You know phonedawgz, go ahead and mislead. My immediate concern is NDAA and the loss of the Union. Just understand, when the forum learns you were misleading them, for your own gain, they are gonna rip you apart.
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01:06 AM
Jan 2nd, 2012
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
Results from America's Berkeley National Laboratory have cast doubt on the assumption that risk from radiation is always proportional to exposure – a theory that underpins most measures for radiological protection.
Sylvain Costes in the lab
Living cells are constantly bombarded by ionizing radiation in various forms and from various sources, all of which have the potential to damage DNA. Unless this damage is corrected by self-repair mechanisms it can result in cell malfunction or the malignancy known as cancer.
These effects have been clearly shown to be statistically likely for high radiation doses, such as those received by Japanese survivors of atomic bombs. What is less well understood and far harder to study are the effects of lower doses of radiation as received from natural sources, medical scans, or to a lesser extent nuclear power operations.
The prevailing method to deal with this area of uncertainty is to extrapolate the observable effects of high doses and assume the same relationship applies to low doses with no observable effect i.e. assume that all levels of exposure come with a commensurate health risk, no matter how small. This approach is used in practice as a basis for the management of occupational and public exposure worldwide.
It is a safe assumption that the amount of DNA damage increases in line with radiation exposure, but Mina Bissell of Berkeley's life sciences division said today: "Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses." She added that this "casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive."
The researchers used time-lapse images of cells as they responded to various radiation doses. They were able to see the repair proteins concentrate around parts of DNA that had suffered a double strand break in what are called radiation-induced foci (RIF). Over time the severed ends of DNA strands actually moved within the cell nucleus to gather in larger RIFs known as 'repair centres'.
Sylvain Costes, who led the study, said that multiple repairs could be taking place simultaneously in the repair centres, leading to more errors in the repaired DNA. He said that at low levels of radiation, such as the natural levels humans experienced throughout evolution, it was "unlikely" that any cell would have to repair more than one double strand break at once.
The study was the first to use time-lapse imagery, which helped it record more RIFs as well as the clustering effect, which begins even before RIFs are formed.
Gerry Thomas, professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, told World Nuclear News that while the new theory "makes very good sense," she would "urge a little caution as this is an in vitro model, and may not be completely representative of tissue response in vivo."
Nevertheless, said Thomas, "This is very interesting and would probably fit with the findings we have post Chernobyl where most of the exposure to the population was low dose. It may also explain why relatively few patients treated with radiation for cancer go on to get second tumours. In radiotherapy you target the high dose to the tumour, but inevitably the surrounding tissue receives some radiation, but at a much lower dose."
Costes said the team is now planning to conduct the same experiment with healthy donated cells, rather than immortalized laboratory versions, and to see if the results hold for fibroblast cells as well as the epithelial cells already studied. Another area for research is the clustering of double strand breaks: whether there is a transport mechanism, and whether the repair centres pre-exist.
A roadmap setting out the mid- to long-term activities needed for the decommissioning of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors has been released. The plan envisages decommissioning activities being completed within 30 to 40 years.
The roadmap - drafted by Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco); the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy; and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency - received government approval today.
Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda announced on 16 December that the Fukushima Daiichi reactors had attained 'cold shutdown' conditions bringing to a close the 'accident' phase of events at the plant triggered by the 11 March tsunami. In announcing the decommissioning roadmap, Tepco said that it will now "shift our approach from the stabilization of the plant to the maintenance of stable condition."
The roadmap is split into three phases, the primary targets of which are: the removal of fuel from all four used fuel pools; the removal of melted fuel from the three damaged reactor cores; and finally the demolition of the reactor facilities. Work to carry out these tasks will be hampered by the amount of debris and contamination present on the site, not least that on top of units 1, 3 and 4.
Debris will need to be removed from atop the reactor buildings to allow decommissioning activities to proceed (Image: Tepco)
Tepco said that it plans to start removing the fuel from the used fuel pool at the top of the reactor building of unit 4 within the next two years, while the removal of fuel from the pool at unit 3 will begin by the end of 2014. At unit 1, the company plans to develop a used fuel removal plan based on its experience at units 3 and 4, while for unit 2 it will develop a plan once the inside of the reactor building has been decontaminated and the condition of existing used fuel handling equipment has been assessed.
Tepco plans to remove all of the used fuel from the four pools within ten years, during which time it will determine what reprocessing and storage methods it will use to deal with it.
With regards to fuel within the reactors themselves, its exact location and condition is still not known, but an earlier analysis suggested that most of unit 1's fuel melted and went through the bottom of the reactor vessel, as well as about 70 centimetres of the drywell concrete below. The cores of units 2 and 3 are thought to have overheated badly, with a large portion having melted or softened enough to slump to the bottom of the reactor vessel. A relatively small amount of this is thought to have passed through holes in the pressure vessel and fallen to the drywell floor. No fuel was in the core of unit 4 at the time of the accident.
Tepco plans to begin an investigation by the end of March 2015 into where water is leaking from the primary containment vessels (PCVs) of units 1, 2 and 3, as well as beginning work to decontaminate the interior of the reactor buildings. Within about a year, the company aims to have sealed those leaks found in the lower parts of the PCVs, allowing it to partly fill the vessels. This would then allow an investigation of the interior of the PCVs to be conducted. After this, repairs will be made to the leaks in the upper parts of the PCVs, allowing them to subsequently be filled with water. Once covers have been placed over the reactor buildings, the caps of the reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) will be removed so that examination of their contents can start around mid-2019. The removal of the damaged fuel is expected to start in about ten years' time, but Tepco estimates that this will take 10-15 years to complete. Demolition of the reactor facilities of units 1 to 4 is expected to be completed within 30 to 40 years.
In the meantime, Tepco said that in order to "stably maintain a condition equivalent to cold shutdown," it will continue injecting water into the reactors until all the molten fuel has been removed. New facilities for processing contaminated water will be installed by 2012. The processing of all the accumulated water in the reactor and turbine buildings is expected to be completed within ten years. Installation of water shielding walls to prevent possibly contaminated groundwater entering the ocean should be completed by late 2014.
"Step-by-step decontamination measures" would be implemented on-site in order to reduce exposure to the public and workers, Tepco said. These would be taken in conjunction with efforts to reduce radiation dosage outside the site. The company aims to maintain the effective radiation dose at the site boundary to below 1 millisievert per year by April 2012.
Tepco said that it would establish the necessary frameworks for on-site project operations and research and development activities to "ensure steady implementation" of the roadmap. The company noted, "As we are facing many difficult research and development issues that are unprecedented and challenging even from a global perspective, we will work hand-in-hand with our domestic and overseas supporters, and compile wisdom and knowledge from all over the world as we move forward." Tepco said that it would regularly assess the progress being made at the Fukushima Daiichi site and would update the roadmap or change its activities accordingly. http://www.world-nuclear-ne...g_phase-2112114.html
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 01-02-2012).]
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05:47 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Monday, January 2, 2012 #Fukushima Reactor 4 Skimmer Surge Tank Latest: Earthquake Caused the Water to Go from SFP to Reactor Well Instead, Says TEPCO
TEPCO admits the January 1, 2012 earthquake caused it, and no it wasn't a leak but the water from the Spent Fuel Pool went the other way to the Reactor Well, instead of going to the Skimmer Surge Tank.
(For the last announcement from TEPCO, see my post here.)
I started reading the Mainichi Shinbun article, but it was very short on details, and knowing TEPCO couldn't have held a press conference on January 2 I went to look for TEPCO's own words somewhere. It was in the handout for the press on January 2, 2012.
The handout is in Japanese only for now, so the following is my translation. It was clearly written over time as new information came in. (I will put up the English reference handout when TEPCO issues one.)
At 5:30PM on January 1, it was observed that the water level of the Skimmer Surge Tank of the Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 4 dropped by 240 millimeters during the 3 hours from 2PM to 5PM (while the normal decline is 50 millimeters in 3 hours). Later we surveyed the facilities, but found no leak outside the reactor building, at the pipe joints of the SFP cooling system or at the location where the cooling system was installed.
