Are any of the Fukushima power plants still fissioning fuel?

[DrZoidberg]

What documentary did you see? Documentaries are notorious for bullshitting. After seeing a documentary it should prompt you to go and check the sources. The fact that you refer to the documentary and not the source is telling. Did you check the sources?

There's a hundred alarmist documentary to every sensible one. If not more

I have stopped watching any documentary that isn't on PBS or BBC for this reason. Even nature documentaries seem to be edited bull. Thanks Discovery and Animal Planet, you fucks!

I once talked with a documentary film maker about this. He said, something along the lines of, film isn't a good medium to convey facts. Film is only really good for conveying emotions. So that's what we do. If you want facts, read a book.

I don't think it's possible to convey any nuanced kind of argument in a documentary. Sure, there's degrees here. But in general I think they all suck. I still think they're valuable. They can drive home the emotional impact of something, if you already know the facts. But I don't think anybody is going to learn anything of substance from a documentary.

Not to belabour the point. But compare TV news with news paper news. If you'd read the transcript. TV news is basically, country, war, child, sad, and now the weather. There's zero explanation of anything. I used to watch the news. But the more I learn about the world, the less I think TV news reports give me. I see documentaries as long news segments basically.

 

[repoman]

another1 is taking the piss. This is really good snarky satire. He has some real talent. Another Jonathan Swift.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nothing funny about it actually but hmm I don't know if they are or not. How could they get near to find out? They just go on the readings in the environment which aren't getting lower right? Could they just blow it all up completely? Drop a bomb on it? If it is still making radiation juice we need to go turn it off or destroy it. It is probably taking a minute off of our lives every day. That will probably square within a year if we don't send some heroes in there to turn the thing off.

What Chernobyl taught us is that if the initial radiation doesn't kill us our chance of developing cancer is identical to anybody not exposed. This is from comparing the later health of the Chernobyl reactor workers with other people. This could also be found in the animal and plant life around Chernobyl. They seemed completely unaffected. On the contrary. They were doing better than ever. Which of course is because the humans fucked off. The dangers of radiation have been greatly exaggerated.

What you need to worry about is constant elevated degrees of radiation. That's not going to be a problem when it's a one off disaster like this. All the really dangerous and deadly radiation is soon gone. If elevated levels of radiation spooks you, avoid being a pilot. Don't live in a city. Don't eat bananas. It's all easy stuff to avoid.

That's not to say we shouldn't be afraid of radiation. But we really don't need to worry. In the 30's and 40'ies it was believed that radiation was healthy. So we got lots of products to increase radiation dosages. That is bad. And good that we stopped doing. So don't do that and you'll be fine

No--it's the elevated radiation levels that appear to be of minimal risk. There is no question of the danger of acute exposure and in this realm the results are clear: Expect one cancer per 50 Sieverts. The question comes with lesser exposures, to get good data requires huge sample sizes and thus prohibitive costs (And would be on animals anyway, only an approximation of the threat to humans.) Of course nobody has done it, we are left with looking at the real world results of unintended exposure.

We can observe that the natural background level does not appear to have any effect on the cancer rates, even when people live in radioactive buildings (some simply natural, one case in Taiwan involved contaminated steel used in construction.) None of these are big enough samples to be conclusive, though.

Radon clearly poses a danger to smokers but does not appear to be a notable threat to non-smokers--and it's short half life means not that much is released even when the reactor goes wrong. The primary radon threat is natural or mining.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Guarapari in Brazil is a popular tourist destination; The Monazite in the beach sand there causes background radiation as high as 175mSv/year. No ill health effects have been reported due to this radiation exposure.

But the high exposure exists only on the beach, since nobody actually lives there nobody experiences this dose.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Your numbers don't mean anything to me. Appreciate them but they are just numbers.

None are so blind as those unwilling to see.

I didn't come up with them myself. The next generations will show terrible mutations. There, you can start counting up numbers. It would be an absolute cruelty to allow spawning from there. That is when math will get difficult. The end result would be worse than any fiction. The disgusting people will start eating each other. Terrible things will happen. They'll have to be done away with. All because of Fukushima... and you stand there with your elbow against the thing like nope everything is safe here! Good times! You really don't know. I don't either but things get worse before they get better, so I'm probably closer to being right.

