Guest post by Michael Dickey (cross posted from his website matus1976.com)
The decline of nuclear power has had a significant effect on global carbon emissions and subsequently any anthropogenic global warming effect. To see the extent of this influence, let us first take a look at total U.S. carbon emissions since 1900.
According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, from 1900 to 2006, US carbon emissions rose from 181 MMT (million metric tons) to 1,569 MMT.
Taking a look at US electricity generation by type, according to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. generates 51% of its power from coal, and cumulatively about 71% of its power from fossil fuel sources.
Comparing the energy source to Carbon emissions, the burning of coal to generate electricity alone emits more CO2 than any other single source, about one-third of the total.
As the US Electrical Generation by Type figure shows, about 20% of the U.S. electrical supply comes from nuclear power. Let us now imagine that the U.S. never built any nuclear power plants, but instead built more coal plants to generate the electricity those nuclear plants would have generated.
According to the Energy Information Administration, since 1971, 18.6 billion MW•h (Megawatt hour) of electrical power have been generated by nuclear sources (1). According to the US Department of Energy, every kW•h (kilowatt hour) of electricity generated by coal produces 2.095 lbs of CO2 (2).
As the calculations in the table above show, every MW•h of electricity generated by coal generates 2,095 pounds of carbon dioxide. For 18.6 billion MW•h at 2,095 pounds of CO2 per MW•h, this amounts to 39.0 trillion additional lbs of CO2, or 17.7 billion metric tons. Finally, converting the 17.7 billion metric tons of CO2 to carbon results in 4.842 billion, or 4,842 million metric tons of carbon.
What all this shows is that had this power been generated by coal plants, an additional 4,842 million metric tons of carbon would have been released into the atmosphere. Breaking this calculation down by year, what would this have made our carbon emissions record look like?
Again in blue we see the real world US carbon emissions, but in green we see what the carbon emissions would have been if all the electricity generated by our nuclear infrastructure had instead been generated by coal power plants.
In all, carbon emissions would have been 14.6% higher, with 1,782 MMT of carbon released without nuclear power plants, while only 1,552 MMT are released with our current nuclear infrastructure. This is why many leading environmentalists, such as James Lovelock (author of the Gaia Hypothesis) are vocal supporters of nuclear power.
But this chart is not entirely fair to nuclear power, because the growth of nuclear power was severely derailed by environmentalist hyperbole and outright scaremongering. Because of the attacks by environmentalists on nuclear power, many planned power plants were cancelled, and many existing plants licenses were not renewed. The result, according to Al Gore himself in “Our Choice” was:
“Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage…Thus, only about one-fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating.” (3)
Let us take a look then at U.S. carbon emissions if the U.S. had simply built and operated the power plants that were originally planned.
Yup, that’s right people: if the US had simply built and operated the nuclear power plants it had planned and licensed, it would today be producing not only less carbon emissions than it did in 1972, but would in fact be emitting almost half the carbon emissions it is now.
But let’s not forget that the very planning and licensing of nuclear power plants was drastically affected by the anti-scientific opposition. Looking again at the Energy Information Administrations figures, the average sustained growth for nuclear generating capacity was increasing by about 28.8 million Megawatt hours for a 20 year period from 1971 to 1989
Here we see a chart taken from the EIA data which shows the growth of real nuclear generating capacity in blue, and the projected growth in red, had the growth of the previous 20 year period been sustained (remember, this is still only about one-fourth of the intended capacity). In this graph, any year which produced less than the average of the previous 20 years was increased to that average of 28.8 million MW•h.
Now let’s take this projected growth and imagine the U.S. had actually built a nuclear infrastructure at this level. What would our carbon emissions look like?
Incredibly, U.S. carbon emissions today would be almost one-fourth of what they are currently. These numbers are estimated by taking the average yearly increase from 1971 to 1989 in nuclear generating capacity and projecting it to the current day, and since these numbers are only one-fourth of the original planned capacity, the result is multiplied by four. In case you think my numbers are fanciful, let’s see if there are any countries out there that did not get entirely persuaded by the anti-nuclear hysteria, and how that affected their carbon emissions.
