Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Marine Science => Topic started by: Jolly- Joliver on 23/03/2011 05:06:43
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What might some of the effects be, of having increased radiation in the sea?
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The sea is big. The reactor is small.
The most likely effect is that a few scientists will get research degrees measuring the very small changes in radiation. They will deserve the qualifications; it's very hard to measure tiny changes.
Of course if you are up close and personal with the reactor that's another issue.
Are you in Japan?
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The sea is big. The reactor is small.
The most likely effect is that a few scientists will get research degrees measuring the very small changes in radiation. They will deserve the qualifications; it's very hard to measure tiny changes.
Of course if you are up close and personal with the reactor that's another issue.
Are you in Japan?
"The sea is big"(this is cutting edge analysis) the radiation levels we don't know.
So what you actually mean is, you do not know, what the effects will be, so a few scientists will be employed to go find out.
No, I am not in Japan.
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What I mean is that the reactor is small.
That's why I said it.
The effect will be small.
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Take a look at a map over Japan and the ocean surrounding it and you will see what BC means. there are vast quantities of water diluting the radioactivity. It will become unmeasurable rather quick, unless some freak of nature, like streams salinity? keeps the radioactively active water together, and that seems highly unlikely.
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Take a look at a map over Japan and the ocean surrounding it and you will see what BC means. there are vast quantities of water diluting the radioactivity. It will become unmeasurable rather quick, unless some freak of nature, like streams salinity? keeps the radioactively active water together, and that seems highly unlikely.
Japan is an island, the reactor is next to the beach yet the water from the plant is following into that area. I suppose the question I was asking was what could the effect be to the sea bed arround the plant?
Apparently they are stopping fishing now, due to radiation scares in that area. We dont know what it will mean, hopefully your right it will disapate. But the stream of water returning to the sea could be constant. We'll have to wait, pray and hope.
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Somewhere it will be stored. You're right in that, but as they are rather small particles they will become spread out. If it had been one of those atomic submarines that seems sunk all over the place instead :) then you would have had a 'hot spot' but this is more like diluting the radioactivity. It's not a dream come true but it won't create mutants. Assume that the spent fuel rods go to he* instead and we might have a very different ball game though, especially if it goes down in the groundwater. But we don't know, people are still researching and studying the effect of Chernobyl and depending on who is sponsoring it also seems to get different results. Weird, ain't it? :)
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Somewhere it will be stored. You're right in that, but as they are rather small particles they will become spread out. If it had been one of those atomic submarines that seems sunk all over the place instead :) then you would have had a 'hot spot' but this is more like diluting the radioactivity. It's not a dream come true but it won't create mutants. Assume that the spent fuel rods go to he* instead and we might have a very different ball game though, especially if it goes down in the groundwater. But we don't know, people are still researching and studying the effect of Chernobyl and depending on who is sponsoring it also seems to get different results. Weird, ain't it? :)
Not werid, if it's industry sponsoring, they have a vested interest in suppressing harmful information.
Radiation spreading though out the sea will increase the radioactivity of fish ect even if just in a min-ute level it's still will increase our contact with radioactivity if we eat it.
I think the banana idea might be a good way to reduce that spread while we can.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=37945.0;topicseen
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Latest on Fukushima, sea Radiation 3,500 times normal
Russia Today:
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News on Russia Today, More radiation to go into sea:-
Japanese are about to dump 10,000 tonnes of Radioactive water into the sea.
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"Japanese are about to dump 10,000 tonnes of Radioactive water into the sea."
Sea is about to dilute it with about 1,400,0000,000,000,000,000 tonnes of water.
About 4,600,000,000 tons of uranium already present in sea is about to not notice the addition.
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As long as they mix it up real good.
Certain chemicals can get concentrated into the food chain, but uranium isn't one of them as far as I know?
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The dilution factor is astronomical, as already stated. The immediate coastline of Japan may see some effects, and depending on the marine life in the immediate area they may intake these radioactive elements. Anchovy caught in Japanese waters have reportedly shown slightly (key word "slightly") elevated levels of radiactive contamination. Radioisotopes mimic naturally occurring elements , which is how they often enter a biological entity and contaminate tissues, and a few isotopes that are showing high reading off the coast may affect certain fisheries (such as radioactive cesium which mimic potassium, I believe).
Our oceans are not in peril, but the immediate coastline near the reactor may see some issues. We'll just have to wait and see.
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There is background radiation... So, if I went to the Oregon coast, with an ordinary monitoring device, the radiation that I would detect would be indistinguishable from the background radiation. There are synthetic elements and isotopes that are produced in reactors that are not found in nature, so it is possible that very minute quantities of these synthetic compounds could be located, and potentially attributed to Fukushima, and not to other events such as prior nuclear weapons testing.
Personally I wouldn't purchase sea food caught from within 100 miles or so of the nuclear plant, or perhaps not from Eastern Japan until the issues are resolved,
The immediate vicinity of the plant will likely remain contaminated for several years, but the bulk of the radiation will get diluted to "background" quickly.
There is a theory that the less radiation the better, and any radiation can cause cancer or other long-term health problems.
A competing theory is Hormesis, that on average, small doses of radiation can have a minimal protective effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis