 Poster: A snowHead
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I find it really strange that no one seems to be aghast at the prospect of never going to Japan again.
I was due to book to go for the 1st time next season and cant see it happening.
The news this morning talks of the radiation levels being at the top of the scale, as bad if not worse than Chernobyl.
Am I missing something or is everyone burying their heads in the snow???
Rich
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Oi Oi Savaloy, at least for now the release of any dangerous radiation appears to be confined to a localised area around the damaged reactor. The upgrade this morning related largely to events in the aftermath of the tsunami not an increase in the current danger. So no unless the situation deteriorates further, or new information comes to light, it would not make any difference to whether I wanted to ski in Japan.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Oi Oi Savaloy, why not, did skiing in the Alps stop when chernobyl happenned in the ukraine? OK, maybe it is a bit further from the western alps but the distance to the eastern alps and areas like bulgaria is of a similar order.
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Nice one,
Are you based out there?
How far away from the main resorts is the plant?
Do these come within the evacuation zone at all?
I can assure you I am desperate to go but find it a bit weird that it's not being discussed
Rich
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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spiceman,
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but the distance to the eastern alps and areas like bulgaria is of a similar order.
Tue 12 Apr, 11
09:13
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Is it?? I am genuinely not aware of the distances involved and in fairness I did not give a thought to radiation poisoning when ski ing in Austria.
Excuse my ignorance of distances but this seems a bit more " just up the road " to me.
Rich
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Oi Oi Savaloy, It's around 450-500 miles from the reactor to the centre of Hokkaido.
There's a bit of reading from the Ski Independence website (great tour op who can organise your trip there)
http://www.ski-i.com/blog/2011/04/niseko-50/
A month after the catastrophic Japanese earthquake, Niseko, one of some 600 ski areas in the country and arguably the best known internationally, has commented on the event, how it has affected the resort which is located on the separate northern island of Hokkaido and 500km from the epicenter.
“We appreciate the outpouring of support that Japan and we here in Niseko have received in response to the disaster that struck Japan’s east coast one month ago. As you surely know, the earthquake and tsunami that followed have left entire towns missing in northern sections of Honshu, Japan’s main island. These areas continue to struggle to provide shelter, food, services, and other supplies to residents who have been uprooted, but the displays of support in the form of donations, kind words, and volunteers has been truly inspiring.” said a statement from The Niseko Promotion Board.
On the direct impact of the earthquake on Niseko the resort says, “There was almost no direct impact from the event. Despite concerns about food shortages in affected areas, Niseko neither expected nor experienced supply issues. Additionally, our power grid is completely separate from Tokyo Electric, so the rolling blackouts affecting large chunks of the main island do not extend toward Niseko and Hokkaido is not included in travel advisories in Japan.” “We know many people are concerned about the impact of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant on Niseko’s developments and operations, so we’d like to quell as many fears as possible. Radiation levels in Hokkaido have remained at typical background levels for the last month and radiation at sites across Japan has been dropping steadily.”
The resort itself has raised two million yen to help with earthquake relief.
Niseko Resort
The resort notes that in light of the continued stability of Niseko, many development projects in the area are scheduled to proceed from this spring as planned including on mountain improvements for the 2011-12 season, which will be the resort’s 50th.
The biggest news is that the Hirafu gondola will be converted to a high-speed, eight-passenger-cabin lift, increasing speed and capacity on the route. The whole trip will now be only five minutes.
More new accommodation will also be built including Shiki, next to the Mountain Side Palace; The Rocks development on the site of the demolished Hotel Scot and the construction of the M Hotel on Momiji-zaka Street. Most of this work is already underway.
Additionally, a new ski centre will be built next door, complete with restaurant, ski school, rentals, and ski shop. A new kid’s space will be constructed, as well. “When the first ski guests arrive late this year, there will certainly be new and exciting changes to see.” said the resort statement.
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Awesome, many thousands of people killed, many more homeless, one of the worlds major nations facing the prospect of nuclear meltdown, their economy facing a not too dissimilar fate, but will they be offering a discount on lift passes?
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the mechanically recovered meat troll strikes again
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Thanks Shoogly..interesting read. As I said I genuinely hope all is well because I really fancy it
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I'm heading to Japan next season, to Niseko, and am really looking forward to it. Last thing Japan needs in those areas largely unaffected by these events is a collapse in their tourist trade.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Am I missing something or is everyone burying their heads in the snow???
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You're missing something, most of the radiation released from the reactors in Japan is of the short lived variety, also the amounts released are maybe a little over 10% of what was released at Chernobyl, however at Chernobyl much of what went up into the air was reactor core material which is far more dangerous, the Japanese are doing the best thing for their people and trying to ensure that as few as possible are exposed to any risk, at Chernobyl almost the reverse is true, don't forget that so far, no Japanese has died as a result of the damaged reactors, by comparison look at how many thousands have died as a result of the Earthquake and Tsunami.
Those at greatest risk are the workers at the plant and perhaps the biggest concern for all is that the plants owners have not yet managed to eliminate all of the radiation leaks, quite honestly I suspect they won't achieve that until all of the reactors at the plant are fully cooled and dormant, then they can either do as the Three Mile Island people did and dismantle and remove the cores or they can do what was done at Chernobyl and seal them up and entomb them, I hope they do the former which given the way Japan suffers earthquakes will be much safer.
I Believe plenty of people will go to Japan though it might be a few years before some summon up the courage to do so, Don't forget that the Japanese were already rebuilding Hiroshima by 1949 less than 4 years after the bomb was dropped there killing over 100,000 people.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I may not be visiting the plants neighbouring mt. Kitoya in the next few years, but I would have absolutely no quarms heading to say Niseko which is about 800 km away. Given that the current danger area (and we are talking small risk of nausea here) is 40km I think we can assume that excluding some huge meltdown (that would first have to take out Tokyo) the actual act of skiing will remain a far greater danger than a week long dose of radiation.
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You know it makes sense.
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Fair enough ...trips back on then!!!!! 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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According to the papers etc the Iodine-131 released has an 8 day half life. You should be ok next season.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Oi Oi Savaloy wrote: |
......I'm not a scientist but this doesn't quite seem to fit with the BBC that quotes radiation levels at maximum  .... |
The BBC says that Chernobyl radiation levels were 10x that of Fukushima - though I agree the headlines and wording are not the clearest.
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| Level seven previously only applied to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, where 10 times as much radiation was emitted. |
- emphasis is mine.
How all this pans out in the long term remains to be seen, of course.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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the BBC that quotes radiation levels at maximum
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No they don't. There is no such thing as maximum as such.
They state that the severity rating was changed to maximum.
Fukushima is nothing like Chernobyl.... and in fact Chernobyl was nothing like Chernobyl (both are/were just mass media hysteria with stories written by people that haven't a clue). Chernobyl exclusion zone is about 30km iirc... Fukishima is of the same order.
I'd be more worried about eating bananas 
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don't get me started on what chemicals they feed strawberrys!!!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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The BBC said....anyone who has ever been involved in a story that the press reports on will know that at least 50% of what you read is either inacurate or simply wrong........Journalists are up there with estate agents and lawyers, and not in a good way.
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might be good for night skiing?
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And don't get me started on what chemicals they feed cows and sheep!
Wouldn't stop me skiing in Japan though
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Oi Oi Savaloy, the trouble is that the scale being used is a classification of an incident, the level on the scale is determined by the highest of three scores: off-site effects, on-site effects, and defence in depth degradation. the individual reactor incidents would each on their own only rate a 5 at most however because of the nature of the scale of the event combining them gives a 7, note that as I said above the scale is determined by the highest of those three scores, so for example even if 2 are normal one abnormally high threat will raise all to the maximum.
In Japan's case I suspect the very high readings around the reactor buildings themselves pushed up the score significantly and it probably wasn't helped that most of the defence in depth was wiped out by a tsunami.
Of course if we look at the scientific readings the greatest amount of radiation released seems to have happened when the fuel rods in the cooling pools of the switched off reactor (No 3 I think) became uncovered, also there is still a leak of some description in the cooling system of (again I think) reactor 2, however the biggest risk is still to the workers at the plant rather than to anyone in the surrounding area
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I wouldn't be rushing to take a job at the plant. Otherwise, Japan is fine.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I'm with Sir Sausage - 'short lived radiation'? I smell a 3 legged rat 
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You know it makes sense.
