Water leaks indicate new damage at Fukushima nuclear plant
![]() By MARI YAMAGUCHI TOKYO (AP) — Cooling water levels have fallen in two reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant since a powerful earthquake hit the area last weekend, indicating possible additional damage, its operator said Friday.
New damage could further complicate the plant’s already difficult decommissioning process, which is expected to take decades. Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Keisuke Matsuo said the drop in water levels in the Unit 1 and 3 reactors indicates that the existing damage to their primary containment chambers was worsened by Saturday’s magnitude 7.3 quake, allowing more water to leak. The leaked water is believed to have remained inside the reactor buildings and there is no sign of any outside impact, he said. In 2011, a powerful magnitude 9.1 earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactor cores to melt and nuclear fuel to fall to the bottom of their primary containment vessels. TEPCO will monitor the water and temperatures at the bottom of the containment vessels, Matsuo said. Since the 2011 disaster, cooling water has been escaping constantly from the damaged primary containment vessels into the basements of the reactor buildings. To make up for the loss, additional cooling water has been pumped into the reactors to cool the melted fuel remaining inside them. The recent decline in the water levels indicates that more water than before is leaking out, TEPCO said…….. TEPCO initially reported that there was no abnormality at the plant from Saturday’s quake. Matsuo said the cooling water level fell as much as 70 centimeters (27 inches) in the primary containment chamber of the Unit 1 reactor and about 30 centimeters (11 inches) in Unit 3. TEPCO wasn’t able to determine any decline in Unit 2 because indicators have been taken out to prepare for the removal of melted debris, it said. Increased leakage could require more cooling water to be pumped into the reactors, which would result in more contaminated water that is treated and stored in huge tanks at the plant. TEPCO says its storage capacity of 1.37 million tons will be full next summer. A government panel’s recommendation that it be gradually released into the sea has faced fierce opposition from local residents and a decision is still pending. Meanwhile, the Tokyo High Court on Friday held the government as well as TEPCO accountable for the 2011 nuclear disaster, ordering both to pay about 280 million yen ($2.6 million) in compensation to more than 40 plaintiffs forced to evacuate to Chiba, near Tokyo, for their lost livelihoods and homes. Friday’s decision reverses an earlier ruling by the Chiba district court that excluded the government from responsibility. Judge Yukio Shirai said the government could have foreseen the risk of a massive tsunami and taken measures after a long-term assessment in 2002 of seismic activities. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs welcomed the decision and said it would affect other pending cases. “The case raises the question of whether we should tolerate a society that prioritizes economic activities over people’s lives and health,” said Izutaro Mangi, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs. https://apnews.com/article/water-leaks-fukushima-new-damage-a7ecf765d0233b1cad7332ff9fed5ffe |
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I am appalled at the idea of ”Mothers For Nuclear”
As a mother myself, I am appalled that such a group as ”Mothers For Nuclear” even exists. Dont
they know about the effects of ionising radiation on women, especially pregnant women? Don’t they know about the breast cancers, the birth deformities in irradiated areas such as Pacific atomic bomb sites, and Belarus-Ukraine, near the Chernobyl site. No, they don’t seem to. (Perhaps that ‘s the beauty of a narrowly S.T.E.M. education?)
Both Heather Hoff and Kristin Zaitz work at the Diablo Nuclear Power Plant. Hoff worked as a plant operator, and now as a procedure writer. Zaitz works as a civil engineer.
Hoff was inspired by none other than that top nuclear schill Michael Shellenberger, and by the glossy nuclear advertising film ”Pandora’s Promise”.
They sound very sincere, but also very ignorant of the negative issues around the nuclear industry.
Why am I not surprised? The nuclear industry is busting its guts trying to get women onside. Their favourite thing is getting (preferably young and attractive) women into engineering, and at the top of nuclear companies. (This is good in two ways – good to promote the industry’s ‘gender equality’ image, and good if they muck up, as Leslie Dewan did, in her bogus claims for Transatomic’s molten salt reactor – let a woman take the flak!)
The thing is – lots of women have expertise in biology, genetics – and an understanding of the effects of ionising radiation. But the nuclear industry has got us all conned that these are ”soft”sciences. So – if you’ve got ”hard” scienvce knowledge – like engineering, then you can be an authority on nuclear issues.
