Radioactive Wild Boars Still Roaming the Forests of Germany

Happy Labour Day from The Golden Girls! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 06:39 · Score: -1

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.

Re:Happy Labour Day from The Golden Girls! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:01 · Score: 0

It's "you're a pal and a confidant". If you're going to do it, do it right.
Re:Happy Labour Day from The Golden Girls! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:02 · Score: 0

YHBT. By a really old one, too.
Re:Happy Labour Day from The Golden Girls! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2014-09-02 00:00 · Score: 1

I thought that "you're a pal and a carnivore" would be a better fit for this article?

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Happy Labour Day from The Golden Girls! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2014-09-02 00:01 · Score: 1

Or he's just playing along...

--
Ezekiel 23:20

Interesting line from TFA: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 06:42 · Score: 2, Informative

"Wild boar are thought to be particularly affected because they root through the soil for food, and feed on mushrooms and underground truffles that store radiation. Many mushrooms from the affected areas are also believed to be unfit for human consumption. "

That's pretty interesting. Chernobyl was a long time ago.

Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Ihlosi · 2014-09-01 06:48 · Score: 5, Informative

Chernobyl was a long time ago.
It was only about one half-life (Cs-137) ago.
Also, Cs-137 gets washed to lower soil layers very slowly (a few millimeters per year).
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by amiga3D · 2014-09-01 07:07 · Score: 2

It seems odd that the pigs are too irradiated to eat but seem to thrive and breed just fine.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by dunkelfalke · 2014-09-01 07:14 · Score: 2

Nothing odd about it. Their females are fertile when less than a ear old, their males two years after birth. Long term effects of radiation are felt later.

--
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Applehu+Akbar · 2014-09-01 07:21 · Score: 5, Informative

Mushrooms can be used to bioconcentrate metals. Some species prefer cesium:
http://www.herbmuseum.ca/conte...
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Waffle+Iron · 2014-09-01 07:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

It seems odd that the pigs are too irradiated to eat but seem to thrive and breed just fine.
Most people these days prefer to live a good deal longer than their earliest possible breeding time.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by ilguido · 2014-09-01 08:41 · Score: 1

Cesium radiated boars were found in northwestern Italy last year(Google translated article), and Chernobyl was blamed. However I still wonder what the cesium levels were before Chernobyl: perhaps it's just that boars are like bananas and tobacco.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 08:47 · Score: 1

"Most people these days prefer to live a good deal longer than their earliest possible breeding time."
try telling that to a male praying mantis...
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 08:48 · Score: 0

It's teh mushrooms actually. They are very good at collecting and retaining radiation. Boars eat them.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by sillybilly · 2014-09-01 09:18 · Score: 2

Now you want to call praying mantis people too? wow, what an abandonment of specieism that would be.. So when are mosquitoes gonna be protected as having individual rights under the Constitution? Not anytime soon, I reckon..
So anyway, to the seemingly well thriving radioactive wild boars, my answer is what about them seafood (tuna fish) that created dementia and mental retardation in a California child, because her mother fed her a can of tuna fish every morning, and it turned out he got mercury poisoning, and they narrowed it to the tuna, which is a top predator, and methyl-mercury is lypophilic (fat loving) and it bioaccumulates.. By far the greatest amount of yearly mercury emissions comes from coal, which is the main alternative to nuclear when it comes to electricity generation. And all other fossils create global warming, ask the people who live near what used to be Lake Chad, where they get their water when they are thirsty, and compare that to the seemingly happy radioactive wild boars. Unlike with coal, where almost no matter how precisely you do your job, the pollution is there, with nuclear it all comes down to getting it done right. I know that's easier said than done, because to err is human. Then you have to design assuming errors will happen, and deal with them at the design phase, and then again, to err is human, because the Japs fucked up assuming the highest tsunami wave would be such and such hitting Fukushima, and designed wave breakers for it, that ended up not tall enough for when the incident happened. For their excuse, they never had a tsunami wave that high since written history, so to err is human, but to forgive them for their mistake in the design is divine.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-01 10:03 · Score: 1

North Italy, Austria and then south Germany where the first regions hit by the Chernobyl explosion.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Dutch+Gun · 2014-09-01 10:08 · Score: 1

Now you want to call praying mantis people too? wow, what an abandonment of specieism that would be.. So when are mosquitoes gonna be protected as having individual rights under the Constitution? Not anytime soon, I reckon..
Whoosh? Pretty sure that was just supposed to be funny. Granted, it's sort of hard to tell if people are kidding about that sort of thing nowadays, with some extremists actually declaring the life of a human and a rat as equivalent in value.

--
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Livius · 2014-09-01 10:25 · Score: 1

I imagine the praying mantis would indeed prefer that.
If given the choice....
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by the_other_chewey · 2014-09-01 11:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

North Italy, Austria and then south Germany where the first regions hit by the Chernobyl explosion.
Don't quote me on that, but I'm decently sure that Chernobyl (and Pripyat) were the first regions hit by the Chernobyl explosion...
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Firethorn · 2014-09-01 14:10 · Score: 1

I remember reading that it turns out that preying mantis females don't actually eat their mate all that often in the wild, it's just that all the observations were of caged mantises, where due to the stress of being caged the females ate their mates a lot more frequently.

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I don't read AC A human right
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by ameen.ross · 2014-09-01 20:18 · Score: 1

I, for one, welcome our equivalently valued rat overlords.

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$(echo cm0gLXJmIC8= | base64 --decode)
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by JosKarith · 2014-09-01 21:35 · Score: 2

Look up the DDT concentration pyramid - it doesn't take large doses in the creatures in the lower stages of the pyramid to build up to toxic levels in the apex predators - which would be us in this case.

--
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Talderas · 2014-09-01 23:50 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure Fukushima, Japan was the first area hit by Chernobyl's explosion.

--
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-02 01:37 · Score: 1

Rofl, obviously correct but pointless :)

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by amiga3D · 2014-09-02 04:11 · Score: 2

You can't tell that from the actions of most teenagers.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-02 06:00 · Score: 0

If this was a pun, it was a good one and unfortunately many missed it.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by JasonGoatcher · 2014-09-02 07:28 · Score: 0

OMG, George, it's Agnes's time of the month and I'm super-horny, what am I gonna do?
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by jafac · 2014-09-02 16:03 · Score: 1

wild boars eat mushrooms.

--

These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by sillybilly · 2014-09-03 01:51 · Score: 1

He he he. Well, when it comes to food at least, absolute specieism hold well morally, for all species equivalently, their own kind being above other species. Such as a tiger is supposed to eat a human before it eats another tiger for food, it should respect its own kind. Similarly, a human should eat a tiger before eating another human. Unless you got 10 trillion humans in the word and you're dealing with the last 10 tigers left, about to go extinct, that situation could be complicated. But then there's got to be other food than tigers, or humans, like rats, available, or even simple grass and tree leaves.
On the other hand if you consider these other animals inhabited by the same intelligent parasites that inhabit humans, ants, trees and the forest floor, and do mind control on higher species, then you can't really argue on basis of intellect, because those animals might be just as sentient as you through having the same sentient residents in them as you do. However specieism or indentiism still holds, as in every life form is reponsible for themselves as an individual first, then their kind, before they get held responsible for other life forms. Such as a hungry wolf can eat a rat, it's responsible to live, and even in reproductive sense it's responsible to maintain and breed with its own kind, wild wolf populations instead of say domesticated dogs of various kinds.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by Applehu+Akbar · 2014-09-03 02:38 · Score: 1

Exactly my point. Finding traces of Chernobyl radioactivity in boars should not be seen as yet another excuse for handwringing doomspeak. Instead, it should get the researchers asking: Why boars? What arw they eatingthat other animals don't? And why are these mushrooms hoarding cesium?
In the exclusion zones at Chernobyl and Fukushima, the problem is scattered radioisotopes. Finding plants that concentrate this stuff would be most valuable.
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by RockDoctor · 2014-09-04 02:39 · Score: 1

Look up the DDT concentration pyramid

DDT is fat soluble not water soluble, and very slow to break down. Caesium (Cs-137) and Iodine (I-127, IIRC), the main radio-nucleotides released by Chernobyl, are moderately to very water soluble, and have small, (decades) half lives. Which makes bio-accumulation much less of an issue. Not "no issue", but not much of an issue.
The radiation cloud came over ; the rain fell, bringing the fallout with it ; the radio-nucleotides were washed out of the sky and into the soil, and are slowly working through the soil to rivers and streams (delayed by absorption on to plant debris, soil minerals and humic acids). Give it another couple of centuries and there won't be a problem. In Germany.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by RockDoctor · 2014-09-04 02:52 · Score: 1

Actually, the radiation cloud was first detected (in the West ; Pripyat knew about it a couple of day's earlier. My wife was working out of doors a hundred or so kilometres away for the week afterwards ; we paid attention to the details when she came to the west with me) over southern Sweden, from where it spread to Northern Britain and then worked it's way south. Germany and Austria were several days later. They were hit, undoubtedly, but the winds delayed the arrival of the radiation cloud for several days.
Correct, but pointfull?

