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You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Fade Away and Radiate

Fade Away and Radiate

by @heymistermix.com|  March 18, 20119:04 am| 50 Comments

This post is in: Science & Technology

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Jon Golub at the Stranger has a good reminder of the kinds of radiation emitted, and the health effects of the different isotopes in the particles released into the atmosphere. The main, immediate danger to the plant workers is intense gamma radiation coming from the exposed fuel rods and other sources at the site. This is not the same danger as the plume of gas being released: that danger is the long-term health effects of the radioactive isotopes of iodine, cesium and strontium.

All the discussion about radiation around Fukushima Daiichi is confusing, so here’s an attempt to give it some context using a constant measurement unit, the microsievert (μSv). The IAEA reports that the maximum measured radiation exposure in the 30km (18.6 mile) exclusion zone was 170 microsieverts per hour with a lot of variance (some measurements were as low as 25). Here’s a handy comparison chart, which shows that hanging around in the evacuation area would be like getting one or two chest X-rays per hour. A nuclear plant worker is allowed a total dose of 50,000 microsieverts (50 millisieverts) per year under normal conditions. At the plant, some measurements reached up to 400,000 microsieverts/hour (400 millisieverts/hour), but that was in spikes.

I have to believe that every person on the plant grounds is going to exceed even the 250,000 microsievert limit that was imposed for this emergency. Will they die soon? If they did, it wouldn’t be from cancer, it would be from Acute radiation sickness, where death is in days or weeks instead of years. That starts to happen with exposures of 1,000,000 microsieverts, and almost certain death follows exposure to more than a couple million microsieverts (or a couple of sieverts) worth of radiation.

Since some measurements are reported in sieverts, and some in rems, this converter comes in handy. Also, too, I realize I’ve gone OCD on this, but the media is terrible at communicating anything with a number or a tiny bit of science involved, and the milli/micro distinction has been especially difficult. Jon Golub at the Stranger is probably your best bet for quality information.

Update: According to this source, the rates around Reactor 3 right now are between 2,500 and 5,000 microsieverts/hour. If firemen are allowed one hour of exposure, that means they’re getting close to the entire yearly dose allowed for a plant worker in one hour. Under the “emergency” rules, that means each fireman gets 5 runs at reactor 3.

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Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    Dan

    March 18, 2011 at 9:09 am

    The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

  2. 2.

    cleek

    March 18, 2011 at 9:09 am

    Blondie!

  3. 3.

    liberal

    March 18, 2011 at 9:11 am

    A rational method would be to rotate people out permanently and rotate new ones in. Of course there’s frictional loss due to the ones coming in having to spend time getting acquainted.

  4. 4.

    kdaug

    March 18, 2011 at 9:15 am

    @Dan: Goddammit, Dan, beat me to it.

    But seriously, those people are heroes.

    Even if they fail, and the whole thing goes really bad, they’re putting their lives on the line for the rest of us.

    Heroes.

  5. 5.

    gypsy howell

    March 18, 2011 at 9:16 am

    We throw the term ‘heroes’ around all the time, but those people working to contain the disaster are honest-to-god real heroes. They know they’re sacrificing their lives for the rest of us.

    ETA: you beat me to it, kdaug

  6. 6.

    meh

    March 18, 2011 at 9:20 am

    this is the Kobayashi Maru…

  7. 7.

    Superluminar

    March 18, 2011 at 9:24 am

    Agree that these dudes are true heros I hope there are no fatalities. And the media coverage of the nuke stuff has been atrocious, as has the “OMG Run Awayyyy!” attitude of western embassies in Tokyo.

  8. 8.

    Morbo

    March 18, 2011 at 9:25 am

    @liberal: Right, you would think there were workers from Daini or Onakawa available since they have successfully shut down.

  9. 9.

    Punchy

    March 18, 2011 at 9:25 am

    but the media is terrible at communicating anything with a number or a tiny bit of science involved

    Becuz reporting facks and stuff is hard, and anyways both sides do it so let’s interview a Global Radiation Denier, ya know, for “balance” and shit.

  10. 10.

    MikeJ

    March 18, 2011 at 9:27 am

    Actually some of the spikes were 1000 mSv/h (1Sv/h).

