Strange Glow
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5. At least one nuclear bomb test has occurred since the Fukushima accident in 2011. On February 12, 2013, North Korea conducted an underground bomb test that was estimated to have an explosive power similar to that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs (approximately 10 KT each).
6. Many element symbols use letters that don’t even appear in the English word. This is because most of the symbols are abbreviations from Latin words. In this case, Na for sodium comes from natrium (Latin), and K for potassium is an abbreviation of kalium (also Latin).
7. Keane A., and R. D. Evans. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Report.
8. Remember that cesium-134 and cesium-137 will have the same biological half-life, but different radiological half-lives. This is because the biological half-life is determined by cesium’s chemistry, which doesn’t differ among cesium isotopes. Radiological half-lives, in contrast, are driven by nuclear forces that are specific to particular isotopes.
9. These kilogram units represent dry weights (i.e., after the sample has been desiccated to remove water), so the radioactivity has been concentrated in the dry tissues. This is done so that varying moisture content between samples does not affect the findings.
10. A more detailed description of the rationales, procedures, and calculations that the FDA uses to set limits for radioactivity contamination in food can be found in: Accidental Radioactive Contamination of Human Food and Animal Feeds: Recommendations for State and Local Agencies, by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration.
11. To demonstrate its commitment to food safety, in April 2012, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reduced its limit for radioactive cesium in seafood from 500 to 100 Bq per kg (one-fifth of its previous limit, and one-twelfth of the United States’ limit).
12. Humans have about 50 Bq per kg of K-40 in their bodies overall. (Strom D. J., et al. “Radiation doses to Hanford workers.”) Assuming that the potassium is enriched in muscle and that muscle represents 55% of body mass, the maximum muscle concentration would be expected to be somewhere between 75 and 100 Bq per kg.
13. Medical pundits frequently dredge up the “banana dose equivalent” when trying to make dose comparisons to other radiation exposures. Usually the purpose is to downplay the risk of the exposure in question by comparing it to the seemingly nonthreatening banana. One television “expert” recently made a stir by saying that the radiation dose from a chest x-ray was comparable to the dose received from eating a banana. The truth, however, is that a typical chest x-ray has an effective dose of about 0.02 mSv, while eating a banana delivers an effective dose of zero mSv. It’s true that 0.02 mSv is a very low dose (<1% of typical annual background dose), but it is not zero. Experts that use banana dose equivalents are either being disingenuous in their comparison or are ignorant about bananas.
14. Fisher N. S., et al. “Evaluation of radiation doses and associated risk.”
15. Oddly enough, the biggest exposure to radioactivity from eating seafood comes not from the Cs-134, Cs-137, or K-40, but rather from polonium-210 (Po-210), one of the two elements that the Curies discovered in pitchblende. In sea-water, Po-210 originates from uranium-238 decay on the sea floor. It is ubiquitous in all ocean waters, and is present in all sea life. In seafood, Po-210 delivers an effective dose to consumers that is hundreds of times greater than the dose from the cesium in the bluefin, but still well below safe levels as defined by federal regulations. Like K-40, Po-210 is just one other natural radioisotope that contributes to our annual background radiation dose. And the sea is not the only source of radioactivity in food. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any food completely devoid of radioactivity. But there is no evidence that any of the natural radioactivity in food is dangerous, no matter how much you eat.
16. Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research. Cancer Statistics in Japan—2013.