We have a sample that shows what even high level exposure does to the next generation: The birth defect rate of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Effect: None.

 

[another1]

HBO caught Robert Durst talking to his penis and it put him in jail. They're better than fiction. But yeah some are fiction. Sure. The one you asked me about was on VHS. I saw it before the internet happened. Back then, trolling was more like circulating obvious propaganda. They would start a VHS off with a legitimate point and then start trying to change minds about Jewish people, black people, homosexuals or unions. I miss finding mysterious, black Betamax tapes and chainsmoking while waiting for it to turn into another propaganda piece. Getting RickRolled 1989 style I suppose, but instead or making you laugh, the objective more sinister. Hoaxes were less common than they are now. I didn't get a hoax vibe but I was barely a teen, so my bs detector wasn't mastered.

There was nothing trolling about the Chernobyl documentary I saw. It was obscure, yes. Untrue I don't know. I was thinking with Samuel L. Jackson's voice when I typed, and I was perturbed for a quick moment. You know how he gets. "Ashy lookin deer-man with horns all up in his head" sounded like something he would say. Dunno.

I took a field recorder to all kina crackhouses and waited for someone to say something interesting for $10 but it didn't pan out. I put a good bit of effort into telling a story about a crack neighborhood. I ended up using the recordings for music and forgot about a documentary. I operate alone and it would be pretty hard to bring a documentary together by yourself. Live and learn. BUT some people make out on paying druggies to die slowly during a documentary.

Lucifer Valentine made a documentary called Black Metal Veins. In it, he goes to WV of all places and pays a Black Metal band $10,000 to straight up DIE on drugs over a period of about a year. He checked in on their progress, exploited them on cam in every way imaginable - then handed them more drug money. Then he came back and filmed more dying. Over half the cast died. By my reasoning he killed them.

I know a guy named Brad who thinks he "starred" in the documentary. He was selling foodstamp purchased Pepsi cubes outside Speedway and forced me to look at the commercial. The insanity of the guy. He was (in his own mind) a highly talented actor - yet snorting pills off the speedway toilet rim and selling foodstamps. Bathing with public toilet water and doing many other humiliating things. I blame the documentary for his accelerated decay. He was doomed to start with, but he lost a good decade of heart function and at least 30 I.Q points from the drugs he used in the documentary. Drugs that Valentine paid for with one purpose in mind. Valentine has no talent and he is a criminal for what he did to those poor kids. Documentary would make you ill on many levels. At some point it stops being art.

You've never heard of the Chernobyl deerman? I doubt deer people live long. The deerman (or deerman hoax) died way before there were info superhighways for common folk. You'd have to take a Polaroid of him on screen and snail mail it to someone to actually spread the word in those times. I wouldn't be surprised if they were real creatures that either died, or were killed off before the word could get out. Calcium makes horns, not magic. Ashy skin, hell you can go ahead and assume Chernobyl is at least going to discolor a fingernail or two. Not implausible. It is a big place where nobody goes, and it has been abandoned for a very long time. Sasquatch could be lurking there for all we know. Radiation poisoned Sasquatch. Worst kind of Sasquatch if you ask me. Soon we'll all be in the same boat as those poor fellas lurking in Chernobyl, but we'll have a harder go because we'll have remembered a life free of horrible mutations.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hmm does that mean we're not all doomed? You don't know. The truth may drive us all to a shrink, and that is why we don't know. Probably better this way.

What should I tell a psychiatrist? "bilby says Fukushima is harmless so I made myself laugh while correcting bilby"?

Fukushima is slowly mutating us. Is that based in reality? Can you deny it? Skip the ever fluctuating fractions and figures and accept that it is in your bloodstream right now. Fukushiman germs EVERYWHERE. That is a good thing? And more to come??? Dude we are cashed. It is all over. The lack of panic is chilling isn't it? You know something is really wrong when no one reacts at all. Ever watch those hysterical fear-laughter patients in the black and white movies? That is totally what we look like from light years away. We're being watched in horror. They're probably hedging bets, and you know what? I bet the number 50 is prime real estate. We have 50 years left as a species on this planet. bilby things really aren't so bad. 50 years is a long time. Still a lot of relatively peaceful life to live under the illusion that life will continue for long after we're gone.

