Expert: “It’s completely unsafe… impossible to remove 100s of radioactive materials” — 1,200 radionuclides, only 62 reduced
January 21st, 2015
TV: Gov’t approves plan to ‘drain’ Fukushima nuclear waste into ocean — Professor: Monitoring necessary to detect ‘worrisome signals’ —
NHK, Jan 21, 2015 (emphasis added): Regulators approve Fukushima wastewater drainage — Japan’s nuclear regulator has approved a plan by [TEPCO] to drain filtered wastewater from the firm’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant into the sea… The firm also plans to reduce the level of radioactive material in the water before releasing it into the nearby Pacific. On Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulation Authority approved TEPCO’s plan to install drainpipes and a pumping system and to reduce the level of radioactive cesium-137 to less than one becquerel per liter.
NHK Transcript, Jan 21, 2015: Japanese regulators have approved a controversial plan by [TEPCO]. They say TEPCO officials can flush filtered waste water into the ocean… Fisherman: “We can’t trust Tepco… If they proceed with their plan the situation will surely go back to how it was before. I’m worried the government and Tepco will act to suit themselves.”
Wall St Journal, Jan 21, 2015: Japan’s nuclear regulator has officially called on [Tepco] to work toward discharging low-level contaminated water… just two days after a worker fell into [a tank] used to store contaminated water… Tepco is using a processing system [that] is unable to take out the tritium [and] is reluctant to release it into the ocean to avoid… criticism from neighboring countries and some nations with a Pacific Ocean coastline… there is no detailed study about tritium’s long-time effect on animal genes. Mamoru Takata, a Kyoto University professor and expert on radiation’s long-term effects, said monitoring would be necessary to detect any worrisome signals.
TEPCO: [ALPS] is designed to remove most remaining radioactive contaminants
TEPCO (pdf): (ALPS) — Removal capacity: Reduce 62 nuclides below the density limit
Asahi Shimbun in Jan. 2012: “To prevent a further contamination of the sea [Tepco] plans to remove about 1,000 kinds of radioactive materials from water”
Japan Atomic Energy Agency (pdf), Feb 2014: TOPICS Fukushima — [W]e carried out detailed calculations… for 1,200 radionuclides, and the results were incorporated into a database.
Dr. Gordon Edwards, court-certified nuclear expert, Aug 8, 2014 (50:00 in): It can’t be dumped into the ocean, because it’s completely unsafe because of these fission products. They have built over 1,000 large tanks, huge tanks… that contain this very, very radioactively contaminated water. At the moment they’re trying to filter out these fission products… It’s impossible for them to remove all those hundreds of radioactive materials. They know how to remove about 62 of them, but there’s other ones that they cannot.
Source: Enenews
TEPCO’s Fukushima Folly
January 20, 2015
Fission Stories #180
In early August 2014, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced that its latest analysis revealed the meltdown of the Unit 3 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi was worse than previously estimated.
Recall children’s books with dots and numbers? Children connect the dots to reveal pictures of clowns and puppies and spaceships and such.
TEPCO is essentially painting pictures using very few dots with no numbers. They keep running computer studies that put numbers almost randomly on the few dots they have to see what picture emerges. “Lo and behold” to quote a professor I had in college, different pictures emerge.
TEPCO doesn’t know when the Unit 3 core damage began
Or how much of the reactor core was damaged.
Or how and when the damaged core relocated after melting.
Or how, when, and where the molten burned through the reactor pressure vessel.
Or how it moved after it fell onto the containment’s concrete floor.
And they don’t know how much water, if any, was on the containment floor when the molten core joined it.
TEPCO fills in these information gaps with guesses. And they keep revising their results because they keep revising their guesses.
Our Takeaway
I choose not to play rate-a-guess. It would take me away from helping my nephew finish his connect-the-dots drawing. Only seven numbers remain to be connected. While it resembles a race car now, it might yet turn out to be a giraffe. Or maybe even a kitten.
Before I decide which TEPCO picture I most prefer, they are going to have to fetch more dots and put real numbers on as many of them as possible.
At some point in the next few years, TEPCO will maneuver a robot into the reactor area. That will reveal what the former reactor core looks like now. This information won’t answer all the questions, but it’ll number several more dots to support a meaningful analysis of what happened when.
Until then, TEPCO is just keeping their computer jockeys busy. They could get results of similar value using Ouija boards—and it would reduce their carbon footprint.
Source: Union of Concerned Scientists
Study: Fukushima plume spread worldwide, far exceeding the hundreds of miles mentioned previously — 100 Quadrillion becquerels of Cs-137 released tops Chernobyl
“Implicates radiological hazard at distances otherwise overlooked”
January 21st, 2015
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (pdf), University of Florida College of Medicine, Weill-Cornell Medical College, etc. (2014):
- The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident is an example of a contemporary nuclear plant accident with serious implications.
- The Fukushima NPP accident has had health implications due to the high levels of radiation released and vast area over which the radiation has disperse.
- The significant radiation release, as likened to Chernobyl, reflects the context and severity of the Fukushima accident.
- The level of 137Cs that was released is likened to Chernobyl levels, with 100,000 TBq released.
- Radioactive plume dispersion occurs worldwide, far exceeding 300 miles previously mentioned. This should implicate radiological hazard at distances otherwise overlooked.
Potassium Iodide Distribution
- Radioactive plumes from the Chernobyl accident containing 131I caused benign and malignant thyroid nodules to develop, especially in children within a 310 miles radius of the incident.
- The current recommendation is for KI [potassium iodide] availability to people 200 miles from a NPP. Plume radii for nuclear events have been shown to exceed 300 [miles]. Extension of KI availability to 300 miles only further underscores the inadequacy of current preparedness plans.
