
Tokyo Radiation Less Than Paris’s Three Years After Meltdown - blacktulip
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-09/tokyo-radiation-less-than-in-paris-three-years-after-meltdown.html
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timr
...of course, the radiation levels have been in the "normal" zone for Tokyo
since a week or two after the accident. It looks like the levels have been
below background for (say) New York City as well.

A bigger concern than air radiation in Tokyo is the contamination of food --
the worst-hit areas of Japan also happen to be the major farming regions of
the country. People are probably more worried about consuming food grown in
cesium-contaminated soil than air contamination in the middle of Tokyo.

~~~
CmonDev
The idea is to hide the truth, not uncover it.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
The snark may provoke some downvotes, but that is exactly what's happening
here: hiding the inconvenient truth by focusing on the convenient, but not
particularly relevant truths.

Which is pretty much the standard operating procedure when it comes to
defending nuclear power, which makes it near impossible to have a constructive
debate on the matter.

~~~
cjslep
As a person formally trained in Nuclear Engineering, I am curious as to what
relevant truths you are seeking to know that the "standard operating
procedure" tells me we should be hiding.

I'm all for constructive debates on nuclear power generation, but I do want to
point out that the snark is making it difficult for me to want to even try to
engage you in a dialogue.

~~~
userulluipeste
Well, what was then the "standard operating procedure" in dealing with all
that radioactive waste? No, I'm not asking for quoted texts by the book for
how things should go when everything's OK, I'm interested more in how a large
scale contamination should be (or should have been) dealt with? That, if there
ever was such an assumed scenario after Chernobyl, of course...

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Mc_Big_G
"“I wouldn’t have come here then,” said the 28-year-old German native after
touring Tokyo’s Imperial Palace on Friday. “But now I have friends here and
they are fine, so I guess I’m fine too. I don’t fear it at the moment.”

Which shows how well the general public understands the effects of radiation
exposure.

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ekianjo
> If sustained for a full year, that would be 154 times the maximum possible
> dose of 1 millisievert per year recommended for public exposure by the
> International Commission on Radiological Protection.

Note that this limit has no real meaning. There is no clear data indicating
that x amount of millisieverts per year is harmful. We know radioactivity
clearly kills at high doses, but the effects of low doses are largely
undetermined. And people fly all the time and take CT scans in hospitals
without realizing that they get more radioactivity exposure this way.

~~~
Xylakant
> There is no clear data indicating that x amount of millisieverts per year is
> harmful.

Radiation damage is a game of statistics: A single charged particle, electron
(whatever) striking the right molecule in your body may be enough for you to
develop cancer and die in a particularly nasty way. The chances of this
singular event happening and at the same time all safeguard of your body
failing are minuscule, though. But the more events you have (the higher the
radiation), the higher the chances that it will happen. This is what we
basically know about radiation: it damages cells and for some events the
natural cleanup doesn't work. Basically you could say that _every_ bit
radiation is harmful, even the natural background radiation [1]. All
guidelines and limits are based on the question whether the increased risk
outweighs the possible gain. Early X-Rays had the problem of exposing the
doctors to high doses, modern machines are designed with safety in mind.
Still, patients and doctors wear protection when possible.

[1] to make matters worse, there's different kinds of radiation: alpha rad
which doesn't even penetrate the skin, but is very harmful if dust is inhaled
to high energy gamma rad that is basically impossible to shield without lead
or other heavy metals around. So "1 millisievert" doesn't even tell you what
it is, 1ms of alpha is probably better to handle than 1ms of gamma rad..

~~~
greggman
So how does that account for the supposed idea that people who live in Denver,
who get 2x to 4x the average radiation than the normal population have far
lower rates of cancer than average.

~~~
gnaffle
Maybe because the background radiation is just one of many, many contributing
causes of cancer?