What you should tell the psychiatrist is that you have an irrational fear of radiation.

The average person experiences far more radiation from natural sources than from Fukushima or Chernobyl. Chernobyl exposed people far more than Fukushima but even there we don't see the problems. At first it looked like there was a rash of thyroid cancer but strangely enough people weren't dying of it. I don't think the doctors have ever figured out exactly what was going on but the deaths didn't show up.

 

[another1]

The birth defect rate of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: None.

What about people thousands of miles away? Being close may be safer than catching a current across the earth ten years later? And what do you mean "next" generation? Humans continually reproduced until this tragedy. What if there is a resonant poison that is building up inside each new baby born. What if it has a stacking effect? Have "we" measured any baby chemicals yet? And I'm to assume they have accurate instruments considering they are the same idiots that let it happen in the first place?

The stuff is in our bodies, and it wouldn't be there if the meltdown hadn't happened. Nobody knows what is happening to our bodies and the planet because we're not experienced enough with this. I know I'm not! Who is?? I haven't met them. From what I hear, everyone is a gonner. People I do know say that. Thousands. Millions soon. But still docile about it. Not at all strange?

 

[bilby]

Guarapari in Brazil is a popular tourist destination; The Monazite in the beach sand there causes background radiation as high as 175mSv/year. No ill health effects have been reported due to this radiation exposure.

But the high exposure exists only on the beach, since nobody actually lives there nobody experiences this dose.

If this was near Fukushima or Chernobyl, that dose rate would lead to people being kept off the beach by armed guards.

 

[Toni]

Nothing funny about it actually but hmm I don't know if they are or not. How could they get near to find out? They just go on the readings in the environment which aren't getting lower right? Could they just blow it all up completely? Drop a bomb on it? If it is still making radiation juice we need to go turn it off or destroy it. It is probably taking a minute off of our lives every day. That will probably square within a year if we don't send some heroes in there to turn the thing off.

What Chernobyl taught us is that if the initial radiation doesn't kill us our chance of developing cancer is identical to anybody not exposed. This is from comparing the later health of the Chernobyl reactor workers with other people. This could also be found in the animal and plant life around Chernobyl. They seemed completely unaffected. On the contrary. They were doing better than ever. Which of course is because the humans fucked off. The dangers of radiation have been greatly exaggerated.

What you need to worry about is constant elevated degrees of radiation. That's not going to be a problem when it's a one off disaster like this. All the really dangerous and deadly radiation is soon gone. If elevated levels of radiation spooks you, avoid being a pilot. Don't live in a city. Don't eat bananas. It's all easy stuff to avoid.

That's not to say we shouldn't be afraid of radiation. But we really don't need to worry. In the 30's and 40'ies it was believed that radiation was healthy. So we got lots of products to increase radiation dosages. That is bad. And good that we stopped doing. So don't do that and you'll be fine

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/
Thyroid cancer

A large increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has occurred among people who were young children and adolescents at the time of the accident and lived in the most contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was due to the high levels of radioactive iodine released from the Chernobyl reactor in the early days after the accident.

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure,

 

[bilby]

What Chernobyl taught us is that if the initial radiation doesn't kill us our chance of developing cancer is identical to anybody not exposed. This is from comparing the later health of the Chernobyl reactor workers with other people. This could also be found in the animal and plant life around Chernobyl. They seemed completely unaffected. On the contrary. They were doing better than ever. Which of course is because the humans fucked off. The dangers of radiation have been greatly exaggerated.

What you need to worry about is constant elevated degrees of radiation. That's not going to be a problem when it's a one off disaster like this. All the really dangerous and deadly radiation is soon gone. If elevated levels of radiation spooks you, avoid being a pilot. Don't live in a city. Don't eat bananas. It's all easy stuff to avoid.

