Radiation From Fukushima Disaster Reaches Oregon Coast (nypost.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New York Post: Radiation from Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has apparently traveled across the Pacific. Researchers reported that radioactive matter -- in the form of an isotope known as cesium-134 -- was collected in seawater samples from Tillamook Bay and Gold Beach in Oregon. The levels were extremely low, however, and don't pose a threat to humans or the environment. In 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered a wave of tsunamis that caused colossal damage to Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The disaster released several radioactive isotopes -- including the dangerous fission products of cesium-137 and iodine-131 -- that contaminated the air and water. The ocean was later contaminated by the radiation. But cesium-134 is the fingerprint of Fukushima due to its short half-life of two years, meaning the level is cut in half every two years. Cesium-137 has a 30-year half-life. Particles from Chernobyl, nuclear weapons tests, and discharge from other nuclear power plants are still detectable -- in small, harmless amounts. While this is the first time cesium-134 has been detected on US shores, Higley said "really tiny quantities" have previously been found in albacore tuna. The Oregon samples were collected by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in January and February. Each sample measured 0.3 becquerels, a unit of radioactivity, per cubic meter of cesium-134 -- significantly lower than the 50 million becquerels per cubic meter measured in Japan after the disaster.

Comments

Who's to say?

[PopeRatzo]

"How do we know this radiation isn't actually good for you? I mean, the Sun's heat is radiation, right?"

- Trump's new director of the Department of Energy.

[Note: If you think I'm somehow exaggerating, you might find tonight's story about Trump's new Department of Energy "enemies list" an interesting read:}

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Re:Who's to say?

[dbIII]

Since it's been a more than a couple of hundred years since the USA has had to deal with a King I suppose a reminder of how petty and spiteful autocrats can be was due :(
From the link above:

The questionnaire requests a list of those individuals who have taken part in international climate talks over the past five years

How petty is that?

Re:Who's to say?

[Tablizer]

How do we know this radiation isn't actually good for you?... - Trump's new director of the Department of Energy.

Don't laugh, it might just happen.

As far as I can tell, her reasoning is something along the lines that if you hit yourself in the forehead with a hammer, your forehead swells with fluids such that the second blow is less severe. Therefore, hammers are good for your forehead.

Re:Who's to say?

[quenda]

Since it's been a more than a couple of hundred years since the USA has had to deal with a King I suppose a reminder of how petty and spiteful autocrats can be was due :(

The first US states were founded more than 400 years after the Magna Carta. By the time of the revolution, Britain was ruled by parliament, and the king had very limited powers. The US presidential role was modelled on the monarch, but elected rather than hereditary.

    Since then the power of the President has increased dramatically, while the monarch's role has declined. I'd say the US has never had to deal with a king as remotely autocratic as the current president (how many executive orders?), never mind the next one.

Re:Who's to say?

[Sarten-X]

If it were true that long-term low level radiation were unquestionably harmful, you'd expect to find a clear negative trend.

No, that's not what we'd expect to find at all.

We'd expect to find at the high end a certain level of radiation that is absolutely lethal, and as the dose is reduced, the impact would drop down steadily, until a zone where life expectancy is reduced. However, that life expectancy is more or less on an absolute scale, and must be compared to the life expectancy of the species being exposed. An insect may survive high doses of radiation simply because it wouldn't normally live long enough to exhibit symptoms, while a longer-lived animal like a human will likely survive long enough to get cancer that ultimately causes death.

At a very low dose, the chances of having any noticeable symptom from radiation is unlikely enough that it could equally likely be caused by millions of other factors, so usually nobody cares. There is still a negative trend in survivability, but it's dwarfed by all of the other fatal conditions.

Too little radiation and the species dies due to inability to keep pace with changing environmental conditions.

Radiation isn't the only mechanism for mutation, though. Rather, it's the fast and cheap way to make a lot of mutations really fast, usually in places that cannot possibly contribute to evolution.

In order to change the species, an offspring's DNA must be mutated. That's dependent on a few thousand cells out of the trillions in a human body. Those particular cells are the ones involved in meiosis, splitting and reassembling the DNA that will become half of the offspring. During that reassembly process is where most mutations happen, usually by random chemical processes rather than any radiation. This enzyme doesn't successfully react with that protein, so a gene gets skipped or altered or inserted... It is extremely rare that a gene is altered by radiation during the process.

Once an offspring's development begins, though, the effects of mutations become more pronounced. If radiation mutates a single cell during early stages of growth, that fetus will develop with a cluster of mutated cells. Unless those cells are destined to become a gonad, however, the mutation will die with that generation, and the species will not change.

Similarly, radiation affecting a mature individual is is unlikely to have any positive effect, as the mutation is almost always either destructive or irrelevant. The proper functioning of a human body requires millions of interactions between tens of thousands of proteins, so randomly changing one protein is more likely to break something than to add new functionality. Of course, as before, even breaking something is only going to affect the species if it happens to occur in a cell involved in reproduction.

