Plenty of radiation has fallen on the USA as a result of the meltdowns in Fukushima.
http://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/...
To compare measurements to Japan, the sample WA98, with its (calculated) whopping deposition of 5100 Bq/m^2 of I-131 in Washington, very near Portland, Oregon, but some 4700 miles (or about 7600 km) away from Fukushima, Japan, lies in the second color range (1000 to 10,000 Bq/m^2) on the Iodine fallout map for Japan.
... ... ...
One sample from California, CA99 tested 1,610 Bq/m^2 for I-131, which would also put it in that same range on a similar fallout map. In addition, two more samples would fall in the dark blue range of over 100 but under 1000Bq/m^2: One in California, CA66 with 211 Bq/m^2; and one in Colorado, CO90 with 833 Bq/m^2.
... ... ... ...
Highest Cs-137 contamination found was from a sampled spot in Southern California: 240 Bq/m^2. By itself not that alarming (I mean, it’s bad, but… if that alarms you, then you wouldn’t even be able to live almost anywhere in Europe, where worse contamination happened in vast regions due to the Chernobyl accident (see map further below). But given the distance, this is an extremely high level for being that far away from the accident.
... ... ...
The USA has not done a whole lot of testing since the meltdowns at Fukushima. Berkeley made a few random tests and nearly all the top soil tests found measurable
amounts of Fukushima radiation.
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/...
dried manure sampled from Sacremento sampled on 8/16/2011 showed 5.18±0.52
[MDA=0.14] (5.0e+02) Bq/kg (kg*) Cs134 and 7.93±0.79
[MDA=0.17] (4.7e+02) Bq/kg (kg*) Cs137. This is as much radioactive Cesium as were found in the radioactive tuna fish last August.
Reactor #4 remains as a serious global threat. If reactor #4 collapses and catches
fire releasing 10% of its radiation this would release 3 to 10 times more radiation
than released last March. Also the radiation released at Fukushima came from hydrogen explosions and possibly a mini nuclear explosion. An extended fire would aerosolize the contamination. This might pose a greater threat for the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.bellona.org/...
... ... ... ....
If a radiological fire occurs and further cooling is impossible, more than 10 percent of the radioactive material of the [spent fuel pond] cold be released,” read the report. “Release of 100 percent of the cesium, strontium and other isotopes would scale the base case results by a factor of 10 and would clearly present a dire situation for areas of Japan, marine life in the Pacific and the global environment.”
... ... ...
http://enenews.com/...
So we almost had 15 meltdowns and not three. It would have been species threatening had that occurred. We really came way too close.
Now there are those that claim that this is hyperbole. But here we are well over a year past the melting of the Fukushima Daichi reactors and we still face serious additional threats from these reactors. And the radiation at these reactors is not so high that they need to be abandoned.
What if we had fifteen out of control reactors with radiation levels so high that they had to be abandoned? Could this be the end of humanity?
It has been said that we are playing Russian roulette with nuclear power. There may be many more empty chambers than with a six shooter, but if the gun goes off it may be the end of us.