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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Rob Huber says:
March 26, 2011 at 10:19 pm
I’m all for trying to tone down the shrill hysteria, but not at the expense of truth.
I agree with you that there is exaggeration at both ends of the spectrum. It’s standing out to me the degree to which some are saying how safe nuclear power is. That exaggeration is more dangerous than the overstatement running to the other end of the gamut.
Daryl M says:
March 27, 2011 at 12:21 am
If you want to see for yourself the reason why we should not adopt large scale coal power, take a trip to China. I was in Guangzhou, Shanghai / Wuxi and Beijing last week and I can say that they were by far the most polluted cities
The coal plants in China are not the same as in the US. The US has stricter standards. And at some point, if not already, China will have stricter standards too, in the name of self interest. I have to say again, if the United States had invested just 1/100th in technology for cleaning fumes from coal fire as it had in developing nuclear power there would be very little pollution from coal fire and no more need to continue investing billions (billions, with a ‘b’) in nuclear because it’s ‘cleaner than coal’.
This is a breakdown of the contamination found in the basements of those turbine buildings:
http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/fd_nuclide_conc.jpg?w=449&h=178
The chlorine-38 is due to activation of chlorine-37 from sea salt from the sea water being used to cool the reactors. It has a short half-life and will decline as they switch to fresh water.
The Cs-134 also has a very short half life. The I-131 has a half life of 8 days. That accounts for the majority of the radioactivity of that water. The Cs-137 has a longer half-life but once the other materials decay, there isn’t enough of it by itself to be hazardous.
There is no strontium-90.
The chlorine will eventually become argon and be vented with the steam. Same eventually with the sodium after passing through several phases of neutron activation.
Informative information dump here:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/26/fukushima-26-march-status/
I am puzzled ,
from here
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html
“For two of the three workers, significant skin contamination over their legs was confirmed. The Japanese authorities have stated that during medical examinations carried out at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in the Chiba Prefecture, the level of local exposure to the workers� legs was estimated to be between 2 and 6 sieverts.
While the patients did not require medical treatment, doctors decided to keep them in hospital and monitor their progress over coming days”
2 to 6 sieverts is not a small amount, 8 is the amount where 50% of people die. So I don’t understand this at all. Or perhaps the Grays is less? Normally 1 Gray – 1 Sv I thought, but perhaps the way they were exposed has lessened it?
It seems that 1000 mSv per hour is present in some parts, that is not a small amount, 2 days working in that and you would be dead.
Although the media has overplayed it I think this post underplays it too much as a reaction. Good food for thought though.
Andy
Here’s the Sunday morning news for you from Spiegel headlines:
Radioactivity level is 10 million times above normal.
“It seems that 1000 mSv per hour is present in some parts, that is not a small amount, 2 days working in that and you would be dead.”
It depends on the type of radiation. You could work in that level of radiation for a month if it was all alpha radiation and you had no exposed skin. The workers got exposed to beta radiation. A pair of hip waders would have protected them. Beta penetrates a bit more than alpha, but not much more. They got what amounts to a sunburn.
Now that level of radiation from gamma rays would likely kill someone. So it isn’t just the amount of radiation so much as it is the type of radiation. External radiation (as opposed to ingestion) of alpha or beta rays isn’t going to hurt you much. Gamma radiation is a different story.
Two U.S. Navy barges shipping in fresh water for cooling reactor….
