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16 US Ships That Aided In Operation Tomodachi Still Contaminated With Radiation (stripes.com)
mdsolar writes: Sixteen U.S. ships that participated in relief efforts after Japan's nuclear disaster five years ago remain contaminated with low levels of radiation from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, top Navy officials told Stars and Stripes. In all, 25 ships took part in Operation Tomadachi, the name given for the U.S. humanitarian aid operations after the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami on March 11, 2011. The tsunami, whose waves reached runup heights of 130 feet, crippled the Fukushima plant, causing a nuclear meltdown. In the years since the crisis, the ships have undergone cleanup efforts, the Navy said, and 13 Navy and three Military Sealift Command vessels still have some signs of contamination, mostly to ventilation systems, main engines and generators. "The low levels of radioactivity that remain are in normally inaccessible areas that are controlled in accordance with stringent procedures," the Navy said in an email to Stars and Stripes. "Work in these areas occurs mainly during major maintenance availabilities and requires workers to follow strict safety procedures."
If you mean "half life", then it all depends. Half life of U-238 is on the order of 4 billion years; C-14, 5730 years; I guess I won't live that long. But half life of Pb-211 is just over half an hour. I'd like to think I have at least that long to live...
Of course, maybe your sig line is for real.
Which basically makes it clear that there IS NO ISSUE.
A few quotes for those who cannot bother reading the article:
'The low levels of radioactivity that remain are in normally inaccessible areas that are controlled in accordance with stringent procedures'
'The radioactive contamination found on the ships involved in Operation Tomodachi is at such low levels that it does not pose a health concern to the crews, their families, or maintenance personnel'
' the Reagan’s ventilation system was contaminated with 0.01 millirems of radiation per hour, according to the Navy. Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidelines advise no more than 2 millirems of radiation in one hour in any unrestricted area'
'“Personnel working on potentially contaminated systems were monitored with sensitive dosimeters, and no abnormal radiation exposures were identified'
'Of the 1,360 individuals aboard the Reagan who were monitored by the Navy following the incident, more than 96 percent were found not to have detectable internal contamination, the Navy said. The highest measured dose was less than 10 percent of the average annual exposure to someone living in the United States'
And the whole article wraps up, after showing quite clearly that there is NO ISSUE, by pointing out that a bunch of money-grabbing US navy staff are trying to push a baseless lawsuit for such things as 'genetic immune system diseases, headaches, difficulty concentrating, thyroid problems, bloody noses, rectal and gynecological bleeding, weakness in sides of the body accompanied by the shrinking of muscle mass, memory loss, leukemia, testicular cancer, problems with vision, high-pitch ringing in the ears and anxiety', from doses that are fractions of quite normal background exposure.In other worse for anything they could dream of that has happened since then.
Their may reasoning seems to be 'Well, the Navy cleaned the decks after, it must have been dangerous!', so they appear to be suing on the basis that due care was taken!
The real news here is how ridiculously out of perspective many people are about radiation risks.
Lets hope none of those sailors like bananas! they better sue Ecuador!
Sigh, do we REALLY need to keep seeing this halflife BS?
Halflife is basically inversely proportional to amount of emitted radiation.
In other worse, the nasty atoms have short halflives, the not so nasty ones longer, and the quite safe ones very long.
THAT, folks, is why Nagasaki and Hiroshima are thriving cities with actually lower than average cancer rates.
At least until Half Life 3 comes out, yes.
mdsolar has a very anti-nuclear agenda and will post all kinds of non-issue stories with "the sky is falling" headlines. Slashdot, please do something and get rid of this one.
According to some physicists, one material commonly found not only in nuclear waste but also in the byproducts of many industrial chemical processes is radioactive and has a lifetime of 10^32 years!!! Just think what kind of lasting problems that creates!
Not only should we shut down those nuclear and chemical processes, we should obviously jettison all these troublesome 'protons' into space so future generations don't have to deal with them!!!!1111
Life in the military is dangerous. These sailors volunteered knowing, or should have known, that they'd be asked to do things that might very well shorten their lifespan. They might be asked to do things that result in what's left of them being mailed home to their family in a shoebox. In return for their service they get things like their education paid for, real world work experience, and preferential hiring.
I served in the US Army, was injured in training, now I'm in college part time while working part time. A job I got in part because I showed I was someone to the trusted with sensitive information and around dangerous people & items, because the Army does not take people that cannot be trusted. My education is paid for by the GI Bill. I also get my medical care paid for and a few bucks every month for my screwed up feet and knees.
These sailors served on a nuclear powered ship, it would not be inconceivable that they'd be exposed to radiation while on that vessel. Granted, and fortunately, the radiation did not come from the ship's power plant. These sailors were undoubtedly trained in the handling of radioactive material and in the methods to protect themselves from it.
It used to be that if you served in the US Navy you were almost certain to have damaged hearing. I know a few old sailors that can't hear so well. It was common for such people to get disability pay for this but no more. Why is that? Because the US DOD figured out that they could give their sailors, and all that serve, training in how to protect their ears and the gear to save their hearing. If they end up deaf then it's on them now. I believe that the same should apply here. They were trained, provided protective gear, and as far as I can tell were never asked to do anything out of the ordinary. If they end up sick from radiation then I say it's on them unless they can prove something extraordinary. Also, by extraordinary I mean that a fraction of those 5000 sailors would be eligible for compensation, not the entire crew.
I recall hearing of a Navy helicopter that got caught in an unexpected radioactive plume. Of the half dozen or so on that craft one came back with what might be considered a dangerous radioactive dose because that sailor was sitting by the opened side door. Upon return to the ship that sailor was showered, got a fresh uniform, and was given on ship duty for the remainder of the cruise, which I was told was the best thing to do because the shower and new uniform removed anything radioactive that the sailor would have been exposed to. The change in duty was merely out of an abundance of caution. That's third hand information so I have no means to verify the accuracy but if true then we have one, perhaps a handful more in a similar situation, that might have a case for getting an unsafe dose of radiation.
