you will consume and give nothing back.

@6: Yes. There have been a number of workers physically injured with broken legs and other physical problems, and specific reports of workers who "collapsed" early on, some of which seem to be radiation-related. Since then there have also been a number of workers who were treated for high radiation levels, or decontaminated. Additionally, a few days ago there were also specific reports of several workers who suffered some degree of facial burns, unclear whether this was fire or radiation-related.

More moderate amounts of radiation take some time to show illness, and of course cancers do not form overnight.

For immediate burns, nausea, and other more immediate and acute effects, the radiation exposure needs to be fairly extreme, and they appear to have been relatively cautious about that at this point and the workers are informed it seems, of the dangers (this is in contrast to chernobyl where some of the plant's workers understood the risk, but many immediate responders such as firefighters, solders and the like did not and suffered greatly.). However, many of the injuries reported have been extremely vague, and it's fairly safe to say that there have been people hurt, perhaps very seriously, from radiation exposure, aside from those who have been killed, injured, or are missing at the site from other causes as well, such as fire and explosions.

@20: bullshit. Specialization occurs no matter what the field. Scientists are renowned for a colossal inability to communicate even the most fundamental aspects of human knowledge, you know, like Evolution and global warming.

And this is a liberal arts major calling bullshit on your example of people not knowing that 10,000volts is dangerous. People get tazered all the time with 50,000 volts and almost none of them suffer any harm, because there's almost no current. But maybe you never learned that in your engineering and science classes. Or maybe you did, but had that same lack of "comprehension skills of the ignorant masses" and therefore think that 10,000 volts must be deadly. I've been hit with 30kV before, and I'm still sitting here.

People regularly work totally unprotected directly on uninsulated, live high voltage transmission lines at 110kV and above without any problem.

So maybe you should worry more about your tiny corner of the world, and less about shit you never learned a damn thing about, and don't understand.

@27, I wrote: "Then ask an artist if ten thousand volts of electricity will kill him. "

My point was exactly that-- A simple shock after walking across carpet is upwards of 25kv. It's a basic bit of technical literacy that the public does not understand. Because there is no requirement for technical literacy in general education.

I'm sorry you have a problem with reading one thing and having a knee-jerk reaction to a completely different thing. Maybe there's an ointment for that.

@25 I was considering responding to #24 but I figured it was not worth my breath. Your final comment summed up everything I was thinking better than I ever could. Thanks.

@27 The 10,000 volt figure is a trick question and you kind of fell for it. You and me and eclexia all know that 10,000 volts means NOTHING about human safety. It is not good or bad, that is the trick. You have to actually understand how electricity works to decide if a figure is safe or not. You cannot sum it all up by saying 10,000 = good and 10,000,000 = bad.

This is similar to the nuclear situation we have going on. The news is reporting that the nuclear levels are x seiverts sometimes without a "per minute" or "per hour" which makes it useless.

Fortunately seiverts and volts and amps are all very easy to explain to a non technical user given five minutes and a car analogy. We need more of those quick explanations in society so we can collectively choose the right path for our future.

@24: http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l0dg15…

@25, "There's a difference between being an scientist employed by the government and being a scientist funded by the government."
You are very right...NOW. But a great deal of the technology we use today was birthed in national or defense labs. Yes, some was contracted out but a lot less. I concede that now it's flipped.

@29 You may think Sieverts are easy to explain. So, tell me why the doses (Sieverts) and dose-rates (Sieverts/hour) are all carelessly munged together not only in press reports, but official statements, and the millis and micros are forever getting mixed up? If it's so easy to explain, how come there aren't enough people in the leaky bucket brigade that passes for an information pipeline that seem to get the gist of it?

"I'm guessing incompetent engineers and dishonest engineers and incompetent dishonest engineers played a starring role. No?"
Blame doesn't really belong to a certain group. First, blame the ravenous consumer (including you) for wanting to power their plasma TV for their own masturbatory needs. Then in the US especially blame the morons who don't want to fund research into ANYTHING including nuclear fusion AND renewables. Then REALLY blame the management class and marketing who deny inadequacies in design and fudge risk analysis or performance numbers. Who put profit above people.

In this specific case: there's tons of literature on the bad design of the Mark I and GE's shitty job of handling it. But that doesn't really provide any substantiation to your generalization.

@32 The numbers without time are NOT meaningless. One is a dose and the other is dose rate (with a unit time). Both are valid expressions of radiation absorbed by tissue.

@33

Richard A. Clarke didn't think his job was nothing more than warning the President and his staff that we were going to be attacked. If he had to merely shoot a couple memos over the wall and call it a day, he'd have nothing to apologize for. But he understood his job was also to get them to listen.

@35 How effective were the US scientists/engineers who resigned over Mark I design in preventing Fukushima? About as effective as Mr. Clark was in preventing an attack on the United States.

3...2...1

Nukashima's are ready to mushroom again.

Giant extension cord not what the scientist ordered

TOKYO—Japanese authorities are facing setbacks in their battle to bring the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan under control as pressure builds up in one reactor while a target to supply power to another by Sunday may not be met.

...

Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it will be "difficult" to restore power supply to the No. 2 reactor by Sunday, Jiji Press reported. Power restoration to reactors No. 1 and No. 2 was expected by Sunday afternoon, after being pushed back from Saturday afternoon. The delay was due to workers having to shield many pieces of equipment from the water spraying operations.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424…

And I'm crazy, kinda hazy, I'm not sorry, gonna worry
I'm not lonely, she's my only, she's got me eatin' out of her hands

Chorus:
She's radioactive (radioactive), she's very selective (radioactive)
She's what I need, she's so pretty indeed, I've gotta make her mine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1us4ga9-g…

@34 Alas, far too many reports are being made with "Sieverts" being expressed for dose-rate as well as dose. Go back and read a few and you'll see how careless the reports are, and how confused the reporters sound. The English service of NHK TV is maddening.

I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad. The dreams I have of dying are the best I've ever had.

I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take. When people run in circles it's a very very mad world.

@28:

Yeah, it's called humble pie. Maybe you should have some to treat your case of acute douchebaggery.