I'd wonder whether plutonium would be ~ the mixed uranium/plutonium fuel rods are just the start of that, since plutonium is a reasonably common reactor product for LWR ~ indeed, that is part of the argument for the thorium fuel cycle, that if its seeded by uranium, plutonium is several additional steps as a reactor product so far less common.

A major blow up now of the kind speculated above would be very bad news for those in the plume, but in a world where we are playing around with possible 5°C global warming, probably 2°C global warming, and genetically engineering crops so that we can pump fields with so much poison that it kills off honeybees ~ its seems like the stratospheric fallout would be in the "lets kill of thousands and make life miserable for thousands more" level of bad that we have permitted consistently over the past half century.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

From the report linked by ceebs downthread, on the No. 1 reactor, results of the analysis run by TEPCO:

...almost all the
noble gases were vented out into the environment. The ratio of released radioactive iodine to the total iodine contained (hereinafter referred to as release ratio) was IV-44 approximately 1% from the analysis result, and the release of other nuclides was less than 1%.

Results of the re-run by NISA (which found that the pressure vessel was damaged 5 hours rather than 17 hours after the accident, though the timeline of the fuel rod meltdown was the same):

As for release ratio of radioactive nuclides, the analytical results show about 1% of tellurium, about 0.7% of iodine and about 0.3% of cesium.

So further away from Fukushima, I wouldn't worry about the heavy metals, but would worry about the lots of Iodine (even ater decay) and caesium still there.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}