I'm basically a tree hugger, and the dearth of trees in once heavily-wooded China shows they can't heat the world, although with good stewardship they could have once. I'm just saying there is no man controlled energy source as polluting nor as dangerous as nuclear energy. Even coal can't come close to it. It is absolute insanity and no one knows it better than the private companies which all refuse to build a reactor in the US because our government will not agree to accept 100% liability for accidents/incidents. Not one company in the world will currently build a reactor anywhere in the world without an unconditional liability waiver. Kind of makes you feel all safe and warm and cuddly about nuclear energy doesn't it?
You can continue thinking you know more about this than I do, but you're wrong. And I humbly submit that i know more than your social working blogger about the effects of nuclear radiation. At least I'm qualified to teach on the subject (not just operate or supervise, though I have those tickets as well) by the Dept. of Energy. Your tax dollars at work, Maris! Too bad you're choosing to ignore the expertise. The "facts" are that 3 people had radiation poisoning and 160 were exposed. Childish or not, those are the reported facts. At least, from the LA Times as of 13 minutes ago. And that yearly limit is a conservative one, set at 1/10 of the federal requirements. They aren't "different types of radiation and exposure". Both the sun and a tanning bed (and a shutdown reactor, for that matter) are both producers of ionizing radiation, due to their high-energy UV components (in reactors it primarily comes from gamma ray) . Pizza ovens use convection (movement of hot air, not ionizing radiation) to cook. For your information:
I took your challenge. In your expert analysis of the wiki article and its sources, how do you explain the following? No deaths here. No citation, but it seems that there were 12 cases of additional chromosomal aberrations related to Chernobyl. So 57 deaths, and less than 4000 cancers (92-98% rate of survival in 30yrs in thyroid cancer cases). Assuming worst case on both (4000 was correct--which they say is overstated--and 8% mortality rate in 30 yrs = 320 extra deaths.) 320+59 = 379. Watch yourself, Maris. Looks like you might be falling into this group. So everyone except Greenpeace says that less that 10000 people got cancer (and the "experts" researching this over the last 25 years leave it as <4000), and that the cancer had a 92% survival rate over 30 years. Less than 1000 people dead from the initial blast or cancer over the last 25 years. Which part was I supposed to dispute, again?
If you are educated about nuclear energy as you claim, and I have no reason to doubt it since you serve the military industrial complex that thrives on it, then you should be honest with us and acknowledge that getting the same dose all at once cannot be compared with a straight face to the same amount accumulated gradually over a year's time. I smoke a couple cigars a day, drink nearly a pot of coffee, and eat at least a 1/4 pound of chocolate. Pretty much every day of my life. So by your logic it's the safest thing in the world, highly recommended by experts even, that I can safely smoke 730 cigars, drink 350 pots of coffee and eat about 100 lbs of chocolate all in one hour with no ill effects? Teach me more O Brilliant One! And try to find a more credible source than the nuclear industry for your sources. Also, tanning beds do not duplicate natural solar rays. They weakly imitate them. Mankind has yet to be able to exactly duplicate anything in nature. There is always something missing that throws everything out of whack, usually with adverse consequences of varying degree. As a photographer with quite a bit of knowledge about lighting, both manmade and natural, I know for example man has never come even in the ballpark when attempting to duplicate the natural light we get from the sun and reflected from the stars and planets. Every kind of lighting made by man is incomplete in it's spectrum and many are annoying/unhealthy to humans because of their incompleteness. For example, continued exposure to Xenon lighting often triggers psoriasis in people who have not previously had it.
Go back and reread what you just quoted. Your numbers are wrong. But this is a military ploy that I'm tired of. There is no acceptable number of innocent citizens to be sacrificed for greed and the thirst for power, which is all this is about. Is 200,000 deaths too many? Is 10,000 too many? Apparently you feel 1,000 deaths would be acceptable and just a part of doing business. I don't. But since you work for the industry maybe you can direct me to one of their websites which can provide me with an estimate of just how much radiation I can expect to be exposed to when it gets here. If they are at all responsible and professional I am sure you can provide me a link to where I can get the facts. DHS and their waterboy FEMA have not been made aware that there is an emergency and so have no information at all. Internet searches for this particular info brings only hoaxes: http://www.google.com/search?q=rads...=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=a50d8bbb4089c98a Seriously, got a link that acknowledges the concern and presents the facts for a worst-case scenario?
According to CNN, Japan nuclear experts acknowledge there is a second meltdown now in another reactor. They claim they are both contained so far but have already been proven liars by The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA): http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110312D12JFF03.htm The Japanese Premier is still claiming there has been no meltdown at all.
