melissa posted:

if things get worse in Japan as far as not being able to prevent melt down.... do you still think it won't risk the heath of US?

Based on the fact that China's nuclear weapons testing never affected us and the statistics/facts on Chernobyl, I am leaning towards NO.

ETA:

Radioactive Plume? The Coast Is Clear

My wife and two sons are flying from New York to Los Angeles this morning but I'm not worried about the so-called "radioactive plume" coming from the crippled Japanese nuclear reactors. In fact, I hate the term "radioactive plume" -- now appearing widely in the media -- because it conjures up an image that is much scarier than the reality of the radiation danger to the West Coast.

Yesterday, as concerned residents in California and Washington awaited further news about the plume, the Associated Press reported that a diplomat with access to radiation tracking by the U.N.'s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization said tiny amounts of radiation had reached California. But as radiation expert Dr. Donald Bucklin told me, these instruments "can measure miniscule changes in radiation" that have "absolutely no effect on human beings." In fact, according to the diplomat, initial readings were not dangerous in any way -- "about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening."

Despite reassurances from many different experts and agencies, fear -- much more than radioactivity -- was in the air: tweeted, emailed, and broadcast. A physician friend in L.A. emailed me that there was widespread panic among his patients and asked me to go on CBS radio -- which I did -- to try to provide a reality check. The situation in Japan is still dangerous and fluid but after consulting with experts on radiation and nuclear accidents over the past several days, here's why I'm not worried about my family flying to California:

1) Chernobyl was a much worse accident yet no significant radiation reached the U.S.

CBS nuclear safety consultant Cham Dallas, PhD told me that the radiation released at Chernobyl was 100 times more than the combined radiation from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But only an insignificant "blip" of radiation reached Savannah, Georgia about 5400 miles away -- about the same distance as Tokyo is to Los Angeles. And no health problems in the U.S. have been detected as a result of Chernobyl, which was a level 7 incident according to The International Atomic Energy Agency; the crisis in Japan is currently level 5.

2) Experts tell me the amount of radiation released from the Japanese nuclear reactors is not nearly enough to cause a problem in the U.S.

Radiation dose is measured in something called "millisieverts." Background dose due to natural radiation exposure varies from place to place but is about 3 millisieverts a year. Nuclear plant workers are limited to 20 millisieverts a year. One hundred millisieverts in one dose can increase the risk of cancer. One hundred to 500 millisieverts can cause bone marrow damage, leading to infection and death. A chest x-ray is 0.1 millisieverts.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced yesterday that radiation levels in downtown Tokyo were at 0.000047 millisieverts an hour, barely higher than the 0.000035 microsieverts an hour that is typical.

Cham Dallas told me that -- as it stands now -- any cumulative radiation exposure to people on the West Coast as a result of the Japanese accident should be clinically insignificant, amounting to less than a tenth of a chest x-ray (0.01 millisieverts).

3) Direct measurements of radiation on the West Coast reveal no significant increase so far.

Yesterday, health officials in California and Washington said radiation is not higher than usual. Last night, the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that no radiation levels of concern have reached the United States, saying: "The doses received by people per day from natural sources of radiation -- such as rocks, bricks, the sun and other background sources -- are 100,000 times the dose rates from the particles and gas detected in California or Washington State."

On the West Coast, pharmacies are being cleaned out of potassium iodide pills by people wanting to protect themselves from thyroid cancer caused by radioactive I-131. The CDC has tweeted not to take potassium pills but either the word has not gotten out or people are not believing the word. Yesterday I received an email from a patient in Los Angeles asking me if she should stockpile potassium iodide. The answer is a definitive "absolutely not." And under no conditions should anybody take iodide pills or other forms of iodine without being told to do so by a health professional; the side effects can be very serious.

Obviously, in Japan the situation is quite different from here in the United States. The leak of radioactivity may well have health effects on those workers who have been directly exposed at the plants. Experts will need to monitor the residents in other areas of Japan for signs of radiation-associated illness. And officials in Japan will be looking for evidence of radioactivity entering the food chain. In the United States, imported food is routinely checked for radioactivity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2011 10:56AM by OMS.

posted:

No offense, but I don't see facebook as a credible source of info either.

