Costs and Consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster

[unhappycamper]

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12832-costs-and-consequences-of-the-fukushima-daiichi-disaster

Costs and Consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster
Monday, 19 November 2012 10:55 By Steven Starr, Physicians for Social Responsibility | News Analysis

The destruction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March 2011, caused by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami, resulted in massive radioactive contamination of the Japanese mainland. In November 2011, the Japanese Science Ministry reported that long-lived radioactive cesium had contaminated 11,580 square miles (30,000 sq km) of the land surface of Japan. Some 4,500 square miles – an area almost the size of Connecticut – was found to have radiation levels that exceeded Japan’s allowable exposure rate of 1 mSV (millisievert) per year.

About a month after the disaster, on April 19, 2011, Japan chose to drastically increase its official “safe” radiation exposure levels[ii] from 1 mSv to 20 mSv per year – 20 times higher than the US exposure limit. This allowed the Japanese government to downplay the dangers of the fallout and avoid evacuation of many badly contaminated areas.

However, all of the land within 12 miles (20 km) of the destroyed nuclear power plant, encompassing an area of about 230 square miles (600 sq km), and an additional 80 square miles (200 sq km) located northwest of the plant, were declared too radioactive for human habitation.[iii] All persons living in these areas were evacuated and the regions were declared to be permanent “exclusion” zones.




The precise value of the abandoned cities, towns, agricultural lands, businesses, homes and property located within the roughly 310 sq miles (800 sq km) of the exclusion zones has not been established. Estimates of the total economic loss range from $250-$500 billion US. As for the human costs, in September 2012, Fukushima officials stated that 159,128 people had been evicted from the exclusion zones, losing their homes and virtually all their possessions. Most have received only a small compensation to cover their costs of living as evacuees. Many are forced to make mortgage payments on the homes they left inside the exclusion zones. They have not been told that their homes will never again be habitable.

[xchrom]

1. Du rec. Nt

[PamW]

2. Perspective...

The "exclusion zone" around Fukushima is defined as the area having an additional dose equal to about 100 mrem per year. (Normal background dose is about 300 mrem per year due to natural causes )

However, many scientists like University of California-Berkeley Physics Professor Richard Muller, the author of the widely acclaimed book "Physics for Future President" puts the matter into some perspective:

The Panic over Fukushima

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444772404577589270444059332.html

The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends evacuation of a locality whenever the excess radiation dose exceeds .1 rem per year. But that's one-third of what I call the "Denver dose." Applied strictly, the ICRP standard would seem to require the immediate evacuation of Denver.

Some residents of the USA accept living in an environment ( the City of Denver ) in which the additional dose above average background is about 3 times the additional dose of much of the exclusion area around Fukushima. Perhaps in the future, when the panic has died down; the people of Japan can make a more informed decision with regard to the exclusion area.

Professor Muller's central thesis remains valid:

Japan's nuclear accident was a great human tragedy, but its long-term health effects have been exaggerated—and the virtues of nuclear power remain.

PamW

[steven starr]

4. check your numbers

PamW states that the radiation in the exclusion zone around Fukushima is defined as giving an additional dose equal to about 100 mrem per year. I assume mrem is being used to mean millirems (m=milli or 0.001 rems)

Notice the map in my article, supplied by the World Nuclear News, and look at the key. It gives exposure rates for the color-coded zones, and the second worse exposure zone is described as having a dose rate of 20-50 millisieverts per year. No dose rate is given for the most contaminated areas outlined in dark red, but obviously they must have a dose rate greater than 50 millisieverts per yer.

Note that the units are sieverts and not rems. Thus we have to use a mathematical conversion to do a real comparison, to convert sieverts to rems.

Check Google for millisieverts to millirems: you find that 1 millisievert = 100 millirem

OK, if the dose rate is 50 millisieverts per year in the exclusion zone, and 50 millisieverts = 5000 millirems
then the dose rate is 5000 millirems per year in the exclusion zone

PamW tells us that "Normal background dose is about 300 mrem per year due to natural causes." So an additional 100 mrems per year = 300 +100 = 400 mrem per year

5000 mrems does not equal 400 mrems.

Plus the map she refers to in Dr. Mueller's article shows that doses in the worst area are actual 2 rems, or 2000 mrems,
so I disagree with her selection of data, too.

These numbers all refer to *external exposures*. However, the worst consequences of spreading radioactive cesium over 11,580 square miles of Japan comes from *internal exposures* from the routine ingestion of contaminated foodstuffs. Children suffer the most from radiation exposure, and children living in contaminated regions routinely ingest foodstuffs contaminated with radioactive cesium.

Scientists in Belarus analyzed thousands of human tissue samples, taken from hundreds of children who had lived and died in zones contaminated by fallout from Chernobyl, and found that radioactive cesium bioaccumulates in heart and endocrine tissues, as well as in the kidneys, pancreas, spleen, small intestines and liver. See "Chronic Cesium-137 Incorporation in Children's Organs," by Dr. Yuri Bandazhevsky, at http://tchernobyl.verites.free.fr/sciences/smw-Bandazhevsky_chronicCs137.pdf The Chairman of the Ukrainian National Commission on Radiation Protection states that only 20% of the 260,000 children now living in these regions of Belarus are considered healthy, and he attributes their ill health to the radioactive contamination of their lands.

This is the perspective we need to view the disaster at Fukushima.

Steven Starr

[hrmjustin]

5. Welcome to DU!

[OnlinePoker]

6. She actually underestimated the average annual dose from all sources

Last edited Fri Nov 30, 2012, 02:54 AM - Edit history (1)

According to the American Nuclear Society, this averages 620 millirems per year. Their website also says that "International Standards allow exposure to as much as 5,000 mrems a year for those who work with and around radioactive material".

http://www.new.ans.org/pi/resources/dosechart/

The World Health Organization in a 2005 study of the results of Chernobyl 20 years on showed only 50 people died as a direct result of radiation exposure, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/

[madokie]

7. Welcome to DU