It pains me to see large parts of the media still hyperventilating over the very modest amounts of radioactive material coming from the Fukushima Daiichi plant on the east coast of Japan.
Nothing has been made more plain that most journalists and editors have no ability to evaluate risk, especially when it comes to radioactive measurements in very unfamiliar units (millisieverts anyone?). Everything they appear to know about radioactivity appears to come from poorly understood science reports and 1950s era B-movies.
You wouldn’t know from the coverage that that very same reactor survived a truly massive earthquake and a towering tsunami with barely a scratch even though it was built around 40 years ago in the expectation of surviving much lesser events.
You wouldn’t know that Japanese people are struggling to survive in the bitter cold, while coming to terms with the loss of family members, friends and entire neighbourhoods. You won’t hear that some survivors are being housed in other nuclear plants, everything else having been washed away.
Witness the BBC reporting today:
Japan nuclear plant: Radioactivity rises in sea nearby
The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the Japanese government has tried to reassure people about the plant’s safety
Levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant are 1,250 times higher than the safety limit, officials say.
The readings were taken about 300m (984ft) offshore. It is feared the radiation could be seeping into groundwater from one of the reactors.
But the radiation will no longer be a risk after eight days, officials say.
There are areas of radioactive water in four of the reactors at the plant, and two workers are in hospital.
The plant’s operator says the core of one of the six reactors may have been damaged.
It has announced that fresh water rather than seawater will now be used to cool the damaged reactors, in the hope that this will be more effective.
Why eight days? Because that’s the half-life of radioactive iodine. But that’s not what you find out from the BBC.
What of those two workers in hospital? Sounds serious doesn’t it?
Not all of the media are so poorly informed. The Register’s Louis Page has produced some well-researched articles which go a long way to explaining what is really happening:
The situation at the quake- and tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan was brought under control days ago. It remains the case as this is written that there have been no measurable radiological health consequences among workers at the plant or anybody else, and all indications are that this will remain the case. And yet media outlets around the world continue with desperate, increasingly hysterical and unscrupulous attempts to frame the situation as a crisis.
Here’s a roundup of the latest facts, accompanied by highlights of the most egregious misreporting.
First up, three technicians working to restore electrical power in the plant’s No 3 reactor building stood in some water while doing so. Their personal dosimetry equipment later showed that they had sustained radiation doses up to 170 millisievert. Under normal rules when dealing with nuclear powerplant incidents, workers at the site are permitted to sustain up to 250 millisievert before being withdrawn. If necessary, this can be extended to 500 millisievert according to World Health Organisation guidance.
None of this involves significant health hazards: actual radiation sickness is not normally seen until a dose of 1,000 millisievert and is not common until 2,000. Additional cancer risk is tiny: huge numbers of people must be subjected to such doses in order to see any measurable health consequences. In decades to come, future investigators will almost certainly be unable to attribute any cases of cancer to service at Fukushima.
Nonetheless, in the hyper-cautious nuclear industry, any dose over 100 millisievert is likely to cause bosses to pull people out at least temporarily. Furthermore, the three workers had sustained slight burns to their legs as a result of standing in the radioactive water – much as one will burn one’s skin by exposing it to the rays of the sun (a tremendously powerful nuclear furnace). They didn’t even notice these burns until after completing their work. Just to be sure, however, the three were sent for medical checks.
So – basically nothing happened. Three people sustained injuries equivalent to a mild case of sunburn. But this was reported around the globe as front-page news under headlines such as “Japanese Workers Hospitalized for Excessive Radiation Exposure”. Just to reiterate: it was not excessive.
The entire article is well worth reading
But panic sells (as readers of WUWT are well aware), and sober analysis of scientific fact is nowhere near as exciting or is likely to spread like wildfire across the Internet.
No-one will die from radiation from Fukushima. No-one will mutate or develop super-powers. Godzilla will not rise from the sea and destroy Tokyo, except in cinemas.
It’s my view that the world deserves better than this. The real plight of the Japanese survivors of the earthquake and tsunami is being forgotten in the service of a bizarre fear about radiation that is more science fiction than science fact.
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Here are people using the term “Worse than Chernobyl”:
http://climatequotes.com/2011/03/18/worse-than-chernobyl/
Idiots.
Could someone explain why any climate skeptic should advocate nuclear power?
Even if one comes to believe that is normal and healthy to get irradiated when things go wrong, the nuke power is still not viable for economic reasons. It is much more expensive than coal for power generation.
Why not fall back on coal? Is it because continuing CO2 emissions will bring about a climate catastrophe?
From the UK “Build a Nuclear Power Plant in my Underpants”
The burns were, according to one semi-hysterical report, due to “beta radiation”. For the folks at home, that’s electrons. Mild electrical burns, sort of. A soothing salve is recommended.
One of the more amusing falsities i read (in German as well as in English language media) was that the Fukushima reactor damaged was a hundred times more powerful than the one at Chernobyl…
Thank you for the sanity check, Anthony.
Anthony, you and me both….
The “news” has just made me sick, not one word about the real tragedy – the people!
Their lives have been completely destroyed.
