Despite official denials by the Japanese government and shrouded statements issued by our own government, it’s becoming clear that we’re in potential danger due to radiation from the Fukushima reactor meltdown blowing our way. It may also soon arrived on the West Coast in the form of contaminated items that were engulfed in the tsunami that was caused by the earthquake that started the whole problem.
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Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has visited the Fukushima Diachi Nuclear Power Station and has sent a letter to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Ichiro Fujisaki, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko calling on them to convince Japan to accept international aid to help repair damage at the reactor complex, which remains in an extremely precarious condition.
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Milk in San Francisco is being tested at radiation levels that are double the maximum amount allowed by the EPA, apparently as a result of radioactive cesium reaching California from the Fukushima disaster.
According to Energy News, three recent milk test results on cartons of milk with "best by" dates of 3/12, 4/9, and 4/16 were shown to have amounts are so small that it would require drinking over tens of thousands of liters of milk to receive the small dose that one receives from a cross-country airplane flight. These isotopes can still be detected in milk because they have long half-lives (2 years and 30 years, respectively) and therefore trace amounts will remain in the grass and hay that the cows feed on.
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Despite Fukushima, nuclear energy is probably here to stay. Can we make it safer by changing to a new fuel? It turns out there could be an entirely new type of nuclear reactor, that could not only be operated safely without generating long-lived radioactive waste, it could even consume the toxic waste generated by conventional nuclear reactors.
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