Japanese N-Plant Explosion

[adoucette]

Give it a rest Ice.

They said the amounts found were NORMAL.

NORMAL simply means "the usual, average, or typical state" and that's just what low levels of Plutonium in the soil is now, it's typical state because it is in fact usually found in low levels in the evironment all over the world, and has been for over 50 years. Thus it is NORMAL to find it.

You seem to be confusing the term NORMAL vs NATURAL.

They didn't say it got there NATURALLY, but if you do a soil sample anywhere on the planet you will NORMALLY find low levels of Plutonium even though only rarely is it there NATURALLY.

Arthur

 

[Trippy]

I don't recognize it, because I can read English and it isn't there. You are not reading your own links, apparently - try to find the specific reference, and point to it: you'll find it impossible.

Alluvium on Wiki

Alluvium (from the Latin, alluvius, from alluere, "to wash against") is loose, unconsolidated (not cemented together into a solid rock), soil or sediments, eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water in some form in a non-marine setting...

...Alluvium can contain valuable ores such as gold and platinum and a wide variety of gemstones. Such concentrations of valuable ores is termed a placer deposit.

OOPS!
Bad news (for you).
So an unconsolidated soil that has been eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water, in a non-marine setting, that contains a concentration of valuable ores is termed a placer deposit - but it's still soil.

I have studied soil science, btw - yet another miss, as you have by now (multiple examples) solidly joined the forum faction that "argues" via ad hominem guesswork and personal accusation in matters they not only don't know, but can't know - and unsurprisingly is almost always wrong.

I find that hard to believe, given the basic errors you've made.

You have provided no literature that deals with any of my points here. None.

Well, you haven't attacked anything I've said yet.

Bullshit. You explicitly claimed:

The density of plutonium in the soil under "normal environmental conditions" is zero, anywhere on earth. It's all radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power production. Its impact on human health depends on circumstance.

I have demonstrated that:
1. It is non-zero.
2. There are places where it is non-zero under "normal environmental conditions"
3. It's presence is not due to radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power production.

Therefore, I have demonstrated that your claim is wrong.

I don't think you have any idea what my argument on this thread is, actually - your volume of irrelevancy is way too big to ascribe to a tactic deriving from comprehension.

No. You explicitly claimed that under normal environmental conditions, all Plutonium was anthropogenic. I've demonstrated this claim false.

Cool. So where is that - we need a region (acreage big enough to be an "environment") where plutonium in the soil is among the normal environmental conditions (that is, there's enough of it to be an environmental condition - not an atom here and there, like the gold content of the atmosphere - or are you going to be just completely tiresome? ) The claim you have chosen to define and attack, for some reason, is after all a very strong one, and even one non-trivial example would do.

I can't work out whether this is more accurately characterized as a strawman or a redherring, at the moment, I'm leaning towards a redherring.

I've already demonstrated that the claim that natural plutonium is zero everywhere all the time under normal environmental conditions is false, by demonstrating that there are environmental conditions that are normal to that area, but uncommon overall, that result in the accumulation of natural plutonium in certain kinds of minerals, and therefore in any soil containing those minerals.

Notice that you have already been allowed to avoid the actual argument, and deflect things far away from anything relevant to the analysis you claim to be attacking in the first place - but you show no interest in that, and threads are allowed tangents, so - - - -

I've precisely addressed your arguments, you just seemingly lack the capacity, or perhaps the acuity to recognize it. Your argument is precisely an argument from ignorance.

 

[ULTRA]

An interesting opinion from Kyodo News on the future of nuclear power in light of the fukujima catastrophy. "To claim that nuclear energy has a future represents a colossal failure of our collective imagination -- a failure to imagine the risks involved and a failure to imagine how we could do things differently. If future generations are to say that there was a silver lining to the cloud of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, it will be because human beings now looked beyond their recent history and chose to build a society that was not subject to catastrophic risks of human making."
The whole article @ http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81489.html

The radiation levels found in seawater continue to rise, now put at over 3,300x normal.
Work at the site is still being hampered by unsafe radiation levels.

Kyodo news have a breaking story: BREAKING NEWS: Radioactivity 10,000 times the limit detected from underground water: TEPCO

 

[iceaura]

So an unconsolidated soil that has been eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water, in a non-marine setting, that contains a concentration of valuable ores is termed a placer deposit - but it's still soil.

Not according to anything in your link there - for example, it would fall into the "sediments" category in the lead sentence you chose to emphasize:

Alluvium (from the Latin, alluvius, from alluere, "to wash against") is loose, unconsolidated (not cemented together into a solid rock), soil or sediments,

and that category is clearly demarcated from "soil", by the word "or".

And that kind of distinction is central, critical, to the use of words in the public relations ploys of nuclear industrialists.

English. Get to know it.

