fukushima is still not right
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
A friend in Tokyo passed on some interesting sites that are collecting news on the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Looks like this issue is still far from right. While there seems to be no shortage of information on the total amounts of radiation released and the nature of its impact, it's hard to put together a synthesis that makes sense. Bloomberg rates the amount of radioactive material released from Fukushima at about 14% of the Chernobyl incident. This (e.g. this Canadian source estimates the total release of radiative material at 10% of the Chernobyl disaster. And yet a live forecast from the same Canadian source shows the amount of radioactive material coming down on the north-western third of North America today, some five months after the event, and it's far from zero. As bad as the situation is in Japan, this should be pretty disturbing for any of us many thousands of kilometers away! And now the Canadian government is starting to test for radiation in caribou herds while at the same time suspending its testing of the atmosphere in BC and the Yukon. Huh?
When this was all first happening, I wondered why radioactive material had turned up in Tokyo, which would seem to be permanently upwind of the disaster site. The answer is, obviously of course, that the wind changes direction from time to time and it doesn't really take a lot with this level of radioactive dispersion. But Tokyo's still a fair distance from the site, regardless of wind direction - so I'm curious whether anyone has attempted to map the area of fallout? The answer is yes, as of July 26:
Yikes. But some of the commentary on the articles I've seen has been going in a different direction - if weirdly high measurements of radiation are occurring in Japan at unexpected spots far from Fukushima, could it be because previous incidents have already left their footprint on the countryside? It's all confusing and discouraging. I'd like for more discussion to be happening "through channels" instead of hearing these whack-a-mole stories through at times credible and then more dubious sources.