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Fukushima Radioactive Fallout Nears Chernobyl Levels
0WaitState writes "The cumulative releases from Fukushima of iodine-131 and cesium-137 have reached 73% and 60% respectively of the amounts released from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. These numbers were reached independently from a monitoring station in Sacramento, CA, and Takasaki, Japan. The iodine and cesium releases are due to the cooking off of the more volatile elements in damaged fuel rods."
More sensationalist bullshit. Get this off slashdot, please.
I don't doubt the claim, I do doubt the presentation. Have some respect.
glad to see that slashdot is 100% on board with the media's general nuclear hysteria
[I don't think I need to explain why "nearing chernobyl levels" is a ridiculous description...]
From TFA:
That's a really important difference. It means the total release of radioactive material is far smaller. And the iodine, at least, is a lot less scary than the sort of stuff you get from fuel particles -- it has a half-life of only 8 days, so there's no real long-term environmental threat from that. (The cesium is rather worse -- half life of ~30 years.)
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And the "something" that just doesn't work is Slashdot fact-checking.
Of course not. More than a week ago Slashbots assured us that the situation at Fukushima Daiichi is completely under control.
These iodine-131 and cesium-137 release numbers are totally made up to provoke mass hysteria, as is in fact any coverage aboute situation at all.
So does this mean the reactor has officially "melted down"?
No, but the press has.
This is only referring to the cesium and iodine. I find even those figures suspect considering that Chernobyl literally ejected it's core directly into the air. Especially given the rather unalarming radiation measurements all around the area.
There are immediately several posts expressing scepticism about this story. You people need to set that instinct aside for a moment. I am not an anti-nuke hysteric. Allow me the benefit of the doubt.
Recent reports from Japan are trending towards large amounts of contamination. Levels of Caesium and Iodine in the sea are very high. Soil samples are turning up large amounts of contamination. Tokyo tap water (200 km away) is contaminated. Vegetables in Hong Kong are accumulating Caesium that exceed limits. I have been monitoring Kyodo and NHK news and the degree of contamination being reported is disturbing.
Today's events include severe radiation burns on two workers, acknowledgement of containment failure in No.3 (MOX reactor,) an increase of the evacuation radius from 20 to 30 km and an order to greatly increase radiation monitoring at the site. Unexplained bursts of various gases have been forcing worker evacuations throughout the week. Fukushima didn't end when the news cycle cut over to Libya.
Fukushima has been releasing vapour directly into the atmosphere from reactor pressure vessels in which fuel damage has occurred. There is no precedent for that procedure in the history of nuclear technology, there has been no opportunity to directly measure the contamination of these releases, so there is no credible information on the actual amount of contamination being released from these vessels. There is no credible information on the amount of spent fuel that was lofted by the spent fuel pool fires. There is no accounting of the amount of contamination flowing off the site due to the use of water cannons.
DO NOT discount reports of contamination. DO NOT dismiss out of hand comparisons of Fukushima with Chernobyl.
I can't find a way to sugar coat that. Sorry.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
From what I've seen, Chernobyl was in an area with a lower population density. I mean sure, the Soviets had a different type of reactor, worse response, etc. But Japan's situation could still be pretty bad in the long run, if things don't go as planned.
Sure, the media is being panic-y. And sure, more people died in the tsunami than would die in the worst case of a reactor meltdown. But sometimes there ARE reasons to be scared that are perfectly valid, and those shouldn't be discounted just because the press does well when they incite panic.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Could you describe the difference between evolution caused by increased radiation and evolution caused by what ever else? Evolution is just changes and nothing more. Stuff happens and sometimes it turns out to be something that changes things.
No, evolution is not just changes. Evolution is the effect of long term adaptation of a population to the environment through the combined effects of mutation, natural selection and reproduction. Mere mutation alone doesn't give you evolution.
The speed of evolution is not directly proportional to the mutation rate. If the mutation rate is too high, beneficial mutations are quickly swamped in harmful mutations, and unable to contribute to an increased chance of reproduction. What does speed up evolution is a change in environment. I bet Chernobyl will result in organisms in the area being more resistant to radiation and radioactive pollution.
This article is full of errors major errors, including the title/conclusion.
They're typically off by about a factor 10; they seem to have ignored the exponent when calculating the percentages they use to conclude Fukushima is nearing Tsjernobyl levels. Where they state that Tsjernobyl put out 70% more caesium-137 than Fukushima, it's actually 1700%. Where they state that Tsjernobyl put out 50% more Iodine-131 it's actually 1400%. These numbers are based on the readings provided by the article.
Apart from that the comparison simply makes no sense for a 1000 other reasons. Remote detectors for airborne radioactive particles cannot reliably provide an indication of what the reactor put out, especially given the fact that Tsjernobyl was a fire releasing all kinds of aerosols while Fukushima releases mostly gasses that probably get carried much futher by the wind and do not pollute the grounds in the perimeter of the reactor as much as Tsjernobyl.
Furthermore, Tsjernobyl started out with explosion that probably released a huge quantity of especially iodine in one big blast, not leaving quite that much for the "aftermath" (which this article makes a comparison with). Also, what they fail to mention is the deadly mix of compounds other than iodine and caesium released by Tsjernobyl.
This is nothing like Tsjernobyl and it will not become anything like it either. Stop the FUD please.
0x or or snor perron?!
Nuclear disasters are disasters in slow motion. Apart from initial explosions and the like, there's no good reason any sizeable number of people in an informed populace has to die because there's plenty of time to react. That doesn't mean you can ignore them or that they don't cause tens or hundreds of billion dollars in damages. You have to put forth heroic efforts to try to stop a catastrophe from becoming a megacatastrophe. You have to order the evacuations. You have to destroy produce and milk. You have to leave areas closed off to settlement and larger areas to agriculture. You have to find new water supplies. You have to seal off any sources of further radiation leakage, whatever the cost. And so on, all depending on the scale of the accident.
Everyone focuses on deaths with nuclear accidents, but apart from the sudden explosion/etc deaths and the deaths caused by a poor response to the disaster, nobody has to die in even a major nuclear accident. They're just really freaking expensive to deal with, in terms of containment, in terms of ruined property, and in terms of protracted economic damages.
Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?