High Levels of Radiation at Fukushima Nuclear Plant PDF Imprimir E-Mail
Imagen activaTokyo, Feb 21 (Prensa Latina) Radiation levels at the nuclear plant in Fukushima are equivalent in 24 hours to what can be endured in a year, according to reporters who visited the plant for the first time.
On Monday, a group of journalists was allowed to tour some of the places on the ground, seriously affected by the earthquake and tsunami in March 11, 2011, which generated an unprecedented nuclear crisis.
A report on TV channel NHK said that after working in the affected areas, four workers have died, victims of leukemia or heart attack, and that at least 43 cracks have been detected in the cooling systems of the plant.
Recent statements by former Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who resigned as a result of the crisis last August, admitted that neither the Government nor the companies that operated the plant were prepared to mitigate the disaster.
In Tokyo, foreign experts and other specialists from the University of Meiji noted that nuclear power plants were built in inappropriate places from the seismic viewpoint, as they could only endure 7-magnitude earthquakes in Richter's scale.
Government sat on survey of radiation in Fukushima children's thyroid glands
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February 22, 2012
The thyroid glands of children in Fukushima Prefecture were exposed to radiation doses of up to 35 millisieverts following the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan said Feb. 21.
The estimate is based on results collected in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, late last March, but not released by the government at the time. The government's local response headquarters tested the thyroid glands of 1,080 children in Fukushima Prefecture on the advice of the commission. According to materials released by the commission, 11 of 137 under the age of 15 checked in Iwaki had relatively high radiation doses in their thyroid glands of 5 to 35 millisieverts. The second highest dose was 25 millisieverts and the third-highest dose was 21 millisieverts.
The government did not release the figures, arguing that the measurements were too inaccurate.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's standard for the intake of stable iodine tablets to prevent radiation exposure in the thyroid gland is 50 millisieverts in the case of 1-year-old infants. None of the subjects exceeded that level.
The Fukushima prefectural government on Feb. 20 released the results of a survey in which external radiation doses were estimated for 10,468 residents in the prefecture. The maximum whole-body dose was 23 millisieverts among the 9,747 residents who were not nuclear plant workers.
The latest release by the commission relates to topical doses in thyroid glands. According to a formula adopted by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the values can be divided by 25 to produce external radiation doses for the whole body. The commission said that it advised the government's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters late last March to conduct additional surveys on children with high doses, but that the recommendation was rejected on the grounds that such measures could cause alarm among the children and their families. http://ajw.asahi.com/articl...shima/AJ201202220053
Now phonedawgz, before you spin this to say its a safe level, this was only one month. They found kids fairly close to the limit, and didn't feel the need to check and see if there were actually any over.
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 02-22-2012).]
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09:56 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
LOUISA, Va. (WTW) — Dominion Virginia Power is seeking the source of leaking radioactivity at its North Anna nuclear power plant after an elevated level of tritium was detected in groundwater. Company spokesman Rick Zuercher tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/A8e2lf ) that the plant's two reactors aren't the source of the leak. http://www.mansfieldnewsjou...ell|text|Frontpage|s -------------- Is he related to you phonedawgz?
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Feb 23rd, 2012
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
NRC proposes first post-Fukushima safety standards
Sponsored by FLSmidth Feb 23, 2012
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Feb. 17 proposed three rules to address safety-related issues following the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
The rules, the first since the NRC established its task force to recommend safety enhancements at all U.S. nuclear plants, were proposed to commissioners in a memo from R.W. Borchardt, NRC executive director for Operations.
"Each of the orders is focused on enhancing defense in depth at nuclear power plants through increased capabilities to minimize the potential for core damage following a beyond design basis external event," the NRC said in the memo. “The staff considers that all nuclear power plants should be at the redefined level of adequate protection by Dec. 31, 2016, at the latest.â€
Two orders from the NRC are proposed to be issued to all reactor licensees, including holders of active or deferred construction permits, and holders of combined licenses. These proposed orders say licensees must develop plans to address beyond design basis natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters and reasonable protection of equipment identified under such plans.
The NRC also proposed that all plants improve instrumentation in pools used to store spent fuel. The third order from the NRC pertains to licensees operating boiling water reactors with GE (NYSE: GE) Mark I and Mark II containments, similar to the design of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. This order would address containment vent structures at all plants with these containment systems. The memo said the events at Fukushima Daiichi highlight the possibility that beyond-design-basis external events could challenge the prevention, mitigation and emergency preparedness defense-in-depth layers. Borchardt wrote that at Fukushima, limitations in time and unpredictable conditions associated with the accident significantly challenged the attempts by the responders to preclude core damage and containment failure. The operators were unable to successfully operate the containment venting system.
“Had additional backup or alternate sources of power been available to operate the containment venting system remotely, or had certain valves been more accessible for manual operation, the operators at Fukushima might have been able to depressurize the containment earlier,†the report said. “This, in turn, could have allowed operators to implement strategies using low pressure water sources. Thus, the events at Fukushima demonstrate that reliable hardened vents at BWR facilities with Mark I and Mark II containment designs are important to maintain core and containment cooling.â€
To implement these rules in a timely manner, NRC said each order has been made immediately effective. The licensing approach for operating power reactors in all three orders is similar. The staff plans to prepare guidance for implementing the requirements of the orders by August 2012. Licensees will then be required, by February 28, 2013, to submit to the NRC for review an overall integrated plan including a description of how compliance with the requirements of the order will be achieved.
Homes near Japan nuke plant may be banned for ever
(AFP) – 8 hours ago
TOKYO — Japan on Friday said some areas surrounding the Fukushima nuclear power plant that was wrecked last year by a massive tsunami will likely remain permanently off-limits.
Measurements taken between November and January confirm earlier results which show a level of radioactivity of 470 millisierverts per year when the average, under normal conditions, is less than one per year, according to a government report released Friday.
Some of the highest readings were taken in the town of Futaba, to the northwest of the plant wrecked on March 11.
Contamination however did not spread evenly over the town, with some areas hardly affected, the report added.
The government has cordoned off a 20-kilometre (12-mile) area around the plant, in northeast Japan, but is expected to redefine this in line with levels of radioactive contamination. A final report by the environment ministry, expected in the coming weeks, is expected to declare as permanently off-limits to human habitation any area with contamination of more than 50 millisieverts per year.
The government is expected to pinpoint areas where contamination hovers between one and 20 millisieverts per year which will be thoroughly decontaminated.
"In between" areas are expected to be declared no-go for many years, but decontamination work will take place with a view to allowing repopulation in the long term.
City councilor to measure radiation in Mizumoto park the first was found dead Posted by Mochizuki on February 23rd, 2012 · 13 Comments
City councilor to measure radiation in Mizumoto park the first was found dead2
Following up this article ..Tokyo is contaminated as the worst place in Chernobyl
Mr. Kabayama, a Tokyo city councilor of Liberal Democratic Party died after measuring radiation in Mizumoto Park.
He was measuring radiation in various areas in Tokyo and posted it on his blog.
On 6/30/2011, he measured 0.25 microSv/h in Mizumoto Park.
City councilor to measure radiation in Mizumoto park the first was found dead
The next day, 7/1/2011 3AM, he was found dead with his head covered by a plastic bag.
Police thought it to be suicide for some reason. However, none of the posts on the blog suggested potential suicide, he sounded motivated to measure around in Tokyo.
Japanese labor authorities have ruled that a man's death at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was due to his having to carry out demanding work while wearing stress-creating protective gear.
It is the first time the labor ministry has recognized such a case connected to cleanup work at the plant.
The authorities have granted compensation to the family of 60-year-old plumber Nobukatsu Oosumi from Shizuoka Prefecture.
His lawyer says Oosumi worked for a construction company subcontracted to Toshiba. He was sent to the Fukushima plant in May to do piping work in a nuclear waste processing facility.
He died a day after he began work, saying he felt ill.
Oosumi's family applied for compensation, saying his death was caused by physical and mental stress from the workload.
The labor authorities told the family's lawyer that Oosumi died because he had to work through the night under uncomfortable conditions while wearing a protective suit and mask.
Oosumi's widow says her husband must be looking down from above and feeling relief.
