I have been a nuclear engineer for 24 years.
I urge you to learn more about radiation. I certainly wouldnt advise anyone to stick their head in the sand.
There was a good article on dilution a couple of weeks ago on FR. Anyone with a PhD in any science should be able to explain the dilution
I have been a nuclear engineer for 24 years.
I urge you to learn more about radiation. I certainly wouldnt advise anyone to stick their head in the sand.
There was a good article on dilution a couple of weeks ago on FR. Anyone with a PhD in any science should be able to explain the dilution
I hope the concern is overblown. We have property on the ocean to live off the land (or ocean), be more self-sufficient. Hearing that radiation may arrive and there is no coordinated monitoring is somewhat unsettling.
It defies common sense that the Japanese have not moved to produce their electrical needs using LFTRs (Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors).
Let's do the math (I have already):
Fukushima is widely accepted to have released into the Pacific Ocean between estimated 3,000,000,000,000,000 - 34,000,000,000,000,000 Becquerels of Cesium 137 (just one isotope, not including airborne).
If the Pacific Ocean is estimated to have 137 million cubic miles of water and we use a 'mid' number of 13PBq 137cs, by my math (done twice) that equals 2.399 Bq/Liter, or 1.6 Bq/cubic meter, if the entirety of all the released radioactivity were 100% diluted in the Pacific.
That's 26 1/2 Million times background pre-Fukushima. Even is my math is egregiously in error, it's still an order of magnitude, not 'diluted'. And the Pacific won't 100% dilute anything in 3 years, let alone 100.
Give the dilution garbage a rest. I urge you to learn more about Pacific currents. /s
The total amounts of 137 Cs directly released into the sea have been estimated to be from 3.5 ∼ 4 PBq (Tsumune et al., 2012; Kawamura et al., 2011) up to 27 ± 15PBq (Bailly du Bois et al., 2012).
(for those not able to do the math this late at night, PBq is Peta Becquerel, or One Quadrillion Becquerels, or 15 zeroes)
Background Cesium 137 in the Pacific in 2010 was 0.00000009 Bq/cubic meter.
Oh, and for the sake of stating it, that "background" radiation people defending keep parroting? That's largely a result of all the nuclear testing, with a little bit added from Windscale & Chernobyl, or 950 PBq spread all over the planet. What will be Background or ALARA next year???