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Flying in Airplanes Exposes People To More Radiation Than Standing Next To a Nuclear Reactor (businessinsider.com)
Traveling the skies by jet lifts us far from the hustle and bustle of the world below. From a report: But many flyers don't know that soaring miles above Earth also takes us out of a vital protective cocoon -- and a little closer to a place where our cells can be pummeled by radiation from colliding stars, black holes, and more. You can't see these high-energy charged particles, but at any given moment, tens of thousands of them are soaring through space and slamming into Earth's atmosphere from all directions. Also called cosmic rays or cosmic ionizing radiation, the particles are the cores of atoms, such as iron and nickel, moving at nearly light-speed. They can travel for millions of years through space before randomly hitting Earth. These rays don't pose much of a risk to humans on Earth's surface, since the planet's atmosphere and magnetic field shield us from most of the threat.
So, a few things.
One, when you are standing "next to" a nuclear reactor, you still have all of the shielding between you and the reactor. It's not that much radiation.
Two, the article points out how NASA monitors radiation exposure of it's astronauts, but airlines don't do any such thing for flight crews. Again, this is a false comparison. Astronauts pass outside of our atmosphere entirely, while airplanes do nothing of the sort. You may as well complain that they don't provide space suits when you fly on Jet Blue.
Three, they actually do show a little real science...and illustrate that the annual exposure of a full-time flight crew while in the air is about 3 mSv. And they state that 10 days in space gets you 4.3 mSv of exposure. So even by their own numbers, the simple fact is that this isn't a real problem. Effectively, a flight crew gets 4 times the exposure to "cosmic radiation" (as they call it in the article) as a person who is standing on the ground at sea level.
Next up: Businessinsider.com exposes the "massive" amounts of radiation that high-altitude mountain climbers receive. Not only are they really high up (like real astronauts!), they don't even have a plane around them!
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Everyone knows this or should.
Indeed. I remember learning this in elementary school 40 years ago. You get way more radiation by living in Colorado than by living nextdoor to a nuclear power plant.
The issue isn't radiation from being around a well-operating nuclear plant, which should be negligible. The issue is when those plants fail
This is the problem with stupid "factoids" like "coal is more radioactive than nuclear". They always consider nukes that are "operating normally", and leave out Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi, TMI, etc.
Tenuous? there is 11 psi difference between sea level and 35,000 feet. so a one inch deep by one inch wide column of air from the ground to 35,000 feet weighs 11 pounds. How much does a square inch of aircraft skin weigh?
dose is about 1 mrem per hour, compared to 1 mrem per day on ground. still, only air crew have slightly higher melanoma rates than people who work on the ground as only proven effect (sunbathers, sun tanners and beach lovers are at much more risk), the danger to passengers is essentially zero.
The potassium chloride you find in most supermarkets (in water softener tablets and as salt substitutes) will expose you to about as much radiation as nuclear waste. And heaven forbid you have a granite countertop in your home. The radiation detectors CBP has installed at border checkpoints are regularly triggered by mundane shipments like cat litter, granite, porcelain, bananas, nuts.
not sure if clickbait or fear-mongering.
Go eat a banana then get tested for radiation. Bananas are an excellent natural source for Potassium, which is naturally radioactive.
Radiation Dose Chart
According to that chart, a banana is about the same dose as living within 50 miles of a normal reactor for a year. (and living that close to a coal plant is triple that dose!)
This is one of those "Your odds of getting killed by a cow are greater than getting killed by a shark" moments.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.