I received several questions about whether my recommendations for fish consumption (one pound of cold-water, fatty fish per week) had changed since the Fukushima disaster. You may have seen reports in the media about the discovery of radioactive isotopes (cesium-134 and cesium-137) in Pacific bluefin tuna that migrated from Japan to California waters. (1) This was covered by more than a thousand newspapers worldwide and several thousand internet, television and radio outlets.
Unfortunately, despite statements by the authors of the original research and other authorities to the contrary, these media reports led to widespread belief that fish on the Pacific coast of the U.S. now contain harmful levels of radioactive chemicals. Several people have told me that they’re no longer eating seafood themselves or serving it to their children because of this information.
While it’s natural and appropriate to be concerned about radiation, in this case the concern is unfounded. A recent peer-reviewed study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences evaluated the health risks of consuming Pacific bluefin tuna after the Fukushima event and found the following: (2)
- A typical restaurant-sized portion of Pacific bluefin tuna (200 grams, or 7 ounces) contains about 5% of the radiation you would get from eating one uncontaminated banana and absorbing it’s naturally occurring radiation. All foods on the planet contain radiation. Like every other toxin, it’s the dose of radiation (rather than its simple presence) that determines whether it’s toxic to humans.
- Levels of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes (polonium-210 and potassium-40) in bluefin tuna are greater by orders of magnitude than levels of radioactive isotopes from Fukushima contamination (cesium-134 and cesium-137). In fact, levels of polonium-210 were 600 times higher than cesium. This suggests that the additional radiation (in the form of cesium) from Fukushima is insignificant from a health perspective.
- Even at very high intakes (3/4 of a pound of contaminated bluefin tuna a day) for an entire year, you’d still receive only 12% of the dose of radiation you’re exposed to during one cross-country flight from LA to New York.
- Assuming the very high levels of fish consumption above, the excess relative risk of fatal cancer would be only 2 additional cases per 10 million similarly exposed people. And there’s reason to believe that number is no more than chance. Statistically significant elevations in cancer risk are only observed at doses of radiation that are 25,000 times higher than what you’d be exposed to by eating 3/4 of a pound of bluefin tuna per day.
- Some bottom-feeding fish right off the coast of Japan contain much higher levels of radiation (i.e. >250 times more cesium) than those found in Pacific bluefin tuna. Even if you consumed 1/3 of a pound per day of this highly contaminated fish, you’d still be below the international dose limit for radiation exposure from food.
Finally, according to Dr. Robert Emery at at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston says you’d need to eat 2.5 to 4 tons of tuna in a year to get a dose of cesium-137 that exceeds health limits. (3) That’s 14 to 22 pounds of tuna a day.
To date, I haven’t seen any credible evidence suggesting that there’s even a minuscule risk from eating fish caught in the Pacific ocean. If you read an article on the internet or elsewhere claiming that Fukushima radiation in seafood is causing problems, check to see if it includes references to studies published in peer-reviewed journals by independent researchers. If it doesn’t, I’d advise a healthy dose of skepticism.
My recommendations for seafood consumption haven’t changed. If there’s any risk you should be concerned about when it comes to fish, it’s the risk of not eating enough!
Better supplementation. Fewer supplements.
Close the nutrient gap to feel and perform your best.
A daily stack of supplements designed to meet your most critical needs.
Soultion: eat fish from the Atlantic. Or farm-raised organic. Also don’t ever get out of your house…
‘Radioactive Rainwater Overwhelms Fukishima Nuclear Plant’:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31 &Itemid=74&jumival=10885
And there is another typhoon on the way, expected to hit Japan.
Regarding the EPA, remember their 9/11 advice: ‘The air is safe to breathe’?
‘Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, called for a Justice Department investigation. “That the White House instructed EPA officials to downplay the health impact of the World Trade Center contaminants due to ‘competing considerations’ at the expense of the health and lives of New York City residents is an abomination,” he said in a news release (‘Common Dreams’).
And the FDA re Aspartame, and GMO’s (see ‘The Monsanto Files
The Ecologist September October 1998 (This edition was trashed by the printing office after threats from Monsanto) {footnotes are missing}
Revolving Doors: Monsanto and the Regulators
by Jennifer Ferrara
Traditionally, key figures at the FDA in particular have either held important positions at Monsanto, or are destined to do so in the future. Is it surprising therefore that Monsanto gets clearance for its often dangerous products?..
http://www.psrast.org/ecologmons.htm
‘The EPA is closing ranks with the nuclear power industry ….
Indeed, some government scientists and media shills are now “reexamining” old studies that show that radioactive substances like plutonium cause cancer to argue that they help prevent cancer.