17. Rowland R. E. Radium in Humans, 7.
18. Chen J. “Review of radon doses.”
19. NCRP Report. Uncertainties in the Estimation of Radiation Risks and Probability of Disease Causation.
20. The word uncertainty is thrown around by a lot of different people who take it to mean different things. Some scientists don’t distinguish between uncertainty and statistical variability. Others consider statistical variability a subtype of uncertainty. For our purposes, statistical variability is something completely different than uncertainty. Here we define statistical variability as the natural spread or heterogeneity in data. Uncertainty, in contrast, has to do specifically with facts that are unknown. The difference is that variability is an inherent property of the data, described by statistical parameters such as variance and standard deviation. Uncertainty is best defined as a lack of precise knowledge. It is uncertainty that usually explains why measures of statistical variability alone can sometimes fail to accurately predict the true frequency of adverse events. Uncertainty causes relevant information to be missing from the statistical model, and it is the enemy of probabilistic risk assessment. Uncertainty needs to be reduced by adding more precise and reliable information about the determinants of risk to the model, so that statistical variability is the only imprecision that remains in risk predictions. (Note that this type of uncertainty has nothing to do with Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which is a quantum mechanical theory that addresses the constraints to simultaneously measuring both the momentum and position of an atomic particle.)
21. A black swan is a metaphor that comes from black swan theory. This theory relates to any event that comes as a complete surprise because it was previously beyond the realm of everyday experience. The name originates from the old English expression, “rare as a black swan,” which was intended to connote something impossible because the English were not yet familiar with any species of black swan. Then, in 1697, a black swan species was discovered in Western Australia and the expression lost its original meaning. Now the term “black swan” is taken to mean the occurrence of any event that had erroneously been ruled out simply because it had not happened before. Black swan, as used in black swan theory, now connotes faulty logic about the probability of rare events (Taleb N. N. The Black Swan).
22. Greene K. “No Fukushima radiation found in coastal areas.”
23. http://www.ourradioactiveocean.org/
24. Crowd funding is the practice of funding a research project by raising many small donations from a large number of contributors, typically via solicitation over the Internet.
25. This chapter did not address irradiated food because irradiated food does not contain any manmade radioactivity. Irradiated food is food that has been treated with x-rays or gamma rays for the purpose of sterilization, so that it is free of bacterial contamination. It’s similar to how pasteurization kills bacteria in milk with heat, except that radiation is used to kill the bacteria instead. But that irradiation does not make the food radioactive. There has been some discussion as to whether irradiation of food decreases its nutritional value, but we cannot speak to that issue here. Nevertheless, we can emphatically state that irradiated food poses absolutely no radiation risk to those who eat it.
CHAPTER 16: BLUE MOON
1. Carl Pillitteri’s story of the earthquake and its aftermath was conflated from his firsthand accounts reported in a television interview (“Fukushima Survivor: I’ve Hardly Smiled This Whole Year” on the PBS NewsHour; March 9, 2012), and in a live monologue performance (“Fog of Disbelief” on The Moth podcast; March 11, 2014).
2. A 1-unit increase on the moment magnitude scale amounts to an increase of 101.5 (32), rather than 101 (10).
3. It would later be determined that the quake damaged a total 383,429 buildings in Japan (Mahaffey J. Atomic Accidents, 390).
4. Hough S. Predicting the Unpredictable.
5. This description of earthquake risk is drawn largely from a highly cogent depiction of the current state of earthquake prediction science in The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver (chapter 5: “Despe
rately Seeking Signal”).
6. Birmingham L., and D. McNeill. Strong in the Rain, 7–8.
7. NBC News. “How the Quake Shifted Japan.”
8. It’s been estimated that the energy released by the earthquake exceeded one million kilotons (KT) of TNT. For comparison, the energy released by both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined was no more than 30 KT (Birmingham L., and D. McNeill. Strong in the Rain, 6).
9. Council of the National Academies. Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, 112–119.
10. Council of the National Academies. Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, 118.
11. Mahaffey J. Atomic Accidents, 392.
12. Council of the National Academies. Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, 119–130.
13. Mahaffey J. Atomic Accidents, 393.
14. Recent archeological evidence has suggested that the Jogan tsunami of 869 AD was even more destructive than the 1896 tsunami.
