Nuke Crisis : Level 7 on overall impact

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A post by Mycologist Paul Stamets on continuing releases of radioactive water from Fukushima:

Source: https://www.facebook.com/PaulStamets 6 Jan 2014

Continuing the discussion:

"Again.... the problem is compounding and if the radioactive leaks are not stopped, there will be increasing concentrations, and some plumes will pollute the food chains, especially proximate to Fukushima or areas impacted by concentrated streams. It is good people are concerned - they should and must be - but this is an unfolding disaster, with few good options in sight, and becomes more problematic every day.

I concur with David Suzuki on this

http://ecowatch.com/2013/10/09/fukushima-radiation-safe-to-eat-fish/

It takes one generation to pollute - and many generations to clean it up. My father was a nuclear scientist/engineer and we argued many times about the danger of nuclear waste. He conceded that the storage of nuclear waste could be a ticking time-bomb if we could not contain it, especially the long lived radionucleotides.

We owe it to future generations to be ecologically rational. Fukushima is not the last nuclear power plant to crash. And I think the argument that nuclear power is the solution to offset global warming is inherently flawed if we do not find a solution to these types of disasters and the spent fuel.

We are doing experiments with Lawrence Livermore Labs on the feasibility of up-channelling Cesium 134 (safer for the lab tests) from the soil into the mushrooms. A quirk of nature is that mushrooms are very high in potassium, up to 5+%, and some mushrooms can substitute cesium for potassium, metabolically. The concept here is to remove cesium from the top few inches of soil, the mycelium will up-channel to cesium into the fruitbodies, thus decontaminating the soil without having to discard it - yet another ecological disaster. The mushrooms are then sequestered, and the problem is reduced (not solved) by several orders of magnitude. The research is on-going, and species-specificity is one of many factors. (Some species hyperaccumulate cesium better than others.)

Be aware, keep informed, be skeptical, and read the research. We are on this Earthship together. We need a new ecological/economic metric that places value on the long term consequences inflicted by those whose motivations are short term and solely profit driven. I think investing in nature, rich in solutions which have tested over millions of years, is the first place to look for answers. This is deeply personal to me: Nature speaks to us - will we listen ? I am trying to."
 
Indications appear that biological changes in the vicinity of Fukushima are similar to those in the 1000 square mile Chernobyl exclusion zone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/science/nature-adapts-to-chernobyl.html
Video at link

“This level of chronic exposure is above what most species will tolerate without showing some signs, either in terms of how long they live or in the number of tumors they have, or genetic mutations and cataracts,” Dr. Mousseau said....

Dr. Mousseau has expanded his work to include similar studies in Japan — he’s made about 10 trips there. Already, he said, he is seeing some Chernobyl-like effects in the contaminated area around the Fukushima plant, but he needs to gather data for at least a few more years before he can be confident about the impact.

“If we find the same sort of dose response in both places,” he said, “that provides incredible strength to the hypothesis that it is indeed radiation that is leading to these negative impacts.”
 
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...hyroid-cancer-jumps-17-december/#.U5aH8vldXpA

FUKUSHIMA – The Fukushima Prefectural Government has confirmed in a new report that 50 children in the prefecture have developed thyroid cancer, an increase of 17 from previous study last December, sources said Monday.

The latest report, made Monday to an expert panel examining the results of health checkups on Fukushima residents, also detailed 39 children suspected of having developed cancer, sources said.

The cancer figure was taken at the end of March among Fukushima residents who were 18 or younger at the time of the March 2011 nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant.
 
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...hyroid-cancer-jumps-17-december/#.U5aH8vldXpA

FUKUSHIMA – The Fukushima Prefectural Government has confirmed in a new report that 50 children in the prefecture have developed thyroid cancer, an increase of 17 from previous study last December, sources said Monday.

The latest report, made Monday to an expert panel examining the results of health checkups on Fukushima residents, also detailed 39 children suspected of having developed cancer, sources said.

The cancer figure was taken at the end of March among Fukushima residents who were 18 or younger at the time of the March 2011 nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant.

After studying data provided so far, including the new cancer figures, the panel said it was difficult to determine that a causal link existed between the children’s cancers and the triple meltdown at the nuclear plant.

The Fukushima health examination program covers some 370,000 residents. Of them, some 80 percent have already received the checkups.

