Making mountains out of meltdowns (in Japan)
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These are not my reports or measurements. Aren't the reported levels of radiation (per cubic centimeters) sufficient to cause illness, and death? Perhaps not in the case of Superman, and yourself.:) Where are you getting your measurements from? Besides NHK, here is another source. As I posted before, the NHK is Japan's Voice of America, unlikely to to make light of the problem. If anything, I expect them to down play the situation.
The reason I continue to post, is because it is no longer "front page news", but a serious issue that should not be swept under the carpet.
@unknownuser said:
High radioactivity levels at No.1 reactorThe operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has reported high levels of radioactive substances in water that has accumulated in the basement of its Number 1 reactor.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says a water sample taken from the reactor building's basement on Friday contained
2.5 million becquerels of radioactive cesium-134 per cubic centimeter. It also detected2.9 million becquerels of cesium-137 and 30,000 becquerels of iodine-131.The levels are almost the same as those already measured in contaminated water in the basement of the Number 2 reactor's turbine building.Water contaminated with highly radioactive substances has flooded the reactor building's basement, apparently after leaking from holes created in the reactor's pressure and containment vessels in the fuel meltdown.
Under the utility's plan to bring the plant under control, a circulatory cooling system is to be installed to decontaminate radioactive water and use it as a coolant.
TEPCO says it will examine ways to decontaminate the water, as its
radiation levels are too high for workers to approach.Monday, May 30, 2011 22:25 +0900 (JST)
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@honoluludesktop said:
These are not my reports or measurements. Aren't the reported levels of radiation (per cubic centimeters) sufficient to cause illness, and death? Perhaps not in the case of Superman, and yourself.
Hooray! You've finally started to talk! There is life in this architect!
Well let's start by you telling me. I mean;
@unknownuser said:
High radioactivity levels at No.1 reactorThe operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has reported high levels of radioactive substances in water that has accumulated in the basement of its Number 1 reactor.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says a water sample taken from the reactor building's basement on Friday contained
2.5 million becquerels of radioactive cesium-134 per cubic centimeter. It also detected2.9 million becquerels of cesium-137 and 30,000 becquerels of iodine-131.Let's start, by you giving us a detailed explanation with what exactly a becquerel is? And if we are counting millions of these things, why is no one worried? And why are older members of the community willing to get stuck in and help? Death? Death comes to us all. My very lovely friend Hannah has cancer. My brother has Alzheimer's. My sister in law recently died of multiple sclerosis. Fortunately my other parents in law's parents lived to 100 years and over!). Bottom line is, we all die. And if we do nothing about feeding ourselves, a lot more people will die, if we don't go forward and discover, and invest, and experiment.
@honoluludesktop said:
The reason I continue to post, is because it is no longer "front page news", but a serious issue that should not be swept under the carpet.
Serious issue? Really? And you don't think that finding and providing power to the whole world over the next 60 years or so is not a serious issue? Or perhaps you do? So explain to me how you intend to do that? We're all living a lot longer (isn't it great?!) We all need more food and more power. Wind? Solar?? Ever heard of "Entropy"? I don't think so. Fusion perhaps? But that technology is a long way off. So what are we to do in the meantime? Renewables? What renewables? Hydrogen producing algae? Sounds interesting? What about batteries that can grow themselves? Sounds great- but we're not going to get any of that technology if we simply worry then walk away from what we have now, will we?
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Just do the math.
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I'm an engineer, not a nuclear scientist.
But looking at the maths, a becquerel is a measurement of a minuscule amount (like pico or micro- in electronics)- probably completely invisible to the naked eye. Your "millions" is probably only the size of a grain of sand. Sure that grain would be highly toxic, but diluted over such a vast volume of liquid, the result would be insignificant.
Unless you know any different?
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And while you're at it, explain to me what a rem is?
Oh nevermind....
@unknownuser said:
An acute whole-body dose of under 50 rem is typically subclinical and will produce nothing other than blood changes. 50 to 200 rem may cause illness but will rarely be fatal. Doses of 200 to 1,000 rem will probably cause serious illness with poor outlook at the upper end of the range. Doses of more than 1,000 rems are almost invariably fatal.[2] See radiation poisoning for a more complete analysis of effects of various dosage levels.
A rem is a large dose of radiation, so the millirem (mrem), which is one thousandth of a rem, is often used for the dosages commonly encountered, such as the amount of radiation received from medical x-rays and background sources.
We've talking "millirems". Peanuts.
Now it's your turn (since you are so keen)...
@unknownuser said:
First, to calculate the Dose Conversion Factor (DCF) for I-131 in water, we take the definition of the 50 millirem limit in 730 liters (L) of water consumed by the reference man in one year to calculate the dose per liter:
(50 millirem) / (730 L) = 0.06849 millirem/LNext, we use the ALI-derived concentration limit for I-131 in water of 1E-6 uCi/milliliter given in table 2 to calculate the total DCF for I-131 in water:
(0.06849 millirem/L)/(1E-6 uCi/mL * (1000 mL/1 L)) = 68.49 millirem/uCi.The activity we report for water is in Becquerel/liter (Bq/L). The conversion between Bq and uCi is 1 uCi = 37,000 Bq. So the DCF in units of millirem/Bq is:
(68.49 millirem/uCi) * (1 uCi/3.7E4 Bq) = 1.851E-3 millirem/BqIf you are used to using Sieverts (Sv) instead of millirems, by using the conversion of 1 millirem = 10 microSieverts (uSv), we get the DCF in yet another set of units:
(68.49 millirem/uCi) * (10 uSv/1 millirem) = 684.9 uSv/uCi (1.851E-3 millirem/Bq) * (10 uSv/1 millirem) = 1.851E-2 uSv/BqSo depending on the dose units (uSv or millirems) and activity units (uCi or Becquerels) that you prefer, there are four ways of expressing the Dose Conversion Factor for I-131 in water:
...refer to the table which I can't copy in safari....
