Are you living in radiation? How reliable are these websites?

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center clearly shows a lot of very high levels of radiation. Just how accurate is it? (When you click on the circles you can see the supposed levels of Counts per minute CPM)

Q: Can you better explain how these alerts start, and why they are canceled?

A: Netc.com tracks the radiation levels at over 3000 stations around the world. Some of the stations, collect gamma radiation and others collect dose rates. Each station has its own NORM (Natural Occurring Radiation Material) background level that is calculated everyday for three months. When the current radiation exceeds that level and other conditions are met, an Alert in issue: Saying the radiation at that station has increased radiation level that are higher the the 3 month range. This is very important, not because it is dangerous, but because high levels of radiation blows in the wind or rain and could be a health problem if it is breathe into your lungs. Just like a sand storm the radiation blows following the wind patterns, so then the Alert is cancelled when the radiation is within its radiation level.

There are other news stories about these things too:

Radio talk about radiation - They specifically mention Fukishima and San Francisco.

US radiation levels exceed evacuation level

""SAN FRANCISCO—High radiation levels exceeded the evacuation level requiring the wholesale evacuation of civilians at many locations in the States over the past four years, from 2011 to 2014. Those who remain are supposed to be wearing hazmat suits.

Did evacuation happen in your town or city? No, of course not. It did not happen anywhere that I know of.

This heavy radiation influx precedes the Fukushima Daiichi, Japan three reactor meltdowns. Therefore, by definition it cannot be just strictly from the Fukushima radiation releases. The killing radiation came from someplace else, plus Fukushima’s rad. This pattern is repeated again and again in cities throughout America. What happened to beautiful zapped America?

Certain scuttlebutt in the nuclear community is that America’s is the most irradiated population in the world. Getting zapped like that leads to “shortened life spans” in the quaint expression of the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It means the rad kills you before your time. This is from greatly increased rates of radiation induced heart disease, radiation induced cancers and hundreds of other radiation induced illnesses.

Today’s HazMat suit required and evacuation level cities include a lot of locations. Notable due to very high radiation levels are the following:

Billings, Montana, 769 CPM
Idaho Falls, Idaho, 488 CPM
Rapid City, South Dakota, 463 CPM
Grand Junction, Colorado, 465 CPM
Colorado Springs, Colorado, 536 CPM
San Diego, California, 417 CPM and
Raleigh, North Carolina, 474 CPM

The “evacuation required” level is 300 CPM (counts per minute). A single count is one radioactive decay."





This website still shows a bunch of radiation in the US, but the levels seem less... less as in you shouldn't evacuate, but still it's a lot of radiation we're living in, in the US, if this one is more accurate.

http://radiationnetwork.com/



Edit: And if these sites are not accurate, where can we see some accurate stats?

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[Balthazar]

Billings, Montana, 769 CPM
Idaho Falls, Idaho, 488 CPM
Rapid City, South Dakota, 463 CPM
Grand Junction, Colorado, 465 CPM
Colorado Springs, Colorado, 536 CPM
San Diego, California, 417 CPM and
Raleigh, North Carolina, 474 CPM

Is that supposed to scare somebody?

OK then my attempt is better.

http://i62.tinypic.com/spf34n.jpg
http://i59.tinypic.com/1z5kzo2.jpg

The “evacuation required” level is 300 CPM (counts per minute). A single count is one radioactive decay."

How about over 10000 CPM of natural background on brazil beaches?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgAx1yIKjg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdHHUGwFoJE

[Spendulus]

Billings, Montana, 769 CPM
Idaho Falls, Idaho, 488 CPM
Rapid City, South Dakota, 463 CPM
Grand Junction, Colorado, 465 CPM
Colorado Springs, Colorado, 536 CPM
San Diego, California, 417 CPM and
Raleigh, North Carolina, 474 CPM

Is that supposed to scare somebody?

OK then my attempt is better.

http://i62.tinypic.com/spf34n.jpg
http://i59.tinypic.com/1z5kzo2.jpg

The “evacuation required” level is 300 CPM (counts per minute). A single count is one radioactive decay."

How about over 10000 CPM of natural background on brazil beaches?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgAx1yIKjg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdHHUGwFoJE

I knew Brazilian babes were hot but had no idea they were that hot.

[TECSHARE]

I am the owner of a Geiger counter, and I can confirm the readings of around 30cpm for the Chicagoland area. In fact where I live it is about half that.

[Balthazar]

Unfortunately, CPM alone says nothing. It depends on the device sensitivity, some detectors just like my NaI scintillator are saying 200-300 CPM while geiger counter would count only 7-8 decays per minute.

