An example of why we're all gonna die- meanwhile back in Fukushima by SignyM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

One out of three children in Fukushima have thyroid nodules now.

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Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:37 PM

RT, whoever they may be, claim these are current photos of Japan's tsunami area.
http://rt.com/news/japan-tsunami-reconstruction-photos-111/

"All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest" ~Paul Simon

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Friday, February 17, 2012 4:12 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
One out of three children in Fukushima have thyroid nodules now.

Quote:
Thyroid nodules are extremely common in young adults and children. Almost 50% of people have had one, but they are usually only detected by a GP during the course of a health examination, or through a different affliction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyroid_nodules

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, February 17, 2012 4:15 AM

HERO

Water in a pot on my stove spiked all the way to boiling last night...I added emergency pasta and within a few minutes it was all under control.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I agree with Hero." Niki2, 2011.

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Friday, February 17, 2012 8:41 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Yeah, I heard about the new reactors here, too, and immediately switched channels. Didn't want to think about it; given all the investigative reporting I'm seeing on the state of our OLD ones, it just gives me the heebie-jeebies to think about.

Quote:
-- As the United States prepares to build its first new nuclear power reactors in three decades, concerns about an early generation of plants have resurfaced since last year's disaster in Japan.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant -- the subject of a battle between state authorities and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over its continued operation -- uses one of 23 U.S. reactors built with a General Electric-designed containment housing known as the Mark I.

It's the same design that was used at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where three reactors melted down after the station was struck by the tsunami that followed Japan's historic earthquake in March 2011. The disaster resulted in the widespread release of radioactive contamination that forced more than 100,000 people from their homes.

GE says the Mark I design has operated safely for more than 40 years and has been modified periodically to meet changing regulations. No nuclear plant could have avoided a meltdown after being swamped by a tsunami and losing power to cooling systems for an extended period of time, the company says -- and at least one expert CNN spoke to agrees.

But concerns about the Mark I's ability to contain the consequences of a severe accident have been raised for decades, and critics say the Fukushima Daiichi accident shows it can't survive a real-world disaster. Lots more at http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/17/us/us-nuclear-reactor-concerns/index.htm
l?hpt=hp_bn1 never learn, do we? Our avarice for energy knows no bounds... Vive l'Allemange!

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Friday, February 17, 2012 5:19 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Thyroid nodules are extremely common in young adults and children. Almost 50% of people have had one, but they are usually only detected by a GP during the course of a health examination, or through a different affliction.

Normally Wikipedia is a useful source of information. However, in this case I call BULL. The pediatrician who commented on the finding said that it was extremely rare in children. So rather than taking Wikipedia's word against a pediatrician's, I decided to go to a more authoritative source:

PEDIATRICS, THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS, and what I found was

Quote:
The prevalence of thyroid nodularity in children has been estimated to be 1.8%.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/95/1/46.short

Sheesh Geezer, even when you try to be factual you can't get it right.

I think you might as well just acknowledge - as painful as that might be- that nuclear accidents are not good for the people in the area. Seems like a reasonable view, no? Better than living in denial anyway.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 3:39 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
PEDIATRICS, THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS, and what I found was

Quote:
The prevalence of thyroid nodularity in children has been estimated to be 1.8%.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/95/1/46.short

Sheesh Geezer, even when you try to be factual you can't get it right.

Then again there's the European Journal of Endocrinology:

Quote:
It has been estimated that palpable thyroid nodules are present in 4–7% of the population (1–3), but when examined by ultrasound (US), as many as 50–70% of subjects with no history of thyroid disease have been found to have incidentally discovered thyroid nodules, many of which are not palpable (4–7). In addition, nodular thyroid disease is more common in the elderly, a population subgroup, which is steadily increasing (8).

http://www.eje-online.org/content/155/1/27.full

In fact, looking at other sources, counts of prevelance of thyroid nodules are all over the place, depending on how they are identified.

Here's a link to a paper, " Thyroid Nodularity - True Epidemic or Improved Diagnostics" which covers the problem. Use download 76637

http://en.scientificcommons.org/55615732

I notice you still haven't provided a cite for your original statement about thyroid nodule incidence near Fukishima.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 4:07 AM

WHOZIT

You libs don't want CLEAN nuke power, but you also want;

A/C

TV

DVD & CD players

Toasters

Microwaves

And your PC's so that you can bitch about the $'s wasted on green energy...oh wait that'll be us conservatives.

You libs should live like the Amish, you may live happier and boring lives.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 7:34 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

GEEZER:

Quote:
It has been estimated that palpable thyroid nodules are present in 4–7% of the population (1–3), but when examined by ultrasound (US), as many as 50–70% of subjects with no history of thyroid disease have been found to have incidentally discovered thyroid nodules, many of which are not palpable

The difference is whether one is looking at CHILDREN versus PEOPLE. The incidence of thyroid nodules indubitably rises with age and is surprisingly common in the 30+ population. That's a well-known fact. But the incidence of thyroid nodules in CHILDREN is a whole 'nother story. That's why this study focused on CHILDREN.

The second paper that you cite appears to be in Russian. When I go to the English webpage, no English translation appears. So either you read Russian or you're just looking at paper titles.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 7:36 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

WHOZIT

Yeah, yeah- why don't you put MORE words into other people's mouths, and attribute MORE motivations to people you obviously don't know?