These two women sound very sincere – alarmingly so.
The Activists Who Embrace Nuclear Power, New Yorker, By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, February 19, 2021
To be fervently pro-nuclear, in the manner of Hoff and Zaitz, is to see in the peaceful splitting of the atom something almost miraculous. It is to see an energy source that has been steadily providing low-carbon electricity for decades—doing vastly more good than harm, saving vastly more lives than it has taken—but which has received little credit and instead been maligned. It is to believe that the most significant problem with nuclear power, by far, is public perception. ………..—the pro-nuclear world view can edge toward dogmatism. Hoff and Zaitz certainly seem readier to tout studies that confirm their views, and reluctant to acknowledge any flaws that nuclear energy may have. ……https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-activists-who-embrace-nuclear-power
Natural gas, not renewable energy, was most responsibe for Texas power failure in freezing conditions
Why is Texas suffering power blackouts during the winter freeze?
The oil- and gas-rich state is experiencing what officials call a ‘total failure’ of its electricity infrastructure Guardian, Lauren Aratani, Thu 18 Feb 2021 “…...Did renewable energy play a role in the grid’s malfunction?
While Republicans have been blaming frozen wind turbines for the state’s blackouts, officials and experts say that malfunctions in natural gas operations played the largest role in the power crisis.
Ercot said all of its sources of power, including those from renewable sources, were affected by the freezing temperatures. The state largely relies on natural gas for its power supply, though some comes from wind turbines and less from coal and nuclear sources.
Natural gas can handle the state’s high temperatures in the summer, but extreme cold weather makes it difficult for the gas to flow to power plants and heat homes. Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas Austin, told the Texas Tribune that “gas is failing in the most spectacular fashion right now”.
With the climate crisis likely to trigger more freak weather events like the one Texas is suffering it is noteworthy that there are places that experience frigidly cold weather that rely heavily on wind turbines and manage to have electricity in the winter. In Iowa, a state which sees freezing temperatures more often than Texas, nearly 40% of electricity is generated by wind turbines……. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/18/why-is-texas-suffering-power-blackouts-during-the-winter-freeze
In Texas freezing temperatures, the major power loss was from coal, gas, nuclear facilities, not renewables
major power failures across Texas as increased demand for heating has overwhelmed the energy grid. Supplies of both electricity and gas have been intermittent, with the authorities saying they need to “safely manage the balance of supply and demand on the grid” to avoid another major power cut.
Advancing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — IPPNW peace and health blog

There are many things to be done to build the legal, political and moral force of this historic treaty; grow its membership and implementation; and use it as effectively as possible to advance the eradication of nuclear weapons and reduce the likelihood and scale of their use in the meantime. Important work for all treaty supporters is increasing the number of states signing the treaty and converting those signatures to ratifications. A key moment will come when the first nuclear-armed or accomplice state chooses to get on the right of history and become part of the solution rather than the problem.
Advancing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — IPPNW peace and health blog
February 19 Energy News — geoharvey

Opinion: ¶ “Lies, Damned Lies, And Greg Abbott” • While people were suffering and even dying in Texas, Governor Abbott was on Fox News talking to Sean Hannity about the situation. He said the Green New Deal would be a “deadly deal” for the US, and blamed renewables for the shortfall. But renewables aren’t to […]
February 19 Energy News — geoharvey
Government Appointment of Coal Mine CEO to UK Nuke Dump Plans – Not Dodgy At All ?!! —

Letter sent today to MP Tim Farron from Radiation Free Lakeland first published on our dedicated campaign website Lakes Against Nuclear Dump Dear Tim, West Cumbria Mining is in Bed with BEIS (Dept of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy) BEIS are Responsible for the “Delivery of a Geological Disposal Facility in the UK” . BEIS […]
Government Appointment of Coal Mine CEO to UK Nuke Dump Plans – Not Dodgy At All ?!! —
Relief that Bradwell nuclear project has stalled
altogether.
announced engagement and active project work on Bradwell B will be paused
for at least a year and says it indicates a “significant reversal” for
the project.