So are you saying you think the reactor has gone critical once again (in your mind)
Or do you think maybe they cut the flow rate back down since they figure there is noting to worry about and the temps are just bouncing back up to their norms?
quote
Originally posted by dennis_6:
Reactor No. 2 rises above 50°C, was 29°C on Monday — All gauges at bottom of RPV show distinct increase — Same area as ‘faulty’ thermometer
Published: February 24th, 2012 at 2:33 pm ET By ENENews
Title: Temperature of the RPV Bottom at Unit 2, Fukushima Daiichi (1F) NPS Source: Tepco Date: Feb 24, 2012
Temperature of the RPV bottom (upper bottom head) at Unit 2, Fukushima Daiichi, TE-2-3-69H2 （135°）
2/20 05:00 @ 29.7°C 2/23 23:00 @ 50.3°C
The other gauge at the bottom is heating up as well, rising 10°C this week.
So are you saying you think the reactor has gone critical once again (in your mind)
Or do you think maybe they cut the flow rate back down since they figure there is noting to worry about and the temps are just bouncing back up to their norms?
I am obviously not there, neither I or you know exactly what is going on. I look for patterns, and this is not enough data to for a pattern. So, I have no opinion, as to what is going on at this point.
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 02-24-2012).]
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10:09 PM
Feb 25th, 2012
carnut122 Member
Posts: 9122 From: Waleska, GA, USA Registered: Jan 2004
This is what actually was going on behind the scenes, not the we had everything under complete control lies, the media had been reporting. ----------------------------- February 27, 2012 7:09 PM
Report: Gov't "collapsed" during Japan nuke crisis
By Lucy Craft
The one year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan is less than two weeks away, but details about the nuclear meltdown that happened that tragic day are just beginning to emerge.
On Feb. 27, a news helicopter was allowed close enough to get a good glimpse of the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. Today, a report revealed the chaos between Japan's leaders during the crisis.
"The normal lines of authority completely collapsed," Tetsuro Fukuyama, the prime minister's adviser, told investigators.
CBS News correspondent Lucy Craft reported that in the hours after the tsunami struck the nuclear plant, Japanese officials huddled in an emergency bunker struggled to grasp the size of the catastrophe.
"As we listened to our top nuclear experts, we politicians had no idea what they were talking about. Was anyone going to suffer radiation contamination? Would this be another Chernobyl or Three Mile Island? No one could give us a straight answer," Fukuyama recalled in the report.
After 300 interviews with officials and nuclear experts, the report said government was partially at fault for not having an emergency plan if a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the country.
However, investigators concluded the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric, was to blame for the majority of the problems. "They were astonishingly unprepared for this nuclear accident," lead investigator Youichi Funabash told CBS News.
It seems that Tokyo Electric was unprepared for a power failure. Without electricity, the cores of the reactor couldn't stay cool, and it triggered explosions and meltdowns.
With little information from the plant, Fukuyama said that the government thought that a nuclear meltdown was impending, and feared that a massive cloud of radiation would force the evacuation of 30 million people in the Tokyo region.
As a last-ditch effort, the Japanese government discussed "suicide squad" made up of men over 65 years old to ascertain the damage first hand. Fukuyama said he would lead the group.
"Terrified doesn't begin to describe how we felt," Fukuyama told investigators months after the scare. A "no go" zone still remains around the plant because radiation levels are too high. Clean up at the plant is estimated to take 40 years.
"When we learned the reactors had in fact melted down, I was overwhelmed, by our inability," he added.
Title: ML12052A108 Source: NRC's Operation Center Fukushima Transcript Date: March 16 2011
CHUCK CASTO [Deputy Regional Administrator]: [...] if we end up with a molten core and then you talk about the time for the concrete to disassociate, you know, that NUREG says it's a couple of inches an hour, you know. And, of course, that Mark 1 containment is the worst one of all the containments we have, and it's literally, you know, this NUREG tells you that in a station blackout you're going to lose containment. There's no doubt about it.
But, anyhow, I just would highlight that that is a valuable resource, that NUREG. I think it's -- is it 6150, CR-6150, Perspectives on Nuclear Safety? It completely walks all of this down. It's already been thought out. It's already been reviewed, looked at, modeled, everything. So, the one thing the NUREG doesn't really do is tell you how to stop it, how to mitigate it, other than keeping water on it. But the Lab may have some recommendations.
The first report by a private-sector committee investigating the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which was announced earlier this week, has drawn wide international attention for its detailed research that digs out many facts about what had really happened at the plant.
The report was put together by the Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident, a committee of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, led by Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor in chief of The Asahi Shimbun.
In an interview on Feb. 29, Funabashi presented his view that the Japan-U.S. alliance was in a crisis situation in the first week after the Fukushima nuclear accident. He also expressed understanding for the sense of fear that former Prime Minister Naoto Kan felt about the possibility Japan would have to come under the control of the United States and Russia if it was unable to handle the accident by itself.
(Details of the report are available in stories at: private panel-1, private panel-2, editorial )
Excerpts of the interview follow:
The Asahi Shimbun AJW: What is the key fact that you concentrated on about the confused government response, including micromanaging by Kan?
Funabashi: The one area that we were really interested in, as well as what many people wanted to know, was how serious Tokyo Electric Power Co. was about pulling all of its workers out of the Fukushima No. 1 plant because there was nothing they could do.
We wanted to find out if there was the intention among top TEPCO management to make the decision or come one step toward making the decision to pull out all of its workers.
In that respect, from late March 14 through early March 15, Masataka Shimizu, the TEPCO president, tried to phone Banri Kaieda, the then industry minister, then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano and Goshi Hosono, then special adviser to Kan. Shimizu called Kaieda a number of times because he did not answer. The question arose as to why he had to make so many phone calls that late at night. If it involved simply temporarily evacuating the workers to the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant, he would not have had to do what he did. There must have been some very important development for him to do that. We wanted to find out what that was.
In its interim report issued last year, TEPCO explained that the company was only thinking about a temporary withdrawal rather than the complete withdrawal of all workers. That has become the company's official position.
In the interviews we conducted with the politicians who were at the center of the government, they all said their view was that TEPCO wanted to withdraw completely.
Politicians tend to say things that are popular with the public and since there was the possibility that all the politicians were told to give the same story, we searched for individuals who took memos as well as interviewed bureaucrats to find out what TEPCO officials told them.
There were other TEPCO officials who were at the Prime Minister's Official Residence. So, we looked into such matters as much as possible.
From that, we feel that many of the bureaucrats also held the view that TEPCO wanted to withdraw all of its workers.
So, it was not only politicians who felt that the company wanted to pull out all of its workers.
The government's interim report takes the view that the politicians had misunderstood. If one takes that view, that would mean they were making much ado about nothing because they had become frightened by the situation they faced.
But our investigation finds that there was something much deeper and that TEPCO seriously considered withdrawing all of its workers.
But, we were unable to reach a definite conclusion in our report.
We presented the possibility that TEPCO had considered withdrawing to a much greater degree than was contained in the government's interim report due to the circumstantial evidence that we found.
That is the one area that we really wanted to uncover.
Q: Are you saying the bureaucrats felt that way about TEPCO'S intention?
A: Not all of them held that interpretation.
For example, Nobuaki Terasaka, the then head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, talked with Shimizu before Shimizu tried to call Kaieda. Terasaka said he never felt that Shimizu asked to withdraw all TEPCO employees when they held discussions on what should be done as the No. 2 reactor approached a dangerous stage.
We included what Terasaka said in our report.
I hope the Diet investigative committee will thoroughly look into this matter, by checking internal TEPCO documents, telephone records and memos. All the teleconference sessions between TEPCO headquarters and the Fukushima plant are recorded and should still be in storage somewhere. The Diet should force the company to release those recordings to look into what was said by whom.
Q: Since the report was published on Feb. 27, have you received any reaction from TEPCO?
A: Surprisingly, there has been no response. They may just ignore us until the very end.
Q: If it does come out that TEPCO executives had called for a complete withdrawal, would that have been simply an unthinkable decision?
A: The government put together a worst-case scenario. I only learned about that in September.
While Kan unintentionally revealed the existence of such a scenario, all other government officials were in unison in denying such a scenario.
We only obtained a copy of the scenario in December.
The development described in that scenario is similar to what would have happened if TEPCO had withdrawn all of its workers. The trigger for the worst-case scenario is a situation where the radiation levels were so high that no workers could enter the area. The No. 4 reactor was considered the most vulnerable link in that scenario.
The No. 4 reactor was not operating because it was undergoing a periodic inspection. The fuel rods were moved to a storage pool. In the scenario, if the fuel rods became exposed, it would heat up and come into contact with the concrete and begin a reaction that would melt through it. Because the fuel rods were not in the containment vessel or pressure vessel, but exposed, all workers nearby would not be able to work there.
