March 22, 2011 • 35 mins
The recent disaster in Japan has caused massive damage and killed thousands -- but that's not all: The Fukushima nuclear plant may possibly be on the verge of a meltdown. Tune in to learn how meltdowns work, and what a meltdown would mean for Japan.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, And that makes this Stuff you
(00:22):
Should Know kind of a special edition. Really, we don't
usually like hop on news stories. Yeah, you can't ignore
this up and I guess probably releasing something like a
full week after it happens is not hopping on. But
still now it's people have concerns and there's a lot
of information flying around. Everyone's trying to explain this thing
(00:43):
and the simplest terms, and since that's what we do
for a living, we figured we should do it. Yes,
so that's what we're doing that. They were going to
talk about um nuclear meltdowns and how it pertains to
the crisis in Japan. Right, Yeah, and it's a lot
more basic and simple than I thought. I was intimidated
going into this, and then I was like, oh, well
that's not too hard to understand. Yeah, it is nuclear science,
(01:05):
but it's kind of approachable nuclear science degree. So Chuck, um,
let's talk about catastrophe modeling. It's a type of risk
modeling that insurance companies love. It's how they figure out
why your insurance should be less than say, somebody else
of the same age, weight, height, the kind of thing
(01:25):
who lives in California. Right, UM, my former self. Yeah.
So you can actually, um take a catastrophe model, right
and plug in every variable you can think of, and
what you'll spit out is UM basically a a curve,
a graph of probability of an accident happening, and then say,
(01:50):
like the the level of damage that will happen. Okay,
So if you do this over like say a ten
thousand year catalog, you can figure out how off and say, uh,
nine point oh earthquake is going to hit Japan, And
you can figure that out by choosing a probability. Let's
say there's four percent probability of a nine point oh happening.
(02:12):
You can find that that pops up maybe forty times
over a ten thousand year scale. And what you have
then is that that's a one and two D and
fifty year probability. That's where they get the predictor yeah, exactly,
and that's why UM power plants are that's how they're
built to withstand something like a once in a two
fifty year quake, saying it could happen in this area,
(02:35):
so we need to account for it. Right. And it's
based on the dynamics, the geophysical dynamics of an earthquake
of a nine point oh magnitude right. Because you've got
all that plugged in the model, you figure out how much,
how bad it's going to be, how often it's gonna happen,
and then you build accordingly. And these the plants on
the north coast of Japan, the TEPCO's Tokyo Electric Power Company, right, uh,
(03:00):
their Daichi and Daini plants UM number one and number
two plants in Fukushima UM were built to a stand
a two fifty year quake, which is exactly what they
got on March eleven. Yeah, they were, and they withstood it.
They did. Everything went fine, they shut down the reactors,
which is what's supposed to happen to its sweet But
the problem was it was stood an earthquake, a huge earthquake,
(03:24):
possibly the most massive earthquake that's ever hit Japan, but
it didn't withstand the tsunami. It's this model, whatever the
model it was built for did not predict the tsunami.
It didn't take it into account, and that's why we
have this this crisis right now. Right so we should
probably also mention that the the focus right now is
on um, you know, this nuclear potential nuclear meltdown. But um,
(03:48):
I mean the tsunami is up to like I think
fifteen thousand dead and missing now just from the tsunami alone.
Are they calculating the tsunami different from the earthquake as
far as that goes, I would not me. Okay, so
possibly because I read seven thousand, but that might just
be maybe there's different numbers that could know. I think
that's just dead. This is like dead and missing. So yeah,
(04:11):
but now you've gotten an earthquake that just knocked down
a bunch of stuff, you have a tsunami that took
out entire towns, and then you have this this nuclear
crisis that's unfolding, and um, you know this is going
to release in a few days. So we'll have to
make do with the information that we have, right Yeah,
unless something like really really big happens between today, which
is Thursday and Tuesday, we might have to come back
(04:33):
in and like doctor it up a bit, right, This
is what we're going with for now. Yes, So Chuck,
let's talk a little bit about how, uh if you
walk around a nuclear power plant, where are you going
to find what's going on there? Well, it's pretty easy, actually, Um.
And this is something that I didn't know because I
didn't know a whole lot about nuclear power at all
until this happened. And basically, what a nuclear power plant
(04:56):
does is it creates one of the oldest model oles
for creating energy, which is steam powered UH turbines. And
how they do that they basically use nuclear fuel, which
these days is enriched uranium. The uranium atom split creates
a lot of heat. UH neutrons flying around also creates
(05:17):
is created by that process, and this heat boils water
in the case of these UH reactors, these are water
boiling reactors. And we'll talk about more the mark one
here in a minute, and it produces basically boils's water,
produces steam. That steam drives a turbine generates power about
a gigawatt of electricity at full power, which is a lot, right,
(05:39):
and um, that is a tremendous amount. And that full power, UM,
the heat that's being put out um Marshall who wrote
a really cool he's the founder of the site. Yes,
yes he does. He wrote a very um incredible article
in record time called how Japan's Nuclear Crisis works. But um,
he said that this puts out the heat. Um, that's
(06:00):
akin to about a billion watt bulb. That's that full power.
The thing is, obviously you don't always need your nuclear
reactors to be running at full power. So UM, what
you do is you modulate how much heat is being
put out by um using what are called control rods. Yeah,
sort of like the throttle on your gas right, but
(06:21):
instead of Yeah, but the the control rod is basically
something like, UM, maybe a boron enriched length of metal
that is inserted into the fuel rod core, right, And
if you pull it out a little bit, then it
heats up. If you push it in a little bit
that it heats down. So and and by heat, I
guess I could say it powers up and it powers down, right, Yeah,
(06:44):
because it's attracting the neutrons. Then the neutrons are what
basically make the splitting of the atom happen. And that's
the problem there is it's self sustaining. So if you
didn't have these control rods, it becomes you know, it's
own living reaction. Well, it'll just it would just keep going, right,
it will keep going as long as you can can,
(07:06):
as long as you could keep it cool and just
be running at max power all the time. Right now,
when an earthquake hits, one of the fail safe designed
into any nuclear reactor is that the control rods are
going to get jammed in all the way, which is
called scramming. And when the um, when the reactor is scrammed,
all the control roads are shut down, all the sheil
(07:26):
roads are shut down because there's these control rods just
accepting all the neutrons. And like you said, the neutrons
are the active ingredient in nuclear fission because they're just
making all the atoms in the surrounding area unstable. Right.
But it's important to point out that even when they're
fully inserted and it's shut down, it's still creating keat
And here's the problem. Small amount of heat, but it's
enough heat if left unchecked, to potentially cause what's called
(07:50):
the meltdown. Right. So this heat that you're talking about
chuck is called decay heat. And I've read places where
it lasts a week. I've read that it lasts for
a year, and I think it acts really last for
a year. It takes a year for a fuel rod
to actually shut down, to to go to shut down state,
where like it doesn't need to be cooled any longer
with water, right, So when you scram something like they
(08:13):
did on March eleven, it's not just gonna cool down
right away. And that's the problem that we're dealing with
right now is this decay heat, which, like you said,
is still it's it's a ridiculous amount of heat, and
it requires tons of cooling, right, which normally should be
fine because the Dachi plant with reactors went through four
I have cooling systems and lots of them, right. Yeah,
(08:34):
it's a closed loop. So what happens is the water
boils and creates a lot of pressure. The pressure is
released the esteem uh and the steam actually gets cooled,
condensed and reused like a closed loop air conditioning system,
not a whole lot different, and the water is recirculated.