“Iodine 131 was detected at a level 1,250 times the national safety limit,” Hidehiko Nishiyama of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said during a news conference…… Samples taken on Friday were significantly higher than those taken on Wednesday
http://nei.cachefly.net/newsandevents/information-on-the-japanese-earthquake-and-reactors-in-that-region/japan-earthquake-additional-nei-updates/japan-earthquake-nei-updates-for-saturday-march-26/
Can’t believe I just read all 55 comments. I’m awfully impressed by what, collectively, contributors have assembled on this important subject. It’s unfortunate, though, that other lists with different agendas use much the same mechanism to perpetuate extravagant falsehoods. Not sure what to do about it, but it seems to me that journalists who’d like to think of themselves as other than talking heads reading what’s on the teleprompter have an obligation to inform themselves. They could do worse than monitor WUWT. Might be worth the effort to lobby a few. It’d also help if even our Western-educated population weren’t scientific illiterates — a high school diploma should indicate that the holder has been exposed to at least a bit of basic science … enough to sustain a healthy scepticism. In Australia, they’re taught to be ‘believers’, and to support their betters who are actually engaged in ‘saving the planet.’ Very sad, that. And very dangerous.
What is truly outrageous is the lack of sympathy for this tragedy from the largely western media. How does this make western reporters look, absolutely loathesome. I feel ashamed that some of these are my countrymen.
Shouldn’t there be a rule here that at least the authors have to use their real names?
To “John A”, whoever that is…
I don’t think people are particularly concerned about one of the richest and most technology advanced nations in the world is going to let a nuclear plant go into full meltdown and spread radiation across national boundaries. I think the concern is that as nukes become more common you’re going to see them springing up in poorer countries with unstable governments and the proliferation of radioactive waste that can be easily turned into so-called dirty bombs by just about anyone with little effort.
I also suggest you include the health hazards of uranium mining in your nuclear safety roundups. Uranium mining and refinement is a skeleton in the nuclear safety closet.
But none of that that is really my greatest concern. My greatest concern is that nuclear energy is expensive. If it lived up to the mid-twentieth century promises of providing cheap abundant energy I’d be willing to live with the undesirable aspects but the simple fact of the matter is that it isn’t cheap and therefore has little in the way of redeeming virtues to counter the undesirable aspects.
Roger Sowell says:
“I suspect, though, that the continuing aftershocks will worsen the breach or breaches and more and more radioactive material will seep out. ”
We have not had any aftershocks that could be felt here in Tokyo for the past 48 hours or so, the longest period since the initial quake. While some of the aftershocks over the past week have been somewhat significant (as strong as 5+ on the Japanese shindo scale of 0 to 7 at locations not far from the reactors). All of this suggests that the aftershocks are finally beginning to wind down. I have not seen any discussion that these recent aftershocks had a significant affect on the Fukushima reactors. If anyone has information to the contrary, please post.
I support nuclear energy. But this is an extremely serious situation.
– Tepco have lied about the state of the plant, have admitted to lying and been criticised by Edano for doing so.
– The workers suffering burns – this could have been easily avoided. That it happened implies they have not been thinking through the possibilities properly or strategically (ie the possibility that pools of radioactive water could accumulate once they started dousing the reactors with sea water). The risk management handling during this crisis seems very poor
– Crisis countermeasures have seemed reactive and step-wise. Why didn’t water get there earlier? Why not freshwater earlier? Was the leaching of radioactive water anticipated? I want to see the place concreted over now – the longer they address the crisis with half-assed measures, the more damage will be done
– Radiation levels have been steadily rising
– Some radiation products can only have come from the spent fuel rods or reactor core
– Fukushima has implications for storage of spent fuel rods everywhere. When evaluating the cost effectiveness of nuclear power, we have to account for the costs of proper disposal, rather than allowing private companies to cut costs by working practices that increase risk
– The situation is not under control. Radiation release is in the Chernobyl orders of magnitude. This is a different disaster to Chernobyl, but the fuel rods, the fact that so many reactors are in trouble and the close proximity to a gigantic metropolis gives this the potential to cause outcomes that are far worse than Chernobyl. Those poor outcomes may be driven by radiation release, or population panic. And this may have gigantic economic implications too.
This is not a nothingburger. It does you no credit to simply bash the straw man of mainstream media hysteria (which is like shooting fish in a barrel). There is an incredible scientific and environmental story unfolding here
It doesn’t need to be as expensive as it has been and, in fact, modern reactors are actually cheaper to build. Fewer pumps, valves, gauges, pipes, wires, etc. They are now much simpler in design. Also, it is the “lawfare” of the anti-nuclear dingbats that make it so expensive. See, they make the utility spend millions of dollars in court before they even start construction, and then complain that it is expensive.
