What Is The ACTUAL Risk for Pacific Coast Residents from Fukushima Radiation? http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/fukushima-radiation-hits-west-coast.html Is Low-Level Radiation Dangerous … Or Harmless? http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/fukushima-radiation-hits-west-coast.html#risk How Much Radiation Will We Be Exposed To? http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/fukushima-radiation-hits-west-coast.html#howmuch
Portland will look like a dump on Mars. http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=7747&view=findpost&p=205716
Carry on Brain, you are doing well. I have thought for some time now, the US Navy has perfected the Use of Nuclear power to the point that is should be plain to all that it is safe, good, and desirable. Perhaps we should continue the development to the point that we all have our little home power plants out here in the country side. It would definitely fix the "power lines down" problem and we could push the grid backward and make it adequate for a couple generations to come.
I understand you are all frightened and feel impotent against such real and horrific dangers, but your attempts at "humor" only highlight and expose your defeatism and servitude. Meanwhile, in the real world... Fukushima failure: Decontamination system stops functioning The operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) has stopped using its systems to decontaminate radioactive water at the facility, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. The Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS, has been utilized to liquidate radioactive substances from contaminated water stored at the plant. The crane to get rid of the container from the ALPS ceased working on Tuesday. On Wednesday, TEPCO stopped operating all 3 ALPS systems at the facility. The company officials say the system may take a long time to restart. The container where the radioactive substances are stored has to be replaced when it fills up. TEPCO, the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, crippled in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, said that the company plans to decontaminate all radioactive water stored in the tanks by March 2015, NHK reported. That’s despite the company officials telling The Japan Times a month ago that the radioactive water will be decontaminated by the end of fiscal 2014. It’s not the first time that the ALPS system has experienced trouble: at the beginning of December, the system was reported to have broken down during trial operations. The Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) consists of 14 steel cylinders, through which the contaminated water is filtered. After the filtering, waste materials like the absorbent and remaining sludge are transferred to high-integrity containers (HICs) that are transported to a temporary storage facility. The ALPS can remove 62 different types of radionuclides, including strontium and cobalt from contaminated water. The year has started off badly for the Fukushima Daiichi plant: a few days ago, a Japanese worker, who participated in the mending of the plant to avoid further radiation leaks, has revealed that adhesive tape had been used to deal with the issue of sealing in radioactive water. The 48 year-old, Yoshitatsu Uechi, an auto mechanic and tour-bus driver, was one of the 17 workers to be sent to the crippled facility to make more containers to store the contaminated water. On New Year’s Day, plumes of strange steam rose from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, with TEPCO failing to provide details on the emissions of steam – in all probability radioactive. On the international scene, the picture hasn’t been very bright, either. At the end of 2013, a video emerged showing a beach in California, displaying seemingly high radiation levels on the coast. However, local health officials told residents not to worry, after they had carried out an investigation into the matter. Plus, over the last year, around 130 Japanese cars have been denied access to the Russian border over radiation concerns. The consumer watchdog agency, Rospotrebnadzor, has pointed out that the strict control of all cargo arriving from Japan will continue in 2014. http://rt.com/news/fukushima-decontamination-system-stops-352/
