how much you want to bet

It is a bigger problem for land around fallout areas. Water is wonderful, because the dispersion can happen faster. Like I said, we need to control what is coming out right now, but it isn't the end of the world. It would be nice if the US would get involved and demand that the Japanese government fix this quickly. We are too busy fighting amongst ourselves.

 

Dilution is the solution to pollution! I thought this logic went out in 70's?

if the background level is high enough and spread out enough, small organisms that turn Co2 into O2 will be the first to feel the damage. The rads dont have to be high enough to kill us, just high enough to disrupt photosynthetic plankton that make up to 70% of the worlds oxygen

just some food for thought

this science experiment is just getting started....

and dont you tell me we are fighting amongst ourselves, thems fightin words!

 

Dilution does work in the case of radioactive isotopes. That is why the world isn't dead after irradiating the pacific continuously with 20 years of nuclear bomb testing. Not ideal, but I think the fearmonger websites have been spreading a bit too much misinformation. Just like that purdy map showing the spread of radioactive material in the Pacific. That map was proven to just be a wave height map, which was edited by certain groups to bring more fear.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/fukushima.asp

This is a good point for people thinking this radiation lasts forever:
Some radioactive isotopes rapidly decay. For example, the half life of Iodine-131 (I-131) is about eight days. This means that the activity level of the I-131 isotope drops by half every eight days. Given the length of time since the event, the short-lived radionuclides would have decayed to near background levels and therefore pose no health hazard. Although Cesium isotopes have longer half-lives (Cs-134 has a half-life of about two years, Cs-137 a longer half-life of about 30 years), the radionuclides also undergo biological excretion and do not continue to build up in fish forever.

 

Uranium is billions of years for a half life and and plutonium is 24Kish years...there is more going on there, that no one can see or admit.......fission and fusion and the creation of transuranic waste....those wastes *typically* are brought to storage facilities where they are guarded with military hardware for thousands of years because they are still 'hot'

I agree the fearmongers are out in force, however, there is something to this as this is much bigger source of rads than the bombing tests at the atolls, and it is still radiating the ocean

and yea that map was sooooooo ggggaaaaayyyyyy! the idiots slurped it up like jenna jamison

some radioisotopes do bio accumulate and stay, others are excreted as the body finds sources of non radiated materials, so the ones that stay, its little different in that the radiation is coming from inside yourself, no bueno

I am not swayed one way or another, exactly. I would like to read some peer reviewed legit info, but it seems hard to come by and this seems like the worst clusterf*ck in mankinds history

 

Just remember, in the case of radiation, the "hottest" isotopes have the shortest half-lives. The spent material from reactors are not very hot, but carry long half-lives.

 

chicharronne, ever surf Lowers?

Maybe look into that problem.... there's a Nuclear power plant right there on the surf break! The same water you're playing in just cooled uranium reactors!

For those that surf the Gulf of FLA there's another Nuk plant in Crystal river.

Then there is the border of South Carolina and Georgia. Somewhere along that coast line is a lost Atom bomb! Which they feel certain is most likely leaking by now! Good news is I live in Florida and the Gulf stream flows north. So if you see any three headed fish or legless starfish in Hatteras you'll know what its from!