I may be wrong about what Andrew was asking, but I think he was asking you not to blather on about exposure and dose, but to point out where in this post it was wrong. Which you have not done.

I don’t expect too many people reading this blog to understand the difference. Hopefully there is one or two.

Oh. You just insulted my readers.

Bye.

Why does it matter to you who I am? Are you a sucker for Argument From Authority? My comments are scientifically sound, though that may be obnoxious shit for you. Too fucking bad. Defend your arguments against my arguments, not who I am.

I fully answered Andrew’s question, but I will provide an analogy for the Landenites.

Suppose I put you in a room with 100 malaria-Laden mosquitos for an hour. Your Exposure is 100 mosquito-hours.

But if only three mosquitos bite you, then your Dose is 3 mosquito-hours.

Exposure is different than dose.

I don’t expect too many people reading this blog to understand the difference. Hopefully there is one or two.

Looking at your comment and my post, though, I think you failed to answer Andrew’s question. I’d love to know what I got wrong so I can fix it. Or are you just going to continue to be a self congratulating undocumented (as in, we really have no idea who you are) obnoxious shit, as usual?

Exposure is the energy absorbed by air from radiation. Dose is the energy absorbed by human tissue by radiation. Since air and tissue have different densities, the energy absorption per unit length travelled by radiation is different in each medium (note there is no single tissue density, bone tissue density is different than lung tissue density for example, whereas air is pretty homogenous).

The Gray is actually the term for dose (joules/kg of absorbed radiation energy). However, different types of radiation (alpha, beta, neutron, etc.) produce different biological effects for the same dose. The Sievert employs a radiation weighting factor to account for this. The Sievert is then a unit of dose equivalence. However, there is another concept which also relates the tissue sensitivity (not all tissues equally sensitive) to the dose and radiation weighting factor. That concept is called the effective dose equivalent and also has units of Sievert.

So it can be quite confusing and you won’t get an appreciation of the important nuances from the mainstream press – which seems to be Greg’s preferred source of scientific information. There are reliable scientific sources of information, but don’t look to this blog for it.

I’ve worked in the US nuclear industry 25 years and have written a story that captures both the routine workings of an American atomic plant and what an accident might be like. (The event portrayed is similar to Fukushima – same reactor type, same initial problem.) I tried to cover the good AND the bad — like anything, it’s a mix. Unfortunately, my media presence consists of this little-known book and website, so I’m not an acknowledged “expert”. I just do the nuclear stuff for a living.

One of the interesting things about modern nuclear power in the US is that few really understand how it works day to day, and I include in that bin most scientists and journalists doing their best to address the topic. If we are to make better decisions about our energy future, we’d do well to first understand our energy present.

â??I got to about page four and I was hooked, I couldnâ??t put it downâ?¦ It was very easy to read.” — DAVID LEVY, noted science author and comet discoverer.

VICKY commented at the homepage: “Thanks for making this available onlineâ?¦. Your novel explains the workings of a nuclear plant, so that a layperson can understand. A very suspenseful read!”

Nick, yes.

Eric, the statement that they said that appears to be correct. That what they said is correct is something you’d need to check with them!

I have no independent way of knowing whether this statement is true or false. But I remember hearing similar statements about Fukushima Daiichi back in March. I hope this time they’re right, but I have to be skeptical given the industry’s track record.