Fukushima - are we all going to die?

[ApatheticNoMore]

Well is Fukushima going to kill us all in a couple months or what?

Have people been following it? Are you scared @#$#less at this point? Really are we approaching a planet or at least half the planet extinction level event with Fukushima? It certainly makes thinking about retirement rather a moot point if that happened, right? :~) But really, do you find the possible massive nuclear irradiation of much of the planet (at least the northern hemisphere) threatening?

[danna]

No body, including the news barely touches this subject.
Clearly to scary! Most people seem to be too busy line up to buy the latest new phone
to pay much attention to what is happening in the world.
If as many people lined up to vote the world would be a better place!
My rant for the day!!!

[Gregg]

There are a few reasons to not cash in the 401k just yet. So far the contamination is local. Sucks if you happen to be a sponge living in Sendai harbour, but its not having much effect beyond that. The soil around the plant is mostly clay which does a great job of naturally sequestering contaminates. The freeze wall technology they are now employing for additional containment is proven, works exceptionally well and in the worst case event of another massive earthquake it can be used to contain any additional leaks. In the big picture, if all containment is lost and every drop of contaminated water flowed straight into the sea the effect would be minimal. The Pacific is a pretty big ocean and dumping a (relatively) small amount of anything into it won't have much effect overall because of the rate of dispersion. Not defending any kind of dumping mind you, just stating the obvious. On top of that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has become quite involved and has ordered TEPCO to decommission the two operating reactors that remain on site so they can concentrate on the clean-up.

IMO, the interesting discussion to come out of this is what to do about nuke plants in seismically active areas. My overly simplified thought on the matter is to build them in stable areas and lay new transmission lines to the active areas. But that's just me.

[Yossarian]

You are subjected to radiation all the time. Here's a little perspective for you:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/10/the-fukushima-radiation-leak-is-equal-to-76-million-bananas/


We also have that claim of 20 trillion becquerels of radiation having been dumped into the Pacific Ocean in the past couple of years. 20 trillion divided by two years by 365 days by 24 hours gives us an hourly rate of 1,141,552,511 becquerels per hour. Divide that by our 15 Bq per banana and we can see that the radiation spillage from Fukushima is running at 76 million bananas per hour.

Which is, as I say above, a lot of bananas. But it’s not actually that many bananas. World production of them is some 145 million tonnes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana) a year. There’s a thousand kilos in a tonne, say a banana is 100 grammes (sounds about right, four bananas to the pound, ten to the kilo) or 1.45 trillion bananas a year eaten around the world. Divide again by 365 and 24 to get the hourly consumption rate and we get 165 million bananas consumed per hour.

We can do this slightly differently and say that the 1.45 trillion bananas consumed each year have those 15 Bq giving us around 22 trillion Bq each year. The Fukushima leak is 20 trillion Bq over two years: thus our two calculations agree. The current leak is just under half that exposure that we all get from the global consumption of bananas.

Except even that’s overstating it. For the banana consumption does indeed get into our bodies: the Fukushima leak is getting into the Pacific Ocean where it’s obviously far less dangerous. And don’t forget that all that radiation in the bananas ends up in the oceans as well, given that we do in fact urinate it out and no, it’s not something that the sewage treatment plants particularly keep out of the rivers.

[rosarugosa]

I can state with complete confidence that we are indeed all going to die.

[Rogar]

I've tried to keep up with it some, and what Greg said is what I think the common sense reliable sources are saying and the most likely outcome or outcomes. This is obviously a very bad thing, but I think most of the damage and concerns are going to be local.

There are plenty of doomsday articles that are more fringe and some of them seem to be written or researched by educated people. But the bottom line is that we are not really sure exactly what will happen, and to complicate matters TOPCO and the Japanese Government have the idea of saving face build into their culture, so have not been totally honest about what is really going on.

[bae]

ANM - what data is causing you to worry that there is an extinction-level event brewing from this?

[flowerseverywhere]

Just as an FYI there is an alanta based company called Inpo. They evaluate Nuclear power plant safety and if you google Fukushima and INPO you can find all kinds of documents related to what happened there and what evaluations are going on here in the US to see if any of the catastrophic events could be duplicated. Several US plants are on the chopping block, including Vermont Yankee. Also, here is a very interesting wiki article on the health effects of Fukushima http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_d isaster It is a long article but has many details on what has happened healthwise and why.

