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Are We In Danger of Radioactive Exposure from the Japanese Nuclear Leaks?
If we could rely on the Japanese and American governments to inform us of any danger, we wouldn't have to be so vigilant.
But given the American government's cover up of the severity of the BP oil disaster, the health risk to New Yorkers after 9/11, and numerous other health issues, we will have to educate and empower ourselves.
As ABC News notes, experts says that Japan has a long history of nuclear cover-ups.
The New York Times points out:
The different radioactive materials being reported at the nuclear accidents in Japan range from relatively benign to extremely worrisome.
The central problem in assessing the degree of danger is that the amounts of various radioactive releases into the environment are now unknown, as are the winds and other atmospheric factors that determine how radioactivity will disperse around the stricken plants.
BBC reports (scroll down on left side):
Japanese engineer Masashi Goto, who helped design the containment vessel for Fukushima's reactor core, says the design was not enough to withstand earthquakes or tsunami ...
Indeed, Goto said:
“It is difficult to say, but that would be a core meltdown. If the rods fall and mix with water, the result would be an explosion of solid material like a volcano spreading radioactive material. Steam or a hydrogen explosion caused by the mix would spread radioactive waste more than 50km. Also, this would be multiplied. There are many reactors in the area so there would be many Chernobyls.
And Goto accused the Japanese government of deliberately withholding vital information that would allow outside experts help solve the problems:
For example, there has not been enough information about the hydrogen being vented. We don’t know how much was vented and how radioactive it was.
What We Know
The jet stream passes right over Japan on its way to the West coast of the United States.
The former editor of the Japan Times - Yoichi Shimatsu - states that after a high-level government meeting, “Japanese agencies are no longer releasing independent reports without prior approval from the top,” and that censorship of what is really occurring at the plant is being overseen under the Article 15 Emergency Law.
As I noted Saturday:
The jet stream passes right over Japan. The jet stream was noticed in the 1920's by a Japanese meteorologist near Mount Fuji, and the Japanese launched balloon bombs into the jetstream to attack America during WWII.
If a meltdown caused radioactivity to be thrown high enough, or if the radioactivity got blown by surface winds up into the jet stream, it could spread widely.
Here's how the jet stream looks today:
Here is an artist's impression of how the jet stream could spread radiation in the future:
And here's a forecast for the next couple of days.
Accuweather notes the following times for radiation - in a worst-case scenario - to reach the West Coast:
Calculated time for radioactive particles to cross the Pacific from the power plants in Japan to big West Coast cities if the particles take a direct path and move at a speed of 20 mph:
Cities Est. Distance (miles) Est. Time to Cross Pacific (days) Anchorage 3,457 7 Honolulu 3,847 8 Seattle 4,792 10 Los Angeles 5,477 11
But Accuweather meterologists argue that the winds will likely shift in different directions on a frequent basis, making it less likely that the radiation would be blown all of the way to the U.S.
As CNN Meterologist Ivan Cabrera says:
If radioactive material gets into the jet stream then... we share that with the world.
However, Cabrera points out that the Jet Stream is at 30,000-50,000 feet in altitude. 30,000 feet is 5.7 miles up. So that's a long way up above the Japanese nuclear reactors, which are essentially at sea level.
Unless the radiation from the Japanese nuclear power plants is carried aloft that high, it will probably not make it into the jet stream.
So far, there is no indication of any kind that radiation has been carried into the jet stream. However, a U.S. aircraft carrier around 100 miles from the nuclear power plants have been exposed to radiation. 100 miles is obviously greater than 5.7 miles, but that is horizontal distance, and does not necessarily mean that radiation has risen high into the air. Obviously, if the wind is blowing off-shore at ground level, then that will move the radiation more or less horizontally. That is very different from blowing the radiation upwards.
As all of the experts agree, if a truly huge meltdown occurs, then the odds of radiation reaching the jet stream increase dramatically.
As national security expert Joe Cirincione told Fox News' Chris Wallace:
The worst case scenario is that the fuel rods fuse together, the temperatures get so hot that they melt together in a radioactive molten mass that bursts through the containment mechanisms and is exposed to the outside. So they spew radioactivity in the ground, into the air, into the water. Some of the radioactivity could carry in the atmosphere to the West Coast of the United States.
But a more difficult question is whether low-level radioactive release spread over many weeks or months could spread into the jet stream and then the Western United States.
As the New York Times notes:
Experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.
Indeed, Japan's nuclear problems may be spreading.
There are currently 3 Japanese nuclear reactors experiencing meltdown, and 3 more in trouble.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is forecasting a magnitude 8.0 aftershock, which could completely destroy the damaged reactors at the Fukushima facility:
(Aerial view after Fukushima numbers 1 and 3 exploded; click for larger image.)
