Either some journalists are mathematically challenged, or they're deliberately trying to scare people into going along with the environmentalist agenda. Last week it was reported that radiation levels at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant were at "unimaginable levels". However, PJ Media reports:
... Most commercial nuclear reactors have what's called the "primary containment" around the reactor: a sealed steel or reinforced concrete shell around the actual reactor. Outside that is the "secondary containment," another sealed building surrounding the primary containment. The unexpectedly high radiation levels -- and 530 Sieverts is way high, no question -- were detected inside the containment, the area marked by "1."
This is important, because everyone in Japan is in the area marked by "2", technically called outside the containment. This is a Good Thing. What's even better is that we now know the radiation exposure in area 2 was only about 15 percent of what was originally thought.
So, the tl;dr here is: "Don't panic. The high radiation is only inside the reactor." I will say, though, that I wouldn't recommend anyone going into the containment vessel.
. . .
TEPCO and the Japanese government carefully measure the radioactivity in the water being released [from the damaged reactor into the sea], and report it regularly. Their February 1 report records only one significant radionuclide in the water: tritium, the third hydrogen isotope. The radioactivity level is between 780 and 820 Bq per liter of water.
What does this mean? Well, the U.S. EPA safety standard for tritium in drinking water sets an upper limit of 740 Bq/liter. Basically, you wouldn't want to drink it, right there at the outflow into the Pacific, for any extended length of time -- although it probably wouldn't hurt you.
You could swim in it, though.
There's more at the link.
Do we have to fact-check everything the mainstream media reports? I'm beginning to fear that the answer is "Yes" . . .
Peter
"Do we have to fact-check everything the mainstream media reports? I'm beginning to fear that the answer is "Yes" . . ."
ReplyDeleteThe answer has long been yes. It was the answer in the 70s when I came into adulthood. The press has long been a bunch of paid liars.
"Do we have to fact-check everything the mainstream media reports?"
ReplyDeleteYes. This has always been true. It was true in the Hittite civilization, it was true when H.L. Mencken was still a newspaperman, and it will be true when the sun is dying. If you know your local news outfit, and a pretty sure you have a handle on their most obvious quirks, you may not have to check every report on the doings of the Town Council. But it can't hurt.
When I lived in Washington DC (Wonderland On The Potomac) I could read the Washington Times (Right Wing Bias), the Washington Post (Leftwing bias), and the CityPaper (receiving radio venus on their bridgework bias), and figure the truth was somewhere in the middle. It was instructive.
I'll take a different tack than the previous two: "Either some journalists are mathematically challenged, or they're deliberately trying to scare people into going along with the environmentalist agenda."
ReplyDeleteThat's not exclusively one or the other. In fact mathematical illiteracy, more concisely called innumeracy, is not only virtually universal among journalists it's an entry requirement into the environmentalist movement.
In the case of Fukushima, we have seen nothing but chicken little reports on the radiation levels since the tsunami hit. Not one of those reports has been credible.
But it's not an "environmentalist agenda" to be concerned with the ongoing, no-end-in-sight release of radioactivity into the Pacific Ocean.
ReplyDeleteThe entire West Coast was downwind of Fukashima and one hot particle in your lungs and you're a goner. The Pacific Ocean is now significantly polluted with radioactivity and seafood is rapidly undergoing bioaccumulation of radioactivity.
There are three melted-down cores sitting in underground rivers flowing into the ocean and no known technology can fix the problem.
So let's not be complacent. The best sources of info are enenews.com and Arnie Gunderson's site, www.fairewinds.org.
- Don in Oregon
The entire West Coast was downwind of Fukashima and one hot particle in your lungs and you're a goner. The Pacific Ocean is now significantly polluted with radioactivity and seafood is rapidly undergoing bioaccumulation of radioactivity.
ReplyDelete"Radioactivity" is much too broad a category to describe in general terms; even "alphas, betas, and gammas" is too broad. Gamma rays are more harmful than alphas or betas when exposure is outside the body; betas and (especially) alphas are more destructive, but due to their lack of penetration, don't cause the deep-tissue harm. When received internally, though, they're hugely harmful.
They can become internal through inhalation or ingestion--eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water, for example.