- In regard to KI prophylaxis, TEPCO utilized 17,500 KI tablets for 2,000 onsite workers… with one individual receiving and taking 85 tablets.
- Radiological plumes containing 131I cause benign and malignant thyroid nodules to develop within a 300 mile radius… This necessitates KI pre-distribution to all schools, hospitals and other of-interest sites extending 300 miles from any nuclear reactor. Evacuation or sequestering is impossible in congested urban areas… There is currently virtually no compliance with [the] 20 miles radius KI pre-distribution law, section 127 of the Bioterrorism Act of 2002. In fact, there is little compliance with the 10 miles Ki pre-distribution radius law in the United States.
- Japan did not utilize KI for prophylaxis of the general public, acknowledging it was not prepared to act accordingly.
Source: Enenews
Regulators approve Fukushima wastewater drainage
TEPCO officials plan to pump up contaminated groundwater through wells built around structures housing the plant’s damaged reactors. The firm also plans to reduce the level of radioactive material in the water before releasing it into the nearby Pacific.
On Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulation Authority approved TEPCO’s plan to install drainpipes and a pumping system and to reduce the level of radioactive cesium-137 to less than one becquerel per liter. It also agreed with the firm’s policy of starting the drainage system gradually.
The regulator asked the utility to ensure that no wastewater leaks and to fully disclose measurements for radioactive material.
Tokyo Electric said it will not drain filtered wastewater until local residents agree to the plan.
The timing of such agreement is unclear, as local fishermen are worried that rumors of tainted seawater would affect their business.
Fukushima Watch: Regulator Calls on Tepco to Discharge Tritium Water
Water tanks storing contaminated water at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are seen in this photo from November
Jan 21, 2015
By Mari Iwata
Japan’s nuclear regulator has officially called on Tokyo Electric Power Co.9501.TO +0.63% to work toward discharging low-level contaminated water into the ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The call on Wednesday comes just two days after a worker fell into one of the hundreds of tanks used to store contaminated water at the plant during an inspection, a fatal accident that has refocused attention on the need for improved safety measures and a longer term solution for the huge amounts of water in storage.
“Tokyo Electric Power must consider whether it (storing the water) is really necessary,” said Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, at a regular board meeting Wednesday. “It is surely harmful if it leads to the death of workers.”
The regulator discussed Wednesday a draft timetable for action by Tepco to address risks at the plant that sets out a 2017 start for discharging the water. The draft is likely to be approved next week.
The International Atomic Energy Agency already recommended more than a year ago that Tepco consider releasing water with low level tritium contamination in a controlled way so that it could focus on other issues.
A Tepco spokesman, speaking after Mr. Tanaka’s remarks, said the company wasn’t currently considering releasing the water into the ocean.
Contaminated water has been a constant headache for the operator of the plant since the triple meltdowns in March 2011. A large amount of groundwater is flowing into the site, adding 300 to 400 tons to the amount of highly contaminated water at the plant on a daily basis.
Tepco is using a processing system to remove radioactive material from the highly contaminated water, but the system is unable to take out the tritium. Tepco has been storing the tritium-contaminated water in about 1,000 tanks, but is reluctant to release it into the ocean to avoid adding to tension with local communities and criticism from neighboring countries and some nations with a Pacific Ocean coastline.
But the power company is close to running out of space to build new tanks at the plant and workers are increasingly under pressure to juggle their other duties with the ever-increasing workload of tank management, prompting the IAEA call in late 2013.
Tritium is considered one of the least harmful radioactive materials at nuclear plants. Water contaminated with tritium is discharged from plants elsewhere in the world after dilution.
However, there is no detailed study about tritium’s long-time effect on animal genes. Mamoru Takata, a Kyoto University professor and expert on radiation’s long-term effects, said monitoring would be necessary to detect any worrisome signals.
Source: JapanRealTime
Plan OK’d for dumping Fukushima’s water into ocean after treatment
The plan is one of the measures aimed at curbing the amount of contaminated water building up at the seaside complex. But it remains uncertain when the operator may actually release the water.
Local fishermen have registered strong concerns that dumping the water will heighten consumer apprehension about marine pollution, and TEPCO has said it will not release the water unless it obtains consent from the locals.
The company plans to treat water pumped up through 42 of its wells at a water treatment facility at the plant. After treatment, the water will be temporarily stored in tanks to check whether the amount of radioactive materials left in it is within levels deemed safe for release into the sea.
According to TEPCO, the amount of radioactive water at the complex is believed to be increasing by some 350 tons every day as fresh, untainted groundwater is seeping into reactor buildings and mixing with toxic water generated in the process of cooling the reactors that suffered meltdowns in the 2011 nuclear disaster.
Separately, TEPCO is running a groundwater bypass that is aimed at pumping up untainted groundwater before it mixes with radioactive water. Since the earthquake- and tsunami-triggered disaster, the operator has dumped such water into the Pacific numerous times after confirming its safety.
Source: Mainichi
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150121p2g00m0dm071000c.html
Two workers die in accidents at Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants
Jan 20, 2015
Two workers died Tuesday in separate incidents at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and the nearby No. 2 complex.
The fatality at No. 1 was first there since March, although there has been a rise in the number of industrial accidents at the site as Tokyo Electric Power Co. stepped up cleanup efforts and brought in more workers.
Tepco has said at least 40 workers were involved in accidents at No. 1 from last April to November, prompting labor inspectors last week to call for thorough preventive measures.
The utility has routinely pledged to improve work conditions at the site.
A 55-year-old worker at No. 1 fell into a 10-meter-high water tank during inspections Monday. He was taken to a hospital but was confirmed dead in the early hours of Tuesday.
Later, a worker in his 40s at the No. 2 plant, which escaped severe damage in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, died after equipment fell on him.
