In the end such uptake by living organisms is the fate of all such radioactive contamination in the wild. That's why the greatest risk facing a site like Chernobyl is something as natural as a wildfire, similar to the ones that swept Russia and Ukraine this past summer. "One of the worst accidents Chernobyl could have at this point is a forest fire," Kehler notes. "All the radioactivity in the plants would then become airborne."

*Correction (4/29/11): This sentence was edited after posting to note that only noble gases escaped the reactor at Three Mile Island.

3 Comments

1. 1. nstricker 12:56 PM 4/29/11

   Hello, I am a science writer at Idaho National Lab and want to say that Mr. Biello did a really nice job on this article. It's well researched and written.
   
   However, there's one small problem with one of the quotes from INL's Doug Akers. On page 3, it says: "Only 3 to 4 percent of the reactor inventory [of radioactive material] was released," Akers says.... It should say that only 3 to 4 percent of the reactor inventory of noble gases was released, whereas effectively all the other fission products (including plutonium and uranium) were retained in the containment or in the reactor vessel.
   
   Thanks for the opportunity to clarify this information.
   Nicole Stricker, Idaho National Lab

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2. 2. KaiGeologist 02:54 AM 5/6/11

   Some low dose radiation is not dangerous, it can even make you healthier?
   Quick doses under 100 mSv and longer term doses under some thousand mSv/year are not dangerous.
   Chernobyl experience tells that.
   Small micrometer sized particles from coal, oil, wood, biomassa burning,.. are much more dangerous- millions of people die every year because of these...
   See more
   www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2592992/
   www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/ppmc/articles/PMC2889503/

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3. 3. eco-steve 10:04 AM 5/15/11

   Who is going to pay for environmental damage that is being done by dirty technology? The question is not whether nuclear is safer than coal. Both need to be replaced by clean technology.

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