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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R. de Haan says:
March 27, 2011 at 6:55 am
You can build a nuclear plant in my under pants
http://climaterealists.com/?id=7446
————————–
The author of that rapsody should move his behind where his mouth is: straight above the nuclear reactors, as a member of the teams of workers who are trying to cool them. Once he does, his rapsody will gain credibility.
Another thing I don’t understand is the pervasive argument that because the accident and the mess were caused by a very big earthquake, it should give us more confidence, not less, in the safety of nuclear plants. That’s extremely rich, as well as the habit of comparing the consequences of nuclear accidents, which may leave a large area uninhabitable for a very long time and cause health effects lasting decades, on the same terms with any other kind of catastrophic accident. Again, the guy should, at the very least, move next door to one of those California nuclear plants sitting alongside fault lines.
“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.”
You’re an optimist. The Media “telling the facts”? No way, Jose! Perversion sells everything, honesty counts for nothing but laughs (everyone thinks you’re telling a joke). A few hundred years ago they had “The Age of Reason”, today we have “Anthroprogenic Global Insanity”. Dear Old Rome fell from the same bug. There’s no known cure or antitoxin, it’s always fatal.
sHx says:
March 26, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Could someone explain why any climate skeptic should advocate nuclear power?
Coal is a highly localized resource. It is expensive to ship. Cost of mining varies widely around the world. From 30 tons per hour in Wyoming to 3 tons per hour East of the Mississippi in the US to 3 hours per ton in various places in China.
The cost of coal in the world varies from less then $1/MBtu to $7/MBtu.
All the various ‘energy’ vendors use there competitors worst prices and their best prices when blathering on about how this,that or the other form of energy is ‘cheapest’.
Somewhere in the world coal,natural gas, oil, nuclear, wind or solar is cheapest.
So they are all telling the truth.
I don’t live in the Sahara desert or Wyoming. My ‘cheapest’ options are nuclear or natural gas.
Of course the German media are pushing the alarm buttons. It’s election time. And there aren’t nearly enough “Green” politicians in power yet to completely destroy Germany’s economy by de-industrialisation.
Some fools become unctious when the fear campaign is confronted with facts and reason. Check the comments here. They seem incapable of living without fear.
The “journalists” aren’t afraid to recycle old fear-mongering as fresh reports.
My reading of the German media indicates that the people are being duped into believing that Japan has suffered a nuclear disaster, not a natural one. See this example.
The mis-reporting goes far beyond that which can be attributed to incompetence. Even well-cultivated incompetence.
I am amazed by the temperate language of Japan’s officials when confronted with the media that seeks to portray something as a disaster when it isn’t; and in the press’ fervor to fabricate, they appear to wilfully avert their gaze from the real, natural disaster. Perhaps the Japanese are hoping that the errant “journalists” will find shame in such misdeads eventually.
DirkH says:
March 27, 2011 at 6:26 am
Oops. Radiation 10mill times higher than normal? Sorry, that was a mistake.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12875327
“The operators of a stricken Japanese nuclear plant have apologised for a “mistake” in reporting a radiation spike 10 million times above normal.”
=========================
This is very interesting. On the update at 10:46 ET, the article you link said the following
***quote**
A spokesman for Japan’s nuclear watchdog, Hidehiko Nishiyama, said the level of radiation in puddles near reactor 2 was confirmed at 1,000 millisieverts an hour.
“It is an extremely high figure,” Mr Nishiyama said.
A cancer risk is evident with an exposure of 100 millisieverts a year.
***end of quote***
First thing to notice is that the last sentence above seems to have disappeared on the update at 11:07 ET, just 21 minutes later. That’s very interesting. Orwell spoke of “future societies” that rewrite the past. He just never dreamed they could do it so quickly.
In any case, 1,000 millisieverts are 1 sievert, so 1 per hour gives you 8,760 Sieverts a year.
Now, the 100 millisieverts a year that could give you cancer (before the last update) are 0.1 sieverts a year, right?
So, this is 8760/0.1 = 87,600 times above the cancer risk level.
The second thing to notice is that they *don’t* give you what the “normal” level is. They make you work.
“Average individual background radiation is 0.00023mSv/hr,” according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert
so this works out to be 2mSv/year or 0.002 Sv/yr.
Now divide 8,760 by 0.002 and you get 4,380,000.
So, it is not 10 million times above normal. It’s only 4.4 million times above normal. You can now breathe a sigh of relief. Everything is okay and nuclear energy is the best and cleanest thing since wonderbread.
@Francisco
But, if he did move right next door, and one ten times bigger than “the big one” came, the quake or tsunami would kill him, not the nuclear reactor. I think that’s the point.
Granted, if you embed several hundred tons of graphite within your reactor core, there is a method of dispersing significant radioactivity. We don’t have that with the California plants. Nor, the Japanese plants, for that matter.