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 8:41 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Whozit never makes sense, that shouldn't surprise you. I mostly just ignore him, he makes less sense even than Raptor, who at least has SOME semblance of a brain, closed off tho' it might be. Whozit? Fits him great, except I don't care who he is.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 1:53 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
The difference is whether one is looking at CHILDREN versus PEOPLE. The incidence of thyroid nodules indubitably rises with age and is surprisingly common in the 30+ population. That's a well-known fact. But the incidence of thyroid nodules in CHILDREN is a whole 'nother story. That's why this study focused on CHILDREN.

The pediatric study you cited is also almost 20 years old, so probably depended much more on palpatation to identify nodules than more recent studies that use ultrasound.

And once again, why not provide a cite for the original study of the children around Fukishima?

Quote:
The second paper that you cite appears to be in Russian. When I go to the English webpage, no English translation appears. So either you read Russian or you're just looking at paper titles.

It's in both Croatian and English. If you'd looked at it for a second instead of dismissing it as not supporting your argument you'd have noticed this.

Here's the English part of the description.

"The incidence of thyroid nodules has been rising steadily during the last 30 years, since the introduction of new diagnostic methods such as ultrasonography and computerized tomography, thus posing a real challenge in determining the best approach strategy for treatment of this new 'epidemic'. We analyzed and compared data from several studies showing the prevalence of thyroid nodules on autopsy, palpation and ultrasonography to be 13%-60%, 0.5%-6.5% and 13.4%-46%, respectively. This demonstrates that thyroid ultrasonography is a very sensitive and accurate diagnostic tool the use of which, however, entails an increased number of incidentally discovered thyroid nodules without clinical significance. Therefore, ultrasonography of the thyroid should not be performed without clinical indication determined by thyroid specialist."

The paper itself is in a pdf file that had a link on the cited page. Its here.

http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/76637

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 3:51 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Incidence AT WHAT AGE? Funny that you keep skipping that part. Oh, BTW- here is the link to the original article. Have fun.

1143 Children (Over 30%) of 3765 Tested for Thyroid Abnormalities in Fukushima Had Lumps or Cysts
The document issued by the Fukushima Prefecture's expert committee is here (PDF, in Japanese).The thyroid testing is part of the Fukushima residents health management survey, and was carried out in Namie, Iitate-mura, and Yamakiya District of Kawamata-machi first. For the other areas, it has been on-going.

www.minpo.jp/view.php?pageId=4107&blockId=9927368&newsMode=article

Yanno Geezer, YOU are a great example of why the human race is going to kill itself off. Instead of looking at a perfectly abnormal situation and trying fix it; you try to minimize it, accept it, go along with the authorities. But here's the deal: There is nothing normal about radioactive contamination. There have been recent studies done by France and Germany on nuclear workers... workers exposed to LESS radiation than many Fukushima and Itate residents... which show real health impacts from low-level exposure. And this isn't the kind of thing that gets better quickly. The major isotope of radioactive cesium has a half-life of 30 years, which means that it won't decay to negligible concentrations for over a hundred years. And the contamination is in some areas extraordinarily high- hundreds of thousand of becquerels per hour. It's not a good situation, no matter how you try to rationalize it.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 5:02 PM

Quote Signym: "And the contamination is in some areas extraordinarily high- hundreds of thousand of becquerels per hour. It's not a good situation, no matter how you try to rationalize it."

I have been thinking *click, grind*:
The situation in Fukushima became terribly dangerous (after the quake & flood damage) because their reactors broke.
The Japanese have been able to clean up the area (nearly) with minimal loss of life.
Any reactor could be broken, but most of them won't be. Nuclear reactors are not dangerous until they break.

Signym, please tell more about the existing, day to day dangers of reactors.

"All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest" ~Paul Simon

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 5:55 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Existing dangers start with uranium mining and proceed all the way through uranium refining to spent fuel and waste disposal. And, just to be clear ALL nuclear reactors leak. Every single one. Some leak just a little, some leak a lot, and some spill their radioactive guts all over the biosphere with contaminants that will not disappear for centuries and millenia.

Just two major reactor accidents and above-ground nuclear tests have already increased the cancer risk for every single person on the planet. Do you really want to risk another? What is to be gained?

In most catastrophic/ technological accidents... major airline crashes, nuclear meltdowns, building collapses and the like... three or four things in a row have to go wrong. It is inconceivable that such an unlikely chain of events will occur, but they do.

One then has to consider the consequences when things go horribly, terribly wrong because they will. And then one has to consider whether one is willing to accept those consequences in exchange for whatever benefit is perceived.

Right now, people are focused on Fukushima because it is the most recent. But the two other major reactor accidents (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island) were not due to natural causes, they were due to people doing what people do best: not paying attention. The Chernobyl accident started out as... of all things... a safety test conducted by an inexperienced crew. The Three Mile Island accident (which BTW released a helluva lot more radiation than officially acknowledged) began as a repair operation on a unit that was offline. I beg you to read the minute-by-minute accounts of what went wrong to see how quickly reactors spiral out of control (in minutes).

When things go right, things go right but when they go wrong they go catastrophically wrong.

All of the links to the risk study of 22,000 French nuclear workers are pdfs and difficult to link.
www.jpands.org/vol13no3/cohen.pdf

Childhood Leukemia Spikes Near Nuclear Power Plants
www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/26/childhood-leukemia-spikes-near-nuclear
-power-plants/
The original articles are also in pdf and hard to link but you can google them easily.