That is called “idiocy” where I come from.
This thread needs a mention of radiation hormesis, a controversial but well-known concept. There is a 20 page pdf online by Prof. T. D. Luckey, who wrote a full monograph on radiation hormesis in ’91. I read it some years ago, and recall that Luckey could cite about a thousand papers at that time. For his overview, see–
http://www.radpro.com/641luckey.pdf
and compare the Wikipedia account —
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis
I’m a retired biomedical researcher. This blog is good on physical concepts, but needs more effort on biological science. To search Medline, enter ‘pubmed’ into google, and the first hit has a link to the search page. Enter ‘radiation hormesis’ and you get a couple of hundred hits. Try a lot of other keywords….Medline is free and there is no registration, etc. There are generally abstracts for anything recent, and full text is increasingly available.
Incidentally, chemical hormesis exists, but is more tricky, since the effects of different agents vary considerably. I have seen such effects in my own work, but the hormetic dose range can be small.
The real story is that regulators don’t want the idea to take hold, since it would undercut a lot of bureaucratic rationales. And, in fairness, the hormetic concept would probably be exploited by medical quacks. Thus, the linear-no-theshold (LNT) concept will be defended forever by ‘official’ science. It is wrong, however.
Is this a Saturday morning example of the Associated Press scaremongering?
See:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110327/D9M7GE700.html
>>onion says: March 27, 2011 at 3:03 am
>>I support nuclear energy. But this is an extremely serious situation.
>>The workers suffering burns
Without wishing to trivialise the issue, other energy sources are far more dangerous. Let’s look at what is happening elsewhere in the industry this month:
19 killed in coal blast:
http://www.inewsone.com/2011/03/12/19-killed-in-china-coal-mine-blast/34952
11 killed in coal blast:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-03/24/c_13796339.htm
21 killed in coal blast:
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/69430/21-killed-china-coal-mine.html
And here is a round-up of some of the fossil-fuel deaths from 2010.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/25-Other-Energy-Disasters-atlantic-166031838.html?x=0
Oh, and I forgot – three nuclear workers in Japan had ‘sunburns’ on their feet.
.
>>Logan says: March 27, 2011 at 3:25 am
>>radiation hormesis
If hormesis was true to that extent, then the people of Cornwall (high background radiation) would be healthier and live longer than other UK citizens. This does not appear to be so.
.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/27_12.html
not sounding so harmless right now.
and I support thorium to burn the waste we have now to stop this happening. too much in dicey storage.
crosspatch says:
March 27, 2011 at 3:09 am
It doesn’t need to be as expensive as it has been and, in fact, modern reactors are actually cheaper to build.
You are not taking into account the billions put into nuclear from around the world. It may be costing less than it used to to build them. But you can’t leave out how much it cost to get to this point. It all factors in. Without all that previous investment nuclear plants would not be at the cost they are at now.
Coal has not had to have all that investment.
you want scary headlines, you can rely on the BBC…
“Japan: Radiation 10 million times higher in reactor
Radioactivity in water at reactor 2 at the quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant has reached 10 million times the usual level, company officials say.
Workers trying to cool the reactor core to avoid a meltdown have been evacuated.
Earlier, Japan’s nuclear agency said that levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the plant had risen to 1,850 times the usual level.
The BBC’s Mark Worthington said many people in Japan are becoming increasingly concerned about what is going to happen in the future.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12873439
Logan says:
March 27, 2011 at 3:25 am
Luckey could cite about a thousand papers at that time.
This is an interesting work on radiation hormesis and looks to be worth reading.