And even more funny, sensitivity is different for every tube even for same models with identical power supply. Just for example, one of my SBM-20 tubes has ~5% greater counting speed than the others.

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Billings, Montana, 769 CPM
Idaho Falls, Idaho, 488 CPM
Rapid City, South Dakota, 463 CPM
Grand Junction, Colorado, 465 CPM
Colorado Springs, Colorado, 536 CPM
San Diego, California, 417 CPM and
Raleigh, North Carolina, 474 CPM

Is that supposed to scare somebody?

OK then my attempt is better.

http://i62.tinypic.com/spf34n.jpg
http://i59.tinypic.com/1z5kzo2.jpg

The “evacuation required” level is 300 CPM (counts per minute). A single count is one radioactive decay."

How about over 10000 CPM of natural background on brazil beaches?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgAx1yIKjg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdHHUGwFoJE

Wow, that beach.

When did we get to the point everyone was ok to having this much radiation on this planet?

Unfortunately, CPM alone says nothing. It depends on the device sensitivity, some detectors just like my NaI scintillator are saying 200-300 CPM while geiger counter would count only 7-8 decays per minute.

And even more funny, sensitivity is different for every tube even for same models with identical power supply. Just for example, one of my SBM-20 tubes has ~5% greater counting speed than the others.

Well that's disturbing.

[Snail2]

Balthazar is right, CPM value on its own can be misleading, especially because a GM counter counts all sorts of radiation including alpha, beta and gamma rays. As an average wall or the body of a car can stop alpha and beta radiation, only the gamma radiation is a real issue, but that part could be much lower than the measured value.

[Schleicher]

This map is probably more useful than the geiger counter map:



Additional to that you have radiation from building materials (like granite or concrete)

[MakingMoneyHoney]

This map is probably more useful than the geiger counter map:



Additional to that you have radiation from building materials (like granite or concrete)

Thanks. Of course according to that map, California, Arizona and Nevada seem to have a lot of 8.5, but does that mean?

Even if these are just small amounts of radiation, I still think it's weird people are ok with having these nuclear plants.

[Balthazar]

As an average wall or the body of a car can stop alpha and beta radiation, only the gamma radiation is a real issue, but that part could be much lower than the measured value.

Unfortunately, it's not quite correct because isotopes can be consumed with water or food.

Unlike gamma, alpha particles are able to give all of its energy to cells. That's why alpha radiation from Am241, Pu238-242 and some other isotopes is the real threat as well as reason of evacuation from the Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones. On the other hand, people are able to live in gamma contaminated areas without noticeable problems. Just for example, 25% of Belarusian territory is contaminated with Cesium-137. Due to weak interaction with matter, gamma radiation is not a real issue unless there are really high levels of activity.

////

It should be noted that most of the dosimeters can see only gamma and hard beta radiation, this makes them useless for the assessment of a real threat.

If you need an explanation then there is an example:

Americium-241 emits alpha particles and weak gamma rays;
Cesium-137 emits hard gamma and beta rays;

If you would use typical geiger counter to compare Am241 and Cs137 sources with identical activity, then you will see lower CPM values for Am241 source. This will inevitably lead you to wrong conclusion.  

[MakingMoneyHoney]

Just re-posting this from another thread, if anyone is interested.

Fukushima/3 of the 4 Cores Now in Contact with Ground Water

July 20th, 2015 - Nuclear Expert: We should be very worried about ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima… “Complete failure” of ice wall built to contain extremely radioactive water… Plutonium is flowing into Pacific, will for many years to come — Strontium in ocean hits record level, huge increase reported since April

"Excerpts from presentation by Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Chief Engineer, Jul 16, 2015 (emphasis added):

    Are the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi over?… This catastrophe is not over… We should continue to be very worried.
    3 of the nuclear cores at Fukushima Daiichi are in direct contact with groundwater.  Nuclear power designers and engineers never anticipated that possibility.
    Fukushima Daiichi Units No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 were destroyed… allowing holes and cracks to form… We know for sure that the Fukushima Daiichi containments are full of holes that allow groundwater to come in direct contact with each nuclear core.
    Groundwater is still leaking in and leaking out, at a rate of at least 300 tons per day… more than 1,500 days have passed… 23,000-tanker truckloads of radioactive water have already leaked into the Pacific Ocean. Worse yet, there is no end in sight.
    As Fairewinds anticipated, the ‘ice wall’ is a complete failure.
    Cesium, strontium and plutonium from Fukushima Daiichi will continue to bleed into the Pacific Ocean for decades because the groundwater flow is unmitigated.
    Japan’s press looks on silently due to the real threat and constraints of the government’s secrecy act… The true human, financial, and environmental costs of this nuclear power catastrophe are not publicized and discussed."