That water is recirculated back through the system with these
(08:54):
electric pumps, and those electric pumps are the key to
keep in everything cool and the problem, uh, well, well
we'll get to the problem. Um, they have a lot
of fail safes in place because you know, they don't
just plug the pump into the wall and say all right,
we're good to go, because that would be bad if
the power went down. Uh, there are backup electric pumps.
There are backup Uh if if the power goes down,
(09:19):
you can actually um, because I believe it's using its
own nuclear power to generate to operate these pumps. This
is an electricity generating nuclear power plants. It's running itself.
But once the plant shuts down, which is what they did,
they say, okay, we can grab electricity from the grid,
but the grid shut down. Yes, that just shut the
grid down to pretty much right after the control rods
(09:40):
were scrammed into the into the reactors. So they have
another backup there, Like, all right, we got these diesel generators,
which are diesel generators are great, they do a great job. Uh.
Tsunami comes in water on top of electrical or I'm sorry,
diesel generators makes them to not operate. Yeah, they were submerged.
They weren't designed to operate and submerged. Now and then
(10:00):
they said, all right, we've got all these backups in place.
The final backup we have is a battery system. Battery
system kicked in, it worked great, but the problem is
it only works for a little bit of you know,
like how many hours. I don't know if it's said
a few several hours, because the idea is that the
battery system is in dire emergency until you get the
grid back going, which shouldn't take that long. Um. Now. Also,
(10:22):
transport transportation was knocked out. Supply routes are knocked out,
there's no power. They try to get more diesel generators there,
but they just couldn't get them in time. Right. Um,
So we have a nuclear power plant without power to
run these cooling systems. And these are boiled water reactors,
which means that the water, um you know, like you said,
(10:45):
chuck it, it gets its energy or it creates electricity
by boiling water. Now, these fuel rods are so hot,
even with this decay heat that the moment water hits them,
even boiling water, the boiled water is keeping them cool.
They're so hot they just have to remain underwater. Let's
just keep them underwater. That's the key. The problem is
is they create tons of steam, and that steam is
(11:08):
what is what runs the turbine, and then after it
access the turbine, like you said, it's condensed and then
reused as coolant. Right, But if the those pumps aren't working,
all it's doing is producing steam, boiling off water and
basically getting rid of the only coolant source they have. Yeah,
and if water gets hot enough, it actually something called
(11:28):
thermalisis takes place, and that's when it breaks down into
constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms or in this case um
hydrogen gas, which is really really explosive. And that's that's
actually a pretty normal byproduct of even like the proper
functioning of a boil water reactor plan. So they have
(11:48):
procedures in place to vent steam normally, but they burn
the hydrogen, often a slow control burn when they're venting
it to reduce radioactivity and to you know, keep explosions
from happening. Then you may be wondering why would they
design a system with that uses water to cool and
(12:10):
and nothing else. The point, the whole reason that somebody
ever designed the Mark one or boil water reactor is
that it's actually has a failsafe built in the fact
that it uses water as a coolant and what's called
a neutron modulator which keeps that thing from going like
out of control past, you know, just to sustain max power.
(12:33):
Nuclear fission is whatever you're using as a new neutron
modulator or moderator. I'm sorry. So as long as the
neutron moderator there, you can have fission nuclear fission. But
if the if you can't get the control rods in
in time and the coolant goes away, the the fuel
actually won't be able to continue in a fission state
(12:57):
because the neutron mod moderator is not there. So you
don't have the cooling, but at least you don't have
a meltdown um from nuclear fission, which is really horrible. Right,
So that's why they have this boiled water reactor. But
the problem is this water served as a fail safe
and it's achilles heel and in this case, shosh the
hydrogen gas we were talking about, the normal reaction got
(13:18):
worse because the water boil away. These fuel tubes were
now exposed to air. They got really really hot and
started cracking. And the little uranium fuel pellets I think
they're the size of a Tootsie roll, right, Uh, they
overheated and and cracked and allowed water to get in there,
and water is not supposed to be in there. And
(13:38):
that's where you had this massive hydrogen gas explosion. And
I think was it one of them, two of them,
I think it was several different reactors had this explosion
within the reactor building itself. It wasn't like the whole
thing exploded, it was it was contained within the building,
they hope, they think, really exactly. So we're still getting
(14:00):
news at this point because they there's a small number
of people, you know, on the ground, and they're not
all like on the phone with Anderson Cooper, right so
the information on the inside isn't that readily available right now.
So there were there were several explosions, Chuck, I think
it was like reactors one and three had explosions from
this hydrogen gas. They were venting it, they didn't burn
(14:22):
it off properly, and the hydrogen built up and up
and up and um. You remember, you know, you need
to keep these things wet. You have to keep them
underwater under any circumstances whatsoever. They have to be cool constantly.
They have to remain underwater. So without these backup generators,
without the battery power, generators without their normal electricity, without anything.
(14:45):
They finally decide we need to flood these things with seawater,
boron and enriched seawater. And it was a chemical reaction
between the sea water and the hydrogen that caused these explosions. Yeah,
which we should say this is very very very very important.
That was a conventional chemical explosion, right. It was not
(15:07):
a nuclear bomb, right, it's not. It's not possible for
a nuclear reactor to blow up like in a nuclear explosion.
It's not possible. The danger, like with chernobyl and anything
is is leaking radiation. It's not like a Hiroshima type
of event, right, So that happens. Um To to create
a nuclear bomb, what you have to do is take
(15:30):
um radioactive material in a subcritical state, which is like
what you might have in your front pocket right now. Shucks, right,
it's just plain old lump of uranium. Who cares, right,
and you have to explode it so fast to create
a chain reaction that uses up all of that subcritical
(15:50):
material that it skips over the critical stage and goes
right into supercritical. The precision that that requires makes it
that there's probably like five people on the planet right now,
they know how to build a nuclear bomb like that.
You can't just do that with fuel. The big threat
is the melting of the fuel, right, right, And so
they flooded it with seawater, to which ruins the reactors forever,
(16:13):
by the way, we should mention, but that's a better scenario.
And apparently these are forty year old reactors that were
not on its last legs as far as they're about
to break, but they were near the end of their
operating lifespans. Do you want to hear something horrible? Reaction
Number one went online on March, so it should have gone.
(16:35):
It should have been decommissioned on March eleven. Really there
was actually a date there should have been. But apparently
TEPCO applied for and received a tenure extension on its
operating licenses for those interesting Yeah, so what what what
we have some information here? What does this all mean
to the world at large? Well, here's the big problem.
