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EPA Makes a Rad Decision
New submitter QuantumPion writes
"The Environmental Protection Agency released draft guidelines last month that could significantly relax radiation hazard standards in the case of a radiological event in the United States by using risk-based decisions. The goal is to have limits that make sense in an emergency that are different from the limits in day-to-day life. From the article: 'Currently, the only guidance are the extremely strict standards that apply for EPA Superfund sites and nuclear plant decommissioning, which are as low as 0.010–0.025 rem/year, far below the natural background levels in the U.S. of 0.300 rem/year, and even well below the average amount of radioactive materials that Americans eat each year. And these guidelines aren’t really different from the 1992 PAG, except in the area of long-term cleanup standards and, perhaps, standards for resettlement. What’s the big deal here? As radworkers, we’re allowed to get 5 rem/year. 2 rem/year doesn’t rate a second thought. ... No one has ever been harmed by 5 rem/year, so setting emergency levels at 2 rem/year is pretty mild and more than reasonable. ... Think of it this way. The situations covered by these new guidelines are similar to someone dying of thirst who has the chance to drink fresh water having 2,000 pCi per gallon of radium in it. While the safe drinking water levels are 20 pCi/gal for Ra, 2,000 pCi/gal is of no threat, especially if you’re going to die from imminent dehydration. Of course, a bag of potato chips has 3,500 picocuries, so go figure.'"
I got a real charge out of it!
Radiation Chart
pay for by mr bruns nuclear power co
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/03/10/fukushimas-refugees-are-victims-of-irrational-fear-not-radiation/
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Article is devoid of citations. Are Irish spuds as highly radioactive as Idaho spuds? Are spuds from Oregon spuds from volcanic spuds as radioactive?
Chips can't be radioactive if produced from material free of radioactive material.
The truth shall set you free!
"We're changing the standards so you can't sue us immediately after the disaster. But if you get cancer 30 years down the line, we and our money will be long gone and no longer giving a darn in Pattaya Beach, Thailand."
[End Of Line]
future proofing the failure litigation.
This isn't Fark
Everything with Potassium is Radioactive!!
OMFG, let's all die of eliminating an essential mineral from our diets. :)
BTW, That Red clay mud that half the country is covered with has Uranium in 3-4% concentration in a lot of places; thus the Radon problem.
Vitamin R is provably good for your health, from thousands of Manhattan Project retirees, if you're not predisposed to leukemia...
.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Mmmmm. Picocurries.
That's almost unheard of in any matters that contain the word "radiation".
Rad, dude!
That's totally tubular, dudes!
I am officially gone from
Of course, a bag of potato chips has 3,500 picocuries, so go figure.'"
So slashdotters are safe then, since we only eat cheetoes... which I expect have been so thoroughly processed to remove any and all traces of this "potato" thing you speak of to render it both nutritionally and radiologically inert.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Is there a way to totally filter out users with the little Twitter, Facebook, or G+ badge next to their name? Normally I'm fine just scanning past them, but once in a while I catch a couple words and a little bit of stupid gets in.
Is to make rules more stringent, and ban Bananas
The fact that there is naturally occurring radioactivity does not mean it is safe to add more. Have a look at studies of increased mortality in nuclear workers from cancer, extra rads do matter and the public should not be exposed. Also, one needs to be very cautious in equating external dose with ingested dose, for some isotopes it may have similar impacts but breathing in plutonium for example is ill advised.
Ever read Physics for Future Presidents? It's a good source of scientific information that should influence public policy more than it currently does.
No one has ever been harmed by 5 rem/year,
Yes I quoted a bit out of context.
Nevertheless: how do you know that?
Point is: you don't.
After Chernobyl and especially after Fukushima /. (and I guess other media as well) are full of bullshit how harmless radiation is, or how harmless fallout is or how harmless pollution by a certain radioactive element is.
Sorry ... hundred thousands of dead people in the decades AFTER the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and AFTER Chernobyl say something different.
I really don't get what the agenda is behind those more and more upcoming stories about "radiation is overrated, it is harmless" is.