As of 5PM on January 1, the temperature of the water in the Reactor 4 SFP was 23 degrees Celsius (as of 5AM on January 2 it was 22 degrees Celsius). The SFP cooling system is in operation and there is no problem in cooling the pool. While the water level in the SFP remained the same, the water level in the Skimmer Surge Tank continued to drop. From 10:27PM to 11:13PM on January 1, we filled the water in the Skimmer Surge Tank. Currently the water level is declining at about 90 millimeters per hour. We are monitoring the water level every hour instead of every 3 hours. As of now there is no leak outside the building, and there is no noticeable change in the water level of the contaminated water inside the [reactor] building.
Later inspection revealed that the amount of water decreased in the Skimmer Surge Tank was about the same as the amount of water increased in the Reactor Well, and that the water level in the Reactor Well was lower than that in the SFP. Therefore, our hypothesis is that: the earthquake on January 1 at 2:30PM tweaked the space in the gate between the Reactor Well and the SFP; water flowed from the SFP to the Reactor Well, and the overflow water to the Skimmer Surge Tank decreased, causing the water level of the Skimmer Surge Tank to decrease more than normal.
In order to decrease the difference in the water levels between the Reactor Well and the Spent Fuel Pool, water was poured into the Reactor Well from 11:50AM to 11:59AM on January 2. As of 4PM, there is no decrease in the water level in the Skimmer Surge Tank observed. We will continue to monitor the water level in the Skimmer Surge Tank.
Skimmer surge tank is a tank set up to collect the overflow from the Spent Fuel Pool. In order to cool the spent fuel bundles and to remove impurities from the water, the water in the Spent Fuel Pool is overflowed into the skimmer surge tank, and goes through the heat exchanger and the filter before it goes back into the Spent Fuel Pool.
The Reactor Well is a space to store the Reactor Pressure Vessel and the Containment Vessel Lid. During the regular maintenance [which Reactor 4 was undergoing at the time of the accident], this space is filled with water to conduct work such as exchanging the nuclear fuel.
J Environ Radioact. 2011 Dec 27. [Epub ahead of print] Radionuclides from the Fukushima accident in the air over Lithuania: measurement and modelling approaches. Lujanienė G, Byčenkienė S, Povinec PP, Gera M. Source
Environmental Research Department, SRI Center for Physical Sciences and Technology, Savanoriu 231, 02300 Vilnius, Lithuania. Abstract
Analyses of (131)I, (137)Cs and (134)Cs in airborne aerosols were carried out in daily samples in Vilnius, Lithuania after the Fukushima accident during the period of March-April, 2011. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs ranged from 12 μBq/m(3) and 1.4 μBq/m(3) to 3700 μBq/m(3) and 1040 μBq/m(3), respectively. The activity concentration of (239,240)Pu in one aerosol sample collected from 23 March to 15 April, 2011 was found to be 44.5 nBq/m(3). The two maxima found in radionuclide concentrations were related to complicated long-range air mass transport from Japan across the Pacific, the North America and the Atlantic Ocean to Central Europe as indicated by modelling. HYSPLIT backward trajectories and meteorological data were applied for interpretation of activity variations of measured radionuclides observed at the site of investigation. (7)Be and (212)Pb activity concentrations and their ratios were used as tracers of vertical transport of air masses. Fukushima data were compared with the data obtained during the Chernobyl accident and in the post Chernobyl period. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs were found to be by 4 orders of magnitude lower as compared to the Chernobyl accident. The activity ratio of (134)Cs/(137)Cs was around 1 with small variations only. The activity ratio of (238)Pu/(239,240)Pu in the aerosol sample was 1.2, indicating a presence of the spent fuel of different origin than that of the Chernobyl accident.
Monday, January 2, 2012 Report from Fukushima (2) Minami Soma: A Woman Speaks Out on Her Health Problems in Post-Accident Fukushima
Teeth and toenails falling off and clumps of hair coming off, she reports in her blog. She doesn't seem to care any more if people dismiss her as fabricating the story, and just tells as a matter of fact what's been happening to her and her husband, probably both in their early 40s. They live in Minami Soma City in Fukushima Prefecture, within 25 kilometers from the wrecked plant. The district she and husband live have somehow escaped the designation of any "evacuation zone", even though she says the radiation is just as high or higher. She was a high school teacher until 2 years ago, and now she teaches children at her home.
My Japanese blog readers sent me the link to her blog some time ago. I read the posts, researched the response to her blog from people I trust on the net. I have little reason to doubt this is a fake, she sounds sincere, though it is my personal judgment and I could be wrong.
There are many who have attacked her as rumor- and fear-mongering, to which she responds "Look at the reality. Study physics and think for yourselves. No point in getting emotional and wasting time."
She isn't claiming her conditions is due to the radiation exposure since the accident. She just describes her conditions and asks for rational explanations for the conditions, which haven't been forthcoming, as you can see in the very first post linked and translated below.
Well, all spring and summer last year, nosebleed, diarhhea and bruises were "baseless rumors". Meltdown was a baseless rumor, radiation contamination was a baseless rumor.
The following passages are from her blog, "Numayu no blog":
From the entry on 1/2/2012:
Went to see the dentist on duty for the holidays, as I just couldn't stand the pain of my "dens caninus" tooth which was all exposed to the nerve.
However, no matter how I explained to the dentist, he kept insisting that it would never go bad like this in such a short period of time (3 months).
When I told him that my dental treatment had been completed before March 11, he didn't believe it. He just said "It's not possible".
He said this could only happen if one didn't brush one's teeth for 2 to 3 years.
I simply lost interest in trying to explain. My husband was there, and he tried to tell him, but he shut up when the doctor said "I only accept objective data."
Until this summer, my teeth were healthy. My teeth were sturdy. Until this summer.
From the entry on 12/31/2011, on her friend's hair:
A very good friend of mine since high school just dropped by to say hello. We occasionally talked over the phone about my head (balding and hair falling off) and her condition. She's 42 years old.
She came wearing a wig. When she took it out, I had no words to say.
She evacuated [after the accident] to the inland area near the Fukushima-Miyagi border. But when the reactors were exploding and when the vent was being done, she was right near by [in Minami Soma].
With her permission, I'm sharing these sad photos.
She and I both started to lose hair in large quantities starting October. This is the head of a healthy, 42-year-old woman. She is quite active, and she works.
Can you believe it? In 3 months she has lost so much hair. Now you understand why I wanted to cut my hair short to 3 centimeters long. Right now, I have more hair than her, but if I had kept it long I would have lost much more hair.
When I saw her in October, she had her own hair in a bun.
What is it that's happening?
From the entry on 12/27/2011:
I went to see my doctor. The severe pain in the jaw is back, and it hurts like mad. My entire face below the nose hurts.
The doctor gave me two kinds of pain killer this time. Now I'm better.
He also drew blood for testing. We can't even begin to guess what it is, until we have the data.
My doctor is appalled at what has happened to me in the last month - my teeth, thinning hair, bleeding that doesn't stop, severe pain in the jaw, fingernails dropping off. He said, "It's just unbelievable".
Anyway, we will wait for the result of the blood test.
I said to him, "I have a wig, so it will be OK". Then he replied, "Yes, and you can have full dentures!"
Both my doctor and I are positive. So is my dentist. I'll never give up hope and live positively. I am living and learning, and remain positive.
From the entry on 12/20/2011, responding to one of the trolls on her blog:
Just now, there was a comment from someone claiming to be a doctor in Minami Soma City, who said "There is no one with the condition like that". There was no link to that person's blog.
If he/she is really a doctor, he/she would neither confirm or deny.
Do you want to see the photo?
Treatment of the cavities was done by March 11. There was nothing wrong with my gum and my teeth. Just a normal set of teeth. But now it's like this.
Two front teeth are both artificial "ceramic". So are the white teeth in the back. But for the other tooth... Treatment just cannot keep up. My dentist managed to keep the roots to plant a post [for implants, probably].
And do you still say "there is no negative effect on heath"? People in the Japanese government, please give me a "logical" answer.
The photo is rather shocking. You can view it in her post here.
From the entry on 12/17/2011, about her hair and toenails:
It was really bad yesterday. I felt dizzy standing or sitting. Well it's the same today too.
Last night, I tried loosening up my hair with my fingers after shampooing. The hair came out in clumps. I was shocked.
