>> ^ghark:
a regular chest xray would expose you to 0.06 mSv while a helical CT scan of the chest would expose you to 8 mSV - thirten hundred and thirty three times as much radiation (although the effective dose only ends up being about one hundred times as much).
If you mean the same thing with "mSv" both times (and not jumping between milli and micro or anything like that), then you're off by a factor of 10. 8 / 0.06 = 133.333333, not 1333 like you said. And if the effective dose follows the same pattern, then the CT scan would be about 10 times as much as the x-ray, though I don't know anything about that part.

I might be wrong but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that they are pretty much normal.

[edited to add:] Not that I'm trying to say that radiation's not dangerous or anything like that. I left my tinfoil hat in the closet where it belongs.

>> ^Jinx:

Is either model even relavent? aplha radiation has a hard time passing through a single sheet of paper or just several metres of air never mind layers of skin. I'm not sure how much beta or even gamma radiation you might be getting from the decay products though. I definitely wouldn't want to eat off it.
Part of the UK have sufficiently high radiation from radon gas that nuclear sites cannot be opened there because they'd already exceed legal radiation limits. I'd like to know what the cancer rates are like in those areas.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^ghark:
It's not made that clear in the video, but the reason he says that the plate is safe to store and handle, but not eat off is because Uranium 238 is usually an alpha emitter. Alpha radiation doesn't penetrate skin that well, but it is very dangerous when ingested and the soft tissues become exposed to it. Please correct me if I'm wrong there.

Depends on if you believe in radiation hormesis or linear no-threshold model . Most likely the truth is somewhere in-between (which by default makes hormesis "more" accurate). In the end, though, it is always best to avoid ingesting heavy metals, radioactive or not.
Learning lots about radiation as of late. There is a lot of fear factor behind it, even though our daily lives are pretty much consumed with radiation...NEATO! Bones full of radioactive carbon, potassium, you name it, you most likely have lots of radioactive isotopes of it Once again, truth stranger than fiction


I find the argument between those two models quite fascinating, they both make sense TBH. One interesting thing I found out recently was the enormous difference in radiation exposure between regular x-ray's and CT scans when visiting the doctor. It makes sense that CT scans expose you to more radiation because they make multiple passes to get a better image - however the difference astonished me - a regular chest xray would expose you to 0.06 mSv while a helical CT scan of the chest would expose you to 8 mSV - thirten hundred and thirty three times as much radiation (although the effective dose only ends up being about one hundred times as much). As a comparison point, the typical human is exposed to 2-3 mSv per year, so with a helical chest CT you're getting 3 years worth of radiation in a few seconds.

>> ^ghark:

It's not made that clear in the video, but the reason he says that the plate is safe to store and handle, but not eat off is because Uranium 238 is usually an alpha emitter. Alpha radiation doesn't penetrate skin that well, but it is very dangerous when ingested and the soft tissues become exposed to it. Please correct me if I'm wrong there.


Depends on if you believe in radiation hormesis or linear no-threshold model . Most likely the truth is somewhere in-between (which by default makes hormesis "more" accurate). In the end, though, it is always best to avoid ingesting heavy metals, radioactive or not.

Learning lots about radiation as of late. There is a lot of fear factor behind it, even though our daily lives are pretty much consumed with radiation...NEATO! Bones full of radioactive carbon, potassium, you name it, you most likely have lots of radioactive isotopes of it Once again, truth stranger than fiction

>> ^zor:

We could mine these ourselves but it is a filthy business. China should tell the US to fuck off and do it themselves.


We could, but all our stuff is usually mixed in with Thorium, and thanks to the EPA you have to treat it like toxic waste. Even though you could eat thorium and be totally fine, it only just barely radioactive.

As an aside, most of the food you consume is radioactive in some way, cool huh?! Hell, most of everything you interactive with has some level of radioactive decay. There is rising evidence of the benefits of small doses of radiation. The current Linear no-threshold model in many interesting cases has failed to show direct epidemiological evidence of increased cancer rates where background radiation levels are higher than other levels. It is all very interesting stuff, a far cry from the fear factor news media make radiation out to me. Turns out, the whole world is radioactive, and it might be the energy which fuels plate tectonics . Just an interesting aside from the whole radioactive carbon element of this

Truth stranger than fiction.

