Slashdot Mirror
The High-Radiation Lives and Risks of Nuclear-Nomad Subcontractors
Harperdog writes "Gabrielle Hecht has an interesting piece on the subcontracted workers of the nuclear energy industry, in Japan and elsewhere. These workers face far more exposure to radiation than salaried workers; in Japan, 90% of the nuclear workforce is contracted. This is an eye-opening look at a practice that 'carries exceptional risks and implications. And until these are recognized and documented, complex social and physiological realities will continue to be hidden.' A good read, but I would like to know how the Fukushima 50 are doing."
I was under the impression that in the U.S., at least, radiation dosage was tracked on a lifetime basis via a Nuclear Regulatory Commission database, REIRS, and anyone working at a nuclear facility, even on a contract basis, has to have the numbers from their dosage monitoring submitted to it. I don't think you can get away with laying them off and then someone else rehiring them while pretending they're a new person, because their dosage will get filed under the same social-security number in REIRS.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Translation: Temporary contract workers do work that the plant workers won't do is riskier.
Let's file that one in the "You don't say!" category. It's like that throughout the entire processing industry. Need to hot tap onto a gas pipeline? Get a contractor. Need to go in a vessel that has an inert atmosphere? Too dangerous, get a contractor.
Industries are full of contracting companies who exist specifically to absorb high business risk and appear "disposable" to the plant. They are after all not the plant's employees. If they die it won't be "us" who has to pay compensation, it'll be "them".
The BBC produced an excellent and troubling documentary about Japan's “contracted” labour within the nuclear industry. It also covers exposure to radiation in general in across the workforce. Search for "Nuclear Ginza"
From this we can determine that the half life of the Fukushima 50 is 994 days
Ferom TFA it seems the workers themselves are deliberately cricumventing the exposure measurements so they can earn more money before they are laid off for hitting their raditation quota.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Well, the truth is we don't know much about these ranges. The vast majority of the cases of whole body exposure are either survivors of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or are among the early clean up workers at Chernobyl. I.E. amounts and types of exposure are for the most part poorly documented, as are subsequent care and outcomes. On top of that, it's a fairly small number as such things go, so it's hard to say clearly where the bottom of the 'Moderate' category is. There's just not enough data.
And I haven't adressed the difference between whole body dosages and point dosages like the women exposed to Radium while painting watch dials. Or hospital workers exposed to ongoing low dosages of X-rays over extended periods...
Making the problem even more difficult is the fact that the media (and Wikipedia, and Slashdot commentary) seem to treat all radiation more or less the same - when nothing could be further from the truth. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, neutron, X-ray... all ionizing radiation, all with subtly different effects. The same goes for length of exposure, whole body doses received over short periods are going to be different than those received over long periods, even if the absolute exposure is the same.
All we really know is Exposure Is Bad, and try to avoid these levels.
Here, we see the same problems as above - you're acting as if there are clear bright lines between the categories. There isn't. Most importantly, the boundary between (your) Low and Very Low levels is fuzzy and poorly understood.