radioactive contamination with caesium (Cs-137, Cs-134) from fukushima found in tokyo soil.

[MucusFelidae]

Bitte kauf dir am Flohmarkt ein Stativ, das ist ja unmöglich so.

[antiprotons]

Amazing! That puts my NaI (Tl) gamma spectrometer to shame. The photopeak resolution is just so tight! You are getting single channel peaks without any extra-channel bleed!

I would love such a unit, but they costs massive amounts of money.

Also, I love the epic lead castle around the detector. I need to buy more lead myself. I priced blocks like those, but six of them would have cost me over $500 USD.

Great video!!!

[smartazuis]

Bionerd23 Shear hope or true belief that the uranium 235 is just anomalies in the noise ? I have read of other nuclear plants around the world picking up uranium on they're sensitive equipment.

@geonerd dr apsley and the petkau effect !

[caddotservices]

Once again thanks for an informative report and the extra mile you went to verify the readings, it's total darkness with the ongoing Fukushima multiple meltthroughs and subsequent recriticality and likely groundwater exposure, let alone the sea (Perhaps you can get a fish and test that) but it's good to know your are giving people the real facts to help them decide what to do about preventative measures whether in Japan, local to the continent or worldwide. Well done Bionerd.

[rocketscientistknigh]

From a techie group, a fellow used a similar device measuring some cloth swipes from a Japanese container ship. It contained the same signature of Cs but also a significant I-131 peak.

[bionerd23]

@rocketscientistknigh

when was that? i dont suppose it was recently, as iodine-131 just has a half life of 8 days?

if it is still there in a significant amount, it'd mean it's still released (and thus, still being produced -> major fission reaction still going on), which wouldnt be good.

[rocketscientistknigh]

Cs-134 has a 2 year half life, it's from Fukushima.

[BlueMagicEarth]

Thanks a lot for sharing this!

[FrankensteinFinance]

"The Inconvenient (Truth) Nuke Meltdowns"

[DamchoDronma]

part 2of 2 " To do such a thing is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime ever perpetrated by man. The idea that a civilisation could sustain itself on the basis of such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity. It means conducting the economic affairs of man as if people really did not matter at all.” —E.F. Schumacher

[DamchoDronma]

quote in1 of 2 parts "No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make “safe” and which remain an incalculable danger to the whole of creation for historical or even geological ages." see part 2 E.F. Schumacher

[DamchoDronma]

@superfinguy -- Cesium has been confirmed landing in at minimum 14 US States, Canada and Europe from Fukushima. Read up, the particles are traveling all around the northern hemisphere, so it is sure going to get to Tokyo... goes where the wind blows it. Yes, Cesium that came down from Chernobyl is still at damaging levels in the sheep of northern U.K. 25 years ago. New Cesium from Fukushima is going to be around for at least, and damaging, for 240 years plus. DAMAGES ALL LIFE.

[SuperFinGuy]

@DamchoDronma Wow the winds at Fukushima were like very strong, you know to scrape off radioactive traces from the plant and form this thick cloud that traveled far away without dissipating.

[Dave6x9]

Where do you think the radiation is coming from,its blanketing the Earth you fools,need a tool to know a boom went off,and is spewing radiation steam all over the planet none stop.Look at the reactors camera,in Japan !Its hit ground water,and getting worse by the minute,nice to know were dieing.So sad people are,radiation anywhere is not normal!!!!

[RadResistanceTYO]

@Jerri2257 YES, you are right, but the Japanese government is not really doing anything about it.

[SuperFinGuy]

How could radioactive particles from Fukushima 238 kilometers away contaminate soil in Tokyo?? Isn't the penetration distance of these particles very short in air, like centimeters?

[Doppelbuckel]

@SuperFinGuy The particles emit the ionizing radiation; the distance of the radiation is some cm for alpha, some meters for beta and even more for gamma. The wind only carries the particles with the radiation, not the radiation itself.

