Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Our radioactive ocean

Radioactive iodine is now at scary levels in the ocean near Japan's broken reactors. But we're advised not to worry because the area has been evacuated and fishing has been stopped.

Also, radioactive iodine will decay quickly and become non-radioactive iodine (this is true).

What this doesn't tell us is whether other radioactive elements that last longer are also leaking. One expert says that more releases are likely because it appears that one reactor core has suffered a meltdown.

I think we should expect more bad news about our radioactive ocean, including some elements that are more worrying than iodine.

1 comment:

PepijnK said...

Brilliant :(

Could there potentially be tritium? Combined with the contents from a phosphor tank container (fallen from a container liner, not unlikely) we could see glow in the dark yellowfin appearing in stores by mid 2011 (scaring the living daylight out of consumers). Right? Scare people with radioactive mutated poison fish: a viable solution for overfishing?