RAF Bans Women wearing Skirts

[crfriend]

[...] trying to watch a Fukushima documentary after a bottle of wine [...]

Don't fall into the trap that the modern media will likely present to you. Fukishima was not an "engineering failure". It was the result of an engineered system being overcome by forces above what it was engineered for.

When any engineered system encounters circumstances above and beyond its design limits -- as imposed by human minds -- it will entirely likely succumb to those circumstances. History is replete with these lessons, be them the (modern examples of the) demise of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge or the twin towers of New York's World Trade Centers. Let not "herd think" capture your mind.

[Big and Bashful]

Carl,
When it comes to broken reactors and radioactive contamination, I look at the facts, what happened and why. Then I look at the documentaries, new headlines and what the media wants people to believe. It's an interesting game of "Spot the difference"!
Fukushima was interesting to say the least, not helped by the geological shift causing the coast to drop, effectively lowering the sea defences so that the tidal wave had less of a wall to crest. The loss of all power supplies including national grid, powerplant itself and also emergency backup generators was a triple whammy and ultimately the reason they could not prevent a meltdown. One thing which stuck in my mind was the radiation doserate displayed next to the millions of bags of contaminated waste they are racking up. The meter was showing 0.15 microsieverts/hr maybe 10 or 15 metres from the heap of waste. If you didn't know what that meant you might be worried, however, living in the UK on an average bit, the normal background dose around here is about 0.23 to 0.25 microsieverts/hr. nearly double what is being measured at that bit of Fukushima. When you consider that in Mmurica your annual background dose burden is around 6 mSv, compared to about 2.5 mSv in the UK, it starts to put that Fukushima doserate into perspective. Yes, there are some very hot areas at Fukushima, away from those, they are lifting contaminated soil which is actually less radioactive than Scotland.
There's a lot to be said for passive cooling! Oh and putting generators in high places!

[crfriend]

Carl,
When it comes to broken reactors and radioactive contamination, I look at the facts, what happened and why. Then I look at the documentaries, new headlines and what the media wants people to believe. It's an interesting game of "Spot the difference"!

Indeed it is an interesting game -- and one that can be very, very informative.

One thing which stuck in my mind was the radiation doserate displayed next to the millions of bags of contaminated waste they are racking up. The meter was showing 0.15 microsieverts/hr maybe 10 or 15 metres from the heap of waste. If you didn't know what that meant you might be worried, however, living in the UK on an average bit, the normal background dose around here is about 0.23 to 0.25 microsieverts/hr. nearly double what is being measured at that bit of Fukushima. When you consider that in Mmurica your annual background dose burden is around 6 mSv, compared to about 2.5 mSv in the UK, it starts to put that Fukushima doserate into perspective. Yes, there are some very hot areas at Fukushima, away from those, they are lifting contaminated soil which is actually less radioactive than Scotland.

Much of the worry is artificially stoked. Here in New England, we live in an area with a lot of granite -- and in that granite is a small amount of uranium. Uranium, as part of its decay process produces the colourless, tasteless, and invisible gas radon, and this has much of the place in a tizzy nowadays.

I recall an hilarious episode when my landlady was worried about radon levels in a couple of other properties that she owns and picked up a couple of "radon detectors". Since I live on the lower level I offered to plug one in to see what it reads -- and it read stupidly high. Instead of doing the little sheep thing and panicking, I read up on how the things work, and it turns out that they're simple ionization chambers which'll detect any sort of alpha byproduct that happens to pass through. Once I relocated the thing away from a stack of laser-printed paperwork the detected level dropped to near zero. (A great mitigation strategy for radon actually happens to be laundry-dryers installed in the basement which eject to the outdoors. I don't know where my periodic table of the elements has gotten to, but if I recall correctly the atomic weight of the stuff is higher than that of lead (which it eventually decays into anyway), so in the absence of stirring, it's going to be pretty close to the deck.) I'm not going to worry about it.

There's a lot to be said for passive cooling! Oh and putting generators in high places!

Indeed! But, I suspect the designers did their level best with what was accepted wisdom at the time.

I'd forgotten that you're "in the business", and for that I apologise. It's good to be in the company of smart folks!

[hoborob]

It is very interesting that these particular posts have just been made. I was doing some work at a Nuclear Power Station many years ago and I got to talking with the manager there. He asked me at one point if I knew where the Hottest Spot in the US as far as radioactivity was. I told him that I did not. He told me that the answer is the front steps of the US Capitol Building in Washington DC, as they are made completely out of granite which is naturally radioactive. Now consider this, all of our congress people love to make speeches and proclamations from, guess where, the front steps of the Capitol building. And you wonder why they are all crazy?????

