Fukushima radiation… what you need to know and why

This is getting ridiculous people.

I did not say that Fukushima is destroying the Pacific Ocean.

I did not say Japan is dumping water into the ocean.


Read what people post for goodness sakes.


There is an estimated 300 tons of radioactive water leaking into the Pacific Ocean daily at Fukushima...

coercioncode.com...

The Tokyo Electric Power Company is still struggling to contain the Fukushima nuclear disaster that was touched off by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. This autumn, the power company admitted that contaminated groundwater was flowing into the Pacific Ocean at a volume of one Olympic-sized swimming pool every week.

www.aljazeera.com...
201419141031426629.html

“We think that the volume of water is about 300 tons a day,” said Yushi Yoneyama, an official with the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, which regulates Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO).

coercioncode.com...

The Fukushima plant is still leaking about 300 tons of radioactive water into the ocean every day, according to Japanese government officials.

www.livescience.com...

However, contaminated water that TEPCO has been unable to contain continues to enter the Pacific Ocean at a rate of hundreds of tons per day. Much of that is groundwater that has mixed with untreated radioactive water at the plant.

www.foxnews.com...

Q: How much radiation-contaminated water is leaking into the sea? A: Experts estimate at least 300 tons every day, enough to fill half an Olympic swimming pool. And that's just from one of two major sources: groundwater that flows through contaminated maintenance tunnels and pits on site. Water with even higher levels of radiation is believed to be escaping through cracks in the basements of the damaged nuclear reactors and their turbines and slowly making its way through the ground to the sea.

www.foxnews.com...

Again, if anyone can link to a source that shows another country is leaking or dumping 300 tons of radioactive water into a ocean 24/7/365,,, I am waiting to see it. There has never been a triple core meltdown before... its uncharted ground. The concern with Fukushima is that there is no end in sight for the water that's leaking into the ocean. You can't really compare it to anything because Fukushima is not over nor will it be over anytime soon...it's going to keep leaking radioactive water for a long time.

And "IF" the coriums have breached containment and reached the ground, then this could go on literally for centuries.

And yet again for good measure, the vastness of the Pacific Ocean will cause any radiation that is leaking from Fukushima in its current state as of 1/28/14, to dissipate to very low or non detectable levels the further you get away from the plant... exactly how far that is, I don't know but the Pacific Ocean has a lot of water in it.

reply to post by wishes


I never use Wipe Tests because they provide only a Hint about collected Residue
concentrated in a small Area!

I look for Background Radiation and Emissions.

Two different approaches.

As far as i remember we tried already a few Times to explain it to you!

reply to post by RickinVa


It isnt leaking 300 tons of water a day my god think of the total gallons it would be 71898 gallons you would have a river running from the plant. This lie came in to being because a storage tank they built in the parking lot to hold the contaminated water for cooling ruptured. In there news release they said 300 tons of water was released from the tank. This was a total not a per day thing back in august of 2012. Since then they have built other tanks there goal is to not have to use any of the storage tanks under the reactor. Right now what they have been doing is every time a leak forms in one of the underground tanks they try to lower the water level in that tank or take it out of circulation. Currently they have built so many tanks they used up all the parking lots so now there moving to a near by forest t build more tanks there. Since this occurred they have taken steps such as building chemical barriers and currently are setting up to freeze the soil under the plant. There is no 300 gallons a day being leaked.Here read the article from 2012.And one more thing dontbelieve everything you hear on the internet.

www.usatoday.com...

dragonridr
reply to post by RickinVa

 

It isnt leaking 300 tons of water a day my god think of the total gallons it would be 71898 gallons you would have a river running from the plant. This lie came in to being because a storage tank they built in the parking lot to hold the contaminated water for cooling ruptured. In there news release they said 300 tons of water was released from the tank. This was a total not a per day thing back in august of 2012. Since then they have built other tanks there goal is to not have to use any of the storage tanks under the reactor. Right now what they have been doing is every time a leak forms in one of the underground tanks they try to lower the water level in that tank or take it out of circulation. Currently they have built so many tanks they used up all the parking lots so now there moving to a near by forest t build more tanks there. Since this occurred they have taken steps such as building chemical barriers and currently are setting up to freeze the soil under the plant. There is no 300 gallons a day being leaked.Here read the article from 2012.And one more thing dontbelieve everything you hear on the internet.

www.usatoday.com...

