Elevated Radiation Claimed At Tokyo 2020 Olympic Venues

An anonymous reader writes "A citizens' group in Tokyo claims to have found elevated levels of radioactivity at 39 sporting venues earmarked for the 2020 Olympic Games. Expert and organizers are cautious about the findings but see no problem, as the levels do not pose an immediate threat to human health. From the article: '"It is difficult to have this debate unless we know for sure whether this radiation is from Fukushima or whether it is naturally occurring background radiation," said Pieter Franken, founder of the Japan office of the environmental monitoring organization Safecast."

Comments

I look forward

[Iconoc]

to allow the glowing comments about the athletes.

Re:I look forward

[Iconoc]

umm, that was supposed to be "all the glowing comments about the athletes." First post ever, FWIW.

Re:I look forward

[Anonymous Coward]

And all the winning athletes will look very radiant.

Re:I look forward

[todrules]

At least the swimmers won't have to shave their body hair. It will just fall out naturally.

Re:I look forward

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I just hope the judges will do their best to remain neutron.

Re:I look forward

[bob_super]

Does a record count if they grow fins during the race?

Re:I look forward

[LifesABeach]

I heard that this Olympics will be the first where the Judges will be wearing radiaion suits, with a tie.

2020

[spacefight]

Lucky for them, 2020 is a few years away. Less lucky for them (and us), another earth-quake, breaking the spent-fuel pools and creating havoc can happen any time...

Re:2020

[thesupraman]

And sadly, for them, they will be exposed to much higher levels of radiation in the aircraft flying to japan - lets hope they all take ships!

Oh, and for a bonus they can avoid eating bananas, why havnt those radioactive horrors be banned yet? think of the children!

Re:2020

[flibbajobber]

The pools didn't break during a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. The fifth most fierce ever on earth. Why should they break during a lesser earthquake?

Because magnitude doesn't correspond all that well to forces felt at the surface.

The Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake of September 2010 was a 7.1, and the peak acceleration was 1.26g. The Feb 2011 at the same location much less energetic at "just" a 6.3, yet its peak acceleration was 2.2g (among the highest recorded in an urban area) due to most of that energy being released over just 12 seconds.

The 9.0 Fukushima earthquake OTOH was spread out over 6 minutes, so its peak acceleration was 2.99g despite it being thousands of times more energetic than Christchurch's Feb quake.

Re:2020

[flibbajobber]

I only ever felt one quake but I was standing on the same spot the whole time. I was not accelerated anyplace, not in the usual sense of the term. I know on Slashdot when you show someone that they are ignorant about something, they'd rather assume you're stupid, but I think that's pretty shitty. Instead I will assume I am ignorant and have no idea what you mean and will ask, what does "acceleration" mean in the context of an earthquake?

Back-and-forth. In any oscillation, the thing being oscillated is accelerated in one direction, and then acceleration is reversed and the subject is accelerated back in the other direction. It is a linear acceleration, but it is brief and changes direction often. The acceleration in any given direction for a simple oscillation lasts for half as long as the oscillation period (and naturally the acceleration in the opposite direction also lasts half as long).

Re:2020

[flibbajobber]

A sinusoidal vibration is not linear.

It can be. Linear means the acceleration is in the direction of travel, i.e. the acceleration occurs in one dimension. In a straight-line "back-and-forth" system, acceleration and speed can both be considered as dimensionless (beyond having a sign, which admittedly could be considered as bending the rules of "dimensionless" slightly). Certainly they act in a single dimension.

(This is in contrast to angular acceleration, where the acceleration is perpendicular to the direction of travel.)

Since linear doesn't imply constant, this applies to sinusoidal motion to, if it were constrained along a single axis. I'm not suggesting earthquakes are constrained to a single axis; merely that strong accelerations can exist in an earthquake, yet net displacement remains near-zero.

Re:2020

[Anonymous Coward]

Reactor derived particles are far more active, damaging and persistent internal emitters than the sources you mention.

Xrays in a plane are nothing compared to internal particles in your lungs/bones/etc

Re:2020

[Anonymous Coward]

And assuming(!) that of the spent fuel storage pools breaks and empties, how exactly is everyone on earth going to die?

Will it explode and form a giant mushroom cloud? Well, no, atomic bombs only work because of their sophisticated implosion mechanism, which is missing.

Will it become critical? Well, no, it's *spent* fuel and not even critical *with* a moderator, which we just assumed to leak out.

Will the fuel leak into the ocean? Well, no, it'a ceramic solid in a metallic cladding, both of which neither flow nor dissolve easily.

Will the claddings catch fire and vaporize lots of cesium? That's at least a sensible question. But it turns out, zirconium only burns in air once it reaches 500 degrees celsius. That much heat won't be generated by fuel that has been cooling for more than two years and that has plenty of surface to give off heat to the air.

So what would happen? Well, the cleanup would be difficult in the high radiation field. The water is there mostly for shielding, and that would be missing. Other than that, the fuel assemblies would just sit there doing nothing for a long time. Zircalloy is pretty corrosion resistant after all.

I suggest you read a text book about nuclear technology so you don't embarrass yourself anymore. You don't want to look as stupid as Gregory Jaczko, do you?

Re:2020

[Christian Smith]

Sigh, more misdirection and sleight of hand from the nuclear power lobby.

The risk to health in Japan is from ingestion ... . Conflating these real risks with bananas and flights is unethical and misleading.

