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Page added on August 30, 2013
Fukushima Radiation Affecting US Tuna
Recent reports have exposed what some people had predicted at the time of the Fukushima nuclear disaster: that radiation would spread. And it has, through fish that migrates between North America and Japan.
Reuters recently reported that “low levels of radioactive cesium from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident turned up in fish caught off California in 2011”. The statement was based on a recent report compiled by Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station.
Bluefin spawn off the Japanese coast and many migrate across the Pacific. The researchers analyzed tissue samples collected in August 2011, five months after the nuclear spill. All samples contained reactor byproducts cesium-134 and cesium-137 at levels that produced radiation about three percent higher than natural sources.
According to this report, Canada and the U.S. are feeling the effects of the radiation in food and water, with babies born with thyroid issues. Government has increased acceptable levels of certain toxic substances in the food imported from Japan.
Most of the radiation leaked in April 2011. Radioactive cesium does not quickly sink to the sea bottom but remains dispersed in the water column, from the surface to the ocean floor. Fish can swim right through it and will ingest it through seawater or by eating contaminated organisms. Bluefin tuna typically have low levels of natural radiation such as potassium 40.
19 Comments on "Fukushima Radiation Affecting US Tuna"
kickerbocker on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 12:04 pm
“three percent higher”
I guess all Americans should be evacuated and settled in areas with minimum level of background radiation. People in Colorado Alaska etc etc, just pick up and leave now 🙂
SteveO on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 12:52 pm
It would be ironic if this mess caused a reduction in over fishing allowing fish stocks to recover.
bobinget on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 2:04 pm
At least now we will be able to SEE the mercury in tuna
(with lights off)
curlyq3 on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 4:01 pm
Hello again to all Peak Oilers … Nuclear profiteers and Nuclear apologists have betrayed all life on Earth with their lies about “Safe, Clean, Nuclear Energy” … the time is soon that they will be found and compelled to face justice for their crimes … curlyq3
curlyq3 on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 4:26 pm
Hello again kickerbocker… regarding your post “three percent higher” all nuclear waste remains in the environment permanently … the food chain is being contaminated … bioaccumulation presents all life forms with the consequense of internal emitters … you are either very ignorant or a criminal to minimize the nuclear pollution that is occuring in the world … curlyq3
bobinget on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 5:25 pm
If at the beginning of the jet age we stopped making safer ones after ‘Comet’ crashes, would we better or worse off?
I suspect many here would say better.
Did you really mean it, that is to say, do you boycott airlines, pick-up trucks?
kickerbocker on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 5:47 pm
Hey curlyq3, I guess it’s time for Tuna equivalent dose 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
Beery on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 6:50 pm
“…do you boycott airlines, pick-up trucks?”
As a matter of fact, yes, I do. I’ve never bought a thimble-full of gasoline and I don’t ever plan to. I’ve never driven a car and I haven’t flown anywhere in 15 years.
curlyq3 on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 7:53 pm
Hello Peak Oilers … find all the latest info regarding the Fukushima catastophe at SimplyInfo … curlyq3
http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/
The lunatics that have been in charge of this disaster are close to losing the entire nuclear inventory at Fukushima Daiichi … as for you kickerbocker, what do you think the folks here at Peak Oil “DO NOT COMPREHEND” about Fukushima ? Where will you be when Tokyo is uninhabitable ? How long will you recite “Banana Analysis” regarding internal emitters ? I suggest to the readers here at Peak Oil to invest the time at the link provided above to help understand the horrendous ongoing contamination from this nuclear disaster … curlyq3
actioncjackson on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 7:56 pm
The plant was originally going to be built on a 35 meter bluff, but it was shortened by 25 meters so that the final elevation of the plant was only 10 meters above sea level, not including basements. According to the reports the highest Tsunami expected back in the 60’s was only 3.1 meters.