Meanwhile, since you go even farther in avoiding the actual argument the entire issue has become a waste of time - even if you were correct in your assumptions regarding the technical use of the word "soil", you are not going to magically restore integrity to the media handouts from nuclear power industrialists, by pretending they were adhering to some kind of technical usage established for these words. They attempted to frame their findings of plutonium in a context in which one can infer safety from the presence of plutonium in the soil (soil as understood by their intended audience) at the common levels of bomb residue - this kind of deceptive framing is standard in hypnosis and other forms of manipulation, and effective if not consciously fought.

Which side are you on?

I have demonstrated that:
1. It is non-zero.
2. There are places where it is non-zero under "normal environmental conditions"
3. It's presence is not due to radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power production.
- - -
No. You explicitly claimed that under normal environmental conditions, all Plutonium was anthropogenic. I've demonstrated this claim false.

You haven't demonstrated any of that. Reread your own links, as above.

And quote me, please, rather than sliding in those precisely calibrated not quite accurate paraphrases.

Meanwhile, the entire issue is an avoidance of my arguments here, in the first place. If you can someday actually find someplace on this planet where plutonium is found as a normal environmental condition of the soil, you will then have forced me to admit to a small and inconsequential overstatement in the course of making a larger and consequential point. If that ever happens, I'll quite cheerfully back up and stipulate to the exceptions you have located. The argument and point would remain, essentially unaltered.

False reassurance dominates the media relations of the nuclear industry, and the history of this creates much of the panic used as its justification. The loop favors those favored by deception and public ignorance - the usual suspects.

 

[Trippy]

Not according to anything in your link there - for example, it would fall into the "sediments" category in the lead sentence you chose to emphasize: and that category is clearly demarcated from "soil", by the word "or".

No, it wouldn't.

Aluvial soil is soil that has been reworked (or deposited) by non-marine aquatic processes.

A flood plain, for example, might be a sedimentary deposit, but it is still raw or recent alluvial soil.

Soil that is picked up from one place by a river, and deposited in another, is alluvial soil.

English. Get to know it.

Apparently you need to follow your own advice.

Meanwhile, since you go even farther in avoiding the actual argument the entire issue has become a waste of time - even if you were correct in your assumptions regarding the technical use of the word "soil", you are not going to magically restore integrity to the media handouts from nuclear power industrialists, by pretending they were adhering to some kind of technical usage established for these words.

You're being dishonest, I'm avoiding nothing. I'm pretending nothing.

They attempted to frame their findings of plutonium in a context in which one can infer safety from the presence of plutonium in the soil (soil as understood by their intended audience) at the common levels of bomb residue - this kind of deceptive framing is standard in hypnosis and other forms of manipulation, and effective if not consciously fought.

Oh bullshit. This is precisely the kind of paranoid conspirational jibber jabber that turned me off voting for the NZ Green Party, and led me to start voting Labour instead.
The Isotopic ratios of the plutonium they found (at at least 3 of the 5 sites) were consistent with Plutonium that's been there since the '50s and '60s.
Fukushima Daiichi didn't achieve criticality until 1971.
The levels are no higher than those found anywhere else in the world.
We have what, 7 billion people on this planet, the majority of whom have been exposed to comparable levels of plutonium in food soil and water for the last 60 years, and there is what evidence from that, precisely, that demonstrates that it's toxic? None.

Which side are you on?

The same side I'm always on - the side advocating accuracy.

You haven't demonstrated any of that. Reread your own links, as above.

Actually, I have precisely demonstrated each of those elements.

And quote me, please, rather than sliding in those precisely calibrated not quite accurate paraphrases.

I did.
5 whole sentences earlier.
And you complain about my inability to follow a conversation? You can't even retain context through a single post - and stating that you're claiming that it's anthropogenic is precisely accurate.

And incidentally? You're in no position to chastise people for inaccurate paraphrasing.

Meanwhile, the entire issue is an avoidance of my arguments here, in the first place. If you can someday actually find someplace on this planet where plutonium is found as a normal environmental condition of the soil, you will then have forced me to admit to a small and inconsequential overstatement in the course of making a larger and consequential point. If that ever happens, I'll quite cheerfully back up and stipulate to the exceptions you have located. The argument and point would remain, essentially unaltered.

This is so full of bullshit, I can almost smell it.
I've linked to peer reviewed documentation that demonstrates that natural plutonium occurs in bedrock.
As a self proclaimed soil scientest, you should know that due to a combination of weathering and leaching, anything that is in the bedrock will find its way into the soil.
I've demonstrated that soil can contain placer deposits, and again, anything that's in the placer deposit can be expected to leach into the soil. So by simple deductive reasoning in areas where there is plutonium in the bedrock, it can be expected to be in the soil.
I've demonstrated the pathway that Plutonium-239 can be expected to be generated in areas where there are high concentrations of Uranium in the soil - and according to UNSCEAR, in places that can naturally be as high as 5ppm (of Uranium that is).

