Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 18:03:04 From: Szymon Sokol To: Palantiri Subject: Re: [palantiri] FW: Interesting how things change > Media coverage > > Another aspect that seems to have come up in this discussion is one of the > media coverage in the US. The media coverage of events in the US is more > and more dictated by the most sensational event occurring. Nor does it seem > to be un-sensationalized (an understatement!!) I suppose you need to know > what else is available to see the difference. What brought this home to me > this week were some things my girlfriend said while watching CNN. The news > cast were openly speculating the possibilities at the nuclear reactors for > some time. My girlfriend is from Switzerland, and could not believe how few > facts were being reported as opposed to the "expert discussions" being > presented. She flatly said, "this would never be called news in > Switzerland." In serious science and fact finding, any time I hear the > words "they say," or "experts said" I do a double take..... The news > coverage of Japan has been overly sensationalized in my opinion, the results > can be seen in how the West Coast population of the US is panicking at the > moment. It is horrible what has happened there, but lets not forget the > power such media weld. Can we have more facts please? There may even be time > to fit in a segment then about Egypt, Libya and the other nations in crisis. I don't know how it is going across the pond, but here in Europe Libya is already taking precedence in the news, since the military intervention began. I suppose it will stay this way at least for a week or two, unless something even more sensational suddenly happens somewhere. A few more things about Fukushima incident you may find interesting: Describing Fukushima as Chernobyl-level disaster is completely dishonest. To put things in proportion, have a look at the picture illustrating this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_nuclear_accidents - the chart of radioactivity levels shows clearly that in Fukushima they were by *several orders of magnitude* lower than than in Chernobyl; comparing these two events is like comparing a pub brawl to the battle of Gettysburg: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fd/Fukushima_map.png Radioactivity levels at Chernobyl plant are *presently*, 25 years after the disaster, at about 6 mSv/h. It is hard to say how high it was during the accident, ie. as the Chernobyl reactor was burning, because measuring devices showed "out of scale" readings (and they were scaled up to 100 000 mSv/h). In Fukushima, the highest noted level of radiation *inside* the reactor building was 1000 mSv/h, is much less than that in other locations at plant's grounds, and for most of the time is in the 1-5 mSv/h range (excluding the short peak when it reached 11 mSv/h for about two hours) at Fukushima plant gate. Until now, 11 employees of Fukushima plant were injured, but *none* of them were seriously irradiated - the injuries were caused by the blast of hydrogen explosion. Only *one* person until now received a dose of radiation higher than the normal limit for nuclear workers (which is 50 mSv/year), but still below the limit for "nuclear workers in emergency conditions" (250 mSv/year). In Chernobyl, *all* the employees present during the accident and *all* rescue workers received dangerous doses of radiation while working without any protective gear. 52 died of acute radiation sickness; some of them, including shift supervisor Alexandr Akimov and firefighter lieutenant Vladimir Pravik, died within three weeks after receiving doses on the order of 25 000 mSv (a one-time dose of 10 000 mSv is almost always lethal). Hudreds more suffered from serious radiation poisoning, but survived. Major Leonid Telyatnikov, commanding the firefighters, received 4000 mSv, survived the radiation poisoning, died of cancer 23 years later. Only three of the people who were on duty when the disaster happened are still alive as of 2011. The exact number of people who died of cancer caused by irradiation in the wake of Chernobyl disaster is unknown - while the numbers claimed by anti-nuclear activists (close to one million) are grossly exaggerated, the official data (about 4000 deaths) are almost certainly too optimistic. The most likely number is tens of thousands, as stated in 2006 TORCH report. However, it is worth mentioning that the amount of radioactive material released into atmosphere by nuclear weapon tests in the 1950-1970 period exceeded the amount released in the Chernobyl disaster by between 100 and 1000 times. Another interesting item is, Chernobyl was the only nuclear accident that ranked 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Another accident in Soviet Union (1957, the Kyshtym disaster) ranked 6. Out of the many Level 5 accidents the most serious one did not involve nuclear reactor or nuclear fuel at all! A medical source of radiation, used in cancer therapy, which was stolen from a hospital and sold to a scrap dealer as a curiosity (it emitted "fascinating blue glow") caused death of four persons (they received doses from 4500 to 6000 mSv) in Goiânia, Brazil, and irradiation of 245 more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident In contrast, the Three Miles Island core meltdown in 1979, which was also a Level 5 accident (so is Fukushima) and according to Wikipedia "was the most significant accident in the history of the USA commercial nuclear power generating industry" caused no dangerous irradiation whatsoever to anyone, and no proof of the accident's negative effect on anyone's health has been found. Oh, and a bit of recent news: the Japanese are using remote-controlled robots to penetrate the damaged reactor building. Monirobo robots are designed to operate in conditions harmful to humans: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/03/japanese-send-robots-into-fuku.html -- Szymon Sokół (SS316-RIPE) -- Network Manager B Computer Center, AGH - University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland O http://home.agh.edu.pl/szymon/ PGP key id: RSA: 0x2ABE016B, DSS: 0xF9289982 F Free speech includes the right not to listen, if not interested -- Heinlein H