Plutonium found outside Fukushima Plant

Plutonium found outside Fukushima plant

Minute amounts of plutonium have been detected for the first time in soil outside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Shinzo Kimura of Hokkaido University collected the roadside samples in Okumamachi, some 1.7 kilometers west of the front gate of the power station. They were taken during filming by NHK on April 21st, one day before the area was designated as an exclusion zone.

Professor Masayoshi Yamamoto and researchers at a Kanazawa University laboratory analyzed the samples and found minute amounts of 3 kinds of plutonium. The samples of plutonium-239 and 240 make up a total of 0.078 becquerels per kilogram.

This is close to the amount produced by past atomic bomb tests...

Sunday, June 05, 2011 23:21 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/05_21.html


Pressure in No.1 reactor drops close to atmosphere

Tokyo Electric Power Company has found that pressure inside the Number 1 reactor at its Fukushima Daiichi power plant has dropped to close to the outside atmospheric pressure. It reaffirms that the reactor has been damaged.

The reactor is believed to have suffered a meltdown after the March 11th disaster. The meltdown apparently created holes in the pressure vessel and damaged the containment vessel, letting highly radioactive water flow below ground in the reactor building.

Pressure inside an operating reactor is normally around 70 atmospheres. But after the disaster, the pressure indicator showed 6 atmospheres in the Number 1 reactor, raising questions about data reliability...

Sunday, June 05, 2011 10:50 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/05_08.html




.


High radiation levels around ditches in Fukushima

High radiation levels have been detected above roadside drainage ditches in Fukushima Prefecture, which hosts the crippled nuclear power plant.

Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission tested radiation levels in the air about 1 meter from the ground at a business district in the prefectural capital on May 24th and 25th.

The test detected radiation of 3 to 4 microsieverts per hour above ditches covered with mud and fallen leaves. The level reached nearly 100 microsieverts in the mud. It is believed that radioactive dust has accumulated in the mud and leaves.

The results are higher than those in other parts of the city, which were 1 to 2 microsieverts at the same locations...

Sunday, June 05, 2011 10:50 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/05_09.html

with video
http://www.nypost.com/video/?channel=PostUsFeed&clipid=Jpeb2073458&bitrate=300&format=flash

It's that they haven't been detected (so far) in levels that can be identified as coming from fukushima.

The average city block in your town has between 25-100 pennies scattered throughout it. A helicopter flies overhead and some pennies fall out. You know that there are some, but you don't know how many.

If you carefully scour your block and find 50 pennies... you still don't know how many fell from the plane.

But nice try.

It doesn't change anything. You still don't know whether the cancer-causing pennies that you find today were dropped by the helicopter or had been there since the Enola Gay dropped them there over 65 years ago.

Again... it isn't that the pennies aren't a problem. They are. They almost certainly continue to kill Japanese decades later. The point is that we have yet to discover enough "pennies" to associate the discovery with Fukushima. There must be some out there... we just don't know how many.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

If it went over your head it isn't my fault.

There has yet to be any detection of plutonium in amounts higher than what was already common all over Japan.

That doesn't mean that it isn't from Fukushima... or that Fukushima didn't put out any plutonium. It merely means that there isn't enough (so far identified) to quantify.

I know that you wish it weren't so. But I can't help you with that. Maybe they can change your dosage?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Radioactive water leak to be prevented for 3 days


Tokyo Electric Power Company has decided to increase the transfer of radioactive water by about 1,500 tons to a facility at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The company says the transfer can keep contaminated water from leaking outside for about 3 days.

More than 105,000 tons of contaminated water is thought to have accumulated in the basements of the reactor and turbine buildings. An additional 500 tons or so flows into the basements per day as a result of the injection of water into the reactors.

The situation is raising concern about the possible overflow of contaminated water.

On Saturday, TEPCO obtained Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency permission to increase the water transfer from its initial plan. It began transferring 12 tons of water per hour from the basement of the Number 2 turbine building to the basement of a facility for nuclear waste...