What do you normally do with your bananas? I certainly ingest mine.

And I don't think athletes will be ingesting much water from the storage tanks, broken or not.

Re:2020

[Richy_T]

And it was a crappy sequel too.

Re:2020

[AmiMoJo]

The human body maintains a fairly constant level of potassium, so no matter how many bananas you eat your potassium level won't be elevated for more than a few hours until you crap it all out.

The material released from Fukushima has got into the water, and into the food people eat and the dirt children play in. It gets inside the body and stays there for decades.

It's shocking how ignorant people are about how these things work, and yet still post with imagined authority on Slashdot and get modded up by others who know equally as little.

Re:2020

[Christian Smith]

The material released from Fukushima has got into the water, and into the food people eat and the dirt children play in. It gets inside the body and stays there for decades.

That's why there's an exclusion zone.

It's shocking how ignorant people are about how these things work, and yet still post with imagined authority on Slashdot and get modded up by others who know equally as little.

True, IANANS, but I also like to think I've got a less than sensationalist perspective on the whole affair.

To put the whole incident into perspective, you have to look at the tsunami decimating the entire coastal region, wiping out entire towns and villages, killing thousands and thousands of people. I can't image the salt water influx has done much good for the regional farm land and water tables.

I suspect Fukushima is more a financial burden than a public health burden in the grand scheme of things.

Re:Every now and then...

[Iconoc]

Should do a Slashdot Poll for Giant Mythical creatures/mutants likely to attack Japan during the 2020 Olympics.

Fukushima or naturally occurring

[TurtleBay]

'"It is difficult to have this debate unless we know for sure whether this radiation is from Fukushima or whether it is naturally occurring background radiation" -Pieter Franken. I always find this sentiment a little odd. People care too much about if the radiation is measurably above background radiation or what the source of the radiation is. What they should care about is if the radiation is at a dangerous level. We have gotten better at measuring this stuff, so just because we can measure (very small) increases in radiation from Fukushima doesn't mean we should change our lives around it. Anything that is on the same magnitude as background radiation is pretty much safe. For example, you get increased radiation from flying in a plane because the atmosphere is much thinner. Also, natural radiation is much higher near the poles than near the equator, but nobody gets upset about this because it is "natural" like kale.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot has been posting sketchy articles lately, they're becoming the CNN of the internet. Worthless babble, and it gets worse when you read the linked stories. The one thing posted on the slashdot report is the fact they said "It is difficult to have this debate unless we know for sure whether this radiation is from Fukushima or whether it is naturally occurring background radiation" and then then a commenter

"

Using my Safecast Onyx (hi Safecast folks!) I measure ~0.32 uSv/h in Dublin, next to a granite wall (granite is everywhere around here, and naturally radioactive). The article speaks of of 0.484 uSv/h, not much higher than that. On an airplane at cruising altitude I get about 2.0uSv/h. At home I might see 0.08uSv/h, and in the middle of the street somewhere around 0.15uSv/h. *

I just visited japan and took the Safecast everywhere I went. At no point did it go significantly above what were normal background radiation readings in Dublin (not even when I was passing by Fukushima station, though admittedly that was on a high-speed train).

Radiation is everywhere. Unless you can identify the source as the Fukushima disaster, it might be perfectly normal. Even if the source is Fukushima, at low levels, at some point you have to stop worrying about it and realize that plenty of other places on Earth have higher naturally occurring background radiation.

* Rough numbers pulled from memory in CPM and converted to uSv/h using the conversion factor in the firmware source code, since my Onyx battery is dead at the moment. Take with a grain of salt."

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[icebike]

First you say:

What they should care about is if the radiation is at a dangerous level.

Then you say

Anything that is on the same magnitude as background radiation is pretty much safe.

So you've fallen into the same trap that you seem to deplore. Radiation near the background level puts things
in perspective without having to quote specific numbers.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[mikael]

Apparently, scientists in Japan are extremely concerned that Japanese users of Twitter are frequently reporting spontaneous nosebleeds.

http://www.infowars.com/thousands-of-japanese-report-nosebleeds-in-health-scare/

Though mysteriously, there is no report of bleeding gums or falling out hair.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[AK Marc]

I always find this sentiment a little odd. People care too much about if the radiation is measurably above background radiation or what the source of the radiation is.

There's nothing we can do about background radiation. It's coming from the radiation in the rocks and such. The only way to get away from that is move, and even then, you'll end up to other radiation.

There is no such thing as "safe" radiation, so eliminating all man-made causes is a good thing, even if the levels are lower than background in some areas.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[i]

There is no such thing as "safe" radiation, so eliminating all man-made causes is a good thing, even if the levels are lower than background in some areas.

Source (with proof!) ?

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[Deluvianvortex]

What about radio waves or visible light? That's radiation too. methinks you didn't think about what you were saying before you posted it.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[greg_barton]

There is no such thing as "safe" radiation

Horse shit. If that were true all life on Earth would have been wiped out long ago.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[ArsonSmith]

Perhaps not safe, but there is no such thing as a harmless amount of radiation. Life has built up a tolerance to a certain amount but even that is only over relatively short periods of time. "Safe" was probably not the right term as it is safe at levels we can heal faster than the damage it is doing.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[greg_barton]

Perhaps not safe, but there is no such thing as a harmless amount of radiation. Life has built up a tolerance to a certain amount

You instantly contradict yourself in your first sentence. Congrats!

