Sensational(ist) article; you can save this handy summary as a mad-lib for future posts, and it will always be true!

Is *horrible thing* from *far-away place* in the Washington State air? No, and even if *horrible thing* was released, there's nothing to worry about anyway because it wouldn't be a problem.

So fill in the elements and we get:

Is *artificial popcorn butter flavoring* from *New Berlin, Wisconsin* in the Washington State air? No, and even if *artificial popcorn butter flavoring* was released, there's nothing to worry about anyway because it wouldn't be a problem.

See how that works? The best part is, if anything from so far away was ever powerful enough for Washington to worry about, you don't have to worry about the truthiness of the article, because we're all fucked anyway.

I'm so tired of the media giving worst case scenarios with out even explaining the details of what has *actually* happened and how what has actually happened could possibly effect people and the environment. I have panicked family members calling me from the mid west telling me to buy iodine tablets and to duct tape my windows because of this worst case scenario bullshit.

Oh and PS - here is what the IAEA actually says (those are the actual experts) http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsun…

Japan´s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) has provided the IAEA with further information about the hydrogen explosion that occurred today at the Unit 3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. A hydrogen explosion occurred at unit 3 on 14 March at 11:01 am local Japan time.

All personnel at the site are accounted for. Six people have been injured.

The reactor building exploded but the primary containment vessel was not damaged. The control room of Unit 3 remains operational.

The IAEA continues to liaise with the Japanese authorities and is monitoring the situation as it evolves.

All four units automatically shut down on 11 March. All units have off-site power and water levels in all units are stable. Though preparations have been made to do so, there has been no venting to control pressure at any of the plant´s units.

At Unit 1, plant operators were able to restore a residual heat remover system, which is now being used to cool the reactor. Work is in progress to achieve a cold shutdown of the reactor.

Workers at Units 2 and 4 are working to restore residual heat removal systems.

Unit 3 is in a safe, cold shutdown.

Radiation dose rate measurements observed at four locations around the plant´s perimeter over a 16-hour period on 13 March were all normal.

You mean we're not all going to DIE!?!?!?!?!? Well, that's a real let down.

I really would like to have the news media to actually report what is happening and interview people who actually know what the hell is going on because they are on the ground dealing with the nuclear power plants that are having the problems. I'm beyond disgusted by the couch experts everyone is interviewing going over the worse possible senario.

If anyone's interested, the Guardian has a live-blog set up, and you can click the "on" button and set the page to refresh every minute:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/201…

(not nearly as much fun as the World Cup Live Slogs, but informative, nonetheless...and no foreskinjuries.)

I asked this the other day, but everyone was too busy being Terribly Important: Does anyone know if we got any radiation after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I know they were pretty small bombs, compared to todays's ridiculous, blow-up-the-world-thirty-times bombs, but I'm sure they spread a lot of horrid things about.

I seriously doubt that anybody even thought to measure it back then, Catalina.

this is a really simple and clearly writ description of what exactly is going on: http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fu…

@9: Dear god thank you for that link! Could I ask that perhaps you e-mail it directly to Goldy and Charles so we can coax them from the bomb shelter they have built out of sofa cushions in the office?

Canuck, lovely link - and LIssa, I second that.

Catalina, I found this American Scientist article that confirms 5280's understanding that distant dosimetry wasn't measured when we dropped the bombs on Japan, and notes there wouldn't have been much blowback in our direction in any case:

The two nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were detonated at relatively high altitudes above the ground and produced minimal fallout. Most of the injuries to the populations within 5 kilometers of the explosions were from heat and shock waves; direct radiation was a major factor only within 3 kilometers. Most of what we know about late health effects of radiation in general, including increased cancer risk, is derived from continuing observations of survivors exposed within 3 kilometers.

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/…

For a local view on possible atmsopheric drift, someone in comments referred to the reliable Prof. Cliff Mass (thanks to everyone in comments this weekend who offered links): http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/03/la…

One very important distinction that people need to understand, and I'm not sure whether the way the article is written is poorly worded or actually misunderstands thing, is that there is a difference between "radiation" and something being "radioactive."

The simplest analogy is the chemicals in those light sticks that you crack and shake. The chemicals give off the light. The only way to have the source of that light spread is to actually get spattered with the chemicals. (Remember, visible light is a form of radiation.)

You can't have "radiation in the air." What you can have is radioactive particles that travel in the air. So, really, no matter how radioactive something in Japan is, it isn't going to affect Seattle unless something radioactive gets sprayed in the air, like steam, or soot, or something else. And even then, it is only that actual atoms of particular elements that will be radioactive. Water doesn't really get very radioactive. So we'd essentially have to have a spray of steam so big that enough of it would get into the air that it wouldn't disperse by the time it hit the US.

That's possible, but unlikely. It's also one of the reasons why water reactors are the most common kind. The reactor at Chernobyl used liquid carbon instead of water, and when it caught fire, the carbon soot entered the air. The environment has far fewer mechanisms for a cloud of soot than it does for a cloud of steam.

Isn't the released material mostly cesium anyway? Wouldn't you take potassium, not iodine, to stop absorption?

@13 if you read my article that I posted (#9) you'll learn all of this. Seems that its mostly steam that was released from this plant.