I did, and they aren't. Tell me which ones you're confused by and I'll be happy to help you understand. Educating ignorant civilians who get their information from social working bloggers? Sorry, that's just something I do on the side that the military doesn't reimburse me for. No cost to the taxpayer! I'm interested in your hypocrisy here. How are you powering that computer you're typing on? Solar power, where it's much more dangerous to install a panel than run a nuclear reactor? Hydro, which kills entire fishing runs and floods ecosystems? Coal? Oil? Wood-burning? Energy has a price. And if you think that 1000 deaths in 60 years is too much for a clean power source, then I don't know how you reconcile your hypocrisy, since those 1000 deaths are less than any other power source. See below. Here are the facts, and why this isn't an emergency (or even a concern on the radar of DHS): To reiterate, in the worst nuclear accident in US history (and a bigger one than the one in Japan right now), people living within 10 miles got a dose equivalent to a chest x-ray. The worst-case got a dose equal to 1/3 what he will get from the "natural" background radiation each year in the chart in Post 22. Even when people got scared and started inventing ghost diseases they thought came from radiation, multiple studies concluded no health effects came from the incident to the people within 10 miles, and people outside weren't even deemed worth studying. Yet you're claiming (based on a social working blogger) that massive radiation poisoning will occur to people 5000-8000 miles away, in a smaller incident, with no containment breach found. You should think that, with Greenpeace and a social work blogger telling you one thing, and (among others) a DoE nuclear engineer, the UN, the WHO, multiple studies of Chernobyl and 3MI, DHS/FEMA and global media telling you another, that maybe your conclusion wasn't the right one to take immediately. And there's nothing wrong with that. No one expects everyone to know all the ins and outs of nuclear physics, and I understand why you'd be scared. But when experts try to tell you it'll be ok, you should listen.
Please give me the quote where NISA (or anyone else) found primary containment breached. Of course there is a meltdown. I've never said otherwise. The difference is that a "meltdown" involves decomposition of the fuel lattice cells because of high temperature (in this case, decay heat). Using saltwater and boron means that the "melted-down" core is incapable of criticality. It's a "disaster" because the fuel is unrecoverable--they need to install all new cells into those reactors. The boron and seawater aren't primarily going to "rust" the reactor out--that's miseducation. "Rust" in this case means transition of the magnetite layer of the piping into flakes of maghemite (the gamma phase, more resistant to flake off in fluid corrosion), and thus putting more contamination into the primary coolant. But the chlorides in the seawater and the boron have already rendered the reactor useless for future operation. Each of these meltdowns doesn't mean there's green sludge flowing through Tokyo, on its way to contaminating the entire ocean. Here's what happened at the 3MI "meltdown". See if it sounds familiar.
Quit beating that nonsensical horse. Ask any construction worker how many people he knew that died from a fall installing solar panels, then ask him how many he knew that died from a fall building a reactor cooling tower.
That's the article I was quoting from. And that's a bad headline. In there it has all of the facts I've quoted. At some point, decency expects that you'd apologize for all of your baiting, attacks and saying I'm wrong. I've brought facts. You've brought a social worker's blog, greenpeace, poorly quoted wiki and a Pittsburgh headline that doesn't meet up with what the author wrote. To wit: The "threat" is worse b/c the reactors are going to have to inject seawater. That ruins the ability to reuse the fuel. Did you miss this part from that very same article? You really need to just pay attention. Admit you're wrong, you got help, and it's ok now.
Anecdotal. I don't know construction workers. If you do, great. I'm going by the statistic posted above. You're reaching, now. How does solar panel installation contribute to your title and OP that we should "prepare for a slow and agonizing death" because of "massive amounts of fallout dose"? You still aren't answering that. Just admit it, Maris. You're horribly wrong, I've helped you understand it, and we can move on with our lives. It's not the military-industrial complex...it's not greedy energy companies...it's not even left-wing media vs. "faux" news. It's simple nuclear physics and engineering. Your Chicken Little moment, while cute, doesn't help anyone. If I hadn't posted, someone may have had the opinion you had some idea what you were talking about and become one of those "nukular power is bad!" people who are hypocrites at worst, ignorant at best.
I did, and came up with a "measurable" count of 57 and a measurable, though high, estimate of the cancer cases: With the 92% survival rate for 30 years, that means 320 cases expected to be added due to cancer over a 30 yr period. That's not "immeasurable". That's three.
I've used the facts, your reading comprehension of them has left something to be desired, much like the agenda-pushing-pro-nuclear UN and World Health Organization you opined about. Fails #4 and #5 so far, boys and girls.
Yeah, 1000 people in the history of nuclear power have died from all of the accidents. More than that died last year mining coal. Fail #6 I did, and you haven't acknowledged my expertise over a central oregon realtor and a social worker. Is that coming soon? Wiki "always presents and weighs both sides", hm? When was the last research paper you did quoting wikipedia, Maris?
A very heated thread, but about what, I'm not sure. Can't we just agree that a core meltdown probably isn't a good thing?
Of course it's not a good thing. It's not a disaster requiring DHS involvement, people getting scared of radiation poisoning, dying a slow agonizing death, etc This was basically spam propaganda from a garbage source, and in an attempt to educate I just wasted a few hours of my life. C'est la vie.
Is it too late to bring in Homer? [video=hulu;ECqAV15BKVyMc3BE-EcRkw]http://www.hulu.com/watch/28739/the-simpsons-homer-pushes-the-button[/video]
