The half life of Cesium-137 is about 30 years.

The rule of thumb for how long a radionuclide takes to decay away to background levels is between 10 to 20 half lives.

So we should expect Cs137 to linger in the environment and in the food chain, for between 300 and 600 years.

You do not want to hear about some of the other LONG-LIVED radionuclides released by the Fukishima meltdowns

Nuclear Snow! USS Ronald Reagan Sailors Sue TEPCO Over Fukushima Radiation Sickness!

http://nypost.com/2013/12/22/70-navy-sailors-left-sickened-by-radiation-after-ja...

Navy sailors have radiation sickness after Japan rescue
By Laura Italiano and Kerry MurthaDecember 22, 2013 | 6:40am



Crew members scrub contaminated snow off the deck of USS Ronald Reagan in March 2011 during a humanitarian mission off tsunami-stricken Japan.
Photo: Getty Images
Navy sailor Lindsay Cooper knew something was wrong when billows of metallic-tasting snow began drifting over USS Ronald Reagan.
“I was standing on the flight deck, and we felt this warm gust of air, and, suddenly, it was snowing,” Cooper recalled of the day in March 2011 when she and scores of crewmates watched a sudden storm blow toward them from the tsunami-torn coast of Fukushima, Japan.
The tall 24-year-old with a winning smile didn’t know it then, but the snow was caused by the freezing Pacific air mixing with a plume of radioactive steam from the city’s shattered nuclear reactor.
Now, nearly three years after their deployment on a humanitarian mission to Japan’s ravaged coast, Cooper and scores of her fellow crew members on the aircraft carrier and a half-dozen other support ships are battling cancers, thyroid disease, uterine bleeding and other ailments.
“We joked about it: ‘Hey, it’s radioactive snow!’ ” Cooper recalled. “I took pictures and video.”
But now “my thyroid is so out of whack that I can lose 60 to 70 pounds in one month and then gain it back the next,” said Cooper, fighting tears. “My menstrual cycle lasts for six months at a time, and I cannot get pregnant. It’s ruined me.”
The fallout of those four days spent off the Fukushima coast has been tragic to many of the 5,000 sailors who were there.
At least 70 have been stricken with some form of radiation sickness, and of those, “at least half . . . are suffering from some form of cancer,” their lawyer, Paul Garner, told The Post Saturday.
“We’re seeing leukemia, testicular cancer and unremitting gynecological bleeding requiring transfusions and other intervention,” said Garner, who is representing 51 crew members suing the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Fukushima Daiichi energy plant.
“Then you have thyroid polyps, other thyroid diseases,” added Garner, who plans to file an amended lawsuit in federal court in San Diego next month that will bring the number of plaintiffs past 70.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/03/climate-scientists-support-nuclear-power

Top climate scientists support the use of safe nuclear power...
Can't argue with that...I mean that's science and is by it's very definition irrefutable...
People who say otherwise are liars...deniers...who would keep from our children a better world...

namnugenot wrote on Dec 30^th, 2013 at 9:41am:
In what proportion?

It seems to me that, among the best qualified, there's more substantial disagreement on nuclear than there is on Anthropogenic Global Warming.

For mine, nuclear is less a solution than a different set of problems.

namnugenot wrote on Dec 30^th, 2013 at 10:11am:
So you're confused. At least you're consistent.

I take it you have no clue about the proportion of Climate scientists who advocate nuclear. What's the point of a datum if you're ignorant of its significance?

muso wrote on Dec 30^th, 2013 at 5:36pm:


Even with the major incidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl, Nuclear wins hands down as the safest method of electricity generation.

Also:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/03/climate-scientists-support-nu...

Quote:



I just plain don't accept those figures Muso, they just fly in the face of my perceived reality. I mean if solar energy makes up less than 0.01 % of world energy use what's with the apparent abundance of solar powered gadgets, roof top panels, solar energy installers etc etc? Seems to mke somebody can't see the solar energy industry through the pile of their own bullshyte.

Now if I was to google Fatal accidents Nuclea power, I figure I'd get a number. If I googled Fatal Accidents solar power, I'd get another numbert. I very much doubt that those numbers would have much bearing on each other. For instance somebody falling off a roof because of their own amateur hour clumsiness doesn't strike me as attributable to solar energy while somebody going down with radiation sickness due to a meltdown at a nuclear power plant is not attributable to anything but nuclear energy.

A 'meltdown' I remember when that was just a science fictional concept, not an annual event. 

Grey wrote on Dec 30^th, 2013 at 6:49pm:


Was that a question? Apparently they cause fires. Houses burn down, killing people.

Not many people have died from exposure to ionising radiation.  Maybe a few develop thyroid cancer, but of them, very few actually die from it.

The link is provided at the web site. It seems quite rigorous.
Quote:


Therein lies the problem. Not your perception, but the general perception.