I cut my hair short about 2 weeks ago, for I wanted to stop the hair loss. I wear a wig (long hair) when I go out. There is not much forelock either. I can clearly see the hairline. In 9 months I lost so much hair.
Something felt wrong on my feet after the bath, so I took a look at the nails. In almost all toenails part of the nails was missing. When I tried to cut the nails using a nail clipper, I couldn't believe my eyes. Toenails on the second toes of both feet were coming off. When I touched them, they did come off.
Went to the dentist today. The receptionist looked dead tired. She was such an energetic person. She was barely able to speak. Children are not cheerful. They are not as playful as before.
The Japanese government announced "a cold shutdown 'state'". There is no such word. It's "a cold shutdown" or not. It is just a sly sophistry from liberal arts graduates.
Ouch. She clearly teaches science or math.
Her blog contains more information than just health issues. In fact, health issues are minor compared to the other topics like radiation contamination in Fukushima, what happened in Minami Soma in the early days of the accident, what is happening in Fukushima right now among evacuees, etc. She writes in a very intelligent and feminine way.
She also worries about her husband who tires very easily these days; the soles of his feet remain numb. She says he was outside within 3.5 kilometers from the plant when the accident happened (that's where he worked) and he has been made to go to the company's office inside 3.5 kilometers multiple times to retrieve some documents since the accident. He is now working in Koriyama City, where the air radiation level is three times that of Minami Soma, she says.
Nuke report's worst case: Tokyo exodus Migration plans mulled at height of atomic crisis
By REIJI YOSHIDA Staff writer
Areas as far as 170 km away from the Fukushima nuclear plant faced the potential risk of being declared forced migration zones, according to a worst-case scenario drawn up at the height of the crisis by the chief of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission.
The report, compiled March 25 at the request of then Prime Minister Naoto Kan, also said areas 250 km away — including central Tokyo — could have been tainted by radiation and require the government to assist those electing to voluntarily migrate away from the area.
The alarming 20-page report was written up by commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo. The Japan Times obtained a copy of the report, the outline of which was first reported last month by the Mainichi Shimbun, from the Cabinet Office using the information disclosure law.
The report uses the same evacuation protocols adopted during the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Areas contaminated with 1,480 kilobecquerels of cesium 137 per sq. meter, for example, would have been designated forced migration zones, while those with 555 kilobecquerels per sq. meter would be declared voluntary migration zones, with the government offering to assist residents who elect to get out.
The areas 170 km away included parts of Fukushima, Miyagi, Tochigi and Ibaraki prefectures.
Kondo drafted the report after Kan asked him for a "worst-case situation," Kondo told The Japan Times on Thursday.
Kondo's scenario is based on the assumption that another hydrogen explosion would have further damaged reactor 1, releasing more radioactive fallout into the environment and forcing the entire plant to evacuate.
With no workers to control the situation, the cooling systems at reactors 1, 2 and 3 would be lost and the spent-fuel pool in reactor 4 would collapse as the rods melted through its concrete walls, the report said.
Kondo emphasized that the scenario was based on extreme conditions and was not very realistic. The report assumed winds would keep blowing at a certain strength and direction and did not give consideration to local geography. As a result, the calculations were very rough and didn't show how large the contaminated areas would in fact turn out to be, Kondo said.
"It's not anything like SPEEDI," said Kondo, referring to the supercomputer simulation developed by the government to predict how nuclear material spreads in nuclear accidents. SPEEDI's results were initially withheld from the public.
The main aim of the report, Kondo said, was to show how the crisis might escalate and to offer technological recommendations on how to defuse the situation, not to give a detailed prediction of worst-case consequences, Kondo said.
In interviews with the media, Kan said he was particularly scared in the first week of the crisis because he had to entertain the possibility of evacuating the capital, without elaborating further. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120105x1.html
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08:57 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
This is horrible. (7/13/2011) Harvested in June, Saitama.
Normal tomato on right (SOURCE: Fukushima Diary)
Wasn’t able to find a link to the original tweet by @masason. If anyone locates that please leave in the comments.
See also: Radiation Biologist: Tree leaves were gigantic after Chernobyl -- "Witch's Broom" effect (VIDEO)
Transcript Summary
* What happened to the plants? * The pine trees, evergreen trees… the fact of witch’s broom, from one bud you can see a lot of shooting like a broom * The leaves were gigantic * The seeds and the leaves were very big
See also:
* IAEA: “An increased mutation level was apparent in 1987 [...] abnormalities include unusual branching of stems [...] abnormal colour and size of leaves and flowers, and development of ‘witches’ brooms’ in pine trees.” * US EPA: Chernobyl Environmental Impact – “Radiation stress has caused changes in tree growth patterns, such as this formation of “witch’s broom,” a condition in which too many shoots form on a bough.” * Chernobyl biologist: “All the trees are clearly mutated.” They’ve lost the internal signals that make a Christmas tree taper toward the top. Instead, he says, “they don’t seem to know which way is up.” * Man makes monster-sized discovery of potatoes like giant hands – Mainichi, Jan. 1, 2012 * Mutated vegetables – Fukushima Diary, Dec. 19, 2011 * After the atomic bomb of Nagasaki and Hiroshima vegetables grew huge or became mutated – Fukushima Diary, Dec. 27, 2011 * Vegetables have gone gigantic – Fukushima Diary, Dec. 1, 2011 http://enenews.com/report-h...rth-tokyo-june-photo
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01:36 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
EDF's fleet of 58 reactors needs upgrades 'as quickly as possible' to be sufficiently robust in extreme situations, said France's nuclear safety regulator.
The utility has already started work to meet some of the requirements, which emerged from the 'stress tests' it carried out on the orders of President Nicolas Sarkozy and the European Commission.
France's 58 nuclear power reactors and fuel cycle facilities "have a sufficient level of safety" that means none of them should be closed, said the Autorité De Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), but "their continued operation requires increasing as quickly as possible their robustness in the face of extreme situations beyond safety margins they already have." The results refer to a prioritised list of 79 of the country's 150 nuclear facilities.
Announcing yesterday's report, ASN head André-Claude Lacoste said the Fukushima accident "marks nuclear history" in the same way as the only other nuclear power accidents that have affected the public: at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. "There will be a before and after Fukushima," said Lacoste.
The focus of additional safety in response to previous accidents was to develop universal excellence in nuclear operation, first across the USA as facilitated by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and then globally through its sister, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO). By contrast, Fukushima could not have been prevented by better operation but rather by better appreciation of external risks and their on-site consequences. For this reason two of the fundamental drives in ASN's requirements are improvements in earthquake and flood protection.
This enhanced preparation for natural disasters is to be complimented by prevention of risk from nearby industrial activity. Nuclear power plants may be located near major and potentially dangerous industries such as chemical processing, liquid natural gas storage or hydroelectric power generation. EDF will have to prepare itself and its sites for potentially enormous failures at nearby facilities like these.
In an accident situation the ASN wants French reactors to be able to rely on what it calls a 'hard core' set of safety requirements. These arrangements would protect safety-critical structures and equipment to ensure that vital functions can be maintained in the face of demands beyond the design basis of the plant, such as earthquakes, fires, or the prolonged loss of power or emergency cooling. Among the 'hard core' set-up would be robust emergency centres, improved communication and hardened supplies of water, diesel generators and dosimetry supplies for workers.
At the same time, a 'rapid action' force should be available to support any plant in the country within 24 hours, coming complete with highly capable staff and equipment such as mobile diesel generators and even a helicopter. This idea was suggested by EDF and a trial exercise has already been carried out at the Cruas-Meysse nuclear power plant. The nuclear group will compliment another national crisis group dubbed 'FIRE' that supports grid restoration.
ASN also wants all French operators to examine their options to construct a barrier to prevent the contamination of surface or groundwater under any circumstance. Operators using pools to store used nuclear fuel are to strengthen their protection against losing water.
Lacoste said France should guard against the temptation to add more and more technical systems in a drive to increase safety. This can be counter-productive, he said, because "nuclear safety rests fundamentally with people." In that respect, a major effort will be required on an ongoing basis to ensure proper supervision of subcontractors: Nuclear licensees will have to directly oversee subcontractors undertaking safety-related work, and no more than three levels of subcontracting will be allowed. It is also necessary to ensure that subcontractors are ready and willing to fulfill potentially vital roles should an accident situation develop.