It is important to remember that evolution is never towards anything. It is away from an inability to reproduce (usually due to death). As an illustration, you must realize that you are the result of an unbroken line of millions of ancestors dating back millions of years, and every single one of those millions of ancestors were fertile and successful in mating. There is no scorecard in evolution. Either you pass on your genes, or you don't. It doesn't matter if your changing environment caused you severe illness or discomfort. As long as you manage to find a mate and make a child, you've won the natural selection game.

In short, radiation is a purely random occurrence with purely random effects, and the odds of any particular radiation-caused mutation being beneficial are so absurdly small that it is absolutely safe to say that overall, there is no safe dose.

Re:Who's to say?

[ChunderDownunder]

Solar, eh?

Didn't Donald want to bring manufacturing home? Becoming the world's largest panel manufacturer to blanket *every* dwelling in the united states could be a job creation program.

Re:Who's to say?

[dbIII]

Colonies.
See also the Belgian Congo under King Leopold for an example only a hundred years old.

If you think Obama was autocratic you are in for a massive shock.

Re:Who's to say?

[angel'o'sphere]

"How do we know this radiation isn't actually good for you? I mean, the Sun's heat is radiation, right?"

In the same way as we know that being extremely dumb does not harm you at all but it harms us, because idiots like you still may vote.

Re:Who's to say?

[dbIII]

That's a huge-ass assumption we've been living with for the last century

The assumption that increased chances of cancer sucks? Not so huge an assumption IMHO.

So we drew a straight line interpolating it down to zero

Now there is a "huge-ass assumption" that turns out to be totally wrong, especially with the "down to zero" bit. Below a certain level nobody really gives a shit other than people who want to start arguments. When dosage badges indicate something but a long way below a threshold nobody cares.

Re:Who's to say?

[AmiMoJo]

The other thing to remember is that even if the amount detected is small, that's just what was detected on spot checks.

Fishermen around Fukushima have found that they need to check every batch. Most will be fine, but occasionally a higher concentration is found.

Re:Who's to say?

[quenda]

If you think Obama was autocratic you are in for a massive shock.

Not really.
Just saying the US has not had to deal with autocratic kings. The system where the monarch's powers are reserved for emergencies, and congress rules is starting to look like a better alternative. In the UK or Australia, the head of gov't is chosen by the majority party in the house of rep's. So the executive automatically has control (usually) of the lower house. And the ruling party can replace the leader at any time if they go off the rails. This keeps ultimate power with the Congress, less with one person.

Though the AC made a good point about some of the colonial governors.

Re:Who's to say?

[dbIII]

Just saying the US has not had to deal with autocratic kings

Indeed, because it was autocratic Governors answering to nobody other than the King that resulted in a revolt and let to the United State in the first place! So America has had plenty of it.

the colonial governors

Which is exactly what I meant FFS!

Re:Who's to say?

[Orgasmatron]

No. The assumption is that there is a higher risk of cancer associated with any radiation exposure, however small. And the "down to zero" part is really part of the current model, the so-called "no-threshold" part of Linear, no-threshold.

Re:Who's to say?

[Alomex]

I'd say the US has never had to deal with a king as remotely autocratic as the current president (how many executive orders?),

Actually Obama has issued the lowest number of executive orders per year of office since William McKinley in 1901.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Who's to say?

[hey!]

Well, if you want to be pedantic (of course you do), heat isn't radiation. Black body radiation is a consequence of heat. And in point of fact the ionizing spectral components of the Sun's radiation generates over seventy-thousand cases of cancer in the US annually, and over ten thousand deaths. If there were an artificial radiation source that was that harmful we'd be right to be very concerned about it, that's substantially more than 3x the number of people who perished in 9/11 every single year.

The real issue here isn't people using linguistic short hand like "radiation" that Internet trolls can play "gotcha" with; it's people not understanding the difference between radiation per se, ionizing radiation, and radioactive fallout. Maybe you don't need to be a Nobel Prize-winning physicist to run the DoE, but you should at least be able to explain the difference between these things. And you'd certainly want anyone working in government to know the difference between preventable and non-preventable deaths.

Re:Who's to say?

[jez9999]

Since it's been a more than a couple of hundred years since the USA has had to deal with a King I suppose a reminder of how petty and spiteful autocrats can be was due :(

You've had Obama, wasn't that enough of a lesson?

Re:Who's to say?

[MightyMartian]

The problem is that the US revolution happened about 20 or 30 years too early. If it had happened in the 1790s or early 1800s, the modern Westminster systen would have been their model, instead of the "elect a king" model.

Re: Who's to say?

[treeves]

No, instead he writes Executive Memorandums. The difference is, Executive Orders have to cite applicable laws, whereas an Executive Memorandum does not.

Re:Who's to say?

[dbIII]

Here is a much better one that will hopefully never play out in the USA:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/

Re:Who's to say?

[dbIII]

Look at paragraph two of your link to see why it is totally irrelevant and that almost nobody makes that assumption,

Re:Who's to say?