And the limited radiation readings which are available are rather worrisome.
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Heavily referenced with poorly understood half truths filled in with a huge component science fiction. I expect it does cause him a great deal of brain strain to create the nonsense interpretations.
Place head down between knees and breath a big gasp of hopeium. If you had a better link you would have punched it in.
Just a little laugh. I still am wondering how all that oil disappeared that quick. The beaches are really clean now. I am sure years from now we will see that dispersment stuff screwed a few things up down there.
Thank you GW.
Timely Information I can trust.
+1. Indeed. Always one of the "must read" authors here.
This Washingtonian hopes dilution will mitigate risk in coming days. Hope and Mutate...err, Change bitchez!
ba ha ha ha ha!
GW will probably soon be explaining that the tsunami was REALLY caused by the collapse of methane hydrates in the Gulf just as he touted (except that he didn't "tout" them he just quoted long diatribes describing them as a risk and followed that with a quiet "never mind"). You can count on him for a breathless yet meaningless eyeball generating screed anytime ANYTHING that large groups don't understand is also a hot topic. It will likely not be long before he has found some clueless moron with a degree in nuclear physics to tell him how there has already been a massive thermonuclear explosion that is being covered up by all the POWERS THAT BE.
No way anyone in the United States EVER develops ANY health problem due to exposure to radiation from the affected power plants. This hyperventilating drama-queen post is an utter joke. But it IS vintage George Washington.
gasmiinder,
You left out the best one. The claim was that there was vast hollow cave under the GoM that was going to collapse and suck in the entire gulf coast, up to Cincinnati. It was also connected to a large fault that ran through several Carribean islands, across the Atlantic, through Africa and up to the Red Sea. Geo Wash posted that the Macondo event was going to cause this "zipper" to part and cause the Atlantic to rush into the crack and vaporize. World destruction was inevitable. How could BP ever pay for all that? Geo Wash was able to track down about 100% of the nonsense stories on the Internet and incorporate them into its posts. Why not? Many people reading them here were applauding since it was such obvious truth and proved a massive coverup.
gassy you have resurfaced
not sure that is a good thing but good to see you posting just the same
I vote you 3 thirteen inch penises!
""I vote you 3 thirteen inch penises!""
...Riot Like They Did in 1929 (Parody 1999 Prince)
re written by A D F...
http://seenoevilspeaknoevilhearnoevil.blogspot.com/2011/03/1929-parody-to-1999-prince.html
Yeah.
I mean like Chernobyl wasn't really a problem.
Hmmmm, junked twice.
I guess the melt down in Russia really wasn't a problem in some peoples eyes. :-)
Totally different type of reactor. Japanese nuc engineers are some of the best in the world. Russia was sloppy and careless.
Poofter - GW just attracts the junksters. It speaks to the quality of the intellect - click junk if you don't like what you read and have no idea how to argue the subject.
Don't take my word for it - just look. Junks are an order of magnitude more common on his posts and have nothing to do with "junk". It is how his followers indicate "gosh I don't like hearing this info......"
Ok gasminder take a shill pill. We all know you were full of hot air during the oil spill so give us your analysis on neutrons and fission and how the containment is controlled because they have a firehose dumping seawater on the nuclear fire...lol bawahahaha.....And go ahead and tell me how the oil got eaten up in the GOM by all those microbes again because that really made me fricken laugh. Someday you may realize you're not as smart as you think when you get cancer from corexit or nuclear fallout that you never believed existed.
Didn't take long for the ad hominem to start did it? Preceeding an entire paragraph that nowhere discusses anything about the comment to which it is replying. It is clear that you can't differentiate "you people are fear-mongering issues you don't understand the risks off" from "I don't believe corexit or nuclear fallout exists".
If you're going to waste your time replying it would help you immensely to actually read the the comments. And while a clear disaster of massive proportions is occurring at this moment in Japan (a disaster that appears to have worsened dramatically since my first comment) it is still true that the chances that ANYONE in the continental US has any adverse health affect from this event is miniscule. This is due to the distance and basic physics of radiation.
Indeed, radiation of all types (including light and its shorter wavelength counterparts xrays and gamma rays) falls off as the inverse square of the distance from the source. That's why the Hiroshima bomb didn't do more damage-the firestorm initiated by the shock wave did the major damage. In other words you double the distance you halve the radiation exposure, triple it and its 1/8 etc. Radiation based health problems is the least of Japan's worries in this case. Undoubtedly ordinary contaminated water, food and lack of electricity will cause many more deaths.
You are sharing basic scientific information in a rational manner -that will NOT be tolerated on a GW thread. Expect to be accused of being in the pay of GE within hours.
GE Fukushima reactors twice the size of Chernobyl, but better contained until they are vented or cracked
Product liability?