[bionerd23]

@SuperFinGuy

the atoms themselves got spread out over the country, not the ionizing radiation.

you see, same as the wind carries dust and sand, the wind also carries radioactive debris, atoms - and they will decay wherever the wind carries them, and only as they decay, a particle and / or gamma ray will be emitted.

[SuperFinGuy]

@bionerd23 Ok but could the density of the radioactive dust be dense enough to contaminate the soil to dangerous levels?

[FrankensteinFinance]

@bionerd23 You might also add that radionuclide's and isotopes are often attached to lighter particles like soot, which is a fashionable way of sending them back into the air by burning radioactive rice straw for instance. Nuclear fallout on wings of soot pet hair, fluff and so on.

[RadResistanceTYO]

@SuperFinGuy No, the particles of dust can travle 1000s of km, like in the Chernobyl case.

[PhotoNika]

@SuperFinGuy fallout from fukushima has been detected all over the world, even shortly after the initial blasts

[SuperFinGuy]

@PhotoNika Your kidding right? And because of wind? Must of been a thick cloud of particles and a strong wind that covers the whole world. do you have any scientific proof of that?

[PhotoNika]

@SuperFinGuy I am a scientist - have worked a lot with radioactive materials - not just some kid - I am most certainly not kidding - there is abundant data - perhaps you have not been paying close attention? start with a google search with these terms "fukushima + fallout + europe + detection"

[SuperFinGuy]

@PhotoNika Are you a scientist? Then you should know a thing or two about the scientific method. Where is the proof that these alleged traces of radioactive material are from Fukushima?! There are reports of iodine and Cesium found before Fukushima. And please do tell the amounts detected, which are meaningless. Not to mention there are studies showing that certain amounts of radiation can be actually beneficial.

[FrankensteinFinance]

@SuperFinGuy Like everyone else who has just learnt the difference between wet and dry, and carried away with that attainment, you forget 'internal contamination' ingestion and inhalation are vastly different to get an external daily dose for therapeutic purposes.

[AngelAtomiseur]

@SuperFinGuy

also, the water is an important carrier of radioactive elements such as: radioactive iodine 131 or especially the fission product tritium which can cause leukemia. Tritium is a very small atom and extremely dangerous.

[Doppelbuckel]

Hey Bionerd,

what if you get some soil from Germany and try to measure it? If this device is so accurate, then it should be able to measure the Cs137 contamination from Chernobyl, or not?

[bionerd23]

@Doppelbuckel

yeah, given enough time (days... weeks? depends on the amount of contamination still present), it should be able to detect it. it will not show up within 10 seconds, though...

[id26101970]

Just enjoy the global radioactive contamination from now on...

Shit happens every Day, all over the global crap we can't take care of...

GreeZ

[LechuCzechu]

Hi,

(1) I don't wanna piss in your bonfire but it would be scientifically more accurate if you comapred this with a soil sample from BEFORE the incident. There might have been already contamination from multiple pacific nuclear tests.

(2) Where do you have access to a spectrometer? I thought you work in a nuclear medicine lab in a clinic/hospital.

(3) I agree 100% with you about hormesis. I think hormesis is not a hypothesis anymore. There are overwhelming evidence for it.

[bionerd23]

@LechuCzechu

(1) yes, i'd love to do that. however, i dont know how to get access to samples from BEFORE the incident. people dont seem to collect and seal soil all that often. i only have some dried japanese kombu algae from before the accident at fukushima npp; they do not show any activity. i agree with you in general, though, that's what i put in the video description and mentioned in the video as well ("unless there was another, yet unknown incident").

[RadResistanceTYO]

@bionerd23 Well, I can take a sample from 4 m away of the hotspot, some ordinary soil. And I am quite sure the concentration will be almost like before the accident.

[bionerd23]

@LechuCzechu

however, the ratio of Cs-137 vs. Cs-134 activity (30 yrs vs. 2 yrs half life) tells me it must've either been a very recent contamination, OR the initial contamination of Cs-134 was much, much larger than that of Cs-137 for some reason (unlikely). but yeah, it could've still been another nuclear power plant, or a deliberate attack with fission products, or... well, all that is rather unlikely, but not impossible.

