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![]() by Staff Writers Stanford CA (SPX) Jul 23, 2012
Radiation from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster may eventually cause anywhere from 15 to 1,300 deaths and from 24 to 2,500 cases of cancer, mostly in Japan, Stanford researchers have calculated. The estimates have large uncertainty ranges, but contrast with previous claims that the radioactive release would likely cause no severe health effects. The numbers are in addition to the roughly 600 deaths caused by the evacuation of the area surrounding the nuclear plant directly after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and meltdown. Recent PhD graduate John Ten Hoeve and Stanford civil engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson, a senior fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, are set to publish their findings Tuesday (July 17) in the journal Energy and Environmental Science. The research constitutes the first detailed analysis of the event's global health effects.
No effects? But most of the radioactivity was dumped in the Pacific - only 19 percent of the released material was deposited over land - keeping the exposed population relatively small. "There are groups of people who have said there would be no effects," said Jacobson. A month after the disaster, the head of the United Nations Science Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, for example, predicted that there would be no serious public health consequences resulting from the radiation.
Global reach? Because of inherent uncertainties in the emissions and the health-effects model, the researchers found a range of possible death tolls, with a best estimate of 130. A wide span of cancer morbidities was also predicted, with a best estimate of 180. Those affected according to the model were overwhelmingly in Japan, with extremely small effects noticeable in mainland Asia and North America. The United States was predicted to suffer between 0 and 12 deaths and 0 and 30 cancer morbidities, although the methods used were less precise for areas that saw only low radionuclide concentrations. "These worldwide values are relatively low," said Ten Hoeve. He explained they should "serve to manage the fear in other countries that the disaster had an extensive global reach."
The response Japanese government agencies, for example, evacuated a 20-kilometer radius around the plant, distributed iodine tablets to prevent radioiodine uptake and prohibited cultivation of crops above a radiation threshold - steps that Ten Hoeve said "people have applauded." But the paper also notes that nearly 600 deaths were reported as a result of the evacuation process itself, mostly due to fatigue and exposure among the elderly and chronically ill. According to the model, the evacuation prevented at most 245 radiation-related deaths - meaning the evacuation process may have cost more lives than it saved. Still, the researchers cautioned against drawing conclusions about evacuation policy. "You still have an obligation to evacuate people according to the worst-case scenario," said Jacobson.
If it happened here Despite California's population density being about one-fourth that of Japan's, the researchers found the magnitude of the projected health effects to be about 25 percent larger. The model showed that rather than being whisked toward the ocean, as with Fukushima, a larger percentage of the Diablo Canyon radioactivity deposited over land, including population centers such as San Diego and Los Angeles. Jacobson stressed, however, that none of the calculations expressed the full scope of a nuclear disaster. "There's a lot more to the issue than what we examined, which were the cancer-related health effects," he said. "Fukushima was just such a large disaster in terms of soil and water contamination, displacement of lives, confidence in government oversight, cost and anguish." 'Worldwide Health Effects of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident,' Energy and Environmental Science, at Mark Z. Jacobson's Fukushima research page.
Related Links Stanford University Nuclear Power News - Nuclear Science, Nuclear Technology Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
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