Report From Tokyo: The Spread of Radioactivity

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-wagner/daiichi-fukushima_b_872887.html

Posted: 06/ 7/11 09:12 PM ET

The greatest concern for people living anywhere near the Daiichi Fukushima nuclear plant these days is the spread of radioactivity emanating from the facility. In recent days, several reports paint a dire picture of what is happening in Japan.

On June 7, Japanese authorities officially doubled the release of radioactivity for the initial days of the crisis to 770,000 terabecquerels, bringing the total close to 40 percent of official emissions estimates made by the Soviets during the Chernobyl crisis.

Radiation from the plant has spread over 600 square kilometers (230 square miles). Soil samples showed one site with radiation from Cesium-137 exceeding 5 million becquerels per square meter about 25 kilometers to the northwest of the Fukushima plant.

Cesium has a half-life of about 30 years. The longer it stays on the ground, the deeper it penetrates the soil and increases the risk of radioactivity entering underground water.

[SheilaT]

1. What in god's name

is a terabecquerels, and how much is 770,000 of them? It seems as though every time I read about the radiation there it's expressed in a different unit of some kind, and it's really hard to know just how dangerous the actual radiation release has been.

[intaglio]

2. A Becquerel - also called a B***er-all - of nuclear material is

1 radioactive emission per second

A terabecquerel is an amount of material that produces 10^12 emissions per second and might be re-named a f'n huge amount of stuff.

A gray and a sievert are measurements of the amount of energy absorbed i.e. 1 joule per kilogram in both cases. The difference is that a gray (Gy) measures all absorbed radiation whilst a sievert (Sv) measures only absorbed radiation that causes damage and is found by applying a weighting factor (a fudge) to the number of grays.

You might guess that Sv is the preferred unit of measurement because it is so much smaller than other units for the same mass of radioactive material. A nuclear apologist will insist you are wrong and minimising nuclear accidents are the furthest thing from their minds.
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OH, LOOK!!! A Dirigible walrus!!!!

[Dan Seavey]

3. Exactly...

I know what some of the more common ones are, but why is every report using a different scale? It's like if the weather was reported randomly in Kelvins, Rankines, Newtons, Rømers, Delisles and Réaumurs, you'd never be able to keep track of what its going to be outside...

[madokie]

6. Dan It is done for one reason and one reason only

To keep us confused as to what is really going on. Its as simple as that. This kind of bullshit is why we stopped Public Service Company of Oklahoma, PSO, from building a nuclear power plant about 11 miles upwind from where I live today back in the 70s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Fox_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[NNN0LHI]

7. We did the same thing in the 70's with one about 20 miles from where we live now

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailly_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Bailly Nuclear Power Plant

The Bailly Nuclear Power Plant was proposed by the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) in 1967. It was to be a 644 MW plant located at the corporation's Bailly site near the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, but it was never built.

Concerned Citizens Against the Bailly Nuclear Site was established in 1972. The Concerned Citizens concentrated on opposition through legal action in the courts, the Atomic Energy Commission, and later the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. When NIPSCO decided in August 1981 to cancel plans for the plant, the Concerned Citizens group had achieved its primary objective, and it disbanded in 1982.

The Bailly Generating Station, a coal-fired electrical generating plant, has operated since 1962 on a site adjacent to the proposed Bailly nuclear power plant.

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If this one had built and turned out like Fukushima the prevailing winds would have carried the released radiation right across Lake Michigan and over Chicago.

[madokie]

8. You and I know what its like to fight the nuke boys then

many here have no idea or are too young to have been aware when the bulk of the nuclear power plants were being built.
I was fresh home from being lied to into a war that should never have been and one afternoon of listening to the nukies talking their shit about how safe nuclear energy was was a no-brainer for me to be in opposition. At the time I lived 20 miles downwind of their site and no way was I going to sit on my ass and let them build this without my joining in the fight. Carrie Dickerson led the way. cost her everything she had but in the end PSO had to abandon the project even though they'd spent millions on site preparation already.

I've still got a little fight left in me too if the need arises.

[DeSwiss]

4. TEPCO says contaminated water may overflow.....

"TEPCO says that by May 31st, 105,100 tons of waste water had accumulated. It contains an estimated 720,000 terabecquerels of radioactive substances. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SCD_SOl12E&feature=player_detailpage#t=207s">Tera stands for one trillion."

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/03_31.html

[Prometheus Bound]

5. 770,000 of them is getting close to 1 million trillion becquerels

Would that be one sextillion (21 zeros)?

[SheilaT]

9. I do appreciate all the comments since I posted,

but I still have no real clue as to what exactly is happening in Japan, just how dangerous the radioactivity levels are, or how long it might last, or anything like that. You guys aren't responsible for my confusion, so please don't think I'm complaining about you.

I do believe that the situation there is quite unlike anything that's happened before, and that helps account for the confusion.