Japan Radioactivity Spreading to West Coast of US

sadasiva

There is a lot of speculation about this. Is that really possible?

It is being proposed that after meltdown and release the nuclear material will enter the Jet Stream and be in west Coast US in a few days.

Personally I find it hard to swallow. I mean we exploded two nuclear devices over Japan in 1945 and did not experience widespread nuclear contamination in the US.. A core meltdown devastates the soil, water and local air.. for at least a few hundred miles, but by the time anything enters the Jet Stream, etc.. how powerful could it be?

I realize these are different scenarios, a nuclear blast and a core meltdown in a nuclear reactor.. (with the Atomic explosion MUCH MORE SEVERE).

So, is there any scenario whereby even if four core meltdowns occur and their radioactivity gets released, that the West Coast of US needs to worry.

Am I missing something here?

Thanks a lot

Drakkith

The amount released from the damaged reactors would be diluted so much on its way here that it should pose almost no health hazard. I laughed when I saw on the news that Iodine pills were selling out all along the west coast here in the US. (Of course I could be wrong, but then I'm glad i live in Louisiana instead of California.)

mhs25

I read that too while I was eating, had to spit out my water laughing. Unfortunately, it's people like that that will be deciding public policy about reactors going forward.....

Drakkith

Yep. Nothing better than uninformed decision makers eh? Oh wait...

MadRocketSci2

To put this in perspective - there is an online live geiger counter in Tokyo. Tokyo is south of the plant a ways and it is reading normal background levels of radiation still.

California is in *no* danger from this. I can't imagine what the Surgeon General is thinking.

minerva

http://www.kek.jp/quake/radmonitor/GeMonitor2-e.html

KEK (in Tsukuba, outside Tokyo) is currently detecting atmospheric ¹³¹I at 2.7×10^-7 Bq/cm³.

That's absolutely tiny... I doubt it will be detectable at all on the other side of the pacific. There's absolutely no way in hell it's harmful.

It may be detectable. The nuclear engineering community at Berkeley are currently running air and rainwater samples as we speak, looking for traces of those fission products.