Radioactive cesium found on Vancouver Island. This is the first time

[applegrove]

Radioactive pollution from the meltdown at Fukushima, Japan has been found in the Americas. Well below acceptable limits. CBC News "The National".

[rhett o rick]

1. Please provide sources. nm

[Electric Monk]

2. CBC is pretty reliable, I think. I found this with a quick google.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/fukushima-radiation-measured-on-b-c-shore-for-1st-time-1.3022565

[applegrove]

4. Thanks. I'm on my cell phone and can't link.

[rhett o rick]

7. Thanks, I appreciate the link. nm

[applegrove]

3. Sorry. CBC news. Thanks for pointing that out.

[FBaggins]

5. Not the first time

Just the first time since the initial (2011) airborne plume fallout fell below detection limits.

[applegrove]

6. They say if you surfed in it 6 hours a day for a year you would still

get more radiation from a single dental xray. So I'm not worried. Just something to keep an eye on. More upsetting was the news last week that the authorities have yet to develop the technology to control the actual meltdown in Japan. They have no idea what it will be. All in all a good idea to rethink nuclear technology.

[bananas]

8. So for the creatures living there, it's like getting 4 xrays a day.

And they don't get to wear that heavy lead apron on their chest, like in the dentist office.
Too bad the fish can't leave the room, like the dentist and nurses do before they turn the x-ray on.

[FBaggins]

9. Wrong

Because the comparison was not one xray per day if you swam there for six hours.

It was that you could swim in water twice as contaminated for six hours every day for a year and you would still have less of a dose than 1/1000th of a dental xray.

Here's the relevant comparison for the creatures living there: Potassium 40 and Cesium 137 both emit the same kind of radiation most of the time (I say most, because K40 is also a gamma emitter about 10% of the time). They both emit an electron with a bit over a MeV of energy ( a beta particle). So the damage done by the beta radiation of 1Bq of Cesium is essentially identical to that of the same amount of K40.

They've found roughly 7 Bq of cesium per ton in that seawater.

There's eleven thousand Bq worth of K40 in that same amount of seawater. (Not to mention 1,000+ Bq of rubidium). Heck... if we're going to pay attention to single-digit Bqs in a ton of water... there's five times as much activity from the alpha decay of the uranium in the water.

In short... it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference for the creatures living there... and you're closer to being off by a factor of a million than to being correct.

[FBaggins]

11. There really wasn't any "news" last week.

There was quite a bit of hype around an interview with the head of the decommissioning effort... but it was all stuff that has been said since 2011. It will be years until they get to the point where they'll even know what needs to be done for units 1-3. Until then, they aren't in a position to say what's possible and what isn't.

There isn't any information so far that indicates that it won't be possible, but we won't know for certain for many years.

As a comparison, It took several years to defuel the melted-down Three Mile Island reactor... because they had to invent new technologies and develop new tools after they learned the condition of the core. In that case, they benefited from the fact that the reactor vessel itself was intact and they could flood the well. At Fukushima, they know that none of the three containment vessels currently hold water. They've found small holes that account for the current water leakage, but they can't tell whether there might be other holes that just aren't leaking because the water level isn't high enough. Until they start trying to fill the containment with water and identify those potential leaks... they won't know whether or not the plan they intend to use is plausible. In the case of Chernobyl... they still don't have a clear path to corium removal.

But none of that is really new. It's essentially the same conversation that we had here in the weeks immediately following the meltdowns.

[applegrove]

15. It was new to me. I never looked at it like they didn't have the knowledge yet.

I thought they knew what to do but just that it would take years to get there. My brother, who lives in Japan, already knew there was no plan when I asked him this past weekend. Vibes to Japan. If anyone can figure it out it would be them.

[Orsino]

10. Cue "Waltzing Matilda." n/t

[NuclearDem]

12. Come on Fukushima, you're letting us down.

The West Coast was supposed to have been "absolutely fried" by radiation almost two years ago, and this little anemic "below acceptable limits" nonsense is the best you've got?

[FBaggins]

13. Absolutely fried two years ago?

Heck... we were suppose to all be dead long before that.

Let's not forget the phony Australian Radiation Services' "Nuclear Fallout Map" that Caldicott continues to use.

?8e441b

[Orrex]

14. I think I read somewhere that a million would die from it.

I'm happy to report that we're waaaaaaay behind schedule.

[FBaggins]

16. If that graphic was correct... it would be hundreds of millions.

750 Rad is enough to kill just about everyone that can't make it to a hospital... and more than half of those who can. It equates to about the dose that people who lived less than a km from Hiroshima received (assuming they survived the blast).

[Orrex]

17. No wonder my starfish's teeth melted.