Fukushima Radioactive Fallout Nears Chernobyl Levels 537
0WaitState writes "The cumulative releases from Fukushima of iodine-131 and cesium-137 have reached 73% and 60% respectively of the amounts released from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. These numbers were reached independently from a monitoring station in Sacramento, CA, and Takasaki, Japan. The iodine and cesium releases are due to the cooking off of the more volatile elements in damaged fuel rods."
Sensational! (Score:2, Insightful)
More sensationalist bullshit. Get this off slashdot, please.
I don't doubt the claim, I do doubt the presentation. Have some respect.
really guys? (Score:3, Insightful)
[I don't think I need to explain why "nearing chernobyl levels" is a ridiculous description...]
Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
That's a really important difference. It means the total release of radioactive material is far smaller. And the iodine, at least, is a lot less scary than the sort of stuff you get from fuel particles -- it has a half-life of only 8 days, so there's no real long-term environmental threat from that. (The cesium is rather worse -- half life of ~30 years.)
Re:Banana? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the "something" that just doesn't work is Slashdot fact-checking.
Re:Total Meltdown (Score:0, Insightful)
Of course not. More than a week ago Slashbots assured us that the situation at Fukushima Daiichi is completely under control.
These iodine-131 and cesium-137 release numbers are totally made up to provoke mass hysteria, as is in fact any coverage aboute situation at all.
Re:Total Meltdown (Score:4, Insightful)
So does this mean the reactor has officially "melted down"?
No, but the press has.
This is only referring to the cesium and iodine. I find even those figures suspect considering that Chernobyl literally ejected it's core directly into the air. Especially given the rather unalarming radiation measurements all around the area.
Fukushima (Score:3, Insightful)
There are immediately several posts expressing scepticism about this story. You people need to set that instinct aside for a moment. I am not [slashdot.org] an anti-nuke hysteric. Allow me the benefit of the doubt.
Recent reports from Japan are trending towards large amounts of contamination. Levels of Caesium and Iodine in the sea are very high. Soil samples are turning up large amounts of contamination. Tokyo tap water (200 km away) is contaminated. Vegetables in Hong Kong are accumulating Caesium that exceed limits. I have been monitoring Kyodo and NHK news and the degree of contamination being reported is disturbing.
Today's events include severe radiation burns on two workers, acknowledgement of containment failure in No.3 (MOX reactor,) an increase of the evacuation radius from 20 to 30 km and an order to greatly increase radiation monitoring at the site. Unexplained bursts of various gases have been forcing worker evacuations throughout the week. Fukushima didn't end when the news cycle cut over to Libya.
Fukushima has been releasing vapour directly into the atmosphere from reactor pressure vessels in which fuel damage has occurred. There is no precedent for that procedure in the history of nuclear technology, there has been no opportunity to directly measure the contamination of these releases, so there is no credible information on the actual amount of contamination being released from these vessels. There is no credible information on the amount of spent fuel that was lofted by the spent fuel pool fires. There is no accounting of the amount of contamination flowing off the site due to the use of water cannons.
DO NOT discount reports of contamination. DO NOT dismiss out of hand comparisons of Fukushima with Chernobyl.
I can't find a way to sugar coat that. Sorry.
Re:Sensational! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Fukushima (Score:5, Insightful)
DO dismiss out of hand comparisons of Fukushima with Chernobyl. Because they're completely different events, at differently designed nuclear power plants, with a completely different level of response from the local authorities. Even in the absolute worst case scenario, Fukushima will never be anywhere near as bad as Chernobyl was in terms of deaths, long term damage to the environment or cost & duration of cleanup.
Re:Sensational! (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
The amounts being released, he says, are "entirely consistent" with the relatively low amounts of caesium and iodine being measured in soil, plants and water in Japan, because so much has blown out to sea. The amounts crossing the Pacific to places like Sacramento are vanishingly small – they were detected there because the CTBT network is designed to sniff out the tiniest traces.
"Relatively low amounts" in Japan. "Vanishingly small" amounts elsewhere. Yeah, they're really sensationally hyping this one up. /sarcasm
I don't doubt the claim, I do doubt the presentation. Have some respect.
So you think the claim is true, but it should not have been presented? Reporting simple facts now is sensationalism? They should have had enough respect to simply not report it? (No doubt you'll claim they could have been presented in a less sensational manner, which is utterly ridiculous considering, but whatever. Clearly any reporting of these facts at all would be considered sensationalist by you.)
Re:Sensational! (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah they conveniently forget that this was never the problem at Chernobyl. Both Iodine and Cesium are only dangerous if you ingest significant quantities of them. Additionally they have halflives measured in hours ... Meaning these clouds are completely harmless after half a day passes.