You need to do a little more research my friend... I posted a lot of sources and could post more.... I know about the tank leaking 300 tons, the daily leak is totally different.... Good gosh

So basically you are saying that every source I used is wrong and you are right? Research my friend....research

Here's some more false information I guess:

Highly radioactive water from Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is pouring out at a rate of 300 tonnes a day, officials said on Wednesday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the government to step in and help in the clean-up.

The leak from the plant 220 km (130 miles) northeast of Tokyo is enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool in a week. The water is spilling into the Pacific Ocean, but it was not immediately clear how much of a threat it poses.

www.reuters.com...

Japan's nuclear watchdog has now declared the leak of radioactive water from Fukushima a "state of emergency." Each day, 300 tons of radioactive water seeps into the ocean, and it's now clear that TEPCO has engage in a two-and-a-half-year cover-up of immense magnitude.

www.naturalnews.com...

I can keep going... this has been pretty well documented.

From tepco

Some 800 cubic meters of groundwater around Units 1 - 4 buildings is flowing from the mountain side into the NPS per day , with 400 cubic meters per day assumed to flow into the buildings per day, and the remaining 400 cubic meters traveling on to the sea

www.tepco.co.jp...

Straight from the horses mouth so to speak.... unless of course Tepco is putting out false information too. That's on page 13 of the PDF in case you have trouble finding it. So to say there is no contaminated water leaking into the ocean daily at Fukushima is rather silly.

TEPCO has been trying to stop the leak of 300 tonnes of radioactive groundwater every day.

www.abc.net.au...

dragonridr
www.usatoday.com...

Your source isn't talking about the 300 tons a day leak, all it says about the other leaks is this:

To reduce leaks unrelated to the tanks, plant workers are using measures such as building chemical underground walls along the coastline, but they have made little improvement so far.

So, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to find a reliable source documenting how large the leak is referred to in that part of your source, the leaks unrelated to the storage tanks.

Rick posted tons and here's one that quotes a high level official stating the 300 tons a day figure:

UPDATE 6-Japan says Fukushima leak worse than thought, govt joins clean-up

"We think that the volume of water (leaking into the Pacific) is about 300 tonnes a day," said Yushi Yoneyama, an official with the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees energy policy.

That's not "the internet", that's a quote from an official sounding source.

Also 300 tons a day is hardly a river, as at that rate it would take nearly a week to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool, whereas a real river like the amazon would fill the same pool in about 1/90 of one second.

At least Rick now seems to admit that the effect away from Japan isn't so alarming. I wouldn't be keen on the idea of eating fish caught close to the reactor though, and Japanese officials have found elevated levels of radioactivity in some of those coastal fish, which levels of radioactivity seems to depend on the species of fish.

Arbitrageur

dragonridr
www.usatoday.com...

Your source isn't talking about the 300 tons a day leak, all it says about the other leaks is this:

To reduce leaks unrelated to the tanks, plant workers are using measures such as building chemical underground walls along the coastline, but they have made little improvement so far.

So, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to find a reliable source documenting how large the leak is referred to in that part of your source, the leaks unrelated to the storage tanks.

Rick posted tons and here's one that quotes a high level official stating the 300 tons a day figure:

UPDATE 6-Japan says Fukushima leak worse than thought, govt joins clean-up

"We think that the volume of water (leaking into the Pacific) is about 300 tonnes a day," said Yushi Yoneyama, an official with the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees energy policy.

That's not "the internet", that's a quote from an official sounding source.

Also 300 tons a day is hardly a river, as at that rate it would take nearly a week to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool, whereas a real river like the amazon would fill the same pool in about 1/90 of one second.

At least Rick now seems to admit that the effect away from Japan isn't so alarming. I wouldn't be keen on the idea of eating fish caught close to the reactor though, and Japanese officials have found elevated levels of radioactivity in some of those coastal fish, which levels of radioactivity seems to depend on the species of fish.

At least Rick now seems to admit that the effect away from Japan isn't so alarming. I wouldn't be keen on the idea of eating fish caught close to the reactor though, and Japanese officials have found elevated levels of radioactivity in some of those coastal fish, which levels of radioactivity seems to depend on the species of fish.

I heard that 300 tons a day is the equivalent of 8 gardens hoses running 24/7... whether that's a correct statement or not I can't say for sure but it sounds about right.

I have said from page 1 that the radiation in the ocean wasn't a concern to me. But I wouldn't eat any fish close to that plant either. But if the cores have melted down into the ground, then all bets are off....that would be virtually unstoppable.

