Comments

1
thank you. i've much appreciated your crunching of data- I've shared your posts with my Seattle transplant friends here in SD all week. Goldy - you've also been a great source (alarmist? please, it's nuclear-meltdown-wtf!). props (do people still say that?)
2
another excellent post. thank you.
3
This is all well and good, but we should be at 0 caesium-137. There is no natural reason this shit should be in Seattle. Im not going to be naturally picking this up from a fucking brick or a plane ride.
4
Geraldo, you must believe in homeopathy. Just like in that quackery, the amount of bad stuff in Seattle is so infinitesimal that it's highly unlikely that there's even a single atom of Cs-137 or I-131 on the brick you pick up.
6
Online Calculator for this. If someone is interested. They said there would be no maths tonight.

http://www.translatorscafe.com/cafe/unit…
7
"As much as I love converting Curies to Bq—and who doesn't"

I can't quantify how much pleasure I received from that phrase, but it would have to be measured in teras.
8
America is curies and REM, which, interestingly enough, is actually based on metric measurements. 1 REM is 1 rad of gamma radiation, which is 100ergs in 1 gram of biological material. The more you know.
9
If it makes anyone feel better you can convert those things into Rutherfords, and who doesn't love a few Rutherfords every now and then.
10
@4&8

I think you both are missing the point. This is a form of invasion, someone else's mistake has invaded our country and health.

How would you feel if I came into your house to inject some minuscule amounts of radiation into your family? Violated? Naked? Helpless? Pissed off?
11
Can you tell us how long the radiation leaks from the Fukushima reactors would have to continue at present levels to pose a health risk here? A month? Three months? A year?
12
Well, Svensken, as I understand it, those are good, old-fashioned GE nuclear reactors, designered here in the USA, warts & all. If true, it's not really as simple as all that, no?
13
Iodine, such a distraction. What about fluoride in the drinking water? What about that? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. I feel a profound sense of fatigue...
14
Many of you seem to be operating under the delusion that there's never been any radiation leaks in this country, or that Three Mile Island was the extent of it. TMI was nothing; hardly any radiation at all. In contrast, we have ongoing radioactive waste leaking from Hanford into the Columbia River, and I just learned about this lovely little gem: Santa Susita labs.

Just outside LA, in the hills above the San Fernando Valley, this NASA/Department of Energy lab had open reactors with no containment dome, and a rich history of completely insane waste handling. Up until the 1990s, they used to BURN THE STUFF, right there on the ground in open bonfires -- toxic waste and spent nuclear junk, sending spectacular black clouds of toxic evil skyward. They used to take barrels of toxic waste and shoot them with rifles, causing them to explode -- IN THE 1990s.

They also had several more serious radiation meltdowns and leaks; in 1959 it melted down REPEATEDLY, sending waves of radiation -- at least 400 times as much as TMI -- over the San Fernando Valley. They cleaned it up with, yes, really, sponges, mops, and sanitary napkins.

They also dumped an estimated half a million gallons of trichoroethylene into the ground. Current cleanup efforts are removing ten gallons from the site per year. Hey, only 49,999 to go! It, and perchlorate, are in the water supply in Simi Valley.

Of course there are 20 million people just downwind of those radiation leaks and big black plumes of burning waste.

For some idiotic reason Boeing purchased this flaming hot shithole in 1996, possibly because they wanted to blow up some of their own barrels, and now they're partly on the hook for cleaning it up, along with the state, DOE, NASA, and CEPA. This cleanup will never happen.

I guarantee more Slog readers have run across toxic particles from this clusterfuck than from anything happening in Japan, ever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susan…

http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/sho…
15
So what about months of continued exposure from radioactive particles and isotopes coming from japan at this level? Also, we're not out of the woods yet. Reactors 1, 2, 3, and 4 are still in critical condition and if one goes, they all go. If a full meltdown happens across four reactors we will most assuredly be getting more than a quaint dose here.
16
The US detonated over a thousand atomic weapons over the 20th century. They were above-ground until 1962.

17
For some specifics on Hanford, for example. From JAMA. 2004;292(21):2600-2613. doi:10.1001/jama.292.21.2600

CONTEXT Approximately 740 000 Ci (2.73 × 1016 Bq) of iodine 131 (131I) were released to the atmosphere from the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington State from 1944 through 1957. The risk of thyroid disease resulting from prolonged environmental 131I exposure is poorly understood.

RESULTS There was no evidence of a relationship between Hanford radiation dose and the cumulative incidence of any of the outcomes. These results remained unchanged after taking into account several factors that might confound the relationship between radiation dose and the outcomes of interest.
18
Converting from picocuries to Bq: 0.013 pCi equals 481 microBq. 481 microBq per cubed-meter is a tiny amount of radioactive Iodine compared to what Tula, Russia was exposed to—millions of times less. Hence, my being reassured at this moment.

Not "millions of times less" though -- OVER ONE HUNDRED MILLION times less!

0.013 picocurie = 0.000481 becquerel (Bq)

0.000481 Bq = 1/103,950,104 of the dose at Tula, Russia. Or, in other words, 0.000000962% of the dose epidemiologically linked to cancer.

@11 & 13:
For a sense of scale, this means that you'd have to be exposed to this level of radiation from Fukushima every single day for approximately 284,795 YEARS before it became a serious health problem.

(And I'm pre-e-e-e-e-tty sure something else will get ya before you'll manage to reach the ripe old age of 200,000 years old anyhow!)
19
Doh! Should be "@11 & 15" up there

And, Jonathan, where'd you get the term "microBq" anyway? (μBq?) I don't think I've ever seen that term before.
20
@17
there are many more references to cancer and hanford

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/pro…

http://www.downwinders.com/
21
18-Radioactive Iodine is by no means the only source of contamination belching out of Daichi. And like I said earlier, full meltdown: fully screwed.
22
@19 me either. picocurie usually has a different symbol.
23
@Catalina

If I build a faulty house that damages yours, am I to blame for never checking or improving the outdated plans or the architect?
24
Read what Dr. Janette Sherman has to say or go to her website. You may change your mind about "there isn't really any health risk." Are you kidding? There is always a health risk from radioactive material.

You may find the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment to be a worthwhile read.
25
Spindles..one two and three did melt down and these melted cores are in an unknown location and will remain former in an unknown location. The fuel in four has not meltd, but is not in containment, it's in a pool exposed to open air. And the spent fuel in four contains plutonium, so, it looks like the good old Japanese were running an enrichment operation. Weapons grade, I mean.

Please wait...

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