15. In 2008, TEPCO did trial calculations of possible tsunami heights for the Fukushima Daiichi plant using fault models for an earthquake postulated by the Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion (HERP) and estimated ocean waves 8.4–10.2 meters (27–33 feet) in height. Some further fortification of the plant against tsunamis occurred following these calculations. (Council of the National Academies. Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, 94–100.) Seismologists at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology had proposed, in 2009, that the Jogan earthquake be used as the standard for nuclear power plant safety. Nothing came of the proposal (Birmingham L., and D. McNeill. Strong in the Rain, 39).
16. Birmingham L., and D. McNeill. Strong in the Rain, 81.
17. This was the first time that the Japanese people had heard an address by their emperor broadcast nationwide since Hirohito publicly announced Japanese surrender in 1945, thereby officially ending World War II.
18. Mahaffey J. Atomic Accidents, 342–356.
19. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Reactor Safety Study.
20. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Risk Assessment Review.
21. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-power-in-the-world-today/
22. The 430 number is as of 2014 and comes from the World Nuclear Association.
23. Perrow C. Normal Accidents.
24. Perrow C. Normal Accidents.
25. Council of the National Academies. Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident.
26. Mahaffey J. Atomic Accidents, 400.
27. Perrow C. Normal Accidents, 157–162.
28. Taleb N. N. The Black Swan.
29. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, Subcommittee on Regulatory Policies and Practices: License Renewal, ACRS-T-1789, March 26, 1990, 153-154.
30. Smith J., and N. A. Beresford. Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences.
31. Mahaffey M. Atomic Accidents, 357–375.
32. Cardis E., et al. “Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout.”
33. Cardis E., et al. “Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout.”
34. Reiners C., et al. “Twenty-five years after Chernobyl.”
35. Tokonami S., et al. “Thyroid doses for evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear accident.”
36. Mahaffey J. Atomic Accidents, 374.
37. Bardi J. “Chernobyl Cleanup Workers Had Significantly Increased Risk of Leukemia.”
38. Mahaffey J. Atomic Accidents, 400.
39. The Japanese government startled some people when it upped the permissible dose limits for the radiation workers from 50 to 250 mSv during the Fukushima crisis, seemingly backpedaling on what was considered safe working conditions. Actually, it is standard policy for both Japan and the United States to raise the exposure limits for radiation workers in the case of a worker performing potentially lifesaving activities during a radiation emergency. In the United States, it would have been permissible to raise the worker limit as high as 500 mSv in such a situation. Even 500 mSv poses no risk of radiation sickness, and increases lifetime cancer risk by just 2.5% (i.e., 25% to 27.5%).
40. Birmingham L., and D. McNeill. Strong in the Rain, 87.
41. The hydrogen explosions that occurred in the reactors at Fukushima were chemical explosions from the combustion of hydrogen gas, not nuclear explosions caused by fusing hydrogen nuclei.
42. Birmingham L., and D. McNeill. Strong in the Rain, 144–155.
43. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Fukushima-Accident/
44. There is probably not much sense in assuming that doses will remain constant for more than five years, because we would anticipate a substantial reduction of dose due to the combination of decay and dissipation. If it doesn’t actually decrease (perhaps because of further radioactivity releases from the plant), the risk levels for later years will need to be rethought.
45. Fackler M. “Tsunami Warning, Written in Stone.”
46. CBS News. “Ancient Stone Markers Warned of Tsunamis.”
CHAPTER 17: THE THINGS THEY CARRIED
1. The last Mark 53 (B53) bomb in the United States nuclear stockpile was dismantled in 2011. It is currently on display at the National Museum of the Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, near Dayton, OH.
2. The Garrett County Historical Society maintains a collection of artifacts from the crash site, as well as memorabilia from the rescue efforts at their Grantsville Museum. There is also a map and self-directed driving tour to locations of the major events of the rescue, available at http://buzzonefour.org/pdf_files/BuzzOneFourOrg_Brochure1.pdf. (The crash site itself is on private property and is off limits to the public.)