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by RockDoctor · 2014-09-04 03:05 · Score: 1

Finding plants that concentrate this stuff would be most valuable.
If the cost of preparing the land and harvesting the crops for decades (you're not going to get everything in one cycle) turns out to be cheaper than just letting the radioactivity decay ....
Which might be true, bit it's by no means a certainty.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Interesting line from TFA: by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-04 04:51 · Score: 1

Well ... no idea.
The first publications about a potential reactor disaster came from JRC in Ispra Itally and University of Karlsruhe, Germany. At that point the fact that Chernobyl had exploded was not known yet.
If the actual cloud reached south Sweden first and turned then south, but was not detected ... I don't know that.
However obviously the cloud has to go over all the other countries to the west/north-west of the Ukraine first anyway.
Funnily both institutes assumed first they themselves had a nuclear accident. As the alarms where mainly triggered by people leaving (more precisely entering) the buildings through the radiation control locks. Took them both half a day to figure: no, it is not the people going outside triggering the alarms, its the people who come inside!
I only remember from the Maps that in the end of the cloud it was over scandinavia, and before that over Switzerland, Austria, Germany ... If it was before that already once over Scandinavia, I don't know. But I guess one can check that somewhere.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re: Interesting line from TFA: by RockDoctor · 2014-09-04 20:02 · Score: 1

recall redng abut it in the New Scentist at the time. There was much puzzlement, but the alerts from Sweden were notcoming from nuclear reactors etc, but out of academia, who have no reasn to keep things in-house while they figure out waht was going on.
If you look at a map, Sweden was probably the closest country to Chernobyl outside the Soviet block. There was no "Ukraine", "Belarus" or Baltic states then , they were all Oblasts or Okrugs of the USSR. (Possibly parts of Finland were closer ; I'd need a map to check.)
The wind took the cloud NW from Chernobyl to th Baltic, then W across the North Sea, leading to high deposition rates over the Hiighlands of Scotland and the English Lake District (I had to check radiation levels as part of my rsk assessment for mapping work in the Highlands 2 years later ; sale of sheep for food was still banned at that time, but since I was a veggie, that didn't fuss me). It was several days later that the main plume swept back across central Europe.
It's possible that places like nuclear reactors and research stations picked up the cloud earlier, using their more sensitive detectors, but they weren't reporting it until after the other news had broken and they could say "It's not us!"

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"

Duke Nukem 3D by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 06:42 · Score: 1

Duke Nukem 3D popularized the radioactive wild boar concept.

Re:Duke Nukem 3D by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:15 · Score: 0

Who ever voted -1, WHOOoooooooooosh
Re:Duke Nukem 3D by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:45 · Score: 0

What do you expect? Acknowledging the existence of mutated pig-cops in a work of fiction from 1996 requires the ability to imagine disrespect for authority. Thinking disrespectfully of authority is not permissible in 2014 Terrorist America.
Re:Duke Nukem 3D by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 08:00 · Score: 0

Also, in reality, it is more like mutated pig-paramilitary. Just look at today police. Shameful.

Reall problem: German radiation phobia by ShanghaiBill · 2014-09-01 06:46 · Score: -1, Troll

The real problem here is the ridiculous standard in Germany for the amount of radiation considered safe. There is nothing unsafe about eating this pork, as long as it is cooked well to kill the trichinosis.

Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by I'm+New+Around+Here · 2014-09-01 06:55 · Score: 4, Funny

Wouldn't the trichinosis already be irradiated anyway? Just think of the radiation as a 'very-slow-roasting' system. The meat is practically falling off the bone before the animal is even dead.
.
For the humor-impaired, this is a joke.

--
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 06:59 · Score: 0

Radiation is good for you. As said certain U.S. female politician on live TV.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-09-01 07:01 · Score: 1

Yeah, its amazing how these pigs can thrive so well and show no ill effects. Green Peace should be loving this miracle, it only harms people!
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:03 · Score: 0

We should trust "shanghai bill"'s own personal radiation standard over the more stringent German standard, because he says so guys.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by jklovanc · 2014-09-01 07:04 · Score: 1

It looks like the limits are in line with most of the world.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by CrimsonAvenger · 2014-09-01 07:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

hmm...
Assuming all of the radioactivity is due to Cs-137, that 600 Bq/kg limit translates to 0.0000003 micrograms of Cs-137 in any given kg of wild pork.
Okay, I can buy the argument that that "safe" limit errs on the side of caution a bit much....

--

"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:15 · Score: 0, Informative

Ann Coulter. Not even up to politician level of smug idiocy, she's a Fox News talking head/moron.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Charliemopps · 2014-09-01 07:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

hmm...
Assuming all of the radioactivity is due to Cs-137, that 600 Bq/kg limit translates to 0.0000003 micrograms of Cs-137 in any given kg of wild pork.
Okay, I can buy the argument that that "safe" limit errs on the side of caution a bit much....
The real problem from a meltdown isn't really the radiation. While that's scary and all... the real problem is what else is released and what the shorter half life elements decay into. Most of what the control rods are made out of are horrific heavy metals, and during the Chernobyl incident the Russians panicked and dumped large amounts of liquid lead and cement laced with lead into the basement of the reactor. The lead boiled off and then rained back down all over the region. If I lived in the area, I'd be more concerned about that lead than I would be about the radiation.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Applehu+Akbar · 2014-09-01 07:23 · Score: 1

Especially given that the average human body is giving off about 4500 Bq continuously.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by ShanghaiBill · 2014-09-01 07:25 · Score: 2

It looks like the limits are in line with most of the world.
Those are for overall food radiation levels. If you ate wild pork for 100% of your diet, those numbers would be important. But wild boar is something that is eaten infrequently. It is like mercury in tuna. If you are pregnant, and eat tuna everyday, it is a concern. Otherwise, a tuna sandwich a few times a month is harmless.
Disclaimer: I am a vegetarian, and eat neither tuna nor wild boar. But I do eat bananas, which contain enough radiation to occasionally trigger radiation alarms.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:30 · Score: -1

You're stupid enough to believe that the problem with Cs-137 is that eating it will cause you to gain weight? And from this you deduce that the most interesting property of a given quantity of Cs-137 is its mass?
And you still beat the captcha when you registered your account?
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by ShanghaiBill · 2014-09-01 07:53 · Score: 3, Informative

Ann Coulter. Not even up to politician level of smug idiocy, she's a Fox News talking head/moron.
Ann Coulter is a political Kim Kardashian. She thrives on drawing attention to herself by acting like an idiot. But her statement is a tiny kernel of truth wrapped up in a big ball of stupidity. Slightly higher levels of background radiation may actually be good for you. There is some evidence, in both animals and humans, that slightly higher levels of external (not ingested) radiation, over extended time, can reduced cancer rates and improve health. One hypothesis is that the radiation "exercises" the cellular repair mechanism, and keeps if functioning well.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by ShanghaiBill · 2014-09-01 08:03 · Score: 1

Assuming all of the radioactivity is due to Cs-137, that 600 Bq/kg limit translates to 0.0000003 micrograms of Cs-137 in any given kg of wild pork.
Cesium tends to behave like potassium in biological systems. It has a biological half-life of about 100 days (half will be excreted by the body in this amount of time). But that can be accelerated by consuming more potassium. So just sprinkle some "lite-salt" on your next dish of wild boar.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-01 09:45 · Score: 1

The levels are the same as everywhere else.
But be my guest ... as you hardly get a hunting license as a foreigner, collect some mushrooms and see how far it gets you eating them.
Can only increase your IQ, can't it?

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 09:55 · Score: 0

That's true, but not relevant to Germany. That's just too far away from Chernobyl to be affected by lead dispersal. Cesium on the other hand is water-soluable which means it can be dispersed by water - including rain and clouds. These boars are indeed digging up Cesium.
That said, I'm surprised that the Cesium is filtered out so well in the soil. Probably an ion exchange thing.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by OneAhead · 2014-09-01 10:22 · Score: 1

Radioactive boars in Germany, abrasive bores on /.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 10:55 · Score: 0

Even one alpha particle in your body can cause cancer. That's why they are cautioning against eating it.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Ihlosi · 2014-09-01 10:58 · Score: 2

Even one alpha particle in your body can cause cancer.
That's kinda like advocating playing the lottery because even a single ticket could win millions.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by LordLimecat · 2014-09-01 11:40 · Score: 2

It is, have fun getting your vitamin D without radiation.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by LordLimecat · 2014-09-01 11:41 · Score: 1

Radiation IS good for you.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by mirix · 2014-09-01 11:52 · Score: 2

Uranium is similar in toxicity to lead, for what it's worth, disregarding radiation and decay products and whatnot.
I don't remember hearing anything about dumping lead on the thing? I can't see it as being worse than living within 1000mi of a smelter anyway. The smelter in sudbury puts out 150 tons of lead into the atmosphere per year. Radiation was definitely the main concern.

