Tag: Japanese meltdown

Could the Jet Stream Bring Japanese Radiation to the United States

On By southwerkIn ethics29 Comments

This is a map from wikipedia. It shows the path often taken by commercial airliners to take advantage of the jet stream when it is running from Japan to the United States. This usuallyoccurs during the winter months.

Could this thing bring radiation here? I don’t know.

During the Second World War the Japanese used the jet stream to send bombs by balloon to the United States. That would suggest to me that the wind currents are quite reliable.

From wikipedia –

The balloon campaign was the fourth attack the Japanese had made on the American mainland. The fūsen bakudan campaign was, however, the most earnest of the attacks. The concept was the brainchild of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Ninth Army’s Number Nine Research Laboratory, under Major General Sueyoshi Kusaba, with work performed by Technical Major Teiji Takada and his colleagues. The balloons were intended to make use of a strong current of winter air that the Japanese had discovered flowing at high altitude and speed over their country, which later became known as the jet stream.[3]

The jet stream blew at altitudes above 9.15 km (30,000 ft) and could carry a large balloon across the Pacific in three days, over a distance of more than 8,000 km (5,000 miles). Such balloons could carry incendiary and high-explosive bombs to the United States and drop them there to kill people, destroy buildings, and start forest fires.[3]

From another web site –

The balloon bombs were released from Japan in the winter months when the jet stream is the strongest. They popped up to altitude (20,000 to 40,000 ft.) and if they were lucky into the stream. They traveled along in an easterly direction crossing the Pacific at around 200 mph in the jet stream. In daytime they would ride at the maximum altitude but as time wore on they would sink. At night they would collect dew and become heavy. Below a set height the altimeter would cause a set of blow plugs (charges that released the ballast) to fire releasing the sand bag ballast. The lost of weight would cause the balloon to pop back up to altitude. This continued till all the sand bags were gone. The last ballast was the armament. Thermite bombs were armed and dropped in the last positions on the ring. Anti-personnel bombs were also used. After all the ballast was gone a picric acid block blew up destroying the gondola. A fuse was lit that was connected to a charge on the balloon itself. The hydrogen and air mixture burned the balloon envelope up as a large orange fireball.

I’m couldn’t find any information on the jet stream’s current location.

If radiation were to reach 30,000 feet and enter the jet stream, it will probably go faster than a “bomb balloon.”

I’m just speculating but I haven’t seen anything about this anywhere and I thought I would see if someone who knows more than I will talk about this.

James Pilant

Potassium Iodide and You

On By southwerkIn business ethics5 Comments

If radiation reaches the United States from the partial meltdowns in Japan, you may need

Potassium Iodide.

Why?

From Katy Waldman’s Article at Slate – Me, Myself and Iodine –

Of these, the most troubling is iodine-131, which can be absorbed by the thyroid when inhaled, causing thyroid cancer and leukemia. Gases like krypton-85 and xenon-133 don’t interact with bones or tissue, but since they are highly unstable they decay in bursts of radiation that can prove harmful to other bodily systems. But the body tolerates a certain amount of radiation every day, from cosmic rays to watching TV, and it’s only in much larger quantities that the byproducts of a nuclear power plant become dangerous. While radiation spiked to 1,000 times normal levels in one reactor control room, Japanese officials insist that exposure levels outside the plant are not highly hazardous. Even so, area residents have been advised to drink bottled water, stay indoors, and hold washcloths over their noses and mouths. As a precaution against iodine-131, officials have also announced plans to distribute potassium iodide pills, which saturate the thyroid with a stable form of iodine before the more dangerous isotope can be absorbed. They only work, however, if swallowed pre-emptively.

The CDC’s take on it (Centers for Disease Control) –

Following a radiological or nuclear event, radioactive iodine may be released into the air and then be breathed into the lungs. Radioactive iodine may also contaminate the local food supply and get into the body through food or through drink. When radioactive materials get into the body through breathing, eating, or drinking, we say that “internal contamination” has occurred. In the case of internal contamination with radioactive iodine, the thyroid gland quickly absorbs this chemical. Radioactive iodine absorbed by the thyroid can then injure the gland. Because non-radioactive KI acts to block radioactive iodine from being taken into the thyroid gland, it can help protect this gland from injury.

This is Wikipedia’s take on it –

SSKI may be used in radioiodine-contamination emergencies (i.e., nuclear accidents) to “block” the thyroid’s uptake of radioiodine (this is not the same as blocking the thyroid’s release of thyroid hormone).

Potassium iodide was approved in 1982 by the US FDA to protect the thyroid glands from radioactive iodine from accidents or fission emergencies. In the event of an accident or attack at a nuclear power plant, or fallout from a nuclear bomb, volatile fission product radionuclides may be released, of which 131I is one of the most common by-products and a particularly dangerous one due to thyroid gland concentration of it, which may lead to thyroid cancer. By saturating the body with a source of stable iodide prior to exposure, inhaled or ingested 131I tends to be excreted.

Potassium iodide cannot protect against any other causes of radiation poisoning, nor can it provide any degree of protection against dirty bombs that produce radionuclides other than isotopes of iodine. …

Buy some.

James Pilant