I haven't taken the easy way out, although I'm going to point it out now, by mentioning that because it's exceptionally long half life of 80MA, that naturally occuring, primordial, Plutonium-244 is expected to be found to at least some degree in the earths crust, and there is at least one paper about that reports its detection. This 'factoid' is so widly known that it features routinely in debates against Young Earth Creationists - the fact that there are Isotopes naturally occuring with half lives less than 80MA - unless a specific decay pathway exists that results in replenishment.

I would have been willing to accept, for example, the statement made on, IIRC, the Wikipedia page 'Plutonium in the environmenmt', or by people that actually know what they're talking about that the BULK (or majority) of the plutonium in the environment is from man made sources.

 

[ULTRA]

Following a series of blunders by TEPCO, sources say that the Japanese government is set to put up the cash for half of the company. This is because (as predicted) the government is fed up with limp leadership, aforementioned blunders and poor communication of (often lacking) information. Where I'd predicted that the company would be nationalised, I hadn't counted on the poor wisdom of that as far as the government was conce3rned! They much wiser, ah so! They don't want final responsibility for a mouldering pile of radioactive junk, they're gonna leave that with TEPCO. They want some control, but this potato is way too hot to keep, so they're going to plough in a heap of public money in the hope it will keep TEPCO going as a business. Their realistic liabilities are estimated at 3bn Yen, about 4x the equity of the firm. The government are hoping that the crisis will be mitigated somehow, in the next few months. Analysts however think it's going to take decades.
This brief from reuters kinda sums it all up.. http://reut.rs/hn0dlW

 

[Bells]

Back in the real world:

More than 70,000 people living within the exclusion zone have been moved to temporary shelters.

Another 136,000 people who live within 20-30km of the plant have been encouraged by the authorities to leave or to stay indoors.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the evacuation would be "long-term".

In a televised address, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he was "prepared for a long-term battle" at the plant - one he said that would be won.

"At the current stage, we cannot say that the plant has been sufficiently stabilised. But we are preparing for all kinds of situations and I am convinced that the plant can be stabilised.

"We cannot say at this stage say by when this will happen, but we are trying our best," he said.

The authorities are resisting calls from the UN's atomic agency to expand the exclusion zone around the plant, after it found safe radiation limits had been exceeded at the village of Iitate, 40km away.

Highly radioactive water continues to leak at the plant; for the first time it has been found in groundwater 15m below reactor 1.

Although it does not appear to have caused an immediate problem, there is a possibility it could eventually affect drinking water if concentrations were high enough.

Radioactive material detected in the sea near the plant rose steeply on Thursday, with radioactive iodine levels reaching 4,385 times the limit.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12930949

​

Death toll from these reactors remains at zero.

Members of the Public that have been seriously exposed to radiation remains at zero.

Of course.

Which is why the Japanese Government has said that it could take years and years before residents living near the reactors would be allowed back on their land and in their homes, due to the fact that the radiation levels are that high. Also why the IAEA also suggested and support making the exclusion zone even larger, due to what they were recording there on the ground.

Just because no one has died from radiation poisoning (yet - and that is largely in part because no one knows just how much they have been exposed to and also because of how they have been working in shifts that amount up to 10 minutes at a time), no one should downplay the seriousness of what is happening at the Fukushima plant. And no one is:

On Tuesday, the IAEA rated the seriousness of the nuclear emergency at Fukushima as a 6 on a scale of 7. By contrast, 1979's Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania was a 5, while the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) was a 7.


(Source)
​

While it cannot be another Chernobyl due to the design of the reactor, it is serious all on its very own. As the article goes on to say, it may end up being downgraded once they are actually able to see what is going on, because as of yet, no one knows what is going on since no one can get close enough to see. They suspect breaches and cracks, but they cannot go in to see for sure.

This is also precisely wrong.
Plutonium does actually occur in Nature under "normal environmental conditions".

Yes. And?

The experts there, on the ground do not think this is solely naturally occuring though. Are you saying they are wrong?

For example, you commented on the Pu in the soil earlier, based solely on what the company had supposedly reported - without verification. Here is the reality:

TEPCO said it was unclear where the plutonium was from, though it appeared two of the five finds were related to damage from the plant rather than from the atmosphere.

Experts believe that at least some of the plutonium may have come from spent fuel rods at Fukushima or damage to reactor No. 3, the only one to use plutonium in its fuel mix.

The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the find was expected due to known fuel degradation.

CONTAINMENT BREACHED

Japan's own nuclear safety agency was concerned at the plutonium samples, whose levels of radioactive decay ranged from 0.18 to 0.54 becquerels per kg.

"While it's not the level harmful to human health, I am not optimistic. This means the containment mechanism is being breached so I think the situation is worrisome," agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama was quoted as saying by Jiji news agency.

(Source)
​

So which is it?