I am not really worried about the amount of radiation in the ocean,,,,,,,, I am worried about the bio-accumulation in the fish that live there..... fish we as humans eat.....

That is from page 1....I am just trying to keep people from freaking out lol... its not working.

The status of the three melted cores in crucial to the long term assessment of damage, and that still remains unknown after all this time. All we can do is wait and see I guess.

I like to look at it like this:

on a scale from 1-10, 1= Fukushima is totally harmless, 5 = neutral, and 10= Oh My God we're all going to die!!!

put me down as 6,,, slightly concerned and definitely going to keep my eye on the events at Fukushima.

There are too many 1's... as you can see by reading the last 27 pages and too many 10's for that matter.

That's just the way I look at it. If that makes any sense. Fukushima has made me learn terms I hadn't thought about since high school....terms like unstable atoms, radionuclides, half-life, decay chains, isotopes, daughter isotopes, etc.... I never really paid it much mind until 3-11-11 made me do otherwise.

RickinVa
on a scale from 1-10, 1= Fukushima is totally harmless, 5 = neutral, and 10= Oh My God we're all going to die!!!

put me down as 6,,, slightly concerned and definitely going to keep my eye on the events at Fukushima.

That scale is pretty arbitrary, but from my perspective, I've seen your commentary evolve over the course of this thread, in a good way, showing that you have done some research and you are paying attention to the research you do.

The other thing that's somewhat arbitrary is the measure of 300 tons a day. By itself, that measure doesn't tell us much about how serious the contamination is. For example of the water was 20 times more contaminated, 30 tons a day would be worse, right?

If you want a measurement you can normalize against all the Russian reactors and waste dumped you'd need to measure something like becquerels, or know how many becquerels per kg or liter or ton are in the 300 tons a day being leaked. Then if you could figure out how many becquerels the Russian reactor that exploded contaminated the ocean with, you'd have some basis for comparison.

Arbitrageur

RickinVa
on a scale from 1-10, 1= Fukushima is totally harmless, 5 = neutral, and 10= Oh My God we're all going to die!!!

put me down as 6,,, slightly concerned and definitely going to keep my eye on the events at Fukushima.

That scale is pretty arbitrary, but from my perspective, I've seen your commentary evolve over the course of this thread, in a good way, showing that you have done some research and you are paying attention to the research you do.

The other thing that's somewhat arbitrary is the measure of 300 tons a day. By itself, that measure doesn't tell us much about how serious the contamination is. For example of the water was 20 times more contaminated, 30 tons a day would be worse, right?

If you want a measurement you can normalize against all the Russian reactors and waste dumped you'd need to measure something like becquerels, or know how many becquerels per kg or liter or ton are in the 300 tons a day being leaked. Then if you could figure out how many becquerels the Russian reactor that exploded contaminated the ocean with, you'd have some basis for comparison.

There are just too many unknowns at Fukushima for anyone to make a comparison of it to anything else. The location of the cores is a vital piece of information that no one knows,,, exactly how much ground water and like you pointed out, how much radiation is in it. how long will the leaks continue... the SPF in reactor 4. There are just way too many unknowns for any one to make a serious comparison of Fukushima to other events, that's all I am saying. Something could happen tomorrow that could drastically alter the output of Fukushima... it's just an unknown at this point and I think that makes most people uncomfortable.

That's just the way I look at it. If that makes any sense. Fukushima has made me learn terms I hadn't thought about since high school....terms like unstable atoms, radionuclides, half-life, decay chains, isotopes, daughter isotopes, etc.... I never really paid it much mind until 3-11-11 made me do otherwise.

Me too, after Chernobyl's explosion and the Way how we handled it
i nearly banned this Topic from my intellectual Horizon but after 03/11
i needed to relearn it!

Funny thing is that i started to really like Atoms and NPS,
it makes me sad that this whole Concept is not working at the moment.

I just found this and it is relevant:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Friday formally revised its groundwater flow simulation and now believes up to 400 tons of contaminated water is seeping into the Pacific every day from the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The previous estimate was about 300 tons per day. According to Tepco President Naomi Hirose, who was invited to appear as an unsworn witness at a special Diet committee session, the utility now believes 800 tons of groundwater are flowing each day into the compound and damaged reactors 1, 2, 3 and 4. Of that, 400 tons is getting into the underground floors of the four reactor buildings while the other 400 tons is reaching the Pacific, according to a Tepco analysis based on the new simulation. Hirose stressed that Tepco does not believe all 400 tons of the water entering the sea is contaminated with radioactive materials.

www.japantimes.co.jp...

