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A number of years ago there was an incident in Sweden where a tiny crack was discovered in a container that had been used to transport nuclear waste from one of

A number of years ago there was an incident in Sweden where a tiny crack was discovered in a container that had been used to transport nuclear waste from one of Sweden's reactors. This caused a lot of media attention and some politicians made statements about how this was unacceptable and that they would look into it. One reporter interviewed an older physicist that worked with radiation protection for the government and asked him if a substantial amount of radiation had been released. He said something along the lines of: "Well, yes there was a fairly significant amount of radiation, about the same level as you would be exposed to when standing next to several crates of bananas." This made the media hype seem somewhat exaggerated...

GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
I love the comparison through to three-mile-island. This really goes to show that radiation is so hyped and never put in perspective. Obviously not everyone is a nuclear physicist or even understands this stuff. This is why people should have researched and claimed that the radiation exposure they got from 3mi is the equivalent of ingesting a single banana. It is important to put things in terms most people would understand when you are making a public announcement. Maybe that is asking too much from the media...
- ejames 16y ago
  Unfortunately, radiation lends itself very well to sensationalism - "Invisible death rays are killing you right now!" That's exactly the kind of thing you would actually, really want to be very afraid of if it were happening, because developing symptoms is the only way a civilian could notice. But the important part of assessing danger is knowing the strength of the radiation, and most public accounts simplistically divide objects into "radioactive, run for your lives" or "safe". Since measurements can accurately distinguish levels of radiation that are actually indistinguishable as far as real danger to human beings, you get reports like in the link stating that "the milk is radioactive!" when it's only 1/75th of a banana dose and no threat at all.
  - Natsu 16y ago
    > Unfortunately, radiation lends itself very well to sensationalism It's strange, but it wasn't always this way. If you look back into older literature, there was a sense that radioactive things would bring about a bright, promising future. So much so that people did some pretty crazy things (at least, knowing what we know now) like those foot x-rays that shoe stores once gave (which caused some pretty high radiation exposure), or those "health" drinks that got people to drink Radium water a long time ago[1]. But once the problems came to light along with the fears of nuclear war and the demonstration of the power of atomic weapons, radiation became something to be feared, even irrationally much. I really hope that things even out over time, so that we fear it neither too much nor too little. It certainly can be dangerous. There were even some really scary criticality accidents[2] with people working on the cores to nuclear bombs. But at the same time, people point out that we don't have to fear every bit of radiation. After all, there's plenty of natural background radiation all around us, from bananas to Brazil nuts. I wish that we could come up with a happy medium, but I think it will require a lot of time and education. [1] If you want to see the Radium water, read this: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/healthy-glow-drink-radiation http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/healthy-glow-d... [2] The "walking ghost" phase after massive exposure is especially creepy. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident
- jonah 16y ago
  OT, but interesting factoid about TMI: TMI-2 was built on the final approach path to Harrisburg International Airport, a former U.S. Air Force base, and was therefore beefed-up specifically to withstand the impact of a B-52 hitting the structure at 200 knots. A normal containment [vessel] would have been breached. http://www.cringely.com/2009/03/three-mile-island-memories/ http://www.cringely.com/2009/03/three-mile-island-memories/
soyelmango 16y ago
I think the media's exaggerated response to tiny nuclear leaks is, however, one case where I'd prefer media hype to put the pressure on the industry to over-engineer their containers. The consequences of breaking open (not just a tiny crack) a crate of bananas and a container of industrial nuclear material are probably many many multitudes apart.
- anamax 16y ago
  I'll bet that more people have been killed in the last 10 years by falling crates of bananas than have been killed by leaking nuke containers. Yes, there are far more crates of bananas. My point is that we should make these decisions with cost-benefit analysis, not hype.
  - sesqu 16y ago
    How do you weigh the benefit of not killing unaware people against the benefit of not killing people? At least banana loaders know they're in some danger, and have probably analyzed the cost of that against the benefit of a larger pay.
  - whyenot 16y ago
    Six months ago you could have made the same claim about blowout preventers. Extremely rare catastrophic failures can cost a bundle. In many cases you may not even be aware of the risks or the potential costs before you first encounter them. More nuclear power is the future, at least in the near term, but we should have the humility to admit we don't really understand all the risks and all the costs.
    - daten 16y ago
      We also don't have enough resources to protect against every imaginable risk, which six-months ago, is all the current oil disaster could have been: imagined. It still makes more sense to spend attention and resources protecting us from falling crates of bananas if those are more harmful in reality. But fear normally wins these battles, like with terrorism. Automobile accidents kill about 36,000 people[1] per year in the United States. That's 12 times the number[2] of people killed in the 9/11 attacks. Which one of those do you think we're spending hundreds of billions on? 1. http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx 2. http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm
perlpimp 16y ago
Its easy to cause hysteria over things one can't have one of the few senses to grasp. Radiation has no taste, smell or other subjective graspable metric. Thats how you can play on it and media knows it, as good writers do. From now on, all small leaks should be denoted in crates of bananas. 1x1 meters in size. I wonder at how many bananas my WRT54Gs radiates...

