15 March 2011
False Radiation Rumors Run Rampant
Posted by Dan Satterfield
Whoever put this map out should face criminal charges IMHO
There is no doubt that what is happening at the Fukushima Nuclear plant in Japan is alarming. I’ve even seen reliable reports that one of the containment vessels may have been damaged in an explosion early Tuesday, Japan time. Unfortunately, some people are taking advantage of most people’s lack of any rudimentary knowledge about nuclear power to spread fear.
There’s a lot more unknown than there is known, but here is an update with some facts instead of rumors (as of 12:10 AM Tuesday March 14 U.S. CDT -2 PM Wed. 15 March in Tokyo). I urge you to also read some of the following blog posts that are providing accurate science on the situation.
Known facts (Much of this from WNN):
1.A loud noise was heard at reactor two (at around 6 AM Tokyo time) Tuesday morning. It’s almost certain this came from the suppression system, which is shaped like a donut (torus to be precise) below the reactor vessel. The reactor vessel is where the nuclear fuel is and it seems to be intact (late word: there is a distinct possibility that it’s not).The suppression system contains a lot of water and is used in an emergency to cool hot steam.
2. Radiation levels spiked after the pressure in the “torus” dropped from 3 to 1 atmospheres. This means the pressure inside the torus is the same as outside the plant. The whole thing (torus and reactor vessel) is surrounded by a thick steel and concrete structure that will hold any fuel from a melt down. I have seen no statements that this is damaged, but if so, that IS bad news.
3. Radiation levels reached 11,000 microseiverts/hr (briefly) after the “torus” noises. This is 1.1 rem of radiation per hour. A dose of 100 rems of radiation in 30 days will give you radiation sickness. Death is possible in less than 5% of the population if no medical attention is received. 350 rem of radiation is lethal to 50% of those exposed. The radiation has now dropped considerably, but just how much is unknown.
4. The average person gets a little less than half a rem per year by just living and eating and breathing. (See this post)
5. It is unknown what isotopes are producing the radiation (They likely know, but we do not). Cesium 137 has a half life of 30 days years, so it is not nearly as serious as radiation from Uranium 235 which has a half life of 4,740 million years.
6. The explosions at Fukushima 1 and 3 were caused by hydrogen produced by hot water coming in contact with fuel rods over 2200C. The reactor vessels in these two plants are still intact.
7. The worst news: The fuel rods have been totally exposed at reactor two and they cannot seem to cool this reactor (internal pressure inside is too high to pump water against it). It also seems POSSIBLE that the reactor containment may have been breached. This is very serious.
8. I looked at the wind flow from NWP weather models this evening, and a surface low is going to rotate the air from near the plant cyclonically around Japan over the next 36 hours. Then a NW flow of air will develop and blow radiation out to sea. (See the model graphics.)
9. The radiation levels will drop dramatically by the time it spreads out across the Pacific. There is no need to worry if you live in North America.
Personal note:
You actually get more radiation living next door to a coal fired power plant than a nuclear facility. Particulate pollution from these dirty coal plants is causing millions of premature deaths worldwide, along with serious problems due to acid rain. The disruption to our planet from using coal and oil for energy is thousands of times greater and hundreds of times more deadly than nuclear power (even when you consider Chernobyl and Three Mile Island). Just ask the widow of a coal miner in China or West Virginia. Then stop by the Gulf Coast.
The next generation of nuclear power plants can be designed to be far safer than these old plants. You can even develop nuclear plans that produce spent fuel that is much lower in radioactivity than the plants in use now. If you really want to understand how it is possible, read Tom Blees book.
One last comment:
There are without doubt some serious safety issues raised by the catastrophe in Japan, but we have no choice about getting off of coal. It must be done and done soon. Anyone who tells you otherwise is giving you politics and not science. If the world had started working 15 years ago to develop green energy, then the amount of nuclear power needed to bridge the gap would be a lot less. Not now.
The world has done little to face up to the reality of rising CO2 levels. There are armies of extremist political ideologues who spend their energy calling climate scientists frauds. A rather scary collection of these folks can be found by searching for #AGW on Twitter. None of these people seem to have any science training, but they are right while all of the world’s top experts in climate physics are wrong! Silly, yes, but they have succeeded in delaying any real action to solve the problem.
So, the choice has been reduced to warming the planet into the significant danger zone or living with more nuclear power, while green energy like wind and solar is developed on a massive scale. Your senator may not like it, but unless he can repeal the laws of physics, he or she will just have to get over it.
