Posted on 03/26/2011 10:09:22 AM PDT by SteveH
The level of radioactive iodine detected in seawater near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was 1,250 times above the maximum level allowable, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Saturday, in a development that indicates contamination from the ruined reactors is spreading.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. meanwhile admitted it neglected to alert workers when it detected high radiation in a reactor building nine days ago.
The iodine-131 in the seawater was detected at 8:30 a.m. Friday, about 330 meters south of the plant's drain outlets. Previously, the highest amount recorded was about 100 times above the permitted level.
(Excerpt) Read more at search.japantimes.co.jp ...
Junk science.
Where did you study physics and chemistry?
The reactors appear to be built on landfill, the site is waterfront, and it's in an earthquake and tidal wave zone. Will a concrete sarcophagus be able to stop leaks into the ground water and ocean? Will the sarcophagus be able to resist a magnitude 10 earthquake and/or 700 foot tsunami for as long the entombed reactors will remain radioactive?
In college
To put a finer point on the answer to your question:
I attended college when there were no remedial courses listed.
I attended college before they made course work “Like relevant, man...”. Science and Western Civ were absolutely required of all students and the courses were not dumbed down for non science majors. Physics, Chemistry, biology, Calculus...it was all good.
I design and build my own telescopes. Last project was an 18” f4.5 (the mirror mount was designed to hold a 24” mirror, just in case I came into some money) reflector, done in steel (I weld as well anyone) and the current project is an 8” f4 done in steel.
I design my own motor controls so that I can use Pulsed Wave Modulation controls to operate it. I don’t do the software anymore because there is a lot of good software out there that I would have difficulty duplicating.
And you?
You’re comparing Ann to Howard, you’re nuts. She is much better looking. Unless his blue eyes do something for you. :-)
Not but a tiny fraction of the population is qualified to work in a nuke hot zone. Unnecessary overexposure through lacking of proper training would be rampant otherwise. When I worked for the big nuke in Illinois, I had to go through a thorough FBI check and a kind of basic training for dealing with radiation. And I still picked up the ringing phone in the simulated hot room when I shouldnt have. Just a reflex. People have been known to pick their noses without thinking and get exposure that way. And even so, after all that, all it got me was unescorted access to the really safe areas. To do the real work that needs to be done, they don’t need a bunch of useless people milling around the plant getting dose for no good reason.
As for exposure, we’re seeing elevated I-131 here, albeit levels way below technical threat, but noticeable anyway. That was to be expected due to the decay and dispersion of the plume. Apparently, the radionuclides that are really long-lived, like CS-137, dont travel nearly as well as the I-131. I’m told by people who were involved we routinely got far more hot stuff from China’s above ground a-bomb testing, a lot of it apparently in Arkansas, if that means anything.
Like most anything else in life, radiation in the right doses and under the right circumstances really is therapeutic. Limits are set over time because overdose is possible, and the effect is cumulative (statistically, not physically, i.e., outside of therapeutic conditions, the risk of harm rises for the same dose over a period of time).
So Coulter is right. The problem is, you want to control the dose, and while the health risk for us here is statistically zero, local Fukushima rad workers are doubtless at higher risk due to uncontrolled dose. A number of them will have to retire early as well, having reached their lifetime dose limits prematurely, increasing the burden (or creating an opportunity) for replacing highly qualified radiation workers.
That’s what they taught me during my days at the nuke plant. Just exactly. If that’s junk science then there is no true science.
Thank you sir, for clearing the air.
It ain’t magic, just energy.
>>Im told by people who were involved we routinely got far more hot stuff from Chinas above ground a-bomb testing, a lot of it apparently in Arkansas, if that means anything.
As I’ve been saying lately, if the Chicken Little-ism gets too much worse, I’m really going to have to print up some “I survived Tsar Bomba and All I Got Was This T-shirt” t-shirts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
Daiichi is a very serious situation. And unless it gets much worse than what we are seeing now, it is much, much less serious that the tsunami that just killed ~10,000 people.
Disingenuous comment, very similar to the sort of argumentation I see constantly from Lefties.
Just sayin’.
Just damn.
Tell us your credentials again? Greenpeace School of Anti-Nuclear Activism, perhaps?