    Wolfram Alpha is another good source for converting, and on the same page they’ll compare a given does to other sources. For instance, put in 1000 mSv and they’ll tell you that’s 1/6th of an instant death dose.

  11. 11.

    Eric S.

    March 18, 2011 at 9:30 am

    Thank you! Life’s been busy and although I’m taking time to check my regular sites I haven’t had the time to go do this research and understand the numbers.

  12. 12.

    mistermix

    March 18, 2011 at 9:35 am

    @MikeJ: Do you have a source for that? I couldn’t find anything higher than 400 mSv/hr.

  13. 13.

    tesslibrarian

    March 18, 2011 at 9:36 am

    Rachel Maddow has done a good job explaining aspects of how the reactor works, what is happening when there is a “partial meltdown,” etc. over the past week or so. Maybe other people already know this stuff, but I have have found her explanations helpful.

  14. 14.

    gypsy howell

    March 18, 2011 at 9:37 am

    @Superluminar:

    That actually sounds like good advice. If you’re not one of the few in there dealing with the problem, running away is the most sensible thing to do.

  15. 15.

    MikeJ

    March 18, 2011 at 9:41 am

    @mistermix: http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/morning_call/2011/03/crews-flee-nuclear-plant-fearing.html

    If containment is not possible, no one is certain how bad things could get, Fox News reported. Radiation levels at the plant surged to 1,000 millisieverts early Wednesday before coming down to 800-600 millisieverts. Exposure of around 1,000 millisieverts is enough to cause radiation sickness, AP reported.

  16. 16.

    Paul in KY

    March 18, 2011 at 9:42 am

    The people hanging in there & trying to save the reactors have balls/skirts as big as the moon.

    True heros, all of them.

  17. 17.

    Morbo

    March 18, 2011 at 9:42 am

    @mistermix: Edano (or perhaps his translator) said that at one point in one of his many press conferences. I was watching at the time and about shit a brick, but I read later that it was micro either misspoken or mistranslated.

  18. 18.

    Adam Hyland

    March 18, 2011 at 9:43 am

    If you have ~30 minutes to watch a video, this talk from a UCSB physicist is probably the best source. He runs through units (and explains why radiation units are terrible), explains why fission products are radioactive and which are the most problematic, and gives an idea of likely severity for the crisis.

  19. 19.

    MikeJ

    March 18, 2011 at 9:49 am

    BTW, was I the only one who wondered if the Republican party was running the cleanup? Plant workers are usually limited to 20 mSv/year, and in emergencies up to 100 mSv.

    When worker safety became inconvenient, the law was changed and the limit raised to 250 mSv.

    I applaud the courage of the workers, but the system seem like something the Wisconsin legislature would dream up.

  20. 20.

    Stranger Reader

    March 18, 2011 at 9:50 am

    I can’t bring myself to read Jonathan’s Dear Science column any more after a run of columns that were right up my scientific alley and managed to each get major factual details wrong. Not just ‘mangled in the translation for a lay audience’ wrong, but ‘opposite of the truth’ wrong.

  21. 21.

    MikeJ

    March 18, 2011 at 9:50 am

    @MikeJ: (Worker exposure limits from MIT.)

  22. 22.

    Superluminar

    March 18, 2011 at 9:59 am

    @ gypsy howell

    No, not talking about the Fukushima area, but Tokyo, where such concern is unwarrented.

  23. 23.

    pk

    March 18, 2011 at 10:02 am

    Anne Coulter says radiation is good for us. It’ll giver us a healthy glow.

    http://www.newser.com/story/114417/ann-coulter-radiation-is-good-for-you.html

    Only unpatriotic liberals think radiation is harmful.

  24. 24.

    mistermix

    March 18, 2011 at 10:18 am

    @MikeJ: I read somewhere (can’t find a link) that 250 mSv is the once-in-a-lifetime dose limit for emergency workers engaged in lifesaving work. I also think that human nature being what it is, that there are 50 people who are probably pushing the limit because they want to avoid turning their hometown into a wasteland.

    Also, thanks for the other links.

  25. 25.

