The Panic Over Fukushima

Nuclear energy is horrible, yes it by all means is nice to light up our houses and big AC's and computers etc.. but the only bad part is where to store the waste.. their isn't anyway to dispose of it or break it down..Sad part is they bury them underground, but it's only good for at least 50 years.. I know there was this article about this and in Canada, they found these old nuclear containers burried under the ground in the 50's.. And worst part was they were starting to crack and corrode..I still don't even know what has happened to it, It was on the front page of the news papers like a year or 2 ago, but no news from it ever since. And It's scary stuff, as I said there isn't any way to dispose of it.. It's horrible stuff..

The building of huge hydro-acumulations can make even bigger damages for local biocenosae, meaning, for local wild life and especialy for rare species, than modern nuclear plants.
Of course, the right storage of possible dangerous materials is of big importance.
I had the impression that some group wanted that accident, with most damage, for their political purposes.
That they made the consequencies bigger.
Maybe Japan nazis, I guess.

Originally posted by chr0naut


Radon, being a very light noble gas (ie: it doesn't bind to things chemically) is not a persistent poison like these other nuclear byproducts and so does not stay in the body for ages. The time for it to cause any damage is brief and therefore it is less of a problem.

have you looked up the decay chain for Rn222? what about density? Wikipedia will do for this basic stuff:

en.wikipedia.org...

Its most stable isotope, 222Rn, has a half-life of 3.8 days. Radon is one of the densest substances that remains a gas under normal conditions. It is also the only gas under normal conditions that only has radioactive isotopes, and is considered a health hazard due to its radioactivity. Intense radioactivity has also hindered chemical studies of radon and only a few compounds are known.

iow, the heaviest gas you'll find.

now on to the decay chain (Uranium series)

en.wikipedia.org...

if you have a look you will see a myriad of decay products all of which are either solid or have a half life measuring seconds (At 218) of particular interest is Polonium 210 which you should remember from the Litvinenko poisoning case. iow, Rn222 is certainly magnitudes worse when ingested than many fission products (certainly Cs137, beta and gamma), since its decay chain is much longer and features lots of alpha emitters, some of which are quite energetic (Po-210).

To address a couple folks who note the limits and long term stability of Chernobyl and a couple of the lesser known Military nuclear accidents over the decades....Fuku had something they didn't. The Pacific Ocean. Chernobyl spread contamination and measurable contamination everywhere around it when it went. Russia didn't announce it at first...the alarms all over the Western line around them began ringing like fire engines racing to a fire.

However... Chernobyl didn't explode and blow everything sky high. Fuku did. Chernobyl wasn't 200 YARDS from open water and unprotected ocean. Fuku is. The center of the closest reactor building that exploded and 100% unprotected and open ocean water is roughly 200 yards.

I'm not talking about the breakwater. It extends out so far that I am sure all debris blowing in that direction fell inside their barriers....although that is still an area open to the Pacific for water flow.

No, I am talking about the open beach. If you look at a Fuku photo and let your eye travel south to the southern edge of the breakwater and where OPEN water and beach start, you'll find they probably ended that a little short.....but then, they didn't build the breakwater to contain a reactor building explosion, let alone 3 of them.


So... When people suggest this is no worse than the others.....remind them, part of a reactor building's pieces landed in open ocean water and subject to the pacific currents. That, as much as anything else...makes this a slow motion catastrophe.


One additional factor....... Japan was blessed in a way on this...but it's at the cost of Hawaii and the Western United States Mainland over the long term. Fuku had nothing EAST of it....unlike Chernobyl. The weather patterns are strong and steady for off-shore and a slight North/North-East flow by the weather charts....... That would be why the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan steamed through radioactive plumes so FAR off shore...while the land based exclusion zone at that time was still relatively small and evacuations were being debated at far closer distances on land than the Reagan encountered at sea.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
However... Chernobyl didn't explode and blow everything sky high. Fuku did.

Chernobyl most certainly did explode:

Why do you think the Wiki article calls it Experiment and explosion?