--
Sent from my PDP-11
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by TapeCutter · 2014-09-01 12:15 · Score: 2

The radiation is harmful to wildlife but no where near as harmful as plain old human habitation. Wildlife thrives in the Chernobyl exclusion zone not because the radiation is harmless but because there are no people. The DMZ on the korean peninsula is the same, no people, plenty of land mines and wildlife.

BTW: Coulter is a troll and Greenpeace did not kill nuclear power, Chernobyl did that, yes there were exceptional circumstances as there was with the BP oil spill but Joe Average doesn't give a shit about excuses when the inevitable mega-fuck-up occurs.

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 12:48 · Score: 0

a.k.a hormesis. it's the same proposed mechanism that makes 'antioxidants' and many other things 'good' for you.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Ihlosi · 2014-09-01 12:54 · Score: 1

The radiation is harmful to wildlife but no where near as harmful as plain old human habitation.
Wild boar absofrickenlutely love human habitation.
http://www.npr.org/2012/11/06/...
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 13:30 · Score: 0

Sure. But not when the radiation source is INSIDE YOU.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 17:18 · Score: 0

Some may die in pain, out of sight, ... like many animals do, for many reasons. This probably adds more of the worst.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 18:23 · Score: 0

Well, the limits are there because the consumption of food is ongoing. Humans eat around 100kg of meat per year, every year. Combine that with the mushrooms, berries and vegetables that also have close to the safe limit radioactivity. Over tens of years the radioactivity increases and can cause a lot of harmful effects on national scale.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-09-01 23:36 · Score: 1

I was referring to radiation at the levels found in these Boars in Germany. Pigs are not only not affected by it, they are thriving. Far from the mutant cancer pigs many would probably predict.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2014-09-02 00:03 · Score: 1

My wild guess is that she tried the radioactive shrooms and now serves as a cautionary tale.

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2014-09-02 00:06 · Score: 1

Hormesis is unproven.

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-02 00:30 · Score: 0

Citation?
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Friggo · 2014-09-02 02:48 · Score: 1

The levels are not at all the same everywhere else. For example in Sweden the levels of Cs 137 for wild game is 1500 Bq/kg (source in swedish: http://www.faktasamlingcbrn.fo... ).
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Plumpaquatsch · 2014-09-02 03:10 · Score: 1

Even one alpha particle in your body can cause cancer.
That's kinda like advocating playing the lottery with millions of tickets because even a single ticket could win millions.
FTFY

--
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-02 04:13 · Score: 2

Of course it is not, and Sweden does not belong to the EU as far as I know. In the EU the level is 600Bq/kg.
Surprising that the level is so high in Sweden ... must be because it belongs to the most server irradiated areas (south Sweden at least)

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Friggo · 2014-09-02 05:58 · Score: 2

I am afraid to tell you that you are mistaken, Sweden is a member of the EU.
In Norway which is not a member of the EU the levels for Cs 137 in wild game is 3000 Bq/kg.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-02 06:09 · Score: 1

Then they should have adopted the EU limit, or be above it. Or did I misread and they are actually above it?

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Friggo · 2014-09-03 04:29 · Score: 2

I don't know exactly what the EU regulation says, but it could be that they allow for different levels for regular food stuff, and food stuff gathered from nature (mushrooms, berries and game). At least that's the divide that the Swedish levels go by. The limts is Sweden for regular food stuff is 300 Bq/kg, and for wild game, mushrooms and berries it is 1500 Bq/kg.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-03 04:46 · Score: 1

Ah, interesting. I never digged into that. Likely the EU (or Germany) also distinguishes this.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-03 22:20 · Score: 0

While that is completely true, one should also realise that this probability is extremely small. Our bodies are bombarded with alpha particles continuously, as were the bodies of all our ancestors. Every additional alpha particle that hits our cells increases the probability of a tumour forming, but only by a minute amount. Since it is practically impossible to prevent background radiation to hit our bodies, we can only aim to keep exposure as low as possible. In practical terms, that means that we should take care that the total exposure during our lifetime remains dominated by background exposure. Tiny momentary increases are insignificant, as long as they are both rare and negligiable compared to the total exposure. For this reason, safety standards are set that are slightly above background radiation levels. At these levels, the increased risk of cancer or cell mutations is negligiable, but they are still practically attainable.
Re:Reall problem: German radiation phobia by RockDoctor · 2014-09-04 03:10 · Score: 1

You can get vitamin D (and it's precursors) in edible form too.Many fresh veg, fish ... various other dietary sources. Not just sunlight.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"

I guess that explains by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 06:49 · Score: 0

why my Westphalian ham is so expensive.

Re:I guess that explains by Sique · 2014-09-01 07:15 · Score: 1

While Westphalia is part of the ancient settlement area of the historical Saxons, contemporary Saxony has nothing to do with it. Actually, the title of Archduke of Saxony was handed to the Duke of Meissen, when the original Saxon line of Achedukes died out in the 15th century, carring the name Saxony from today's Westphalia and Lower Saxony to Meissen and Dresden.

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.sig: Sique *sigh*
Re:I guess that explains by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2014-09-01 09:17 · Score: 1

You just red-lined my non-sequiturometer and renewed my faith in Slashdot at the same time.

Prevailing winds? by miller701 · 2014-09-01 06:54 · Score: 1

Wouldn't the prevailing winds (west to east as far as I know) in Saxony have inhibited the drift of radiation from Chernobyl? Dresden for example is over 700 miles East of Chernobyl.

Re:Prevailing winds? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:05 · Score: 1

Dresden for example is over 700 miles East of Chernobyl.
Yeah, something like 15,000 miles, right?
Re:Prevailing winds? by MtHuurne · 2014-09-01 07:15 · Score: 2

I don't think the prevailing winds matter all that much: it is the winds in the first days after the accident that matter, since during that time the radioactive particles were still in the air. I know that here in the Netherlands (west of Germany) in the months after the accident some types of crops were destroyed because they were considered unsafe for consumption.
Re:Prevailing winds? by Sique · 2014-09-01 07:16 · Score: 1

No, 700 miles is pretty close. 850 would be more closer though, it's about 1300 km.

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.sig: Sique *sigh*
Re:Prevailing winds? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:19 · Score: 0

The prevailing winds are not interesting, it's the actual winds that count. In the days and weeks after the Chernobyl incident the actual winds were in the news daily. Purely from memory we did get some crap blown our way and rained out.
Re:Prevailing winds? by miller701 · 2014-09-01 07:22 · Score: 1

Yeah. Sorry, I flipped the cities around Chernobyl's east of Dresden
Re:Prevailing winds? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:24 · Score: 0

It aint 1300 km to the East of Chernobyl, dumbass.
Re:Prevailing winds? by DamnOregonian · 2014-09-01 07:25 · Score: 1

He was making a joke... Dresden is west of Chernobyl, not east... Unless you go the long way around :)
Re:Prevailing winds? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:35 · Score: 0

Prevailing does not mean constant.
Re:Prevailing winds? by Golden_Rider · 2014-09-01 07:36 · Score: 2

No, 700 miles is pretty close. 850 would be more closer though, it's about 1300 km.
Nope, indeed Dresden IS about 15000 miles or so EAST of Chernobyl. And about 800 miles WEST of it.
Re:Prevailing winds? by Opportunist · 2014-09-01 08:03 · Score: 2

Well, since Dresden is in Germany and Germany is in the EU, going the long way around is usually how it's done...

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Prevailing winds? by DamnOregonian · 2014-09-01 08:09 · Score: 1

I feel like there's a joke there that I'm not getting...
Re:Prevailing winds? by Opportunist · 2014-09-01 08:48 · Score: 2

If you knew EU bureaucracy, you'd get the joke.

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Revelation lays in mushrooms and acorns. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 06:56 · Score: 0

It's what those animals eat.

Preheated? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 06:57 · Score: 0

Maybe it's extra tender from all that slow cooking...

Re:Preheated? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 06:59 · Score: 0

One thing's for sure - this pork is hot!

