It's not the background radiation that is the problem, it is the presence of radioactive isotopes of iodine that are taken up by the thyroid gland. Inside the body, radiation is much more deadly than outside. The iodine isotopes are generated in power stations, and have a shortish half life. Eight Days. If you have children, the death of one of them is a big issue. As regards treatment, I suppose the gland can be removed and its hormones taken as pharma. I think it would be better for iodide to be made available, and people not given reassurances that later turn out to be empty words. That's what happened after Chernobyl, but this time things may be fine. As regards the Japanese men and women who remain at the plants, they are very brave people. There were many heroes at Chernobyl too.
They may be teetering on the edge of economic disaster but so far there is no indication that any of the containment vessels are at risk. Arthur
What supplement are people given for all the particulate pollution that kills thousands including children ever year from coal pollution? The increase Thyroid cancer rate even from a disaster like Chernobyl and all nuclear power accident combine is nothing compare to coal power, yet people don't panic about coal power! If we had for example replaced all coal power with nuclear power even with the occasional accidents from nuclear power the total death toll would be lower and the quality of life would be higher. Now what is happening with Fukushima power plant is not likely to kill anyone from radiation, the plants have containment domes and the radiation leak is not likely to be anywhere near that of Chernobyl, yet people seem to be giving this as much attention as the whole earthquake and tsunami event which has killed hundreds if not thousands.
All it takes is for the botched-up cooling system to fail and it will meltdown. The other reactors will have to be abandoned and chernobyl will look like a picnic. The only reason it has not yet done so is due only to the diligence and perseverence of the plant workers and the defence force soldiers battling to maintain the water supply.
Comparison of what is going on here to Chernobyl ignores the HUGE difference in the plants. The first major difference is Chernobyl had no Containment Dome at all. The reactor was housed in a large building, which the initial explosion destroyed and allowed essentially uncontrolled release of radiation and radioactive elements. The second major difference is Chernobly used a completely different form of neutron moderation in that they used Graphite. Now Graphite is damn near impossible to ignite, but you can when you have the heat generated in a reactor and the reactor components are open to the air, which is what happened after the initial explosion. Worse, when you do get a Graphite fire it is very difficult to put out, and the Graphite fire burned out of control at Chernobyl for 10 days and it was this fire that caused the huge spread of radioactive material far beyond the plant site. http://www.oecd-nea.org/rp/chernobyl/c01.html No, if they can't keep the fuel cool (and no reason at this time to think they can't) then yes, it will melt down, and then it will be much like 3 Mile Island where the Reactor is turned into a pile of junk. An economic disaster. In contrast to Chernobyl there is nothing to burn in this reactor and the containment dome, like the one at 3 Mile Island, was designed to both survive an earthquake and handle a loss of coolant accident with only a very limited release of radioactivity. Arthur
True. But, perhaps they should worry about particulates and irritating oxides too. Maybe people should buy a gas mask along with their mulitmineral tablets. @adoucette Yes, if it has survived a tsunami, a major earthquake, failure of backup cooling and an explosion, then the design was a good one. If they were higher up, it might be better in hindsight. I'm not against nuclear power. We are going to need it increasingly for the rest of this century. From the little I know about coal plants, I would prefer to live close to a nuclear power station than to one of them.
Kyodo News reports the cooling system pump has stopped at the Tokai nuclear power plant in #Ibaraki, #Japan - Reuters Poor sods. As if they didn't have problems enough. Just watching the news on TV now..Really awful. I don't half feel sorry for them.
