Earthquake off Japan

[Sea Skimmer]

They've had the concrete pump setup dumping water on the no.3 reactor since at least yesterday; but I cannot find a ready picture of it online.

[Exonerate]

NEI

UPDATE AS OF 7 P.M. EDT, MARCH 24
Restoration of electric power at reactors 1, 2 and 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has led to the reconnection of important reactor instrumentation, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

Cooling water continues to be injected into reactors 1, 2 and 3. Reactors 5 and 6 at Fukushima Daiichi remain safely shut down. Both reactors were undergoing maintenance at the time of the earthquake.

Radiation dose rates inside the containment vessels of reactors 1 and 2 have decreased slightly, IAEA said.

External power has been reconnected to the common used fuel storage pool at the plant and cooling started on March 24 at 5:05 a.m. EDT, according to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. About 60 percent of the used uranium fuel rods at Fukushima plant are stored at this facility.

Good news. Happy to see that the situation is improving, and with that, the chances of anything else unexpected going wrong decreases. Even if they don't have power to run all the cooling equipment yet, there's less uncertainty and likelihood to make a judgement call with undesirable consequences.

Edit: URL tags don't accept double quotes? Really?

[Broomstick]

An update on the nuclear plant at Fukushima, with specifics on worker injuries, something we've discussed before in this thread with little in the way of hard numbers. I won't quote the whole article, just the relevant bits but here is a link to the whole thing:

On Wednesday, the same day the black smoke appeared, Edano said three workers were exposed to water contaminated by radioactive material while laying cable in the No. 3 reactor's turbine building. They stepped into the water, which seeped into the shoes of two of the men, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company.

All three men were exposed to between 173 and 181 millisieverts of radiation, and two went to a hospital for treatment, a Tokyo Electric Power Co. official said.

A person in an industrialized country is naturally exposed to 3 millisieverts a year. But Japan's health ministry recently raised the maximum level of exposure for a person working to address the crisis at the nuclear plant from 100 millisieverts to 250 millisieverts per year.

The three workers reached the highest level of millisieverts recorded so far, Tokyo Electric said. The two admitted to the hospital were a man in his 30s who was exposed to 180.7 millisieverts, and a man in his 20s who tested at 179.37 millisieverts. The third man, who was exposed to 173 millisieverts, did not go to the hospital, as his boots were high enough to cover his skin, Tokyo Electric said.

Seventeen workers so far have been exposed to radiation at levels over 100 millisieverts, Tokyo Electric said Thursday, including the three involved in the water incident.

And further on some more about contaminated vegetables - another one has been added to the list, another green lefty type which seem most prone to soaking up radioactive isotopes. Not the explanation of the dosage one would receive from eating some of it.

Meanwhile, Japanese authorities added another vegetable to the list of restricted foods originating in prefectures near the Fukushima plant. On Wednesday, health officials said they found high levels of radioactive substances in the mizuna, or potherb mustard, shipped to Kyoto from Ibaraki Prefecture. While there was no immediate health risk, authorities instructed distributors and buyers to remove the vegetable from stores. Consuming 20 grams of the vegetable would be the equivalent of 1/400th the radiation of a stomach X-ray, officials said.

For Americans, 20 grams is about 3/4 of an ounce.

Meanwhile, back at the earthquake/tsunami zones, the official death toll is 10,000+ with about 17,400 still missing. Although a few of those missing are likely to be alive but just not in contact with loved ones, it's starting to look like the death toll will be 25k+

[PeZook]

I heard on the radio about those workers ; Supposedly they had radiation burns on their feet. Remember that 170 mSv is not immediately life-threatening, but it wasn't a whole body dose, it was concentrated at their feet.

Lousy development :/

Fortunately, though, the article seems to confirm that none of the workers are really "dead men walking". 100 mSv is when you get a clear correlation between exposure and cancer, but not even close to "horrible death within days" levels.

Also, most media outlets neglect to mention that 250mSv is what is considered acceptable exposure by the EPA in a a nuclear emergency for a worker involved in saving lives. So far I've seen outlets trumpet "It's five times the maximum yearly dose for a radiation worker OMG!", forgetting Fukushima is kinda of an emergency.

