

Japan's ocean radiation hits 7.5 million times legal limit - jdp23
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-nuclear-20110406,0,2697428.story


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aphexairlines
I don't know how to consume news about Fukushima anymore. 100 times the legal
limit, 1000 times, a million times. What are we going to do? Evacuate the
entire North? A billion times. Evacuate all of Tokyo? A trillion times.
Evacuate all of Japan? That's obviously not going to happen.

~~~
tybris
I just have patience and ignore people telling me they know that the full
scale of one in only a handful of major nuclear disasters is going to be
relatively harmless/harmful.

------
agentultra
<http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html>

It would appear that this article is exhaggerating more than a little.

The coverage of Fukushima by the mainstream press has only gone to show just
how far they are willing to stretch the truth for a headline.

Had this article been written on the basis of actual data from IAEA readings,
it probably would have been more moderate.

~~~
paganel
IAEA is the nuclear industry's main lobby agency. Is like asking OPEC what do
they they think about the Gulf oil spill. So no, coming with data provided by
them is no better than what you see in the newspapers.

~~~
cas
So we trust no-one? There is a healthy level of scepticism but I think you are
taking it a bit far.

The data is what has been actually recorded by Tepco and others and is
certainly reported in good detail without being fudged or sensationalised like
the mainstream media is doing.

~~~
phlux
It would seem that to trust no-one but be cautious of all reports is the
correct stance.

We know there _IS_ radiation and we know that pretty much ANY radiation coming
from any plant that has the words "disaster" "chernobyl" "meltdown" "breach"
or any other range of descriptors is certainly BAD.

So, take-aways == radiation escapes, radiation bad, don't know truth == stay
very far away.

------
mcantelon
[Waits for XKCD to revise his cute infographic.]

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jergason
I dislike all the trumpeting of the levels of radiation compared to some
"legal limit". I wish it was in terms of effect on humans. I guess that is a
conversion I could do, but many people will not do that, and will just be
horrified by the 7.5 million figure without knowing how bad things actually
are.

~~~
cas
This is especially true if the government requires zero radioactive material
to appear in the sea water. So any accidental discharge is going to have some
scary multiplier over the near zero levels.

The media also seem to also like the Becquerel scale along with cm³ instead of
m³ to make the numbers extra scary.

I found an interesting article that describes some safe levels and also the
calculation of Becquerel to Sieverts.
[http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110321p2a00m0na006000c...](http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110321p2a00m0na006000c.html)

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guscost
Did this high radiation persist in the time between the two cited
measurements? That is very important information, especially considering how
other anomalous measurements have been reported in the media.

------
phlux
Look at this presentation/PDF from stanford which shows what happened within
the reactors. Look at _THE LAST_ slide in which is says that the entire core
of reactor 4 was outside the containment vessel at the time of the disaster
for inspection and was housed in the cooling pond. It states that it believes
the reactor went into full meltdown _in fresh air_

The materials from reactor 4 core appear to be completely dissipated into the
atmosphere, and that we are really really not hearing the truth from japan.

[http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/6615/March21_JapanSeminar.p...](http://iis-
db.stanford.edu/evnts/6615/March21_JapanSeminar.pdf)

~~~
Luc
> It states that it believes the reactor went into full meltdown in fresh
> air.The materials from reactor 4 core appear to be completely dissipated
> into the atmosphere [...]

You COULD read it that way, but the bottom of the slide says in big bold red
letters that 'It is currently unclear if release from fuel pool already
happened'.

To me it seems most of the bullet points on this slide are conjectures, not
statements of fact (though note I haven't been keeping up to date on other
news sources about the situation in Fukushima).

~~~
phlux
Well, considering that this was from 3/21 and since then there have been
further revelations that things have only gotten worse.

Look at these pictures and tell me if you think it is possible that a reactor
core outside the containment would _not_ have release material.

<http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp/daiichi-photos.htm>

Sure, we can speculate that it has not _yet_ released 100% - and given the
fact that refugees are being turned away for fear of contamination at
hospitals, bodies from the Tsunami are too radioactive to be recoverable, and
reports are stating levels that are just freaking scary - I prefer to err on
the side of caution.

I think that in such cases its bettr to assume the worst case as opposed to
saying "its probably less than we think".