If we tolerate it, it is by definition harmless. If low level radiation over time was harmful then residents of Denver would be dropping like flies. (Higher background radiation there from the high altitude.)

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[AK Marc]

If it causes cancer at age 100, was it "safe" or sufficiently delayed that we can consider it harmless?

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[AK Marc]

It kills us all, but slow enough we have time to reproduce. It's also "helpful" in that it pushes mutations that lead to evolution. It's required for life, but that doesn't mean it isn't harmful.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[greg_barton]

Sorry, it does not kill us all. You'll have to provide some proof for that extraordinary claim.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[AK Marc]

My proof is that there is nobody alive older than 200.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[greg_barton]

Telomeres.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[TheLink]

There is no such thing as "safe" radiation, so eliminating all man-made causes is a good thing, even if the levels are lower than background in some areas.

Citation please? I give you mine:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2663584/

In many places where the background radiation is higher but still at "safe" levels it doesn't seem to be killing people faster. In fact in some places they seem to live longer! Yes it could be due to other factors (diet, lifestyle), but it just shows that at those levels the radiation no longer significantly reduces your lifespan.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[wvmarle]

Driving a car is also dangerous, yet humanity seems to prosper, in part thanks to these very cars.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[AK Marc]

Evolutionarily in place to help defend against negative radiation damage. Indirect, but still caused by radiation.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[sl149q]

Since not everyone knows about bananas and radiation we should put a nice little radiation warning symbol sticker on every banana so that everybody can recognize the risk and make a sensible decision about whether they want to eat it.

Also all methods of access to Denver (roads leading in, airport etc) should have large warning nuclear warning signs so that everybody can make a sensible decision about whether they want to visit or not.

It might be dangerous so I for one just will avoid visiting Denver or eating any more bananas. After all ANY level of radiation MIGHT be dangerous. I may be past my prime reproductive years but certainly I don't want take ANY chances at all. Also I will be moving my basement office to the second floor. I've heard there might be some radon gas down here... And I plan on only going out at night (or in the day I'll stay inside my car.)

With this very careful regime my anti-radiation friends and I will simply out live all of you nuts who keep claiming that radiation is natural and safe in low dosages.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[fatphil]

GIven that your argument does not mention radiation, it is as much an argument that kettles are harmful. Or puppies. Or the scientific method. Or anything.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[AmiMoJo]

The key difference between say flying or eating a banana and the material released from Fukushima is that it does not accumulate in your body. When flying the radiation mostly bounces off your skin, or hits your organs once and then is dissipated or passes on through. Similarly when you eat a banana your body maintains a fairly constant level of potassium, so you are not increasing your long term exposure.

Fukushima released a lot of stuff, most notably caesium. It accumulates on the ground, in the water, inside animals and plants, and inside human beings. It then sits inside your organs (so no skin/flash to shield them) and irradiates them for decades. It's particularly bad for young children who are still growing quickly.

In short you can't make a direct comparison.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[greg_barton]

No, telomeres are there to guard against copying errors on the ends of chromosomes. They do nothing, repeat nothing, to repair internal DNA alterations.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[khallow]

There is no such thing as "safe" radiation

Even if we grant the very dubious claim that any level of radiation causes net harm to the human body, "safe" doesn't mean the complete elimination of a harmful thing, but rather the reduction or mitigation of the risk to a level which is acceptable.

so eliminating all man-made causes is a good thing

Because man-made radiation never comes with a benefit that needs to be considered. You can also eliminate a number of "background" natural radiation by living in a submarine. Maybe to be "safe", you should go the Captain Nemo route.

For some reason, I thought you understood both risk management and the perils of measuring stuff at or below the threshold of detection.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[AK Marc]

"safe" doesn't mean the complete elimination of a harmful thing, but rather the reduction or mitigation of the risk to a level which is acceptable.

So Fukushima is "safe" as everyone in the vicinity has "accepted" the risk of being there?

The car analogy is "can you ever be 'safe' on the road?" You can be safer than some arbitrary probability, but you'll never be as safe as you are in your house. So it's *never* 'safe', but also can be low enough risk to call 'safe' (in which case, 'safe' becomes a subjective word with little useful meaning).

For some reason, I thought you understood both risk management and the perils of measuring stuff at or below the threshold of detection.

Because I do. Risk management is about identifying and quantifying risk. "good enough" is very very poor risk management. "a 0.00001% chance of disease fatal 40% of the time, sometime in the next 40 years" is better risk management. "risk" is not "safe". "safe" means "no risk". I guess it comes down to "safe" in these types of articles should have a qualifier. "almost safe" is correct and would get no complaint from me, but others would object because it could imply "not safe" (as in "almost but not quite" safe).

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[khallow]

The car analogy is "can you ever be 'safe' on the road?" You can be safer than some arbitrary probability, but you'll never be as safe as you are in your house. So it's *never* 'safe', but also can be low enough risk to call 'safe' (in which case, 'safe' becomes a subjective word with little useful meaning).

So you don't understand the meaning of "safe". "Safe" doesn't mean that there is no risk, but rather that you understand the level of risk and accept it. Further, that you've taken sensible measures to reduce risks that you don't need to have. Dangerous activities can be safe because the participants understand the unusually high level of risk, accept it, and have taken sensible measures to reduce the risks of the activity.

Because I do. Risk management is about identifying and quantifying risk.