There is also this study done on the ‘consequences’ of Chernobyl. It cites “more than 1,000 titles and more than 5,000 printed and Internet publications mainly in Slavic languages”.
link to the work:
http://www.nyas.org/publications/annals/Detail.aspx?cid=f3f3bd16-51ba-4d7b-a086-753f44b3bfc1
But some are telling me it’s not a valid work. A few other commenters have talked about radiation hormesis in other threads on Fukushima. They also talked about the study you cite. The 1000 papers cited in the radiation hormesis paper are proof to those commenters that it is a good work. But the 1000 papers used in the Chernobyl paper are proof to them that it is biased because of political influences. They don’t apply the same critique of political bias to the radiation hormesis paper.
The last few days I have been seeing something I didn’t think I would come across in this web site. There is a double standard in some of those that favor nuclear power. It looks the same as the double standard that global warming believers have. They like the 1000 papers when it favors something they like. But they rationalize 1000 papers when they say something they don’t like. Maybe it is commenters that are biased by politics, or some other thing. I’m not really sure at this point what is going on. But it has been an eye opening week.
Folks It aint over yet so why not just wait and see what the real deal is once its over. I find it foolish for people to pronounce on this issue when its not under control.
Ralph
Some commenters keep on bringing up coal worker deaths in China. China has high worker deaths in all areas of industry, not just coal. They do not have the safety standards that the US has.
There may be some shrill hysterics, but on the other hand most of you hare taking this much too lightly. You are way too cavalier about it. Back on March 15, physicist Lubos Moto (who is NOT an anti-nuclear guy by any stretch of the imagination) wrote something about radiation, its effects on health, and what the levels being measured that day meant statistically for the health of people in the region.
Radioactivity: sieverts and other units
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/03/radioactivity-sieverts-and-other-units.html
The first part of that article is some background theory. The interesting part for the purpose of this discussion starts at the section titled: “Health and nuclear lifetimes”
Some of the media may be hyperventilating, but clearly the (very scant and confusing) official information coming out of there is not reassuring in the least. It’s hard to find any information of continuous measurements of radiation close to the reactors, radiation is spiking in distant areas, the air samplers for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) around the world have apparently been been picking up increased radiation in very distant places http://www.naturalnews.com/031836_radioactive_fallout_Fukushima.html
This thing is not over by any means and it does have the potential to become extremely messy for a very long time. And no, I don’t trust the Japanese government (or any government for that matter) or the Tokyo Power Company to be sincere and honest in what information they let out about what they really know. These things DO have a rich history of being downplayed or covered up as much and foras long as they can get away with it. You may want to read up on Chernobyl and how it was handleed by the authorities information wise. And let me add that those of you who are promoting the nonsense that Chernobyl caused only 56 deaths are deluded beyond redemption. The deaths and health effects of these things can only be obtained through careful statistical analysis of medical data followed up during decades, among a population that was scattered all over the place after they were evacuated.
See for example Alex Cockburn’s (a known climate “denier” from the left) on the matter
***quote***
In 2009 the New York Academy of Sciences published Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, a 327-page volume by three scientists, Alexey Yablokov and Vassily and Alexey Nesterenko, the definitive study to date, a lot of of it citations from scientific papers with detailed health statistics.
In the summary of his chapter “Mortality After the Chernobyl Catastrophe,” Yablokov says flatly, “A detailed study reveals that 3.8–4.0% of all deaths in the contaminated territories of Ukraine and Russia from 1990 to 2004 were caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe.… Since 1990, mortality among the clean-up teams has exceeded the mortality rate in corresponding population groups. From 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators [ ie members of clean up crews] died before 2005—that is, some 15% of the 830,000 members of the Chernobyl cleanup teams. The calculations suggest that the Chernobyl catastrophe has already killed several hundred thousand human beings in a population of several hundred million that was unfortunate enough to live in territories affected by the fallout.”
***end of quote***
Many of you sound a lot like George Monbiot, who claims that this mess has only strengthened his faith in the marvels of nuclear energy.
