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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 28, 2013 - 06:09pm PT
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well, since they have elevated levels of radiation,, im guessin FUKU.. Since they were located squarely in the predicted target zone of radiation from FUKU, im guessing FUKU. Since they eat on fish also showing up with elevated radiation problems,, again,, im guessing FUKU. And since they werent that way PRE FUKU,, yup,, im guessing FUKU..
An informal logical fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
Logical fallacies often sound good but are only misleading. I think this thread contains a treasure trove of logical fallacies - mostly on Ron's part. Perhaps we should see how many we can find on this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
In my original post, I asked Ed for an opinion. In science as in law, an opinion is somewhere between a well educated guess and a fact. Any valid opinion will be based on existing knowledge and/or data and that basis is available for analysis. A guess as in "im guessing FUKU" has no value even though it may be true. Ed was kind enough to opine on the objectivity of the video I posted. He didn't specifically state an opinion but provided the basis to conclude that what is presented in the video is junk. Being junk doesn't mean that what is claimed is not be true.
I tried to look up the bald seals and polar bears. It seems that some USGS researchers have documented an unusual number of cases recently but they have not yet come to any conclusions about causation. Probably because there are too many possible factors. One of which is Fukushima. Pollution, disease, climate change, loss of habitat or they might simply have a mange epidemic (parasitic mites). It would be fallacious to conclude that a conspiracy is at work simply because we don't understand what is happening.
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Mimi
climber
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Dec 28, 2013 - 08:46pm PT
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Ed, thanks for explaining the different radiation types and half-lifes. As for being bathed in radiation, I understand that not all of these compounds or spectra are harmful. My point was that some forms at even low levels are dangerous. What is your opinion of the recent sampling data below? My current experience is with the Pacific seafood industry and food safety implications. Thanks.
http://fukushimaupdate.com/radioactive-cesium-detected-in-deeper-groundwater/
From the above article:
But for the first time in December, TEPCO investigators detected radioactivity in groundwater taken from a layer 25 meters beneath the No. 4 reactor’s well facing the ocean.
In a water sample taken on Tuesday of last week, 6.7 becquerels per liter of Cesium 137 and 89 becquerels per liter of strontium and other beta ray-emitting radioactive substances were detected.
Meanwhile, at the No. 2 reactor, the density of beta ray-emitting radioactivity in groundwater has been rising since November. On Thursday, it registered a record 1.9 million becquerels per liter.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 28, 2013 - 09:32pm PT
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please reread your Forbes article...
a Bq is one decay per second...
how many atoms are in a liter of water? roughly 10²³ so even a million atoms of cesium decaying per second indicates a very small concentration of the isotope.
As for what is "dangerous" the article I linked above set the level at 10-50 mSv, yet another unit of radiation exposure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert
an Sv is a Joule of ionizing energy deposited in your body per kilogram...
the energy of the Cesium decay totals 1.2 MeV, an MeV is 2x10⁻¹³ Joules...
so if all 1 million per second deposits in your body of, say 50 kg, then that is an exposure of 2x10⁻¹³ x 10⁶/50 = 4 nSv/s
To get to, say 40 mSv total exposure it would take 10⁷s, 115 days, but the Cs biological half-life is 70 days, so you have to drink two liters of the No.2 reactor ground water, one two months after the first, to get to the maximum 1 year US total body occupational dose limit...
...I wouldn't recommend it, but you wouldn't die if that was all that you did... at least not from that level of radiation.
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LuckyPink
climber
the last bivy
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Dec 28, 2013 - 10:15pm PT
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thanks Ed, for clarity.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 28, 2013 - 11:11pm PT
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rsin
the radioactive elements present in a nuclear fuel assembly are the result of many things, primarily there is the presence of ²³⁵U in enriched amounts. This is an unstable isotope that will undergo spontaneous fission.. the nucleus breaks apart into two isotopes and emits, on average, something like 2 neutrons (2.2, but who's counting)
Those neutrons will diffuse and eventually hit other ²³⁵U causing them to undergo fission...
The resulting isotopes, the fission products, are a lot of what is radioactive. The neutrons also get captured by ²³⁸U and make ²³⁹Pu, and many other reactions occur to make other actinide isotopes.
The fission products are often unstable, that is, radioactive.
The likelihood of one of them decaying is a poisson distribution in time, with the isotope half-life being the characteristic decay time. The process is random, so some of the nuclei decay early, some late.
If you see decay products like gamma-rays or β-rays (or neutrons or α's) then there is likely to be other such isotopes hanging around too.
These radiations can cause other nuclei to become radioactive, usually by knocking out a neutron, but there is a lower limit to the energy that these radiations must have. None of the isotopes discussed so far have radiations sufficient to create other radioactive nuclei.
¹³⁷Cs → ¹³⁷ᵐBa + β + γ
the Barium is in a metastable state, and eventually decays to its ground state
¹³⁷ᵐBa → ¹³⁷Ba + γ
which is stable... (not radioactive).
