Will radiation from Japan really reach the U.S.?

AnnoyingPony

Critical Thinker
AnnoyingPony
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Mods, merge this with other threads if necessary. :D

So, about the nuclear power plants in Japan.

I live in Washington state, and I've been hearing my father say over and over that radiation from Japan is going to reach our state and kill everyone. Our local news has not reported this, although they have been consistently covering the disaster in Japan as a whole. My dad says this is because the media has an "agenda" and wants its citizens to get radiation poisoning for some reason. I think the only "agenda" the media has right now is to scare the living daylights out of us to get more viewers with threats of "OMG TEH RADIATIONS WILL KILLZ US!" Dad has even bought potassium iodide pills in preparation. Mom says we should all eat kelp.

Oh, and I'm really tired of hearing about this being compared to Chernobyl. Chernobyl was a disaster due to poorly-designed reactors and a lot of human error. Fukushima 1 and Fukushima 3 have, from what I understand, already stabilized, which was what they were designed to do. Fukushima 2 is the one everyone is trying to fix.

There are rational voices on this forum. Do I, a Washingtonian, have to worry about the effects of the radiation on my health? Personally, I doubt it - when we dropped those two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we didn't worry about radiation. And even if there was a meltdown, there is this giant thing in between called the... oh, what was it... the Pacific Ocean that will probably dilute it as it spreads.

Discuss.
 
If you have a highly sensitive radiation detector connected to a bomb next to you, and set to detonate if radiation from japan hits it, then yes, you might have a health problem.

Otherwise, no.
 
icerat said:
If you have a highly sensitive radiation detector connected to a bomb next to you, and set to detonate if radiation from japan hits it, then yes, you might have a health problem.

Otherwise, no.
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Sounds like the tricky bit will be configuring the detector to go off only for Japanese radiation.
 
nescafe said:
Sounds like the tricky bit will be configuring the detector to go off only for Japanese radiation.
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I'm no nuclear physicist, but you could probably (theoretically) rig up something to trigger by the particular isotopes from Japan. Might still get done in by a stray from elsewhere though!
 
AnnoyingPony said:
There are rational voices on this forum. Do I, a Washingtonian, have to worry about the effects of the radiation on my health?
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Not in the least. The radiation dose you receive will be orders of magnitude less than you get from consuming a banana.

Did you know bananas are radioactive? Yup, they're one of the more radioactive foods out there. But they're still good for you.

And even if there was a meltdown
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People commonly misunderstand what that term means. A meltdown means that the reactor fuel gets hot enough to melt. That can only happen if something goes wrong, but the melting itself doesn't necessarily release any radiation. In order to get conditions for a meltdown to happen, the cooling needs to not be working sufficiently, and so you may get overpressurization of the containment vessel due to steam. That can lead to a release of steam to keep the pressure low, and that may release small amounts of radioactive gas (such as iodine 131). But a meltdown won't result in any release of the really nasty stuff like uranium or plutonium unless the reactor vessel and the containment building are seriously compromised (ie, break open). Chernobyl wasn't simply a meltdown, it was a full-on explosion which ruptured the reactor vessel, and the Russians never built a containment structure around it. It sprayed nuclear fuel directly into the atmosphere. That's far beyond a meltdown. Nothing like that has happened in Japan, nor will it happen at this point. We've got small leaks of lighter radioactive material. That stuff won't last that long, and you're right that it will get so diluted on the way over here that it's of absolutely zero concern to us. Getting granite countertops is a greater radiological threat to people living in the US than what happened in Japan, which is indeed much less nasty than the fallout from Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
 
nescafe said:
Sounds like the tricky bit will be configuring the detector to go off only for Japanese radiation.
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Not as hard as you might think. Radiation from Japan is going to be dominated by specific radioactive isotopes (like iodine 131), which give of radiation with very specific energies. All you need is a detector which can discriminate energies, and you can pick out radiation due to these isotopes. Since the background radiation from iodine 131 is essentially zero (it's only got an 8 day halflife, so the only measureable amounts of the stuff is from what we create through fission), then any radiation you get from iodine 131 is basically radiation from Japan. We may be able to detect it when it reaches here, but as mentioned, you can detect radiation at levels far below what have any effect on humans.
 
Ziggurat said:
Not in the least. The radiation dose you receive will be orders of magnitude less than you get from consuming a banana.
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Also note that bananas are radioactive due to their high potassium content (natural potassium is 0.01% potassium-40, IIRC, which is radioactive). If your Dad is taking potassium iodide pills, he's deliberately taking in more radiation than he'll get from the Japanese reactors.
 