In a statement, Akira Ono, manager of the No. 1 plant, expressed sorrow for the death of the first worker, who was not named but was identified as an employee of construction company Hazama Ando Corp.
“We are deeply sorry for the death of the worker and express our deepest condolences to the family,” Ono said. “We promise to implement measures to ensure that such tragedy does not occur again.”
Hazama Ando had no immediate comment.
The number of accidents at Fukushima No. 1 has almost doubled this fiscal year to 55. The increase came as Tepco ramped up cleanup efforts and doubled the number of workers at the site to nearly 7,000.
In March, a worker died after being buried in gravel while digging a ditch.
Tepco has been widely criticized for its handling of the cleanup. Until last year it struggled to contain leaks of radioactive water from hastily built tanks at the site, and it has repeatedly promised to improve working conditions.
Most workers inside the plant are contract laborers hired by multiple layers of construction companies. Reporters in 2013 revealed widespread labor abuses, including workers who said their pay was skimmed and that there was little scrutiny of working conditions.
“It’s not just the number of accidents that has been on the rise. It’s the serious cases, including deaths and serious injuries that have risen,” said Katsuyoshi Ito, a local labor inspector overseeing Fukushima No. 1. “We have asked Tepco to improve the situation.”
Source: Japan Times
Other Sources:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2015/1247513_6844.html
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/2015/1247504_6844.html
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150120p2g00m0dm064000c.html
Dying Pacific Ocean?
Monday, January 19, 2015
Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean.
Science 16 January 2015: Vol. 347 no. 6219
DOI: 10.1126/science.1255641 Review
Douglas J. McCauley Malin L. Pinsky Stephen R. Palumbi James A. Estes Francis H. Joyce Robert R. Warner
[excerpted] Wildlife populations in the oceans have been badly damaged by human activity…. Human dependency on marine wildlife and the linked fate of marine and terrestrial fauna necessitate that we act quickly to slow the advance of marine defaunation….
Three lessons emerge when comparing the marine and terrestrial defaunation experiences:
- today’s low rates of marine extinction may be the prelude to a major extinction pulse, similar to that observed on land during the industrial revolution, as the footprint of human ocean use widens;
- effectively slowing ocean defaunation requires both protected areas and careful management of the intervening ocean matrix; and
- the terrestrial experience and current trends in ocean use suggest that habitat destruction is likely to become an increasingly dominant threat to ocean wildlife over the next 150 years.[end excerpt]
Ocean Releases
[Majia writes] Consensus holds that Fukushima constitutes the greatest radiological release into the ocean ever to occur. According to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, levels of radioactive cesium reached more than 100,000 becquerels per cubic meter in early April of 2011.[i] The World Nuclear Association suggests that 169 Petabecquerels of Iodine-131 equivalent were releases into the ocean from Cesium-137, Cesium-134, and Iodine-131from March 26 to September 30th.[ii] This figure does not include March releases into the atmosphere, which the World Nuclear Association calculates at 1020 petabecquerels from March 12 to March 31, 011. The French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) described Fukushima as the world’s worst nuclear contamination event ever for the ocean,[iii] reporting that from March 21st to mid-July 27, 27.1 petabecquerels of cesium-137 contaminated the ocean. One peta becquerel is equivalent to a million billion becquerels, or 10^15. [iv]
Atmospheric and direct ocean releases occurring as contaminated water spilled from reactors into the ocean caused radionuclide levels to spike offshore. Woods Hole scientist Ken Buessler revealed (12/12/2011) that Fukushima cesium-137 radiation in the sea near the plant peaked in April 2011 at 50 million times above normal levels (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2011/12/12/fukushima-ocean-radiation-was-50-million-times-above-normal-but-no-threat-scientists/).
In a separate interview with Straight on October 28, 2011, Ken Buesseler stated that Fukushima was by far the greatest accidental release of radiation into ocean waters, the magnitude of which in April 2011 was over one hundred times Chernobyl’s contamination of the Black Sea.[v]
These comments reflect concerns based on ocean emissions during the first few months of the disaster. Ocean contamination did not however end in the first months of the disaster. The releases of radioactive water from the plant into the ocean have been, in this writer’s opinion, ongoing because of the need for continuous cooling of melted reactor corium and the inability to effectively de-contaminate cooling water.
Reactors 1 through 3 have been continuously cooled since March of 2011 with water injections. The World Nuclear Association reports that by the end of March 2011 all water storage tanks – the condenser units and condensate tanks – around units 1 through 4 were full of contaminated water pumped from the buildings.[vi] Tepco built a wastewater treatment facility to decontaminate the water but has struggled with decontamination and storage given the volume of water being pumped into the reactor buildings and the level of contamination. During the summer of 2011 Tepco installed concrete panels designed to seal water intakes of units 1 through 4 in order to prevent contaminated water from reaching the ocean. In October 2011, Tepco installed a steel water shield wall between the units and the ocean.[vii]
Yet, despite these efforts ocean contamination has continued because the site is literally saturated from the ongoing water injections. In 2012, Tepco reported water injections as follows: five tons per hour at Unit 1reactor; seven tons per hour at unit 2; seven tons per hour at unit 3.[viii] No information was provided about any water injections into unit 4 or the common spent fuel pool. At 456 tons a day of water going into the units, we can expect substantial ongoing leakage into the ocean. In November of 2011,Tepco admitted that its filtration system at the plant dumped more 11,000 tons of water contaminated with cesium 134, 137, and Iodine 131 into the sea.[ix] Tepco stated that it had been spraying about 70 tons of water around the Daiichi compound a day since early October and that water in some trenches measured at 10,000 millisieverts an hour, which is 10 sieverts an hour, a fatal dose.[x]
Ken Buesseler speaking in March 2012, described the data from his international research cruise off Japan that took place in June 2011:
Despite the announcement in December that operators of the power plant had achieved cold shut down, we know they are still using tons of water to cool the reactors and that not all the water has been collected or treated. As a result, the ground around the site is like a dirty sponge, saturated with contaminated water that is leaking into the ocean. He noted that other scientists had confirmed his 2011 findings of radiation levels 400 miles offshore Japan. He pointed out that little was known about radiation levels at seafloor levels but evidence exists that marine sediments are collecting radioactive contamination at higher concentrations than in the water. He said that little information was available about the radiation levels of groundwater.