Tell me Trippy, do you believe the Japanese nuclear watch dogs and boards, the Government, the IAEA, etc are wrong in their direct observations and the results they have recorded? I should also ask the same of adoucette, who came out with the doozy of a comment in this thread about what he deemed these "incredibly low levels of radiation".. so low infact that we have staff who have had their feet get radiation burns for walking in contaminated water and no one can remain on site for more than a few minutes at a time.

Can I ask, what is your vested interest in pushing for the safety of nuclear power, to the point where you are disputing known facts and observations based solely on what appears to be your personal beliefs?

 

[adoucette]

Back in the real world: .....

Which is why the Japanese Government has said that it could take years and years before residents living near the reactors would be allowed back on their land and in their homes, due to the fact that the radiation levels are that high.

Hardly
That was NOT something the Japanese goverment said.

Indeed, the radiation levels are dropping.

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1301652988P.pdf

INES levels remain at 5

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS01_1301659895P.pdf

Indeed, in the IAEA's Mar 31st briefing they discussed strategies for NEXT YEARS CROPPING with the farmers and poducers in the current exclusion zone.

http://www.slideshare.net/iaea/iaea...uclear-accident-31-march-20111400-utc-7464683

Also why the IAEA also suggested and support making the exclusion zone even larger, due to what they were recording there on the ground.

No, There was a little concern because in one small area to the NW (Litate villiage) the radiation levels were slightly higher than they would like. But they have subsequently dropped below the level needed to evacuate people.

Just because no one has died from radiation poisoning (yet - and that is largely in part because no one knows just how much they have been exposed to and also because of how they have been working in shifts that amount up to 10 minutes at a time),

But they do know how much people have been exposed to.
They have 21 workers who have above 100 millisieverts (none over 200) and they have tested over 100,000 people who were moved out and about a hundred had slightly high levels which went away once they got rid of their clothes.

Fukushima Prefecture has started the screening from 13 March. It is
carried out by rotating the evacuation sites and at the 13 places (set up
permanently) such as health offices. Up until March 28th, the screening
was done to 102,342 people. Among them, 101 people were above the
100,000cpm, but when measured these people again without clothes, etc.,
the counts decreased to 100,000cpm and below, and there was no case
which affects health.

Arthur

 

[iceaura]

Soil that is picked up from one place by a river, and deposited in another, is alluvial soil.

And sediment treated so is alluvial sediment. Your link is clear on the matter, and careful to separate soil from sediment.

I've linked to peer reviewed documentation that demonstrates that natural plutonium occurs in bedrock.
As a self proclaimed soil scientest, you should know that due to a combination of weathering and leaching, anything that is in the bedrock will find its way into the soil.

So all you have to do is find where that has actually happened with plutonium (I predict some difficulty, there) and you can force me to admit that rare exception and modify my very strong and universal claim with words like "almost nowhere" and "with very rare and localized exceptions, not including Fukushima" and so forth.

Then what?

Do you agree that describing bomb residue range levels of plutonium in the soil around the reactor as "normal environmental conditions" from which safety can ->therefore<- be inferred, is a reasonable and neutral media description of the situation?

Oh bullshit. This is precisely the kind of paranoid conspirational jibber jabber that turned me off voting for the NZ Green Party, and led me to start voting Labour instead.

? Paranoid? You read that media con and you don't see anything wrong with it?

The levels are no higher than those found anywhere else in the world.

Do you want to modify that a bit, maybe?

We have what, 7 billion people on this planet, the majority of whom have been exposed to comparable levels of plutonium in food soil and water for the last 60 years, and there is what evidence from that, precisely, that demonstrates that it's toxic? None.

If we set that up next to your argument in defense of the Fukushima design vulnerabilities - there was "no evidence" of any possibility of such a large tsunami, etc - we begin to see a pattern.

I'm wondering if you guys employ such logic in crossing the street - if you haven't looked both ways carefully, do you infer safety from the lack of evidence of oncoming cars, the statistical odds of a car coming just this moment, etc?

 

[adoucette]

TEPCO said today that they will construct a 6,000 ton water tank and a 4,000 ton pond. These will work in conjunction with a 20 ton per hour treatment facility to handle water from drainage canals around all six reactors at the plant.

They said the tank and pond should be complete around the middle of this month, with the treatment facility following about two weeks later.

This should provide the ability to safely store the on site water and prevent discharge until after treatment.

Arthur

 

[adoucette]

I should also ask the same of adoucette, who came out with the doozy of a comment in this thread about what he deemed these "incredibly low levels of radiation".. so low infact that we have staff who have had their feet get radiation burns for walking in contaminated water and no one can remain on site for more than a few minutes at a time.

Can I ask, what is your vested interest in pushing for the safety of nuclear power, to the point where you are disputing known facts and observations based solely on what appears to be your personal beliefs?

Well Bells, if you actually took the time to read and understand that post you will see that it is about the very low levels of Pu they found in the soil near the plant and since the levels they found are the same as the entire planet has been living with for the last 50 years, YES, it is in fact incredibly low levels of radiation.

