Elevated radiation claimed at Tokyo 2020 Olympic venues | Hacker News Reader

Elevated radiation claimed at Tokyo 2020 Olympic venues

scmp.com

25 pointsyapcguy10 comments

"the highest radiation reading - 0.484 microsieverts per hour"

By comparison, background radiation in Rome is about half that, and some areas in Brazil have ten times that. http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/07/background-radiation-levels...

A common response to these comparisons is that the radiation from nuclear plants is biologically worse in some way. However, the sievert is a unit which has already been weighted for biological effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert

Right. I was mentally comparing it to the 10 uSv that you normally receive each day. IIRC a lot of is from your own body's radioactivity, but someone getting .484 uSv/hr isn't even doubling their normal radiation exposure.

EDIT: Handy XKCD radiation chart: http://xkcd.com/radiation/

By comparison, I found this map via a quick Google search:

http://world-nuclear.org/uploadedImages/org/info/Naturalback...

0.484µSv/hour ~ 4.2mSv/year, so according to that map a large chunk of Europe gets higher readings anyway. Basically anywhere with significant amounts of granite will naturally have a lot of background radiation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite#Natural_radiation

And that's not to mention things areas near coal power plants whose own radiation levels absolutely dwarf the normal output of nuclear reactors:

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1018/do-coal-pla...

Which is not to say this news isn't concerning! But it's concerning for other reasons (i.e. a predictor of future issues with containment and contamination in the area) rather than an immediate health risk to those attending the Olympics, which is how the headline might be interpreted.

Anecdotal, but someone might find it interesting:

I've been traveling around with a dosimeter on my wrist (Polimaster PM1208M) for fun since 2007 & I've traveled to Tokyo a few times since the '11 Tohoku earthquake. I've seen the radiation levels as high as .10 uSv/hr (same as a rainy day in Eastern Oregon) and as low as .03 uSV/hr (lower than I've ever seen it in San Francisco). The most radioactive spot I've been was Rome @ .5 uSv/hr (higher than the areas in the article) & everywhere pales in comparison to levels at airplane cruising altitude -- as high as 6 uSv/hr.

Anyhow, the radiation level supposedly seen at the Tokyo facility in the article is nothing compared to Ramsar, Iran and folks are fine there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#Radioactivit...

Can anyone provide an objective summary of the SCMP's political alignment?

SCMP is a Hong Kong based newspaper. Within HK (which does generally pride itself on its 'independence' from the mainland), there are some allegations that SCMP is overly pro-Beijing. That said, they are pro-Beijing from HK's perspective. Compared to a mainland newspaper, they aren't particularly pro-Beijing.

That said, I really don't know why it matters here. The news is pretty clear. Citizen group found elevated Cesium and radiation levels in and around Tokyo, claims that they are because of Fukushima. Officials do not deny the actual measurements, but point out that the levels are safe. The paper (if anything) is weighing on the side of "this is all ok".

I do find this quote problematic: ""It is difficult to have this debate unless we know for sure whether this radiation is from Fukushima or whether it is naturally occurring background radiation," said Pieter Franken, founder of the Japan office of the environmental monitoring organisation Safecast."

As others have pointed out, the sievert is already weighted with respect to danger. In other words, the source makes absolutely no difference at all. If you somehow managed to get a huge radiation does from, say, bananas (which are fairly radioactive due to the potassium) it wouldn't be any better or worse than the same dose from a nuclear power plant.

That said, it always surprises me that there's no panic over naturally radioactive foods, like bananas. It's curious that the "unnatural" aspect seems to cause a disproportionate amount of the fear. FWIW, I enjoyed a nice, naturally radioactive banana as I wrote this.

You'll receive 71 microsieverts of radiation just flying to Tokyo (from Paris, the first number I could find), so I doubt the 0.484 you'll get per hour amounts to anything.

The big question of course: does this reading, mean that there will be an increase in radiation levels until Fukushima is capped/entombed/whatever? Or is the increase a one-time occurrence?

Zerohedge rocks.

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