It is not just bubbleheads like Ann Coulter saying this. Government scientists from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and pro-nuclear hacks like Lawrence Solomon are saying this. [Update.]
In other words, this is a concerted propaganda campaign to cover up the severity of a major nuclear accident by raising acceptable levels of radiation and saying that a little radiation is good for us..’
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/04/government-reacts-to-fukushima-radiation-crisis-by-raising-acceptable-radiation-standards-instead-of-fixing-anything.html
The Nuclear Industry is doing it’s best to understate the damage done by the Fukushima incident. What has happened to the ‘precautionary principal’? Now, government ‘Protection Agencies’ are in the pockets of the polluters and poisoners, as are the Courts (Monsanto vs Farmer http://thegranddisillusion.wordpress.com/monsanto-vs-farmer/ ).
Thing is, there has been NO response BY OUR POLITICIANS.
Politicians will say ‘Someone should have told me there was a problem’
See, it is all YOUR fault.
Wake up folks.
Radioactivity level spikes 6,500 times at Fukushima well
(Published time: October 18, 2013 02:08; Edited time: October 19, 2013 19:41):
RT
‘Radioactivity levels in a well near a storage tank at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan have risen immensely on Thursday, the plant’s operator has reported.
Officials of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said on Friday they detected 400,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances – including strontium – at the site, a level 6,500 times higher than readings taken on Wednesday, NHK World reported.
The storage tank leaked over 300 tons of contaminated water in August, some of which is believed to have found its way into the sea through a ditch.
The well in question is about 10 meters from the tank and was dug to gauge leakage.
TEPCO said the findings show that radioactive substances like strontium have reached the groundwater. High levels of tritium, which transfers much easier in water than strontium, had already been detected…’
‘“Facilities themselves, the four reactors that are the most damaged had a series of explosions internally, so it would not take an earthquake as big as the one they had two and a half years ago to potentially do a lot of serious damage there.”
He added that the health risks are great and continue to increase every year. “Somewhere between 100,000 to 1,000,000 [people] will over the next thirty years get cancer from this accident…1,000 additional cancers a year from eating fish from the Pacific.”
And things are only going to get worse!
A friend of mine sent me this in response to this article: http://fairewinds.org/media/in-the-news/fish-data-belie-japans-claims-fukushima
His argument is summarized here:
“The problem with radiation is that there are different kinds (alpha, beta and gamma) and they do different things to different parts of the body (some forms can pass through 10-100 cell layers since the particles are large and destructive so they are much worse if inhaled or ingested because they disrupt epithelial cell DNA…some are small in particle size and can pass through > 1000 cell layers and are not as destructive per particle but can be really bad over long exposures). Problem is radiation is measured in bequerels, sieverts, RADs, etc. and many of these studies don’t make a distinction between them, they just reference the ‘acceptable’ level determined by the EPA.”
I’m interested if anyone out there has any more thoughts on this.
You are mixing the units of incompatible quantities. It’s like saying the problem with energy is that it is measured in centimeters, kilograms, and seconds.
Becquerels is a unit of radioactivity that tells you how fast or how often the atoms of a radioactive material are decaying. A Bq is actually an inverse second.
A rad is the old unit for “dose” which is how much energy is being deposited by the radiation per unit mass. The new SI unit for this quantity is the “gray”.
Sievert is the new SI unit for “dose equivalent” which is how much biological damage is done by the absorbed energy.
Those are 3 incompatible quantities that can NOT be converted into each other; just as in my example above with centimeters, kilograms, and seconds being units of length, mass, and time, respectively.
Legitimate scientists know what these units are and when to use them for the proper quantities. There are a bunch of pseudo-scientists and fear mongers that get these units confused; and it is best just to ignore them.
Dam you just pasted the exact argument the nuclear industry who creates nuclear bombs and factories write. Well done for supporting them.
“A typical restaurant-sized portion of Pacific bluefin tuna (200 grams, or 7 ounces) contains about 5% of the radiation you would get from eating one uncontaminated banana and absorbing it’s naturally occurring radiation. All foods on the planet contain radiation. Like every other toxin, it’s the dose of radiation (rather than its simple presence) that determines whether it’s toxic to humans.”
Go and watch chernobyl heart and see what happens to the million of children who ate food containing radioactive iodine 131 and see what kind of thyroid problems and cancers millions of children had.
Then see the millions of kids eating bananas who get very high doses of radioactive potassium and see if they are getting sick. And see if this nonsense nuclear industry quote holds any merit.
Comparing radioactive iodine 131 and cesium 137 to naturally occurring potassium radiation our bodies have adapted to over 1000s of years is perhaps the dumbest quote of the century.