(16:56):
Like we said that the fuel isn't going to explode,
but it's going to melt, right, And said Chuck that
these little fuel pellets in the fuel rods are like
the size of a tutsie roll in about the shape, right,
if it melts. If this when this stuff hits air,
it begins to melt, and if it melts, it will
no longer be able to be cooled because it's going
(17:16):
to be a big, flat, dense glob of nuclear fuel
that's melting and collecting inside of this containment vessel. Right,
So the operative word is containment vessel. This extremely hot
nuclear fuel that's forming a pool can conceivably melt through
the containment vessel. And once that happens, if it when
(17:40):
it encounters the concrete barrier, this which is like the
fail safe of fail safe. This it's it should not
be able to melt through that, it's possible it could,
and if it does, then you have you have nuclear
fuel in the environment, and that's when it's it's beyond
catastrophe level. Yeah, And that's a containment vessel that's completely
(18:03):
functional and intact. And we don't know what kind of
damage these explosions of cause they might be compromised from
the inside to make containment even more difficult. Who knows
at this point. So the the explosions were kind of
um jarring, you could say, right, the explosions that reactors
one in three. Yes, there is a fire at UM
(18:23):
reactor four UM. But apparently one of the big problems
is a bunch of spent fuel that's no longer being
cooled at reactor too. And while when this fuel melts,
it can catch on fire. So vapor is bad enough,
but if it catches fire, smoke is what's really going
(18:45):
to get you. It will create and carry further UM
radioactive particles that UM has a much longer half life
than the stuff that's going to come out in the vapor. Right,
that's the threat. That's a big threat threat. Uh. So
we mentioned that it was the Mark one boiling water
(19:05):
reactor that that was over there. Um G E made
these General Electric in the nineteen sixties. They went online
and I think seventy one you said yes, which is
a long time ago. Uh. The United States has twenty
three of these reactors right now at sixteen locations, including
UH Oyster Creek in New Jersey, Dresden near Chicago, Monicello
(19:28):
near Minneapolis. No reason to freak out right now, UH,
because well, here's the deal. These these Mark one boilers
are UH are under scrutiny right now. The New York
Times ran a piece about these. Apparently in nineteen seventy two,
right after they built these things, that identified weaknesses and said, hey,
(19:48):
we should discontinue this because, uh, there's some safety risks.
One of the safety risks was a smaller containment design,
which they said in nineteen seventy two might be more
susceptible to explosion and rupture from a build up of hydrogen.
So that it seems to be what happened here in Japan. Uh.
(20:09):
Obviously g is not on the hook or anything they
you know, once you take control of your nuclear power
plant as a nation, it's yours, and it's not like
you can call up GE and say, hey, Jerk's you
know what about all this? So Japan was responsible for,
you know, caring upkeep of their own thing. Uh. And
apparently the mark ones in the United States have undergone
(20:31):
a lot of modifications over the years, one of which
is a change to the Tourists, which is a water
filled vessel that encircles the primary containment vessels. So there's
all these things in place, uh in the seventies and
eighties that the US put in place at our mark
ones that they say will prevent something like this. I
don't know what was going on in Japan. If they
(20:53):
were modified at all over the years, I'm sure that'll
all come out. Well. Apparently at some point starting to
apparently some UM, at least one G engineer for the
Mark one resigned UM because he thought the Mark one
was so flawed and apparently G wasn't doing anything about it.
This was in the early seventies. But UM, some G
whistle blowers UM blue Well blew the whistle on the
(21:16):
Fukushima plant UM because apparently they falsified records before UM
they they used dishonest practices in UM monitoring their own
radioactive output, and there was a lack of safety culture
basically by by the company's own admission. This is interesting
to see what Ramifications is going to have a nuclear
(21:37):
power because there was a pretty good track record for
a couple of decades and a lot of people it's
starting to come around again. Well yeah, and saying this
is actually a green uh fuel producing technology because it
doesn't produce carbon and we got a good track record
and it's pretty safe now and these things are like
super safe. They can withstand all these different things. What
(22:00):
they couldn't withstand was a combination in Japan's case of
these things like earthquakes and tsunamis Well, Chuck, it had
a good twenty year run where it was starting to
like gain tracks again. Nuclear power was um because it
was trying to emerge from the shadow of Three Mile Island. Right,
the the partial fuel melt which is the correct term
(22:22):
meltdown is not actually used in the industry, we should say, yeah,
but partial fuel melt in in Pennsylvania, that's right. And
that was, like you said, Three Mile Island, which is
categorized as a level five disaster, which had had local consequences.
It was like the fuel melted and pulled, but it
didn't um, It didn't escape the containment vessel, but some
(22:43):
radio active material was released into the surrounding area. But
it scared the tar out of everybody. Well, China syndrome
didn't help much. Yeah, that that's true too. Um. And
so this uh disaster in Japan right now is categorized.
I've seen it as a six, I've seen it as
a five, ending on who you ask, but either way
it's it's not a good situation obviously. So um, what
(23:05):
we do know is that as it stands right now,
at least, it's not a Chernobyl and Chernobyl was a
level seven, which is as bad as it can get.
The in Chernobyl was a different scenario as well, definitely,
so um, there were a lot of differences. Remember we
talked about water being a neutron modulator. Well, Chernobyl's design
used water as a coolant but had graphics graphite as
(23:26):
a neutron modulator um. When their system failed, the graphite
caught fire and spewed radioactive smoke, which you'll remember is
the worst stuff to have into the atmosphere for ten
days before they got ahold of it. Yeah, and they
also tried to keep it quiet, which isn't a wise
move when you're talking nuclear meltdown. And by all indications,
(23:46):
Japan has been very forthcoming. Uh here, they're trying to
get good information out. Really, they kept this They kept
the fire at Um reactor for Um quiet for for
enough hours that it ruined credibility. Basically, Yeah, so no
one's quite sure. Plus Japan's like, we just need a
twelve mile radius between twelve twelve miles, get out of
(24:08):
their twelve and nineteen miles, steal up your home. And
the US is like, we say fifty miles and any
American that shows up at Narita Airport gets a free
flight out of here. Yeah, so the Japanese are probably saying,
I've listened to the guys in America. No they're not
broadcasting it. Well, no, Americans is getting broadcast over there. Well,
the citizens if they knew this, right, what about Facebook?
(24:28):
And so I'm sure it's getting out like that. But apparently,
like the Japanese media is they they're known to not
really criticize the government. It's just not their culture. Yeah.
I got a really good friend in Tokyo and he's
uh gone to Osaka right now with his family, two
small kids. He's not trying to be panicky, but he's
also got two small kids and he's just kind of
playing at safe right now. So we should talk about radiation.
(24:51):
I guess it's actually small kids that are at the
biggest risk about this um with radio How do you
measure radiation, Chuck? You measure Josh with a unit called
a millisievert, and it measures the absorption into the human
body specifically, not like how much is in the air,
This is how much you're absorbing. How much is dangerous
(25:11):
to you? So you can measure it in millisievert or
mic receiver. But the one that's like when you get
to one severt, which would be a thousand millisieverts or
a million microceiverts. Um, that's when you are in big trouble.
One thousand mic receiverts and a millisievert and then how
many millisieverts and a sivert a thousand thousand? Yeah, okay,
(25:34):
so one sivert I think gives you a ten percent
chance of dying in thirty days. And it's that's just bad.
That's ridiculous exposure. I don't think anybody's recorded any levels
like that, right, Yeah, but let's put this into perspective. Um.
Right now, they're saying in you're you're probably hearing on
the news, like a hundred and sixty seven times the
(25:55):
average annual dose that human gets because we get radiation.
I think Americans get six point two millissy verts a
year through uh, medical diagnostic procedures, dental X rays, flights, flying, smoking,
going through those full body scanners, smoking one and a
half packs of cigarettes today, thirteen millisy verts per year.