I guess you aren't too familiar with Facebook...you can follow credible news agencies for headline news and such. I also follow many agencies including the National Institutes of Health for medical info. But what I mentioned was about a page I was following for star and planetary positions to use for my son and his telescope....then they took it upon themselves to do a hack job from a reliable source about Japan/radiation. I unfollowed them after that.

posted:

Plan "B" not working is no surprise, & probably the biggest reason not to fuck around with something you can't fix. I've been in the construction & civil engineering field since 1986 & have seen corners cut on projects to save money.

I'm sorry you had bad experiences in construction and engineering. My Ex worked in the construction so I know all too well about cutting corners (and massive drug use by construction workers ON THE JOB. ). But my experience working with engineers, who make it their priority to follow code and compliance, has been nothing but positive. I believe it depends on the industry/client and how many regulators and agencies breathing down their backs. In my situation, we had the FDA...and we, as an international corporation in developing/manufacturing/marketing medical devices, did not want to me in the business of killing people nor did we want to endanger our facility workers (ie, the chemicals they handle). Just because you saw one thing doesn't mean it's the standard across the board. Of course, we can always bring up Deepwater Horizon.


________

On the last subject, I think it is obvious that Japan has not been totally honest with their people, for whatever reason. Culture? Pride? Overwhelmed? I heard yesterday that they are admitting they are overwhelmed and are accepting more help in the form of ideas on how to remedy the situation. And it's obvious what their officials and ours think/recommend are different....we can't control that. What we can do, and have done, is make the best recommendations for our citizens that are in Japan and also monitor flights/produce/etc from Japan for evidence of "increased" radiation.

You know, if this happened all the time then the "world" would have the right answers of how to handle it from the get go. The fact that we don't doesn't mean that there was noncompliance, incompetence or complacency on anyone's part. And I don't think it should mean we should be afraid of technology. Look at the Challenger space shuttle incident and if we had stopped our space missions after that.

ETA: "I will tell you that having lived in NY, & being old enough to remember the issues that I linked to regarding the Shoreham nuclear plant that was plagued with problems & corruption where the Engineering firm, Stone & Webster (The same firm with a new name ready to build the two plants in Texas) was invloved with, it's real. You can choose to dismiss it if you want, I'm not making an effort to change your mind."



I have researched this company and it was bought out and by Shaw Group. When they built something 30ish years ago in an area where there were unions were run by organized crime is not the "picture" of what they are today. They are basically "under new management" and have successfully been a part of new projects all over the world. "In 2008, The Engineering News Record ranked Stone & Webster as a Shaw Group subsidiary as ranked 1st by revenue for Power EPC, and 5th by Revenue in Process & Petrochemical EPC."



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2011 12:31PM by OMS.

Riktor posted:

You're not thinking about this with the right perspective. For how many years have coal plants been belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? How many people have died or suffered as a result? It is almost incalculable, whereas the effects of Chernobyl, however horrific, were highly localized.

You speak of nuclear disasters being catastrophic, but you have yet to actually point out a case which could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered as such. Yes, Chernobyl was bad, but was it catastrophic? Hardly. People still live in Ukraine and Russia and Belarus. The fallout which so concerns you is limited to an exclusion zone some nineteen miles in diameter, and even then there are few pockets where radiation is so intense as to preclude visitation. As others have already made note, just this year, the Ukrainian government opened up The Zone to tourism. You can even visit Pripyat for a little while without worry of irradiating yourself.

I don't see how you can say Chernobyl was localized & not catastrophic given the number of casualties, related illnesses, birth defects & that people in the hundreds of thousands had to be relocated. The rise in cancer related deaths after the cloud of radiation swept through in Europe is a good example. I don't believe for a moment that the site is safe enough to visit either. This is/was the Soviet Union who fed the world info on how bad it was. No fucking way is Chernobyl on my shortlist of vacation spots, although it might still be a step up from Disneyworld where a cartoon rat is happy to take all of your money.