~~~
lutorm
Those pictures show the outer roof blown off by the hydrogen explosions. If
you'd watched that Stanford presentation, you'd know that it's just a
superstructure that essentially provides weather shielding. The fuel pools are
deep in concrete in the actual containment structure. Sure, it looks bad, but
you really can't tell at all from those pictures what's going on below.

And where did you hear that "bodies from the tsunami are too radioactive to be
recoverable"? That's such a fantastic claim that it definitely requires a
citation. (Unless you refer to the plant workers that were killed. They may
very well be contaminated, but that's inside the plant. We've known the
radiation levels inside the plant have been high since it happened, no news
there.)

I'm not a nuclear apologist by any means, but I don't like such obvious
speculation however way it goes.

~~~
phlux
[http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs...](http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=1000+bodies+recover+radioactive&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

Also, we are seeing reports, such as this thread of extremely high radiation -
we already know that Japan was slow to report actual numbers and each report
that comes out is something along the lines of "XXX times [whatever] levels"

Look again at the last slide where is specifically says "into fresh air"

I am not saying the pools are like backyard swimming pools with open exposure
to the sky - but I would believe that if pretty every other report is claiming
that radiation is very high there is clear evidence to show that being the
case.

EDIT: Try clicking the link and reading it, there are multiple articles that
clearly state _"Up to 1,000 bodies of victims of Japan's quake and tsunami
remain uncollected in the exclusion zone around a stricken nuclear plant
because of radiation fears."_

EDIT 2: please make an attempt to google fantastic claims if you don't believe
them, and others should make it a point to link to sources when posting
something that seems fantastical/really alarming.

~~~
MichaelGG
"Too radioactive to be recoverable" and "because of radiation fears" seem
rather different.

Just like you might not recover a body from a minefield, but it doesn't mean
the body is explosive.

~~~
phlux
Correct - and I am not making claims either way, though I guess I could be
more clear -- the fact is that the radiation is too high to recover - either
the bodies themselves are too dangerous, or the surrounding environment is too
dangerous. Either way -- recovery of more than 1000 bodies is hampered by
radiation.

~~~
tptacek
If I understand what you're saying, I think your analysis is alarmist.

The fact is that there is an evacuation area around the Fukushima plant
established out of an abundance of caution. The highest readings that have
been taken within that region --- _not including the plant itself, which is a
different story_ \--- are still below a level that would pose a plausible
threat to human health; they're in the single-digit mSv/hr range.

It's also important to understand that the evacuation area is designed to
address multiple vectors for radiological health threats. Not all
radionuclides disperse the same way, and the ones with the strongest impact on
the environment settle out of the atmosphere as sediment. Presumably, you
don't want kids stuffing their mouths with I-131 that settled in their
sandbox. To avoid scenarios like this, you evacuate.

But most laypeople (of which I am definitely one) start with a conception that
is much more primitive than reality. They imagine gamma radiation zinging
through the air and making people's hair stand up and giving the carp in the
lake third eyes. Not so. The most radiologically active stuff dispersed over a
distance around the plant is probably no longer airborne; it settles out of
the air quickly (and, not for nothing, but also has a short half-life).

It is also a problem that these bodies have been in some (tragic) cases
sitting out in the air --- not because of radiation, but because of the scale
of the disaster across Japan --- and thus the same rationale that motivates
the evacuation (to avoid pointless exposure to Cs-137 and I-131 sediment) also
suggests maybe it's not a good idea to distribute the personal effects of
contaminated disaster victims. But that doesn't mean the corpses are glowing.
It may, for instance, mean that the jackets of 1 out of every 400 people have
to be bagged differently.

It is simply not the case that the region within 30km of the Daiichi plant is
a nuclear hellscape.

~~~
phlux
Agreed, and you're right - maybe the tone should be more properly metered.
With that said, it is important to note that it is apparently difficult to get
a clear idea of the truth.

