Life after radiation

[Richard]

Fukushima increases risk of cancer – but not by much

New Scientist, 15:15 18 July 2012, by Sara Reardon
www.newscientist.com/article/dn22074-fukushima-increases-risk-of-cancer--but-not-by-much.html

Radiation from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant will lead to deaths from cancer – but so few that proving a link with the nuclear accident could be impossible.

In the wake of last year's partial meltdown at the plant, a United Nations inquiry concluded that exposure levels to radiation were too low to pose a serious health risk.

However, the consensus on radiation exposure is that "even at a very low concentration, there will be a health effect", says Mark Jacobson of Stanford University.

Using data on how much radiation was emitted and a model of the atmospheric conditions at the time, his group determined how many people would be exposed to radiation through water, food and air, and at what concentration. The team then calculated the likelihood that this exposure would cause terminal cancer.

They conclude that there will be 180 cases of cancer and 130 deaths worldwide. Not surprisingly, these are most likely to occur in Japan and the surrounding area. But because the radiation spread around the world, even North America could experience up to 30 cancer-related deaths due to the Fukushima accident.

Wind-blown radiation

Most of the radiation blew over the ocean rather than across land, which lowered the predicted death rate. The quick move in Japan to stop the consumption of food produced in the affected area prevented humans from being exposed through livestock and their milk, also helping to lower the potential death toll.

The number is so low we will never be able to link a single cancer case to Fukushima, says Kathleen Thiessen of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. "In an epidemiological study , it's unlikely you'd be able to see a difference even if there is one," she says.

The paper isn't unreasonable, says David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, but "literally dozens of assumptions have been made, both to estimate the doses, and then to estimate the cancer risks from the doses". That makes these estimates even more uncertain than the authors propose, he says.

The biggest source of uncertainty, Thiessen adds, is the reliability of the emissions data from Japan, which still contains inconsistencies.

Still, the value of this model is to put the accident in perspective, says Iulian Apostoaei, also at Oak Ridge. "We believe that in their lifetimes, 3 billion people will develop cancer. This accident added 100 more to this fold."

Journal reference: Energy & Environmental Science, DOI: 10.1039/c2ee22019a

[Richard]

U.N. expert sees no serious Fukushima health impact

Reuters News, US Edition, by Fredrik Dahl - VIENNA - Wed Apr 6, 2011 2:39pm EDT - www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/06/us-japan-nuclear-health-idUSTRE7354H920110406


Japan's nuclear accident is not expected to have any serious impact on people's health, based on the information available now, the head of a U.N. scientific body said on Wednesday.

Wolfgang Weiss, chairman of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), also said the Fukushima disaster was less dramatic than Chernobyl in 1986 but "much more serious" than Three Mile Island in 1979.

"It is in between in terms of environmental effects, not in terms of health impact," Weiss told reporters.

Weiss said the committee planned to look formally into the Fukushima accident and its conseequences, but stressed the emergency was not yet over. He was speaking after Japan on Wednesday stopped highly radioactive water leaking into the sea from the damaged nuclear power plant.

Despite the breakthrough, experts in the country said the damaged reactors were far from being under control almost a month after they were hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami.

THYROID SCREENING

Weiss praised Japanese authorities for starting to implement thyroid screening for children and said all measurements so far in this respect were below acceptable levels in the country.

"The only proven effect after Chernobyl was thyroid cancer in children," he said.

Highlighting the differences between Chernobyl and Fukushima, he said people in villages close to the plant in the then Soviet Union were exposed to radioactive iodine that contaminated milk and vegetables.

"They inhaled first, then they ingested this iodine and this caused the problem," Weiss said. "In Fukushima, the people were evacuated before any release took place, so this is a totally different situation."

Asked what health consequences he expected from Fukushima, he said: "From what I know now, nothing, because levels are so low. In food, people are talking about levels which would give you one millisieverts per year, five millisieverts per year ... this is nothing where we would expect major health impacts."

Radiation is measured using the unit sievert, which quantifies the amount absorbed by human tissues.

Weiss said: "We have seen traces of iodine in the air all over the world now but they are much, much, much lower than traces we have seen at similar distances after Chernobyl."

In Chernobyl, hundreds of people received high doses of radioactivity and about 135 got acute radiation sickness, Fred Mettler, another member of UNSCEAR, said.

"We haven't seen any of that at Fukushima so the early management by the Japanese here is very different from what happened at Chernobyl," Mettler said.

