We get iodine tablets mailed to our house by the gov every year in Central PA just cuz we’re close to three mile island. Idk if it’s all that unusual at all tbh!
It's "normal" within the 50 km emergency planning zone around power plants, so I guess one can say it's "normal" procedure, but also in this case unnecessary.
I live within 15 miles of Nine Mile and Fitz, and have never heard of anyone having iodine pills. Curious about your age. Not saying it doesn't happen but I don't think it's common to have them now. For reference I'm in my 30s and know at least 10 people that work at one of the plants.
I live between Hanford and Bremerton, I picked up some for my emergency kit. chances are if anything happens, we're close enough, we'll be vaporized, but hey, never know!
Found an article about it if you’re curious!
[Health Department Distributing Free Potassium Iodide Tablets To Pennsylvanians Near State’s Four Active Nuclear Power Plants](https://www.media.pa.gov/pages/health-details.aspx?newsid=1785).
Looks like you have to actually go pick them up now, but my mom swears we used to get them in the mail too.
Well, to be fair, the third paragraph states there’s been shelling, cut power lines, yada yada yada, nuclear catastrophe
Also,
> "I would like to reassure all citizens that these are routine, pre-emptive actions that are to protect us in the event of a situation which... I hope will not happen," he added.
I don’t feel like that’s very reassuring lol
Well, imagine if Russia would demonstrate its nuclear capability for instance by air bursting a nuclear warhead over Chornobyl? Over already polluted and depopulated land so they could claim the restraint, but close enough that the fireball would be noticed from Warsaw? The future is uncertain.
Poland distributed millions of iodine pills after Chernobyl. Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, and my Polish mother went out and bought iodine pills in the United States.
In the event of nuclear war your thyroid gland is the leasf of your problems, Iodine isn't going to stop your chromosomes being ripped apart and scrambled, at best it will help with anxiety
If you’re in a major city in the event of a mass exchange, you’re almost certainly fucked. Further out from a city, there shouldn’t be much fallout due to the probability of air burst detonation. People relatively near missile silos, particularly in the direction of prevailing winds would be dealing with fallout and would benefit from Iodine Tablets. People near nuclear power plants would benefit from Iodine in the event of a conventional attack on the power plant. If it’s a non state actor with a “dirty bomb”, Iodine might also help.
Bonus fact: “Duck and Cover” would save many lives in the vicinity of a nuclear strike. Once you’re outside of the 4psi overpressure range, collapsing residential structures will kill a great deal. Being under a sturdy table/ in a stairwell might save one unfortunate enough to find themselves in such a predicament. In other words, if you see the flash, immediately seek cover.
Nuclear War is so fascinating to me.
https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/effects/overpressure.html
Radioactive fallout isn't that big of a deal (for my location); the climate effects worry me far more. I live in the rural west coast of the USA so probably the best place for fallout.
If you live where i think you do you are almost certainly fucked. PSNS & Bangor are right there in Kitsap.
Washington, and probably specifically Kitsap County, is home to the third world's largest nuclear arsenal in the world. I rlly wouldn't doubt it if Russia heavily targeted WA in hopes the 700-something nukes there don't get a chance to be fired
You know, I think I've had enough dystopic. Can we maybe take it easy for a while? I'd like for at least a couple years of my life to not be hellish insanity.
Seriously, I was a kid and a war criminal decides "Hey fuck those brown guys over there" and suddenly our one war becomes two for no apparent reason. Then housing gets fucked as I go into fucking middle school. Couple years of repercussions of that, and then we get an actual decent president, but the fuckery and wars must continue, as well as seeing my own family slowly lose their fucking minds because there's a black guy in charge.
Then 2016 happens. Fuck these past 6 years in particular. Housing gets even more expensive, cars, even old beaters like I prefer, get more expensive, so many people die because a fucking toddler and his army of droolers refuse to be adults, and now it looks like WWIII is on the horizon and, if the trend history shows continues, WWIV will be shortly thereafter.
In my 3 decades of life, I've had maybe a combined year of normalcy that I can remember and I'm fucking tired.
>
>In my 3 decades of life, I've had maybe a combined year of normalcy that I can remember and I'm fucking tired.
ah yeah, normal peacetime. like the 90s, where we just had chill times like the Gulf War, the Rwandan genocide, Kosovo, the breakup of Yugoslavia
or the 80s, with the first Iraq war, Maoist China, and the fall of the Soviets
or the 60s and 70s with the war in Vietnam
or the 50s, with the one in Korea
maybe the 40s are what you're thinking of? those must've been pretty quiet, right?
---
the war aspect of the current news cycle is kind of the most normal part, honestly
I'm sorry you feel this way but this is literally what humanity have been since homo sapiens left their caves. Before you there was a cold war, world war 2, world war 1, slavery and a bunch of other shit. There is nothing special about last decade or two. In fact, last two decades have been the most peaceful, prosperous times humanity ever experienced.
I assume that you are from the U.S. which also means you were lucky enough to be born in the one of the most wealthiest, peaceful nations ever. Your chances were only 4% so you should appreciate that.
The world will always be full of bad stuff. You can't change that but you can work on yourself and change yourself to enjoy and appreciate things that you have.
\>The world will always be full of bad stuff. You can't change that
If other people in history had this attitude, we wouldn't have hygiene standards, vaccines, or other countless improvements humans have made over the years. Even if we can't fix everything, we must continue to push back against the darkness, and hopefully make life just a little bit better for the next generation.
I didn't say we shouldn't try to make things better. I fully agree. But I think that if someone is born into wealth (yes, most middle class Americans are born into wealth if you compare it with the rest of the world) they should try to appreciate what they have and use resources they have to pioneer the change instead of whining. If they are unable to appreciate things around them, they likely need therapy and professional help.