[ebvwfbw]

Why the hell is this insightful? The man hasn't even taken office, and won't for over a month and here people are stuffing words into his mouth.

Bad as CNN's fake news about Trump doing the apprentice.

Re:Who's to say?

[MercTech]

If you don't go by regulatory requirements and go by studies in Health Physics, you find that an extra 300 milliRem of exposure a year is shown to have positive health benefits. The term to google is "radiation hormesis" if you want to get into the details.

Please note: NONE of the regulatory limits on exposure to trained and informed workers nor the limits for exposure to the general public in any way consider hormesis in the design basis. The legal limits are based on the doctrine of Bergonie & Tribedeux originating in the 19th century. The theory of Gergonie & Triubedeux is also called the linear no threshold theory. The idea is that even if you show no effects below a certain level; any concentration presents some hazard down to zero concentration. In actual testing; that doesn't hold up but it is the mindset of NIMBY protesters everywhere.

Re:Who's to say?

[RockDoctor]

there is no proof that long-term exposure to low levels of radiation is dangerous.

Unless you know differently (in which case, cite your sources), nobody lives any of their life in a zero radiation environment. The natural levels of radiation vary with, amongst other things, date (within the solar cycle), latitude (how close you are to the poles), altitude (how close you are to the top of the atmosphere), and ground geology. Lower-order influences include the food in your bely (see bananas up thread) and the geology of where your building materials come from. And your clothes of course.

I wonder what the average radioactivity of semen is. That should make a few men wince.

Re:Who's to say?

[Coren22]

What does it matter how many?

How many have other presidents had shot down by the supreme court?

A banana is much worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that a banana has an activity of roughly 15 Bq...

Compared to bananas

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's nothing. One cubic meter of seawater weighs about 1026 kg. The same mass of bananas would have about 133,400 bequerels of radiation. This is about 4.4 MILLION times higher than what is being discussed here. So - if you're worried about the Fukushima radiation in the water off Oregon's coast, you better steer clear of the banana pile at the local grocery because it will bathe you with orders of magnitude more radiation.

Re:Compared to bananas

[Waccoon]

Just playing devil's advocate here, but can the human body metastasize cesium as well as potassium?

The real danger of radiation is not the dose you get from the environment, but the radioactive material getting inside you and staying there. You can hold an ingot of plutonium in your hand wearing little more than a nitrile glove, but don't dare breathe the dust.

Re:Compared to bananas

[bidule]

Just playing devil's advocate here, but can the human body metastasize cesium as well as potassium?

You don't drink seawater.

Re:Compared to bananas

[Waccoon]

People do generally eat fish and other animals that eat the fish, and...

Oh, never mind.

Re:Compared to bananas

[PeteJanda]

Aye, this is a valid point that people here have overlooked or are blissfully unaware of. Perhaps drinking a bit of seawater tainted with ingredients from Fukushima may be orders of magnitude less harmful radiation-wise than eating a banana (when measured across, say, one day), but if the human body cannot excrete the ingredients, then the human body is up the creek without a paddle. Check out Section 1.4 in this write-up about the body's ability to process and excrete cesium: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/phs/... So. In a nutshell: if something like cesium 137 accumulates and accumulates in your body over time, then even minute doses can become problematic for your longevity. For whatever it's worth, I've been laying off sushi since 2010.

Re:Compared to bananas

[LynnwoodRooster]

There are about 15 becquerels per banana - typically around 120 grams each. This study had 0.3 becquerels per cubic meter of seawater (about 1026 kg). So it would take 51,250 kg of seawater to get you to your banana dosage. A banana is 427,000 times more radioactive, by mass, than this seawater.

Assume your sushi is dosed at the same density as this seawater. And assume the density of fish is about that of seawater (it's actually pretty close). To reach the dosage equivalent to a banana a day, you'd need to eat (and retain the cesium from) that 51,250 kg of sushi. Assume you consume 1000 grams per day (which is a lot of sushi), and 100% of the cesium in the fish is retained inside you, it would take you around 140 years to finally reach the level from a banana.

I think your sushi is safe from radiation. I'd much more worry about heavy metals and chemicals fed into farmed fish from Asia than I would from Fukushima radiation in your Pacific Northwest sourced seafood. The level of radiation we're talking about here is absolutely miniscule. Assuming a typical American home of 600 cubic meters volume, a bunch of bananas on the kitchen counter puts you at the same radiation dosage as we're talking about here. Literally the produce department of the grocery store is orders of magnitude above this level. It is a non-issue.

But I get it. Radiation. Scary.

King Leer

[Latent Heat]

Didn't Shakespeare write about a King Lear, who made outrageous proclamations but handed governance of the kingdom over to his children and their spouses?

Re:radiation was detected

[geekprime]

You really need to take a look at the harm all the other energy sources actually do, Nuclear Power is far far safer for people AND the environment than coal, oil or gas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Being kneejerk against nuclear power just shows you haven't studied the facts.