After the energy crisis of the 70s, France, which was highly dependent on imported oil for electricity production, decided to divest themselves of Middle Eastern oil dependence. Lacking significant fossil fuel deposits, they opted for a nuclear infrastructure. Today nuclear power generates about 78% of France’s electrical power supply, and it is today the world’s largest exporter of electrical energy. France alone accounts for 47% of Western Europe’s nuclear generated electricity (3).
While we do not see the production in France dropping to half of its 1970s levels as we would have in the U.S. had it continued the transition to a nuclear infrastructure, nevertheless the 40% reductions are close and tremendously significant.
Consider from the presented information what the total potential nuclear generating capacity for the US would be if it sustained the high level growth and achieved its planned capacity.
By the year 2000, the US nuclear infrastructure could have been generating 100% of the domestic electrical supply. This is not an extraordinary claim considering, again, that France generates 78% of electrical energy from nuclear power.
Extrapolating this to the global climate, let’s take a look at the global carbon emissions levels and compare them against a world where the U.S. sustained the first two decades of its nuclear infrastructure growth perpetually and ultimately achieved the original planned capacity.
In green, we see the existing global carbon emissions levels and in purple is the U.S. carbon emission levels if it continued to adopt a nuclear infrastructure. In red then, as a result, we see the global carbon levels would have been almost 15% lower than current levels.
I invite readers to extrapolate then where the total global carbon emissions would be if all the post-industrialized nations had adopted nuclear power – as their natural technological progressions would have dictated – if it were not for the hijacking of this process by anti-scientific hyperbole by scaremongering environmental activists. Many organizations – such as Green Peace, still ardently oppose nuclear power. And these levels, mind you, are only about one-tenth of what the Atomic Energy Commission was projecting based on demand during the 60s, where at its height 25 new nuclear power plants were being built every year, and the AEC anticipated that by the year 2000 over 1,000 nuclear power plants would be in operation in the U.S.. Today only 104 operate.
Let us project an educated guess as to what the resulting reduction in carbon emissions would have been had the European Union (which in 2005 generated 15% of their electricity with nuclear) Japan (34.5% nuclear) and finally, going into the future China and India as they fully industrialize.
All of these facts lead to one conclusion: if manmade global warming is a real problem, then it was in fact caused by environmental alarmism. That is not to say that some environmentalism has not been good, but this atrocious abandonment of reason hangs as an ominous cloud over everything environmentalists advocate. Rational environmentalists, such as James Lovelock, who want a high standard of living for humans and a clean planet are quick to change their minds about nuclear power. Irrational environmentalists who actually do not desire wealthy, comfortable lives for all people on the planet–as well as a clean planet–actively oppose nuclear power. Nuclear power is a litmus test for integrity within the environmentalist community.
If you want to spur the economy, stop global warming, and undermine the oil-fueled, terrorist-breeding, murderous theocracies of the world, the solution is simple: build nuclear power plants.
– Sources –
Energy Information Administration – http://www.eia.doe.gov/
US Electrical Generation Sources by Type – http://www.clean-coal.info/drupal/node/164
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) – http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
CDIAC US Carbon Emissions – http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/emissions/usa.dat
CDIAC France Carbon Emissions – http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/fra.html
(1) – “18.6 billion MW•h (Megawatt hours) of electrical power have been generated by nuclear sources” – Energy Information Administration – http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec8_3.pdf
(2) – “every kW•h of electricity generated by coal produces 2.095 lbs of CO2” – US Department of Energy “Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Generation of Electrical Power in the United States” – http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/co2emiss00.pdf
(3) – Al Gore (2009). Our Choice, Bloomsbury, p. 157.
(4) – “France alone accounts for 47% of western Europe’s nuclear generated electricity” – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2008 World Nuclear Industry Status Report, http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/reports/2008-world-nuclear-industry-status-report/2008-world-nuclear-industry-status-re-1
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Francisco,
“…………said a soil sample from Iitate, a village of 7,000 people about 25 miles northwest of the plant, showed very high concentrations of cesium 137 — an isotope that produces harmful gamma rays, accumulates in the food chain and persists in the environment for hundreds of years.”
