If I lived on the West Coast

[grizz441]

18,000 or more missing, death toll will be over 10,000, continued radiation leaks, food sources being contaminated.
Continual aftershocks. What exactly is being sensationalized? If anything, I would be concerned about the actual truth vs.
the information that's put out by a Utility company and a Government well known to downplay problems to save face.

                                                                                                        <S> Oz

I was talking about the nuclear side of things, since this is a nuclear thread.  "radiation leak" is enough to scare the bejesus out of the average person though.

[moot]

18,000 or more missing, death toll will be over 10,000, continued radiation leaks, food sources being contaminated.
Continual aftershocks. What exactly is being sensationalized?

What is the ratio of casualties caused by nuclear to those by natural damage, or to those by any/every other manmade infrastructure (eg chemical plants)?

[Babalonian]

I haven't heard much about the reactors from the US mainstream media for the last few days.  I assume that means that the situation is improving and they don't have enough ammo to shell out more sensationalized dramatic crap.

Gee, ya thunk?  

The yuppies in this community who eat straight out of the media's hand are a hoot.

[Babalonian]

  I didnt take it as trying to be funny. If I lived there Id probably use a geiger counter if I had one. Its radiation on the loose. Nothing wrong in being concerned.

Learn about the beast before running off into the woods trying to hide from it sometime.

18,000 or more missing, death toll will be over 10,000, continued radiation leaks, food sources being contaminated.
Continual aftershocks. What exactly is being sensationalized? If anything, I would be concerned about the actual truth vs.
the information that's put out by a Utility company and a Government well known to downplay problems to save face.

                                                                                                        <S> Oz

Yes, we know there has been steady radiation leaking since the plants and their protective shieldings got slammed by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake.... a _9_._0_.  This has been nothing new or further developing since they got slammed, old news and nobody is glowing green and no hospitals have reported any deaths or sever injuries from radiation (.sarcasm - ZOMG, the breach is so severe and uncontrollable, there's no way it can be contained and repaired because it's obviously a situation raging beyond any hope or reality of control, just like Chernoble and 3-mile, the reactor vessels have been stuck in the engaged position and can't be turned off, the radioactive shielding has all collapsed or disintegrated, there is a fire raging so hot and violently that all can see it miles away and we're sitting here watching all the paint peel off the cars in the plant's parking lot!  OH THE HUMANITY, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE FROM TEH UNCONTROLLED NUCLEAR SITUATION LIKE THE WHOLE WORLD DID BEFORE WITH 3-MILE AND CHERNOBLE, quick buy your iodine tablets and 50-grand baby shields, sell your home and give up your life, family and friends on the US West Coast.  .endsarcasm). 

OZ, you probably haven't ever experienced an earthquake in your life and would soil your pants the first time you felt a 3.5, so try to understand what Japan just went through and came out of relatively unscathed after being slammed.  And I suspect given the _estimates_ and continued trends coming out (c'mon OZ, I thought you would of caught the declining trend a lot more quickly than those of us preferring not to listen to the oversensationalized media), the death toll will likely be between 7-8,000 in the final, which is nothing short of a miracle and a testament to modern engineering and safety standards given what they just went through. 

OK, enough singling you out, I really have nothing against you.  It's is a good thing to be concerned with one's own health and survival, I just wish the media was being more productive towards that means than, how I've been viewing them during this situation, counterproductive.