He tells the public that information about the extent of releases of contaminated water are lacking:
Other measurements show trends that are more worrisome. Levels of radioactivity found in fish are not decreasing and there appear to be hot spots on the seafloor that are not well mapped. There is also little agreement on exactly how much radioactivity was released or even whether the fires and explosions at the power plant resulted in more radioactive fallout to the ocean than did direct releases of radioactivity caused by dumping water on the reactors to keep them cool.[xi] The Mainichi reported on April 3, 2012 that “Cesium up to 100 times levels before disaster found in plankton far off nuke plant” and that the “high concentration of cesium, which is believed to derive from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, suggests that radioactive substances that have leaked from the complex are spreading extensively in the sea.” http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120403p2a00m0na009000c.html
Cesium-134 deposits in marine snow gathered 2000 kilomters away from the plant at depths of 5000 meters measuring 1,200 Becquerels per kilogram indicate that radiation contamination from Fukushima spread far and wide.
Lack of certainty about the extent of initial and ongoing atmospheric and ocean releases of radiation from the plant complicates extrapolations of effects. Tepco has provided no concrete information about the extent of damage to the nuclear fuel in the reactors and pools. Mr. Yastel Yamada, a retired engineer and founder of the volunteer Fukushima Skilled Veterans Corps commented that the fuel from the reactors may possibly be in powder form.[xii]
The radiation contamination of the Pacific will be an ongoing problem. One study that modeled dilution declines of Cesium-137 published in Environmental Research Letters predicted that after seven years the “total peak radioactivity levels would still be about twice the pre-Fukushima values” off the coastal waters of North America”[xiii]. That study did not factor in ongoing contamination.
The risks from contaminated ocean water are not restricted to marine and coastal life. Long-lasting radioactive isotopes, such as Cesium-137 and Plutonium-239, will bio-accumulate in marine life in the same fashion that mercury bio-accumulates currently. Marine animals at the top of the food chain and birds that feed on marine life will become highly contaminated radioactively. The Canadian Museum of Nature notes that orcas are often considered toxic waste when they die based on their high toxicity.[xiv]
Furthermore, contaminants in the ocean do not necessarily stay in the ocean….
http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/compromised-oceans-mean-compromised.html
The Pacific Ocean was imperiled before Fukushima: what have we wrought?
Pacific Ocean tipping points? http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/pacific-ocean-tipping-points.html
Bioaccumulation: Cesium is One Among the 1000 Radi…
ENDNOTES
[i] Cited Hiroko Tabuchi. Fears Accompany Fishermen in Japanese Disaster Region The New York Times (2012, June 25): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/world/asia/fears-accompany-fishermen-in-japanese-disaster-region.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120626
[ii] World Nuclear Association Fukushima Accident (2012, September last update), http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/fukushima_accident_inf129.html
[iii] Fukushima nuclear pollution in sea was world’s worst: French institute. Japan Today Oct. 28, 2011 – http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/fukushima-nuclear-pollution-in-sea-was-worlds-worst-french-institute
[iv] “Fukushima Disaster Produces World’s Worst Nuclear Sea Pollution. The Maritime Excective (2011, October 28) http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/fukushima-disaster-produces-world-s-worst-nuclear-sea-pollution.
[v] Alex Roslin http://www.straight.com/article-491941/vancouver/what-are-officials-hiding-about-fukushima?page=0%2C2
[vi] World Nuclear Association Fukushima Accident (2012, September last update), http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/fukushima_accident_inf129.html
[vii] World Nuclear Association Fukushima Accident (2012, September last update), http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/fukushima_accident_inf129.html
[viii] Sep 1 2012 TEPCO reports drop in water injection rate at N-plant. Yomiuri (2012, Sep 1), http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120831004812.htm
[ix] Robert Mackey and Ravi Somaiya (November 1, 2011) 14 Japanese Official Drinks Water From Fukushima Reactor Buildings. The New York Times By ROBERT MACKEY and RAVI SOMAIYA http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/japanese-official-drinks-water-from-fukushima-reactor-buildings/
[x] Robert Mackey and Ravi Somaiya (November 1, 2011) 14 Japanese Official Drinks Water From Fukushima Reactor Buildings. The New York Times By ROBERT MACKEY and RAVI SOMAIYA http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/japanese-official-drinks-water-from-fukushima-reactor-buildings/
[xi] Ken Buessler What Fukushima accident did to the ocean By Ken Buesseler, Special to CNN March 11, 2012 http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/10/opinion/buesseler-fukushima-ocean/index.html
[xii] “I Don’t Know What Would Happen”: Fuel from Fukushima reactors may be powder — If so, work almost impossible (AUDIO). Enenews (2012, ) http://enenews.com/dont-happen-future-fuel-fukushima-reactors-be-powder-work-almost-impossible-video/comment-page-1#comment-291586Mr. Yastel Yamada, a retired engineer and founder of the Fukushima Skilled Veterans Corps
Uploaded by: OccupyUkiah Filmed: July 30, 2012 Uploaded on: Sept. 27, 2012
[xiii] Erik Behrens1, Franziska U Schwarzkopf1, Joke F Lübbecke2 and Claus W Böning1 Model simulations on the long-term dispersal of 137Cs released into the Pacific Ocean off Fukushima Erik Behrens et al 2012 Environ. Res. Lett. 7 034004
[xiv] Canadian Museum of Nature. Diving in (2011, March 3), of http://nature.ca/explore/di-ef/wcef_tfw_e.cfm.