And, Francisco, any idea what the size of the big one everyone is worried about in CA is? Well, this one was 50 times bigger than that. If a 9.0 quake were to happen within 100 miles of Diablo Canyon, that plant would be the least of everybody’s problems.
It is somewhat comforting to me to learn that a plant will survive an earthquake 10+ times its design. I can also use the fact that a tsunami 2.5 times design is more problematical to dictate necessary improvements.
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?
The answer, sHx, is that coal kills. Properly sited, designed, and operated nuclear power plants don’t.
I am of the wait and see group. It is interesting to see the widespread ignorance portrayed by MSM. Wider understanding of the issues would be a good thing.
http://www.pddnet.com/news-whats-behind-our-conflicted-feelings-on-nukes-032511/?et_cid=1313907&et_rid=45603233&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.pddnet.com%2fnews-whats-behind-our-conflicted-feelings-on-nukes-032511%2f
I think the lesson from all of this, from the media point of view, is once your ratings start to sag from showing footage of tens of thousands of people being killed by a biblically massive earthquake and tsunami, it’s good to have a nuclear disaster to fall back on, even though it’s unlikely to kill a single person.
Why not send in the robots?
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/japan-robots-to-fix-troubled-nuclear-reactors
@ur momisugly John Tofflemire onMarch 27, 2011 at 2:59 am
Re not feeling any aftershocks in Tokyo. To me, that is good. To an earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant with reactor fuel rods melting, that is not so good. A good analogy is a forest where a tree has a dead limb barely hanging on high up in the tree. Perhaps a strong storm broke the limb but did not cause the limb to fall. Subsequent gentle breezes or mild winds also push on the dead limb, and eventually it falls.
Similar things happen to dams on rivers, and other man-made structures such as bridges.
My position on the mass media over-using dramatic words is to ignore the hype, and focus on the facts. Seeing buildings’ roofs explode is a fact. Seeing black or dark smoke from a reactor building, seeing white smoke (likely steam), noting that workers were evacuated very suddenly, seeing firetrucks spraying water from a distance, noting that seawater was used to cool things down (that alone is an indication of sheer desperation because nothing else works), noting high levels of radioactive particles around the plant, in the air, ground, water and in other countries, noting the evacuation of all people for 20 miles (or whatever the distance is), all are facts needing no hyperbole. Now, most ominously, seeing reports from TEPCO that very high and dangerous levels of radiation exist inside the turbine building is an indication that something somewhere is leaking where there should be no leaks. This morning, however (it’s 9 a.m. in California) TEPCO has retracted their earlier statement of 10 million times higher than normal radiation. The confusion continues.
What is needed is for some nuclear-power-plant grade stop-leak. Something that will plug a leaking containment building, but not be destroyed by heat or radiation.
Francisco says:
March 27, 2011 at 8:43 am
“So, it is not 10 million times above normal. It’s only 4.4 million times above normal. You can now breathe a sigh of relief. Everything is okay and nuclear energy is the best and cleanest thing since wonderbread”
The next thing you’re going to tell me is we should stop building refineries because you can die when you stand right next to a burning tank. http://froyonation.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/japans-massive-earthquake-in-pictures/
Roger Sowell says:
March 27, 2011 at 9:22 am
This morning, however (it’s 9 a.m. in California) TEPCO has retracted their earlier statement of 10 million times higher than normal radiation. The confusion continues.
================
Roger, see my post above at March 27, 2011 at 7:56 am
They retracted the statement, but never indicated what the corrected figure should be. Turns out that instead of 10 million times, it is “only” 4.4 million times above normal. That’s supposed to be reassuring.
The information is confusing, probably on purpose, or maybe out of plain journalistic incompetence. For example, they give radiation levels at the reactor in millisieverts per *hour*, and then as comparison they give cancer risk level in millisieverts per *year*, so the immediate casual impression a reader gets is a ratio over 8,000 times smaller that what it is. Then they eliminate the information about the cancer risk level altogether, to further prevent any comparison, and of course they never tell you what the normal level is.
Or maybe it’s not done on purpose. Maybe it’s just plain incompetence in reporting.
With all of this talk about leaks, everyone needs to remember that there is no evidence that the containment vessels have been breeched due to structural failure. That’s not to say that it won’t be determined that there has been structural failure in the future, but at this point, the radioactivity is due to steam that has been vented from the vessels and the spent fuel holding ponds. Once enough water is pumped back into the containment vessels and holding ponds and the temperature comes back down, the venting will stop and the radioactivity will diminish. Most of it is due to iodine, which has a half life of 8 days.
Francisco says:
March 27, 2011 at 8:43 am
“Now, the 100 millisieverts a year that could give you cancer (before the last update) are 0.1 sieverts a year, right?”