ASN's announcement came when its 524-page report on the stress tests was passed on to government for transmission to the European Council. Every nation involved in the stress test program is keeping the same schedule.
The next step in the process will see national regulators peer-review each others' reports. They may then be accepted by the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) by late June, when the European Commission concludes the project with a summary report to European Council.
At the same time, the commission will make suggestions on how the bloc may standardise some aspects of nuclear regulation. It said in November that "an EU-wide set of basic principles and requirements could be envisaged, together with associated minimum technical criteria in the areas of siting, design, construction and operation of nuclear power plants."
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06:53 PM
PFF
System Bot
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
This is horrible. (7/13/2011) Harvested in June, Saitama.
Normal tomato on right (SOURCE: Fukushima Diary)
Wasn’t able to find a link to the original tweet by @masason. If anyone locates that please leave in the comments.
See also: Radiation Biologist: Tree leaves were gigantic after Chernobyl -- "Witch's Broom" effect (VIDEO)
Transcript Summary
* What happened to the plants? * The pine trees, evergreen trees… the fact of witch’s broom, from one bud you can see a lot of shooting like a broom * The leaves were gigantic * The seeds and the leaves were very big
See also:
* IAEA: “An increased mutation level was apparent in 1987 [...] abnormalities include unusual branching of stems [...] abnormal colour and size of leaves and flowers, and development of ‘witches’ brooms’ in pine trees.” * US EPA: Chernobyl Environmental Impact – “Radiation stress has caused changes in tree growth patterns, such as this formation of “witch’s broom,” a condition in which too many shoots form on a bough.” * Chernobyl biologist: “All the trees are clearly mutated.” They’ve lost the internal signals that make a Christmas tree taper toward the top. Instead, he says, “they don’t seem to know which way is up.” * Man makes monster-sized discovery of potatoes like giant hands – Mainichi, Jan. 1, 2012 * Mutated vegetables – Fukushima Diary, Dec. 19, 2011 * After the atomic bomb of Nagasaki and Hiroshima vegetables grew huge or became mutated – Fukushima Diary, Dec. 27, 2011 * Vegetables have gone gigantic – Fukushima Diary, Dec. 1, 2011 http://enenews.com/report-h...rth-tokyo-june-photo
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06:55 PM
carnut122 Member
Posts: 9122 From: Waleska, GA, USA Registered: Jan 2004
Report: Worst vegetable mutation — Harvested north of Tokyo in June (PHOTO)
]
I think this is where the theory that radiation is a bad thing falls short. The tomato on the left is bigger thus increasing future yields. It's kind of like the Gilligan Isle episode when they planted the irradiated seeds and harvested giant vegetables. I'm hoping Burpee offers seeds in their spring catalog. I'm not even sure if I'm being facetious.
[This message has been edited by carnut122 (edited 01-05-2012).]
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09:00 PM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
You can be about 99.999% sure that the tomato is not mutated from Fukushima.
The tomato plant was 150 miles away from Fukushima.
The mild deformation that were observed around Chernobyl were right next to the exploded core. They were exposed to VERY HIGH levels of radiation. The deformations are most likely due to radiological stress, and not genetic mutations.
Chernobyl deformations.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 01-05-2012).]
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09:53 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
You can be about 99.999% sure that the tomato is not mutated from Fukushima.
The tomato plant was 150 miles away from Fukushima.
The mild deformation that were observed around Chernobyl were right next to the exploded core. They were exposed to VERY HIGH levels of radiation. The deformations are most likely due to radiological stress, and not genetic mutations.
I love how you know, despite the amount of other mutations popping up around Japan, this wasn't from Fukushima. I can't say it was, I can't say it wasn't, but its certainly not isolated. If it was a isolated event, you would be right. Its not and you as always are worse than Tepco on the downplaying.
[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 01-05-2012).]
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10:38 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Scientists alarmed by speed of plant mutation near Chernobyl
* o o o reddit this
* James Meek, Science correspondent * The Guardian, Wednesday 4 October 2000 21.20 EDT * Article history
Plants grown in contaminated soil near the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine have mutated at a much faster rate than expected.
Researchers from Switzerland, Britain and Ukraine warn in an article in the latest edition of the journal Nature that their experiments show that the effects of radiation on plants are not well understood and may be more severe than was previously thought.
The scientific team, led by Olga Kovalchuk from the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, planted identical crops of wheat in two locations - one on a highly radioactive plot close to Chernobyl, the other in uncontaminated but otherwise similar soil 19 miles away. They then grew further crops from the seeds of each set of wheat.
Even though the plants close to the nuclear power station were exposed to radiation for only 10 months, the genes of the crop raised from this seed showed a sixfold increase in the mutation rate compared with the normal wheat.
What alarmed the scientists was that the wheat growing in the radioactive area was exposed to relatively low doses of radiation.
"This low-level exposure should not cause such a large increase in the mutation rate, suggesting that chronic exposure to ionising radiation has effects that are as yet unknown," they wrote in Nature.
The scientists do not believe the mutations could have been caused directly by a weak blast of radiation hitting the plants' DNA.
They suspect that some so far unidentified mechanism is affecting genes by upsetting the delicate mechanism of the plant cells as a whole.
The findings have troubling implications for future generations of plants, animals and humans living in and around the Chernobyl contamination zone, created in 1986 when one of the four reactors on the site exploded.
So far the only undisputed medical effect of the disaster has been a big rise in the number of cases of child and adolescent thyroid cancer in the regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia adjacent to Chernobyl.
But scientists fear that the worst consequences of Chernobyl will only emerge in future generations.
The disaster has had mixed consequences for the environment around the power station. In the short term the area, evacuated of human beings, has become a haven for wildlife. The danger now is from clumps of radioactive particles which were blown across Ukraine and Belarus by the wind and fell to earth.
But the of radioactive mutations - the generation of hideous monsters and giant insects - is unlikely to occur, since even with radiation speeding up changes in DNA, it would still take many generations for evolution to pick out useful new genes which would enable new species to emerge and survive. http://www.guardian.co.uk/w...000/oct/05/jamesmeek
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11:07 PM
Jan 6th, 2012
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
You and the other wackos are quick to point to every deformity in Japan as a mutation. Same wacko **** you people did at Chernobyl. Look up mutation vs deformity. The fact that you so want deformities to be mutations shows your standard, quite less than scientific approach.
As stated the odds of a mutation of a tomato plant 150 miles away is pretty much zero. But I know that means nothing to you. So go on, find every deformed plant and animal you can in Japan and then blame it on a mutation caused by Fukushima. The actual reason for the deformity doesn't mean anything to a wacko like you. The only thing that does is continued fear mongering and continued distortions of the truth, so you can tell your pre-determined story.
More pictures of deformed tomatoes
quote
Originally posted by dennis_6:
I love how you know, despite the amount of other mutations popping up around Japan, this wasn't from Fukushima. I can't say it was, I can't say it wasn't, but its certainly not isolated. If it was a isolated event, you would be right. Its not and you as always are worse than Tepco on the downplaying.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 01-06-2012).]
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05:08 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
You and the other wackos are quick to point to every deformity in Japan as a mutation. Same wacko **** you people did at Chernobyl. Look up mutation vs deformity. The fact that you so want deformities to be mutations shows your standard, quite less than scientific approach.
As stated the odds of a mutation of a tomato plant 150 miles away is pretty much zero. But I know that means nothing to you. So go on, find every deformed plant and animal you can in Japan and then blame it on a mutation caused by Fukushima. The actual reason for the deformity doesn't mean anything to a wacko like you. The only thing that does is continued fear mongering and continued distortions of the truth, so you can tell your pre-determined story.
More pictures of deformed tomatoes
Yes, tomatoes mutate naturally, mutations in humans occur naturally, and so do animals. The point is the mutations are not isolated and reports of them are increasing. So once again you are the fool. You have to entertain the possibility that radiation is causing some of the mutations, but you won't because you live by the party line.