[ApatheticNoMore]

ANM - what data is causing you to worry that there is an extinction-level event brewing from this?

The concern now seems to be the removal of spent fuel rods at Reactor Number 4 that will start in November of this year. The amount of radiation quoted that could be released is 14,000 times the bomb at Hiroshima (nuclear bombs are more powerful now too but anyway). I have no idea how many becquerels is. Hey if someone knows, they can chime in. But apparently bomb radiation is not so easily compared to nuclear power plant radiation anyway. Though I would like to know how this potential release from Fukushima compares to Chernobyl.
Chernobyl not easily compared to Hiroshima:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_compared_to_other_radioactivity_releases

Anyway back to Fukushima:

Without downplaying the seriousness of the contaminated water, and the other setbacks at Daiichi, it is important to recognise that things could very easily, and very quickly, get much worse.

Understandably, most commentary on Daiichi focuses on the multiple leaks of water laced with high- and low-level radiation, but the oncoming challenges are far more serious. As Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Advisor at the US Department of Energy and one of the world’s top spent fuel pools experts, has warned, sites such as Fukushima Daiichi “have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.”49 They need to be handled by the most competent and best-equipped expertise available.

But sit down and take a deep breath, because from November, TEPCO plans to begin the delicate operation of removing spent fuel from Reactor No. 4 fuel pool. There was no fuel within this reactor per se, so the ambient level of radiation is lower than the neighbouring three reactors. So in that respect, this is the easiest of the cluster. Even so, there are 1,533 used fuel rod assemblies tightly packed together in the spent-fuel pool above the reactor.50 They weigh a total of 400 tons, and contain radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb.51 The spent-fuel pool stands 18 metres above ground, was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, and is in a deteriorating condition. It remains vulnerable to any further shocks, and is also at risk from ground liquefaction. One might add there is a significant terrorist threat, considering the damage that could be done with a light plane or some similar attack. Removing the spent fuel from No 4 and the other pools, bundles that among other fission products contain deadly plutonium,52 is clearly an urgent task but must be done properly.

Even under ordinary circumstances spent-fuel removal is a difficult task, normally requiring the aid of computers. But due to the damage, removal of the total 6840 spent fuel bundles from Daiichi No. 4’s spent fuel pool, the five other reactors’ pools,53 and the entire unit’s common pool will have to be done manually. This work will also be undertaken under arduous conditions, increasing the risk of yet another mishap. And if something does go wrong, the consequences could be far more severe than any nuclear accident the world has ever seen. If a fuel rod is dropped, breaks or becomes entangled while being removed, possible worst case scenarios include a big explosion, a meltdown in the pool, or a large fire. Any of these situations could lead to massive releases of deadly radionuclides into the atmosphere, putting much of Japan, including the metropolises of Tokyo and Yokohama, and even neighbouring countries at serious risk.
http://japanfocus.org/-Christopher-Hobson/3991

I have heard that the risk may be more than just Japan as well, as in much of the world. Yes I am on the West coast, it doesn't help any :) But it doesn't mean even the East coast would emerge well if things went wrong either.

[ToomuchStuff]

I can state with complete confidence that we are indeed all going to die.


THANK YOU!

Someone had to state the obvious, for the "it won't happen to me" crowd.:doh:

[ApatheticNoMore]

Ok that's ok as an aside point or humor (which was likely rosa rugosas point), but really to focus on the wording of the thread title and not the actual content posted, to get lost in a single sentence and to not be able read the whole for comprehension and the point being made. Maybe it's too mach twittering these days or something .... Maybe it's the radiation :laff: Even I noticed that someone could make a quip on the title after I posed it, so maybe the thread title was unwise, but whatever.

Now if people wanted to argue the actual risk, that's what I'm welcoming here and thanks to those who have engaged on such. Argue with me the risk those who raise the alarm on this raise is overblown. Or confirm it's scary as heck, and we could all get irradiated come November and see a massive carnage around us of cancer deaths even in the young either immediately or in a few years (that was the outcome of Hiroshima, although it was mostly localized), and that Fukushima is major threat that if things go wrong, could change the entire course of human history (perhaps by wiping out much of the Northern hemisphere as far as livability - so we can't even live in it anymore for the most part). Oh and "I don't know" is also a good answer. "I don't know" is usually alright with me, as the level of complexity of what we have to evaluate sometimes and all we don't know is often huge.