(26:19):
I am radioactive. Yeah, well you're you're getting it out
of your system. But yes, I am, But I still
probably AM because radioactivity is cumulative, which is why they
break it up into um millisy verts per hour or
melissy roots per year because after a little bit of time,
your body can process this stuff, or the half life
(26:41):
of it is spent and it's not deadly any longer. Right.
But the big problem is when it is still um
in full bore, a radioactive material, and it's absorbed through
your skin. You can breathe it in, you can get
it in through your tongue, your ears, your eyes, your hair,
everywhere you can you can absorb this radioact the material UM.
(27:01):
And apparently one of the biggest threats or the biggest
known threat, is UM. Like I said earlier, I died
one right, io dine right, iodine one thirty one. So
that's important because iodied it's actually counteracts the effects of radiation.
And people are snapping this up. Apparently drug store dot
com is sold out of iodide right now, right, so
(27:23):
fake iodide is even being sold. There's warnings now about
buying fake iodie, I know. And people are eating iodide
salt and the some I think, like the Salt Council
came out and said that's not going to do anything
for you. The reason, um, people are eating iodied and
buying iodide salt tablets, which they should frankly be selling
(27:44):
or sending them, not selling them, sending them to Japan.
You don't need them here in the US. They actually
do need them in Japan. UM, with iodine one one,
it's a it's a radioactive byproduct of nuclear fission, right,
or uranium specifically, And when you absorb that, your thyroid
gets this big fat, heavy dose of it. And the
(28:06):
thyroid is responsible for some very fast dividing cells. So
once a cell is compromised in your thyroid, that radioactivity
is going to spread like gangbusters through your body, especially
if you're a kid, because you have faster than normal
dividing cells anyway. Right, So that's why thyroid cancer tends
to go up in cases of radioactive exposure. UM, if
(28:29):
you take iodide, your thyroid actually is going to get
as much iodide as it can, but it has a
saturation level. So if you if you expose it to
iodide before you're exposed radioactive iodine, your thyroid is gonna
be full up and be like sorry, no more room
for iodine here radioactive or otherwise, and even better, iodine
(28:53):
one one has a half life of eight days, So
all you have to do is basically make sure your
thyroids full of io died for eight days in your set.
And uh, if you're worried here in the US. UM,
there's been stuff on the news about the radioactive plume
crossing the ocean. Apparently the nuclear submarine the Ronald Reagan
(29:15):
cruise right on through it the other day and the
material was removed with soap and water and it's contamination free.
And they said, basically, the steam that's coming across the
ocean is less dangerous than living in Denver, Colorado for
a year, because when you live at high altitudes, you
have less atmosphere to block radiation. And just living in Denver,
(29:37):
Colorado means you have more radiation than the average American, right,
plus still a very small amount. So I'm not saying
people in Denver should be like, oh, I need to move, Yeah,
right exactly. They're also, um, it's not factoring in crime.
Even you get hit by a bus, you can get
shot in Denver. Or if you're a smoker, if you
go to the Dennists and get your head X rate,
it's like you get radioactive uh, radioactive as a human being,
(30:01):
and a little more so as an American. I think that, Yeah,
I think we're I think the media is fanning the
flames of us losing our perspective as far as radiation
hysteria goes absolutely, Um, what else is there? Chuckers, Well,
this was just off the news wire about twenty minutes ago.
They said that they have picked up some small amounts
(30:22):
of radioactive material in Sacramento. But it was minuscule, is
what they're saying, not harmful to human health, and so
people on the West Coast don't need to be freaking
out at this point from what we can tell. So
people in Japan should be worried, but they're even saying
in Japan, like, you know, let's see what we can
do here. You don't need to be leaving leaving the country.
(30:44):
On maths, if you UM hear a report that there
is radiation coming our way, ask what's the level. If
it's in micro siverts, I would advise you not to worry.
If it's in millisy verts, start to wonder exactly how
many mility words. If it's um a hundred or less,
(31:05):
then you are within e p A standards. For radiation exposure,
but you should probably consider maybe getting out of town
for a little while. Um. But I think maybe keeping
a calm head and not buying up all the iodide
tablets in the world is probably a good idea at
this point. Yeah. I got one more little factoid. This
interesting for all the news agencies that are fanning the flames.
(31:27):
Apparently Grand Central Station, New York City, the granite there
and the uranium lay stone used at the US Capitol
Building supposedly give off enough radiation that they would not
pass a nuclear power plants licensing test, So they're pretty
strict with the licensing. People walking around Grand Central Station
(31:48):
aren't in danger of dying from nuclear radiations, so that
just kind of puts it into perspective, or are they.
I wish we had the law and order do doom
the play that was appropriate. Well, I guess it's about it.
Do you have anything else, Chuck? No? No, Okay, Hopefully
you guys have a better understanding of what's going on there.
I know I do. Um Our hearts and minds are
(32:10):
with everybody in Japan. Uh, keep keep thinking of them.
Maybe send some money, you send some I dye, send
some lifestraws. Apparently lifestraws are being sent over there, uh
in some of these rescue boxes. Yes, kind of cool.
I saw it too. And there's always red cross, right yes, um,
And I guess since that's about it. Oh, if you
(32:31):
want to learn more, type in Japan's nuclear crisis in
the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com.
It will bring up um A just a really great
overview of what's going on over there. Um. And since
I said handy search bar, it's time for a listener mail. Yeah, Josh,
I thought it'd be appropriate today. You asked UM a
(32:52):
few weeks ago about if you're involved in a program
it's helping the world out send it in. We got
a few of these and we're reading them periodically, and
this like an appropriate podcast to do. So. So this
is from Paul C in Canada and he's involved in
a program in Northern Canada helping to start up a
project with a group of First Nation folks who are
being super proactive about reclaiming and protecting their culture and language.
(33:17):
The and it's spelled t l I C h Oh.
So I'm gonna go with licho or licho thank that
skin probably wrong are concerned that their traditional knowledge and
ways of life are not being passed onto their young
people who are leaving to find jobs and go to college.
In response, they're creating a program to hire some of
their dedicated young people for the summer to learn their
(33:37):
traditional ways of life. We are looking for some funding
to get the program off the ground. We have applied
to an organization called Small Change Fund. Uh struck me
that you folks have a sizeable Canadian brigade in your stuff.
You should know army and I'm hoping that you can
help me spread the word about the Small Change Fund.
I'm of course biased towards my program, which is the
(33:59):
Litchko Summer Culture Education Program. It sounds like a good program,
but the small Change Fund website as a whole is
really full of great worthwhile social and environmental programs, all
looking for small amounts of startup funding less than five grand.
If you could mention the small Change Fund website, that
is small Change fund dot org to your Canadian fans
(34:22):
and everyone. Actually, I will gladly take you guys fishing
and give you all big high fives when you come
up to yellow Knife in w T Do I think
is Northwest Territory. I think it is. It's my guess,
and UH do a podcast on the northern lights or
work how Caribou migration works, or how to survive in
negative forty degrees or some other such a northern thing.
(34:45):
So that is from policy and that is the Small
Change Fund dot org. And his program is the t
l I c h O Summer Culture Education Program. So
stop buying ms it. It sounds like a good program.