You sit in a radioactive environment: you die. You die awful horrible painful.
So, why would one spread stories, blog comments, /. stories and other news to claim different?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Just blocked by a bunch of political hack blockheads for over 17 years.
1996 March 26
Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards
Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission - Joint Meeting
Dr. Paperiello : [Director of the office of Nuclear Material and Safeguards]
"I do not believe the linear, non-threshold model, but I use it as the basis of all health effects evaluations that are my official NRC duties. I want to make something clear. We use it in the agency. I use it. I don't as scientist believe it."
Mr. Muckerhide:
"And Walinder in his communication on this whole issue as a member of the ICRP and UNSCEAR essentially pointing out that when he goes through the biology and establishes that the underlying biology cannot support such a premise says, "It is difficult for me to understand how people can believe that such an enormously complex phenomenon as dose-response of radiogenic cancer can be identified with an equation of the first degree, I don't hesitate to say that this is one of the great scientific scandals of our century."
Mr. Willis: ... "As was suggested a month ago locally, we're killing something like 10'000 people a year by failing to use radiation as a means of pasteurizing food. That many people are dying. The impacts of what we are doing in radiation protection, if you will, on research in medicine - there are a number of other areas - are very devastating. So as a responsible professional organization, we felt that it was incument upon us to try to say something."
"I'm on the board of Directors of the Health Physics Society"
- - - -
I hit my quarterly dose limit at least six times in my ten years as a staff Engineer at a commercial nuke and later at a US DoE facility - I most assuredly DO 'have a dog' in this fight. I worked with maintenance people who did it every quarter for years in a row. WOOF! WOOF!
The fact that there is naturally occurring radioactivity does not mean it is safe to add more.
But it is a good indication that one can safely add more. As to the rest of your post, look at the error bars of such studies. I bet you'll see no actual evidence of increased mortality for small doses of radiation. Instead you'll see evidence consistent with a wide range of possibilities.
Um, you do realize that radiation is everywhere. So it's nearly impossible to be not exposed to radiation. Hell, even television that we watch gives off a fair amount of rads, so either you can accept it, or freak out about it. Your choice, although, if you choose the first part, you're liable not to have as many ulcers in the nearby future!!
If you're referring to x-ray radiation given off by CRT TV's, I'd bet that most people here haven't watched TV on a CRT in a number of years. I haven't owned a CRT TV for 6 years - and it's been about 10 years since I've had a CRT monitor.
No, it's not an indication of any such thing.
Bottom line is that some radiation exposure is inevitable and that some more probably isn't going to kill you, the reality is that ionizing radiation is ionizing radiation and that you shouldn't just assume that you can add more just because you haven't been killed by the radiation in bananas.
What's more, it makes a huge difference if you're prepared for the exposure versus not expecting it. It's normal when working in a nuclear plant to be taking potassium iodide on a regular basis, which isn't something that the general populace is likely to be doing. It's also not typical for the general populace to be wearing protective gear either.
And lastly, it makes a huge difference what kind of radiation you're dealing with and what the duration of exposure is.
Really?
I've never worked civilian nuclear power, but when I was a Navy Nuke, we didn't wear protective gear, nor did we take potassium iodide supplements.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
What about the hard UVs given off by CFL backlights? They have the same exact problem with CRTs once the phosphor layer starts to break down.
Um, you do realize that radiation is everywhere.
But thanks to the people who brought you Fukashima, the background levels and fission fragments now put everyone in a whole new ballgame. A game where only the radioactive get to play.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Maybe we should go have a talk to the FDA about "Radioactive materials Americans eat each year."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Protective gear depends on the specifics of the job, and you damn well should have been taking the supplements if you were working anywhere near the reactor. The last thing you want is the thyroid absorbing radioactive isotopes. Thyroid cancer is one of the big concerns that comes from exposure to nuclear radiation.
but people in the military, especially the lower ranked ones, are expendable. taxpayers' money or your life? survey says: $.
in case anyone thinks this is sarcasm. it's not. i hate the military and i hope you get an exotic cancer that gives you excruciating pain, you stupid footsoldier of unconstitutional wasteful wars.
