How dangerous is radiation in the long Term?

[Kampfbaer]

An interesting article, stating that radiation might in the long term be less dangerous, than previously thought.


http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,519043,00.html
(Article is in English)

[Kitsune]

Nice that this revelations have by now found their way into the Spiegel. That the dangers of radioactivity have been wildly exaggerated by the media for years was actually known for some time now - one just needed to talk to some nuclear physicists to learn that. Wether anything about this will change now has to be seen. The problem is that for the Green movement the incredible dangers of radioactivity are at the very heart and beginning of their ideology, for them it is next to impossible to admit that in reality these dangers are not as great as they told everyone for the last three decades. And out of some reason, the Greens have been especially strong in Germany.

[WKD]

Journalists are stupid. This article doesn't actually say that radiation is not as dangerous as thought, all it says is that the area was not as contaminated as previously believed. Someone needs to meet a scandal quota. Radioactive isotopes become safer with time? Yeah, it's called a half-life, this has been known for, oh, 100 years or so. Ingesting alpha particles has not suddenly become a safe thing to do.



Although the Techa was abused as a nuclear waste dump, the abuse was not as severe as the rumor-mongers would have us believe.


Hey, there you go.

Then we have this gem:




The findings hardly jive with the popular image of the atom as evil incarnate.

Oh **** off journo. If a site is less polluted than thought then of course there is going to be less pollution! Holy **** who would have thought.

I'll summarise the article: polluted site less polluted than thought. Radioactive contamination decreasing with time as usual. Bored journalist fills quota.

[vinny_121_ND]

I took a course in medical physics. You're going to need a lot of x rays before something bad happens. Even technicians who work in a power plant are pretty safe. We are constantly bombarded with radiation (high energy, short wave radiation from the sun)

[JJC]

OK so why are some parts of Chernobyl still a no go? How much time before radiation levels become safe?

[WKD]

I took a course in medical physics. You're going to need a lot of x rays before something bad happens. Even technicians who work in a power plant are pretty safe. We are constantly bombarded with radiation (high energy, short wave radiation from the sun)

Yeah, this is true. UV radiation still kills a lot of people every year down here though; Australia and New Zealand have the highest skin cancer rates in the world IIRC. It's just a sublime to the ridiculous situation.

Thing is though, this article doesn't say that radiation is safer than previously thought; my munching away on a hot alpha emitter isn't suddently going to give me super-powers rather than lethal internal damage. All it says as far as I see is that a particular site is less polluted than thought and that it's getting less so over time, which is to be expected.

Crap like this is why I only read industry mags these days.

[WKD]

OK so why are some parts of Chernobyl still a no go? How much time before radiation levels become safe?

It depends entirely on the level contamination and the type of contamninant. The (very little) substance of this article is that there is less contamination in one site than previously thought. The journalist then added some bull**** fluff and a straw man or two to pad their crap out.

[Tokamak]

That the effects of those accidents have been exagerated has been known for some time. In any case accidents like those mentioned should never happen again. Even if a few hundred die that's still a lot to me. I for one support the use of nuclear energy.

[noname]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving yes?