Well, IIRC, when a sub's reactor is scrammed, they totally shut down the reaction, but it is still a "hot" reactor. However, nuclear subs have much smaller reactor cores (which is why they run a more enriched isotope as well - just look at the Alfa class SSN, which I believe is capable of suffering, as they say, a "sudden rapid explosive dis-assembly" of the core in the event of total containment failure) which, given lower mass and a higher overall volume to mass ratio, would result in much faster "deadening" of the reactor core. But that's just going on what I can remember... and I'm no nuclear engineer :shrug:
The amount of radioactive materiel release by a nuclear power plant is nothing compared to the millions of tons of ash spewed out by coal, hell coal power plants have given off more radioactive material in the small amounts of thorium and uranium in coal then all nuclear power plants have. Why need a gas mask for radiation when we know people can live in radioactive environments many times higher then Chernobyl for generations without increase cancer or problems? The only time you would need a mask for radiation is if your the unfortunate SOB hired to go in an clean up a nuclear accident. The alfa were lead cooled reactors, their biggest problems was the opposite of meltdown, freeze up. Freezeup mind you means little if any radiation leak, but it does mean your reactor is now only good as a giant paperweight. Freezeup is a far better problem to have, in a sudden reactor shutdown it will take some time for the molten lead to solidify, especially in theory for a huge gigawatt class reactor, residual and decay heat would be a blessing not a curse keeping a reactor from freezing solid for at least several days, no cooling needed.
I think the fear is that radiation is so toxic for so long, and the death is so nasty that people really fear it. Plutonium found in reactor cores is one of the most toxic substances on earth. There are still effects here in england (caesium contamination) that are still ongoing from the chernobly radiation cloud, and we're over 800 miles away. The caesium is taken up by plants, namely grass, which is eaten by sheep and cattle making them and thier products unusable for years and years.
Yeah that radiophobia, the fear is unfounded, low levels of radiation over long periods of time are far less harmful then they fear, just ask the people of Ramsar. Oh please not that false hysterical claim! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium#Toxicity Unusable by human fear alone! Even if you were to eat cesium contaminate sheep from Britain every day of the year your total radiation dose would still be half that of a dental X-ray! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzz2CXIz_k0
Yet it's danger tends to be inversely proportional to how long it is radioactive. Granite, which is widely used in construction and in kitchens and bathrooms has 5 to 20 times the concentration of uranium compared to other common rock types, but no one cares that much because it's half life is 4.5 billion years. It isn't that toxic, and then pretty much only if you inhale it, and being that Plutonium is nearly twice as dense as lead, the likelihood of that is very low. Yes, as pointed out, the amount of radiation emitted from Chernobyl was because it was a Graphite Moderated Reactor that did NOT have a containment dome and following the explosion had a massively hot fire that burned for 10 days putting large quantities of radiation into the upper atmosphere. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...inally-free-of-chernobyl-fallout-2020059.html Arthur
Personally, I have no great concern over radiation. I live less than three miles from a reactor that's now being decomissioned. These plants have to go somewhere. Decomissioning has been identified as one of the riskiest times for a reactor, but my neibours and I would hardly know anything was going on. I think education helps allay most fears people have. My Father was a nuclear scientist, so I learned about radiation, atoms, fission and fusion before I was 10 years old. I'd like to have iodine tablets just in case, but just eat sea-salt instead.
Sea-salt (and consequently fish) contains a reasonable amount of iodine, so using it normally, say 2-3 grammes a day is sufficient. Some seaweeds are especially rich in iodine which is important for the functioning of your thyroid gland, one of the bodys' regulatory systems.
The biggest factor here is lack of certainty. No one -- not even the experts -- actually knows with any real *certainty* what will happen, and this is because no one has tested the robustness of reactor designs with actual catastrophes or near catastrophes. It's not like ramming walls with cars containing crash dummies, accelerometers, airbags, etc. It's simply not economically or ecologically feasible. I've never heard of anyone smoke-testing a nuke plant.
Thanks. 2-3 grams isnt too much. Do you eat seaweed? What kind of seaweed should a person eat? I dont think i ever ate it.
How about destructively testing nuclear rocket engine be intentionally making it meltdown? Is that not enough? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Destruction_of_KIWI_Nuclear_Reactor_-_GPN-2002-000145.jpg
I only eat seaweed on survival expeditions. This is for thier mineral content and can be relatively good. Kelp and other seaweeds are available from health stores as pills.