And YES we DO need to develop renewables to replace fossil AND nuclear, but nuclear is in fact the safest of all our current options.

Re:Deadly Radiation

[Anonymous Coward]

did you forget the /s?

Or are you serious and not know that a bannana is 50 times more radioactive than a cubic meter of that water?

Detection

[SlayerofGods]

Stories like this always remind be about how good we are at detecting radioactivity then any real threat from the radiation itself. This detection represents something on the order of 1 billionth a gram of cesium per cubic meter of water.

Re:radiation was detected

[Dutch Gun]

Also, so I understand the implications of this... what is this radiation measured in equivalent bananas?

Re:radiation was detected

[Anonymous Coward]

You can measure very, very small amounts of radiation very easily. 0.3 becquerels means a single count every 3 seconds, which is only about 20 million cesium 134 atoms in a cubic meter of water, or about one part in 10^20 (one part in a ten billion trillion).

If one wanted to, smaller amounts could be measured if it mattered, but at some point it doesn't. I remember shortly after the earthquake and problems at Fukushima, there was someone who did some atmospheric modeling and worked out how much radioactive material made it by air to the west coast of the US. Their plot showed something made it, but if you read the scale of the plot, you could work out that the activity of the air would be less than that from carbon-14 in a single fart (we need a new unit for that, for things way, way less than even a banana equivalent dose).

This is what, the third or fourth time?

[cirby]

We've had warnings about "radiation reaching the west coast of the US" a few times already. We've seen similar stories in 2015 and 2014 (a couple of times in each year).

In those, it was Cesium-137. Now, this group is all about Cesium-134, apparently because people didn't get upset enough about the Cesium-137.

"Possible false positives" may be their excuse, but no, it's not the first time someone made the claim of radiation reaching the west coast.

By the way: they weren't kidding about the amount being very small. It's 0.3 decays per cubic meter per second - which is a really, REALLY small number. The most amazing thing about the story is that we can manage to detect something that's so close to zero in real world terms. Three-tenths of a disintegration per second times (approximately) 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water in a cubic meter of seawater...

(Someone check my math on this: it's late, and I'm sleepy...)

Re:radiation was detected

[delt0r]

less than one banana!

Re:radiation was detected

[mysidia]

Also, so I understand the implications of this... what is this radiation measured in equivalent bananas?

A fraction of a bannana crumb so small that a human would not be able to see it with the naked eye.

In fact, so small, that maybe the radiation they've detected was a coincidence due to some meteorite and actually has nothing to do with Fukushima.

Re:We need progressive nuclear programs.

[Alwin Henseler]

Give me free electricity and compensation for every screw up and I'd gladly live next to a reactor.

Second that. I've been a long time green party voter, and as much as I like seeing solar panels on an ever increasing # of homes, reality is that solar + wind can't cover 100% of our energy needs right now. Period. Not unless / until the storage problem is solved. The sun doesn't shine at night, the wind doesn't always blow (and sometimes too hard!), and no amount of solar panels will fix that. Hydro could be used as backup, but has its own drawbacks & only possible in a few places. Geothermal etc is interesting, but again: far from practical everywhere.

So for filling in the gaps we NEED something else, no way around it. Between 'cheap' coal, oil, natural gas, or covering land masses with biofuel crops, a modern design nuclear plant isn't a bad option. Yes environmentalists may have speeded up investment in solar projects etc (and I applaud anyone for that no matter the reasons), but in resisting (modern) nuclear they've kinda lost sight that thus we're currently on an energy mix where fossil is still king. That could have been very different if modern nuclear plants were common today.

And no, nuclear waste isn't the be-all-end-all-problem it's made out to be. Right now it's choosing between evils, and btw nuclear waste: it's all about what exact substances, how much, stored how & where. The waste from eg. a fast breeder reactor is very different stuff than what comes out of another type of nuclear plant. Stuffing it in rockets & shooting it at the sun, has different risks & costs than burying inside a mountain. Material with 300 year half-life needs a different approach than material with a 30,000 year half-life. And so on.

For comparison

[Solandri]

1 Bq = 1 radioactive decay per second. It's a tiny, tiny amount. For further reference:

• The amount of K40 and Rb87 in your body gives off about 4600 Bq.
• The K40 (same radioactivity source as in bananas) dissolved in seawater gives off about 12 Bq/L, or about 12,000 Bq per cubic meter. (Cue the alarmists crying that the amount of K40 in your body is static and so we should subtract it. No, you don't subtract it, you divide by it. 0.3 Bq / 4600 = 0.006%. So it's increased the radiation your body normally withstands while staying hale and hearty by 0.006%)
• The Rb87 dissolved in seawater gives off about 0.11 Bq/L, or about 110 Bq per cubic meter.
• The U238 dissolved in seawater gives off about 0.04 Bq/L, or about 40 Bq per cubic meter.
• Heck, the amount of Tritium in seawater gives off about 0.0006 Bq/L, or about 0.6 Bq per cubic meter.
• A granite countertop gives off about 1000 Bq per kg.