All fossil fuels have left a footprint of killing people. The major difference between fossil fuels & nuclear, is that the technology exists now to clean up the fossil fuels to where they can burn cleaner & be extracted with less impact on the environment. If a major catastrophe happens, like gas line explosions, these are truly "localized" & don't spread hundreds of miles. No matter how "safe" a level of use you think you can achieve with nuclear, it is catastrophic when things go wrong. What if the World Trade Center & the Pentagon had been nuclear reactors & not buildings? Aside from the true, localized, disasters at each location, many square miles would have been contaminated.

Just a side note, I had read on several websites that it was theorized that the Three Mile Island plant, which is still operational, was the target of the plane that crashed in PA on 9-11. As to whether or not there is enough credible evidence of this, I have no idea. It makes perfect sense to target these sites now after seeing the impact the plant in Japan has on the population.

I'll be the first to say that the whole energy situation is a disaster no matter which fuel is used. The corporations making record profits & putting safety & health to the side to make money, sucks. Countries fight over it, & it won't be getting any better. Even if nuclear energy can be made safe enough to use, we need to make changes. Buying florescent lighting instead of incandescent bulbs is fucking bullshit to get people who are clueless to think they are changing the planet.

I don't have any answers how to fix things, but the awareness people need to have about what is fucked up around them needs to improve dramatically. Changes like allowing the same corrupt company caught changing the failed tests on a plant that had to be dismantled, to passing build 2 more plants.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2011 04:22PM by Old Moparz.

Old Moparz posted:

I don't see how you can say Chernobyl was localized & not catastrophic given the number of casualties, related illnesses, birth defects & that people in the hundreds of thousands had to be relocated.

Because despite those numbers the impact is by no means so severe that the future of the Ukraine, much less all of Eastern Europe, is left in question, which is what the term "catastrophic" would imply. I'm not making light of the Chernobyl disaster but it by no means came close to wiping humanity from the face of the globe.

posted:

I don't believe for a moment that the site is safe enough to visit either. This is/was the Soviet Union who fed the world info on how bad it was. No fucking way is Chernobyl on my shortlist of vacation spots, although it might still be a step up from Disneyworld where a cartoon rat is happy to take all of your money.

You can "believe" whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is people have been going back and forth throughout The Zone for the past decade or so.

posted:

All fossil fuels have left a footprint of killing people. The major difference between fossil fuels & nuclear, is that the technology exists now to clean up the fossil fuels to where they can burn cleaner & be extracted with less impact on the environment.

And even then they don't even approach the cleanliness or the efficiency of nuclear power, sans catastrophic circumstances, which history has shown are extenuating.

posted:

What if the World Trade Center & the Pentagon had been nuclear reactors & not buildings?

What kind of argument is that? First you'd have to tell us exactly what would happen if an airplane flew into a nuclear reactor housing. Could an airplane even penetrate the concrete? Seeing as it generally requires highly specialized guided missiles to penetrate concrete bunkers, I doubt an airplane would get the job done.

posted:

Just a side note, I had read on several websites that it was theorized that the Three Mile Island plant, which is still operational, was the target of the plane that crashed in PA on 9-11. As to whether or not there is enough credible evidence of this, I have no idea. It makes perfect sense to target these sites now after seeing the impact the plant in Japan has on the population.

Sorry, but I became immune to "ZOMG TEH TERRORISTS" arguments somewhere between September of 2001 and October of 2001.

It isn't that terrorists aren't a valid concern, but that you're using the specter of global terrorism to justify getting rid of nuclear power without first seeking evaluate 1) how vulnerable nuclear power plants are to attack, and 2) whether or not there's anything that could be done to strengthen security around them.

posted:

I'll be the first to say that the whole energy situation is a disaster no matter which fuel is used. The corporations making record profits & putting safety & health to the side to make money, sucks. Countries fight over it, & it won't be getting any better. Even if nuclear energy can be made safe enough to use, we need to make changes. Buying florescent lighting instead of incandescent bulbs is fucking bullshit to get people who are clueless to think they are changing the planet.

