Arizonan, you may wish to look at the following and check out the radioactive waste discharged into the ocean:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ocean
The following comes from the above wikipedia link:
The countries involved — listed in order of total contributions measured in TBq (TBq=1012 Becquerel) — were the USSR, the UK, Switzerland, the US, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Japan, Sweden, Russia, New Zealand, Germany, Italy and South Korea. Together, they dumped a total of 85,100 TBq (85.1x1015Bq) of radioactive waste at over 100 ocean sites, as measured in initial radioactivity at the time of dump.
For comparison:
magnitude of radiation
Global fallout of nuclear weapon tests — 2,566,087x1015Bq.[4]
1986 Chernobyl disaster total release — 12,060x1015Bq.[5]
2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, estimated total aerial release — 11,346x1015Bq.[6]
Fukishima Daiichi nuclear plant cooling water dumped (leaked) to the sea — TEPCO estimate 4.7x1015Bq, Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission estimate 15x1015Bq,[7] French Nuclear Safety Committee estimate 27x1015Bq.[8]
Naturally occurring Potassium 40 in all oceans — 14,000,000x1015Bq.[9]
One container (net 400kg) of vitrified high-level radioactive waste has an average radioactivity of 4x1015Bq (Max 45x1015Bq).
However, I do wonder where the US was storing their waste; I would have thought they would have had a similar amount to Britain and possibly the Soviet Union.
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Additional info to add to the spreadsheet later
§ Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the
Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant
Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant
Regarding133Xe, we find a total release of 15.3 EBq, which is more than twice as
high as the total release from Chernobyl and likely the largest
radioactive noble gas release in history
high as the total release from Chernobyl and likely the largest
radioactive noble gas release in history
resulting in 50,000 mbq/m^3 air, up from 0.1mbq/m^3 background, or 500,000 times
There is strong evidence that the
133Xe release started
before the first active venting was made, possibly indicating
structural damage to reactor components (and SFP4) and/or leaks due to
overpressure which would have allowed early release of no-
ble gases. For 137Cs, the inversion results give a total emis-
sion of 36.6 (20.1–53.1) PBq,
133Xe release started
before the first active venting was made, possibly indicating
structural damage to reactor components (and SFP4) and/or leaks due to
overpressure which would have allowed early release of no-
ble gases. For 137Cs, the inversion results give a total emis-
sion of 36.6 (20.1–53.1) PBq,