[bionerd23]

@LechuCzechu

(2) ha! love it when people jump to conclusions just because of the videos i post, lol. nah, i do all kinds of stuff, involving everything i can get my hands on - i dont like limiting myself to certain categories. :)

(3) well, seeing is believing, especially to me! i'll keep you updated about the following decades of my life... =)

[RadResistanceTYO]

@LechuCzechu (1) No and Yes. But the contamination in this sample is definitely coming from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi incident. Cs-134 has a half live of approx. 2 years. Where should this come from? Furthermore such high concentration can be only caused by man-made incident. And as long as I know there have been no weapon testings in Japan in the past decades.

[FrankensteinFinance]

@LechuCzechu I have my own Gamma spectrometer mate, and they are not so hard to comprise. Check out @beeresearch and the free software developed at Sydney University in Australia. Mine uses a Thallium doped Sodium Iodide scintillation detector. Purchased on EBay. BioNerd merely wants to be rigorous and have his data verified independently. In my opinion has done an a great deed.

[shadowofiris]

I don't have a clue about radiation, but living in Japan I have been trying to read several different books. According to Charles L. Sanders' book _Radiation Hormesis and the Linear-No-Threshold Assumption_ low level radiation is not as dangerous as people think, and, in fact, could have therapeutic properties such as *reducing* the incidence of cancer. He lists page after page of studies. Are you open to possibilities like this, or do you feel they can be ruled out as bogus?

[bionerd23]

@shadowofiris

(1)

i think hormesis is a possibility. however, as for incorporating (!) radionuclides and having your bone marrow and thyroid bombarded with it permanently, the incidence of cancer seems to greatly increase, e.g. thyroid cancer has spiked due to and near chernobyl.

[DamchoDronma]

@bionerd23 Radiation damages cells, first noted 1927 paper by Muller who received Nobel prize... all the way to present reality.  hormesis long proven to be propaganda at best.

[DamchoDronma]

hormesis is a propaganda no science piece of work. Get smart with real science:

> “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” Yablokov, et al, NY Academy of Sciences, 2009. 1,400 Slavic language cited. download from amazon.

[SuperFinGuy]

@DamchoDronma Stop spamming the comments. It seems you're doing the propaganda. Are you from greenpeace? All radioactive levels are not toxic. It is a non-linear, threshold based process and living beings use radiation. I suggest you read up on recent research papers such as 2004 “Is Chronic Radiation an Effective Prophylaxis Against Cancer?” or 2010 "Observations on the Chernobyl Disaster and LNT" with actual scientific results. Actually ask bionerd if radioactive therapy didn't help her.

[bionerd23]

(2)

there are studies of people living in homes built with radiocobalt-contaminated steel by accident, however - so they were hit with much more gamma radiation than an average person - and these studies claim the residents actually have REDUCED changes of getting cancer, as compared to the average population.

maybe we need to differentiate between gamma and x-radiation, and external exposure - vs. incorporation of alpha and beta emitters. maybe the latter is never a good thing.

[bionerd23]

(3)

then again, radon balneology seems to help asthma and COPD patients, too... or is it just the climate in the "radon cave" in general? hmmm...

one thing that is for sure is, there's a certain threshold that a mammal / human can tolerate (acute gamma / x-ray exposure). go above that, and you'll have radiation sickness, or even die.

alpha and beta emitters permanently within in the body also seem to increase your chances for getting cancer.

[DamchoDronma]

@bionerd23 wrong, 1927 paper by Muller, Nobel Laureate, xrays run risk of cell damage... you just won't see the cancer in 20 years with a biomarker - 'caused by that xray when you were 23!' There is NO threshold for risk! zip, zero. every xray is a risk for cellular damage.