Tepco now says the groundwater is emptying into the plant’s man-made harbor at a rate of 400 tons a day — enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every week. While the company did not specifically say how much of the water was contaminated, it offered a calculation for the amount of tritium being released that assumed all of the water was contaminated.

www.nytimes.com...

It's still an unknown...it's a guesstimate lol

And right on schedule this news:

Tokyo Electric Power Company is to begin work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to stop radioactive wastewater from flowing into the sea. The task of creating underground frozen walls is due to start at the Number 2 and Number 3 reactors on Wednesday.

www3.nhk.or.jp...


I really hope there is a solution to some of this... time will tell I guess,,,but we can all hope

reply to post by RickinVa


Here this is the latest news i could find it explains how there storing the water. And apparently there is a pig problem around the plant they are breeding out of control. I hadnt heard of this so it was interesting.



Oh and found this from wood hole oceanographic institute as well you probablly know them for there work on saving whales. Well they discuss the release and you might find it enlightening.

ourradioactiveocean.org...

I have been trying to research dispersal of radionuclides into sea water and I am quickly finding that we actually don't know as much as we think we do.... I am starting to have a little more concern about the long term effects of radiation from Fukushima in the Pacific Ocean because even the experts can't agree on exactly how it works.

Based on the research I have done, I now have to revise my statement that "the radiation from Fukushima will disperse to low or non-detectable levels"... The correct thing to say is ....the radiation from Fukushima should disperse to low or non-detectable levels. There appears to be no guarantee anymore.... not enough data.

Below are a few excepts from a report to the parliment of the United Kingdom...

4.6 It is thus a well reported and well understood fact that there are mechanisms of re-concentration in the marine environment for both the soluble and non-soluble radioactive wastes discharged into the sea and as a result of this phenomena there are sites where radioactive materials of both types accumulate/reconcentrate to levels many times higher than ambient sea water. In this context, the original simple hypothesis that discharged liquid radioactivity will dilute and disperse until it reaches “background” concentration is now shown to be both simplistic and deeply flawed.

4.7 It is plain that the behaviour and fate of sea discharged radioactive wastes is actually far more complex than originally postulated and that a number of environmental parameters provide the opportunity for a range of intermediate and long term re-concentrations of radioactivity in inshore and coastal environments and media (sediment deposits, seaspray and aerosols)

17.7 However, the evolving (post 2000) empirical research now demonstrates that, contrary to the previous view:
(a) tritium does not disperse and dilute to infinity;
(b) tritium rapidly bonds with suspended organic/sedimentary particles in the receiving waters;
(c) tritium concentrations in fine sediment deposits are significantly elevated over those found in ambient seawater;
(d) tritium bio-availability is much greater than expected; and (e) uptake through organic/sedimentary particles to marine and estuarine food webs is demonstrated to be much higher than was expected, (tritium concentration factors in demersal fish and shellfish of up to 100,000)

18.2 Earlier sections of this Submission have drawn attention to the following issues.
(a) the demonstrable weaknesses in the original hypothesis about the behaviour and fate of radioactive wastes discharged to sea (sections 1 to 4);
(b) the failure/inability of monitoring programmes (based on the failed hypothesis) to generate appropriate accurate data on the behaviour and fate of radioactive wastes discharged to sea. (sections 5 to 8); and
(c) the absence of data (data gaps), and/or issues not taken account of during GDA and other assessments of the marine implications of proposed sea discharges from proposed NPS. (sections 9 to 17) 18.3 In the context of these flaws, failures and omissions this Submission concludes that any hypothetical modelling programmes which repeat and encapsulate those flaws, failure and omissions must be of questionable value and can not represent an appropriate degree of scientific rigour.

Bold by me

read it for yourself and broaden your knowledge:

"Building New Nuclear: the challenges ahead"

www.publications.parliament.uk...

It's 94 pages long so it takes a while to skim through the whole thing.