Thank you, it's Paul. See thanks Paul. Good idea. UM,
if you have a good idea or you have a
(35:06):
good idea on how to help Japan, how about that? Yeah? Specifically,
go on our Facebook, stuff Facebook dot com, slash stuff
you should Know, tweet it to us um s y
s K podcast, or send its plain old email to
stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
(35:28):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com
home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, And that makes this Stuff you
(00:22):
Should Know kind of a special edition. Really, we don't
usually like hop on news stories. Yeah, you can't ignore
this up and I guess probably releasing something like a
full week after it happens is not hopping on. But
still now it's people have concerns and there's a lot
of information flying around. Everyone's trying to explain this thing
(00:43):
and the simplest terms, and since that's what we do
for a living, we figured we should do it. Yes,
so that's what we're doing that. They were going to
talk about um nuclear meltdowns and how it pertains to
the crisis in Japan. Right, Yeah, and it's a lot
more basic and simple than I thought. I was intimidated
going into this, and then I was like, oh, well
that's not too hard to understand. Yeah, it is nuclear science,
(01:05):
but it's kind of approachable nuclear science degree. So Chuck, um,
let's talk about catastrophe modeling. It's a type of risk
modeling that insurance companies love. It's how they figure out
why your insurance should be less than say, somebody else
of the same age, weight, height, the kind of thing
(01:25):
who lives in California. Right, UM, my former self. Yeah.
So you can actually, um take a catastrophe model, right
and plug in every variable you can think of, and
what you'll spit out is UM basically a a curve,
a graph of probability of an accident happening, and then say,
(01:50):
like the the level of damage that will happen. Okay,
So if you do this over like say a ten
thousand year catalog, you can figure out how off and say, uh,
nine point oh earthquake is going to hit Japan, And
you can figure that out by choosing a probability. Let's
say there's four percent probability of a nine point oh happening.
(02:12):
You can find that that pops up maybe forty times
over a ten thousand year scale. And what you have
then is that that's a one and two D and
fifty year probability. That's where they get the predictor yeah, exactly,
and that's why UM power plants are that's how they're
built to withstand something like a once in a two
fifty year quake, saying it could happen in this area,
(02:35):
so we need to account for it. Right. And it's
based on the dynamics, the geophysical dynamics of an earthquake
of a nine point oh magnitude right. Because you've got
all that plugged in the model, you figure out how much,
how bad it's going to be, how often it's gonna happen,
and then you build accordingly. And these the plants on
the north coast of Japan, the TEPCO's Tokyo Electric Power Company, right, uh,
(03:00):
their Daichi and Daini plants UM number one and number
two plants in Fukushima UM were built to a stand
a two fifty year quake, which is exactly what they
got on March eleven. Yeah, they were, and they withstood it.
They did. Everything went fine, they shut down the reactors,
which is what's supposed to happen to its sweet But
the problem was it was stood an earthquake, a huge earthquake,
(03:24):
possibly the most massive earthquake that's ever hit Japan, but
it didn't withstand the tsunami. It's this model, whatever the
model it was built for did not predict the tsunami.
It didn't take it into account, and that's why we
have this this crisis right now. Right so we should
probably also mention that the the focus right now is
on um, you know, this nuclear potential nuclear meltdown. But um,
(03:48):
I mean the tsunami is up to like I think
fifteen thousand dead and missing now just from the tsunami alone.
Are they calculating the tsunami different from the earthquake as
far as that goes, I would not me. Okay, so
possibly because I read seven thousand, but that might just
be maybe there's different numbers that could know. I think
that's just dead. This is like dead and missing. So yeah,
(04:11):
but now you've gotten an earthquake that just knocked down
a bunch of stuff, you have a tsunami that took
out entire towns, and then you have this this nuclear
crisis that's unfolding, and um, you know this is going
to release in a few days. So we'll have to
make do with the information that we have, right Yeah,
unless something like really really big happens between today, which
is Thursday and Tuesday, we might have to come back
(04:33):
in and like doctor it up a bit, right, This
is what we're going with for now. Yes, So Chuck,
let's talk a little bit about how, uh if you
walk around a nuclear power plant, where are you going
to find what's going on there? Well, it's pretty easy, actually, Um.
And this is something that I didn't know because I
didn't know a whole lot about nuclear power at all
until this happened. And basically, what a nuclear power plant
(04:56):
does is it creates one of the oldest model oles
for creating energy, which is steam powered UH turbines. And
how they do that they basically use nuclear fuel, which
these days is enriched uranium. The uranium atom split creates
a lot of heat. UH neutrons flying around also creates
(05:17):
is created by that process, and this heat boils water
in the case of these UH reactors, these are water
boiling reactors. And we'll talk about more the mark one
here in a minute, and it produces basically boils's water,
produces steam. That steam drives a turbine generates power about
a gigawatt of electricity at full power, which is a lot, right,
(05:39):
and um, that is a tremendous amount. And that full power, UM,
the heat that's being put out um Marshall who wrote
a really cool he's the founder of the site. Yes,
yes he does. He wrote a very um incredible article
in record time called how Japan's Nuclear Crisis works. But um,
he said that this puts out the heat. Um, that's
(06:00):
akin to about a billion watt bulb. That's that full power.
The thing is, obviously you don't always need your nuclear
reactors to be running at full power. So UM, what
you do is you modulate how much heat is being
put out by um using what are called control rods. Yeah,
sort of like the throttle on your gas right, but
(06:21):
instead of Yeah, but the the control rod is basically
something like, UM, maybe a boron enriched length of metal
that is inserted into the fuel rod core, right, And
if you pull it out a little bit, then it
heats up. If you push it in a little bit
that it heats down. So and and by heat, I
guess I could say it powers up and it powers down, right, Yeah,
(06:44):
because it's attracting the neutrons. Then the neutrons are what
basically make the splitting of the atom happen. And that's
the problem there is it's self sustaining. So if you
didn't have these control rods, it becomes you know, it's
own living reaction. Well, it'll just it would just keep going, right,
it will keep going as long as you can can,
(07:06):
as long as you could keep it cool and just
be running at max power all the time. Right now,
when an earthquake hits, one of the fail safe designed
into any nuclear reactor is that the control rods are
going to get jammed in all the way, which is
called scramming. And when the um, when the reactor is scrammed,
all the control roads are shut down, all the sheil
(07:26):
roads are shut down because there's these control rods just
accepting all the neutrons. And like you said, the neutrons
are the active ingredient in nuclear fission because they're just
making all the atoms in the surrounding area unstable. Right.
But it's important to point out that even when they're
fully inserted and it's shut down, it's still creating keat
And here's the problem. Small amount of heat, but it's
enough heat if left unchecked, to potentially cause what's called
(07:50):
the meltdown. Right. So this heat that you're talking about
chuck is called decay heat. And I've read places where
it lasts a week. I've read that it lasts for
a year, and I think it acts really last for
a year. It takes a year for a fuel rod
to actually shut down, to to go to shut down state,
where like it doesn't need to be cooled any longer
with water, right, So when you scram something like they
(08:13):
did on March eleven, it's not just gonna cool down
right away. And that's the problem that we're dealing with
right now is this decay heat, which, like you said,
is still it's it's a ridiculous amount of heat, and
it requires tons of cooling, right, which normally should be
fine because the Dachi plant with reactors went through four
I have cooling systems and lots of them, right. Yeah,
(08:34):
it's a closed loop. So what happens is the water
boils and creates a lot of pressure. The pressure is
released the esteem uh and the steam actually gets cooled,
condensed and reused like a closed loop air conditioning system,
not a whole lot different, and the water is recirculated.