Please read the abstract and become well-acquainted with BEIR (biological effect of ionizing radiation)

Oh, BTW- the Japanese have NOT been able to clean up the site with minimal loss of life. Whatever gave you the idea that the site was cleaned up, that the evacuation zone is cleaned up, and that lives have not been lost?

Whatever happened to the Fukushima 50? And while you're cogitating that, do you have any idea how many the Japanese government has already acknowledged have died from radiation?

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 6:25 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Whatever happened to the Fukushima 50? And while you're cogitating that, do you have any idea how many the Japanese government has already acknowledged have died from radiation?

Hello,

Why don't you tell us, since the average person in this thread probably doesn't know and isn't sure where to find reliable info about it.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 6:59 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"The Japanese have been able to clean up the area (nearly) with minimal loss of life."

Obviously I'm not SignyM, but this is not true.

Radioactive contaminants come from many places. One is the nuclear core itself, which is a source of melted uranium and plutonium fuel (combined with the other things it slagged, it's called corium), and microscopically small physical pieces of actual nuclear fuel rods called fuel fleas which get into the environment. Another source is the fission products of the uranium and plutonium fuel, radioactive cesium and radioactive iodine are examples. http://epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/index.html Another source is the transmutation of existing atoms through neutron insertion, the creation of radioactive sulfur from the chlorine in seawater is an example.

The corium has melted through the containment. The reactors are cold not as in indication that fission has stopped, but because the fuel is no longer there. Exactly where it is is a matter of speculation - it could still be burning its way through concrete or it mights already be burning its way through the ground - what people used to call the China Syndrome. The 'spent' fuel pool of reactor 4 not only contains 'spent' fuel but also contained a full load of fresh fuel ready to be loaded in - it is currently thought to be exposed to air. When the fuel heats up and isn't cooled, the zirconium cladding physically burns and burns off the fuel. Fuel fleas, which can only be tested for adequately by filtering the air and placing the filter on photographic film have been found as far away as Tokyo.

Large areas of Japan are contaminated with everything from chunks of core material that went up when the cores went critical to radioactive fission products.

(These surveys are done with Geiger counters which (mostly) don't measure alpha and beta radiation, just gamma and x-rays.) A lot of the fallout spread north and west of Fukushima, contaminating soil and vegetation. It gets kicked up as dust which comes down with rain, or washes into streams and fields. Cesium gets taken up by plants as if it was potassium, and then by the animals that eat the plants. Since a lot of this contamination is so long-lived, it's not a matter of 'cleaning it up' unless it gets mechanically isolated from the environment, natural processes will continue to physically shuffle it between soil, plants, water and animals for many years to come, doing damage wherever it passes through.

Another major source of contamination is the water that was poured into Fukushima to keep it cool. This was was NOT recaptured and recirculated for quite while - it was simply continuously injected and/or poured into the broken reactors, and thus into the ground, and then the groundwater and then the ocean. Some major problems with Fukushima itself are that radioactive water is pouring INTO the cracked basements, and that the current water recirculating/ decontamination process results in water which is better - but still deadly.

As for there being no loss of life, this is also not true. But however few, or many, there are now, there will inevitably be more later, through 'Chernobyl heart', cancer, atherosclerosis etc.

"Any reactor could be broken, but most of them won't be. Nuclear reactors are not dangerous until they break."

MOST nuclear reactors are within flooding reach, since they have to be near a large water source to be cooled. They are quite liable to be 'broken' by way of flooding. But nuclear waste is also a unsafe. Nobody has figured out how to store it till it's no longer a problem tens of thousands of years from now. And the whole digging up/ purifying and transporting of nuclear fuel is another layer of risk.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 7:41 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I think that any discussion of Nuclear Reactor Safety should include notes about Non-Nuclear Power systems, the majority of which involve combustion of oil or coal.

This combustion produces byproducts blamed for a host of diseases, and is indicated in the ongoing destruction of the biosphere via climate change.

The indirect, long term effects of radiation should be compared to the indirect, long term effects of our primary operating alternative.

I have no idea what these long term effects are, or how to compute them, but I never really see anyone knowledgeable give it a go during these discussions.

Obviously, before anyone points it out, wind/wave/solar/geothermal/hydro is better where available.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 8:10 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

The cheapest alternative energy source is free. It's conservation.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 8:15 PM

Mine is the 4th post on this thread. I bumped it with a link to pictures of the disaster site now:
http://rt.com/news/japan-tsunami-reconstruction-photos-111/
It looks way better than last year.

Signym: "The news is controlled"
Therefore, I went looking for such a link, an update on the situation, hopefully an honest one.

Signym: "Whatever gave you the idea that the site was cleaned up, that the evacuation zone is cleaned up, and that lives
have not been lost?"

I did not think or say that lives had not been lost. My guesstimate about it figured that more people had died in the
initial disaster: earthquake & tsunami. The news also says that 100,000 people were evacuated. Did those all die from
radiation poisoning?
Are you telling me that many people died unnecessarily when their leaders were slow and incompetent to act?

Many times as I scanned the headlines last year, there'd be something about the suffering in Japan. I didn't read those
stories because they would hurt my feelings.

What You say about nuclear power = Wake up! Past time to wake up!