I thought 400miliseverts was the low reading before poisoning started? 1000-2000 seems high? Really high, like dead?
I’m intrigued that neither the media, the Japanese regulatory folks,
or TEPCO are not reporting on the uranium or uranium/plutonium
decay product isotope sister of iodine and cesium: Strontium 90.
It has a half life of 28.8 years.
All three are products of fission reaction in nuclear power generation.
According to Wikipedia:
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90
sHx says:
March 26, 2011 at 6:17 pm
“Could someone explain why any climate skeptic should advocate nuclear power?
Even if one comes to believe that is normal and healthy to get irradiated when things go wrong, the nuke power is still not viable for economic reasons. It is much more expensive than coal for power generation.
Why not fall back on coal? Is it because continuing CO2 emissions will bring about a climate catastrophe?”
sHx, here in Germany, tomorrow (on Sunday – technically that is today as it’s 4 a.m. here) the Greens will probably get into a government coalition in Badem-Württemberg, probably with 25% of the votes, stronger than the oldest socialist party, the SPD. Think Australia only much, much worse. They used the Fukushima affair to get this high.
Now, they might manage to get about 3 or 4 nukes in BW switched off, no big deal, that’s at most 4 GW. But, you know, the thing is that they have opposed all new coal-fired plants in the past as well and might well start to go after the existing ones once they finished off the nukes. They are, after all, not only anti-nuclear, but they are also the ones who sent the Greenshirt delegations to COP15. Coal provides 40% of our electricity.
So, at least in Germany, the movement against nuclear power is also against coal power. Where does that leave an industrialized nation? In the dark. Earth Hour year round. (Yes, we will have electricity from time to time. Not necessarily when we need it, though – wind and solar.)
The tactics these people use are never based on informing the public but on fear-mongering. Nuclear Power = deadly radiation; Coal Power = deadly AGW. So, it’s the same fight and the same enemy.
I still get the Chicago Sun-Times delivered every day.
Todays headline:
“VERY GRAVE” NUKE CRISIS IN JAPAN (in huge type).
Radioactive contamination may be worse than first thought at devastated nuclear plant (in smaller type).
Some selected excerpts:
“A possible breach”
“Two workers suffered skin burns after wading into water 10,000 times more radioactive than levels normally found in water in or near a reactor”
The article plays up the breach angle, with ground water contamination a possible result.
Circulation of the newspaper is about 250,000 on a Saturday.
@ur momisugly sHx:
CO2 aside, coal power is dirty. There is SO2, NOx, etc. All this is expensive to clean. Most of the coal plants have minimal pollution controls for this stuff. As such, they operate under EPA granfathering. Many are being sued for violating new source review requirements because they upgraded without adding best available scrubbing technology.
And, then there is Hg. It may not be possible to get the level of Hg emitted by coal plants down to what the EPA deems safe. Meaning there is no way to license a new coal plant, especially under the current EPA.
And, the Chinese don’t give a rats arse about SO2, NOx, Hg, etc. So, every nuclear plant they build means we all get to breathe a little easier in the rest of the world. And they are building them by the boatload, as many as 50-100 planned for the next 10 years. Try telling them they are uneconomical.
Media: If it bleeds it leads.
Politician/Savior : More fear = more votes
Connect the dots.
@R.S.Brown
Where have we seen mention of Strontium-90? Oh yeah, all our lives we’ve heard of it being left over from all the above ground nuclear weapons testing. We’re probably not hearing a lot about Sr-90 because any new traces of it that might come from the Fukishima reactors are indistinguisable from the background leftover from above ground nuclear weapons testing.
Given, there is a lot more radioactivity in a nuclear reactor core than is produced by a nuclear weapon detonation. On the other hand, even after the worst imaginable scenario, 99.999%, plus, of that radioactivity is going to still be in or near that reactor core. But, a nuclear weapon is an extremely efficient way of dispersing the radioactivity it generates. Given those two extremes, I’m not sure it is even possible for this accident to approach the levels of fallout I, and billions or others, lived through as a child, and all my life since.
@DirkH
“The tactics these people use are never based on informing the public but on fear-mongering. Nuclear Power = deadly radiation; Coal Power = deadly AGW. So, it’s the same fight and the same enemy”
Bearing in mind that the average green dislikes people anyway.
Anything will do to scare people, being in the dark is not going to bother them, they’ll have power. The same way “we” are not allowed to use aircraft for holidays, but they can use them for all their international “save-the-planet” “jolidays”
@Simcoe surfer
What can we say? You thought wrong. 1000 to 2000 is not likely to be fatal. You might be getting milliseverts and Rem mixed up. 1000 Rem would have a good chance of being fatal. But, 1000 Rem is 10,000 milliseverts.
The reporting on the tsunami in Japan and problems at the nuclear reactor achieved a crescendo of hysteria on the first day and that crescendo continues today. No one has suffered harm from radiation from the facility. There has been no radiation danger from the facility. The facts have contradicted the hysteria from day one. The author of this guest post, JohnA, suggests that the motivation is financial:
“But panic sells (as readers of WUWT are well aware), and sober analysis of scientific fact is nowhere near as exciting or is likely to spread like wildfire across the Internet.”