If 0.3 Bq / m^3 were dangerous, you'd be dead ten thousand times over just from the natural radioactivity in your own body, a hundred thousand times over from natural radiation from other sources. These measurements of residual radiation from Fukushima are a testament to how good our instruments are at detecting minute quantities of radiation. Not a sign that our oceans are dangerous.

Re:radiation was detected

[arglebargle_xiv]

The choice of units is a bit odd, but in this case is necessary because of the minute amounts involved, at fractional becquerels it's amazing they can even detect it. Radiation at levels to worry about is typically measured in gigabecquerels, for example the lead pig I have on my desk, with its relatively low level of shielding, is rated to contain a 0.2GBq tracer source. In any case the dose measurement you want to worry about would be given in Sieverts or Grays. For 0.3Bq it'd be about zero.

Re: We need progressive nuclear programs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear energy is cheap.

Nope. It's expensive. Just the concrete alone is costly. Mistakes are often extremely costly.

We need more progressive programs.

True, but that won't be happening. Not healthcare. Not pollution control. Not military downsizing.

We should have been doubling the number of reactors every 15 years.

I'm reminded of the Popular Mechanics covers which proclaimed some glorious thing, but it never added up.

Besides, you'd probably juat get blamed for killing the coal industry. You monster.

All the first gen reactors should have been torn down and rebuilt already.

Oh great, more expenses!

Have an excellent track record for 15 years? Well then if you rebuild your current plant with a newer design then you can build and be in charge of a second one...

This would be less of a concern if not for the lies about safety that they've been known to make.

The irony is that if there weren't all the anti nuclear environmental activists then that plant would have been upgraded a long time ago. There are ways to build reactors now that if you drop a bomb on them they still won't melt down.

Thre irony is that you think it is environmental activists that were the problem, when it was one in the TEPCO boardroom. Just like in California during its electrical crisis, the problem was blamed on environmentalists, but the truth reveals it was elsewhere. That was Enron. Fukushima was a bunxh of suits who couldn't admit they had a problem, and one with a solution at hand. The Japanese tend to fall into that trap. They're too concerned about face and shame to address problems.

Give me free electricity and compensation for every screw up and I'd gladly live next to a reactor.

They will not give you free electricity and the compensation will likely be moot since you'll be dead for anything significant.

Feel free to try that at Bellafonte though.

Re:radiation was detected

[Black Parrot]

How many bananas does it take to create a Gojira class radiation monster?

Would a salamander or something have to eat all those bananas, or would external exposure suffice?

Re:radiation was detected

[angel'o'sphere]

Renewables are cheaper than nuclear since years.

Installation wise as in $ per GW as well as in production of energy as in Cents per kWh.

Still not 'harmless'

[Bruce66423]

The scientific community has a problem with precise language here. The additional radiation is not 'harmless'; what is true is that the increase is insignificant compared with other risks. Unfortunately our society is deeply irrational about risks - with the result we spend silly amounts of money on preventing some risks, and far too little on others. In that context is it right to lie to people - by saying it's 'harmless' - or should be seek to be more precise? Remember that one of the reasons for Trump's victory is that mainstream politicians and activists are perceived as liars.

Re:Still not 'harmless'

[thegarbz]

In that context is it right to lie to people - by saying it's 'harmless'

Define harm. Then we can talk about whether people are being lied to.

I'm willing to you bet you 3 fingers and my spare head that no one is being lied to at all. Now excuse me while I go eat a banana.

Not a banana in your pocket

[dbIII]

That's not a real banana, that's the artificial "banana dose" where every atom of potassium is the rare radioactive isotope.

We need science education programs.

[dbIII]

Just about everything in that post was wrong. If we can build some decent nukes based on current or developing technology instead of 1970s dinosaurs painted green like the AP1000 then why not keep them running for a quarter century or more so that they can make back their capital costs?

It's reached Oregon? It's in Tillamook Bay?

[93 Escort Wagon]

What about all the cheese... Is the cheese okay?

Please tell me the cheese is okay!

Re:It's reached Oregon? It's in Tillamook Bay?

[crunchy_one]

Just think of it as a homeopathic dose that will impart protection from future events.

Re:It's reached Oregon? It's in Tillamook Bay?

[93 Escort Wagon]

I guess... but I was really hoping for superpowers.

Re:Deadly Radiation

[Actually, I do RTFA]

It only takes one unlucky photon to kill.

I thought that was true for cancer development. Of course, you need a lot of photons to get an unlucky one (normally)

Renewable will never replace nuclear

[geekprime]

Fusion will obviously replace fission if us monkeys can figure it out.

The cost of a dyson ring would beggar the entire planet for at least a milllion years. It is simply infeasible until energy to matter and matter to energy conversions hit 95% efficiency.

Renewables will easily replace fossil fuels, and can already economically do that in some cases.