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11:38 AM
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
SUNDAY TIMEOUT Fukushima lays bare Japanese media's ties to top
By DAVID MCNEILL Special to The Japan Times
Is the ongoing crisis surrounding the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant being accurately reported in the Japanese media?
News photo Official lines: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano on April 17, 2011, during his first visit to Fukushima after the disasters triggered by March 11's Great East Japan Earthquake. KYODO PHOTO
No, says independent journalist Shigeo Abe, who claims the authorities, and many journalists, have done a poor job of informing people about nuclear power in Japan both before and during the crisis — and that the clean-up costs are now being massively underestimated and underreported.
"The government says that as long as the radioactive leak can be dammed from the sides it can be stopped, but that's wrong," Abe insists. "They're going to have to build a huge trench underneath the plant to contain the radiation — a giant diaper. That is a huge-scale construction and will cost a fortune. The government knows that but won't reveal it."
The disaster at the Fukushima plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) again revealed one of the major fault lines of Japanese journalism — that between the mainstream media and the mass-selling weeklies and their ranks of freelancers.
The mainstream media has long been part of the press-club system, which funnels information from official Japan to the public. Critics say the system locks the country's most influential journalists into a symbiotic relationship with their sources, and discourages them from investigation or independent lines of analysis.
Once the crisis began, it was weekly Japanese magazines that sank their teeth into the guardians of the so-called nuclear village — the cozy ranks of polititicians, bureaucrats, academics, corporate players and the media who promote nuclear power in this country.
Shukan Shincho dubbed Tepco's management "war criminals." Shukan Gendai named and shamed the most culpable of Japan's goyō gakusha (unquestioning pronuclear scientists; aka academic flunkies).
Meanwhile, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper's well-respected weekly magazine AERA revealed that local governments manipulated public opinion in support of reopening nuclear plants. The same magazine's now-famous March 19, 2011, cover story showing a masked nuclear worker and the headline "Radiation is coming to Tokyo" was controversial enough to force an apology and the resignation of at least one columnist (though the headline was in fact correct).
Others explored claims of structural bias in the mainstream press.
Japan's power-supply industry, collectively, is Japan's biggest advertiser, spending ¥88 billion (more than $1 billion) a year, according to the Nikkei Advertising Research Institute. Tepco's ¥24.4 billion alone is roughly half what a global firm as large as Toyota spends in a year.
Many journalists were tied to the industry in complex ways. A Yomiuri Shimbun science writer was cited in "Daishinsai Genpatsu Jiko to Media" ("The Media and the Nuclear Disaster"; Otsuki Shoten, 2011) as working simultaneously for nuclear-industry watchdogs, including the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (sic). Journalists from the Nikkei and Mainichi Shimbun newspapers have also reportedly gone on to work for pronuclear organizations and publications.
Before the Fukushima crisis began, Tepco's advertising largesse may have helped silence even the most liberal of potential critics. According to Shukan Gendai, the utility spent roughly $26 million on advertising with the Asahi Shimbun. Tepco's quarterly magazine, Sola, was edited by former Asahi writers.
The financial clout of the power-supply industry, combined with the press-club system, surely helped discourage investigative reporting and keep concerns about nuclear power and critics of plants such as the aging Fukushima complex and Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka facility in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, which sits astride numerous faults, well below the media radar.
Throughout the Fukushima crisis, the mainstream media has relied heavily on pronuclear scientists' and Tepco's analyses of what was occurring. After the first hydrogen blast of March 12, the government's top spokesman, Yukio Edano, told a press conference: "Even though the reactor No. 1 building is damaged, the containment vessel is undamaged. ... On the contrary, the outside monitors show that the (radiation) dose rate is declining, so the cooling of the reactor is proceeding."
Any suggestion that the accident would reach Chernobyl level was, he said, "out of the question."
Author and nuclear critic Takashi Hirose noted afterward: "Most of the media believed this. It makes no logical sense to say, as Edano did, that the safety of the containment vessel could be determined by monitoring the radiation dose rate. All he did was repeat the lecture given him by Tepco."
As media critic Toru Takeda later wrote, the overwhelming strategy throughout the crisis, by both the authorities and big media, seems to be to reassure people, not alert them to possible dangers.
By late March, the war in Libya had knocked Japan from the front pages of the world's newspapers, but there was still one story that was very sought after: life inside the 20-km evacuation zone around the Fukushima atomic plant.
Thousands of people had fled and left behind homes, pets and farm animals that would eventually die. A small number of mainly elderly people stayed behind, refusing to leave homes that often had been in their families for generations. Not surprisingly, there was enormous global interest in their story and its disturbing echoes of the Chernobyl catastrophe 25 years earlier.
Yet not a single reporter from Japan's big media filed from inside the evacuation zone — despite the fact that it was not yet illegal to be there. Some would begin reporting from the area much later after receiving government clearance — the Asahi Shimbun newspaper sent its first dispatch on April 25, when its reporters accompanied the commissioner-general of the National Police Agency. Later, they would explain why they stayed away and — with the exception of government-approved excursions — why they continue to stay away.
News photo Smoke signals: The leaking Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on March 20, 2011. Critics accuse Japan's mainstream media of failing to properly report the ongoing crisis. KYODO PHOTO
"Journalists are employees and their companies have to protect them from dangers," explained Keiichi Sato, a deputy editor with the News Division of Nippon TV.
"Reporters like myself might want to go into that zone and get the story, and there was internal debate about it, but there isn't much personal freedom inside big media companies. We were told by our superiors that it was dangerous, so going in by ourselves would mean breaking that rule. It would mean nothing less than quitting the company."
The cartel-like behavior of the leading Japanese media companies meant they did not have to fear being trumped by rivals. In particularly dangerous situations, managers of TV networks and newspapers will form agreements (known as hōdō kyōtei) in effect to collectively keep their reporters out of harm's way.
Teddy Jimbo, founder of the pioneering Internet broadcaster Video News Network, explains: "Once the five or six big firms come to an agreement that their competitors will not do anything, they don't have to be worried about being scooped or challenged."
Frustrated by the lack of information from around the plant, Jimbo took his camera and dosimeters into the 20-km zone on April 2 and uploaded a report on YouTube that scored almost 1 million views. He was the first Japanese reporter to present TV images from Futaba and other abandoned towns (though images from the zone, shot during government-approved incursions, later appeared on mainstream TV news programs).
"For freelance journalists, it's not hard to beat the big companies because you quickly learn where their line is," Jimbo said. "As a journalist I needed to go in and find out what was happening. Any real journalist would want to do that." He later sold some of his footage to three of the big Japanese TV networks: NHK, NTV and TBS.
Says Abe: "The government's whole strategy for bringing the plant under control will have to be revised. The evacuees will never be able to return. They can't clean up the radiation. Will the media report this? I'm waiting for that." http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120108x3.html
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01:28 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Results of ACRO's monitoring in Japan (15th of December 2011 update)
Donate for ACRO or Japan:
After the nuclear disaster of Fukushima, ACRO has extended its Citizen Watch of Radioactivity in the Environment to Japan. We have received samples from the Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures that show an alarming contamination.
Sunday, January 8, 2012 Just In: Japanese Expert Says Fukushima II (not I) Nuke Plant's Containment Vessel Has Been Damaged by the Quake
Information from Iwakami Yasumi's USTREAM channel netcasting the workshop of an Osaka citizens' group "Kansai network to stop the disaster-debris acceptance" with a panel of experts including European experts.
One Japanese expert, Hiromitsu Ino, said a Containment Vessel at Fukushima II (Daini) is broken, and they are trying to repair it. It was probably caused by the earthquake, not tsunami.
Hiromitsu Ino is professor emeritus at Tokyo University. His area of specialty is metallic materials science. He is the head of the Group of Concerned Scientists and Engineers Calling for the Closure of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.
I still remember a tweet last summer (I think) saying an acquaintance fleeing from the area near Fukushima II Nuke Plant right after the earthquake saw a smoke coming out of one of the reactor buildings (there are 4). Fukushima II, unlike Fukushima I, has 4 Mark-II type boiling water reactors built by Toshiba and Hitachi. Posted by arevamirpal::laprimavera at 11:30 PM Labels: containment vessel, Fukushima II, Hiromitsu Ino http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/...ushima-ii-not-i.html
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01:32 PM
Jan 10th, 2012
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Fukushima nuclear plant worker in coma after collapsing at site
A worker in his 60s at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant is in a coma after collapsing at the site, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has announced.
