Japan: US carrier crew exposed to radiation; helicopters near reactors coated with radiation particulate

William Broad reports in the New York Times that crew members on the US aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, sailing in the Pacific, "passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan." Crew members got a month's worth of radiation in about an hour. US helicopters flying missions about 60 miles away from the stricken nuclear reactors "became coated with particulate radiation that had to be washed off." Officials say the radioactive plume currently poses no risk to the US.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Grumblefish

I hate stories like this because there aren’t any numbers. Month’s worth of radiation – what’s that then? 0.3 mSv? 5mSv?
Anonymous

NOAH’s ARK needed …
http://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/ark-of-noah-needed/
Anonymous

“Officials say the radioactive plume currently poses no risk to the US.” …YET

I live in the UK, we still have to test sheep in Wales with a geiger counter before we can sell them as a direct consequence of the Chernobyl incident. Thats after 25 years and 1818.132 miles (2926 km).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/29/sheep-farmers-chernobyl-meat-restricted
Bill Beaty

Hold on. The reactors supposedly haven’t melted down, and supposedly vented only radioactive steam and hydrogen.

So, EXACTLY WHAT material did they wash off? What else besides water and solid core materials are inside the containment?

If someone is washing off radioactive solids, what else could they be other than smoke from vaporizing fuel rods?
- a_user
  
  Iodine and caesium which were in the hydrogen that exploded.
  
  The hydrogen was created by the fuel rods being clear of the water in the reactors.
  
  Oh and
  
  #
  1125: Worrying news, this: The operators of the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant say it’s possible that cooling water at one of the reactors has evaporated, Reuters reports. The company says it can’t rule out the possibility that the nuclear fuel rods in Number 2 reactor were now exposed and could be at risk of meltdown.
  
  BBC live
  
  time stamp 20:38 Japan time
a_user

To be more precise the fuel rods are coated with zirconium, when the rod is exposed to both water and air ie the water level drops in the reactor it basically rusts producing hydrogen, iodine and caesium.
a_user

live news conference on atm

Reactor NO2 pump ran out of fuel, but they’ve managed to restart the pump to get water back into the reactor core

21:08 pm Japan time
a_user

NHK live says the core was totally out of the water at around 6 pm – 8pm and the expert are assuming a melt down of the core has happened.

21:14
a_user

While the government was throwing the figure of 20 microsieverts an hour around this afternoon there is a real lack of measurable data being given out now about the Fukushima plants.
- awjtawjt
  
  Regarding our earlier conversation, do you trust the data that ARE coming out of the plant and/or the government?
  
  If you are anywhere near one of these reactors, my advice is to get the hell out of there for a while. Button up the house, take the most important items, and take an extended trip to another part of the country. If your job is at all mobile, time to start making some arrangements. I wouldn’t trust these information-purveyors, because they’ll only announce major radiation leakage too late after the fact, when you could have prepared now and avoid the black cloud. My $0.02. Take it or leave it, but I’ve said my piece.
  - a_user
    
    Do I trust the information? My answer is the same. No – my and my family’s life is on the line. I trust nothing that I can’t verify whether it be from experts outside Japan to spokespeople inside.
    
    And as far as your freedom to express you opinion – as I said before that’s all it is to you – an intellectual argument. It isn’t for me and I wouldn’t wish my situation on you.
a_user

from NHK live:

the core now has water to a depth of 2m

21:52pm Japan time
Tamooj

WTF does ‘particulate radiation’ mean?! I sure wish the NYT had a real science person go over the buzzwords with a reality filter. :-(
- dragonnurse1
  
  Everyone knows what “plain” radiation is – waves of energy but sometimes there is “particulate” radiation. Think of piece of chalk that has been in proximity to radioactive material – the chalk will absorb some of the radiation. Now crush the chalk and throw it on the floor – “particulate radiation”. The radioactivity is in the chalk so when you clean it up the radiation goes with the chalk and does not usually leave the ares contaminated.
Hools Verne

My guess is that it means irradiated particulate matter, the stuff that spreads radiation.
a_user

Reactor 2 Summary:

gather they core vessel had to be vented, to reduce the pressure allowing them to pump sea water into the core, and reading between the lines, the steam is mildly radioactive.
rebdav

particulate radiation, a rather ignorant way to say radionuclides AKA fallout.
I wish they would use the actual dosimeter readings rather than claiming ratios of exposure vs background radiation, I suppose that is less sensational.
The US navy is constantly practicing post fallout washdown, they are probably jumping to do this for a real reason.
- emmdeeaych
  
  No Way! the US Navy are a bunch of n00b reactionaries. Nothing to see here. (/sarcasm)
  - Cowicide
    
    Right, nuclear power is safe stuff… safe stuff….
    - emmdeeaych
      
      too cheap to meter!!
      - emmdeeaych
        
        except, of course, with a Geiger Counter!!!
    - Nelson.C
      
      I know. These explosions have killed so many people, when is the message going to get through?
      