[bionerd23]

(4)

however, i think it's possible that chronic low-dose exposure to gamma and x-ray radiation MAY produce a resistance to higher dose radiation exposure, and might even provide a training effect to the immune system. for example, stimulation with allergens and pathogens (e.g. children born on a farm) seems to reduce incidence of allergies and other, more severe autoimmune disorders. maybe stimulation with radiation is as much to the immune system and actually healthy to a certain degree.

[DamchoDronma]

@bionerd23 we're talking about man-made, lethal things like Cesium, that only harms, kills, destroys. Get smart with real science:

ECRR (European Committee on Radiation Risk.) Dr. Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary wrote Introduction. book, 2006, was co-edited with Dr. Alexey Yablokov, “ECRR Chernobyl: 20 Years On” google for pdf

[bionerd23]

(5)

maybe it can be like chemical tolerance - an alcoholic can drink a bottle of vodka and not die, but just be drunk. if one who never drinks just gulps down a bottle of vodka, they die (provided they are not saved by the bodies own mechanisms, such as throwing up). then again, the alcoholic also sacrifices his health for that kind of tolerance... but it's a chemical poisoning, and maybe not comparable after all...?

[bionerd23]

(6)

but yeah, anyway - i think hormesis is a possibility, especially for chronic low-dose gamma (x-ray) radiation.

BUT, just randomly taking hormesis for granted can be FATAL. thus, i'd not recommend anybody but myself to conduct experiments on hormesis (as for myself, i can do with myself whatever i want, as it's my body :P).

[DamchoDronma]

@bionerd23 hormesis is propaganda, and yes, believing it will be FATAL.

[bionerd23]

(7)

(final)

i guess we'll see, one way or another. the poor people of japan have to choice but to involuntary be part of a large-scale experiment on radiation exposure. (poor people, as involuntary is never acceptable in my book)

[geonerd]

@shadowofiris I haven't read Sanders' book, but am VERY skeptical about his claims that low levels are harmless. Goffman, in his Radiation and Human Health book, makes a strong logical case that even one ionizing track/branch has the potential to cause irreparable genetic damage. Hormesis may well be a real effect; low levels of IR may actually stimulate you immune system in a beneficial manner, but to deny that the same IR is not causing cellular, and possibly genetic, damage is IMO fantasy.

[cyclenut]

Thank you Bionerd23. You do present the information very clearly for just about anybody to understand..

Too bad people like you are not in the main stream media... Ignorance isn't bliss.

[DamchoDronma]

@cyclenut clearly hormesis is propaganda. ECRR 2006 google for the book, European Committee on Radiation Risk, Dr. Chris Busby co-editor and Science Secretary, co-editor Alexey Yablokov

[bamboo4tameshigiri]

"i also use poisonous mercury energy saving lamps that emit toxins from the electronics when in operation, sacrificing my health to save power." I thought you were a scientist. Show me where fluorescent lamps "emit" mercury. And, by the way, there is more mercury in a can of tuna fish than most compact florescents.

[bionerd23]

@bamboo4tameshigiri

i clearly said they emit toxins from the elctronics, right? i never said they emitted mercury. Hg is in the discharge tube, not within the electronics.

if you want to have a keyword to google for the harmful substances emitted by energy saving lamps: phenol. if you further google for "sick building syndrome", the pieces of the puzzle come together.

[bamboo4tameshigiri]

@bionerd23 YES you did. In the personal message you sent you clearly stated you are doing your best to save energy by using toxic mercury emitting bulbs. You said that. I know English is not your first language and you may not have meant it so literally, but that is what you said. If you are that paranoid, I suggest you abstain from eating all predatory fish, especially tuna. You will be getting a larger dose of mercury with just a couple servings a week.

[fegolem]

Are there pre-Fukushima-accident Tokyo soil measurements with which to compare? How do they compare? Is it possible there could be some previous Cs-134 and Cs-137 contamination that is now being detected and assumed to be the result of the recent accident?

