Outside the immediate vicinity of the nuclear site, the primary danger is not radiation emitted directly from the plant as high-energy photons or subatomic particles but airborne radioactive material released from a damaged reactor into an atmospheric plume. The material in that plume, as it undergoes radioactive decay, gives off dangerous radiation in the form of gamma rays and can pose additional hazards if inhaled, swallowed or absorbed through the skin to emit radiation from inside the body.
"Internal exposure is very different than contamination you can walk away from," says Jerrold Bushberg, a health and medical physicist at the University of California, Davis. "If there's a plume that passes overhead and some of the material precipitates down, you may be externally contaminated, but it's nothing that a change of clothes and a shower can't take care of."
"Internal exposure is very different than contamination you can walk away from," says Jerrold Bushberg, a health and medical physicist at the University of California, Davis. "If there's a plume that passes overhead and some of the material precipitates down, you may be externally contaminated, but it's nothing that a change of clothes and a shower can't take care of."
Great post. It is not very easy to forget about the nuclear leakage scare because we see it in the news everyday. I guess the best to do now is to keep ourselves informed of the developments and keep ourselves ready and safe. - Carol
ReplyDeleteApril 5th - Now that TEPCO is dumping radioactive water directly into the Pacific Ocean, the IAEA makes the claim, "If people ate fish and seaweed caught near the plant every day for a year, their radiation exposure would still be just 0.6 millisieverts. Normal background radiation levels are on the order of 2 millisieverts per year."
ReplyDeleteThese are the "Nuclear Experts" who are really the Nuclear salesmen. They are encouraging you to equate internal and external radiation exposure. Why is this bogus? Because as it works its way up the food chain, there is more likelihood that the radioactive material once ingested and targeted to a certain organ like bones, liver, or thyroid is concentrated in larger animals. And then the Japanese ingest it because IAEA lied to them. And then many years later the entire population develops cancer because just like the fish, people retain that radiation and cancer develops from within. Stupid to listen to IAEA about the safety of their industry. They are not watchdogs, but promoters.