[cosmicalstorm]

Is there any long term action that those people can take to avoid cancer and other problems from this incident?

[Duckie]

Proper exercise, diet, and regular screening. That reduces the risk of cancer in all cases and matters way more to the individual's health than any sort of direct intervention unless the radiation exposure is extreme enough that you'll probably die.

To mitigate radiation exposure, assuming someone was exposed to a level where it'd matter, not much that I know of. I mean, you could chelate, but that's a pretty problematic thing in and of itself.

My girlfriend would probably know more about other stuff, but sadly she's busy.

[PeZook]

Best thing to do would be to monitor them and take measures early on. Cancer is no longer a death sentence (well, except for pancreatic cancer...) nowadays.

[Broomstick]

To mitigate radiation exposure, assuming someone was exposed to a level where it'd matter, not much that I know of. I mean, you could chelate, but that's a pretty problematic thing in and of itself.

I'm not sure how chelation would help in this case as they haven't ingested heavy metal isotopes, these were presumably burns caused by direct radiation.

The Center for Disease Control does have information on cutaneous radiation injury, but the units given are grays, not sieverts, and I'm not sure of the conversion. Two of the men were reported as symptomatic, which is worrisome so early after exposure, but the reports don't have much details as to what exactly is going on.

With such specific dosages given for these workers, however, it seems evident they are wearing some sort of dosimeter. If these are the highest exposures so far since this mess started then no, no one is dying of radiation sickness. Going forward these people should be monitored for cancer and if any is found swift action should be taken.

[AndroAsc]

I don't think the situation is getting any better:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-2 ... -says.html

“It’s very possible that there has been some kind of leak at the No. 3 reactor,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman at the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said in Tokyo today.

Reactor 3 is the one with the plutonium fuel. That's the one with a half life of 24k years. It's an alpha emitter and it's the most deadly type of radioactive isotopes when inhaled (like when it gets blown across the Pacific Ocean to the US West Coast). It has a biological half-life of 200 years, so if it's in your body, there is no way to get it out.

More on plutonium:
http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-nu ... mox-2011-3

MOX is two million times more deadly than normal enriched uranium.

Plutonium is extremely difficult to detect because it emits limited gamma rays -- unlike radioactive iodine, caesium and uranium -- and it is deadly;

Plutonium release would not show up as a radiation spike;

Which means that if plutonium gets spread across the US West Coast, we would not know about it since the radiation detectors would be unable to pick it up. Unless I am mistaken, there was no plutonium release during Chernobyl, another reason why this Fukushima disaster is already worse than Chernobyl.

Lastly, the Japanese are getting radioactive yellow rain just like in Chernobyl when they are reassured it is just pollen (seriously wtf, is this the best lame excuse they could come up with?)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/chernobyl-s ... japan.html

[AndroAsc]

Simulation has also shown that Xe-133 has arrived at the US West Coast since Mar 19 and has persisted till presumably today. "Luckily" Xe-133 has a half life of 5+ days. It is also a beta and gamma emitter, so not terribly dangerous if inhaled by the Californians.

http://zamg.ac.at/aktuell/index.php?sei ... 21GMT10:22

We're lucky that Cs-137 did not make it across the Pacific.
http://zamg.ac.at/aktuell/index.php?sei ... 21GMT10:22

[PeZook]

*sigh*

Look, Chernobyl's pressure vessel blew open, and then the whole shebang burned for days. And yes, there was plutonium released in Chernobyl, again plutonium is a normal fission byproduct. It is also quite detectable. There are hand-held detectors on the market than pick up alpha radiation just fine.

Anyway, Chernobyl is in no way comparable to a limited fire of some spent rods and a leak of unspecified nature. Maybe. Possibly.

If you paid attention to your own articles, the contaminated water might've come from the spent fuel storage pool. They have not confirmed the source yet.