I did put this link in another thread: Global nuclear power =>
http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-wor
ld-wide.htm

Thank you, Kiki. Your explanation of the effects of radiation contamination on the environment is scarier than any movie.
It seems to me now that our leaders can't possibly care about what happens to our planet or even the future of our race.
Don't any of them have grandkids? Our predicament is way beyond irrational.

The only constructive thing I can think of now is to join an Anti-nuclear Activist group.

"The earth that was--"

"All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest" ~Paul Simon

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 10:06 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
I did not think or say that lives had not been lost. My guesstimate about it figured that more people had died in the
initial disaster: earthquake & tsunami. The news also says that 100,000 people were evacuated. Did those all die from
radiation poisoning?

Hello,

As of late last year, the last time I checked was around October I think... there were zero deaths due to radiation exposure.

The primary concern is for the long-term effects, and the deaths without neon signs. The people who will die of cancer or a dozen other diseases, and never know that it was because of the radiation contamination.

It could end up being in the thousands, and because the illnesses won't have 'radiation exposure' signs on them, it will be easy to dismiss as unrelated causes by the powers.

But it is wrong for everyone to treat you like you are daft for feeling that there have been very few deaths. So far, there have been very, very few deaths. (Maybe even none, though it's been a long time since October and some folks might've kicked.)

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 10:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

OONJERAH: the site looks better than before, but there is more to cleaning up a nuclear accident than moving the biggest debris off-site. There are parts of the plant... above-ground parts, visible parts, parts that people walk past every day... that are so radioactive they would kill you on the spot if you were to stand there for more than a few minutes.

Quote:
Operations to decontaminate highly radioactive water at the crisis-stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant came to a 13-hour halt when a section of pipe emitting 3 sieverts of radiation per hour in one decontamination system was discovered, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has announced.

I assume that everyone is somewhat versed on the state of the nuclear catastrophe, but maybe not, so here is a summary which will repeat some of what KIKI has posted:

These nuclear reactors are basically big water-boilers. The nuclear fuel pellets are contained in approx 12 foot thin vertical rods. These rods are arranged in bundles (nuclear fuel assemblies) which are placed in a heavy metal cylinder called a pressurized reactor vessel (PRV). Water is heated by the rods, goes up as steam, the steam carried off the top and used to drive turbines which in turn (so so speak) drive dynamos which create electricity. The PRVs are themselves enclosed in a "containment vessel". If the rods are not kept cool at all times (at ALL times) they get hotter and hotter until they melt. This happens relatively quickly when there is a "loss of cooling water" accident. However, before the rods heat and melt the zirconium cladding reacts with whatever water and steam is left and produces hydrogen which is very flammable. So hydrogen production is typical of boiling -water type reactor accidents.

It was discovered some time AFTER a number of reactors were built that the PRVs could never stand the overpressure of a hydrogen explosion, so all kinds of safety features were added in after-the-fact, none of which really worked well.

Each nuclear reactor contains somewhat less than 100 tons of active fuel. Not pounds, TONS. The fuel is made of about 95% non-radioactive uranium, and about 5% radioactive uranium, or sometimes with added plutonium. In addition, there is a "spent fuel pool" next to the reactor, where "old" fuel is shuttled out for replacement and "new" fuel is staged for insertion. Not all of the fuel rods are replaced at once, usually only a third are at any one time. Configuring the fuel rods so that you get even heating without hot spots or thermal runaway is something of an art, or so I've read.

The spent fuel is left in the spent fuel pools for years to cool off... there are often multiple generations of spent fuel in each pool next to the reactor. The total "spent" fuel in the pools at Fukushima is estimated at about 2000 tons. Not pounds, TONS. The same cooling problems occur with the SFPs as in the PRVs... newly removed fuel is especially hot, and has the same melting problems as active fuel.

Now, at Fukushima reactor Nos 1-3 reactors went dry. The No 4 SFP may have also gone dry. The fuel rod zirconium reacted with leftover steam, hydrogen was produced and exploded. The violent explosion in the No 3 unit (which may have been a nuclear explosion prompted by a "reconfiguration" due to hydrogen explosion) actually pushed the No 4 building over- it is leaning by about 15 degrees. The zirconium then ignited, the rods crumbled, the fuel pellets fell, and once they were in a pile at the bottom of the reactor water couldn't circulated through them to cool them, so they melted.

Because there are holes at the bottom of the PRV for the "control rods" to be inserted, the PRV at the bottom is vulnerable... it looks something like a sieve. So once the fuel melts, it can ablate the control rods and drip - like radioactive lava- through the floor of the reactor. This is known to have happened in all three reactors. The BIG question is whether the fuel melted through in one big lump... in which case it will not cool easily and will continue to melt its way through the concrete and then the ground below... or whether the fuel drizzled out in separate streams, in which case the fuel will cool more easily and stop its migration. TEPCO is doing experimental coring even as we speak, however they are not sharing the results. Thank god for whistleblowers.

http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/01/breaking-news-whistle-blower-talks-
container-vessel-is-melting-like-honeycomb/

During the explosions, large amounts of radioactive debris and daughter nuclides like cesium were released all over the countryside, especially to the north and west, where an inconvenient rainstorm washed the debris out of the sky and onto the hills. Cesium behaves as KIKI described... it is found in ditches, valleys and streams but also in cedar buds, leafy greens... any part of any living thing which has a high potassium content.