The man, an employee of a company cooperating with TEPCO, has been in a state of cardiac and respiratory arrest, the utility said on Jan. 9. The worker had been exposed to 52 microsieverts of radiation on Jan. 9 before collapsing and losing consciousness at the crippled plant that day. TEPCO is trying to confirm how long he has been working at nuclear plants and how much accumulated radiation doses he has been exposed to so far.
According to TEPCO, the man had been pouring concrete since the morning of Jan. 9 in order to manufacture a tank to hold radioactive materials following the treatment of contaminated water emanating from the cooling of nuclear reactors at the plant.
At around 2:20 p.m., the worker complained of sickness and was treated at the plant's medical office. However, he did not recover and was later transferred to a hospital in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, at around 4:30 p.m.
Since the outbreak of the nuclear crisis in March last year, three workers have died of sickness and other causes at the disaster-stricken plant.
Monday, January 9, 2012 Dead Whale? Floating in Tokyo Bay
The Japan Coast Guard isn't sure what it is but it may be a whale. Mainichi Shinbun (1/10/2012) says it was found floating near the Aomi Container Wharf in Koto-ku. The wharf is right across from the landfill where the Tokyo Metropolitan government has been dumping the radioactive ashes from the incinerators and radioactive debris from Iwate and Miyagi. (No correlation expressed or implied.)
Some Japanese are getting nervous, not because of radiation but because the March 11, 2011 earthquake was preceded by beaching of whales. Posted by arevamirpal::laprimavera at 9:00 PM Labels: Japanese earthquake http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/...ng-in-tokyo-bay.html
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11:02 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
No. Wrong again and again and again and again and again and again and again
The NRC talked about resources they could access IF they were asked to evaluate potential radiation levels. That is all this says.
From the email
quote
I spoke with Ed Roach this morning about possible assistance should you all be asked to evaluate potential contamination of waters near Alaska resulting from Pacific current transport of material from the Japan.
Again as usual it doesn't matter what happened, or what anyone says.
You will make any assumption, change any statement to try to tell the story you have preconceived. The truth only gets in the way of the story you have made up in your mindl.
There is no surprise that your ratings bar is as red as it is.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 01-11-2012).]
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09:10 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Again as usual it doesn't matter what happened, or what anyone says.
You will make any assumption, change any statement to try to tell the story you have preconceived. The truth only gets in the way of the story you have made up in your mindl.
There is no surprise that your ratings bar is as red as it is.
You are accusing me of playing out of your rule book. Nice.
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10:18 PM
Jan 12th, 2012
phonedawgz Member
Posts: 17091 From: Green Bay, WI USA Registered: Dec 2009
A first-of-a-kind reactor system has been set up in Belgium by coupling a subcritical assembly with a particle accelerator. The work is a major step in a program to research advanced waste management.
A cutaway of Myrrha. The equipment, known as Guinevere, is a demonstration model that supports the project for a larger version that will be called Myrrha (Multipurpose Hybrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications). It was assembled by France's National Centre for Scientific Research and is managed by the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK-CEN) at Mol, about 50 kilometres east of Antwerp. The overall project is supported by 12 other European laboratories and the European Commission.
Nuclear terminology classifies an item of equipment as in a critical state if the chain fission reaction is self-sustaining and each reaction leads on average to one more. The term supercritical means the number of fissions is increasing, while subcritical means it is decreasing and will therefore dwindle to nothing.
Guinevere is designed to be subcritical if it were not for an accelerator system that sends a constant stream of protons to a target that emits neutrons to trigger fission. SCK-CEN said, "This type of reactor is very safe because the reactor section relies on a particle accelerator: when it is turned off, the reactor will stop immediately."
As well as this kind of accelerator-driven operation, Guinevere is also capable of 'classic' criticality triggered by a neutron source in the reactor core and maintained by the reactor geometry and operation of its lead cooling system. This mode of operation was 'inaugurated' in February 2011.
Guinevere has "very limited power" and is being used to learn more about the operation and control of this kind of reactor arrangement. The knowledge will be put to use at Guinevere's larger relation, Myhrra, which should begin operation in 2023.
Myrrha will be able to produce radioisotopes and doped silicon, but its research functions would be particularly well suited to investigating transmutation. This is when certain radioactive isotopes with long half lives are made to 'catch' a neutron and thereby change into a different isotope that will decay more quickly to a stable form with no radioactivity. If achievable on an industrial scale, transmutation could greatly simplify the permanent geologic disposal of radioactive waste. Myrrha can also be used to test the feasibility of lead fast reactor technology and is seen as complimentary to the Jules Horowitz Reactor, a thermal spectrum reactor under construction in Cadarache, France.
The total cost of Myrrha has been put at €960 million ($1.2 billion), with 40% of this coming from the Belgian government. SCK-CEN is looking to set up an international consortium to ensure additional financing and has completed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese Academy of Sciences focusing on Myrrha.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 01-12-2012).]
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10:26 AM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Fukushima’s Impact on the Ocean Analyzed No danger from water, but marine sediments are the big question
By Prachi Patel / January 2012
Editor's Note: This is part of the IEEE Spectrum special report: Fukushima and the Future of Nuclear Power.
11 January 2012—One month after the March 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear accident, ocean water at the plant’s wastewater discharge point had 45 million times the concentration of radioactive cesium-137 than before the accident, according to researchers in Japan and from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The numbers plummeted the next month because ocean currents moved the contaminants away from shore. By July, numbers were down to 10 000 times as high as normal.
This latest analysis, reported in the 1 December 2011 issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, indicates that the concentration in ocean water poses no direct threat to humans or marine life. However, accumulation in marine sediment could be of concern for decades, says Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at Woods Hole who was involved in the research.
What’s also troubling is that cesium-137 concentrations have stayed at near constant levels since July, implying that radioactive water is still being released, either directly from the reactors or indirectly from groundwater. "I’m convinced there are ongoing leaks," Buesseler says. "Even if you plug all leaks and shut down reactors, groundwater keeps leaching into the ocean and these waters and contaminated sediments can be a long-term source of cesium-137 for decades to a century."
As recently as 4 December 2011, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant operator, disclosed that 45 tons of water laced with radioactive strontium had leaked into the ground from a treatment facility. Strontium, which has a 30-year half-life similar to cesium’s, can accumulate in bones and is linked to bone cancer. Small fish that are eaten with their bones could be a source of exposure.
During the accident, TEPCO used seawater to cool exposed reactor cores and spent fuel. The less-contaminated wastewater was intentionally dumped into the ocean to make space for more highly contaminated water. However, leaks from the damaged reactor buildings led to the release of some of the highly contaminated water into the ocean.
Since the accident, TEPCO has been regularly testing surface ocean water samples near the plant for radioactive cesium and iodine levels; Buesseler and his colleagues compiled and analyzed this data for the ES&T report. Cesium-137, with its relatively long half-life, poses a long-term concern, unlike iodine-131, which has a half-life of just eight days. Significant amounts of cesium-137 from Soviet nuclear weapons were released into the ocean in the 1960s, but the concentration in the ocean east of Japan had gone down to 1.5 becquerels per cubic meter when last measured in 2010. In contrast, the biggest release from Fukushima this past April was 68 million Bq/m3, making it the largest accidental release into ocean waters in history.
Accumulation of radionuclides in marine sediment is the main concern, says Buesseler. But there isn’t much data on the sediment yet. Organisms that live in or on sediment, such as worms, shellfish, and bottom feeders, could be exposed to high radionuclide concentrations. "For a population that eats a lot of seafood, this is certainly of concern," Buesseler says.
Nicholas Fisher, a professor of marine and atmospheric sciences at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, says that the data Buesseler has presented calls for further in-depth evaluation of the marine environment around Fukushima. When Fisher, Buesseler, and their colleagues were in Japan to independently measure radiation in marine life this past June, they were not allowed to enter the waters within 30-kilometers of the coast. It’s possible that in the waters a few hundred meters around the reactor, organisms have radiation levels high enough to possibly pose a risk to humans if consumed, Fisher says, but "we just don’t know if that’s the case. Like any disaster, there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be evaluated before you can give the ’clear’ signal."