I don't disagree, but we're not talking about corporate corruption in the case of Japan, or even Chernobyl for that matter. The events we are seeing in Japan are due to extremely extenuating circumstances; even if you could plan for experiencing a 9.0+ mag earthquake, there's virtually nothing you could build which could withstand it, or the resultant tsunami.

Clearly, this isn't a case of Deepwater Horizon buffoonery, and it doesn't speak to the safety of nuclear power in general.

posted:

I don't have any answers how to fix things

Wasn't the whole point of this thread to voice how you'd like to see nuclear power go the way of the dodo? That appears to be your answer, and frankly, it isn't a very good one.

posted:

Shaw owning Stone & Webster should be highly scrutinized, & not overlooked.

"In 2000, Stone & Webster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to cash flow problems. It was bought at auction by the Shaw Group for US$150 million.[4][5] The Shaw Energy and Chemicals division now encompasses Stone & Webster branded technology. Shaw's E&C division attempts to compete with other more successful engineering contractors such as Bechtel, Foster Wheeler, Jacobs and Technip. Since the Shaw buyout the Power group has done record business in engineering and construction of Coal fired power plants and power plant environmental control retrofits including FGD and SCR technology. Due to Shaw's alliance with Westinghouse, the current incarnation of Stone & Webster is once again very active in the developing nuclear power industry."

These sort of acquisitions happen all the time. Similar companies that are doing well buy out ones that are in trouble, restructures them under their own management/philosophy and they come out better than before.

I've been reading up on the 2 proposed nuclear plants for Texas. It seems there is no more concern from the townspeople than before Japan's issues with most in favor.

Damn, I hate it when that happens.

Why not, I appreciate all the comments here. I've been able to learn things I didn't previously know about.

Anyway, Rob tweeted this link...puts a lot in perspective. Click for higher res.


With all the traveling I've done the past year, let alone the number of CT, x-rays and mammograms I had in a 2 month period...well, let's just say some of y'all would have a nervous breakdown knowing you had that much radiation exposure.

Scientists lack complete answers on radiation risk
Even 25 years after the Chernobyl accident, controversy over disaster's health effects remains



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2011 09:43PM by OMS.

OMS posted:

With all the traveling I've done the past year, let alone the number of CT, x-rays and mammograms I had in a 2 month period...well, let's just say some of y'all would have a nervous breakdown knowing you had that much radiation exposure.

^^I hear you on that one! I've had enough mammograms, MRI's and various other scans myself in the past year and a half to light up all of Boston--and that's not even counting the actual radiation therapy. (Having another mammo, tomorrow, in fact. . . ) I can only equate what I've experienced with the radiation effects in Japan, and until you actually lay on the table with a linear accellerator hovering and buzzing above you, and you smell the unnatural burnt ozone smell it emits, you then get a pretty good idea of what the effects would be on a larger scale.

Old Moparz posted:

You speak of nuclear disasters being catastrophic, but you have yet to actually point
I'll be the first to say that the whole energy situation is a disaster no matter which fuel is used. The corporations making record profits & putting safety & health to the side to make money, sucks. Countries fight over it, & it won't be getting any better. Even if nuclear energy can be made safe enough to use, we need to make changes. Buying florescent lighting instead of incandescent bulbs is fucking bullshit to get people who are clueless to think they are changing the planet.

We actually tried the flourescent bulbs for a while, thinking it would serve to save money on the electric bill, but changed back to regular ones, not for the bullshit aspect of false claims of energy conservation, but for the fact that the type of light they emitted, was actually adding to my daughter's seizure activity, with the way her brain processed what was coming in through her eyes (or "eye" since she's blind in one). Go figure!

Nail_Head posted:

I am completely in support of natural and renewable energy technologies. The people who think that nuclear energy is better are just *insert a bunch of insults on stupidity here*. That goes for all those politicians and bureaucrats.