Which had NOTHING to do with the Beta radiation burns the three workers got from working for HOURS in the water (not minutes) and IGNORING the fact that the water had gotten over their boots and in direct contact with their skin and the warnings being given off by their radiation meters. (TEPCO has since went and did a refresher on what not to do, like keep working if you get wet or ignoring the dose meters)

In generaal they do work for much longer than 10 minutes Bells, usually many hours at a time as there are only 370 people at work at the Fukushima Daiichi site (and for much of the time there were only 50) and yet only 21 workers have been exposed to over 100 millisieverts of radiation. If they are at one of the few places with very high radiation then they have to limit their exposure. Which is why they are draining the turbine rooms, so they can work in them for longer periods of time.

There are real issues, but making ones up that don't exist doesn't help.

Arthur

 

[Bells]

Hardly
That was NOT something the Japanese goverment said.

Really? Are you now claiming that Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano is not from the Japanese Government and that the evacuation is not for the "long term"? With nuclear experts warning it could take decades?

Indeed, the radiation levels are dropping.

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_i...301652988P.pdf

INES levels remain at 5

http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_i...301659895P.pdf

No, it was actually upgraded.

But I am sure the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, from which site you are linking, would not want to give a negative view of what is happening in Japan, would they?

Indeed, in the IAEA's Mar 31st briefing they discussed strategies for NEXT YEARS CROPPING with the farmers and poducers in the current exclusion zone.

You mean where they discussed the possible continued contamination of the area?

No, There was a little concern because in one small area to the NW (Litate villiage) the radiation levels were slightly higher than they would like. But they have subsequently dropped below the level needed to evacuate people.

Slightly higher?

First assessment indicates that one of the IAEA operational criteria for evacuation is exceeded in Iitate village. We advised the counterpart to carefully assess the situation. They indicated that they are already assessing.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2011/fukushima300311.html
​

Sure seems like it is "slightly higher", doesn't it? Tell me, what is your interest in downplaying what's happening in Japan?

But they do know how much people have been exposed to.
They have 19 workers above 100 millisieverts (3 over 200) and they have tested over 100,000 people who were moved out and about a hundred had slightly high levels which went away once they got rid of their clothes.

Really?

We will ignore the workers who had to be hospitalised with radiation burns - the extent of their exposure has yet to be made public, shall we? What we do know is that 19 are above 100 millisieverts and 3 over 200. But we do not know the exact extent of their contamination.

As for the public tested, one has to wonder how they got the higher levels on their clothes in the first place, since you appear to be saying it is no issue at all.

 

[adoucette]

Bells, the three workers were kept for evaluation and released from the hospitals the following day, two of them had Beta burns and the amount of their exposure was made public.

The Japanese have not decided to extend the evacuation zone because the levels in Iitate village have dropped below the levels requiring it. Indeed, they are below levels that people live at year round in other parts of the world.

JAIF published those graphs but the readings came from the Military, the police and the JAEA, and have been done several times a day at 84 locations around the area since this started. No one is fudging the numbers. I've been tracking the hot spots myself and like the graphs show the slow steady decline as well as the small hot zone NW of the plant have been obvious in the readings, but at this time there are none that would preclude people coming back to the area today.

Once the reactors are in cold shut down mode, they will be allowed back.

Assuming no more loss of cooling incidents at the plants (now pretty unlikely) most of the radiation in the area will be gone in about a month as it is from Isotopes with very short half lives. Some of it (Cesium 137) will persist for decades, but at very low levels.
There are likely to be a few hot spots where they will actually do some work to clean the soil.

I'm not downplaying anything Bells, I've followed this extensively since the beginning and have tried to post verifiable information from reputable sources and personally I'm glad that the radiation levels in the surrounding area have been relatively low and that no one has been seriously injured so far or that the contamination appears to be relatively minor outside of the plant boundaries.

Who wouldn't be?

If that changes I'll post about that too.

Arthur

 

[iceaura]

Ah, the spirit moves:

You're being dishonest, I'm avoiding nothing

So you simply aren't registering or comprehending the argument, then. I suppose that's possible, although it doesn't explain the inordinately energetic and irrelevant personal attacks.

The same side I'm always on - the side advocating accuracy.

- - -
and stating that you're claiming that it's anthropogenic is precisely accurate.
- - -
- - - -
"And quote me, please, rather than sliding in those precisely calibrated not quite accurate paraphrases."
- - -
And incidentally? You're in no position to chastise people for inaccurate paraphrasing.

Yes, I am. Since I paraphrase accurately and in good faith, and you don't, and the stuff you paraphrase inaccurately and in bad faith is mine, I am in the perfect position to chastise you for your inexcusable behavior.

Here's three critically and relevantly "mistaken" paraphrases from you, recently in this thread.

