Fukushima is super terrific, just ask the gaijin

[omae mona]

Any discussion of radiation health effects that does not talk about it quantitatively is pretty much a scam. Even if you hate math, it doesn't make the math go away. Radiation is not even remotely a yes or no issue, a safe or unsafe issue, or a black or white issue. Health effects are tied to cumulative doses and their effect on your probability of getting cancer. Any articles or discussion talking about "hot spots" or "lots of radiation" without numbers are by ignorant writers, and are probably intentionally designed to scare you. Articles about "billions of becquerels" are also designed to scare you, because the numbers sound big.

Here's a nice live map of radiation in Fukushima. It took 2 seconds to find it in Google. http://fukushima-radioactivity.jp/ It even has English.

Assuming you stay out of a 40km radius around the power plant, the vast majority of dark blue dots when you click on them show under 0.1 microsieverts per hour. Choko, when you took an international flight recently, you were most likely experiencing an average of 5.0 microsieverts per hour. That means you'd need 50 hours in those parts of Fukushima to pick up as much radiation as you picked up on 1 hour of your airplane flight.

Also compare the Fukushima radiation to other places shown on the 全国調査結果 bar. Okayama prefecture (0.06), Hiroshima prefecture (0.10), etc. Pretty much the same as the non-disaster area of Fukushima. All of them about half the normal natural background radiation in Hong Kong, if I'm not mistaken.

If you're between 40-70km from the disaster site, the worst measurements (dark green dots) are up to 1.0 microsievert per hour. So even if you ventured that close to the disaster, at worst they're still 5 times LOWER than the radiation on your airplane flight.

Here's some information on radiation from flights: http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/av ... -radiation. Your 5 microsievert per hour airflight radiation is only surpassed on that Fukushima map by the dark red dots, and just by a bit in most cases. I would not hang around those areas (within 30 km of the site) for too long if I were you, any more than I'd like to spend weeks onboard an international flight.

[wagyl]

Choko, when you took an international flight recently, you were most likely experiencing an average of 5.0 microsieverts per hour. That means you'd need 50 hours in those parts of Fukushima to pick up as much radiation as you picked up on 1 hour of your airplane flight.

Almost correct, but you are making the assumption that Choko's base exposure is zero, which it is not. That same http://fukushima-radioactivity.jp source shows Tokyo readings as 0.03 μSv/h, so it is a differential of 0.07 compared to 4.97. That 50 hours becomes more than 70 hours hugging a puppy dog for every hour of airflight. It is fine to make a decision to avoid a holiday destination, and it can be as trivial as "they don't know how to make a proper margarita." I think what sparked this whole event was that it might have been perceived as a lazy "Fukushima is all doomed" based decision.

(LA is currently 0.12 μSv/h)

[omae mona]

Choko, when you took an international flight recently, you were most likely experiencing an average of 5.0 microsieverts per hour. That means you'd need 50 hours in those parts of Fukushima to pick up as much radiation as you picked up on 1 hour of your airplane flight.

Almost correct, but you are making the assumption that Choko's base exposure is zero, which it is not. That same http://fukushima-radioactivity.jp source shows Tokyo readings as 0.03 μSv/h, so it is a differential of 0.07 compared to 4.97. That 50 hours becomes more than 70 hours hugging a puppy dog for every hour of airflight. It is fine to make a decision to avoid a holiday destination, and it can be as trivial as "they don't know how to make a proper margarita." I think what sparked this whole event was that it might have been perceived as a lazy "Fukushima is all doomed" based decision.

(LA is currently 0.12 μSv/h)

By "proper margarita", I assume you mean "one without bananas".

But yes, looking at leaving Tokyo for a choice of Fukushima or an airplane, I agree 1 hour of extra exposure from the flight would take 70 hours of extra exposure from Fukushima to accumulate. That's a more useful calculation than mine.

[matsuki]

OM, thanks for that link, that's exactly what I wanted....but it seems to back up what the documentaries I saw show. Air tests don't show much of concern that far out from the disaster site. It's the detection of Cesium in the rivers, sewage, soil, pools, etc. that far out which concerns me. No huge concentrations reported...but however low the risk is, I still believe there is indeed potential for "hot spots" where all that shit accumulates. (way too many ways of dispersion to track everyone) Once again, I'm not so bothered by it that I won't go there when needed. I don't think going through that area or spending a day there will likely impact my chances of cancer in any meaningful way. Just saying I wouldn't go vacation there (even if, in all likelihood, the total exposure is less than a round trip flight to the US) cause with my luck, I'll end up ingesting a cesium infused margarita because of something as innocent as a local bumpkin using "fresh local mountain spring water" to make the ice. Remember, TIJ....anyone want to guess how many people were wearing cesium enhanced clothes after the initial explosions?

[Taro Toporific]

Girls-of-TEPCO.jpg

via @DailyGomiuri (@DailyGomiuri)'s twitter / Sept. 5, 2013

[Coligny]

I can't help thinking there is something really wrong with this hoe...

[Russell]

Since she was hired, things have only gone downhill for TEPCO. You noticed that, huh?

[matsuki]

Since she was hired, things have only gone downhill for TEPCO. You noticed that, huh?

Wasn't she one of the ones openly admitting TEPCO is failing at everything they set out to do?