I hate Exxon, I hate the people who created the atomic bomb, I hate the people who still have atomic bombs and I hate the people who made the mistake at Chernobyl and all the nuclear plants in the world.

From my point of view, I think that the efforts on developing the technology on eolic, hydraulic, solar, tidal and biomass combustibles have not been achieved fully. there is so much we don't know in therms of science and techniques. I don't support oil resources and nuclear technologies to be exploited as they are exploited. Because is such a fucked up thing. They contaminate the earth and create radioactive wastes all over the planet.

But I have gave up in humanity, I never really understood how stupid and ignorant the masses could be. A month ago, at university, someone brought up the subject of Exxon being the largest company in the world, who's shares and stock was the biggest. -well, I brought it up because someone mentioned how the stock system works and then I mentioned externalities and how Exxon would go down to the mother fucking ground, when they have to pay for the damage they have created and their actions and stock become a shit when externalities are applied to the economical system, yeah, I am one of those utopical dreamers.- and well the subject changed to "what other sources of energy there are in the world, appart from oil" And someone mentioned nuclear energy as the better one. In that moment I wanted to stand up from my chair and tell him that he had an apple in the place where his brain is. But instead of that, I stated that chernobyl, was the perfect example of how nuclear energies have failed and created deaths all over east europe, due to the nuclear fallout of caesium-137. I was amazed that the guy who promoted nuclear energy as the best source, didn't knew what had happen in Chernobyl. So I told him "you don't know, about that, right?" I was even more amazed when the teacher told him she didn't knew what Chernobyl was about.

Moments ago, i watched a movie, about an alien, going to save the earth, from human race, by annihilating them. And well, i had never seen it, but I love that film now.

Its only when the survival of the species is threatened, that they start to consider their actions and try to evolve, cooperate, create and develop something that saves them.

Maybe, right now, my classmate will not consider nuclear energy something dangerous. But if he had lived in Hiroshima and Nawasaki, Chernobyl and Yekaterinburg. He would have considered his stands. I hope people is smart enough to know what the fuck they are doing.

Nuclear energy was a great discovery by one of the greatest minds this earth has had. I just have a feeling, that if a great mind comes up, offering unlimited energy, the CIA will take him down, Tesla style, and destroy his creations.

Riktor posted:

I understand the opposition to nuclear. I really do. However, there are six billion people on this planet and wind farms and solar panels just ain't going to get the fucking job done. Right now, with the technology we have, nuclear is the best course of action, both financially and practically.

Right now the only real solutions is to work on creating renowable energy sources. It will sound strange, but in the past few days I remembered a post that you made when you mentioned NAFTA in one of the threads I made that involve lets say... illegal agriculture, and it made lots of sense, how the people lost their jobs cause of that treaty and decided to change their labour work, but I related it to the energetic problem this way: if there was a plan to build solar, eolic, hydraulic, tidal and biomass fuels all over the world, the things would be different, there would be more jobs, and there would be a wider research field if the government put more support in the research of those type of technologies efficiency. Its not fucking utopical. And if its utopical, then its my way of living.

Also, today, i was looking at the profit that NASA and several other space exploration organizations put in the new telescope John Webb something, and i think, that those STUPID governments should put more money in things that are earthly. I got nothing against space exploration, seriously, i found it fascinating, but who cares about finding life out there, when there is an extraordinary human race here, to explore and discover.

Damn, now i remembered one scene of that film where the alien looks at what the scientist had wrote in the blackboard and he was like "hmm, close, but no" and erases it and starts to write it again. And the scientist come and just write the rest of the equations while the alien writes one step ahead... man, I want to cry, such a beautiful scene. MY FREAKING POINT is that the human, the humans in general, have the power to create something alienish and advanced, the potential inside the human mind is unlimited to create helpful technollogies. And apply it to this earth, this spacerace, we are the aliens. In fact, that scientist look like an alien to me. There are a few aliens in my university as well.


