“Highly radioactive water has leaked from a machine to treat contaminated water at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, though radiation monitoring reportedly shows no impact to the outside environment so far.”
I feel so reassured.
It says 220 x “standard” which I assume just means background. That’s usually 5-10 mrem/hr, so 220 x 10 = 2.2 rem/hr. For reference you get an additional 300 mrem added to your total lifetime dose everytime you take a flight (due to thinner atmosphere, less shielding from cosmic radiation). You’d get the same dose by standing 2.2 inches away from the source of the spill in the article for 1 hour. Without knowing how much water leaked I don’t know how contaminated it was, but that’s not AWFUL. (Edit: unless that much radiation came from a really small amount of spilled liquid. Then that would mean a leak from a highly contaminated source.) Its not great, but that’s definitely not terrible.
Source: Was a radiation tech. I’ve been out for a bit tho, so my math might be off.
Hey thanks for explaining this. I trust you more than TEPCO. I do actually feel somewhat reassured now.
