My brother lives a few miles upwind (usually) of the Indian Point nuclear plant on the Hudson River, north of New York City. He called me this morning to ask if we were worried about radiation hitting the West Coast, which all of the government isn't anything to worry about. Of course, if it were something to worry about, we'd be hearing the same thing anyway.
Truth is, I'm only a little nervous right now. One really cool chart of prevailing winds shows some of a possible plume hitting right smack into the San Francisco area, although by that point it should be sufficiently dispersed that the concentration won't be high enough to cause any immediate human health impacts. That, of course, assumes that the reactors are brought under control before the plutonium in the core and the spent fuel rods catches fire, explodes or otherwise becomes airborne. Plutonium's an alpha-emitter with a half life of 24,500 years, and you only need to inhale a tiny speck before it becomes fatally toxic.
Still, let's not forget: When you release significant amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere, there are human health consequences -- and not just in the immediate area. There's no doubt in my mind (and in the minds of many experts) that above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s contributed to cancer rates world wide. You can't prove that any individual got cancer because of exposure to the specific fallout from a specific explosion on a specific date; you can prove that the likelihood of increased cancer risk in large populations increases with almost any measurable increase in background radiation.
That said: My worries are pretty minor compared to the folks in Japan. The head of the company that ran the nukes now admits that the radiation released over the past few days will kill people. And if the situation deteriorates any further, the risk is going to ge beyond a few miles.
The heartbreaker: There's not a lot anyone can do. You can't evacuate Tokyo. Where would the people go?
Ralph Nader send out a press release today warning about the problem the United States would face if one of its nuclear plants -- say, Indian Point -- had a similar accident:
Imagine evacuating the long-troubled Indian Point plants 26 miles north of New York City. Workers in that region have a hard enough time evacuating their places of employment during 5 pm rush hour. That’s one reason Secretary of State Clinton (in her time as Senator of New York) and Governor Andrew Cuomo called for the shutdown of Indian Point.
You can't evacuate New York. My brother's on the edge of the official evacuation zone for Indian Point (which is a creaky, leaky old nuke); the roads aren't wide enough to handle the traffic where he is -- and he's a fair ways upstate from NYC.
The New York Daily News headline talks about the handful or workers still trying (at the risk of their own lives) to get the troubled nukes under control: "The Whole World Is Depending On Them." And if they somehow prevent disaster, we can all take a deep breath -- and start working to shut down the old, past-their-prime, unsafe power plants that are near populated areas.
Oh: that's almost all of them.