      Oh, wait, it was an earthquake and a tsunami that killed ten thousand people. And I don’t know how many people were killed when that oil refinery at Ichihara blew up, or how many people downwind of it will develop lung trouble in the future. Whereas nobody at all has died from the explosions at Fukushima, and the radiation (particulate or otherwise) released seems to be about equivalent to what you get from a handful of long-distance airliner flights. It looks like it won’t even raise a blip in long-term cancer rates.
      
      So let’s not burn the nuclear technicians who are risking their lives in very difficult circumstances to keep things safe for an ungrateful public who won’t give up their demands for energy, while demanding that that energy be perfectly safe. And they aren’t even in your country anyway.
      
      Japan has no oil industries to suppress research into alternative energy. If they haven’t deployed it, then it’s because it doesn’t work yet. Whereas nuclear power does, and it kills far fewer people than oil, coal, or alternative power. (You think those wind-turbine blades are completely safe?)
      - emmdeeaych
        
        Japan has no oil industries to suppress research into alternative energy.
        
        And it was at this late point in the post when I realized Nelson C was just being a rude troll, for unclear reasons, and without his tongue anywhere near his cheek.
      - Nelson.C
        
        Yes, I rather oversold my point there. What I meant to say was that even if you believe that the use of alternative power is being held back by the influence of Big Oil, Big Oil in Japan doesn’t necessarily have the same choke hold on the government that it does in, say, the USA.
    - Anonymous
      
      Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste and releases more than 100 times the radioactivity into the surrounding environment than a nuclear plant producing the same amount of energy.
      
      http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste
      
      Would you like to start counting the number of people killed by coal plants verses nuclear reactors over the last 100 years? Or perhaps you’d like to stop while you’re ahead?
      
      Nuclear is safer and more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels – and the new generation of nuclear reactors are even more safe and efficient.
      - Cowicide
        
        Would you like to start counting the number of people killed by coal plants verses nuclear reactors over the last 100 years? Or perhaps you’d like to stop while you’re ahead? Nuclear is safer and more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels – and the new generation of nuclear reactors are even more safe and efficient.
        
        Comparing it to other dirty energy sources is obtuse. I’m VERY obviously talking about SUSTAINABLE, cleaner energy sources like wind, solar, tidal, etc.
        
        As the crisis here worsens, maybe it’s YOU that needs to stop while you’re already far behind???
Anonymous

It took me a day and a little help from some friends to remember, but this video scared the crap out me in highschool. Still does today. Sorry if it’s already been posted before.
Mount Fuji In Red
a_user

NHK live has been confirming that the helis flew through the plume from Fukushima 1 plant, hence the US ship relocated to the North.
Tamooj

Oh, I know what they *meant* to say.. that particulate matter, which was radioactive, got on the helicopters. But ‘radiation’ is not “particulate” in the sense that they were trying to convey. They were just trying to sound all ‘sciency’ when they didn’t know what they were talking about.

Yes, yes – I know that most nuclear radiation is really some form of a wave/particle (or in the case of Alpha, a full Helium nuclei), but that’s not what they were trying to convey here.

Fortunately, washing off contaminated aircraft, and sealing up the ship to avoid contaminating the crew, is a pretty standard NBC drill for all warships.
- emmdeeaych
  
  And what would you be “trying to sound all…”? I ask because, as a scientist, I understood the article just fine without needing to appear smarter than the author. And as a Navy brat, I know that this was not a drill, this is WHY THEY DRILL.
a_user

The USS Reagan where the helicopter came from is currently to the north of Sendai, prevailing winds are blowing to the north east suggesting the helicopter was downwind from the reactors.
Vitalr

Unlike flying in an aircraft where cells are being radiated by charged particles this type of exposure (flying through a cloud of irritated dust particles) is very dangerous. Radiated debris can collect not only on the surface of the aircraft and clothing but be ingested by breathing them. These radiated particles get trapped in the lung sacks and start radiating the surrounding cells. This process can eventual cause cancer, this may take years to become evident.