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Oi Oi Savaloy, There a vast number of ski resorts in Japan, not just Hokkaido, have a look at Shiga Kogen or Zao, though the latter might be a bit to close to the radiation for you  , we di both this year in one trip and would go back with the next snow fall if we had the chance.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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red 27, ok we will try to make things simple for you, radioactive materials decay, that is to say that radioactive materials are inherently unstable, the nuclei of the atoms of such material loose energy by emitting ionizing particles (what we call radiation), the particles can be in 3 different forms and different materials give of different quantities of these particles, the three forms of radiation given off are Alpha, Beta and Gamma particles, Alpha particles are easy to stop, a single thickness of tissue paper (or the skin of a human) is enough to stop Alpha particles, have a good shower after being contaminated with these and (Baring taking a lot into your lungs or stomach) you should be ok, Beta is more dangerous, though in general it can be stopped by ordinary walls car bodies and that kind of stuff, Gamma is the real nasty one, get high doses of this stuff and they will bury you in a lead lined coffin sealed in concrete.
Now here's the complicated bit, when radioactive materials decay it is at a known rate called the half life, this is the time required for a material to be giving off half the quantity of radiation its currently giving off, radioactive iodine for example has a half life of 8.02 days, let us say that a kg if Iodine is giving off 1mSV per day right now in 8 days time it will be giving off 0.5 mSv per day, in 16 days 0.25mSv per day and so on, now some materials have a very long half life Uranium 238 for example is around 4.5 Billion years but other materials have a half life measured in mere seconds, thus it is entirely possible for incredibly high levels of radiation to be measured inside the nuclear plant whilst just a few hundred meters away (an thus a few seconds later) radiation might well be merely slightly above normal.
In order to make an assessment of the dangers you really need to know the level of radiation, what form the radiation is and most importantly what material is giving off that radiation, without knowing all 3 and having an understanding of what that means.
Just as a minor illustration of things, back in the cold war era both sides developed Neutron Bombs, atomic bombs designed to give of 10 times the amount of radiation compared to a regular atomic device of similar size, these were designed to deal with tanks, which with their high levels of armour were actually pretty resistant to regular atomic bomb radiation, the unpleasant fact of Neutron Bobs is that they kill people with massive doses of radiation (in the order of 800+ Sv) but because this radiation has a very short life roughly 3 days after their use it is safe to pass through an area they've been deployed in
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Poster: A snowHead
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D G Orf, you failed
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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"Half-life" - the time when HALF of the material had "decayed" (-- giving out radiation in the process).
Say, if the half life is 8 days, in those 8 days, half of the material had gotten done with their decay and radiation. Now only half were left, to give out HALF the radiation compare to 8 days before!
How many of those 8 days are there before the next ski season? Say 20 (~160 days). The radiation at that time should be 1/2^20.
That, of course, is assuming there's no NEW leak of radiative materials. But you can reverse the calculation to get a sense of "how much" you need to worry (or not).
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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It's a big country, and particularly here in Hokkaido, we're a long way from Fukushima. I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of years. If the snow starts glowing in the dark, I'll let you know!
The number of overseas tourists has dropped dramatically though. My inlaws are visiting at the moment, and said that on arriving in Tokyo, the immigration officers actually thanked them for coming to visit Japan, as so many have cancelled trips. They also said they barely saw a single western face in Tokyo.
If you're worried about coming out here, wait for a few months, and see how things develop before booking anything.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Mmmm, Blinky sushi....
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I can assure you I am desperate to go but find it a bit weird that it's not being discussed
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It's not being dicussed because people have looked at maps and listened to the news rather than just linking the words 'Japan' and 'radiation' and having a panic attack.
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Actually, I wouldn't worry too much about the radiation. But whether there'll be more earthquakes still to come to Japan...  (or the west coast of US, for that matter)
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Them radiation death waves cannot travel uphill, so you will be fine in the mountains
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Gamma is the real nasty one, get high doses of this stuff and they will bury you in a lead lined coffin sealed in concrete.
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Er well, no actually. Unlike alpha and beta emissions, which as D G Orf, correctly states are particles, gamma radiation is just that: radiation.
Electromagnetic radiation, like light, microwaves, radio waves etc.
It's highly damaging if it passes through you, because it will do stuff like damage your DNA (which causes mutations, cancers etc), so it can kill you if the dose is high enough, and then you'll have to be buried.....but not in a lead lined coffin, because you don't become radioactive as a result.
- In fact gamma-irradiation is a very effective and commercially used method of ensuring long-term food storage, - it kills off bacteria, and leaves the food safe to eat.
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Acacia, fair enough
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FAQ