This is an issue. It has been known for about two weeks that there are elevated levels of Cs-137 offsite. The ability to use these areas in the future is a concern. The claim that it persists in the environment for “centuries” is a stretch. In 155 years (5 half lives) less than 1% will be left.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
April 2, 2011 at 2:08 pm
From Amino Acids in Meteorites on April 2, 2011 at 1:24 pm:
I really feel sorry for the Japanese in this problem.
Your concern really shines through in your sterling commentary,
It was a joke, sarcasm. Would you acknowledge that please?
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
April 2, 2011 at 3:18 pm
kadaka (KD Knoebel)
it was a joke. [snip]
It was right to snip.
The Weather Channel reported a second crack in a reactor has been found. I don’t have a link. It was on live tv. Though certainly the same must have been reported elsewhere.
I am left wondering if these ‘cracks’ have been known about before and are only now being released to the media. It’s an unbelievable grief for the Japanese. I’m not talking about Fukushima, but all the wiped out cities. It is a sad time there. Like I already said, the 1 billion a week being spent in Libya (for who really knows why) could have been spent on helping Japan. God may hold America to task for why it didn’t do more. One day America may need just as much, if not more, help after a disaster.
That is because the costs associated with “environmental alarmism” are largely hidden.
Due to persistent decades long opposition to long term spent fuel storage repositories or reprocessing in the country of origin, the spent fuel (all that stuff in the cooling pools that caused so much trouble) wouldn’t have even been there if effective strategies for reprocessing and or off site storage had been developed.
The economics of getting a plant off the drafting table and into production is dominated by all the jumping through the hoops necessary to satisfy a bewilderingly complex approval process and public opposition which is directly the result of decades of misinformation by the anti-nuclear crowd.
If those problems were not drowning the plant owners in paper work and uncertainty, and problems with insurance the economics would be much different.
We had the technology 20 years ago to design and approve standardized modular reactor designs that could have been put in service with much less hassle. We also had the technology to eliminate the “problem” of high level waste storage but those efforts have been dragged out and torpedoed by decades of stalling and obfuscation so that in the process of seeking a “perfect solution” no practical solution was ever achieved.
The public pressure for NIMBY (not in my back yard) is primarily driven by over hyping situations like TMI so that rational discussion and mitigation has been economically impossible, and building delays and all the razzle dazzle public relations necessary to get a plant built has effectively throttled the industry.
The U.S. Navy has shown nuclear power can be operated safely, and even though we have these off the shelf modular designs available, the current approval process forces designers to come up with unique plant designs for each location to satisfy the very complex approval process.
Historically if you look back at the safety record of the steam industry in the 1850-1880’s they had a terrible record and killed far more people due to boiler explosions than have been killed and injured by all commercial nuclear accidents combined, but they eventually learned how to build safe and reliable high pressure steam systems that today are so reliable we do not even think of them as being industrial risks.
The same will eventually happen with Nuclear power but it will take time to wear down all the bogus hype and get the general public to rationally address the risks and treat Nuclear power just like they do other industrial processes.
If history is good precedent I would wager that many of the Fukashima 50 will live to old age, and their “expectation” of death is probably more public relations than fact. Some of the responders at Chernyoble received stunningly high whole body doses and survived contrary to all the dire predictions. Best I can determine the Fukashima 50 are no where close to those levels of acute exposure. If the exposure they are getting was properly distributed over a pool of perhaps 250 workers there would be little long term risk at all, but by concentrating exposure in such a small group they are going directly opposite to accepted good practice in the field which is to keep exposure as low as reasonably achievable.
That is best done by distributing the exposure over a large pool of workers who receive trivial doses of whole body exposure rather than to intentionally limit the pool of workers and in effect maximizing there exposure by declaring them sacrificial lambs to public relations.
It is good PR but totally sucks as good radiation exposure management.
As mentioned above, it is likely driven by a cultural disposition to self sacrifice rather than good practice.