A similar situation would have occurred if all workers left.
It is at that time that Kan probably felt the fear of having Japan come under control of the international community.
Early on March 15, when Kan went to TEPCO headquarters, he said if nothing was done, eastern Japan would be devastated. If Japan was unable to do anything, it could be occupied by the United States and Russia. "If that should occur, what would happen to Japan?" Kan said at that time.
When one reads such comments now, one probably will think something was wrong with Kan, but I can really understand the fear that he felt. That would mean that Japan was saying to the world that it did not have the ability to handle its own problems.
That would mean the end of Japan because it could not even handle its own nuclear accident even though it had the Self-Defense Forces. I think that is the sense of fear held by Kan at that time.
When I knew that, I felt I had come to the true core of the fear that Kan felt.
Q: Was the decision by Kan to stop TEPCO from withdrawing the watershed in the crisis?
A: Kan did many things that were unnecessary, raising questions about minor details. That is a form of accident management. Leaders should not be involved in accident management, but should only handle crisis management.
While he excessively micromanaged, he also understood what the government had to do at the most vital time of the crisis and what decision had to be made at that time.
At that time, Kan was correct.
Even among bureaucrats who were displeased with the Democratic Party of Japan-led government, especially METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) officials who were made out to be the villains, many acknowledged privately that Kan was the right man for the job at that time.
Q: What does the report say about crisis management at such times?
A: That is a difficult issue. The Fukushima nuclear accident was one where manuals about what should be done were worthless because the events that unfolded were not contained in any manual. At such times, what becomes the decisive factor is who the leader is.
The fact that it was Kan who was the leader at that time may have been lucky for Japan.
There were other factors that were also lucky.
March 11 was a Friday, meaning there were 6,000 workers there. If it had been on the weekend, there would only have been one-tenth the number of workers.
The winds also blew out toward the Pacific every day until March 15, which helped the venting process.
Rain also did not fall, which would have brought radiation to the ground with it.
For the first four days, there was good luck.
Another incident was the storage pool for nuclear fuel at the No. 4 reactor. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said there was no water covering the pool. However, for some reason an explosion at the No. 3 reactor sent water to the storage pool in the No. 4 reactor. That is nothing more than sheer luck.
However, our report states that while another crisis will not arise in a similar manner so will there never be another instance of such good luck coming our way either.
Q: Do you feel the maturity of Japanese democracy was tested by the crisis?
A: What was most tested at that time was the ability of the nation to govern as well as the capability and structure for crisis management.
Many of the problems related to governance emerged at the same time, such as risk-adverse thinking, stovepiping and bureaucratic turf battles.
What was probably most lacking was the desire to form a partnership with the public to deal with the crisis.
For example, there was no attempt to explain what the situation was and provide context for the information to be supplied.
Information has to be provided in the proper context and explanations about what will be done in order to seek out cooperation from the people. While that stance and words and the presence of such a leader is what is most necessary to deal with a crisis, that is what was most missing in the Fukushima case.
Q: What sort of information should the government have released more quickly?
A: One problem was waiting until March 22 before releasing information from the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI).
Another major problem was not being able to measure conditions within the nuclear reactors because measurement devices were not working.
The problem then becomes one of what does the government tell the people when it does not have the information. It may have to say we do not know.
That is most difficult for the Japanese government because officials always want to believe they know everything.
If government officials said they did not have the information, they would face criticism from the media, so those officials would have to bear with that criticism.
In an interview with us, Edano told us the most difficult experience he had was when the No. 1 reactor exploded on March 12. After two hours, they had no idea what happened, but reporters were asking why was no explanation given and saying the public would become worried if nothing was announced. But, he did not know what to say when he had no data to announce to the people.
The issue becomes one of whether the government had the will to communicate with the public.
But, when the government later decided that the public were still children who would panic if given the true information, that was when the fundamental mistake was made by the government in how it handled the crisis because it failed to gain the trust of the public.
Even amid the crisis, support ratings for the Kan Cabinet only rose by 6 percentage points at the most. That was because the government failed to give off a sense of trust in the public.
Q: What was the interaction between the governments of Japan and the United States in the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear accident?
A: We were fortunate to have Nobumasa Akiyama, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation at Hitotsubashi University, interview officials in the United States, including Steven Chu, the U.S. energy secretary, as well as officials at the NRC, White House, Pentagon and State Department.
In a word, between March 11 and March 17, the Japan-U.S. alliance was in a crisis situation.
It appeared when the United States issued a travel advisory recommending not entering an 80-kilometer radius from the Fukushima No. 1 plant when the Japanese government had established a 20-kilometer radius evacuation zone.
Japan did not provide adequate information to the United States, including the fact that it was unable to obtain the necessary information.
While the United States may have been somewhat pushy, Japan should have moved faster in setting up meetings with Japanese officials when NRC officials came to Japan.
Fundamentally, Japanese officials were embarrassed and did not want the U.S. officials to see what had happened. Japanese officials may have also had a sense of pride at being able to handle the situation by themselves.
On March 15, an NRC delegation led by Charles Casto arrived in Japan and that changed the situation.
He made the appropriate judgments and also had consideration for what the other party was going through. That led to an increase of trust among Japanese officials.
On March 17, Japan demonstrated its will as a nation when the SDF dropped water from helicopters over two reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
The United States was frustrated that Japan was not employing all the assets that it had, including the SDF. That message was eventually passed on to Kan and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa.
Hosono, former parliamentary defense minister Akihisa Nagashima and others met with U.S. officials, including Ambassador John Roos, on March 18. A decision was made that the Prime Minister's office had to take the initiative to establish a bilateral body to deal with the nuclear accident on March 22.
That led to a more coordinated effort by the Japanese government, although it took 11 days to achieve.
Q: Turning to your original motivation, what were the reasons and significance behind your decision to set up a private-sector committee to investigate the Fukushima nuclear accident?
A: After March 11, I thought about how to view the accident.
Some of my friends asked me "Isn't what is happening a total meltdown?"
Others said, "I have two young children, and I am thinking about fleeing to Hong Kong."
Those were some of the concerns being raised by my friends.
Because of my long background as a journalist, I also received many questions from people who said, "You must know something."
I also wanted to find out what was happening so what I did was interview politicians and those in the policy field, such as top officials in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
I also had the question in my mind of "What exactly is going on here?"
From about March 16 or 17, more blogs emerged about the accident and my friends called me and said, "Isn't something really major happening?"
I also followed media reports closely and I also interviewed a number of government officials, including those at the very center of authority. But, despite those efforts I still did not know was happening in the first few days.
I realized later, sometime in late March or early April, that something really terrible likely occurred. It was only in May that TEPCO admitted that a meltdown had actually occurred. That was when everyone understood that something really bad had happened.
When I realized the extent to which I had not understood what had happened as well as the extent to which the public was not informed about the accident, I asked myself what was it that caused the government to not properly handle the situation.
The Japanese government faced with a similar situation in the past has never accurately passed on information to the public or conducted investigations. The Diet has also done nothing. That was repeated a number of times in the past, but I felt that could absolutely not be allowed to happen this time.
I thought about entering into a partnership with a university, but, although this is not easy to say, starting with TEPCO, the electric power industry and the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan have considerable influence by distributing subsidies and if I were to work with any institution that received such funds it would be difficult to do.
I felt that I had to start something new and ask for funds and start from zero because that would be much cleaner. I discussed this with my friends from about April and decided to set up the foundation.
What was important there was the concept of independence.
Japan is a heavily interlocking society with nepotistic ties prevalent everywhere.
Everyone is connected to someone so people do not want to say the truth because that may cause trouble to others. So, people remain silent even if they know something and there is no discussion. That has often been repeated in the past.
But I held the feeling that such a situation could never be allowed this time.
So, that is the major motive behind setting up the committee.
Q: What were your guiding principles for your investigation effort?
A: The slogan for creating the organization was "Truth, independence and humanity."
The model we were trying to emulate was the investigative committees set up by NASA to look into the accidents involving the space shuttles Challenger and, especially, Columbia.
The NASA report about the Columbia accident was lent to me by my friend John Hamre, the president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I met him in Washington in late April and asked for his advice in setting up the foundation. He lent me the report and after reading it I felt that the United States had outstanding oversight capabilities because the work involved an independent group of investigators with a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise who were given access to interview those involved and confirm each and every fact. They were very thorough.
In the United States, it is usually Congress that plays a leading role in such investigations, but think tanks also play such a function. There were actually a number of committees set up to look into the Columbia accident.