Silver lining by Nidi62 · 2014-09-01 06:59 · Score: 4, Funny

Since a lot of hog hunts are done at night, the slight glow should make the boars a lot easier to see

--
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil

Re:Silver lining by kruach+aum · 2014-09-01 07:18 · Score: -1, Troll

That's a pretty disrespectful way to refer to fat chicks.
Re:Silver lining by Ihlosi · 2014-09-01 07:33 · Score: 2

Since a lot of hog hunts are done at night, the slight glow should make the boars a lot easier to see
If you shoot a hog that's radioactive enough to give it a visible glow, you will lose your hunting license, face fines and possibly jail time, since using unnatural light sources while hunting is prohibited.
(This is Germany, what did you expect?)
Re:Silver lining by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 11:06 · Score: 0

Go fuck yourself you fattist and sexist fuck.
Re:Silver lining by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 20:48 · Score: 0

But you weren't using it the hog was! Fine the hog instead.

consumption by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:03 · Score: 0

I find it odd the boar is contextualized to be either something we can, or cannot consume. The real problem is how this
affects the ecosystem, not if we are able to consume boar sausages or not.

Re:consumption by kruach+aum · 2014-09-01 07:21 · Score: 1

The ecosystem is not affected by radioactive boars; the ecosystem causes boars to become radioactive. There is therefore no way in which this affects the ecosystem, and is therefore not a problem. Meanwhile, people eating contaminated food is an actual problem, as the summary rightfully mentions.
Re:consumption by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:53 · Score: 0

People have caused boars to become radioactive. Boars (as are we) are part of the ecosystem. If we do happen to consume these boars, the radioactivity will spread across the ecosystem. Also, simply considering boars to be wild game is ethically problematic, which is why the point was raised.

you, sir ... by znrt · 2014-09-01 07:06 · Score: 0

"It doesn't cover the loss from game sales, but at least it covers the cost of disposal," says Steffen Richter, the head of the Saxon State Hunters Association.

... are a waste, and I'd gladly cover your cost of disposal.

Re:you, sir ... by snsh · 2014-09-01 15:18 · Score: 1

Why are wild game hunters deserving of compensation? The world does not owe them a living. If a third of boars are contaminated, then just stop hunting boars and do something else with your life.
Re:you, sir ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 20:52 · Score: 0

Boars are a major issue, there are far, far more of them than people (both farmers and ordinary people) like to have around.
As a result, you want to have hunters, both to cull them in general as well as ensure they stay afraid of humans (boars in living areas are _not_ fun).
Thus, hunters are compensated to ensure they still make a profit and continue to hunt.
Re:you, sir ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 20:56 · Score: 0

As Germany is densely populated there aren't to many woods left. So, for decades now there is a system where you pay a lease for the right to hunt in a specific area. This lease comes with rights and obligations (e.g. you have to control the game population within a certain range to prevent forest damage). Also in most parts of Germany al lot of the forests are state property. Thus the state compensates the hunters that have paid their lease for their loss due to the game not being fit for consumption.
Re:you, sir ... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-02 02:52 · Score: 0

Can't they pay them to do nothing at all, like US farmers?
Re:you, sir ... by Ihlosi · 2014-09-02 13:05 · Score: 1

The world does not owe them a living.
However, the world owes them keeping its radioactive cesium out of the biosphere (and out of the wild boars), and failed.
Also, international and German law regulates compensation for damages caused by nuclear .. events.

Auto-shotgun by GameboyRMH · 2014-09-01 07:10 · Score: 1

Excellent for radioactive boars, bloodsuckers and chimeras.

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel

Spam by mdsolar · 2014-09-01 07:11 · Score: 1

There has got to be a spam joke here someplace: In SOVIET Russia boars spam you.?.?

Re:Spam by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:21 · Score: 0

Get out of here STALKER!

Reason to not read the article by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:12 · Score: 0

The reporter's name just may be April O'Neil.

For a country so good at engineering... by Viol8 · 2014-09-01 07:16 · Score: 1, Insightful

... they have a very backwards, almost medieval view of anything nuclear.

Also I'm sure that idiot Merkel decided to close all their nuclear power stations because she thought they'd get nice cheap gas from russia. Hmm, wonder how thats working out for her now...

Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:50 · Score: 0

Also I'm sure that idiot Merkel decided to close all their nuclear power stations because she thought they'd get nice cheap gas from russia. Hmm, wonder how thats working out for her now...

Nuclear power is used for generating electricity. Russian natural gas is used solely for (some) cooking and winter heating. They are two separate sources of energy for two separate things. Your attack on Merkel is clueless.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:53 · Score: 2, Informative

Also I'm sure that idiot Merkel decided to close all their nuclear power stations because she thought they'd get nice cheap gas from russia. Hmm, wonder how thats working out for her now...
At the peak, German nuclear generation was 133 TWh in 2011. Since then, German renewables generation has grown from 47 TWh/year to 178 TWh/year, Germany can now meet demand without any nuclear and without additional gas imports.
I'm sorry the facts broke your narrative.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by ericloewe · 2014-09-01 08:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

It's the green disease.
Pseudo-environmentalism (the thing practiced by the likes of Greenpeace) mixed with misinformed NIMBYism.
People who speak up against this are labeled haters of the environment. Meanwhile, the greens degenerate into ever more radical forms of pseudo-environmentalism.
Any engineer with half a brain and some knowledge on the subject immediately concludes that nuclear power is by far the better realistic option. However, society is not made up exclusively of engineers.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Tokolosh · 2014-09-01 08:30 · Score: 2

This kind of environmentalism is based on faith, and not on science. It should therefore be called a religion and lumped with the other populist delusions.

--
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by GarethIwanFairclough · 2014-09-01 09:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

Also I'm sure that idiot Merkel decided to close all their nuclear power stations because she thought they'd get nice cheap gas from russia. Hmm, wonder how thats working out for her now...
At the peak, German nuclear generation was 133 TWh in 2011. Since then, German renewables generation has grown from 47 TWh/year to 178 TWh/year, Germany can now meet demand without any nuclear and without additional gas imports.
I'm sorry the facts broke your narrative.
Why do I get this funny feeling that the "178 TWh/year" figure is from the rated capacity factors and not the actual production?
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by dunkelfalke · 2014-09-01 09:38 · Score: 2

Any engineer with half a brain and some knowledge on the subject immediately concludes that nuclear power is by far the better realistic option.
How do you explain this then?

--
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 09:42 · Score: 0

Even if it were actual production this wouldn't help much. Demand is constant, supply not so much.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 09:48 · Score: 1

There is some kind of implicit hysteria involved whenever someone says "radioactive" or "radiation". It's almost approaching the same levels as shouting "Jehova" had in times long past. People do not differentiate between doses and stuff. Such details are just seen as a distraction. If it emits radiation, it's the devil's work and must be banned!
The thing is that this started with Greenpeace, spread into the green party and from there even into other political parties and the advocates of this position have now managed to instill a profound fear into the population after about 30 years of indoctrination. It's not rational anymore. You can be rational and argue against stuff like nuclear power, but the vast majority of Germans is not even rational enought to try and learn the facts.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-01 09:53 · Score: 1, Troll

Unlike you, "the Idiot Merkel" has a PhD in Physics.
And as you are not aware about German politics: the exit from nuclear power production was decided 10 years before her by the Schroeder (red/green) government.
The 'idiot Merkel' reverted that decision, extending the run time of nuclear reactors for another 20(?) years. Good for her she realized after Fukushima, that this was a bad idea. Otherwise she had lost the next election. WE DON'T WANT NUCLEAR POWER!
The idiot is you. We live in a fucking fake democracy, we can not decide about ANYTHING AT ALL! Otherwise we never even have had nuclear power at all! And now idiots like you run around and proclaim ignorantly: the german idiots abandon nuclear power!? WTF: if we would live in a true democracy there was nothing to abandon! We simply would not have it in the first place!