Old nuclear power plants produce deadly, cancer causing, bone deforming, face-melting radioactive sludge that will constantly be a threat to every human in a 50 mile radius for 10,000 lifetimes, so obviously nuclear power has one extremely large and worrisome drawback in its current iteration.

>> ^Kreegath:

Old nuclear power plants aren't impervious to tsunamis and powerful earth quakes simultaneously, so obviously nuclear power is bad.

The thing with looking at the danger of nuclear power is you have to make a more complicated comparison. It's not just nuclear power or "safe."

For fossil fuels you have to consider every:

* Oil spill, Oil Rig Fire, other fossil fuel related disasters (tanker truck fires, gas station fires, CO poisoning in houses, etc.) Recall for instance, in New Orleans during the flood the contents of refinery storage tanks were spread all over the city, and the Deep Water Horizons disaster that killed more people than Fukishima and caused fantastic amounts of ecological damage.

* The broad diffuse pollution of fossil fuel power stations and refineries (including particulates, global warming from C02, other heavy metals and nastiness released). This is released not only from power stations, but every tailpipe of the millions of cars in the world.

* The damage caused by getting fossil fuels out of the ground. Drilling, fracking, strip mining for coal, and the nastiness released from this.

* Wars. (ie. fossil fuels are running out, but we got enough fissile material to last a long, long time--not that there couldn't be wars over this too (lots of it is in unstable parts of Africa)).

In short, fossil fuels do a huge amount of damage, it's just not as acute and widely reported as when something goes wrong with nuclear, and doesn't carry the same, often irrational, fear that the media loves so much. For instance, some area of land infused with heavy metals is just as unlivable as an area of land infused with radioactive substances, but one we accept as normal pollution, and the other is worldwide, front page news.

The overall comparison is very complicated. My inclination is to think nuclear is better, but that's difficult because it involves mostly *potential* problems, not actual quantifiable problems as with fossil fuels. There will probably never be a good study comparing the two given how much irrational fear and corporate interest is involved.

Wind, solar, and geothermal are very nice and should always be part of the equation, but it's pretty well accepted that it can't actually come near to replacing fossil fuels or nuclear in terms of energy output at any cost.

>> ^Ariane:

Did Fukushima not teach you shills for the nuclear industry anything? Nuclear energy is far from clean or cheap. The cost of a nuclear power plant exceeds the cost of electricity it will produce which is why there has never been a privately financed nuclear plant EVER!


I know what you're trying to say, but when your opening gambit is calling people nuclear industry shills, you sound like a lunatic. I mean, i think it's fair to say that only a lunatic would think there are not just one but multiple nuclear shills dedicated to promoting nuclear power on the sift.

Renewable so far isn't enough, and the cost of nuclear power mostly comes from handling the fuel and waste it seems. So with nuclear we have to spend a lot of money (and some fossil fuels) to handle the materials. On the other hand with fossil fuels, we spend less but hurt the environment more. But then we need to consider how long we can go on burying or sinking radioactive material and/or rendering huge areas of our limited planet uninhabitable, we need another solution which is almost certainly fusion.

Fusion is an engineering problem right now. Perhaps a technology/cost problem especially during a recession. Anyone with any money left to put into hopeful energy tech has it in the form of oil (because that's going nowhere and we damn well need it) and why would they promote that?

Yep. They have discussed in previous videos though the only kind of radioactives they get to deal with are really weak.

I think the reason why no one said any of the radioactives is because they're stable. You can deal with the radiation easily. Something that becomes sulfuric acid on contact with the water in the air, or poisonous and unstable materials, the unknown factor, I think is what makes them jump a little.

@bmacs87 exactly. Maybe a majority of people support this issue. But that's not the same as saying the majority of the electorate, the likely voters, do. Surely Obama knows this, and will not risk his reelection on such a radioactive question with little upside for whatever answer he gives. And I don't know why some of you are so indignant that Obama won't do something so ineffective and stupid.

Yep I was surprised they didn't talk to uranium boy for this one. Maybe they agreed amongst themselves not to spread radioactive fear. Or maybe the exhaustive controls they have around radioactive materials means that it generally isn't a danger feel about it. Or maybe it's their limited access to anything that is ...dangerously.. radioactive. I think probably the last reason is correct.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Interesting that no one mentioned radioactives. Probably because the biggest danger about them is the fear of them. These guys wouldn't be afraid of a little plutonium.