http://www.naturalnews.com/043380_fukushima_radiation_ocean_life.html Study: Dead sea creatures cover 98 percent of ocean floor off California coast; up from 1 percent before Fukushima (NaturalNews) The Pacific Ocean appears to be dying, according to a new study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California recently discovered that the number of dead sea creatures blanketing the floor of the Pacific is higher than it has ever been in the 24 years that monitoring has taken place, a phenomenon that the data suggests is a direct consequence of nuclear fallout from Fukushima. Though the researchers involved with the work have been reluctant to pin Fukushima as a potential cause -- National Geographic, which covered the study recently, did not even mention Fukushima -- the timing of the discovery suggests that Fukushima is, perhaps, the cause. According to the data, this sudden explosion in so-called "sea snot," which is the name given to the masses of dead sea creatures that sink to the ocean floor as food, has skyrocketed since the Fukushima incident occurred. "In the 24 years of this study, the past two years have been the biggest amounts of this detritus by far," stated Christine Huffard, a marine biologist at MBARI and leader of the study, to National Geographic. At an ocean research station known as Station M, located 145 miles out to sea between the Californian cities of Santa Barbara and Monterey, Huffard and her colleague Ken Smith observed a sharp uptick in the amount of dead sea life drifting to the ocean floor. The masses of dead sea plankton, jellyfish, feces and other oceanic matter that typically only cover about 1 percent of the ocean floor were found to now be covering about 98 percent of it -- and multiple other stations located throughout the Pacific have since reported similar figures. "In March 2012, less than one percent of the seafloor beneath Station M was covered in dead sea salps," writes Carrie Arnold for National Geographic. "By July 1, more than 98 percent of it was covered in the decomposing organisms. ... The major increase in activity of deep-sea life in 2011 and 2012 weren't limit to Station M, though: Other ocean-research stations reported similar data." No more sea life means no more oxygen in our atmosphere Interestingly, Arnold does not even make a peep about Fukushima, which by all common sense is the most reasonable explanation for this sudden increase in dead sea life. Though the most significant increases were observed roughly a year after the incident, the study makes mention of the fact that the problems first began in 2011. "Forget looking at global warming as the culprit," writes National Geographic commenter "Grammy," pointing out the lunacy of Arnold's implication that the now-debunked global warming myth was the sudden cause of a 9,700 percent increase in dead sea life. Backing her up, another National Geographic commenter jokingly stated that somehow "the earth took such a huge hit in a four-month timeframe of a meltdown via global warming and we as a people didn't recognize this while [it was] happening; while coincidentally during that same time frame the event at Fukushima took place." It is almost as if the powers that be want us all to forget about Fukushima and the catastrophic damage it continues to cause to our planet. But they will not be able to cover up the truth forever, as human life is dependent upon healthy oceans, the life of which provides the oxygen that we all need to breathe and survive. http://www.naturalnews.com/043380_fukushima_radiation_ocean_life.html#ixzz2q2vH1mES
OK if you're so scared about it, do something. Oh, and thanks for sharing your concerns, but honestly, who cares? Apparently not many. We're all gunna die at some point...
Fukushima represents the example the law of 7ps. Prior proper planning prevents piss poor performance. Having no real backup power available was indeed a colossal failure. Nearly 30 years before the Fukushima event the Japanese Banks upgraded their systems to make ready for point of sale support. This included a new processing center with the a data sharing pair of guad mainframes on a floor deemed to be above potential flood exposure. The backup power was also up there, and the backup to that was on trucks located on the high ground. Then the data center was backed up through IMS FastPath Hot Standby support by another like kind processing center located in on another Island. This was deemed to be 747 proof and earthquake proof. So far so good. the Nuc guys should have talked to the bankers, their plan was open to failure apparent to any dim witted analyst.