Source: Majia’s Blog
http://majiasblog.blogspot.fr/2015/01/dying-pacific-ocean.html
All 2014 Fukushima rice cleared radiation tests, thanks “supposedly” to fertilizer
Jan 18, 2015
All 2014 Fukushima rice cleared radiation tests, thanks to fertilizer
Fukushima Minpo
For the first time since the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 plant throttled the agriculture-reliant prefecture, all rice produced there last year cleared the required radiation tests.
The Fukushima Prefectural Government last year checked every bag of rice produced in the prefecture — some 10.75 million bags — based on the Food Sanitation Law, which bans the sale of rice radiating more than 100 becquerels of cesium per kilogram.
The tests found all bags checked from January 2014 through December 2014 had lower than standard radiation levels, in contrast with those tested in 2012 and 2013, which had a small percentage of rice unfit for shipment, the prefectural government said.
Officials said they hope the results will help raise consumer confidence in Fukushima rice, which was devastated by the nuclear disaster. Experts attribute the achievement to efforts to prevent cesium from entering rice fields during cultivation, and to the use of fertilizers based on potassium chloride, which prevents the grain from absorbing the isotope.
The tests, introduced in 2012, screen the bags on a conveyer belt. Bags sniffed out by the initial screening are tested further with precision instruments. Bags over the 100-becquerel cesium limit are discarded.
In 2012, a total of 10.35 million bags were tested and 71, or 0.0007 percent, failed.
In 2013, the failure rate was reduced to just 28 bags, or 0.0003 percent of the 11 million bags tested.
In 2014, 29 bags were flagged as suspicious by initial screening but later found to be below the cesium threshold.
Given that 867 bags were weeded out by initial scans in 2012, the 2014 results represent a major advance, they said.
To date, the rice farmers, prefectural government and local JA cooperatives have made joint efforts to promote fertilizers based on potassium chloride, which prevents rice from absorbing cesium.
The prefecture is shouldering all costs for the fertilizers. In 2014, it distributed ¥1.61 billion in subsidies to farmers to buy enough potassium chloride-based fertilizer to treat 68,000 hectares of paddies.
Research has shown putting potassium in soil prevents rice from taking in cesium. But it is important to keep the potassium levels high while rice is young. So farmers have been told to keep adding it.
Keisuke Nemoto, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Laboratory of Crop Ecology and Morphology who is studying how cesium gets into rice, said the 2014 test results represent the fruit of the joint effort.
But Nemoto said his experiments showed that rice grown without potassium-based fertilizers still breaks the 100-becquerel cesium limit.
“Unless farmers keep adding potassium to soil every year, the chemical’s density in soil will decline and rice could start absorbing cesium again,” he warned.
This section, appearing every third Monday, focuses on topics and issues covered by the Fukushima Minpo, the largest newspaper in Fukushima Prefecture. The original article was published Jan. 9.
Source: Japan Times
Comments from Marushka France
STEP BACK AND READ, ANALYZE and CONSIDER:
1) Agricultural practices such as these, adding lime, potassium, phosphorus and/or organic materials to contaminated soils is… I repeat IS…. appropriate kind of measure to take!!
2) Testing rice with the appropriate equiment is very important.
Measuring the rice from outside a bag does not tell us the alpha and beta IN THE FOOD, very important that HOW food is tested and with what equipment… Very important
3) because Internal exposure – food and water — is 1,000X worse than external, according to WHO
4) Testing agricultural lands , treating with organic soils amendments after assessing the level of radioisotope contamination and the needs of the soils – and making that public information – is critical… for saving our planet, our food and water supplies and our lives.
It is the only way to restore confidence – in government and in media…. We have been lied to our entire lives. Only honest and full disclosure can restore and repair relationships.
Government . People . Journalism…
Reassess ourselves, reassess for one major reason
“Environmental problems…. contamination from multiple human activities like oil, gas, nuclear, petrochemicals, petroleum based agriculture
Poison, unbalanced, unsus-ainable, all of them
Incorporating an application of organic and mineral fertilizers reduces the levels of Cs137 and Sr-90 accumulation three- to fivefold in herbage grown in mineral soils. Such radical treatment of hayfields on peat soils sharply reduces Cs-137, but is less effective for Sr-90.
5) Owing to degradation of cultivated hayfields, repeated grassland renovation with an application of fertilizers is needed every 3 to 6 years.
As noted above, radiation protection measures are effectively applied in large stateowned and collective farms. In small privatesector households and farms, which in Belarus account for more than 50% of agricultural production, these measures are incidental.
Generally for each cow on a private Belarus farm
there is about 1 hectare of hayfield and improved pasture. This is not sufficient to sustain the animal so the farmers have to get hay
from grassy forest glades and unarable lands that are contaminated with higher levels of radioactivity than cultivated hayfields.
Thus a significant number of settlements, even 23 years since the catastrophe, had inadequate radiation protection for agricultural production.
There are more than 300 such settlements each in Belarus and Ukraine, and more than 150 in Russia (Kashparov et al., 2005). page 312 “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment” by Alexey Yablokov, Vasily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko
NY Academy of Sciences, Volume 1181, 2009.
5,000 Slavic language studies reviews, over 1,400 cited.
http://www.strahlentelex.de/Yablokov_Chernobyl_book.pdf
Hard copy now available at Greko Printing P:734.453.0341;
email:orders@grekoprinting.com
Japanese version available at Amazon.jp – Chapter 4 (parts12-15) have not been included, ‘too long’.
