Meltdown Likely Under Way At Japan Nuclear Reactor

[JetsetBkk]

...Radiation on the ground holds very little danger to us due to the facts I've just mentioned above. Where it does hold a danger is when it enters the food chain and, again bare with me I will come to that soon...

The biggest worry with raiation is when it enters the food chain. If you eat radioactive material this changes the whole game. Now I said earlier that Alpha is the most dangerous to people but can be stopped by a few centimetre of air. if you eat it what is stopping it is your body. Alpha radiationis, relatively speaking, a huge particle and it will smash your body cells to pieces. This is what causes cancer from radiation. beta is the same but to a slightly lesser effect. Gamma is not to bad which is why hospitals are prepared to give you x-rays....

People from the nuclear industry try to downplay fears of the released radiation from nuclear plants by deliberately confusing natural background radiation from rocks etc with radioactive particles ingested into the body, saying we are all exposed to a background radiation anyway, and it's relatively harmless.

But as you point out there's a big difference between background radiation and when you ingest radioactive particles into your body that come into intimate contact with human cells.

I guess I should stop eating my favourite bananas then:

I don't want to end up like these kids:

[Chopperboy]

Monitoring rising temperatures

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is carefully monitoring the situation at the Number 4 spent fuel pool, where the water temperature is rising despite increased injections of cooling water.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says it will inject 210 tons of water into the pool on Monday, after finding on Sunday evening that the temperature in the pool had risen to 81 degrees Celsius.

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/25_12.html

[unblocktheplanet]

Not sure if this is comic or tragic relief. It's what happens when govt and industry don't trust us serfs with full disclosure. Hey, we can handle it, ands make our own plans.

Population control? Human culling? I say we start with politicians! Can anyone really think govt or corporados want a thinking citizenry?!?

From Natural News: http://www.naturalne...a_zeolites.html The whole article is worth a read for a different perspective.

The upshot of all this is that the masses may be suffering from very risky doses of radioactive fallout right now, with no precautions whatsoever being taken to protect themselves. After all, President Obama stood in front of his podium and told the American people there was nothing to worry about. He said no one needed to prepare, and this was followed up with yet more official urgings to avoiding taking potassium iodide. (http://www.naturalnews.com/031735_O...)

The game is apparently on. What game is that? The game of culling the human population by eliminating from the human gene pool those individuals who are too brain dead to think for themselves. Cancer + infertility, after all, is a fairly effective way to remove someone's genetic code from the future of the population, and what better than a massive, global radiation dump to sort out the brainwashed masses from those who actually take their genetic future seriously?

That's one theory behind all this, at least. Some say it's only a theory and nothing more. But when you look at what's really happening today with the mass intentional contamination and destruction of our planet -- the spread of GMOs, the fluoride poisoning of the water supply, the pesticide-induced honey bee population collapse, and so on -- you can't help but wonder if someone really is trying to kill off a very large segment of the human population. Fukushima either deliberately or coincidentally seems to play right into that agenda.

Or maybe that's all just paranoid conspiracy thinking, and the real explanation behind all this is just global government incompetence combined with pathological national leaders who have no compassion whatsoever for the lives and health of their own citizens. Either explanation is sufficiently bizarre enough to make intelligent people at least start asking questions... and hopefully to start taking some precautions against radiation fallout (hence the iodine, clay and zeolites). Bentonite clay, after all, doesn't cost much. Losing the genetic integrity of your sperm production, on the other hand, is a real show-stopper.

Learn more: http://www.naturalne...l#ixzz1KcShT4Cj

[Chopperboy]

Ask yourself this question,

How many persons have died since 1955 as a result of radiation fron a commercial nuclear reactor?

Cancer within the normal population are normally between 22 and 25%.

Cancer is increasing because of our man-made toxic environment. Here’s something positive about cancer that most people don’t know… Cancer was almost unknown in ancient times.

