[lbo-talk] More on Fukushima

Somebody Somebody philos_case at yahoo.com
Sun Jun 26 12:09:31 PDT 2011


Chuck Grimes: A volunteer plotted the 6300 data points and discovered two band like areas. One reached south 225 kilometers to outskirts of Toyko. The other southwest. The radiation level was 0.4 microsieverts per hour, or 3.5 millisieverts per year.

Somebody: According to the U.N., the world average is 2.4 millisieverts per year:

http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/gareport.pdf

However, this seems to vary from place to place a great deal. The same document says that natural background radiation can be anywhere between 1 and 10 millisiverts per year. According to here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12722435

Australia naturally has only 1.5 millisieverts per year background radiation, while North America has twice that at 3.0 millisieverts.

Other sources seem to converge on these figures:

"Radiation level: The average person is exposed to 2 to 3 millisieverts of background radiation per year from a combination of cosmic radiation and emissions from building materials and natural radioactive substances in the environment.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommends that beyond this background level, the public limit their exposure to less than an additional one millisievert per year. The U.S. limit for radiation workers is 50 millisieverts annually, although few workers are exposed to anything approaching that amount. For patients undergoing medical radiation there is no strict exposure limit—it is the responsibility of medical professionals to weigh the risks and benefits of radiation used in diagnostics and treatment, according to Langhorst. A single CT scan, for example, can expose a patient to more than one millisievert."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-radiation-threatens-health



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