Post: #76

Steam rising from Reactor 3..
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_ro...tor_3.html





Forget swimming/eating anything out of the pacific.

Post: #77

(11-08-2013 01:02 PM)Sawyer Wrote:  Anyone considering this as a world-changing event? It could very well be the biggest event of our lifetimes.

There's no event. Nothing really happened at Fukushima: no one died, no one was injured, nothing was polluted by radiation, nothing besides the reactors themselves were even damaged. There was basically no disaster or news story at all, it's all cooked up hysteria.

Repeating this: there was no nuclear disaster at Fukushima. At all. Nothing of consequence happened. There was no one hurt and there will be no one hurt. There was no disaster, just media frenzy over a tsunami hitting a nuclear plant because OH MY GOD RADIATION IS MAGIC GODZILLA IS COMING AND THE WORLD WILL END!!!

Meanwhile there was a tsunami that killed over 10000 people and destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands of people but no one even remembers that because THERE WAS SOMETHING HAPPENING AT A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT AND NUCLEAR POWER IS MAGIC.

Quote:Could be wrong on this though, which is the point of this thread. Anyone have any info or opinions?

I am an ex-physicist, I'm actually trained to deal with radiation accidents and I tell you that there is no reason to even remember Fukushima. Nothing happened and nothing will happen. It's all hysteria. The minute someone mentions radiation or nuclear power half the world goes OH LORD radiation is MAGIC and ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN, well, no, it's just a scare with no consequences whatsoever to anyone not actually working at the nuclear power company.

Post: #78

I'm an engineer, my first job was at a nuclear power plant. I have people in my family that has worked at said plant for 25+ years. I have followed everything on Fukushima and while there's cause for major concern over TEPCO's atrocious handling over the incident, the danger itself is negligible for the guy on the street.

The two most credible reports on the final death toll from Chernobyl (ie not single authors hoping for some spotlight and cash) puts the number at 4000 and 6000. While this is nothing to scoff at and tragic it is probably nothing compared to how many people die yearly in common power plants over the globe.

Again, the events at Fukushima is not a environmental event due to the dangers of nuclear power but a failure of the corrupt and archaic Japanese government structure.

Post: #79

Lmao keep thinking 6000 people died from the ramifications of Chernobyl. It was closer to a million at 900K. And these are the folks with legit backgrounds whom stated that after their research:

Quote:Russian biologist Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the Russian president; Dr. Alexey Nesterenko, a biologist and ecologist in Belarus; and Dr.Vassili Nesterenko, a physicist and at the time of the accident director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Its editor is Dr. Janette Sherman, a physician and toxicologist long involved in studying the health impacts of radioactivity.

But of course only 6000 died as a result .....

Post: #80

(01-01-2014 10:49 AM)kosko Wrote:  Lmao keep thinking 6000 people died from the ramifications of Chernobyl. It was closer to a million at 900K.

Actually, the claim of 6000 deaths is dubious hysteria as well and likely a rather major exaggeration. The actual immediate death toll of the Chernobyl disaster is 31.

That is, 31. Precisely 31. No more than 31 deaths can be directly, indisputably linked to the Chernobyl disaster. It is of course very likely that some of the workers, firemen and military ordered to clear the site received large doses of radiation that launched cancers and this is where the claims of thousands of deaths comes from, but the number of people who received such significant radiation exposure is in the thousands so the death toll from this can't climb further than that.

Besides that, the disaster might as well not have happened. Each one of these claims of a "million" deaths comes from counting the total number of people who got even a slightly increased risk of radiation and declaring that their life expectancies have been very slightly lowered, therefore the hysterics have a reason to claim a million "deaths" by Chernobyl! Following the same kind of logic you could say that every time you light up a cigarette in a pub, you murder 50 people because everyone at the pub gets "exposure" and their life expectancies are lowered. It's true and exactly as reasonable as this figure of Chernobyl "deaths".

If Chernobyl hadn't been a nuclear disaster, it would barely have been news and no one would remember it now. Compare for example the Bhopal disaster that happened just 2 years earlier where thousands actually immediately died and half a million people were actually exposed to poison gas with severe health risks. It was a much worse disaster than Chernobyl and a much bigger reason to campaign against the industry in question, but how many people even know about the disaster or care if they have a similar chemicals plant in their home town?