Generation Company – a collaboration between China General Nuclear (CGN)
and EDF – have stalled. The Bradwell group said, in order to tightly
control expenditure, it needs to pause aspects of the project it is not yet
ready to progress. But BANNG chairman Prof Andy Blowers said: “Despite
urging the developer to suspend public engagement during the pandemic,
BANNG was told the national need was urgent and it was in the public
interest that the proposed development is not indefinitely or even
substantially delayed.
https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/19094101.baang-reacts-positively-bradwell-b-talks-paused/
Israel expands Dimona nuclear facility previously used for weapons material
Israel expands nuclear facility previously used for weapons material, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/18/israel-nuclear-facility-dimona-weapons Julian Borger in Washington, Fri 19 Feb 2021 Satellite images show significant expansion of desert site over past few years Israel is carrying out a major expansion of its Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert, where it has historically made the fissile material for its nuclear arsenal. Construction work is evident in new satellite images published on Thursday by the International Panel on Fissile Material (IPFM), an independent expert group. The area being worked on is a few hundred metres across to the south and west of the domed reactor and reprocessing point at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, near the desert town of Dimona. Pavel Podvig, a researcher with the programme on science and global security at Princeton University, said: “It appears that the construction started quite early in 2019, or late 2018, so it’s been under way for about two years, but that’s all we can say at this point.” The Israeli embassy in Washington The Israeli embassy in Washington had no comment on the new images. Israel has a policy of deliberate ambiguity on its nuclear arsenal, neither confirming nor denying its existence. The Federation of American Scientists estimates that Israel has about 90 warheads, made from plutonium produced in the Dimona heavy water reactor.
Avner Cohen, a leading expert on the Israeli nuclear programme called the new images “intriguing” and noted that the footprint of the Dimona site had remained essentially unchanged for decades. The nuclear facility is reported to have been used by Israel to create replicas of Iran’s uranium centrifuges to test the Stuxnet computer worm used to sabotage the Iranian uranium enrichment programme in Natanz. But that more than 10 years ago, long before the current expansion began. Israel built the Dimona reactor in the 1950s with extensive, clandestine help from the French government. By the end of the decade there were an estimated 2,500 French citizens living in Dimona, which had its own French lycées but all under the cover of official deniability. According to The Samson Option, by the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, French workers were not allowed to write home directly but had their letters sent via a phoney post-office box in Latin America. Dimona’s role in Israel’s nuclear weapons programme was first disclosed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu, who told his story to Britain’s Sunday Times in 1986. Before publication, he was lured from Britain to Italy by a female Israeli agent and abducted by Mossad. Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement, for revealing Dimona’s secrets. |
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The world came much closer to nuclear war than we realized in 1983.
Apocalypse Averted, The world came much closer to nuclear war than we realized in 1983. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/able-archer-nuclear-war-reagan.html-19 Feb 21, BY FRED KAPLAN
The revelations aren’t mere details of history; they also hold relevant lessons for how leaders should think and act in ongoing crises in hot spots around the world today.
The documents, released this week by the State Department historian’s office, focus on a massive military training exercise known as Able Archer, in which NATO simulated the transition from conventional to nuclear conflict in the event of a war in Europe.
It turned out, top Soviet leaders thought that the war game was real—that the U.S. and NATO really were about to launch a nuclear first strike against the USSR—and top Soviet military commanders took steps to retaliate.
In one of those steps, the new documents reveal, the commander of the Soviet 4th Army Air Forces in Eastern Europe ordered all of his units to make “preparations for the immediate use of nuclear weapons.” As part of that order, crewmen loaded actual nuclear bombs onto several combat planes.
Much about the Able Archer war game was first made public just six years ago, when, after more than a decade of legal battles, the National Security Archive, a private research organization, obtained a lengthy, extremely classified U.S. intelligence report detailing exactly what NATO forces did, and how Soviet commanders responded, during the exercise.
But the fact that the Soviets armed their aircraft with nuclear bombs—a discovery based on U.S. and British intelligence intercepts of Soviet communications at the time—has not been declassified until now. The new fact elevates to a higher level the danger that the world briefly faced, even though—unlike with other nuclear near misses, such as the Cuban missile crisis—almost nobody knew it at the time.
The Able Archer crisis might not have been a near miss—it might easily have escalated to a shooting war—had it not been for a single American officer, Lt. Gen. Leonard Perroots, the intelligence chief for U.S. Air Forces in Europe, who saw the Soviet moves, interpreted them correctly, and stopped what might otherwise have been a deadly escalation.