Because yes one could worry about every single possible threat out there, what if I get hit by lightening, what if, what? It might kill me! But we kind of already know both the odds and the effect of being hit by lightening and they aren't changing much. But the whole point of raising the topic was because the risk may be much more probable and much more deadly to many many more people than that and we DON'T know as well how to contextualize it.

If you actually fully visualize dying in a car crash every time you step in your car, if you actually spend every day on the verge of your mortality thinking: today I may die and it's not just an *intellectual* knowledge but it's completely emotionally real to you, ok you've reached an interesting state, either you're in the hospice passing your last hours right now (then why are you wasting them here and in a politics thread? :)), or you've reached a highly evolved psychology long before your death date that few inhabit (enlightenment?), or else it's PTSD. I'm really not sure which. But most people live with a safety that is mostly false, thinking today will be much like yesterday, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. There's a book called "The Denial of Death" that pretty much sums it up (he actually doesn't think people can deal with death directly without a spiritual and uncertain leap of faith - otherwise it's all denial or immortality projects).

But if someone wants to start a meditation on death as such, it should probably be a separate thread. Now Fukushima: how dangerous is it? I mean if the entire northern hemisphere even becomes "only" as poisoned with radiation as say parts of Iraq are with DU, that would be a BIG DEAL right? Major news right?

[bae]

ANM - I believe the "news" article you offered up as your data was typical of the media - lacking context and breathlessly misinforming readers to rile them up, sell newspapers/web hits, or whatnot.

I used to work in the field of radiation physics. I pull regular soil and water samples here for testing at a 3rd party lab, as is required for one of my enterprises. I maintain my own calibrated test equipment here at home as well. I am not worried about the Fukushima event, here on the Pacific island I live on, which is right in the path of some of the problem.

[sweetana3]

I think the issue for me is "is there anything that I can do about it right now with my level of knowledge"? Answer: No.

I am not going to live my life worrying about this since I believe the Japanese will do whatever they can (and I don't think we would do it any better) to try and fix it as best they can.

[rosarugosa]

Hey ANM: I apologize if I gave offense. It's true that I couldn't resist the quip at the thread title, but I would also echo what Sweetana3 says above. I tend not to worry much about the things I can't do anything about. I always sweat the small stuff!

[Tammy]

From Grist
http://grist.org/news/typhoon-and-earthquake-strike-fukushima/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=tweet&utm_campaign=socialflow

[ToomuchStuff]

So you really want a discussion, but the article in no longer linked?

On another board I visit, is a member who moved back to the states, this year, after living in Japan, for decades. His take was when it happened, due to Japanese culture, they couldn't publically say how bad it was as it isn't polite (the best way I can remember his description). Contrast that to our news, for instance "people are dying every day from doing bath salts, tune in on Thursday to see how you can stop this" (its Monday, so the new is going to let people die for a couple more days, uninformed). Ours, scare tactics.
So what can you do about it? Do you have an old bomb shelter, your going to live in?

To the death thing, yes, that is best in another thread. Suffice to say, once accepted, and not feared, you live differently.

[ApatheticNoMore]

So you really want a discussion, but the article in no longer linked?

all the links posted work, though I initially assumed most had probably heard lots of stuff about Fukushima and could just jump right in


On another board I visit[qo, is a member who moved back to the states, this year, after living in Japan, for decades. His take was when it happened, due to Japanese culture, they couldn't publically say how bad it was as it isn't polite (the best way I can remember his description). Contrast that to our news, for instance "people are dying every day from doing bath salts, tune in on Thursday to see how you can stop this" (its Monday, so the new is going to let people die for a couple more days, uninformed). Ours, scare tactics.

that may very well be about Japanese culture. I'm pretty skeptical that our culture (and politics, and economics, etc.) would be setup to handle a crisis like that well either (though the particular management of any given nuclear plant may not be as incompetent as Tepco's). I find the degree to which our culture probably isn't kinda troubling.