That's not to say we shouldn't be afraid of radiation. But we really don't need to worry. In the 30's and 40'ies it was believed that radiation was healthy. So we got lots of products to increase radiation dosages. That is bad. And good that we stopped doing. So don't do that and you'll be fine

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/
Thyroid cancer

A large increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has occurred among people who were young children and adolescents at the time of the accident and lived in the most contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was due to the high levels of radioactive iodine released from the Chernobyl reactor in the early days after the accident.

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure,

The LNT model is a stinking pile of shit, that has been repeatedly demonstrated to have no basis in reality. It massively overestimates the effects of low doses of radiation.

The excess thyroid cancers at Chernobyl are due to the cover up; The Soviets couldn't distribute Iodine tablets to the affected population, nor halt the distribution of milk from the region, without admitting that there had been an accident. By the time they finally realized that they couldn't cover it up, it was too late - Iodine-131 has a half life of 8 days, so a delayed response is pointless.

At Fukushima, no such problem occurred; Iodine tablets were distributed in a timely fashion. The short half-life of Iodine-131 means that the risk only exists for a few weeks after the reactor is scrammed; The observed increase in thyroid cancer at Fukushima is entirely due to the increased level of screening that has detected naturally occurring cases that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The birth defect rate of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: None.

What about people thousands of miles away? Being close may be safer than catching a current across the earth ten years later? And what do you mean "next" generation? Humans continually reproduced until this tragedy. What if there is a resonant poison that is building up inside each new baby born. What if it has a stacking effect? Have "we" measured any baby chemicals yet? And I'm to assume they have accurate instruments considering they are the same idiots that let it happen in the first place?

The stuff is in our bodies, and it wouldn't be there if the meltdown hadn't happened. Nobody knows what is happening to our bodies and the planet because we're not experienced enough with this. I know I'm not! Who is?? I haven't met them. From what I hear, everyone is a gonner. People I do know say that. Thousands. Millions soon. But still docile about it. Not at all strange?

You're getting into loony-bin territory here. If there's no effect in the next generation why would there be any effect in later generations?

And since when is a low dose more dangerous than a high dose? This isn't homeopathy!

Also, there's nothing in our bodies from the meltdown that wasn't there from atmospheric bomb testing. If the doom you're worried about is real it would have already happened.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What Chernobyl taught us is that if the initial radiation doesn't kill us our chance of developing cancer is identical to anybody not exposed. This is from comparing the later health of the Chernobyl reactor workers with other people. This could also be found in the animal and plant life around Chernobyl. They seemed completely unaffected. On the contrary. They were doing better than ever. Which of course is because the humans fucked off. The dangers of radiation have been greatly exaggerated.

What you need to worry about is constant elevated degrees of radiation. That's not going to be a problem when it's a one off disaster like this. All the really dangerous and deadly radiation is soon gone. If elevated levels of radiation spooks you, avoid being a pilot. Don't live in a city. Don't eat bananas. It's all easy stuff to avoid.

That's not to say we shouldn't be afraid of radiation. But we really don't need to worry. In the 30's and 40'ies it was believed that radiation was healthy. So we got lots of products to increase radiation dosages. That is bad. And good that we stopped doing. So don't do that and you'll be fine

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/
Thyroid cancer

A large increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has occurred among people who were young children and adolescents at the time of the accident and lived in the most contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was due to the high levels of radioactive iodine released from the Chernobyl reactor in the early days after the accident.

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure,

Note they were subclinical cancers--and treatment was "highly successful". Or is our understanding wrong, we were picking up normal things that didn't kill people in the first place?

 

[Toni]

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/
Thyroid cancer

A large increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has occurred among people who were young children and adolescents at the time of the accident and lived in the most contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was due to the high levels of radioactive iodine released from the Chernobyl reactor in the early days after the accident.

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure,

The LNT model is a stinking pile of shit, that has been repeatedly demonstrated to have no basis in reality. It massively overestimates the effects of low doses of radiation.

The excess thyroid cancers at Chernobyl are due to the cover up; The Soviets couldn't distribute Iodine tablets to the affected population, nor halt the distribution of milk from the region, without admitting that there had been an accident. By the time they finally realized that they couldn't cover it up, it was too late - Iodine-131 has a half life of 8 days, so a delayed response is pointless.