In an attempt to cool the reactors, the Japanese poured roughly ten tons of water per hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, over EACH reactor for about 10 months. That's abut 21,000 TONS of water which came into contact with naked radioactive fuel which was poured into broken and leaking PRVs which then poured into the ground, the groundwater and the ocean. The amount of radionuclides released into the ocean is incalculable.

The airborne radioactive iodine and cesium made its way to the northwestern USA and southwestern Canada... British Columbia, and then was carried by the jet stream to the east coast. For many weeks, every time it rained, it rained iodine and then cesium, the Canadian government apparently forgot to release the figures to the public.

Normal ocean currents will also eventually bring the cesium to the Aleutian Islands and then down the west coast of N America, altho (thankfully) in highly diluted form. However, since fish is caught and sold everywhere I would not eat ocean fish unless it has been tested for radiation... something the FDA refuses to do.

Once an accident like this happens, there is no "cleaning up". The radionuclides will continue to decay either quickly (days) or slowly (eons), depending on their nature. As time goes on, the components become more and more dispersed. However, even though the concentration goes down and the risk becomes less acute, it also becomes more widespread.

There is a calculation recently made that in the Japanese population of young girls- who are 5-20X more radio-sensitive than their elder/male counterparts- for every year of exposure at the level that the Japanese government considers "safe" - 20 millisieverts per year- there is a 5% chance of getting radiation-induced cancer. In 10 years, that calculates to a 50% risk. That doesn't even include internal contamination, just the exogenous exposure one would get standing on a contaminated sidewalk or playground.

And there are more health effects from radionuclides than cancer. KIKI mentioned some of them. But two are particularly dangerous, and that is damage to the developing (or even developed) heart and damage to the developing (or even developed) brain, because once those cells have been killed, they aren't replaced. The incidence of hydrocephalus and holes in the heart and heart failure are unusually high in the children around Chernobyl, and this problem is not getting better and better, it is getting worse and worse. There is no reason to think that Japan will fare any better.

Anyway, the melted fuel combined with melted reactor components is called "corium", and although there are no pictures from Fukushima, here are some pictures from Chernobyl

Here are a bunch of images to better explain the various items and events

http://www.poudreinternetservice.com/photographs.html

I've compressed a lot of information into one post. I can find links for all of this, but it will take time.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 10:55 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Tony, the Japanese government has certified 573 deaths as nuclear-crisis-related in Japan

Quote:
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Published: Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012 - 12:00 am

TOKYO -- A total of 573 deaths in Japan have been certified as "disaster-related" by 13 municipalities affected by the crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey.

This number could rise because certification for 29 people remains pending while further checks are conducted.

The 13 municipalities are three cities - Minami-Soma, Tamura and Iwaki - eight towns and villages in Futaba County -Namie, Futaba, Okuma, Tomioka, Naraha, Hirono, Katsurao and Kawauchi - and Kawamata and Iitate, all in Fukushima Prefecture.

Elsewhere, there is an explanation for how a victim gets this certificate; the victim's relatives have to come forward and request it, then it has to be approved by government lawyers. These are related deaths due to the aggravation of previous health conditions.

But you're right- it would be very hard to prove that any particular death is due to radiation. The only way to show that radiation is having an effect is through statistics.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012 11:15 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Also, I agree with KIKI- the cheapest source of free energy is conservation. Imposing greater efficiency standards on air conditioners, requiring white roofs (a simple paint job), changing out major transmission lines from AC to DC (saves 10%) etc can not only slow the growth of electricity consumption, it can actually reduce it. It's not rocket science; there is nothing magic or impossible about it.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 3:25 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Incidence AT WHAT AGE? Funny that you keep skipping that part. Oh, BTW- here is the link to the original article. Have fun.

1143 Children (Over 30%) of 3765 Tested for Thyroid Abnormalities in Fukushima Had Lumps or Cysts
The document issued by the Fukushima Prefecture's expert committee is here (PDF, in Japanese).The thyroid testing is part of the Fukushima residents health management survey, and was carried out in Namie, Iitate-mura, and Yamakiya District of Kawamata-machi first. For the other areas, it has been on-going.

www.minpo.jp/view.php?pageId=4107&blockId=9927368&newsMode=article

An article in Japanese. How nice.

When I google the quote you provide, I find one blog article spread all over the anti-nuke/we're all going to die portion of the net.

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2012/01/1117-children-over-30-of-3739-teste
d.html

So I'm thinking you got no actual facts to back up your assertion, and certainly have no comparison data on incidence of thyroid nodules in that area of Japan pre and post tsunami.

And, as usual, since you got no facts, you're gonna go with personal attacks to try and change the subject.

At this point, I have no idea whether there is an increased incedence of thyroid nodules in Japanese children. Neither do you. I also have no idea if the number of benign versus cancerous nodules is higher than normal. Neither do you. Given the problems the Japanese have had with nuclear radiation in the past, I suspect that they are checking this out pretty carefully.

BTW, the latency period between exposure to radiation and thyroid malignancy appears to be in the 20-40 year range, rather than within a year.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1356259/

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 8:44 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

GEEZER, that was the original source. It happens to be in Japanese... what do you want me to do? Try google translate or bablefish, that's what I did. The translations are extremely awkward, but seem consistent with the SKF translation.

