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Page added on February 5, 2014
Fukushima wash-up to hit US coast this year
Seaborne radiation from Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant will wash up on the West Coast of the US this year.
That’s raising concerns among some Americans including the residents of the San Francisco Bay Area city of Fairfax, California, which passed a resolution on December 6 calling for more testing of coastal seafood.
At the same time, oceanographers and radiological scientists say such concerns are unwarranted given existing levels of radiation in the ocean.
The runoff from the Japanese plant will mingle with radiation released by other atomic stations, such as Diablo Canyon in California. Under normal operations, Diablo Canyon discharges more radiation into the sea, albeit of a less dangerous isotope, than the Fukushima station, which suffered the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
“There’s a point to be made that we live in a radioactive world and the ocean just has radioactive isotopes in it,” said Ken Buesseler, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who forecasts the Fukushima plume will arrive in the US early this year. “People have a limited knowledge of radioactivity.”
At Tokyo Electric Power’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station, where three reactors melted down after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, about 300 metric tons of contaminated groundwater seep into the ocean each day, according to Japan’s government.
Between May 2011 and August 2013, as many as 20 trillion becquerels of cesium-137, 10 trillion becquerels of strontium-90 and 40 trillion becquerels of tritium entered the ocean via groundwater, according to Tokyo Electric.
Cesium isotopes, which emit flesh-penetrating gamma rays, are among the most dangerous radionuclides emitted by the plant, said Colin Hill, an associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.
Strontium-90, which mimics calcium, increases the exposure risk for humans by remaining in the bones of fish for extended periods. While tritium is less radiologically intense than cesium and passes through fish faster than strontium, it can also contaminate sea creatures that encounter the isotope in high levels, Hill said.
Water exposed to radiation from the Fukushima plant would reach the US at levels at least 100 times lower than the US’s drinking water threshold, Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Allison Macfarlane said at a December 6 briefing in Tokyo.
The assurances haven’t eased concerns for some. “I’m terrified,” Doreen Jean Dempski, a children’s book author, said by phone from her home more than 5000 miles (8046 km) across the Pacific from Fukushima in Carpinteria, California. “My boyfriend is a surfer and he spends hours a day in the water.”
Sharing Ms Dempski’s worries are the Fairfax city council, which passed the coastal testing resolution, and more than 127,000 signatories to an online petition calling for a United Nations’ takeover of part of the Fukushima cleanup. South Korea has already banned imports of fish from Japan’s northern Pacific coast.
Part of the issue is general concern about radiation, and the startling amounts that are released into the environment by the 435 nuclear power plants operating worldwide as of January 3. Measurements that puzzle the public – becquerels, rems, curies and sieverts – don’t aid transparency. And, worse, scientists disagree on the health risks from low-dose radiation exposure.
A report on the Fukushima disaster by the World Health Organisation in February last year estimated increased cancer risk for those in the most contaminated areas around the plant, but not elsewhere in Japan. However, the report also notes that better understanding of the effects of low-dose radiation may alter risk expectations from the Fukushima accident.
21 Comments on "Fukushima wash-up to hit US coast this year"
Makati1 on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 2:19 am
Slowly killing ourselves…
SilentRunning on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 2:23 am
First, kudos to the Peak Oil staff for no longer using the misleading fallout map for the Fukushima disaster.
>>The assurances haven’t eased concerns for some. “I’m terrified,” Doreen Jean Dempski, a children’s book author, said by phone from her home more than 5000 miles (8046 km) across the Pacific from Fukushima in Carpinteria, California. “My boyfriend is a surfer and he spends hours a day in the water.”
I got to thinking about Ms. Dempski and her terror at the thought of her boyfriend being in what she imagines will be the super-contaminated radioactive Pacific ocean.
But I wonder – do people like Ms. Dempski realize that the Pacific ocean has ALWAYS been radioactive? Even before WWII, and the nuclear tests, the oceans have always contained radioactive Potassium 40.
I sat down and worked out how much activity there is in the Pacific ocean. It isn’t too difficult to calculate. From the volume of the ocean (about 714 million cubic kilometers), and the percentage of Potassium (0.04% by weight), and the naturally occurring fraction of K-40.