If all the people running around declaring that a million people got a measurable radiation dose thanks to Chernobyl realized how many ways there are to get a measurable radiation dose (get a tan, board an airplane, visit a wine cellar...), they'd never leave the house. Or maybe they would since houses are a radiation risk. If we used the same standards as these hysterical claims of a million deaths by Chernobyl exposure to everything else, millions of billions of trillions of people would get killed by radiation. We would ALL die through radiation exposure multiple times!

Post: #81

(11-08-2013 09:11 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  Anyone still remember the BP oil spill that was supposed to permanently destroy the entire Gulf ecosystem?

You don't hear much about it lately, because the Gulf has recovered faster than the optimists believed possible and is thriving as much as ever if not more.

The same garbage was spewed about Mt St Helens. Anything to scare the masses for money. And now look at it.


http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/science-update-19.pdf

Post: #82

(11-08-2013 11:08 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  Fukushima is completely different from Chernobyl. Chernobyl had a badly designed reactor which was unable to contain the meltdown, and a substantial amount of radiation was released as a result. It's hard to estimate the total resulting casualties but the best estimates are that some thousands of people died as a more or less direct consequence of the radiation and the health of tens of thousands was probably affected. The USSR authorities did very little to evacuate the population and were mainly concerned with concealing evidence.

The total radiation released from Fukushima was an order of magnitude less because of its design and its effects will be further orders of magnitude less because of timely evacuation. Trace excess radiation in Japan outside the immediate vicinity is trivial at this point, and the idea that it could be detectable elsewhere is outright crazy. The Pacific ocean is very big and seepage into it is inconsequential.

By the way, more than 18,000 people died in Japan during the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima accident. That was the real disaster.

Thanks for stating the facts. However, they will be ignored by the panic-stricken of the world.

Post: #83

Post: #84

[/quote]

[/quote]A nuclear energy expert Arnie Gundersen concurred on the direness of the Fukushima situation-- in contrast to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, the "spigot" isn't turned off yet, and radiation continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean. Fish are picking up extraordinarily high levels of radioactive materials, and Gundersen said he would not eat fish that comes from the West Coast. In Japan, "the epidemiological data that will develop over the next 30 years [will show that] somewhere between 100,000 and 1 million new cancers will develop as a result of this," but the nuclear industry can hide behind the fact that a high percentage of people get cancer anyway, he pointed out. Gunderson stressed the importance of stopping the groundwater contamination, and suggested building a trench of zeolite to absorb the radiation surrounding the plant.

Post: #85

If this isn't the event that causes irreversible damage to the planet, it will be a matter of time before something else does.

With nuclear power in the hands of Pakistan, North Korea and who knows what other rag tag groups, there has to be a 'fallout' at some point, accidental or otherwise.

Post: #86

im making mad cash on my tepco stocks. just saying.

Post: #87

(01-08-2014 07:34 PM)bigxxx Wrote:  If this isn't the event that causes irreversible damage to the planet, it will be a matter of time before something else does.

With nuclear power in the hands of Pakistan, North Korea and who knows what other rag tag groups, there has to be a 'fallout' at some point, accidental or otherwise.

It's a different dynamic. Having to keep the lights on in Pakistan is more critical for domestic plotical survival then in the dodgy crony modern states such as Japan or the USA were slip ups like this can happen. Iran is under the highest scrutiny for its program and will have to adhere to all standards and clarity.

Israel for example is way worse. It's worse for them because they can't even report the minor leaks it has had win it's own reactors because it's nuclear program is tied 100% to its nuclear weapons program it has had to deny and hide since the 60's. Israel has no civilian nuclear energy program, and it's old rickety reactor at Dimona has already caused issues with workers whom have succumb to cancer due to leaks
[www.haaretz.com/mobile/workers-at-israel-s-dimona-nuclear-reactor-say-leaks-at-plant-gave-them-cancer-1.401478?v=EF4319C21C3D367830B2BA4FC0E5017F].

That IMO is a even more dangerous prospect as Israel couldn't even make public the problem explicitly in a attempt to seek outside help in fixing it if it ever became a dire situation.