Also, and I'm quite thankful about it, Japan's and the US's safety levels for radiation in food is set quite below the usual unsafe levels for humans to digest.  Certain foods can turn up over-radioactive by those agencies standards naturally by a quirk, they're set that high.  No surprise with even a minute radiation leak, with pictures showing this nuclear plant surrounded by agriculture, that some of the country's produce is turning up beyond the safety standards.  I would compare those levels discovered though first against those that are safe for human consumption and against the naturally occurring radiation flukes that already occur in various crops (wouldn't surprise me if the nuclear plants had nothing to do with it, natural radiation is not common in agriculture but it's not unheard of, and again even then the levels are typically safe for typical human consumption but above a government agencies acceptable limit).  But to each their own, I'm sure the media has blamed the entire decline in agricultural production on the nuclear radiation already, completely disregarding the miles and miles on farms and farmer's homes that got slammed by the tsunami and quake directly.  I'd be more concerned about looking for beach sand, mud or any lingering salty taste on the produce I buy from Japan in the immediate future than sticking it under a geiger meter.

And I've been harping about questioning the integrity of utility company/operator of that _outdated_ nuclear plant since this thing started.  It should not of had any operational production going on past the date they originally set it to be decommissioned/renovated.

[moot]

That's one thing you don't get in "actual truth vs. utility and government well known to downplay".  You (general you, e.g. avg naive layman) get the news telling you about a Japanese journalist who drives around the area surveying radioactivity, noting how the mSv reading is three times above the "standard authorized dose".  And this number has no scale or context given to it whatsoever other than that it's three times the "standard" dose.  What's the take away for someone who doesn't know anything else?

That kind of "actual truth" reporting is just a sorry excuse for public service.

[ozrocker]

Babs, I'm glad you know what I've done and not in my life.
And I'm thankful we have a Nuclear Scientist/Physicist such as yourself here
to keep thumping how much you know and how stupid others are.
Maybe you should be giving your services to the Tokyo Electric Co. 


                                                                                                           <S> Oz


                                             

[Rolex]

18,000 or more missing, death toll will be over 10,000, continued radiation leaks, food sources being contaminated.
Continual aftershocks. What exactly is being sensationalized? If anything, I would be concerned about the actual truth vs.
the information that's put out by a Utility company and a Government well known to downplay problems to save face.

                                                                                                        <S> Oz

The severity of the radiation is being sensationalized.

You'd have to drink 58,000 glasses of milk before you'd have a 4% higher risk of cancer. You'd be 160 years old by then, plus, the half life of the I-131 is eight days, so you'd have to keep pumping radiation out on purpose for 160 years to keep that contamination going. If 1 in 100 people get cancer, then 1.04 people will get cancer after 160 years of drinking that milk, which you can't get anyway since it's not being distributed. That's why things are being tested.

What information do you think is not true? Do you have some examples?

(I just had another pretty strong quake shake my house after I posted this. I promise they're not underplaying the aftershocks. )

[Babalonian]

I know, I apologize if I singled you out, the comment was far-fetched and wasn't trying to single out or target you at all, but make no mistake I think the media is a bunch of nupties and treat their viewing audience like an even lower form of life, inciting fear and panic in people when they likely have a million other things to worry about first.  But you are on the East Coast so I figure it's a likely assumption about the earthquakes, much like I'm sure you've seen more impressive and brilliant sunrises come over your eastern horizon in this month than I've seen in my entire lifetime poke through the dry dusty mountains and looming smog that dominates my eastern horizon here in LA.

And I think it's an old stipulation from past generations that nuclear science is too dificult for most people and the general public to understand and educate themselves on, sure it might be incredibly boring to some (like most science) but I don't think I know of anyone I would describe as incapable of grasping the basic concepts if put to the task, after all most PC users today aren't programers or electronic engineers, but plenty of us can build and maintain our own computer rigs.  Now, (advanced) Nuclear Physics and that Jazz you might as well throw me out the window for right now, I suck at formulas and advanced physics, usually I get lost easily somewhere after the "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" part.

The severity of the radiation is being sensationalized.

You'd have to drink 58,000 glasses of milk before you'd have a 4% higher risk of cancer. You'd be 160 years old by then, plus, the half life of the I-131 is eight days, so you'd have to keep pumping radiation out on purpose for 160 years to keep that contamination going. If 1 in 100 people get cancer, then 1.04 people will get cancer after 160 years of drinking that milk, which you can't get anyway since it's not being distributed. That's why things are being tested.