The problem at Chernobyl was release of Uranium and Plutonium [oecd-nea.org] in clouds, which then spread around the site, and irradiated everything. They will keep irradiating everything for eons. Soviets managed to vaporize about 3.5% of the reactor fuel (and Uranium does NOT vaporize easily, we're talking thousands of degrees). And made it so freaking hot it could stay afloat for minutes.
Does it really need to be said that the Japanese lost control of exactly 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000% of their nuclear fuel. Wanna bet the author of this story is a "green scientist" ?
The thing is, you need to put things in perspective. Even with the radioactive clouds released, background radiation levels at Fukushima, just outside the reactor building are lower than the natural level of radiation in Ramsar, in Iran (which has a particularly high natural level, it has nothing to do with whatever is currently happening there, it's probably been that way for longer than humans exist). Spending a year close to Fukushima itself will have ZERO observable health effects.
Get some perspective [xkcd.com] (see left upper corner for the increase in background radiation)
I guess we're seeing populist politicians implement their usual strategy : lie. Sorry, ... "Fake but accurate" is the term, right ?
Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
From what I've seen, Chernobyl was in an area with a lower population density. I mean sure, the Soviets had a different type of reactor, worse response, etc. But Japan's situation could still be pretty bad in the long run, if things don't go as planned.
Sure, the media is being panic-y. And sure, more people died in the tsunami than would die in the worst case of a reactor meltdown. But sometimes there ARE reasons to be scared that are perfectly valid, and those shouldn't be discounted just because the press does well when they incite panic.
Re:Fukushima (Score:5, Insightful)
DO NOT discount reports of contamination. DO NOT dismiss out of hand comparisons of Fukushima with Chernobyl.
I can't find a way to sugar coat that. Sorry.
The scary contamination in Tokyo is between 0.3% and 1.5% of the radioactive exposure you get from smoking one cigarette. Scary, isn't it?
Re:Sensational! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Chernobyl: wild animals and rapid evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Could you describe the difference between evolution caused by increased radiation and evolution caused by what ever else? Evolution is just changes and nothing more. Stuff happens and sometimes it turns out to be something that changes things.
No, evolution is not just changes. Evolution is the effect of long term adaptation of a population to the environment through the combined effects of mutation, natural selection and reproduction. Mere mutation alone doesn't give you evolution.
The speed of evolution is not directly proportional to the mutation rate. If the mutation rate is too high, beneficial mutations are quickly swamped in harmful mutations, and unable to contribute to an increased chance of reproduction. What does speed up evolution is a change in environment. I bet Chernobyl will result in organisms in the area being more resistant to radiation and radioactive pollution.
Re:Sensational! (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is the title: "Fukushima radioactive fallout nears Chernobyl levels"
The headline is actually worse than sensationalist: It's an outright lie. Fallout of Cs-137 and I-131 are at near Chernobyl levels, but the fallout, as a whole, is far far less than Chernobyl.
Re:Sensational! (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually a lot of the death and illness caused by Chernobyl was young children developing thyroid cancer because they absorbed radioactive iodine into their thyroid from drinking contaminated milk from the (wide) surrounding area affected by IODINE fallout from the accident.
So your initial sentence is pretty much how should I say, wrong.
Re:Sensational! (Score:4, Insightful)
And some air masks too. Who wants some?
There was also a hysteria for the mad cow disease, but my wife did not buy anything, we merely rode the car through pools of soapy water back then (near farms)
The problem when the media says apocalypse is coming once a year, and we're still there the next year is that we pay less attention the next time.
Braindamage? (Score:3, Insightful)
This article is full of errors major errors, including the title/conclusion.
They're typically off by about a factor 10; they seem to have ignored the exponent when calculating the percentages they use to conclude Fukushima is nearing Tsjernobyl levels. Where they state that Tsjernobyl put out 70% more caesium-137 than Fukushima, it's actually 1700%. Where they state that Tsjernobyl put out 50% more Iodine-131 it's actually 1400%. These numbers are based on the readings provided by the article.
Apart from that the comparison simply makes no sense for a 1000 other reasons. Remote detectors for airborne radioactive particles cannot reliably provide an indication of what the reactor put out, especially given the fact that Tsjernobyl was a fire releasing all kinds of aerosols while Fukushima releases mostly gasses that probably get carried much futher by the wind and do not pollute the grounds in the perimeter of the reactor as much as Tsjernobyl.
Furthermore, Tsjernobyl started out with explosion that probably released a huge quantity of especially iodine in one big blast, not leaving quite that much for the "aftermath" (which this article makes a comparison with). Also, what they fail to mention is the deadly mix of compounds other than iodine and caesium released by Tsjernobyl.
This is nothing like Tsjernobyl and it will not become anything like it either. Stop the FUD please.
Re:Sensational! (Score:5, Insightful)
Both Iodine and Cesium are only dangerous if you ingest significant quantities of them. Additionally they have halflives measured in hours
No.
I-131 8 days.
Cs-137 30.2 years.