As to fission/fusion, You seem to be unaware that the sun is a giant fucking fusion bomb, only the distance we have from it's multi-billion year continuous explosion and our atmosphere keeps us alive.

The technology to gather the solar fusion energy impinging on our planet improves daily, it's a race between the gathering tech people and the local fusion tech people, and so far, the gathering tech people are winning.

The future may well be different, but right now the best fusion generator we have is exactly 1 au away and we need to (and are, continuously) improve the tech we useing to capture that energy.

Re:radiation was detected

[ChumpusRex2003]

Quite a lot less. 1 banana contains typically around 3-4 kBq of activity.

The activity detected in this study is 300 mBq/m3; so in terms of activity per unit mass, bananas are contain approximately 8 orders of magnitude more naturally occuring radioactivity than the pollution detected in the sea water.

While both K40 in bananas and Cs134 from nuclear fission are beta emitters, the energy per decay is lower in Cs134, so effective dose per decay is also lower.

Re:radiation was detected

[ChumpusRex2003]

Doh. Off by 2 orders of magnitude.

30 Bq per banana and 6 orders of magnitude for the ratio.

Re:radiation was detected

[Mashiki]

Renewables are cheaper than nuclear since years.

You're pushing pure bullshit. In some cases the cost of wind and solar are even worse. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gen costs of wind and solar are between 0.32kWh and 1.5kWh(that's $1.50kWh aka one dollar and fifty-cents per kilowatt hour) depending on where it is and who's getting the payment. Installation wise, per GW nuclear is still cheaper. Hell I live a literal stones throw from the 2nd largest nuclear generating station in the world.

This is the exact same thing that's happening in US states like Illinois and Minnesota as well. "Green energy" is not cheap, is damned expensive. Around here it's drive the "peak energy" costs from 0.07kWh to 0.18kWh in less then a decade.

But don't worry, nobody dies from radiation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at how nobody has died at the accident. Completely safe!

Re:But don't worry, nobody dies from radiation.

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Yeah, nobody dies from radiation.

But there's been an estimated 1600 deaths from the practical problems due to the evacuation, things like the hospital having to be shutdown.

Re:radiation was detected

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Yes. Nuclear Power is so awesome, until something bad happens and suddenly it costs you 100 billion dollars which the power company can't afford, so it basically goes bust and has to be bailed out by the state and the taxpayer steps in to pay for everything.

Re:radiation was detected

[angel'o'sphere]

Intermittent and unreliable sources of power usually are.
This is a sentence that makes no sense.

Unreliable? In what regard?
Intermittent? In what regard?

10 years ago, neither wind nor solar was cheaper than nuclear 10 years ago.

Re:radiation was detected

[angel'o'sphere]

You are listing ages old US installations.

No idea why they are such expensive.

New installations in Germany are cheaper than nuclear since years. And Germany is not a particular good country for either wind (except the coast) or solar.

Bringing retarded grid concepts etc as arguments makes no sense.

Around here it's drive the "peak energy" costs from 0.07kWh to 0.18kWh in less then a decade.
Wind and solar are used for base load, not for peak energy or balancing power. You probably mean something else. If the energy prices during peak times changed, you most certainly don't know why. The most likely reason: your peak demand exploded and there were now new load following plants built. The new "renewables" now cover for some base load and the old peak plants struggle to fulfill the new peak demand. Go figure ... can't be so hard.

And on top of that: peak prices explode so that people who care about the price can throttle their demand. Only idiots still consume absurd amounts of power around peak time when they could avoid it (and that is damn easy, even in backyard countries like the USA)

Re:We need progressive nuclear programs.

[WolfWithoutAClause]

> So for filling in the gaps we NEED something else, no way around it. Between 'cheap' coal, oil, natural gas, or covering land masses with biofuel crops, a modern design nuclear plant isn't a bad option.

Yeah, but the thing is, it is a bad option.

Forget fallout, meltdowns etc. Nuclear is expensive per kW.

Because of that nuclear plants are pretty much run flat out, as baseload, to get the kWh cost down to something that is remotely competitive. I mean, you can run them at half power, but when you do that, those kWh that are made are made at twice the price; and they weren't all that cheap to start with. So, using a nuclear plant to fill in for the 20% of time; isn't going to happen.

No, for filling in when both the wind and sun aren't producing, you need a cheap source of power; a gas turbine, or a hydroelectric plant or a diesel plant or similar, something ideally using a biofuel.

Re:radiation was detected

[Mashiki]

You are listing ages old US installations.

No idea why they are such expensive.

New installations in Germany are cheaper than nuclear since years. And Germany is not a particular good country for either wind (except the coast) or solar.

Thanks for showing that you're nothing but a shill pushing an agenda. Those are "brand new CANADIAN" installations.