At that time, the Japanese government had already decided to set up its own investigative commission, but I thought a totally independent investigation should be carried out.
We brought together about 30 such individuals and began forming an organization from June before the foundation was actually established.
We were not trying to conduct a kangaroo court and look for the guilty parties. What we were interested in was finding out what actually happened, what response was carried out, what judgments were made for those responses, what actually happened as a result, what appraisal was made of those actions and as a result what policy results emerged.
That was our true aim.
The third factor of humanity is related to the fact that Japan is like the Galapagos in being satisfied if only it was safe and being overly confident that they were in fact safe.
But, there was a major blind spot there. That is one thing we have learned through our investigation.
Q: A blind spot?
A: We learned that the United States asked on a number of occasions if Japan had really taken the necessary precautions if all power sources were lost. While the United States had not considered the possibility of tsunami for the total loss of power sources, they did think about a terrorist attack. But, preparations for both situations are the same. So, if the adequate security measures had been prepared, such a major disaster at Fukushima would never have occurred and Japan would not have shown the world just how thoroughly unprepared it was.
One factor was that after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the United States has not constructed a single new nuclear reactor. But Japan has constructed several so there was the thinking that Japan had become an advanced nation in terms of nuclear energy technology. Japan ignored the warnings made by foreign nations.
One argument made by Japan early on was that terrorist attacks do not occur here.
But, after realizing that such an argument was not convincing, Japan decided in 2005 to strengthen measures for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and the nuclear reactors. Those measures were in a sense designed also against terrorist attacks at nuclear reactors.
However, those measures were not very effective.
There is no other field like the nuclear business where there are as many international regulations because of the dangers associated with it. There are many regulations related to nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear safety.
We wanted to conduct our investigation within such a global context because we feel that is a common theme of humanity regarding safety.
We felt that even if our group was a small one, the most important factor was to be totally independent.
In the end, that is what we most wanted--independence.
Q: What were the barriers that were raised because of that independence?
A: We were prepared for that.
For one thing, TEPCO was uncooperative throughout the entire process.
We submitted written requests for interviews with the top executives at the time of the accident as well as those in charge at the Fukushima plant.
But, we received no cooperation. That was very regrettable.
We did speak with some TEPCO sources on deep background.
We also spoke to retired executives, but we wanted to know what decisions had been made by those in the top positions at the time of the accident. That would mean talking to those who were making those decisions at that time.
To be honest, that is one area where I felt the limits to what we could do.
Q: How did you try to overcome these difficulties?
A: We also created a channel on the Internet to allow individuals to provide information, be they TEPCO employees, those who worked to deal with the accident as well as evacuees.
We wanted information and data that could provide help in uncovering what happened rather than opinions.
There were a few that were like diamonds in the information that was contained.
We included the information from one such individual in the prologue. The individual worked in the on-site center designed to withstand quake damage at the time of the earthquake and tsunami.
The individual described what Masao Yoshida, the head of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, and others in the operation center said in their discussions with TEPCO headquarters. While we received the information in an e-mail message, we did not know if everything was accurate, so we had one of our investigators spend a day checking on the facts with the individual. After we determined the individual was genuine we decided to use what was described in the prologue of our report.
That may not necessarily be a pursuit of truth because all it is is what one individual experienced at the time of the accident.
Because our work involves humans investigating humans, we decided to include such information as what humans felt at that time and what the blind spots or misperceptions felt by humans are. By checking on such factors, we could determine what may have been mistaken and we included that additional information that we uncovered.
Q: You have interviewed a number of key political leaders involved in the crisis management at the prime minister's office.
A: Starting in September and lasting until February, we conducted in-depth interviews with those who were at the core of government, such as Kan, Kaieda, Edano, Hosono, and Tetsuro Fukuyama, then deputy chief Cabinet secretary.
We had a two-hour interview with Kan and later met him on three other occasions.
Unfortunately, we wanted more contact with TEPCO executives, but because we couldn't we used the Internet channel for information.
While there were limits to what the government investigative committee could do, the report on what happened on-site, such as which reactor was the first to experience meltdown, why the venting process was delayed and other analysis of operational and technical matters, including confirmation of what actually happened, was very detailed.
Because we could not meet directly with TEPCO officials, we relied to a considerable extent on the interim report of the government investigative committee.
However, there were several differences in the conclusion we reached and the nuances to the reports that were released by our organization and the government committee.
Q: What do you think will be the international perception or appraisal of what Japan did or should have done?
A: While everyone is looking critically at the response now, things could change in 10 to 20 years.
People might change to an appraisal that Japan actually did a good job considering the extent of the disaster. It will depend on whether any severe radiation cases emerge in the future. Despite the amount of radiation released, no one has yet died, including among the workers who dealt with the accident.
The sense of purpose and courage of the Fukushima 50 should be praised.
There were problems with the systematic negligence on the part of TEPCO and the decision by executives to send in the workers under very dangerous conditions was very problematic. At the same time, we also have to separate that from what the workers who went into the reactors risking their lives did.
And, finally, when Kan and his team decided that TEPCO could not withdraw and realized that the nation had to in the end take responsibility that was what saved the nation.
Having said that, there were also many problems including a lack of proper regulation.
There was also the self-defeating logic of the myth of total safety in nuclear plants in Japan. Under the logic that nuclear plants are 100 percent safe, no further preparations should be made for any sort of accident.
Radiation and evolution Surviving fallout Birds can evolve to cope with the lingering effects of nuclear incidents
Mar 3rd 2012 | from the print edition
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting
THE disaster last year at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, caused by an earthquake and tsunami, scored seven on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). No worse rating exists. Radiation is harmful to living things, yet the long-term effects of persistently high levels of background radiation on ecosystems are poorly understood. With this in mind, a team led by Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina and Anders Moller of the University of Paris-Sud set out to compare bird species dwelling near the Fukushima plant with those living at the site of another nuclear incident that scored a seven on the INES: the Ukrainian town of Chernobyl, where disaster struck in 1986. Remarkably, they found that some species seem to develop a tolerance for radioactivity over time.
Fukushima and Chernobyl are more than 7,000km (4,350 miles) apart, but Dr Mousseau and his colleagues soon realised that the two sites had much in common. Both are in areas that have a temperate climate with species that have similar habits and needs. And both are surrounded by a mixture of farmland and forest. Upon closer examination the researchers found that 14 species of bird lived in both regions, including the barn swallow, great tit, great reed warbler, buzzard and Eurasian jay. With so many similarities between the two places, a comparison of the biological responses to radiation in each (recent in Fukushima; long-term in Chernobyl) would surely be illuminating. To do this, during July 2011, the researchers counted and identified birds at 300 locations near Fukushima that had radiation levels as low as 0.5 microsieverts per hour and as high as 35 (for comparison, dental X-rays rarely expose patients to more than 0.05 microsieverts). Then they compared these results to bird data collected in areas that had the same range of radiation levels near Chernobyl between 2006 and 2009.
Their results, published in Environmental Pollution, show that as radiation levels in an area rose to 35 microsieverts per hour, the average number of birds dropped by almost a third compared with the areas where radiation levels were only 0.5 microsieverts per hour. This makes sense: in those areas with a high level of radiation, living things would tend to die or sicken and fail to reproduce. However, when researchers looked at the 14 bird species that lived in both regions, they found that the same level of radiation was associated with twice as large a drop in bird numbers in Fukushima as in Chernobyl.
The reasons for this are not clear. It is possible that the composition of the radionuclides are proving more dangerous to the Fukushima birds than they are to the birds near Chernobyl. But Dr Mousseau suggests a more likely explanation is that evolution has already been at work near Chernobyl, killing off individual birds that cannot cope with the background radiation and allowing the genes of those that have some tolerance to be passed on. The birds at Fukushima are only beginning to face the evolutionary challenge of living in a radioactive world. http://www.economist.com/node/21548920
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Study: First time in history xenon-133 detected in Southern Hemisphere — Cs-137 also measured — Darwin station, Australia
Published: March 1st, 2012 at 8:06 pm ET By ENENews Email Article Email Article 51 comments Share23
Title: Xenon-133 and caesium-137 releases into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant: determination of the source term, atmospheric dispersion, and deposition Source: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics; Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 2313–2343, 2012 www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/2313/2012/ doi:10.5194/acp-12-2313-2012 Authors: A. Stohl1, P. Seibert2, G. Wotawa3, D. Arnold2,4, J. F. Burkhart1, S. Eckhardt1, C. Tapia5, A. Vargas4, and T. J. Yasunari6 1 NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, Norway 2 Institute of Meteorology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria 3 Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, Vienna, Austria 4 Institute of Energy Technologies (INTE), Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain 5 Department of Physics and Nucelar Engineering (FEN),Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain 6 Universities Space Research Association, Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology and Research, Columbia, MD 21044, USA Date: Received: 8 October 2011 – Published in Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.: 20 October 2011 Revised: 1 February 2012 – Accepted: 23 February 2012 – Published: 1 March 2012
[...] By middle of April, 133Xe was fairly uniformly distributed in the middle latitudes of the entire Northern Hemisphere and was for the first time also measured in the Southern Hemisphere (Darwin station, Australia). [...]