Once the results of the first round checkups become available, likely in August, the panel will again assess the thyroid cancer numbers and any possible connection between the cancers and the accident, the sources said.

The comments are worth reading as well as well.

On the other hand, the screening process - which consists of specialists using highly sensitive equipment to look specifically for that specific kind of growth even in symptomless patients - picks up more cancers and far in advance of them generating symptoms in the patient. When you screen an 18-year-old woman for thyroid cancer, you are looking for not only the thyroid cancer that may appear this year, but the cancer that may become obvious next year, or when she's 21, 22, 23 etc.

In effect, a screening programme picks up many years' worth of cancers in one sweep, and is far less likely to miss any cancers, fail to register those cancers or misdiagnose those cancers as not being thyroid cancer. This is the "screening effect" and it is well-known in research. If you look aggressively for a condition, in the initial stages at least, you will find far more cases than one might naively expect.

For example, if we assume for simplicity that thyroid cancers may be latent (but detectable by sensitive screening) for ten years, a screening programme wouldn't simply expect to find 0.7 cancers in a cohort of 100,000 18 year old women. We'd expect to find ten more years' worth, remembering that that 18-year old will get older and the probability of developed clinical cancer increases every year (using age group averages for simplicity): 0.7 the next year as well, 3.1 every year for five years after that (moving into a more susceptible age group), and 4.9 every year for three years after that. Which would be 31.6 cases picked up from screening 100,000 18 year old women - not 0.7. Actually, even more than that as we would less likely miss cases, and we would pick up tumours that would either not develop far enough to be clinical, or that would have gone into spontaneous remission.

Rather than just taking the FEAR, why not see what the whole story is?
 
I reported a cancer cluster. I didn't assign cause.

Why are you presuming to tell me why I was motivated to post? Sorry man - that's not your job and you have no idea.

Why do you feel it necessary to protect the nuclear power industry so rabidly? Don't they do that sufficiently well already?


Expanding a bit - there are plenty of other articles now and there are plenty of commenters. Which should be heeded and which ignored? Should we assign more validity to the politicians that have essentially blocked reporting on the aftermath or of families that are actually living there and say they see things that officials will not recognize?
http://rt.com/news/japan-state-secrets-law-712/

If there is no reason for concern, why is potassium iodide the first treatment when people are exposed to radioactive events? (And why have US states issued KI tablets to citizens living near nuclear power plants?) Don't we already know that the thyroid is the canary in the coal mine? If there is no threat to children around Fukushima, why are their movements restricted and why can't they play outside?

Yet again, Wet - I am NOT against nuclear power. But I'm also not going to ignore things that happen when power plants break.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...ar-accident-cancer-cluster-thyroid-chernobyl/
Wow, where do you get your information? from the NRC? Tepco? Japanese Gov't?

Near Fukushima there were counts of 4,000 CPM on the grounds and decks of preschools where cesium had bound firmly to surfaces, requiring sanding or sandblasting to remove from the surfaces.

These were preschools where the children were due to arrive for school the very next day.

As for Chernobyl, I've met a young woman recently who was a child in Belarus during Chernobyl; in the years to follow she spent a lot of time in hospitals for immune system malfunctions, and she remembers that the wards were full "of children without hair", aka leukemia patients. Of course you should know that the soviets seeded the clouds over Belarus to rinse the radioactivity from the air before the plume hit mother Russia, so Belarus was heavily contaminated. Following this, the data collection of health effects was tailored to exclude evidence of radiation sickness and related ailments to make radiation seem benign.

The nuclear industry is terribly corrupt and has the PR machine to lie and mislead the public about results of nuclear contamination.

It's unfortunate that National Geographic has failed to investigate on the ground in communities in Japan.

Cancer cluster? nah, that would happen anywhere. It can't possibly be related.....dream on.

http://www.businessinsider.com/children-of-fukushima-who-play-outside-for-15-minutes-2014-3?op=1
Cities closest to the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant recommended that children up to 2 years old not spend more than 15 minutes outside each day.

A neighbor of mine is a MD/PhD biomedical researcher that emigrated from Moldova after Chernobyl. She reported that the situation on the ground is still very different from what one can find in the press (not in a good way).

http://www.vice.com/read/a-japanese-physician-is-encouraging-the-evacuation-of-tokyo
Do you think the media have been neglecting to cover the effects of radiation?
They are definitely not focusing on this particular concern. I believe the Japanese media have taken side with a small number of powerful people. I think the government has the responsibility of helping the patients to do so, but they aren't.

