Radiation levels are scary but not as scary as stupidity

The BBC and much of the rest of the British media are scaring people with their 'radiation leak' stories. Radiation sounds scary and we have been conditioned to think any radiation is dangerous, but is it. Here's a chart that I found yesterday that I think puts the Fukushima radiation leak into perspective..

Many thanks to xcd.com for the chart and this explanation

'There’s a lot of discussion of radiation from the Fukushima plants, along with comparisons to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Radiation levels are often described as “ times the normal level” or “% over the legal limit,” which can be pretty confusing.

Ellen, a friend of mine who’s a student at Reed and Senior Reactor Operator at the Reed Research Reactor, has been spending the last few days answering questions about radiation dosage virtually nonstop (I’ve actually seen her interrupt them with “brb, reactor”). She suggested a chart might help put different amounts of radiation into perspective, and so with her help, I put one together. She also made one of her own; it has fewer colors, but contains more information about what radiation exposure consists of and how it affects the body.

I’m not an expert in radiation and I’m sure I’ve got a lot of mistakes in here, but there’s so much wild misinformation out there that I figured a broad comparison of different types of dosages might be good anyway. I don’t include too much about the Fukushima reactor because the situation seems to be changing by the hour, but I hope the chart provides some helpful context.

Note that there are different types of ionizing radiation; the “sievert” unit quantifies the degree to which each type (gamma rays, alpha particles, etc) affects the body. You can learn more from my sources list. If you’re looking for expert updates on the nuclear situation, try the MIT NSE Hub. Ellen’s page on radiation is here.

Lastly, remember that while there’s a lot of focus on possible worst-case scenarios involving the nuclear plants, the tsunami was an actual disaster that’s already killed thousands. Hundreds of thousands more, including my best friend from college, are in shelters with limited access to basic supplies and almost no ability to contact the outside world. If you’re not sure how to help, Google’s Japan Crisis Resource page is a good place to start.'

This was where I was going to end this piece but then I read George Monbiot's piece in today's Guardian and just had to quote him, especially as he picked up on the same chart that I have:

'You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com. It shows that the average total dose from the Three Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure. I'm not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective.'

My worry is that this article is not actually by George Monbiot but is a joke because George Monbiot then goes onto to explain why free-energy solutions won't be able to replace fossil fuels and nuclear:

'Like most greens, I favour a major expansion of renewables. I can also sympathise with the complaints of their opponents. It's not just the onshore windfarms that bother people, but also the new grid connections (pylons and power lines). As the proportion of renewable electricity on the grid rises, more pumped storage will be needed to keep the lights on. That means reservoirs on mountains: they aren't popular, either.

The impacts and costs of renewables rise with the proportion of power they supply, as the need for storage and redundancy increases. It may well be the case (I have yet to see a comparative study) that up to a certain grid penetration – 50% or 70%, perhaps? – renewables have smaller carbon impacts than nuclear, while beyond that point, nuclear has smaller impacts than renewables.

Like others, I have called for renewable power to be used both to replace the electricity produced by fossil fuel and to expand the total supply, displacing the oil used for transport and the gas used for heating fuel. Are we also to demand that it replaces current nuclear capacity? The more work we expect renewables to do, the greater the impact on the landscape will be, and the tougher the task of public persuasion.

But expanding the grid to connect people and industry to rich, distant sources of ambient energy is also rejected by most of the greens who complained about the blog post I wrote last week in which I argued that nuclear remains safer than coal. What they want, they tell me, is something quite different: we should power down and produce our energy locally. Some have even called for the abandonment of the grid. Their bucolic vision sounds lovely, until you read the small print.

At high latitudes like ours, most small-scale ambient power production is a dead loss. Generating solar power in the UK involves a spectacular waste of scarce resources. It's hopelessly inefficient and poorly matched to the pattern of demand. Wind power in populated areas is largely worthless. This is partly because we have built our settlements in sheltered places; partly because turbulence caused by the buildings interferes with the airflow and chews up the mechanism. Micro-hydropower might work for a farmhouse in Wales, but it's not much use in Birmingham.

And how do we drive our textile mills, brick kilns, blast furnaces and electric railways – not to mention advanced industrial processes? Rooftop solar panels? The moment you consider the demands of the whole economy is the moment at which you fall out of love with local energy production. A national (or, better still, international) grid is the essential prerequisite for a largely renewable energy supply.'

