Going bananas over radiation
With all the worries over radiation leaks from Japan, and hoarding of Potassium Iodide tablets, I thought it valuable to repost a link to this story from last month which was very popular.
Many people in the USA would be surprised to learn that they will get more radiation from eating a single banana than they would from Japan’s nuclear reactors.
A banana equivalent dose is a concept occasionally used by nuclear power proponents to place in scale the dangers of radiation by comparing exposures to the radiation generated by a common banana.
Full story:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/16/going-bananas-over-radiation/
UPDATE: My friend John Coleman of KUSI-TV in San Diego offers this explanatory video:
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I am “shocked” that the Greenies don’t want to outlaw bananas and Brazil nuts – or at least start a Banana/Brazil Nut Credit Exchange to replace the one that went down in flames in Chicago for carbon credits!
A few things people should note:
1. Japan’s radiation exposure limits are 1/5 of our limits here in the US.
2. Nobody at the plant has been killed due to radiation.
3. One person sent to the hospital for a checkup with “radiation exposure” received well under what would be considered a safe dose in the US and would not have resulted in medical attention.
4. Radiation levels today at the plant boundary are declining.
5. Power has been restored to reactors 5 and 6
6. Power may be restored to reactor 2 later today US time (Friday Japan time).
This was not a “nuclear accident” and had nothing to do with any maintenance procedure, faulty process, bad material, bad maintenance, etc. This is a natural disaster that wiped out the on-site generators. A single recirculation pump requires 4 megawatts of power (4160 volts 3-phase 60Hz 1000 amps). There are two such pumps per reactor. The mobile generators sent to the site could not deliver this sort of power. GE is sending 22 megawatt trailer mounted gas turbine generators to the site.
The electrical rooms and wiring were submerged in sea water and were damaged. The generators were submerged in sea water. The fuel tanks were swept away.
There is a good chance, if they can get power to unit 2 (and then to units 1 and 3), they can actually get the situation under control by Saturday.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/18_06.html
Note that it is currently 9am Tokyo time as I type this.
Too late… we’re all dead from the radiation of having wet the bed!
My mother called me this morning to encourage me to seriously consider evacuating .
I live on the West Coast, she lives on the East coast and she had read in the NY Times how I was in ‘danger’.
Sometimes I wonder if those panic mongers at the NY Times have any idea the stress they put the elderly through.
harry, thats called social security liability mitigation.
The average grocery store fruit section is a bigger source of radiation than anything people will see in their lives other than being treated for cancer. This won’t keep the fear mongers from shouting the chicken little mantra until the cows come home, the debate isn’t about facts or reason, its hysteria and delusional fear of technology, pure and simple.
HarryWR2: If they couldn’t cause stress in the population, how would they sell their ‘news’?
NO no!
I am still scared about the Swine Flu and can’t carry this new scare, sorry!
I want to see data on the amount of radiation around the Japanese reactors compared to what an air traveller receives from a TSA scanner.
A good article about radiation vs cancer, from one of my favorite pundits, of all people….ann coulter.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucac/20110317/cm_ucac/aglowingreportonradiation
“With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer.
This only seems counterintuitive because of media hysteria for the past 20 years trying to convince Americans that radiation at any dose is bad. There is, however, burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine.”
“The fact of the matter is that not all types of radiation are created equal. The body carefully regulates the amount of Potassium-40. It’s explained here:
The problem is that this system implies that all radioisotopes are created equal—That there’s no difference between 520 picocuries of Potassium-40 and a similar intake of, say, radioactive iodine. And that simply isn’t true. I contacted Geoff Meggitt—a retired health physicist, and former editor of the Journal of Radiological Protection—to find out more.
Meggitt worked for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and its later commercial offshoots for 25 years. He says there’s an enormous variation in the risks associated with swallowing the same amount of different radioactive materials—and even some difference between the same dose, of the same material, but in different chemical forms.
It all depends on two factors:
1)The physical characteristics of the radioactivity—i.e, What’s its half-life? Is the radiation emitted alpha, beta or gamma?
2) The way the the radioactivity travels around and is taken up by the body—i.e., How much is absorbed by the blood stream? What tissues does this specific isotope tend to accumulate in?
The Potassium-40 in bananas is a particularly poor model isotope to use, Meggitt says, because the potassium content of our bodies seems to be under homeostatic control. When you eat a banana, your body’s level of Potassium-40 doesn’t increase. You just get rid of some excess Potassium-40. The net dose of a banana is zero.
