Science Over Fear

Wednesday 28 August 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

If only those who claim to be part of the reality-based community actually valued science over fear mongering.

I’ll start with the bottom line first: despite all word to the contrary, there is no reason for anyone to be concerned that “contaminated” water from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station is going to cause them any physical harm, now or in the future. The only way my bottom line statement could possibly be wrong is if some really nutty activists decide to occupy the site and drink directly from the water tanks that have been assumed to be leaking. Those nutty activists would have to be very patient people, because they would have to drink that water for many years before any negative effects might show up.

Fish swimming in the harbor have nothing to worry about; people who eat fish that swam in the harbor have nothing to worry about; people who decide to swim in the harbor would have nothing to worry about. A basic tenant of radiation protection is that the farther from the source you are, the less you have to worry about, but I am not sure how I can state that you have less than nothing to worry about.

Nearly all of the fear mongering stories I have read about the water leaking from the large number of tanks on the site of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station contain few, if any facts that allow an accurate risk assessment. A long time ago, I learned that there were several ways to respond to a report of “contaminated” water. The most effective way was to make a fairly quick determination of the level of contamination so the appropriate resources could be applied to the problem.

[. . .]

According to the scary stories I have read, the reason we are all supposed to be concerned is that bone-seeking strontium-90 has been detected in the contaminated water. The level has been reported as “thirty times” the drinking water standard.

Unfortunately, most “news” sources these days have a very low opinion of their readers and seem to think that using internationally accepted scientific units will confuse them. In my opinion, attempting to avoid using standard units is what confuses people.

[and after a few reasonably simply mathematical calculations that even this medieval literature nerd can understand]

If someone drank two liters per day of the water that we are supposed to be afraid of for an entire year, their committed effective dose would be just 3 mSv; it would slightly more than double their annual background dose. If the entire amount of that water entered the Pacific Ocean, it would contain less than 0.00002 grams (0.02 milligrams) of strontium-90.

It’s simple math, folks. There is no danger of being “contaminated” by radiation from water seeping across the Pacific ocean.

2013-08-28  »  madlibertarianguy