For instance, airline pilots are exposed to more radiation than the average
worker. But they also have a low percentage of smokers, and in order to keep
their medical license they need to be in fairly good health. So, apart from
skin cancer, they have lower than average rates of cancer compared to the
general population:

[https://www.alpa.org/portals/alpa/magazine/2001/March2001_He...](https://www.alpa.org/portals/alpa/magazine/2001/March2001_HealthAmongPilots.htm)

~~~
tptacek
What do you propose is the lifestyle difference shared by the population of
Denver that offsets their doubled exposure to low-level radiation?

Obviously cancer has many causes, but to the extent Denver shares those causes
with Oregon, they should wash out and reveal Denver's radiation-linked cancer
(which, after all, you're basically arguing exists).

~~~
gnaffle
I was just pointing out a flaw in his reasoning. I didn't argue that it exists
(and from what I gather from other comments, it doesn't). But if it did, it
could be offset by any number of things, some of which might not be shared to
the same extent with other cities.

Or it might be that the baseline background radiation is so small that 2x that
baseline is still statistically insignificant compared to other factors.

~~~
tptacek
If you believe the latter statement, then you also aren't alarmed by radiation
in Japan, right?

~~~
gnaffle
I don't believe anything in particular, that was just one of many potential
explanations.

That said, I'm not alarmed by the radiation in Japan, I'm more alarmed about
the situation of the Fukushima plant and the problems they face with potential
leakage into the groundwater (among other things).

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skrause
And that says exactly nothing about the dangers of the accient, it could also
just be that winds blow the radation away from Toyko and pollute other places.

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nodata
"Closer to the wrecked plant in Fukushima, levels remain high enough to
prevent the return of many of the 160,000 residents evacuated after the
nuclear accident"

------
fxj
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByZ1AyDEGSk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByZ1AyDEGSk)

our friend the atom

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zebulom
It's not about background radiation level. It's about the risk of ingesting or
inhaling a speck of radioactive material. If this particle settles somewhere
in your body, it means that the cells in the immediate vicinity of this
particle are going to subjected to very intense radiation.

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6cxs2hd6
Well, Shinjuku is on the West side of Tokyo. I wonder how the measurements
compare on the East side, very near the bay. And in Chiba. And at Narita
airport, closer to Fukushima.

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teamonkey
I'm not sure the Fukushima power plant is where you think it is.

~~~
6cxs2hd6
Well I know it's in Sendai region.

But I forgot how much Japan bends up at Tokyo. Sendai isn't North East like I
imagined. It's more directly North.

Also, although Narita feels like an exhausting distance from Tokyo after you
get off a plane, Sendai is of course much much farther away.

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digisign
That's what happens when you have the Pacific Ocean to dump the waste into.

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pohl
Well that's the all-clear signal, folks. Let's go skinny dipping in the
effluent!

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DeusExMachina
What is this article meant to signify? Is it just to reassure people who
travel to Tokyo?

Fukushima is 300 Km north of Tokyo, so while the radiations in the latter
might be low, the former, (correct me if I'm wrong), is a lost city that won't
be possible to inhabit for thousands of years. That, in my opinion, is a more
relevant fact.

~~~
jessriedel
> Fukushima ...(correct me if I'm wrong), is a lost city that won't be
> possible to inhabit for thousands of years.

Please edit your comment. You're completely wrong, and it's unsubstantiated
speculation like this that drapes everything in FUD. People are already
returning to the immediate vicinity of the power plant, having only been
excluded this long because of ludicrously conservative recommendations.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/1065957...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/10659577/First-
Fukushima-evacuees-to-return-to-their-homes.html)

(The actual city of Fukushima and the rest of the Fukushima prefecture have
been safe, even according to the highly conservative recommendations, for a
long time now. I'm not sure they were ever even evactuated. As teraflop notes,
the above article refers to the small town of Ōkuma in which the reactor was
located.)

As expected, the actual harm caused by the meltdown is essentially
undetectable above background levels, and is _trivial_ compared to the tsunami
disaster that precipitated it. Most of the harm done comes from fear mongering
when no actual risk exists.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/10/us-japan-
fukushima...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/10/us-japan-fukushima-
children-idUSBREA280RJ20140310)

~~~
pyre
> when no actual risk exists

Now who's over-stating their case? 0% risk?

~~~
chc
Please don't stoop to this level of discourse. If there are two possible
readings of a comment, one reasonable and one unreasonable, it's best to
choose the reasonable one.