It's difficult to track effects when basic information isn't freely available.
 
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/07/3456862/typhoon-neoguri/
Heavy rains from another storm have already been setting records in Kyushu, Japan’s southern and southwestern-most major island, where Neoguri is likely to make first landfall. Kyushu is home to two nuclear plants, which have been shut down for safety in advance of the storm’s arrival. A nuclear plant on nearby Shikoku island has been shut down for safety, as well. After making landfall, the storm is expected to move north through virtually all of Japan, losing strength as it travels up the island.
Fukushima, in the east, is likely to be spared. The 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi plant focused attention on the vulnerability of nuclear plants, as radioactive water continued leaking for over a year after a tsunami and earthquake hit. Tokyo is also likely to miss Neoguri’s worst.
 
Another earthquake strikes near Fukushima:

Strong Quake Hits Japan Triggering Tsunami

98eb49a0-0939-11e4-a074-77732d1de959_AP742342315600XY.jpg
 
In "The Gift That Keeps On Giving" category...

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/12/25/1412814112.full.pdf
Arrival of the Fukushima radioactivity plume in North
American continental waters
Significance

The radionuclide results in this report represent the first
systematic study, to our knowledge, of the arrival of the
Fukushima radioactivity signal in continental waters off North
America. The present time series results are critical to an understanding
of the circulation of Fukushima tracers in the
eastern North Pacific and to the tuning and validation of ocean
circulation models that are being used to predict the future
evolution of this signal. They are also important for informing
the public of the magnitude of the Fukushima radioactivity
signal in North American continental waters and enabling a
science-based assessment of the significance of its potential
effects on human health and the environment.
 
... had increased to a value of 2 Bq/m3 throughout the upper 150 m of the water column, resulting in an overall doubling of the fallout background from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. ...
In comparison you get 15 Bq from eating a banana.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Radiation-and-Health/Nuclear-Radiation-and-Health-Effects/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
DanCar said:
... had increased to a value of 2 Bq/m3 throughout the upper 150 m of the water column, resulting in an overall doubling of the fallout background from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. ...
In comparison you get 15 Bq from eating a banana.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Radiation-and-Health/Nuclear-Radiation-and-Health-Effects/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
According to the world nuclear.org web site. ;) Since all bananas are the same size and have exactly the same soil, I'm sure that's a uniform number...

It doesn't matter, however, how we try to trivialize the damage because even the nuclear industry doesn't know how low levels will affect things. Some types of low-level radiation make seeds germinate more quickly while some stop germination entirely. It's a bit of a crap shoot - we know much, more more about the effects of high level/short duration exposure than chronic low-level exposure. This and continued study around Chernobyl are starting to fill in some of the blank pages...

Speaking of the continued experiment:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/04/fukushima-rice_n_6414612.html
TOKYO, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Fukushima rice passed Japan's radiation checks for the first time since the 2011 nuclear disaster that prompted international alarm over the region's produce, a prefectural official said.

Fukushima official Tsuneaki Oonami said about 360,000 tonnes of rice, nearly all of last year's harvest, had been checked and none had tested above the 100 becquerels per kilogram limit set by the government.
There's a bit larger bunch of bananas, especially for a group of people that relies on rice as much as Japan does...
 
AndyH said:
According to the world nuclear.org web site. ;) Since all bananas are the same size and have exactly the same soil, I'm sure that's a uniform number...

It doesn't matter, however, how we try to trivialize the damage because even the nuclear industry doesn't know how low levels will affect things. Some types of low-level radiation make seeds germinate more quickly while some stop germination entirely. It's a bit of a crap shoot - we know much, more more about the effects of high level/short duration exposure than chronic low-level exposure. This and continued study around Chernobyl are starting to fill in some of the blank pages...
The point is that banana was the lowest on the chart. Those low levels are so low, that they are indeed trivial compared to other sources of radiation.
 
DanCar said:
AndyH said:
According to the world nuclear.org web site. ;) Since all bananas are the same size and have exactly the same soil, I'm sure that's a uniform number...