3. Maggelet M. H., and J. C. Oskins. Broken Arrow, 195–202.
4. Levi M. On Nuclear Terrorism, 6–9.
5. Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. World at Risk, 43–75.
6. Allison G. Nuclear Terrorism, 24–29.
7. Dobson J. The Goldsboro Broken Arrow.
8. Dobson J. The Goldsboro Broken Arrow, 89–90.
9. Today in Goldsboro, there is a roadside memorial plaque in the approximate vicinity of the plane crash. The crash site itself, where one of the two bombs still remains buried, is on land that is off limits to the public.
10. McGill E. J. Jet Age Man, 132–133.
11. McGill E. J. Jet Age Man, 159–163.
12. The Strategic Air Command’s motto was “Peace Is Our Profession.”
13. Moran B. The Day We Lost the H Bomb.
14. A fission detonation of a plutonium core is only possible when all of the conventional explosives surrounding the core fire synchronously. Anything less than perfect synchrony will fail to accomplish this because of uneven compression of the core. Although this requirement for synchronous implosion detonation presents an engineering and munitions challenge, it also makes the bombs “one-point-safe,” meaning detonation of a single conventional charge will not produce a supercritical mass. The fact that no nuclear explosions occurred in Palomares despite detonation of the conventional charges, suggests that the detonations were incomplete, or at least asynchronous.
15. Mahaffey J. Atomic Accidents, 314–324.
16. Mahaffey J. Atomic Accidents, 322.
17. Schlosser E. Command and Control.
18. Stars and Stripes. “Air Force Fires 2 Nuclear Missile Corps Commanders.”
19. Actually, the original rule states that the longer that something continuously occurs (e.g., the sun rising in the morning), the more likely that it will occur tomorrow; the converse is posed here to facilitate its application to the probability of an accident.
20. Lowry I. S. “Postattack population of the United States.”
21. The model assumed a mean lethal dose of radiation to be 9,000 mSv. We now know that a mean lethal dose for humans is approximately 5,000 mSv, so t
he model greatly underestimated the deaths caused by radiation.
22. The MAD nuclear strategy amounts to a crude form of Nash equilibrium, a type of noncooperative game theory that was first proposed by John Forbes Nash Jr., a Princeton University mathematician. MAD posits that there is nothing to be gained by initiating a nuclear strike when an equally damaging retaliatory strike is assured. Therefore, neither side is likely to initiate hostilities. The concept of Nash equilibrium has also had a profound influence on economic theory, which resulted in Nash’s receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994. Nash is one of the most famous sufferers of schizophrenia. His personal story was told in A Beautiful Mind, a 1998 book by Sylvia Nasar that was made into a major motion picture in 2001.
23. Glasstone S., and P. J. Dolan. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons.
24. “Nuke Effects” is available through Apple’s App Store.
25. NUKEMAP website: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/.
26. Jones B. “This Scary Interactive Map Shows What Happens If A Nuke Explodes In Your Neighborhood.”
27. Davis T. C. Stages of Emergency.
28. Duck and Cover was an official United States government civil defense film produced in 1951, geared toward children. It starred animated character Bert the Turtle portraying the act of ducking down and covering up his body as a demonstration of a useful method to protect oneself from an atomic bomb attack. On bomb shelters, see Rose K. D. One Nation Underground.
29. US Department of Defense. The Defense Science Board Permanent Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Surety: Report on the Unauthorized Movement of Nuclear Weapons, p. 7.
30. The USAF Counterproliferation Center is funded jointly by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the United States Air Force.
31. Spencer M., et al. “The Unauthorized Movement of Nuclear Weapons and Mistaken Shipment of Classified Missile Components: An Assessment.”
EPILOGUE: N-RAYS
1. Klotz I. M. “The N-ray affair.”
2. Blondlot actually used a “prism” made from aluminum rather than glass.