Post: #88

[/quote]A nuclear energy expert Arnie Gundersen concurred on the direness of the Fukushima situation-- in contrast to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, the "spigot" isn't turned off yet, and radiation continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean. Fish are picking up extraordinarily high levels of radioactive materials, and Gundersen said he would not eat fish that comes from the West Coast. In Japan, "the epidemiological data that will develop over the next 30 years [will show that] somewhere between 100,000 and 1 million new cancers will develop as a result of this," but the nuclear industry can hide behind the fact that a high percentage of people get cancer anyway, he pointed out. Gunderson stressed the importance of stopping the groundwater contamination, and suggested building a trench of zeolite to absorb the radiation surrounding the plant.
[/quote]

The pacific ocean has been receiving a billion times more radiation than Fukishikma for a billion years. The ocean has tritium, uranium, thorium, and a zillion other radioactive isotopes. Every day it is hit by zillions of cosmic rays which create radioactive isotopes in the water.

Fukishima is leaking, yes, and it means precisely nothing. Nada. Zilch.

It will have zero effect on the US and nearly zero effect on the people near the reactor.

Meanwhile, Chinese coal dust, containing hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive material, and millions of tons of mercury, is poisoning the fish of the Pacific ocean. That is a real hazard to the Pacific. If China had built modern nuclear reactors instead of coal plants, the pollution would be almost nothing.

The average US citizen might as well be a caveman, in terms of their understanding of radiation and energy production. The growth of the anti-nuke movement is the greatest environmental disaster of modern history.

We can only hope and pray that Bill Gate's terrapower reactor initiative, which is utterly fricking brilliant, succeeds in China. That will free the world from the massive horrific pollution of coal.

PS. The modern anti-nuke movement was funded, created, and supported by the coal industry in the 1980s, precisely because coal was being killed off by the nuclear industry. It is one of the great corporate conspiracies of all time.

Post: #89

(01-10-2014 11:55 AM)MrLemon Wrote:  [

PS. The modern anti-nuke movement was funded, created, and supported by the coal industry in the 1980s, precisely because coal was being killed off by the nuclear industry. It is one of the great corporate conspiracies of all time.

Do you have anything to back this up?

Post: #90

"The average US citizen might as well be a caveman, in terms of their understanding of radiation and energy production."

Exactly. And so shall it always be with 99% of the human population. Shit collapses. Always has, always will. People look for easy ways out. Always have always will. I don't see how nuclear power is compatible with the human condition. And I don't like the idea of being slave to the masters of these complexities or trusting in their goodness in order to turn the lights on.

If the waste is so safe why Yucca Mountain? Was Yucca Mountain designed and built by the coal industry to overstate the dangers of nuclear waste?

Post: #91

(01-08-2014 07:34 PM)bigxxx Wrote:  If this isn't the event that causes irreversible damage to the planet, it will be a matter of time before something else does.

With nuclear power in the hands of Pakistan, North Korea and who knows what other rag tag groups, there has to be a 'fallout' at some point, accidental or otherwise.

I was talking to this old guy in Thailand (maybe about 70) one time over a beer and we got on the subject of the latest panic topic - I think it was the Gulf oil spill. At that time people were talking about how it wouldn't be plugged up and it was the end of the world, etc; I'd read into some forum posts by some really intelligent guys breaking down the science of it and I must admit it was scary as shit. He shrugged it off and said it'll pass like always.

I mentioned something about how that was probably true but that there were so many different issues our world was facing that seemed to be coming towards a breaking point and that sooner or later one would probably catch up with us. (I had been reading a lot of doom and gloom shit and conspiracy theories at the time).

His response? As long as he's alive it has always been like that. There's never been a time he can remember where shit didn't seem chaotic and at the brink of ruin for humanity if you listened to the media about the latest emergencies facing mankind. The latest international standoffs between world powers, brewing wars, and environmental travesties.

It always passes, he said. None of it ever comes to fruition and nothing has really seemed to have gotten worse, either.

I guess in a way I sort of knew that, but somehow talking to a guy who'd been alive longer than me (though admittedly still only a glimpse of human history) solidified that thought for me that throughout history we've had a habit of living in this constant state of worry. I don't pay attention to the latest scares anymore. Chances are that our lives will pass by and we'll be fine and perhaps even have lived a few years less because we stressed about it too much.

Even if the world is on a fast-paced countdown, what can we do about it? For must of us, not very much. My own belief is that even if it all blows up in our face, enough of us will make it that life for our species will go on. Not necessarily a given but most scenarios would leave a few of us cockroaches still scurrying about, regrouping and figuring out a way to go on.

If I'm not one of those ones, well, won't be such a big deal then anyways, right?

