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2006-07-10 -Lurid Crime Tales-

Danger from radiation is exaggerated, say scientists

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Posted by phil_b 2006-07-10 08:56|| || Front Page|| [11126 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Got to die of something,sometime, somewhere.

Posted by JohnQC 2006-07-10 09:17|| 2006-07-10 09:17|| Front Page Top

#2 And during the same time frame, how many people have died of skin cancer? Considering the Sun the largest source of radiation in the neighborhood.

The main negative health impacts of Chernobyl were not caused by the radiation, but a fear of it..

And who is responsible for that? Have they been brought before justice for that?

Posted by Theresh Thrinenter5301 2006-07-10 09:20|| 2006-07-10 09:20|| Front Page Top

#3 Compare also the accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2: the most serious in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community

Posted by Spot">Spot 2006-07-10 10:26|| 2006-07-10 10:26|| Front Page Top

#4 The danger from radiation was only to those people working within eyesight of the plant who were flashed with radiation. Think light.

The real problem to many people was radioactive isotopes, physical particles that were carried away from Chernobyl on the wind. Think dust.

Radioactive isotopes vary tremendously in their risk, based on the element they are based on. So much of the problem is similar to chemical poisoning. From Chernobyl, out of many isotopes, only two were really considered to be of great risk to humans: radioactive iodine and cesium.

When consumed, iodine in any form goes right to the thyroid gland in the neck, the #1 consumer of iodine in the body. If there is excess iodine in the body, then the excess is not stored, but eliminated in the urine. Radioactive or not. This was why right after the accident, especially children were given iodine supplements, so that the radioactive iodine they inhaled would be eliminated from their body before it could hurt their thyroid gland.

Cesium is likewise attractive to the bone marrow. But because there is so much bone marrow, there is no practical limit to cesium uptake. It is otherwise of low toxicity by itself. It is also readily absorbed by plants.

The other factor is radioactive half-life. For iodine, whose half-life is only two weeks, after a short interval, it stopped being a threat. Cesium's half-life, however, is 30 years, so it is a long-term hazard. The Russian response to having the Ukraine, their "breadbasket" contaminated, was to ship the radioactive produce around the country. The idea was that it was better that many people got a little contamination rather than a small number of people got a lot.

But all told, the risks associated with Chernobyl are too difficult to diagnose, to attribute to contamination, so the assumption of lack of harm is premature.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-07-10 13:13|| 2006-07-10 13:13|| Front Page Top

#5 Not to mention that at the core, the thing is still smoldering and still capable of going critical (as almost happened in 1991).

Posted by Gruper Ebberemble1868 2006-07-10 14:58|| 2006-07-10 14:58|| Front Page Top

#6 Yeah man,
that's just like, what the government wants you to believe man. It's the billion dollar corporations in bed with the neoliberal warmongers dude.

Posted by Greaper Ebbavinter9241 2006-07-10 16:28|| 2006-07-10 16:28|| Front Page Top

#7 I hate to be an argumentative bastard, but how the hell can a core go critical if it is splattered all over Belarussia. The fuel melted through the bottom of the reactor and went into the basement of the plant. A nuclear reaction needs neutrons freely bumping about to sustain itself, the nuclear fuel or Corium cooled into a ceramic like substance that is relatively stable. If I'm wrong and there is still some sort of cool reaction taking place in there please describe it to me in more detail.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2006-07-10 16:36|| 2006-07-10 16:36|| Front Page Top

#8 "But the immediate threat is water. A few years ago workers measured more than a thousand square yards of cracks and holes in the sarcophagus, which were allowing rain and melted snow to pool in its bowels. [...]Water can also act as a nuclear moderator: a substance that aids a chain reaction. Though the risk is deemed minute, a renewed chain reaction could trigger another steam explosion. [...]
"On the night of June 26, 1990, after two weeks of heavy rain, detectors in one lava-filled room registered a sharp rise in neutrons, a sign of an impending chain reaction. Four days later, a physicist from a technical center in the old town of Chernobyl, ten miles away, dashed in to pour neutron-quenching gadolinium nitrate on the lava. The neutrons subsided.[...]
"In the past two years 90 percent of the gaps have been plugged, and a new sprinkler system dispenses gadolinium in the central hall. Most rainwater is pumped out, though some is allowed to linger to suppress dust."

--National Geographic, April 2006

Posted by Phash Jailing9651 2006-07-10 16:52|| 2006-07-10 16:52|| Front Page Top

#9 Oh yeah?

Posted by DMFD 2006-07-10 20:08|| 2006-07-10 20:08|| Front Page Top

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