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-01 09:57 · Score: 1, Flamebait

Why do I get this funny feeling that the "178 TWh/year" figure is from the rated capacity factors and not the actual production?
Because you are an idiot? But for all idiots the old saying is true: google.com is your friend.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 10:04 · Score: 0

Same anonymous coward. Sorry for replying to my own post. I just remembered this Harlan Elison quote: "everybody has a right to an informed opinion". Not in Germany, it seems. :(
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-01 10:11 · Score: 1

BTW: gas is not cheap. It is bound to the oil price. If oil increases in price, so does gas. And: Germany roughly produces 10% of its electric energy with gas.
So even if gas would became 'cheap' we would lack plants to use it. Just by availability of a 'cheap' energy source a country can not switch its energy production to that source: you need a plant for it!
+++ Idiot +++

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by ericloewe · 2014-09-01 10:24 · Score: 1

Well said.
Unfortunately, "populist delusions" always were all the rage.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by ericloewe · 2014-09-01 10:34 · Score: 1, Insightful

Simple: does not have half a brain.
An engineer doesn't say "can't be done" (unless the laws of physics would be broken) - the real answer is "There are problems X, Y and Z that require research and development."
"Renewables" is typical green bullshit. Anything other than solar panels on rooftops and/or exposed surfaces will have a direct environmental impact (let's not even talk about manufacturing, since that inevitably improves and becomes more efficient).
Wind turbines kill birds.
Insanely large solar farms are insanely large, possibly destroying local ecosystems (focused solar arrays also have the heat ray of death problem, but photovoltaics should be ok).
Dams also harm local ecosystems.
So, right now, we have a pipe dream. Yes, it makes sense to deploy renewables, particularly small-scale solar (surface is already there, might as well use it) and hydroelectric (excellent way to store energy for when it's needed). Anyone who truly believes these can replace everything else is living in a fantasy world.
So, in the end, the choice is:
Do you want nuclear power or do you want fossil fuels?
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by LordLimecat · 2014-09-01 11:49 · Score: 1

Theyre still using nuclear energy, the phaseout completes in 2021.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by TapeCutter · 2014-09-01 13:01 · Score: 1

Renewables can and will eventually replace coal, that is a GoodThing(TM), sure they have an ecological footprint but (like nuclear power) it's virtually zero compared to coal. The question isn't nukes vs solar, the question is what combination of current technologies will replace coal's market dominance, current nuclear technologies cannot do this alone for several reasons, expense, limited fuel reserves, plain old fear. Solar is now significantly cheaper and certainly much cleaner than imported brown coal, which is why India has embarked on a solar project to supply power to 400M people (40% of the population).

Replacing coal sounds like a massive task but consider that every coal plant on the planet was built during my lifetime, some were even built and rebuilt. The economics is such that I'm now confident they will be replaced with solar/wind farms in the next 50yrs. The hydro dams are already in place and there aren't many suitable sites left for new ones. All forms of power generation must match supply to demand on the grid, ie: they need a buffer to be able to match the "wavy" demand curve of a typical city. Coal produces a flat supply curve (so called "base load"), it already uses the existing dams as giant batteries by pumping water uphill during off-peak times and pulling it back onto the grid during peak times. As renewables start replacing coal why would they not also use the existing hydro infrastructure to similar effect?

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by clovis · 2014-09-01 13:40 · Score: 2

Why do I get this funny feeling that the "178 TWh/year" figure is from the rated capacity factors and not the actual production?
Because you are an idiot? But for all idiots the old saying is true: google.com is your friend.
I must be one of the idiots because I cannot find your 178 TWh/yr production either.
However, I can get close to that. Looking here:
http://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/e...
I see this:
"The first half of 2014 was marked by mild temperatures and high electricity production from wind and
solar energy. Solar power plants have increased their production compared to the first half of 2013 by
28%, while wind power grew about 19%. In June solar systems have produced twice as much electricity
as wind turbines. In the first half of the year solar and wind power plants together produced more than
45 TWh or approximately 17% of the net electricity generation. The renewable energy sources solar,
wind, hydro and biomass produced a total of about 81 TWh and accounted for approximately 31% of
the net electricity production. The renewable share of the gross electricity production including the
industrial power plants is approx. 28%."
That's the first half of 2014, so twice that is 162 TWh.
However, tis statement of yours is wrong "Germany can now meet demand without any nuclear and without additional gas imports."
They can't do that this year or the next.
By way of comparision, in the USA during 2013, we produced 522 TWh with renewables
http://www.eia.gov/electricity...
ooo, look, I included links for my assertions instead of just pulling numbers out of my hat.
So again, we ask: where did you get your number of 178 TWh?
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by dunkelfalke · 2014-09-01 19:36 · Score: 1

So you really think that you know more about this topic than someone who actually was a nuclear power plant engineer? This kind of arrogance makes me think that you are the one who doesn't have half a brain and nuclear power is your ersatz-religion.

--
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by soccerisgod · 2014-09-01 20:44 · Score: 1

Nice Real Scottsman, but devoid of any facts. Way to make your point.

--
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by soccerisgod · 2014-09-01 20:47 · Score: 1

An engineer doesn't say "can't be done" (unless the laws of physics would be broken) - the real answer is "There are problems X, Y and Z that require research and development."

So, right now, we have a pipe dream. [...] Anyone who truly believes these can replace everything else is living in a fantasy world.
See the irony? :)

--
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Viol8 · 2014-09-01 21:37 · Score: 1

"WE DON'T WANT NUCLEAR POWER!"
Who is "we"? A bunch of noise making 20 something hippies?
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by AmiMoJo · 2014-09-02 00:22 · Score: 1

An engineer doesn't say "can't be done" (unless the laws of physics would be broken)
Unless they are being only misleadingly quoted. He said "can't be done" and then expanded on why it can't be done in the current world as it exists with the current political climate and commercial nuclear power companies.

Wind turbines kill birds.
Yes, but probably not as many as nuclear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

"Renewables" is typical green bullshit.
Now who is being dismissive and saying "can't be done"? Renewables are fine, with most of the objects just being the rantings of the rabid anti-green lobby.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by AmiMoJo · 2014-09-02 00:26 · Score: 1

What is really helping Germany at the moment is that solar ties up with peak demand nicely. Unfortunately for energy companies peak demand was where they made a lot of their profit, but for Germany as a whole it means they have lots of high value electricity to sell to other countries and their grid doesn't need so much reserve capacity to meet their own peaks.
Also keep in mind that they are not scheduled to be nuclear free until the mid 2020s, so there is still a decade of development to go and this is only about the 1/3rd way through stage. Fukushima was in March 2011 and look how far they have already come.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-02 01:04 · Score: 0

Nobody in Germany has a heat pump? Those run on electricity, you know.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-02 01:11 · Score: 1

The majority of the german citizens. Was that so hard to guess?

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by steg0 · 2014-09-02 01:17 · Score: 1

What is really helping Germany at the moment is that solar ties up with peak demand nicely. Unfortunately for energy companies peak demand was where they made a lot of their profit, but for Germany as a whole it means they have lots of high value electricity to sell to other countries
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. When the renewables are at full peak, German energy is sold for negative prices, precisely because there is little buffering capacity. This was frequently the case in 2013 and 2014 (only one example here). This has been criticized a lot here in Germany because the resulting loss is passed on to consumers, not to producers which were guaranteed fixed prices as part of a federal effort to ramp up energy production from renewable sources.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-02 01:26 · Score: 1

You ask the wrong person :) Our parent made that claim. I only supported it as I knew it was close enough :) And 162 TWh is close enough to 178!
Also it would likely make more sense to check the 2013 numbers (same web site) ... 2013 was a record year in renewable power production, I have the strong impression that 2014 lacks behind it ... but well, lets see what autumn and winter brings.
I only pointed out that our power production with gas is so low that certainly "more imports" make no sense. What would we do with the additional imports? Focus on 'additional', the imports are as they always where. Shifting slightly up and down. Gas imports are mainly driven by winter temperatures and house heating as well as gas usage in the industry which is switching from oil to gas and back, what ever is cheaper. It is certainly not driven by electric power production.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by angel'o'sphere · 2014-09-02 01:35 · Score: 1

You are mixing up 'peak demand' with mid range demand.
Peak demand is fulfilled by gas turbines and pumped storages.
But yes, solar power production follows the general mid range trend of a day.
Power companies still make much money with that peak demand.
Fukushima was in March 2011 and look how far they have already come. That is missleading.
The investment in wind and solar started 30 years ago. The big investments ... minimum half of what is installed right now ... was done long before Fukushima when the EEG, the 'Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz' was introduced 2000. So the big installation boom started around that time.
However since ~2010 we invest more in offshore wind power. Surprisingly 90% of our wind power (or more?) is onshore with all its drawbacks.

--
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by steg0 · 2014-09-02 01:37 · Score: 2

"WE DON'T WANT NUCLEAR POWER!"
Who is "we"? A bunch of noise making 20 something hippies?
must be. I'm German and I don't have anything against nuclear power. BTW I have to confirm that part of the upbringing of little children here in the past three decades has involved a lot of anti-nuclear resentments being fed to them not by their science teachers, but, funnily enough, by all the rest of the faculty who like to comment on issues they don't know anything about. One vivid memory from my own time in school was our (catholic) religious education teacher not willing to believe that the steam exiting the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant is not actually a radioactive smoke plume coming from some sort of fuel rod camp fire at the bottom of the tower! Until we managed to convince her she had probably already taught generations of children before us that kind of hogwash.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by gmhowell · 2014-09-02 01:45 · Score: 1

ooo, look, I included links for my assertions instead of just pulling numbers out of my hat.
You must be new here.