Futaba town accepts interim storage facilities
The Japanese government’s plan to build intermediate storage facilities for radioactive waste from the 2011 nuclear accident is set to move ahead, now that the candidate sites have accepted the plan.
The government wants to build facilities for storing contaminated soil and debris on a 16-square-kilometer site straddling the towns of Futaba and Okuma in Fukushima Prefecture. The 2 towns host the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Okuma accepted the plan last month. The mayor of Futaba made the same decision on Tuesday in Iwaki city, where most of the town’s residents have evacuated.
Those in favor of accepting the intermediate storage facilities say they will help speed up decontamination efforts in the region.
But others cite the risk of the intermediate facilities becoming permanent unless the government fulfills its promise to dispose of nuclear waste outside the prefecture.
The government plans to continue purchase negotiations with the site’s landowners. It is also working out safety arrangements with the prefecture and the 2 towns for the transportation of radioactive waste to the facilities.
Futaba Mayor Shiro Izawa said acceptance of the government’s plan is an unavoidable part of accelerating post-disaster rebuilding.
Source: NHK
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150113_26.html
Fukushima released 13,000,000,000 times more neutrons than initially estimated — “Obvious implication for human health”
- We estimated a lower limit of 5.2 × 1021 slow neutrons m–2 sec–1 [m–2 sec–1 = per sq. meter per second] were emitted from the nuclear fuel rods to the sea water injected in the reactors
- Priyadarshi et al. (2011) have estimated a release amount of 4 × 1011 slow neutrons m–2. The large difference with our estimation [13,000,000,000 times higher] comes from the intrinsic limit of the box model study by Priyadarshi et al.
- Our model directly estimates the amount of material released from the reactor core
- The estimated… number of neutron represent a lower limit of the amount of radiation emitted from the nuclear reactors… These values can be used as a proxy to the total amount of radiation emitted since the melt down
- [The authors] express their gratitude to… the Japanese Ministry of Environment…Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Technology (MEXT)… [and] the Cabinet Office
Source: Scientists from Tokyo Institute of Technology, U. of California San Diego & Kyushu U., made available Oct 16, 2014
_a_numerical_simulation_global_transport
Evidence of neutron leakage at the Fukushima nuclear plant… Despite the obvious implication for human health and the surrounding ecology, there are no quantitative estimates of the neutron flux leakage… Heat must be removed by cooling the system to prevent… meltdown, which results in injection of neutrons and other fission products into the atmosphere… [T]ons of seawater were used as a coolant… A consequence is that salts and minerals present in seawater become radioactive by reaction with thermal neutrons… We calculated the total number of neutrons that leaked from the reactor core [and] estimate that a total of 4 × 1011 neutrons per m2 were released before March 20.
Source: Priyadarshi et al.:
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/35/14422.full
Slow Neutrons: “In water-cooled reactors like the ones at Fukushima, the right combination of slow neutrons and enriched fuel leads to a self-sustaining process… [Water] acts as a so-called moderator, slowing down the neutrons and keeping the reaction going.”
Health effects of neutron radiation:
- Wikipedia: [Neutron] radiation is considered to be the most severe and dangerous radiation to the whole body when it is exposed to external radiation sources [and] roughly ten times more effective at causing biological damage compared to gamma or beta
- Dr. Robert Gale, MD (In 2011 Gale was called to Japan to deal with medical consequences of the Fukushima disaster): All three types of particles… can harm humans. Neutrons are the most dangerous because they are very energetic, can penetrate deeply, and deposit large amounts of energy into tissues.
- US Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Neutrons… have an exceptional ability to penetrate other material… neutrons are the only [type of ionizing radiation] that can make objects radioactive… neutrons can travel great distances in air.
- Dept. of Health & Human Services: Neutrons… are significantly more potent carcinogens [and] induces… chromosomal aberrations, mutations, and DNA damage… more efficiently
Source: Enenews
http://enenews.com/fukushima-released-13000000000-times-neutrons-initially-estimated
Radioactive contamination level jumped over 57 times outside of underground wall
January 13, 2015
Cs-134/137 and all β nuclides (including Sr-90) density showed the rapid increase in groundwater, according to Tepco.
The sample was taken in the seaside of Reactor 2. Sampling date was 1/12/2015.
Compared to the previous measurement of 1/8/2015, Cs-134/137 density rose up by 57 times, all β nuclides density also rose up by 57 times.
This is the highest reading measured from this boring. Tepco hasn’t identified the reason. This boring is located outside of the underground wall to stop contaminated groundwater flowing to the sea.
TEPCO groundwater plume mapping assumed the contaminated water released from the unit 1 turbine building would eventually reach this area.
TEPCO said within recent weeks that the portions of this trench that were not yet filled in with concrete were seeing contaminated water re-fill the trench as they pumped it out and that both ends of the trench seem to rise and fall with each other.
The concreting of the unit 2 trench that had been full of highly contaminated water since 2011 has caused leaking contaminated water to divert over to this area.
Theoretically, it is natural to assume the high level of contamination is flowing to the sea without anything to stop.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2015/images/2tb-east_15011202-j.pdf
http://www.tepco.co.jp/cc/press/2015/1247139_6818.html
Source: Fukushima Diary
Radioactive contamination level jumped over 57 times outside of underground wall
In the fourth winter since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, many of the displaced residents are still in limbo.
“No, nothing. I have nothing planned for New Year’s. Nothing at all. No one is coming.” A shy, round-faced woman spat these words like darts into the protective mask she wore. Moments earlier she had been laughing happily together with several other former residents of the small town of Tomioka as they reminisced about a friend they all knew. She quickly became raw, however, when asked about the coming holidays.