So one isotope doesn't, necessarily, transfer it's radioactiveness to other isotopes, except through the interactions of the radiations it gives off, and only if those radiations are at a high enough energy.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 28, 2013 - 11:25pm PT
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I got an email from a moose saying that I underestimated the number of atoms in a liter of water by a factor of nearly 1000...
I was making an estimate and didn't care to go through a detailed calculation.. just use the order of magnitude of Avagadro's number
6.0221415 × 10²³ atoms per mole. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avagadro
The moose did the calculation correctly this way...
1 L of water is 1000 g
the molar mass of water is 18 g/mol,
you can figure this out because water, H₂O is composed of one oxygen atom of molar mass 16 g/mol, and two hydrogens each 1 g/mol molar mass
actually this should be 15.999 + 2*1.008 = 18.015 g/mol
so in 1000 g of water, we'd have 55.509 moles
multiplying this Avagadro's number gives us 3.34x10²⁵ molecules, each molecule has 3 atoms, so there are 1.003x10²⁶ atoms in a liter of water.
That reduces the concentration of radioactive atoms by a factor of 1000 from my estimates above.
thanks for a numerate moose, he was afraid to point it out here because he thought that it would provide ammunition for those looking for reasons to demonstrate my untrustworthiness. My experience is that they don't trust me anyway.
However, it demonstrates instead that you can actually check my calculations if you know something about the subject, you don't have to trust me...
...that's what science is all about.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 28, 2013 - 11:33pm PT
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The only stable Aluminum isotope is ²⁷Al
when there are neutrons around they capture on this nucleus making unstable isotopes of Aluminum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_aluminium
These cause the ladder to become radioactive (mildly so, in most cases). Most of the isotopes have a short half-life (less than minutes) except ²⁶Al which has a half-life of nearly a million years, which is to say it isn't likely to decay.
But in the current safety regime, the ladder is "mixed waste" or "radioactive waste" and has to be treated as such.
This could happen because there is a huge flux of neutrons in the reactor.
Aluminum is not generally used to make things that will be subject to large neutron fluxes.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 28, 2013 - 11:43pm PT
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what's a "conductor of radioactivity"?
water is a solvent that you can dissolve many minerals in... has nothing to do with radioactivity, it's chemistry... the electrons don't care if the nucleus is stable or unstable, they act the same
the seawater was not subject to large fluxes of neutrons.. the reactors had shut down... mostly the water was contaminated by the material in the core that was easily dissolvable.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 28, 2013 - 11:49pm PT
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take a liter of red-dye and dump it in the ocean
it eventually dissipates throughout the world...
the atoms in the liter mix, eventually, with all the other water.
If some of those atoms have radioactive nuclei, they will mix too, they won't create more radioactivity, they will eventually decay...
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Dec 29, 2013 - 01:28am PT
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Ed, I have great respect for your scientific integrity, but get the impression that you have not really looked into this issue deeply...i.e. risks to the West Coast US associated with Fukushima releases. Please accept my apologies if I misunderstood this.
I have been following this topic on almost a daily basis since March of 2011, and finding it extraordinarily difficult to obtain a reliable assessment. However it appears that if the damaged and unstable Building Four fuel storage pool is not successfully unloaded before it collapses, we are into an unimaginable scenario equivalent to a simultaneous meltdown of 20 reactors, making the current situation moot. And this appears to present a nearly impossible challenge.
The lack of information and the presence of contradictory information is particularly disturbing. Yet this thread hardly scratches the surface of the available information. http://fukushimaupdate.com/
I would really like to know your viewpoint of commentary by people like Arnie Gunderson and Helen Caldicot.
My uncle and cousin, nuclear engineers at Hanford, tell me that one of the major risks is breathing or ingesting radioactive micro-particles or 'radioactive fleas' which are not easily detected. http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/1-millioninth-gram-inhaled-plutonium-will-give-you-cancer.2012-06-13
I wish I could just take a deep breath of clean air and go climbing, however you can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Dec 29, 2013 - 01:33am PT
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http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/hot-particles-from-fukushima-continue.html
Hot Particles (Fuel Fleas) From Fukushima Continue To Circulate Globally
We can measure nuclear radiation with a Geiger Counter. That may give a person some idea of what kind of radiation one is exposed to.
Depending on the radiation detection meter, one can measure either alpha, beta or gamma radiation, or potentially more than one type of radiation. The more expensive the meter, the more options usually exist.
As Arnie Gunderson teaches in the video above, Geiger Counters do not tell the whole story, and just because you are measuring 'safe' background radiation in the US, Australia, or somewhere else, does not mean you are away from any possible radiation dangers.
Arnie talks about and explains radioactive fuel fleas. These are also called Hot Particles. They are made up of things like uranium, plutonium, strontium, cesium, radium, etc. Arnie was interviewed on CNN, and says basically the same thing he says on his own Fairewinds.com website video.
All of these particles are nano particle sized, and deadly dangerous. Any person on Earth breathing in just ONE fuel flea, or hot particle can be killed theoretically. Any one hot particle can kill anyone breathing one in, anywhere on the globe.