That water is recirculated back through the system with these
(08:54):
electric pumps, and those electric pumps are the key to
keep in everything cool and the problem, uh, well, well
we'll get to the problem. Um, they have a lot
of fail safes in place because you know, they don't
just plug the pump into the wall and say all right,
we're good to go, because that would be bad if
the power went down. Uh, there are backup electric pumps.
There are backup Uh if if the power goes down,
(09:19):
you can actually um, because I believe it's using its
own nuclear power to generate to operate these pumps. This
is an electricity generating nuclear power plants. It's running itself.
But once the plant shuts down, which is what they did,
they say, okay, we can grab electricity from the grid,
but the grid shut down. Yes, that just shut the
grid down to pretty much right after the control rods
(09:40):
were scrammed into the into the reactors. So they have
another backup there, Like, all right, we got these diesel generators,
which are diesel generators are great, they do a great job. Uh.
Tsunami comes in water on top of electrical or I'm sorry,
diesel generators makes them to not operate. Yeah, they were submerged.
They weren't designed to operate and submerged. Now and then
(10:00):
they said, all right, we've got all these backups in place.
The final backup we have is a battery system. Battery
system kicked in, it worked great, but the problem is
it only works for a little bit of you know,
like how many hours. I don't know if it's said
a few several hours, because the idea is that the
battery system is in dire emergency until you get the
grid back going, which shouldn't take that long. Um. Now. Also,
(10:22):
transport transportation was knocked out. Supply routes are knocked out,
there's no power. They try to get more diesel generators there,
but they just couldn't get them in time. Right. Um,
So we have a nuclear power plant without power to
run these cooling systems. And these are boiled water reactors,
which means that the water, um you know, like you said,
(10:45):
chuck it, it gets its energy or it creates electricity
by boiling water. Now, these fuel rods are so hot,
even with this decay heat that the moment water hits them,
even boiling water, the boiled water is keeping them cool.
They're so hot they just have to remain underwater. Let's
just keep them underwater. That's the key. The problem is
is they create tons of steam, and that steam is
(11:08):
what is what runs the turbine, and then after it
access the turbine, like you said, it's condensed and then
reused as coolant. Right, But if the those pumps aren't working,
all it's doing is producing steam, boiling off water and
basically getting rid of the only coolant source they have. Yeah,
and if water gets hot enough, it actually something called
(11:28):
thermalisis takes place, and that's when it breaks down into
constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms or in this case um
hydrogen gas, which is really really explosive. And that's that's
actually a pretty normal byproduct of even like the proper
functioning of a boil water reactor plan. So they have
(11:48):
procedures in place to vent steam normally, but they burn
the hydrogen, often a slow control burn when they're venting
it to reduce radioactivity and to you know, keep explosions
from happening. Then you may be wondering why would they
design a system with that uses water to cool and
(12:10):
and nothing else. The point, the whole reason that somebody
ever designed the Mark one or boil water reactor is
that it's actually has a failsafe built in the fact
that it uses water as a coolant and what's called
a neutron modulator which keeps that thing from going like
out of control past, you know, just to sustain max power.
(12:33):
Nuclear fission is whatever you're using as a new neutron
modulator or moderator. I'm sorry. So as long as the
neutron moderator there, you can have fission nuclear fission. But
if the if you can't get the control rods in
in time and the coolant goes away, the the fuel
actually won't be able to continue in a fission state
(12:57):
because the neutron mod moderator is not there. So you
don't have the cooling, but at least you don't have
a meltdown um from nuclear fission, which is really horrible. Right,
So that's why they have this boiled water reactor. But
the problem is this water served as a fail safe
and it's achilles heel and in this case, shosh the
hydrogen gas we were talking about, the normal reaction got
(13:18):
worse because the water boil away. These fuel tubes were
now exposed to air. They got really really hot and
started cracking. And the little uranium fuel pellets I think
they're the size of a Tootsie roll, right, Uh, they
overheated and and cracked and allowed water to get in there,
and water is not supposed to be in there. And
(13:38):
that's where you had this massive hydrogen gas explosion. And
I think was it one of them, two of them,
I think it was several different reactors had this explosion
within the reactor building itself. It wasn't like the whole
thing exploded, it was it was contained within the building,
they hope, they think, really exactly. So we're still getting
(14:00):
news at this point because they there's a small number
of people, you know, on the ground, and they're not
all like on the phone with Anderson Cooper, right so
the information on the inside isn't that readily available right now.
So there were there were several explosions, Chuck, I think
it was like reactors one and three had explosions from
this hydrogen gas. They were venting it, they didn't burn
(14:22):
it off properly, and the hydrogen built up and up
and up and um. You remember, you know, you need
to keep these things wet. You have to keep them
underwater under any circumstances whatsoever. They have to be cool constantly.
They have to remain underwater. So without these backup generators,
without the battery power, generators without their normal electricity, without anything.
(14:45):
They finally decide we need to flood these things with seawater,
boron and enriched seawater. And it was a chemical reaction
between the sea water and the hydrogen that caused these explosions. Yeah,
which we should say this is very very very very important.
That was a conventional chemical explosion, right. It was not
(15:07):
a nuclear bomb, right, it's not. It's not possible for
a nuclear reactor to blow up like in a nuclear explosion.
It's not possible. The danger, like with chernobyl and anything
is is leaking radiation. It's not like a Hiroshima type
of event, right, So that happens. Um To to create
a nuclear bomb, what you have to do is take
(15:30):
um radioactive material in a subcritical state, which is like
what you might have in your front pocket right now. Shucks, right,
it's just plain old lump of uranium. Who cares, right,
and you have to explode it so fast to create
a chain reaction that uses up all of that subcritical
(15:50):
material that it skips over the critical stage and goes
right into supercritical. The precision that that requires makes it
that there's probably like five people on the planet right now,
they know how to build a nuclear bomb like that.
You can't just do that with fuel. The big threat
is the melting of the fuel, right, right, And so
they flooded it with seawater, to which ruins the reactors forever,
(16:13):
by the way, we should mention, but that's a better scenario.
And apparently these are forty year old reactors that were
not on its last legs as far as they're about
to break, but they were near the end of their
operating lifespans. Do you want to hear something horrible? Reaction
Number one went online on March, so it should have gone.
(16:35):
It should have been decommissioned on March eleven. Really there
was actually a date there should have been. But apparently
TEPCO applied for and received a tenure extension on its
operating licenses for those interesting Yeah, so what what what
we have some information here? What does this all mean
to the world at large? Well, here's the big problem.
