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Japan Faces Potential Nuclear Disaster as Radiation Levels Rise

Cardinal

Cardinal

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TOKYO — Japan’s nuclear crisis verged toward catastrophe on Tuesday after an explosion damaged the vessel containing the nuclear core at one reactor and a fire at another spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to the statements of Japanese government and industry officials. In a brief address to the nation at 11 a.m. Tokyo time, Prime Minister Naoto Kan pleaded for calm, but warned that radiation had already spread from the crippled reactors and there was “a very high risk” of further leakage. Fortunately, the prevailing winds were sweeping most of the plume of radioactivity out into the Pacific Ocean, rather than over populated areas.
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The actual steel container holding the core has been destroyed. This just went from "godawful" to "total crap on toast."

If there is heavy melting inside the reactor, large amounts of radiation will most definitely be released.”
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Time to get potassium iodide, since this stuff is getting into the air and we're all in it now.
 
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This is tragic for Japan as they already wrote off all of these plants.

However I have heard plenty of experts say there is little to no chance that we are in jeopardy from a total melt down.

I live in California and I see nothing to get worried about here, other than the huge Subduction Plate threat runs from Washington, to Northern California and is said to be over due to break, and when it does it will be just about as big as what just happened in Japan.

That and I live about two miles from the San Jacinto Fault.
 
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Cardinal said:
… Time to get potassium iodide, since this stuff is getting into the air and we're all in it now.
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My understanding is that radioactive Iodine can easily be avoided by not drinking milk from cows which have eaten contaminated grass. Cesium is another matter.
 
Chappy said:
My understanding is that radioactive Iodine can easily be avoided by not drinking milk from cows which have eaten contaminated grass. Cesium is another matter.
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Yes, cesium is really nasty, but radioactive iodine can be carried plenty of other ways.
How do people come in contact with iodine-129 and iodine-131?

Radioactive iodine can be inhaled as a gas or ingested in food or water. It dissolves in water so it moves easily from the atmosphere into humans and other living organisms. People are exposed to I-129 from the past testing of nuclear weapons, and I-131 from nuclear power plant emissions. Some industrial facilities also emit radioactive iodine to the environment, as well as medical institutions. Radioactive iodine is usually emitted as a gas, but may contaminate liquids or solid materials as well. If a family member has been treated with I-131, you may have increased exposure to it through their body fluids.
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Iodine | Radiation Protection | US EPA

And if it gets up into the upper atmosphere, we're going to be exposed to it. Since the release of radiation from the plant has for all intents and purposes become uncontrolled, it's smart to assume we will be.
 
Meanwhile, Obama is in South America playing golf and giving radio addresses about gender inequality.

Embarassing.
 
Official: Japan's nuclear situation nearing severity of Chernobyl - CNN.com

(CNN) -- The explosion Tuesday at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has elevated the situation there to a "serious accident" on a level just below Chernobyl, a French nuclear official said, referring to an international scale that rates the severity of such incidents.

The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale -- or INES -- goes from Level 1, which indicates very little danger to the general population, to Level 7, a "major accident" in which there's been a large release of radioactive material and there will be widespread health and environmental effects.

"It's clear we are at Level 6, that's to say we're at a level in between what happened at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl," Andre-Claude Lacoste, president of France's nuclear safety authority, told reporters Tuesday.
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Erod said:
Meanwhile, Obama is in South America playing golf and giving radio addresses about gender inequality.

Embarassing.
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First off, no he isn't. Second, all the experts on the subject are already at work on this. Two carrier battle groups are on station assisting. What do you want, Obama to grab a shovel?

Some people are just so outrageously partisan that they'll use any event ever to attack the opposition. :roll:

Anyway, addressing the OP's sky is falling message:

Nobody outside the site itself is being exposed to radiation above a typical day outside. I wouldn't be worried about jet streams just yet.
 
Interesting bit of trivia:

A coal plant spits radioactive material into the atmosphere when things are going well.
 
Erod said:
Meanwhile, Obama is in South America playing golf and giving radio addresses about gender inequality.

Embarassing.
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Well I'm sorry he isn't cutting a birthday cake with John McCain or reading to elementary school students.
 
For people freaking out about radiation levels:

During the peak radiation leakage, if you stood at the main gate of this facility for an hour you would have received less radiation than a CT scan.


