The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis: Separating Fact From Fiction

A panel of Simon Fraser University professors assembled on Monday, April 11 at the Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue to discuss the ripple effects of Japan's nuclear crisis.

SFU researchers Mark Jaccard, Corina Andreoiu, Kris Starosta and Paul Schaffer shared their expertise in a variety of disciplines as they address issues related to the disaster.

Among questions that they addressed are: How big are the risks? Are the levels of radiation detected in the Pacific Northwest dangerous? How safe is nuclear energy in general? How does the current crisis compare to accidents like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island? How does nuclear energy work?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• SFU
• Simon
• Fraser
• University
• Burnaby
• Fukushima
• nuclear
• crisis
• fact
• fiction
• Jaccard
• Andreoiu
• Starosta
• Schaffer

[JonThm]

Nature uses that turbulent flow of steam to turn water into helium and oxygen gases plus loads of heat: molecular nuclear fusion. Is has been going on for 3.8 billion years around the world. It does not create a Fukushima

[Jsledge85]

@EndNuclearAgenda21 If there is no melt down there is no contamination to the exterior environment. Better reactor design makes the possibility of melt down nearly impossible. Nuclear waste can COMPLETELY be eliminated through a closed fuel cycle and transmutation of trans-uranium elements into commercially usable isotopes (even Strontium-90 has commercial applications - nuclear batteries).

[Jsledge85]

@JonThm Nuclear fusion is more than a century away from being a viable energy source, barring some unexpected technological break through in cold fusion which mainstream physicist contend doesn't exist. Renewable energy sources are a simply a joke. We are going to have to build safer reactor designs to accomodate the growing demand for cheap power for homes and businesses.

[dcs002]

@Alchaeon1 You should thank a nuclear physicist every time someone you care about has an x-ray or radiotherapy, or every time you turn on your computer, or every time a family is saved by a working smoke detector or radon detector, or the next time you need a medication that was developed in the past 5 decades. We only know about DNA because of nuclear physicists, and the effects of radiation on the body can only be quantified with the help of nuclear physicists.

[dcs002]

We're not likely to have any cumulative effects if the half-life is as short as it is for 131-I - at least not in N America. It dissipates across half an ocean before it arrives, barely detectable, and then it decays. 137-Cs lasts much longer, but it still diffuses before it gets here. The title of this video says its objective is separating fact from fiction. It was made only a month after the tsunami. We have to know what happened before we can assess the damage from it. N'est-ce pas?

[plopsywhopsy]

FFS ask the damn question already- 1:12 -1:14. Damn monologue is boring the rest of us.

[Alchaeon1]

no medical experts on the panel who can describe and quantify the effects of radiation - both internal and external

biologists and ecologists who can describe how radionuclides effect the body organs, cells and DNA etc, as awell as how these carcinogens bioaccumulate

I am sick and tired of listening to nuclear physicists - they have doen enough damage dont you think?

And on the panel we also have an economist - made me even sicker

currently solar thermal is cheaper than nuclear

[IloveyouLenaKatina]

"How much is a kilogram of seaweed?" haha What I keep hearing is the comparison of internal and external background radiation compared to the releases of the accident. But what about the cumulative effects? So what if my body is exposed to carbon and it has evolved the ability to handle that. Therefore we can add all these other sources and they are okay because they are less than that? They are making excuses to get away with poisoning us.

[PreventingExtinction]

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We're Gonna Save Japan And Then The World!

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[JonThm]

Fukushima is what nuclear five terms: kill on a continental scale. Idea for years after Chernobyl, a worse nuclear incident