Most U.S. officers viewed Able Archer as a typical war game, nothing that would throw Soviet officers into a panic. But Perroots saw that, in fact, it was something different. It was a lot bigger than most of these games, involving a fleet of cargo transport planes flying 19,000 soldiers in 170 sorties from the United States to bases in Europe. And it was more realistic as well. The cargo planes maintained radio silence. B-52 bomber crews taxied their planes to their runways and loaded them with dummy bombs that looked remarkably real. The Strategic Air Command raised its nuclear alert levels to the highest level. The Soviets were monitoring all of this, of course, as they generally did and as the U.S. commanders knew they would. But they reacted in ways that they never had before—in ways similar to how they might have acted if the U.S. were gearing up for a real attack—including, as we now know, loading nuclear bombs on aircraft in Eastern Europe.
Ordinarily, when the Soviets took such actions, U.S. intelligence agencies would notify senior military officers, either on the scene or back in Washington, who would respond with similar actions, if just to let the Soviets know that we were watching what they were doing and were ready to repel an attack.
When Perroots informed his boss, the commander in chief of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Gen. Billy Minter, of the Soviets’ “unusual activity” at the start of Able Archer, Minter was about to respond in the usual way, but Perroots advised him to hold off. He recognized that the Soviets were probably reacting to what we were doing—and any further escalation on our part would worsen the situation, might even trigger war. Let’s wait and see what happens next, he suggested.
Ordinarily, when the Soviets took such actions, U.S. intelligence agencies would notify senior military officers, either on the scene or back in Washington, who would respond with similar actions, if just to let the Soviets know that we were watching what they were doing and were ready to repel an attack.
When Perroots informed his boss, the commander in chief of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Gen. Billy Minter, of the Soviets’ “unusual activity” at the start of Able Archer, Minter was about to respond in the usual way, but Perroots advised him to hold off. He recognized that the Soviets were probably reacting to what we were doing—and any further escalation on our part would worsen the situation, might even trigger war. Let’s wait and see what happens next, he suggested.
And indeed, after Able Archer ended a few days later and the thousands of American troops flew home and SAC lowered its nuclear alert, the Soviets unloaded their bombs and canceled their nuclear alert as well.
One of the newly declassified documents is a memo that Perroots wrote in 1989, as he was retiring from his final career post as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, detailing what he’d seen and done during Able Archer six years earlier. The National Security Archive has long been trying to obtain the Perroots memo; DIA officials have told the archive’s lawyers that the memo was lost. On their own initiative, State Department historians found it in a file at the CIA.
The Able Archer near miss did come to have consequences—in a good way. While the war game was unfolding, Oleg Gordievsky, a London-based KGB officer who had turned double agent, was providing his British handlers in MI6 with documents revealing that Soviet officials were viewing the exercise as a prelude to an attack by the United States and NATO. The British, as was customary, shared the intelligence with their American cousins. At first, and for more than a year after, the CIA’s top officials were skeptical, dismissing the Soviets’ “war scare” as “propaganda,” designed to inflame anti-American sentiment in Western Europe.
But President Ronald Reagan took the war scare seriously. Just days after the wrap-up of Able Archer, his national security adviser, Robert “Bud” McFarlane, showed him Gordievsky’s reports, which Reagan read with—as McFarlane recalled years later—“genuine anxiety.”
Reagan had been pushing hard against the Kremlin, hoping the pressure might bring down the Soviet system. In 1981, his first year in office, an armada of 83 U.S., British, Canadian, and Norwegian ships sailed near Soviet waters, undetected. In April 1983, seven months before Able Archer, 40 U.S. warships, including three aircraft carriers, approached Kamchatka Peninsula, off the USSR’s eastern coast, maintaining radio silence and jamming Soviet radar. As part of the operation, Navy combat planes simulated a bombing run over a military site 20 miles inside Soviet territory. An internal NSA history noted, “These actions were calculated to induce paranoia, and they did.”
Still, as Reagan read the Gordievsky report, “it did bother him,” McFarlane later recalled, that the Soviets would seriously entertain “the very idea” that he would launch a nuclear first strike. On Nov. 18, 1983, one week after Able Archer was over, he wrote in his diary, “I feel the Soviets are so defense minded, so paranoid about being attacked that without being in any way soft on them we ought to tell them no one here has any intention of doing anything like that.”