AFA SKF being a "we're all going to die" site, it has been one of the few sources of solid information, along with Arnie Gunderson (Fairewinds website) and enenews. If you don't believe what is posted, just track it backwards, or go to another source such as the American Academy of Sciences for context. I can't say that everything has proved to be solid, but most of the news items are real and verifiable. It's unfortunate that much news really IS bad, but that doesn't mean you can reject it out of hand because it makes you feel uncomfortable. Maybe the science is trying to tell you something important. The radioactive contamination is real. The health effects are of exposure to exogenous radiation and endogenous contamination are real. They can't be denied by people who want to know what's actually occuring. And denial, yanno... not always a good approach.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 9:02 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Denial, yanno... not always a good approach.

Hello,

I think it's okay and even good for people to be skeptical. I don't think that puts Geezer into the realm of being in denial. The Fukushima reactor problem is one where there is just very little concrete evidence about health effects.

To my knowledge, he's not saying that Fukushima is sunshine and white doves, but rather that there's not much information yet showing the actual health impacts.

ETA: I found the article from October: http://thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/9537-no-fukushi
ma-radiation-deaths-no-surprises

Which is clearly posted on a site dedicated to marginalizing environmental/health issues. I'd love to know if anyone has died of radiation poisoning yet, particularly those early volunteers who exposed themselves to great risk.

Cancerous nodules and radiation's other 101 ways to kill you are hard to attribute, and so it must be frustrating when someone shows skepticism. However, your enemy there isn't the 'denier' mentality, but rather the insidious action of radiation to kill people sideways.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 9:14 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

There is a lot of evidence on the effects of ionizing radiation. That's what BEIR and the American Academy of Sciences is all about, which is why I referenced them.Also, the two recent studies on 22,000 nuclear workers (French) and the incidence of childhood leukemia around nuclear reactors (German) are very robust, which is why I linked them. BUT it takes (1) knowing that the studies exist and (2) studying them to understand what they are saying. It is a complex field dependent on statistics.

I was the one pencil-whipping the amount of zirconium lost based on the volume of exploded hydrogen, remember? I DO go back to the original sources and try to parse the information. It is one thing to be skeptical... I am skeptical. It is another thing to reject available information out of hand because you don't like the message, and that is exactly what Geezer does.

I don't expect people to believe me. I hope people do their own research, not to prove one side or another but to actually figure out the truth ("Truth" to me means "correspondance with reality", not "conviction").

AFA people dying of radiation: We will prolly not know for a long time. I made a point of trying to figure out whatever happened to the Fukushima 50 and it is as if they never existed.

The enemy really IS the "denier" mentality. If people are in denial they will never even TRY to find the truth, but will try to bury it instead. And that is because, in their hearts, they already know what the truth is, they just can't bear it.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 10:12 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

AnthonyT

Given the state of news coming out of official Japanese sources I truly don't think you'll find news reports of any deaths. If you're counting on them for facts about the situation you'll be waiting a long, long time. The Russians were downright garrulous about Chernobyl by comparison.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 10:44 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

The other thing I don't get about this is why people are so touchy about getting rid of nuclear power. It's all about boiling water. There are far, far better ways to boil water than nuclear power. And then, there are far far better technologies than steam turbines for producing electricity - technologies that skip one or more steps in that whole :chemical - heat - mechanical - electrical: train of power conversion. Winds that turn turbines. Mirrors that collect heat. Doped substrates that directly convert light to electricity. How awesome is that?

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 11:16 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
AFA SKF being a "we're all going to die" site, it has been one of the few sources of solid information, along with Arnie Gunderson (Fairewinds website) and enenews.

The point I'm trying to make is that its not "solid" information. The SKF blog about thyroid nodules in children takes one bit of information and spins it into a disaster. As noted, there's no pre-Fukushima data to compare it to, and no science that I can find showing that radiation-caused nodules would show up that fast in a population, absent radiation levels that the Japanese, even if they were trying to, couldn't cover up.

Quote:
The radioactive contamination is real. The health effects are of exposure to exogenous radiation and endogenous contamination are real. They can't be denied by people who want to know what's actually occuring.

Sure they can. You're making a whole chain of worst-case and beyond suppositions about the amount of radiation, the length of exposure, a little medical information that has no pre/post comparison data, and the possible appearance of symptoms that typically don't appear for 20-40 years after exposure, and pasting that all together to create a doomsday scenario.

As Anthony says, I'm not saying everything is all right and that there are no problems at all, but I'm skeptical of your crying disaster on such sketchy information.

I'm also not buying into the sinister plot by TPTB to cover up everything related to the reactors. Sounds too much like PN. Hope you aren't gonna blame the Jews.

Quote:
And denial, yanno... not always a good approach.

Neither is panic.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 11:32 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Geezer, I just cited two studies and the American Academy of Sciences report on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) which represents the latest, best medical-scientific understanding on the topic. Until you yourself have gone through the reports... or at least the abstracts... AND the radiation surveys of Japan, you have nothing of importance to say on the topic. Sorry, but you're not saying anything about the "real world". Do some "due diligence" before you try to position yourself as any sort of credible authority on what is and isn't real. There is a plethora of information available if you choose to look.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 3:40 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
There is a calculation recently made that in the Japanese population of young girls- who are 5-20X more radio-sensitive than their elder/male counterparts- for every year of exposure at the level that the Japanese government considers "safe" - 20 millisieverts per year- there is a 5% chance of getting radiation-induced cancer. In 10 years, that calculates to a 50% risk. That doesn't even include internal contamination, just the exogenous exposure one would get standing on a contaminated sidewalk or playground.