Its like comparing a glass of water or milk which is a liquid to a a glass of round up weed killer which is also a liquid saying they are the same.
A 2 year old kid thinks all liquids are the same but by the time they turn 5 or even earlier most finally have worked out the simple basic concept that all liquids are not the same and comparing them and saying they are all safe to drink for breakfast is beyond idiotic.
Radiation comes in very different forms. Some are highly toxic some are safe and some are healthy.
Same goes for liquids. Some are safe like juices, milk and water. Some are highly toxic like sulfuric acid, paint stripper, weed killers etc.
The real killer of your nuclear industry sponsored quote is this part.
“Even at very high intakes (3/4 of a pound of contaminated bluefin tuna a day) for an entire year, you’d still receive only 12% of the dose of radiation you’re exposed to during one cross-country flight from LA to New York.”
Now not only is the nuclear industry comparing different forms of radiation they are comparing totally different exposure methods.
In the first example they are comparing natural safe “ionizing” radiation albeit at higher than normal levels we as humans have been exposed to for 1000s of years and adapted to.
And compared to toxic nuclear waste like cs137 which is created from the fission of highly toxic plutonium and uranium as an even more toxic by product from nuclear factories and nuclear weapons.
And the ultimate (wait it gets better) they are comparing just being exposed to it, to actually eating it straight into your stomach where it gets absorbed into all your organs and can lodge forever in your bones and tissues till you die causing major havoc and cancers as you get older.
So its like comparing now a toxic chemical like zero weed killer in the same room as you so maybe you smelt some and got slight exposure.
To actually drinking the entire glass of weed killer. Comparing drinking weed killer and being exposed in the same room is just insane. But the comparison didn’t even do that. It compared a safe liquid like milk being in a cup in the same room and you just looking at it. So maybe you inhaled some of the milk. To actually drinking a totally different liquid like round up weed killer.
So the nuclear industry wants us to believe that drinking a glass of zero weed killer is exactly the same as not drinking but smelling a glass of milk.
Because they are both “liquids” nuclear industry says all liquids are the same.
Even a 5 year old kid knows not all liquids are the same.
Yet the nuclear industry tries to insult our intelligence by saying all “radiation” is exactly the same.
Peter,
I recently saw that Cesium has a biological half-life of around 80 days, which of course is shorter than it’s radiological half-life. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_half-life
So at least when we’re talking about Cesium the effects seem to be somewhat mitigated. However, I agree it doesn’t make much sense to compare internal exposure to external, and 80 days will only rid you of half the ingested Cesium (approx). Now Plutonium also has a biological half-life, but not short enough to make any difference in a human life span.
“Plutonium in bone has a biological half-life of about 100 years.”
So I don’t think we should be jumping to any any safe/unsafe conclusions until they start testing for PU and Strontium 90.
Radioactive Cesium-137 has a half life of over 30 years in your body. You looked up the wrong isotope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137
On 24 May 2012, TEPCO released their estimate of radiation releases due to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster. An estimated 538.1 PBq of iodine-131, caesium-134 and caesium-137 was released.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster
By the way you might be wondering what does 538.1 PBq mean?
It means 538 Million Billion becquerels of highly toxic and cancerous radiation has been released into the ocean and atmosphere.
This highly toxic radioactive plume of radiation has been slowly drifting from the Japan coast to the USA coast and will contaminate everything in sight. All fish and seaweed on the west coast of america and canada will be contaminated from 2014 and onwards.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/fukushimas-radioactive-ocean-plume-due-reach-us-waters-2014-8C11050755
You’re confusing biological half-life, with radioactive (or physical) half-life. In the case of Cesium 137, the biological half-life will be dominant when calculating the effective half-life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_half-life
Radioactive HL = 1,100 (30 yrs)
Biological HL = 70
Effective HL = (1,100 x 70) / (1,100 + 70)
= 69.557
Scroll further down in the Wikipedia link you posted on Caesium-137, and you will see:
“The biological half-life of caesium is rather short at about 70 days.”
Keep in mind however, this might still equate to a really long time if you either ingest large quantities or on a regular basis, since only half will get excreted every 70 days or so.
Peter,
The problem with cesium in humans is that we only eliminate 80% of the cesium they take in. cesium 137 has a half life of about 30 years and it has an affinity for muscles like the heart. Google “Chernobyl Heart” to see what I’m talking about.