--
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-02 02:48 · Score: 0

C'mon, moderators:
s/Troll/Insightful
(although grammatically challenged).
The one comment that provides a correct picture (if formulated with some prejudice) of the situation in Germany, and it's called a troll?
Since Chernobyl, the majority in Germany is against nuclear power. Since then, alternative forms of energy have gained enough market share in Germany to scare the companies providing nuclear power into lobbying for cutting support for alternative power sources (and their stock price dropping significantly), although nuclear power is still heavily subsidised, anyway (e.g., nuclear waste disposal).
And no, I'm not angel'o'sphere (80593) posting as AC.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Plumpaquatsch · 2014-09-02 03:16 · Score: 1

Also I'm sure that idiot Merkel decided to close all their nuclear power stations because she thought they'd get nice cheap gas from russia. Hmm, wonder how thats working out for her now...
At the peak, German nuclear generation was 133 TWh in 2011. Since then, German renewables generation has grown from 47 TWh/year to 178 TWh/year, Germany can now meet demand without any nuclear and without additional gas imports.
I'm sorry the facts broke your narrative.
Why do I get this funny feeling that the "178 TWh/year" figure is from the rated capacity factors and not the actual production?
Why do I get the funny feeling you believe nuclear power runs at (or anywhere near) 100% of rated capacity?

--
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by ericloewe · 2014-09-02 06:03 · Score: 1

"Was a nuclear power plant engineer" carries no meaning as to whether he was competent.
The arguments presented by him are bullshit, as has been discussed over and over again. His (and many others') logic is actually a Strawman. The real question is Nuclear vs Fossil Fuels. Nothing else can fill the void left by renewables - more renewables is a pipe dream.
As for it not being economically viable, tax fossil fuels according to their environmental impact and suddenly the situation becomes much more even. Renewables are even less viable than nuclear power anyways, on a large scale.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by ericloewe · 2014-09-02 06:06 · Score: 1

Do you just copy-paste your answers from a list you have open? The best way of accusing someone of being intentionally vague is by providing said facts, which were supposedly conveniently hidden away.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by ericloewe · 2014-09-02 06:15 · Score: 2

It does sound somewhat silly. However, the problem isn't that renewables can't work (they do work!) - they're just not enough, unless we start coating every surface in solar panels. Research and development can alleviate this problem by increasing efficiency, but ultimately, there's a thermodynamic limit.
That's where the "(unless the laws of Physics would be broken)" part comes in. A solar panel on every rooftop will not satisfy power needs.
On the other hand, it is absurd to say "Nuclear power can never be safe" - one of the guy's arguments. That's the same as saying that putting people inside aluminum tubes flying close to the speed of sound can never be safe.
Accidents will always happen - this applies universally. We must be proactive and learn from our mistakes to avoid future mistakes.
Funny how the activities with greatest perceived danger are actually the safest in their realms.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-03 22:24 · Score: 0

Also I'm sure that idiot Merkel decided to close all their nuclear power stations because she thought they'd get nice cheap gas from russia
I think she mainly did that in order to remain in power after the next elections. Rational, evidence-based policy is great, but it does not work well with most voters.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-03 22:29 · Score: 0

Probably not. I live in a neighbouring country and I don't know of a single building that is heated by something other than natural gas.
Re:For a country so good at engineering... by RockDoctor · 2014-09-04 03:16 · Score: 1

our (catholic) religious education teacher not willing to believe that the steam exiting the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant is not actually a radioactive smoke plume
Why would you be listening to a RE teacher about a science topic. You might as well ask a self-professed celibate virgin about the pleasures of buggering little boys.

our (catholic) religious education teacher

Oh. Sorry.
Preparation H?

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"

Take the risk with our irradiated meat! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:24 · Score: 1

It's not like this would be any worse than eating smoked meats, or those grilled over a flame.
People are allowed to do that literally every hour of the day all around the world.
(they are legally allowed to do considerably worse damage to their bodies, but that is another point)

It's not like smoking is totally safe, it still has massive run-on effects in the human body even long after quitting.
It is cumulative damage just like radiation is.
Likewise with many other totally legal things, like alcohol.

As long as it is clearly labelled, why is there any problem?
You need a little radiation in ye boy, how else is the human race going to become immune to radiation damage?! Eat up son.

They do not mention the radioactive level by aepervius · 2014-09-01 07:27 · Score: 2

What are we speaking of ? 2 time the normal acceopted level (aka, really low but still declared unfit under the linear model , but way less than living in a granite mountain ?), or are we speaking very high ? Also what is the isotope here ? The linked article certainly is as uninformative as it gets.

--
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org

I'll let you in on a little secret by conscarcdr · 2014-09-01 07:30 · Score: 1

The hunters were probably more radioactive still...

Re:I'll let you in on a little secret by Opportunist · 2014-09-01 08:06 · Score: 1

Nah, all the alcohol washes that right out of the system.

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:I'll let you in on a little secret by conscarcdr · 2014-09-01 08:29 · Score: 1

+1 for STALKER reference...

Wizards by mdsolar · 2014-09-01 07:32 · Score: 1

The world blew up in a thousand atomic fireballs. The first blast was set off by five terrorists. It took two million years... for some of the radioactive clouds to allow some sun in. By then, only a handful of porcine survived. The rest of the pigs had changed into hideous mutants. These mutant species floundered in the bad areas... radioactive lands that never allowed them to become boars again... and made each birth a new disaster. http://www.springfieldspringfi...

Found it by aepervius · 2014-09-01 07:34 · Score: 4, Informative

1) germany apparently forbid anything above 700 bq/Kg , whereas otehr country do it at 3000 Bq/Kg.

2) Average contamination in 2009 was 7000 Bq/Kg in the highiest contaminated area.

I wish the article could have told that.

--
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org

Re:Found it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:45 · Score: 0

Which means this is nothing but a hunter subsidy. Like whaling for Japan where their excuse is "whales eat all the fish".
Re:Found it by brambus · 2014-09-01 08:13 · Score: 2

Average contamination in 2009 was 7000 Bq/Kg in the highiest contaminated area.
60% of the time, it works every time :)
Re:Found it by lister+king+of+smeg · 2014-09-01 09:31 · Score: 1

Which means this is nothing but a hunter subsidy. Like whaling for Japan where their excuse is "whales eat all the fish".
which is really odd when it comes to baleen whales which feed on kill on zooplacton.

--
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Re:Found it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 13:59 · Score: 0

Which means this is nothing but a hunter subsidy. Like whaling for Japan where their excuse is "whales eat all the fish".
That's not their excuse for whale hunting. The whales hunting excuse is for "scientific purposes".
The quote you gave was from the dolphin killing round-up.
And yes I know that both dolphins and whales are cetaceans.
Re:Found it by mjwx · 2014-09-01 16:42 · Score: 1

1) germany apparently forbid anything above 700 bq/Kg , whereas otehr country do it at 3000 Bq/Kg.

2) Average contamination in 2009 was 7000 Bq/Kg in the highiest contaminated area.

I wish the article could have told that.
The isotope is C137.

--
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Re:Found it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 19:37 · Score: 0

That still doesn't quite answer the GP's question. How do these figures compare to our natural dose of background radiation? If I ate, say, a 300g roast boar steak every night for a year, how much of the radioactive material would lodge in my body, and how much would it increase my radiation exposure? 1%? 1000%? 0.001%?
I'm going to do a quick analysis of this, but it's going to be *really* quick and dirty. Say that I eat a 300g roast boar steak every night for a year - that's 110 kg of meat. Say that the meat was all from the most-contaminated area, with an activity level of 7000 Bq/kg. The total activity of the meat is then 770 kBq. Note that a Becquerel is a decay per second, so this means that there are 770,000 nuclei decaying per second in the meat I've eaten. I'll be pessimistic, and assume that all of the radioactive elements are perfectly retained by my body - in practice, I'll excrete some/most of them, so take this as an upper limit on the radiation exposure - so there are 770,000 nuclei decaying per second in my body.
For my next approximation, I'll say that all of those are Caesium-137 decays, with an energy of 1.176 MeV. Different elements/isotopes will have different decay energies, but they don't vary that much ... generally by less than an order of magnitude. 1.176 MeV is 1.88*10^-13 Joules, so 770,000 such decays per second release 1.45*10^-7 Watts of power. I weigh ~70 kg, so that's 2*10^-9 Watts per kg of my body mass.
The reason I've converted it into these units is because I want to get it into Sieverts, the standard unit of radiation exposure, which is equivalent to Joules per kg of body mass. So I've got 2*10^-9 Sv per second, or 6.5*10^-2 Sv/year = 65 mSv/yr. (Here, I've assumed the standard "quality factor" of 1, which is correct for gamma radiation from Cs-137.) For comparison, a typical natural background radiation exposure is 2-3 mSv/yr, though it can be 10-20 mSv in some parts of the world.
So, given my somewhat pessimistic assumptions, eating a year's worth of boar steaks would substantially increase my radiation exposure. The increase in cancer risk is something like 5.5%/Sv (lazy ref), so my 65 mSv/yr increase from a year's worth of boar steaks would increase my risk of developing cancer by 0.4%/year. Might or might not be worth it, depending on how tasty the boars are.
Re:Found it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 21:58 · Score: 0

