Fukushima radiation… what you need to know and why

reply to post by RickinVa


They used already a lot of Concrete in 2011/12 to seal the Sediments in
front of Daiichi and now they do it again, in my opinion this means
that there is a lot of Radioactivity!

Dilution vice dissipation

I still have problems with the word dilute when it comes to radionuclides..... so I sought out someone whose opinion I could trust.... I came up with Mark H. Thiemens.

I sent the following email which he was kind enough to answer:

Dear Mark,

I would like your opinion on something that has been bothering me.... Media always uses the phrase that radiation from Fukushima will be diluted by the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. I disagree with this common statement due to the fact that a radionuclide can not be diluted.

A radioactive isotope will exist until it decays..... whether it be on the head of a pin, in a glass of water, in a bathtub full of water or if its one single isotope in all of the oceans of the world.... its still that same isotope..... all the water in the world will not change the fact that the isotope is the same. The radioactivity of same isotope would definitely be harder to find as the amount of liquid is increased, but that single isotope itself is not "diluted" it still has the same strength that it had from day 1, minus any loss from decay of the isotope itself.

I like to use the following analogy: I have one black marble. That black marble is going to stay black until it is destroyed.... now if I add 10 white marbles does the black marble somehow become magically unimportant anymore? Its still the same marble it was before I added the white marbles........ no matter how many white marbles I add.... that one marble is going to stay black, its not slowly going to turn dark grey and get lighter as I add more white marbles.... it may be harder to see because of all the white marbles, but that does not change the fact that the marble itself remains black and remains unchanged from since the time it was a lonely black marble.

The Pacific Ocean will dilute the radiation coming from Fukushima. Not true in my opinion.

The Pacific Ocean will cause the radiation from Fukushima to dissipate to very low or non-detectable levels. True

The Pacific Ocean will cause the effects of the radiation from Fukushima to be diluted. True... the more the radiation disperses in the vastness of the ocean will make it harder to find and therefore the effects will have less impact.

I know you are a very busy man but I would really like clarification on the words dilute vs dissipate or disperse when it comes to a radionuclide.
Thanks,
Rick

This is his reply:

Dear Rick;

excellent question. The truth is probably all apply. If one were in the water near the reactor a couple years ago the radioactivity was high; it was both concentrated in the amount (undliuted), and, more active. The radioactivity we measure has an 87 day half life after it is produced, it disappears by decay in about a year for all practical purposes its gone. if it is a long half life, it can survive in the water and be transported; then the issue of mixing with the water becomes the question. I would guess that is why the papers usually speak of it in that way. Im not a journalist, so I cannot say for sure. What they are saying is in a given volume of water, there is a very small possibility of finding a radioactive element. Chemists would call it concentration; in physics, it would be the activity. In the sense you mention you are right, the number of radiacive atoms in the ocean are the same; then for health reasons, it is important how many of those exist in a given volume. so in your conclusions, you are basically right. I hope I answered OK;
kindest regards
Mark

Mark H. Thiemens
Dean, Division of Physical Sciences
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and
Chancellors Associates Chair
University of California San Diego
La Jolla,California 92093-0356

Fukushima...the gift that keeps on giving

New record highs of radiation:

Fukushima, Feb. 6 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday it has corrected groundwater radioactive contamination data at the Fukushima No. 1 power station originally released in summer last year. Samples collected from an observation well close to the sea in early July contained a record 5 million becquerels of strontium-90 per liter of groundwater, the company said. When TEPCO announced the original data that month, the firm said the total amount of radioactive materials emitting beta particles, including strontium-90, was 900,000 becquerels. Strontium-90 usually accounts for about a half of all beta particle-emitting substances in contaminated water at the disaster-stricken power station in northeastern Japan. So, the total amount of beta particle-emitting materials in the samples in question are likely to be around 10 million becquerels, far higher than the previous record high of 3.1 million becquerels for the well.

jen.jiji.com...

sad thing is...this is an adjustment from last summer.... who knows what the current levels actually are...

its usually safe to multiply any estimate by Tepco by at least 3 to arrive at a more accurate number. I often wonder if the truth will ever be known about how much radiation is coming from the plant. Scary indeed.

reply to post by RickinVa


Thanks for the update Rick.

I guess this is why they aren't giving numbers for Strontium in the bay. It is probably much worse than expected.

reply to post by RickinVa


Sadly Jenji missed to tell us the Location of the Well
where Tepco collected the Water,
but this is the most important Point!