A few fish exceeding the Japanese government’s safe limit of 500 Bq of cesium-137 per kilogram of seafood have been found in waters off Fukushima, prompting a fishing ban in a 20-km radius around the plant. But contaminated seafood could easily move out of that zone and be caught, Fisher points out. About the Author
Prachi Patel is a contributing editor to IEEE Spectrum and a freelance journalist in Pittsburgh. In December 2011, she reported on the detailed mapping of radiation on the ground near Fukushima. http://spectrum.ieee.org/en...n-the-ocean-analyzed
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02:07 PM
dennis_6 Member
Posts: 7196 From: between here and there Registered: Aug 2001
Breaking News: Possible rapid increase of temperature at Reactor 2 Posted by Mochizuki on January 13th, 2012 · 2 Comments
One of the heat gauges at or near the bottom of the container vessel of reactor 2 measured heat over 100℃.
According to the explanation of Tepco, it’s the gauge of the equipment for moving control rod. 17:00 1/12: 48.4℃ 23:00 1/12: 102.3℃ 5:00 1/13: 116.4℃
Because the gauge at the bottom of the vessel measures 48℃, Tepco still asserts it’s in the state of cold shutdown. They assert it’s not because the fuel has moved or recriticality happened, only because the gauge was broken.
Kate Clifford | 14th January 2012 Tags: radiation cloud, sunshine coast A RADIOACTIVE cloud lingering off the Sunshine Coast on Sunday was not dangerous, according to the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency.
Caloundra’s Peter Daley recently recorded a radiation level eight times the normal level. Brett Wortman
A RADIOACTIVE cloud lingering off the Sunshine Coast on Sunday was not dangerous, according to the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency.
Caloundra IT manager Peter Daley picked up the cloud's radioactivity on his Geiger counter, a device that measures ionizing radiation in the atmosphere.
The reading was taken at 6.30pm and measured 0.80 microsieverts, which is eight times over the average level of radiation in the atmosphere.
Mr Daley said he was concerned the cloud could have formed from a radioactive fall out from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
"This may be just a one off but even still, any exposure to an increase in radiation is not good," Mr Daley said.
He first noticed the hike when his Geiger counter began erratically beeping.
He then watched the rise in radiation fluctuate for three hours, peaking for 20 minutes at 0.80.
"I was shocked to hear the Geiger alarm going off, I have been recording radiation in the atmosphere for four years and the highest it has ever gone was 0.20 microsieverts."
Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency senior environmental scientist Marcus Grezechnik said the reading was unusual but not concerning for the Coast.
"It is very unlikely to be caused from Fukushima, but more likely to be caused by a weather change or dust," Dr Grezechnik said.
"It is not seen as a big increase although it is higher than average. To put everyone's mind at ease, even if you were receiving that dose every hour for a full year you would have less dose than one CAT Scan."
He said radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster had only been recorded in Australia once since the incident occurred in March 11.
"All reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi site were now in cold shutdown, significantly reducing the likelihood of uncontrolled releases to the environment and associated health impacts," he said. Radiation cloud 'not harmful'
Radioactive iodine in rainwater: Public was in the dark
By ALEX ROSLIN, The Gazette January 14, 2012
After the Fukushima nuclear accident, Canadian health officials assured a nervous public that virtually no radioactive fallout had drifted to Canada.
But last March, a Health Canada monitoring station in Calgary detected an average of 8.18 becquerels per litre of radioactive iodine (an isotope released by the nuclear accident) in rainwater, the data shows.
The level easily exceeded the Canadian guideline of six becquerels of iodine per litre for drinking water, acknowledged Eric Pellerin, chief of Health Canada's radiation-surveillance division.
"It's above the recommended level (for drinking water)," he said in an interview. "At any time you sample it, it should not exceed the guideline."
Canadian authorities didn't disclose the high radiation reading at the time.
In contrast, the state of Virginia issued a don't-drink-rainwater advisory in late March after iodine levels in rain in a nearby city spiked to 3.4 becquerels per litre on a single day. That was less than half of the level seen in Calgary during the entire month of March.
Radioactive iodine also appeared in smaller amounts in March in Vancouver (which saw an average of 0.69 becquerels per litre in rainwater, up from zero before Fukushima), Winnipeg (which got 0.64 becquerels per litre) and Ottawa (which had 1.67 becquerels per litre), the data shows.
These other levels didn't exceed the Canadian limit for drinking water. But the level in Ottawa did surpass the more stringent ceiling for drinking water used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The data still isn't posted on Health Canada's web page devoted to the impacts of Fukushima.
Pellerin said he doesn't know why Health Canada didn't make the data public. "I can't answer that. The communication aspect could be improved."
The rainwater data also raises questions about how Ottawa monitors radiation after a nuclear crisis:
Some of Health Canada's numbers are much lower than those reported by other radiation researchers. Simon Fraser University nuclear chemist Krzysztof Starosta found iodine levels in rainwater in Burnaby, B.C., spiked to 13 becquerels per litre in March - many times higher than the levels Health Canada detected in nearby Vancouver.
Rain was tested only at the end of each month, after a network of monitoring stations sent samples to Ottawa. This meant the radiation spikes last March were only discovered in early April, after rainwater samples were sent to Ottawa for testing - too late to alert the public, including those who collect rain for drinking and gardening.
In contrast, the EPA tested the rain for radiation every day and immediately reported the data on its website.
fter the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years, authorities in Canada said people living here were safe and faced no health risks from the fallout from Fukushima.
They said most of the radiation from the crippled Japanese nuclear power plant would fall into the ocean, where it would be diluted and not pose any danger.
Dr. Dale Dewar wasn’t convinced. Dewar, a family physician in Wynyard, Sask., doesn’t eat a lot of seafood herself, but when her grandchildren come to visit, she carefully checks seafood labels.
She wants to make sure she isn’t serving them anything that might come from the western Pacific Ocean.
Dewar, the executive director of Physicians for Global Survival, a Canadian anti-nuclear group, says the Canadian government has downplayed the radiation risks from Fukushima and is doing little to monitor them.
“We suspect we’re going to see more cancers, decreased fetal viability, decreased fertility, increased metabolic defects – and we expect them to be generational,” she said.
And evidence has emerged that the impacts of the disaster on the Pacific Ocean are worse than expected.
Since a tsunami and earthquake destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant last March, radioactive cesium has consistently been found in 60 to 80 per cent of Japanese fishing catches each month tested by Japan’s Fisheries Agency.
In November, 65 per cent of the catches tested positive for cesium (a radioactive material created by nuclear reactors), according to a Gazette analysis of data on the fisheries agency’s website. Cesium is a long-lived radionuclide that persists in the environment and increases the risk of cancer, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which says the most common form of radioactive cesium has a half-life of 30 years.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which monitors food safety, says it is aware of the numbers but says the amounts of cesium detected are small.
“Approximately 60 per cent of fish have shown to have detectable levels of radionuclides,” it said in an emailed statement.
“The majority of exported fish to Canada are caught much farther from the coast of Japan, and the Japanese testing has shown that these fish have not been contaminated with high levels of radionuclides.”
But the Japanese data shows elevated levels of contamination in several seafood species that Japan has exported to Canada in recent years.
In November, 18 per cent of cod exceeded a new radiation ceiling for food to be implemented in Japan in April – along with 21 per cent of eel, 22 per cent of sole and 33 per cent of seaweed.
Overall, one in five of the 1,100 catches tested in November exceeded the new ceiling of 100 becquerels per kilogram. (Canada’s ceiling for radiation in food is much higher: 1,000 becquerels per kilo.)
“I would probably be hesitant to eat a lot of those fish,” said Nicholas Fisher, a marine sciences professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Fisher is researching how radiation from Fukushima is affecting the Pacific fishery. “There has been virtually zero monitoring and research on this,” he said, calling on other governments to do more radiation tests on the ocean’s marine life.
“Is it something we need to be terrified of? No. Is it something we need to monitor? Yes, particularly in coastal waters where concentrations are high.”
Contamination of fish in the Pacific Ocean could have wide-ranging consequences for millions.