During the accident events, 133Xe and 137Cs from FD-NPP were dispersed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and eventually also reached the Southern Hemisphere. [...]
In April all measurement stations recorded an enhanced (but due to radioactive decay, decreasing) background of 133Xe caused by the FD-NPP emissions, indicating the transition to complete dispersion in the Northern Hemisphere (see Stohl et al., 2012). Even the Australian station Darwin started recording enhanced 133Xe concentrations in April, indicating penetration of radioactive contamination into the Southern Hemisphere. [...]
Published: March 1st, 2012 at 8:06 pm ET By ENENews
NRC worried about US National Labs “chomping at the bit†to help with Fukushima Radiation analysis – Call lab directors and say “Knock it offâ€
Posted by Enformable on February 28, 2012 in BWR, Core Data, FOIA, Fukushima Disaster, March 2011, NRC, Top Docs - FOIA · 8 Comments
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
JAPAN’S FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI ET AUDIO FILE
Saturday, March 12, 2011
MR. SHARON: This is Brian Sharon. Quick question, well, not question, but I’ve gotten a couple of emails here today, from some of the National Labs, and they’re all — there are a couple of them chomping a the bit, you know, saying, “Ghee, can we help? Ghee, can we go calculate this,†with the codes and all that stuff. I keep telling them, “No, you don’t know the scenario,†but you know, somebody might want to call DOE and tell them to tell their labs to cool it, because the last thing we want is the labs going off, talking to the press, talking about consequences and all sorts of other stuff, because you know, they’re chomping at the bit, to do something, and I’m not sure, Eliot, maybe you’ve got a point of contact up there at DOE?
MR. BRENNER: I’ll send a note to their Press Secretary, asking him, through his chain, to reach out, down to the labs and tell them to back off. If we’ve got other chains, we might as well –
MALE PARTICIPANT: If I could chime in on that? On the Deputy’s call yesterday, I was on with the Chairman, and Pete Lyons was one of the principals at DOE. Lyons may be a good source to contact at DOE.
MR. JOHNSON: This is Mike Johnson. My other thought was, it may be just to cut to the chase, just to pass the same, to call the lab directors and say, “Knock it off,†or whatever messages we want to get to them.
Title: NRC's Operation Center Fukushima Transcript Source: NRC Date: March 14, 2011 Emphasis Added
TONY ULSES: Yeah, there was some confusing information about that, but I think the bottom line is they're not comfortable that they have containment for Unit 2.
JIM TRAPP: So they didn't tell us it their X vessel, but what they did tell us kind of would lead you to that conclusion.
JACK GROB: Okay, so if I understand correctly, that's your judgment based on what you heard.
JIM TRAPP: That, that's correct.
[...]
JACK GROB: Hey,. guys, when you said "a loud sound", what did you interpret that as?
TONY ULSES: It was my, I think both of us believe that one of the sources, that it wouldn't -- it wasn't like the other two loud sounds with Unit 1 and 3 when the reactor building blew. You know, my guess is, and it's just, it's just pure conjecture, would be it was probably when the core went X-up.
[UNIDENTIFIED MAN:] And landing in the water under the vessel, it would have caused a little steam explosion.
JACK GROB: That, that's what I heard you say. But what you think is that that was a steam explosion from the fuel going X-vessel, and we heard that containment at that point in time went from three atmospheres to one atmosphere.
JIM TRAPP: That makes sense.
TONY ULSES: Yep. It would.
[...]
JACK GROB: [...] Unit 2 is not in very good condition at all. It appears that core cooling has not existed for quite some time. It appears that the, the pumps that were injecting into the core have been deadheaded for some time. Several hours ago, there was a loud sound that appeared to come from inside the dry well, and at that time, the pressure inside primary containment went from three atmospheres to one atmosphere (essentially, atmospheric pressure). There is clear indication that primary containment is not intact, and there may also be indication that fuel, that there has been substantial core melt, and possibly even the loud sound in the breach of containment was caused by an X vessel fuel situation. That last bit of information cannot be confirmed at this time.
[...]
MARTY VIRGILIO: It's really -- this is Marty Virgilio -- it's really rapidly evolving now given the fact that, for Unit 2, it appears that we have the core X vessel and we don't have a containment any longer. We've lost the primary containment. So what I'm going to suggest at this point is, if we can wrap this up because we have to get back to work [...]
Title: Deposition of fission and activation products after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident Source: 10.1016/j.envpol.2012.01.001 : Environmental Pollution Authors: Katsumi Shozugawaa, a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan Norio Nogawab, Radioisotope Center, The University of Tokyo, 2-11-16 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0032, Japans Motoyuki Matsuoa, a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan Date: April 2012
The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, damaged reactor cooling systems at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The subsequent venting operation and hydrogen explosion resulted in a large radioactive nuclide emission from reactor containers into the environment. Here, we collected environmental samples such as soil, plant species, and water on April 10, 2011, in front of the power plant main gate as well as 35 km away in Iitate village, and observed gamma-rays with a Ge(Li) semiconductor detector. We observed activation products (239Np and 59Fe) and fission products (131I, 134Cs (133Cs), 137Cs, 110mAg (109Ag), 132Te, 132I, 140Ba, 140La, 91Sr, 91Y, 95Zr, and 95Nb). 239Np is the parent nuclide of 239Pu; 59Fe are presumably activation products of 58Fe obtained by corrosion of cooling pipes. The results show that these activation and fission products, diffused within a month of the accident.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Well, Chuck, we don't we got the best we could. We received this unsolicited document titled from the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, FEPC, Washington, D.C. Office. And it has a -- whether it's valid or not, we don't know, but it has detailed rad measurements associated with each of the reactors and buildings. And we have taken that text, to the best of our ability overlaid it on a map of the site, and we just finished that about 10 minutes ago. And we're going to discuss it with the ET and get it to you.
[...]
MR. CASTO: What's the bottom line? What's it saying? What's it telling us?
MALE PARTICIPANT: It's telling you you've got 40 rem, 10 rem, you know, I --
MALE PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)
MR. HESTA: I'll tell you, between the buildings it looks like [...] We've got between 30 and 40 rem between the buildings, 30 rem between Units 2 and 3, 40 rem between Units 3 and 4. We've got what appears to be a 10 rem per hour line along the roadway that is just west of the unit, I'm guessing. We have --
MR. CASTO: Okay. So -- I mean, in a sense it goes back to John's argument. This stuff is spread everywhere.
MR. HESTA: Yeah. I mean, that's not from contaminated steel inside --
MALE PARTICIPANT: Well, it could be.
MALE PARTICIPANT: This could be reinforcement.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Remember, that was a plume that --
MALE PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)
MALE PARTICIPANT: John, the first 40 rem numbers we saw were well before the explosion in Unit 4, and the supposition at the time was that this was -- was shine from green pools (phonetic).
MALE PARTICIPANT: And it's -- okay. Yeah. But when they tell you the dose decreases 70 percent when they bulldoze the crap out of the way, but --
MALE PARTICIPANT: Well --
MALE PARTICIPANT: -- well, there could be some gross deposition to the west of the plant. There was a plume that migrated that way over the past two days, so there could be some gross deposition.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Deposition, but you're talking between two units.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Yeah.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Aren't you?
MALE PARTICIPANT: That deposition is a little bit downwind?
MALE PARTICIPANT: No, that probably -- that's probably a contribution of ground shine between the two units.
MALE PARTICIPANT: So in terms -- so -- not to play devil's advocate here, but you had a pool that was probably fully drained, fuel that's several thousand degrees, a massive explosion, and we think nothing is happening to the rods or the pellets in that explosion.
MALE PARTICIPANT: No, we aren't saying that. But it's just where it is. You can get dose outside from deposition, you could get dose outside from shine, or a contribution --
MALE PARTICIPANT: Right.