You didn't in your first post when you claimed "There is no such thing as "safe" radiation". There's no identification or quantify of risk there. If you don't want to be interpreted as being ignorant of risk management, then don't write posts that show considerable ignorance of risk management.

"good enough" is very very poor risk management. "a 0.00001% chance of disease fatal 40% of the time, sometime in the next 40 years" is better risk management.

And your reason for this claim is? After all, a 0.00001% chance is well below detection limits even for the global population unless the model is really solid or the effect unusually peculiar (low level radiation exposure models and their supposed health consequences don't qualify). That isn't better risk management.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[ArsonSmith]

Umm, building a tolerance is not the same thing as being harmless.

I tolerate crappy posters on Slashdot, yet they are not harmless.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[greg_barton]

Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stranger.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[ArsonSmith]

Only in comic books.

Re:Fukushima or naturally occurring

[greg_barton]

Nope, in real life too.

Some numbers for reference.

[marcansoft]

Using my Safecast Onyx (hi Safecast folks!) I measure ~0.32 uSv/h in Dublin, next to a granite wall (granite is everywhere around here, and naturally radioactive). The article speaks of of 0.484 uSv/h, not much higher than that. On an airplane at cruising altitude I get about 2.0uSv/h. At home I might see 0.08uSv/h, and in the middle of the street somewhere around 0.15uSv/h. *

I just visited japan and took the Safecast everywhere I went. At no point did it go significantly above what were normal background radiation readings in Dublin (not even when I was passing by Fukushima station, though admittedly that was on a high-speed train).

Radiation is everywhere. Unless you can identify the source as the Fukushima disaster, it might be perfectly normal. Even if the source is Fukushima, at low levels, at some point you have to stop worrying about it and realize that plenty of other places on Earth have higher naturally occurring background radiation.

* Rough numbers pulled from memory in CPM and converted to uSv/h using the conversion factor in the firmware source code, since my Onyx battery is dead at the moment. Take with a grain of salt.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[godrik]

randall munroe actually put up a fairly insightful chart of radiation levels: http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[marcansoft]

Somewhat amusingly, he typoed the one relevant box in there - "Extra dose to Tokyo in weeks following Fukushima accident" should probably be 40uSv (not 40mSv) if he means per person (and even then it sounds a bit high), or be in the orange chart if he means the total dose delivered to all of Tokyo.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[meerling]

People forget (or conveniently ignore) that we have always lived in a radioactive world.
By the way, the radiation goes up during the day, the sun itself is radioactive.
It all needs to be taken in context rather than just setting off alarms every time you detect radiation of any kind.
Heck, YOU are radioactive. Get a geiger counter and press it too your chest, you will see an increase in the readings.

Marcansoft, that's pretty cool that you have readings from all over. Even cooler that you aren't one of the paranoid zero tolerance ignorant scaremongers. Thanks again for the info. :)

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[godrik]

Interesting error indeed.

Seeing the notification email in slashdot, I recognized who I had replied to. Team Twizzer seems inactive and there have been little updates to your blog. What kind of cool stuff are you up to? (Beside walking around the world and taking raidoactivity measurements.)

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[nojayuk]

If you had gone walkabout in Fukushima city (as I did a couple of years ago) with your Safecast you'd have seen readings of about 0.7 uSv/h at a height of 1 metre above ground, the standard distance for measuring background radiation in Japan nowadays (assuming your meter was calibrated correctly). Before the 2011 accident and release of radioisotopes from Fukushima Daiichi the figure reported for Fukushima city was about 0.04 uSv/h. The current reported value for Shinjuku in the centre of Tokyo is 0.06 uSv/h by comparison.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[marcansoft]

Interesting. I didn't stop at Fukushima station, but I went past it on the Shinkansen with my Onyx in the outer pocket of my backpack (obviously it won't be picking up any alpha radiation there, but still useful data). Looking closely at the logs it is possible that one spike correlates with roughly the time I'd have been in that area, though I really would have to check the times closely. The Onyx was set to log every 10 minutes so it's also possible that it just missed the interesting times. The peak readings were about 0.2uSv/h, and that wasn't near Fukushima. Tokyo averaged somewhere around 0.11 uSv/h, while Hakodate (where I stayed a couple of days) was around 0.07uSv/h.

Interestingly, my return flight hit 3.0uSv/h, higher than the first flight (I just dumped the last chunk of the log which I hadn't done yet).

These readings seem to be using the default calibration of the Onyx. I haven't delved into the details yet (the firmware is still WIP as far as I can tell), but AIUI they are supposed to come calibrated, so either the default calibration is spot on, or the firmware isn't using the calibration data, or my firmware upgrade wiped the calibration data, or the calibration data was never there. Either way, I assume the default conversion factor is good enough for rough measurements of background radiation.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[Frosty Piss]

I just visited japan and took the Safecast everywhere I went. At no point did it go significantly above what were normal background radiation readings in Dublin...

Obviously there has been some sort of nuclear catastrophe in Dublin that your government is covering up.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[MrKaos]

I just visited japan and took the Safecast everywhere I went.

Obviously you were concerned enough to measure if there was any imminent danger, however, it is much harder to detect something you ingest.

Radiation is everywhere. Unless you can identify the source as the Fukushima disaster, it might be perfectly normal. Even if the source is Fukushima, at low levels, at some point you have to stop worrying about it and realize that plenty of other places on Earth have higher naturally occurring background radiation

The issues is not radiation emitted, it's the radionuclides emitting them. People get hung up on radiation but it's radionuclides that behave as micronutrients in the food chain that are dangerous. They are absorbed by the metabolism and continue to be energetic within the body. This is what triggers the cancers some years later.

