Search for Aussies amid poisoning fears

Richard wrote:

Personally I think this is a beat up. The quoted dose rate of Gamma is quoted as 400 microsieverts. Anyone living in a brick house is getting that all the time and if you lie on beach sand the dose rate is 17k to 20k the black bits in the sand contain thorium.
There is no contamination as none of the reactors have popped there tops and neutron levels are under control. The irradiation is being caused by the release of radio active hydrogen H3 tritium which is a gas and lighter than air. most of it will float to the upper atmosphere. We must all hope the reactors retain there integrity which to date they have, otherwise another story.

Jean-Claude van Damn-it wrote:

I am confused as I believed meltdown had in fact occurred (was preceded by the initial explosions) along with fusion of rods. I also understood that reactor 4 pool (containing spent fuel rods) went kaboom. Fukushima will be deep-sixed and abandoned similarly as what happened with Chernobyl.
What is the fecking rate of decay for those chemicals, sweethearts?

Gottaliv wrote:

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http://www.topix.com/forum/world/australia/T9...
Punch Q & A on Japan and the nuclear disaster
The Punch put some questions to one of the nation’s nuclear experts - Dr Gerald Laurence. Dr Laurence is a Radiation Safety Adviser and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide’s School of Chemistry and Physics.
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Q) How scared should people in Japan be about the nuclear situation?
A) Not a great deal – the 20-year total of deaths from Chernobyl (from the UN 20-year report) suggests that the radiation related deaths are of the order of a few thousand at most; of the thyroid cancers, mostly in the young 99 per cent were treated & cured (note all the data in the report are strongly disputed by environmental and progressive groups who claim that WHO & IAEA are under the influence of the nuclear industrial complex).
In Japan so far it is spent fuel rods that were removed from the core in November, so iodine-131 (which has an eight-day half life) is not a major risk. The most serious fission product that will be released will be caesium-137 with a 30-year half life.
The possibility of food (rice, milk, etc.) being contaminated because of contaminated fields is real, but public health measures (testing and so on) should mean such produce should not reach the public. Local contamination (houses, towns) will clear at rates dependent on the weather (dissolved in rain, etc.). Local weather also disperses & dilutes the plume (and I assume the Japan Met Bureau can model this very well).
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More Q & A on:
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/punch-q-a ...

Jean-Claude van Damn-it wrote:

Your data is distorted and not accurate.

Gottaliv wrote:

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It's not my data. Argue with The Punch for printing the article and the Nuclear Safety Scientists who state and write their own 'facts'.

no hanson party wrote:

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You got it 100% correct - not your data (never is)!

Gottaliv wrote:

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FOAD

Jean-Claude van Damn-it wrote:

Fair enough. There's a great deal of misinformation out there and that information gets translated, at times twisted or distorted, published then quoted, and so on and so on. What I find curious is the fact that--despite very obvious evidence to the contrary, there are people out there trying to claim that radiation is harmless or even "good for you."
Is it stocks? Investments? Dependencies on foreign oil?

Gottaliv wrote:

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Everything controversial is always about money. We can get radiation sickness in our own homes if we've got enough electrical gear. When natural disasters occur it's always amusing to see the 'authorities' go into damage control and fiercely deny there is any danger to human health - until people start dropping like flies or have their cancer linked to the disaster.
We've got asbestos lying around all over the place from the recent floods but 'authorities' say it "doesn't pose any threat to health" - and we've got other experts saying it most definitely does. It only takes one small fibre to start off Mesothelioma and there's plenty of fibres blowing on the wind. Guess we'll have a spike in lung cancers in the future.
Millions of houses here were built of fibro after the war, it's a disease that will never die.

Jean-Claude van Damn-it wrote:

Okay, the author really deserves credit for this, but I cannot find him. I noticed this online as the situation at Fukushima worsened. I was so stressed out that I could barely focus at the time to make note of his name. Who knows maybe he, himself did not write it. Here it is. I think it's profound...
"Only when the last tree has been cut down,
Only when the last river has been poisoned,
Only when the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."