Some quick math led to an answer that the Pacific ocean contains about 33.4 trillion Kg of K-40.
Since each kg of K-40 has an activity level of 31kBq, the naturally present radioactivity of the Pacific Ocean is at least 31*10^3 * 33.4*10^12 Bq or a little more than 1e18 Bq or **1 quintillion Becquerels** of radioactivity!!!
Suddenly, adding a mere 10 trillion additional Bq of Cs-137 doesn’t seem so frightening, when you consider that the naturally occurring amount of radioactivity is 10,000 times larger.
Of course, closer to the wrecked Fukushima plant, the concentrations of radioactivity ARE significantly above normal background levels, and there concern is completely justified.
BTW: I hate to break it to Ms. Dempski, but her boyfriend is already “contaminated”, to the tune of 4.4kBq of radioactivity. So is Ms. Dempski herself. All from the gamma ray emitting Potassium-40.
Northwest Resident on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 3:38 am
SilenRunning — thanks for flushing this load of crap down the drain. The graphic used on this article is appropriate — those fish probably stink to high heaven, and so does the article. We have a LOT of things to worry about but fortunately, as far as I can tell, Fukushima washup isn’t one of them.
andya on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 3:44 am
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
Poordogabone on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 4:04 am
From Japan with love.
Ask the average japanese if they are concern about their radioactive waters reaching the US shores.
Eat my Cesium isotopes Yankees!
It will be 70 years next year since the US tested the effect of 2 atomic bombs on large human population on the land of the rising sun.
SilentRunning on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 5:03 am
It’s all about how people perceive risk. Ms. Dempski worries about the infinitesimal risk due to ever so slightly elevated radioactivity in the ocean off the coast of California. Does she worry that her boyfriend might drown? Get killed by hitting a submerged rock? Get attacked by a shark? Bitten by a poisonous jellyfish? Hit by lightening? Killed in a car accident while on the way to/from the beach? All of these things would have to millions/billions of times more probable than dying from Fukushima radiation in California’s coasts.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 1:08 pm
I bought potassium iodine and a geiger counter but I understand they don’t work on the above. I really worries about this stuff and I am not an expert on it. I am learning quickly though. So much hype on both sides. I suspect that they are in triage mode at Fukushima and cannot fully control the damage. These facts are I suspect covered up. We may slowly contaminate the Pacific Ocean and the possibility of airborne radiation blanketing the northern hemisphere is great. If it is not happening now the potential is there without a plan B. God help us!
SilentRunning on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 2:23 am
But I wonder – do people like Ms. Dempski realize that the Pacific ocean has ALWAYS been radioactive? Even before WWII, and the nuclear tests, the oceans have always contained radioactive Potassium 40.
I understand what you are saying but as we know ocean currents can or could deliver a good localized dose of radiation either in the form of migrating exposed fish or exposed substances absorbing the radioactive isotopes and then transported around the pacific. This appears to be a long term problem. We are talking decades of pollution and the problems is barely contained. It is the steady destruction of a vast ecosystem human rely on….that is scary. I hope you are right in your caution on the scary stories we are reading!
paulo1 on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 1:59 pm
I confess to being worried about our salmon. We eat it at least twice a week, year round.
Paulo
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 2:10 pm
1. paulo1 on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 1:59 pm
I confess to being worried about our salmon. We eat it at least twice a week, year round.
Paulo
I eat it allot also and I take supplements. I use one highly refined to get the EPA’S. I also take one that is as near to natural as you can get. This is Alaskan salmon. When I eat out I always order salmon. I try to eat the wild salmon. I have read conflicting report about the farm raised salmon. I purchased a Geiger counter to check any radiation in the salmon fish and supplements but then I understand the real problem is with cesium and strontium and a Geiger counter is of no use.