So there you go. A millirem is miniscule- just like I said. And when you do the maths, you get the same, but without knowing a huge amount about nuclear physics that's about as far as I can go (for now).
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I posted the report (along with the info to do the math), and expressed my dismay. What are you doing?
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@honoluludesktop said:
I posted the report (along with the info to do the math), and expressed my dismay. What are you doing?
Anyone can post a 'report'. Newspapers do it everyday, to sell papers and pay their staff.
Welcome to the real world.
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As in the case of your absurd offer to swim in the ocean off the damaged nuclear reactors, your discussion rambles, skirts the discussion, and fails to address the factual issues.
Here, I'll help you, and give you a start, 2.5 million becquerels of radioactive cesium-134 per cubic centimeter is 2.5 billion becquerels per liter.
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You have simply copied select portions of the links I've provided, but haven't done the math. Of course the indivual units of measurement are small. As far as I know 350 msv is enough to be taken seriously. The contamination by a single measure is "
2.5 million becquerelsof radioactive cesium-134 percubic centimeter." Enough to far exceed 350 msv. -
@unknownuser said:
Plant decontamination not working
The Tokyo Electric Power Company is looking into why a system for decontaminating radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant is not working as expected, delaying resumption of the system's full-scale operation.
The firm on Wednesday published data showing the amount of radioactive materials that had been removed from contaminated water during a test run of the US-made system.
The data show that density of Cesium-13 and Cesium-137 dropped to only one-100th of initial levels.
An earlier test run using water with a lower density of radioactivity showed a drop to about one-1000th.
The utility had said the system would begin full-scale operation in a couple of days.
TEPCO on Tuesday began reducing the amount of cooling water injected into the plant's No. 1 to 3 reactors and is carefully monitoring changes in their temperatures.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011 21:13 +0900 (JST)
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Well I got to give it to you lulu, you win first prize for being the single one man out of thousands on the SketchUcation forum who has truly made....
...A mountain out of a Meltdown!
meanwhile.......
@unknownuser said:
In the first major announcement on the future of nuclear in the UK since the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the Government outlined the locations deemed suitable for new power stations by 2025, all of which are adjacent to existing nuclear sites.
The eight sites are: Bradwell, Essex; Hartlepool; Heysham, Lancashire; Hinkley Point, Somerset; Oldbury, South Gloucestershire; Sellafield, Cumbria; Sizewell, Suffolk; and Wylfa, Anglesey.The plans for new nuclear power plants are part of a series of national policy statements on energy which were published today, following a public consultation. They will be debated and voted on in Parliament, but ministers are hopeful that, with a pro-nuclear majority in the Commons, they will win the argument.
Wonderful news indeed. With the Italians and the Germans hoping to end their nuclear policies (while still remaining highly hypocritical because they intend to import power from nuclear powered France), this will give both Britain and France a clear lead in the European race for a safer, more efficient energy alternative to the dead end which are renewables.
Read more here;
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Why exactly are renewables a dead end?
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PS, there are still people here in Birmingham who think that perpetual motion is possible, if not fact.
It's very sad when you try to convince them that its never been done, and it defies all the laws of physics.
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@unknownuser said:
but the UK
Seems UK and France has some oceans tide around and that is completely safe
All is just politic and profits ! -
There's nothing wrong with politics and profit, it's just our current capitalist system that is wrong.
We try to sell our democracy to the arabs- but what makes our democracy any better than theirs? What have we to offer that is so great? But that's another thread.
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Wind needs particular areas to work, and wind also takes up masses of space, which is going to be needed if we are going to be feeding a generation of people who are living a lot longer.
Solar is highly inefficient. Between 10 to 20% efficient. The problem with solar is that you need light, an awful lot of it. The second problem you are faced with is that when the conductor heats up it becomes more inefficient.
Tidal and wave power? You must deal with the sea and the constant threat of salt in the water that takes a toll with the mechanisms used to create power.
All of the above 3 all need vast amounts of oil and coal to be burnt- economies of scale and all that. Each wind turbine is about the size of a car or even a coach. It's packed with copper wire that needs extruding. Miles and miles and miles of it. And then the wind will stop. Other obvious drawbacks include keeping the power high enough to travel over a long distance- its why power stations are so big- to provide the omph needed to keep the momentum up. Then there is entropy.
The best renewable is probably hydro-electric, which is fine in countries where there is a land mass big enough to cope with containing the amount of water needed (Africa, USA and Canada spring to mind), but the UK? Forget it. Even if you build a huge dam. Perhaps the Germans could dam the danube?
I reckon thorium is the best bet, at least until we master fusion. It's impossible to build a bomb out of thorium too, most people's biggest angst- well it was for me as a long life (edit; life long!) supporter of CND, until CND decided to wage war against nuclear power, which is ludicrous.
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With that UK can make the 3/4 of its energy
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@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
but the UK
Seems UK and France has some oceans tide around and that is completely safe
Nothing is "completely safe". To even have that assumption demonstrates a certain high level of naivety. In the time it takes to produce all the materials used for the production of your 'renewables', many will die as a consequence of accidents in the workplace. I really don't get why you are making such a fuss about one (that so far has claimed so few lives when used for peaceful means), against another- which you almost insist to choose to be totally ignorant of.
I just don't get you Pilou.
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