Fukushima radiation fallout vs Chernobyl visualized

[Aroddo]

Found a highly interesting piece of data visualization here.

So, when visualizing the Fukushima radiation on a map, very often the following map is shown. It depicts the radiation measured 2 weeks after the disaster - an the reactor leaked for months after that.




Fukushima is always described as the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, so here the radiation map of Chernobyl for comparison. It decpits the fallout two weeks after the accident, when the leaking was already stopped.




On first glance, the Chernobyl fallout is far more widereaching than the Fukushima fallout ... but if you look closely at the scale used in both graps you can see how the Fukushima map uses soothing green colors for contamination levels that would appear in deep red on the Chernobyl map.

Or to put it another way - If you draw the Fukushima fallout map with the color codes used in the Chernobyl map, the result would look something like this:




And if projected on the whole of Japan:



It should be quite obvious that the fallout region is significantly larger than depicted here ... japanese authorities simply didn't bother measuring or releasing data from the surrounding regions in the "safe" zone.

But how big is the Fukushima disaster really?
Well, a quick look on the Chernobyl map clearly shows that the effects were felt throughout of Europe, even though the measured radiation was on several scales lower than that of the Fukushima incident.

To give you a sense of the size of the contaminated region in comparison to Europe:



The only saving grace of Fukushima is that the wind blew towards the pacific ocean the entire time (US west coast: beware).

Fukushima isn't the largest nuclear accident since Chernobyl - it's the largest nuclear accident ever! It's really just a matter of time when the next one happens.

You might want to check radiation maps before visiting the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020.

edit:
Another map of the fukushima region with Chernobyl color codes:


added high resolution version of first map

 

[Winner]

You don't really understand much about radiation/fallout/nuclear energy, do you?

Moderator Action: If there are errors in the OP please post with constructive criticism rather than a 1-sentence rhetorical question.

 

[Kyriakos]

You don't really understand much about radiation/fallout/nuclear energy, do you?

I read an AP article claiming that the rotting sea-life in the Cali coast and the high levels of radiation there are not related to any Fuku contamination, but to those pesky red-painted eating uttensils they use there.

But i am sure people will keep listening to conspiracy theorists, when it is all about eating utensils, as usual :/

 

[ArneHD]

Note that, as far as I can tell, the Fukushima maps use a Bq scale, while the Chernobyl map uses a kiloBq scale.
Also, your argument seems really Non sequitur, I can't see how you reached your conclusion.
Also, There was no explosion at the Fukushima plant, the radiation came from radioactive water leaking out into the ground water, so winds are a non-issue, whereas in Chernobyl there was an explosion that threw radioactive dust into the atmosphere.

 

[trader/warrior]

But how big is the Fukushima disaster really?
Well, a quick look on the Chernobyl map clearly shows that the effects were felt throughout of Europe, even though the measured radiation was on several scales lower than that of the Fukushima incident.

But your Chernobyl map isn't high res enough to show the highest concentrations in the immidiate area like the Fukushima map does. Wiki puts the highest radiation readings at fukushima at one fifth of that of chernobyl and total radiation released at less than one fifth with 80% of that washed into the pacific. And even if Fukushima released more radiation than Chernobyl, surely most of it being absorbed in the pacific is a good thing. If Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl, where are all the deaths, malformed babies and irradiated livestock meat in surrounding countries like with chernobyl?

The Japanese government and TEPCO do seem to be handling the situation in a quite soviet style of denial, but if it was worse than Chernobyl the consequences would be quite a bit more obvious than they are now.

Edit: This map seems to be a better comparison:

Spoiler :

 

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Fukashima is mostly radioactive water leaking out. The primary containment building stayed intact and only the outer parts were destroyed. Chernobyl had no containment building. When it blew, it spewed out radioactive material all over.

 

[Aroddo]

Note that, as far as I can tell, the Fukushima maps use a Bq scale, while the Chernobyl map uses a kiloBq scale.
Also, your argument seems really Non sequitur, I can't see how you reached your conclusion.
Also, There was no explosion at the Fukushima plant, the radiation came from radioactive water leaking out into the ground water, so winds are a non-issue, whereas in Chernobyl there was an explosion that threw radioactive dust into the atmosphere.

Since kilo means 1000, I assumed that most people here were able to make the mental feat of converting the Fukushima numbers by themselves. Sorry for not anticipating you.

Here is the no-explosion, captured on video.

Link to video.

But your Chernobyl map isn't high res enough to show the highest concentrations in the immidiate area like the Fukushima map does. Wiki puts the highest radiation readings at fukushima at one fifth of that of chernobyl and total radiation released at less than one fifth with 80% of that washed into the pacific. And even if Fukushima released more radiation than Chernobyl, surely most of it being absorbed in the pacific is a good thing. If Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl, where are all the deaths, malformed babies and irradiated livestock meat in surrounding countries like with chernobyl?

The Japanese government and TEPCO do seem to be handling the situation in a quite soviet style of denial, but if it was worse than Chernobyl the consequences would be quite a bit more obvious than they are now.

Thanks, but your map shows most of the 80km area as >60kBq while mine shows it as >300kBQ.
Well, in theory both can be true, but it's far more likely that the radiation drops more gradually than just from 300k to 60k.
I got the updated hi-res fukushima map from iaea.org, so I assume it is factual.

Regarding the irradiated livestock meat of surrounding countries: Japan isn't surrounded by countries. And the wind blew to the pacific (that's east) where the nearest country is the USA.
And regarding malformed babies: According to Keiko Ichikawa, the author of "A Letter from Fukushima", doctors allegedly declare malformed babies as stillborn and dispose of it. That's only a rumor, though, as far as I'm concerned.
But it's factually true, that the japanese government has a past history of censoring negative information about health damage caused by corporate malfeasance, which actually supports the euthanasia theory.