In a study completed just recently and published in the journal Nature, researchers looked at tissue samples from hundreds of Egyptian mummies. There should have been evidence of cancer in all of them, according to modern cancer statistics. And mummification would have preserved any sign of tumors.

But instead of finding cancer in nearly every mummy … they found only a single case. The hundreds of other mummies showed no sign of cancer at all.

These results would be impossible if cancer were not an entirely modern plague. Statistically, it could not happen. And it wasn’t because Egyptians didn’t live long enough to get cancer. The mummies had evidence of age-related problems like brittle bones and hardened arteries.

Cancer isn’t a “normal” part of life. Toxins, chemicals and radiation interfere with the bodies natural ability to defend itself.

[Chopperboy]

Chris Busby - interview

Can't seal Fukushima like Chernobyl - it all goes into sea

[Chopperboy]

Japan’s Terrifying Day Saw Unprecedented Exposed Fuel Rods

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-25/japan-s-terrifying-day-saw-unprecedented-exposed-fuel-rods.html

[Chopperboy]

The ghost city of Chernobyl: Eerie pictures that show abandoned disaster zone as world marks 25 years since worst nuclear meltdown in history

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1380432/Chernobyl-Pictures-abandoned-disaster-zone-25-years-nuclear-meltdown.html?ITO=1490

[Chopperboy]

'No dreams': Japan farmers protest nuke leak

The 200 farmers from northeastern Japan wore green bandanas, held aloft cabbages they said they couldn't sell and carried signs saying "Stop nuclear energy" outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant damaged in the March 11 tsunami.

"My patience has run out. The nuclear crisis is totally destroying our farming business," said 72-year-old Katsuo Okazaki, who grows peaches and apples.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42760699/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

[Chopperboy]

Map details radiation at nuclear plant site

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110425003601.htm

[katana]

Remind me - how many people have died as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima? How many people have died as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima disaster?

Professor Christopher Busby, of the European Committee on Radiation Risks, gives an estimate for cancer deaths in Chopperboy's Youtube video @3.40s onwards (post 2893).

"epidemiological studies suggest 1 million or so cancer deaths at Chernobyl and a similar amount is predicted for Fukishima".

[Throatwobbler]

Remind me - how many people have died as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima? How many people have died as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima disaster?

Professor Christopher Busby, of the European Committee on Radiation Risks, gives an estimate for cancer deaths in Chopperboy's Youtube video @3.40s onwards (post 2893).

"epidemiological studies suggest 1 million or so cancer deaths at Chernobyl and a similar amount is predicted for Fukishima".

Be very wary of what Prof Chris Busby says. I posted links about him before. This is a guy a prefers to publish his own work and not go by the age old trusted scientific way of publishing in scientific journals. The reason scientists first publish in scientific journals is to let their peers look at their data and conclusions and let their peers test it for themselves. People who don't publish in scientific journals generally know that their data does not back up their outlandish claims. From what I've seen of Prof Busby he has very little evidence to back up his claims but now he is the posterboy for we're doomed supporters. All I ask is that people do a little bit of research into who they're quoting.

[Throatwobbler]

...Radiation on the ground holds very little danger to us due to the facts I've just mentioned above. Where it does hold a danger is when it enters the food chain and, again bare with me I will come to that soon...

The biggest worry with raiation is when it enters the food chain. If you eat radioactive material this changes the whole game. Now I said earlier that Alpha is the most dangerous to people but can be stopped by a few centimetre of air. if you eat it what is stopping it is your body. Alpha radiationis, relatively speaking, a huge particle and it will smash your body cells to pieces. This is what causes cancer from radiation. beta is the same but to a slightly lesser effect. Gamma is not to bad which is why hospitals are prepared to give you x-rays....

People from the nuclear industry try to downplay fears of the released radiation from nuclear plants by deliberately confusing natural background radiation from rocks etc with radioactive particles ingested into the body, saying we are all exposed to a background radiation anyway, and it's relatively harmless.