Larry
Acids, not only was your joke in poor taste, no one here has any idea what your point was or why you claimed that the shipment of the world’s biggest truck-mounted pump (equally equipped for pumping water or concrete) to Japan shows that “[t]here’s something going on at Fukushima that we are not being told about”.
Moreover, you have yet to answer kadaka’s post two days ago: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/30/anti-nuclear-power-hysteria-and-it%e2%80%99s-significant-contribution-to-global-warming/#comment-634167
hotrod ( Larry L ):
April 2, 2011 at 8:56 pm
“Best I can determine the Fukashima 50 are no where close to those levels of acute exposure. If the exposure they are getting was properly distributed over a pool of perhaps 250 workers there would be little long term risk at all, but by concentrating exposure in such a small group they are going directly opposite to accepted good practice in the field which is to keep exposure as low as reasonably achievable.”
================
First of all, the “Fukushima 50” is the name given to a group of some 370 workes, not 50.
“Best you can determine” is not exactly reassuring, because many of the workers themselves couldn’t determine anything, as they were, amazingly, working without dosimeters just a few days ago. It’s not clear whether they have been provided by now. That in itself is mind boggling. In any case, the air above the radioactive water that keeps coming out has been measured at 1000 mSv/h. How much is that? Let’s see.
There was a chart passed around by the providers of nuclear succor a few days ago, comparing different amounts of radiation in little colored boxes: http://xkcd.com/radiation/
Well, 1000 mSv/h measured above that water will give you (in just 1 hour of exposure) the following presents:
*nearly 17,000 times all the blue boxes in that chart combined
*13 times all the green boxes combined
*4 times the dose limit for emergency workers in lifesaving operator (250 mSv in the red chart)
* In 8 hours, it will give you the largest dose in the chart, called “fatal dose, even with treatment”) at bottom right.
*And in 16 hours it will give you the equivalent of the entire chart (blue, green and red).
I suppose it helps you keep your spirits up if you are not provided with a dosimeter.
The systematic trivialization, dishonest tergiversation, and concealment of serious health matters is a pervasive disease surrounding the nuclear industry. And stop comparing this with CO2 alarmism. Most people are perceptive enough to know CAGW is a canard, in spite of the massive propaganda. And most people are also perceptive enough to sense that the large army of nuclear apologists that rises up when some cat gets out of the bag, are, at best deluded, at worst very dishonest.
I wonder how many people are aware of the astonishing increase in childhood cancers over the last few decades?
You often need to dig into it and read between the lines and do your own calculations to get the figures. They are not gladly offered. Emphasis is never on the ominous cloud, but on its lining, if any (in this case, the fact that suvival rates have increased for those who get proper treatment)
From the National Cancer Institute we learn:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/childhood
“Over the past 20 years, there has been *some* increase in the incidence of children diagnosed with all forms of invasive cancer, from 11.5 cases per 100,000 children in 1975 to 14.8 per 100,000 children in 2004.”
Well, how much is “some increase”? It’s “only” a 28% increase since 1975.
“Incidence of childhood leukemias appeared to rise in the early 1980s, with rates increasing from 3.3 cases per 100,000 in 1975 to 4.6 cases per 100,000 in 1985.”
How much is that? That’s a 39% increase in 10 years.
“For childhood brain tumors, the overall incidence rose from 1975 through 2004, from 2.3 to 3.2 cases per 100,000”
How much is that? That’s 39% increase.
The BBC in 2001 tells us:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1715741.stm
“A team from the Department of Paediatric Oncology at Manchester University looked at the rates of children’s cancer from 1954 to 1998.”
“They found that some of the commonest children’s cancers, including brain tumours and acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, have been gradually increasing over the last 45 years.”
“The average annual increase is between 1% and 3%.”
So, at the lower end of the range, you have an increase of 45% over that time span. At the upper end, the increase is 135%.
But don’t worry becasue it’s “gradual”. If would have been worse if it had happened in only 1 year.
They also say:
“The current rate of brain cancer is 36% higher than it was in the 1950s, while the rate of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia has also gone up by more than a third.”