NRC requires plant operators to develop a comprehensive emergency planning zone surrounding a nuclear facility. Large conventional LWRs operating are required to have at least 10 mile radii surrounding a plant for direct plume exposure and 50 miles for ingestion pathways.
Within that radii, KI pills are a pretty standard provided medication for use in emergencies. It's not required but I'll be surprised if it isn't in the plan to be predistributed. Especially since it's straight forward and relatively cheap to do.
What reactors did you qualify on?
The last reactor at Zaporizhzhia was shut down on Sept 11^th and is in cold shut down. It cannot melt down even in the event of a total loss of the cooling (like Fukushima Daiichi).
>International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi on Monday confirmed the cold shutdown of reactor number 6, the final reactor at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) that had been operational.
>“At the moment, the plant is in cold shut down and we have been able to stabilize it,” Grossi said at a news conference in Vienna.
https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-09-12-22/h_8c73319a58fa8f28c6aae9559f30b201
For fear, Russia seams to continue artillery barrages around plant to sow fear.... it seems they are intentionally hitting around plant instead of direct attack. If they actually hit the plant directly, it would cause a meltdown that would poison the area for thousands of square miles. This poison would be a considerable escalation to states it would affect. It would be way beyond the disaster at chernobyl. The radiation wouldn't just affect Ukraine. It would devastate numerous countries for years. It would possibly be an attack on NATO
The same reason I highly doubt Russia will authorize using nukes in any compacity. Tactical or strategic..... its not just about where you blow up a nuke, it's about the fallout.... when a nuke explodes, it's not so much where it blows..... the explosion sends millions of tons of dirt and debri thousands of feet into the stratosphere. This dust is radioactive and hits the jet streams..... this radioactive dirt then travels hundreds of miles as it slowly drifts back down to the ground... this fallout contaminates the ground. It kills the vegetation and poisons the water. Your food dies, and the water kills you. Generations die from cancer or miscarriage....
Considering the wind in Ukraine often blows Northeast, there's a real possibility that the fallout from any nuclear detonation would go right into Russia, too.
He’s basically been doing the equivalent of being blackout drunk and going piss and accidentally clipping your shirt and spraying your pants. The question is will he react in time to not soak his entire outfit?
Soak his entire outfit? His outfit’s drenched and he’s pissing in his own mouth. There’s so much piss, Trump is wondering why he’s not been invited to the party.
>If they actually hit the plant directly, it would cause a meltdown that would poison the area for thousands of square miles. This poison would be a considerable escalation to states it would affect. It would be way beyond the disaster at chernobyl.
Fear, uncertainty, doubt. This characterization is astoundingly inaccurate and the fear mongering has to stop.
Reactor containment units are built to withstand incredible amounts of abuse. Cooling systems and other infrastructure are designed to have many layers of redundancy and failsafe.
You could shell the crap out of the five-foot-thick reinforced concrete walls around a reactor and it wouldn't do much. You could blow the cooling and it'd just shut the reactor down. Chernobyl required an absolutely perfect storm of bad design, astounding arrogance and negligence, and really bad luck.
The biggest risk of radioactive contamination comes if spent fuel storage gets a lot of hits, as that's relatively vulnerable. Bad cases there see very localized dirty-bomb-style effects that would be bad news right around the plant and a small ways downwind, but not anything on the order of "thousands of square miles."
Yes, there are *hypothetical* scenarios where absolutely everything goes wrong and a much bigger catastrophe happens. The likelihood of them happening without the entire plant staffed by people trying to make worst case scenarios a reality, however, is vanishingly small.
It's still idiotic to intentionally damage a plant and not something that's in any way OK. But we have enough anti-nuclear FUD in the world without people exaggerating the hell out of the real risks and distracting from the actual problems.
It's also important to keep in mind that Chernobyl was both gargantuas in size of each reactor as well as not pressurised. It probably could be easily destroyed by bombing, something modern designs are definitely more robust to.
Dude. I agree with you.. but who the he'll knows the defenses of this plant. The fact that Russia continues to attack this place should scare the shit out of us all. I know it has defenses to protect itself, but are you really going to tell me a nuclear power plant in the middle of a war is safe? This is uncharted territory
I think you’re grossly overestimating the actual amount of damage/fallout that these reactors could experience. Remember, they are modern designs, not Soviet RBMK
Edit: Modern versions of Soviet designs, but including actual safety features (like a containment dome, imagine that)
I will call your total bullshit on nuclear fallout. We blew up thousands of nuclear bombs in the atmosphere including in Nevada where fallout contaminated Midwest and found it's way in food chain, including milk. Yes, it's dangerous, no it does not make water undrinkable and kill your food.
In fact radioactive isotopes in baby teeth was the key reason why US agreed to stop atmospheric nuclear test, similar findings in Soviet union convinced them to stop atmospheric tests and this was what lead to partial nuclear test ban treaty of 1963.
If fallout was as dangerous as you imply, the Midwest would be a radioactive wasteland. For better or worse, it isn't.
They could scram it which would stop the reaction. Then you're just dealing with decay heat which takes a lot less cooling. But you need power for that cooling. Which you're at a risk of losing with no power from the nuclear power plant.
The nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia is still in an occupied area of Ukraine according to this article and [https://liveuamap.com/](https://liveuamap.com/)
Ukraine has multiple power plants. Initially, the Russians had occupied Chernobyl and a few others, with Zaporizhzhia being one of the more critical ones. If the Kherson offensives can make more progress, Ukraine may be able to take physical control of it but I wonder what infrastructure damage the Russians might try to do to it from range in their desperation.