(16:56):
Like we said that the fuel isn't going to explode,
but it's going to melt, right, And said Chuck that
these little fuel pellets in the fuel rods are like
the size of a tutsie roll in about the shape, right,
if it melts. If this when this stuff hits air,
it begins to melt, and if it melts, it will
no longer be able to be cooled because it's going
(17:16):
to be a big, flat, dense glob of nuclear fuel
that's melting and collecting inside of this containment vessel. Right,
So the operative word is containment vessel. This extremely hot
nuclear fuel that's forming a pool can conceivably melt through
the containment vessel. And once that happens, if it when
(17:40):
it encounters the concrete barrier, this which is like the
fail safe of fail safe. This it's it should not
be able to melt through that, it's possible it could,
and if it does, then you have you have nuclear
fuel in the environment, and that's when it's it's beyond
catastrophe level. Yeah, And that's a containment vessel that's completely
(18:03):
functional and intact. And we don't know what kind of
damage these explosions of cause they might be compromised from
the inside to make containment even more difficult. Who knows
at this point. So the the explosions were kind of
um jarring, you could say, right, the explosions that reactors
one in three. Yes, there is a fire at UM
(18:23):
reactor four UM. But apparently one of the big problems
is a bunch of spent fuel that's no longer being
cooled at reactor too. And while when this fuel melts,
it can catch on fire. So vapor is bad enough,
but if it catches fire, smoke is what's really going
(18:45):
to get you. It will create and carry further UM
radioactive particles that UM has a much longer half life
than the stuff that's going to come out in the vapor. Right,
that's the threat. That's a big threat threat. Uh. So
we mentioned that it was the Mark one boiling water
(19:05):
reactor that that was over there. Um G E made
these General Electric in the nineteen sixties. They went online
and I think seventy one you said yes, which is
a long time ago. Uh. The United States has twenty
three of these reactors right now at sixteen locations, including
UH Oyster Creek in New Jersey, Dresden near Chicago, Monicello
(19:28):
near Minneapolis. No reason to freak out right now, UH,
because well, here's the deal. These these Mark one boilers
are UH are under scrutiny right now. The New York
Times ran a piece about these. Apparently in nineteen seventy two,
right after they built these things, that identified weaknesses and said, hey,
(19:48):
we should discontinue this because, uh, there's some safety risks.
One of the safety risks was a smaller containment design,
which they said in nineteen seventy two might be more
susceptible to explosion and rupture from a build up of hydrogen.
So that it seems to be what happened here in Japan. Uh.
(20:09):
Obviously g is not on the hook or anything they
you know, once you take control of your nuclear power
plant as a nation, it's yours, and it's not like
you can call up GE and say, hey, Jerk's you
know what about all this? So Japan was responsible for,
you know, caring upkeep of their own thing. Uh. And
apparently the mark ones in the United States have undergone
(20:31):
a lot of modifications over the years, one of which
is a change to the Tourists, which is a water
filled vessel that encircles the primary containment vessels. So there's
all these things in place, uh in the seventies and
eighties that the US put in place at our mark
ones that they say will prevent something like this. I
don't know what was going on in Japan. If they
(20:53):
were modified at all over the years, I'm sure that'll
all come out. Well. Apparently at some point starting to
apparently some UM, at least one G engineer for the
Mark one resigned UM because he thought the Mark one
was so flawed and apparently G wasn't doing anything about it.
This was in the early seventies. But UM, some G
whistle blowers UM blue Well blew the whistle on the
(21:16):
Fukushima plant UM because apparently they falsified records before UM
they they used dishonest practices in UM monitoring their own
radioactive output, and there was a lack of safety culture
basically by by the company's own admission. This is interesting
to see what Ramifications is going to have a nuclear
(21:37):
power because there was a pretty good track record for
a couple of decades and a lot of people it's
starting to come around again. Well yeah, and saying this
is actually a green uh fuel producing technology because it
doesn't produce carbon and we got a good track record
and it's pretty safe now and these things are like
super safe. They can withstand all these different things. What
(22:00):
they couldn't withstand was a combination in Japan's case of
these things like earthquakes and tsunamis Well, Chuck, it had
a good twenty year run where it was starting to
like gain tracks again. Nuclear power was um because it
was trying to emerge from the shadow of Three Mile Island. Right,
the the partial fuel melt which is the correct term
(22:22):
meltdown is not actually used in the industry, we should say, yeah,
but partial fuel melt in in Pennsylvania, that's right. And
that was, like you said, Three Mile Island, which is
categorized as a level five disaster, which had had local consequences.
It was like the fuel melted and pulled, but it
didn't um, It didn't escape the containment vessel, but some
(22:43):
radio active material was released into the surrounding area. But
it scared the tar out of everybody. Well, China syndrome
didn't help much. Yeah, that that's true too. Um. And
so this uh disaster in Japan right now is categorized.
I've seen it as a six, I've seen it as
a five, ending on who you ask, but either way
it's it's not a good situation obviously. So um, what
(23:05):
we do know is that as it stands right now,
at least, it's not a Chernobyl and Chernobyl was a
level seven, which is as bad as it can get.
The in Chernobyl was a different scenario as well, definitely,
so um, there were a lot of differences. Remember we
talked about water being a neutron modulator. Well, Chernobyl's design
used water as a coolant but had graphics graphite as
(23:26):
a neutron modulator um. When their system failed, the graphite
caught fire and spewed radioactive smoke, which you'll remember is
the worst stuff to have into the atmosphere for ten
days before they got ahold of it. Yeah, and they
also tried to keep it quiet, which isn't a wise
move when you're talking nuclear meltdown. And by all indications,
(23:46):
Japan has been very forthcoming. Uh here, they're trying to
get good information out. Really, they kept this They kept
the fire at Um reactor for Um quiet for for
enough hours that it ruined credibility. Basically, Yeah, so no
one's quite sure. Plus Japan's like, we just need a
twelve mile radius between twelve twelve miles, get out of
(24:08):
their twelve and nineteen miles, steal up your home. And
the US is like, we say fifty miles and any
American that shows up at Narita Airport gets a free
flight out of here. Yeah, so the Japanese are probably saying,
I've listened to the guys in America. No they're not
broadcasting it. Well, no, Americans is getting broadcast over there. Well,
the citizens if they knew this, right, what about Facebook?
(24:28):
And so I'm sure it's getting out like that. But apparently,
like the Japanese media is they they're known to not
really criticize the government. It's just not their culture. Yeah.
I got a really good friend in Tokyo and he's
uh gone to Osaka right now with his family, two
small kids. He's not trying to be panicky, but he's
also got two small kids and he's just kind of
playing at safe right now. So we should talk about radiation.
(24:51):
I guess it's actually small kids that are at the
biggest risk about this um with radio How do you
measure radiation, Chuck? You measure Josh with a unit called
a millisievert, and it measures the absorption into the human
body specifically, not like how much is in the air,
This is how much you're absorbing. How much is dangerous
(25:11):
to you? So you can measure it in millisievert or
mic receiver. But the one that's like when you get
to one severt, which would be a thousand millisieverts or
a million microceiverts. Um, that's when you are in big trouble.
One thousand mic receiverts and a millisievert and then how
many millisieverts and a sivert a thousand thousand? Yeah, okay,
(25:34):
so one sivert I think gives you a ten percent
chance of dying in thirty days. And it's that's just bad.
That's ridiculous exposure. I don't think anybody's recorded any levels
like that, right, Yeah, but let's put this into perspective. Um.
Right now, they're saying in you're you're probably hearing on
the news, like a hundred and sixty seven times the
(25:55):
average annual dose that human gets because we get radiation.
I think Americans get six point two millissy verts a
year through uh, medical diagnostic procedures, dental X rays, flights, flying, smoking,
going through those full body scanners, smoking one and a
half packs of cigarettes today, thirteen millisy verts per year.
(26:19):
I am radioactive. Yeah, well you're you're getting it out
of your system. But yes, I am, But I still
probably AM because radioactivity is cumulative, which is why they
break it up into um millisy verts per hour or
melissy roots per year because after a little bit of time,
your body can process this stuff, or the half life
(26:41):
of it is spent and it's not deadly any longer. Right.