I've already demonstrated that the claim that natural plutonium is zero everywhere all the time under normal environmental conditions is false

I made no such claim.

No. You explicitly claimed that under normal environmental conditions, all Plutonium was anthropogenic

I did not.

This is also precisely wrong.
Plutonium does actually occur in Nature under "normal environmental conditions".

If I accept your claim to precision, I'm left with dishonesty to describe that. I think you just don't read carefully.

And here's where you jump the shark - completely losing track of even this tangential personal garbage you have chosen to grace us with:

Originally Posted by iceaura
Not in the soil.
”
Strawman hypothesis - I didn't claim it was in the soil, only that it was natural.

“
Originally Posted by iceaura
And not at the levels detected by TEPCO.
”
Strawman hypothesis - I didn't claim that it was present at the levels detected by Tepco, only that it was present.

Uh, dude, we weren't discussing your claims: we were discussing mine. I specified soil, my argument is focused on TEPCO's levels and claims, etc. My claims are not strawmen in a defense of my claims under attack, eh?

Which brings us to this, again:

Originally Posted by iceaura
You don't read carefully, is your initial problem here. Then you use your misreading to misrepresent arguments, instead of engaging them. The net result is irrelevancy - no matter how well dressed in technicalities.
”
Actually, I read very carefully

Then you are lying on purpose? How else do you explain those precisely and typically (see adoucette's style, say) mistaken paraphrases and goofy tangent exaggerations, that obliviousness to the argument in progress, assuming careful reading?

Notice that you have already been allowed to avoid the actual argument, and deflect things far away from anything relevant to the analysis you claim to be attacking in the first place - but you show no interest in that, and threads are allowed tangents, so - - - -

If it matters, we can see the use to which TEPCO's media language is put:

you will see that it is about the very low levels of Pu they found in the soil near the plant and since the levels they found are the same as the entire planet has been living with for the last 50 years, YES, it is in fact incredibly low levels of radiation.

If their luck holds and no radiation disaster blooms amid the tsunami debris, we will be getting that kind of language from major media, with repetition, for many months and years to come.

 

[Bells]

Well Bells, if you actually took the time to read and understand that post you will see that it is about the very low levels of Pu they found in the soil near the plant and since the levels they found are the same as the entire planet has been living with for the last 50 years, YES, it is in fact incredibly low levels of radiation.

The plutonium levels were low, and Tepco have admitted it was from the plant itself. But the rest has not been so low. In fact, they have admitted to high levels of radiated water entering the ocean, while it will dissipate fast enough, you cannot deny that it is happening.

Which had NOTHING to do with the Beta radiation burns the three workers got from working for HOURS in the water (not minutes) and IGNORING the fact that the water had gotten over their boots and in direct contact with their skin and the warnings being given off by their radiation meters. (TEPCO has since went and did a refresher on what not to do, like keep working if you get wet or ignoring the dose meters)

Learn to read. I was responding to your comments that the radiation levels at the plant were low. When in reality they are not low. The plutonium may be low, the rest is not. Do you understand now?

In generaal they do work for much longer than 10 minutes Bells, usually many hours at a time as there are only 370 people at work at the Fukushima Daiichi site (and for much of the time there were only 50) and yet only 21 workers have been exposed to over 100 millisieverts of radiation. If they are at one of the few places with very high radiation then they have to limit their exposure. Which is why they are draining the turbine rooms, so they can work in them for longer periods of time.

Do you have proof that they are working in shifts that lasts "many hours"? Links?

Here is what has been generally reported, and yet to be retracted:

To limit exposure, small groups are rushing in for roughly 15-minute shifts before hurrying back out, according to the Associated Press.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110317-japan-reactor-fukushima-nuclear-power-plant-radiation-exposure/
​

Are you saying this is incorrect?

Do you have proof that they were working for "many hours at a time"?

There are real issues, but making ones up that don't exist doesn't help.

And I think scrabbling around trying to make up excuses does not help either.

At the end of the day, if the radiation on the site was so 'slight', this thread would not exist and the IAEA would not be so overly concerned

 

[adoucette]

The plutonium levels were low, and Tepco have admitted it was from the plant itself. But the rest has not been so low. In fact, they have admitted to high levels of radiated water entering the ocean, while it will dissipate fast enough, you cannot deny that it is happening.

And I have not denied that is happening. Indeed I published a list of the isotopes and the amount of radiation that was found.

Learn to read. I was responding to your comments that the radiation levels at the plant were low. When in reality they are not low. The plutonium may be low, the rest is not. Do you understand now?

You need to learn to read Bells, the post you linked to was SPECIFICALLY about the levels of Pu in the soil. It had nothing to do with general radiation levels at the plant. http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2720821&postcount=642

Do you have proof that they are working in shifts that lasts "many hours"? Links?