This is why I strongly encouraged Yuriko and her folks to get the hell out of dodge the very moment there was even concern about the level of contamination in their area.

Mind you, on a cultural level, her and her flunkies are in a good-riddance kind of category no one there much cares about cause other than her they are mostly second-third daughters, which is how they got more or less dumped off on her as more or less a babysitter to begin with.

Although depending on the region and family this varies, there's still a strong patriarchal bent to that society, to the degree where second and third sons are viewed as spoiled whining deadweight, so other than the first daughters who are married off to increase social status, one can just IMAGINE how they view second-third daughters, right ?

Ergo the prevailing attitude of the culture towards them is nobody-would-miss-you, which is why when someone displays even the slightest concern for their welfare they tend to latch on and cling, this being why a podunk backwater temple to what amounts to a running gag more than anything else would wind up with a bunch of Miko, since Yuriko was more parent to them than their own - and the joke was on them when it was those very kids who held it together and kept things in order when all hell broke loose.

Still no contact, but I am hoping that means they went somewhere safer, cause I am far more concerned about her getting that done than stickin around to tell me about it, you know ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 4:58 PM

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Lesions and other symptoms associated with sickened or dead ringed seals along Alaska's northern
coast last year were probably not caused by radiation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said
Friday. ...
"Radiation was considered because of the timing and size of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident that followed
a tsunami in March 11 in Japan ...
"Sick and dead ringed seals started showing up in July on the Beaufort Sea coast near Barrow, the country's northernmost
community. Strandings were reported as far west as Point Lay and Wainwright on the Chukchi Sea.
"The affected animals had lesions on hind flippers and inside their mouths. Some showed patchy hair loss and skin irritation
around the nose and eyes." AP 17 Feb =>
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46435425/ns/today-today_tech/t/scientist
s-find-no-radiation-sick-ringed-seals/

Information Clearing House => http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27756.htm
(If anyone doesn't know, ICH is way left. They're always tattling on the right.)
March 23, 2011 "Counterpunch -- Hirose Takashi has written a whole shelf full of books, mostly on the nuclear power
industry and the military-industrial complex. Probably his best known book is Nuclear Power Plants for Tokyo
in which he took the logic of the nuke promoters to its logical conclusion: if you are so sure that they're safe,
why not build them in the center of the city, instead of hundreds of miles away where you lose half the electricity
in the wires?

"He did the TV interview that is partly translated below

"After reading his account, you will wonder, why do they keep on sprinkling water on the reactors, rather than
accept the sarcophagus solution [ie., entombing the reactors in concrete. Editors.]"

Movie: Silkwood, 1983, drama-exposé: "The story of Karen Silkwood, a metallurgy worker at a plutonium processing
plant" here in the USA.
_________________________________________

California is far behind on rainfall this winter. We got a fair-to-middlin' soak here Jan 20-23rd. The night of Friday,
Jan 27, I was kept awake with persistent pain in/around the liver. Never happened before. Pain persisted a few days.
Rained again last week, pain recurred, not as bad. Couple of neighbors were sick, too, this time. Different
symptoms than me. I asked one of them if anyone here has a Geiger counter.

During the 1st episode, I mentioned my illness to my sister. She described my symptoms saying, "Everyone has it.
It's the flu."

Just wondering.

"All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest" ~Paul Simon

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 5:01 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Geezer, I just cited two studies and the American Academy of Sciences report on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) which represents the latest, best medical-scientific understanding on the topic.

Perhaps you'd provide links to these. That's what folks generally do when they want people to examine their sources. Since you do have a history of just making stuff up, http://beta.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=50819&p=2 I'd like some confirmation.

Quote:
Do some "due diligence" before you try to position yourself as any sort of credible authority on what is and isn't real.

I might ask the same of you. Examine the data with a skeptical eye, rather than going in with a set-in-stone bias, and see what you find.

Quote:
There is a plethora of information available if you choose to look.

Yep. that's the fun of the internet. There's a plethora of information available. Some of it is valid, peer-reviewed, un-biased information. Most of it is not. if you want to "prove" that Fukushima means "we're all gonna die" you can find stuff to confirm that. If you want to "prove" that there's no danger at all, you can find stuff to confirm that as well.

As someone who's skeptical about both extremes, I'll continue to look, but i don't consider my opinion less valid than your's, considering that you went in with a strong anti-nuclear bias.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 5:08 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"I asked one of them if anyone here has a Geiger counter."

I live in the foothills ~ 40 miles east of Los Angeles. During the original meltdown when the reactors were literally exploding I borrowed a Geiger counter from work, and a few times after that in the following months. I never detected anything in the soil, in my auto air filter, or in my home air filters. SignyM, who lives some ways west of me (as I recall) also had access to a Geiger counter and found a couple of 'hot spots' on an indoor air filter. Nothing to be >particularly< worried about, compared to some of the readings in Ontario Canada that were literally off the scale. Not knowing where you live, I'd have to say 'your mileage may vary'. Also, the readings weren't anything that would indicate a risk from acute radiation poisoning. Over time, however, is where any problems may show up.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 5:12 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Since you do have a history of just making stuff up ..." as a one time rhetorical point in a discussion.