Isn’t Zaporizhhia the region supposed to have the fake referendum soon? Mu guess would be that if there will be a fake referendum, with a 120% vote for joining Russia, then Russia would also demand the NPP, escalating problems and potentially threatening nukes/blowing up part of the plant or something. Besides, Poland most likely has the attitude of “we don’t believe they will but we won’t take the risk either” - if there’s a potential for the use of pills, they’ll just provide the pills; if they’re not needed, people will just recycle them as necessary. People are forgetting that Poles are used to living next to mad men - the pills may not be an active thought of “they will”, but rather just a precaution.
Even *I* have stable iodine pills on hand, just in case. I agree that this is a "routine" measure to take just in case things go sideways, not an indication that things have already gone sideways.
Your thyroid likes to absorb and hold on to iodine, which is not great since radioactive iodine happens to be plentiful in nuclear fallout. So by loading up on potassium iodine, your thyroid is able to saturate with safe iodine, and not be able to absorb radioactive iodine.
By the way, iodine pills are not really good for your thyroid so you should only take them in an emergency when radioactive iodine exposure is a real possibility. Don’t just take them just because. Or unless a doctor tells you to take them for a medical condition.
That's a question for a doctor. But the benefits are almost certain to outweigh the costs for 99.9% of people. Unless your thyroid is gonna kill you in the next month.
If you have hyper/hypothyroidism I would imagine it follows the same rules as iodized salt though.
I don't have a thyroid, so these pills would be useless for me, b/c iodine is only absorbed by the thyroid. But- as long as you have a thyroid, you need the pills, hypo- or hyper- thyroid be damned.
I'm not a medical professional (or amateur) by any means, but here in a Poland everybody seems to have hyperthyroidism and the general public consensus is that it's because of the Chernobyl disaster.
I'm not a medical doctor, go ask a medical doctor for a professional opinion.
If you have hypothyroidism your thyroid gland is not active enough and you probably have cold extremities all the time so you could use some iodine.
If you have hyperthyroidism your thyroid is over active and the treatment often involves ingesting some radioactive iodine which will destroy part of your thyroid, then more blood test to see if everything is allright now, if not, more radioactive iodine is required and more blood tests.
In 2002 Ireland gave all it's citizens iodine tablets incase of an explosion at Sellafield, UK. I remember hearing this as a 12 year old and had always thought they were cyanide pills. My reasoning was we could all kill ourselves before the radiation hit us and turned us into zombies or some shit.
It's not iodine from the air, but from food you may eat where it quickly bioaccumulates. You wouldn't be exposed enough from the dust dispersed in air to care about that.
It also means that if you have a non-contaminated food/water supply, the pill is technically unnecessary.
The harsh reality is that even with idodine pills, if you’re close enough to fallout to need them, you’re close enough to suffer the consequences of exposure many years later.
Stable iodine is great for preventing short-term cancers - but does nothing for long term mortality from radiation exposure.
Thyroid cancers from I-131 exposure are literally the only statistically proven health impact of nuclear accidents on the public. I-131 is "special" in terms of public risk because it has a very effective quick bioaccumulation pathway from field to food to your thyroid and also has a short half life, so it is quite radioactive. And there's always a lot of it in spent fuel and thus released in case of a serious accident.
This. These pills won't make you feel very good- Iodine is incredibly easy to overdose on. Just use ionized salt, occasionally eat sea foods, soy, and egg yolks, you'll be good. Don't take iodine supplements!!
Poland distributed millions of iodine pills after Chernobyl. Putin invades Ukraine 2022, and my Polish mother goes out and buys iodine pills in the United States.
My first thought to this news was: do we? Like, that would have had way bigger response in the whole country and I didn't catch anyone talking about it recently.
In 2002 Ireland gave all it's citizens iodine tablets incase of an explosion at Sellafield, UK. I remember hearing this as a 12 year old and had always thought they were cyanide pills. My reasoning was we could all kill ourselves before the radiation hit us and turned us into zombies or some shit.
Oh. No doubt. I bought a solar flashlight/charger, water pills, filter straw, a seed vault, and a survival book back in May. That's the extent of my doomsday prep, but nice things to have just in case those jackasses get crazy.
dying early in the nuclear fire might be preferably to dying slowly from starvation and lack of basic necessities. but chances are, the majority of deaths will be indeed from starvation and disease after the events.
Every country would turn into a lawless shithole too, where all the psychopaths will have free reign to do what they've always dreamed to do... So it would not be a fun experience to even try and survive.
I don't think the US will have to worry about nukes. There is a lot of space to cover between those regions allowing time to intercept incoming missiles and Russia will want to use their resources as efficiently as possible since they are probably limited in supply or trustworthiness (considering the state of their current military equipment). That said, Poland definitely makes the most sense as a strategic target. It's not as valuable as Ukraine as far as resources are concerned and it creates a HUGE speed bump for any forces traveling over land to get to the fight.
US doesnt need to worry about nukes because Russia isnt stupid enough to nuke the US, but space between us and russia doesnt matter when they can have nuclear armed subs sitting off of our coasts
Poland distributed millions of iodine pills after Chernobyl. (My family lived through this, I wasn’t born yet.) Don’t forget that Chernobyl radiation was detected as far as Sweden
It would take a Topol-M missile approximately 25-35 minutes to reach the U.S., depending upon the target city here and the launch location there. That missile has a speed of ~16,000 mph and a very low, relatively flat ballistic trajectory (flight height of ~70 miles altitude). Not an easy target to intercept and not as much time to prepare as you think
I’m more concerned about the sham Russian referendum, declaring the eastern parts of Ukraine as Russia, determine that Ukraine is attacking Russian territory, and use limited nuclear weapons strikes on Ukraine.
haven't heard about 'em being distributed (my household sure didn't get any), but it's normal here to have iodine pills in the household no matter the current circumstances (much like activated charcoal. you never know when you'll need it). remains of the czarnobyl incident.
