Why Is Fukushima Nuclear Crisis So Threatening?, So, why the concern?

Why is Fukushima nuclear crisis so threatening?

It all depends upon the amount of further contamination of the planet.

I do not know what normal background radiation was in 1940, but I am willing to bet that it is higher now than it was then. (If not across the board, at least in general areas.)

Any amount of radiation can cause cancer to start growing in your body. (Just one Gamma ray hitting across a double strand of DNA can start a cancer growing)

Usually very low doses like a chest X-ray are dismissed as not causative; but, the reality is that your next X-ray could start a cancer growing in your body. We just do not know when the radiation can cause that type of damage. One thing we do know is that if we receive increasing doses, we increase the potential for Cancer to grow.

SO, people have a good reason to be afraid of any additional radioactive pollution to the planet. By being proactive in decreasing unnecessary contamination, the life you save may be your Great Great Grandchild's.

Not really.

The amount of radioactive contamination released by human activity is rather small and in most cases negligible in comparison to natural background radiation.

coal-fired power plants without effective fly ash capture are one of the largest sources of human-caused background radiation exposure.

The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation estimates that per gigawatt-year (GWea) of electrical energy produced by coal, using the current mix of technology throughout the world, the population impact is approximately 0.8 lethal cancers per plant-year distributed over the affected population. With 400 GW of coal-fired power plants in the world, this amounts to some 320 deaths per year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_ra..._note-annexb-21

Natural Background radiation is about 4 times greater than what we get from Man Made sources, and by far the largest Man Made source of radiation we get is from Medical procedures.

In this Chart, the 1% is from Coal burning, Nuclear testing and Nuclear accidents.

http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/factsheets/fa.../fs10radose.jpg

How do you quantify one gamma ray? And remember, mutations occur even without rays. The body has a mechanism of proof reading what it synthesises in the cellular level.

You did not read what I wrote before responding, did you? You need to stop, read the paragraphs and answer the post. You just made an assumption and then responded to it in total error.

My opening sentence was qualified by the following sentences. There are general places in the world where the background radiation is sky high because of contamination. Chernobyl and Fukushima and Arco, Idaho and Hannover come to mind.

This post has been edited by Krypton on May 2 2011, 05:30 PM

You can qualify one Gamma Ray by identifying it when it strikes a Geiger Muller counter or when it strikes your body. If it is a darn good shot, it can slice both sides of your DNA strand (highly unlikely), or two gamma rays can strike both sides of a DNA strand thus causing damage that might be repaired in error by the cell.

When that "in error" repair happens, a cancer cell can begin growth and rapid duplication.

Yes, I know that some DNA mutation does occur without radiation. A virus can do the same thing. Men are now coming down with the oral cancer from the virus that causes cervical cancer in women. We will not discuss what causes this other than to say that it is from a cultural change in our moral standards.

This post has been edited by Krypton on May 2 2011, 05:27 PM

I did.

I pointed out that the GENERAL case, which you claimed might be true was in fact NOT true.

As to specific locations, of course there are a few areas that have higher levels of radiation than normal.

In similar breaking news, Mussolini is still dead.

Arthur

Edit.