Tomioka counted 15,839 residents before the March 11, 2011 nightmare of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear explosion began. All but one person has left — Matsumura Naoto, the now well-known rice farmer who refuses to abandon his family’s fifth-generation farm.
Confusion and despair among the others is common, a state of existence that government officials bewilderingly made even worse on March 25, 2013 when they divided the roughly 25-square-mile seaside spot into three zones: never to return, return for short periods, and in preparation to return. Government-sponsored scientists determined such divisions here and in other areas near the nuclear plant based on so-called acceptable annual dosage rates. Such designations may make surreal sense in scientific terms. In daily life, however, it means streets separated down the middle, one side “safe” while houses around the corner are condemned for tens of thousands of years to come.
All involved understand that the official designations are of critical significance in terms of compensation. If your property was anywhere but “never to return” you won’t be paid for much longer. Less appreciated is how such nuances taken together are playing out among those on the verge of their fourth winter in limbo.
Life in Internal Exile
Many of the former residents of Tomioka are now living 25 miles to the west in the rural town of Miharu, famous for its 1,000-year-old cherry tree. Miharu currently houses about 2,000 people of a total of nearly 140,000 officially classified as “displaced” by the crisis. The term “nuclear refugee” is out. All are lumped together as one. Yet those permanently shut out of their former lives since the Fukushima Daiichi power plant spiraled into meltdown include some who have been in as many as 10 shelters in three-and-a-half years.
On a recent afternoon a small group of Tomioka’s forever “displaced” villagers gathered to talk in a brightly lit common room hidden among twenty or so rows of tightly spaced sand-colored buildings that have been subdivided into small rooms for couples and individuals mainly in their sixties and seventies. A younger man in his fifties stood out. Before the crisis, his business supplied lunches for workers at the nuclear power plant. Vibrant and seemingly able to go anywhere, he is trapped by rules that among other things prevent him from living in Tomioka yet allow him several times a week to visit his beloved dachshund Chocolat, whom he refuses to leave to die.
Many of the displaced still believed in the possibility of return up to a few months ago. The group’s mayor Matsumoto-san no longer sees such a resolution. “If only they had told me then, told me that we wouldn’t be able to go back, I could have taken my family and moved to Aomori (in northern Japan), and we would be together,” he said. He was sharing what many express as the worst of it: families torn apart, children and grandchildren now living scattered throughout Japan and rarely if ever visiting. The shelters offer small, attached units, yet there is little open space, and certainly no land to farm. Freshly painted signs on the streets point to the housing units and appear welcoming, yet those inside say they know they are “in the way” and that “after a while you understand they don’t want you anymore.”
A Lottery Winner
One woman had a surprise for the others. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you before,” she began, perhaps taking advantage of the two strangers in the mix to break her news. “I applied to the (housing) lottery, and I’m sorry to tell you that I won. I’m very sorry. In a few weeks I’ll move away to a permanent unit. It isn’t much. I know I had a better chance because I’m on my own. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Some might reduce these words to cultural essentialisms, yet a powerfully unprocessed atmosphere filled the room. The thin sense of community was yet again torn asunder, and while a few wished her luck — she had been in six different shelters before this — the rest gradually looked as if they would be sick and said nothing. Another woman fought off tears.
The newly published housing policy appears under the awkward slogan in Japanese and English — “Future From Fukushima” — and reveals itself for what it has been from the beginning: make it up as it goes along. Tiny details drive home the point. Even if you’re fortunate enough to win a permanent place and you manage to survive for more than 11 years, you’ll start having to pay rent.
The woman who won did not know this, nor did anyone fill her in if they did. She would escape to a place to call home this winter. Meanwhile, some among the others would become part of a sad statistic, one of the only clear facts to come out since March 2011. More people have died from stress-related causes than from the initial disasters in Fukushima.
Number of injured workers soars at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant
Jan 6, 2015
The number of workers injured at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant this fiscal year, which ends March 31, far exceeded the 2013 figure by November, Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials said.
The rise mainly reflects an increase in the overall number of workers at the disaster-hit plant, according to the officials.
Thirty-nine workers were injured at the plant between April and November 2014, while one became ill. In fiscal 2013, which ended in March last year, 23 were injured, including one who died.
Last Sept. 22, a worker from a partner company suffered a broken back after being hit by a falling iron pipe while building a storage tank for contaminated water.
During work to build a tank on Nov. 7, three workers were injured by falling steel weighing 390 kg. One was left temporarily unconscious, while another broke both ankles.
The average number of workers per day has continued to increase at the plant. It has exceeded 6,000 since September, nearly double the year-earlier level, due in part to the need to prepare new storage tanks for contaminated water.
Tepco believes the injuries were caused by poor on-site coordination and management by the partner company, according to the officials.
The utility has started holding monthly meetings with contractor firms to analyze the causes of problems and implement countermeasures, they said.
Source: Japan Times
North Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada – Debris Analysis
Friday, January 2, 2015
カナダＢＣ州ノースバーナビー堆積物 BC North Burnaby Debris
試料 名 Sample: 堆積物 Debris
採取 場所 Origin:
ＢＣ州 ノースバーナビー
North Burnaby, B.C. Canada
Dehydrated ↓
採取年月 Sampling date:
2014 年 11 月 (November, 2014)
測定日時 Date Tested :
2014 年12月10 日 (December 10, 2014)
測定時間 Duration : 57,600 秒(seconds)
試料容器 Container: 2 Lマリ ネリ容器(Marinelli)
試料重量 Sample weight: 502.2g
乾燥前 Before dehydration: 1380g
乾燥後 After dehydration: 710g
Be-7 = Beryllium 7
Tl-208 = Thallium 208
Bi-212 = Bismuth-212
Bi-214 = Bismith-214
Pb-212 = Lead-212
Pb-214 = Lead-214
Ac-228 = Actinium-228
U-235 = Uranium-235
Source: Vancover Food Radiation Monitoring
http://vancouvermonitoring.blogspot.ca/2015/01/bc-north-burnaby-debris.html
Radiation in the Ocean Food Chain, An Assessment of BioMagnification
Sunday, January 4, 2015
This chart is from Woods Hole. I annotated it, since their description of different rates of plutonium absorption was verbal and very hard to track, seems intentionally so.