How would radioactive iodine be released by the normal functioning of a nuclear reactor?
And in abnormal functioning, would the problem of being right next to a nuclear reactor with breached containment make any questions about developing thyroid cancer a few years down the road a rather trivial concern?
But you were Navy. Sailors are expendable.
nor did we take potassium iodide supplements.
How do you know that the Navy wasn't just dumping into your chow?
The fact that there is naturally occurring radioactivity does not mean it is safe to add more.
There is some evidence that a small amount of additional radiation is actually good for you. This is called radiation hormesis.
C14 as a beta decay isotope in my body, has nearly no effect on my body. The water in my cells will capture it already.
Holy shit, I hope you never are put in charge of anything related to radiation safety, as this is so wrong to the point of being dangerous if someone had to make a decision based on that. And I was the radiation safety officer for a previous project I worked on...
It's normal when working in a nuclear plant to be taking potassium iodide on a regular basis, which isn't something that the general populace is likely to be doing.
You would have to have a significantly elevated risk of being exposed to radioactive iodine to justify it. Just working at a nuclear plant doesn't mean you have that risk.
And what does "not assuming" such things do for us? Not much in the absence of evidence.
No.. Our bodies regulate the levels of potassium, of which only 0.012% is the radioactive(K40) isotope with a half life of 1.248 Billion years. Any extra potassium you ingest, will result in an equal amount being expelled(sweat, urine, etc). thus the whole banana equivalence chart is bogus.
Meanwhile, radioactive Cesium-134 has a half life 2.06 years and decays with both Gamma and Beta emissions. Making it 10 trillion times more radioactive than potassium in a banana. And Cesium-137 has a half life of 30.167 years, with a Beta, and a 85% chance of gamma emission. Making it 638 billion times more radioactive than an equal amount of potassium.
It would be most wise to to avoid ingestion or inhalation of radioactive Cs isotopes. If it doesn't kill you with a cancer, the radiation can degrade your immune system, heart, digestive track, etc.
For me, I think the EPA' decision to shorten US residents useful lifespan by 2, 5, maybe 10 years after the next nuclear incident is justification for shutting ALL nuclear reactors down, NOW!! Why should you, me, anyone take that kinda of risk and give it away to billionaire stock holders for free. It's obvious that the US government is planning for another incident, maybe deliberately perhaps to save Social Security.
Just how many times do you need to get burned before learning not to play with fire?
For me, I think the EPA' decision to shorten US residents useful lifespan by 2, 5, maybe 10 years
Or maybe 0 years. Or given the circumstances, even a negative amount of years since they are weakening the regulation in the advent of an emergency, which is where one would expect other rather urgent issues affecting life expectancy to rear their ugly heads. Is it somehow better to die of thirst or starve to death now than live with a slightly shorter lifespan maybe?
Potassium iodide supplements! Well no wonder those nuke workers are getting higher cancer rates (if indeed they are), it's all that extra naturally-radioactive potassium they're ingesting!
You do realize (no, you probably don't) that when a nuke plant is shut down, the death rate goes up because of the need to ramp up power production from conventional (eg coal) plants, which means (a) more radionucleide emissions (in flu gases and ash -- coal power plants couldn't meet the radiation release limits of nuke plants), plus (b) more deaths from e.g. increased car-train collisions with coal trains, mining deaths (direct - eg cave-ins, and indirect from the health hazards of coal mining), etc. etc.
Just as an example, the trace thorium in coal ash contains more energy than did the coal when burned. Go ahead, look it up.
Think of the leukemic cancerous mutants around you! And you may gain superpowers too, like the ability to run up huge medical profits for your healt provider before you dastardly die!
EPA is vomit.
You nuclear power nuts would gain a lot more traction if you were more honest. Every time you try to compare ingesting radioactive isotopes of potassium to being exposed to stuff like cesium, you just show yourselves for the ignorant liars that you are. Don't you wonder why decades of campaigning hasn't brought you anywhere closer to your nuclear dreams?