Using my Safecast Onyx (hi Safecast folks!) I measure ~0.32 uSv/h in Dublin, next to a granite wall (granite is everywhere around here, and naturally radioactive). The article speaks of of 0.484 uSv/h, not much higher than that. On an airplane at cruising altitude I get about 2.0uSv/h. At home I might see 0.08uSv/h, and in the middle of the street somewhere around 0.15uSv/h. *

Even if you measured everything you ate or drank it is unlikely that you would have found anything. What you would need is a device to measure the probability of ingesting stronium 90, or ceasium 131, or plutonium - 239. It's like comparing the probabilty for survival from a crash in that aircraft by measuring the difference encountered by sitting next to an emergency door.

at some point you have to stop worrying about it and realize that plenty of other places on Earth have higher naturally occurring background radiation.

That's great but it's more likely that Japan now has very high concentration of radionuclides in very specific places in the ocean or land or sea, some of that area will be producing food. The likelihood of encountering in the food chain is now higher than the initial accident because the radionuclides have propagated further up the foodchain so if you ate food in Japan the likelihood of ingesting it has increased. The longer you stay there the more you will increase your chances of a permanent dose in your body, the more times you get one of those means the probability of some sort of cancer increases. A big problem for the locals, but not really a worry for you.

So your safecast was probably as effective as an umbrella in a hailstorm. It may have protected you from some minor danger however if the big one has your number on it, you will never know.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[wvmarle]

Interestingly, my return flight hit 3.0uSv/h, higher than the first flight (I just dumped the last chunk of the log which I hadn't done yet).

Maybe it's time to start warning people about the massive radiation hazards flying has, it's really terrible compared to the already disastrous quantities we get from this Fukushima thing.

Oh wait a moment, we'd probably be aiding Them Terrorists if we'd start doing that. And that'd of course be far worse than being fried by radiation.

All sarcasm aside, that higher reading on your return flight may have plenty of explanations. Space weather, time of day (more solar radiation), maybe different route of the plane - I expect more radiation when flying over the pole than near the equator thanks to the Earth's magnetic field. Just like background radiation at the ground varies over time.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[BlackPignouf]

Exactly.
It's also possible to measure the impact of a Japanese earthquake in Paris.
It doesn't mean that Parisians should be afraid, though.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[marcansoft]

Obviously you were concerned enough to measure if there was any imminent danger

I wasn't concerned. I'm just a curious geek who happens to own a logging Geiger counter.

The issues is not radiation emitted, it's the radionuclides emitting them.

That is true. Ingesting radionuclides is definitely a much bigger problem than external exposure.

That's great but it's more likely that Japan now has very high concentration of radionuclides in very specific places in the ocean or land or sea, some of that area will be producing food. The likelihood of encountering in the food chain is now higher than the initial accident because the radionuclides have propagated further up the foodchain so if you ate food in Japan the likelihood of ingesting it has increased. The longer you stay there the more you will increase your chances of a permanent dose in your body, the more times you get one of those means the probability of some sort of cancer increases. A big problem for the locals, but not really a worry for you.

It's hard to get real data about these issues, as there is a ridiculous amount of fearmongering in the media. For example, there are plenty of articles talking about the spread of radiation in the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima to other countries, but a simple dilution argument shows that any claim of danger from that effect is nonsense - the ocean is ridiculously bigger than the quantity of radioactive water released, and even if you can measure the effect, it's going to be negligible in practice.

Locally produced food is another issue, and yes, the possibility for concerning contamination exists. Supposedly, food is tested in Japan, and the limits are stricter than in the US. Converting that into the probability that you will eat something that exceeds the limit (and by how much) is tricky. If you know of any serious studies attempting to calculate this, please do let me know.

FWIW, I do plan on moving to Japan in the not too distant future.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[AmiMoJo]

That is a rather strange number to pick, I don't know why he bothered pointing it out when it's basically meaningless. What matters is who much radioactive material was absorbed into the bodies of people in Tokyo at the time (myself included), and how much the total dose over the remainder of our lives will be.

Of course, no-one really knows what this number will be, but some children living near Fukushima have already developed malignant growths believed by doctors to be related to emissions from the plant, so perhaps once the analysis of their removed thyroid glands are in we will have a better idea.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[AmiMoJo]

Interestingly, my return flight hit 3.0uSv/h, higher than the first flight (I just dumped the last chunk of the log which I hadn't done yet).

Okay, but just to be clear, you can't compare the exposure on a 12 hour flight to solar/space radiation to living near Fukushima long term with radioactive material getting inside you, right? So why did you bother to mention this again?

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[MrKaos]

It's hard to get real data about these issues, as there is a ridiculous amount of fearmongering in the media.

Unfortunately the Japanese government will not allow a free exchange of data and information. Tepco's incompetance in this matter is supreme, especially in the matter of not securing the plants backup power supply to mitigate basis design issues in the 'S' Class facilities of the plant. This nonfeasence was entirley avoidable and contemptable.

Actual real hard data, and the science in place to measure and publish results would at least allow us to deal with reality. I don't like the fearmongering, but in absence of real data we are left with nothing else but extrapolation based on the amount of material in the plant. I doubt the real news is any better.

