Dude, I read Japanese fluently and that document says “I’m an asshole for linking to a picture of an unknown document in Japanese, on an English language message board.”
No really.
I’m responding, of course, to your retarded “melt your lead boots off” assertion.
Even in a situation where radiation suits are full protection, the decontamination procedures following said work can be difficult enough (to avoid tracking Pu dust/powder into an area where it can be accidentally ingested or inhaled) to mean avoiding working in those areas as much as feasible.
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If Pu-240 is leaking into the water, this is very bad news.
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If small mutant space combat wombats riding fire snorting battle cattle (that shoot death beams out of their eyes and poison plutonium out their asses) start rampaging about THAT could be bad news too. Fortunately there is no evidence that either is happening at this time.
-XT
In reprocessing plants, where they extract Plutonium, for weapons, they consider thirty feet of water a good amount of shielding from plutonium. That’s because it has this terrible habit of putting off not only gamma and x-rays, it also spits out neutrons.
But hey, you internet experts know so much more than the people working at the Fukushima plants, so please continue.
As an aside, every time I read one of these threads: I’m thankful that I have an uncle who is a project field manager for a company that does nuclear reactor decommissioning, disassembly, and cleanup. I’m thankful that I have two friends who are nuclear engineers, one of whom is a lead core designer for Westinghouse. Basically I’m thankful for access to informed, unbiased sources.
This is like me saying “The nuclear reactor on my college campus is exposed and operating under a mere 20 feet of water that serves as both convection cooling and radiation shield, therefore all nuclear reactors are totally safe for the public with a mere 20 feet of water using convection cooling–holy shit, that means Fukushima isn’t in trouble at all!”
The amount of plutonium matters, as does its specific isotope makeup.
Can you ask them about plutonium? Cause all this crap about it being bad for you, I’m starting to think it’s just nonsense. I mean, the Japanese TEPCO dudes said the amount in the groundwater wasn’t enough to hurt anyone.
So what’s the big deal with some leaking plutonium? Is it really that dangerous?
Rantings about stupid nuclear reporting
Debate aside, there is some weak-assed reporting going on. Today’s Washington Post (as of 12:23 EST) has this headline on the front page:
Clicking the link opens to a story with a picture of a children’s swingset.
The headline of article linked to the front page: Contaminated water found in underground tunnels at Japan nuclear plant.
So PLUTONIUM!!! then CHILDREN!!! then a bit more of a factual story. Maybe this isn’t reporting so much as editorial decision-making, but the sensationalization is a bit much.
I love you WaPost, but please leave that shit to [insert denigrated news outlet of your choice here].
Hey! You posted on topic!
In this case it isn’t the amount of plutonium being found, it’s that however little or a lot of it there is, it’s coming from Fukushima and not bananas. Plutonium is being actively formed somehow, which is bad, or it has to be leaking somehow, which is also bad.
The amount right now isn’t important, what’s important is that plutonium has found a pathway to us.
Nuclear scientists are actually busy at work right now analyzing the isotopes found in the water. It appears to be very bad news. The evidence is pointing hard to at least one nuclear reaction going on somewhere.
How much plutonium? What isotopes? What alloys? What form?
Put it this way–you could hold a piece of plutonium-242 in your hand all day and not get an appreciable dose, but powder that same amount and snort it and your chances of lung cancer skyrocket.
I don’t think they are going to be able to keep a lid on this much longer.
Keep a lid on what? The news? Your cite is from CNN, so it’s not exactly a big secret. Keep a lid on the contamination? It depends on how much has actually been released, how it was released, and the volume of future release. At this point no one knows any of that stuff, or whether or not there is anything to ‘keep a lid’ ON. It might be nothing, or it might involve a serious clean up effort akin to a large toxic waste spill, or it might be even more serious. Plutonium of the type they are talking about isn’t that dangerous externally, but if you ingest it, that can certainly lead to all sorts of health problems. Of course, a lot of other stuff that’s non-radioactive that were spilled in the soil from all this could equally pose a danger to health in the future (oil in ground water, for instance, is not a good thing…nor some of the chemicals and solvents that were most likely spilled). It will depend on the concentrations though…which gets back to exactly how much has spilled and how much, if any, continues to leak…and how rapidly the Japanese respond if there is in fact a leak somewhere.
-XT
The isotopes found in the water were cobalt-76, technetium-99, silver-108, iodine-131, iodine-134, four isotopes of cesium, barium-140 and lanthanum-140. All have half-lives measured in hours or days, with the exception of cesium-137.
Even CNN (turns head and spits) is not starting to hint at that this might possibly be a bad situation. Maybe.
From your cite:
Again, it might be a bad situation, or it might not be. It might involve a really nasty cleanup outside of the plant, or it might not and only involve a really nasty cleanup in the plant itself. So far the only reports I’ve seen indicate that there is some contamination outside of the building, but that so far the soil samples are far below the danger level for radioactive contamination.
BTW, when you quote something from an article, you need to put it in quotes to correctly attribute it. This…:
…is a direct quote from the article you linked too. The way it looks in your post is as if you wrote it. Just a heads up for future reference. If you do this often you are going to piss some folks off, plus it’s sort of like plagiarizing.
-XT
As has been said before, and I quote the article: “Plutonium can be a serious health hazard if inhaled or ingested, but external exposure poses little health risk, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.” How much plutonium, and in what forms, MATTERS.
In other words, the kind of radioactive materials that will burn themselves out rapidly while dissipating into the ocean. In other words, precious little threat to anyone or anything.
It’s the long-half-life bioactives that are the biggest source of risk in a contamination scenario, after all. Strontium (which can replace calcium), the longer-lived iodine isotopes, etc, that get in the body and continue to radiate for long periods of time.
OK, I’ve checked the CNN website, the MSNBC website, and the FoxNews website, and none of them are reporting anything like this. My God, it’s a conspiracy!
Just for a quick dose of reality…
According to numerous news feeds (here’s one), as of Friday the official death toll for the combined earthquake/tsunami event is over 10,000, with another 17,400 listed as missing. (And at this point, although a few of those missing will be miraculously found alive, the vast majority of that “missing” figure translates to “dead, but the body hasn’t been found”.) Deaths in the Miyagi area alone are expected to exceed 15,000.
While the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima plant is certainly a disaster, the death toll forthat event currently stands at zero, with (I believe) three nuclear workers hospitalized after walking in highly radioactive water inside the plant.