I also like how your source about the dangers of plutonium (the one screaming how MOX is two billion zillion gazillion times DEADLIER than uranium somehow despite only containing 2-3 times the plutonium of normal spent fuel) is the Business Insider

[Tribun]

While I do think the the situation is quite dangerous -indeed today again showed us that the shit has pretty much hit the fan- I think AndroAsc is overdoing it. Just to compare: even the German media, which is pretty anti-nuclear, does say that the effects will for the most part affect only Japan.

[AndroAsc]

Look, Chernobyl's pressure vessel blew open, and then the whole shebang burned for days. And yes, there was plutonium released in Chernobyl, again plutonium is a normal fission byproduct. It is also quite detectable. There are hand-held detectors on the market than pick up alpha radiation just fine.

You forget that alpha radiation can't penetrate more than a few miles of air (if memory serves me correctly). Given that plutonium is a persistent alpha emitter and only minute quantities need to be ingested in order for cancer to set in... can you say with absolute certainty that we can detect the lethal threshold concentration of plutonium?

If you paid attention to your own articles, the contaminated water might've come from the spent fuel storage pool. They have not confirmed the source yet.

It is not logical to presume everything is fine until proven otherwise in situation like these. That will cause people to underreact, which is almost always worse than overreacting. Admittedly, I don't think anything can be done to protect against plutonium poisoning.

I also like how your source about the dangers of plutonium (the one screaming how MOX is two billion zillion gazillion times DEADLIER than uranium somehow despite only containing 2-3 times the plutonium of normal spent fuel) is the Business Insider

So Business Insider has poor citations like any journalistic article, what is your point? The source of the data comes from ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection), part of the document can be found here:
http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html ... l#Chap_6_2

In November 1992, a fuel rod was broken through a handling error, and MOX dust was released during the mounting of MOX fuel rods to fuel assemblies in the fuel fabrication facility adjoining the MOX facility in Dessel, Belgium. In the event of such accidents, if the ICRP recommendations for general public exposure were adhered to, only about one mg of plutonium may be released from a MOX facility to the environment. As a comparison, in uranium fabrication facility, 2kg (2,000,000mg) of uranium could be released in the same radiation exposure. A one mg release of plutonium can easily happen during various smaller incidents

Now, I will concede that safety protocols aren't a good quantifier for the toxicity of Plutonium vs Uranium, but at least they show the relative toxicities.

[AndroAsc]

While I do think the the situation is quite dangerous -indeed today again showed us that the shit has pretty much hit the fan- I think AndroAsc is overdoing it. Just to compare: even the German media, which is pretty anti-nuclear, does say that the effects will for the most part affect only Japan.

Perhaps. My major concerns is another "explosion" that includes the loss of reactor containment and combustion of the newer spent fuel rods. If this happens, a substantial quantities of radioactive particles may be blown across the Pacific to the US West Coast, and even after that long distance and decay rates, it may still pose a risk to human health. Admittedly, I do not think this is a strong possibility, but I do keep my eyes on Fukushima every other day or so. No offence, the radioactive plume is not blowing to Europe, so I'm not surprised they don't care.

The other more pressing concern is the plutonium issue, because there is very little information released on this so far. It appears to be extremely lethal when inhaled in minute quantities. This would be an issue since I do not know if existing radiation sensors deployed across the US are sensitive enough to detect the threshold amount of plutonium needed to cause cancer (and I'm not saying cause cancer next week but 20-30 years down the road).

The beta and gamma radioactive isotopes like Iodine-131 are not much of a concern, since they would be so diluted having traveled across the Pacific (unless they are somehow released in copious quantities at the source). So the other concern remains for the alpha emitters which can cause significant damage when inhaled.

[Tribun]

You know, I thing the far, FAR bigger problem right now is this shit getting into the ground, and not this stuff travelling all over the Pacific to threaten California.

[Neko_Oni]

Wow you're an incredibly selfish person aren't you AndroAsc? Everything is just about whether it will reach the US. Get over yourself, contamination will be negligible in the US. The real people at risk are the Japanese people, in particular those around Fukushima.

You forget that alpha radiation can't penetrate more than a few miles of air (if memory serves me correctly).