Addendum: I've found a way to be more precise about one of my assumptions. I assumed that 100% of the ingested caesium was permanently stored in the body. Actually, ~10% is excreted more-or-less immediately, and the remaining ~90% remains in the body with a half-life of 50-150 days (lazy ref). Roughly speaking, this means that you should equilibriate with a constant amount of caesium after your first 50-150 days of boar steaks, rather than the full year that I assumed. So ... divide my final numbers by a factor of ~3. *And*, this means the numbers don't change if you keep on eating boar steaks for more than a year, since your caesium levels equilibriate between the amount you're eating and the amount you're excreting.
In other words, you could eat boar steaks from the most heavily irradiated region, every single night for the rest of your life, and increase your risk of developing cancer by 0.1%/year, or maybe 8% over a lifetime. That's safer than cigarettes (~20% lifetime risk) - and I think irradiated boar is much less likely to lead to an every-day habit.
The major uncertainty remaining here is my assumption that all the radioactive material is caesium. The risk could be higher or lower than this, if a substantial fraction of it is material with a higher/lower decay energy or higher/lower biological half-life.
Re:Found it by jfb2252 · 2014-09-01 23:36 · Score: 1

per Wikipedia "banana equivalent dose", the potassium in bananas nets out ~100 Bq/kg. Potassium in people yields ~80 Bq/kg. Brazil nuts 440 Bq/kg, K and Ra.
Re:Found it by ToddInSF · 2014-09-02 05:21 · Score: 1

Hunter subsidy in this case falls under environmental management. Unchecked Boar populations are very capable of tearing-up an ecosystem.

Where are my mutants at? by Jonifico · 2014-09-01 07:45 · Score: 1

Do you guys know if there's any cases of mutant, deformed boars because of the radiation that hits the town? I've seen some (awful) cases with people, but wouldn't know with animals. Now, is the government paying the hunters to get rid of the bodies, basically?

Concentration through the food chain by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:46 · Score: 0

The Cesium is deposited in a layer below the top soil. Mushrooms and other plants have their roots in said top soil and deposit the nasty stuff in their fruit. Wild boar (and other game) loves to munch on said fruits and gets irradiated enough to be unsafe for consumption.

Nothing new here, move along...

Re:Real problem: German radiation phobia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 07:48 · Score: 2, Informative

Apparenlty Cs-137 is the radionuclide of concern and 600 Bq/kg is the threshold for safety. The committed dose equivalent per unit intake for ingested Cs-137 is 1.35e-8 Sv/Bq (Eckerman, Limiting Values of Radionuclide Intake and Air Concentration and Dose Conversion Factors for Inhalation, Submersion and Ingestion, EPA-520/1-88-020, September 1988, Table 2.2, p. 166). This works out to be 8.1 uSv/kg at the threshold. To accumulate an effective dose of 1 mSv (100 mrem) a year, which is the US limit for a dose to the general public and apparently also the German limit, would require eating 123 kg of wild boar. That's a lot of pig.

Recently sighted... by CODiNE · 2014-09-01 07:50 · Score: 1

Reports are coming in of a girl riding on the back of a giant wolf, apparently hunting large boar with a spear.

--
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz

Re: Recently sighted... by xuchilpaba · 2014-09-01 10:13 · Score: 1

+1 for mononoke
Re: Recently sighted... by LordLimecat · 2014-09-01 11:57 · Score: 1

Mononoke didnt hunt boar.
Re: Recently sighted... by CODiNE · 2014-09-01 12:04 · Score: 1

Let's not forget her battle with the possessed one. And what would an unknowing bystander think was going on?

--
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Re:Recently sighted... by Tablizer · 2014-09-01 17:08 · Score: 1

Oh that Palin again.

--
Table-ized A.I.

On the good side... by guygo · 2014-09-01 07:52 · Score: 1

Mom loves the way the meat glows when you cook it!

Hot Frogs on the Loose by davidwr · 2014-09-01 08:16 · Score: 1

Song inspired by real radioactive frogs (not turtles or slugs) near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA.

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

So much for all the mandatory testing. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 08:59 · Score: 0

In all my years of shooting cute furry woodland animals in the suspiciously non-glowing forests of central and eastern Poland, I've never actually had any of my kills tested for radioactivity.

And yet the meat safety debate rages on over here, focusing mainly on multiple exotic diseases the aforementioned hogs may or may not actually carry, and which have not actually been positively tested for in decades.

As a point of interest, running a huge-ass late soviet-era geiger counter over a slab of fresh hog meat (two-day old kill, frozen) DOES in fact show slightly elevated radiation levels in comparison with all the background radiation. God knows how wildly inaccurate this thing is and what kind of gradation the analog needle uses (since, as with all soviet engineering, the thing still works perfectly fine, but nearly all markings are either too faded to be legible, or have simply fallen off - like the scale), and how much of that was me running the test inside an old barn (old enough to have already been 100-something years old when Chernobyl went ka-blam), but still. Gonna run a better test tomorrow, hopefully in a more controlled manner.

I hope the fucking Russians are paying for this. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 09:00 · Score: 0

Yes, I know that Chernobyl is in the Ukraine, but it's the fucking Russians and their succession of imposed dictatorships that caused this.

When are we going to get our... by ComputersKai · 2014-09-01 09:09 · Score: 1

When are we going to get our Spider-Ham movie now?

government coddling by Noah+Haders · 2014-09-01 09:37 · Score: 1

I scanned all of the comments and nobody had grabbed onto a fundamental problem in the summary. Why is the government of Germany reimbursing hunters for radioactive meat, when the chernobyl happened 30 years ago in another country? How does this make Germany cut checks? Do they also cut a check if a boar is dieseased or otherwise doesn't meet health codes?

my motto: if a food doesn't meet health standards, then you can't sell it. I'm not going to wipe your bottom for you and buy your contaminated boars.

Re:government coddling by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 09:49 · Score: 0

Having seen a car that hit a wild boar in Germany, I'm guessing that they want to keep the hunting community alive despite the meat not being consumable.
The damage was extreme and very gory, with the boar seemingly optimized to destroy as much of a vehicle as possible on impact.
It was a coin-toss between P-X-ing it for a same year model and actually repairing the poor thing.
Re:government coddling by bussdriver · 2014-09-01 14:25 · Score: 1

Radioactive materials concentrate up the food chain so I suppose this is one way to let nature clean it up for you.
Radioactive Germans probably costs more to the national health service than buying the meat. Meat that only makes you sick, probably doesn't cost much; however, cancer is expensive.
Perhaps it is a conspiracy, we don't want some Blond Haired, Blue eyed, big nosed man with a german accent calling himself PiggyMan! I'm sure the Muppets have a job for him...

--
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Re:government coddling by Noah+Haders · 2014-09-01 15:20 · Score: 1

OK, let's assume there are social benefits to preventing radioactive meat. this is the reasoning behind the food codes. The question I asked, why is the german government cutting checks? why don't they just make it illegal to sell the meat?
Re:government coddling by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 21:00 · Score: 0

Boars have a lot of other bad habits. Like digging the soil. You absolutely don't want them to become unafraid of humans. A boar digging through your garden and attacking you when you look the wrong way at it is nothing you want to have to deal with.
My grandfather once spent over an hour up a tree once after meeting a boar in a bad mood.
Re:government coddling by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 22:25 · Score: 0

OK, let's assume there are social benefits to preventing radioactive meat. this is the reasoning behind the food codes. The question I asked, why is the german government cutting checks? why don't they just make it illegal to sell the meat?
So people don't just ignore the law and sell meat anyway?

axiom ONE! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 09:56 · Score: 0

radioactivity is BAD for you. assume this to be true and live longer!
avoid it as much as possible!
you can now return to regular scheduled programing brought to you by safe/clean/green "nu-clear" power.

that was no accident by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 10:00 · Score: 0

The Chernobyl Incident was no accident. The operators intentionally violated safety protocols to see what would happen. It was more akin to reckless driving where the driver floors the throttle and slams head first into a brick wall.

Personally... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 10:08 · Score: 0

...I found this story rather boaring.

Wrong Units by Lawrence_Bird · 2014-09-01 10:32 · Score: 1

Becquerel is a measure of activity and does not tell you anything about the nature of the radiation. It is a stupid measurement. Rem or Sievert would be more useful.

