Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Is this Disaster in Fukushima Worse Than Chernobyl?



Jay Cullen, associate Professor, UVic School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, CFAX, Jan. 16, 2014 (at 41:00 in):
Host: Based on your information, is this disaster in Fukushima worse than Chernobyl?
Prof. Cullen: Is it worse than Chernobyl? It’s fundamentally different than Chernobyl, in that the primary receiving environment for the radionuclides is the ocean. I think it has the potential to be worse. […] Release to the ocean continues and is ongoing daily. So, there’s still radioactive elements being washed into, and delivered into, the Pacific Ocean and there’s no sign that that’s going to stop anytime soon. The site itself is still unstable at Fukushima, and it could change there, conditions could change where we see rates of release that approach what we saw immediately after the disaster. If that were the case, we’d have to change our way of thinking about what the risk is and reevaluate and see whether or not both the marine environment and potentially public health could be impacted in a negative way. Listen...

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