As we publish, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster is being lifted to a severity level of 7 — the worst since the crisis began; the same as Chernobyl in 1986. Ben Sandilands reports today:
“Reports from Japan this morning indicate that the authorities have lost the battle to keep the lid on problems far more serious than they have been prepared to admit since the March 11 earthquake and following tsunami struck the six reactor site and inundated a vast area of NE Honshu, killing more than 40,000 people on current tallies of known dead and missing.”
One of the most concerning aspects to this disaster, and there are many, is the lack of disclosure from the Japanese authorities and the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
Around 3000 people marched through central Tokyo earlier this week, a large demonstration by Japanese standards. The rally was organised by eight civic groups to protest the Hamaoka nuclear-power plant, located about 200km southwest of Tokyo in Shizuoka Prefecture, a region that seismologists believe is well overdue for a massive undersea earthquake of a magnitude 8 or higher. The disaster at Fukushima has people worried the same thing could happen again — with demonstrators saying their faith in the safety of nuclear power has changed.
And is it any wonder?
As Sandilands reports: “Extracting the precise information from the Japanese authorities has been so difficult that sequence of events remains unknown, but the extreme levels of radiation make it apparent everything went atrociously wrong.”
We do know this: “The reality is that we have six reactors which are suffering a wide range of serious issues, including partial meltdowns and ‘impossible’ structural failures.”
Meanwhile, the evacuation radius continues to widen…
Nuclear energy is perfectly safe – as long as we can keep people from the “process”.
and then what? level 7 is the highest. maybe if the US can raise the “safe” radiation levels as it is doing, then it is perfectly symetrically valid to raise the “world’s worst nuclear disaster” to level 8. how many weeks before I read “On The Beach” again.
There is no such thing as safe radiation levels.
The exposure standard these days is ALARA – As Low As Reasonably Achievable.
It’s the “reasonable” which is the kicker. That’s why “Designated RadiationWorkers” have “safe” levels of allowable exposure in the order of 100 times that permitted for the general public. It’s considered “unreasonable” to lower the doses any further.
To be fair, exposure levels within “Designated Radiation Workers” limits generally show no statistically significant increase in cancer rates or other adverse effects of ionising radiation exposure.
That doesn’t make safe, per se. Just hard to detect.
Smoking one cigarette, or even a packet, would not cause a statistically significant increase in cancer risk over an individuals’ lifetime, either. That still doesn’t make it “safe”.
Using your apparent benchmark for “safe”, can you highlight any activity, anywhere, that could be considered “safe” ?
Within reason, DrSmithy.
In terms of cancer risk, any activity not scientifically proven to be carcinogenic, would have to be considered “safe”.
For example, exposure to the sun increases cancer risk. It’s not “safe” in the truest sense of the word.
This has to be tempered by reason – insufficient sunlight can cause vitamin D deficiency and all the negative health connotations associated with that. It is also a bit “unreasonable” to limit one’s exposure to sunlight to zero, in terms of the likely impacts on one’s lifestyle.
Cigarettes, on the other hand, have no redeeming health benefits and plenty of potential for harm.
With the exception of X rays, background radiation, cosmic rays from airline flights and a few other medical applications and environmental exposures, Ionising radiation sources also have no redeeming health effects and plenty of potential for harm.