But as you point out there's a big difference between background radiation and when you ingest radioactive particles into your body that come into intimate contact with human cells.

I guess I should stop eating my favourite bananas then:

I don't want to end up like these kids:

Well bananas are radioactive.

[endure]

Remind me - how many people have died as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima? How many people have died as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima disaster?

but perhaps you should also include " how many people are in the early stages of dying ( and maybe dont even know it yet ?) as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima?

That's the problem with this thread. People keep answering questions that I haven't asked rather than the ones I have.

[katana]

Be very wary of what Prof Chris Busby says. I posted links about him before. This is a guy a prefers to publish his own work...[snip]

Better to believe anonymous people on the internet instead? lol

I've seen other high figures, while not as high, they are still in the 100's of thousands..

[Puschl]

Remind me - how many people have died as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima? How many people have died as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima disaster?

but perhaps you should also include " how many people are in the early stages of dying ( and maybe dont even know it yet ?) as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima?

That's the problem with this thread. People keep answering questions that I haven't asked rather than the ones I have.

Ask for answers you are really interested in, then. We all understood that the above was not a question but a statement:

about 11 000 people have been confirmed dead and more are still missing. No deaths through radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi NPP have been reported so far.

There are voices claiming only 56 people died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster - whose 25th anniversary was yesterday. RIP those 56 and the many, many more victims.

[endure]

Remind me - how many people have died as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima? How many people have died as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima disaster?

but perhaps you should also include " how many people are in the early stages of dying ( and maybe dont even know it yet ?) as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima?

That's the problem with this thread. People keep answering questions that I haven't asked rather than the ones I have.

Ask for answers you are really interested in, then. We all understood that the above was not a question but a statement:

about 11 000 people have been confirmed dead and more are still missing. No deaths through radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi NPP have been reported so far.

There are voices claiming only 56 people died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster - whose 25th anniversary was yesterday. RIP those 56 and the many, many more victims.

No, it was a question and you're the first poster who's actually answered it. Thank you. I've no doubt that there will be further deaths, probably many caused by radiation, from the Fukushima disaster. It would be interesting to compare them with the number of deaths caused by non-nuclear methods of generating power but I suspect that this isn't possible because non-nuclear deaths don't provoke as much fear. Does anyone know how many deaths were caused by non-nuclear power generation accidents in the past year?

[geriatrickid]

Remind me - how many people have died as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima? How many people have died as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima disaster?

but perhaps you should also include " how many people are in the early stages of dying ( and maybe dont even know it yet ?) as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima?

That's the problem with this thread. People keep answering questions that I haven't asked rather than the ones I have.

Radiation sickness manifests itself in different forms. For those workers exposed at the plant, I anticipate that some have already fallen ill, while others will fall ill within the year. I do not expect the numbers to be released at this time as it would needlessly upset the population. In respect to the population in the radiation fall out zones, it is expected that thousands will develop various cancers. Some of the cancers will be slow moving or treatable. Others will knock off the elderly and the sick over the next five years or so. It's no great mystery and all of the models prior to the disaster predict such mortality.

[Shurup]

Finally cought up with reading of this topic as it slowed down growing up.

Many mentioned here that the Plutonium is the most toxic substance known to man. Where did this statement came from I would like to know.

Here is some toxisity facts of the Plutonuim:

Toxicity

Isotopes and compounds of plutonium are radioactive poisons that accumulate in bone marrow. Contamination by plutonium oxide (spontaneously oxidized plutonium) has resulted from a number of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents including military nuclear accidents where nuclear weapons have burned.^[86] Studies of the effects of these smaller releases, as well as of the widespread radiation poisoning sickness and death following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have provided considerable information regarding the dangers, symptoms and prognosis of radioactive poisoning.^[87]

During the decay of plutonium, three types of radiation are released—alpha, beta, and gamma. Alpha particles can travel only a short distance and cannot travel through human skin. Beta particles can penetrate human skin, but they cannot go all the way through the body. Gamma radiation can go all the way through the body.^[88] Alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma radiation all expose the body to ionizing radiation. Either acute or longer-term exposure carries a danger of unfavorable health outcomes including radiation sickness, cancer, and death. The danger increases with the amount of exposure.

