WSJ: Japanese Exporters Screen Shipments for Radiation

[Poll_Blind]

From Wall Street Journal:

TOKYO— Since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, many global consumers have equated "Made in Japan" with "potentially radioactive," hurting business across the country.

That has fueled a boom in demand for radiation-testing equipment from exporters, such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd., seeking to reassure overseas clients that their cars, computers and other products are safe.

--snip--

In areas relatively distant from the nuclear plant, the public's fears about contamination revolve more around food, as authorities have found higher-than-permissible levels of radioactivity in various types of farm and fishery products.

Experts say it is highly unlikely for any industrial products, even those manufactured at plants in Fukushima, to be unsafe.

"We can basically assume that the industrial products currently shipped out are safe," says Naoya Inoue, professor of physics at Saitama University. Even if the area's airborne radiation is higher than usual, the levels inside factory buildings are much lower than outside, he says.

First, as always, you should really read the whole article. Couple of things:

:bluebox: Japanese corporate interests don't give a shit if my child gets cancer, just about getting a product qualified for export
:bluebox: The Japanese government along with TEPCO do not have the situation under control at Fukushima nuclear reactor and things are getting worse.
:bluebox: They have lied in the past and continue to lie about how much radiation is being released
:bluebox: There is quite a bit of ambiguity about what elements are being released and in what concentrations. For instance, TEPCO only acquired a detector used for Plutonium two weeks after Reactor No. 3 exploded, possibly later.
:bluebox: The Japanese are not being honest with their own people. Why should I believe their corporate interests have my family's safety at heart?

This is about ticking off a box so they can say that get that product on a ship where it may or may not be inspected on arrival and almost certainly with less-sensitive or modern equipment than it was when it was shipped. I spent a great deal of time trying to untangle the reports of, for instance, the number of Bequerels in the ocean off Japan and trying to convert that to Sieverts, which is something you can actually use to find out how dangerous the radiation is.

Well you can't do it like that. You have to be aware of what is releasing the radiation. If you Count Per Minute is registering 60 decays, for instance, you have no idea whether those decays are coming from Cesium-131, which has a half-life of about 10 days, Cesium-137 which has a half-life of about 30 years or Uranium-235 (a component of MOX fuel, used in Reactor No. 3, which has a half-life of 700 million years.

It is not so easy if you take a bunch of highly radioactive things and blow them up to figure exactly what elements are giving you the readings. This point is very important to understand. I was previously (before Fukushima) under the impression that all radiation from radioactive material was "the same". This is just not true.



See that little handy chart? Notice there are a number of types of radiation and that they penetrate to different depths, depending on the material? Ok, so without particle detectors that measure all types of radiation, and without knowing what is putting off the radiation (Cesium, Uranium, Plutonium, etc.) you all you do is have a little box that goes -click- every few seconds. But what element is causing it to go go "click" (registering a decay, a "count") is not answered.

This shit is going to be exported out to any part of the world that doesn't agressively protect its citizens from contaminated commercial goods

What's your gut feeling on how well the US is going to do a job of that?

PB

[RC]

1. I wonder how many paranoid anti-nukers do not have microwave ovens

Because they are afraid of the residual radiation from cooking when they open the door after the food is done?
After all the food is nuked, isn't it?


Before anyone falls down laughing, I knew a person who did not have a microwave for just that reason.

[snagglepuss]

2. How easy is it for manufactured goods to be contaminated by radiation?

Would the factories have to be relatively near Fukushima? Could manufactured goods get contaminated while being shipped in trucks?

[Poll_Blind]

3. Manufactured goods or their shipping containers can become contaminated at any...

...stage in the manufacturing and shipping process. It entirely, and I mean entirely, depends on the circumstances under which the goods were produced, the component materials used to make the goods, and by what methods and routes the goods are moved to the shipping channel.

Remeber, there are areas outside of the exclusion zone, pockets of land to be specific, which are more radioactive than certain pockets of land inside the exclusion zone. Such is the nature of fallout, really. It's not necessarily always going to adhere to a nice, predictable pattern.

PB