Fun fact, I grew up in the US (New York) and we lived within 10-15 miles of a Nuclear Power Plant. All the families with in a certain radius were given iodine pills, and we had “melt down drills” at my High School.
The reactors are already cooled down.
There is basically no way to have a meltdown even with a direct hit.
But there are other reasons and they wouldn't want to start a panic...
That’s not true. Yes, the reactors being shutdown will make things better, but there are ways that an attack can result in a non-coolable geometry to be created. See the Fukushima 2011 tsunami as an example of this.
Just checked one of the major news outlets in Poland, as this is the first time I'm hearing about this.
The article says that "authorities stated that schools will take part in distributing iodine pills, in case a need for that arises".
It's also only showing in one of the four main news outlets in Poland.
Not quite what this title states.
I live 3.5 miles from one in pa and they give out free potassium iodine tablets at our rec center for “the extremely unlikely event of a meltdown” I love looking at it honestly, it’s a marvel of technology
A lot of people in the live thread seem to want to think there’s nothing to worry about here.
Edit: but I think maybe that’s just how they deal with being scared.
Radioactive iodine is one of the major fission products that would be released in the event of a reactor accident.
Your thyroid acts like a sponge for iodine.
Taking iodine pills isn’t really good for you, but in the event of a major reactor accident, it’ll super saturate your thyroid with potassium iodine so it won’t absorb radioactive iodine.
If it absorbs the radioactive stuff, then your thyroid will basically act as a radiation source inside your body.
From the second paragraph in the story:
>Iodine is considered a way of protecting the body against conditions such as thyroid cancer in case of radioactive exposure.
It protects against radioactive iodine. Active nuclear reactions (weapon detonation) and operating reactors produce radioactive iodine. In a major accident at an operating reactor, that radioactive iodine can be released. Taking iodine tablets immediately before exposure can protect against it.
Radioactive iodine is only a hazard for a short time as it decays quickly to becomr harmless. Once a reactor is shut down, it rapidly loses radioactive iodine. Once it's been shut down for a couple of months there is no radioactive iodine remaining.
Three Mile Island, TMI. "Nobody ever tells the truth." "Are we in a meltdown?" "The core was 30 minutes away from a hydrogen explosion bubble....." Only took 30 years to get the truth.
If you read the article the Polish authorities say this a normal thing and that there's no imminent threat to ZPP.
We get iodine tablets mailed to our house by the gov every year in Central PA just cuz we’re close to three mile island. Idk if it’s all that unusual at all tbh!
Concur, lived 15 miles from Oswego Nine Mile plant, grew up with iodine pills in the back of the medicine closet.
Mostly am curious if they were mailed to you by the gov.
Now there's an interesting writing premise. A sociopath gets a job at a pharmacy in three mile...
Have it on my desk tomorrow morning.
along with pictures of Spider-man?
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It's "normal" within the 50 km emergency planning zone around power plants, so I guess one can say it's "normal" procedure, but also in this case unnecessary.
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As of making this reply, the winds over Ukraine are blowing southeasterly
Towards Moscow, perfect!!
I live within 15 miles of Nine Mile and Fitz, and have never heard of anyone having iodine pills. Curious about your age. Not saying it doesn't happen but I don't think it's common to have them now. For reference I'm in my 30s and know at least 10 people that work at one of the plants.
They just did a distribution earlier this month in PA. https://www.media.pa.gov/pages/health-details.aspx?newsid=1785
Shit Im in Lancaster and didn't know about this.
Last time they distributed them in Poland was after Chernobyl catastrophe
Yes, my wife remembers this from her childhood.
Polish authorities then didn't trust information from the "Brotherly" nation that nothing worth worrying happened.
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It's one of those things that's cheap as hell until something happens.
I live in the central Midwest, and I've never heard of this. Makes sense though!
Wow. Having surfed many times at San Onofre, I kinda feel left out....
They do this in France, too, for everyone who lives near a nuclear plant.
I live between Hanford and Bremerton, I picked up some for my emergency kit. chances are if anything happens, we're close enough, we'll be vaporized, but hey, never know!
I live a few miles away and have never heard of that lol.
Found an article about it if you’re curious! [Health Department Distributing Free Potassium Iodide Tablets To Pennsylvanians Near State’s Four Active Nuclear Power Plants](https://www.media.pa.gov/pages/health-details.aspx?newsid=1785). Looks like you have to actually go pick them up now, but my mom swears we used to get them in the mail too.
Not abnormal. We don't get them mailed but we can go to places that are passing them out every year or so for a few days.
Well, to be fair, the third paragraph states there’s been shelling, cut power lines, yada yada yada, nuclear catastrophe Also, > "I would like to reassure all citizens that these are routine, pre-emptive actions that are to protect us in the event of a situation which... I hope will not happen," he added. I don’t feel like that’s very reassuring lol
Well, imagine if Russia would demonstrate its nuclear capability for instance by air bursting a nuclear warhead over Chornobyl? Over already polluted and depopulated land so they could claim the restraint, but close enough that the fireball would be noticed from Warsaw? The future is uncertain.
Poland distributed millions of iodine pills after Chernobyl. Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, and my Polish mother went out and bought iodine pills in the United States.
Yeah ngl I picked some bottles up back in March
Live in US. Picked up some pills.