For example, there are plenty of articles talking about the spread of radiation in the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima to other countries, but a simple dilution argument shows that any claim of danger from that effect is nonsense

If only it was that simple. Dilution is not what is in effect here, it's the opposite, bio-concentration. I know that seems counter-intuitive but that is the nature of the materials because radioactive elements accumulate in the food chain like some other dangerous chemicals like Poly Chloride Biphenyls. However radioactive isotopes also analogue a variety of elements that living creatures need to survive. Compounding this further they are emmiters of alpha, beta and, gamma radiation at various energetic levels.

So, pu-239 presents to the metabolism as a micro-nutrient. In Plutonium's case it presents as Iron to a metabolism. In the ocean a *lack* of iron is what stops metabolic processes, so Iron is readily absorbed ergo Plutonium is readily absorbed. So a small sea creature absorbs the plutonium and it gets eaten by steadily larger creatures, like a fish and then it's in the human food chain. Considering the size and variety of the human food chain, this is inevitable more than once.

This is the main reason to arrest the flow of Fukushima cooling water into the ocean, as plutonium is only one of the elements that it contains that has this property - but I'll follow with this single radioisotope as an example.

A single micro gram of plutonium is a fatal dose to a human being when ingested. As more isotopes are released into the environment the likelihood of exposure increases. The amount of time it takes to move through the food chain introduces a random amount of time before eventually ingested - by an actual person. From there a gestation time passes, like the flu is approximately 7 days, cancer is approximately 6 years. So even if someone ingests something immediately from Fukushima you still have a 6 year wait before you notice aything wrong.

Depending on the radionuclide, there are different cancers, radon 220 that causes lung cancer, or radium 226 that causes bone cancers, strontium 90, americium, iodine 131, cesium 137, the list goes on. The exposure vectors are many and varied. What has protected us is the likelihood of encountering one was low. Everyday this continues the possibility increases.

For airborne fallout, say just like TMI, the jetstream was the perfect carrier to the west coast of the US ensuring good coverage of land based produce. A cow eats radioactive grass, accumulates, say, strontium 90 in the milk, the milk is made into chocolate and you eat it in one of those multi-colored candy covered chocolate treats you so enjoy. Do you enjoy sushi? You can be exposed one or multiple times and after you die cremation makes the radioisotope airborne fallout amd decay allows it back into the watertable.

Locally produced food is another issue, and yes, the possibility for concerning contamination exists. Supposedly, food is tested in Japan, and the limits are stricter than in the US. Converting that into the probability that you will eat something that exc

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[BitZtream]

but some children living near Fukushima have already developed malignant growths believed by doctors to be related to emissions from the plant

Then those doctors should not be allowed to practice medicine since they clearly have no fucking clue how medicine works.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[TEG24601]

Exactly. XKCD has a great chart comparing radiation levels and what they are equivalent to. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Radiation_Dose_Chart_by_Xkcd.png

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[khallow]

Okay, but just to be clear, you can't compare the exposure on a 12 hour flight to solar/space radiation to living near Fukushima long term with radioactive material getting inside you, right?

Sure, you can. Keep in mind that there are a bunch of people who fly regularly who get a larger lifetime dose of internal ionizing particles from increased exposure due to flying than they would from ingesting or breathing small amounts of dirt from Fukushima.

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[joostje]

Care to explain to us and the WHO specialists who reported Fukushima-Area Cancer Risks Are Higher Than Normal After Japan Nuclear Disaster why those doctors should not be allowed to practice medicine?

Re:Some numbers for reference.

[RockDoctor]

Keep in mind that there are a bunch of people who fly regularly who get a larger lifetime dose of internal ionizing particles from increased exposure due to flying than they would from ingesting or breathing small amounts of dirt from Fukushima.

Some people who regularly fly "over the pole" (e.g. flight crew who fly UK to Japan on a daily basis) are already approaching the level of radiation dose which would classify them as "radiation workers."

I don't work with artificial radiation sources myself, but the NORM ("Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material) that I do work with regularly (Kimmeridge Clay and other "black shales" ; mozonite- and thorite-rich storm-winnowed sands ; "pipe scale" from inside oil drilling equipment) can have quite hight readings too. But those readings are not as high as the background radiation I get from living in "the Granite City", of around 2200micro-sieverts. That's substantially higher than the average for a UK city, and approaches the background levels for Americans (because of the higher use of medical scans in the US).

Radiation is a real issue - the amount of paperwork you have to go through if you lose a source is something you don't want to experience - but that doesn't of itself justify having a fit of the screaming ab-dabs over it.

New proposal.

[SuricouRaven]

All stories about radiation not intended for a specialist audience should measure radiation levels in 'bananas/year.'

Re:New proposal.

[Molochi]

Yeah as BPY or as a relative value to exposure in Denver per Year.

Re:New proposal.

[nickersonm]

The highest reading mentioned in the article, 0.484uS/hr, is approximately 1.07 Denver, or 0.96 Boulder. Exact values are hard to find, but it seems Denver is around 4mSv/year, and Boulder is ~4.5mSv/year, which is about .45 and .5 uSv/hr.

Re:New proposal.

[NoKaOi]

The highest reading mentioned in the article, 0.484uS/hr, is approximately 1.07 Denver, or 0.96 Boulder. Exact values are hard to find, but it seems Denver is around 4mSv/year, and Boulder is ~4.5mSv/year, which is about .45 and .5 uSv/hr.

