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Space Bar
Joined: 20 Oct 2010
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 Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:21 am Post subject: |
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Normally, I'd ask you to laugh at the following headline, but this situation has just gotten so serious and sad. 
Radiation Over U.S. Is Harmless, Officials Say
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: March 22, 2011
Harmless traces of radiation from the stricken nuclear complex in Japan have been detected wafting over the East Coast of the United States, European officials said Monday.
Since last week, the officials have tracked the radioactive plume as it has drifted eastward on prevailing winds from Japan -- first to the West Coast and now over the East Coast and the Atlantic, moving toward Europe... |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:35 am Post subject: |
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Vistorq: I looked for the study I remember seeing. The numbers were apparently WHO figures. I couldn't find it, though I could see plenty of people quoting them. What I could find was several newspaper articles quoting a study putting that number at about 13,000 people, and WHO figures showing 40,000 people in the US dieing from air pollution. Roughly 2.4 million overall through the world, though many of those are indoor pollution (coal and wood burned on cooking fires.)
http://www.who.int/entity/quantifying_ehimpacts/countryprofilesebd.xls
Proving that one particular death was due to coal and not to some other source of pollution is as difficult as proving that my cancer is due to Chernobyl, and not that CT scan I had. In any case, the sheer amount of pollution that coal releases worldwide makes it a major contributor to air pollution deaths, and causes far more deaths than any official estimate of nuclear.
Nuclear accidents are big, messy and scary. They are rare, but devastating incidents reported worldwide. The deaths from fossil fuels in all their forms tend to happen in ones and twos, in hospital rooms and bedrooms, and aren't generally newsworthy. It's just like plane crashes vs car accidents.
To Spacebar. Modern detectors are hypersensitive. They can detect nuclear material at almost any concentration. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:03 am Post subject: |
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| OneWayTraffic wrote: |
Vistorq: I looked for the study I remember seeing. The numbers were apparently WHO figures. I couldn't find it, though I could see plenty of people quoting them. What I could find was several newspaper articles quoting a study putting that number at about 13,000 people, and WHO figures showing 40,000 people in the US dieing from air pollution. Roughly 2.4 million overall through the world, though many of those are indoor pollution (coal and wood burned on cooking fires.)
http://www.who.int/entity/quantifying_ehimpacts/countryprofilesebd.xls |
I can't really offer a rebuttal here off the top of my head in the form of appealing to some other "authority". However, I will say that I trust the WHO and their science about as much as I trust any other globalist organization: not in the least. In fact I strongly distrust them, since I know they have an agenda.
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| Proving that one particular death was due to coal and not to some other source of pollution is as difficult as proving that my cancer is due to Chernobyl, and not that CT scan I had. In any case, the sheer amount of pollution that coal releases worldwide makes it a major contributor to air pollution deaths, and causes far more deaths than any official estimate of nuclear. |
I don't necessarily disagree with this, as it is. However, most coal pollution is generated from dirty power plants in developing nations like China. I fail to see how clean coal power (generated from the latest technology, which filters out nearly all the particulate) could lead to even a single death from pollution. CO2 is not even pollution really (any more than H20 is).
I suspect that "background" radiation is far less harmful to health that the isotopes that get regularly leaked into the environment and stay there for a long time, contaminating the food chain. One has to wonder how much radioactive Cesium, or even Uranium/Plutonium for that matter any of us has ingested throughout our lifetime. Even the tiniest of amounts would greatly increase our cancer risk. These isotopes didn't really exist in their pure forms before mankind started manufacturing them and introducing them into the environment through atomic weapons testing and nuclear accidents etc. And since such a vast number people are dying of cancer these days, I don't think it's so easy to dismiss as the nuclear industry (and their hired "experts") would have us believe. |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:15 am Post subject: |
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Visitorq: I think that we will have to agree to disagree on WHO and CO2. This isn't the thread for that. I doubt either of us will change our minds on that. Suffice to say that I think CO2 is a big (though I don't know how big) deal, and I generally trust the WHO (within reason, I don't think the figures on coal are stretched)
As for the rest, I don't think it's balanced to compare the best possible coal technology with existing nuclear technology. Fourth generation nuclear power plants are to PWRs as Clean coal is to what is actually used out there.