Won’t it be sad to be at a restaurant and you whip out your Geiger counter like your Iphone. Soon to be at the apple store a Geiger counter ap complete with a map of the radiation plum in air and water!!!lol or not so lol
paulo1 on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 4:37 pm
Well, we don’t eat farmed salmon in our house. In fact, it is a bit of a dirty word. Having said that, fish farming does provide some entry level jobs for kids who should have studied harder in school, and a few good jobs for managers, biologists, and selct technical folks. I think the farms are losing money right now even though their production far outstrips commercially caught fish. There are a few local canneries that wouldn’t exist without the farms as well. The fixed costs are simply too high, the market is hurting, and the conversion rate is criminal. (Wouldn’t have anything to do with $100+ oil and a shitty economy, would it?) Nahh.
In late July we catch pinks for fresh barbecue and for smoking. We also catch some sockeye. Our main staple is coho and spring (you guys call them silvers and kings) which we get in late August and early September. I catch those on light spinning tackle or sometimes fly rods. In late September and through October we fish for chum which is akin to grabbing onto an enraged bull with fins. For that we use 30 lbs test. I got one last year that was so big I initially thought I hooked a porpoise. We catch our total fish supply on just a few gallons of gas per year, and could go to zero ff with a decent fishing kayak, or we could simply catch them in the river if they are fresh in.
Anyway, the fish is good for you and fun to catch. We also grow chickens and produce eggs as well as have huge gardens. Until this year we had sheep (for lamb), but the cougars are so bad here we finally got rid of them and will never ever get more. Two weeks ago my sheep shed was torn open by a 150 lbs cougar. It tore the latch right off and took my best sheep. That was enough for me. If you can’t keep them safe locking them in everynight, perhaps we should stick to a few chickens for livestock. I won’t tell you how I know the weight of the cat…I don’t want to get hate mail. It had also been stalking neighbours and killing pets.
Paulo
Northwest Resident on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 4:57 pm
paulo1 — Not that you haven’t already thought about it — just asking. I think if I were in your position, I would be staking out a goat with enough “low level light”, and I would take a thermos bottle of coffee and maybe a couple of NoDoze pills, and I would lie in wait for that cougar with my favorite shotgun, with which I never miss. Have you thought about that?
paulo1 on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 5:19 pm
I used a .3030 and completed the mission about 1 hour after the carnage as far as I can tell. It had buried the carcass and stalked me as I approached the kill. Luckily, I noticed it watching me from about 20 feet away, hidden, behind some brush and a dirt mound. It was crouched and ready to spring but then so was I. Our other sheep would have been picked off during the following days and we were getting quite nervous letting the dogs out and going for walks for the last few weeks. We often had a creepy ‘feeling we are being watched’ sensation as we let the sheep in and out for them to graze…and in hindsight I guess we were. The cougar had just killed a small cow elk (300 lbs) the week before. It snapped its neck. They are very powerful and bold if they feel like it. We have had them walk through our yard on numerous occasions…broad daylight no less. They are supposed to be nocturnal, mostly busy at dawn and dusk, but to be honest they do what they want when they want.
As for the old meme of encroaching on their territory, my house has been here since 1960s, with previous places here for the last 100 years. In fact, the human population has been dropping in our valley for many years. One problem is that I live on a river which is a natural pathway, but they even go into the village and take pets…(6 km away…300 people). The last few years have seen grizzlies swimming over from the mainland as well due to population increase. Interesting times for us.
Paulo
Northwest Resident on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 5:35 pm
paulo1 — Wow! Sounds like life on the frontier. Definitely not boring. Good thing you don’t have restless natives to deal with, and I hope you never get zombie hordes to deal with.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 6:17 pm
Paulo, make room I’m comin…..LOL. Well you need to post a “Protected by Smith and Wesson” sign should get that cougars attention! Seriously you guys brought up a good point about our survival needs and that is guns and ammo. Good for security, trade/barter, and hunting. I like 308/45/12 gauge options.
I often wonder about if we will see zombie hordes like NR mentions. I imagine those locations that are unsustainable because of energy, climate, and or population may see roving bands of desperate people. I wish Hollywood would produce a true to life vision of post hydrocarbon life. Most I have seen revert to cannibalism. I doubt we will see much of that pretty much against our nature as a species plus what about AIDS and other nasty germ transmissions
Some of you guys may wonder how all this is related to PO. Me too….. but PO leads to collapse so basically we are bought into the PO ideology!