Ah, but the important question is: What type of radiation is it? Are we talking about Scary Radiation, or natural, USDA Certified Organic radiation (which has no chemicals!)? Since the .484uSv/hr is in Japan, which is the same country Fukushima is in, then it is 100% Scary Radiation. The radiation in Denver and Boulder is natural, certified organic radiation, so it has 0 uS/hr of Scary Radiation by comparison. Also keep in mind that most of the athletes probably have cell phones, which also emit significant amounts of Scary Radiation. Multiply these two sources of Scary Radiation together, and we're talking about a death sentence for all of the athletes.

Re:New proposal.

[AmiMoJo]

The current legal limit in Japan is 1mSv of ionizing radiation. This is not the same as background radiation and affects the body in a different way (because it tends to accumulate inside you). It appears to already be affecting children living near Fukushima.

It seems that the Japanese government has a better understanding of radiation than you do, which considering how much they cocked-up management at Fukushima Daiichi is saying something.

Re:New proposal.

[nickersonm]

Since Sieverts are a measure of ionizing radiation, then obviously the background levels I mentioned are ionizing radiation.

Certainly the physical distribution of the radiation sources are important, but I didn't think that was worth mentioning in a simple summary comparison. Sieverts already attempt to correct for biological effects, but yes, if the radiation source is something that can internally bioaccumulate, it will have more complex and serious effects. That is beyond a simple single-measurement comparison, however.

Re:Every now and then...

[meerling]

Are you implying that the Fukushima event was actually an RSVP for Godzilla to attend the 2020 Olympics? :D

So we can't have a debate than

[DarkOx]

It is difficult to have this debate unless we know for sure whether this radiation is from Fukushima or whether it is naturally occurring background radiation

For anyone considering going then you can't know, and at this point it matters little what anyone says. There have been so many denials, and incorrect information put out by TEPCO and the government there how could anyone trust anything they say now?

Re:Natural or accident-related?

[djupedal]

'anyone'?

Maybe not if your history shows low exposure in general. Maybe if you exceeded safe levels/limits years ago (that would be me). Now, if you can be more specific, and avoid general 'anyone', you might get an answer you can use. In the mean time, and just to be safe, all low-information questioners are advised to get back on the other side of the Police tape and we'll let you know if anything changes.

Here's the letter and data

[evilsofa]

This appears to be the letter and the data that started all this:

http://olympicsokuteikai.web.fc2.com/encontents.html

Perhaps the most crucial part of the letter is this:

"Just before the Fukushima power plant accident, the mean value of the atmospheric radiation in Tokyo was estimated as 0.04 Sv/h, and radioactive Cesium was almost non-existent. Therefore, atmospheric radiation value above this level can be regarded as the effect of the nuclear accident."

Is that a valid assumption?

Re:Here's the letter and data

[drinkypoo]

A great deal of the food you would consume in Japan is also imported from less irradiated spots on earth. But the fish...

OMG! The possibility!

[Okian Warrior]

Once again, possibility is not the same as probability.

Yes, it's possible that the elevated radiation levels will cause problems. Now, what's the risk, and what's the tradeoff between mitigating *that* risk versus mitigating some *other* risk?

Security is a tradeoff, always. The value of something is not the face value, but the face value times the probability of occurrence.

So if the probability of damage (say, the number of people getting cancer from going to the event) times the value of damage (taken informally as $1 million per human life lost, but depends on estimates and philosophy) is higher than other foreseeable risks, then we should address the problem.

Risks shouldn't be ignored, just compared to other risks. If the utility losses for other risks are higher, then we should spend our finite resources on the other risks first.

How much risk utility is embodied in this problem compared to, say dying from accidentally swallowing (and choking on) a bee?

...but journalism must sell news. I suppose someone swallowing something wouldn't be very interesting.

Re:OMG! The possibility!

[TubeSteak]

Once again, possibility is not the same as probability.

Dude, they found Cesium-137 where none was previously known to exist.
AFAIK it doesn't naturally occur and we only get it as a byproduct of nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons

Risks shouldn't be ignored, just compared to other risks. If the utility losses for other risks are higher, then we should spend our finite resources on the other risks first.

How much risk utility is embodied in this problem compared to, say dying from accidentally swallowing (and choking on) a bee?

One of my friends got stung, by a bee, on his tongue.
He was lucky enough to get medical attention before the swelling choked him to death.
Even luckier, he got that medical attention before the doctors would have had to cut a hole in throat.

It's almost like you've never heard the expression "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"
Avoiding exposure to radiation is better than cancer and chemo-therapy.

Re:OMG! The possibility!

[AmiMoJo]

How much risk utility is embodied in this problem compared to, say dying from accidentally swallowing (and choking on) a bee?

The key difference is that swallowing a bee is an unfortunate accident that probably couldn't be foreseen, where as getting cancer from the entirely preventable Fukushima disaster, a facility which was designed to generate profit for a private company on the understanding that they would run it safely, is clearly a case of negligence.

In any case, even if you only value a human life at $1m you can't really expect the people affected or their families to accept that monetary assessment, can you? They are clearly going to demand compensation for things like lifetime earnings, the suffering of that person's family, medical costs associated with treatment and the reduction of pain and so forth. Given that it makes sense to spend more than $1m trying to prevent such an accident, especially when we are talking about a potentially large number of victims.

Re:OMG! The possibility!