[connectingdots1]

@fegolem Ya right!...man some of you people and your theories simply blow me away!...it's now fukushima Day 177 and just last week TEPCO discovered the Highest readings (10 Sieverts/hr) since this event took place yet some of you are still very clueless???

I'm even surprised of Bionerd's lack of interest in this event...i'm new to radiation but even I knew from the beginning this was bigger than Chernobyl.

When are the rest of the world going to wake up?

[fegolem]

@connectingdots1 What "people" am I? What theory did I represent? I asked questions. That is all I did. I have not presented any information or conclusions. It is not reasonable to call me "clueless" and to suggest that I "wake up."

[RadResistanceTYO]

@fegolem No, impossible. Such high concentration has the source of Fukushima. Furthermore Cs-134 has a half live of 2 years. If another accident would have happened in the past couple of years ... well, then it could be possible. But such an accident would have been huge too. Very unlikely ...

[bionerd23]

@FrankensteinFinance

yes, i just said "such as the HPGe", not "only the HPGe". but i already made a whole video about that exact issue: watch?v=Silk2g8fS8Y - mentioning NaI(Tl) as effective counters (and much more practical than HPGe due to the comparably low cost of buying and operating a NaI(Tl), e.g. borehole).

[FrankensteinFinance]

@bionerd23 Thanks!! After watching the video in more detail i stand corrected and removed my comment almost as quickly as i made it. Hoping to spare you the trouble. I myself am experimenting with a Bicron NaI detector and PRA free software from Sydney University in Australia and have spent most of my spare time finding and melting Lead for a Castle to be able to perform some amateur food testing and the like.

Great video!!, and thanks.

[bionerd23]

@FrankensteinFinance

maybe it would be possible to measure an increased but very low level activity in food even with a geiger counter - provided you have a lead castle and give it 2-3 days of counting impulses. however, you would not know if the activity is due to e.g. increased natural potassium (e.g. bananas are more radioactive than apples) or even increased solar activity (you need an underground bunker to be safe from those, not just some lead bricks)... also, food rots away...

[FrankensteinFinance]

@bionerd23 Interesting you should mention "solar activity" as my gamma spectroscopy apparatus which also logs counts using PRA software, a Sodium Iodide Gamma scintillation detector which is on most of the time. It seems to have recorded a 25% spike in background gamma radiation which subsided in about 6-8 hours. This seems to coincide with a recent X flare a day ago. It would be nice to be able to verify that further with a Helium three neutron detector.

[Feliday]

ursprünglich wollte ich dir proben aus dem roten wald von tschernobyl mitbringen. doch leider haben mich die strafen abgeschreckt, die drohten, wenn man radioaktives material entwendet.

allerdings könnte ich dir einen meine stiefel anbieten, mit denen ich dort war. interesse?

[bionerd23]

@Feliday

die durftest du problemlos ausfuehren? interessant. kannst du aktivitaet an den stiefeln messen?

[Feliday]

@bionerd23 bei uns waren wir selbst die kontrolleure. im nachhinein hätten wir klauen können, wie die raben.

im moment bin ich zu viel am arbeiten, um mit den schuhen zur uni zu gehen.

für eine messung der aktivität fehlt es mir schlicht an messgeräten.

[Azyashi]

And the moral of the story is, don't have 40 year old nuclear power stations located in a tsunami zone.

[10mintwo]

In a seemingly unending sea of schizophrenic bullshit and conspiracy theory lunatics on YT about the Fukushima disaster, your videos continue to be a refreshing oasis of insight and reliable factual information. This was fascinating as usual. I'm surprised both at the distance at which contamination was detected from the plant, and the seemingly strange "purity" of Cs contamination to the exclusion even of the usual Sr-90 (you should've seen Y-90 gammas if it were present, no?). Anyway, thanks!!

[bionerd23]

@10mintwo

Sr-90s gammas (the gammas emitted from Y-90 as associated with the decay of Sr-90) are incredibly weak and almost impossible to detect. same goes for the daughter nuclide Y-90 and its decay. they're almost pure beta emitters...

