To the author of this article: I will believe you if you agree to move to Fukushima and live there for the rest of your life.
The Panic Over Fukushima
21–30 of 116 posts
Re: The Panic Over Fukushima
#22> Looking back more than a year after the event, it is clear that the Fukushima reactor complex, though nowhere close to state-of-the-art, was adequately designed to contain radiation. New reactors can be made even safer, of course, but the bottom line is that Fukushima passed the test. He made a good argument that new cancer cases are statistically few, but I can't see what test Fukushima passed. As far as I know th…
But it could have been much worse, say like Chernobyl, and it wasn't due to good engineering.
How could it have been like Chernobyl? The Fukushima reactors didn't have graphite moderators.
Totally different reactor technologies, equivocating them is spurious at best.
Re: The Panic Over Fukushima
#23As an experiment, I volunteer to expose myself, my wife and my children to a yearly dose of radiation that is three times the maximum safe-level recommended by The International Commission on Radiological Protection. i.e. we happily live in the Denver area ;-)
Really? Are you serious?
BTW, there's a big difference between "background radiation" and ingested radiation (either through air, food, water, etc.)
The scientific consensus is that there is no amount of radiation that is safe to ingest.
http://www.rrjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.1667/RR2629.1
Do you really want to test your theory?
Re: The Panic Over Fukushima
#24[deleted]
Re: The Panic Over Fukushima
#25As an experiment, I volunteer to expose myself, my wife and my children to a yearly dose of radiation that is three times the maximum safe-level recommended by The International Commission on Radiological Protection. i.e. we happily live in the Denver area ;-)
Really? Are you serious? BTW, there's a big difference between "background radiation" and ingested radiation (either through air, food, water, etc.) The scientific consensus is that there is no amount of radiation that is safe to ingest. http://www.rrjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.1667/RR2629.1 Do you really want to test your theory?
You're missing his point, which is that he lives in Denver and is happy with his decision. :)
Re: The Panic Over Fukushima
#26Physicist Richard Muller should clearly demonstrate his beliefs by moving to Fukushima, instead of discussing the panic from the other side of the world. And he should also put nuclear risks in perspective, and contradict Seaborg: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/a_is_for_atom....
He should leave his tenured position at a major university to demonstrate his conviction? That's not a meaningful point or challenge.
Re: The Panic Over Fukushima
#27I don't know of any authoritative resources on radiation->cancer risk, can anyone provide more information? The article starts out with a cool premise but I have a hard time swallowing the linear rem->%chance relationship described here "If 25 rem gives you a 1% chance of getting cancer, then a dose of 2,500 rem (25 rem times 100) implies that you will get cancer (a 100% chance)"
That's about where the author lost me. Up to that point, he seemed to be pulling numbers from research, but then he makes a transition to pulling numbers and formulas out of his ass. For example, I'm not convinced that "if spread out over 1,000 people, so that everyone received 2.5 rem on average" is a valid deduction.
He then goes on to explain how "to know how many excess cancers there will be." I listened to an interview with a radiation expert [1] a couple weeks ago, and he made it very clear that we don't know how to make those calculations that the author of this article is claiming to know how to make. If I were to try to regurgitate the points from the interview, I'd risk spreading a misunderstanding of the issues. So instead, if you're interested in what the experts think on this subject, you can refer to the original source [1].
[1] http://www.pointofinquiry.org/nuclear_risk_and_reason_david_...
Re: The Panic Over Fukushima
#28[deleted]
Re: The Panic Over Fukushima
#29I don't know of any authoritative resources on radiation->cancer risk, can anyone provide more information? The article starts out with a cool premise but I have a hard time swallowing the linear rem->%chance relationship described here "If 25 rem gives you a 1% chance of getting cancer, then a dose of 2,500 rem (25 rem times 100) implies that you will get cancer (a 100% chance)"
Unfortunately, we don't have the data. Yep, it's non linear, but all of our data is basically on two ends of the spectrum. Low amounts of radiation on one end, accumulated from natural sources or working at nuclear plants, and high amounts of radiation on the other, accumulated from survivors of Hiroshima, Cherynobyl, and some nuclear accidents. So, given those data points, with clusters on two ends of this spectrum…
A little radiation is good for you!
The science says otherwise.
http://www.rrjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.1667/RR2629.1
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/04/low-level-doses-of-ra...
Re: The Panic Over Fukushima
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? Are you serious? BTW, there's a big difference between "background radiation" and ingested radiation (either through air, food, water, etc.) The scientific consensus is that there is no amount of radiation that is safe to ingest. http://www.rrjournal.org/doi/pdf/10.1667/RR2629.1 Do you really want to test your theory?
You're missing his point, which is that he lives in Denver and is happy with his decision. :)
I was pointing out that the (background) radiation in Denver is not the same as the fallout from Fukushima.