Either way, life is short. I say turn off the news and enjoy it in peace.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #92

^ I hope you're right.

And you are correct that there's nothing we can do anyway.

But nuclear energy is a bit more serious than an oil spill. It's a fact that the nuclear weapons already in existence could obliterate the world so many times over. Just seems like they will be used at some point.

Post: #93

I think the threats to N. America and the food supply are way overhyped. This story was on public radio today and I think it gives a credible explanation of why there's no reason to worry.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-20/wo...ntists-say

Quote: Pete Knutson and his son Dustin sell local Pacific salmon at outdoor markets around the Seattle area. The sign on their stall at a recent market in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood reads, “In response to multiple customer inquiries regarding the Fukushima incident, we’ve had our salmon tested for radiation. We’re pleased to announce that there is no reason to be concerned about eating our salmon this year.”

Pete Knutson’s Loki Fish company offers all kinds of salmon products and the Sunday Ballard farmer’s market in Seattle—whole, pickled, smoked, canned—whatever your pleasure.

Knutson’s been in the business of catching and selling fish for more than 40 years. But recently he had to do something new to meet his customers’ demands: test his fish for radiation.

Ever since the Fukushima meltdown, Knutson’s son Dustin says, people have expressed concerns.

"We had regulars at the U District market,” the younger Knutson says, “and they were saying, ‘sorry we’re not coming by any more.’ It was directly because they were worried about Fukushima."

So the elder Knutson sent seven samples of his Pacific salmon off to a lab.

When the results came back, he says, “we found that these fish were clean… There were two samples that maybe had a trace of barely detectable, so we feel very good about the results.”

The barely detectable substance was Cesium. It’s a radioactive isotope that was released in the Fukushima meltdown. But the levels in the fish were hundreds of times below federal safety standards.

Of course seven fish is a pretty limited sample, but Knutson’s results are in line with other tests of Pacific fish since Fukushima.

Delvan Neville, a Ph.D candidate in Radiation Health Physics at Oregon State University, has analyzed dozens of samples of albacore tuna caught in the Pacific since the meltdown.

He says the highest level of radioactive contamination he’s found “is more than 1,000 times lower than the point where the FDA would even think about whether or not they need to let people eat that food.”

Tuna are top predators, and tend to concentrate any pollutants that are in the food chain. But what Neville’s found are Cesium levels so low he’s comfortable eating his samples.

Which was actually kind of fun, he says, “because then I was telling people as we were eating at the table what their approximate dose was due to Fukushima from the food they were eating, and it’s this ridiculously small number.”

Neville has sampled more than 60 fish since Fukushima. The levels of Cesium traced to Fukushima were so low that his lab couldn’t see it at all until he concentrated the samples.

Kim Martini, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, agrees that the tuna are completely safe.

“To actually get a harmful dose of tuna you have to eat 2.5 tons of tuna a year,” Martini says. “I really love Tuna, but I don’t love it that much.”

Numerous other tests since the Fukushima disaster have found the same thing: radiation levels in Pacific fish that are vanishingly small.

And yet the fear persists, and even grows, fostered in part by supposed “evidence” passed around the web. Sites have sprung up blaming Fukushima for everything from lower sockeye salmon runs in the US to conjoined twin baby whales in Baja.

Martini points to one video in particular that’s been posted on YouTube that shows a guy named “Dave” sweeping a northern California beach with a Geiger counter that suddenly starts beeping.

“I’m over background,” Dave says on the video, “The alarm’s going off. Here I am on the beach... There you go. That’s sort of the levels we’re dealing with here…”

The video, which has more than 700,000 views, prompted California officials to test samples from the beach. They found that the radioactivity was naturally occurring.

“This is one of the problems,” Martini says. “People are going out with Geiger counters and saying this is Fukushima radiation, but the Geiger counter can measure radiation but it can’t differentiate between different kinds of radiation.”

You’ll find naturally occurring radioactive isotopes in rock, sand, even in bananas and seawater itself

That’s not to say that radioactive material from Fukushima isn’t moving east from Japan. And radiation remains a critical local issue there, where radioactive groundwater is still seeping into the ocean.

But scientists like Martini are confident that the levels of isotopes like Cesium showing up in fish and water on the west coast of North America just aren’t grounds for concern.

“It’s about 20,000 times less than drinking water standards, Martini says. “We like to say is it’s detectable but harmless.”