At Fukushima, no such problem occurred; Iodine tablets were distributed in a timely fashion. The short half-life of Iodine-131 means that the risk only exists for a few weeks after the reactor is scrammed; The observed increase in thyroid cancer at Fukushima is entirely due to the increased level of screening that has detected naturally occurring cases that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

I believe that WHO is a well respected authority with regards to epidemiology.

I'm not sure that you are.

 

[bilby]

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/
Thyroid cancer

A large increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has occurred among people who were young children and adolescents at the time of the accident and lived in the most contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was due to the high levels of radioactive iodine released from the Chernobyl reactor in the early days after the accident.

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure,

The LNT model is a stinking pile of shit, that has been repeatedly demonstrated to have no basis in reality. It massively overestimates the effects of low doses of radiation.

The excess thyroid cancers at Chernobyl are due to the cover up; The Soviets couldn't distribute Iodine tablets to the affected population, nor halt the distribution of milk from the region, without admitting that there had been an accident. By the time they finally realized that they couldn't cover it up, it was too late - Iodine-131 has a half life of 8 days, so a delayed response is pointless.

At Fukushima, no such problem occurred; Iodine tablets were distributed in a timely fashion. The short half-life of Iodine-131 means that the risk only exists for a few weeks after the reactor is scrammed; The observed increase in thyroid cancer at Fukushima is entirely due to the increased level of screening that has detected naturally occurring cases that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

I believe that WHO is a well respected authority with regards to epidemiology.

I'm not sure that you are.

The WHO are indeed a respected and respectable authority with regards to epidemiology. Radiation Biology however is not epidemiology; ionizing radiation is not a transmissible pathogen.

The WHO are not, in fact, endorsing the LNT hypothesis in the link you shared; Which is one of the reasons that they haven't lost the respect of the medical community.

I am not a well respected authority on Radiation Biology or the dose-response relationship between Ionizing Radiation and human health effects. But these guys are:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2203/dose-response.07-005.Scott
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0960327110363974
http://www.birpublications.org/doi/pdf/10.1259/bjr/63353075 (paywall)

At low doses reduction of damage from endogenous sources by adaptive protection maybe equal to or outweigh radiogenic damage induction. Thus, the linear-no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis for cancer risk is scientifically unfounded and appears to be invalid in favour of a threshold or hormesis. This is consistent with data both from animal studies and human epidemiological observations on low-dose induced cancer. The LNT hypothesis should be abandoned and be replaced by a hypothesis that is scientifically justified and causes less unreasonable fear and unnecessary expenditure.

https://academic.oup.com/jrr/article-pdf/32/Suppl_2/46/3190283/jrr-32-46.pdf
http://www.radiation-hormesis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/hormesis-641luckey.pdf

Radiation hormesis is explained, pointing out that beneficial effects are expected following a low dose or dose rate because protective responses against stresses are stimulated. The notions that no amount of radiation is small enough to be harmless and that a nuclear accident could kill hundreds of thousands are challenged in light of experience: more than a century with radiation and six decades with reactors. If nuclear energy is to play a significant role in meeting future needs, regulatory authorities must examine the scientific evidence and communicate the real health effects of nuclear radiation. Negative images and implications of health risks derived by unscientific extrapolations of harmful effects of high doses must be dispelled.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03179237(paywall)

The LNT model has sufficient evidence at high doses but has been extrapolated in a linear fashion to low dose regions with much less scientific evidence. Much experimentation has suggested discrepancies of this extrapolation at low doses. The hypothesis of radiation hormesis suggests low dose radiation is beneficial to the irradiated cell and organism. There is definite standing ground for the hormesis hypothesis both evolutionarily and biophysically, but experimental evidence is yet to change official policies on this matter.

 

[DrZoidberg]

What Chernobyl taught us is that if the initial radiation doesn't kill us our chance of developing cancer is identical to anybody not exposed. This is from comparing the later health of the Chernobyl reactor workers with other people. This could also be found in the animal and plant life around Chernobyl. They seemed completely unaffected. On the contrary. They were doing better than ever. Which of course is because the humans fucked off. The dangers of radiation have been greatly exaggerated.