[DocteurDuCube]

I plan to start a radioactive mineral collection. I will build and geiger counter base on your plan, but with two Darlington Transistor to increase more the output power and try to use Piezo speaker as out put or LED. I plan to use smoke detector Am 241 as positive test source for my apparatus. What is your advice on this topic ? Thank you in advance and best regards,

[bionerd23]

@DocteurDuCube

an alpha emitter source will be a good idea to test a setup, as it will always produce the largest amount of pulses. so, if your device works, it's easiest to find out with an alpha source. and if it does work, you can switch to trying to detect beta- and then gamma- emitters.

[quaxk]

don't eat leaf vegetable grown in japan would be my advice

[bamboo4tameshigiri]

This is scary, considering how far away the samples were taken.

[RadResistanceTYO]

@bamboo4tameshigiri Exactly. But you have to keep in mind that this sample is from a Hotspot in Tokyo. Which mean it is a spot where radiation has accumulated. 1m away from that hotspot radiation level is normal.

[bamboo4tameshigiri]

@RadResistanceTYO Well, I hope that's true and it is good news if it is.

[kuli1111]

@bionerd23 Can you tested a sample food from our European stores? I suspect that something would be found, especially in the venison, green tea, or fish. I think also about the samples of water from the Baltic Sea, if water testing at all is possible. Thank you very much for your knowledge and the way in which you present it. This material is very interesting

[anthonyj777]

Good advice on a complicated issue.

[EdgenED]

Welln it's not exactly a problem with the nuclear pressure cook the problem, but where you put such plant. Japan is used to earthquakes, they did the best, or so they say, tho build the best usine they could, but, if the security measures failed causing a big leak what they could do? Almost nothing. Use this option was always the easily and most dangerous option. World leaders are used to ignore risks in order to accomplish, and the population always pay the price.

[psalmsofplanets0722]

you should try to get some from chernyoble

[vxbinaca]

@psalmsofplanets0722 Spoilers: It's contaminated with 137cs, 90sr and other isotopes that are byproducts of fission.

@bionerd23 Great work! Awesome video. Is there any way you could get a water sample along with a vegetation sample? I read reports that 90sr was found in the water table around Daichi. I'd like to see some results from other parts of the island.

[kbrflc]

thanks for sharing your results! you have access to a lot of interesting and cool equipment :)

greetz

[SlightyDisturbedNBK]

With this level of contamination, do you think nuclear power is worth while?

[bionerd23]

@SlightyDisturbedNBK

well, it's russian roulette. but, what else would japan do? they're a leading industrialized state... and that is due to nuclear power, too. they dont have fossil fuels or other great sources of power for their industry... so japan is only what it is nowadays to a large part due to nuclear power, too. they played russian roulette - and lost.

but... would residents give up their comfort and highly industrialized nation for safety...?

[bionerd23]

@bionerd23

what would i do? personally, i am sitting on a quadcore computer to edit my videos, with two monitors. i also turned on the light, and i even made a nice tea, and just watched tv while drinking it... while the pc was still on, just using up power... and my old big fridge, jeez... i dont think i would personally even have the right to be against nuclear power, because i am one of the causes that nuclear power was a necessity.

[SlightyDisturbedNBK]

@bionerd23 I'm the same if now worse, I've load of computers running with a few CRTs sucking up all that energy. :( Our energy demands are increasing all the time, and it all has to come from somewhere. I'm not keen on coal, oil or gas coal is the energy source of the 19th century not the 21st, and the rest are not all that better. I have hopes for renewables but I don't know if they can meet the growing demand, lets hope fusion power is not all pie in the sky.

