There's a very interesting debate in the comments section of the New Scientist article:

[link to www.newscientist.com]

Debora MacKenzie (author) writes:

The Austrians have calculated that 1.2 to 1.3 x 10^17 becquerels of iodine-131 per day are coming out of Fukushima. Chernobyl put out 1.76 x 10^18 becquerels of iodine-131 - over a ten day period. Its average daily production was one tenth of that, which is 1.76 x 10^17.

That is the same order of magnitude as the daily production calculated to be coming out of Fukushima. In fact, as we said, the calculated Fukushima emissions are slightly lower than the Chernobyl figure, because 1.76 is about 50 per cent higher than 1.2.

The same arithmetic applies to caesium. Fukushima is calculated as emitting 5x10^15 becquerels of caesium-137 per day. Chernobyl put out 8.5x10^16 in ten days, or 8.5x10^15 per day on average. Again, same order of magnitude, with Chernobyl slightly higher, as 8.5 is around 70 per cent more than 5.
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Response by reader: Irresponsible Reporting
Fri Mar 25 16:51:54 GMT 2011 by DiskJunky

[link to www.theregister.co.uk]

It seems the reporter, Debora, has a reputation for expanding the truth a little. I'm disappointed in New Scientist for letting her get away with it :-(

Please report your figures correctly and not cherry-pick the highest ones! Even your source says that levels of radio caesium is at 20-60%. NOT the 60% you reported. Sloppy and misleading.
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Her response:

by Debora MacKenzie

Why, thank you for saying I expand the truth. I try.

I am afraid you have misundertood the "20-60" per cent figure that appeared in the Austrian report. It referred to something completely unrelated to the 60 per cent you say I use.

They calculated the total emissions of iodine and caesium from Fukushima for the first three days of the accident, as calculated on the basis of readings in the US and Japan, and expressed that as a fraction of the total of those isotopes emitted by Chernobyl. For example, for iodine-131 it's 1.3 plus 1.3 plus 1.2 x 10^17 Bq, which is 22 per cent of 17.6 x 10^17 Bq, Chernobyl's total iodine-131 emissions.

We, in contrrast, reported the rate the Austrians calculated for emissions per day from Fukushima, and compared that to emissions from Chernobyl per day. When an event is not yet over, this is a fair comparison to make.

You say I use a figure of 60 per cent. I presume this is an average of the 50 and 70 per cent higher the *daily* Chernobyl emissions of, respectively, iodine-131 and caesium-137, were than the calcuated *daily* emissions from Fukushima. You feel this was irresponsible as the Austrians used the figure 20-60 per cent.

They did, but it described something completely different: they said the *total* emissions of caesium-137 from Fukushima in the first three days were 20-60 per cent of the *total* emissions of caesium-137 from Chernobyl.

The reason for the range was that, unlike the measurement of iodine where the two stations agreed, the Japanese station measured much more caesium, 4 x 10^16 Bq, than the US, 5 x 10^15 Bq. Three days at the apparent US level would give you 1.5 x 10^16, around 20 (actually 18) per cent as much caesium as Chernobyl put out in ten days, which was 8.5 x 10^16 Bq. Two days at the US level plus one at the measured Japanese level gives you 5 x 10^16, or 60 (actually 59) per cent as much as Chernobyl.

So they gave caesium emissions for the first three days as 20-60 per cent of the total emissions of Chernobyl, as there were technical reasons to think the Japanese reading may have been too high, so they could only say that the output was somewhere in that range. I used only the lower US reading, to be conservative.

So perhaps, on this occasion at least, the term "sloppy and misleading" does not apply, at least to our use of the numbers.