@4, you copied paragraphs 6-10 of your comment from a different section of the IAEA update that refer to Fukushima II (Daini), a different plant with 4 reactors that is 7 miles south of Fukushima I (Dai-ichi), which has 6 reactors. The biggest problems are at Fukushima I. Please be careful when smooshing information together.

Catalina;

post-Hiroshim and Nagasaki, the US was too busy stroking its meat over its technical prowess and moral superiority to be sharing information with the public about radiation.

In fact, there is much evidence to show that they were not only downplaying effects of radiation, but categorically saying that there WERE no negative effects from radiation. In the mockumentary Atomic Cafe, you can see boat loads of US Gummint-produced propaganda crapsules designed to get the American People to believe that those pesky nukes were something you could survive simply by rolling on the ground next to the curb, or by pulling your jacket or newspaper over your head.

If you are hungry for some seriously dark humor, I would highly recommend you or anyone else to watch the Atomic Cafe. Your (lyin' ass M-F'ers) tax dollars hard at work.

In answer to your original question, radiation undoubtedly blew across the Pacific to the US Mainland. There is no way that it could not. However, nuke BOMBS' focus is/was on explosive force, ie, knocking down buildings, vaporizing stuff, etc. Nuclear Fallout was merely a nice side bennie. The 'shroom clouds rose to above 40,000 feet, high enough to catch a ride on the jet stream which would take them eastward.

Now, of far greater concern were/are the nuke tests we conducted right here in the US of A. You can google them on the wiki, see little clips and stuff, but we blew up dozens of these things, of ever-increasing yield and of ever-decreasing size.

There was even something called Operation Ploughshare, which, if you can believe this, was to put Atom Bombs to use in excavation and construction. The idea was: blow a hole in a mountain where you'd like a road to go through, and save the money and man-hours dynamiting and drilling through.

The only reason the idea was shelved was NOT because of radiation released, but because in tests, most of the soil blasted out of the crater made by the bomb fell right back into that crater, making A-Bomb-Based excavation not very productive in a dollars and cents sense.

...but not in the common sense sense.

probably more than you wanted to know, but it'll give you something to twitter about with friends in the event you have to duct tape yourselves into your bathrooms.

Interesting article, gus...I was Googling what Catalina said, I not only did I not find anything "official," it looked like a bunch of other people were using similar search terms, all within the last few days...I am somewhat reassured by what everyone's been posting recently, perhaps not as dire as I had assumed initially?

Catalina;

post-Hiroshim and Nagasaki, the US was too busy stroking its meat over its technical prowess and moral superiority to be sharing information with the public about radiation.

In fact, there is much evidence to show that they were not only downplaying effects of radiation, but categorically saying that there WERE no negative effects from radiation. In the mockumentary Atomic Cafe, you can see boat loads of US Gummint-produced propaganda crapsules designed to get the American People to believe that those pesky nukes were something you could survive simply by rolling on the ground next to the curb, or by pulling your jacket or newspaper over your head.

If you are hungry for some seriously dark humor, I would highly recommend you or anyone else to watch the Atomic Cafe. Your (lyin' ass M-F'ers) tax dollars hard at work.

In answer to your original question, radiation undoubtedly blew across the Pacific to the US Mainland. There is no way that it could not. However, nuke BOMBS' focus is/was on explosive force, ie, knocking down buildings, vaporizing stuff, etc. Nuclear Fallout was merely a nice side bennie. The 'shroom clouds rose to above 40,000 feet, high enough to catch a ride on the jet stream which would take them eastward.

Now, of far greater concern were/are the nuke tests we conducted right here in the US of A. You can google them on the wiki, see little clips and stuff, but we blew up dozens of these things, of ever-increasing yield and of ever-decreasing size.

There was even something called Operation Ploughshare, which, if you can believe this, was to put Atom Bombs to use in excavation and construction. The idea was: blow a hole in a mountain where you'd like a road to go through, and save the money and man-hours dynamiting and drilling through.

The only reason the idea was shelved was NOT because of radiation released, but because in tests, most of the soil blasted out of the crater made by the bomb fell right back into that crater, making A-Bomb-Based excavation not very productive in a dollars and cents sense.

...but not in the common sense sense.

probably more than you wanted to know, but it'll give you something to twitter about with friends in the event you have to duct tape yourselves into your bathrooms.

I wouldn't worry.

We're fine, so long as we don't learn from mistakes and stop trying to build deeply buried tunnels below sea level in a factor 9 earthquake zone like Seattle.

Cliff Mass has a couple of interesting posts on his blog illustrating the potential track of particles that may be released into the atmosphere - it's good to be prepared, but it's also good to remember that any radioactive materials that become airborne aren't taking a beeline for downtown Seattle, either.

Regardless I'll be sure to purchase iodized salt and sprinkle it all over my bananas from here on out...

@16 yah I should have put a break in but I was so furious at the rediculous shit being spouted by the media. I had a family member from the midwest seriously tell me I should duct tape my windows and buy iodine tablets because there is a cloud of radiation coming for the west coast.

There isn't an eye roll in the world big enough.

Do you want solid professional answers try fairewinds.com Arnie Gundersen used too work for the company that installed those reactors but quit for SAFETY reasons!

If you real professional answers try fairewinds.com Arnie Gundersen used too work for the company that installed those reactors but quit for SAFETY reasons!