Come on! GE? They will be declared immune from prosecution. After all, who could have predicted a sunami caused by an earthquake?
Jeff Immelt is an Obama czar (jobs, right?) ... GE is immune to everything. Obama now supporting US nuclear power, per NPR; nothing can go wrong.
Just duck and cover!
"The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is forecasting a magnitude 8.0 aftershock, which could completely destroy the damaged reactors at the Fukushima facility:"
The missing item here is "when" the aftershock would occur, are we talking days, weeks, months, tomorrow morning?
RSN
Iodine Bitchez!
Yes, but:
DON'T Take Potassium Iodide Unless You Are Exposed to Radiation
Either your MD source is poorly informed, or you failed to understand what you were told. Yes, Potassium Iodide is used to destry the thyroid gland. Except that the version used for that purpose uses RADIOACTIVE Iodide. That is not at all the same as normal KI. Why be troubled with letting facts interfere with the story.
If you have concerns about dosages of Iodine, do a google search for Lugol's Solution. People can argue about the claims of medical benefits. However there is little or no question about the safety of the product.
I went to Amazon.com. Guess what. Sold out.
Guess what - you should have had these in your Bug Out Bag months ago before they were sold out - that's what prepping means, being prepared.
All these things you think you might need when TSHTF are going to be "Guess What, Sold Out" when you need them. I don't have the "complete list" but there are good prepper sites out there with pretty good lists.
Let this be a test warning - next time it might not be Japan, it might not be nuclear, it might not be a tsunami - what could it be??? RIGHT, that's what prepping means, being as prepared (as much as possible) for not what you can imagine BUT what you can't imagine. Don't be fucked by the "Guess What, Sold Out" syndrome. All the silver in the world won't save your ass when Iodine is needed. Still, I hold a shitload of silver in case I'm wrong about that - and enough iodine for 10 people when there's only 4 in my family.
errr, so what about this then?
http://www.alkalizeforhealth.net/Liodine.htm
The mainstream has done nothing but limit our ability to get iodine supplementation
see:
http://iodine4health.com/ortho/ortho.htm
http://www.curezone.com/faq/c.asp?a=2971,2962
I don't know. I went with the mainstream medical view on this one which could be wrong.
Everyone should do their own research and reach their own conclusions ...
so ur recommendation is based on "no clue"?
- Ned
150 mcg is RDA
Im in SoCal. If I wake up one morning and have grown another thirteen in. penis I'll know they were lying:)
Just get another boyfriend. No problem.
Is that in your forehead?
So many people will have died, though, you'll wake up with mourning wood.
big prick.
+1. Radiation needs to get in line behind all the other shit that's in our air.
Rilly. Speaking as a California resident, (in the front row, as it were), may I suggest that the coming cloud of radioactive fallout will be greeted as nothing more than the usual smog, just with a badder attitude.
It's not like that shit is going to travel 5 thousand miles across the pacific and just stop in California. The whole northern hemisphere is in danger. If it hits CA, a few days later it will be in NY, then on to the UK and beyond.
Atlantis was destroyed. Now its Pacifica. Get ready for the japanese comet as it lands in Apache territory. 6 card flush... as a phony hand it couldn't get worse.
I wonder what will happen if this combines with all that oil leaked in the Gulf ?
Christ, that'll give George a monster boner: radioactive oil destroying the Gulf sea floor. Oh, the humanity!
I'm sure GW will explore that topic soon enough...
beware the fake map that is going around
http://www.australian-radiation-services.com.au/
not related but one of the images above was sourced from Alex Jones (not that there is anything wrong with that but original source would be better)
http://static.infowars.com/2011/03/i/rotator/13jet-stream1.jpg
WHATEVER, TAKE CARE OF YOUR OWN!!
I've went to the farmacy and bought 4 times the doses for my family.
This evening I'm going to stock in canned food for 12 weeks as a precaution and if things get worse, I'm filling the basement with food.
When Tjernobyl hit europe, I've lost 3 family members because of lymf gland cancer, my own mother included.
ALL OUR FOOD WAS RADIATION CONTAMINATED FOR 2 YEARS IN THE EU!!
AVOID MILK AND FRESH VEGETABLES AND FRESH MEAT!
AND NEVER WAS THERE ANY OFFICIAL WARNING!!!
This won't happen to us again.
STOCK RADIATION FREE FOOD
GET MEDICINE
SO YOU CAN RIDE THIS ONE OUT!!!
THE JAPANSE PLANTS ARE WAY MORE DANGEROUS THEN TJERNOBYL!!!
DO NOT BELIEVE THE GOVERNMENTS OF ANY COUNTRY, NOT EVEN YOUR OWN!!
IT IS YOUR LIFE AND YOUR FAMILY THAT COUNTS!
MAKE YOUR OWN DECISSIONS ACCORDINGLY!