Give me a body count. If its not a retarded greenpeace-invented several-million dead body count, I bet I can trump that with dead coal miners alone. Forget the impact of dirty air, just dead coal miners.

It is intellectually dishonest for you to nit-pick nuclear while ignoring the fact that we don't have a safer option.

(And, as I mentioned just now, I'm fine with the more dangerous coal option, and I'd oppose the building of nuclear reactors based on simple economics. I'm probably perversely on your side in opposing nuclear, but only because I don't think we face a global warming nightmare and I want cheap dirty coal power)
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The New York Times

Scientists Project Path of Radiation Plume

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

20 minutes ago

A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.

Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable.

The story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/sc...e.html?_r=1&hp


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I'm not saying anything about the merits of nuclear power or lack thereof. You are claiming that I'm saying that as a red herring to distract from the substance of the debate which was supposed to be about the deleterious effects of radiation exposure.

I haven't said a single thing about coal in this thread. Not one.

Again, I'm not pointing out Greenpeace studies, there were never any done. I'm mentioning studies done by the Belarussian Government and a UN Charitable Organization aimed at helping those effected by the Chernobyl disaster.

You seem to be either unable or unwilling to understand the difference between deaths due to acute radiation sickness and deaths due to malignancy caused by accumulated radiation dosage.
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You are being silly. This was posted before, so I'll repost to give context to your scary-sounding ignorant "8 times higher than allowable" *ominous lightning crash*.

2 hazards from radiation.

#1) acute exposure. This generally happens at 6 full Sv. not 400 milli Sv, but 6 full freaking Sv.

ok, so thats out, what else?

#2) cancer, 5% increase risk per 1Sv, per year. You were exposed to 400 mSv? OK, what does that mean? It means 2% extra risk of cancer.

Again, I'm on your side, again, I oppose nuclear power because I'm not afraid of dirty coal plants. Hopefully you are not an environmentalist.


The above is not my opinion, it is cold, hard science.
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It actually doesn't mean an extra 2%. It's higher than that.

There is a thing called the supralinear hypothesis. You are working off of a linear data plot, assuming that you get X number of cancers for every sievert of exposure. That's not true.

In fact, the damage per unit dose is far greater at lower levels, and you will get more cancers per unit dose at lower levels than you will at higher levels. The curve flattens off as the dose increases.

This has been known in Health Physics for over thirty years.
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Fine, but we need context, don't you think?

Don't you think its a little odd that we highlight a few dozen dead provable people in a freak nuclear disaster that almost certainly would not happen today, but we don't give a rat's ass about hundreds of thousands of dead west virginia and chinese coal miners? (not to mention the untold millions exposed to coal emissions)

Don't you think the coverage in the media has been just a LITTLE blatantly unfair to nuclear power? Now, this unfair anti-nuclear hysteria works to my benefit because I also oppose expensive nuclear power due to economics, but I still don't like this silly "we demand utter perfection from nuclear, but we'll shrug if another 10,000 coal miners die next year" silliness.
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Blame the media, thats where I got it.

I think we know for a fact that 400 mSv doesn't lead to a quick death from acute radiation exposure. As for increased cancer risk, what would you suggest?
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I'm not talking about coal, that's a needless deflection. Regardless of how coal is treated by media is immaterial to the discussion of what a safe radiation dose is. There's no correlation between the two at all.
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1) Not one person has said it will lead to death through radiation sickness.

2) As far as an increase in cancer risk, I can't give you an exact figure. What I can tell you is that the rate of cancer among workers in the US Nuclear Industry, who were NEVER exposed to doses even approaching this were drastically higher than the public's rate, and that the rates determined safe were still found to be ten-twenty times too high.

3) I said it earlier, there is no safe dose of radiation. It does not exist. Instead, the question was always, "what is an acceptable risk?"
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There are very few options for steady robust baseline power. Wind is not it, neither is solar or geothermal.

All of those "clean" power options can help supplement your needs and help you ramp up to meet new production requirements, but for the big steady huge reliable robust baseline need for power you have coal, gas, and nuclear. Thats it, just those 3, unless you are in a weird situation like the arizona desert or iceland, those are your options.

If you are unfairly tarring and feathering nuclear while giving a blind eye and a shrug of your shoulder to the danger of coal, you cant later claim you had no part in choosing coal over nuclear. By unfairly criticizing nuclear and not going out of your way to giving a full fair and balanced picture of coal you are actively choosing coal over nuclear.

Power isn't free. Whether its gas, nuclear, or coal, people will die to get that power. Arguably, nuclear is the safest option of the 3. More people will die for coal than for nuclear, but nuclear is more expensive. (Thus, I support coal over nuclear, I want the cheapest option) If you are not giving that full fair picture, then you are unwittingly spreading propaganda for coal because "clean" options are not an option for big robust base power.
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Fair point, thanks for adding this comment to the thread.

FWIW: The idea that any news organization is fair and balanced in reporting is laughable at best. Slanted journalism is alive and well.
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That's an incredibly long justification for something unrelated to the topic of "how dangerous are doses of radiation?"
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Korea sending 52 tons of boron.

http://www.koreaherald.com/business/...20110316000734

(Reuters) - South Korea said on Wednesday it would send some of its reserve boron to Japan after a request from Tokyo for the metalloid, which being is mixed with seawater to limit damage to Japan's crippled nuclear reactors.
An economy ministry official said South Korea would send 52.6 tons of boron to Japan from its reserves of 310 tons.
Tokyo has requested supplies of the key material, vital for stopping fission nuclear reactions, after its own stockpile has been largely used up at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Boron is the main material that goes into control rods used to halt or slow down fission reactions at nuclear reactors. Japan has mixed large amounts of boron with seawater and poured them into the reactors as an emergency measure.
A sample of the metalloid would be sent to Japan immediately for assessment, the ministry official said.
(Reporting Cho Meeyoung, Writing by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)
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Honestly, I don't get how we got here from the guy talking about how chickenshit these pilots are for not wanting to, or not being allowed to, hover over this mess.
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