[Richard]

Hiroshima

Abridged from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima

On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the Atomic Bomb "Litle Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, (Enola Gay), directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000–140,000. Approximately 69% of the city's buildings were completely destroyed, and another 7% severely damaged.

On September 17, 1945, (less than 30 days after the bombing and people are still there) Hiroshima was struck by the Makurazaki Typhoon (Typhoon Ida). Hiroshima prefecture suffered more than 3,000 deaths and injuries, about half the national total. More than half the bridges in the city were destroyed, along with heavy damage to roads and railroads, further devastating the city.

Hiroshima was rebuilt after the war, with the help from the national government through the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law passed in 1949. It provided financial assistance for reconstruction, along with land donated that was previously owned by the national government and used for military purposes.

In 1949, a design was selected for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the closest surviving building to the location of the bomb's detonation, was designated the "Atomic Dome" (Genbaku Dome), a part of the Hiroshima Peace Park . The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was opened in 1955 in the Peace Park.

Before WWII, Hiroshima's population had grown to 360,000, and peaked at 419,182 in 1942. Following the atomic bombing in 1945, the population dropped to 137,197. By 1955, the city's population had returned to pre-war levels. (only 10 yrs) While the total population for the metropolitan area was estimated as 2,043,788 in 2000, as of 2006 the city itself had an estimated population of 1,154,391.

[Richard]

Nagasaki

Abridged from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagasaki - wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_population_in_Nagasaki - and - history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/hiroshima.htm

On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was the target of the United States' second atomic bomb attack (and the second detonation of a plutonium bomb; the first was tested in central New Mexico, USA), when the north of the city was destroyed in less than a second, and an estimated 70,000 people were killed by the bomb codenamed "Fat Man." According to statistics found within Nagasaki Peace Park, the death toll from the atomic bombing totalled 73,884, including 2,000 Korean forced workers and eight POWs, as well as another 74,909 injured, and another several hundred thousand diseased and dying due to fallout and other illness caused by radiation.

Portions of Nagasaki with little or no damage were continously inhabited, and the city was rebuilt. Nagasaki reattained its pre-attack population by 1954. The population of Nagasaki on December 15th 2011 was approximately 426660.

[Richard]

Chernobyl

Abridged from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster


The Chernobyl disaster occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl in Ukraine (then officially Ukrainian SSR), which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western USSR and Europe. It is widely considered to have been the worst nuclear accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event - (the other being Fukushima in 2011). The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 530,000 workers (this is why there was so many radiation health problems) and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles, crippling the Soviet economy.

Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus have been burdened with the continuing and substantial decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident. A report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, examines the environmental consequences of the accident. Another UN agency, UNSCEAR, has estimated a global collective dose of radiation exposure from the accident "equivalent on average to 21 additional days of world exposure to natural background radiation"; individual doses were far higher than the global mean among those most exposed, including the 530,000 local recovery workers who averaged an effective dose equivalent to an extra 50 years of typical natural background radiation exposure each. Estimates of the number of deaths that will eventually result from the accident vary enormously; disparities reflect both the lack of solid scientific data and the different methodologies used to quantify mortality – whether the discussion is confined to specific geographical areas or extends worldwide, and whether the deaths are immediate, short term, or long term.

Thirty-one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers. An UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. (22 yrs after the fact)

The Chernobyl Forum estimates that the eventual death toll could reach 4,000 among those exposed to the highest levels of radiation (200,000 emergency workers, 116,000 evacuees and 270,000 residents of the most contaminated areas); this figure includes some 50 emergency workers who died of acute radiation syndrome, nine children who died of thyroid cancer and an estimated total of 3940 deaths from radiation-induced cancer and leukemia.

The Union od Concerned Scientist estimates that, among the hundreds of millions of people living in broader geographical areas, there will be 50,000 excess cancer cases resulting in 25,000 excess cancer deaths. For this broader group, the 2006 TORCH report predicts 30,000 to 60,000 excess cancer deaths, and a Greenpeace report (who always exagerate the facts for their own purposes) puts the figure at 200,000 or more.

[Richard]

Belarus Resumes Farming in Chernobyl Radiation Zone

The New York Times, by, Steven Lee Myers, Published: October 22nd, 2005 - www.nytimes.com/2005/10/22/international/europe/22belarus.html?pagewanted=all

VIDUITSY, Belarus - The winter rye is already sprouting green in the undulating fields of the state cooperative farm here. The summer's crop - rye, barley and rapeseed - amounted to 1,400 tons. Best of all, the farm's director, Vladimir I. Pryzhenkov, said, none of it tested radioactive.