Sunday, June 05, 2011 11:59 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/05_10.html

:beer:

:nuke:

Because the holes in the containment vessel/s are getting larger and/or more numerous?That would be my guess.

They (radiation levels) haven't been going up. They've been going down pretty consistently.

:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke: :hide:

definetly not frodo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RSh_mhN3Ts

You really think that picking the handful that appear to violate the trend is instructive?

The drywell chart seems simple enough. It's either about 50 or about 225 depending on how deep the water is at the time. If it's deep enough to come between the sensor and the bulk of the core, you get the lower reading, if they let it drop, you see the higher one. There isn't a significant variability in actual activity (there pretty much can't be), there's a variability in what reaches the detector.

As for the 4Sv. What evidece do you have that it has risen at all? Has that specific spot been measured previously? This has to be something like the tenth time that a reading has been reported as "rising" when there was no prior datapoint for that location.

Note that where there ARE prior datapoints (all across Japan), the radiation levels are pretty consistently falling.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

The statement I replied to was simply false. Radiation levels all over Japan have generally been falling. You can't take a couple outlying datapoints and dishonestly claim that they are in fact rising.

You narrowly restrict your focus, which either compromises your ability to see the larger picture or you simply ignore that which directly challenges your central premise: that Fukushima as a disaster has been grossly overstated.

Let's accept for a moment that your claim that radiation levels all over Japan have generally been falling (a problem in of itself, but we'll get to that in amoment.). All it is going to take is a decent sized typhoon getting close enough (and not even directly upon) Fukushima to significantly increase radiation levels in Japan.

Given the already-demonstrated highly radioactive localities outside of the reactors, it is misleading to posit the assumption that radiation levels in Japan can be said to be generally decreasing. High radiation levels in the South Pacific have been decreasing since France has stopped open air atomic bomb testing at Murora Atoll, but I am pretty sure that I wouldn't want to build a house at the test site. But then again I don't need to mention this to you, as your scrupulous use of qualifiers ("generally falling") indicates that you cannot make a definitive statement on this due to te continued reporting of localized hotspots.

Your droning on about all of this once again indicates you are completely oblivious to the fact that it will take only one good sized typhoon to upend your little applecart of theory crafting, and this is going to be a risk here for many years to come, depending on how much radioactive material has gotten out and where it is, which nobody yet knows for sure. Least of all some person in the U.S who is not a nuclear physicist, doesn't speak Japanese and has no access to hard data other than what is publically available to anyone else. You are hardly an authority on what radiation levels are like in Japan, Baggins, desipte what your "evidence" may say.

While you keep insisting that I imagine how bad it could get if something new goes wrong.

Given the already-demonstrated highly radioactive localities outside of the reactors, it is misleading to posit the assumption that radiation levels in Japan can be said to be generally decreasing.

That makes no sense at all. The fact that radiation is detected means that the levels aren't falling?

your scrupulous use of qualifiers ("generally falling") indicates that you cannot make a definitive statement on this due to the continued reporting of localized hotspots.

Wrong yet again. I make a "scrupulous qualifiers" because I've seen how far afield you guys can go when you see numbers but don't understand them. Cesium levels detected in air go down while those detected in milk go up and you concentrate on the levels in the milk as evidence that things are still getting worse without understanding that this is exactly what you should expect to happen because the detection curve for milk is delayed by weeks from that of airborne contamination. I have no doubt that if the basements at Fukushima overflow into the sea, you'll look at the new higher measurements in the nearby waters as more evidence of rising radiation and kris will spin it again as further damage to the containment structures... when all it is, is existing contaminated water moving from point "A" to "B".

This isn't complicated. As I said, there have been thousands of data points from all around the world. They consistently show that radiation levels are falling.

So sorry to be the bearer of good news. I know how much that upsets you.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

What a shocker. :sarcasm:

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.