Order of Kilopi
Is it not possible that a small tumor could form and be held in check by the immune system for a long time, but that this tumor could escape at some time when the person gets older and weakens? It seems, from articles like this one, that there is a lot of debate over whether tumor escape is a valid idea, but that it's not been proven one way or the other.Originally Posted by Antice
As above, so below
Order of Kilopi
It's a conservative estimate based on higher radiation doses where there is pretty good evidence. I think it is important that it is a conservative estimate. Given that, when there are wild claims of low level radiation being much more dangerous than the linear no-threshold model shows, you can point to how that is definitely NOT supported by the evidence. And it makes the entire "you're ignoring the risk" argument look ridiculous when you are in reality using this conservative model.
It can damage repair mechanisms, making it easier for cancer to occur later. For instance, from here:(altho i have never heard of a good mechanism for how a radiation exposure event that happened more than 20 years in the past can cause cancer today)
http://www.radscihealth.org/rsh/docs...NYTcancer.html
So, damage to this gene in some cells could cause them to accumulate more damage over time and be more likely to become cancerous as they accumulate damage.Scientists at the University of North Carolina have made an important discovery about how defects in one of the two breast cancer genes, BRCA1, raise the risk of the disease: They leave cells without the normal ability to correct certain mistakes that commonly occur in their genetic machinery.
[...]
When BRCA1 is defective, it is unable to repair oxidative DNA damage, the most common insult to the genetic material of cells throughout the body. A defective BRCA1 gene is responsible for about 5 percent of all breast cancers and can affect men as well as women in families with hereditary breast cancer.
An accumulation of genetic damage to the DNA is how overexposure to sunlight can cause skin cancer and an overdose of radiation from X-rays can cause cancer in internal tissues like the thyroid gland. When oxidative damage occurs in genes that determine cell growth and when the mechanism that normally repairs such damage fails to work properly, the cell is no longer able to keep its growth in check and a malignant tumor results.
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Established Member
I got the impression from the Lynas article (cited yesterday) that some folks are using the conservatively high numbers to make wild claims and push their agenda. I haven't started looking yet, but surely there must be more meaningful measures of long-term, low-dose exposures that would be more appropriate, but perhaps not. If it is a "better than nothing" strategy, then I have to wonder at that too, as it seems wholly inappropriate (in an apples to oranges kind of way) and has perhaps already jaundiced a gullible public into taking a rather irrational stance toward nuclear power. I already feel duped myself (but that's not unusual)!
Order of Kilopi
Bad Post-Doc
Yes, that appears to be five links. So?
_____________________________________________
Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
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Administrator
Let me make that official. BAUT/CQ has always had an understanding that posting links, even to legit sources, with no explanations or indication of content (such as a short quote), is bad behavior. Five such links in one post is even worse. This is not contributing to the conversation, it is being disruptive.
Order of Kilopi
My apologies. My internet wasn't acting right, couldn't edit post. Will fix if the connection is OK now.
(edit) Nope. Still can't edit.
Order of Kilopi
one more try
On the slippery question of “How bad was Fukushima,” two Stanford University researchers have published a paper that casts the accident in a new light. It still seems hazy, though.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/...lly-fukushima/
Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.n...8319-2011.html
Utility Says It Underestimated Radiation Released in Japan
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/wo...ated.html?_r=2
Experts say Fukushima 'worse' than Chernobyl
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/asia-...015428149.html
Geneticist charts effects of nuclear disasters
http://blog.al.com/pr-community-news...ects_of_n.html
Order of Kilopi
That Al Jazeera report seems a little thin, and it's ten months old. The other ones could be interesting.
Suspended
Isn't it a bit silly to be seriously concerned about the possible effects of low exposures when throughout our lives our bodies are bombarded with cosmic rays. This varies significantly with your altitude. At sea level you are exposed to 26 mrem, in Colorado 90 mrem. However, cancer rates in Washington D.C. are higher than in Colorado. Frequent fliers get more exposure. Would people take the train to avoid the extra dose? Nah. Don't forget those X-rays.