I will try to locate it!

reply to post by RickinVa


I found the Location:

Tokyo Electric Power Co. corrected its radioactivity readings for groundwater from a well at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to a record-high 5 million becquerels of strontium per liter.

TEPCO officials said the strontium levels were gauged again because the previous data was wrong. They also said radioactivity readings for water taken from other wells before September were also likely erroneous.

The company had said 900,000 becquerels of beta-ray sources, including strontium, were detected in water taken on July 5, 2013, from the observation well near a water intake for the No. 2 reactor turbine building.

Asahi Source

Imo. looks a bit dangerous but it is still unclear if this is
"Groundwater" or contaminated Water from a inner Pipe.

reply to post by poet1b


Actually they do,
we have access to this Data,
Caesium 134/137, Plutonium, Strontium, H3!

You find the Info here or there:
Japan NRA

The Levels are very low and Strontium 90 is under the Detection
Level of 0.12-13 Bq a Liter!

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday that it will review a "massive" amount of radiation data it has collected at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant because readings may be lower than actual figures due to improper measurement. "We are very sorry, but we found cases in which beta radiation readings turned out to be wrong when the radioactivity concentration of a sample was high," TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told a press conference. Beta ray-emitting radioactive materials include strontium-90.

english.kyodonews.jp...


Ha Ha... is anybody really schocked except for maybe 2 people? lol

reply to post by RickinVa

I'm not shocked at the incompetence (or whatever the true cause is).

I'm a little surprised they admitted it though.

RickinVa

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday that it will review a "massive" amount of radiation data it has collected at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant because readings may be lower than actual figures due to improper measurement. "We are very sorry, but we found cases in which beta radiation readings turned out to be wrong when the radioactivity concentration of a sample was high," TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told a press conference. Beta ray-emitting radioactive materials include strontium-90.

english.kyodonews.jp...


Ha Ha... is anybody really schocked except for maybe 2 people? lol

I still dont understand why Japan leaves tepco in charge i would throw them out and bill them. They constantly update their readings because everytime they release data its wrong been going on for over 2 yrs now. The latest was a high reactor reading which there blaming on a faulty sensor. The reason they panicked is rising heat means reactor started up again.

blogs.wsj.com...

Human0815

RickinVa

This historical knowledge has been very useful for understanding the effects Fukushima has had and will continue to have on the Pacific. Many excellent researchers from Japan and abroad have been investigating this closely since March 2011, and anyone who is hoping to know more about what impact Fukushima radiation will have on the ocean far from Japan– in Hawaii, Alaska, or near California, for instance — should become familiar with what Fukushima ocean studies have shown.

These researchers’ collaborations have been a model of cooperation among nations and institutions, and while the picture is not yet complete, the outlines — how much radiation is in the ocean, where it will go, and when it will get there — have been fairly well estimated.

These scientists conclude that the the Cs137 levels in the waterborne Fukushima radiation now reaching the North American Pacific coast will peak at between about 0.004 and 0.010 Bq/L, compared to about 0.001-0.002 Bq/L before the accident, will stay that way for a few years, and should start declining again around 2017.

Percentage-wise this means 2 to 10 times existing Cs levels, which we could say is a lot, especially since the entire Pacific will be affected. But when one considers that the added radiation represents only about 1/1000 or less of the 7.4 Bq/L of Cs 137 the US EPA allows in drinking water (Japan and the WHO both allow 10 Bq/L), most people would probably conclude that it represents a minuscule health risk if any even if you drank it.

The same appears to be true concerning the risks presented by the migratory Pacific bluefin tuna caught off California that had detectable levels of Cs137 as well: someone who ate 2 kg of it a week for a year would raise their risk of fatal cancer by only 0.00002%.

Source

edit on 13-1-2014 by Human0815 because: add of Info

A very nice quote and source. However it is just speaking about the radiative effect of one isotope. It is not addressing any of the chemically toxic effects of that isotope or others. Which through bio-acculumulation can easy come to rest in a body causing serious harm over the coming decades.

These isotopes are in the air as well, mingling with all the other (long half life) particles that atomsheric testing, depleted uranium and easily inhaled by anyone anywhere.