From 2013 - 3 Fukushima reactor cores melted into earth during accident, still missing – 4th could explode

[Das]

Call me paranoid, but I never was a big fan of nuclear power stations. Hearing about the high radiation levels around just further solidifies my distaste for nuclear energy.

[Balthazar]

Call me paranoid, but I never was a big fan of nuclear power stations. Hearing about the high radiation levels around just further solidifies my distaste for nuclear energy.

I'm laughing every time when I hear about these so-called "high radiation levels".

[TECSHARE]

Call me paranoid, but I never was a big fan of nuclear power stations. Hearing about the high radiation levels around just further solidifies my distaste for nuclear energy.

I'm laughing every time when I hear about these so-called "high radiation levels".

Why is that? If you do some research on the Pacific you will see it is largely a dead zone now with thousands of sea creatures washing up on beaches and almost no visible life in many areas. The levels are certainly elevated on the West coast of the US.

[BADecker]

All that radiation is simply American intelligence and ingenuity going nuclear.    

EDIT: Did I spell that right? Maybe it's "unclear."

[TECSHARE]

All that radiation is simply American intelligence and ingenuity going nuclear.    

EDIT: Did I spell that right? Maybe it's "unclear."

At least you didn't spell it nucular like most people pronounce it after that idiot George bush started saying it that way.

[Balthazar]

Why is that?

Because it's a pure BS. There is no actual difference between chanting "allahu akbar" or pushing some anti-nuclear propaganda. Both are nothing but a result of ignorance.

If you do some research on the Pacific you will see it is largely a dead zone now with thousands of sea creatures washing up on beaches and almost no visible life in many areas.

If you do some research then you will see that these "elevated levels" are nothing but a joke in comparison with a natural radiation background in many populated areas of the world. And even more funny, natural radiation is provided mostly by the alpha emitters, which are dozens of times more hazardous for your health than all these anthropohenic beta- and gamma-emitters.

with thousands of sea creatures washing up on beaches

Isn't connected with radiation levels. You're welcome to prove otherwise.

[bryant.coleman]

Call me paranoid, but I never was a big fan of nuclear power stations. Hearing about the high radiation levels around just further solidifies my distaste for nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy is the cheapest and the most environmentally friendly form of energy available. That is why the pro-OPEC types try to manipulate the general population in to thinking against the nuclear reactors. A massive negative propaganda campaign is ongoing against nuclear power, funded by the OPEC heavyweights such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

[Balthazar]

Nuclear energy is the cheapest and the most environmentally friendly form of energy available.

Don't forget that it's nearly unlimited. If we switch our energy system to fast-neutron nuclear reactors, then we won't need oil, gas, coal and even uranium or thorium mines. These reactors are capable to burn virtually any actinide, including the weapons-grade plutonium. So, the current stock of long-living radioactive waste, such as americium, depleted uranium and plutonium, is more than sufficient to serve the dozens of generations as an energy source. No wonder these saudi monkeys are desperately trying to prevent this from happening.

[alyssa85]

There is natural radiation in rocks remember, particularly around mining sites. It's pretty much impossible to live on planet earth and have no radiation at all.

[BADecker]

As cellphone and microwave usage increase, radiation from these devices increases as well.

There are those that think that the bees are dying off en masse because of cellphone usage.

[tvbcof]

Just a little note for anyone who is interested.

When Fukushima happened, it was fairly quickly obvious to me that we could not rely on info coming from the various governments.  At all.  I reserched things a bit and found several things:

  1) The 'safe' levels set prior to Fukushima of various types of radiological threats tended to be absurdly low for a variety of political reasons (which I had already suspected.)

  2) A typical 'Gieger counter' was fairly useless for measuring anything but fairly significant threats such as a nuclear weapon relatively close to one's locale.

I bought some dated equipment which I felt would be adequate to identify potential threats of significance.  Specifically, a buildup in particuar foods.  I then learned how to use it well enough to feel reasonably comproftable with the results.  I bought what is known as a 'scaler' rather than a single or multi-channel analyzer because I felt that I would have a pretty good idea of the actual types and ratios of isotopes which were of potential threat and did not need to be able to identify them.  For detectors I use what are know as 'scintilators' which are more applicable for the type of testing I wished to do.