"Experts say Fukushima 'worse' than Chernobyl", but dozens of people were not killed nor were thousands exposed to high levels. So far as I am aware, no one has yet died from radiation due to the damage, although some heroic workers received significant doses. On the other hand, Japanese authorities say that 600 people died in the evacuation of the area. Mostly older and sick people from fatigue and exposure to the elements.
There is a lesson in Fukushima: when you play with fire you have to be careful and prepared, as we discovered when Chicago burned to the ground. We didn't outlaw fire as a consequence, we learned to use it safely.
Order of Kilopi
I don't know what rational the experts have, but I would say Fukushima is worse that Chernobyl.
My reasoning is the disruption the disaster caused. Many people were displaced from an area that could in theory be cleaned up. That clean up creates a laundry list of problems for planners. The check list of things to be corrected range from strictly engineering problems to social issues. I bet no one is happy with the contents of any clean up plan. Tack on improvements and safety checks to other reactors, improvement to communication, R&D for new reactors, new safety protocols, evacuation planning, environmental impact, etc. and the "cost"* is very extremely high.
The disaster certainly did not kill as many people as Chernobyl, but death and destruction is not the only measure of a problem.
As I understand it, Chernobyl ran for years after the disaster there even though the general population was moved away from the affected area. This area will continue to be a problem for the country(ies?) for many years to come, but it general isn't a problem for the average person because there is a strong desire by the government to keep them out, not let them return.
*My use of "cost" is not the normal dollar value, but the worry, concern, planning, work, etc. that has to be "paid" before people can return to "normal".
Solfe
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'That was tops! Who's not good at math? I was all, "Four!"' - Finn, Adventure Time.
Order of Kilopi
The rationale used by 'experts' is that strictly relating to the direct damage done by the power plant to the people and environment, plus the cost of mitigating and containing the accident.
Last edited by geonuc; 2012-Jul-21 at 08:23 AM. Reason: comply with Swift's last directive
Established Member
most of the damage to Fukushima prefecture is not from the reactor incidents at all. It's from a giant tsunami. It is all the tsunami damage that is making the cleanup all that much more difficult as well. there was wreckage everywhere. Actually figuring out the cost of the reactor failures is going to be tough to say the least.
Established Member
According to this report, workers in the damaged plant were ordered to put specially made lead covers over their personal dosimeters in order to hide unsafe radiation levels.
Order of Kilopi
Yes, in the context of the tsunami, Fukushima was much worse. Personally, I wouldn't categorise the tsunami and Chernobyl as the same type of disaster even though both had reactors. I think you can compare reactor to reactor, within limits.
Solfe
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'That was tops! Who's not good at math? I was all, "Four!"' - Finn, Adventure Time.
Order of Kilopi
They could more easily just remove their dosimeters, perhaps swapping them with a dummy, keeping their dosage measurements low without leaving evidence of tampering. Designing and manufacturing lead covers to achieve the same just doesn't make any sense.
I don't know what the dynamic range of those dosimeters was. It's possible they were too sensitive, being designed for normal plant operations, and were at risk for saturation at Fukushima. A lead attenuator could allow them to give accurate measurements of higher radiation doses (the presence of the attenuator being taken into account while computing the dose). This seems like a much more reasonable motivation for lead shields than a desire to hide excessive radiation exposure.
Indeed. In Chernobyl, a reactor experienced coolant failure under power leading to an uncontrolled spike in output power (due to a design flaw that didn't exist in Fukushima's reactors) simultaneously with the lack of cooling. As a result, the reactor partially vaporized and caused a huge steam explosion and graphite fire.