It's clear that you have absolutely zero grasp of the risks posed by radiation. Try a few centimetres of air.

Sorry if I come across as short with you, but this whole thing is hitting rather closer to home for me than it is for you, and quite frankly I'm sick of the foreign media willfully lying about the severity of the situation.

[Broomstick]

I don't think the situation is getting any better:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-2 ... -says.html

If you look at the half dozen posts prior to yours you'd know that some of us had already noticed the latest news.

“It’s very possible that there has been some kind of leak at the No. 3 reactor,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman at the Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said in Tokyo today.

Reactor 3 is the one with the plutonium fuel. That's the one with a half life of 24k years. It's an alpha emitter and it's the most deadly type of radioactive isotopes when inhaled (like when it gets blown across the Pacific Ocean to the US West Coast). It has a biological half-life of 200 years, so if it's in your body, there is no way to get it out.

A couple of points (again):

1) ALL nuclear reactors have plutonium - it's a normal byproduct of fission reactions. We have told you this multiple times. This is not a matter of OMIGOD! OMIGOD! REACTOR 3 HAS PLUTONIUM!!!shift111!!!! All nuclear reactors have SOME plutonium in them. The proportions of plutonium to other elements varies, but it's not like a reactor breach at the other reactors would be plutonium-free, either. Got it? All fission reactors have some plutonium.

2) Alpha radiation is bad in large quantities, but as long as you don't ingest an alpha emitter it's one of the easier to shield yourself from. How easy? A few centimeters of air. A piece of paper. Your own skin stops alpha radiation from entering your body. That's why it's inhaling plutonium that's such a problem - that gets it inside you, past your natural shielding layer of dead skins cells in your epidermis. Gee, maybe that's why nuclear workers wear self-contained breathing rigs, so they don't accidently inhale alpha-emitters. In other words, certainly for plant workers, this is an avoidable problem.

3) Even levels of contaminants "1000 times normal!!!shift111!!!!" is still a very small amount of stuff. It will NOT pile up anywhere by the ton, much less some place as far away as North America.

4) If you're that fucking afraid of inhaling radioactivity don't go in your basement - there's probably radioactive radon gas down there. In some, teeny, trace amounts. But, really, that's the radioactive substance you're most likely to inhale, and you've probably been inhaling small amounts all your life.

Now, if I really wanted to scare you I'd mention beta+ decay particles, which are anti-matter and will ANNILIATE ANY MATTER IT CONTACTS!!!!!shift111!!!! but I imagine you have enough trouble sleeping at night at this point.

More on plutonium:
Plutonium is extremely difficult to detect because it emits limited gamma rays -- unlike radioactive iodine, caesium and uranium -- and it is deadly

What, you seriously think we can only detect gamma rays? You're full of shit. Or ignorant. Or you need to read more authoritative sources. Or all of the above.

And you're fooling yourself if you think radioactive iodine and cesium can't kill you. Although uranium exposure is more likely to kill you from chemical reactions with your kidneys sufficient quantities can irradiate you quite thoroughly as well. You know how they say real estate is all about location location location? The effects of radiation on people is all about dose dose dose.

Plutonium release would not show up as a radiation spike;

Which means that if plutonium gets spread across the US West Coast, we would not know about it since the radiation detectors would be unable to pick it up. Unless I am mistaken, there was no plutonium release during Chernobyl, another reason why this Fukushima disaster is already worse than Chernobyl.

You are so fucking mistaken it's not funny, and I'm starting to lose patientce with your bullshit.

1) Of course we can detect plutonium, you moron, how do you think we find it in the first place? How do you think they monitor the levels in nuclear fuel? How do you think they check for contamination at nuclear facilities? Just because we may use a different method to detect it than some other element doesn't make it undetectable. It's not some magic, stealthy agent of evil.

2) Yes, there was plutonium at Chernobyl, idiot - what part of plutonium is a natural byproduct of fission reaction are you having problems comprehending? It is in ALL nuclear reactors to one degree or another. Chernobyl's reactor core fucking blew up, ejecting pieces all over the local neighborhood, including the plutonium that was in the fuel.