Even though alpha radiation does not penetrate the skin, it does irradiate internal organs if plutonium is inhaled or ingested.^[33] The skeleton, where plutonium is absorbed by the bone surface, and the liver, where it collects and becomes concentrated, are at risk.^[32] Plutonium is not absorbed into the body efficiently when ingested; only 0.04% of plutonium oxide is absorbed after ingestion.^[33] What plutonium is absorbed into the body is excreted very slowly, with a biological half-life of 200 years.^[89] Plutonium passes only slowly through cell membranes and intestinal boundaries, so absorption by ingestion and incorporation into bone structure proceeds very slowly.^[90][91]

Plutonium is more dangerous when inhaled than when ingested. The risk of lung cancer increases once the total dose equivalent of inhaled radiation exceeds 400 mSv.^[92] The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the lifetime cancer risk for inhaling 5,000 plutonium particles, each about 3 microns wide, to be 1% over the background U.S. average.^[93] Ingestion or inhalation of large amounts may cause acute radiation poisoning and death; no human is known to have died because of inhaling or ingesting plutonium, and many people have measurable amounts of plutonium in their bodies.^[77]

The "hot particle" theory in which a particle of plutonium dust radiates a localized spot of lung tissue has been tested and found false—such particles are more mobile than originally thought and toxicity is not measurably increased due to particulate form.^[90]

However, when inhaled, plutonium can pass into the bloodstream. Once in the bloodstream, plutonium moves throughout the body and into the bones, liver, or other body organs. Plutonium that reaches body organs generally stays in the body for decades and continues to expose the surrounding tissue to radiation and thus may cause cancer.^[94]

A commonly cited quote by Ralph Nader, states that a pound of plutonium dust spread into the atmosphere would be enough to kill 8 billion people. However, the math shows that only up to 2 million people can be killed by inhaling plutonium. This makes the toxicity of plutonium roughly equivalent with that of nerve gas.^[95]

Several populations of people who have been exposed to plutonium dust (e.g. people living down-wind of Nevada test sites, Hiroshima survivors, nuclear facility workers, and "terminally ill" patients injected with Pu in 1945–46 to study Pu metabolism) have been carefully followed and analyzed.

These studies generally do not show especially high plutonium toxicity or plutonium-induced cancer results.^[90] "There were about 25 workers from Los Alamos National Laboratory who inhaled a considerable amount of plutonium dust during the 1940's; according to the hot-particle theory, each of them has a 99.5% chance of being dead from lung cancer by now, but there has not been a single lung cancer among them."^[96][97]

Plutonium has a metallic taste.^[98]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium

Although there was some "illegal" reserches on the effects on human health, there hasn't been any conclusive research really.

I understand Wiki is not the only one source in internet and there could be other reliable sources with controversal info, I still would like to know where the statement "the most toxic substance known to man" came from.

I would also like to know how would Plutonium toxisity compare to the Agent Orange which caused HUGE spikes in cancer in population living near test areas.

[JetsetBkk]

 quote endure: 
Remind me - how many people have died as a direct result of radiation 
released from Fukushima? How many people have died as a result of 
the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima disaster?

but perhaps you should also include " how many people are in the early stages of dying ( and maybe dont even know it yet ?) as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima?

That's the problem with this thread. People keep answering questions that I haven't asked rather than the ones I have.

Radiation sickness manifests itself in different forms. For those workers exposed at the plant, I anticipate that some have already fallen ill, while others will fall ill within the year. I do not expect the numbers to be released at this time as it would needlessly upset the population. In respect to the population in the radiation fall out zones, it is expected that thousands will develop various cancers. Some of the cancers will be slow moving or treatable. Others will knock off the elderly and the sick over the next five years or so. It's no great mystery and all of the models prior to the disaster predict such mortality.