It doesn't matter, however, how we try to trivialize the damage because even the nuclear industry doesn't know how low levels will affect things. Some types of low-level radiation make seeds germinate more quickly while some stop germination entirely. It's a bit of a crap shoot - we know much, more more about the effects of high level/short duration exposure than chronic low-level exposure. This and continued study around Chernobyl are starting to fill in some of the blank pages...
The point is that banana was the lowest on the chart. Those low levels are so low, that they are indeed trivial compared to other sources of radiation.
Assigning "trivial" to a level of anything is a judgment best done with supporting data. As already pointed out, we don't have enough data yet to declare that it's 'trivial' in isolation - much less when the material is being fed into a complex system that's being stressed by other forces.

While bananas are fine for 170 lb adult humans and their offspring, that same dose is expected to be a bit more harsh on plankton.
 
LeftieBiker said:
We should be fearing our own inability to deal with macro-scale disasters.
I wouldn't classify Fukishima as a macro scale disaster. As previously stated the radiation levels are barely detectable compared to other sources. On the flip side, fear is good. Only the paranoid survive and will make things safer.
 
DanCar said:
LeftieBiker said:
We should be fearing our own inability to deal with macro-scale disasters.
I wouldn't classify Fukishima as a macro scale disaster. As previously stated the radiation levels are barely detectable compared to other sources. On the flip side, fear is good. Only the paranoid survive and will make things safer.
One thing we know for sure: Since humans have existed on the planet the ones with the most blind hubris have led their followers to a less-than-fun time on this spinning rock...

Do you really think that the nuclear industry is short on shills?

Even college freshmen in the US are informed about how easily genetic mutations happen and how not all of them are repairable by the host organism. But hey - some in big pharma think that cancer is a good thing, so there's something on the planet for everyone to love...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/03/pacific-coast-sea-bird-dead_n_6411188.html
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Scientists are trying to figure out what's behind the deaths of seabirds that have been found by the hundreds along the Pacific Coast since October....
"To be this lengthy and geographically widespread, I think is kind of unprecedented," Phillip Johnson, executive director of the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition, told the Salem Statesman Journal (http://stjr.nl/1CZBwvU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). "It's an interesting and somewhat mysterious event."

The birds appear to be starving to death, so experts don't believe a toxin is the culprit, said Julia Burco, a wildlife veterinarian for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

But why the birds can't find food is a mystery....
Or a warmer, more acidic ocean could be affecting the supply of tiny zooplankton, such as krill, that the birds eat.
Or something else that's changed in the N Pacific ecosystem might be the cause.

This environmental science student thinks that ocean life should be able to keep their DNA on their terms, not ours. I also think that any nation not putting the precautionary principle at the top of their 'always do' list is building up plenty of less-than-good karma...
 
DanCar said:
LeftieBiker said:
We should be fearing our own inability to deal with macro-scale disasters.
I wouldn't classify Fukishima as a macro scale disaster.
While it's heartening to know that the Fukushima disaster doesn't cross your personal danger threshold, it is bouncing off the ceiling of the highest level of 'nasty' that the nuclear disaster folks track. It's a 7 out of 7 - which is in the same ballpark as Chernobyl. Except that Chernobyl didn't continue to dump millions of tons of contaminated water into the world's largest fisheries for years after it blew the way Fukushima continues to do.
DanCar said:
As previously stated the radiation levels are barely detectable compared to other sources. On the flip side, fear is good. Only the paranoid survive and will make things safer.
It's easy to make off-angle comments to try to trivialize concerns, isn't it? Keep something in mind, DanCar: While many humans believe they're at the 'top of the food chain' and therefore there will 'always' be plenty for us to eat, we're actually part of a complex food web and our existence relies on the stability of that web. The relatively low but chronic emissions from Japan are negatively affecting the bottom of the web. Climate change, our chemical pollution, radioactive water, and all the other garbage we're choosing to ignore is already negatively impacting the human experience - and it's just getting started.

Denial might provide temporary relief from pangs of conscience, but it will not stop the damage done when the consequences roll in.
 
We used to believe that "dilution was the solution to pollution." Now we know better. We're also starting to understand that we're not the most important animal on the planet. We're very likely to be the most destructive, though.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M18HxXve3CM[/youtube]


Some think that more nuclear power is the solution to our carbon problem. Maybe that's as backwards as thinking that all that radioactive waste will just 'go away.'
 
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