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NOAA Study: Radiation From Fukushima Very Dilluted, Seafood Safe
JSBiff writes "Ars Technica is reporting on a study by NOAA scientists who surveyed the ocean near Fukushima, which concludes that while a lot of radioactivity was released into the water, as would be expected, it diluted out to levels that pose little risk to wildlife or humans, and that the seafood is safe to eat. Perhaps we needn't worry so much about "millions of gallons of radioactive water" being released into the ocean, like it's a major environmental disaster, as it's really not — the ocean is many orders of magnitude larger than any accidental release of radiation which might happen from a nuclear plant."
I wonder which will prevail ?
I lied. Heh. I wish I wondered.
Unless they were doing a lot of extra work to match isotopes, most of the "bulk" radiation in the ocean from power generation is from burning coal.
There's really quite a bit of U in coal, and if you burn a gigatons of the stuff a ppm here and there starts to add up.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Momentarily there will be people posting to assure you that it's a major disaster and that the huge death toll has been covered up by the International Nuclear Advocacy Mafia (tm).
I am Clamman! I was bitten by a radioactive clam and developed mutant powers such as sitting around doing nothing underwater!
How about those tasty apex predators that bioaccumulate contaminants? I won't (on purpose anyway) be drinking seawater any time soon, but I might be eating tuna....
1 million gallons of dirty water sounds bad--until you dilute it into 350 quintillion gallons of clean water.
And hey, compared to all the fecal matter you're eating with your seafood, a little cesium is nothing.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Is pickled radiation any less harmful?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Here is one set of numbers on natural sources of exposure. http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/natural.htm
It all starts at 0
basic clams end up with like 110,000 times the radioactivity of the surrounding seawater
I'm sure you're right that that kind of concentration happens, but I'm gunna guess the NOAA folks have some idea what they're talking about when they make claims like this.
In the seafood samples, the additional radioactivity from the cesium and silver was less than the naturally occurring sources, typically only about a third. The net result is that the 137 in fish was about 150 times lower than the legal limits in Japan. Even if all the isotopes were considered, the fish would be safe to eat.
Oh, I'm sure the NOAA people never thought of that, or thought to check higher predators in the food chain. Right.
I don't claim to be an expert, but my understanding is that various living things don't absorb everything in the environment around them - they chemically reject certain elements or compounds they have no use for. My further understanding is that the main isotope of worry after a few months is Cesium-137, and Strontium. If I understand correctly, cesium and strontium tend to react like calcium, and tend to concentrate in bones and teeth, which most predators don't digest - they digest the meat and soft tissues, and leave the bones.
So, bioaccumulation may not be much of an issue, if the radioactive materials are all in the bones. Again, I'm no biologist or radiation health expert, but that's what I've heard.
Oh, sure, they'll keep saying it's safe until Godzilla rises from the sea and wreaks havoc on Tokyo!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
So is the fish and sea water in Japan now homeopathic and going to make people immune to radiation?
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
If not, background radiation would be lethal and we'd all be in a jam. Lord preserve us!
I know, I know, this is slashdot, but there IS a link to a fine article summarizing the study. The study, in this case, wasn't a "statistical model" sort of study - they actually went around in a boat for months, sampling water, wildlife, etc. No assumptions - actual empirical evidence.
Given the propensity of government to lie or manipulate the truth, I don't believe a word of what the NOAA says. Everyone should look at this with a very healthy dose of skepticism.
Sure, but I don't think it's like Minimata Bay (the textbook example of toxic bioconcentration).
Firstly, the important isotopes will not be heavy metals. Therefore
* They will not tend to accumulate in marine life as they will be excreted as fast as they are ingested
* They will not tend to accumulate in the local bottom sediment, but be dispersed more rapidly
Secondly, radioisotopes decay, unlike mercury.
I am Clamman! I was bitten by a radioactive clam and developed mutant powers such as sitting around doing nothing underwater!
Whatever gets us out of mom's basement!
Let's test that the way they did long ago. The ones who are reporting the seafood to be safe should be required to eat it.