There is a general understanding that it was steam from the wrecked channels entering the reactor's inner structure that caused the destruction of the reactor casing, tearing off and lifting the 2,000-ton upper plate, to which the entire reactor assembly is fastened. Apparently, this was the first explosion that many[who?] heard.[34]:366 This explosion ruptured further fuel channels, and as a result the remaining coolant flashed to steam and escaped the reactor core. The total water loss in combination with a high positive void coefficient further increased the reactor power.

A second, more powerful explosion occurred about two or three seconds after the first; evidence indicates that the second explosion was from the core itself undergoing runaway criticality.[35] The nuclear excursion dispersed the core and effectively terminated the nuclear chain reaction.

You could say Fukushima had more explosions but you can't say Chernobyl didn't explode and blow everything sky high. Where in the world would you get an idea like that?

Originally posted by benrl
The thing with radiation is its funny.

Its accumulative, you may be fine now, but that thyroid cancer you get 20 years from now, well... Who knows the cause of that.

I mean everyone gets cancer, its a common thing...

Right?

I'm not very old but how common was cancer in the 40's or 30's? You know before the Manhatten Project. Also, I wonder about before the industrial revolution how common it was.

I was spraying some herbicide the other day to kill some of these burr bushes that get into my dogs fur and my throat began to feel funny after I was done and later that night it was twitching. I wonder if I will have cancer in 20 years.

Originally posted by SepticSceptic
Having actually lived and worked in the area of the reactor before and after the meltdown, I do believe that the nuke plant is secure and poses no more a threat of radiation then a nice sunny day in San Diego. Like I said in a previous post, just because you see a shadow does not mean there is a conspiracy lurking in it.

Wow, I think you need to have your head checked. Apparently, the repeated multiple exposures to radiation has caused you to go senile! Like unicorns and rainbows, and "how these nice young men in white coats are here to take me to DisneyLand" type of (un) reality and reasonings.

Originally posted by Long Lance

Originally posted by chr0naut


Radon, being a very light noble gas (ie: it doesn't bind to things chemically) is not a persistent poison like these other nuclear byproducts and so does not stay in the body for ages. The time for it to cause any damage is brief and therefore it is less of a problem.

have you looked up the decay chain for Rn222? what about density? Wikipedia will do for this basic stuff:

en.wikipedia.org...

Its most stable isotope, 222Rn, has a half-life of 3.8 days. Radon is one of the densest substances that remains a gas under normal conditions. It is also the only gas under normal conditions that only has radioactive isotopes, and is considered a health hazard due to its radioactivity. Intense radioactivity has also hindered chemical studies of radon and only a few compounds are known.

iow, the heaviest gas you'll find.

now on to the decay chain (Uranium series)

en.wikipedia.org...

if you have a look you will see a myriad of decay products all of which are either solid or have a half life measuring seconds (At 218) of particular interest is Polonium 210 which you should remember from the Litvinenko poisoning case. iow, Rn222 is certainly magnitudes worse when ingested than many fission products (certainly Cs137, beta and gamma), since its decay chain is much longer and features lots of alpha emitters, some of which are quite energetic (Po-210).

Radon is light when compared to other actinides, but, yes is a heavy gas.

While its daughters are nasty and stick, Radon gas doesn't stick to anything (it's a noble gas).

Despite the advertised nastiness of Polonium 210, it is Lead 212 and Bismuth 212 which are the worst of Radium's breakdown elements due to their long half-life.

Originally posted by chr0naut

While its daughters are nasty and stick, Radon gas doesn't stick to anything (it's a noble gas).

Despite the advertised nastiness of Polonium 210, it is Lead 212 and Bismuth 212 which are the worst of Radium's breakdown elements due to their long half-life.

uh, Pb + Bi 212 are from the Thorium series and the longest lived form the U series is Pb 210 at 22.3a.. btw, have you taken a look at the decay energy rating of Po214 and 210 ? 7.8 and 5.4 MeV, respectively, in between Pb210 with 22.3 year half life.

you'd better pray none of this decays in your lungs, thse heavy metals will likely stay put, whereas, among FPs, only iodine and strontium show pronounced tissue selectivity. i'll leave it to you to summarize the cumulative decay energy of Rn222 and compare it to fission products like Cs 137 or Sr 90...

Fukushima nuclear is damaged to the reason of quake in japan.