The problem at Chernobyl was release of Uranium and Plutonium in clouds, which then spread around the site, and irradiated everything.
In the long term the problem was the Cs-137 [unscear.org].
Does it really need to be said that the Japanese lost control of exactly 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000% of their nuclear fuel.
If exposure of the rods and burning off of radioactive isotopes is zero loss of control, then stabbing someone is zero loss of blood unless they die.
Wanna bet the author of this story is a "green scientist" ?
The only thing I'd bet is that you're thoroughly annoyed that an out-of-date power plant has demonstrated that humans need to try much harder when deploying nuclear power. You're deliberately polarising it as greens vs nuclear advocates when it's really the desire for safe nuclear power vs the desire for maximising profit at inappropriate risk.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Since it appears none of the reactors have actually melted down or suffered a substantial failure in containment in the immediate vicinity of the rods themselves, it's quite likely that they'll be able to take them through a more or less normal shutdown and decommissioning once proper cooling is restored ...
Actually, the high I-131 and Cs-137 levels pretty well indicate that at least a partial meltdown has occurred. We'll only know for sure once we're able to crack them open and see what's inside, but my money's on it looking a lot like the TMI leftovers. With a mess of corium casserole inside, they're not going to just pop the lid off and pull the fuel bundles like any other shutdown. It'll be years before they peek inside, and years more before they've finished scraping the slag out. That's much better than Chernobyl where angry flaming core got spooed everywhere, but it's hardly a "normal" decommissioning.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "high" doses you mean "doses that may, perhaps, increase your lifetime risk of getting cancer by a single-digit percentage" then yes.
I'm not saying this is ignorable, or not serious. I'm saying that this far, it seems likely that the harm to human health from the nukes, will be a tiny fraction of the damages resulting from the earthquake and tsunami.
i.e. if there where zero nuclear powerplants in the affected area, the number of dead and seriously injured people would've been essentially identical.
Japan has suffered a huge catastrophy. Nuclear powerplants has this far gotten a huge fraction of the attention, while actually causing a miniscule fraction of the deaths and injuries. This *may* change if we get a larger release of radioactive substances, offcourse.
Re:Sensational! (Score:2, Insightful)
More sensationalist bullshit. Get this off slashdot, please.
I don't doubt the claim, I do doubt the presentation. Have some respect.
So, what you're saying is, you're pro-nuclear power, and you don't want to see any Slashdot story about it that's not a glowing endorsement proclaiming that everything's working perfectly, even when you know that this isn't actually true?
And you get modded to +5 for it.
Re:Sensational! (Score:0, Insightful)
Citations below:
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect more people are going to wind up getting cancer and dying from smoke inhalation from all the gas, wood, and coal heaters they're using due to the rolling blackouts, than from radiation from this accident. In other words, the loss of electrical generating capacity due to the Fukushima Daiichi plant being offline is probably going to kill more people than the radiation it emits. But death by radiation is more exotic and makes a better story than death by long-term smoke inhalation, so the media splashes it all over their headlines.
Statistically, if you compare the safety of each power source in terms of deaths per TWh generated, this accident would have to kill something like 10,000 people in order for nuclear to lose its title as safest power generation technology (wind is currently second safest - yes, wind power has killed more people Watt-hour for Watt-hour than nuclear). This obsession people have with worst case scenarios is skewing their judgment into making the wrong decision on how safe the technology is. Just like how plane crashes make people think planes are more dangerous than they really are, or how big lottery prizes make people think it's worth buying a ticket when it really isn't.
Re:Sensational! (Score:2, Insightful)
Not every disaster that didn't happen was hysteria. They are just unlikely. If an catastrophe has 5% chance to happen and if it would happen it would kill a third of the world population, it makes sense to try to reduce that 5% chance. Whether those methods for reducing the risk work or not is another matter, but by definition 95% of the time when disaster doesn't happen we end up with some people saying there was nothing to be afraid of in the first place.
Re:Warning! Prospective alert. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear disasters are disasters in slow motion. Apart from initial explosions and the like, there's no good reason any sizeable number of people in an informed populace has to die because there's plenty of time to react. That doesn't mean you can ignore them or that they don't cause tens or hundreds of billion dollars in damages. You have to put forth heroic efforts to try to stop a catastrophe from becoming a megacatastrophe. You have to order the evacuations. You have to destroy produce and milk. You have to leave areas closed off to settlement and larger areas to agriculture. You have to find new water supplies. You have to seal off any sources of further radiation leakage, whatever the cost. And so on, all depending on the scale of the accident.
Everyone focuses on deaths with nuclear accidents, but apart from the sudden explosion/etc deaths and the deaths caused by a poor response to the disaster, nobody has to die in even a major nuclear accident. They're just really freaking expensive to deal with, in terms of containment, in terms of ruined property, and in terms of protracted economic damages.