MALE PARTICIPANT: -- of both. You could get dose outside from spreading material, whether it's fuel pellets or other stuff. And you can get --
MALE PARTICIPANT: I also remember that there's other stuff stored in the spent fuel pool.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Right.
MALE PARTICIPANT: The old days of cobalt roller balls from the control rod blades, you (inaudible) and stored in buckets.
MALE PARTICIPANT: Right. Fission products that collect along the wall inside the reactor building, blowing outside the reactor building, anything is possible. A 40 rem dose on a smear is something you can't find in a operating powerplant, or you used to in the spent fuel, so --
MALE PARTICIPANT: The question is, though, you know, I mean, is the point of the discussion to say we think all the fuel is still in the reactor? Or it's --
MALE PARTICIPANT: I don't think it matters. I mean, that's --
MALE PARTICIPANT: The purpose of this exercise is just to give them an idea for them to strategically lay the pipe. I mean, that's the -- so I don't think it's really -- we really need to dicker over whether it's fuel pellets or whatever the source is. The purpose is to give them an idea of the best route to lay the piping.
[...]
JACK: Yes, Mike, I don't know that we've had anybody say that the fuel is covered with water. What I can tell you is there's clear evidence of a very significant hydrogen explosion. The only source of hydrogen that could feed that explosion is the spent fuel pool, so there must have been very, very high temperature zirconium interacting with water. There is no visible vapors emanating from Unit 4 spent fuel pool area, which would be indicative of no water. It could also be indicative of a fully cooled core. That does not there is no source of cooling water going into the spent fuel pool, so to have a very significant hydrogen explosion, and then to think about the fuel being covered, those are kind of non sequitur concepts.
We do know that there were parts of debris, that the areas of debris around Unit 4 after the explosion which were contributing to very significantly high dose rates, and I understand that bulldozers were used to bulldoze that debris under some soil shielding, and the dose rates went down dramatically. That would be an indication that were fragments of fuel since there's no other source of substantial radioactive material which would have been involved in that explosion.
So, there's indication of a very significant hydrogen explosion. I want to make sure that it's clear that we don't know this. We are just interpreting this from the visual evidence that we have, as well as the radiological measurements. There's evidence of a very significant hydrogen explosion. There's evidence of fuel or some very highly radioactive material outside of the building after that explosion. And there's no evidence of water vapor, which would tell us that the spent fuel pool is dry.
According to UNSCEAR (2000), 134 liquidators received radiation doses high enough to be diagnosed with acute radiation sickness (ARS). Among them, 28 persons died in 1986 due to ARS. Other liquidators have since died but their deaths could not necessarily be attributed to radiation exposure.
An increased number of cancer deaths can be expected during the lifetime of persons exposed to radiation from the accident. Since it is currently impossible to determine which individual cancers were caused by radiation, the number of such deaths can only be estimated statistically using information and projections from the studies of atomic bomb survivors and other highly exposed populations. It should be noted that the atomic bomb survivors received high radiation doses in a short time period, while Chernobyl caused low doses over a long time. This and other factors, such as trying to estimate doses people received some time after the accident, as well as differences in lifestyle and nutrition, cause very large uncertainties when making projections about future cancer deaths. In addition, a significant non-radiation related reduction in the average lifespan in the three countries over the past 15 years caused by overuse of alcohol and tobacco, and reduced health care, have significantly increased the difficulties in detecting any effect of radiation on cancer mortality.
Although there is controversy about the magnitude of the cancer risk from exposure to low doses of radiation, the US National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII Committee, published in 2006, a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence, and concluded that the risk seems to continue in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold (this is called the “linear no-threshold†or LNT model). However, there are uncertainties concerning the magnitude of the effect, particularly at doses much lower than about 100 mSv.
The Expert Group concluded that there may be up to 4 000 additional cancer deaths among the three highest exposed groups over their lifetime (240 000 liquidators; 116 000 evacuees and the 270 000 residents of the SCZs). Since more than 120 000 people in these three groups may eventually die of cancer, the additional cancer deaths from radiation exposure correspond to 3-4% above the normal incidence of cancers from all causes.
Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure, or about 0.6% of the cancer deaths expected in this population due to other causes. Again, these numbers only provide an indication of the likely impact of the accident because of the important uncertainties listed above.
Chernobyl may also cause cancers in Europe outside Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. However, according to UNSCEAR, the average dose to these populations is much lower and so the relative increase in cancer deaths is expected to be much smaller. Predicted estimates are very uncertain and it is very unlikely that any increase in these countries will be detectable using national cancer statistics .3
Rocketdyne radiation is still abundant By Susan Abram, Staff Writer Posted: 03/05/2012 07:49:52 PM PST Updated: 03/05/2012 07:51:34 PM PST
Some levels of radioactive chemicals found on a portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site were as much as 1,000 times higher than standards, according to federal data released on Monday.
Acting as an independent monitor, officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted radiological surveys on a portion of the land known as Area IV, where a partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor occurred in 1959.
That portion is currently overseen by the Department of Energy.
The results of the radiological survey show that of the 437 samples collected, 75 exceeded standards agreed upon by the DOE and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control in a cleanup agreement signed in December 2010.
Seven radioactive isotopes, including one known as cesium-137, measured at levels between 100 to 1,000 times higher than the standards. Other radionuclides that suggest nuclear presence include strontium-90, tritium, plutonium, and carbon-14.
The recent data is significant to residents, activists and public officials who have fought for years for the removal of radiation and chemical contaminants at the former Rocketdyne site, which is nestled in the hills between Chatsworth and Simi Valley and was purchased by the Boeing Co. in 1996.
The numbers provides hard evidence that not only do the radioactive materials exist, but that the levels are higher than expected.
"This confirms what we were worried about," Advertisement said Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, who has sought a complete cleanup of the former Rocketdyne rocket engine testing laboratory. Brownley released the data to the public on Monday.
"This begins to answer critical questions about what's still up there, where, how much, and how bad," she said in a statement.
Brownley called the findings "extremely disappointing, especially because the site has already undergone two cleanup efforts by its owner, The Boeing Co., and the Department of Energy. Each declared the land fully cleaned."
A spokesman for the Department of Energy didn't say if the agency was surprised or disappointed by the levels, but that clean-up would continue.
"We really are still looking at the data," said John Jones, federal project manager with the DOE. "The bottom line is we will clean up as we agreed to in our committment to the 2010 Administrative Order on Consent for Remedial Action."
Boeing officials emphasized that they have completed significant cleanup activities alongside the DOE and NASA, which also owns a portion of the land.
"The preliminary data does not pertain to the portions of the site that Boeing is responsible for cleaning up," Boeing officials said in a statement.
"We continue to be open to working with the EPA, the Department of Energy, NASA and the state to find the most effective ways to clean up Santa Susana and preserve the land for future generations."
Officials with the state Department of Toxic Substances Control would not say if the levels found at the site posed an immediate danger.
"When we deal with things, we deal with long term risk exposure," said Mark Malinowski, with the DTSC.
A final report on the radiological survey is expected at the end of the year, Malinowski said.
But activists reacted similarly to Brownley, saying the data prove that prior clean up efforts were ineffective. They wonder what else can be brewing within the rocks, the earth, and the groundwater within the 2,849-acre property.
"People have been waiting for this information for years," said Dan Hirsch, president of the activist group Committee to Bridge the Gap.
"All those years, we were told it was clean. This data prove we're not just a bunch of unknowledgeable people, but that everyday people are proven right."
There was some victory in 2010 when both the DOE and NASA agreed to adhere to a high level of clean-up standards mandated under state bill 990.
However, Boeing officials said that decontaminating its property to those standards would destroy the natural resources on the site. A federal judge agreed with Boeing last year.
But the EPA's recent findings prove that all past remediation efforts have failed, said Denise Duffield, executive director for Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles.
"These are remarkable findings," Duffield said. "The new EPA data show extensive radioactive contamination remaining at the site and underscores the need for the site to be cleaned up to background without delay."
Despite that title, however, the very end of the report is more upbeat:
With new construction largely off the table, nuclear power companies have sought to boost the output of existing plants. The average nuclear plant is now online and producing electricity 90 percent of the time, up from an average of 55 percent in 1980. They’ve also added capacity by “uprating†the maximum output with bigger generators and more powerful turbines.