And I would like to point out that the “dose makes the poison” is not necessarily true. For so many kids with autism like mine, it’s the body chemistry plus toxin that equals the poison, not the dose. Our kids have mitochondrial issues, genetic mutations, and chromosomal disabilities (again, like mine with Down Syndrome) that cause them to not be able to properly methylate. So if a typical and genetically/mitochondrially normal child and an autistic child both go under anesthesia for a surgery, the typical child will come out fine. The autistic child will most likely undergo regression. It’s the same dose of anesthesia, but the outcomes are completely different. One child might be fine eating something as simple as an apple with a high salicylate content, but the other with get angry and red faced. To make a blanket statement and say that the benefits of fish outweighs the risks right now might very definitely depend upon who you are. Now I have heard that the safest fish to eat is in the Southern Hemisphere Atlantic. Even the waters near Sellafield are a dumping ground for nuclear waste. S best bet, Southern Hemisphere Atlantic or aquaponics.
The “nuclear industry” which usually means the industry that runs commercial power plants does NOT make nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are made NOT by a “nuclear industry”; but by the US Government – specifically the Department of Energy.
The Department of Energy contracts for the staff to run its weapons production facilities; but even here it is not “industry”. For example, every person that designed a nuclear weapon in the US stockpile received his/her paycheck from the same entity; namely the University of California which runs the nuclear weapons design labs.
Very true, Altair. But who supplies the raw material? The US or any other govrnment would hardly let a private company produce its own nukes, now would they? Has anyone suggested they would?
But the Western world was fed a whole pack of lies about nuclear power, how it was going to be ‘too cheap to meter’ (bit like Obama going to close Gitmo, or all the host of other ‘Election Promises’ that got broken as soon as his butt was safely installed in the White House).
The reason nuclear power was pushed, was to fuel the bomb program (Britain was in such a hurry to impress the US with how far they had progressed, that they decreased the safety coating around fuel rods in order to provide enough bomb-grade material to explode a massive atom bomb, with the hope of fooling the Americans into thinking they had built a Hydrogen bomb.
Result was, the nuclear reactor fire at Sellafield in the UK in 1957 (you will be unlikely to find the true cause of this from an internet ‘search’, but there was a BBC program some years back which gave the real reason, which I stated above). And the trick didn’t work; the Americans were not fooled, and knew that Britain’s test was just a very large atom bomb.
Seen any ‘too cheap to meter’ electricity around? Please let me know if you do find some!
That’s BALONEY!! First, the statement about “too cheap to meter” was NOT said by the nuclear industry; but a Government official, AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss, and he wasn’t talking about commercial nuclear reactors like we have now. Strauss was referring to future FUSION reactors.
You are 100% WRONG about nuclear power reactors being pushed as a source of bomb materials. Sorry to tell you, but 100% of the nuclear weapons material in our nuclear weapons was produced at the US Government-owned Hanford site is Washington State, and the Savannah River site in South Carolina. The USA would be in VIOLATION of Treaty if it used fissile material from power reactors.
Nuclear power reactors were designed / promoted for one purpose; to make electricity cleanly.
About the “too cheap to meter” quote; see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Strauss
“In 1954, Strauss predicted that atomic power would make electricity “too cheap to meter.” He was referring to Project Sherwood, a secret program to develop power from hydrogen fusion, not uranium fission reactors as is commonly believed”
Strauss made the “too cheap to meter” comment in 1954; and the first power reactor, Shippingport, was built in 1957; 3 years later.
You are also 100% WRONG about the cause of the fire in Windscale Pile #1 at Sellafield. The Windscale reactors were graphite moderated reactors. As you operate a graphite moderated reactor, the graphite moderator stores “Wigner energy” as fast neutrons knock carbon atoms out of their proper sites in the crystal lattice of graphite.
Wigner energy can be be spontaneously released unexpectedly. Therefore, proper operating procedure for a low-temperature graphite reactor is to periodically “anneal” the graphite by heating it to high temperature by running the reactor with reduced cooling.
It was during one of these annealing operations that the reactor operators made an error that caused the fire.
There is so much fabricated nonsense that some make up to discredit nuclear power, that one should really check their information with a reputable source, instead of spewing nonsense and claptrap.
Contrary to Paul’s contention that the Windscale Piles were “commercial”; the reader can see that the Windscale reactors were purely for military; and NOT commercial purposes. See page 2 of the following:
http://iopscience.iop.org/0952-4746/27/3/E02/pdf/jrp7_3_e02.pdf
“The reactor core was cooled by blowing a large volume of environmental air through the channels and out a 120m high chimney – in contrast to power reactors, in the Piles the heat generated by nuclear fission was purely incidental to the creation of plutonium for military use.”
Q.E.D.
Actually, commercial nuclear power has nothing to do with nuclear weapons; 100% of the nuclear weapons material was created at the US Government-owned facilities at Hanford in Washington State, and Savannah River in South Carolina.