I need to go to sleep, right now.

After reading your post, how can the fuck can you sleep?


(I'm kidding.....lol but your post raises my faith in humanity a little bit.)

Old Moparz posted:

Nail_Head posted:

I am completely in support of natural and renewable energy technologies. The people who think that nuclear energy is better are just *insert a bunch of insults on stupidity here*. That goes for all those politicians and bureaucrats.

I hate Exxon, I hate the people who created the atomic bomb, I hate the people who still have atomic bombs and I hate the people who made the mistake at Chernobyl and all the nuclear plants in the world.

From my point of view, I think that the efforts on developing the technology on eolic, hydraulic, solar, tidal and biomass combustibles have not been achieved fully. there is so much we don't know in therms of science and techniques. I don't support oil resources and nuclear technologies to be exploited as they are exploited. Because is such a fucked up thing. They contaminate the earth and create radioactive wastes all over the planet.

But I have gave up in humanity, I never really understood how stupid and ignorant the masses could be. A month ago, at university, someone brought up the subject of Exxon being the largest company in the world, who's shares and stock was the biggest. -well, I brought it up because someone mentioned how the stock system works and then I mentioned externalities and how Exxon would go down to the mother fucking ground, when they have to pay for the damage they have created and their actions and stock become a shit when externalities are applied to the economical system, yeah, I am one of those utopical dreamers.- and well the subject changed to "what other sources of energy there are in the world, appart from oil" And someone mentioned nuclear energy as the better one. In that moment I wanted to stand up from my chair and tell him that he had an apple in the place where his brain is. But instead of that, I stated that chernobyl, was the perfect example of how nuclear energies have failed and created deaths all over east europe, due to the nuclear fallout of caesium-137. I was amazed that the guy who promoted nuclear energy as the best source, didn't knew what had happen in Chernobyl. So I told him "you don't know, about that, right?" I was even more amazed when the teacher told him she didn't knew what Chernobyl was about.

Moments ago, i watched a movie, about an alien, going to save the earth, from human race, by annihilating them. And well, i had never seen it, but I love that film now.

Its only when the survival of the species is threatened, that they start to consider their actions and try to evolve, cooperate, create and develop something that saves them.

Maybe, right now, my classmate will not consider nuclear energy something dangerous. But if he had lived in Hiroshima and Nawasaki, Chernobyl and Yekaterinburg. He would have considered his stands. I hope people is smart enough to know what the fuck they are doing.

Nuclear energy was a great discovery by one of the greatest minds this earth has had. I just have a feeling, that if a great mind comes up, offering unlimited energy, the CIA will take him down, Tesla style, and destroy his creations.

Riktor posted:

I understand the opposition to nuclear. I really do. However, there are six billion people on this planet and wind farms and solar panels just ain't going to get the fucking job done. Right now, with the technology we have, nuclear is the best course of action, both financially and practically.

Right now the only real solutions is to work on creating renowable energy sources. It will sound strange, but in the past few days I remembered a post that you made when you mentioned NAFTA in one of the threads I made that involve lets say... illegal agriculture, and it made lots of sense, how the people lost their jobs cause of that treaty and decided to change their labour work, but I related it to the energetic problem this way: if there was a plan to build solar, eolic, hydraulic, tidal and biomass fuels all over the world, the things would be different, there would be more jobs, and there would be a wider research field if the government put more support in the research of those type of technologies efficiency. Its not fucking utopical. And if its utopical, then its my way of living.

Also, today, i was looking at the profit that NASA and several other space exploration organizations put in the new telescope John Webb something, and i think, that those STUPID governments should put more money in things that are earthly. I got nothing against space exploration, seriously, i found it fascinating, but who cares about finding life out there, when there is an extraordinary human race here, to explore and discover.