And it turns out nuclear plants have a longer life span than many originally assumed. Plant licenses originally were granted for 40 years, based on the standard accounting payback schedule used for conventional power plants when the first commercial reactors were built in the late 1950s. Now as those original 40-year licenses expire, nuclear plant owners are applying for — and getting — 20-year extensions from the NRC.
Of the 104 U.S. reactors currently in operations, 71 have won approval to operate for another 20 years; another 15 have applied for an extension and 17 more are expected to apply for 20-year renewals.
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Despite that title, however, the very end of the report is more upbeat:
With new construction largely off the table, nuclear power companies have sought to boost the output of existing plants. The average nuclear plant is now online and producing electricity 90 percent of the time, up from an average of 55 percent in 1980. They’ve also added capacity by “uprating†the maximum output with bigger generators and more powerful turbines.
And it turns out nuclear plants have a longer life span than many originally assumed. Plant licenses originally were granted for 40 years, based on the standard accounting payback schedule used for conventional power plants when the first commercial reactors were built in the late 1950s. Now as those original 40-year licenses expire, nuclear plant owners are applying for — and getting — 20-year extensions from the NRC.
Of the 104 U.S. reactors currently in operations, 71 have won approval to operate for another 20 years; another 15 have applied for an extension and 17 more are expected to apply for 20-year renewals.
I have mixed feelings about stories like this, I don't want to see the nuclear industry, destroyed in the US, but I don't want to see 60 year old nuclear power plants either.
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The first two presentations at the May 13th Commission meeting will cover reviews being conducted by the federal government in response to the natural disaster and resulting nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. The purpose of those presentations is to hear from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy about what steps are being taken to review the safety of domestic nuclear reactor and spent fuel storage facilities in light of the events in Japan. This memorandum provides an overview of the accident and the announced plans for recovery and remediation.
Overview
On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake occurred, with an epicenter approximately 45 miles off the coast of the TÅhoku region of Japan. The earthquake’s magnitude has been estimated at 9.0 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was approximately 109 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor site.
The earthquake was the fourth-largest recorded in the world since 1900, and the largest in modern Japanese history. The earthquake (which has been officially named the Eastern Japan Great Earthquake Disaster) triggered an immense tsunami that devastated large areas of the eastern Japanese coast. Over twenty thousand people are known dead, and thousands more are missing. Damage estimates are unknown at this time but could amount to several hundred billion dollars.
According to Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), the earthquake and subsequent tsunami affected fourteen nuclear reactors at four sites along the eastern coast – the Fukushima Daiichi site (six reactors), Fukushima Daini site (four reactors), the Ongawa [sic] site (three reactors) and the Tokai site (one reactor).
The most serious damage occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. When the earthquake struck, the three reactors at the site that were operating at the time—Units 1, 2 and 3—automatically shut down. Unit 4 had been shut down about three months before the event and its core unloaded into its spent fuel pool, and Units 5 and 6 had also been shut down well before the event. Source
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2012/03/08 09:19 KST text size plustext size minusprintsend twittersend facebooksend msn Detection of radiation in Japanese fishery imports on rise SEOUL, March 8 (Yonhap) -- South Korea is more frequently finding radioactive materials in fishery products from Japan but has no immediate plans to ban imports as their levels are far below the maximum intake limits, the quarantine office said Thursday.
In the first two months of the year, the country has detected traces of radioactive materials, such as cesium, in 32 separate shipments of fisheries products from Japan, according to the Animal, Plant and Fisheries Quarantine and Inspection Agency.
The figure represents an over 50 percent increase from 21 cases detected in the nine months of last year since the meltdown of a reactor and resulting radiation leak at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in March. The worst nuclear accident in Japan's history was caused by a powerful earthquake and tsunami.
Seoul has since checked all fisheries imports from Japan for radiation but has never blocked shipments. The quarantine office said it has no immediate plans to do so.
The highest level of radiation detected in Japanese products this year is 6.24 becquerel (Bq), about 1.7 percent of the maximum intake limit of 370 Bq, according to the agency.
Becquerel measures the level of radioactivity in terms of the number of atomic disintegrations per second. The highest level of radiation ever detected in Japanese products since the nuclear accident was 97.90 Bq.
"The frequency of radiation detection appears to be rising as two reactors at the Fukushima plant are currently leaking radiation," said an agency official, asking not to be identified.
"But there has not yet been any case where Japanese fisheries products have been banned as the level of cesium found in the products is still far below the international standard."
Plutonium measured at 3 locations in 20~32 area Posted by Mochizuki on March 8th, 2012 · No Comments
Mr. Zun from National Institute of Radiological Sciences measured Plutonium 241(half life time 14.4 years) from 3 points of Namiemachi (26km) and Iidate mura (32km). They published the result on scientific reports of 3/8/2012. It was in the dead leaves of Namiemachi and Iidatemura taken in April and May, and the soil from J-village. Plutonium 239 (half life time 24,000 years) and plutonium 240 (6,600 years) were also measured.
Pu-241 Dead leaves of Namiemachi : 34.8 Bq/Kg Dead leaves of Iidatemura : 20.2 Bq/Kg J-village : 4.52 Bq/Kg
Plutonium 241 turns to be Americium 241 (half life time 432.7 years), which is concentrated in pulse plants.
Published: Thursday, March 8, 2012 Plutonium near Fukushima plant poses little risk, study says By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times advertisement | your ad here LOS ANGELES -- The levels of radioactive plutonium around Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant aren't much higher than the amount of plutonium remaining in the environment from Cold War-era nuclear weapons tests, and it probably poses little threat to humans, a new study indicates.
The paper, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, provides the first definitive evidence of plutonium from the accident entering the environment, the authors say. It examines the area within a roughly 20-mile radius of the plant and details the concentration of plutonium isotopes deposited there after explosions ripped open multiple reactors.
At the three sites examined, the levels for certain isotope ratios were about double those attributed to residual fallout from above-ground nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. and former Soviet Union at the dawn of the Cold War.
The study comes days before the anniversary of the magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami last year that devastated northeastern Japan, leaving more than 27,000 people dead or missing and billions of dollars in damage. Experts in nuclear safety and disaster preparedness are using the occasion to weigh in with reports detailing the lessons learned in the last year.
In the area around the Fukushima plant, preliminary testing hadn't turned up signs of new plutonium isotopes in the soil. Unlike cesium-137 and other radioactive isotopes, plutonium can't vaporize and travel through the air. But it's possible the force of the hydrogen explosions blew out a little plutonium in the form of particulate matter.
Plutonium isotopes can't pass through skin, but if ingested, they can be very damaging to humans.
Lead author Jian Zheng of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba, Japan, and his colleagues analyzed soil samples looking for several plutonium isotopes that are produced during the power plants' nuclear reactions. Plutonium-241, for example, has a half-life of about 14 years, which means it takes 14 years for half of it to decay into other elements. But plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years. Since the weapons tests that produced the global background radiation began in the 1940s, the amount of plutonium-241 that can be traced to them should be low in comparison to the amount of residual plutonium-239. But near Fukushima, the researchers found that the ratio of plutonium-241 to plutonium-239 was much higher than expected. They said it was a clear sign that fresh plutonium must have been deposited in the area.
According to Zheng, the amount of plutonium-241 released from the power plant was about 1/10,000th that from the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine.
"It's an interesting detective story," said Michael Ketterer, a scientist at Northern Arizona University who has studied Chernobyl radiation but was not involved in this study. "I find the results to be fairly convincing."
Robert Alvarez, who has served as a senior policy adviser in the U.S. Energy Department, said he would have been surprised if researchers had not found evidence of plutonium contamination near the plant.
"They were irradiating plutonium in Unit 3, which experienced the biggest explosion," he said. In fact, the explosion was so massive that investigators found fuel rod fragments a mile away, leading to speculation that a supercritical fission event may have also occurred, Alvarez said.
Still, "Fukushima was no Chernobyl," said Dale Klein, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman and co-author of a report on Fukushima for the American Nuclear Society. That report says the long-term health risks of the radioactive fallout probably would be minimal.
The nuclear society's paper also looked at the mechanical and human errors that contributed to the partial nuclear meltdown. The authors determined that the plant's design had not accounted for the risks of the region. On the most basic level, the 19-foot-high seawall had not been designed to withstand a tsunami that at points was 49 feet high.
NRC Commissioner William Ostendorff agreed, noting that the tsunami wiped out the plant's power systems, starting a domino effect.
With no energy to pump coolant to them, the reactors overheated. When the nuclear fuel's protective zirconium alloy encasement heated up and came into contact with water, the zirconium oxidized and released the hydrogen gas that ultimately exploded, allowing radioactive elements to escape.