Great post, Dan. Very informative. It would be neat to compare the radiation levels from living next to a coal plant to say, a banana dose, just to give a comparison as to how dangerous a coal plant is.
Can you clarify the statement at the top of the penultimate section of this post? You said, “You actually get more radiation living next door to a coal fired power plant than a nuclear facility.” But then the ensuing paragraphs don’t address where this radiation comes from or how it is transferred to people nearby. Thanks!
Good point- will do that in a detailed reply soon.
Having lived thru the 1950s how much larger were the plumes of radiation from the atmospheric blasts back then? Note of course that they blasted into the Stratosphere, which any radioactive particles would be extremely unlikely to do in these events. The plot looks like one from the 1950s from a bomb test, or a fallout diagram from a big volcanic event which again makes it into the stratosphere.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-26-01.html
I don’t know the validity of that website or the book that it talks about, but if its true….
The book states the radiation from Chernobyl reached the US 9 days after the disaster. I realize Chernobyl was a level 7 event, while the Japan disaster is currently at level 6, but there are more reactors at risk in Japan. And Japan is closer to North America than Chernobyl was.
So it seems either the website/book listed above are completely wrong, or North America could be in danger from the Japan disaster.
Thoughts?
The radiation did reach the USA after Chernobyl, but it caused no health problems. It was not that much above the background radiation levels here.
Ok. Now that the radiation has reached the West Coast, do we need to start to be concerned? I know the levels there currently are nothing to be concerned about, but my question is this:
Say the reactors spew radioactive material into the atmosphere for 30 days. Then, wouldn’t the amount of radiation in California grow for the next 30 days? THEN would there be enough to cause health problems? These radiation particles are going to be in the area for thousands of years, right?
The half life of the radiation particles emitted so far is likely about 30 days. If uranium is involved then the effects could be very long term. In Japan, near the plant and not in the U.S. Chernobyl was much worse than this, and you can get within 20 miles of it safely. Even a major melt down would be very unlikely to cause radiation levels to reach a level of any kind of health problem on the West Coast. You would get more radiation from reading a book on a granite rock in the sunshine than you will from the radiation that reached California today.
I hold a PhD in Atmospheric Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. I’m glad you clarified the inaccuracy of the map at the top of the post. However, in my opinon, this post has problems.
1. I find it sad that a person would use a disaster such as the one in Japan to advocate energy policy. Once you state that we should “get off coal”, you have gone from scientist to activist.
2. To state that “You actually get more radiation living next door to a coal fired power plant than a nuclear facility.” is only true if you live less than 1-2 miles from a coal-fired plant, and assume that there is no accident. Based on calculations from EPA, a person living in a home about 1 mile from a coal-fired power plant would only receive about 0.3 rem of extra radiation per year of radiation, about the same as the average background 0.3 rem you state a person receives anyway. CT-scans deliver up to 1 rem.
3. I do not consider climate scientists John Christy (UAH), Bill Gray (Colo. St.), Richard Lindzen (MIT), Fred Singer (UVA), Neil Frank (former director NHC), Lee Gerhard (Univ. Kansas), nor Will Happer (Princeton) “extremist political ideologues”. I assume you were not referring to them, despite their recent letter to Congress stating that the effects of climate change “may well be small to negligible”.
4. As stated by John Christy in his recent testimony to Congress, the globe is warming at a rate that is 1/3 what climate models predicted.
5. Also, even if one assumes anthropogenic global warming is occurring, any proposed energy legislation in the U.S. would produce only negligible results. Christy points out that most of the growth in emissions is in developing countries.
6. Solar and wind power are a great alternative. However, they are unreliable and prohibitively expensive. Power from coal costs about 5 cents per kWh to produce. Solar costs 20 cents. While wind only costs 5 cents, it is not windy enough in many parts of the US for this energy to be cost effective due to the power losses along the long lines necessary to transmit this power to less windy areas. President Obama admitted in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008 that “under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,”
7. We are still in a fragile economy with high unemployment, and, in my opinion we must not force billions of dollars of extra energy costs on Americans, based on the hope of reducing global climate change, especially when any actions we take may be negligible on a global scale. I hope that solar energy can be made much more affordable, and other alternative energy ideas come to the forefront. However, until they do, we can not afford large-scale changes to the power system.
Dr. Coleman,
Here are my responses to your points.