Northwest Resident on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 7:31 pm
Davy — Good point. How does food production/farming, climate change, economy, collapse, zombie hoards and ALL OF THAT relate to peak oil? Because at the bottom of everything going on in today’s world there is, or was, a thick river of oil. All roads lead to Rome, and all the big problems today ultimately lead back to “peak oil”, or more simply put, lack of reasonably priced (cheap) fossil fuel inputs. — Zombie hordes? They’ll be in the big cities (or, “Big Shitties” as ReverseEngineer likes to say over on Doomstead Diner). Very few of them will make it out of the big cities when the shit finally hits the fan. Out in the rural and semi-rural areas, everybody has guns and the big worry is the neighbor or former friend or acquaintance who just happens to know that you have a stash of food, his wife and kids are starving, yesterday he was a God-fearing pro-life law-abiding citizen, today he’s a drooling murderous desperado hell-bent on getting food no matter what. He’ll sneak and he’ll ambush or he’ll do whatever he has to do to survive. And then there will be the feeble, elderly, totally out-of-shape and weak majority who will just gradually fade away without a fight. Fun stuff to contemplate (NOT!).
action on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 7:58 pm
Its a small world after all, its a small, small world…
Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 8:42 pm
NR, many scenarios could play out and many locations will play out differently. Lots of different cultures going on throughout the world within the many nation states. Ultimately everything is local so they say. Here in central MO we have tight communities generally. Lots of S**t bums and meth heads but many more decent people. I am sure around here we will see country justice complete with the hanging noose. I imagine law and order will remain in people’s hearts and on the books. People fall back to tradition. I imagine we will see laws respected after stability returns. Even if stability does not return traditions tend to dictate. Around here everyone is well armed so I don’t see bandits having a chance. We are rural here but will unite in the name of security. Cities may dominate in the beginning being the power centers but eventually the fact that few today are sustainable in any degree they will depopulate. But I am with you NR most people will not move too far away from where they are unless there is a serious breakdown in security and food supplies. Syria may have a huge refugee issue but would there be near as much movement if everywhere around them is in stress? I doubt people will take the chance on the road to another problem area. All areas will be stressed. Even those who prepared will not be enough prepared if the community or local area is not prepared. Communities are ultimately the key to survival long term. You can do the prep work for a few months but long term it is a product of your local community
Kenz300 on Wed, 5th Feb 2014 10:26 pm
Nuclear energy is too costly and too dangerous…….
The sooner we transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources the better.
What will the final clean up cost of the Fukishima and Chernobyl disasters be?
How much does it cost to store nuclear waste FOREVER and who will pay to do that?
The fact that there is a 40 year plan to dismantle and clean up Fukishima should tell you that there is no more expensive or dangerous way of generating electricity.
Makati1 on Thu, 6th Feb 2014 2:05 am
Just keep in mind Silent, radiation is cumulative. Even arsenic is not poisonous in small doses, but it is lethal eventually. The first cigarette does not kill you, but…
Makati1 on Thu, 6th Feb 2014 2:07 am
Just keep in mind Silent, radiation is cumulative. Even arsenic is not poisonous in small doses, but it is lethal eventually. The first cigarette does not kill you, but…
And any amount of radiation to a fetus or young child could be fatal. So, you don’t die right now, but there is no new generation born to carry on or take care of you in your old age. It’s called extinction.
SilentRunning on Thu, 6th Feb 2014 4:33 am
Makati1 wrote:
>Just keep in mind Silent, radiation is cumulative. Even arsenic is not poisonous in small doses, but it is lethal eventually. The first cigarette does not kill you, but…
But there is an amount of arsenic that is *so* small that you don’t need to worry about it.
>And any amount of radiation to a fetus or young child could be fatal.
You do realize that ALL of us have a small amount of radioactivity, right? Every fetus that has ever been created has had radioisotopes in it: K-40, C-14, U-238, Thorium, etc. How have any of us survived? It simply must be that there is an amount of radiation that is small enough not to kill us, most of the time. How do we know this? Because we are alive!
>So, you don’t die right now, but there is no new generation born to carry on or take care of you in your old age. It’s called extinction.
Given that the number of humans is still growing, I am not fearing extinction from lack of reproduction.