This article sums a study of childhood cancer trends in Europe:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/17687.php
“Research from 19 European countries in this week’s issue of THE LANCET (pp 2074, 2097) documents how childhood cancer, while still rare, has been slowly increasing over the past 3 decades.”
“The investigators obtained high-quality data from 63 European population based cancer registries in 19 European countries. Analysis of 113,000 cancers in children and over 18,000 cancers in adolescents during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s showed how the incidence rates of cancer increased by around 1% for children and 1.5% for adolescents per year.”
Again, that’s an increase of 30% for children and 45% for adolescents over 3 decades.
But if you skim through the articles, throwing in words like “slow increase” and emphasizing the improvement in survival rates, you just may get the impression there is nothing to worry about. What good is it that survival rates have increased if cancer rates are steadily on the rise? How is that supposed to be good news? Do you prefer a society heading toward a higher proportion of cancer-free children, or a society whose health is advertised as improving on the grounds that these astonishing increases in childhood cancer have brought about higher survival rates?
Truth is, a serious disease that keeps increasing steadily for several decades at between 1 and 3 percent per year, as these articles indicate, is a very ominous development.
Something is causing this. I am sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with environmental issues, and all those who are concerned about it are hysterical fearmongers with a liberal bent. That’s the knee-jerk assured reaction of robots around these parts.
Also – http://www.alfred-koerblein.de/chernobyl/downloads/infantmortality.pdf
for the effects of Chernobyl in Germany and Poland.
Like raising the levels of acceptable exposure far beyond accepted current norms for the Japanese workers and for foods in the EU, and now same planned for US, how long before what is now known as unacceptable high levels, accept to those denying any effects of note, will be globally considered normal? When we all get used to seeing deformed children being born in great numbers around our own neighbourhoods and cancer rates soaring even higher?
It’s not difficult to credit how successful the disinformation campaign given the funds and organisation, but I find it absolutely astonishing that when evidence of the manipulative techniques are given that some continue to argue that the disinformation is reality. Perhaps the fear of having to admit one is of the many conned is greater than the fear of the possible effects, to rather believe that there are neglible effects as per the disinformation? We are human, we are easy to con, but not all the time, because we have inbuilt co-operation blue-print, that’s how societies work on small scale and when not taken over by power hunger and the rest.
So, how long before the readers here from the US really have to consider whether the effects are real or imagined? The forecast from the Department of Atmospheric and Climate Research, The Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) has a projection to April 6th.
http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/04/02/fukushima-xe-133-radiation-forecast-apr-2-6-northwest-of-us-under-threat/
And like AGW, the US nuclear interests are busy removing stations monitoring the wrong sort of information.
“According to the Environment Ministry, the average contamination for boar shot in Bayerischer Wald, a forested region on the Bavarian border with the Czech Republic, was 7,000 becquerel per kilogram. Other regions in southern Germany aren’t much better.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,709345,00.html
But their numbers are increasing.
ECRR Chernobyl 20 Years On: Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident
Second Edition
(Note: the downloadable first edition is still available)
http://www.euradcom.org/publications/chernobylbook2009.htm
[…]
…The calculations made by the author of this review showed that the average age of 162 liquidators who died during last 10 years in the town of Tollyaty (Samarskaya province, Russia) was about 46.2 years old (Tymonin, 2005). The average lifespan for 169 liguidators from nuclear industry institutes who died between 1986 – 1990 was 45.5 years (Tukov et al., 2000). In the Kaluga province – National register data, – the average age of death for 84.7 % of liquidators was only 30 – 39 years old
(Lushnykov and Lantzov, 1999)…” – A.V. Yablokov
“The dose dependence of the radiation effect may be non-linear, non-monotonic and polymodal in character…Over certain dose ranges, low-level irradiation is more effective with regard to the results of its action on an organism or a population than acute high-level radiation…
…Radiation-induced changes in the population structure result in an unpredictable response of the population to various events. In the work by A.P. Akif’ev et al. [12], an apparently healthy population of the posterity of exposed Drosophila exhibited a so-called ‘populational breakdown’ in one of its generations and was ruined by a law other than that for other generations. In the work by I.I. Pelevina et al. [13], it was shown that 15 generations of cells irradiated with the doses 10 to 50 cGy “remember” the irradiation and respond to external stimuli differently than the control…