Damn, now i remembered one scene of that film where the alien looks at what the scientist had wrote in the blackboard and he was like "hmm, close, but no" and erases it and starts to write it again. And the scientist come and just write the rest of the equations while the alien writes one step ahead... man, I want to cry, such a beautiful scene. MY FREAKING POINT is that the human, the humans in general, have the power to create something alienish and advanced, the potential inside the human mind is unlimited to create helpful technollogies. And apply it to this earth, this spacerace, we are the aliens. In fact, that scientist look like an alien to me. There are a few aliens in my university as well.


I need to go to sleep, right now.

After reading your post, how can the fuck can you sleep?


(I'm kidding.....lol but your post raises my faith in humanity a little bit.)

I have realized that coffee is good as an student breakfast, but works the other way around when I take it for dinner. That is my secret to get a good sleep, avoid coffee at night.

I read what you wrote about what you witnessed as an engineer, the people incompetence, corruption, stupidity & more, its just depressing sometimes. *sigh*

Here is a quote from one of my favourite engineers of all the time, which really suits this subject:

"The good Earth—we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy."
— Kurt Vonnegut, from the book A Man Without a Country

Riktor posted:

You speak of nuclear disasters being catastrophic, but you have yet to actually point out a case which could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered as such. Yes, Chernobyl was bad, but was it catastrophic? Hardly. People still live in Ukraine and Russia and Belarus. The fallout which so concerns you is limited to an exclusion zone some nineteen miles in diameter, and even then there are few pockets where radiation is so intense as to preclude visitation. As others have already made note, just this year, the Ukrainian government opened up The Zone to tourism. You can even visit Pripyat for a little while without worry of irradiating yourself.

Dude, what happen in Chernobyl was the most catastrophic nuclear incident in the world. People all over Europe are exposed to higher radiation levels because of it.

As a matter of fact, you sound like a travelling agency trying to convince us to visit Belarus.

just this year, the Ukrainian government opened up The Zone to tourism

Seriously, i would like to see you being one of the persons who actually go there. Would be a true act of daredevilism.

Maybe you don't understand that what happen in chernobyl was 25 years ago. Thats about... 9000 days. That is not enough time for all the nuclear components to be eliminated. Here is a graphic for you to look at, its on wikipedia, i know you will like it: Air Dose of radioation in Chernobyl

See the number 10,000 at the end where caesium-137 has not lowered down yet in the days? Well, it means people all over Europe and Russia, trough air and rivers, are still exposed to it.

Please, don't say Chernobyl didn't had any catastrophic consequences. That is a lie.

And here is a map, for all the people who still don't know how nuclear fallout looks like:





Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2011 04:42PM by Nail_Head.

Nail_Head posted:

And here is a map, for all the people who still don't know how nuclear fallout looks like:

Seem you forgot the text that goes with this graphic.

[politisite.com]

So I've taken the liberty to complete the picture for you...

Nuclear Fallout Map showing 750 Rads to West Coast United States is a Fabrication


First, There has been a run on Potassium Iodine tablets in the western United States. These sales of Potassium Iodine may be the result of some misinformation being disseminated on the Web and far right-wing radio programs that offer survival products and supplements as part of their revenue stream. The folks transmitting the graph have a basic misunderstanding on radiation levels and terms used to relate them. There are those too, who believe what they read on the web without looking for independent sources of information. Then there is that serial forwarder of Chain e-mails that eventually make it on the Web.

I know of one chain letter (now e-mail) still going around that Madalyn Murray O’Hair has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take religious music and programs off radio and television. Even though the Claim was false and O’Hare died in 1995, the FCC still gets signed petitions to stop the action. The bottom line is check out the information before you pass it on.

To wrap it all up nice and tight, some folks have uploaded videos after hearing about the Fall out alert.

Let me help you all out. Relax! Here is why:

The graph making the rounds that shows radioactive fall-out coming from Japan to the Western United States is shown below.


