Half-life of 24000 years

How much radiation was released? What percentage of which isotopes were thrown into the atmosphere. Was it mostly iodine-131? How much of the total was made up of the far more dangerous cesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium?

Piecing together the truth is a dizzying job of ferreting out bias and vested interest. The pro-nuclear Time magazine reported in 1989 that perhaps "one billion or more" curies were released, rather than the 50 to 80 million estimated by Russian authorities.[5] One curie is the amount of radiation equal to the disintegration of 37 billion atoms -- 37 billion becquerels -- per second. It is a very large amount of radiation.

The U.S. government's Argonne National Lab has said that 30 percent of the reactor's total radioactivity -- 3 billion of an estimated 9 billion curies -- was released.[6] And scientists at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Lab suggested that one-half of the core's radioactivity was spewed -- 4.5 billion curies, according the World Information Service on Energy, quoting Science, 6-13-86.

Vladimir Chernousenko, the chief scientific supervisor of the "clean up" team responsible for a 10-kilometer zone around the exploded reactor, says that 80 percent of the reactor's radioactivity escaped, something like seven billion curies.[7] At the Union of Concerned Scientists, senior energy analyst Kennedy Maize, concluded that "the core vaporized" -- all 190 tons of fuel, and all 9 billion curies.[8]

Former Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Joseph Hendrie, concluded likewise, saying "They have dumped the full inventory of volatile fission products from a large power reactor into the environment. You can't do any worse than that."[9]

The Russians and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claimed in a 1986 report, that 50 million curies of radioactive debris, plus another 50 million curies of rare and inert gasses were discharged. However, the rocketing incidence of cancers, leukemias and other radiation-induced illnesses, leads scientists to suspect that the higher radioactive fallout estimates are likely. Pandemic numbers of thyroid cancers led even the cautious Dr. Alexander Sich, in his Chernobyl cover story for the May 1996 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists to conclude that the "higher [radiation] release estimates support the conclusions drawn by medical experts."

Geneticist Valery N. Soyfer, founder of the former Soviet Union's first molecular biology laboratory, analyzed the 1986 report to the IAEA, which has since been condemned as a cover-up. Dr. Soyfer says that if only 100 million curies were vented, then world "background radiation doubled at once."[10] This claim was unsupported by accompanying evidence, but if "background" was doubled by 100 million curies, then it was multiplied 180 times by the release of Chernobyl's "full inventory." Nineteen months after the disaster, in Nov. 1987, the U.S. government officially doubled its estimate of the "background" radiation to which we are exposed every year.[11]

Cesium-137 contamination is probably Chernobyl's most devastating and ominous consequence. The body can't distinguish cesium from potassium, so it's taken up by our cells and becomes an internal source of radiation. Cesium-137 is a gamma emitter and its half-life of 30 years means that it stays in the soil, to concentrate in the food chain, for over 300 years. While iodine-131 remains radioactive for six weeks, cesium-137 stays in the body for decades, concentrating in muscle where it irradiates muscle cells and nearby organs.[16]

Strontium-90 is also long-lived and, because it resembles calcium, is permanently incorporated into bone tissue where it may lead to leukemia.

The Soviets acknowledged in 1986 that the influence of cesium-137 on cancer death rates would be nine times that of iodine-131. They said that the effects of strontium-90 would "perhaps have, along with cesium-137, the most important meaning."[17]

Radioactive caesium, with a half-life of 30 years, is still the most widely dispersed isotope. Between 125 000 and 146 000 km2 are contaminated with caesium. There is also concern over long-term contamination with strontium (Sr-90), which has a half-life of 29 years, and plutonium (Pu-241) and its various decay products: some of these have a half-life of 24 000 years.

Due to southeasterly wind and rainfall during the critical days after the Chernobyl accident, Norway received a substantial part of the cesium isotopes released. The radioactive fallout closely followed the rainfall and was mainly concentrated to some thinly populated areas in the central parts of the country. The total fallout of the cesium isotopes was approximately 2300 TBq (137Cs) and 1200 TBq (137Cs). The average for the country was 11 kBq/m2 with a variation from 1.5 to 40 kBq/m2 for the 19 different counties of the country. The fallout resulted in contamination of food products from some areas, mainly meat from reindeer and sheep, as well as “wild” freshwater fish. A small fraction of the food production in 1986 was not sold due to the regulations enforced. The average radiation dose to Norwegians during the first year after the accident was approximately 0.3 mSv (0.1 mSv from external radiation and about 0.2 mSv from the foodstuffs). This first year extra dose is approximately 5% of the average normal background dose in Norway (estimated to about 6 mSv/year, including medical and industrial use of radiation sources).

Fallout map

Sprašujem se ali je jedrsko orožje pravzaprav obdržalo globalni mir vs ta čas.