[doom]

The key difference is that swallowing a bee is an unfortunate accident that probably couldn't be foreseen, where as getting cancer from the entirely preventable Fukushima disaster, a facility which was designed to generate profit for a private company on the understanding that they would run it safely, is clearly a case of negligence.

Actually, while it's entirely possible the designers and operators are guilty of some form of negligence, it is not clear that it is so. You might, for example, argue that this was an exceptional tsunami which could not have been forseen and could not reasonably be designed around.

Also, the nuclear industry as a whole remains a safe way of generating power, and Fukushima itself, even given this accident, may remain safer than many competing sources of power... there are many years of safe operation you need to average the present harmful effects over... and it's not at all clear how harmful those are going to turn out to be, in terms of loss of human life.

Huh?

[sjames]

'"It is difficult to have this debate unless we know for sure whether this radiation is from Fukushima or whether it is naturally occurring background radiation,"

So as long as it's natural it doesn't matter how strong it is but if it's from the plant then any amount is too much? I wasn't aware that natural radiation was safer than man-made radiation, when did that memo come out?

Re:Huh?

[ArsonSmith]

I specialize in holistic radiation treatment. Good naturally occurring radiation is much better for you than anything man made.

Re:Every now and then...

[Sigvulcanas]

That just made my day. Let's just hope they can make the giant mechs to fight the mutants off.

Re:Every now and then...

[sjames]

Blue Oyster Cult should be hired to perform in the opening ceremony.

Re:Every now and then...

[todrules]

At least then, I might watch it.

Re:Natural or accident-related?

[sjames]

So I guess you avoid Colorado?

Documentary available

[gmhowell]

Saw a documentary once about this irradiated Japanese Olympic sight. Don't worry about extra drug testing, but DO bring along your targetting device for your space laser.

Re:Documentary available

[bejiitas_wrath]

The SOL laser will be ready by then, but Gamera is still not ready.

Lots of things to avoid

[Overzeetop]

And planes. And travelling significantly north or south toward the poles. And granite (mountains, countertops, building facades).

Re:Lots of things to avoid

[Deluvianvortex]

and radio and tv, and open skies, and halogen bulbs, and..

Luckily we got a Cobalt 60 half life

[bubblegoose]

If I remember by Navy nuclear training correctly, the half life of Cobalt 60 is 5.27 years and it is one of the largest sources of radiation from fission decay products. It's a half off sale, take those measurements and lower them by 50% folks!

Smartphones

[Capsaicin]

Apparently, scientists in Japan are extremely concerned that Japanese users of Twitter are frequently reporting spontaneous nosebleeds.

Is it only Twitter causing nosebleeds or are other social media site users presenting similarly?

Olympic mascot

[altgeek]

I think the a three-eyed fish mascot named "Isotoppu" would be appropriate.

Re:Frosty Piss

[durrr]

I see the anti-nuclear camp blending fire detectors and dusting them all over the place to ensure Fukushima is "taken as seriously as it deserves!"

The hard decisions

[Tablizer]

Will 3-legged mutants be allowed to participate in the games?

They kicked out Rudolf for having an iridescent nose.

Re:radioactive particles

[wonkey_monkey]

You are stupid. Meteorites are no immediate threat until you get hit by one, but do you wear a hard hat every time you go outside?

Not factual

[aepervius]

We have a distinct lack of knowledge of what is hapenning at low radiation level. The precautionary principle and some funky linear regression made us say there is no "safe radiation level", but this is not a fact. There are quite a lot of indication that the linear model is false. Look up Radiation hormesis. The most well known case indicating that the linear model is wrong, were steel bar used in building which were contaminated with radioactive cobalt, people lived 10 years irradiated with a factor of magnitude more than 10 time above the local radioactive background, and there was no increase in cancer/leukemya. IIRC it was in hongkong or Seoul, somewhere in that region.

Re:Every now and then...

[dunkelfalke]

Well, it is sort of very fitting

"History shows again and again how nature points up the folly of man"

spain for 2020

[sumitjadhav137]

spain should host 2020 olympics..

MIchael Bay is prepping the movie now

[cheekyboy]

I bet the movie how ever crap it is, will be a hit.

Faster, Higher, Stronger

[khr]

Well, that's the Olympic motto, "Faster, Higher, Stronger" so I'm sure a bit of a radiation boost can help.

Re:Faster, Higher, Stronger

[PPH]

And again, the gold medal goes to the 300 foot tall lizard

Re:Every now and then...

[Redmancometh]

Because American culture has so much to do with this. Take your smugness and fuck right off.
There is some American culture for you.

Magic bananas

[Machupo]

If they're concerned about those dosage levels, they had better guard the banana stockpile and ensure that athletes don't ingest too much radiation!

Re:Every now and then...

[Richy_T]

What? RSVP is an abbreviation of the French for "Respond, if you please" (répondez s'il vous plaît). It is not the response itself.

So what you are REALLY saying is

[SmallFurryCreature]

That these people will ON TOP of normal exposure to radiation suffer additional exposure?

Gosh, it is a good thing radiation isn't cumulative... oh wait.

You know what this means, right?

[Optali]

So, elevated levels of radiation in Tokio... hmmm.
Have they already measured the levels in the water of Tokyo Bay? And what about the seismographs? Already checked these ones?

Well, I guess we all know what's coming. I would start preparing a replacement for the Tokyo Tower as we all know how fond Gojira is of crushing it every time he visit the Nippon capital.