Absolutely NONE of the material in US nuclear weapons came from commercial power reactors. In fact, if the USA used fissile material from power reactors in weapons; then the USA would be in VIOLATION of Treaty.
Nuclear power reactors were designed / pushed for one purpose; to make electricity.
There may well be agreements in place NOW that prohibit use of civil nuclear power stations to provide nuclear material for weapons; that most certainly WAS NOT THE CASE previously:
‘The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in Great Britain’s history, ranked in severity at level 5 on the 7-point International Nuclear Event Scale.[1] The two piles had been hurriedly built as part of the British atomic bomb project.[2] Windscale Pile No. 1 was operational in October 1950 followed by Pile No. 2 in June 1951…’ (from Wiki article ‘Windscale Fire’).
I am not paid to post, nor do I have assistants to chase up articles; I have other things to do, so I will answer some of your other posts here, rather than scrolling through a mountain of posts.
Re the Windscale Fire in 1957, I will reiterate my position, that a BBC documentary, some years back, had two whistleblowers who worked there in quite high positions (I don’t remember their exact jobs), and they explained that the metal casing around the uranium, which had cooling fins, was shaved, to increase the amount of bomb material they could produce in a short time, because there was a deadline to produce a very large amount of bomb materiial for a massive bomb that was intended to fool the Americans into thinking it was an H-bomb.
I stated that the trick had not worked, and that the Americans knew it was just a large atom bomb.
It matters not a lot that it may not have had a snowball in hells chance of fooling them; that was the reason it was done, according to the whistleblowers.
They also said the fire was out of control, when the guy in charge ordered the air blowers to be turned full on; this freaked everyone out, because it was thought that would fan the firre and increase it’s severity, and the guy himself knew he was taken a chance – the tactic worked, and the fire was brought under control.
As for your disinformation about the safety of microwave communications and electric power lines, I will deal with that another time; please remind me if there is anything else which I have not responded to, and I shall attempt to do so.
One more thing; read the following article by a guy that crossed the Pacific, and saw and heard hardly any creatures at all after Fukushima:
‘The ocean is broken’ Newcastle Herald http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/
Oh yes, re the ‘Too cheap to meter’ quote, the Wiki article you refer to also backs up my argument, that it was used to ‘sell’ the public on nuclear power stations; it states that ‘It is often (understandably but erroneously) assumed that Strauss’ prediction was a reference to conventional uranium fission nuclear reactors…’, and also ‘Strauss gave no public hint at the time that he was referring to fusion reactors because of the classified nature of Project Sherwood and the press naturally took his prediction regarding cheap electricity to apply to conventional fission reactors. .’ So were you chancing that I or others would not check your source? Did you not notice these quotes, which bolster my conttentions rather than your attempted rebuttal?
WRONG AGAIN!! The Treaty that prohibits civilian reactors from making weapons material dates to the 1960s.
Counter to your claim, the information about power lines and microwaves comes from SCIENTISTS. Numerous scientific organizations like the Health Physics Society, and the American Physical Society have debunked the hysteria over dangers of power lines.
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/95_2.cfm
http://hps.org/hpspublications/articles/powerlines.html
WRONG AGAIN about the comments of Strauss. In public testimony, the AEC made public the cost estimates for fission power:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter
” However, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission itself in testimony to the U.S. Congress only months before lowered the expectations for fission power, projecting only that the costs of reactors could be brought down to about the same as from conventional sources”
Contary to your ill-founded claim; the AEC submitted testimony to Congress about the same time that fission reactor power would be on par with costs from conventional power, and NOT “too cheap to meter”
It’s there in the Congressional record if you’d like to check a reliable source instead of fabrications.
No, ‘fraid YOU are WRONG AGAIN. The Nuclear plants had been pushed well before the 1960’s, when you say these treaties came about, and when the PTB wanted to sell Nuclear Power to the people under false pretences.
Also, if you READ the Wiki article you originally used to back up the Strauss info, you will find it supports MY argument, that ‘Electricity too cheap to meter’ WAS used to sell the idea; as you should be aware, Governments and MSM are not too fussy about lying or telling ‘half truths’ to sell whatever it is they are pushing.
You crack on about the ‘Scientific Community’; you don’t appear to have checked out Barrie Trower’s articles and videos; he is a scientist, fuuly qualified to engage in University Research Projects, and was involved in miicrowave warfare research in the British Military; he also debriefed foreign spies re microwave activities in their countries.
You seem to be so blinkered, supporting the Government even when there is clear evidence that they are lying about all kinds of dangers, that I suspect you are working for them.
