What is not happening at Fukushima (and some of what is)

My old boss and dear friend Honza Beranek saved me a bunch of work by putting together this article on distorted media claims about Fukushima.  The original Greenpeace blog post appeared Jan 24, 2014


Blogpost by Jan Beránek








There are many reasons to be concerned about the continuing impacts of the disaster on people and the environment. These include the ongoing leaks of contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima reactors into the ground and ocean, the unresolved issue of how to reliably store huge volumes of contaminated water, as well as the massive amounts of radioactive material produced by the decontamination efforts in FukushimaPrefecture.

Then there is the plight of over 100,000 evacuees. Their lives are in limbo.  After nearly three years, they still have not received proper compensation from either the government or the corporations responsible for the accident.

Many people have been exposed to significantly elevated levels of radiation. Thousands of square kilometers have been contaminated and will be for many decades to come by radioactive fallout from the accident.

Then there are the challenges of dismantling the whole crippled nuclear power plant whose melted reactors still have lethally dangerous nuclear fuel inside them.

These alone are enough to conclude that the situation is really, really bad.

However, there are also stories that exaggerate the risks and create news of potential catastrophies that are well beyond reality. Given that people’s trust in public authorities has been shaken (and not without a reason!), one can often find alarming but unconfirmed information on social media.

Most recent have been the stories of rumours about ongoing nuclear reactions inside the crippled Fukushima reactors and vast radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean and US West Coast.

We have checked these stories and our conclusion is clear: these are not stories based in fact. For example, while unprecedented amounts of radioactive cesium have ended up in the Pacific Ocean, significantly contaminating sediments and fisheries along the Japanese coastline, there is no plausible mechanism that could transport significant levels of contamination across the Pacific to reach beaches in the US or Australia.

Yes, there are detectable traces of those radioactive isotopes in US waters, but they are at very low levels, and their contribution to radiation doses is far below the natural background radiation level.

This does not necessarily mean they are completely safe (no radiation dose is low enough to be 100% safe), but the additional risks they present to living organisms, including humans, are negligible. Certainly, these levels are not causing radiation sickness, deformities or mass deaths of ocean life.

That is why we continue to focus on the big post-Fukushima problems in Japan itself. This is where you can occasionally still catch a fish whose contamination exceeds the official standards.

While the frequency of such catches has indeed fallen since 2011, they still occur and send a reminder of the ongoing risks and need for precautionary measures when it comes to seafood from Japan’s northeastern coastline.

But to repeat: the idea that contamination from Fukushima presents a risk to the coastal waters and their ecosystems of the US or Australia is seriously over-stretched.

(Follow what Greenpeace does about the Fukushima nuclear crisis on this blog, where we also publish a twice weekly digest of news from the region. Also follow us on Twitter at @nukereaction.)

Jan Beránek is the leader of Greenpeace International’s Energy Campaign

The following is the beginnings of a blog post i wrote on this topic, which gets at a few more Fukushima myths needing to be debunked.

This map wildly overstates contamination.

This map wildly overstates contamination.

There are numerous places where you can find completely wrong things about Fukushima.  Several of them are websites which are claiming to be reasonable voices trying to protect the environment.  One story (from the Voice of Russia) claims the mysterious steam over Fukushima is a pending spent fuel meltdown, which will release 89 tons of radioactive waste on the US.  Another from the European Union Times claims that there have been new underground explosions at Fukushima and that


This is the classic failed environmental reporting, in that it assumes causality with too short a time horizon.  Mass deaths of these sea creatures would have to be caused by something else, and there are many reasons to believe they might be.    Here is a fine piece documenting how Fukushima is dangerous still but not ready to explode just yet.  So dont worry too much about the mysterious smoke which has been reported emanating from the melted down reactors.  Which is not to say there are not lots of completely legitimate things to be concerned about in the Fukushima aftermath.


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4 responses to “What is not happening at Fukushima (and some of what is)”

  1. santalorena says :

    Excellent info. Thank you Pax. One question, in the statement “but not ready to explode just less,” did you mean just *yet*?

  2. richard w. lisko says :

    thank you for the info, pax. wish there was a button so i could occassionally share this to people on fb.

  3. games of mobile says :

    Someone essentially lend a hand to make critically posts I’d state.
    Fantastic task!

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