And that’s the difference between a useful educational tool and propaganda. (And I say this as somebody who is emphatically not against nuclear energy.) Bananas aren’t really going to give anyone “a more realistic assessment of actual risk”, they’re just going to further distort the picture.”
Source – http://www.boingboing.net/2010/08/27/bananas-are-radioact.html
Paul Kedrosky breaks down the faulty NY Times radiation trajectory story
http://www.bloomberg.com/blogs/paul-kedrosky/2011/03/latest-japan-radiation-trajectory-models.html
…and he even mentions the banana equivalent dose! 🙂
Does anyone have any sources at the ready for how many rems were recorded outside due to venting?
binarymind,
Whoever wrote that is actually quite wrong, as anybody who suffers from excessive potassium levels can tell you (primary symptom is a darkening of skin on the legs and feet below the shin, and loss of hair from those regions).
So, it is you who got propagandized.
This being St. Paddy’s Day, here’s an old favorite that sure reminds me of the alarmist refrain…
SAID HANRAHAN by John O’Brien
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.
The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.
“It’s looking crook,” said Daniel Croke;
“Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad.”
“It’s dry, all right,” said young O’Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.
And so around the chorus ran
“It’s keepin’ dry, no doubt.”
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
“The crops are done; ye’ll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o’-Bourke
They’re singin’ out for rain.
“They’re singin’ out for rain,” he said,
“And all the tanks are dry.”
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.
“There won’t be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There’s not a blade on Casey’s place
As I came down to Mass.”
“If rain don’t come this month,” said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak –
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If rain don’t come this week.”
A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.
“We want an inch of rain, we do,”
O’Neil observed at last;
But Croke “maintained” we wanted two
To put the danger past.
“If we don’t get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
In God’s good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.
And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.
It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o’-Bourke.
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain don’t stop.”
And stop it did, in God’s good time;
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o’er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.
And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o’er the fence.
And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place
Went riding down to Mass.
While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.
“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
The bananas will only get you laughter never understanding I believe.
I always found it amazing when people in my country worried over Chernobyl fallout, when pretty much most of em lived in houses and apartment buildings, all built with “radon” contaminated building materials and/or sited above “radon” sites (solid rock), that was radiated by too high levels of radon radiation (which is a natural by-product from uranium but no less dangerous in higher doses.) Up until we joined the EU, pretty much everyone lacked proper ventilation to get rid of the excess radon, and today EU has set the bar way down for the fear of the potential danger of radon radiation.
It’s amazing and a wonder that people survived for decades and decades before they properly ventilated their homes at the same time when the average life span went up and up. :p
Could some please give me a link to a map on the internet that shows how much water covered what parts of Japan as a result of the tsunami? I am looking for something like a topographic map, not a map of political boundaries?
crosspatch says:
March 17, 2011 at 4:54 pm
===========
This incident will be be studied for years, it is too dangerous to even begin collecting the data to be studied.
Every weld, pump, electrical connection, will undergo extensive study.
Won’t they???
Best wishes, thoughts, and hope to the survivors in Japan.
I wonder what it would be in “tanning minutes on a miami beach”?
Update:
Apparently radiation is not decreasing. One cooling pool (apparently) still has no water in it. And reactor #3 and #4 are getting water dumped on them from helicopter. But because of the radiation level the helicopters are not coming close. Because of the height the helicopters are at wind is blowing some water away.
Also power lines from the grid still has not reached the site to power water pumps for cooling.
I had hopes yesterday that there was real progress and it was only a matter of 24 hours until rods were cooling toward a level to bring relief. But those were false hope.
I can only hope the international community will intervene and get water everywhere necessary.
I have a question–maybe it was answered here–I’ll go look again.
I am 72 so “Yucca Flats” (indeed “Bikini Atoll”, and “White Sands” havwe meaning to me.
From those years, I seem to recall that Iodine was a specific prophylactic for strontium.
It that recall is correct, does the escaping material contain strontium 90?
For that matter, what is the makeup of the escaping stuff?
Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl (The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2011)
Inconvenient Truth: Wind Energy Has Killed More Americans Than Nuclear (NewsBusters, March 17, 2011)
Due to the combination of extensive readership of WUWT, our national allergy to all things nuclear, and our national obsession with health concerns, I’m shorting banana company stocks tomorrow.
The unfortunate sex life of the banana.