A small number of thyroid cancer has been detected (44 cases out of 360,000 children), which isn't that much. But in Chernobyl, thyroid cancer started to show up after four to five years after the accident, so the verdict is still out.

 

[Winner]

Jesus christ...

Fukushima is NOWHERE NEAR Chernobyl in the overall seriousness. Enough with this anti-nuclear hysteria.

 

[red_elk]

Edit: This map seems to be a better comparison:

Does this map show present levels of contamination? Chernobyl happened almost 30 years ago, which is about half-life of Caesium-137. Anyway we are "lucky" that this time most of contamination went into the ocean - according to your map the release was ~20% of Chernobyl's, which is still quite a lot.

What are Japan plans of using nuclear power plants in future?

 

[Tahuti]

Fukushima is NOWHERE NEAR Chernobyl in the overall seriousness. Enough with this anti-nuclear hysteria.

Nuclear power is too immature to be seriously used on the scale it is now due to the problem of radioactive waste. Electricity generation by nuclear power should have been postponed until nuclear fusion is workable.

 

[Winner]

Nuclear power is too immature to be seriously used on the scale it is now due to the problem of radioactive waste. Electricity generation by nuclear power should have been postponed until nuclear fusion is workable.

Agriculture should have been postponed until humanity was ready for it... oh wait.

 

[Aroddo]

If nuclear reactors blow up in the current rate, we will see at least 3 more meltdowns this century. And each one will create far more damage to the economy than it could ever have generated in revenue.

Nuclear reactors do not even make economic sense, even if you assume they don't blow up on a regular basis!

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Okay, just for comparison, this is what the steam explosion at Chernobyl did to the plant. And this wasn't just some chemical explosion that might have allowed some material to escape, it was an explosion from inside the reactor core which opened a nuclear reaction to the open air, flung its material into the atmosphere, and started numerous fires inside the core, from radioactive materials, which spread the radioactive plume for days.

Toward the end of the video, you can see the bright red-orange glow inside the reactor chamber. That's the reactor core, the so-called "light of death," effectively functioning like a dirty bomb, burning by its own nuclear reaction due to proximity, and sending that plume out over Europe.

Nothing remotely like this has happened at Fukushima. The situations are incomparable.


Link to video.

What are Japan plans of using nuclear power plants in future?

Plans for total demobilization.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Agriculture should have been postponed until humanity was ready for it... oh wait.

Same for modern technology.

Germany is also too new a concept which proved disastrous, twice. Let's liberate Hesse, Bremen, Bavarian, Hannover, Prussia Brendenburg, Pommerania, Baden, Wuttemburg, Ulm, etc, etc instead.

 

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Let's not forget that Chernobyl happened only because they disabled every single fail-safe on the reactor and then ran it with a rookie crew in an unsafe manner.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

If nuclear reactors blow up in the current rate, we will see at least 3 more meltdowns this century. And each one will create far more damage to the economy than it could ever have generated in revenue.

Nuclear reactors do not even make economic sense, even if you assume they don't blow up on a regular basis!

I didn't realise the units of "generated revenue" and "ecological damage" were the same.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Let's not forget that Chernobyl happened only because they disabled every single fail-safe on the reactor and then ran it with a rookie crew in an unsafe manner.

This and the fact that it was an unsafe (by Western anyone with a brain's) standard's to begin with.

Nuclear power is too immature to be seriously used on the scale it is now due to the problem of radioactive waste. Electricity generation by nuclear power should have been postponed until nuclear fusion is workable.

It's not a technological issue really - it's a political issue. We have the means to effectively deal with the waste in many cases but lack the political will to do so. General ignorance of the public doesn't help as it's exceedingly easy to convince the public at-large to go along with the notion of nuclear power plants as radiation-spewing death machines ---> despite your typical coal plant producing far more radiation than a nuclear plant ever will, along with all of the other environmental degradation that goes with coal and even natural gas.

 

[Aroddo]

I didn't realise the units of "generated revenue" and "ecological damage" were the same.

Too bad I mentioned "economic damage", eh?
But even if I mentioned ecological damage: You don't think that evacuating hundreds of thousands of people and losing a significant part of your country doesn't cause economic damage as well, do you?

 

[CavLancer]

We're all going to die.

 

[Tahuti]

It's not a technological issue really - it's a political issue. We have the means to effectively deal with the waste in many cases but lack the political will to do so. General ignorance of the public doesn't help as it's exceedingly easy to convince the public at-large to go along with the notion of nuclear power plants as radiation-spewing death machines ---> despite your typical coal plant producing far more radiation than a nuclear plant ever will, along with all of the other environmental degradation that goes with coal and even natural gas.

Even if the technology is overly dependent on political issues whether it is probably used or not, it perhaps best not to use. One problem is also of scale: Decommissioning can take years and the meantime require not resources to operate. If the power generated by nuclear plants suddenly isn't in demand any longer, you can't get rid of it very soon.

Also, coal and gas plants - for all their faults - cannot go Fukushima. Nuclear fission is cleaner than coal if you discount the risk, though you cannot possibly predict the risk of meltdown and then what will happen next. Nuclear fusion doesn't have those kind of faults since the waste is negligible (you can leave the radioactive waste inside the reactor as fusile waste has a half life of 50 years compared to the centuries fissile waste).

Also, please do not say 'it is Japan's or the USSR's fault, it won't fail near us!', because a failure elsewhere may already be bad enough for you, even if your country manages nuclear energy foolproof and flawlessly.

Agriculture should have been postponed until humanity was ready for it... oh wait.

Agricultural wastedisposal and agricultural meltdowns are a big problem, I agree.