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Many people remember seeing a particularly startling figure claiming to show the radiation in the water post-Fukushima. That figure actually shows wave height

by evanb 6y ago

Many people remember seeing a particularly startling figure claiming to show the radiation in the water post-Fukushima. That figure actually shows wave height and was used to spread FUD. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fukushima-emergency/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fukushima-emergency/ The Pacific Ocean is enormous and the dilution makes the broader environmental impact of any radiation risks negligible. Locally may be a different story, of course.

acidburnNSA 6y ago
I interacted with some Oregon State Univ scientists about radioactive tuna. They were taking measurements and had this to say: The highest concentrations of Cs-137 and Cs-134 I've seen in albacore on our coast so far result in a CEDE (committed effective dose equivalent, which accounts for the type of radiation, the sensitivity of each organ, and how long any ingested Cs is retained in your body) of 18.01 nSv per kg ingested, which works out to about 330,000 kg to equal the normal annual dose in the Pacific Northwest (6 mSv, 3 mSv from natural sources, 3 mSv from mainly medical exposures). About 1/3rd of the dose from said highest Cs level albacore is from pre-Fukushima weapons fallout. The average american eats about 7 kg of albacore in a year, which puts an reasonable upper limit of about 126 uSv over the course of a year, and you'd need to live for over 47,000 years before you ate enough albacore to result in a CEDE equal to the normal annual dose. Even if your entire diet (2,000 calories per day) was nothing from albacore, and all of it was at the highest levels we've ever seen, and ignoring the fact this radioactivity is decaying and won't be around forever, we're talking 578 years before you'd eat enough albacore to reach that benchmark of 330,000 kg (and end up with a lifetime dose increase of 0.14%). For comparison, spooning with your partner over 8 hours of sleep each night results in a dose of 13.40 nSv each month from the potassium-40 in their body exposing you to additional gamma irradiation. https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2015-04-25-fish-from-fukushima.html https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2015-04-25-fish-from-fukushim...

by evanb 6y ago

acidburnNSA 6y ago

I interacted with some Oregon State Univ scientists about radioactive tuna. They were taking measurements and had this to say: The highest concentrations of Cs-137 and Cs-134 I've seen in albacore on our coast so far result in a CEDE (committed effective dose equivalent, which accounts for the type of radiation, the sensitivity of each organ, and how long any ingested Cs is retained in your body) of 18.01 nSv per kg ingested, which works out to about 330,000 kg to equal the normal annual dose in the Pacific Northwest (6 mSv, 3 mSv from natural sources, 3 mSv from mainly medical exposures). About 1/3rd of the dose from said highest Cs level albacore is from pre-Fukushima weapons fallout. The average american eats about 7 kg of albacore in a year, which puts an reasonable upper limit of about 126 uSv over the course of a year, and you'd need to live for over 47,000 years before you ate enough albacore to result in a CEDE equal to the normal annual dose. Even if your entire diet (2,000 calories per day) was nothing from albacore, and all of it was at the highest levels we've ever seen, and ignoring the fact this radioactivity is decaying and won't be around forever, we're talking 578 years before you'd eat enough albacore to reach that benchmark of 330,000 kg (and end up with a lifetime dose increase of 0.14%). For comparison, spooning with your partner over 8 hours of sleep each night results in a dose of 13.40 nSv each month from the potassium-40 in their body exposing you to additional gamma irradiation. https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2015-04-25-fish-from-fukushima.html https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2015-04-25-fish-from-fukushim...