3 ms·
" The highest reading was 1,800 millisieverts per hour, or enough to give a lethal dose in about four hours, Tepco said." ... "About 430,000 tons of contaminat
by ghshephard 13y ago
" The highest reading was 1,800 millisieverts per hour, or enough to give a lethal dose in about four hours, Tepco said."
...
"About 430,000 tons of contaminated water, or enough to fill 170 Olympic-size pools, are stored in rows of tanks at the plant, which appears to be running out of open space to put them all. The contaminated water increases by 400 tons every day as groundwater flows into the basements of the damaged buildings housing the three ruined reactors, which melted down in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
Tepco must draw off that water to prevent it from overwhelming jury-rigged cooling systems that keep the reactors’ melted cores from reheating and melting into the ground in a phenomenon known as the China syndrome. Tepco has struggled to safely handle and store all the water."
- ghshephard 13y agoreading through http://xkcd.com/radiation/ http://xkcd.com/radiation/ really makes it clear (to me) how much 1800 milliseverts/hour is. The Maximum yearly dose for a US Radiation worker is 50 milliseverts. And Radiation over a year does much less damage than all at once. You really, really don't want to be anywhere near those storage tanks without a LOT of protective gear. No idea how they are going to clean up all that spilled water...
- jlgreco 13y ago> And Radiation over a year does much less damage than all at once. With some obvious cutoffs on the upper end (that 1800 millisieverts/hour may very well be over), that does not seem to be entirely clear. It is a topic that has gotten some debate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model