I’ve been trying to get a handle on what the worst-case scenario is with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, but it’s hard to get a straight answer. I found a fairly decent resource in this Mother Jones article. It says the worst-case would render uninhabitable an area of Japan the size of several northeastern states. That’s kind of vague, though. And I’d like to see what the potential is for fallout reaching the United States, even if it is only Guam or the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Anybody have good estimates?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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My impression is that the patient has so many problems that authors tend to focus on just one or two when giving “worst case” estimates.
My understanding is that if the SFPs start burning then there would be justification to try to bury the thing like Chernobyl, but that otherwise that procedure risks breaking apart the safety features that have held so far.
The worst-case scenarios I’ve seen with “just” a reactor meltdown, ignoring the SFPs, have said that everyone outside the exclusion zone will be ok, and that Tokyo will be ok even if the wind blows their way and rain carries the radiation down on them (worst case).
I haven’t seen ANYONE put an estimate on how wide the effect would be of an ongoing SFP fire. I can’t imagine it would be great enough for medical consequences in any of the 50 states. However, I do wonder if the U.S. has a reason for advocating a 50-mile exclusion zone instead of the 12 miles the Japanese have chosen. Makes me wonder if someone knowledgeable has a “worst case” model that goes out 50 miles.
Oh, and I haven’t seen anyone give a “worst case” prediction that distinguishes between a reactor meltdown or SFP fire in #3 (the MOX reactor) vs the ones with more conventional fuel. That kinda worries me.
“I do wonder if the U.S. has a reason for advocating a 50-mile exclusion zone instead of the 12 miles the Japanese have chosen.”
The U.S. can advocate that it’s citizens evacuate from a 50-mile exclusion zone because there are probably fewer than 1000 Americans in the zone and most of them will have someplace called home outside the zone that they can evacuate to.
The Japanese probably have a more than a half million people in the 50-mile exclusion zone and most of them live there. It’s logistically much more difficult for them to move that number of people and the evacuation itself could cause significant hardship.
This map shows independent sources that track radiation across the states: http://radiationnetwork.com/
I noticed this morning the SF tracker said 26. Already by tonight it says 34. Alerts kick in at 100. Not promising. However, there’s a nice rainstorm on the way, and I hope that will rain the radiation down and out of the air, and maybe into the drains and back to the ocean.
Reading that page, it looks like background radiation has random variations but generally stays under 60 counts per minute, and it’s sustained trends that matter.
If I’m reading correctly, it looks like their alert level at 100 CPM is set to show unusual activity but is still way below anything significant for human health compared to the background radiation we all get.
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Excellent coverage and explanation of current status in blog Brave New Climate.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Several northeastern states: CT, MA, RI
CT 5544 sq. mi.
RI 1045 sq. mi.
MA 7840 sq. mi.
Total 14,429 sq. mi. (120 miles square, 67 mi. radius)
Theres a US government document on decommissioning nuclear power stations that covers this, Theres a link in the comments of one of the recent Japan diaries over on Eurotrib. It details an are of 2000 square miles being made uninhabitable, which is a circle 25 miles in radius roughly. so presumably the safe zone has been worked out by assuming that the weather could blow the circle of devastation out by one extra radius in a random direction.