"You have to work hard to offend Christians. By nature, Christians are the most forgiving, understanding, and thoughtful group of people I've ever dealt with. They never assume the worst. They appreciate the importance of having different perspectives. They're slow to anger, quick to forgive, and almost never make rash judgments or act in anything less than a spirit of total love . . . No, wait--I'm thinking of Labrador retrievers!" David Learn, 1998

Friday, July 8, 2011

FUKUSHIMA: "A hell of a way to boil water."

     I know what you have read and heard about radiation from Japan: "Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings are a miniscule amount compared to what people experience every day. For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round trip cross country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials.”
     Even experts, who should be ashamed of themselves, are telling us that. This particular quote came from FDA senior scientist Patricia Hansen when informed that radioactive iodine-131 had been found in milk in Washington state on March 30. (Note: Here's the powerful response of five watchdog groups and a former senior adviser in the U.S. Department of Energy to the statement above.)
     When you read reports or hear individuals discounting radiation coming from Japan as equivalent to a single X-ray or mammogram, imagine that you go in for an X-ray and instead of pushing the button to release radiation for a fraction of a second, the tech tapes the button down, leaving it on and aimed at you, while s/he wanders off for coffee--or for a month's cruise. These discounters are comparing something that lasts for a fraction of a second with something that is lasting second after second, minute after minute, day after day, month after month for nearly 4 months now.  
     Ironically, because of the prevailing jet stream and ocean currents, we are getting more radiation from Japan here in the U.S. than in most of Japan. It was safer for Jerry and me to be in Hiroshima recently than at home in California.
     As Albert Einstein, who certainly should know, put it, "Nuclear energy is a hell of a way to boil water."   


P.S. Tonight Jerry and I watched The China Syndrome. Halfway through the movie, I realized I was shaking.



1 comment:

  1. "... instead of pushing the button to release radiation for a fraction of a second, the tech tapes the button down, leaving it on and aimed at you, while s/he wanders off for coffee--or for a month's cruise. These discounters are comparing something that lasts for a fraction of a second with something that is lasting second after second, minute after minute, day after day, month after month for nearly 4 months now."

    That's misleading unless, when taping the button down and wandering away, the tech repositioned it to an ultra-low-power setting, such that the accumulated dose over the whole time before he or she wanders back is the same as if irradiation had occurred at the normal rate for the normal fraction of a second.

    The expert discounters are telling the whole truth and nothing but.

    Recall that when governments allow a dollar's worth of uranium to be used in a commercial nuclear power station, they prevent $14 worth of natural gas from being used instead. The royalties -- which is to say, the money the governments lose -- are themselves about twice as big as the cost of the uranium that cancels them. So government personnel are never motivated to downplay nuclear power hazards, unless they can truthfully do so, and not always then.

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