    DBrown

    March 18, 2011 at 10:20 am

    pK – don’t tell that to Europeans with their “mineral pools” health spa’s which give a simulating radiation dose for what ails you … .

    As for those nuke workers, words can not express the dangers so many are facing (seven dead, one badly irradaiated I hear) and not just at the plant, day-to-day, but for so many more years of their lives from the danger of cancer.

  26. 26.

    Superluminar

    March 18, 2011 at 10:22 am

    @ pk

    She refers to a “stunning number” of unnamed physicists who back her opinion, which she expounds upon in her blog post,

    I’m sure there are quite a few people who have told her that sticking her finger into an electrical outlet/pouring boiling water over her head etc will do wonders for her health. I don’t blame them.

  27. 27.

    Dennis SGMM

    March 18, 2011 at 10:31 am

    @pk:

    Anne Coulter says radiation is good for us.

    And our descendants too: a child with flippers rather than arms will be a shoo-in for the swim team.

  28. 28.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 18, 2011 at 10:34 am

    @Dennis SGMM: Not if she’s also water soluble.

  29. 29.

    piratedan

    March 18, 2011 at 10:55 am

    @cleek: I wonder if a new discussion thread titled Union City Blue is imminent?

  30. 30.

    Face

    March 18, 2011 at 10:58 am

    Anyone else at least a bit surprised, that in the country that brags about how advanced their robots are, that they dont have at least a couple robots who could come in and do simple things like lay electrical cords and/or hold a firehose next to the spent rod ponds?

  31. 31.

    Nied

    March 18, 2011 at 11:07 am

    @Face: Because their robots aren’t quite that advanced yet. Remember these robots just mastered that whole “walking” thing.

  32. 32.

    cleek

    March 18, 2011 at 11:07 am

    @piratedan:
    or… Atomic
    or… The Tide Is High

    yipes! who knew Blondie were so heartless?

  33. 33.

    piratedan

    March 18, 2011 at 11:08 am

    @Face: I was kinda wondering why they couldn’t remote control a tanker truck to shoot water into the reactor building but then again, you’d need the human folks around to still do the hookups etc etc etc

  34. 34.

    piratedan

    March 18, 2011 at 11:09 am

    @cleek: or perhaps a thread on Democratic election prospects…. Dreaming or one on She who shall not be named….Rip Her To Shreds

  35. 35.

    rickstersherpa

    March 18, 2011 at 11:09 am

    For an interesting comparison go back and read stories written in the NY Times and WSJ or the news magazines on Chernobyl in 1986 or 3-mile island in 1979. The deterioration in the MSM is remarkable. I grew up during the 1960s and 70s when the major networks were covering the Space Program. The science reporters on TV news were superb (Walter Cronkite was genuine geek on the subject, Frank McGee at NBC was terrific, and none was better than Jules Bergman.

    Today the star and lead anchor on the leading cable news network boasts about his ignorance of science, and asserts at the same time his authority to pontificate about issues of science (his nick name rhymes wiht Jello) and another guy on the same network tells his audience that this is all “God’s” work foretelling the end of days, strict Mormon that he is. And the thing they are on calls themselves a “News” network.

  36. 36.

    Just Dale

    March 18, 2011 at 11:10 am

    Far and away the best technical coverage of the reactors has been at bravenewclimate.com. Or at least it’s the only site that’s consistently trying to get the details correct rather than “OMG, the radiations!”

  37. 37.

    LivingInWingnutHell

    March 18, 2011 at 11:12 am

    @MikeJ:

    I’m a health physicist by training. Those numbers are not entirely correct….at least for federal regulations here in the US.

    (The following are all whole body doses – and I apologize for the units, I still think in mrem/rem vs. Sv):

    Members of the general public are allowed up 100 mrem/yr (1 mSv)

    Radiation worker up to 5 rem (50 mSv)

    For property saving (voluntary) up to 10 rem (100 mSv)

    Life/property saving (voluntary) up to 25 rem (250 mSv)

    Life saving (heroic) is 50 rem or greater (500 mSv).

    These are off the top of my head….trying to find a reference source for you.

  38. 38.

    The Pale Scot

    March 18, 2011 at 11:18 am

    We need to pay more attention to the efforts of authorities around the world of covering up the damage caused by previous nuclear accidents.

