General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: So it turns out that nadinbrzezinski was correct re Fukushima [View all]FBaggins
(26,729 posts)It's likely that Fukushima released more bq's of noble gas (and we can even agree that it's because there were three reactor meltdowns rather than one), but those can safely be ignored from a dose perspective.
The larger difference is that Chernobyl's "containment" (sic) exploded and the core burned in the open air. A higher percentage of Fukushima's release was in shorter-lived isotopes, while Chernobyl released far more in the way of longer-lived isotopes.
It would be reasonable to discuss a measure of "becquerel/years" - by which measure Chernobyl was almost certainly far more than ten times worse (perhaps 100 times).
Then, of course, almost all of Chernobyl's release ended up over populated land areas while the vast majority of Fukushima's ended up in the sea (or groundwater around the plant). Those same Bqs aren't as available to theoretically damage human tissue.
Penultimately, for all their flaws in communication, Japan's response was many times better than Russia's. They almost certainly avoided low-hundreds of thyroid cancer cases by timely evacuation and temporary food bans while the radioiodine dissapeared.
Lastly, for all the nonsensical talk of "hot particles" that the lunatic fringe used to harp about... Chernobyl very likely did produce some (because of the explosion and fire) - while Fukushima didn't