PAAAANIIIIIC
 
So I found this link - which is a live feed of a geiger counter in Tokyo - not sure where exactly but from my broken Kanji it looks as if it's on the 4th floor facing SouthWest ha nging out of a window. I had no idea what the readings meant but after a little reading 18.xx CPM is approximately 180 dpm which isn't much radiation at this point. A low dose of radioactive contamination on a person or object would be 1,000 dpm, but since this is hanging out a window, if it goes to 100 cpm (= 1,000 dpm) I'd probably get a little panic going and start swallowing looking for iodine pills.

Here's the link. For the 30 minutes I've been checking in, it's gone from 18.51 cpm to 18.61 cpm.

geiger_counter_tokyo on USTREAM:
 
Uhh, you can get 18 CPM on a freaking sunny day.

Yeah, not so worried just yet :)

edit: Sorry, I was wrong. You can get 18 cpm on a rainy day while inside.
 
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Deuce said:
Uhh, you can get 18 CPM on a freaking sunny day.

Yeah, not so worried just yet :)
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People freak out about radiation because many don't understand it. Hell, being in Colorado, I have well more radiation because I have a mile less of atmosphere to filter it out. But it's ok cause I'm a scientist and we aren't allowed outside anyway. But concrete is radioactive, those cinder blocks they use to make a lot of things has radioactive potassium in it.
 
Ikari said:
People freak out about radiation because many don't understand it. Hell, being in Colorado, I have well more radiation because I have a mile less of atmosphere to filter it out. But it's ok cause I'm a scientist and we aren't allowed outside anyway. But concrete is radioactive, those cinder blocks they use to make a lot of things has radioactive potassium in it.
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Let's not get started on this CRT monitor in front of me...
 
Deuce said:
Let's not get started on this CRT monitor in front of me...
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And just think of those old tube TV's from the 60's... hehe. I'd be interested to see what the readings are say 40 miles East of Fukishima. Funny thing is, when I was looking around the web for some detail on rem and rad and cpm/dpm there are a LOT of old surplus geiger counters for sale all of a sudden. If ya got em, nows the time to sell and get a good price!
 
Too many people hear the word "nuclear", and they think mushroom clouds and hydrogen bombs.

This is serious, but it's not that serious.
 
Deuce said:
For people freaking out about radiation levels:

During the peak radiation leakage, if you stood at the main gate of this facility for an hour you would have received less radiation than a CT scan.


PAAAANIIIIIC
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LOL - I suppose that might be comforting to people who don't know how much radiation is involved in a CT scan (up to 500 times that of a standard x-ray).

That aside, the physiological danger posed by the leak can hardly be measured by looking at background radiation levels. Give me a break.
 
Cardinal said:
Yes, cesium is really nasty, but radioactive iodine can be carried plenty of other ways.


Iodine | Radiation Protection | US EPA

And if it gets up into the upper atmosphere, we're going to be exposed to it. Since the release of radiation from the plant has for all intents and purposes become uncontrolled, it's smart to assume we will be.
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This is hysteria. There WILL NOT be dangerous radiation reaching the US. Radioactive particles are heavy and do not fly well. There isn't going to be a huge explosion to loft them into the jet stream in any quantity. Even if you set off a 10 megaton nuke in Japan, at ground level for fallout, the odds of any significant fallout reaching California would be slight.

There is no need to panic over this.
 
Deuce said:
First off, no he isn't. Second, all the experts on the subject are already at work on this. Two carrier battle groups are on station assisting. What do you want, Obama to grab a shovel?
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Sorry, but everyone knows the duty of the President is to be on the ground within minutes of any disaster and immediately begin sifting through debris including lifting cars to save kittens underneath. We need a change! Kal-el 2012!

Deuce said:
For people freaking out about radiation levels:

During the peak radiation leakage, if you stood at the main gate of this facility for an hour you would have received less radiation than a CT scan.


PAAAANIIIIIC
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People should definitely be worried about the radiation for a variety of reasons. Just because it won't led to people dying in the streets does not mean it is nothing.
 
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Demon of Light said:
Sorry, but everyone knows the duty of the President is to be on the ground within minutes of any disaster and immediately begin sifting through debris including lifting cars to save kittens underneath. We need a change! Kal-el 2012!



People should definitely be worried about the radiation for a variety of reasons. Just because it won't led to people dying in the streets does not mean it is nothing.
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The scary live feed of the geiger counter in Tokyo currently reads...

normal ambient levels.
 
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