Not that YOU'D of course make that distinction, since you go in with a bias to 'prove' SignyM is wrong. But that's a well known routine of yours.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 5:19 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

So, back to the topic at hand - any EVIDENCE that SignyM's sources are inaccurate, Geezer? Any facts you care to cite?

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 6:26 PM

Thanks to Signym, Kiki & Niki for the information. That took a lot of writing!
(Incidentally, I lived closest to the Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Plant.)

As Geezer says in the Climate Change thread: "efforts should be made to prepare for the effects."
I completely agree.
The practical adult says, "This is our real situation. What can we do about it?"

I am now convinced that nuclear power is the greatest danger we face.
In that vein ... Worldwide: Nuclear power plants in operation = 435, under construction = 63.

Chernobyl & Fukushima & common sense haven't changed the trend. Politicians and business people will keep deciding to
build more of them. Huge waves of protesters, a flood of letters to our congressmen, would have no effect, I think.

They may be greedy but I don't think most of TPTB are stupid. Some of them must suspect that between the accidents and
the wars, Earth is going to be toast. I hope I don't live to see it and to die from it. They may have viable plans for
the future that simply don't include the commoners who're "all gonna die."

I have grandkids. Do they stand a chance?

Good ideas are needed.

"All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest" ~Paul Simon

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 6:36 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

GEEZER, are you trying to be a dick? Because if you're not, you're doing an awfully good job! Why do you suppose I cited solid, peer-reviewed studies as the foundation for a risk assessment of Fukushima?

I already linked the German and French studies. Just scroll up. As far as BEIR is concerned, here is the link. Google picks this up as the first hit.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=030909156X

Yanno, I have to wonder why you're spending so much time tying to discredit some very authoritative sources. If you wanted to find out you could have just googled the studies yourself.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 6:51 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

How does one stop an runaway train? I suspect the drive towards nuclear power is linked to nuclear weapons. You can't make a practical bomb out of uranium, you need plutonium. And plutonium doesn't come from nature, it is only made in nuclear reactors. So India, China, the USA, Britain, and France ... all possessing nuclear weapons... seem to be committed to nuclear power. Obama has very quietly increased funding to Los Alamos, not as nuclear weapons lab but as a warhead production facility. Yep, he wants to make more bombs.

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Sunday, February 19, 2012 7:15 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"This is our real situation. What can we do about it?" In terms of nuclear bombs, nuclear testing, nuclear accidents that have already occurred - nothing except perhaps get a Geiger counter and test your food.

Japan has an extremely fascist streak in the upper echelons, to them people are expendable. Those particular PTB I suspect think that they themselves will somehow escape the effects of radiation.

In general, I think that TPTB tend to have very limited self-interest. My toys today. It's the only explanation I have for them continuing on the current ultimately suicidal course.

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Monday, February 20, 2012 5:01 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
GEEZER, are you trying to be a dick? Because if you're not, you're doing an awfully good job! Why do you suppose I cited solid, peer-reviewed studies as the foundation for a risk assessment of Fukushima?

I already linked the German and French studies. Just scroll up.

Do you even read the stuff you cite?

The report here, by Dr. Bernard L. Cohen

http://www.jpands.org/vol13no3/cohen.pdf

"The Linear No-Threshold Theory of Radiation Carcinogenisis Should Be Rejected", concludes that this theory grossly overestimates the risk from low-level radiation. (see page 75)

Also finds that the French Nuclear plant workers had a lower incidence of cancer than the general population. (page 73)

Quote:
As far as BEIR is concerned, here is the link. Google picks this up as the first hit.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=030909156X

And they conclude that the more radiation you are exposed to, the more likely you are to get cancer (the Linear No-Threshold Model).

So you've cited to papers with conflicting conclusions.

And from these papers and a blog about a newspaper report about thyroid nodules, you conclude that the children in Fukushima will die.

Quote:
Yanno, I have to wonder why you're spending so much time tying to discredit some very authoritative sources.

I have no problem with these sources (except the blog). My problem is with you reaching doubtful conclusions concerning the effects of the Fukushima accident.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, February 20, 2012 6:47 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Sig, just popped in to apologize. I can't take this stuff today, so I haven't read further than a couple of posts after my last one. Please know I appreciate your information very much, I'm just not up to it at the moment.

I marched against nuclear power once (we have one just South of us, tho' not nearly as close as MANY others) back in the '60s, and have been worried ever since. Fukushima was just my fears coming true. I know more is coming, and eventually here...and today I just can't think about it.

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Monday, February 20, 2012 7:00 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Yes GEEZER, the field is complex. I'm glad that you're reading research material. Please continue to read it. At some point, I will tell you what I have read.

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Monday, February 20, 2012 7:03 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

OONJERAH- I'm sorry to say that IMHO nuclear power is prolly third in my list of self-created catastrophes, The first and second in no particular order are global climate shift and overpopulation. But I will explain my views about global climate shift in the "Just to be Fair" thread.

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Monday, February 20, 2012 7:14 AM

CAVETROLL

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
...You can't make a practical bomb out of uranium, you need plutonium...

The Little Boy bomb that was used on Hiroshima only used uranium. No plutonium included at all. The weapon design was not pursued after the war due to the inherent lack of safety devices and the danger of accidental detonation.

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Monday, February 20, 2012 7:18 AM