
Mother Fukushima - aidanf
http://www.theinertia.com/environment/mother-fukushima/
======
joe_the_user
One might say that random pseudo-scientific crap is another unfortunate thing
expelled by Fukushima.

I mean, however ridiculous the "whatever is happening, it must be radiation"
crowd might be, the serious, ongoing disaster in Fukushima makes their
opposites, technological panglossians, seem at least as dangerous.

~~~
manicbovine
And it's a complete distraction from legitimate environmental concerns.

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beloch
Just for perspective, the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated above ground was
50 megatons, which is 2777 times larger than the upper limit for the yield of
the bomb detonated on Hiroshima. I'm not saying that the Fukushima incident
has not had an ecological impact, but blaming it for effects seen in Montana
is pretty wacky given that over 100 atmospheric nuclear detonations have been
conducted just two states over in Nevada since the 50's, and another 900
underground!

The increasing acidity of the ocean due to the formation of carbonic acid
(resulting from increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere) is a far more
plausible explanation for most of the phenomena mentioned in this article. For
example, the increased levels of marine life off of the coast of California
might be explained by acidification in the area. The coastal waters of
California are slightly less acidic than those further out from shore [1]. If
pH were reduced equally both on the coast and off the cost, the effect might
be to force marine life towards the coast where pH is higher.

What's really funny is that paranoia over nuclear power, which the Fukushima
incident has certainly boosted, may cause nuclear power to be used less in the
near future. Alternative energy sources such as solar and wind are great, but
can only form a relatively small portion of a stable power-grid because we
simply don't have the technology to build electrical capacitance on the levels
needed to smooth out fluctuations in supply of these power sources. On-demand
power sources, such as nuclear or fossil fuels, are still very important. If
nuclear power is used less out of fear, fossil fuels _will_ pick up the slack.
That means more atmospheric CO2 and more ocean acidification. The end result
is that this kind of article will probably do more to harm marine life than
Fukushima ever did!

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification)

~~~
effdee
Paranoia is the wrong word as it implies that there is no real danger.
Hysteria describes the current situation far better.

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rndmize
Oh for the love of...

> that 400 tons of radioactive wastewater... an additional 300 metric tons of
> highly contaminated radioactive wastewater

Wikipedia:

> The volume of the Pacific Ocean, representing about 50.1 percent of the
> world's oceanic water, has been estimated at some 714 million cubic
> kilometers.

Are we done here?

~~~
thedrbrian
Any explanation as to how radioactive the water was?

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code_duck
Is the amount of radiation and heavy metals being released by Fukushima
significantly more than was released by the nuclear testing (that is, blowing
up islands with atomic bombs) in the Pacific in the 50s and 60s?

~~~
InclinedPlane
In short: no, not by a long shot

~~~
thrownaway2424
Are you sure? Random information on the web suggests that nuclear testing in
total released something like 10^18 Bq, while Wikipedia suggests Fukushima
released a similar amount (.5E18 Bq).

[http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp157-c2.pdf](http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp157-c2.pdf)

~~~
InclinedPlane
The 10^18 Bq is from Cs-137 alone, which is only one of many radio-isotopes
released by nuclear weapons. Others include: I-131, Co-60, Sr-90, Am-241,
Kr-85, and of course U-235 and Pu-239.

Here's a good analysis:
[http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/fallout/feasibilitystudy/t...](http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/fallout/feasibilitystudy/technical_vol_1_chapter_3.pdf)

Check out Table 3.3, which is deposition of radioactive fallout in the
continental United States (not worldwide). You'll see that nearly 2,000 times
as many Becquerels of radiation from nuclear fallout comes from isotopes other
than Cs-137. That's because many of those isotopes are short-lived and so
generate much higher doses of radiation.

You'll note that over 4,000 petabecquerels of radioactive nuclides were
deposited on the continental US alone through nuclear testing. And that does
not include the Pacific nuclear testing, such as Ivy and Castle, where most of
the largest tests took place. Nor does it include the impact of Soviet,
Chinese, or French tests (which included several multi-megaton tests including
significant fission yields which would have produced enormous quantities of
fallout).

Remember that folks who were _40 miles away_ from just one nuclear test,
Castle Bravo, suffered from acute radiation poisoning. We haven't seen
anything like that happen with Fukushima, because the radionuclide output is
significantly different. The fact is that the majority of radionuclides from
the Fukushima disaster come from old nuclear fuel, fuel that still contains
Cs-137 but where the very much more hazardous short-lived isotopes have
already decayed away.

This is in contrast to the situation with Chernobyl where the reactor itself
experienced runaway nuclear fission activity before being disassembled by a
steam explosion and catching fire, dispersing enormous quantities of extremely
nasty isotopes into the air.

This isn't to downplay the seriousness of the Fukushima disaster but compared
to what's been dumped into the Earth's biosphere already it's not terribly
frightening. We're not all going to start glowing in the dark or growing extra
arms and legs from Fukushima.

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malandrew
So 1-2 weeks ago my girlfriend forwarded me an article from some rightwing
conspiracy nut journalist that covered all of the issues in this article. That
article however was based on gross misreadings of the original academic
articles on which it was based. Had I not read that previous article, I would
have taken a lot more of the content from this article at face value. However,
with the curse of knowledge and the fact that every example in this article
mirrors that article, I can't help but think that this author basically
rewrote that other article in a much more convincing matter and conveniently
leaving out all the academic references, that upon closer inspection refute
some of the claims here.

The thing that bothers me most about this article and the original article is
that no causality is established and no other possible causes considered. The
studies on bluefin tuna for example showed higher levels of radiation, but not
dramatically higher levels and still at levels considered safe for
consumption. The other primary sources I read suggested the same. Articles
like this should definitely ask questions as to what else could cause so many
problems, so widespread. For example, I would expect increased quantities of
dissolved CO2 to be a much more likely culprit for these symptoms. Laboratory
experiments with three tanks of fish, one control, one irradiated and one
exposed to greater amounts of atmospheric CO2 and CO would do more to suggest
the true cause that the speculation presented here.

I really wish I could find that article as evidence, because it was one that
the average educated HNer would tear apart quickly, especially on closer
inspection of actual data from primary sources.

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aaron695
It's not that they don't know maths, or even their total and utter lack of
comprehension of even the simple basics. Many people have mental illness,
broken brains of one sort or another are part of society.

It's the fact people can't immediately see this as crazy and vote it to the
front page that really scares me.

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thrownaway2424
The animated GIF that accompanies the article doesn't show an radioactive
material arriving on the shores of California yet, so it hardly seems like a
suitable explanation for things that are currently happening.

~~~
wreegab
And I tried to find the source for this very little animated GIF, but can't
find any. If the author wants to be taken seriously, he needs to provide exact
references. No doing so I assume attempt at manipulating people's opinions.
Not nice.