At Fukushima I, 3 reactors shut down properly due to an earthquake and withstood a tsunami event that went way beyond the design basis of the plant, and then slowly overheated and experienced large degrees of core melting due to residual decay heat and failure of cooling systems, which couldn't get the needed repairs and power supply due to all the tsunami damage in the area. 4 reactors at the nearby Fukushima II shut down in the earthquake and experienced tsunami damage to coolant systems, but repairs were made and they were cooled back down. The major radioactive release was of contaminated coolant water into the ocean over the weeks following the tsunami, not a blast of vaporized reactor, steam, and burning graphite into the atmosphere.
Established Member
According to this article, it was to keep the cumulative readings from the dosimeters under the permissible 50 millisieverts.
Order of Kilopi
But they could do that by not exposing the dosimeters to radiation in the first place. And the exposure limit was 100 mSv/year, and was quickly raised to 250 mSv/year specifically for the emergency situation at Fukushima.
Established Member
Perhaps the dosimeters were being monitored, and it would have been suspicious if they registered nothing?
Order of Kilopi
Why would they register nothing? Remove them partway through the day, and put them somewhere on-site in a low-radiation spot. Pick them up before leaving.
Wrapping a lead shield around the dosimeter seems far more likely to raise suspicion and attract unwanted attention.
Order of Kilopi
You don't grasp the fact that nuclear poison kills slowly. The attitude" Gee, nobody died today" doesn't mean no one will die.
It's just a little harder for Perry Mason to find the culprit. Cancer doesn't kill you in one day either. Think about that for a while.
Order of Kilopi
The question is, how do you differentiate cancer from nuclear exposure, from cancer from other causes? It doesn't come with a signature on it. And people have been dying of cancer since long before we built nuclear reactors.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Order of Kilopi
That is the curtain public relations hides behind.
Order of Kilopi
No, that is scientific fact. Cancer comes from broken DNA, and it does not care about the cause-- carcinogenic chemicals, cosmic rays, UVa and UVb, radiation from bananas or coal, cathode ray tubes, exposure to nuclear materials, or simple copy error.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Suspended
In the context of tsunami, the human damage caused the the destruction of the reactors is piddling, even if you accept exaggerated estimates for cancers eventually caused by radiation exposure.
The tsunami killed 19,000 people! The tsunami made 500,000 people homeless.
Here's the definition of paranoia which accurately describes what the anti-nuclear movement promotes:
The fear is so profoundly out of proportion to the risk that it would be comical, if the nuclear power was not so important to civilization.Paranoia is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion.
Order of Kilopi
Maybe they actually want to know if they are working in an area where gamma rays (which the lead won't stop) are bathing them in amounts that will set the alarms off. You know, because they are working in a hazardous environment, where they actually want to know if they are getting dosed with deadly amounts of radiation.
The suits already block alpha and beta, so it would be gamma that is the real concern. Lead would slightly decrease the amount of gamma registering.
Also the 250 figure is for life saving emergency workers, not the sub contractors in the story.
Order of Kilopi
The Fukushima disaster made over a hundred thousand people homeless. The difference is they can't go back and start rebuilding, or even salvage. And their homes and businesses and hospitals and farms weren't destroyed by the tsunami.
Order of Kilopi
That has yet to be determined. Especially since apparently they cannot do any of that, but they can go to the beach
Order of Kilopi
Take two similar populations of similar condition of a size big enough to be statistically significant. Have one exposed to radiation and one not. Compare the cancer rates over time. That is how they get the about 1% higher rate for Hiroshima survivors.
Order of Kilopi
It's definitely not a good thing if it turns out to be true. But reading the article makes it quite clear that this is a story about a sub-subcontractor. There is an allegation that one of the many companies involved in the cleanup ordered its workers to alter their dosimeters so that it could get more work. It's obviously not a good thing if it turns out to be true, but we should also remember that this is not government policy. It's about subcontractors bidding for work, and may be of more interest in the context of competitive bidding for government contracts than it is for nuclear power plants.
As above, so below
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