    Three Mile Island; the official estimate of total radiation release is a sham.
    “Lochbaum says that figure is grossly underestimated, because it is based on a measurement of radiation levels on the Three Mile Island site a year after the fact and does not account for shorter-lived radionuclides like iodine-131, which would not have been measurable by that time. Nor, he says, does the official figure include any leakage from the containment building, the concrete dome surrounding the core of the reactor… Dr. Gordon MacLeod, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health at the time, tried to ensure all health impacts from the accident were fully disclosed. He was fired by then Governor Dick Thornburgh for his effort”

    Chernobyl: At an international meeting headed by Hans Blix held the year after the event the Russians estimated that there would eventually be 40,000 deaths directly caused Chernobyl. There was no estimate of disease or birth defects. The Western experts ardently dismissed the number, over the weekend they argued the Russians down to 4000, which was conveniently the number arrived at by the UN in 2006. There are no overall statistical studies available; but raw numbers such as that 200,000 of the 500,000 member cleanup brigade have died is a terrible indicator, the majority of those men were young healthy soldiers who replaced the robots when the radiation ionized the circuit boards. Watch the documentary I linked to from the 1:15:00 mark to get the gist.

    Japan; it is likely that the events will prove to be the result of trying to save the economic value of the reactors.

    The profits seeked by the nuclear industry are based on charging for the fuel enrichment, specialized metallurgy and machining required to build Boiling Water Reactors or similar machines. There are only a few countries that have the tech to do this, all these reactors can meltdown if enough things go wrong. The safer heavy water reactors are lower tech and also cheaper to build=(less profitable). The only way I see to use nuclear power (which will prbably be necessary when the oil runs out) is to standardize the reactor designs and everything else, which the industry would fight to the death, (they’re already seeking patents and permits for 36 different reactor designs) and remove the liabilities limit imposed by the Price/Waterhouse act. But neither of those are likely to happen unless the costs suffered so far are exposed.

  39. 39.

    The Pale Scot

    March 18, 2011 at 11:29 am

    I should mention that the heavy water machines have their own set of issues, foremost they do breed Pu in the rods which then can be extracted. they leak small amounts of Tritium which requires a negative air pressure building around the reactor to vacuum it up.

    But tritium is much less dangerous than a heavy metal isotope, and a heavy water reactor can use spent fuel from other reactors. If somehow the spent fuel rods could be used directly instead of re-processed that would be really useful.

  40. 40.

    Nied

    March 18, 2011 at 11:35 am

    Keep in mind there are different types of radiation as well. A lot of what the plant workers are being dosed with is gamma radiation from being in such close proximity to the (now close to empty) fuel ponds. Gamma radiation is essentially light (very very high frequency light) so it’s effect goes down in inverse square of the distance from the source. The other kind of radiation at issue is Beta radiation which is actually bits of atoms (protons and neutrons) being thrown out by unstable elements created while the reactors were running. These are either by products of the fission reaction itself or other elements that were present in the reactor that have been bombarded by so many high energy neutrons that they have become unstable. This is the stuff they’re talking about when they mention radioactive plumes and so on. Fortunately so far what’s been spewed is dangerous for a very short period of time (on the matter of days). This is why US officials keep insisting that the US is in no danger at the moment, the overwhelming majority of this stuff doesn’t even last the several day trip across the pacific. That also means that if nothing gets worse we can expect the area around Fukushima to be perfectly livable in a year or two (if that long). The danger now is if the spent fuel rods get hot enough to start burning (especially the more flammable MOX rods at reactor 3). If they do they could spread around the much more long lived elements that make up the fuel rods themselves. That’s when you have to start worrying about 100 year dead zones and risk to those in other countries. Fortunately that hasn’t happened yet, and if the work to hook the plant up to external power goes well (and there’s indications now that it is) it won’t ever.

  41. 41.

    Marc McKenzie

    March 18, 2011 at 11:46 am

    @Superluminar:

    They truly are. Face it–if you were asked to go do what they did….would you? I can say, honestly, that I am not and will never be that brave.