Then I tried to come up with actual radiation measurements in the water and the animal life. The link below has decent water data, and some limited fish and ocean biota.
==============================
This report from Woods Hole Oceangraphic Institute is interesting to read. Of course they always end with “Further research is needed”, LOL as giving them more money is their prime objective.
Interesting though….rather then doing testing on Marine Life, they do a lot of testing on water and they do modeling of ocean flows, and it seems a prime objective is to calculate the “source term” of what came out of Fukushima. This Source Term is an estimate of what and how many radionuclides left the buildings. Is seems odd but I guess that is what scientists do….calculate things.
But since they are in the ocean on a boat equipped with advanced radiation analysis equipment, and the ability to catch fish. It sure seems like my prime focus would be to test the fish! And the bait crops.
http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2012/03/27/1120794109.DCSupplemental/pnas.201120794SI.pdf#nameddest=SF1
————————————————————–
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/16/5984.full#F1
The above is the main article. You need to do quite a bit of bouncing around to get to the meat of that data.
Chart below shows that contaminated water does not mix vertically much. The radiation stays in the top 300 feet primarily. It stays where 95% of the fish and critters stay. It stays where it can do the most damage.
Finally, the bogeyman that no one wishes to speak of. Strontium. Strontium goes into bones and becomes a permanent part of the food chain.
This article states that the Strontium can be present in same levels or more, than the Cesium.
Radiostrontium in the western North Pacific: characteristics, behavior, and the Fukushima impact.
Abstract
- PMID:
- 22873743
- [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
- ————————————————————————————————–
We also know this from our work on estimating the overall source term of all the nuke waste at Fukushima. The strontium is about equal to the cesium.
———————————————————–
Finally a link to some prior work I had done on the bioaccumulation, aka biomagnification on sea life in Alaska. Alaska was hit particularly hard by the Fukushima fallout, in fact, Fukushima increased the radiation in sea life the same way a direct nuclear bomb test did at point blank range.
Wrap your head around that.
From Alaska 2011 June
The soil and lichens have VERY high radioactivity. 6000 Bq /kG!
Here is the full report you can download.
https://app.box.com/s/rt4g13nxvqyljfqxmdxt
“…* Uranium-234 — 3.854 pCi/kg Dolly Varden
* Uranium-234 — 5.312 pCi/kg Goose Egg no shell
* Uranium-234 — 3.466 Ci/kg Gull egg
* Uranium-234 — 4.96 pCi/kg Chiton
* Uranium-234 — 9.344 pCi/kg Dragon Kelp
* Uranium-234 — 7.885 pCi/kg Rockweed
* Uranium-234 — 4.906 pCi/kg Greenling
* Uranium-234 — 2.304 pCi/kg Halibut
* Uranium-234 — 58.721 pCi/kg Horse Mussel tissue
* Uranium-234 — 8.86 pCi/kg Irish Lord
* Uranium-234 — 7.127 pCi/kg Octopus
* Uranium-234 — 4.976 pCi/kg Pacific Cod
* Uranium-234 — 4.644 pCi/kg Rockfish
* Uranium-234 — 3.032 pCi/kg Reindeer Lichen
* Uranium-234 — 3.906 pCi/kg Sea Urchin
* Plutonium-239 — .039 pCi/kg Dolly Varden
* Plutonium-239 — .186 pCi/kg Goose Egg no shell
* Plutonium-239 — .104 pCi/kg Gull egg
* Plutonium-239 — .298 pCi/kg Chiton
* Plutonium-239 — .093 pCi/kg Dragon Kelp
* Plutonium-239 — .084 pCi/kg Rockweed
* Plutonium-239 — .379 pCi/kg Greeling
* Plutonium-239 — .038 pCi/kg Halibut
* Plutonium-239 — 4.194 pCi/kg Horse Mussel tissue
* Plutonium-239 — .378 pCi/kg Irish Lord
* Plutonium-239 — .036 pCi/kg Octopus
* Plutonium-239 — .05 pCi/kg Pacific Cod
* Plutonium-239 — .279 pCi/kg Rockfish
* Plutonium-239 — .152 pCi/kg Reindeer Lichen
* Plutonium-239 — .195 pCi/kg Sea Urchin
* Plutonium-240 — .039 pCi/kg Dolly Varden
* Plutonium-240 — .106 pCi/kg Goose Egg no shell
* Plutonium-240 — .069 pCi/kg Gull egg
Source: Nuke Pro
http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.fr/2015/01/radiation-in-ocean-food-chain.html
* Plutonium-240 — .149 pCi/kg Chiton
* Plutonium-240 — .037 pCi/kg Dragon Kelp
* Plutonium-240 — .02 pCi/kg Rockweed
* Plutonium-240 — .189 pCi/kg Greeling
* Plutonium-240 — .012 pCi/kg Halibut
* Plutonium-240 — 2.097 pCi/kg Horse Mussel tissue
* Plutonium-240 — .189 pCi/kg Irish Lord
* Plutonium-240 — .021 pCi/kg Octopus
* Plutonium-240 — .015 pCi/kg Pacific Cod
* Plutonium-240 — .139 pCi/kg Rockfish
* Plutonium-240 — .091 pCi/kg Reindeer Lichen
* Plutonium-240 — .117 pCi/kg Sea Urchin
1 This Month
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25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
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