With all the new chemicals, hormones, increased particulate matter combined with our longer lifespans, it's not surprising that cancer is on the rise. Nuclear materials play their part; to those exposed to them. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:37 am Post subject: |
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| OneWayTraffic wrote: |
| As for the rest, I don't think it's balanced to compare the best possible coal technology with existing nuclear technology. Fourth generation nuclear power plants are to PWRs as Clean coal is to what is actually used out there. |
This is fair. I'm not altogether anti-nuclear; I don't doubt that it is possible to run very safe nuclear plants in certain parts of the world where there is practically no chance of natural disasters ever striking. No doubt it would be a lot more expensive to build these plants properly, with layers upon layers of backup systems, and disposing of the waste properly (instead of storing it in giant unprotected bins attached to the ceiling ie. the General Electric design used in Fukushima)... I just think coal would be a lot cheaper and easier, even building the best and cleanest plants.
My contention here is that Japan is one of the most seismically active countries on earth and everyone knows it regularly gets smashed by devastating tremors and tsunami. Building a whole bunch of nuclear plants there (esp. right beside the ocean, which was so utterly asinine I'd call it criminally negligent) is just asking for this sort of disaster to happen... The same can be said for parts of the US along fault lines (such as California) where there are many nuclear plants.
Basically though I just don't appreciate the lies and spin coming from the pundits' mouths on this issue, telling us the Fukushima meltdown is all perfectly fine and normal, and that radiation is good and Plutonium is nutritious and healthy etc. etc. |
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ZIFA
Joined: 23 Feb 2011
Location: Dici che il fiume..Trova la via al mare
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| Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:13 am Post subject: |
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Meanwhile back at the ranch:
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Wed Mar. 30 2011 06:15:40
CTV.ca News Staff
In yet another reminder that the radiation crisis from Japan's earthquake-wrecked nuclear facility is far from over, the country announced Wednesday that it's detected the highest levels yet of radiation in nearby seawater. |
http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110330/japan-nuclear-radiation-110330/20110330/?hub=CalgaryHome
Basically they have no choice but to keep on hosing the reactors from a distance until the fuel has cooled. 2 months from now?
By which time a large amount of radioactive water will have overflowed from the plant and into the environment.
And it seems like the accident could have been avoided with some pretty basic precautions. like not situating it right beside the sea. |
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Space Bar
Joined: 20 Oct 2010
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| Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:36 am Post subject: |
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| OneWayTraffic wrote: |
| Proving that one particular death was due to coal and not to some other source of pollution is as difficult as proving that my cancer is due to Chernobyl, and not that CT scan I had. In any case, the sheer amount of pollution that coal releases worldwide makes it a major contributor to air pollution deaths, and causes far more deaths than any official estimate of nuclear. |
Spikes in thyroid cancers at 4-5-year intervals after radiation exposures which had been otherwise decreasing may not be iron-clad proof of their cause, but it is pretty damn good evidence, as are decreases in infant mortality in areas after nuclear plants have been closed.
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| To Spacebar. Modern detectors are hypersensitive. They can detect nuclear material at almost any concentration. |
No. I am hypersensitive. Modern detectors are extremely or highly sensitive, and that is a good thing since radiation in any concentration is harmful. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Japan Weighs Entombing Nuclear Plant on Chain Reaction Risk |
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The risk to workers might be greater than previously thought because melted fuel in the No. 1 reactor building may be causing isolated, uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions, Denis Flory, nuclear safety director for the UN�s International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a press conference in Vienna.
�Localized Criticality�
Nuclear experts call these reactions "localized criticality," which will increase radiation and hamper the ability to shut down the plant. The reactions consist of a burst of heat, radiation and sometimes an "ethereal blue flash," according to the U.S. Energy Department�s Los Alamos National Laboratory web site. Twenty-one workers have been killed by "criticality accidents" since 1945, the site said. |
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-30/record-high-levels-of-radiation-found-in-sea-near-crippled-nuclear-reactor.html |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:56 pm | | |
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