What information do you think is not true? Do you have some examples?

(I just had another pretty strong quake shake my house after I posted this. I promise they're not underplaying the aftershocks. )

Good luck Rolex, hope things settle down enough for some uninterupted sleep soon.  Try to not get stuck in the middle of Home Depot during the strongest aftershock of them all, like I did with the Northridge (it was months after the quake too), I still really don't like going to major high-shelve warehouse type stores since, recently after a quake or not.

[grizz441]

That's one thing you don't get in "actual truth vs. utility and government well known to downplay".  You (general you, e.g. avg naive layman) get the news telling you about a Japanese journalist who drives around the area surveying radioactivity, noting how the mSv reading is three times above the "standard authorized dose".  And this number has no scale or context given to it whatsoever other than that it's three times the "standard" dose.  What's the take away for someone who doesn't know anything else?

That kind of "actual truth" reporting is just a sorry excuse for public service.

Yeah, they're having a field day with the "Hundreds of times higher than normal" types of comments.  Well wtf is "Normal"?  Oh that's right, you have to do additional research to discover that "normal" is actually so far below safe levels it's not even funny.  They should be comparing the amount of radiation to safe levels as determined by a particular agency, whether that be EPA or the Japanese equivalent.  That would make sense, give the most information, but the least amount of "ZOMG RADIATION!!! GET RID OF ALL NUKE PLANTS NOW, WE NEED SOLAR AND WINDDDDDD".  So why would a news organization whose job is to inform the public report something that actually makes sense?  Oh yeah that's right, because that's not their job.  Their job is to make money and push their political agenda.

[ozrocker]

Man, just imagine yesterday it wasn't safe for babies to drink tap water in Tokyo.
Now today they are saying the levels are safe again
Wow, in only 1 day it's safe again.
My heart goes out to the people, and to the children.


                                                                                             <S> Oz

[moot]

 

[Babalonian]

I hope these are the last gasps from the media before it goes down-hill for them and they actually have to get in there and start reporting on the real news and develpoments going on.

[ozrocker]

Oh, that's a pipe dream there Babs. Today it's reported that a core might be damaged and maybe leaking
high amounts of radiation. One of the Japanese Scientist was saying that  " Elements are created during
fusion, that are not found naturally" duh
"And we cannot, at this time determine how much radiation is currently being released into the atmosphere,
until things are more stable at number 3".
Also, the recommended evac zone of course is expanded.

                                                                                 <S> Oz
                                                                                               

[Gh0stFT]

" Elements are created during fusion, that are not found naturally" duh<S> Oz
                                                                                               

I read they found Ce-144 and this could indicate a Core Meltdown,
btw. Ce-144 has a half-life of aprox 284 days, ...it dont look better/good.

[Babalonian]

Indeed, some news coming out today in the media is concerning but at least it's more concrete than "I think I see something glowing green in the distance next to the plant, back to you in the studio Bob". 

I don't think there was a meltdown though or it got anywhere close to an uncontollable state of fission, I think that situation was safely avoided (and hard worked for). 

It does sound like from the reports though the reactor vessel in unit #3 though may of been compromised by one cuncusions from one of the explosions that occured within the outer containment shell or by the earthquake/tsunami itself.  There is still a very good chance though that the vessel housing the reactor wasn't compromised but that contamination is/did leak from within the reactor vessel (this was one of the running reactors when the quake hit, and with it being hot and cranking-away (assuming all or most rods engaged) I can't imagine the first seismic shock from a 9.0, before the reactor automaticly shut down and disengaged, had a good impact to the vessel or rods inside it.  Keeping fingers crossed that the vessel is intact and that maybe just some fuel rods got damaged (but are still relatively safely held within the sealed vessel), likely contaminating coolant that then leaked out of the damaged and failing cooling systems.