Pt. 1 The overwhelming scientific opinion is that we must stop burning coal, because the overwhelming scientific opinion is that we cannot keep increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere. Coal is by far the most intensive greenhouse fuel. I suspect every single one of the people you listed will answer yes to the question “Is CO2 increases warming the planet. Every major scientific body on Earth has endorsed the IPCC report. That seems like an overwhelming opinion to me.
Pt.2 What I said is absolutely correct and I stand by it 100%.
Pt.3 As for the extreme political ideologues, I was referring to those who think climate change is a hoax or that CO2 does not cause warming. I suspect every single one of the people you listed will answer yes to the question “are CO2 increases warming the planet”. If they do not think so then they are in the same category of biologists who disagree with natural selection or physicists who think the Moon landing was a hoax- about 2.5% of each group. The basic science has been understood for over a century.
Pt.4 Cherry pick here; Dr. Christy’s opinion, but not the consensus opinion.
Several others have gotten results that agree closely with the models. A good summary of the science on this question is here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=626
Also this response from Dr. Santer via Michael Tobis:
I have had a quick look at John Christy’s recent Congressional testimony. Many aspects of it are deeply troubling. From my own personal perspective, one of the most troubling aspects is that Christy cites a paper by David Douglass, John Christy, Benjamin Pearson, and S. Fred Singer. The Douglass et al. paper appeared in the online edition of the International Journal of Climatology (a publication of the Royal Meteorological Society) in December 2007.
Shortly after its publication, it became apparent that the authors of the Douglass et al. paper had applied a flawed statistical significance test. Application of this flawed test led them to reach incorrect scientific conclusions.
Together with a number of colleagues (including Gavin), I prepared a response to the Douglass et al. paper. Our response was published by the International Journal of Climatology in October 2008. (DOI: 10.1002/joc.1756) I am also appending a “fact sheet” providing some of the scientific context for both the Douglass et al. and Santer et al. International Journal of Climatology papers.)
To my knowledge, the Douglass et al. International Journal of Climatology paper has never been retracted. Nor have the authors acknowledged the existence of any statistical errors in their work. The fact that John Christy has now cited a demonstrably-flawed scientific paper in his Congressional testimony – without any mention of errors in the Douglass et al. paper – is deeply disturbing.
It is my opinion – and the opinion of many of my scientific colleagues – that the Douglass et al. International Journal of Climatology paper represents an egregious misuse of statistics. It is of great concern that this statistically-flawed paper has been used (and is still being used) as crucial “evidence of absence” of human effects on climate.
———————————————-
Benjamin D. Santer
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Note: I would gladly publish Dr. Christy’s response to this.
Point 5. I agree completely, it will take the entire world doing something. Interestingly China has accepted the science and is working hard at doing just that. So has the U.S. military.
As for points 6 and 7, I made no suggestions of how we get off coal nor whether we could afford it easily or not. I simply stated that the overwhelming mountain of evidence is that we must do so. How we do it, is a political question. If everyone in China uses as much oil per capita as the developed world, then demand will exceed supply and the cost of wind and solar could very well be quite cheap comparatively.
Numbers 6 and 7 are really the core issue. You, like most on your side of this issue, make no suggestions as to how we get off coal without producing enormous economic hardship, especially for the poor. I do not think increasing demand for oil and coal in China and India pushing its price up to where wind is competetive is a good thing for the economy. It just means everyone’s electricity bills would skyrocket. It would be great (except for the thousands of Americans with jobs in the coal and oil industry that no one talks about) to have the entire US on solar and wind power. But, it is not practical economically at this time, so why even talk about it?
It would be very helpful during severe weather events to have a 4,000 foot tall wall that may be raised along the entire Gulf Coast in the 48 hours before a potential severe weather event, keeping the Gulf boundary layer air from coming inland, keeping dewpoints lower, and preventing many tornadoes. But, it would cost billions of dollars and is not practical, so we don’t talk about its effects.
It would also help to place a million buoys in the Gulf with remotely deployable parachutes on towers, that could be deployed as a tropical storm passes overhead. These would “catch the wind”, slowing it down, causing the low pressure area to fill, weakening the storm. But, same thing, too expensive.
I tend to stay from the political side of the climate issue. It makes no difference to the science. A good read on how the planet can switch to a clean form of energy is Tom Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded. Most of the experts seem to believe that a combination of green energy with nuclear to bridge the gap is the best way to go. James Hanson suggests a direct carbon tax that slowly rises would produce a massive incentive to develop green energy that would eventually be cheaper than the fossil fuel energy.
Your original claim was for steering into policy, and now you complain that I did not cover policy.
