It appears that nuclear disaster is not really very popular reading. For years it has been the awful fear lurking, a tiny despair fit only to bring out occasionally in full regalia and splendor. Most people I know hate that there are nuclear power reactors, that officials in positions of power deny their risk and harm, and that there is very little we can do on a national scale to shut them down. And even when they are shut down, we have all that radioactive waste that nobody wants stored in their backyard. But not many people want to dwell on the negative over which we have little control. Who can blame us? It's the invisible thing that poisons us, our food, our water, our air.
The recent disaster in Fukushima power plant has sharpened my interest in radioactivity and health, and I have been following the events closely. Today's news confirms what I (and others) have suspected: a meltdown is indeed possible and the results would be disaster for the people of Japan and the life in the ocean(s). The effects will be global.
Radioactive particles are amazingly sinister; there is no safe dose. There is no way to put it otherwise: every dose has consequences in the body - it is cumulative. It is especially damaging in children and pregnant women. This includes ultra low doses from x-rays and electronics. Even tiny amounts from the Japan fallout that fall in the rain that waters the produce grown in California and Mexico are not safe, despite what the US's claims of allowable limits might be. Radioactive iodine has a half-life of 8 days; that means that in 8 days it is reduced by half; in another 8 days it is reduced to a quarter; in another 8 days it is reduced to an eighth, and in another 8 days it is zero. 40 days from initial exposure, never mind spikes of radioactive steam blowing over the Pacific or over Tokyo in fits and spurts over two weeks. The dangers of radioactivity can NOT be overstated.
Today's news from Japan is sobering. Again, Arnie Gunderson speaks about what is happening now (video is approximately 7 minutes, look for the March 29th update). And the Guardian UK reports that there is a fuel melt in the core that has breached the containment vessel. Molten fuel is oozing or flowing slowly into the drywell, which is currently filled with seawater. The seawater might prevent a total meltdown into the ground (and ocean), by cooling the fuel, but it may not. I am so sad for the residents of Japan and the fish in the ocean.
This near-total disaster has only the goodwill of strangers going for it - the relief efforts and money flowing into Japan from the rest of Japan the world. The rest of it is enough to make all of us wonder what the hell we were thinking to allow a toxin that lasts thousands of years to heat our homes and power our industrial civilization. At least, that's what I'm thinking.
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