Chernobyl was not directly off the coast of the Black Sea, like Fukushima is off the coast of the Pacific Ocean!
What sense does it make to state that contamination levels differ by 100?
Oh, I get it, it SCARES (boo!) people. It leads them to think Fukushima is more hazardous than Chernobyl.
Also, there is an ocean current phenomenon called Kuroshio, which close to shore, sweeps contaminants back toward the shore of Japan, instead of out to sea. This concentrates the contaminants close to shore, but why mention that, when being scary is much more fun?
The levels in fish are high, 15,000 Bq/kg compared with the limit of 500 Bq/kg. Only eating contaminated food at the limit yields a dose of 5 mSv. So, only eating fish at 15,000 Bq/kg would yield a dose of 150 mSv. This might increase cancer risks approximately
You have the risk number off by a factor of 100. First, the risk is 0.5% per 100 mSv, not 10%. Second, eating food at the limit causes 1 mSv rather than 5 mSv of exposure.
ReplyDeleteI see the video is no longer available, so I can't review it. But as I recall, the reference was to Cs-137 at 15,000 Bq/kg. The limit I think I referred to is the FAO's limit of 5 mSv, which they modeled would result from 500 Bq/kg of Cs-137:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fao.org/docrep/U5900T/U5900T08.HTM
I then used BEIR VII cancer incidence risk estimate of 1% per 100 mSv:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11340&page=8
(15,000 Bq/kg)(5 mSv/500 Bq/kg) (1%/100 mSv) = 1.5%
So that was my logic, but I think I did it in my head and forgot the "1%" was already in units of percent. I think I multiplied my result by 100 to erroneously put it in % twice.
I forgot to add....good catch (speaking of fish).
ReplyDelete