Radiation Exposure - As the levels of radiation instead of the crippled reactor in northern Japan, it raises a basic question: how long can the workers to fight to avoid complete collapse?
The workers are doing what has been described as heroic tasks, such as the use of fire fighting equipment to pump sea water in the three reactors not to keep nuclear fuel from melting and fire fighting in a fourth reactor.
They are operating in places that have been contaminated by radioactive isotopes from the four reactors. Technicians who have been evacuated to an escalation of the exhibition, and must be replaced if the fight will continue.
"If it exceeds a certain amount, you can not return in a day or a week or more," said Dr. Lew Pepper, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health, who has studied the effects of radiation on nuclear workers weapons. And the group of replacements available is finite, said: "What are you doing? You do not have a lot of people who can do this job."
The nuclear plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power, has refused to provide details on the workers.
Radiation Exposure - But Arnold Gundersen, a consultant who worked in the American plants are almost identical to the Japanese hit, said it was likely that the company was calling on retired workers from affected plants for help. And perhaps to the sacrifice, too. "You can also ask for people to volunteer to receive additional exposure," he said.
People who are working near the reactor - pumping water, or operating valves within the secondary containment structure - is almost certain to wear suits and air packs, Mr. Gundersen said. However, some forms of radiation can penetrate any kind of art.
Gamma rays and other penetrating radiation can cause cancer and other long-term or in large quantities, short-term illness or death.
health physicists should measure the radiation level in the work area, and workers are usually told how long you can stay. "There may be a health physicist will say, You only get one or two hours to make this work," said Gundersen. Each worker would wear a dosimeter, which measures exposure to radiation, "and they'll be looking at him," he said. "When you perform a certain number, must go."
Clothing and air bags are designed to keep radioactive particles from the skin and lungs to return workers to a safer area.
Workers are able to eliminate the gear in a specific way to avoid leaving the skin particles that would result in continued exposure.
While the rules may differ somewhat in Japan, the United States limit radiation exposure to normal nuclear power plant workers is 50 mSv, actual or 5 per year (compared with the actual 0.3 Agency Environmental Protection says that most people get from normal background radiation.) When there is an emergency, the limit can be raised to 25 reais, which is still well below the level at which people who have symptoms or become ill.
The explosion on the morning of reactor No. 2 on Tuesday sent Fukushima nailing radiation levels to 8217 from 1941 microsieverts one hour 40 minutes earlier. Later Tuesday, Japanese officials announced a much higher nuclear levels and evacuated most of the emergency workers.
During the accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, when the reactor caught fire, operators and firefighters received high doses of radiation, sometimes in minutes, without being aware of the dangers. More than two dozen of them died of acute radiation sickness. "People in Chernobyl were a bit overexposed," said Dr. Pepper. "The result of these people was death."
The permissible exposure assessment is usually based on three principles: distance, time and shielding. In Japanese plants, pollution, mean that long distance and shielding are really the factors, so that the control variable is time.
Mr. Gundersen said that when he worked at the Vermont Yankee plant, which is almost identical to some of the disabled Japanese reactors had a maintenance task in the "residence time" in which workers would be exposed to your annual limit is three minutes. He hired local farmers, trained in a model of two weeks, and then sent in his brief tenure. "Then I sent them home for a year," he said.
In Japan, the plant operators do not have the luxury of time for training. "You need someone who is familiar with the plant, because you need someone to do it now," said Gundersen.
Radiation Exposure - Japanese workers may be so compromised that might be willing to exceed the acceptable levels of exposure. But that would not extend to the extremely high radiation.
"I do not think anyone is going to take 50 rem" he said. "But if it is a difference between 5 and 7, one might say," I'll take it. It's worth the risk. "
Read the rest of this entry »»
The workers are doing what has been described as heroic tasks, such as the use of fire fighting equipment to pump sea water in the three reactors not to keep nuclear fuel from melting and fire fighting in a fourth reactor.
They are operating in places that have been contaminated by radioactive isotopes from the four reactors. Technicians who have been evacuated to an escalation of the exhibition, and must be replaced if the fight will continue.
"If it exceeds a certain amount, you can not return in a day or a week or more," said Dr. Lew Pepper, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health, who has studied the effects of radiation on nuclear workers weapons. And the group of replacements available is finite, said: "What are you doing? You do not have a lot of people who can do this job."
The nuclear plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power, has refused to provide details on the workers.
Radiation Exposure - But Arnold Gundersen, a consultant who worked in the American plants are almost identical to the Japanese hit, said it was likely that the company was calling on retired workers from affected plants for help. And perhaps to the sacrifice, too. "You can also ask for people to volunteer to receive additional exposure," he said.
People who are working near the reactor - pumping water, or operating valves within the secondary containment structure - is almost certain to wear suits and air packs, Mr. Gundersen said. However, some forms of radiation can penetrate any kind of art.
Gamma rays and other penetrating radiation can cause cancer and other long-term or in large quantities, short-term illness or death.
health physicists should measure the radiation level in the work area, and workers are usually told how long you can stay. "There may be a health physicist will say, You only get one or two hours to make this work," said Gundersen. Each worker would wear a dosimeter, which measures exposure to radiation, "and they'll be looking at him," he said. "When you perform a certain number, must go."
Clothing and air bags are designed to keep radioactive particles from the skin and lungs to return workers to a safer area.
Workers are able to eliminate the gear in a specific way to avoid leaving the skin particles that would result in continued exposure.
While the rules may differ somewhat in Japan, the United States limit radiation exposure to normal nuclear power plant workers is 50 mSv, actual or 5 per year (compared with the actual 0.3 Agency Environmental Protection says that most people get from normal background radiation.) When there is an emergency, the limit can be raised to 25 reais, which is still well below the level at which people who have symptoms or become ill.
The explosion on the morning of reactor No. 2 on Tuesday sent Fukushima nailing radiation levels to 8217 from 1941 microsieverts one hour 40 minutes earlier. Later Tuesday, Japanese officials announced a much higher nuclear levels and evacuated most of the emergency workers.
During the accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, when the reactor caught fire, operators and firefighters received high doses of radiation, sometimes in minutes, without being aware of the dangers. More than two dozen of them died of acute radiation sickness. "People in Chernobyl were a bit overexposed," said Dr. Pepper. "The result of these people was death."
The permissible exposure assessment is usually based on three principles: distance, time and shielding. In Japanese plants, pollution, mean that long distance and shielding are really the factors, so that the control variable is time.
Mr. Gundersen said that when he worked at the Vermont Yankee plant, which is almost identical to some of the disabled Japanese reactors had a maintenance task in the "residence time" in which workers would be exposed to your annual limit is three minutes. He hired local farmers, trained in a model of two weeks, and then sent in his brief tenure. "Then I sent them home for a year," he said.
In Japan, the plant operators do not have the luxury of time for training. "You need someone who is familiar with the plant, because you need someone to do it now," said Gundersen.
Radiation Exposure - Japanese workers may be so compromised that might be willing to exceed the acceptable levels of exposure. But that would not extend to the extremely high radiation.
"I do not think anyone is going to take 50 rem" he said. "But if it is a difference between 5 and 7, one might say," I'll take it. It's worth the risk. "