We'll watch them for a few months to see whether they become ill.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Whoosh.
I think all guys are bitten by that clam! It happens to expedite us moving out of mom's basement.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Really - it's hard to tell with all of those vertical lines. I once worked for a company that had "illlinois" in the letterhead. Everyone ignored the spell-check alert because it was trendy to do it all in lower-case and they figured that the error was just the first letter missing the cap.
as opposed to dilluted
Eating coconuts or breadfruit from Bikini Island occasionally would be no cause for concern. Eating many over a long period of time without having taken remedial measures, however, might result in radiation doses higher than internationally agreed safety levels.
It was recommended that Bikini Island should not be permanently resettled under the present radiological conditions. This recommendation was based on the assumption that persons resettling on the island would consume a diet of entirely locally produced food. The radiological data support that if a diet of this type were permitted, it could lead to an annual effective dose of about 15 mSv. This level was judged to require intervention of some type for radiation protection purposes.
Sounds like it's fine for a little while. If you'll pay for the trip and convince my boss to let me go, I'll gladly feast in your honor.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Whoosh.
Wikipedia says that an estimated 520 tons of radioactive water were dumped into the sea. That rounds out to a shade under 60,000 gallons of water. Compare that to the volume of the whole Pacific Ocean (174400000000000000000 gallons) and you start to see just how minor the release was in the grand scheme of things. Just to really show the difference, if we use the same ratio in terms of distance and make the Fukushima release as the height of a common housefly, then the Pacific Ocean is a trip to Pluto, halfway back, and a bit more besides.
Sent from my CR-48
Cesium doesn't linger in the human body. It has a biological "half-life", that is half the cesium taken in will be excreted between 50 to 120 days depending on what sort of tissue is collects in (bone, muscle, fat etc.). Strontium can collect in the bones but again it gets excreted over a period of time. Very little strontium was released from the Fukushima reactors as it is not particularly mobile unlike cesium compounds which make up nearly all of the radioactive contamination remaining in the environment since the short-lived iodine-131 (also mobile) died away.
Seawater is naturally radioactive due to potassium-40 (10 Bequerels/litre) and rubidium-87 (about 1 Bq/litre). Potassium is biologically conserved in the body and maintained at roughly stable levels absent disease. Measurements of seawater samples taken about 200km off Fukushima Daiichi a couple of months ago resulted in a combined value of cesium-134 and cesium-137 of around 0.1 Bq/litre, or 1% of the radioactivity from naturally-occurring potassium. It's possible some of the cesium-137 detected in these tests is not from the Fukushima reactors but residue from the 150 megatonnes or so of atmospheric thermonuclear weapons tests fired off by the US in the Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s.
Fukushima wasn't nuked. Your analog is off by many orders of magnitude.
I thought all they had were giant jellyfish around Japan the last couple years. People don't eat those, which may be part of why that's all that's left.
Oh yeah, fine. But a small point-- it's a straw man, as nobody is drinking the sea water, but billions of plants and animals are bio-concentrating the minerals. Your basic clams end up with like 110,000 times the radioactivity of the surrounding seawater, because all they do, all day long, is filter seawater.
"The data suggests that the highest estimates of radioactive discharges are likely to be accurate, but the rapid dilution of the water has kept the levels from Fukushima's isotopes below those of the naturally occurring radioactivity. "
Below naturally occurring means that the stuff is already so diluted that you shouldn't be worrying about it if you have no problem with the amount of radiation in plain-old-seawater.
Ooo! Ooo! Can I play?
Wooooosh!
Your analog is off by many orders of magnitude.
See that there is why you want to go digital.
The linked article/summary is inaccurate as the scientists who did the study are not NOAA folks. They're from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Stony Brook University, and the University of Tokyo. [author affiliations from the actual paper from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ]. The study was funded by the Moore Foundation, National Science Foundation, and WHOI.
So please redirect all government conspiracy comments to the university/academic conspiracy forum.
After all, the ocean is way bigger then any sewage. It will dilute it.
Be seeing you...