….The results of surveys and biological monitoring of children and adults of Chernobyl point unambiguously to a steady, rapid and dramatic (for an individual human life) deterioration of health of all victims of the radiation impact of the Chernobyl accident…”- E.B. Burlakova & A.G. Nazarov
“According to a wide range of scientific data reviewed, the following hypotheses can be proposed: 1) exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation is a risk factor for accelerated aging processes and neurodegeneration; 2) aging and neurodegeneration processes after exposure to ionizing radiation could be enhanced by the synergetic influence of heterogeneous pathogenetic factors, such as immunological, oxidative stress and molecular-genetic changes.”- K.N. Loganovsky
“The detected cytogenetic effects of chronic low-intensive irradiation in the germ and somatic cells of wild animals exceeded the expected levels deduced from extrapolation of the data from the high-dose range of acute or chronic irradiation. In wild murine rodents increased frequencies of cytogenetic injuries in somatic and germ cells, as well as embryonal lethality, were shown to remain over the life spans of no less than 22 generations (Goncharova & Ryabokon, 1998)…” – E. Yu. Krysanov
“In addition, a view of the radiobiological processes induced in plants by chronic irradiation should elucidate the main tendencies in the formation of late effects of irradiation. As this takes place we bear in mind that these late effects in plants could not be related to ‘radio-phobia’, as it is called, as there is a tendency to assign the cause of injuries observed after the Chernobyl catastrophe merely to a fear of irradiation. We have seen, since the accident, clear and diverse effects of irradiation in plants over time…
…It appears that there are two adaptive strategies to stress impacts in plants, namely; ontogenetic and population or phylogenetic adaptation. The first type of adaptive strategy is revealed by radioadaptation and resides in an augmentation of radioresistance after irradiation in low doses. The second type of adaptive strategy lies in an increase in frequency of genetic diversification, which enlarges the possibilities for active natural selection…”- D.M. Grodzinsky
“Using new infant leukemia data from the UK supplied by the Childhood Cancer Research Group, Oxford, it is possible to combine the populations of Germany, Greece and the UK and carry out a meta analysis of infant leukemia in those children who were in the womb at the time of the fallout. Using published exposure doses to the foetus the infant leukemia yield in Europe is more than 160 times higher than that predicted on the basis of the external irradiation yields found by the obstetric X-ray data studies. This means that the ICRP risk model is at minimum in error here by a factor of 160-fold. The dose response is biphasic…” – C. Busby
“Clearly, the true damage to health attributable to the Chernobyl disaster has been kept from the general public through poor and incomplete scientific investigation…”- R. Bertell
The European Committee on Radiation Risk
(Comite Europeen sur le Risque de l’Irradiation)
The European Committee on Radiation Risk was formed in 1997 following a resolution made at a conference in Brussels arranged by the Green Group in the European Parliament.
The ECRRs remit is:
To independently estimate, based on its own evaluation of all scientific sources, in as much detail as necessary and using the most appropriate scientific framework, all of the risks arising from exposure to radiation, taking a precautionary approach.
To develop the best scientific predictive model of detriment following exposure to radiation, presenting observations which appear to support or challenge this model, and highlighting areas of research which are needed to further complete the picture.
To develop an ethical analysis and philosophical framework to form the basis of its policy recommendations, related to the state of scientific knowledge, lived experience and the Precautionary Principle.
To present the risks and the detriment model, with the supporting analysis, in a manner to enable and assist transparent policy decisions to be made on radiation protection of the public and the wider environment.
The committee now has more than 50 experts from many countries collaborating on the issue of radiation risk and has set up a number of sub-committees and groups. The committee’s risk model was presented in 2003 in Brussels and is published as the ECRR2003 Recommendations: the Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Dose for Radiation Protection Purposes (ISBN 1897761 24 4). The report, now in its second printing, has been widely circulated and translated and published in French, Russian, Spanish and Japanese. The price of the English edition is £45 with a concession price of £15 for students/ NGOs. It is available by order from any bookseller or direct by emailing an order to adminsec@euradcom.org or from the publisher, Green Audit, at the address below.