Here is what has been generally reported, and yet to be retracted:

To limit exposure, small groups are rushing in for roughly 15-minute shifts before hurrying back out, according to the Associated Press.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110317-japan-reactor-fukushima-nuclear-power-plant-radiation-exposure/
​

Are you saying this is incorrect?

Do you have proof that they were working for "many hours at a time"?

Yes, it's in their status reports about the various work they are doing on the site going on for hours, but that doesn't mean that there aren't also places where radiation levels are high and they limit exposure as described in that article. There are only so many workers and they have been at this now for over 500 hours, so yeah, it isn't just 10 minutes at a time all the time or nothing would have gotten done.

And I think scrabbling around trying to make up excuses does not help either.

And I haven't made the FIRST excuse for anybody for doing anything.

At the end of the day, if the radiation on the site was so 'slight', this thread would not exist and the IAEA would not be so overly concerned

I've never said the radiation on the entire site is slight, indeed, in some parts of those buildings it's pretty high which is why they are draining the water and since they still don't have the plants operating on their primary cooling systems everyone will stay concerned until they are in cold shutdown, but that doesn't negate the fact that as you get away from the site the levels of radiation have fallen considerably.

Arthur

 

[Trippy]

And sediment treated so is alluvial sediment.

But, it is also soil.
Alluvial sediments, deposited on (for example) a flood plain or a delta, become (Raw or recent) alluvial soil.
All of which, ultimately is a red herring anyway.

Your link is clear on the matter, and careful to separate soil from sediment.

Let's assume you're right, for a moment (you're not, and as someone who has studied soil science, you know you're not).
But not when it comes to Placers - it simply says alluvium can contain placers. Making no distinction as to whether it's refering to alluvial soils or alluvial sediments. Given the effort to distinguish between the two earlier in the article, then clearly this is a deliberate omission intended to indicate that both alluvial sediments and alluvial soils can contain placer deposits.

But you're wrong:

Raw Soils are very young soils. They lack distinct topsoil development or are fluid at a shallow depth. They occur in environments where the development of topsoils is prevented by rockiness, by active erosion, or deposition.

Recent Soils are weakly developed, showing limited signs of soil-forming processes. A distinct topsoil is present but a B horizon is either absent or only weakly expressed

So Raw, or Recent soils, as they might occur on a floodplain, for example, are recently deposited sediments (silt) that have little or no soil structure an d are unlikely to develop further because of ongoing deposition or erosion.

So all you have to do is find where that has actually happened with plutonium (I predict some difficulty, there) and you can force me to admit that rare exception and modify my very strong and universal claim with words like "almost nowhere" and "with very rare and localized exceptions, not including Fukushima" and so forth.

No, I don't.
I've demonstrated all I need to demonstrate.
But then, I'd expect you to try and weasel out of having to admit that you were wrong.

Do you agree that describing bomb residue range levels of plutonium in the soil around the reactor as "normal environmental conditions" from which safety can ->therefore<- be inferred, is a reasonable and neutral media description of the situation?

If by 'Bomb residue range levels' you mean 'comparable to levels found in the US as a whole' as opposed to 'Comparable to those found at the Trinity test site days after the detonation' then sure. Because the first is obviously correct, where the second is simply dishonest.

? Paranoid? You read that media con and you don't see anything wrong with it?

Yes, Paranoid.
Because unlike you, I don't rely on the media for my information, I prefer to get it straight from the horses mouth, rather than a non technical experts interpretation of a translators interpretation of a technical experts words.

Do you want to modify that a bit, maybe?

Ordinarily I'd say 'not particularly' because recently I have been some what spoiled in that I have been able to engage folk in another forum in rational discourse, and have them be honest.

If we set that up next to your argument in defense of the Fukushima design vulnerabilities - there was "no evidence" of any possibility of such a large tsunami, etc - we begin to see a pattern.

The patern you imagine is not the correct pattern, I gaurantee it.

I'm wondering if you guys employ such logic in crossing the street - if you haven't looked both ways carefully, do you infer safety from the lack of evidence of oncoming cars, the statistical odds of a car coming just this moment, etc?

Now you're just being stupid

 

[Trippy]

Ah, the spirit moves:

So you simply aren't registering or comprehending the argument, then. I suppose that's possible, although it doesn't explain the inordinately energetic and irrelevant personal attacks.

Bullshit.

Yes, I am. Since I paraphrase accurately and in good faith, and you don't, and the stuff you paraphrase inaccurately and in bad faith is mine, I am in the perfect position to chastise you for your inexcusable behavior.

Bullshit.

Here's three critically and relevantly "mistaken" paraphrases from you, recently in this thread.
I made no such claim.
I did not.
If I accept your claim to precision, I'm left with dishonesty to describe that. I think you just don't read carefully.

Or a luck of inductive reasoning on your own part.
Materially, you said this:

The density of plutonium in the soil under "normal environmental conditions" is zero, anywhere on earth. It's all radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power production. Its impact on human health depends on circumstance.

