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Chernobyl Exclusion Zone Radioactive Longer Than Expected
Radioactive Material Isn't Disappearing From the Environment as Quickly as Predicte
Reinhabiting the large dead zone around the accident site may have to wait longer than expected. Radioactive cesium isn't disappearing from the environment as quickly as predicted, according to new research presented here Monday at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
A photo taken on September 18, 2009 shows the monument to the victims of the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophy in front reactor No. 4, which exploded, killing some 25,000 people. (BORIS CAMBRELENG/AFP/Getty Images) Cesium 137's half-life the time it takes for half of a given amount of material to decay is 30 years, but the amount of cesium in soil near Chernobyl isn't decreasing nearly that fast. And scientists don't know why.
It stands to reason that at some point the Ukrainian government would like to be able to use that land again, but the scientists have calculated that what they call cesium's "ecological half-life" the time for half the cesium to disappear from the local environment is between 180 and 320 years.
"Normally you'd say that every 30 years, it's half as bad as it was. But it's not," said Tim Jannick, nuclear scientist at Savannah River National Laboratory and a collaborator on the work. "It's going to be longer before they repopulate the area."
In 1986, after the Chernobyl accident, a series of test sites was established along paths that scientists expected the fallout to take. Soil samples were taken at different depths to gauge how the radioactive isotopes of strontium, cesium and plutonium migrated in the ground.
They've been taking these measurements for more than 20 years, providing a unique experiment in the long-term environmental repercussions of a near worst-case nuclear accident.
In some ways, Chernobyl is easier to understand than DOE sites like Hanford, which have been contaminated by long-term processes.
With Chernobyl, said Boris Faybishenko, a nuclear remediation expert at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, we have a definite date at which the contamination began and a series of measurements carried out from that time to today.
"I have been involved in Chernobyl studies for many years and this particular study could be of great importance to many [Department of Energy] researchers," said Faybishenko.
The results of this study came as a surprise. Scientists expected the ecological half-lives of radioactive isotopes to be shorter than their physical half-life as natural dispersion helped reduce the amount of material in any given soil sample. For strontium, that idea has held up. But for cesium the the opposite appears to be true.
The physical properties of cesium haven't changed, so scientists think there must be an environmental explanation. It could be that new cesium is blowing over the soil sites from closer to the Chernobyl site. Or perhaps cesium is migrating up through the soil from deeper in the ground. Jannik hopes more research will uncover the truth.
"There are a lot of unknowns that are probably causing this phenomenon," he said.
Beyond the societal impacts of the study, the work also emphasizes the uncertainties associated with radioactive contamination. Thankfully, Chernobyl-scale accidents have been rare, but that also means there is a paucity of places to study how radioactive contamination really behaves in the wild.
"The data from Chernobyl can be used for validating models," said Faybishenko. "This is the most value that we can gain from it."
22 Comments so far
Show AllThe article didn't mention the size of the area most affected by Chernobyl, but it is estimated to be as big as Alabama.
James Hansen and Ragendra Patchouri became MSM celebrities by supporting Big Nuke as well as green energy.
And here in Florida, we're paying taxes toward publicly subsidized nuke construction and our own destruction.
Gotta love FPL and Progress Energy. I have friends down there who are involved in the effort to stop the new nuke plants, but it's mostly student activist groups I think.
I'd give that Seminole plant a wide berth.
The chernobyl reactor and a commercial light water reactor are as completely different in their design as, say, nitroglycerine and gasoline are as chemical energy sources. A Chernobyl-type accident cannot happen in a light water reactor.
You really want to bet your family's lives on that?
BTW: Nitroglycerine and gasoline will both explode under commonly occurring conditions. So your analogy, while inept, is dead on accurate.
Can you spell WPPSS? We will be paying for that one for a long time to come.
Note to the Government of Alberta: This is you when, not if, you screw up the proposed nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power is just plain stupid. Anyone politician subsidizing it should be forced to camp in Chernobyl for a week.
Motives to underestimate radioactivity and its likely duration in public statements are enormous.
Anyone judging safety by industry estimates of radiation emissions should judge the reports based on the honesty they think institutions usually have with things that cannot be seen, heard, or smelled, and which potentially cost the corporations millions of dollars.
Principles of institutional dynamics don't cease to function just because radiation gets involved instead of some other hazmat.
See, I would just automatically assume the area was toxic for about all of eternity.
No, the only radioactive element which stays radioactive for all of eternity is depleted uranium, the stuff killing people in Fallujah, Iraq and in other Iraqi firefight cities. Depleted uranium has a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years, so the DU radioactivity will be about 50% lower by the time that the Sun is scheduled to swallow up the earth. Before that time, I wouldn't want to live in Fallujah, and after that time, well,...
Ugh, the knowledge that makes you want to puke...and not from radiation poisoning.
My first thought after reading the headline of this story was that we have, no doubt, been lied to about the half life of ALL of this radioactive waste produced. How would the average Joe go about checking their claims? You would need some specialized equipment to do that, and a SOURCE for the crap you're testing. Is this one of the reasons they don't want anyone else to develop this capability? Tell the BIG LIE and no-one would EVER know the difference. Not unless, of course, there is an accent.....
"Agent Orange Continues to Poison New Generations in Vietnam"
by Martha Ann Overland / Danang, Time.com, Dec 20, 2009
http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=61268
EXCERPT:
This lonely section of the abandoned Danang air base was once crawling with U.S. airmen and machines. It was here where giant orange drums were stored and the herbicides they contained were mixed and loaded onto waiting planes. Whatever sloshed out soaked into the soil and eventually seeped into the water supply. Thirty years later, the rare visitor to the former U.S. air base is provided with rubber boots and protective clothing. Residue from Agent Orange, which was sprayed to deny enemy troops jungle cover, remains so toxic that this patch of land is considered one of the most contaminated pieces of real estate in the country. A recent study indicates that even three decades after the war ended, the cancer-causing dioxins are at levels 300 to 400 times higher than what is deemed to be safe.