From Amino Acids in Meteorites on April 2, 2011 at 8:42 pm:
“Sarcasm” like that gets people fired. You have to be a Farrakhan, Jackson, or at least a Biden to get a free pass on “humor” like that. Note I’m not much for Political Correctness, this was largely a situational event.
Oh, thank you for participating in this cooking lesson, “stewing in one’s own juices.” Hope you enjoyed it, son.
On the infiniteunknown.net page there’s an article on what measurements mean re health – http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/04/01/what-theyre-covering-up-at-fukushima-you-get-3500000-the-normal-dose-you-call-that-safe-and-what-media-have-reported-this-none/
From an interview with Hirose Takashi, who’s written extensively on the nuclear industry, on the “inverse ratio of the square of the distance” –
“What is dangerous is when that material enters your body and irradiates it from inside. These industry-mouthpiece scholars come on TV and what do 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 millmeters, 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.”
I’ve come across this ‘one particle sticking inside is enough’ in descriptions of the Gulf war veterans and their ongoing problems. So, how do we get rid of it if it ‘sticks inside’?
From Francisco on April 3, 2011 at 4:23 am:
Not that one could tell from the TV news reports. “The Fukushima 50” sounds very noble, a great story of the ultimate personal sacrifice, very newsworthy.
To put some some numbers on it and clear up a misconception you inadvertently introduced: http://www.dailyindia.com/show/432769.php
As mentioned in the WSJ and in this worker’s account, one person had a dosimeter while the others stayed close. Not an ideal situation, even though it is a Hollywood staple. As it is, there are no reports of nobody in a group having a dosimeter.
From Myrrh on April 3, 2011 at 11:30 am:
Who promptly demonstrates he’s an asinine alarmist who doesn’t understand the science nor the math. “Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.” Puh-lease!
The basic math is the area of a sphere, 4 times pi times (radius squared), using the simplification of a point source of radiation. For the same amount of surface area, with a given constant rate of irradiation, 10 times the radius yields 1/100th the amount of irradiation. That’s the “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.”
But when the radiation source is inside of you, you are completely surrounding it. 100% of the radiation emitted will hit the inside. Distance does not matter, “increased by a factor of a trillion” is raving nonsense. This is what makes even lowly emitters of alpha particles like Polonium-210 so dangerous when ingested, as alpha particles are easily stopped by the skin, or even a few centimeters of air.
kadaka,
It may be that only one in a group had an alarming and indicating dosimeter. If they use TLDs (or a film badge) for their official records then all workers likely had a TLD just not a dosimeter you can read in real time. Here in the USA everyone has a TLD that is issued to them and read periodically, typically quarterly. However, when you are in a high radiation area you are also required to have a dosimeter that can be read in real time so you can tell what your dose received on that job is and what the local dose rates are.
There is a good chance that everyone’s dose is recorded but they did not each have a dosimeter with them that they could read in real time as they were working in the high radiation area.
Myrrh says:
April 3, 2011 at 11:30 am
So, how do we get rid of it if it ‘sticks inside’?
Most radiological particles as well as vitamins and minerals you ingest have a biological half life. I.E. They leave the body at some point.
Here is the ‘biological half life for cesium – 110 days.
http://www.evs.anl.gov/pub/doc/Cesium.pdf
Biological half life of strontium 90 – 30 years.
http://www.stoller-eser.com/FactSheet/Strontium.pdf
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
April 3, 2011 at 2:37 pm
“Who promptly demonstrates he’s an asinine alarmist who doesn’t understand the science nor the math. “Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.” Puh-lease!”
“The basic math is the area of a sphere, 4 times pi times (radius squared), using the simplification of a point source of radiation. For the same amount of surface area, with a given constant rate of irradiation, 10 times the radius yields 1/100th the amount of irradiation. That’s the “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.”