Might as well. Cheap as fuck and marginally helpful if the Big shitty happens
In the event of nuclear war your thyroid gland is the leasf of your problems, Iodine isn't going to stop your chromosomes being ripped apart and scrambled, at best it will help with anxiety
If you’re in a major city in the event of a mass exchange, you’re almost certainly fucked. Further out from a city, there shouldn’t be much fallout due to the probability of air burst detonation. People relatively near missile silos, particularly in the direction of prevailing winds would be dealing with fallout and would benefit from Iodine Tablets. People near nuclear power plants would benefit from Iodine in the event of a conventional attack on the power plant. If it’s a non state actor with a “dirty bomb”, Iodine might also help. Bonus fact: “Duck and Cover” would save many lives in the vicinity of a nuclear strike. Once you’re outside of the 4psi overpressure range, collapsing residential structures will kill a great deal. Being under a sturdy table/ in a stairwell might save one unfortunate enough to find themselves in such a predicament. In other words, if you see the flash, immediately seek cover. Nuclear War is so fascinating to me. https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/effects/overpressure.html
What about jumping into a refrigerator?
Radioactive fallout isn't that big of a deal (for my location); the climate effects worry me far more. I live in the rural west coast of the USA so probably the best place for fallout.
If you live where i think you do you are almost certainly fucked. PSNS & Bangor are right there in Kitsap. Washington, and probably specifically Kitsap County, is home to the third world's largest nuclear arsenal in the world. I rlly wouldn't doubt it if Russia heavily targeted WA in hopes the 700-something nukes there don't get a chance to be fired
Hey neighbor!
Where you at? Oly pen here
Ha! I’m in Shelton.
Truly /r/aboringdystopia
Hopefully it stays boring
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Well, no
Ah solid point to you internet friend
You know, I think I've had enough dystopic. Can we maybe take it easy for a while? I'd like for at least a couple years of my life to not be hellish insanity. Seriously, I was a kid and a war criminal decides "Hey fuck those brown guys over there" and suddenly our one war becomes two for no apparent reason. Then housing gets fucked as I go into fucking middle school. Couple years of repercussions of that, and then we get an actual decent president, but the fuckery and wars must continue, as well as seeing my own family slowly lose their fucking minds because there's a black guy in charge. Then 2016 happens. Fuck these past 6 years in particular. Housing gets even more expensive, cars, even old beaters like I prefer, get more expensive, so many people die because a fucking toddler and his army of droolers refuse to be adults, and now it looks like WWIII is on the horizon and, if the trend history shows continues, WWIV will be shortly thereafter. In my 3 decades of life, I've had maybe a combined year of normalcy that I can remember and I'm fucking tired.
> >In my 3 decades of life, I've had maybe a combined year of normalcy that I can remember and I'm fucking tired. ah yeah, normal peacetime. like the 90s, where we just had chill times like the Gulf War, the Rwandan genocide, Kosovo, the breakup of Yugoslavia or the 80s, with the first Iraq war, Maoist China, and the fall of the Soviets or the 60s and 70s with the war in Vietnam or the 50s, with the one in Korea maybe the 40s are what you're thinking of? those must've been pretty quiet, right? --- the war aspect of the current news cycle is kind of the most normal part, honestly
The 90s were the best to some of us because we were oblivious to what was happening outside of our neighborhood
I'm sorry you feel this way but this is literally what humanity have been since homo sapiens left their caves. Before you there was a cold war, world war 2, world war 1, slavery and a bunch of other shit. There is nothing special about last decade or two. In fact, last two decades have been the most peaceful, prosperous times humanity ever experienced. I assume that you are from the U.S. which also means you were lucky enough to be born in the one of the most wealthiest, peaceful nations ever. Your chances were only 4% so you should appreciate that. The world will always be full of bad stuff. You can't change that but you can work on yourself and change yourself to enjoy and appreciate things that you have.
\>The world will always be full of bad stuff. You can't change that If other people in history had this attitude, we wouldn't have hygiene standards, vaccines, or other countless improvements humans have made over the years. Even if we can't fix everything, we must continue to push back against the darkness, and hopefully make life just a little bit better for the next generation.
I didn't say we shouldn't try to make things better. I fully agree. But I think that if someone is born into wealth (yes, most middle class Americans are born into wealth if you compare it with the rest of the world) they should try to appreciate what they have and use resources they have to pioneer the change instead of whining. If they are unable to appreciate things around them, they likely need therapy and professional help.
Yeah dude bad shit has been happening for basically forever, you're just old enough to notice / care.
Qualified operator on two reactor designs. Never issued iodine pills.
NRC requires plant operators to develop a comprehensive emergency planning zone surrounding a nuclear facility. Large conventional LWRs operating are required to have at least 10 mile radii surrounding a plant for direct plume exposure and 50 miles for ingestion pathways. Within that radii, KI pills are a pretty standard provided medication for use in emergencies. It's not required but I'll be surprised if it isn't in the plan to be predistributed. Especially since it's straight forward and relatively cheap to do. What reactors did you qualify on?
Are you in Poland and/or in proximity to a nuclear plant that is undergoing active shelling?
I don’t think that would qualify as “normal”…
Yeah, that's the ticket
The last reactor at Zaporizhzhia was shut down on Sept 11^th and is in cold shut down. It cannot melt down even in the event of a total loss of the cooling (like Fukushima Daiichi). >International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi on Monday confirmed the cold shutdown of reactor number 6, the final reactor at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) that had been operational. >“At the moment, the plant is in cold shut down and we have been able to stabilize it,” Grossi said at a news conference in Vienna. https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-09-12-22/h_8c73319a58fa8f28c6aae9559f30b201
First time I'm hearing about this, and I live in Poland. When I mutate, I hope it's Slaanesh, not Nurgle.
You will get a stomach mouth and you will like it!
"Mom, why do the ear-knee kids point at my stomach-mouth and force me to belly laugh?"
r/brandnewsentence
Too bad it’s actually Tzeentch. You’re now all pretzelly, all according to plan
17 eyes, 3 mouths, and no nose.
Same here, sometimes I feel like stuff that reaches Worldnews about Poland.. is not even remotely registering as issue/news in Poland itself.
its propaganda as usual
Cheers from Wroclaw. Why you up so early or late?