Cesium doesn't linger in mammals. Depending on the tissues it lodges in after inhalation or ingestion (bone, fat, muscle etc.) its biological halflife is between 70 and 120 days i.e. half the cesium taken in will be pissed away or excreted in that time, then half the residue over the next period and so on. It's the same with strontium and a number of other problem specimens in the radiochemical zoo although the half-life varies from element to element.
Iodine-131 is the major contamination problem from fission releases, it's preferentially concentrated in the thyroid and is very radioactive but because of that it goes away quite quickly, with a halflife of only 8 days or so and superdosing with iodine tablets will prevent uptake of I-131 to a large extent. Hospitals and therapeutic facilities that use I-131 to "burn out" thyroid cancers flush residues into the sewer systems leading to the occasional panic when I-131 is detected in miniscule amounts in rivers, lakes etc. downstream.
There is a difference between electromagnetic radiation and ionizing radiation.
One is just radio or light waves, and is harmless below certain amplitudes that you don't see in common products. The other is bits of atoms flying off, causing biological changes on a cellular level, and those materials are highly restricted.
Which category do you think a television falls into?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Unfortunately Fukushima wasn't exactly a measured, controlled dose.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Cesium doesn't linger in mammals. Depending on the tissues it lodges in after inhalation or ingestion (bone, fat, muscle etc.) its biological halflife is between 70 and 120 days i.e. half the cesium taken in will be pissed away or excreted in that time,
The biological half life of Cesium in Humans is function of Potassium intake, consume too little, the longer it hangs around, maybe a year, maybe two years.
Besides consuming known clean (or least contaminated) food, drinking water that passed thru a carbon activated filter, one should take known safe mineral supplements containing Potassium, Iodine, and Calcium after a nuclear event. Shortening the biological half life of these isotopes should be one of your a back up plans.
The biological half life of Cesium in Humans is function of Potassium intake, consume too little, the longer it hangs around, maybe a year, maybe two years.
For a typical person with normal potassium intake it is about 100 days, extending out to 200 days for exceptionally below average potassium intake.
--still have the government coupon OTA box hooked to a 1999 vintage RCA crt, though, to be honest, my tv watching has gone down sharply since the analog sunset, and audiovisual media consumption has declined as well in the wake of all of the media balkanization--teh internets and local radio for news, and youtube for an occasional instructional video. I suspect my nerd card has expired.
Well, even in e.g. Tokyo right afterwards, the radiations levels were still lower than the natural base levels in many countries. The base radiation level here in granite-rich Norway is higher than the post-Fukushima rates in Japan outside the immediate surroundings ... do I get to play?
I don't think that's true AT ALL; Cesium is much more water-soluble than Strontium; Cesium is "like" potassium whereas Strontium is "like" Calcium which is what growing children put in their bones and teeth for the rest of their lives. You're correct about the similar radioactive half-life of approx 30 years IIRC, but I think it's disingenious to lump Cesium and Strontium together as having similar biological effects and retention times. I read somewhere that Strontium-90 gives your children leukemia (it stays in their shoulder blades and irradiates their red-blood-cell-forming thingies). No wonder nobody ever talks about the Sr-90 and only mentions the Cs-137 ...
About the Iodine-131: my aunt needed that when she had thyroid cancer; they kept her in hospital for a few days just so she could stay in a separate ward and pee in a special toilet so they could reclaim most of the iodine back from her pee after the treatment. So you're probably right with the short "biological half life". I can't think of a hospital that would give the rest of the population that treatment by flushing the stuff down the drain (not in Europe anyway).
Yes, eating certain radioisotopes is dangerous. Some isotopes concentrate in areas of the body and emit radiation that is much more harmful when it is in the body (alpha radiation).
However, The chart is given in Sv. Sv takes into account that some radiation is more harmful than others. So, the biological effects from 1 mSv should be the same whether it came from an alpha emmiter or a beta emmiter.