[odin422]

@bionerd23 could u make a video on the best ways to detox from radiation, that would be AWESOME!

thx ;)

[bionerd23]

@odin422

i'm not sure if that is a good idea. prussian blue can be used to try and detox from caesium isotopes, reducing their biological half life; iodine can be used to saturate the thyroid and prevent a large amount of radioactive iodine from entering. however, these methods can have severe - even life-threatening - side-effects. everyone who thinks they have been internally contaminated should talk to a local hospital with radiation / incorporation measurement stations. we have those here.

[geonerd]

@bionerd23

Some good thorium videos:

A quick 10 minute intro: 5LeM-Dyuk6g

The LONG version... YVSmf_qmkbg :)

[bamboo4tameshigiri]

@bionerd23 "i am one of the causes that nuclear power was a necessity." You could be more conscious of your power usage. I have been working hard to keep from running everything all the time. I think we should all step back and look at the size of our ecological footprints. Seriously.

[bionerd23]

@bamboo4tameshigiri

well, i am. when i leave the house, i switch off everything - not have it on standby. i also use poisonous mercury energy saving lamps that emit toxins from the electronics when in operation, sacrificing my health to save power. switching the pc on and off for 10-15 minutes of a "break" would also be unreasonable, power-wise.

i'd simply have to stop heating water for tea, and cut down using the computer to just one hour a day... and this is downright impossible for me.

[1ownjoo2]

@bionerd23

Im 50/50 , i think it can be safe if we tried but when it comes to natural disasters like or man made i dunno...Just recently about 2 weeks ago we had the biggest earthquake in Virginia in over 100 years. It was only a 5.9 or 6.0 but it was a shallow quake which are the worst, and its epicenter was 10 miles from a nuclear plant which was built right on top of a fault line :) The plant lost power and was on backup generators.. what if those generators failed like fukashima ?

[TheChemlife]

@bionerd23 correct me if im wrong but the plants that are in use today are much more dangerous than they could be. Futur plants that utilize thorium instead of uranium would be incredibly more efficient and take up a fraction of the materials and space. So it's not that they're playing russian roulette they're just not switching to the safer alternatives.

[bionerd23]

@TheChemlife

yeah, that is true. thorium is a much cleaner source of power - no isotope seperation ("enrichment" -> lots of chemicals!) required, as thorium is naturally just one isotope, which is good for breeding fuel (uranium isotope) out of it. also, in operation, a thorium reactor will produce much less dangerous radioactive waste / fissile material. well, i already talked about that in my other video...

but, if for some reason a reactor like that blows up, its still not good at all.

[iamgoddard]

@bionerd23, though 75% of Japan's NPPs have been idle since the disasters and the country hasn't collapsed. Do they have backup electricity supplies from NPPs? There has been some rationing, but not to a draconian degree.

On the other hand, if the government actually compensated property holders in contaminated zones (and the best I've seen offered is to *rent* ruined properties as compensation versus lump-sum compensation), then the country probably would go bankrupt.

[bionerd23]

@iamgoddard

no, it wont collapse. same as us. many NPPs are shut down in germany now; yet, no power shortages. we can just buy (nuclear) power from other countries. our neighboring country, the czech republic, is planning to build new NPPs as they can export power to the european market, which will be sold back to states as "green power", as the source cannot be determined (it's all just electrons). hell of an opportunity, now we shut down our NPPs.

[bionerd23]

so, i'm paying higher and higher prices for my power to fund other countries NPPs. fucking stupid in my opinion, but at least i will not be sitting in the dark... i dont know how japan does it currently - i remember they did advice people to save power before. but yeah, there's no need to sit in the dark for anybody. power can be imported, shifting the problem elsewhere - it just comes at a higher price, leaving the people with less money to spend on their wealth.

[Skandalos]

@SlightyDisturbedNBK *nothing* in life is without risk. Just remember what risks our grand parents and their ancestors took to make a better living. Our generation is completely spoiled. We take everything for granted: peace, safety, wealth, freedom. Especially we Germans are like a people of children who think the state has to be our parents, who protect us from risk, responsibility, and basically all hardships of normal life. Whatever happens, all we Germans do is open our mouths and cry.