Or read this interview with Hirose Takashi (who IS anti-nuclear and has written extensively about the matter)
http://www.projectworldawareness.com/2011/03/what-theyre-covering-up-at-fukushima/
Hirose Takashi: The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident and the State of the Media
Broadcast by Asahi NewStar, 17 March, 20:00
Interviewers: Yo and Maeda Mari
Translated by Douglas Lummis
Yo: Today many people saw water being sprayed on the reactors from the air and from the ground, but is this effective?
Hirose: . . . If you want to cool a reactor down with water, you have to circulate the water inside and carry the heat away, otherwise it has no meaning. So the only solution is to reconnect the electricity. Otherwise it’s like pouring water on lava.
Yo: Reconnect the electricity – that’s to restart the cooling system?
Hirose: Yes. The accident was caused by the fact that the tsunami flooded the emergency generators and carried away their fuel tanks. If that isn’t fixed, there’s no way to recover from this accident.
Yo: Tepco [Tokyo Electric Power Company, owner/operator of the nuclear plants] says they expect to bring in a high voltage line this evening.
Hirose: Yes, there’s a little bit of hope there. But what’s worrisome is that a nuclear reactor is not like what the schematic pictures show (shows a graphic picture of a reactor, like those used on TV). This is just a cartoon. Here’s what it looks like underneath a reactor container (shows a photograph). This is the butt end of the reactor. Take a look. It’s a forest of switch levers and wires and pipes. On television these pseudo-scholars come on and give us simple explanations, but they know nothing, those college professors. Only the engineers know. This is where water has been poured in. This maze of pipes is enough to make you dizzy. Its structure is too wildly complex for us to understand. For a week now they have been pouring water through there. And it’s salt water, right? You pour salt water on a hot kiln and what do you think happens? You get salt. The salt will get into all these valves and cause them to freeze. They won’t move. This will be happening everywhere. So I can’t believe that it’s just a simple matter of you reconnecting the electricity and the water will begin to circulate. I think any engineer with a little imagination can understand this. You take a system as unbelievably complex as this and then actually dump water on it from a helicopter – maybe they have some idea of how this could work, but I can’t understand it.
Yo: It will take 1300 tons of water to fill the pools that contain the spent fuel rods in reactors 3 and 4. This morning 30 tons. Then the Self Defense Forces are to hose in another 30 tons from five trucks. That’s nowhere near enough, they have to keep it up. Is this squirting of water from hoses going to change the situation?
Hirose: In principle, it can’t. Because even when a reactor is in good shape, it requires constant control to keep the temperature down to where it is barely safe. Now it’s a complete mess inside, and when I think of the 50 remaining operators, it brings tears to my eyes. I assume they have been exposed to very large amounts of radiation, and that they have accepted that they face death by staying there. And how long can they last? I mean, physically. That’s what the situation has come to now. When I see these accounts on television, I want to tell them, “If that’s what you say, then go there and do it yourself!” Really, they talk this nonsense, trying to reassure everyone, trying to avoid panic. What we need now is a proper panic. Because the situation has come to the point where the danger is real.
If I were Prime Minister Kan, I would order them to do what the Soviet Union did when the Chernobyl reactor blew up, the sarcophagus solution, bury the whole thing under cement, put every cement company in Japan to work, and dump cement over it from the sky. Because you have to assume the worst case. Why? Because in Fukushima there is the Daiichi Plant with six reactors and the Daini Plant with four for a total of ten reactors. If even one of them develops the worst case, then the workers there must either evacuate the site or stay on and collapse. So if, for example, one of the reactors at Daiichi goes down, the other five are only a matter of time. We can’t know in what order they will go, but certainly all of them will go. And if that happens, Daini isn’t so far away, so probably the reactors there will also go down. Because I assume that workers will not be able to stay there.