What you need to worry about is constant elevated degrees of radiation. That's not going to be a problem when it's a one off disaster like this. All the really dangerous and deadly radiation is soon gone. If elevated levels of radiation spooks you, avoid being a pilot. Don't live in a city. Don't eat bananas. It's all easy stuff to avoid.

That's not to say we shouldn't be afraid of radiation. But we really don't need to worry. In the 30's and 40'ies it was believed that radiation was healthy. So we got lots of products to increase radiation dosages. That is bad. And good that we stopped doing. So don't do that and you'll be fine

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/
Thyroid cancer

A large increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has occurred among people who were young children and adolescents at the time of the accident and lived in the most contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was due to the high levels of radioactive iodine released from the Chernobyl reactor in the early days after the accident.

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure,

All those numbers are worthless without a control. What is interesting is how much higher the numbers would be than they would be otherwise. All I've seen is that when the increased health risks from Chernobyl is spread out over all causes of death then it's suddenly not scary at all.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/
Thyroid cancer

A large increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has occurred among people who were young children and adolescents at the time of the accident and lived in the most contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was due to the high levels of radioactive iodine released from the Chernobyl reactor in the early days after the accident.

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure,

The LNT model is a stinking pile of shit, that has been repeatedly demonstrated to have no basis in reality. It massively overestimates the effects of low doses of radiation.

The excess thyroid cancers at Chernobyl are due to the cover up; The Soviets couldn't distribute Iodine tablets to the affected population, nor halt the distribution of milk from the region, without admitting that there had been an accident. By the time they finally realized that they couldn't cover it up, it was too late - Iodine-131 has a half life of 8 days, so a delayed response is pointless.

At Fukushima, no such problem occurred; Iodine tablets were distributed in a timely fashion. The short half-life of Iodine-131 means that the risk only exists for a few weeks after the reactor is scrammed; The observed increase in thyroid cancer at Fukushima is entirely due to the increased level of screening that has detected naturally occurring cases that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

I believe that WHO is a well respected authority with regards to epidemiology.

I'm not sure that you are.

LNT is the worst case hypothesis and thus what's used for safety calculations in the lack of evidence that the true numbers are lower.

 

[barbos]

The Fukushima Exclusion Zone is designated as any area where the radiation exposure is above 20mSv/year.

Natural background radiation at Ramsar in Iran is in the order of 100 - 250mSv/year; Ramsar has been inhabited for at least 1,000 years, and residents are no less healthy than people living in places with far lower background radiation levels.

Fukushima is one earthquake away from increasing its radiation level by orders of magnitude.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Fukushima Exclusion Zone is designated as any area where the radiation exposure is above 20mSv/year.

Natural background radiation at Ramsar in Iran is in the order of 100 - 250mSv/year; Ramsar has been inhabited for at least 1,000 years, and residents are no less healthy than people living in places with far lower background radiation levels.

Fukushima is one earthquake away from increasing its radiation level by orders of magnitude.

Another earthquake would do nothing. The problem with Fukushima was the quake destroyed all the cooling for the still-hot fuel. There isn't hot fuel there now.

 

[bilby]

Fukushima is one earthquake away from increasing its radiation level by orders of magnitude.

Another earthquake would do nothing. The problem with Fukushima was the quake destroyed all the cooling for the still-hot fuel. There isn't hot fuel there now.

^That.

The containment structures are seriously tough. Even another 9.0 quake wouldn't spread their current contents around - and even in the unlikely event that such a quake did cause a leak, without a heat source to make the stuff inside into smoke, it wouldn't be going anywhere; the effects would be strictly localised, and yet again the actual disaster would be the massive fucking earthquake.

You know, the one that killed 16,000 people, but which has been largely forgotten by a public who are more interested in a nuclear incident that was caused by the 'quake, and killed 0 people.

Unless people stop emoting about non-events, while ignoring major disasters like this, we are all doomed.

I won't hold my breath.