If that is the case then all of the MSM are now no better than the National Enquirer. If that is true then it is a national tragedy. Maybe the silver lining is that all of the MSM will soon be treated by the public as no better than the National Enquirer.
My fear is that all of the MSM have jumped on the anti-nuclear bandwagon. I believe that we have seen a campaign, maybe not orchestrated, against nuclear power. Everyone knows that the Greens have the power to create such a campaign. We know it because they have done exactly that with Global Warming for decades.
There is no clear long term strategy for dealing with such a cultural disaster. For the short run, make sure your US representatives and senators hear from you that you want them to support the vote occurring Tuesday that will remove from the EPA the power to regulate CO2.
@DirkH
Perhaps the true aim of the greens is to get Germany switched over to natural gas controlled by Russia.? It would warm the heart of any green I can think of to have the Germans living as slaves of the Russians.
I’m intrigued that neither the media, the Japanese regulatory folks,
or TEPCO are not reporting on the uranium or uranium/plutonium
decay product isotope sister of iodine and cesium: Strontium 90.
Because we haven’t seen massive core melt down yet. Strontium isn’t volatile, it isn’t present in the fuel rods gap.
A fine Article John. I will add a link to it on my Fukushima info page. Only rational articles are linked there, and yours is certainly rational if not eloquent. I also wonder how the intensely noble and deeply principled Japanese people feel about being used to sell advertising at the increasingly hysterical CNN? (etc) Wolf Blitzenkopf gets even more incoherent when Fukushima is
howled aboutdiscussed.Cheers!
Just as you have to find reliable sources for Climate Change news, you need reliable sources for nuclear power news. Here are the best three that I have found:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/
http://mitnse.com/
http://ansnuclearcafe.org/
Dirk
The greens are a bit mad in Germany. I saw the EU report on BBC News, and they were having a debate on the nuclear plants in Germany. Both German guests, some greenie woman and a social democrat guy were against these plants.
The entire exchange was hilarious, with the German guy turning a full 180 into wantingto be rid of these plants, which cynically was tied to the fact Merkel decided she won’t win without attacking nuclear power. But the Green woman was completly off her nut. She attacked Poland for exploring shale gas and nuclear power in order to get off reliance on coal (which happens to be low grade) and russian gas. She expects a poorer country like Poland to go into renewables – wind farms.
Which brings me to the next wonderful thing, a question was asked how these guests would suggest their own countries reduce CO2 and not use nuclear power. The Greenie wants it supplied by wind farms and biofuel. Now, wind farms will never produce enough electricity to replace so many coal and nuclear plants, so she expects most of it to come from biofuels.
Although the comedy award goes to the other german who has plans for a north africa solar panel farm.
sHx says:
March 26, 2011 at 6:17 pm
“Could someone explain why any climate skeptic should advocate nuclear power?”
No one is advocating nuclear power. We just do not want to demonize it. There is a place for all of our energy technologies. Nuclear power might not qualify for the top of the list right now. But the MSM is doing its best to remove it from the list entirely. On the other hand, France seems to be doing very well with nuclear power. Someone should tell the MSM. Our view of energy technologies can change very rapidly and might have changed greatly in five or ten years.
sHx says:
March 26, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Could someone explain why any climate skeptic should advocate nuclear power?
For the same reasons non-skeptics do: (1) reliable power output (as contrasted with wind, solar, etc.); (2) no need for long trains of coal (Hansen’s “trains of death”) to be delivered; (3) no enormous masses of ash that must be neutralized and buried; (4) no fly ash causing asthma in vulnerable populations; (5) no acid rain; and many more.
The Peoples’ Republic of Oregon is an interesting study in contrasts. In the latter part of the 1970s, there was a very cold winter with very little precipitation in the Columbia River basin. If the Bonneville Power Administration had to run the dams on Columbia flat out, in order to provide power to keep people from freezing, the river level would have dropped so low that barge traffic on the river would have had to be halted. That would strand farmers’ grain up-river and prevent it from being delivered to customers who had already paid for it. Fortunately, the Trojan Nuclear Plant (45 miles downriver from Portland) was quietly humming away, producing a continuous 1.1 million kilowatts. Because of nuclear power, the reservoirs remained at optimum levels, people were able to keep warm, and businesses didn’t have to shut down.
Contrast that with today, when PGE, the company that owned the Trojan plant, is generating much of its electricity from coal in a plant at Boardman, 160 miles upriver from Portland. The Boardman plant generates about half the power that the Trojan plant did, and creates a great deal more pollution.
On balance, the use of nuclear power is better stewardship of the earth than burning coal.
“Could someone explain why any climate skeptic should advocate nuclear power?”
Nuclear energy is economcally viable under rational regulations.
Not today, especially in the USA.
It’s a good hedge against the volitile oil market in places where shale gas is not available. France has done very well with it.
Once this crisis calms, and the death toll from radiation never rises above zero, you can bet that Japan will continue to use it too. They will likely modernize the plants though.
Nuclear is good “base load” generator IMHO.