Francisco, you are talking like a green propagandist here – You imply that cancer is a certainty after receiving 100 milliSieverts. This is not so. 100 milliSieverts is the smallest dose that can be statistically linked to an increase in the occurence of cancer is what i read – and assuming 20% of a population get cancer some time in their lives, maybe (depending on the confidence level and the distribution used) the 100mSv would increase that to 22% so that would then be statistically significant… I don’t know the real numbers but it’s not as grave as you make it sound. I know, you sound like a totalitarian so this won’t impress you much but i can’t let your statement stand the way you made it. If anyone knows the source for the 100 mSv cancer link, i would be very interested.
BBC Article:
“Japan nuclear: Workers evacuated as radiation soars… The death toll has now passed 10,000, and more than 17,440 people are missing… Mass burials have been held…”
The article is about the Fukushima nuclear plant situation, but a photo of mass burials in Yamamoto is included (WHY?)… and the death toll from the quake/tsunami (WHY?).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12872707
Every update I read about the nuclear struggle at Fukushima includes the Tsunami/Earthquake DEATH TOLL and now a photo of MASS BURIALS !!
This in not journalism it is blatant PROPAGANDA !
Linking Nuclear with Death is an agenda. I am disgusted.
Who is the director of this evil spin ?
The lessons of Katrina and the Gulf oil spill: Nothing turns a buck like a well-regulated and hysterically reported fabrication based on a natural or man-caused event. No reason not to continue with the Japan earthquake and tsunami.
And surely some sick person somewhere is busy writing a new cover for Johnny Cash’s old song retitled, “Boy Named Tsu”.
Anything for a buck. Absolutely anything.
According to NISA via t-online, a German portal, concerning the last radiation spike that so unsettles Francisco:
“Radioaktives Jod stammt wohl aus Reaktorkern
Laut NISA stammt die Strahlung überwiegend von radioaktivem Jod-134, das eine Halbwertzeit von 53 Minuten habe. ”
“Radioactive iodine probably stems from reactor core”
“According to NISA the radiation stems mostly from radiactive iodine 134 which has a half-life of 53 minutes.”
from
http://nachrichten.t-online.de/fukushima-betreiber-strahlung-nicht-millionenfach-erhoeht/id_45275788/index
(but you won’t find the text i translated anymore, they rewrite it constantly – the iodine 134 quote is already gone; it was there a few minutes ago. Maybe it was another mistake, maybe they need to remove physical details to not confuse their readers with complicated words like half-life. The word half-life (“Halbwertszeit”) is gone now from the article. And of course, as is best practise in journalism, they don’t notify their readers of corrections or changes they did. Fishing for information in the MSM is like digging for gold nuggets.)
Theo Goodwin says:
March 27, 2011 at 7:48 am
Shutting down a nuclear plant is a long messy process. The media can be hysterical about it for years. Yet there is no danger to the public from the radiation.
You simply cannot say that. For one you cannot look into the future, secondly, even in the past the authorities advised against tap water for a time for infants.
I guess I am fear mongering though 🙂 It’s just localised after all. Though of course nobody knows how local, they can’t even seem to read their measurments right at the moment.
Andy
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”
Daryl, I can only say you spent to much time in the Shanghai bars!
I have worked in Shanghai, Guanzhou and Wuxi for the last 6 years. Since the Olympics and the recent Expo in Shanghai and the even more recent Asia games you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
I have photos from the last 6 years that prove you are talking rubbish and I can only think you have very little time in China. Many of my friends are astonished by the improvements around the cities and you make no mention of the millions of trees that have been planted around the areas!
The coal power stations being built have scrubbers fitted and your knowledge of both China and their efforts to allow its people a standard of life that you take for granted makes me want to puke! I would suggest you start at home before having a pop at a country trying to make life better, against all odds, for its people. Or are you simply scared your country is financially owned by China? You sound like a typical sick green trying to keep the 3rd world in the dark ages!
Anthony, I am astonished at the amount of fools on this thread that have absolutely NO idea about millisieverts! How can that be so after your excellent Banana posting and links to non MSN accurate reports!
Now we can see how AGW makes its mark and how we must strive to fight ignorance!
Matt says:
March 27, 2011 at 1:44 am
Here’s the Sunday morning news for you from Spiegel headlines:
Radioactivity level is 10 million times above normal.
Sorry to ruin your schaden freude Matt, but that report has been retracted as an error. As you will find if you look on the web,
DirkH ( March 27, 2011 at 10:05 am) were asking the 100 mSv cancer link. It can be found at http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/updated-radiation-chart.html
The question has been asked ‘why nuclear and not coal?’ Well even if you accept that China’s health and safety record is woeful, and ignore the 5,000 plus lives lost in Chinese coal mines last year. If at the same time you ignore the premature deaths caused by pollution from Chinese coal fired power stations. If you also choose to forget that the waste from coal fired power stations is itself radio active, the number of people worldwide who’ll die prematurely from generating electricity from coal will be many times, if not orders of magnitude, higher than from radiation in Japan.
The current coverage in the MSM is just another example of the dictum
“For a journalist, the truth exists solely to be raped”