Slashdot Mirror
Japan Raises Nuclear Plant Crisis Severity To 7
darkonc writes "Early Tuesday in Japan, the government decided to
raise the severity level of the accident to the maximum 7 on an international scale, up from the current 5 and matching that of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. The government declared the level 7 emergency because it is now estimated that the crippled plant was emitting over 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactivity for a number of hours at the height of the nuclear incident. Previously, on Monday, the government had expanded the evacuation zone around the plant to include at least 6 cities up to 60 km away from the plant. These cities, outside of the current 20-30 km evacuation area, are now expected to exceed the 20 millisieverts/year limit on residual radiation established by International Commission on Radiological Protection and the International Atomic Energy Agency in the case of an emergency."
As the saying goes, you are entitled to your opinion, but not to your own facts. Concentrated solar thermal can drive steam turbines, molten salt storage can buffer the nighttime. Here's one tiny, insignificant manufacturer.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
This is a prime example of journalists creating hysteria based on their ignorance. The scale on their device never went over 100uS/hr - that's MICRO-Sieverts.... To put this in perspective, read http://xkcd.com/radiation/
They never risked their lives at all
100uS/hr = 2.4mSv per day = 876mSv/year
So while the journalists didn't risk their lives with that dose, it's definitely not a livable area at those radiation levels. However, depending on the source of the radiation those levels could go down fairly quickly or it could remain at those levels for quite a long time. Of course that assumes no further contamination from the plant.
This sig is worse than my last.
Darling, just a few hundred kilometers to the east, here in Finland we have hydro power plants on about every available river.
They generated a total of 14.6% of country's electricity in year 2010. Even with 4 nukes, lots of coal, gas, biomass, etc power plants, we still have to buy electricity from Tsernobyl-type reactors at Sosnovy Bor for almost as much (12.0%).
So please, don't talk about things you know nothing about. Thank you.