3) No, dipshit, Fukashima is NOT "worse than Chernobyl". It's not even as bad as Chernobyl. By this time in the Chernobyl disaster there were fucking dead bodies on the ground because of radiation. At Fukashima we have some workers who got their feet burned accidentally stepping in contaminated water. With Fukashima the government told people to stop drinking milk from the area around the plant - something that was NOT done during the Chernobyl disaster - and have distributed iodine pills - which was also not done during Chernobyl. While it is, unquestionably, a serious situation and not to be trifled with it have been, despite real flaws, managed MUCH better than Chernobyl, has caused less damage to the surrounding area than Chernobyl, and might not even kill anyone in the end (although it's pretty certain there will be some uptick in cancer among the exposed workers in a decade or two).

Lastly, the Japanese are getting radioactive yellow rain just like in Chernobyl when they are reassured it is just pollen (seriously wtf, is this the best lame excuse they could come up with?)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/chernobyl-s ... japan.html

Yes, believe it or not, pollen CAN fall from the sky, and when it does, it looks like "yellow rain". I have friends in Atlanta, Georgia who bitch about the phenomena every spring. I've seen it around here, too. It's fucking spring in the northern hemisphere (where Japan is located), and the goddamn plants are fornicating again, as they do in the spring (and summer, and fall...) In an ordinary year people either wouldn't notice or just shrug and move on with their day but because of hysterical ninnies people are pissing their pants over a perfectly mundane phenomena.

The ridiculous thing? A cheap-ass microscope can confirm this. Transfer a bit of the yellow rain to a slide, slide it under the microscope. If you see pollen particles, guess what? It's pollen. I did that very thing in high school 30 years ago, I don't think the universe has changed that much in the intervening decades.

Now, could that pollen be contaminated with radioactivity? Yes, it's possible, but that makes its contaminated pollen. And if it is, then non-yellow regular rain is also contaminated. As is anything else falling out of the sky.

[PeZook]

You forget that alpha radiation can't penetrate more than a few miles of air (if memory serves me correctly). Given that plutonium is a persistent alpha emitter and only minute quantities need to be ingested in order for cancer to set in... can you say with absolute certainty that we can detect the lethal threshold concentration of plutonium?

A few centimetres of air, actually, and cannot penetrate skin.

It will obviously be done by soil and food testing done by the authorities. Seeing as MOX is usually only 7% plutonium, the quantities that could possibly be released in a fire would be neglible, which is why people are more worried about other nuclides. Certainly nobody died from plutonium poisoning at Chernobyl, despite the fact the initial steam explosion threw up lots of core contents directly into the atmosphere.

It is not logical to presume everything is fine until proven otherwise in situation like these. That will cause people to underreact, which is almost always worse than overreacting. Admittedly, I don't think anything can be done to protect against plutonium poisoning.

As opposed to what, presuming everything will blow up any minute now? The reaction should be appropriate, not hysterical like you keep suggesting.

So Business Insider has poor citations like any journalistic article, what is your point? The source of the data comes from ICRP (International Commission on Radiological Protection), part of the document can be found here:
http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html ... l#Chap_6_2

In November 1992, a fuel rod was broken through a handling error, and MOX dust was released during the mounting of MOX fuel rods to fuel assemblies in the fuel fabrication facility adjoining the MOX facility in Dessel, Belgium. In the event of such accidents, if the ICRP recommendations for general public exposure were adhered to, only about one mg of plutonium may be released from a MOX facility to the environment. As a comparison, in uranium fabrication facility, 2kg (2,000,000mg) of uranium could be released in the same radiation exposure. A one mg release of plutonium can easily happen during various smaller incidents

Oh man, this is hilarious...

First of all, during the recent decomissioning of a British nuclear facility, kilograms of plutonium dust were found all over the place: under floor panels, in ventillation, etc.

Nobody died of plutonium poisoning there. Plutonium is HEAVY. It doesn't diffuse easily and has a tendency to drop when suspended as dust. The problem is if it goes into the ground, but it doesn't transfer in the food chain easily, either.