GrandMasterBirt 16y ago

I love the comparison through to three-mile-island. This really goes to show that radiation is so hyped and never put in perspective. Obviously not everyone is a nuclear physicist or even understands this stuff. This is why people should have researched and claimed that the radiation exposure they got from 3mi is the equivalent of ingesting a single banana. It is important to put things in terms most people would understand when you are making a public announcement. Maybe that is asking too much from the media...

ejames 16y ago
Unfortunately, radiation lends itself very well to sensationalism - "Invisible death rays are killing you right now!" That's exactly the kind of thing you would actually, really want to be very afraid of if it were happening, because developing symptoms is the only way a civilian could notice. But the important part of assessing danger is knowing the strength of the radiation, and most public accounts simplistically divide objects into "radioactive, run for your lives" or "safe". Since measurements can accurately distinguish levels of radiation that are actually indistinguishable as far as real danger to human beings, you get reports like in the link stating that "the milk is radioactive!" when it's only 1/75th of a banana dose and no threat at all.
- Natsu 16y ago
  > Unfortunately, radiation lends itself very well to sensationalism It's strange, but it wasn't always this way. If you look back into older literature, there was a sense that radioactive things would bring about a bright, promising future. So much so that people did some pretty crazy things (at least, knowing what we know now) like those foot x-rays that shoe stores once gave (which caused some pretty high radiation exposure), or those "health" drinks that got people to drink Radium water a long time ago[1]. But once the problems came to light along with the fears of nuclear war and the demonstration of the power of atomic weapons, radiation became something to be feared, even irrationally much. I really hope that things even out over time, so that we fear it neither too much nor too little. It certainly can be dangerous. There were even some really scary criticality accidents[2] with people working on the cores to nuclear bombs. But at the same time, people point out that we don't have to fear every bit of radiation. After all, there's plenty of natural background radiation all around us, from bananas to Brazil nuts. I wish that we could come up with a happy medium, but I think it will require a lot of time and education. [1] If you want to see the Radium water, read this: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/healthy-glow-drink-radiation http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/healthy-glow-d... [2] The "walking ghost" phase after massive exposure is especially creepy. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident
jonah 16y ago
OT, but interesting factoid about TMI: TMI-2 was built on the final approach path to Harrisburg International Airport, a former U.S. Air Force base, and was therefore beefed-up specifically to withstand the impact of a B-52 hitting the structure at 200 knots. A normal containment [vessel] would have been breached. http://www.cringely.com/2009/03/three-mile-island-memories/ http://www.cringely.com/2009/03/three-mile-island-memories/

soyelmango 16y ago

I think the media's exaggerated response to tiny nuclear leaks is, however, one case where I'd prefer media hype to put the pressure on the industry to over-engineer their containers. The consequences of breaking open (not just a tiny crack) a crate of bananas and a container of industrial nuclear material are probably many many multitudes apart.

anamax 16y ago
I'll bet that more people have been killed in the last 10 years by falling crates of bananas than have been killed by leaking nuke containers. Yes, there are far more crates of bananas. My point is that we should make these decisions with cost-benefit analysis, not hype.
- sesqu 16y ago
  How do you weigh the benefit of not killing unaware people against the benefit of not killing people? At least banana loaders know they're in some danger, and have probably analyzed the cost of that against the benefit of a larger pay.
- whyenot 16y ago
  Six months ago you could have made the same claim about blowout preventers. Extremely rare catastrophic failures can cost a bundle. In many cases you may not even be aware of the risks or the potential costs before you first encounter them. More nuclear power is the future, at least in the near term, but we should have the humility to admit we don't really understand all the risks and all the costs.
  - daten 16y ago
    We also don't have enough resources to protect against every imaginable risk, which six-months ago, is all the current oil disaster could have been: imagined. It still makes more sense to spend attention and resources protecting us from falling crates of bananas if those are more harmful in reality. But fear normally wins these battles, like with terrorism. Automobile accidents kill about 36,000 people[1] per year in the United States. That's 12 times the number[2] of people killed in the 9/11 attacks. Which one of those do you think we're spending hundreds of billions on? 1. http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx 2. http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm

perlpimp 16y ago

Its easy to cause hysteria over things one can't have one of the few senses to grasp. Radiation has no taste, smell or other subjective graspable metric. Thats how you can play on it and media knows it, as good writers do. From now on, all small leaks should be denoted in crates of bananas. 1x1 meters in size. I wonder at how many bananas my WRT54Gs radiates...