The chain reaction highlighted the need for a foolproof power system that would allow workers to pump in cooling water and operate valves that would have relieved pressure from the accumulating hydrogen gas.
In terms of building safer reactors, Ostendorff said, "I think we have quite a bit of information right now ... to make regulatory decisions."
But Alvarez said much remains unknown one year after the disaster. Authorities can't say exactly where breaches occurred in the reactor vessels and spent fuel pools that caused contaminated water to flood the plant's lower levels, he said.
The Japanese asserted that they had achieved a "cold shutdown" of the Fukushima site in December, but they will require a stable and permanent infrastructure to keep the situation under control. It is possible, and even likely, that radioactive cooling water is still leaking into the Pacific Ocean, Alvarez said. Cleanup of the immediate site could take four or five decades, he said.
(Times staff writer Ralph Vartabedian contributed to this report.)
So containment was maintained, and yet parts of the rods were scattered a mile from the plant? This article is a disinformation attempt, and you have all been lied to by the likes of phonedawgz.
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02:46 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Thyroid screenings detect relatively high exposure
Experts have detected radioactive iodine in the thyroid glands of 80 percent of the people who used to live near the Fukushima nuclear plant. Five of them had dosages of more than 50 millisieverts.
The scientists at Hirosaki University in Aomori Prefecture conducted checkups last April of 65 people who were living near the Fukushima plant at the time of the nuclear accident. They found radioactive iodine in the thyroid glands of 50 of them.
The team calculated the amount of radioactive iodine exposure for each resident. The calculations assumed that the residents had inhaled radioactive iodine on March 12th, just one day after the accident.
Most of the residents had an estimated dosage of 10 millisieverts or less, but 5 had dosages of more than 50 millisieverts. The International Atomic Energy Agency recommends taking iodine tablets for this level of exposure.
The person with the highest dosage of 87 millisieverts stayed within 30 kilometers of the Fukushima power plant for more than 2 weeks after the accident.
The team leader, Hirosaki University Professor Shinji Tokonami, says the levels of radioactive iodine were relatively low compared to the scale of the accident.
But he says some residents face potential health risks from the exposure, and they should have continue to have regular health checkups by professional researchers.
---- See how this works, the industry down plays, till the public forgets. The solar flare, which harmed nothing, got plenty of interest here, the truth coming out about Fukushima, seems to bore people.
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01:48 PM
Mar 10th, 2012
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
So your latest wackinformation tells you that unit 3 went supercritical and it's containment exploded?
Tepco must be pretty good at hiding things if they have hidden it.
(Is the rumor true that Tepco was running the reactor at supercritical conditions before the earthquake hit?)
quote
Originally posted by dennis_6:
Published: Thursday, March 8, 2012 Plutonium near Fukushima plant poses little risk, study says By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times advertisement | your ad here LOS ANGELES -- The levels of radioactive plutonium around Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant aren't much higher than the amount of plutonium remaining in the environment from Cold War-era nuclear weapons tests, and it probably poses little threat to humans, a new study indicates.
The paper, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, provides the first definitive evidence of plutonium from the accident entering the environment, the authors say. It examines the area within a roughly 20-mile radius of the plant and details the concentration of plutonium isotopes deposited there after explosions ripped open multiple reactors.
At the three sites examined, the levels for certain isotope ratios were about double those attributed to residual fallout from above-ground nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. and former Soviet Union at the dawn of the Cold War.
The study comes days before the anniversary of the magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami last year that devastated northeastern Japan, leaving more than 27,000 people dead or missing and billions of dollars in damage. Experts in nuclear safety and disaster preparedness are using the occasion to weigh in with reports detailing the lessons learned in the last year.
In the area around the Fukushima plant, preliminary testing hadn't turned up signs of new plutonium isotopes in the soil. Unlike cesium-137 and other radioactive isotopes, plutonium can't vaporize and travel through the air. But it's possible the force of the hydrogen explosions blew out a little plutonium in the form of particulate matter.
Plutonium isotopes can't pass through skin, but if ingested, they can be very damaging to humans.
Lead author Jian Zheng of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba, Japan, and his colleagues analyzed soil samples looking for several plutonium isotopes that are produced during the power plants' nuclear reactions. Plutonium-241, for example, has a half-life of about 14 years, which means it takes 14 years for half of it to decay into other elements. But plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years. Since the weapons tests that produced the global background radiation began in the 1940s, the amount of plutonium-241 that can be traced to them should be low in comparison to the amount of residual plutonium-239. But near Fukushima, the researchers found that the ratio of plutonium-241 to plutonium-239 was much higher than expected. They said it was a clear sign that fresh plutonium must have been deposited in the area.
According to Zheng, the amount of plutonium-241 released from the power plant was about 1/10,000th that from the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine.
"It's an interesting detective story," said Michael Ketterer, a scientist at Northern Arizona University who has studied Chernobyl radiation but was not involved in this study. "I find the results to be fairly convincing."
Robert Alvarez, who has served as a senior policy adviser in the U.S. Energy Department, said he would have been surprised if researchers had not found evidence of plutonium contamination near the plant.
"They were irradiating plutonium in Unit 3, which experienced the biggest explosion," he said. In fact, the explosion was so massive that investigators found fuel rod fragments a mile away, leading to speculation that a supercritical fission event may have also occurred, Alvarez said.
Still, "Fukushima was no Chernobyl," said Dale Klein, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman and co-author of a report on Fukushima for the American Nuclear Society. That report says the long-term health risks of the radioactive fallout probably would be minimal.
The nuclear society's paper also looked at the mechanical and human errors that contributed to the partial nuclear meltdown. The authors determined that the plant's design had not accounted for the risks of the region. On the most basic level, the 19-foot-high seawall had not been designed to withstand a tsunami that at points was 49 feet high.
NRC Commissioner William Ostendorff agreed, noting that the tsunami wiped out the plant's power systems, starting a domino effect.
With no energy to pump coolant to them, the reactors overheated. When the nuclear fuel's protective zirconium alloy encasement heated up and came into contact with water, the zirconium oxidized and released the hydrogen gas that ultimately exploded, allowing radioactive elements to escape.
The chain reaction highlighted the need for a foolproof power system that would allow workers to pump in cooling water and operate valves that would have relieved pressure from the accumulating hydrogen gas.
In terms of building safer reactors, Ostendorff said, "I think we have quite a bit of information right now ... to make regulatory decisions."
But Alvarez said much remains unknown one year after the disaster. Authorities can't say exactly where breaches occurred in the reactor vessels and spent fuel pools that caused contaminated water to flood the plant's lower levels, he said.
The Japanese asserted that they had achieved a "cold shutdown" of the Fukushima site in December, but they will require a stable and permanent infrastructure to keep the situation under control. It is possible, and even likely, that radioactive cooling water is still leaking into the Pacific Ocean, Alvarez said. Cleanup of the immediate site could take four or five decades, he said.
(Times staff writer Ralph Vartabedian contributed to this report.)
So containment was maintained, and yet parts of the rods were scattered a mile from the plant? This article is a disinformation attempt, and you have all been lied to by the likes of phonedawgz.
IP: Logged
07:57 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
So your latest wackinformation tells you that unit 3 went supercritical and it's containment exploded?
Tepco must be pretty good at hiding things if they have hidden it.
(Is the rumor true that Tepco was running the reactor at supercritical conditions before the earthquake hit?)
You fail again, you really should read the articles... "Lead author Jian Zheng of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba, Japan, and his colleagues analyzed soil samples looking for several plutonium isotopes that are produced during the power plants' nuclear reactions. Plutonium-241, for example, has a half-life of about 14 years, which means it takes 14 years for half of it to decay into other elements. But plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years."
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 03-10-2012).]
IP: Logged
11:39 AM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
In fact, the explosion was so massive that investigators found fuel rod fragments a mile away, leading to speculation that a supercritical fission event may have also occurred, Alvarez said.
So containment was maintained, and yet parts of the rods were scattered a mile from the plant? This article is a disinformation attempt, and you have all been lied to by the likes of phonedawgz.
You posted it, underlined it and then you commented on it. So are you saying you think unit #3 went supercritical after the earthquake? Do you think fragments of the fuel rods in the reactor's core escaped through containment somehow and landed a mile away? Exactly what is the cart of **** you are trying to sell us?
Or are you just going to say you post any internet crap with no regards to the truth and just expect the readers to ignore your posts?
