nuclear-news

Radioactivity In Our Ocean: Fukushima & Its Impact On The Pacific

https://youtu.be/f-Za96sw2Kw

Ken Buesseler, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Sep 14, 2015:

• 1:02:15 — Buesseler: “There have been ongoing releases… being maintained at higher levels… The groundwater is almost impossible to stop, so that will continue for decades… very hard to contain. Ice dams, things you can engineer to stop them, have never been done on this scale before, so it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen.”
• 1:09:30 — Audience Q&A: “Can anyone — scientists, physicists, anyone — really estimate the levels that are coming out of Fukushima on a daily basis? This rain event… how could anyone possibly estimate what is going… it’s disingenuous … to make these kind of assumptions — that it ‘probably’ won’t be a problem in the future. How can anyone say that? It’s never happened before… I don’t know where these predictions can really be nailed down, and was wondering your opinion on that as a couple of ‘good scientists’ (laughs).”
• 1:11:00 — Buesseler: “Fair points. It’s never happened before, it’s somewhat unpredictable and dynamic… There’s certainly not enough information. I was very frustrated after the rain event to find almost no information about the amount and levels that were in the ocean… There are some monitoring sites right in the harbor, and you can actually see the level of cesium go up from 1,000 of my units to 3,000 — so there was an impact. How long that’s going to continue? I can’t tell  you… How it’s going to change in the future? We hope it gets back down to the levels that were near zero, but it never will be. It’s going to be — for decades, anyway — a site of continuous release… that’s what keeps me up at night, are continuous leaks that could happen at that site.”

September 22, 2015 - Posted by dunrenard | Canada, Japan, USA | Fukushima Radiation, Pacific Ocean