The Pacific is home to the world’s largest fishery, which is in turn the main source of protein for about one billion people in Asia alone.
In October, a U.S. study – co-authored by oceanographer Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the non-profit Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., – reported Fukushima caused history’s biggest-ever release of radiation into the ocean – 10 to 100 times more than the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.
“It’s completely untrue to say this level of radiation is safe or harmless,” said Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.
Edwards, who is also a math professor at Vanier College, said Fukushima has highlighted how lackadaisical Canadian authorities are about radiation risks – the result, he says, of the influence of Canada’s powerful nuclear industry.
“The reassurances have been completely irresponsible. To say there are no health concerns flies in the face of all scientific evidence,” said Edwards, who has advised the federal auditor-general’s office and Ontario government on nuclear-power issues.
Other Fukushima impacts have been unexpected, too. The first debris swept into the sea by the tsunami reportedly started to wash ashore on the west coast in mid-December, a year earlier than scientists and authorities predicted.
Residents of Vancouver Island, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast have said they’ve found large quantities of bottles, cans, lumber and floats.
The debris is part of 18 million tonnes of debris from Japan floating across the Pacific – taking up an area thought to be twice the size of Texas.
The impact of the debris on the Pacific is unclear. Much of it is expected to eventually join an already massive patch of existing garbage floating in the Pacific gyre.
The arrival of the debris on the west coast also appears to have caught Canadian authorities off guard.
“What debris are you talking about?” Health Canada spokesman Gary Holub asked when contacted for a comment this week.
“Debris from Japan is not expected on the west coast of Canada for another year.”
He asked a reporter to email him media stories about the debris. Later, Holub emailed a statement saying “there has been no official confirmation that the source of this debris is from the tsunami in Japan.”
He said, “It is ‘highly unlikely’ the debris will be radioactive and that Health Canada will await scientific data before deciding whether to test any of it.”
It’s also unclear how the debris will impact fish in the Pacific.
But there is a good chance Canadians have already eaten some of the types of fish most likely to be contaminated with cesium, based on the Japanese fisheries data.
Japan exported $76 million of food products to Canada in 2010, including $13 million of fish and crustaceans. No figures were available for 2011.
The Gazette analyzed the Japanese fisheries data for 22 seafood species that Japan has exported to Canada in recent years.
Some cesium was found in 16 of these 22 species in November, the last full month for which data was available.
Cesium was especially prevalent in certain of the species:
73 per cent of mackerel tested
91 per cent of the halibut
92 per cent of the sardines
93 per cent of the tuna and eel
94 per cent of the cod and anchovies
100 per cent of the carp, seaweed, shark and monkfish
Some of the fish were caught in Japanese coastal waters. Other catches were made hundreds of kilometres away in the open ocean.
There, the fish can also be caught by fishers from dozens of other nations that ply the waters of the Pacific.
Yet, Japan is the only country that appears to be systematically testing fish for radiation and publicly reporting the results.
CFIA is no longer doing any testing of its own. It did some radiation tests on food imports from areas of Japan around the stricken nuclear plant in the weeks after the Fukushima accident.
Only one of the 169 tested products showed any radiation. CFIA stopped doing the tests last June, saying they weren’t needed.
“The quantities of radioactive material reaching Canada are very small and within normal ranges,” CFIA spokesperson Lisa Gauthier said in an emailed statement.
“They do not pose any health risk to Canadians, the food we eat or the plants and animals in Canada.”
In August, CFIA also tested a dozen samples of fish caught in B.C. coastal and inland waters. None of those tests found any radiation.
CFIA said it has no plans to do any other radiation tests on fish in the Pacific or imports from other nations that fish in the ocean, including Japan.
CFIA now relies on Japanese authorities to screen Japanese food exported to Canada.
But Japan’s monitoring of food has come under a storm of criticism from the Japanese public after food contaminated with radiation was sold to consumers.
A Canadian seafood industry official was surprised when told CFIA doesn’t plan any more tests of Pacific fish.
“It is certainly our expectation that the CFIA will test again this year,” said Christina Burridge, executive director of the B.C. Seafood Alliance.
The alliance is an umbrella of Pacific seafood harvesting associations whose member firms generate about $700 million in yearly revenues.
Burridge said CFIA promised her group last spring it would test Pacific salmon and tuna returning to B.C. fishing grounds in 2012 and 2013 because of the possibility those fish could have migrated close to Japan.
“We all agreed that if there was any risk of contamination, it would be in 2012 and 2013,” she said.
She wouldn’t comment on the Japanese fisheries data, which she hadn’t seen previously. But she said of the data: “It would reinforce our expectation that the CFIA would test this year.
“We want to be able to assure our customers that our expectation that there will be no increase in detectable levels (of radiation) is true,” she said.
She said she based this expectation on “a general belief that contamination will be limited to the coastal waters off Japan.”
But despite this belief and the importance of the Pacific fishery, few studies exist on how Fukushima affected marine life.
One of those studies found that fish and crustaceans caught in the vicinity of Fukushima in late March had 10,000 times more than so-called safe levels of radiation. The study, published last May in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, also said macroalgae had 19,000 times the safe level.
Those levels were measured before the Japanese utility that runs the crippled nuclear plant dumped 11,000 tonnes of radioactive water into the Pacific in April and additional leaks that have released hundreds of tonnes more.
But since that early study, little research has been published on the topic.
“People want to know what’s happening with the cesium and how much is in the fish, but we don’t know. It’s frustrating,” said oceanographer Buesseler.
“It’s disconcerting how big of an event Fukushima was and how little data are out there. No one has taken responsibility for studying this in a single agency (in the U.S.), even though we also have reactors on the coast and other events could happen,” he said.
SUNY’s Fisher agrees: “In the U.S., it’s very difficult to acquire funding to do that work. A lot of people are very frustrated. Funding agencies are already spread incredibly thin, and they were not prepared for this,” he said.
After governments refused to provide funds, Buesseler, Fisher and other scientists secured funds from a private foundation for a research voyage in the Pacific to gather radiation data on fish, plankton and water.
Fisher can’t discuss his findings because they aren’t published yet. He expects to send them for publication in coming weeks.
Buesseler has already reported some results from the 15-day cruise last May and June.
He co-authored the study in October that said cesium levels in the Pacific had gone up an astonishing 45 million times above pre-accident levels. The levels then declined rapidly for a while, but after that, they unexpectedly levelled off.
In July, cesium levels stopped declining and remained stuck at 10,000 times above pre-accident levels.
It meant the ocean wasn’t diluting the radiation as expected. If it had been, cesium levels would have kept falling. The finding suggested radiation was still being released into the ocean long after the accident in March, Buesseler said in an interview.
“It implies the groundwater is contaminated or the facility is still leaking radiation.”
The Japanese fisheries data seems to support this conclusion. Far from declining, contamination levels in some species were flat or even rose last fall, including species that Japan exports to Canada like skipjack tuna, cod, sole and eel.
In November, the average Japanese catch had 111 becquerels of cesium per kilogram – above the new radiation ceiling of 100 becquerels per kilo that Japan has announced it will implement for food this spring.
The November level declined from a peak level of 373 becquerels per kilo last April. But it was an increase from the October average of 78 becquerels per kilo.
Such persistently elevated levels of radiation warrant more monitoring and research, Fisher said. “It’s not something we can easily dismiss.”
Continuing radiation leaks from Fukushima could be to blame, he said. Another culprit, he said, may be a phenomenon called biomagnification – the tendency for radiation concentrations to increase in species that are farther up the food chain.
About 2.7 per cent of the fish catches also exceeded Japan’s existing ceiling for food of 500 becquerels per kilo. That was also up from one per cent in October.
In November, 0.8 per cent of Japanese catches exceeded Canada’s ceiling of 1,000 becquerels per kilo, up from 0.2 per cent in October.
But food with radiation below these limits can still pose health risks, Edwards believes. “There is no safe level of radiation. They should be making every effort to monitor food.”
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I love how you know, despite the amount of other mutations popping up around Japan, this wasn't from Fukushima. I can't say it was, I can't say it wasn't, but its certainly not isolated. If it was a isolated event, you would be right. Its not and you as always are worse than Tepco on the downplaying.
