Topic: The West Coast is being fried by radiation from Fukushima

[IronDioPriest]

"...And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died..."
       - Revelation 8:9

I wouldn't say "28 signs", because some are just assertions, opinions, projections, etc. But nonetheless, this is a pretty comprehensive list of how the radiation from the Fukushima reactor destroyed by the Tsunami is affecting the ocean environment.

300 tons of radioactive water from Fukushima pour into the Pacific Ocean every single day.

28 Signs That The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation From Fukushima

[LadyVirginia]

Guess I'm not eating fish any more.

[Pandora]

Do you think farm-raised might be okay?  I have no clue how it's done, if the raising is done in separate water "farms".

[oldcoastie6468]

Depends on where the water originates.

[Pandora]

Depends on where the water originates.

Or originatED, no?  Already-established "pools" might be viable.

[Pandora]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_farming

[LadyVirginia]

I've read some farm raised fish is ok and others not.  I'm not sure how to find out the difference.  For the most part I've avoided farm raised. I know that wild caught or Alaskan salmon was supposed to be the best to eat. Now I'm not eating it.

I noticed that the frozen fish sold at the Target near me all says it's from Mexico or China or Thailand.  I won't buy that. I dunno. Fresh from the east coast seems like an option.

 

[Dan]

Holy crap!
I've hated nuke power since Chernobyl.

[oldcoastie6468]

Depends on where the water originates.

Or originatED, no?  Already-established "pools" might be viable.

But they always need replenishment due to evaporation, etc. Where does the replacement water originate?

Then again, the waste products in many of our water supplies probably creates a worse thing than the radiation from Japan. And we have our own home-grown radiation in our native waters - Radon and other radioactive minerals.

[IronDioPriest]

I've read some farm raised fish is ok and others not.  I'm not sure how to find out the difference.  For the most part I've avoided farm raised. I know that wild caught or Alaskan salmon was supposed to be the best to eat. Now I'm not eating it.

I noticed that the frozen fish sold at the Target near me all says it's from Mexico or China or Thailand.  I won't buy that. I dunno. Fresh from the east coast seems like an option.

I've read that too - specifically regarding farm-raised Tilapia. Raised in toxic, unclean conditions.

[oldcoastie6468]

Holy crap!
I've hated nuke power since Chernobyl.

I've never favored nuke power plants, if for no other reason due to the long life of the waste products and where they can and would be stored.

[LadyVirginia]

Someone the just the other day was telling me Tilapia is the worst.  This from someone who normally thinks all those kinds of concerns are silly.

[RickZ]

Thai shrimp are to be avoided at all costs.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/consumers-eating-feces-tainted-shrimp-fish-seafood-asia/story?id=17491264

Seafood From Asia Raised on Pig Waste, Says News Report

Oct. 17, 2012

The November issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine, in a piece on food poisoning and safety, says that it is common practice in some parts of Asia to feed fish pig waste. It describes, for example, the sanitary conditions at a fish factory on the southern coast of Vietnam. "Flies," it says, "crawl over baskets of processed shrimp."

The shrimp at some plants are packed in ice. That's good. What's bad: it's ice made from water often found to be contaminated with bacteria and unfit for human consumption, . . .

--SNIP--

I saw a news vid, which I can't find at the moment, showing the absolute filthy water in which Thai shrimp are grown on farms.  The shallow pond shown was a muddy wreck of waste products, water and shrimp.  I love shrimp and the report literally turned my stomach.

[LadyVirginia]

Thanks, RickZ, hadn't heard that specifically.

I like seafood but rarely eat it. Read too many things.  The best seafood I ever had was a place we found accidently 20 years ago driving around Cape Cod.  We had no idea where we were going but we saw a sign and followed it to this place right on the water. Their boats were right there. We ended up with a tray of fried whatever in the center of the table.  Freshest food ever. Oh my gosh it was good.  Not greasy and not fishy.  That has been my standard and of course, nothing has ever compared since.

[Libertas]

Holy crap!
I've hated nuke power since Chernobyl.

I've never favored nuke power plants, if for no other reason due to the long life of the waste products and where they can and would be stored.

Nothing wrong with nuclear power if it is done right...you get what you pay for...and you have to pay to build in multiple safety rudundancies and have enough sense to build away from potential natural disaster areas.  And as long as you have a modern design and not some antiquated graphite pile like Chenobyl getting rid of waste product is not that big a deal.  As for the latter I am all for launching it into the sun.