The fact that you don't understand why, explains a lot. I know why, because of FIT programs. These are exactly the same programs that cause electricity prices to skyrocket in Germany, Greece, UK, Norway, Sweden. The fact that you don't understand that Ontario generate more electricity then it uses, and consumers are charged an outrageous amount to off-set the costs of green energy is the problem. You're trying to turn around and claim that green energy isn't the reason that it's driving electricity rates through the roof. When not only the energy producers say so, but the leftist pro-green energy media and government itself says so.

Re:We need progressive nuclear programs.

[sunking2]

How does $150B cleanup make the energy from Fukushima cheap?

nuclear disasters

[luckyunicorn]

Nuclear power is for sure very efficient if it is managed with wisdom and good planning. However, I still think that wind and solar energy are better for our environment. We should never forget the disasters that happened in Ukraine and Japan and how this affected our ecology. If the effect of Fukushima has reached US shores, there are no doubts that governments all around the world should pay more attention to alternative energy sources. I was once to Ukraine and had a trip to Chernobyl. I was very curious to measure the radiation level with Gamma Sapiens purchased at ecotestgroup.com and it still has some radiation which is very sad. Though, it is a good example of what damage nuclear power can cause as well at the information given in this topic.

Re:nuclear disasters

[MercTech]

Ecotest overcharges for their equipment. If you want a silicon dioxide gamma meter, FTLabs makes one that works as a smartphone attachment that is much much cheaper.

Re:radiation was detected

[thegarbz]

Unreliable in that it's intermittent.
Intermittent in that it depends heavily on external factors. Both of these you could find in the dictionary.

In case you need it spelt out for you, In May 2016 there was a day where all of Germany ran from wind power.
Yet on Monday there was a peak of 4GW of generation across the country, and a low point of 1.2GW. Solar however managed to produce zero for all of that day when the sun didn't shine. Today's peak was 23.6GW from wind which is a pretty good effort given their install base. Unfortunately the consumption at that same time was over 65GW.

Re:radiation was detected

[Applehu Akbar]

What this study proves is how good our measuring instrumentation is today. We can now detect levels of radiation that are only of interest to homeopaths.

More important problems

[PPH]

We have these giant lizards to fight off. Don't bother us with your silly radiation.

Re:radiation was detected

[mlyle]

> In fact, so small, that maybe the radiation they've detected was a coincidence due to some meteorite and actually has nothing to do with Fukushima.

Things with short half lives only come from recent nuclear reactions. Stuff in space or from geologic processes would have gone through tens of thousands to billions of half lives.

If a pure kilo of Cs-137 originally has about 4 * 10^24 atoms... After 82 half lives, there is probably not a single atom of Cs-137 left. This happens in less than a couple hundred years.

Re:radiation was detected

[angel'o'sphere]

You still did not explain ehat you mean with your pointless points :)
Over daytime solar dors not produce zero ... just for your interest. Even when it is cloudy it has a nice power output.
It is completely normal for germany to have high wind yields and relatively low solar yields in autumn/winter. However on sunny winterdays peak solar output is similar to summer. Only total yield is lower due to the shorter day length.

Re:radiation was detected

[thegarbz]

You still did not explain ehat you mean with your pointless points :)

Sure I did. I used two words which are very clearly defined.

Over daytime solar dors not produce zero ... just for your interest. Even when it is cloudy it has a nice power output.

Nice? Let's talk about nice for a moment. Solar power output decimates in the literal sense on a cloudy day. Peak power output in Germany for instance ranges between 25GW and 2GW depending on cloud cover.

So Nice? In what regard?

It is completely normal for germany to have high wind yields and relatively low solar yields in autumn/winter. However on sunny winterdays peak solar output is similar to summer. Only total yield is lower due to the shorter day length.

So what you're saying is its intermittent and unreliable? And in order for it to provide consistently reliable power we'd need to build 10x the required generation. Good to know.

Re:radiation was detected

[MercTech]

Reality check.... Nuclear power plants remain the second cheapest form of electrical power generation. All the figures that show wind or solar being cheaper ignore the maintenance and replacement costs of the equipment. Consider the total system and maintenance costs; the power density of nuclear blows all but hydroelectric power generation out of the water for efficiency as measured by cost per megawatt hour.

Re:radiation was detected

[MercTech]

And where Woods Hole was taking samples; you can find Cs-134, Cs-137, Pu-239, and Eu-152 in very low levels as legacy waste from the atomic weapons programs of yesteryear.

      Yep, bananas.... If I remember correctly, it is about 0.7% of all potassium on planet Earth is radioactive. If you look at a gamma spectroscopy scan of the human body, you normally see the cosmic background hump at low energy levels then a spike at the energy level corresponding to K-40 decay. Take a reading, go eat two bananas, then scan again and the K-40 spike goes from being five times background to 20 times background. Potassium Chloride, KCL, as found in grocery products such as "Near Salt" has enough radioactive potassium as to make a decent check source for a frisker. (frisker => surface contamination monitor)

Re:radiation was detected

[MercTech]

Nope, the KCl binds up in the body. Eat one banana and the level goes up and slowly drops back off over days or weeks as the radiological and biological half lives come into play. Since ALL potassium on the planet has a percentage of radioactive potassium; you will always have a K-40 source in the body..... unless suffering from terminal electrolyte imbalance.