Madalch said:
Also note that bananas are radioactive due to their high potassium content (natural potassium is 0.01% potassium-40, IIRC, which is radioactive). If your Dad is taking potassium iodide pills, he's deliberately taking in more radiation than he'll get from the Japanese reactors.
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Yeah, I've told him that taking potassium iodide is not something you do "just because" - there are risks to taking too much. He seems to think that the world is ending or something. It must be like being a part of an action movie to him or something, because he really seems to enjoy wallowing in paranoia.
 
Taking potassium iodine unless there is a real and imminent radiation threat is a really bad idea. It has nasty side effects,and should only be used in an emergency.
 
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dudalb said:
Taking potassium iodine unless there is a real and imminent radiation threat is a really bad idea. It has nasty side effects,and should only be used in an emergency.
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The sad part is that my dad acts like everything is an emergency, is going to cause, or is a predictor of an emergency. (i.e., "My internet isn't working! The government must have seen all my 9/11 truther posts, and they're trying to restrict what I say! It's so freakin' hard to be enlightened! ;_;")
 
AnnoyingPony said:
The sad part is that my dad acts like everything is an emergency, is going to cause, or is a predictor of an emergency. (i.e., "My internet isn't working! The government must have seen all my 9/11 truther posts, and they're trying to restrict what I say! It's so freakin' hard to be enlightened! ;_;")
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without wanting to sound callous, paranoid schizophrenia can be triggered by brain tumours, so a dose of radiation might do him some good ..... :boggled:
 
icerat said:
without wanting to sound callous, paranoid schizophrenia can be triggered by brain tumours, so a dose of radiation might do him some good ..... :boggled:
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No, you don't sound callous. I've wondered myself. The thing is, despite being really nutty and reckless, my dad is actually an intelligent person. Unlike a person with schizophrenia, he can think and speak clearly. He isn't disorganized at all, and I have never seen any symptoms of hallucinations. I think he's just really narcissistic (he thinks he is ALWAYS right, and everyone else is a brainwashed sheep-person), and there's not much that radiation can do for that.
 
AnnoyingPony said:
No, you don't sound callous. I've wondered myself. The thing is, despite being really nutty and reckless, my dad is actually an intelligent person. Unlike a person with schizophrenia, he can think and speak clearly. He isn't disorganized at all, and I have never seen any symptoms of hallucinations. I think he's just really narcissistic (he thinks he is ALWAYS right, and everyone else is a brainwashed sheep-person), and there's not much that radiation can do for that.
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Intelligence is no help in the face of low level/incorrect data. The intelligence can only work with the data it has/chooses.
 
A house build over granite will have quite a bit of radon gas--enough such that it would set off airborne alarms in a nuke plant. Grand Central station would likely get fines for radiation levels. Uranium is essentially everywhere in the earth's crust. (and uranium fissions spontaneously on occassion) It ranges from PPB to PPM levels.

Millions of years ago, natural reactors went critical in Africa. At the time, the U235 concentration was much higher than the 0.7% today. If it is in the correct configuration and enough water to moderate, it would go critical--must of been something to watch. Can't happen today due to the low concentration of U235 in uranium ores.

Can't escape radiation on this planet.

glenn
 
Hindmost said:
A house build over granite will have quite a bit of radon gas--enough such that it would set off airborne alarms in a nuke plant. Grand Central station would likely get fines for radiation levels. Uranium is essentially everywhere in the earth's crust. (and uranium fissions spontaneously on occassion) It ranges from PPB to PPM levels.

Millions of years ago, natural reactors went critical in Africa. At the time, the U235 concentration was much higher than the 0.7% today. If it is in the correct configuration and enough water to moderate, it would go critical--must of been something to watch. Can't happen today due to the low concentration of U235 in uranium ores.

Can't escape radiation on this planet.

glenn
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Do you have a link to show that?
I don't doubt it--having dealt with Government regulations in the aero and ground transportation fields, I know how ridiculous they can be, but I'd like to see something substantial as evidence...
 
KingMerv00 said:
Isn't that the story where 4 brave astronauts were struck by a surge of radiation while in orbit, came home, and later died of lymphoma? Very sad.
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There was only 1 brave astronaut (and 3 idiots), but you've got the gist.
 
rwguinn said:
Do you have a link to show that?
I don't doubt it--having dealt with Government regulations in the aero and ground transportation fields, I know how ridiculous they can be, but I'd like to see something substantial as evidence...
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I probably shouldn't have used the "fined"...most likely they couldn't get a license...

here's a good link for radation in general...it mentions the problem with Grand Central station. I will have to look for more info.

glenn

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf05.html
 
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