I don't think anyone thinks that the past can be changed. But, with all due respect, the reaction of the Japanese Government and business has been slow and ineffective. The Russians did a much better job of initial containment then the Japanese have done. They still have problems and will for hundreds of years (Chernobyl is a major cause of the fall of the USSR), they still have leaks, people in Belarus, Urkraine, Russia are getting sick (and dying) from the long terms effects and will be for a long time.

Arbitrageur
reply to post by RickinVa

 

I'm not shocked at the incompetence (or whatever the true cause is).

I'm a little surprised they admitted it though.

I suspect that there will be more information coming forth soon that Fukushima is a lot worse than Tepco has been willing to admit..... You can't hide high radiation readings forever..... its bound to start showing up in the nearby ocean as elevated levels.


The only thing that concerns me right now is the 3 melted cores.......if they have managed to leave the building and are in the ground, then one would expect the radiation levels, especially the beta emitters to start going up dramatically.... which for all intents and purposes is what appears to be happening.

Hopefully for Japan and everyone else, the cores are still in containment. But it's really starting to look like the opposite may quite well indeed be the case....That would set the decontamination schedule way way back..... there is no way to dig the coriums out of the earth without a large loss of workers..... look how many workers and engineers died at Chernobyl, and that core was still in the building.

The coriums won't melt straight down like everyone thought years ago in a China Syndrome..... they are liquid molten metal for all intents and purposes and will follow the path of least resistance just like water does..... they will eventually spider out into long thin tubes as gravity pulls them downwards.... that's why it would be almost impossible to dig them out. I saw a video a while back that showed what coriums look like,,,, kinda like magma but more viscous....it flows easier than magma.

If they stayed in one big lump, it would be actually easier to remove them. There has never been a case that I know of where coriums actually penetrated the ground.... and now you're looking at 3 of them at once.

"We are very sorry, but we found cases in which beta radiation readings turned out to be wrong when the radioactivity concentration of a sample was high," TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told a press conference. Beta ray-emitting radioactive materials include strontium-90."

Pay attention people..... they just announced that a reading from last July was wrong..... 1 reading that was wrong..... they admitted to multiple cases... makes me wonder exactly how many readings are we talking about here????

Here is a link to some video from staged meltdowns.... the first one shows how melted coriums move.... pretty interesting.


www.ne.anl.gov...


pretty interesting is the wrong term..... pretty scary is more like it.

Think of it like this... picture a upside down tree under a reactor building.... that's what coriums in the ground would look like....it would be a solid mass for quite a few feet and then it would would start to branch out just like a tree does....except it would be upside down and in the ground.

And no I am not promoting doom porn.... just trying to give people an idea of what coriums outside of containment would look like and why it would be so hard to remove, remember we are talking about deadly radiation levels. It's not like you can just jump on a bullldozer and start digging it up...not unless you had a death wish that is.

I am not saying that is the case at Fukushima.... we just don't know.

reply to post by dragonridr


Do you realize the Date?

February 15, 2012, 10:59 AM Thermometers a Hot Topic at Fukushima Daiichi

It was a hot Topic, but two Years ago!

reply to post by RickinVa


Well if it melted through the concrete that might be a good thing. Sounds crazy i know but with chernobyl the corium actually encased itself in glass. It contained the radiation in what is essentially a glass tomb. where it continues to cool to this day.

dragonridr
reply to post by RickinVa

 

Well if it melted through the concrete that might be a good thing. Sounds crazy i know but with chernobyl the corium actually encased itself in glass. It contained the radiation in what is essentially a glass tomb. where it continues to cool to this day.

If it reaches the ground, that is what would be termed a nightmare scenario.... I don't know if they could get it out due to the fact the ground water levels in that area are so high.. they would have to physically remove the reactors before they could even think about digging it out.....they would most likely be screwed....and us too after a few centuries of the crap leaking into the Pacific Ocean unchecked.

Time will tell,,,, it always does.

Well well well, Tepco has been caught lying again.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. did not tell the public until recently that massively high levels of radiation were found in groundwater collected last July at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, even though the utility was aware of the data that month, according to sources.

www.japantimes.co.jp...


Can't say that anybody should find this news shocking lol. Really makes me wonder how much other stuff that they have swept under the proverbial rug.

reply to post by RickinVa


Boneheads.
It's not without reason that Japan's NRA is keeping close tabs on seawater contamination levels.
www.iaea.org...

reply to post by Phage


Did you read this report attached quite frankly i was expecting higher levels.

radioactivity.nsr.go.jp...