Up until yesterday, the radiation from the failed Japanese Nuclear power plants at Fukushima was described as far less than Chernobyl released.
Experts typically opined by describing the danger along the lines of : “I don’t know how bad the Japanese nuke situation will get, but it won’t be a Chernobyl.”
Now just a few days later researchers report that the fallout is getting uncomfortably high: “Fukushima radioactive fallout nears Chernobyl levels.”
Three things to keep your eyes on:
1. Fukushima has about 10 times as much nuclear fuel material as Chernobyl did: 1760 tons vs 180 tons.
2. Fukushima’s primary danger of radioactive material release is no longer the reactors, it is the “cooling pools” where the used radioactive rods are stored too close to each other. Emergency crews have not kept the radioactive rods covered with water.
3. Fukushima’s radioactive material release is currently only slightly behind (~ 60% of) what Chernobyl’s was – and has been increasing steadily.
Additionally – While I initially believed the Japanese Nuclear Agency’s claims of trivial dangerous radioactive material releases – the Japanese people themselves strongly expressed no-confidence in them. Apparently the corporation owning the plants has a bad track record.
Update Sunday March 27: This increasing level of radioactive material released is independent of the “erroneous” report of “Unit 2 reactor was 10 million times above normal.”
In spite of that extremely high reading, Japanese Nuclear Officials refused to allow independent experts take measurements !
dd: This is starting to smell a lot worse than just a bad accident.