“But when the radiation source is inside of you, you are completely surrounding it. 100% of the radiation emitted will hit the inside. Distance does not matter, “increased by a factor of a trillion” is raving nonsense. This is what makes even lowly emitters of alpha particles like Polonium-210 so dangerous when ingested, as alpha particles are easily stopped by the skin, or even a few centimeters of air.”
===============================
Your message does not have exaclly the claryfying power one would like. I’m not even sure what you are trying to say. I’ll tell you how I see it, and where the “trillion” comes from.
Most of those little missiles sent by a point source of radiation emitting in all directions one meter away from you will miss your body. None will if it’s inside, and they will all concentrate on the same area where the radiation source is lodged.
So far so good. We agree on that.
Let’s assume for a moment, for the sake of argument and simplification, that ALL the particles emitted by a point source from one meter away hit your body, evenly distributed on its surface (as if your body were stretched out and wrapped around the surface of a sphere whose center is the radiation point one meter away — in other words, you are going out of your way, so to speak, not to miss anything the radiation source throws away).
Now let’s move the source inside of you for real. Now it is one micron away from surrounding tissue. So you’ve decreased the radius by one million. So the surface of that sphere is now one millionth square (1/10^12) smaller than the surface of the big sphere. So the tissue surrounding the radiation source is now getting one 10^12 times more hits per unit of surface.
Now, 10^12 is called one trillion in some places (the US for example) and one billion in others. So it’s either one trillion or one billion, depending on where you are. But it’s the same number. Other than that, I have no clue what you are talking about.
kadaka (KD Knoebel)
At this point I am going to ask for an apology.
kadaka (KD Knoebel)
You are making inflammatory statements.
kadaka (KD Knoebel)
It’s only you that sees it this way. The only thing I didn’t do, and should have done, is label it ‘sarcasm’ so there could have been no way for anyone to turn it into a problem. It was obviously a joke. But, for some reason, you saw it in another way.
But since I have made it clear it was sarcasm and you have blown up your accusation into something larger, and strange, I ask for an apology.
Re: Amino Acids in Meteorites on
April 3, 2011 at 8:10 pm
and
April 3, 2011 at 8:11 pm
and
April 3, 2011 at 8:20 pm
and likely earlier comments…
What can you rightfully take,
which can be expensive to have,
and foolish to defend?
Hint: It’s in the position of the Summer, thus goes after the Spring.
All the news agencies are reporting Japan has announced it will dump 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the sea, to make room in its storage tanks for the “highly radioactive” water that also keeps leaking out. Information seems deliberately vague and opaque. No information available in these reports on the levels of radiation of the water to be dumped, except that it is 100 times the “legal” limit according to the NYT, whatever that means. No new information either on the current level of radiation of the “highly radioactive” water coming out, which a few days ago was measured at 1000 mSv/hour. No updated information on radiation levels at different distances from the plant. But they have repeatedly acknowledged in the last couple of days that this situation is likely to continue “for months”.
However long it takes, we may expect the choir of cheering crickets to continue to sing the praises of this extraordinarily cheap, safe and clean industry.
kadaka (KD Knoebel)
April 3, 2011 at 2:37 pm
=============
Still wondering what the point of your rant was exactly. The “factor of a trillion” given by Hirose Takashi is absolutely right if you assume all the radiation from a point source 1 meter away gets to your body. If now you put it inside of you, 1 micron away from surrounding tissue, the irradiation to that tissue is 1 trillion (10^12) times bigger, because the surface of a 1 micron (radius) sphere is 1 trillion times smaller than the surface of a 1 meter sphere.
Now, if you compensate for the fact that the only a fraction of the radiation emitted from a point source 1 meter away from you will go towards you, then the difference between that and putting the source inside of you will not be 1 trillion. It will be a lot more. If you were only getting, say, 1/15 of the radition emitted by the point source when it was 1 meter away, then when the point source is inside of you the radiation to the surrounding tissue would be 15 trillion times larger.
So it’s hard to see what you are complaining about. Maybe you can explain it.
kadaka (KD Knoebel)
Apparently you are living in your own world, and I don’t care. Why did I even pay attention to you. Have a nice life.
Fukushima has been such a wonderful victory for nuclear power.
SARCASM