The second thing, and the more hilarious one, is how you prove my point. The Business Insider article screams that MOX (the FUEL MIXTURE) is 2 000 000 times more deadly than "regular" fuel. Then you break out regulations comparing uranium (the element) to plutonium (the element). Toxicity of the elements does not directly translate to toxicity of the fuels.

[Serafina]

Wow you're an incredibly selfish person aren't you AndroAsc? Everything is just about whether it will reach the US. Get over yourself, contamination will be negligible in the US. The real people at risk are the Japanese people, in particular those around Fukushima.

You forget that alpha radiation can't penetrate more than a few miles of air (if memory serves me correctly).

It's clear that you have absolutely zero grasp of the risks posed by radiation. Try a few centimetres of air.

Sorry if I come across as short with you, but this whole thing is hitting rather closer to home for me than it is for you, and quite frankly I'm sick of the foreign media willfully lying about the severity of the situation.

I completely agree. Frankly, i think that it is disgusting - the whole nuclear issue has completely overshadowed the actual damage done by the tsunami. Who cares, that more than 10.000 people are dead, let's scream how unsafe nuclear power is

Also, just like AndroAsc, way to many people are incredibly ignorant about radiation. I just had the following discussion:
A friend of mine posts "independent radiation measurement" (because you can't trust the government). I point out that the highest figure i could find here in Germany is less than 0.2 mikroSivert and try to explain how that is utterly harmless. It was obvious that she had no idea what a Sivert actually is and how danger from radiation works. After i finally succeed there, she claims that "i am using the wrong measurments", even tough i used her own data

[Magis]

You forget that alpha radiation can't penetrate more than a few miles of air (if memory serves me correctly). Given that plutonium is a persistent alpha emitter and only minute quantities need to be ingested in order for cancer to set in... can you say with absolute certainty that we can detect the lethal threshold concentration of plutonium?

As hesitant as I am to contradict the certainly reliable scientific reporting of Business Insider news, I'm going to set you straight on that "we can't detect Pu radiation" tangent you've been on.

Fact: Plutonium 239 [at its ground state] decays by alpha emission 100% of the time.

Fact: During the alpha emission Pu239 decays into U235. This U235 nucleus is left in an excited state 100% of the time. The excited U235 nucleus then decays by one or more gamma emissions to a lower energy level, until ultimately reaching its ground state.

Fact: The half-life of excited U235 gamma decay is generally on the order of seconds to minutes, so for a sample of Pu239, the alpha emissions and gamma emissions will happen essentially concurrently.

Fact: Plutonium is easily detectable by its indirect gamma emissions, and Plutonium is easily identifiable by the spectrum of those emissions. This is how nuclear warhead-detecting gamma sensors at international border crossings, you know, work.

edit: For anyone that's interested, the complete decay scheme of Pu239 can be found here:
http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/nudat2/getdecay ... ay&unc=nds

The blue lines represent a gamma emission, with the labels on those lines indicating the energy of the gamma being emitted.

[Broomstick]

Simulation has also shown that Xe-133 has arrived at the US West Coast since Mar 19 and has persisted till presumably today. "Luckily" Xe-133 has a half life of 5+ days. It is also a beta and gamma emitter, so not terribly dangerous if inhaled by the Californians.

You fucking ignoramus – do you think inhalation is the only danger from radiation? Your clothing, your own skin, will stop alpha radiation. Beta and gamma are much more penetrating than alpha, so they will affect you over a greater distance, and through more shielding.

Given a choice, it's a hell of a lot healther to stand next to or even touch an alpha-emitter than either a beta or gamma emitter. The only time an alpha-emitter is an equal or potentially greater hazard is when you either inhale or ingest it – through any other route of exposure other things are more hazardous.

That is, of course, for amounts it is plausible to come into contact with in reality. Hypothetically, having someone drop a 10,000 ton lump of Pu on your head is also quite fatal, but it's so improbable that the word "impossible" is a reasonable description of the likelihood of that happening, and in any case would have nothing to do with radiation.