Radioactivity is often expressed in becquerels per unit of volume or weight, to express how much radioactive material is contained in a sample. But the unit of volume or weight is not fixed, so we may see becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg), becquerels per litre (Bq/l), becquerels per cubic meter (Bq/m3), or becquerels per cubic centimetre (Bq/cm3). Of course we need to pay careful attention to this because 100 Bq/cm3 indicates 1000 times more radioactive material than 100Bq/l, which in turn indicates 1000 times more than 100Bq/m3.
So the becquerel is a useful measure of the amount of radiation emitted by a substance, but it tells us little about the effect of that radiation on our bodies. To understand that we first need to measure the amount of energy from the radiation absorbed by the body (called the absorbed dose). This is measured in joules per kilogram, or a special unit called grays.
But absorbed dose alone does indicate how much damage is done to the body, since different types of radiation cause different amounts of damage. So the absorbed dose is multiplied by a weighting factor (1 for beta and gamma radiation, and 20 for alpha radiation). The result is called equivalent dose and it is expressed in sieverts. This is essentially a measure of the amount of potential damage to the body from a given amount of radiation. Since one sievert is very large, we usually hear of the much smaller millisieverts (1/1000 sievert) or microsieverts (1/100000 sievert).

http://www.tsukubascience.com

Re:Wrong Units by Ihlosi · 2014-09-01 10:54 · Score: 1

Becquerel is a measure of activity and does not tell you anything about the nature of the radiation.
The "nature" of the radiation is known - it's the decay of Cs-137.
rem or Sv, on the other hand, are inappropriate units for specifying how radioactive a sample of material is, since rem or Sv numbers can, strictly speaking, only been determined after living tissue was exposed to radiation.
Re:Wrong Units by msevior · 2014-09-01 19:48 · Score: 1

How do you know it is Cs-137? The TFA doesn't say.
Re:Wrong Units by Lawrence_Bird · 2014-09-02 18:56 · Score: 1

What is the nature of the radiation? What is left in the boar meat?
ANd clearly rem or Sv is more appropriate as what matters is the effect on living tissue (human, that is).
Further, the amounts in these boar are really not large at all. But better to freak out because its "radiation".
Re:Wrong Units by Ihlosi · 2014-09-03 00:53 · Score: 1

What is the nature of the radiation? What is left in the boar meat?
It's radiation from the decay of Cs-137, and "what's left" is stated in Bq.
ANd clearly rem or Sv is more appropriate as what matters is the effect on living tissue (human, that is).
You can measure the Bq count, but any figure in mSv is eyeballed at best since you need to make lots and lots of assumptions (e.g. how long does the isotope usually stay in the body, etc).
Should you happen to eat 1kg of pork with 10000 Bq/kg, your estimated radiation dosage is 0.13 mSv. That is quite a bit of radiation and comparable to a thorax x-ray.
Further, the amounts in these boar are really not large at all.
The normal amount of Cs-137 in wild boar is, for all intents and purposes, zero. Any amount above that is more than there should be.
Re:Wrong Units by Lawrence_Bird · 2014-09-03 08:05 · Score: 1

It's radiation from the decay of Cs-137, and "what's left" is stated in Bq.
which is... beta of what energy? How many gammas? Alpha? Not all radiation is the same and not all effect living tissue the same way and may do so differently externally compared to internally.

1kg of pork with 10000 Bq/kg, your estimated radiation dosage is 0.13 mSv.

From..? I'll asume Cs-137. None of the stories on our boar friends say the average quantity, only a few "alarming" high end figures of 7K Bq/kg. I don't know about you, but I do not typically eat a kg of boar (or any other) meat in one sitting. I think most people would fall in the 1/4 kg range, perhaps less. So taking your figure, and those worst case numbers for the boar we are speaking of the order of 15% of one xray.
And what of the limit imposed by the EU? 600 Bq/kg? You would need to have boar nearly 70 times in a year to reach the one x-ray dose. So as I suggested at the start - the limits are way too low. If you want to label the meat, fine go ahead and put your scary stickers on it. But at least let people make an informed choice on their own whether to eat mr. boar or not.

Prevailing winds? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 10:59 · Score: 0

Wouldn't the prevailing winds (west to east as far as I know) in Saxony have inhibited the drift of radiation from Chernobyl? Dresden for example is over 700 miles East of Chernobyl.

Prevailing winds go the the west only at high altitude. At surface levels they can blow wherever they please. You can see for yourself ->

www.earth.nulschool.net

Coolest T-shirt idea ever! by FirephoxRising · 2014-09-01 11:19 · Score: 1

I want a radio-active wild boar shirt!

And Yet It Is Not The Apocalypse? by careysub · 2014-09-01 11:39 · Score: 1

Radioactive wild boars roam Germany. I'm calling it as the first sign of the Apolcalypse!

--
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj

Third option by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 18:45 · Score: 0

There is a third option: Deep shaft geothermal. The last I checked, the only serious research is entirely funded by Google.

Re:Third option by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-01 21:11 · Score: 0

Geothermal was tested, and cause earthquakes (not catastrophic, but possible to feel) and damaged entire villages (the rock soaked up the water, lifting part of the ground). Similarly to nuclear it can probably be done safely, but nobody actually wants to pay for it when it goes wrong.
And predictably people have a problem when others want the profit for themselves but push all of the risk onto others.

Lite Salt? by msevior · 2014-09-01 19:47 · Score: 1

The 700 Bg/ Kg seems awefully low.

Here in Australia you can wander into any local supermarket and buy "Lite Salt" wich is 50% Potassium Chloride. These typically have a mass of 170 gm and consequently an activity of 4000 Bg. So by German standards that is 23529 Bg/Kg and hence way above the legal limit.

What? by mha · 2014-09-01 21:25 · Score: 1

I'm confused by the text you quoted as coming from a parent comment. I cannot find that text in the parent comment, and AFAICS comments are not editable once posted, so that means it was never there. Where did you find this:

> Which means this is nothing but a hunter subsidy. Like whaling for Japan where their excuse is "whales eat all the fish".

And about the subsidy, juts for the record, since the text is there and I cannot find the quoted comment to reply to:

The articles says the compensation is just enough for disposal of the dead animals, it isn't even a compensation for missed earnings had they sold the meat. And I can tell you selling that meat would not a problem, people like buying wild animal meat. So the statement makes no sense at all, except to show that ideology often blinds ones reasoning abilities.

Re:What? by lister+king+of+smeg · 2014-09-01 21:35 · Score: 2

I'm confused by the text you quoted as coming from a parent comment. I cannot find that text in the parent comment, and AFAICS comments are not editable once posted, so that means it was never there. Where did you find this:
> Which means this is nothing but a hunter subsidy. Like whaling for Japan where their excuse is "whales eat all the fish".
And about the subsidy, juts for the record, since the text is there and I cannot find the quoted comment to reply to:
The articles says the compensation is just enough for disposal of the dead animals, it isn't even a compensation for missed earnings had they sold the meat. And I can tell you selling that meat would not a problem, people like buying wild animal meat. So the statement makes no sense at all, except to show that ideology often blinds ones reasoning abilities.
are you showing all comments? rated -1 even? because I hit quote parent button. I browse at all comments shown and it shows up for me.

--
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.

No natural enemies by mha · 2014-09-01 21:29 · Score: 1

There are no predators - ZERO predators, in German forests. A handful of wolves in Brandenburg, and an occasional bear in Bavaria (making headlines each time it happens). So humans MUST decimate those who proliferate too much, because nature doesn't. For you ideology trumps reason?

Re:No natural enemies by znrt · 2014-09-02 06:31 · Score: 1

There are no predators - ZERO predators, in German forests.
indeed. why?

For you ideology trumps reason?
see above.
of course you didn't count predators for fun. I read in UK there are boar farms for hunting (yeah, humans do exist who find great pleasure in shooting at animals from a safe distance with riffles, go figure). I also read about an alleged wild boar population surge in germany in 2008, but thas was some reuters news, pretty vague and sensationalistic, could as well be surreptitious advertising. if you could share any reliable sources on the subject i'd appreciate it, tia.
Re:No natural enemies by Ihlosi · 2014-09-02 08:37 · Score: 1

There are no predators - ZERO predators, in German forests
Yes, there are zero predators in Germanys forests, except for martens, weasels, badgers, foxes, wild cats, birds of prey, etc.
What you meant was probably "There are no predators that prey on wild boars and larger species of deer."

Creative Thinking Needed by Anonymous Coward · 2014-09-02 02:43 · Score: 0

Why not feed pigs a steady diet of isotopes and raise self-cooking bacon?

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Radioactive Wild Boars Still Roaming the Forests of Germany

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