OBJECTION – poster is relying on information not in evidence. I am NOT “working / lying on behalf of the Government. I’m a retired Professor of Physics.
ZERO evidence of false pretense sale. The AEC stated nuclear power would be on par with conventional sources.
Trower is but ONE scientist whose opinions are at odds with the VAST MAJORITY of scientists as expressed by the societies.
Contrary to your ill-founded and unsubstantiated, and reprehensible contentions; I have ZERO interest in lying for the Government. I’m a retired Professor of Physics.
You seem to think it is perfectly to say what you like against me (‘There is so much fabricated nonsense that some make up to discredit nuclear power, that one should really check their information with a reputable source, instead of spewing nonsense and claptrap.’, yet get I your high horse when I write thet I ‘suspect’ you are working for the Government of Industry.
Your blinkered viision re handling my posts (you ignore those that you cannot answer with a ‘Wiki’ or ‘Report’ (with, of course, no evidence it was not an Industry stitch-up, like Monsanto and the Tobacco industry were so good at ‘arranging’).
Have you actually read/watched Barrie Trower’s reports/videos? As a ‘retired’ Physiicist, I would have thought you would relish the idea of ridiculing his work, from a strong standpoint of having actually examined it first.
Sorry for the typos
in my response below; it is difficult typing in the truncated space that for some reason pops up every now and again on this thread.
I posted this previously, but you seem to have missed it:
‘The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in Great Britain’s history, ranked in severity at level 5 on the 7-point International Nuclear Event Scale.[1] The two piles had been hurriedly built as part of the British atomic bomb project.[2] Windscale Pile No. 1 was operational in October 1950 followed by Pile No. 2 in June 1951…’ (from Wiki article ‘Windscale Fire’).
The two piles had been hurriedly built as part of the British atomic bomb project.[2] What part of ‘ The two piles had been hurriedly built as part of the British atomic bomb project.[2] ‘ don’t you understand?
You may be right about the American reactors, but as you see, it was no secret the UK was using civil power generators to provide bomb material.
Windscale were BOTH military production reactors.
GEESH – both EXHAUSTED all their heat up those stacks. The Windscale reactors didn’t make electricity; so they were NOT commercial.
@ Altair:
I was wrong about Windscale; it was a Military plant; and I was wrong about turning on the air blowers; it was water he turned on (that is my memory playing up; I watched the BBC program about 20/25 years ago.
I have no problem admitting when I am wrong; pity you don’t do the same!
I had to ‘reply’ to my post, because your relative one did not have a ‘reply’ button.
Both the prestigious American Physical Society and the Health Physics Society dispute the claims of this Barrie Trower.
A little research shows that this person is not a scientist but some high school teacher. See:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/08/24/i-bet-mr-trower-has-a-delightful-accent/
“You will notice what’s very specifically not been said here, which is that Mr. Trower teaches physics at a university. Lest anyone should carelessly arrive at this impression, it ought to be said that what the Post calls “Dartmoor College” is South Dartmoor Community College, a state comprehensive school for children aged 11-18.”
As the first commentor stated; this guy is a “quackpot”.
I don’t reveiw the work of charlatans.
Charlatan? You’re not fit to tie his shoelaces!
This man is brave enough to go around the world, unpaid and at considerable personal risk, to spread the Truth, unlike you, who sit on your backside and spew the nonsense you claim others spew.
I have seen that Canadian article before, which says ‘sweet F.A.’. His talk inspired local people to get Wi-Fi removed from their children’s classrooms. But the Telecom Industry has a lot of clout, and it soon got a tame Presstitute to slag him off, and you could not see the flaws in his effort! He said nought, just slagged the guy off!
Barrie never claimed to teach in a University, but has two degrees, and is qualified to conduct University Research Programs. He claims to be an expert in microwave warfare; I believe him; where is your EVIDENCE he is a ‘Charlatan’ or ‘Quackpot’?
I just hope some commenters actually visit his articles/videos,; they may well learn enough to be able to protect their children/grandchildren from genetic damage, cancer or other health issues.
I have posted enough links to dangers which you have ignored.
As Einstein said, ‘To condemn without examining the evidence is the height of ignorance’. I make him right!
I HAVE examined the evidence – but evidence from good respected professional scientists; and not some high school teacher.
Paul claims above; “…they explained that the metal casing around the uranium, which had cooling fins, was shaved, to increase the amount of bomb material they could produce in a short time, …”
The above is INCORRECT. The casing was shaved in order to allow the Windscale reactors to do something that they were never originally designed to do – make tritium for thermonuclear weapons.