Here is the logical sequence, based on science, not emotion:
1. The source of radioiodine is fission. When fission stops, the source of the iodine stops.
2. The reactors have been shutdown. That stops fission. Therefore, the source of the iodine production has ceased.
3. Whatever inventory of iodine there is begins to decay. It has an eight-day half-life. That means after 80 days, your inventory is reduced by a factor of 1024. Decay continues unabated.
4. That means eventually no more iodine can be released to the environment. It may take a few months, but it will not continue to be released "for years to come".
5. They are not going to restart those reactors until they are repaired and there is no further release of any kind of fission products. That means the source term for radioiodine, as a result of decay and physical containment, goes to zero.
Stop making emotional comments and your statements will be more credible and accurate.
In her interview with O’Reilly, she was quoting the NY Times.
She picks and chooses from sources which last week she railed against.
And from her article.....
In 1983, a series of apartment buildings in Taiwan were accidentally constructed with massive amounts of cobalt 60, a radioactive substance.
What exactly is a “massive amount”. One would think someone supposedly fiaxed on facts would back up a term with actual hard numbers. She doesn’t.
Ann is full of BS. You are free to follow her right over the cliff.
Not me thanks.
None of this is surprising in the least. We know there is fuel damage. The hydrogen detonations were evidence of the zirconium-steam reactions. We know they lost backup cooling capability and probably exposed some or all of the length of the fuel elements. This is exactly the kind of release you would expect from a LWR that had some measure of fuel damage.
Putting the Fuk in Fukushima.
You might get one or the other....
Ann is certainly less precise than science would demand. However, her purpose was not to educate on specific radionuclides but to attack a fundamental misconception that has been gleefully perpetuated by uber-enviro-weenies for political purposes.
In short, radiation is not conceptually equivalent to poison, as in always under all circumstances harmful to human life. It simply isn’t so, and her article is designed specifically to dislodge that misconception, and it succeeds at that.
There are conditions where anything can be “poisonous” and conditions where that same thing can be very healthy. Water, for example, in hyper-hydration, becomes a poison to the brain. But there is no political advantage to fear-mongering about overindulging in water, so its not an issue.
But whosoever controls the energy resources of a society controls that society with an iron grip. This means that highly efficient sources of energy would be a prime target for any efforts to exert dictatorial control. If energy is too easy to get, people can do what they want, and economies can grow. So from the left’s perspective, nuclear *has* to be demonized, otherwise we would have too much control over our own destiny. Tying us down to foreign oil, or worse still becoming sole source suppliers of a dribble of green energy, only enslaves us.
So Coulter may not have scientific precision as her forte, but that’s OK, because it is irrational fear grounded in false overgeneralization she is attacking that is the real enemy, and that because, unlike Cobalt-60, but rather more like “Kryptonite,” it is being used to make us weak.
A very astute observation. Did you ever wonder why liberals and leftists and socialists seem to favor "renewable" energy sources? It isn't out of any concern for the environment, or "the children", believe me. It is because they know those energy sources are inherently limited, and cannot meet the energy demands of a growing economy and a technologically-based society, where individual liberty and freedom are valued, and the means are available to safeguard and assure that freedom and liberty. So, if the available energy resources cannot meet demand, what happens? Why, rationing, of course. And who controls rationing, ultimately? The government. So the end result is more government control of individual choice, a reduction in individual liberty and freedom to live as one chooses within their means.
I see the current political scene as a battleground of words and ideas, and I don’t think “we” do ourselves any good by tearing down those that are on “our side”.
That applies to Rush, or Beck, or Coulter, or Savage, or Gingrich, or Levin, or Palin, or Bachman, or Romney, or any in a long list of others.
I may not agree with everything they say or do, but I think that attacking any of them would be self defeating, even though they all have, at one time or another, said or done something that does not fit my “ideal” of what they should project.
They are human beings just like me and they are not perfect; but I sincerely believe these people are on “my side”.
I save my attacks for the opposition, and I don’t shoot at the guys who share my foxhole.
When you say “Ann Coulter is a hack and a media whore.”;
(your post in #10 on this thread)
or “Ann is full of BS. You are free to follow her right over the cliff.”;
(your #53 on this thread)
what is that supposed to accomplish?
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