Ok i found live radiation reading in Japan this map uses 3 sources government sensors the safecast data which is mobile monitoring sites and reading from individuals that post there readings. I knew there had to be some live readings somewhere. I couldnt find out how often the government updates there reading but safe cast updates there every 10 minutes. To be hones i expected much higher readings around the plant im actually pleasantly surprised.

japan.failedrobot.com...#

Yahoo Japan also has a site but its in japanese making it a bit harder to use but here it is.

radiation.yahoo.co.jp...

reply to post by RickinVa


I have previously linked this same paper. It was a great read.

reply to post by RickinVa

The correct thing to say is ....the radiation from Fukushima should disperse to low or non-detectable levels. There appears to be no guarantee anymore.... not enough data.

The correct thing to say, based upon your source, is that in regions near nuclear power plants radioactive substances may not disperse as much as some models indicate. That is the context of the report. If you do more than "skim through" the report you'll find that.

This Submission of Evidence to the Select Committee is based on work carried out over the last two years for a series of Consultation Responses made with specific regard to applications by NNB Genco to discharge liquid radioactive wastes from the proposed new Hinkley C Reactors on the north Somerset coast of the Bristol Channel.

www.publications.parliament.uk...


The report is about concerns about effects on the marine environment, marine sediments in particular, of Great Britain as a result of nuclear discharges from British reactors. I don't think you'll find much dispute that the marine environment in the Fukushima region is at risk and needs to be closely watched. That is a far cry from arm waving about dangerous contamination of the entire northern Pacific. The Pacific Ocean is substantially larger than the Bristol Channel. In fact, the Pacific Ocean is substantially larger than the entirety of the British Isles. The volume of the Pacific Ocean makes comparisons to that report rather silly.

I won't be eating fish from Japan for a while, but then, I never have.

The dynamic food web model predicts that due to the delay of the transfer throughout the food web, the concentration of 137Cs for piscivorous fishes returns to background level only in 2016. For the year 2011, the calculated individual dose rate for Fukushima Prefecture due to consumption of fishery products is 3.6 μSv y−1. Following the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident the collective dose due to ingestion of marine products for Japan increased in 2011 by a factor of 6 in comparison with 2010.

www.sciencedirect.com...

reply to post by RickinVa


I would think that at some point, the concentration levels of radiation will rise in the ocean, but have no idea when. It should be like pouring salt into a cup of water, but there are modifying factors to take into consideration. For example, the amount of radiation actually flowing into the ocean and the amount of radiation that is pulled into the air from the ocean as part of the normal weather process. If it flows in faster than is pulled out by cloud formation, then wouldn't that mean that the ocean can become supersaturated? Of course that will take a while because of the vast size of the ocean, however, the radiation is so damaging that it doesn't take much to see its effects on the ocean life.

reply to post by Phage



I agree, I still believe that this is going to be confined to the area outside of Fukushima for the near term.... the longer this goes on then obviously that could change. I have said it before, so much depends on the locations of the 3 melted cores.... which nobody knows at this point. If the cores are outside of the buildings, then the picture changes drastically for the long term prognosis....

That the only reason I have problems with people trying to compare Fukushima to Chernobyl, or TMI, or Russia dumping reactors in the ocean, ect. There are just simply too many unknown factors at Fukushima to try and compare it to anything else... the situation changes daily,,,, more water goes into the ocean and we don't have any idea of how radioactive it is.... but the more reports come out of water pouring out the the containment vessels and stuff...it's more and more likely that the water more radioactive than anyone previously thought.

MountainEnigma
reply to post by RickinVa

 

I would think that at some point, the concentration levels of radiation will rise in the ocean, but have no idea when. It should be like pouring salt into a cup of water, but there are modifying factors to take into consideration. For example, the amount of radiation actually flowing into the ocean and the amount of radiation that is pulled into the air from the ocean as part of the normal weather process. If it flows in faster than is pulled out by cloud formation, then wouldn't that mean that the ocean can become supersaturated? Of course that will take a while because of the vast size of the ocean, however, the radiation is so damaging that it doesn't take much to see its effects on the ocean life.

The Pacific Ocean is a huge amount of water compared to the estimated amount of water going into it at Fukushima. This has to be localized to the area near Japan... unless there are things going on that we are not aware of.

reply to post by RickinVa

it's more and more likely that the water more radioactive than anyone previously thought.

Ocean waters around Fukushima are being monitored and radiation levels continue to decline from those of the original release. From the paper cited above:

The agreement for water is achieved when an additional continuous flux of 3.6 TBq y−1 is used for underground leakage of contaminated water from the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP, during the three years following the accident.

www.sciencedirect.com...

In other words, the model used is accurate so far based on that assumption of leakage. That figure seems to be accurate.