You and, going by Chernobyl's fallout distribution, everyone else within a radius of roughly 2000 km.
Looking on a map, for me this includes Chernobyl itself, the fallout of which is still measurable around here and contaminates dozens of forests to the point that mushrooms and game from there is considered inedible, and everything else between such stable, wealthy nations as Estonia, Tunisia and Syria.
No, I can't really say I'm confident in peoples' abilities to keep nuclear reactors out of harm's way.
> the fallout of which is still measurable around here
The radioactivity of granite mined decades ago and used to build buildings is still measurable using modern sensing devices. "Measurable" is a pretty bad threshold to use.
> contaminates dozens of forests to the point that mushrooms and game from there is considered inedible
"Considered" by whom? What are the actual levels? How do they compare to the radioactivity of other foods?
From what I can tell, the vast majority of the damage from nuclear accidents is not caused by the accident itself but the radiation-paranoid overreaction to it.
Allowable intake levels are different for different isotopes. Potassium has a biological half life of a few hours, Caesium (the isotope in question here), of several weeks.
The FDA apparently doesn't even bother with regulating allowable Potassium-40 levels due to this.
Which is why you shouldn't use Bq/kg and instead use Sieverts. It's not that bad, human body can get rid of caesium-131 etc. pretty well via kidneys. The main problem was radioiodide which accumulates in thyroid and parathyroid glands and super heavy isotopes which are chemically dangerous, e.g. plutionium and uranium - but these do not disperse far at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert - Recommended reading, has a handy table. Fukushima doesn't even register as dangerous in there, equivalent to about 3 full CT scans.
Data from Chernobyl is scarce, but I'd suspect 4x that value due to more retained isotopes.
The US FDA thinks 1000 Bq/kg for Cs-137 is just fine.[1] Browsing around, I have seen other sources that go higher. I am not knowledgeable enough to know if one or both of those limits is overly conservative. Considering my experience with other food safety limits, I would say they probably are.
You and, going by Chernobyl's fallout distribution, everyone else within a radius of roughly 2000 km.
Looking on a map, for me this includes Chernobyl itself, the fallout of which is still measurable around here and contaminates dozens of forests to the point that mushrooms and game from there is considered inedible, and everything else between such stable, wealthy nations as Estonia, Tunisia and Syria.
No, I can't really say I'm confident in peoples' abilities to keep nuclear reactors out of harm's way.