So what can you do about it? Do you have an old bomb shelter, your going to live in?

What we (the world community) should do? Take the handling of Fukushima off Tepco who has been nothing but incompetent. What I could do? Leave the west coast at least, leave the country, take off for awhile and go live in south america or something where the radiation exposure is likely to be less. A risky move in terms of employment but when you realize you start putting your job (that I don't even like) above survival itself, that's interesting isn't it? It could be said to be conventional but it can't be said to be rational now can it? (that is in the event of a real threat).


To the death thing, yes, that is best in another thread. Suffice to say, once accepted, and not feared, you live differently.

Not sure that's possible. Maybe I accept the psychologists critique, that everyone is plenty prone to self-delusion at all the times, one probably scarcely knows oneself even if one tries, if I think I'm better at something psychologically than the mass of humanity, there's a good chance I'm not (better at a particular skill now that I may very well be! But I'm talking purely psychology). So one may say they have no fear of death and perhaps feel differently when faced directly with it (a least if it comes "prematurely", the really old do seem to in many cases to some degree let go of life). But I just didn't want the thread to turn into a discussion of my psychology and what my fears and weakness may be, because that form of psychological warfare has been used before to try to win political threads (though not by you, but certain trollish types) and it's really not that interesting compared to actual topic discussion.

[Dhiana]

Many, many Japanese here no longer believe anything the gov't and TEPCO have to say about Fukushima Daiichi.
Every single nuclear power plant in this country is shut down because the Japanese people have requested it.

As far as cleaning up the mess at Fukushima there really aren't that many people in the world qualified to do it. Sure the gov't can take that responsibility away from TEPCO but who will they hire to do the clean up?

Living here in Tokyo I have a lot more to worry about, not just a release of more radiation come November but the spread of it into my daily life...where are my fruits & vegets grown that I buy at the grocers, where is the seafood from? Do I really think they are properly labeled if they are from Fukushima? No, and neither do most Japanese.

Ultimately there really isn't anything I can do about this danger in my life. It is a known, whereas I think of all the unknowns such as what was happening to the people in the Erin Brokovich movie and where is there a safe place on this planet? No where really.

These kinds of things are reminders to me to live my life to the fullest possible everyday. Living my life as big and as positive as possible I don't have time to worry about things I cannot change.

Fukushima Daiichi, so very appropriately named considering Dai means big or large, and ichi means one. Yes, Fukushima does have a Big One on their hands, one big mess :(

[Blackdog Lin]

Living here in Tokyo I have a lot more to worry about, not just a release of more radiation come November but the spread of it into my daily life...where are my fruits & vegets grown that I buy at the grocers, where is the seafood from? Do I really think they are properly labeled if they are from Fukushima? No, and neither do most Japanese.

Ultimately there really isn't anything I can do about this danger in my life. It is a known, whereas I think of all the unknowns such as what was happening to the people in the Erin Brokovich movie and where is there a safe place on this planet? No where really.

Dhiana - thanks for articulating what I've come to think. There is no safe practice, no safe place. We can only do what we can do, with what we have and where we are. I no longer microwave any plastics or use dryer sheets and I stay committed to energy-saving.....but I really don't know what multi-national company might be doing to my water supply or the air quality around me or the flour/sugar/canola oil I buy at the store every week.

[Bartleby]

Fukushima Daiichi, so very appropriately named considering Dai means big or large,

Actually it's a different kanji. Look it up.

[Dhiana]

Actually it's a different kanji. Look it up.

That's what makes it even more interesting...it's like a hidden meaning, foreshadowing, even. Like the real meaning is covered by using the different kanji.

[redfox]

I can state with complete confidence that we are indeed all going to die.

I was thinking the very same.

[bae]

My wife just got back from the doctor. I may need to call the HAZMAT guys!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdfsWZngeQo

[pattirose]

Dhiana - thanks for articulating what I've come to think. There is no safe practice, no safe place. We can only do what we can do, with what we have and where we are. I no longer microwave any plastics or use dryer sheets and I stay committed to energy-saving.....but I really don't know what multi-national company might be doing to my water supply or the air quality around me or the flour/sugar/canola oil I buy at the store every week.



I gave away my microwave and plastic containers/bags/bottles, can I not safely use dryer sheets now?