That is progress. The farm's 4,000 acres are nestled among some of the most contaminated spots on earth, the poisoned legacy of the worst nuclear accident in history: the explosion at Chernobyl Reactor No. 4 on April 26, 1986.

Nearly a quarter of Belarus, including some of its prime farmland, remains radioactive to some degree. Mr. Pryzhenkov's farm represents part of the government's efforts to put the contaminated lands back to good use.

The farm, no longer known as the Karl Marx collective but still state-owned, reopened two years ago with the millions of dollars' worth of harvesters, tractors and other equipment provided by President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko's government.

A year before (actually 2003 - 17ys after the accident) that the checkpoints that once restricted access to this region, 150 miles from Chernobyl, disappeared. Families began returning. Some had never left; all needed jobs.

Mr. Pryzhenkov, assigned here from another co-op in what he called "a promotion," has also begun breeding horses and cattle for beef, though not for milk. Milk produced here would be far too dangerous for human consumption.

"This was all falling apart," he said as he drove a battered UAZ jeep over the farm's muddy, rutted roads. "There was nothing for the people to do here."

Mr. Lukashenko, a former collective farm boss himself, declared last year that it was time to revive the contaminated regions, outlining a vision of new homes and villages, of new industry, of rejuvenated farms. "Land should work for the country," he said.

His authoritarian decrees, on this and other topics, have prompted shock, fear and even ridicule, but a scientific study released in September by seven United Nations agencies and the World Bank more or less agreed with him.

It concluded that Chernobyl's lasting effects on health and the environment had not proved as dire as first predicted. It recommended that the authorities in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus take steps to reverse psychological trauma caused by Chernobyl, encouraging investment and redevelopment.

Lands where agriculture was banned or severely restricted can be safe for growing crops again, the report said, .....

[Dave]

55 years ago, 6 stood under atomic bomb blast -- on purpose

NBCNewsUS, By Jim Gold, NBC News

Fifty-five years ago today, five Army officers and a photographer stood directly under a 2-kiloton atomic blast at the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and survived.

The five officers, who volunteered for the duty, and the cameraman, who did not, designated the July 19, 1957, test site with a hand-lettered sign as “Ground Zero, Population 5,” KPLU, a Seattle/Tacoma-based NPR station, said in a story marking the 55th anniversary of the blast.
The intent of the Cold War test was to film the officers surviving the blast and convince U.S. military leaders of the time that using low-grade nuclear missiles in the air would be relatively safe for people on the ground, KPLU reported.

[Virginia]

Didn't John Wayne claim his cancer was the result of filming a movie in that area?

[Dave]

How interesting is that - do you have a source / reference?

[Virginia]

John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Dick Powell, and Agnes Moorhead and a Mexican actor Pedro Armendariz made a movie 100 miles from Yucca Flats were atomic bombs were set off. Government said St. George Utah was safe. There were 91 cast members also and they all died of cancer. The movie was called THE CONQUERORS and was a big flop. It was financed by Howard Hughes. Before filming farmers were saying sheep and cattle were dying. Congress investigated and they concluded that because the actors were smokers they could not say were their cancers came from.

[Dave]

I did not know that! What a good post. I'll be checking it out for myself.

[Dave]

Human error blamed for Fukushima meltdown

New Scientist, issue 2875, 26 July 2012,

"CATASTROPHIC meltdowns of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had less to do with the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on 11 March last year, and more to do with the plant owners' and government's failure to anticipate and prepare for emergencies on such an epic scale."

------------------------------

Actually, the human error was believing that man could build something that last long enough to contain unleased radiation.

There is an interesting educational math exersize available on the web at: pulse.pharmacy.arizona.edu/math/chernobyl1.html PULSE is an interdisciplinary curriculum for high schools based on environmental health science and biomedical research topics.

This lesson serves as the introduction to a set of lessons related to the horrific nuclear power plant disaster at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, part of the former Soviet Union. Students will review the process of unit analysis to convert between units of radioactivity and will examine the radiation released during the 10 days the fire at the power plant raged and calculate the amount of time radidoactive contaminates will remain in our environment.

Using the losest estiments of release = 651 years

Using the higest estiments of release = 102,726 years

If we just take the mean average answer of say approx. 50,000 yrs - or 20,000 yrs - whatever possesed man to think we could build anything that would las that long and remain intact. - The Pyrimids of Giza are only 10,000 yrs old and we didn't even build them!