We're lucky that Cs-137 did not make it across the Pacific.
http://zamg.ac.at/aktuell/index.php?sei ... 21GMT10:22

I'm simply amazed that you seem oblivious to the fact that nuclear testing in the American south west pumped quite a bit (relatively speaking) Cs-137 into the North American environment all on it's own. In other words – it's already here, and has been for decades. Sure, eventually a few atoms of Fukashima Cs-137 will arrive in North America – eventually it will travel the world – but far less than was dumped into the environment in the 20th Century.

How bad local contamination with Cs-137 in the prefecture will be remains to be seen. But, unlike the hysterical claims, the world will NOT be blanketed with this stuff even under the worst case scenario.

Look, Chernobyl's pressure vessel blew open, and then the whole shebang burned for days. And yes, there was plutonium released in Chernobyl, again plutonium is a normal fission byproduct. It is also quite detectable. There are hand-held detectors on the market than pick up alpha radiation just fine.

You forget that alpha radiation can't penetrate more than a few miles of air (if memory serves me correctly). Given that plutonium is a persistent alpha emitter and only minute quantities need to be ingested in order for cancer to set in... can you say with absolute certainty that we can detect the lethal threshold concentration of plutonium?

Good god you are such a fucking tool – a few seconds on Google or Wikipedia, two VERY low bar sources of information, will tell you that alpha radiation can't penetrate more than a few centimeters of air. A piece of paper stops it. Your own skin stops it. Can you at least be bothered to do that minimum level of research before you open your mouth? If you were in front of me in real life I'd slap you to break the hysteria and force you to turn off the news for a week, and stay in a quiet, dark room until you calmed the fuck down.

Yes, it's an inhalation danger. Personally, I'm more afraid that Yellowstone is going to pop its cork than I am of inhaling plutonium from Fukushima – and I'm not expecting the Yellowstone thing to happen in my lifetime. Unless you're within close proximity to the plant in question you aren't in danger.

And YES, we can detect plutonium. As I said, it's not some magical, stealth-element shat out of the asshole of Satan to personally seek you out and kill you – it's just physics.

If you paid attention to your own articles, the contaminated water might've come from the spent fuel storage pool. They have not confirmed the source yet.

It is not logical to presume everything is fine until proven otherwise in situation like these. That will cause people to underreact, which is almost always worse than overreacting. Admittedly, I don't think anything can be done to protect against plutonium poisoning.

NO ONE is saying anything is “fine”. The Japanese media, government, and TEPCO have been very clear and explicit that this recent finding is serious, there have been people injured, and no one is pretending it's all happiness and roses.

And yes, you CAN protect again plutonium poisoning – don't inhale the shit. Again, this is one of the reasons nuclear plant workers will wear self-contained breathing units in some areas of even a normal condition nuclear power plant. This applies even more so when cleaning up a problem in one.

As for the rest of us... unless you're in Japan, and more specifically on Honshu, and even more specifically a limited area of Honshu, this is not an issue for you. Period. Even in Japan the risk is almost entirely limited to people working at the plant – which I'm positive you are not – and possibly, maybe, perhaps, the immediate area around the affected plant.

You clearly demonstrate continuing ignorance on the subject(s) being discussed, you fail to distinguish relative risks, and you ARE overreacting.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I find it odd that the chicken little who is accusing everyone of underreacting is in fact OVERreacting.

[Zixinus]

It is also pretty clear the same thing that was mentioned earlier in this thread: no matter what the experts say, the public distrusts them and brakes down in hysteria while demanding the same to be done by everyone else.

EDIT:
Oh, and a slight bit of good news from the IAEA

According to a 25 March 2011 Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency press release, the results of the examinations indicated that the dose rate "of all the 66 children including 14 infants from 1 to 6 years old had no big difference from the level of background and was at the level of no problem in light of the view of Nuclear Safety Commission."

Not much overall, but one less thing to worry about for the people over there.

[cosmicalstorm]

Here is another insane video showing the destruction brought on by the tsunami in Japan.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3a7_1301163352

[Sea Skimmer]

Reports from Japan say radioactivity in water at reactor 2 at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant is 10 million times the usual level.