The same day, Reagan met with his secretary of state, George Shultz (who died this month at the age of 100), to discuss setting up a back channel of communication with Moscow. The next morning, 12 senior officials met for breakfast in Shultz’s dining room at the State Department to discuss reopening long-moribund talks with Moscow—a topic so sensitive at the time that Shultz told them not to tell anybody that the meeting had even taken place. Two months later, on Jan. 16, 1984, Reagan gave a televised speech. The key line—a dramatic departure from previous pronouncements on the Soviet Union as an “evil empire”—was this: “If the Soviet government wants peace, then there will be peace. … Let us begin now.”
He had to wait a little while. Two Soviet leaders, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, died while Reagan’s diplomats tried to arrange meetings. But then came Mikhail Gorbachev, a genuine reformer, looking for peace with the West so he could finance his politico-economic perestroika, and, soon enough, the Iron Curtain shattered and the Cold War ended.
This might not have happened if Reagan hadn’t realized, in the wake of Able Archer, that his belligerent rhetoric and aggressive actions had gone too far—that he had to dial things back and see if the two countries might get along, before their myriad causes for mutual distrust unleashed catastrophe.
In some ways, the world today is less fraught with ultimate danger than it was 38 years ago. There is no cause for fear of a massive nuclear attack by or against the United States, Russia, or, really, any other country. But at the same time, the world is more densely laced with hot spots that could erupt into war, and war zones that could spread like lethal firestorms, and there are fewer power blocs—no real “superpowers,” in the sense that the term once meant—that might contain the conflagration. Intelligence is scanty or ambiguous about many of these potential crisis areas. Assumptions about an adversary’s ambitions or odd actions can more easily harden into dogma.
USA to join in multilateral talks with EU and Iran, on return to nuclear deal
Guardian 19th Feb 2021, The US has agreed to take part in multilateral talks with Iran hosted by the EU, with the aim of negotiating a return by both countries to the 2015
nuclear deal that is close to falling apart in the wake of the Trump
administration.
RESIDENTS fear nuclear waste is buried beneath land being earmarked for development.
![]() countryside on the edge of the borough in its draft local plan as suitable for employment uses. But residents and West Pennine Tory councillor Julie
Slater fear nuclear waste was dumped on old mineshafts in the 1950s. The green belt land between Belthorn and Guide is included in the draft local plan which runs until 2037 as ideal for business, commercial and job-creating development. Cllr Slater, Darwen MP Jake Berry, his Hyndburn Tory colleague Sara Britcliffe want the 94 acres removed from the blueprint while the nuclear waste concerns are investigated. Blackburn with Darwen
Council’s growth boss Cllr Phil Riley said preliminary investigations found no evidence of any atomic material. Cllr Slater said: “The site is located in a Coal Authority ‘High Risk Area’ and there are a number of mine shafts along the Grane Road. “In the early 1950s residents believe a large amount of nuclear waste was dumped into the shafts along the roadside. “There was no formal and very little informal regulation so it is unclear as to the exact location, amount and what it contains, but sources suggest up to 900 tonnes. “It is unclear where the tunnels from these shafts are but there is a high chance they run into the proposed site and our fear is the waste could be disturbed when work begins. https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/19099926.blackburn-nuclear-waste-fears-development-plans/ |
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New documentary explores Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
explore the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant itself where the explosion
happened and live in the surrounding areas and danger zones that were
destroyed in the disaster and are still to this day radioactive. The plant
exploded on the 26th April 1986 sending massive amounts of radioactive
material across Europe. It is the worst nuclear accident in history, even
after over 30 years there’s still too much radioactivity in the area for
people to be there for long periods of time. Ben will live inside the
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone for 7 days, they have even been granted access to
film in the power plant and the control room but they can only spend 5
minutes inside the control room, due to radiation safety restrictions.
New study on highly radioactive particles emitted during Fukushima nuclear meltdown
The 10 year anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident occurs in March. Work just published in the Journal ‘Science of the Total Environment’ documents new, large (> 300 micrometers), highly radioactive particles that were released from one of the damaged Fukushima reactors.