I can report that on the West Coast around the Bay Area, in the months following the event, I was not able to identify anything which caused ME any concern.  Near the time when we would have achieved the hightest fall-out of elements such as cesium and strontium I blended up a bunch of grass clipings and tested them extensively with no significant results that caused me concern.  I also was shopping at an Asian food market since my girlfriend did the cooking and never found anything of note.

I expect that we all got a few 'fuel fleas' which are relatively large particals which can lodge in the lungs and emit alpha particals (among other things.)  Alpha is not normally a big cause for concern because of the very limited penetrating power, but if it gets inside of tissue in 'island sized' chunks, it can be a real problem.  Something exploded and scattered fuel rods around the site but the how and what has still not been fessed up to as far as I know.  There will likely be an increase in cancer rates over the next generation due to this, but on an individual level the risk is not great.  As I read things.  What's done is done anyway.

Of course the land around Fukushima and the ocean in the immediate vacinity is highly damaged.  Although I subscribe to the 'big ocean' philosphy, to this day I don't eat a lot of tuna fish or other wide ranging long lived predator fish just in case an individual fish happened to be feeding downstream of some of this.  More than that, though, I don't care for it all that much.  I've not broken out my test equipement in years.

Note that my gear was never formally calibrated and I am a novice with no formal training.  I'm simply an interested in this stuff and have zero confidence that out government would weigh the protection of the citizens above the protection of corporate and international interests.

tl;dr:  I have confidence that these monitoring networks are reasonably accurate and certainly 'better than nothing' (which is what we get from the state/media), but the results are meaningless and have yet to indicate a notable threat.  They did show some interesting artifacts for about a week when the very short lived xenon was expected following the Fukushima disaster.  My read.

[Balthazar]

Yep, it's always very funny to see how somebody is trying to measure something with geiger counter.

Typical values of volume activity for foods are too low to be distinguished from the background, even if this particular food samples were grown in a close neighbourhood of exploded nuclear reactor. Note for everybody, you wouldn't be able to measure foods activity without something like scintillation spectrometer, shielded with 10-20cm of lead. It's like an attempt to see a lighted candle on the background of sun disk in the middle of day. Just don't waste your time, you won't get any sane results.

P.S. It also explains why sometimes it's relatively safe to eat the polluted food, like some tourists are doing in Chernobyl exclusion zone. Simply because they aren't doing that on the regular basis.

[Nemo1024]

Nevertheless, if one want to have a radiation meter (and a nitrate tester), I can recommend one from SOEKS (short for Contemporary Ecological Systems):

http://soeks.ru/catalog/soeks_ekotester_2

The system is bi-lingual - menus are in Russian and English.

And an EMF tester as a bonus:
http://soeks.ru/catalog/impuls

[luciann]

As cellphone and microwave usage increase, radiation from these devices increases as well.

There are those that think that the bees are dying off en masse because of cellphone usage.

Bees are dying, but its not due to radiation.

Its due to a different level of breed of bees that kill the queen bee taking over certain hives.

Theres a whole documentary on this, esp why we need them. Its on netflix just type in bee documentary. It goes onto a detail of things, buts it not radiation or cell phones.

[Balthazar]

Africanized bees aka so-called "killer bees" are not a problem, actually. Yes, they're more protective and sometimes aggressive, but these bees are also superior honey producers. Africanized bees are also more resistant to parasites, virus infections and other deseases. That's why so many beekeepers are switching from european strains to africanized bees. By the way, despite having the superior genes, these bees are too dependent on food, so they aren't capable of establishing stable presence in areas with too cold or too dry climate.

P. S. It appears like bees are dying as the result of poisoning. A lot of various indiscriminative insecticides are being used by monsanto & others, including those with a delayed effect.

[tvbcof]

Africanized bees aka so-called "killer bees" are not a problem, actually. Yes, they're more protective and sometimes aggressive, but these bees are also superior honey producers. Africanized bees are also more resistant to parasites, virus infections and other deseases. That's why so many beekeepers are switching from european strains to africanized bees. By the way, despite having the superior genes, these bees are too dependent on food, so they aren't capable of establishing stable presence in areas with too cold or too dry climate.

P. S. It appears like bees are dying as the result of poisoning. A lot of various indiscriminative insecticides are being used by monsanto & others, including those with a delayed effect.

A friend of mine has family in the bee business.  Says that people used to transport bees across the rocky mountains.  California bees do not produce healthy or survivable hives any more.  Those who still do operate on both sides keep the California bees seperate from the other ones.  This is here-say, but I have confidence in what the guy says and his family is pretty big in the business.  Seems to be a pretty widely held belief that something is going wrong and it is especially true of California's central valley.