The reason for lowering the bluff? The first is seismic, building on bedrock is supposedly better to withstand earthquake tremors. The second, and this my friends is the dominate cause, is that the cooling pumps are cheaper to operate if they don’t have to transfer water up as high. It was a cost analysis that weighted potential danger versus cost of operation that determined that it was okay to build that close to sea level. If the plant were to have been built on the originally proposed bluff, this disaster would have never happened.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/07/13/national/fukushima-plant-site-originally-was-a-hill-safe-from-tsunami/#.UiD0dDYqiSo
curlyq3 on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 8:41 pm
Hello actioncjackson … there were eyewitness accounts of primary cooling loop failure and extremely high radiation measurements “BEFORE THE TSUNAMI STRUCK Fukushima Daiichi” … it has been the “Big Lie” to suggest that the earthquake did not destroy at least one of the three lost reactors … to suggest that an earthquake of that magnitude could not destroy one of these “Nuclear Water Boilers”, goes right out the door with “Banana Analysis” regarding internal radiation exposure … Nuclear Profiteers do not want to lose their nasty business and so the lie must be told that these machines can not fail due to siesmic activity … curlyq3
curlyq3 on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 8:59 pm
Hello again Peak Oilers … here is a link to info regarding damage to Fukushima reactors prior to the arrival of the tsunami … curlyq3
http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?page_id=10166
KingM on Fri, 30th Aug 2013 9:36 pm
Snopes has debunked this, BTW. I wish the site would quite spreading this absolute fraud.
BillT on Sat, 31st Aug 2013 12:15 am
BTW: ALL Pasxific fish wil be affected, not just tuna. Even Salmon. And within years, the radiation will have spread to ALL of the Earth’s oceans, and land.
David on Sat, 31st Aug 2013 12:36 am
Drive around most any neighborhood and you can count the number of yard lights that are on during the day. Walk into just about any business and the room is always a comfortable, almost chilly, on the hottest days. We in the developed world are demanding bosses when it comes to energy, which must be low cost and abundant to keep our consumer driven economies going.
Radiation in tuna posses no health risk compared to living under the plume of a coal fired power plant, although the mercury in fish, much of it from coal, can be blamed for lower IQ’s in children, and higher health cost for the rest of us.
It’s time to retire older nuclear plants, but let’s not use scare tactics like this article stop development of generation IV reactors, which promise lower cost and safer power plants that burn up potential weapons grade fuel, and produce waist that needs to be contained for hundreds of years, not millennia. This is not a perfect solution, but better than the alternative.
curlyq3 on Sat, 31st Aug 2013 2:29 am
Hello KingM … “Snopes has debunked this, BTW. I wish the site would quite spreading this absolute fraud.” … I suppose you might define with greater detail what your thoughts are … curlyq3
surf on Sat, 31st Aug 2013 6:39 am
After world war 2 there was extensive testing of atomic and hydrogen bombs. Each one released radioactive cesium. As a result radio active cesium was already in the oceans and most fish long before the meltdown at Fukushima.
After Fukushima these biologist collected some blue fin tuna samples in california and had them test. Yes they found Cesium and assumed it was from fukushima. Cesium from nuclear bombs is identical to cesium from reactors. The cesium the scientist found shortly after the meltdown probably didn’t come from the fukushima.
“And within years, the radiation will have spread to ALL of the Earth’s oceans, and land.”
By 1970 nuclear wepons testing had already spread radiation to all of the oceans.
kickerbocker on Sat, 31st Aug 2013 8:52 am
curlyq3 wrote:
“Where will you be when Tokyo is uninhabitable?”
How is Tokyo supposed to become uninhabitable?
“all nuclear waste remains in the environment permanently”
The half-lifes of Caesium137 and Strontium90 is around 30 years, not 30 billion years…
Thomas Johnson on Sat, 31st Aug 2013 7:53 pm
DAVID is exactly right about the large amounts of both mercury and radioactive particles emitted by coal-burning power plants.
And what power source has replaced the power once generated (CO2-free) by all those newly shutdown nuclear reactors in Japan and Germany? To a very large extent, they have been replaced by coal-burning power plants, which emit radiation and mercury (along with tons of CO2) not in the case of extremely rare accidents (as with nuclear plants) but in the course of their normal everyday operations!
DAVID is also right about gradually switching over to Generation IV reactor designs. This generation includes “passive” or inherent safety features, which typically result “by default” (even without any human intervention) in a total and safe shutdown when any unexpected problems occur. Especially promising among the Gen IV reactors IMHO is the Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) which is a relatively simple design (already proven back in the late 1960’s) which operates at normal pressures and is able to burn existing nuclear waste to produce power – in addition to burning nearly 100% of its main Thorium fuel (meaning that there is very little nuclear waste of its own).