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Merged nuclear power safe?

Puppycow said:
ETA: Remember the helpful xckd chart

2 sieverts is "severe radiation poisoning, in some cases fatal", 4 is "extremely severe radiation poisoning. survival sometimes possible with prompt treatment" while 8 means death.
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It's nice as a general guide, but there are two main problems here. Firstly, the effects of such high doses really aren't very well known, since so few people have ever actually been exposed to them. Secondly, radiation isn't infectious. If you have a full body x-ray that malfunctions and irradiates your whole body with several sieverts, it's not likely to end well. However, if you get the same dose to your foot while the rest of your body is shielded, it will have essentially no effect on the rest of your body.

From the information we have, it seems the people who were exposed only got a high dose to the parts of their bodies that were actually in the water. So while it's not likely to be very pleasant for them, they're far more likely to survive than just the raw numbers might suggest.

Belz... said:
It's also surprising that ecologists don't speak up against windmills and all the birds they kill.
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They do. In the UK at least, by far the most vocal opposition to wind farms comes from environmentalists complaining about all the birds and bats that they'll kill.
 
Cuddles said:
Secondly, radiation isn't infectious.
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Radiation is transferrable via bodily fluids, e.g. semen.

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Source: Kyodo

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Aepervius said:
Sometimes when I read the post of some people (on all forum/news story comment), I do feel they *want* the situation become worst so that it become the swan song for nuclear and nuclear get world wide stopped.
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There's some truth in this but I get an even stronger feeling that many of those those who want the situation to get better want it to get better because they want the world to go nuclear.
 
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It means that not all the water being pumped into the fuel pools is boiling off. Some of it is leaking out into the building. This is not news, they have suspected this all along based on the rate of water loss. The biggest problem is that now they have to figure out a way to handle and treat that water.

I would hope that they have been working on this for a while as well, but haven't gotten too far given the devastation from the quake and tsuanami.

The reactor basemsnts are also full of water that needs to be pumped out, stored and treated.
 
I just read this is now a Level 7, but can't find that in any official statement.
 
I don't care what level they call it. We know it can't be the same as Chernobyl, but so what? It can certainly be worse. At least Chernobyl didn't dump directly into the ocean.

For some reason I keep thinking that radioactivity isn't as bad if it is the ocean. Is that true? Or wishful thinking?
 
r-j said:
But it didn't leak directly into the river did it?
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Define what you mean by "leak directly into the river."

Contamination from Chernobyl enters the river through four main processes.

1) direct deposition of fallout from the fire. No longer occuring

2) percolation of contaminated ground water into the river.

3) percolation of contaminated water from the main cooling pond into the river

4) surface runnoff from contaminated soils.

There is no evidence that Fukushima is "leaking directly into the ocean."

Contamination will occur in the ocean from the same general processes as above, direct deposition, percolation and run off.
 
Kyodo news is reporting that plutonium is in the water leaking out of the plant.
 
r-j said:
For some reason I keep thinking that radioactivity isn't as bad if it is the ocean. Is that true? Or wishful thinking?
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most of the radionuclides will bind up with the sediments near the plant.

Depending on what other industries are in the vicinity, there may be considerable industrial pollution tied up in those sediments already.
 
r-j said:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110327a1.html
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Tepco said early Saturday that it had detected a radiation reading of 200 millisieverts per hour in a pool of water in the No. 1 reactor's turbine building on March 18 and failed to notify workers, but later denied that a radiation level that high was found.

"If we had warned them, we may have been able to avoid having workers (at the No. 3 reactor) exposed to radiation," a Tepco official said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government had not been informed about the high radiation reading at the No. 1 plant and he will order Tepco to thoroughly report information. "If (Tepco) doesn't report various information with speed and accuracy, the government can't give proper instructions," Edano said. "It will only trigger distrust from the public and from the workers at the site."

On Thursday, three workers in the turbine building's basement of reactor 3 were exposed to a high dosage of radiation when they stepped into about 15 cm of contaminated water.

Two of the workers were not wearing high boots and received beta ray burns when the water soaked their legs. All three were sent to the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba Prefecture.

Tests revealed that while the two received 170 to 180 millisieverts of radiation, within the maximum allowable dose of 250 millisieverts, their feet were exposed to between 2 and 6 sieverts. One sievert is equivalent to 1,000 millisieverts. But their injuries are not thought to be life-threatening and will be treated the same way as regular burns, the institute said, adding that the workers are able to walk unassisted.
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I don't like this at all.

TEPCO is negligent in this case in that they are:

1. Not properly performing radiation surveys in areas where workers are working.

200 millisieverts per hour is not enough to give beta radiation burns, that takes more.

From here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_burn

It takes more than 6 Gray to get beta burns. 1 Gray being the S.I. unit for absorbed radiation dose, or Gray is to Sievert as Rad is to Rem.

It seems obvious to me that they did not properly survey the area for beta radiation.

2. Not properly equiping workers with the proper dosimetry.

The workers should have had self reading alarming dosimetry and a survey meter while performing work in that area.

3. Not properly providing the appropriate protective clothing to the workers.

The workers should have been in "plastics" so that there would be minimal chance of contact with the water they were walking through.


Some of the workers at Cherynoble died from beta burns so this is indeed serious.

This was a preventable injury so no excuses from TEPCO.

It again indicates that there are fission products outside containment, as fission products are known to be high emitters of beta radiation.
 
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