But the big problem is when it is still um
in full bore, a radioactive material, and it's absorbed through
your skin. You can breathe it in, you can get
it in through your tongue, your ears, your eyes, your hair,
everywhere you can you can absorb this radioact the material UM.
(27:01):
And apparently one of the biggest threats or the biggest
known threat, is UM. Like I said earlier, I died
one right, io dine right, iodine one thirty one. So
that's important because iodied it's actually counteracts the effects of radiation.
And people are snapping this up. Apparently drug store dot
com is sold out of iodide right now, right, so
(27:23):
fake iodide is even being sold. There's warnings now about
buying fake iodie, I know. And people are eating iodide
salt and the some I think, like the Salt Council
came out and said that's not going to do anything
for you. The reason, um, people are eating iodied and
buying iodide salt tablets, which they should frankly be selling
(27:44):
or sending them, not selling them, sending them to Japan.
You don't need them here in the US. They actually
do need them in Japan. UM, with iodine one one,
it's a it's a radioactive byproduct of nuclear fission, right,
or uranium specifically, And when you absorb that, your thyroid
gets this big fat, heavy dose of it. And the
(28:06):
thyroid is responsible for some very fast dividing cells. So
once a cell is compromised in your thyroid, that radioactivity
is going to spread like gangbusters through your body, especially
if you're a kid, because you have faster than normal
dividing cells anyway. Right, So that's why thyroid cancer tends
to go up in cases of radioactive exposure. UM, if
(28:29):
you take iodide, your thyroid actually is going to get
as much iodide as it can, but it has a
saturation level. So if you if you expose it to
iodide before you're exposed radioactive iodine, your thyroid is gonna
be full up and be like sorry, no more room
for iodine here radioactive or otherwise, and even better, iodine
(28:53):
one one has a half life of eight days, So
all you have to do is basically make sure your
thyroids full of io died for eight days in your set.
And uh, if you're worried here in the US. UM,
there's been stuff on the news about the radioactive plume
crossing the ocean. Apparently the nuclear submarine the Ronald Reagan
(29:15):
cruise right on through it the other day and the
material was removed with soap and water and it's contamination free.
And they said, basically, the steam that's coming across the
ocean is less dangerous than living in Denver, Colorado for
a year, because when you live at high altitudes, you
have less atmosphere to block radiation. And just living in Denver,
(29:37):
Colorado means you have more radiation than the average American, right,
plus still a very small amount. So I'm not saying
people in Denver should be like, oh, I need to move, Yeah,
right exactly. They're also, um, it's not factoring in crime.
Even you get hit by a bus, you can get
shot in Denver. Or if you're a smoker, if you
go to the Dennists and get your head X rate,
it's like you get radioactive uh, radioactive as a human being,
(30:01):
and a little more so as an American. I think that, Yeah,
I think we're I think the media is fanning the
flames of us losing our perspective as far as radiation
hysteria goes absolutely, Um, what else is there? Chuckers, Well,
this was just off the news wire about twenty minutes ago.
They said that they have picked up some small amounts
(30:22):
of radioactive material in Sacramento. But it was minuscule, is
what they're saying, not harmful to human health, and so
people on the West Coast don't need to be freaking
out at this point from what we can tell. So
people in Japan should be worried, but they're even saying
in Japan, like, you know, let's see what we can
do here. You don't need to be leaving leaving the country.
(30:44):
On maths, if you UM hear a report that there
is radiation coming our way, ask what's the level. If
it's in micro siverts, I would advise you not to worry.
If it's in millisy verts, start to wonder exactly how
many mility words. If it's um a hundred or less,
(31:05):
then you are within e p A standards. For radiation exposure,
but you should probably consider maybe getting out of town
for a little while. Um. But I think maybe keeping
a calm head and not buying up all the iodide
tablets in the world is probably a good idea at
this point. Yeah. I got one more little factoid. This
interesting for all the news agencies that are fanning the flames.
(31:27):
Apparently Grand Central Station, New York City, the granite there
and the uranium lay stone used at the US Capitol
Building supposedly give off enough radiation that they would not
pass a nuclear power plants licensing test, So they're pretty
strict with the licensing. People walking around Grand Central Station
(31:48):
aren't in danger of dying from nuclear radiations, so that
just kind of puts it into perspective, or are they.
I wish we had the law and order do doom
the play that was appropriate. Well, I guess it's about it.
Do you have anything else, Chuck? No? No, Okay, Hopefully
you guys have a better understanding of what's going on there.
I know I do. Um Our hearts and minds are
(32:10):
with everybody in Japan. Uh, keep keep thinking of them.
Maybe send some money, you send some I dye, send
some lifestraws. Apparently lifestraws are being sent over there, uh
in some of these rescue boxes. Yes, kind of cool.
I saw it too. And there's always red cross, right yes, um,
And I guess since that's about it. Oh, if you
(32:31):
want to learn more, type in Japan's nuclear crisis in
the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com.
It will bring up um A just a really great
overview of what's going on over there. Um. And since
I said handy search bar, it's time for a listener mail. Yeah, Josh,
I thought it'd be appropriate today. You asked UM a
(32:52):
few weeks ago about if you're involved in a program
it's helping the world out send it in. We got
a few of these and we're reading them periodically, and
this like an appropriate podcast to do. So. So this
is from Paul C in Canada and he's involved in
a program in Northern Canada helping to start up a
project with a group of First Nation folks who are
being super proactive about reclaiming and protecting their culture and language.
(33:17):
The and it's spelled t l I C h Oh.
So I'm gonna go with licho or licho thank that
skin probably wrong are concerned that their traditional knowledge and
ways of life are not being passed onto their young
people who are leaving to find jobs and go to college.
In response, they're creating a program to hire some of
their dedicated young people for the summer to learn their
(33:37):
traditional ways of life. We are looking for some funding
to get the program off the ground. We have applied
to an organization called Small Change Fund. Uh struck me
that you folks have a sizeable Canadian brigade in your stuff.
You should know army and I'm hoping that you can
help me spread the word about the Small Change Fund.
I'm of course biased towards my program, which is the
(33:59):
Litchko Summer Culture Education Program. It sounds like a good program,
but the small Change Fund website as a whole is
really full of great worthwhile social and environmental programs, all
looking for small amounts of startup funding less than five grand.
If you could mention the small Change Fund website, that
is small Change fund dot org to your Canadian fans
(34:22):
and everyone. Actually, I will gladly take you guys fishing
and give you all big high fives when you come
up to yellow Knife in w T Do I think
is Northwest Territory. I think it is. It's my guess,
and UH do a podcast on the northern lights or
work how Caribou migration works, or how to survive in
negative forty degrees or some other such a northern thing.
(34:45):
So that is from policy and that is the Small
Change Fund dot org. And his program is the t
l I c h O Summer Culture Education Program. So
stop buying ms it. It sounds like a good program.
Thank you, it's Paul. See thanks Paul. Good idea. UM,
if you have a good idea or you have a
(35:06):
good idea on how to help Japan, how about that? Yeah? Specifically,
go on our Facebook, stuff Facebook dot com, slash stuff
you should Know, tweet it to us um s y
s K podcast, or send its plain old email to
stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
(35:28):
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com
home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
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Josh Clark
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