After years of meetings, signings and photo ops, the U.S. held another ceremony in Vietnam on Dec. 16 to sign yet another memorandum of understanding as part of the continuing effort to manage Agent Orange's dark legacy. Yet there are grumblings that little — if anything — has been done to clean up the most contaminated sites. Since 2007, Congress has allocated a total of $6 million to help address Agent Orange issues in Vietnam. Not only does the amount not begin to scratch the surface of the problem or get rid of the tons of toxic soil around the nation, but there are questions about how the money is being spent. And several parties have noted with growing frustration that the money is primarily going to study the issue and hire consultants rather than implementing measures to prevent new generations from being exposed.
...
Scientists have been raising the alarm about dioxins since the 1960s. After TCDD, the dioxin in Agent Orange, was found to cause cancer and birth defects, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) slapped an emergency ban on the herbicide in 1979. Dow and Monsanto, the chemical's largest manufacturers, eventually shelled out millions in damages to U.S. troops who were exposed to it while it was being used as a wartime defoliant from 1961 to 1971. The U.S. government still spends billions every year on disability payments to those who served in Vietnam — including their children, many of whom are suffering from dioxin-associated cancers and birth defects. In October, the Department of Veterans Affairs added leukemia, Parkinson's and a rare heart disease to the list of health problems associated with Agent Orange. Yet U.S. official policy maintains that there is no conclusive evidence that the defoliant caused any health problems among the millions of exposed Vietnamese or their children.
END OF EXCERPT
There's also a picture of two extremely deformed babies in the Uruknet and Time.com copies of the article. Well, if not what people call babies, then still, "Deformed fetuses at Ho Chi Minh City's Tu Du Hospital, where doctors blame the high incidence of deformities on the use of Agent Orange during the war - STR New / Reuters" (the caption for the photo. says).
And the rest of the article is important. It's not long, but seems quite excellent for its length and is very important information.
We met a vet last year. His unit handled Agent Orange in Vietnam. He said he was the last of his unit still alive, and at the time we met him, he didn't look too healthy to us.
Vast areas of Vietnam were defoliated with Agent Orange. The deformed but living kids from this giant toxic waste dump are put into adult orphanages and usually hidden from reporters. Apparently the deformities are still going on from generation to generation. Truly the Agent Orange was a crime against civilians.
Just like the depleted uranium that we used so extensively in Iraq.
Good thing that John Kerry is promoting nuclear power as the answer to fossil fuels (http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/12/11-1). That gives me confidence. And I'm sure that Obama will soon be on that train. He is already on the coal train. But no need to increase automobile MPG. Just keep sending the fodder to the middle east to kill and be killed.
There has been essentially zero cesium on planet Earth since life started evolving. All living cells have no experience with such a radioactive substance. They have no coping mechanism.
As a trace element, cesium is similar to sodium and potassium. Plants and animals do their best to hoard various trace elements, which help with certain metabolic processes. Your body craves sodium chloride, the salt on your french fries. It helps you to sweat.
I suspect that if radioactive cesium were scattered as dust into the biosphere, the roots of the local plants would be slowly pulling it out of the soil as a trace mineral. In this way the remaining cesium would be concentrated from ordinary topsoil into the cycle of plants and animals.
I would want to find out whether any radioactive cesium scattered downwind from the burning Chernobyl uranium is persistent in any exported Ukranian and Russian agricultural products. I would equally want to find out whether any radioactive cesium scattered downwind from the Three Mile Island meltdown is persistent in any Lancaster County, PA agricultural products. In both cases, a geiger counter held on the products would be near-normal, but one cesium atom retained in your body for years could possibly start a cancer.
I don't know what there is to learn about the death and destruction of these issues. It touches everyone that is living in a sick world.
I had lunch today with the sister of one of my son's friends that died at 35. He was born in Vietnam. The world has lost a treasure in a most dispicable way.
Outside of the restaurant I saw a single honeybee and for that I was gratfull. You might have better luck with this.
Spirits of the Earth by Robert Lake-Thom
Are we glowing in the dark yet?
We've been exposed to hundreds of accidents and tests not publicized at all.
http://planetliberty.wikidot.com/nuclear-power-incidents
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
notable populations dwindling within Chernobyl's bellwether web of fauna...
I m a nuclear veteran (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll, 1956) and have been working to ban nuclear weapons, power stations, etc., ever since. I had radiation sickness and, fortunately, survived, but I have no knowledge whether there is still a time bomb ticking inside me or not.
I've written on the subject many times. One of the things that our military-political pundits never seem to realize is that, attacking a nuclear plant with conventional weapons could cause a Chernobyl or worse by knocking out the control systems.
We cannot dispose of the nuclear waste, safely. We are poisoning ourselves with DU and other unmentionables, yet blithely go on, making war, making still more toxic weapons, and for what? To continue increasing the profits for the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex at the expense of everyone on Planet Earth, and perhaps Planet Earth, herself.
Sadly, I do not see anything improving in the Obamanation. It is just more Bush greed and cruelty. You might find this link of interest. Unfortunately, the aracnet site is gone, but the rest are still active, I believe.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2093
One of the problems is that there are very few of us "atomic vets" left. The clowns that are running things now have no idea what they want to unleash, once more, on the world in the name of profit and power.