William Pesek reports on this weekend’s 7.3-magnitude earthquake:
As Tokyo shook early Saturday morning and loud shrieks from mobile-phone earthquake-warning alarms filled bedrooms around the city, one word immediately sprung to mind: Fukushima. Those who don’t reside 135 miles away from the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl won’t understand this reaction. But the first thing most of Tokyo’s 13 million residents do once things stop wobbling is check if all’s well at the Fukushima Daiichi plant still leaking radiation into the atmosphere and the Pacific Ocean. Worse, a fresh spate of accidents there make some wonder if the Marx Brothers are in charge. …
It’s been almost three months since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to step in to help the hapless Tokyo Electric Power Co. end the crisis. It’s been two months since his office went even further, saying it was laying out “emergency measures” to take control of the disaster recovery. It’s been seven weeks since Abe told the International Olympic Committee not to worry about that little nuclear situation up north to secure the 2020 Games. And, well, we’re still waiting for and worrying that the next quake will cause a fresh meltdown.
Update from a reader:
I just wanted to point you to this counterpoint to all the media frenzy over Fukushima.
It is worth repeating the author: while 18,500 people died from the earthquake and tsunami, not a single person has died from radiation poisoning. Of the 110,000 cleanup workers, less than 0.1% have developed cancer. Especially interesting to me (as an engineer) is the NYT use of “quadrillions of becquerels” because it sounds like an enormous quantity of radiation. If you do the conversion (I’ll spare you) this converts to a brick of radioactive material that would fit inside a 1 gallon paint can.
The most dangerous radioactive substance released from Fukushima was Iodine-115, which had a half-life of 8 days … which means it has long since become a non-issue. Nuclear reactors continue to be incredibly safe, and the media does us a disservice by over-stating the dangers; nuclear power plants should be part of a clean energy portfolio.
Another reader:
As your reader who wrote in, I’m also an engineer. I also have a friend who is getting his PhD in nuclear engineering at Purdue and have regularly picked his brain on this topic. I’ve also worked with radioactive materials in labs during the course of my undergraduate work and professional life.
All this adds up to me being continually irritated with the media when they talk about radiation. My biggest contention is that it’s phrased as general radiation and the type is not included. The type of radiation is quite important. From Health Canada: “The becquerel (Bq) is named after the French physicist A.H. Becquerel. This unit measures radioactivity in a substance. It doesn’t consider the type of radiation emitted or what its effects may be. One becquerel equals one nuclear disintegration per second. This is a very small unit, so multiples are often used.”
Telling me something has x number of becquerels is meaningless unless I know what type of radiation it is. A more useful unit is a sievert (Sv), which incorporates the effect of ionizing radiation. Further, within ionizing radiation, there are three main types of emitters: alpha, beta, and gamma.
Alpha particles cannot penetrate dead skin or clothes, so they’re most dangerous to the eyes and ingestion/inhalation. Plutonium-235 and Uranium-238 are alpha emitters. Beta particles are more dangerous and are more of a chronic problem than acute and are worst when ingested/inhaled. Carbon-14 and Iodine-131 are beta emitters. Gamma rays are generally the worst of the bunch as they can travel much further than alphas or betas. Cobalt-60 and Cesium-137 are gamma emitters.
Then we also must consider the half-life of the particle, as noted by your previous reader. A compound that has high potency but breaks down quickly is not as dangerous as a compound with half the strength but lingers for years to centuries.
So, you have to put it all together to know whether it’s bad for you. I guess that’s too difficult for the media to understand and it’s much simpler to quote a huge number that seems made up. As your previous reader said, nuclear energy is extremely safe and should be part of the green movement to cleaner energy. Also, coal plants can emit more C-14 than nuclear plants, so if you’re near a coal plant you’re getting hit with more beta particles more than someone who works in a nuclear plant.
The Dish 