[…] As untimely as it is (part of my problem with this to begin with), there is now a “debate” going on between me and Dan Satterfield regarding a post he made about Japan’s nuclear disaster where he brought up global warming. You can see it here. https://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2011/03/15/false-radiation-rumors-run-rampant/ […]
I am not a climatologist, nuclear physicist, meteorologists, politician nor an English major but I would like to inject my two cents! I did not see in your post where reactor #3 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant uses a different fuel than the other reactors on site. It’s what’s known as mox fuel. About 6 percent of the fuel rods in reactor #3 or mox which is mixed-oxide” (MOX) fuel, which contains plutonium as well as uranium. You know as well as I when you add plutonium in the mix, which by way has a half life of 24,000 years and just one minute particle of plutonium inhaled in the lungs would kill you in a day or two. With that being said we do not know what truths or lies are being told about the 6 reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant or the other plants that hardly mentioned. Anyways plutonium is a different ballgame it could affect Japan and surrounding areas for 10,000 years and yes if and only if a large amount drifted across the pacific that could spell double trouble. Regardless if the mox fuel melted down and released plutonium a large area of Japan will be uninhabitable for a long time. And on a side note about the argument on energy policies is neither here nor there. I for one know we need a change, it could have been done long ago just like a lot of things in the U.S. It all boils to down to roughly two things its called greed on one hand and being spoiled on the other. We need to come together as a nation and world and use something we have lost its call good old fashion common sense! But I fear that is a dirty word here in America.
Try paragraphs sometime dude. Also, you can hold plutonium in your hand. Inhaling it is dangerous in tiny particles but those are very difficult to produce and it will likely take weeks to kill you if you received a lethal dose.
I am not trying to lesson the impact of what is happening in Japan but it’s important to put it into perspective. Nuclear bomb tests in Nevada in the 60’s produced much more radiation in American than we will see from Japan. Not my opinion but basic physics.
Check out what people saying about “discussion” on abc3340 Blog!
Honestly, better and more interesting things to do and learn.
There is really no need to be rude, man. I highly doubt you have anything better to do anyway.
Actually that came across as rude and I really did not intend it to be so. My apologies for that.
I should have said that if someone wants make a comment they can email me. I tend not to pay much attention to political debates on climate change. Politics does not really interest me that much. The cost of climate change mitigation is irrelevant to the science, and those discussions tend to call people names, so I do not spend my time on them. I agree wholeheartedly with John Christy’s statement that some people will do anything to learn science except take a science class.
Dan, Dr. Tim-
Thank you both for expressing your opinion. I miss these debates sometime and I think they are very important. I’m a meteorology student and still have not formed a ground opinion on climate change. I do, however, recognize the the extreme views on both sides of the issue and I think you BOTH would agree to that.
I sure would like to hear a debate on this between you two.
I think it is important for students realize that while there are opposing views on any scientific question, at some point the amount of evidence reaches such an overwhelming level that science accepts the question as being answered. When 97.5% of scientists working in the field reach that point, then you are there.
Students in atmospheric science should look very closely at anything they see about climate change and the first question they should ask is “Is it published in a peer reviewed journal?” My all time favorite saying about science from Neil deGrasse Tyson covers it well:
The laws of physics are real, everything else is politics”
Basing one’s belief about an issue on what a certain percentage of people, even scientists, say about it is a very bad way of doing business. I’d love to know what “percentage” of NWS “scientists” used to go around telling people to open their windows during a tornado. Nothing wrong with science. I just wish I’d see more from you based on critical reasoning rather than the very lame “scientists say it, so it must be so”. This is no more open-minded than a six year old who believes Santa is real because “daddy wouldn’t lie”.
I think you misunderstand and that may be my fault.
The peer reviewed literature is far different than what someone looking for info on climate change finds online, or on air. The widespread belief (in America at least) that science is divided on the issue is a myth. They are no more divided than biologists are on natural selection or geologists are on plate tectonics. Those theories are in every science text book and for good reason.
Anyone can make a claim but to make it part of the science you have to back up your claim with evidence and observation. Congress can decide that climate change is a myth all they want, but it makes no difference. They can repeal the law of gravity but I don’t expect I’ll be sleeping on the ceiling tonight.
Most of the email I get from deniers of climate change are not based on any science but based on a fear of rising taxes or someone taking away their pickup truck (and in one long rambling paragraph).
The debate on what to do about the problem is certainly necessary, and I have no better ideas than anyone else. Sticking your head in the sand and calling the science a hoax because you fear higher taxes or love your gas guzzler is silly.