A common claim is, "I didn't sign up for this." Well, I believe you did.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
This generally comes under the heading "economically produce power".
Well we won't know until we do the research, now will we?
The problem is almost all development in the US ended decades ago, not much more has been done elsewhere, so we're way behind where we should be.
As for "economically", consider that having a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers isn't exactly economical, but we do it anyway for reasons other than "saving money".
Perhaps being completely energy independent and not emitting a crap ton of carbon would be worth spending money on. Burning the used fuel and waste may well be cheaper than trying to store it for hundreds of years.
Well, sorry to disappoint you, but a dose of 4 Sv will kill you, while the same amount of energy (it's just a couple of Joules per kg) won't even heat your coffee to "lukewarm".
tl;dr: Ionizing radiation becomes a hazard long before its emission will generate significant, useful amounts of heat.
Well its more than that too isn't.
The longer the half life of something, the less dangerous it is from a radiation perspective. U-238 isn't dangerous from a radiological perspective, its just a nasty chemical properties if you ingest it, nothing to do with radiation.
C-14, which is much more radiologically dangerous than U-238 ... isn't dangerous at all.
Pb-211 decays so quickly that as long as put it in a room by itself for a couple days, it won't be an issue either. The products that it breaks down into will, but thats another story and not what was said :) Or you could just not walk into the room naked since most of it will be alpha decay and it won't make it past your cloths anyway, let alone penetrate your skin.
Pay attention kids: Nuclear waste with really long half lives is not that dangerous. The longer lived it is, the less dangerous it is. Once it gets really short than its dangerous really if ingested since its generally alpha radiation which doesn't penetrate.
The dangerous once are the months to less than a decade half lives ... Those give off gamma radiation and such, last long enough to be dangerous, and produces enough active radiation to be dangerous. But in a couple years ... they're down to the point of not being dangerous any more either.
In short ... when you worry about long term radiation exposure outside of a lab experiment, you're just being stupid. The nuclear event that poisoned you ... would have killed you directly if you were close enough to actually get a large enough dose to definitively hurt you unless you stand around in puddles of water next to the breeched and still hot nuclear reactor trying to take selfies and not understanding why your camera pictures are saturated and useless.
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While that is true, that is what reprocessing and breeder reactors are for.
Also, 4 Sv may kill you, but that isn't one ounce of material in isolation.
You may have 500 tons of low level crap laying around that can be processed into 5 tons of useful fuel. The trick is getting all the actual radioactive stuff together and apart from the 495 tons of other stuff.
That is why we need work in this area, but it isn't because done because of the irrational emotional people.
So we burn coal. Which is also radioactive.
The irony...
The problem is almost all development in the US ended decades ago, not much more has been done elsewhere, so we're way behind where we should be.
Yep.
If the USA had spent 10% of what it spends on military dick waving on energy research instead, clean energy would be a done deal by now.
And ... competing with Chinese cheap labor would be no problem is you have very cheap energy, etc., etc. Energy solves an awful lot of other problems as well.
But nooooo. The USA could never do anything like that. Brawn before brains, always.
No sig today...
Well, it's not so simple as that. What you're really interested in is the interaction of radioactive materials with a complex biological entity -- your body. The rate and type of decay is only one parameter in that interaction; the chemistry and physical form also matter, along with the chemistry and stability of the daughter products.
For example strontium is in the same periodic table column as calcium -- which obviously is a major component of our bodies. Therefore strontium is digested and metabolized the same way calcium is. This make Strontium-90 a much higher concern than other isotopes with similar half lives (roughly 29 years). An intact block of metallic strontium is moderately hazardous. An aerosol suspension of colloidal Sr-90 particles is extremely hazardous.
The Radium 226 in old watch pigments has a half-life of 1600 years, and is perfectly safe to wear inside a sealed case on your wrist. But you don't want to ingest it. It's probably best to avoid working on old radium watches because the pigment breaks down into a very fine powder. Would I panic if I had a single exposure to an opened radium watch? No. I just wouldn't make a habit of it.
The "duck-and-cover" era advice about avoiding atomic fallout tries to balance survival priorities against each other. You're supposed to stay in your shelter for several weeks, which allows the levels of the most radioactive isotopes to fall. But the reason you come out after several weeks is not that it's perfectly safe to do so; it's that you can't live for years or even decades in a shelter. So the compromise is to stay in the shelter long only enough to avoid dying quickly of acute radiation sickness. After two or three weeks the levels of highly radioactive Sr-91 and Sr-92 are negligible; the levels of Sr-90 are hazardous and will remain so for decades.
Depending on the degree, form, and nature of the contamination of these ships, it could prove a serious handicap to their ongoing operation. Not because the sailors will come down with acute radiation sickness, but because of the laborious precautions needed to avoid chronically exposing sailors. TFA doesn't say much about specifics, but I do know Fukushima released a great deal of Cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years and is in the same periodic table column as potassium, which is obviously biologically very active. It's also readily water soluble and can enter the body that way. Less Sr-90 was released, but depending on exactly where and when the ships were contaminated that could also pose an operational handicap because calcium remains in the body much longer than potassium.
As for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it's important to realize that they were high altitude detonations. That both reduced the levels of contamination and spread the contamination widely throughout the region. It'd serve little purpose to abandon the city centers. Compared to, say, Chernobyl with its burning radioactive graphite, the detonations were relatively clean radiological disasters.
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Kind of. You submitted an article about the Navy seeming to do a good job handling a kind of mundane situation.