I would not trust this conclusion. Simple dilution does not mean absence of risk. Despite this being a comment on Slashdot, I read to the end where I'm struck by this conclusion:
"Although the seas in the immediate vicinity of Fukushima probably experienced a very high dose of radioactivity during the months immediately after the disaster, as long as none of the isotopes accumulate in any organisms, the effects are unlikely to be long-lasting."
I strongly suggest looking up scholar.google.com and checking the isotopes: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/03/21/134567288/radiation-by-the-numbers-isotopes-to-watch
Off-handed dismissal of bioaccumulation risks is rather shocking. There are also differences between exposure to radiation and having a radioactive particle lodged within your body for prolonged, embedded exposure.
Would the NOAA lie to us about radiation or oil or anything? You already have your answer just simply by their track record on the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Just the very numbers of the official estimates and how they only changed from ridiculously minimal to realistic shows there are dishonest interests involved.
http://www.reefrelieffounders.com/drilling/2012/01/24/ee-scientist-is-accused-of-lowballing-size-of-gulf-spill/
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/
While some are pointing to the obligatory http://xkcd.com/radiation/ and I respect Randall, the lowballed numbers we are receiving from media with vested interests don't rank this disaster accurately. Even hardened robots can't last more than a few hours at the Fukushima 1 plant where the radiation is 73 sevierts, and that warrants careful examination of what we're told the risks are to broader areas. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120329a1.html
Whatever the truth is about Fukushima, it isn't coming from the NOAA.
Perhaps we needn't worry so much about "millions of gallons of radioactive water" being released into the ocean, like it's a major environmental disaster, as it's really not â" the ocean is many orders of magnitude larger than any accidental release of radiation which might happen from a nuclear plant
I don't know about you guys, but I read that as "freely dump all radioactive waste you want into the ocean," so let's get busy rimming every continent with coastal reactors and solving the energy crisis with no thought of tomorrow!
In fact, if the ocean can handle radioactive waste, it can probably handle anything else, too, so I think I just found a great place for all our nonrecyclable plastic and toxic sludge...
Obligatory:
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The two long-lived isotopes which might be significantly concentrated are Strontium-90 and Cesium-137.
About 70-80% of ingested strontium is excreted; the remainder is generally absorbed into biochemical pathways where it replaces Calcium. Thus it will primarily be found in the bones of vertebrates and the shells of creatures like clams and isopods. The bioaccumulation in things like clams will tend to be comparatively lower in the "edible tissue", and certainly nowhere near "110,000 times" the surrounding water. The flesh will exhibit some elevated levels of Strontium, but a significantly lower elevation than bone/shell material.
Cesium is slightly more problematic, because it tends to be absorbed into chemical pathways which use Potassium, and thus will be found throughout the body in blood and other tissues. However studies have found that concentration factors range from ~2 to ~35x the concentration of surrounding waters for that, as well.
At the dilution levels we're talking about for this material, you'd have to be more concerned about "bioaccumulation" of the radioactive potassium that occurs naturally in seawater, which represents a much larger proportion of the background radiation dose than any of the materials released, at the concentrations they're present. Realistically, these materials low enough concentrations that you would have to eat nothing but clams harvested from just off the Fukushima coast 3 meals a day for years for there to be any significant increase in your chances of health problems.
Spot price for uranium is currently 51 bucks a pound. I'd like to get a small piece of pure or even depleted uranium as a pocket curiosity -- it's 50% denser than lead so it feels peculiar if you pick it up or hold it. Osmium would be even more interesting but it's VERY expensive.
The Chinese don't have large sources of uranium ore they can mine easily in their own national territory so they're considering leaching the fly ash lagoons from their coal-fired power stations to extract uranium for their growing fleet of nuclear power reactors. That fly ash is something like 100 to 200 ppm uranium content but it's not treated like radioactive waste from a nuclear power plant because, well, it's coal waste which isn't nuclear, you see...
Radiation is mostly harmless. You could also ingest small amounts of poisons with no ill effects, so go ahead and do that too.
that's providing you don't eat any of the fishes six eyes
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.