Particles containing radioactive cesium (134+137Cs) were released from the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) during the 2011 nuclear disaster. Small (micrometer-sized) particles (known as CsMPs) were widely distributed, reaching as far as Tokyo. CsMPs have been the subject of many studies in recent years. However, it recently became apparent that larger (>300 micrometers) Cs-containing particles, with much higher levels of activity (~ 105 Bq), were also released from reactor unit 1 that suffered a hydrogen explosion. These particles were deposited within a narrow zone that stretches ~8 km north-northwest of the reactor site. To date, little is known about the composition of these larger particles and their potential environmental and human health impacts.
Now, work just published in the journal Science of the Total Environment characterizes these larger particles at the atomic-scale and reports high levels of activity that exceed 105 Bq.
The particles, reported in the study, were found during a survey of surface soils 3.9 km north-northwest of reactor unit 1
From 31 Cs-particles collected during the sampling campaign, two have given the highest ever particle-associated 134+137Cs activities for materials emitted from the FDNPP (specifically: 6.1 × 105 and 2.5 × 106 Bq, respectively, for the particles, after decay-correction to the date of the FDNPP accident).
The study involved scientists from Japan, Finland, France, the UK, and USA, and was led by Dr. Satoshi Utsunomiya and graduate student Kazuya Morooka (Department of Chemistry, Kyushu University). The team used a combination of advanced analytical techniques (synchrotron-based nano-focus X-ray analysis, secondary ion mass spectrometry, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy) to fully characterize the particles. The particle with a 134+137Cs activity of 6.1 × 105 Bq was found to be an aggregate of smaller, flakey silicate nanoparticles, which had a glass like structure. This particle likely came from reactor building materials, which were damaged during the Unit 1 hydrogen explosion; then, as the particle formed, it likely adsorbed Cs that had had been volatized from the reactor fuel. The 134+137Cs activity of the other particle exceeded 106 Bq. This particle had a glassy carbon core and a surface that was embedded with other micro-particles, which included a Pb-Sn alloy, fibrous Al-silicate, Ca-carbonate / hydroxide, and quartz (Fig. 2).
The composition of the surface embedded micro-particles likely reflect the composition of airborne particles within the reactor building at the moment of the hydrogen explosion, thus providing a forensic window into the events of March 11th 2011 (Fig. 3). Utsunomiya added, “The new particles from regions close to the damaged reactor provide valuable forensic clues. They give snap-shots of the atmospheric conditions in the reactor building at the time of the hydrogen explosion, and of the physio-chemical phenomena that occurred during reactor meltdown.” He continued, “whilst nearly ten years have passed since the accident, the importance of scientific insights has never been more critical. Clean-up and repatriation of residents continues and a thorough understanding of the contamination forms and their distribution is important for risk assessment and public trust.
Professor Gareth Law (co-author, University of Helsinki) added, “clean-up and decommissioning efforts at the site face difficult challenges, particularly the removal and safe management of accident debris that has very high levels of radioactivity. Therein, prior knowledge of debris composition can help inform safe management approaches”.
Given the high radioactivity associated with the new particles, the project team were also interested in understanding their potential health / dose impacts.
Dr Utsunomiya stated, “Owing to their large size, the health effects of the new particles are likely limited to external radiation hazards during static contact with skin. As such, despite the very high level of activity, we expect that the particles would have negligible health impacts for humans as they would not easily adhere to the skin. However, we do need to consider possible effects on the other living creatures such as filter feeders in habitats surrounding Fukushima Daiichi. Even though ten years have nearly passed, the half-life of 137Cs is ~30 years. So, the activity in the newly found highly radioactive particles has not yet decayed significantly. As such, they will remain in the environment for many decades to come, and this type of particle could occasionally still be found in radiation hot spots.”
Professor Rod Ewing (co-author from Stanford University) stated “this paper is part of a series of publications that provide a detailed picture of the material emitted during the Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdowns. This is exactly the type of work required for remediation and an understanding of long-term health effects”.
Professor Bernd Grambow (co-author from IMT Atlantique) added “the present work, using cutting-edge analytical tools, gives only a very small insight in the very large diversity of particles released during the nuclear accident, much more work is necessary to get a realistic picture of the highly heterogeneous environmental and health impact”.
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