Chew
Senior Member.
enenews headline declares "Report: 76 trillion becquerels of Plutonium-239 released from Fukushima — 23,000 times higher than previously announced"
What really was released was 76 TBq of neptunium-239 which decays into plutonium-239. When an isotope decays it no longer has the same half-life so it does not have the same activity and the activity of the daughter isotope must be re-calculated, something none of the alternative media websites were aware of. The simplest way to re-calculate activity is to multiply the activity by the specific activity of the daughter isotope and divide by the specific activity of the parent isotope.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?...ific+activity/neptunium-239+specific+activity
76 trillion Bq of neptunium-239 decays into 20.3 million Bq of plutonium-239.
enenews' source for this printed a correction to their article but enenews didn't bother. 9 out of 10 fear porn addicts choose enenews for their Fukushima hit! enenews was started 5 days after the Tohoku earthquake btw.
http://enenews.com/updated-report-7...shima-23000-times-higher-previously-announced
How much plutonium did Fukushima release and how does it compare to Chernobyl?
This study calculated the releases and has data for Chernobyl too: http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/anzen_kiban/outcome/Proceedings_for_Web/Topics_4-02.pdf
Going by the METI study, Chernobyl released 6000 times more Pu-241 and 13,000 times more of the other plutonium isotopes as Fukushima.
Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing released 20 times as much Pu-241 and 125 times as much Pu-239+240 as Chernobyl.
The Rocky Flats Plant fire of 1957 released 65% as much plutonium as Fukushima. Rocky Flats is located 15 miles northwest of Denver, CO.
![](https://www.metabunk.org/data/MetaMirrorCache/17b8057662ca70229ddf2bb2e2b5f83a.png)
One outlier study came up with releases of 100 times more but most studies converge around this study's estimates.
What really was released was 76 TBq of neptunium-239 which decays into plutonium-239. When an isotope decays it no longer has the same half-life so it does not have the same activity and the activity of the daughter isotope must be re-calculated, something none of the alternative media websites were aware of. The simplest way to re-calculate activity is to multiply the activity by the specific activity of the daughter isotope and divide by the specific activity of the parent isotope.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?...ific+activity/neptunium-239+specific+activity
76 trillion Bq of neptunium-239 decays into 20.3 million Bq of plutonium-239.
enenews' source for this printed a correction to their article but enenews didn't bother. 9 out of 10 fear porn addicts choose enenews for their Fukushima hit! enenews was started 5 days after the Tohoku earthquake btw.
http://enenews.com/updated-report-7...shima-23000-times-higher-previously-announced
How much plutonium did Fukushima release and how does it compare to Chernobyl?
This study calculated the releases and has data for Chernobyl too: http://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/anzen_kiban/outcome/Proceedings_for_Web/Topics_4-02.pdf
Going by the METI study, Chernobyl released 6000 times more Pu-241 and 13,000 times more of the other plutonium isotopes as Fukushima.
Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing released 20 times as much Pu-241 and 125 times as much Pu-239+240 as Chernobyl.
The Rocky Flats Plant fire of 1957 released 65% as much plutonium as Fukushima. Rocky Flats is located 15 miles northwest of Denver, CO.
![](https://www.metabunk.org/data/MetaMirrorCache/17b8057662ca70229ddf2bb2e2b5f83a.png)
One outlier study came up with releases of 100 times more but most studies converge around this study's estimates.