Do read the rest of George Monbiot's article, the history leson is quite interesting and contains figures that are very interesting indeed for those of you  who think that industrialisation was a mistake! The end of George Monbiot's article is even more interesting and should be spread as when even a green like Monbiot realises this then the essential truth needs spreading:

'But the energy source to which most economies will revert if they shut down their nuclear plants is not wood, water, wind or sun, but fossil fuel. On every measure (climate change, mining impact, local pollution, industrial injury and death, even radioactive discharges) coal is 100 times worse than nuclear power. Thanks to the expansion of shale gas production, the impacts of natural gas are catching up fast.

Yes, I still loathe the liars who run the nuclear industry. Yes, I would prefer to see the entire sector shut down, if there were harmless alternatives. But there are no ideal solutions. Every energy technology carries a cost; so does the absence of energy technologies. Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power.'

Of course the truth is something that some, not all, Guardian readers do not like to be presented with when it contradicts their prejudices. Here are two who really don't like facing reality:

'

• dirkbruere
  

  21 March 2011 7:47PM
  George Monbiot has been kidnapped and replaced by a nuclear industry shill!
  Or some kind of weird clone.
  Or something.
  TINA

• Ruby4
  

  21 March 2011 7:48PM

  Grow up and do some real research about the dangers of nuclear fission George. These people supporting Nuclear Power do not really invest in or research the alternatives because profit is their main motive. It is true that they would say that it proves you are in perfect health if you manage to not drop dead after your third heart attack. The Japanese people were told their Nuclear Power plants were 'earthquake proof'!
  If you think they are safe I am sure you will prove it by living near one and having the waste buried in your garden.'

  
  

The last one is quite amusing in its deliberate misunderstanding and misstaement of what George Monbiot said and meant.

This fact that the Japanese nuclear industry as a whole has coped brilliantly with the earthquake and tsunami has not been said enough. Fukushima was the only plant damaged and despite experiencing a massive earthquake (far more powerful than the plant was designed to withstand) followed by an enormous tsuanmi that destroyed virtually every building in the area except the nuclear power station and severed all power supply, the plant did not start destructing. Yes the Fukushima plant has major issues but they it is not spewing radiation in any significant levels and not all radiation is dangerous.

This last point brings me to a piece of video I saw this morning, it's Ann Coulter being interviewed about radiation. Now watch the video, all of it and tink about what she actually said

Now read the hysterical comments underneath the video, here's a few examples:

'WTF?! This bitch has gone WAY past just being bad for the collective intelligence, she's now batshit dangerous. How did Bill O, as steeped in the Fox News koolaid as he is, allow her to blather this crap on his show? I'm not kidding, there's got to be a very real risk of liability if some education-challenged idiot goes off and swallows radium for his health.

And hormesis?! Is she fucking serious?! That snake oil crapola?

She needs to be shunned by the media -- completely shut down.
tgrigsby7 4 hours ago
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@elementguy13 - whew - where does one start? How about if you had small children visiting granny in Japan, and actually thought Ann Coulter was speaking from a place of trying to spread information, because that is what tv journalists are supposed to do, so you say - "hey - no hurry ...".

Now multiply that by millions of panicked people, most of whom have no understanding of nuclear physics! Are you getting the picture why this is a bad thing? It's all about the benjamins.
javamanV3 5 hours ago
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Radiation is good for you, if you're trying win a bet by getting cancer and dying the fastest. Respect to Bill'O because he's being reasonable and he knows it's irresponsible to let her say crazy shit without clarification.
Deepstarr7020 5 hours ago
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This is brainwashing for the braindead at it's best. How retarded does she think the general public is?! Also note how she FAILS to mention what kind of radioactive particles are being blown airbourne in Japan. There are ZERO cases of radioactivity coming of particles being good for a human body.. . And she FAILS to mention the fact that it doesn't matter if it's caesium iodine plutonium or uranium if they get stuck in your body you WILL die of cancer, with the latter two very quickly... FAIL!
nixtc 5 hours ago
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Instead of wasting my bandwidth on porn I had to watch this bulimic demagogue ..... I want my 20MB back.
faceplantpro0 5 hours ago
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@DementedBeast - Chernobyl is way to clean for her. But since she is speaking of the reactors in Japan, perhaps they are looking for volunteers to help seal up the plants. I am pretty sure that every human being that did that at Chernobyl died within the year. I believe their problem was that they didn't have the theory in USSR that radiation is good for you.

PS Every one heros' of the highest order. They all knew they were to die before they went.

javamanV3 5 hours ago'

She's a fucking Nazi bitch. Maybe not a card-carrying Nazi, but a Nazi by any other name is still a Nazi.
rickschtick 4 hours ago'

Why are these people so angry, so abusive when faced with someone who doesn't agree with their world view? Why the recourse to calling someone a Nazi or a bitch, or indeed both?

Perspective people, perspective.