I'd be interested in Brian's take. There are 71 sailors suing TEPCO for illnesses due to radiation exposure. That's 71 out of a crew of 3200 (my understanding of the crew size). EDIT: 5000 reported on the ship - see the article below. It was hard to find any mainstream news sources (CNN, etc.) reporting on the story other than the case was thrown out of US court, refiled making less conspiratorial claims, and is ongoing. For one thing, the sailors claim they didn't turn on the extensive radiation detection systems so it wasn't detected. Does that sound like something the US Navy would do: Send a nuclear powered ship into a nuclear accident situation with radiation detection systems turned off? Secondly, the claim is the radiation entered the ship's water supply and all 3200 bathed in the water, drank it, brushed their teeth with it, etc. Seems to me that if the radiation was significant enough, more than 2% of the crew would have been affected. The Reagan is stationed in SD. The local paper had this article: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Jan/12/are-sailors-symptoms-from-radiation/ But, contrary to what these sailors are experiencing, studies have found largely nondangerous radiation levels since the 2011 spill. Only workers at the nuclear facility have exhibited radiation amounts high enough to make them even slightly sick, scientists consulted for this story said. One UC San Diego toxicology expert said that acute illness usually comes on quickly — in days or weeks — after massive exposure. Signs include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Unless there are fatalities, people feel better within a few months. So, with typical radiation sickness, these Reagan sailors wouldn’t still have symptoms today. Long-term illnesses, such as cancer, may result from a smaller amount of radiation exposure, but the amount required to cause them is unclear. And that type of ailment wouldn’t come on this soon, less than two years after the incident, said Dr. Richard Clark, director of UCSD’s medical toxicology program. “What I imagined happened in this case is these people developed a few symptoms and they started to get worried about it because they were told there was some higher radiation,” Clark said. “They scrubbed off the (Reagan’s) deck — that is normal procedure if there is fallout. But that fallout doesn’t mean you were exposed to levels of radiation that were dangerous.” At a Health Physics Society conference last year at the National Press Club, a panel of radiation scientists predicted that illness from Fukushima will be far less than from the 1986 Chernobyl reactor disaster. ... Less than 150 of 17,000 workers at the Fukushima plant showed slightly elevated levels of radiation, according to figures from cancer specialist Dr. John Boice, a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. The doses detected might increase their lifetime risk of cancer by 2 percent, he said at the Press Club conference. On the Reagan, the crew was ordered to close hatches and vents to prevent outside air from entering. They were also told not to drink the ship’s potable water. ... With more than 5,000 people aboard, the Reagan was operating at sea about 100 miles northeast of the power plant following the earthquake. ... At the time, the Reagan’s skipper, Capt. Thom Burke released a statement reassuring crew families that “as a nuclear-power aircraft carrier, we have extensive technical expertise onboard to properly monitor such types of risks.”
There's no experiment to perform. The effects of radiation on humans is well known. In fact, they gave thyroid medicine to pilots before they flew over the plant. I've not seen that any of them have reported issues.
Study: Fukushima Radiation Has Already Killed 14,000 Americans http://www.radiation.org/reading/pubs/HS42_1F.pdf The Nuclear Industry and Health ANUNEXPECTEDMORTALITYINCREASEIN THEUNITEDSTATESFOLLOWSARRIVALOFTHE RADIOACTIVEPLUMEFROMFUKUSHIMA: ISTHEREACORRELATION? Joseph J. Mangano and Janette D. Sherman The multiple nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima plants beginning on March 11, 2011, are releasing large amounts of airborne radioactivity that has spread throughout Japan and to other nations; thus, studies of contamination and health hazards are merited. In the United States, Fukushima fallout arrived just six days after the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdowns. Some samples of radioactivity in precipitation, air, water, and milk, taken by the U.S. government, showed levels hundreds of times above normal; however, the small number of samples prohibits any credible analysis of temporal trends and spatial comparisons. U.S. health officials report weekly deaths by age in 122 cities, about 25 to 35 percent of the national total. Deaths rose 4.46 percent from 2010 to 2011 in the 14 weeks after the arrival of Japanese fallout, compared with a 2.34 percent increase in the prior 14 weeks. The number of infant deaths after Fukushima rose 1.80 percent, compared with a previous 8.37 percent decrease. Projecting these figures for the entire United States yields 13,983 total deaths and 822 infant deaths in excess of the expected. These preliminary data need to be followed up, especially in the light of similar preliminary U.S. mortality findings for the four months after Chernobyl fallout arrived in 1986, which approximated final figures. We recently reported on an unusual rise in infant deaths in the northwestern United States for the 10-week period following the arrival