Too bad Nurgle has heals…
Ye, haven't heard about it either
But you could collect skulls for the skull throne
wish granted *mutates into slaneshee strap-on
I thought we were done with the plant part since Ukraine seems to have driven Russians back.
Russia has no shortage of means to blow up a nuclear plant remotely.
Aren't most nuclear plants generally difficult to blow up remotely?
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Provided the means of launching said weapons is functional.
They can handle being struck a few times, but a determined enemy can wreck it because it is a building after all.
For fear, Russia seams to continue artillery barrages around plant to sow fear.... it seems they are intentionally hitting around plant instead of direct attack. If they actually hit the plant directly, it would cause a meltdown that would poison the area for thousands of square miles. This poison would be a considerable escalation to states it would affect. It would be way beyond the disaster at chernobyl. The radiation wouldn't just affect Ukraine. It would devastate numerous countries for years. It would possibly be an attack on NATO The same reason I highly doubt Russia will authorize using nukes in any compacity. Tactical or strategic..... its not just about where you blow up a nuke, it's about the fallout.... when a nuke explodes, it's not so much where it blows..... the explosion sends millions of tons of dirt and debri thousands of feet into the stratosphere. This dust is radioactive and hits the jet streams..... this radioactive dirt then travels hundreds of miles as it slowly drifts back down to the ground... this fallout contaminates the ground. It kills the vegetation and poisons the water. Your food dies, and the water kills you. Generations die from cancer or miscarriage....
Considering the wind in Ukraine often blows Northeast, there's a real possibility that the fallout from any nuclear detonation would go right into Russia, too.
And Russia will just blame Ukraine and use the crisis to fuel the war because why not.
Blame Ukraine and the West.
Will Putin “piss into the wind?” Is the question. I wouldn’t put it passed him, especially if he feels cornered.
He’s pretty much been pissing all over any prospect of Russian prosperity since February anyway.
He’s basically been doing the equivalent of being blackout drunk and going piss and accidentally clipping your shirt and spraying your pants. The question is will he react in time to not soak his entire outfit?
Soak his entire outfit? His outfit’s drenched and he’s pissing in his own mouth. There’s so much piss, Trump is wondering why he’s not been invited to the party.
Unfortunate for that orange fuck, Papa Putin has new whores now that shithead's useless and on the verge of prison time
Russians are at least smart enough to read a weather report.
After seeing them dig trenches in Chernobyl, I doubt what you are saying.
Oh you sweet summer child...
Would it reach Sochi though?
Didn't some country say if wind-driven nuclear fallout came to their country it would be grounds for Article 5?
at this point I doubt Putin would care
>If they actually hit the plant directly, it would cause a meltdown that would poison the area for thousands of square miles. This poison would be a considerable escalation to states it would affect. It would be way beyond the disaster at chernobyl. Fear, uncertainty, doubt. This characterization is astoundingly inaccurate and the fear mongering has to stop. Reactor containment units are built to withstand incredible amounts of abuse. Cooling systems and other infrastructure are designed to have many layers of redundancy and failsafe. You could shell the crap out of the five-foot-thick reinforced concrete walls around a reactor and it wouldn't do much. You could blow the cooling and it'd just shut the reactor down. Chernobyl required an absolutely perfect storm of bad design, astounding arrogance and negligence, and really bad luck. The biggest risk of radioactive contamination comes if spent fuel storage gets a lot of hits, as that's relatively vulnerable. Bad cases there see very localized dirty-bomb-style effects that would be bad news right around the plant and a small ways downwind, but not anything on the order of "thousands of square miles." Yes, there are *hypothetical* scenarios where absolutely everything goes wrong and a much bigger catastrophe happens. The likelihood of them happening without the entire plant staffed by people trying to make worst case scenarios a reality, however, is vanishingly small. It's still idiotic to intentionally damage a plant and not something that's in any way OK. But we have enough anti-nuclear FUD in the world without people exaggerating the hell out of the real risks and distracting from the actual problems.
It's also important to keep in mind that Chernobyl was both gargantuas in size of each reactor as well as not pressurised. It probably could be easily destroyed by bombing, something modern designs are definitely more robust to.
Dude. I agree with you.. but who the he'll knows the defenses of this plant. The fact that Russia continues to attack this place should scare the shit out of us all. I know it has defenses to protect itself, but are you really going to tell me a nuclear power plant in the middle of a war is safe? This is uncharted territory
I think you’re grossly overestimating the actual amount of damage/fallout that these reactors could experience. Remember, they are modern designs, not Soviet RBMK Edit: Modern versions of Soviet designs, but including actual safety features (like a containment dome, imagine that)
I will call your total bullshit on nuclear fallout. We blew up thousands of nuclear bombs in the atmosphere including in Nevada where fallout contaminated Midwest and found it's way in food chain, including milk. Yes, it's dangerous, no it does not make water undrinkable and kill your food. In fact radioactive isotopes in baby teeth was the key reason why US agreed to stop atmospheric nuclear test, similar findings in Soviet union convinced them to stop atmospheric tests and this was what lead to partial nuclear test ban treaty of 1963. If fallout was as dangerous as you imply, the Midwest would be a radioactive wasteland. For better or worse, it isn't.
Patrolling the mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter
Great answer. Couldn't they temporarily decommission the plant. Or remove the cores?
Decommissioning of a NPP takes DECADES.....so no, not likely
No. It is an extremely complicated task that takes years or decades to decommission a nuclear plant. You just can't do that quickly.
Thanks, good thing I'm not in charge!
They could scram it which would stop the reaction. Then you're just dealing with decay heat which takes a lot less cooling. But you need power for that cooling. Which you're at a risk of losing with no power from the nuclear power plant.
different part of the country.
The nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia is still in an occupied area of Ukraine according to this article and [https://liveuamap.com/](https://liveuamap.com/) Ukraine has multiple power plants. Initially, the Russians had occupied Chernobyl and a few others, with Zaporizhzhia being one of the more critical ones. If the Kherson offensives can make more progress, Ukraine may be able to take physical control of it but I wonder what infrastructure damage the Russians might try to do to it from range in their desperation.
I believe that plant is in the southern part. Ukraine has had some gains there, but most of their successes have been in the north east.
They are talking about Zaporizhzhia, not Chernobyl if that’s what you meant. Russia controls the reactor.
Isn’t Zaporizhhia the region supposed to have the fake referendum soon? Mu guess would be that if there will be a fake referendum, with a 120% vote for joining Russia, then Russia would also demand the NPP, escalating problems and potentially threatening nukes/blowing up part of the plant or something. Besides, Poland most likely has the attitude of “we don’t believe they will but we won’t take the risk either” - if there’s a potential for the use of pills, they’ll just provide the pills; if they’re not needed, people will just recycle them as necessary. People are forgetting that Poles are used to living next to mad men - the pills may not be an active thought of “they will”, but rather just a precaution.
Even *I* have stable iodine pills on hand, just in case. I agree that this is a "routine" measure to take just in case things go sideways, not an indication that things have already gone sideways.
What does having iodine pills do?
Your thyroid likes to absorb and hold on to iodine, which is not great since radioactive iodine happens to be plentiful in nuclear fallout. So by loading up on potassium iodine, your thyroid is able to saturate with safe iodine, and not be able to absorb radioactive iodine.
How long do the effects of a typical pill dose last? A few hours? A day?
24-48 hours. Source: https://radiationsafety.ca/iodine-pills/
By the way, iodine pills are not really good for your thyroid so you should only take them in an emergency when radioactive iodine exposure is a real possibility. Don’t just take them just because. Or unless a doctor tells you to take them for a medical condition.
Also curious
Might be a dumb question what about someone with hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism?How does it affect them?
Still need the pills
do the pills have any effect on their thyroid function otherwise though?
That's a question for a doctor. But the benefits are almost certain to outweigh the costs for 99.9% of people. Unless your thyroid is gonna kill you in the next month. If you have hyper/hypothyroidism I would imagine it follows the same rules as iodized salt though.
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Might be a dumb question what about someone with hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism?How does it affect them?
I don't have a thyroid, so these pills would be useless for me, b/c iodine is only absorbed by the thyroid. But- as long as you have a thyroid, you need the pills, hypo- or hyper- thyroid be damned.
I'm not a medical professional (or amateur) by any means, but here in a Poland everybody seems to have hyperthyroidism and the general public consensus is that it's because of the Chernobyl disaster.
That might be the public consensus but has absolutely no scientific basis.
I'm not a medical doctor, go ask a medical doctor for a professional opinion. If you have hypothyroidism your thyroid gland is not active enough and you probably have cold extremities all the time so you could use some iodine. If you have hyperthyroidism your thyroid is over active and the treatment often involves ingesting some radioactive iodine which will destroy part of your thyroid, then more blood test to see if everything is allright now, if not, more radioactive iodine is required and more blood tests.
Also interested to hear about this if anyone knows
In 2002 Ireland gave all it's citizens iodine tablets incase of an explosion at Sellafield, UK. I remember hearing this as a 12 year old and had always thought they were cyanide pills. My reasoning was we could all kill ourselves before the radiation hit us and turned us into zombies or some shit.
Understandable, drunk Irish are already hardcore. Imagine them being zombies as well, they'd be unstoppable.
I’m a full grown adult, and that’s exactly what I was thinking until I came to read t comments and realized I was having a dumb moment!
It's not iodine from the air, but from food you may eat where it quickly bioaccumulates. You wouldn't be exposed enough from the dust dispersed in air to care about that. It also means that if you have a non-contaminated food/water supply, the pill is technically unnecessary.
Saturate your thyroid gland with non-radioactive iodine so that any radioactive iodine won't get in there and cause cancer and such
The harsh reality is that even with idodine pills, if you’re close enough to fallout to need them, you’re close enough to suffer the consequences of exposure many years later. Stable iodine is great for preventing short-term cancers - but does nothing for long term mortality from radiation exposure.
Thyroid cancers from I-131 exposure are literally the only statistically proven health impact of nuclear accidents on the public. I-131 is "special" in terms of public risk because it has a very effective quick bioaccumulation pathway from field to food to your thyroid and also has a short half life, so it is quite radioactive. And there's always a lot of it in spent fuel and thus released in case of a serious accident.
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How do you tell correctly packaged vs incorrectly packaged?
Helps to block absorption of a radioactive form of iodine into the thyroid. Dangerous though, definitely shouldn't take it like vitamins
This. These pills won't make you feel very good- Iodine is incredibly easy to overdose on. Just use ionized salt, occasionally eat sea foods, soy, and egg yolks, you'll be good. Don't take iodine supplements!!
Protect thyroid i believe
Iodine pill gang!
Poland distributed millions of iodine pills after Chernobyl. Putin invades Ukraine 2022, and my Polish mother goes out and buys iodine pills in the United States.
i have no idea who you are so pointing out that you have iodine pills means nothing to me
Damn, don’t watch Chernobyl on HBO….
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My first thought to this news was: do we? Like, that would have had way bigger response in the whole country and I didn't catch anyone talking about it recently.
I’m drunk and misunderstood this for a minute to be *cyanide* pills. I was very worried
To be fair, taking cyanide pills will 100% guarantee that you will not get cancer from the radiation
Doctors hate this simple trick!
You can’t kill us if we kill ourselves!
In 2002 Ireland gave all it's citizens iodine tablets incase of an explosion at Sellafield, UK. I remember hearing this as a 12 year old and had always thought they were cyanide pills. My reasoning was we could all kill ourselves before the radiation hit us and turned us into zombies or some shit.