I’m speaking of the worst case, but the probability is not low. This is the danger that the world is watching. Only in Japan is it being hidden. As you know, of the six reactors at Daiichi, four are in a crisis state. So even if at one everything goes well and water circulation is restored, the other three could still go down. Four are in crisis, and for all four to be 100 per cent repaired, I hate to say it, but I am pessimistic. If so, then to save the people, we have to think about some way to reduce the radiation leakage to the lowest level possible. Not by spraying water from hoses, like sprinkling water on a desert. We have to think of all six going down, and the possibility of that happening is not low. Everyone knows how long it takes a typhoon to pass over Japan; it generally takes about a week. That is, with a wind speed of two meters per second, it could take about five days for all of Japan to be covered with radiation. We’re not talking about distances of 20 kilometers or 30 kilometers or 100 kilometers. It means of course Tokyo, Osaka. That’s how fast a radioactive cloud could spread. Of course it would depend on the weather; we can’t know in advance how the radiation would be distributed. It would be nice if the wind would blow toward the sea, but it doesn’t always do that. Two days ago, on the 15th, it was blowing toward Tokyo. That’s how it is. . . .
Yo: Every day the local government is measuring the radioactivity. All the television stations are saying that while radiation is rising, it is still not high enough to be a danger to health. They compare it to a stomach x-ray, or if it goes up, to a CT scan. What is the truth of the matter?
Hirose: For example, yesterday. Around Fukushima Daiichi Station they measured 400 millisieverts – that’s per hour. With this measurement (Chief Cabinet Secretary) Edano admitted for the first time that there was a danger to health, but he didn’t explain what this means. All of the information media are at fault here I think. They are saying stupid things like, why, we are exposed to radiation all the time in our daily life, we get radiation from outer space. But that’s one millisievert per year. A year has 365 days, a day has 24 hours; multiply 365 by 24, you get 8760. Multiply the 400 millisieverts by that, you get 3,500,000 the normal dose. You call that safe? And what media have reported this? None. They compare it to a CT scan, which is over in an instant; that has nothing to do with it. The reason radioactivity can be measured is that radioactive material is escaping. What is dangerous is when that material enters your body and irradiates it from inside. These industry-mouthpiece scholars come on TV and what to they say? They say as you move away the radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the distance. I want to say the reverse. Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body. What happens? Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. That’s a thousand times a thousand squared. That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.” Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.
Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.
Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material. . . .
Yo: So damage from radioactive rays and damage from radioactive material are not the same.
Hirose: If you ask, are any radioactive rays from the Fukushima Nuclear Station here in this studio, the answer will be no. But radioactive particles are carried here by the air. When the core begins to melt down, elements inside like iodine turn to gas. It rises to the top, so if there is any crevice it escapes outside.
Yo: Is there any way to detect this?
Hirose: I was told by a newspaper reporter that now Tepco is not in shape even to do regular monitoring. They just take an occasional measurement, and that becomes the basis of Edano’s statements. You have to take constant measurements, but they are not able to do that. And you need to investigate just what is escaping, and how much. That requires very sophisticated measuring instruments. You can’t do it just by keeping a monitoring post. It’s no good just to measure the level of radiation in the air. Whiz in by car, take a measurement, it’s high, it’s low – that’s not the point. We need to know what kind of radioactive materials are escaping, and where they are going – they don’t have a system in place for doing that now.
@Francisco (2011/03/27 4:35 am)
The interview you quote was from 17th March, and EVERYONE on that day was speculating, with much of that turning out to be wrong.
I googled “radiation sensors” and “Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)” and this story about radiation spreading across the globe seems to be repeated on many sites that like http://www.naturalnews.com are promoting and selling organic foods and products such as iodine. I’ve found it hard to find the facts behind this highly speculative and scaremongering meme that is repeated on many such sites.
The closest I can get it this, which is altogether much more balanced:
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134833909/built-for-bombs-sensors-now-track-japan-radiation
“The highest detection that we’ve gotten here in the U.S. has been far lower than the natural radioactivity that’s already there, so I don’t think there’s any increased risk to the U.S. public,” he says.
Roger Samson has probably the best attitude:“Folks It aint over yet so why not just wait and see what the real deal is once its over. I find it foolish for people to pronounce on this issue when its not under control.”