As an example:
If "The density of plutonium in the soil under "normal environmental conditions" is zero, anywhere on earth." and "it's all radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power production. Its impact on human health depends on circumstance." Then it trivially follows as "It's all radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power production." If there is "plutonium in the soil under 'normal environmental conditions'" then it's anthropogenic because (with the exclusion of Oklo) "radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power production" is itself anthropogenic.

So far, the only way you have been able to make a case is by cherry picking and taking statements out of the context of the discussion they are in, and in some cases, out of the context of the very same post.

And here's where you jump the shark - completely losing track of even this tangential personal garbage you have chosen to grace us with: Uh, dude, we weren't discussing your claims: we were discussing mine. I specified soil, my argument is focused on TEPCO's levels and claims, etc. My claims are not strawmen in a defense of my claims under attack, eh?

This is bullshit with a thin veneer of truth.
Yes, you specified soil, and you also claimed that the content of soil was zero, nada zip under normal environmental conditions, which I have addressed namely - If it's in the bedrock, or in mineral deposits that are in the soil, then it will have leached into the soil itself under normal conditions. You have not challenged this aspect of my argument, therefore it is sufficient for me to demonstrate that it is present in the bedrock, minerals in the bedrock which can directly form part of the soil, or mineral deposits that might occur within the soil - all of which I have done.

Which brings us to this, again:
Then you are lying on purpose? How else do you explain those precisely and typically (see adoucette's style, say) mistaken paraphrases and goofy tangent exaggerations, that obliviousness to the argument in progress, assuming careful reading?

This is pure bullshit.

If it matters, we can see the use to which TEPCO's media language is put:

If their luck holds and no radiation disaster blooms amid the tsunami debris, we will be getting that kind of language from major media, with repetition, for many months and years to come.

The point which you keep dancing around in this regard is this: They can tell from the ratios of the various Isotopes whether the contamination occured as a result of what's happened in the last three weeks, or if it predates this. They have stated that the isotopic ratios imply (in three of the five samples- the three samples we've been discussing) that it is as a result of historical atmospheric testing - IE the only link it's presence has with what's going on is the fact that they were looking for it, and found it.

 

[Trippy]

Yes. And?

The experts there, on the ground do not think this is solely naturally occuring though. Are you saying they are wrong?

Oh come on Bells, this is weak sauce.
This is a strawman hypothesis, if it's not an outright lie.
At no point have I claimed, or implied, that the Pu detected in the soil at Fukushima was natural.
End of story.

For example, you commented on the Pu in the soil earlier, based solely on what the company had supposedly reported - without verification. Here is the reality:

TEPCO said it was unclear where the plutonium was from, though it appeared two of the five finds were related to damage from the plant rather than from the atmosphere.

Experts believe that at least some of the plutonium may have come from spent fuel rods at Fukushima or damage to reactor No. 3, the only one to use plutonium in its fuel mix.​

This is no different from anything I've said.

The United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the find was expected due to known fuel degradation.

CONTAINMENT BREACHED

Japan's own nuclear safety agency was concerned at the plutonium samples, whose levels of radioactive decay ranged from 0.18 to 0.54 becquerels per kg.

"While it's not the level harmful to human health, I am not optimistic. This means the containment mechanism is being breached so I think the situation is worrisome," agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama was quoted as saying by Jiji news agency.[/FONT]

(Source)
[/INDENT][/quote]
This is no different from what's been said for the last three weeks, Bells.
Of course, the possibility still exists, however, that the Plutonium could have come from the spent fuel pool, rather than neccessarily the reactor core.

So which is it?

Tell me Trippy, do you believe the Japanese nuclear watch dogs and boards, the Government, the IAEA, etc are wrong in their direct observations and the results they have recorded?

No, I believe you are misrepresenting, or have misunderstood what I have said, as I have already said, suggesting that I am claiming that the Plutonium at Fukushima is natural, is weak sauce, and a strawman hypothesis.

Can I ask, what is your vested interest in pushing for the safety of nuclear power, to the point where you are disputing known facts and observations based solely on what appears to be your personal beliefs?

I'm not disputing known facts, however.

 

[adoucette]

They can tell from the ratios of the various Isotopes whether the contamination occured as a result of what's happened in the last three weeks, or if it predates this. They have stated that the isotopic ratios imply that it is as a result of historical atmospheric testing - IE the only link it's presence has with what's going on is the fact that they were looking for it, and found it.

Not exactly.

They tested 5 samples.
Three of them were the same isotope ratios as what remains from atmospheric testing.
Two were not and thus may have come from this incident.
The levels of the unexpected isotopes was approximately the same magnitude as the Nuclear testing, which is why they said the levels they found weren't associated with Major health impacts.

AFAIK they still haven't decided where this Pu came from, the reactors, the spent fuel pools or some other source of contamination.

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110328e14.pdf

Arthur