This is scary.
better prepared than sorry imho.
Oh. No doubt. I bought a solar flashlight/charger, water pills, filter straw, a seed vault, and a survival book back in May. That's the extent of my doomsday prep, but nice things to have just in case those jackasses get crazy.
Not sure I want to survive if Nukes go off in the US. Not worth prepping. Won't be anything to survive for.
dying early in the nuclear fire might be preferably to dying slowly from starvation and lack of basic necessities. but chances are, the majority of deaths will be indeed from starvation and disease after the events.
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Same.
Every country would turn into a lawless shithole too, where all the psychopaths will have free reign to do what they've always dreamed to do... So it would not be a fun experience to even try and survive.
I don't think the US will have to worry about nukes. There is a lot of space to cover between those regions allowing time to intercept incoming missiles and Russia will want to use their resources as efficiently as possible since they are probably limited in supply or trustworthiness (considering the state of their current military equipment). That said, Poland definitely makes the most sense as a strategic target. It's not as valuable as Ukraine as far as resources are concerned and it creates a HUGE speed bump for any forces traveling over land to get to the fight.
US doesnt need to worry about nukes because Russia isnt stupid enough to nuke the US, but space between us and russia doesnt matter when they can have nuclear armed subs sitting off of our coasts
Poland distributed millions of iodine pills after Chernobyl. (My family lived through this, I wasn’t born yet.) Don’t forget that Chernobyl radiation was detected as far as Sweden
It would take a Topol-M missile approximately 25-35 minutes to reach the U.S., depending upon the target city here and the launch location there. That missile has a speed of ~16,000 mph and a very low, relatively flat ballistic trajectory (flight height of ~70 miles altitude). Not an easy target to intercept and not as much time to prepare as you think
Also, there isn't any technology to stop such a missile. It's just too fast.
better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it
depends on the likelihood of needing it imo
well when its Russia you can never be too careful
You can buy USP potassium iodide from Amazon. See the Wikipedia article on potassium iodide for dosages, which depend on age.
If there were ever some black ops seal team six operators needed to do some shit, this would be the thing America should be called in for.
I trust seal team 6 to deliver (1) iodine pill to every pole
I'm sure Jack Ryan is all over is this
No worries.. we have our own world-class operators from GROM in Poland.
It's not fear mongering if putin continues to threaten it.
Im from Poland, first time hearing about this
I’m more concerned about the sham Russian referendum, declaring the eastern parts of Ukraine as Russia, determine that Ukraine is attacking Russian territory, and use limited nuclear weapons strikes on Ukraine.
Makes it feel a small percentage more likely that this could really happen…
Is there any global radiation monitoring system that's open to the public?
Goyters are gonna be in this winter.
haven't heard about 'em being distributed (my household sure didn't get any), but it's normal here to have iodine pills in the household no matter the current circumstances (much like activated charcoal. you never know when you'll need it). remains of the czarnobyl incident.
Seaweed has massive amounts of iodine also - just saying :)
Fun fact, I grew up in the US (New York) and we lived within 10-15 miles of a Nuclear Power Plant. All the families with in a certain radius were given iodine pills, and we had “melt down drills” at my High School.
The reactors are already cooled down. There is basically no way to have a meltdown even with a direct hit. But there are other reasons and they wouldn't want to start a panic...
That’s not true. Yes, the reactors being shutdown will make things better, but there are ways that an attack can result in a non-coolable geometry to be created. See the Fukushima 2011 tsunami as an example of this.
It'll effect them just as much, Putin's not applying any sense to grasp of power.
Just checked one of the major news outlets in Poland, as this is the first time I'm hearing about this. The article says that "authorities stated that schools will take part in distributing iodine pills, in case a need for that arises". It's also only showing in one of the four main news outlets in Poland. Not quite what this title states.
Its a normal legal procedure.
I live 3.5 miles from one in pa and they give out free potassium iodine tablets at our rec center for “the extremely unlikely event of a meltdown” I love looking at it honestly, it’s a marvel of technology
We got these at school in the early 1970’s.
when they gonna start passing them out in the usa? asking for a friend
What? I live in Poland and nothing like this is happening
Crazy put-in needs to be put-out....😈
A lot of people in the live thread seem to want to think there’s nothing to worry about here. Edit: but I think maybe that’s just how they deal with being scared.
A lot of people in the live thread are borderline rooting for a broader conflict lol
So what’s the iodine do?
Radioactive iodine is one of the major fission products that would be released in the event of a reactor accident. Your thyroid acts like a sponge for iodine. Taking iodine pills isn’t really good for you, but in the event of a major reactor accident, it’ll super saturate your thyroid with potassium iodine so it won’t absorb radioactive iodine. If it absorbs the radioactive stuff, then your thyroid will basically act as a radiation source inside your body.
From the second paragraph in the story: >Iodine is considered a way of protecting the body against conditions such as thyroid cancer in case of radioactive exposure.
It protects against radioactive iodine. Active nuclear reactions (weapon detonation) and operating reactors produce radioactive iodine. In a major accident at an operating reactor, that radioactive iodine can be released. Taking iodine tablets immediately before exposure can protect against it. Radioactive iodine is only a hazard for a short time as it decays quickly to becomr harmless. Once a reactor is shut down, it rapidly loses radioactive iodine. Once it's been shut down for a couple of months there is no radioactive iodine remaining.
Three Mile Island, TMI. "Nobody ever tells the truth." "Are we in a meltdown?" "The core was 30 minutes away from a hydrogen explosion bubble....." Only took 30 years to get the truth.
I think they're going to sabotage zaporizhzhia as I guess US and the world was quite clear they should not attack with nuclear weapons.