    “Also, too, I realize I’ve gone OCD on this, but the media is terrible at communicating anything with a number or a tiny bit of science involved, and the milli/micro distinction has been especially difficult.”

    Hey mistermix…you think? They’ve been pretty bad at this for a LOOOONNNNNGGGG time.

  42. 42.

    srv

    March 18, 2011 at 11:49 am

    I don’t see any discussion of Iodine-129, which has a half-life in the millions of years.

  43. 43.

    Citizen_X

    March 18, 2011 at 12:38 pm

    I would also point people to Brookhaven’s always-helpful interactive chart of nuclides, which gives you info on any isotope out there. (Sans link, you can always find it by googling “chart of nuclides;” it’s usually the first result.) Z-number–# of protons, and thus the element–is along the horizontal axis, N–# of neutrons–is the vertical axis. So isotopes of any given element will be found along a horizontal row, and isobars–with equal atomic mass, or A-number (Z+N), e.g. ^129^Xe, ^129^I, ^129^Te–are along upper-left/lower-right diagonals. (Handy because specific isotopes are usually referenced by their A-number.) You can zoom in and out. Click on any isotope, and info including decay mode(s) and half-life/lives will pop up.

  44. 44.

    Martin

    March 18, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    At the plant, some measurements reached up to 400,000 microsieverts/hour (400 millisieverts/hour), but that was in spikes.

    Actually, they weren’t that high. It was 400 µSv/hr. Either the spokesperson misspoke or it was mistranslated, but there was a conversation on the radio with a nuclear scientist the next day about how difficult it was for him to give any real predictions when the reported radiation levels are off by 3 orders of magnitude and nobody corrected that for a day.

    Nobody seems to know what the workers are being exposed to. But the scientist said that no reported levels he’s seen were in excess of 1mSv – that all higher readings were wrong – either bad translations or misstatements.

    Those levels are still quite high (higher hourly doses than we should be getting annually), but not suicide-mission high. The other big caveat added was that the TEPCO was extremely not forthcoming with information, so the workers could well be exposed to massively higher levels of radiation and they’re just not coming clean about that.

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    March 18, 2011 at 3:06 pm

    Ah nuance, you elude me you devil.

    The power company, Tepco, has issued a statement today containing the following: “We would like to make our deep apologies for concern and nuisance about the incident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and the leakage of radioactive substances to the people living in the surrounding area of the power station”.

  46. 46.

    Mike M

    March 18, 2011 at 3:27 pm

    There was an article in the NY Times this morning about a radiation monitoring station in southern California. In passing, the author mentioned that the station also monitors the chronically high levels of air pollution in the area, noting that the air there “is never pure”. In southern California, as here in Phoenix, the levels of ozone and other pollutants will exceed the limits thought safe for human health multiple times during the year, and long-term exposure will exact a high cost through death and disease on certain segments of the population, most especially the young, disabled, and the elderly.

    Reports on the crisis in Fukushima have sown fears throughout the world about radiation plumes, while the real risk, even in the worst of circumstances, is likely limited to the unlucky people who populate the area within 50 miles or so of the plant (and those who might consume tainted food from the area). Yet most of the rest of us choose to ignore the constant environmental hazards in our own areas, so common that thet are unlikely to be the subject of a Hollywood thriller, but in the end may prove as deadly.

  47. 47.

    pluky

    March 18, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    @cleek:
    Those of us lucky enough to have started listening to their music when they were little more than a garage band playing weeknights at CBGBs.

  48. 48.

    pluky

    March 18, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    @piratedan:

    Don’t remember which album, but one of my fav’s went something like:

    “Don’t go away mad, like you’ve been had.
    Just go away, and stay away.”

    Ah, to be young, angry, and full of ‘tude.

  49. 49.

    HyperIon

    March 18, 2011 at 4:18 pm

    Nice substantive post, mistermix.
    I’ve been discouraged by the lack of numerical dosage data so this is a timely read for me.

    OK, I forgive you for the “OMG, the scanners are putting out 10 times the radiation…unless it’s a math error” post.

  50. 50.

    acontra

    March 18, 2011 at 10:00 pm

    This is Amurrika, we use rems, not Sieverts, for radiation dose equivalent.

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