of the airborne radio - active plume from the meltdowns at the Fukushima plants in northern Japan. This result suggested that radiation from Japan may have harmed Americans, thus meriting more research. We noted in the report that the results were preliminary, and the importance of updating the analysis as more health status data become available (1). Shortly after the report was issued, officials from British Columbia, Canada, proximate to the northwestern United States, announced that 21 residents had died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in the first half of 2011, compared with 16 SIDS deaths in all of the prior year. Moreover, the number of deaths from SIDS rose from 1 to 10 in the months of March, April, May, and June 2011, after Fukushima fallout arrived, compared with the same period in 2010 (2). While officials could not offer any explanation for the abrupt increase, it coincides with our findings in the Pacific Northwest. Any comparison of potential effects of radiation exposure must attempt to examine the dose-response relationship of the exposure of a population. In the United States, the principal source of dose data (i.e., environmental radiation levels) is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Health data are the responsibility of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which provides weekly reports on mortality in 122 U.S. cities. These are preliminary data, but are the most useful at a date so soon after an event such as Fukushima. The goal of this report is to evaluate any potential changes in U.S. mortality resulting from exposure to the Fukushima plume, using EPA and CDC data. BACKGROUND: POST-CHERNOBYL HEALTH TRENDS A quarter of a century before the Fukushima disasters, the meltdown at Chernobyl and the presence of environmental fallout presented a similar challenge for researchers to assess any adverse health effects. The discussion that began after the April 26, 1986, meltdown is still very much a current one, with varying estimates. A recent conference concluded that 9,000 persons worldwide survived with or died from cancer (3), while a compendium of more than 5,000 research papers put the excess death toll (from cancer and all other causes) at 985,000 (4). In the United States, Chernobyl fallout was detected in the environment just nine days after the meltdown. Gould and Sternglass (5) used EPA measure - ments of environmental radiation post-Chernobyl (6) and found elevated levels of radioactivity in air, water, and milk. For example, EPA data indicate that from May 13 to June 23, 1986, U.S. milk had 5.6 and 3.6 times more iodine-131 and cesium-137 than were recorded in May–June of 1985 (see Appendix Table 1, p. 60). In some cities, especially those in the harder-hit Pacific Northwest, average concentrations were as much as 28 times the norms, while some individual samples were much higher. Gould and Sternglass (5) also studied preliminary mortality data, to analyze any potential impact from fallout. Using a 10 percent sample of all U.S. death certificates, they found that during the four months after Chernobyl (May–August 1986), total deaths in the United States rose 6.0 percent over the similar period in 1985 (see Appendix Table 2) (7; estimated deaths based on a 10% sample of death certificates, minus the New England states, for which data were incomplete at the time). Eventually, final figures showed an increase of 2.3 percent, which exceeded the 0.2 percent decline in the first four months of the year (8). The number of excess deaths, or the difference between the actual and expected death totals, is 16,573. To date, the cause of this unusual pattern remains unknown, and no research testing hypotheses for causes other than Chernobyl has been published. This difference has a very high degree of statistical significance; there is a less than 1 in 10 to the 9th power probability that it occurred by random chance. The change in deaths for infants was also analyzed. Preliminary data showed an increase of 3.1 percent in U.S. infant deaths in the first four months after Chernobyl, 1985 versus 1986. The final increase was 0.1 percent, compared with a 2.3 percent decline in the four months before Chernobyl. The 1985–1986 differences in infant death rates were –2.9 percent (January–April) and +0.4 percent (May–August). These gaps amounted to excess infant deaths of 306 and 424, and differences were significant at p < 0.08 and p < 0.055. The stillbirth, neonatal, and prenatal mortality increased in England and Wales within 11 months after Chernobyl’s initial release (9, 10), and in Germany (11). In two Ukrainian districts with increased levels of cesium-137 ground contamination, there was a significant increase in stillbirths (12). U.S. publications offered evidence that Americans may have suffered harm from Chernobyl, especially damage to fetuses and infants. Reports covered ele- vated levels of various radiation-related disorders, including newborn hypothy- roidism (13), infant leukemia (14), and thyroid cancer among children (15). Gould and Sternglass (5) showed that trends using preliminary data were rough approximations of the final data. Because of the lengthy delay in generating final statistics—2011 data will probably not be published on the CDC website until 2014—we believe that analyzing preliminary health data at this time is a useful exercise that can approximate final mortality patterns and help guide future research on the effects of fallout from the Fukushima meltdowns. Read the results at the link.