This is well covered in the Wikipedia article on the Windscale fire:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
“Britain did not have any facility to produce tritium and decided to use the Windscale piles. ..Higher neutron fluxes were needed for this than for producing plutonium and it was decided to reduce the size of the cooling fins …thereby reducing the absorption of neutrons by this aluminium. By pushing the first-generation design of the Windscale facility beyond its intended limits, tritium could be produced at the cost of a reduced safety factor.”
This was NOT a “nuclear industry” cutting corners. The Windscale reactors were purely for military puroses; and the UK military enterprise was attempting to retrofit these reactors to do something that they were never originally intended for. That’s where they got into trouble; along with the fact that they were dealing with “Wigner energy” that they didn’t understand very well.
Actually, there really would be no way that one could use atomic bombs to fool the USA into thinking Britain had hydrogen bombs. The very first hydrogen bombs like Ivy Mike had an explosive yield of 10 Megatons. The first hydrogen bomb had an explosive yield that was 500X as great as the first atomic bomb. That 10 Megatons is also greater than the maxiumum possible yield of an atomic bomb. So there’s no way to make an atomic bomb that was so big that it could be taken as one of the hydrogen bombs of the day. The laws of Physics just don’t allow that.
Paul states, “The reason nuclear power was pushed, was to fuel the bomb program”
This is 100% WRONG!!! The US Government had ZERO need for commercial power reactors for the weapons program.
The US Government had ALL the specially-designed “production reactors” which are designed to produce weapons materials; that the US Government needed at the Government-owned Hanford site in Washington State and Savannah River site in South Carolina.
In actuality, 100% of the special nuclear materials in current and past US nuclear weapons came from the production reactors at Hanford and Savannah River.
Absolutely NONE of the fissile material came from commercial power reactors.
The anti-nukes love to tell this LIE in order to discredit commercial nuclear power by linking it to nuclear weapons. However, a LIE is a LIE is a LIE. The US Government had ZERO need for commercial power reactors; it had all the production reactor capacity it needed at Hanford and Savannah River.
EGO = 1 / Knowledge [Einstein]
The National Academy of Sciences evaluation you referred to above was Edited by David M. Karl, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, and approved April 18, 2013 (received for review December 14, 2012).
However, things have got a lot worse since 2012, when the report was submitted, and I believe the samples were collected long before that.
Here is a more recent article, which does not go into scientific detail about heallth consequences of eating contaminated fish, but when you remember, apart from this recent increase, the Fukushima plants have been leaking continuosly into the sea (and the air), and the Japanese Government and TEPCO have been underplaying the real extent of the leaks (and Obama ordered US air level tests along the US Pacific coast to stop collecting data; and child leukemias have shot up):
Fukushima Radioactive Levels Surge 90-Fold in Three Days
Fallout worsens again as industry pushes for more nuclear plants
– Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/09-3
Perhaps it’s time the National Academy of Sciences did another series of tests?
Given this new information (and there have likely been many other ‘spikes’ that have gone unregistered, or unreported), would you feed young children and pregnant women these suspect fish, even if you would risk eating them yourself?
“So far no one has presented peer-reviewed evidence that the levels of cesium-134 and cesium-137 in Pacific seafood are harmful.”
The problem I have is that there is no safe level of radiation. Studies have proved that with any increase of radiation there is a correlated increase of cancer. Radiation limits around the world are not limits that are safe. They are just limits that are considered ‘normal.’ The question now is ‘How much of a risk is it?” I have cut way back on seafood because of this and also milk due to bioaccumulation. Considering we are the only mammals that drink milk beyond infancy and more so we even drink other mammals milk.
One phrase: Bier VII report. http://www.dep.state.pa.us/brp/radon_division/BEIR%20VII%20Preliminary%20Report.pdf
There is no safe level of radiation
Thanks for the article and study! Great info.
I eat only canned fish (Alaskan Sockeye with bones and skin) because fresh wild fish is prohibitively expensive. I usually eat two 7-ounce cans per week (over four meals). The brand I buy does not contain BPA, but I know that is not a gaurantee that it is free of other chemicals. My question is do you think this is a healthy way to meet your recommendation of one pound of cold water, fatty fish per week? I have tried other canned fish, like sardines, but I find them pretty disgusting.
Chris, I have some studies that show GMOs are safe. Do you recommend eating GMOs?
As of January of this year, there was no detectable cesium in Pacific Northwest salmon according to UC Berkeley’s Nuclear Engineering Air Monitor Site: http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling/FoodCHain#salmon
They have tested soil and other foods since the Fukushima incident.
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling/FoodCHain
Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Labs have recently estimated that the total number of long-term radiation-induced cancers resulting from Fukushima meltdowns—including exposure to radiation directly after the tsunami—at 60.