27 March 2011 Last updated at 00:33 ET

Japan workers pulled out of reactor, as radiation soars
Lighting restored in control room of Unit 2 reactor at Fukushima, 26 March Lighting is restored in the control room of reactor 2 at Fukushima
Continue reading the main story
Japan quake

Reports from Japan say radioactivity in water at reactor 2 at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant is 10 million times the usual level.

Workers trying to cool the reactor core to avoid a meltdown have been evacuated, Reuters news agency says.

Earlier, Japan's nuclear agency that levels of radioactive iodine in the sea near the plant have risen to 1,850 times the usual level.

The UN's nuclear agency has warned the crisis could go on for months.

It is believed the radiation at Fukushima is coming from one of the reactors, but a specific leak has not been identified.

The plant's operator has been berated for a lack of transparency.

The government said Tokyo Electric Power Co had to provide information more promptly.

The nation's nuclear agency said the operator of the Fukushima plant had made a number of mistakes, including worker clothing.

The plant was damaged in the deadly 11 March earthquake and tsunami.

The death toll has now passed 10,000, and more than 17,440 people are missing.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has now sent extra teams to the Japanese nuclear plant.

The radiation found in the sea will no longer be a risk after eight days because of iodine's half-life, officials say.
Fresh water

Japanese government spokesman Yukio Edano said Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) had to be more transparent in the wake of an incident this week in which three workers were exposed to radiation levels 10,000 times higher than normal, suffering burns.

The BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the Japanese government has tried to reassure people about the plant's safety

"We strongly urge Tepco to provide information to the government more promptly," Mr Edano said.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (Nisa), said two injured workers were wearing boots that only came up to their ankles and afforded little protection.

He said Tepco also knew of high air radiation at one reactor several days before the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant 240km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

"Regardless of whether there was an awareness of high radioactivity in the stagnant water, there were problems in the way work was conducted," Mr Nishiyama said.
Mourners in Yamamoto, 26 March Mass burials have been held, including here at Yamamoto

He said Tepco had been warned and measures to improve safety had been put in place.

He said that leakage from reactors had probably caused the high levels of radiation found in water at the Fukushima plant.

Emergency workers are continuing to cool the reactors in an effort to prevent a meltdown. They have now switched to using more favoured fresh water as a coolant, rather than sea water.

There had been fears the salt in sea water could further corrode machinery. The fresh water is being pumped in so that contaminated radioactive water can be extracted.

The team of more than 700 engineers has found radioactive water in three of the six reactors.

Four of the reactors are still considered volatile.

The US 7th Fleet is sending barges loaded with 500,000 gallons of fresh water.

Mr Edano said: "We seem to be keeping the situation from turning worse. But we still cannot be optimistic."
Iodine

Mr Amano told the New York Times that Japan was "still far from the end of the accident".

Although he saw some "positive signs", particularly the restoration of electric power, he said: "More efforts should be done to put an end to the accident."
Continue reading the main story
A child holds bottled water in Tokyo, Japan (24 March 2011)

* Q&A: Health effects of radiation
* A new way to look at radiation

His main fears were that the lack of coolant would mean spent fuel rods would remain exposed to the air, and then heat up, releasing radioactive material.

China, Singapore, Hong Kong and other Asian importers have banned some imports of vegetables, seafood and milk products for fear of contamination.

Australia, the European Union, the United States and Russia have followed suit.

Meanwhile in Japan's tsunami disaster zone, the military has helped supply food and water and has continued clearing areas to try to recover more bodies.

There has been a need for mass burials in some areas along the coast.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are still housed in temporary shelters such as gymnasiums.

The Japanese government has put the rebuilding cost at $309bn (£191.8bn).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12872707

This story is just coming out, the reading is from the turbine hall next to the reactor no.2. Quick maths by me suggest that 10 million times normal levels would be in the range of 340 rems per hour. The LD50 dosage for short term (under an hour) gamma ray exposure is 500 rems! So its certain now that a major leak exists in at least one reactor, I mean we knew that already but until now we could dream it was just a little bit.