Reply #16: Answers [View All]

[cemaphonic]

- what would cause a big fallout plume, there are a few scenarios
- Full meltdown of fuel through all levels of containment hitting groundwater, triggering a huge steam explosion. Extremely improbable for this to happen at this point. What is possible is for the fuel that they are having trouble keeping coolant on to catch fire. This would release a bunch of fallout too, though not as much, and not as far.

- what is in the plume that is of most worry, cesium, iodine, plutonium, etc.
- Cesium, Strontium and Plutonium are nasty toxic metals with long half-lives. But they won't make it far enough in sufficient concentration for anyone in the US to worry about. Iodine-131 is very radioactive and dangerous and is light enough to travel a good deal further, but has a very short half-life, and has the whole Pacific Ocean to disperse over.

- will we be warned or are we on our own since tptb will want to avoid panic
- There is no govt monopoly over the ability to detect radiation - If there were some way for significant amounts of radiation to reach the West Coast, it's not something the government would be able to keep a lid on. Soviets tried this with Chernobyl which worked for about 3 days before the entire Northern Hemisphere collectively said "so, what's up with all the radiation?" Plus, the mass media would be pitching even more of a fit then they already are.

- how long would it take for the plume to arrive
- 7-10 days seems to be the commonly accepted model.

- would it help to stay inside
- No - Especially if you live in an area with higher-than-normal radon concentration.

- what precautions should be taken
- Donate to Japan relief organizations. Those are the folks that need help right now. Also, if you don't already have an emergency kit, nothing like a major disaster to put a fire under your butt to put one together. And, if you want to keep on top of recent developments, coverage by NHK World, and the IAEA reports have been much more complete, timely and less sensationalistic than the western commercial news corps. BBC is probably the best of the big western sources. CNN, Fox and MSNBC have all been completely worthless.

- is it better to move away out of the jet stream, where to go and for how long
- No.

- issue for children
- This isn't a question.

- how to deal with people who aren't concerned
- They're right. People should be concerned about how this will affect Japan. There is no risk to the US, and acting like there is when people in Japan are suffering much more immediate and serious problems than radiation makes us look like the kind of under-informed narcissists that half the world already thinks we are.