The article emphasizes the seriousness of the ongoing leakage, but reiterates what I’ve written here: so far, there’s no credible evidence that potential harm from eating seafood caught in the Pacific outweighs the significant benefits. That’s the question at hand.
Salmon is a poor representation of Pacific contamination. Some salmon species never even touch the ocean. There is no indication of the type of salmon assayed other than “local grocery store”. Also, most of the other foods they assayed were back in 2011. There has been an enormous amount of additional radiation spilled since then. Furthermore, the spill is going on at enormous levels continuously and so the Pacific is getting more and more contaminated.
There are many scientific estimates on the number of deaths. The reality is no one knows. Remember President Obama’s scientific advisors (presumably the “top scientists in the country”) told us that the radiation from Fukushima was too far away and couldn’t affect us here. This was despite the fact that they admitted they didn’t know the magnitude of the blast or the altitude it reached. Well they were very wrong. Of course, all of our BS meters should have gone off on that one.
Even if we look retrospectively at data years from now, how do you prove the deaths are from Fukushima? It’s almost like the vaccine debate. If vaccine damage can occur up to 3 months after the shot (such as was shown in one study under controlled conditions) then how can we practically gauge a cause and effect? It’s really tough.
In the end, my analysis is that there is an enormous amount of ongoing leakage and by the time they prove there is a problem it would have been too late for most of us eating seafood. So for me it’s not worth the risk and that is how I advise my patients.
The way I see it is even if contamination levels not a problem for us yet, there’s a very high probability it will be in the coming months/years. And I don’t think we should be happy with just testing fish from the super market a few times a year, or relying on a few customs inspectors with geiger counters to catch a problem before it’s too late. The nature of this beast requires we be out ahead and not just relying on lagging indicators.
Most people don’t realize that this threat is not the same as more transient contaminations we hear on the news (BP oil spill, E-coli outbreaks, etc.). I agree we should not over react, but I think it warrants more concerned then BPAs, Pesticides and PUFAs combined! This threat is not going away in our lifetime, so I think it’s better to do whatever we can to start make everyone more educated and vigilant so we can begin to advocate for more proactive testing. Otherwise it’s all just wild speculation.
I have an unrelated question. Regarding arsenic in rice: i believe this to be true, however, how is it that many cultures thrive with rice as a staple in their diet? What about brown rice syrup and brown rice flour that is in found in so many “healthy” snacks, etc. I have heard that brown rice is far worse than white rice (more tainted). Please advise. Thank you.
Excellent article, Chris. When I first heard about people being alarmed at the level of radiation in pacific caught fish, I immediately thought of both banana radiation and radiation exposure due to flying. While I would agree that the we may have evolved to deal with radiation from bananas, I would think that anyone who raises the alarm over fish radiation would have to be at least equally concerned with radiation exposure from flying. After all, we certainly didn’t evolve to deal with radiation exposure from the upper atmosphere. Yet no one that I’ve seen who advises to avoid seafood “just to be safe” mentions that you should also avoid flying, you know, “just to be safe.”
Fake Science Alert: Fukushima Radiation Can’t Be Compared to Bananas or X-Rays
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fake-science-alert-fukushima-radiation-cant-be-compared-to-bananas-or-x-rays/5329369
http://enenews.com/canada-tv-new-concerns-about-radiation-levels-in-fish-from-pacific-these-numbers-are-just-staggering-contamination-up-considerably-its-a-major-event-worldwide-video
Bears mentioning that if we all keep consuming fish (contaminated or not) at the current rate, there soon won’t be any left. So if you’re concerned about radiation — or concerned about fishery collapse, minimize your fish intake.
What do you think of this: Nuclear Cheerleaders Use Voodoo Science to Pretend Low Levels of Radiation Are Safe … Or Even Good For You
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/05/nuclear-cheerleaders-use-voodoo-science-to-pretend-low-levels-of-radiation-are-safe-or-even-good-for-you.html
My husband is a Nuclear Engineer (and a hard-working Paleo cook). I was dreading yet another anti-nuclear article. THANK YOU for spreading factual knowledge and truth.
Good points in both directions. Thanks for keeping up on the research and sharing your viewpoint. No doubt that it has the potential to all change when the long term studies are performed, causing everything to be turned upside down.
Everyone’s free to make their own food choices. I personally limit intake from the Pacific, but it’s good to know what the research is showing thus far.
While not a peer reviewed article, here’s a good take on the issue (from last year):
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/10/fukushima-fish-still-hot.html
Great stuff Chris, thanks! Can the same be said for tea consumption?