Okay, so, it seems even now, people are still freaking out about Fukushima polluting our shores, much less the world, with radiation leaking out into the ocean. Make no mistake, it's anything but good. But it's not nearly as bad as people think. A little bit of research would dispel a lot of the panic. But given the general populace's track record with researching anything, here's some things to consider:
A commonly used unit to measure radioactivity is the Becquerel (Bq for short), which represents an amount of radioactive material where one atom decays per second. When we talk about the radioactivity measured in seawater, the measurements are reported per litre of seawater (Bq/L). Almost all the radioactivity in seawater is the result of naturally occurring radionuclides that have been transported or deposited in the oceans by natural processes. For example, over time radioactive elements in rocks and minerals are delivered to the ocean through the erosion of the continental crust.
The average radioactivity of seawater is about 14 Bq/L, of which nine-10ths comes from the naturally occurring elements potassium and rubidium. The remainder is fallout from atmospheric nuclear-weapons testing in the 20th century. So the natural level of radioactivity on average in the oceans is about 13 Bq/L, against which radioactivity resulting from human activities and disasters should always be discussed.
The radioactive element Cesium 137 (Cs-137) was released in large quantities from Fukushima into the Pacific. Pre-Fukushima levels of Cs-137 in the North Pacific, present from Cold War-era nuclear testing, represented 0.007 per cent of the natural radioactivity in a liter of seawater.
Measurements of Cs-137 were made by an international team of researchers immediately after the disaster in 2011. Forty kilometers from the reactor site, Cs-137 was elevated up to 25 per cent of the total naturally occurring background, but fell to two per cent of the background 600 kilometers offshore. Scientists did not have to take any precautions while handling seawater, sediment and biological samples collected during the study because the radioactivity was so low.
Talk of plumes of radioactivity being broadcast across the Pacific must take into account that the background radioactivity of seawater is about 14 Bq/L. It is important that although one can detect isotopes from the reactor in the environment, the absolute levels are very low and will be lower as the ocean mixes with distance from Japan and as the isotope decays.
You have to also take into consideration the 187 quintillion gallons of water that make up the Pacific Ocean, spanning at least 5,355 miles from Japan to the west coast. That's a shit ton of water, and a long way for it to travel.
It's not good that the radiation is even getting into the ocean, but it's not the end of the Pacific like sensationalist media outlets would have you believe.
And for the curious, the above information was taken from an article written by Jay T. Cullen, an associate professor and a marine chemist at the University of Victoria’s school of earth and ocean sciences.
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Topic: Blog Thread 4; Live Free or Blog Hard - 'cos we all like blogging (Read 573440 times)