[Big and Bashful]

Now that's interesting, laser printing spooking radon detectors, I haven't heard of that! must do some experimenting at work tomorrow. Oh and yes, radon is a very heavy gas. It has a very short half life, around three days, however it decays into an alpha emitting solid (polonium) which plates out onto dust, pollen etc. you breathe these radon daughters in and give yourself a dose.

Still can't think how laser printed media is spooking radon detectors, nothing radioactive about plastic toner or heat, unless it is something in the clay used to dose the paper. Can't wait to get an alpha probe and check some printing!

[crfriend]

And you wonder why they are all crazy?????

That's interesting, but I suspect it'd take a long time for the radiation to show any measurable effect.

My operating hypothesis of many years has to do with the shape that many capitol buildings in the USA sport -- domes. Bearing in mind the mythical notion of "pyramid power", where one's mind is supposedly more focused when under a pyramid (or a shape thereof), I began wondering whether domes had a "dumbing down" effect on intellect. What else can explain such inanities such as setting the legal value of Pi to 3.2 (I kid not), "Daylight 'Saving' Time", and the PATRIOT Act -- every last one of 'em passed under domes.

[crfriend]

Oh and yes, radon is a very heavy gas. It has a very short half life, around three days, however it decays into an alpha emitting solid (polonium) which plates out onto dust, pollen etc. you breathe these radon daughters in and give yourself a dose.

I'm vastly more worried about getting hit on the motorway by some muppet fiddling with a cell' 'phone than I am about naturally-occurring things.

Still can't think how laser printed media is spooking radon detectors, nothing radioactive about plastic toner or heat, unless it is something in the clay used to dose the paper. Can't wait to get an alpha probe and check some printing!

That's the stuff that the thing was closest to next to the floor -- which I believe is concrete under the wooden parquet. Depending on what the aggregate was made of that could have been part, or even the majority, of it. I really miss having an interesting job where I could borrow such things; it would have made the process much easier. Do publish your findings. Curious folks are, well, curious.

I subsequently hung the detector on a string from a tripod of mine a couple of feet off the floor and away from all the assorted other stuff dwelling thereupon and saw the reading drop to near zero. I am so terrified.

And, yes, it turns out that polonium is the nasty part of the equation in the decay chain, but if it got out that that stuff was all around us the net effect would be an absolute sh!t-storm as most of the population lost control of its collective bowels. I mean -- my god -- spies poison people with that stuff!

[Darryl]

And in the mid-70's I had a lens cleaning brush with a polonium 210 (?) strip on the bottom, to eliminate static, IIRC. And I'm perfectly normal...just got back from the local Moby Dick....pulled my burgundy sweater-dress on and slipped into my ankle boots to go out for a couple "Whale" sandwiches on rye.

Now consuming them in a long black flowing tunic top over a denim mini. Perfectly normal, right?

[Big and Bashful]

Smokers note; one of the main reasons smokers get lung cancer is that polonium, which is part of the environment, settles out on to tobacco leaves. It doesn't wash off, eventually smokers burn the leaf and suck the polonium down into their lungs, where the alpha radiation damages the lung tissues.

I sometimes use that little fact when I am delivering lectures and have to deliver the sad facts about how many folk will get cancer, when I am putting things into perspective.

Erm, does this qualify as topic drift?

[Gregg1100]

Darryl---sounds comfy to me, lol

[Kirbstone]

......and quite apart from Polonium carcinogens, another byproduct of smoking is the inhaltion of non-lethal doses of carbon monoxide daily, which is a direct cause of emphysema, the destruction of the dividing walls between the areoli, the little terminal sacks where the actual oxygen transfer into the bloodstream normally takes place. This results in a vastly reduced oxygen absorbing area which is irreversible and leads to early heart failure.

Medical hat off.

Tom

[Big and Bashful]

......and quite apart from Polonium carcinogens, another byproduct of smoking is the inhaltion of non-lethal doses of carbon monoxide daily, which is a direct cause of emphysema, the destruction of the dividing walls between the areoli, the little terminal sacks where the actual oxygen transfer into the bloodstream normally takes place. This results in a vastly reduced oxygen absorbing area which is irreversible and leads to early heart failure.

Medical hat off.

Tom

Hmmm, didn't know it is CO which causes emphysema, thanks, I guess I'm not too fat to learn!