Better yet would be converting over to thorium reactors which are much more efficient than uranium, produce much less waste and a much lower half-life (300 vs 10,000 years) and to top it off thorium is more plentiful than uranium.

[Libertas]

Thanks, RickZ, hadn't heard that specifically.

I like seafood but rarely eat it. Read too many things.  The best seafood I ever had was a place we found accidently 20 years ago driving around Cape Cod.  We had no idea where we were going but we saw a sign and followed it to this place right on the water. Their boats were right there. We ended up with a tray of fried whatever in the center of the table.  Freshest food ever. Oh my gosh it was good.  Not greasy and not fishy.  That has been my standard and of course, nothing has ever compared since.

As long as I can have my cold water lobster I am good!  Rest of my fish can come out of local lakes!

[RickZ]

Thanks, RickZ, hadn't heard that specifically.

I like seafood but rarely eat it. Read too many things.  The best seafood I ever had was a place we found accidently 20 years ago driving around Cape Cod.  We had no idea where we were going but we saw a sign and followed it to this place right on the water. Their boats were right there. We ended up with a tray of fried whatever in the center of the table.  Freshest food ever. Oh my gosh it was good.  Not greasy and not fishy.  That has been my standard and of course, nothing has ever compared since.

On a vacation to Halifax with my parents and aunt (with me being the designated chauffeur for the van), we did the same thing.  We were driving around exploring.  We got hungry as it approached lunchtime, and we passed a restaurant in Lunenberg and stopped to eat.  Had the best lobster bisque over toast I've ever had.  Beat the hell out of SoS (shyt on a shingle, a/k/a creamed chipped beef over toast), a staple from my childhood.

As for fresh fish cooked at home, I stick to sole, sometimes flounder, plus shrimp and the occasional scallop, bay or sea, although I wish I could afford crab.  My gawd is that expensive now.  Upwards of $25-30 a pint for frozen.  I'm not sure I could live away from the coast, I love ocean seafood so much.

[Glock32]

I used to be a total advocate for nuclear power, and I still think it can have a role to play, but Fukushima is unsettling. This chain of events started because they didn't have backup power to operate the water pumps? And isn't that similar to what happened at Chernobyl? They were doing a test and for some reason the backup generators didn't come online. Can't they design a reactor that by default goes into some sort of fail-safe shutdown?

As for the radioactive pollution, I'm not sure how much damage that is going to do. 300 tons of radioactive water per day is a lot, but nothing compared to the volume of the Pacific Ocean. I guess it all depends on where that radiation ends up being sequestered, what sort of organisms take it up.

[oldcoastie6468]

The best seafood we ever had was in Myrtle Beach, SC.

[RickZ]

Glock, France (of all countries) seems to be doing quite well with nuclear power.  They are far and away the country with the highest percentage of their energy coming from nuclear plants, 75% (the US is only 19%).  Slovakia and The Chocolate Poodles of Belgium are practically tied for 2nd, at a little over 2/3 of France's %age of nuclear to overall energy.

(Sorry for the crappy table, I couldn't copy it as a .jpg file.)

Rank/Country/Capacity (MW) (2012)/Nuclear share of electricity production

1 United States 102,136 19.0%
2 France 63,130 74.8%
3 Japan 44,215 18.1%
4 Russia 23,643 17.8%
5 South Korea 20,739 30.4%
6 Canada 14,135 15.3%
7 Ukraine 13,107 46.2%
8 China 12,860 2.0%
9 Germany 12,068 16.1%
10 United Kingdom 9,938 18.1%
11 Sweden 9,395 38.1%
12 Spain 7,560 20.5%
13 Belgium 5,927 51.0%
14 Taiwan 5,028 18.4%
15 India 4,780 3.6%
16 Czech Republic 3,804 35.3%
17 Switzerland 3,278 35.3%
18 Finland 2,752 32.6%
19 Bulgaria 1,906 31.6%
20 Hungary 1,889 45.9%
21 Brazil 1,884 3.1%
22 South Africa 1,860 5.1%
23 Slovakia 1,816 53.8%
24 Mexico 1,530 4.7%
24 Romania 1,300 19.4%
26 Argentina 935 4.7%
27 Iran 915 0.6%
28 Pakistan 725 5.3%
29 Slovenia 688 36.0%
30 Netherlands 482 4.4%
31 Armenia 375 26.6%