Re:radiation was detected

[MercTech]

The limit of what is considered safe to handle by bare hand would be about a 200 banana equivalent.

Re:Again?

[MercTech]

And the articles making claims of Fukushima radiation reaching the West Coast have been debunked for years. A few months after the plume release; the levels in the seawater up close to the reactor were down to the background that was there before. Yes there are fruit-loops claiming everything up to the whole west coast being a radioactive wasteland.

Re:FUKUSHIMA RADIATION REACHES Oregon

[MercTech]

The concentration of radio nuclides from Fukushima reaching the Oregon coast is so minuscule as to be indistinguishable from other sources in the area. Scare mongering does a disservice to everyone. If you check the facts; you will find your fears are total hooey.

Re:radiation was detected

[RockDoctor]

If I remember correctly, it is about 0.7% of all potassium on planet Earth is radioactive.

So to save yourself, you're planing on joining Elon Musk on Ark1 to Mars? Sorry to tell you, but I'm pretty sure you'll find that the radioactive potassium is already on Mars too. If it exists, Proxima Centauri B is very likely to have the same amount of radioactive potassium.

Radiation is a natural part of our environment. Live with it. Or don't live. A simple choice.

Re:radiation was detected

[RockDoctor]

Things with short half lives only come from recent nuclear reactions.

True.

Stuff in space or from geologic processes would have gone through tens of thousands to billions of half lives.

Not relevant.

Nuclear reactions can - and do - happen in modern materials in natural conditions. For an example, 14-carbon has a half life of a mere 5730 years (limiting it's use for radiometric dating to about 25-30 kyr), so every nucleus of 14-carbon in (for example) Henri Becquerel's desk at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in 1894 was the product of natural nuclear reactions in the 19th century.

Re:radiation was detected

[RockDoctor]

... who'd promptly dilute it and bang it on the desk.

Re:radiation was detected

[angel'o'sphere]

As fr as I can tell it is very reliable, as you have a forecast how much power you will produce tomorrow, or the next hour. And the forecasts are extremely reliable, especially the 1h - 4h forecasts.

You mean something different. wind and solar are not dispatch able. That has nothing to do with reliable.

Re:radiation was detected

[angel'o'sphere]

You are mixing up end consumer prices with production costs.
E.g. in Germany the end consumer prices are basically the same, regardless how the power is produced. That is simple to understand as most energy companies run a mix of various power plants.
Nevertheless if you want to build a new 1GW plant: it is cheaper to that with a wind or solar plant, than as a coal or nuclear plant. This is true since roughly 5 years and was covered on /. often enough. Believe what you want.

Re:radiation was detected

[Mashiki]

You are mixing up end consumer prices with production costs.

No, actually I'm not. Go read those links.

E.g. in Germany the end consumer prices are basically the same, regardless how the power is produced. That is simple to understand as most energy companies run a mix of various power plants.

Nevertheless if you want to build a new 1GW plant: it is cheaper to that with a wind or solar plant, than as a coal or nuclear plant. This is true since roughly 5 years and was covered on /. often enough. Believe what you want.

As it is in Ontario. And those "green energy" produces are what are driving the cost of electricity through the roof. It costs $50m-250m(or less on both amounts) CAD to build a 1GW NG power plant which will pay for itself in under 10 years, it costs $800m+ for a 1GW for solar or wind farm, that will take 50-70 years to pay for itself.

Re:radiation was detected

[angel'o'sphere]

We talked about Coal and Nuclear, not NG.

I have no idea what the NG prices in Ontario are, in Germany we unfortunately had no "cheap gas boom", mainly because we have long term gas contracts and can not easy shift to cheaper ones.

On the other hands: like building a coal plant, building a gas plant here would cost decades from CAD to switching it on.

build a 1GW NG power plant which will pay for itself in under 10 years, it
You typoed, you meant 50 years or 100 years. A gas plant has similar costs than a coal plant. It would not even pay itself in 10 years if it had no fuel costs.

Re:radiation was detected

[Coren22]

Which has happened twice in 50+ years.

Re:radiation was detected

[Coren22]

So, we can sell the water to homeopaths as a cancer cure?

I smell a business opportunity!

We're dealing with the ignorant here

[Bruce66423]

I get your point - but a lot of people who, for example, buy into anti-vax propaganda will miss the point. Admittedly compared with the crasser lies of the fake news surrounding the Trump fiasco, it's a minor detail. But we need to try and be totally clear of any criticism to avoid our credibility being challenged by such characters.

Re:radiation was detected

[whoever57]

No, you are the one pushing bullshit.

Those links provide no support for the idea that the FIT can be greater than 31c per kWh.

Green energy can be cheap: look at the latest costs for offshore wind in Europe. They are cheaper than the rate your employer sells electricity for (assuming you work for your local power station).