So how much plutonium did everyone inhale in the US? The following expert in hot particles explains through the use of EPA figures, that in just four days in March 2011, everyone in San Francisco inhaled 75 MILLION radioactive plutonium atoms.
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John M
climber
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Dec 29, 2013 - 01:38am PT
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Ron wrote,
The only additional thing added is the element of FUKU.
I don't wish to belabor a point, but you can not possibly know this to be fact. There are just too many things going on in the ocean for you to jump to this assumption.
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Mimi
climber
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Dec 29, 2013 - 01:54am PT
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Ed, what's funny is I thought you'd reject the Forbes article. You're in agreement with the low level threat assessment for the Fuku meltdown. And the fact that Dr. F has no problem with it is also telling. Sorry if I find this antiretrocounterintuitive. I can see the other Asian countries and Russia using this as an excuse to bury the Japanese seafood industry, but wow.
So the radiation leaks are inconsequential from a toxicity standpoint except for those in the plume in the days following the tsunami. But what about the radioactive pollution from this avoidable event? Are you saying this is merely an unfortunate incident? Do you consider nuclear power and its associated risks to be a worthwhile option as compared to burning fossils? Sorry if I missed this in previous posts.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 29, 2013 - 02:06am PT
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We inhaled 75 MILLION radioactive plutonium atoms
Wow
No wonder we get such glowing reviews ......
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Mimi
climber
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Dec 29, 2013 - 02:40am PT
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Werner, wow is right. I always thought 1 inhaled plutonium atom could give someone fatal lung cancer. It is touted as the deadliest element on Earth.
Even worse than a habanero. LOL!
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 29, 2013 - 03:04am PT
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I'm not fielding an ask me anything session... I was offering an opinion regarding the video linked in the OP...
the Fukushima disaster is real and ongoing. There is a lot that has to happen to safely decommission the reactors and much risk involved, which I believe is something that all the participants are aware of...
...I am not following closely the progress of the cleanup, Tom is... but what I see is progress being made to secure the fuel rods in Reactor 4, moving them to a safer spot. I can understand the anxiety created by the "real time" feed and various people offering various opinions. Seems that this is happening and it's a good thing.
No one wants plutonium or all the other stuff in those fuel rods blown out into the environment. That's why they are being extraordinarily cautious with the operation. But you see in the pictures that workers are in the building at the cooling pond and conducting the extraction operation. That's a good sign.
I'm not an expert in this, there aren't many, and those that are seem to be working in various capacities to address the problems.
What I hoped to provide is some manner of making the numbers understandable. Especially the issues with radiation. Nuclear reactors do hugely concentrate radiation, this makes accidents at nuclear reactor plants very serious.
I'm not going to field Chernobyl questions, or Three Mile Island or any other "nuclear disaster." Much has been written in the science literature for those interested they can read that literature.
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Mimi
climber
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Dec 29, 2013 - 03:06am PT
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Ed, would that be coal ash emissions out the stack (particulate matter) or fly ash that accumulates at the burner end and is captured and sent to a landfill?
Okay, so coal fly ash contains uranium and thorium which can leach from landfills or fly ash storage piles into groundwater. Makes sense that coal would contain these elements; vegetation sequesters heavy metals and when burned, they're released.
Scientific American 12/13/07
Individuals living near coal-fired installations are exposed to a maximum of 1.9 millirems of fly ash radiation yearly. To put these numbers in perspective, the average person encounters 360 millirems of annual "background radiation" from natural and man-made sources, including substances in Earth's crust, cosmic rays, residue from nuclear tests and smoke detectors.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Dec 29, 2013 - 08:51am PT
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If you really want to read up on something messed up, read about Operation Plowshare. That was an attempt to find peaceful uses for atomic bombs.
Yep. Nukes have been tried to fracture low permeability gas sands in Colorado and New Mexico. They didn't work.
It was also proposed to help create a deep water harbor in NW Alaska, but that got shot down.
Using a bomb as a gigantic excavator led to the dirtiest above ground test of the all: Sedan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_(nuclear_test);
I just read that it was sponsored by the Lawrence Livermore Lab.
Anyway, it is interesting reading. As for the conspiracy theories concerning Fukushima, well, you can't hide radiation. If the Pacific were indeed "dead," the commercial fishing fleet would have gone bankrupt by now. As for salmon stocks, I keep up on that and haven't heard a peep.
People love a conspiracy. Remember that guy Art Bell who had the weird late night AM radio show? When on the road late at night, I would listen to it. It was quite entertaining.
I will now attempt remote viewing.
Mimi, put some clothes on.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Dec 29, 2013 - 09:08am PT
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hey there say, all...
wow, i had to come over and see what this is all about...
always interested in how ed helps explain things...
thanks, ed, for sorting out questions...
i still don't 'get' all of this... but am interested in how
ed 'helps to decipher things' for folks like me...
thanks again... and for your patience, as well, ed...
:)
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