Specific radionuclides, their half-lives, and how they're distributed geographically (i.e. do they stand to contaminate things that will be taken internally) all have to be considered before we can determine the potential for harm.
Tell us what radionuclides are showing up in the Pacific, in what quantities, and in what quantities they're showing up in the food supply (becquerels per kg of food or water of each nucleotide would be an appropriate unit of measure), and we can talk intelligently. Just saying "Radioactivity!" is scare-mongering, and adds nothing to the discussion.
You talk about this like it's something new. The media has been playing up nuclear fears since the 70's the public has eaten it up. Sure, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl didn't help things but the "scare-factor" of radioactivity largely started due to cold-war emergency preparedness information. Fukushima is the latest incident to get the "radioactivity is scary" treatment.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, we (the collective worldwide "we") definitely need to do a better job. Nuclear power is absolutely amazing when done right but there's no denying that it has the potential to go disastrously wrong too. We need to encourage the construction of new nuclear plants while carefully regulating the industry and taking swift action to modify or phase out those plants that have anything more than an infinitesimal probability of catastrophe (should be easy, right? /s)
Fukushima does bear watching though. While things are currently pretty well-contained we don't really know very much about corium and how it changes over time, largely because it's so difficult to get anything (including robots) near the stuff for very long. There's certainly enough potential energy inside there to do away with any containment system in a worst-case scenario. One hopes that TEPCO is doing their best rather than simply trying to minimize their financial losses.
No, we don't need to fact check.
ReplyDeleteWe know the media is biased, if not outright corrupt. Once you know who's writing the story, and who's pulling his strings - you know the score. The media is a sleazy sales pitch meant to distract and/or manipulate the consumer to either buy into certain agendas or opt out of others. They cannot under any circumstances, be part of the decision process on important issues.
They can be relied upon to tell the truth if you know how to read them. In this case: slow news day, all is well in Fukushima, nothing to see here. This material is meant for the enjoyment of the various environmental concern trolls that need something to fret about. The adults are excused from this one.
RE: SiG's comment above - he's right, and to a larger degree than he may realize: anything the Left does not only requires severe innumeracy among its participants and advocates, it's also dependent upon mass innumeracy for its success.
ReplyDeleteThose of us who work, or worked, in STEM fields spend our lives with numbers so we get good with them pretty quickly, everyone else, not so much. Search "Target pricing" as confirmation - were "Target pricing" not such a successful sales gambit you would not find Target, or other retailers, using it so much.
The ability to do a quick, in one's head "sanity check" is not some mathematically occult legerdemain, but the inability to perform it is foundational to success of nearly everything the Left strives for.
Mothers, don't let your babies not learn basic and simple math; their futures may depend upon it.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteBut it's not an "environmentalist agenda" to be concerned with the ongoing, no-end-in-sight release of radioactivity into the Pacific Ocean.
The entire West Coast was downwind of Fukashima and one hot particle in your lungs and you're a goner. The Pacific Ocean is now significantly polluted with radioactivity and seafood is rapidly undergoing bioaccumulation of radioactivity.
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You do realize that there is about 6 kilograms of uranium in every cubit kilometer of seawater?
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=amount+of+uranium+in+seawater&sout=1&surl=1&gws_rd=ssl#hl=en&sout=1&q=amount+of+uranium+in+seawater+per+cubic+kilometers
I think P. J. O'Route said it:
ReplyDelete"To the Right pollution is bad and harmful, but it's the cost of doing business. You minimise it, you control it, but if you want the jobs and the economic benefits you deal with it.
"To the Left, pollution isn't bad... it's EVIL. You don't tolerate evil, you eliminate it no matter the cost. No amount of evil is tolerable. There is no acceptable amount of evil."
Dave says: "Tell us what radionuclides are showing up in the Pacific, in what quantities, and in what quantities they're showing up in the food supply (becquerels per kg of food or water of each nucleotide would be an appropriate unit of measure), and we can talk intelligently."
ReplyDeleteGood question. My answer: http://ourradioactiveocean.org/results.html
Don in Oregon
One bright side of all this is that regular folk, who would have gladly listened to "That's the way it was" are now working to get their news from multiple sources and be skeptical if something doesn't pass the sniff test.
ReplyDelete