OMG these workers got 17.3 rads!

DEAD MEN WALKING

Yep.

Another 5 or 10 doses this size and they might have a 5% chance of dying!

lol we don't understand the long term effects of radiation exposure!! we have no idea because we haven't been studying it at all for the past 120 years!!!

Yep.

So basically we agree that you lied to make the situation sound scarier than it really is.

If you say so.

I accept your concession. I hope this will begin a long and healing process of actually learning about things before you talk about them.

lol you're actually still going? holy ****.

I think it's important for as many people as possible to see you admit to being an ignorant liar.

I guess you don't care about this Jon, perhaps just because of the type of arena for discussion this is, but it'd be a lot easier for Temp or whoever to actually do that if you allowed them to save face. I'd guess (without judgement) that it's more about letting everyone "see [him] admit to being an ignorant liar" than promoting the "long and healing process of actually learning about things." And that's obviously due at least in part to his or whoever's attitude.

I hope this doesn't turn the world retarded on nuclear power but I'm afraid it will. How long does nuclear fuel last? I know U[sup]235[/sup] has a half life of 700 Ma, right? However, something tells me it doesn't last that long because of fission.

If you're worried about us running out of nuclear fuel, don't be. U235 needs to be processed before that kind of reaction happens. Most of the world's reserves are still underground. Even then, the future of nuclear power is thorium, which is a lot safer and a lot more common.

If you're worried about a 700 Ma contamination of the Japanese coastline, don't be. It's not like Chernobyl, where an explosion sprayed the contents of the core across the landscape.

No not worried. In fact, there is a nuclear plant, San Onofre (we call it the boobs because of the reactor domes), not more than 10 mi up I-5. Not worried it's gonna blow or anything. I was just wondering how much fuel we do have. It seems like there is enough fissile material to last a very long time. Lots of fossil fuel plants could be replaced with nuclear plants.

But the United States is old and stogy so we'll burn fossil fuels until we completely run out of them and then have to fight other nations for said fossil fuels.

I don't remember for sure, but there's enough thorium in the United States to power it at current levels for something like 2000 years.

There's also no worry that people will go crazy and ban all nuclear power. Japan will replace these reactors with new ones. They really have no choice. I think it'll have the biggest impact in North America, because tbqh North Americans are some of the dumbest nimby-est people on the planet.

I would also point out that a half life of 700 Ma means that it doesnt have that many counts in a second.

I can't help feeling certain people WANT a nuclear disaster. Like it would be some sort twisted conclusion to this tsunami tragedy that would validate their view they aren't horrible, no, the world is horrible! I mean, 10,000 or so people eradicated isn't good enough, there needs to a triumphal final act for all this to make sense.

These sort of folks should just admit it. Just like,"I want a nuclear ending for this." It would probably take a load of their shoulders. The people in the press have been hinting at this for weeks, rather bluntly at times.

The majority of the world is full of disasterphiles. That is why everyone slows down to oogle at an accident on the other side of the freeway.

I wish people would stop doing that on the highway. Brings traffic to a crawl for the wrong reasons.

Although I thought that happened because people didn't want to hit emergency personnel.

edit: Isn't there regulation to slow down near accident sites?

slow down, yes.

Slow down to a crawl that it is actualy dangerous, no.

Depends on where you are.

I really wish we would standardize radiation measurements.
SV, Grays, and Rads. Pick one.

Tell that to the Germans.

This nothing new though. It's regularly done in the health and medicine context regarding cancer scares - "(Harmless) Product Z is 10,000 times more likely to give you cancer than previously thought" or drug scares: "Drug X is 10 times more dangerous than old treatment Y" (1 in 10,000 chance of side effects vs 1 in 100,000).

Anyway, surprised this hasn't been posted yet:


Who is Nancy Grace? How the heck does she deserve her own news slot? And please tell me HLN is some obscure channel no one in America watches.

I want JM to punch that lady in the face.

Rec, I've never heard of HLN before now.

Nancy Grace is a former prosecutor and longtime sensationalist crank. No one watches HLN. It used to be CNN Headline News, but no one watched it then either.

Times when it sucks to be a university student in Illinois: now [read: fekkin' always]

IL has more nuclear plants than any other state in the USA.
Southern Illinois, where I live, happens to be closely affiliated with the New Madrid fault line.

My professors and classmates are flipping left and right about it; it's gotten to the point where I've played the joykill in a few of their explosions of contagious stupidity.

Paraphrase of in-class discussion from Friday:

"Dood, liek we could die in radiation! They should shut those plants down now!"

"Naw; if there were actually an earthquake around here, you'd have much more immediate concerns of not being crushed in this godforsaken pre-caring-about-seismic-activity lecture hall. If you survive that, you'll have a fun time making it home, with the road and rail systems screwed up, and you definitely won't want to stay here in town, since the food supply lines won't be able to make it through. This is mining territory; there's holes so deep below us you don't even want to contemplate what would happen if they cave in a quake. There's also an ugly chance of this place becoming even worse floodplain than it already is, making high ground damn hard to find. We would very likely become the newest branch of the Ohio and Big Muddy rivers. Really, now, are you gonna' worry about a little thing like rad sickness?"

"...You are a scary little person sometimes."

"Peachy."