One week after the crisis broke, the renowned US nuclear engineer Ted Rockwell wrote:

In Japan, you have radiation zealots threatening to order people out of their homes, to wander, homeless and panic-stricken, through the battered countryside, to do what? All to avoid a radiation dose lower than what they would get from a ski trip.

Oh dear, it's that naughty "Register" again, printing stuff that the anti-nuclear lobby doesn't want to hear:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/21/fukushima_evac_measures/

[Chopperboy]

Behind the Hydrogen Explosion at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant

by Karl Grossman

The explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant is being described as caused by a “hydrogen build-up” The situation harks back to the “hydrogen bubble” that was feared would explode when the Three Mile Island plant in 1979 underwent a partial meltdown.

The hydrogen explosion problem at nuclear power plants involves a story as crazy as can be. As nuts as using nuclear fission to boil water to generate electricity is, the hydrogen problem and its cause cap the lunacy.

Eruption of hydrogen gas as a first reaction in a loss-of-coolant accident has been discussed with great worry in U.S. government and nuclear industry literature for decades.

That is because a highly volatile substance called zirconium was chosen back in the 1940’s and 50’s, when plans were first developed to build nuclear power plants, as the material to be used to make the rods into which radioactive fuel would be loaded.

There are 30,000 to 40,000 rods—composed of twenty tons of zirconium—in an average nuclear power plant. Many other substances were tried, particularly stainless steel, but only zirconium worked well. That’s because zirconium, it was found, allows neutrons from the fuel pellets in the rods to pass freely between the rods and thus a nuclear chain reaction to be sustained.

But there’s a huge problem with zirconium—it is highly volatile and when hot will explode spontaneously upon contact with air, water or steam.

The only other major commercial use of zirconium through the years has been in flashbulbs used in photography. A speck of it, on a flashbulb, ignites to provide a flash of light.

But in a nuclear plant, we’re not talking about specks—but tons and tons of zirconium, put together as a compound called “zircaloy” that clads tens of thousands of fuel rods.

Heat, a great deal of heat, builds up in a very short time with any interruption of coolant flow in a nuclear power plant—the problem at Fukushima after the earthquake that struck Japan.

Zirconium, with the explosive power, pound for pound, of nitroglycerine, will catch fire and explode at a temperature of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, well below the 5,000 degree temperature of a meltdown.

Before then, however, zirconium reacts to the heat by drawing oxygen from water and steam and letting off hydrogen, which itself can explode—and is said to have done so at Fukushima.

As a result of such a hydrogen explosion, there is additional heat—bringing the zirconium itself closer and closer to its explosive level.

Using tons of a material otherwise used as the speck that explodes in a flashbulb in nuclear power plants —yes, absolutely crazy.

Moreover, in the spent fuel pools usually situated next to nuclear power plants, there are large numbers of additional fuel rods, used ones, disposed of as waste. There must be constant water circulation in the spent fuel pools. In what is labeled a “loss-of-water’ accident in a spent fuel pool, the zirconium cladding of the fuel rods is projected as exploding—sending into the environment the lethal nuclear poisons in a spent fuel pool.

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, has long specialized in doing investigative reporting on nuclear technology. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up (envirovideo.com).

[midas]

Oh dear, it's that naughty "Register" again, printing stuff that the anti-nuclear lobby doesn't want to hear:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/21/fukushima_evac_measures/

Ah Jetset.... here is Dr. Helen Caldicott ( even though you said you didn' t know her - she does

know a little more about how radiation affects the body - than the guys at the Register )

warning about stuff that the pro -nuclear lobby doesn't want to hear

" You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry.( Jetset has yes ) They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days.”

http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/04/24/radioactive-plutonium-and-strontium-from-fukushima-bombarding-us-west-coast-since-march-18th-epa-radnet-reports/

[Chopperboy]

Christopher Busby also thinks that TEPCO has concealed the fact that one of the explosions at Fukushima was not a gas blast, but a nuclear reaction.

