Japan Nuclear Fallout => effects on West US Coast?

[drbill]

We're fine. You get a far higher dose of radiation from a dental xray, smoke detectors, and old clocks. (And cigarettes if you indulge in smoking)

Interesting... can you point me to some sources on the issue of radioactivity and smoking?

 

[Charlie99]

I am amazed at the inability of mass media to use numbers.

They seem to think that putting in some actual information about total radioactivity or about the dosage rate is superfluous information.

We routinely get about 310 milliREM (or 0.31 RAD, or 3.1 milliSieverts or 3100 microSv) per year at sea level from background radiation and cosmic rays. Move to Denver and that rises to to over 1000milliRem or 100 milliSieverts. (or 100,000 microSieverts).

If you see any reports that have actual numbers, remember that extra 70,000 microSieverts you get each year by being in Denver.

Fortunately, some of the Japanese press report real numbers: Efforts to cool reactors continue in Japan nuke crisis | Kyodo News




No compare those annual dosages to the rates reported near the nuclear site in one of the few places that has actual numbers.

In some locations at around 30 km from the Fukushima plant, the dose rates rose significantly in the last 24 hours (in one location from 80 to 170 microsievert per hour and in another from 26 to 95 microsievert per hour). But this was not the case at all locations at this distance from the plants.

Dose rates to the north-west of the nuclear power plants, were observed in the range 3 to 170 microsievert per hour, with the higher levels observed around 30 km from the plant.

Dose rates in other directions are in the 1 to 5 microsievert per hour range.

IAEA Update on Japan Earthquake has pretty good updated info.

 

[Charlie99]

Interesting... can you point me to some sources on the issue of radioactivity and smoking?

I don't have any link handy for that, but you might be interested in the relative radioactive emissions from coal powered electric power plants compared to normal operations at a nuclear power plant.

Scientific American article: Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste: Scientific American

===========================

Nuclear power and automobiles are an interesting study in actual vs. perceived risks. Nuclear is strange and therefore we tend to grossly overestimate the actual risk. OTOH, automobiles are common and familiar, and we tend to underestimate the actual risk.

A similar relationship, although not a great a ratio, exists between perceived risks of airline flights and car trips.

 

[PatW]

From what I have been reading, the radiation released from the plant should have reached the west coast and be measurable but be below levels that are considered harmful.

There are several seperate agencies monitoring the atmosphere so there will be seperate checks in case someone messes up or downplays the hazard.

Also, this stuff is not hard to measure. It is pretty easy to identify the specific isotope involved and the quantity even down to very low levels. It can be done without a great deal of expertise if you have the right equipment (I taught a lab course in this years ago). I bet there are any number of professors and grad students at west coast universitites who are running their own ad hoc monitoring programs.

The isotopes will be primariy internal hazards. So don't collect particulate matter from the atmosphere and eat it.

Since the water will get some of whatever falls out of the sky, the water will not get concentrations of any significance. The main risk is an internal hazard. The 2 biggest isotopes in the fallout will be Iodine 85 and Cesium 137. Iodine 85 has only an 8 day half life. In 40 days, only 5% of it will be left. It goes away pretty fast. Cesium 137 has a 30 year half life. So it hangs around in human life time terms... forever. But the USA and Russia used to blow up bombs (and big ones too) all the time like there was no tommorrow and it did not kill everyone.

 

[Charlie99]

But the USA and Russia used to blow up bombs (and big ones too) all the time like there was no tommorrow and it did not kill everyone.

Don't forget China.

But back in the 1960's and 1970's there were several times that sailors training to run nuclear reactors out at the site in Idaho had to decontaminate themselves everytime they went INTO the nuclear plant.

Otherwise the radioactivity would be above the alarm levels. IIRC, the problem was fallout from Chinese H-bomb tests.

Even if there were multiple full, uncontained meltdowns of Fukushima reactors, it is unlikely that we would have fallout in the US approaching those seen back in the mid-1960s.


It sounds like a nuclear carrier was in a similar situation in regards to local fallout, a few days ago. They needed to move out of the area downwind of Fukushima to avoid low, but substantial, contamination that would have made detecting and monitoring their own radiation levels very difficult.

 

[Anti-Hero]

Interesting... can you point me to some sources on the issue of radioactivity and smoking?

Here you go:

Tobacco Smoke | Radiation Protection | US EPA

http://www.epa.gov/radtown/tobacco.html

 

[Ben_ca]

Only if I can have your backplate and wing

Ah you see that's the secret... the metallic backplate makes me impervious to the radiation!

 

[g1138]

Ah you see that's the secret... the metallic backplate makes me impervious to the radiation!

I think someone's setting their crotch strap too tight.

 

[spoolin01]

I am amazed at the inability of mass media to use numbers.

They seem to think that putting in some actual information about total radioactivity or about the dosage rate is superfluous information.

We routinely get about 310 milliREM (or 0.31 RAD, or 3.1 milliSieverts or 3100 microSv) per year at sea level from background radiation and cosmic rays. Move to Denver and that rises to to over 1000milliRem or 100 milliSieverts. (or 100,000 microSieverts).

If you see any reports that have actual numbers, remember that extra 70,000 microSieverts you get each year by being in Denver.

...

It ain't the flux, it's the flakes, so to speak. The corn flakes. Not really amenable to background radiation analogy.

 

[Gombessa]

And for a fun bit of context:

http://xkcd.com/radiation/