Most of the deniers tend to be authoritarians, and I fully realize that there are no facts that will change their minds. I write this blog for those who want some good basic science info and John Cook (at skeptical science) has just published a post that is very germane. One quote from it sums it all up nicely:
Ultimately it’s a significant problem that we rely so heavily on coal to meet our energy needs due to its artificially low market price. It’s like eating junk food for every meal. It’s cheap, it tastes good, but it’s not healthy and eventually you’ll pay the price through poor health, high medical bills, and a shortened lifespan.
Rest of the post is here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=639
Well put, Dan. On Twitter the other day, someone noted that nuclear power is a problem when it goes wrong, but fossil fuel power is a problem when it goes right. Though it’s a tricky problem to solve, noting the problem is an important first step. I applaud your efforts to explain the rationale for thinking there is a problem in the first place. Any arguments should address that question — the question of the evidence and logic. If we all acknowledge those to be sound, then it’s time to move on and start thinking about ways of addressing the problem. For those interested in examining a multi-pronged strategy for solving the problem that Dan has detailed, I recommend Pacala and Socolow (2004): “Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies” – http://www.sciencemag.org/content/305/5686/968.abstract
I have not read that Callan but it is now the top of my weekend reading list! Thanks much!
The problem with peer reviewed journals is that a certain theoretical perspective eventually becomes dominant to the point that researchers who disagree are discriminated against. There is no escaping politics, unfortunately…not even among good scientists. There very well could be excellent research out there by good scientists that questions natural selection or climate change (or whatever controversial theory) but since these scientists fear the ridicule of their “peers” they are unwilling to publish. If scientists were truly the objective, non-biased truth-seekers they so religiously claim to be, they would base the value of a potential publication solely on the quality of the research done. There should be very specific guidelines that determine how research and experimentation are to be performed and as long as a scientist follows those guidelines and puts in place the proper quality control measures, his or her research should be considered worthy of publication, regardless of the conclusions he/she comes to. This, however, is not happening.
Still, I ultimately have to agree with you that the peer review process is the best thing we have right now. However, I only see it as the least of many evils… but still an evil itself that could use some serious tweaking (at least some journals).
Basically: I just want to see more humility in all the sciences. I feel it is greatly lacking.
Your other points regarding not burying your head in the sand and ignoring issues or choosing to ignore them for economic/political reasons are, of course, quite on target.
Fun conversation!
Andy,
Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA Goddard put it best. Peer review is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for good science. It tends to weed out unsubstantiated claims but it does not guarantee accurate science. His post at Real Climate on this is very worth reading, I think you will enjoy it.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/peer-review-a-necessary-but-not-sufficient-condition/
Dan
PS Thanks for your comments!
Your statement that cesium 137 has a half life of 30 days is INCORRECT. Cesium has a half life of 30 YEARS! Plutonium 239 has a half life of 24,000 years.
Yes indeed it is YEARS. Post corrected.
I does not take a nuclear physicist to understand the fact that Hot particles in the form of alpha-emitting plutonium (Pu-238) were released from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan after it was compromised by the earthquake/tsunami
In Tokyo in April, measurements indicate that there’s about 10 hot particles per day in what a normal person would breathe. And it’s interesting because in Seattle it didn’t go down much. It was about five particles a day, because most of the time, as we talked about in April, the wind was blowing toward the West Coast.
These hot particles can lodge in your lung or in your digestive tract or in your bone and over time, cause a cancer. But they’re way too small to be picked up on a large radiation detector
“Alpha radiation from plutonium and other alpha-emitting radionuclides can be blocked by skin or even a piece of paper but it is the most biologically destructive form of ionizing radiation when the alpha-emitting substance is deposited in the soft tissue of internal organs like the lung. The alpha tracks shown here were captured over a two-day period.” Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Berkeley California, September 1982.
So yes Americans will suffer significant health problems as a result of the Japan nuclear accident. There is no were to hide either. You all ready breathed in the particles with out any warning. The mainstream media told us it was healthy to breath radiation. Look at these links or just google hot particles and you will see.
Department of nuclear engineering at Berkeley
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/4503
CNN link
http://fairewinds.com/content/cnns-john-king-interviews-arnie-gundersen-about-hot-particles-discovered-japan-and-us
Infowars
http://mgx.com/blogs/2011/06/13/fukushima-hot-particles-detected-in-seattle-air-filters/
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/06/japan.nuclear.meltdown/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+International