“The nuclear industry has a history of duplicity and cover-up. I believe it probably was a nuclear explosion, not in the reactor, but in the tanks that contains the spent fuel. It seems almost certain now that there was some kind of nuclear explosion in the tank that contained the plutonium fuel rods. Anyone who saw that enormous explosion on the video would not have believed that it was a hydrogen explosion,” says Busby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_N-wNFSGyQ&feature=related

[Chopperboy]

Philip White, from the Citizen's Nuclear Information Center, says that the situation in Fukushima is worse than the plant's owners are willing to admit.

“It is some sheet material that they want to cover the plant with, to minimize releases of radioactive gasses into the outside. In fact I think they will find it very difficult to achieve that. I don’t think the end of the accident is in sight,” he said.

Asked if the Tokyo Electric Power Company was reliable, White replied, “I would not be surprised about anything with TEPCO. There are many people in government who are closely affiliated with TEPCO one way or another,” he stressed. “And the bureaucracy has never been strictly monitoring them. There are few areas that are still uncertain and we think they might be covering up some details, but I think all of this will come out as time goes by. At this stage it is more a matter of the analysis that they put on their data, they minimize the seriousness in their statements, they don’t fully wish to recognize just how serious [the situation] is.”

The Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear disasters are quite different from a technological point of view as there are considerable differences between the causes of the catastrophes in each case and, furthermore, the equipment at the two devastated nuclear power plants is different, says independent journalist James Corbett who is in Osaka right now.

What also divides the cases is that in the Soviet Union, after it became evident that information about the catastrophe in Chernobyl could not be hidden under a rug, the information about the liquidation of the aftermath of the disaster was absolutely open to the international community. The situation in Fukushima is the opposite: the Japanese authorities censor the information about what exactly is going on at the devastated nuclear facility and share it with only a limited number of organizations.

“The [Japanese] government has proven that it is not interested in giving free and open access to the [Fukushima] site or the information coming out of there,” he said, adding that briefings on the situation “are only open to a selected group of Japanese media organizations – and foreign media and independent journalists are being excluded from those meetings.”

[unblocktheplanet]

Is Chernobyl a Wild Kingdom or a Radioactive Den of Decay?

http://www.wired.com...chernobyl/all/1

While iodine-131 decayed long ago and the strontium and cesium are slowly becoming less potentially lethal, the hot particles of plutonium-241 scattered across the landscape are actually decaying into an even more toxic isotope, americium-241. A more powerful emitter of alpha radiation than plutonium, americium is also more soluble and can easily find its way into the food chain. Americium-241, in turn, decays into neptunium-237, another energetic alpha emitter that has a half-life of more than 2 million years.

The entire article is thought-provoking and timely.

[katana]

Those pro-nuclear articles from The Register are bordering on the ridiculous.

The subtext of them almost seem to be, "radioactivity, it's good for you!"

Edited April 27, 2011 by katana

[Chopperboy]

Slide presentation and explanation of the Fukushima accident

http://fairewinds.com/content/how-did-general-electric-ge-mark-1-bwr-reactors-end-creating-such-world-wide-tragedy

[JetsetBkk]

Oh dear, it's that naughty "Register" again, printing stuff that the anti-nuclear lobby doesn't want to hear:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/21/fukushima_evac_measures/

Ah Jetset.... here is Dr. Helen Caldicott ( even though you said you didn' t know her - she does know a little more about how radiation affects the body - than the guys at the Register ) warning about stuff that the pro -nuclear lobby doesn't want to hear

" You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry.( Jetset has yes ) They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days.”

http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/04/24/radioactive-plutonium-and-strontium-from-fukushima-bombarding-us-west-coast-since-march-18th-epa-radnet-reports/

And the very next part of that "Infinite Unknown" ( ) web site report is:

- Dr. Rima Laibow:

“Plutonium is the deadliest substance on the planet since 1 molecule of Plutonium in your body guarantees the development of cancer, according to radiation medicine experts.”