Again, some radionuclides concentrate in parts of the body (others are eliminated quickly - see effective halflife which combines radiological halflife and biological halflife). So, how can we know how many mSv we might get from ingesting one isotope or another? You want to look at commited dose. This is a calculation of how much dose (mSv) you recieve from ingesting some radioisotope. You then use that figure, in mSv, to compare against the chart on xkcd. What you might be interested in is ALI (annual limit on intake). This will give you an amount of a radionuclide (measured in activity or mass) that, if ingested, will give you the highest allowable dose (measured in mSv).
So, you can compare the damage done by various radioisotopes done to you in various ways if you are comparing them in the right units, mSv. But you couldn't compare them just by giving the amount of substance (without considering what kind of radiation and what in the body was irradiated). But, those calculations can be done, and the answer is given in mSv or mrem. This is why the xkcd chart uses mSv for the units, so that a meaningful comparison can be made.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
...It's normal when working in a nuclear plant to be taking potassium iodide on a regular basis, which isn't something that the general populace is likely to be doing. It's also not typical for the general populace to be wearing protective gear either.
And lastly, it makes a huge difference what kind of radiation you're dealing with and what the duration of exposure is.
Really? I've worked in operations at a commercial nuke plant for the better part of a decade. I've never taken a dose of KI, and wouldn't want to unless absolutely required. Taking it can make you sick. Our "protective gear" usually includes the functional equivalent of a set of painters coveralls. They just keep you from spreading contamination around or taking it home with you. This includes while entering the containment building both during shutdowns, and at full power. Although, I did wear an ice vest for the power entry, it's hot in there.
Since radioactive materials have been actively released into the environment for well over half-a-century, current background levels may not be a good measure of the actual, natural background levels.
Sounds like a misinformation campaign succeeded..
You're 100% right that the Fukushima accident is associated with those two isotopes. That is correct.
But the table of most common Uranium fission products on the Wikipedia page says I-131, Cs-137 and Sr-90. Sr-90 in roughly equal amounts to Cs-137 and with similar half-life.
Yet it is impossible to find any news report from Fukushima discussing whether the Sr-90 reached the seawater and whether that bio-accumulates in the shellfish and fish and Nori seaweed in the east Japan sea for the next 300 years. Sr-90 can give you leukaemia if ingested and incorporated in your bones: chemically similar to Calcium.
There is a difference between electromagnetic radiation and ionizing radiation.
One is just radio or light waves, and is harmless below certain amplitudes that you don't see in common products. The other is bits of atoms flying off, causing biological changes on a cellular level, and those materials are highly restricted.
UV, X-, and Gama-rays are all all both electromagnetic and ionizing. Those properties are not mutually exclusive and ionizing radiation isn't exclusively "bits of atoms flying off".
Which category do you think a television falls into?
CRT televisions use high speed electrons to excite phosphors to emit light. As a side effect a small amount of X-rays are emitted. For this reason CRT screens are made of leaded glass. This blocks most, but not all, of the X-rays. So for most of the history of television, watching TV meant being irradiated a small but measurable amount.
You seem to be under the impression that a Naval reactor is a big tub of water filled with fuel rods, that we stirred by hand.
We used what's called a Pressurized Water Reactor. The contamination (those radioisotopes you're so concerned about) stayed in the primary loop, and we stayed outside the reactor compartment (for the most part - I got the majority of the total dosage I received in one night when the job required me to run into the (shutdown) reactor compartment for a couple minutes of every ten minutes all night long).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Due to an injury I suffered once, I was unable to do do my normal job for a couple weeks. During the period, I was detailed as a cook's assistant (which pissed the cook off no end, since he had no more use for a one-armed man than the engineering dept did) - the food came from commercial sources (yeah, we used the same canned foods that you buy in grocery stores, just in job lots), and didn't include any special ingredients (unless you count the occasional bit of cook-spit....)
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Absorbed in the organic LCD cells, if there is a cfl in there at all, most shit is led, far as i can tell.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.