The graph misrepresents the current situation on the ground and appears to be transmitted for secondary gain other than informing the public of a potential danger. The Graph uses “Rad” measurements. The graph states that the West coast of America will receive 750 Rads 7-10 days after the accident that occurred in Japan

If you have listened to NHK (Japan Television and Radio) you have heard the measurements being expressed in Sieverts not Rads. So how do Sieverts and Rads compare. This is where I think the Graph is being used to intentionally confuse folks. In most text books you will not see a side by side Rad, Sievert comparison on a chart. One will find a comparison with another term the Rem. 100 Rem = 1 Sievert. So how can one convert Rads to Rem to get Sieverts? There is no easy mathematical formula to do that and that is why the continued use of the rad is “strongly discouraged” by the author style guide of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology

So using the Rad in the chart when Sieverts are being used can only confuse the reader into a conclusion that advances the writers’ agenda. To find out the agenda, Like the all saw goes, especially in Politics, follow the money.

Just for argument in some cases a 1 Rem has been identified as 1 Rad when 1 Rem x 1(Q) = 1 Rad for X-rays

To make things easy A Micro Sievert (µSv) is 1 millionth of a Sievert. A milisevert (mSv) is 1/1000 of a Sievert. 1 mSv = 10 rem

Currently at the site the emission maximum is 400 uSV/H or 0.4 MSV/h or 0.0004 Sv. The reading can alse be expressed as 40 Millirem or in our 1 mathematical case 40 MilliRads. Nausea and vomiting generally occur within 24–48 hours after exposure to mild 1000000 uSv (1Sv) doses of radiation. The chart relates that 750 Rads will pass over the Western United States in 7 to 10 days. That means that there will be no less than 7.5 Sieverts in America. That can’t and won’t happen, the figure in America cannot be higher than the readings at the reactor site. The graph shows levels that would cause death to nearly everyone in the West Coast.

I think the best way to express exposure levels at the reactor site being 400 usv/h and what exposure levels would look like at certain distances could be compared to a radio station transmitter and a radio receiver. A local Radio station may put out 5000 watts of power but by the time it gets to your radio receiver it may be 1 micro-volt a (very tiny amount of power). That is why radios have amplifiers. They need to make that tiny signal loud enough to convert it to sound you can understand.

When I worked at a small radio station we had only 400 watts of power. We had to shield everything in the radio room in order to keep the radio frequency out so it would not cause feedback in our system. That strong signal would cause a mess to our equipment if we didn’t have the radio room shielded. Each day after work I would drive home, some twenty miles away, and listen to the station slowly fade away until it was gone. I couldn’t hear my own station when I was off work. I lived too far away that 400 watts could not make it to my home only 20 miles away.

Like the radio station, The 400 usv/h at the site will fade more and more as you drove away. The reading would diminish to nearly unreadable after a set distance from the Reactor.

I am sure that someone who has a science background will mention that my comparison with radio waves and radiation is incomplete as it deals only with Gamma and X-Ray radiation not particles. That is correct, as with all analogies, the comparison breaks down with very close comparison, but the basic idea is the same. Radiation levels diminish by many factors with distance.

So lets put a rumor to rest, Is radiation from Japan heading to the U.S.? Not a lethal dose like 750 Rads

Someone had to up the Rads

The Graph we showed was a photo-shopped version of the the original fake that showed on 75 Rad exposure to the Western United States.

I guess 75 Rads didn’t sound deadly enough so they tacked on another zero. Even Snopes the all knowing rumor checker investigated an e-mail that was touting survival and Potassium Iodide tablets. They concluded the same – The Graphic is a Fake


You're welcome.

I was about to post the same thing, Jaye. It represents the percentage of each element out of 100%.

LMAO!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2011 04:53PM by OMS.

Thought this thread could use a change of pace.
Ann Coulter arguing that radiation is good for you!

Acharis posted:

Thought this thread could use a change of pace.
Ann Coulter arguing that radiation is good for you!

Good old Faux News!

As long as the information is factual and from a reputable news source then there is no problem.

It wasn't the fact that you copied and pasted from "where ever". The first graphic is a false representation of exposure per the text, the second gave no info except that what remains is 100% cesium and the third only told us what we already know...cesium is bad.

I'm sorry if I don't see the point you are trying to make.