If you don't have enough to worry about

[JackLuis]

Fukushima contamination ‘chronic and lasting’: French agency

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/fukushima-reactor-afp.jpg

PARIS — Radioactive contamination levels from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant have fallen sharply since the accident but will be “chronic and lasting” for many years, a French watchdog said Tuesday.

It gave a provisional estimate that 408 peta-becquerels, or 408 million billion becquerels, of radioactive iodine had been emitted into the air.

I don't even want to know how much a peta-becquerel is.

 

[JackLuis]

Then I saw this!

Union of Concerned Scientists: U.S. nuclear oversight too lax

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Virginia-nuclear-power-generation-stations-via-AFP.jpg

The report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in its study found 15 cases of safety equipment problems and security shortcomings at 13 nuclear plants last year, calling that number “high.”

Titled “The NRC and Nuclear Power Plant Safety in 2011: Living on Borrowed Time,” the UCS report said no plant employees or members of the public were harmed in the incidents.

But the lapses nevertheless were deemed serious enough to warrant special inspections by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which is tasked with oversight of the industry and which itself had a mixed record in responding to the problems.

I hope the NRC is more effective that the SEC proved to be. A little rescission is nothing compared to wiping out Richmond, or Dallas.

 

[Angellica1612]

Scary thought. Of course, most government agencies make few mistakes and are tightly and efficiently run, right? Right? Hello?

This might not be good.

 

[sr71plt]

As opposed to who?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

As opposed to who?

Precisely! That's why no organization should be immune from oversight. Humanity, thy name is Stupid!

 

[Tyro999]

Google and wikipedia are your friends at a time like this.

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

Aren't you glad you asked?

 

[JackLuis]

Google and wikipedia are your friends at a time like this.

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

Aren't you glad you asked?

I said I didn't want to know, but I read it and I still don't know.

But 31 petra Becquerels sure sounds like a lot of active isotopes!

Of course that's spread over a lot of square miles, so I just wonder how far from Fucishima the food crops are still acceptable? I guess it was fortunate that the population was pushed out of the more heavily dosed areas by the Tsunami, or maybe not?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Never forget that a politician is your brother in law if he had any money.

 

[oggbashan]

Number of Japanese dead from earthquake and tsunami - 10,000

Number of Japanese dead from nuclear meltdown - Zero.

 

[Handley_Page]

I don't even want to know how much a peta-becquerel is.

peta: it's a lot. imagine a 10 with 15 noughts after it ?

See:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peta-

and

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

 

[JackLuis]

Number of Japanese dead from earthquake and tsunami - 10,000

Number of Japanese dead from nuclear meltdown - Zero.

That is only so far. Who knows what the future will bring with the radiation lasting for how long?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

It was one of those things that somehow missed the media but except for those who died soon after the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombs from radiation sickness, the doctors, both U.S. and Japanese were surprised at how few people actually succumbed to long term effects of fallout. I suppose some tinfoil-hat-sort would start screaming about how the government was hiding the info from us for nefarious purposes but the story is out there. It just takes looking for. This came as a great surprise to the medical world because they well remembered Marie Curie and the radium dial girls and the nasty cancers they came down with. I'm sure someone has an explanation but it wasn't clear at the time I saw the report.