New Question for BRAWM on the 200 radionuclides produced in a nuclear reactor
As you know, over 200 radionuclides are produced in a nuclear reactor.
Out of those 200, can you please list the radionuclides other than the ones we hear a lot about (iodine-131, cesium-137/134) that may have made the trip to the U.S. from Japan's nuclear meltdowns.
Or can you direct me to a source that might have this information.
Thank you.
The only other ones that can
The only other ones that can be seen over here is Te-132 and I-132. Both of these have short half lives so they decay away quickly. A reactor produces numerous isotopes, most are so neutron rich they decay within seconds.
This is false. There are a
This is false. There are a lot of highly dangerous radioisotopes with incredibly long decay times, such as Plutonium, Neptunium, Americium, and Strontium, many of which have recently been measured in shockingly high concentrations in Japan, including Tokyo area (http://fukushima-diary.com/). They likely made their way over here to our US and Canadian shores after the Fukushima accident. But either they are not being measured, or the data is not accessible to the public. Or we are being told that what looks like a "60fold" increase in Plutonium in March, after the F. accident, in several US States (see Alexander Higgins blog), is apparently (and still for me incomprehensibly) "statistically not significant". (find previous discussion and sources on this forum via keyword search).
Hellooooooo....out there
Pro-nuclear folks who visit this forum must certainly be able to answer this question.
Will they please?