1 molecule??

1 molecule decays giving off 1 alpha particle. The guy is saying that 1 alpha particle is guaranteed to give you cancer "according to radiation medicine experts".

Now, why couldn't he have said something like: "Alpha particles may give you cancer if they damage a cell."

And why didn't he say: "Since the half life of Plutonium-238 is 87.7 years, of Plutonium-239 is 24,100 years, and of Plutonium-240 is 6,560 years, it may take a little while for that one single alpha particle to zoom out of the Plutonium molecule and give you cancer."

So, as it would take anywhere from zero time (if you were really unlucky!) to 24,000 years for that alpha particle to be emitted, how about trying to work out what the good doctor Caldicott was talking about:

"If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose."

A mole is 6 x 10^23 atoms and a mole of Pu-239 weighs 239 grams.

So one gram of Pu-239 is 6 x 10^23 / 239 = 2.5 x 10^21 atoms.

So a millionth of a gram of Pu-239 is 2.5 x 10^15 atoms.

Half of these atoms will decay in 24,000 years.

So 1.25*10^15 alpha particles will be emitted over 24,000 years = 24,000*365*24*60*60 seconds = 7.5 * 10^11 seconds

So the rate of alpha emission will be 1.25*10^15 / 7.5 * 10^11 particles per second = 1,666 alphas per second = 1,666 Becquerels.

So how many Becquerels does it take to give you cancer?

According to The Bruce Centre for Energy Research and Information:

"Using risk estimates from the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the World Health Organization, and the assumption of a linear dose response curve (i.e. the total lifetime dose is the sum of annual doses), lifelong exposure (70 years) to 7,000 Bq/L [in drinking water] would result in approximately 340 excess fatal cancers per million people exposed, or just under 1 in 3,000. This estimate does not include non-fatal cancers or potential hereditary defects."

So one millionth of a gram of Pu-239 gives about a quarter less chance - about 1 in 12,000 - of getting cancer than drinking water that contains 7,000 Bq/L for 70 years.

So, do we still believe everything the good doctor Caldicott says?

http://engineerzero.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/calculating-cancer-deaths-from-fukushima/

[Chopperboy]

Takeshi Tokuda, a member of the Lower House of the Japanese Diet, also believes the explosion at Fukushima was nuclear

Tokuda talked with a doctor Oikawa of the Minami Soma City General Hospital. Oikawa told the government representative that materials ejected from the plant after the explosion registered high radiation levels.

“When the hospital checked the radiation level on the people who escaped from around the nuke plant after the explosion, there were more than 10 people whose radiation level exceeded 100,000 cpm [counts per minute], beyond what could be measured by the geiger counter the hospital had,” Tokuda wrote. “100,000 cpm is the new level that the Japanese government set that requires decontamination. Before the Fukushima accident, the level was 6,000 cpm.”

It is the level that threatens the secondary radiation contamination.

However, it has never been disclosed by the government that it was such a serious situation.

From his April 17 blog entry (original in Japanese):

[Chopperboy]

VIDEO SHOWING THE TWO EXPLOSIONS SIDE BY SIDE

Asks the question, was #3 a nuclear explosion?

[JetsetBkk]

Remind me - how many people have died as a direct result of radiation released from Fukushima? How many people have died as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima disaster?

Professor Christopher Busby, of the European Committee on Radiation Risks, gives an estimate for cancer deaths in Chopperboy's Youtube video @3.40s onwards (post 2893).

"epidemiological studies suggest 1 million or so cancer deaths at Chernobyl and a similar amount is predicted for Fukishima".

Be very wary of what Prof Chris Busby says. I posted links about him before. This is a guy a prefers to publish his own work and not go by the age old trusted scientific way of publishing in scientific journals.<snip>

Another reason why I don't trust him is because of his silly cap.