Almost anyone who has spent any time on the internet in blogs or chat rooms has run into this famous cartoon from XKCD:
Well now, the cartoonist has taken on a new subject – showing how wrong some the MSM radiation claims have been by trying to show the radiation issue as a matter of scale. This may help some people overcome their worst fears of radiation by helping them understand how much a part of normal everyday life it is.
Source: http://xkcd.com/radiation/
The story behind the chart here: http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/
h/t to Ric Werme
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/nuclear-power-causes-canc_b_251057.html
“A nationwide study of current cancer rates ner nukes is sorely needed. In May this year, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NCR) quietly announced it was commissioning an update of the 1990 National Cancer study. This sound like a positive step. However, the NRC has long been a harsh critic of any suggestion that reactors cause cancer. This is not surprising, since the Commission receives 90% of its funds from nuclear companies that operate reactors.
Rather than ask for competitive bids for the cancer study, the NRC simply handed the job to the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. Oak Ridge is an Energy Department contractor in the city that has operated a nuclear weapons plant for over half a century. The “Institute” is merely a front for pro-nuclear forces. It has no record of publishing scientific articles on cancer rates near reactors. The whitewash is on.”
Of all places on the net WUWT is the one I would least expect to find such an amount of compliant agreement with the obvious disinformation being pushed by the nuclear bods, how anyone can even for one moment believe that there were no deaths from Chernobyl is beyond all that’s rational knowing how much we do know about radiation effects on health. But obviously the campaign to hide the effects on those living around nuclear reactors has gained such strength that it can even promote this despicable meme and get away with it. Japan of course, is no worse than eating a banana.
Sheesh.
These nuclear reactors are lethal, in their day to day operation and a horror when things go wrong. They were designed to produce weapons grade ammunition for war, not for any other reason. Producing electric power is a by-product. Not giving a damn about the grotesque use of depleted uranium in Iraq and Serbia, how the heck can you think they give a damn about the number of locals to the plant die prematurely or are born with defective health?
Do you really think that this government sponsored industry, for war, is going to let it be proved that these health problems are real? Even if it could be directly attributed the limit’s already been set in Europe, tough if you’re over the 10 year max.. The costs of the nuclear industry are heavily subsidised, and money also comes from the taxpayers to do this. How it works in the US I don’t know, here’s a look at the UK – http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/private/nuclear_subsidies1.pdf
Bearing in mind that this isn’t about cheap, clean, electric energy, everyone who isn’t a war monger should be against these types of nuclear power stations.
If governments really gave a damn about cheap power for the people, there would be already be thorium powered, small local and without the hazards which these depleted uranium producers have inbuilt.
It’s not about concern for our welfare that there’s this monstrous huge campaign to pretend there is no danger from these nuclear plants, any more than AGW’s are able to show their cr*p ideology of green energy is for our benefit.
Do yourselves a favour, supporters of the radiation isn’t-now-nor-ever-was-dangerous meme, get the story right. It’s not about nuclear, it’s about this kind of nuclear.
Take a good look at the pictures of the babies born grotesquely deformed in Iraq, that’s what you are really supporting.
Dave Midleton linked to some good graphs, though the low end scale is difficult to decipher.
The graphs shows a large spike on the 15th. I believe this is the day the spent fuel pool went dry. Ergo, no shielding. Besides the obvious increase that would occur in the plant area itself from this problem, note that the perimeter readings also went up. The slope leading up to the peak makes sense such that as the pool lost its water there was a steady increase in expsure rates. One of the little known facts about gamma radiation is that a small portion will scatter back and this scatter is called “sky shine”when a source is pointing towards the air and the small portion of gamma radiation bounces back from the sky. The perimeter graph makes a lot of sense when viewed in this light. They lost shielding, the exposure rate from gamma went up probably due to sky shine. They got the pool filled and the exposure rate went back down.
Radiation levels drop off by the square of the distance. So if you are far enough outside the sky shine umbrella you will be quite safe. There are too many unknowns with the Fukishima situation for me to fully determine if what was seen at the perimeter is completely due to sky shine, but it makes a lot of sense. I’ve witnessed sky shine at irradiator facilities where there was no shielding above the source (lots of shielding around the source).
Hey Anthony: Weather can make a big difference with sky shine. The cloudier it is, the more sky shine you will see. Therefore do your job right as a weatherman and keep the sunny weather coming. 😉
Incidentally, X-rays do the same thing as gamma rays in giving some backscatter. It is why we make X-ray techs wear lead aprons and stand behind a lead shield. A few X-rays bounce off the table, the walls, the air and the patient. It’s not much, but it adds up to the technician over lots of X-ray shots. It is an easy fix – distance and shielding – and we keep the tech safe.
Oh dear, there are a few folks showing up on this site who have bought into the myths surrounding radiation. Lots of passion, few facts. I’d love to tackle them all, but it would be fruitless. However, here’s one I’ll tackle because it is so despicable…
Sunspot: The whole “uranium weapons are creating a generation of deformed babies” meme is a crock of manure. You really need to do some homework and you might find out that: there are good studies that show no increase in radiation related problems in these areas; and the pictures they love to show were frequently taken before the wars. Twenty percent of the human race has some sort of deformity. Most are minor, such as a birthmark. However, nature has a bad habit of producing some really horribly deformed people. People who use pictures of naturally occurring deformities for their political agenda are nothing less than despicable. That you are spreading this travesty makes you despicable.
Myrrh (March 21, 2011 at 6:20 pm)
Depleted uranium is a different discussion about chemical toxicity (it has unimportant radiological properties). Using lead ammunition instead is not going to help much. The only thing that would really help is having no more bad people in the world who need to be deterred (either through war or the credible threat of war). Using ammunition made of marshmallow is not a solution and misses the point.
Something is wrong in the MSM. (full stop)
In the graph on the left (blue) a one day dose Fukushima is 3.5 microSievert in 17 march, on the right hand (green) it’s 3.5 milliSievert on 17 march.
Which value is correct?
If you read carefully, it seems that the “blue” dose is the average somewhere “near” the plant while the “green” dose is at two specific locations 50km away.