Still, Martini and other scientists have received hate mail, even death threats, for trying to dispel rumors about radioactive pollution from Fukushima.

“There’s definitely people that you’re never going to convince,” Martini says. “And I’ve actually talked with a lot of these people. We do our best. If you’re really, really convinced, I don’t know what to tell you. The science says it’s ok.”

Post: #94

(01-20-2014 04:56 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

Quote:
Still, Martini and other scientists have received hate mail, even death threats, for trying to dispel rumors about radioactive pollution from Fukushima.

Yep.

You can listen to science, or you can listen to the guy that jumped on the new end of the world bandwagon.

Has the price of fish on the west coast taken a hit from this hype?

Post: #95

^That's reassuring. I also came across a well balanced and researched piece which dispelled a lot of hysteria.

That doesn't mean the place is out of trouble though. Who knows WTF is really happening there, TEPCO and the Japanese government is keeping things hush hush. Another earthquake could be a dire situation.

Post: #96

I perceive the lack of interest for Fukushima by the Rooshvforum as scandalous. Worrying about mass migration in Europe while the life in their own sea is being destroyed.

http://enenews.com/professors-largest-ma...sing-video

The reason: this forums calls, erroneously, the Fukushima "Whistleblowers" anti-nuclear hippies.

Furthermore, the forum throws, erroneously, environmental activists in the same basket as SJW's.

They might be the same people, I guess it is somewhat an American thing, environmentalists are not necessarily SJW's.

Post: #97

(11-08-2015 12:57 PM)Lime Wrote:  I perceive the lack of interest for Fukushima by the Rooshvforum as scandalous.

Your concern is duly noted.

(11-08-2015 12:57 PM)Lime Wrote:  Worrying about mass migration in Europe while the life in their own sea is being destroyed.

LOL. The news aggregator that you linked to describes an event from more than 6 months ago in which a large number of starfish (actual fish, not lazy sluts who "just lay there") were observed to die in the Pacific off the American west coast. All there is to say about that is:

-- There is no chance that this event is in any way related to Fukushima because a) there are no detectable excess radiation levels at such a distance or anywhere close, and b) starfish on the other side of the Pacific (close to Japan) are not dying.

-- Such events are poorly understood and it's quite likely that they occur very commonly; we just haven't really looked before. All the descriptions about "largest extinction ever" etc etc are just the usual hype and scaremongering. No one has the least idea about the turnover of marine life, it's uncharted territory. All observations so far show that ecosystems are both far more dynamic and far more resilient than we had thought.

(11-08-2015 12:57 PM)Lime Wrote:  The reason: this forums calls, erroneously, the Fukushima "Whistleblowers" anti-nuclear hippies.

Furthermore, the forum throws, erroneously, environmental activists in the same basket as SJW's.

They might be the same people, I guess it is somewhat an American thing, environmentalists are not necessarily SJW's.

Environmentalist fanatics are SJWs of the very worst type. At least feminists and the like pretend to be concerned about other human beings. Eco-nihilists worship the Earth itself and the inanimate "environment", so deep is their hatred of the human being. They are the absolute bottom of the barrel, and they will stop at nothing to spread their lies and propaganda.

Post: #98

Read the youtube comments.
Video is scary and beautiful at the same time. Fire that burns under water.
34:21-34:30 is just crazy.





EDIT:at 31:28-31:30 camera enters highly volatile area, watch as the screen is saturated with high energy particles.

Post: #99

Quote:I perceive the lack of interest for Fukushima by the Rooshvforum as scandalous.

Mr. Lime, your comments will be noted in the ship's log.

Post: #100

And what would the people have us RooshV forum members do? Run around with a panic? The only scenarios I will panic in is 1) big fuck-off volcano about to blow such as Yellowstone or nuclear bombs on their way.

What can you do once the event has occurred? Punish those responsible and learn from it. Hence why you shouldn't build nuclear reacttors in earthquake zones, towns and villages on hillsides because of mudslides or build on flood plains because they flood. Fucking genius idea! But stupid people will do as they please.

Radiation is natural to the planet is what people are forgetting. Without it I doubt our planet would be the way it is. Further to the migrant invasion which has real consequences in real-time. The fukishima power plant isn't going to be barging into your home because it is too cold or feels entitled to your house nor is it conducting gang rape because it feels horny.

The planet would recover from a mountain sized asteroid hitting it in good time and people think we can permanently harm it? Ridiculous!