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As the reactors have now dumped thousands of tons of nuclear runoff water into the ocean which then drifts to the North American West Coast, is this not something we should be much more aware of and acting to protect against? Is the US West Coast at danger of increased incidence rates of radiation related illness?
Wikipedia says the USS Ronald Regan has a total crew of 5,680. How statistically significant is 70 people out of 5,680 suffering serious health problems over 2.5 years? I'm guessing that most people on board were fairly young and in good health.
This doesn't mean anything, its technobabble. How many REM or mSv total exposure?
"I said something complicated and science-y sounding, so you are supposed to be scared right now".
The biggest misfortune is they may even accidentally be correct, just completely incompetent about it.
A big epidemiology problem is identifying the actual cause by symptom, and avoiding the assumption that participation in something big and scary therefore means all problems must be caused by big n scary. Some goofball tipping over a barrel of solvent in the maint bay could cause many cancers later, and is marginally more likely.
It was much worse than was reported. An online forum of nuclear engineers (I may still have the link) was the most informative source of news about the disaster at the time. EDIT: found the link. http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=8b5b840e5e9217...
Wikipedia says the USS Ronald Regan has a total crew of 5,680. How statistically significant is 70 people out of 5,680 suffering serious health problems over 2.5 years? I'm guessing that most people on board were fairly young and in good health.
Radiation overdose is happy to cause you all kind of cancer 50 years down the road. Having been overexposed is really not something you want, even if you don't show symptoms so quickly. The psychological pressure on these people alone must be maddening. Imagine waking up every day for the rest of your life and wondering if you have cancer today? Not good.. Edit: and let's not talk about the increased likelihood of di…
30% of us will have it at some point, also you have chance 1 in 1000-2000 that you'll die next year.
As the reactors have now dumped thousands of tons of nuclear runoff water into the ocean which then drifts to the North American West Coast, is this not something we should be much more aware of and acting to protect against? Is the US West Coast at danger of increased incidence rates of radiation related illness?
A failed multimillion-dollar radiation-detection system. Why didn't they have this activated? "The toxic seawater was sucked into the ship’s desalinization system, flowing out of its faucets and showers — still radioactive — and into the crew member’s bodies."
They could have sidestepped the whole issue with a simple reverse-osmosis water filter. Somehow I get the impression that they did not think the ABC (edit: CBRN) thing through.
A Nimitz class carrier can produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 400,000 gallons of desalinated (potable) water a day. Desalination is very energy intensive, but energy is something that a nuclear powered carrier has plenty of. There are obviously some consumables involved, but it's mostly just energy, and lots of it.
RO, on the other hand, requires a lot of high quality, small pore filters and membranes that need to be cleaned and changed regularly. RO systems have dramatically lower throughputs than desalination systems of similar size. An RO system capable of producing 400,000 gallons/day (especially one capable of filtering radioisotopes that are (while larger than a water molecule), still quite small) would be very large, and very maintenance intensive.
But hey... you're probably right... The folks who designed the potable water infrastructure for the Nimitz class aircraft carriers were probably idiots...
It was much worse than was reported. An online forum of nuclear engineers (I may still have the link) was the most informative source of news about the disaster at the time. EDIT: found the link. http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=8b5b840e5e9217...
I hope I won't offend anyone by saying that some of the reported health problems after radioactive disaster are usually exaggerated to get reparations.
This is why I wouldn't let my kids EVER enlist. The government has no regard for its enlisted. Doesn't take a genius to think our navy would be in harm's way during a RADIOACTIVE DISASTER. Reminds me of when soldiers were being electrocuted in showers in Iraq because of totally incompetent contractors wiring electricity near the showers.
The details of which are the showers needed water pumps,and the water pumps were not properly grounded.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Radiation overdose is happy to cause you all kind of cancer 50 years down the road. Having been overexposed is really not something you want, even if you don't show symptoms so quickly. The psychological pressure on these people alone must be maddening. Imagine waking up every day for the rest of your life and wondering if you have cancer today? Not good.. Edit: and let's not talk about the increased likelihood of di…
> Imagine waking up every day for the rest of your life and wondering if you have cancer today? Not good.. 30% of us will have it at some point, also you have chance 1 in 1000-2000 that you'll die next year.
You have a 1000-2000 chance that you'll die when you are no longer an infant but still young. Your chances of dying next year go up as your get older. If you had only 1 chance in 1000 to die each year that would mean that people would live to be 1000 years old on average.
A good estimate of human mortality rates can be calculated from Gompertz law: http://forio.com/simulate/mbean/death-probability-calculator...