The same area has also been under a pretty funny drought, and in the Northern reaches around Shasta people are complaining bitterly about 'chemtrails'.  Here on the North side of the ridge (between CA and OR) we had unusually dry weather (very nice in fact) and a fair bit of interesting artifacts in the skies until about a year ago when things seemed to have gotten back to clouds of the type I remember as a kid and we had a typical rainy shitty winter.

Hard to know what is happening in CA, but one can guess that small-timer are not going to be able to sustian half a decade of mis-fortune and will probably be selling their property.  I'll guess that there will be plenty of multi-national corporate buyers, and they'll be well served by fire-sale prices.  The drought also allowed Gov Brown to implement a lot of water regulations, apps developers developed water snitch applications, etc.  Just sayin'

[TECSHARE]

Why is that?

Because it's a pure BS. There is no actual difference between chanting "allahu akbar" or pushing some anti-nuclear propaganda. Both are nothing but a result of ignorance.

If you do some research on the Pacific you will see it is largely a dead zone now with thousands of sea creatures washing up on beaches and almost no visible life in many areas.

If you do some research then you will see that these "elevated levels" are nothing but a joke in comparison with a natural radiation background in many populated areas of the world. And even more funny, natural radiation is provided mostly by the alpha emitters, which are dozens of times more hazardous for your health than all these anthropohenic beta- and gamma-emitters.

with thousands of sea creatures washing up on beaches

Isn't connected with radiation levels. You're welcome to prove otherwise.

Sorry but the threat of nuclear reactors failing and or melting down is a very real factual threat, not equivalent to believing in magic sky men. Especially so in the USA where the vast majority of reactors are way past their designed lifetime and simply keep getting a pass for economic reasons. Many of them are leaking and breaking down. Fukushima has shown us that something as simple as an extended power outage can cause a meltdown. Those same reactor designs are all over the USA, using dangerous MOX fuel which contains plutonium which is way more dangerous than any of the other materials commonly used in nuclear plants in fuel rods. I am not completely anti-nuclear energy, but we most certainly could be using newer technology which will not melt down simply because of loss of power, and can cool down on its own using the laws of physics without human intervention.

As far as your point about elevated levels of radiation, that is a blanket statement which might cover some but certainly not all instances. Some are in fact quite serious and are a real threat to human life and health. As far as evidence of radiation causing the Pacific Ocean die off, that's kind of hard when they are systematically shutting down testing by the universities and independent labs, and the fact that the US government doesn't even monitor radiation levels in the ocean, only fresh water. Every nuclear disaster in history is followed by as much of a coverup as they can get away with. Nuclear energy is big money. REALLY big money. Not just that it provides cover for nuclear weapons production, so the military industrial complex has a stake in keeping it going as well. Unfortunately a lot more people are going to die for that money, probably even the psychopaths in charge of them.

[Balthazar]

Africanized bees aka so-called "killer bees" are not a problem, actually. Yes, they're more protective and sometimes aggressive, but these bees are also superior honey producers. Africanized bees are also more resistant to parasites, virus infections and other deseases. That's why so many beekeepers are switching from european strains to africanized bees. By the way, despite having the superior genes, these bees are too dependent on food, so they aren't capable of establishing stable presence in areas with too cold or too dry climate.

P. S. It appears like bees are dying as the result of poisoning. A lot of various indiscriminative insecticides are being used by monsanto & others, including those with a delayed effect.

A friend of mine has family in the bee business.  Says that people used to transport bees across the rocky mountains.  California bees do not produce healthy or survivable hives any more.  Those who still do operate on both sides keep the California bees seperate from the other ones.  This is here-say, but I have confidence in what the guy says and his family is pretty big in the business.  Seems to be a pretty widely held belief that something is going wrong and it is especially true of California's central valley.

I think they were talking about CCD i.e. colony collapse disorder, which is also known as disappearing disease. It's a serious problem since many of crops are pollinated by honey bees. It can be caused by parasites, such as Varroa destructor, which is currently considered as world's most destructive honey bee killer since it was detected in more than 80% of cases. It is a common problem for all races, and africanized bees are no more resistant than other subspecies of honey bee.

Fortunately, there are some strains which are more resistant than others. For example, russian honey bees are resistant to infestations by this parasite.

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

Though they are still affected by the Israeli acute paralysis virus, insecticides, pesticides, GMO foods and other harmful factors.

[NeuroticFish]

From what I see Cernobyl is safe, right? No danger in Ukraine.

Something is deffinitely wrong with those maps you showed...