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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 testsBut the 3 substances are most likely to have come from the plant blasts, as their density ratio is different from those detected in the past.
Professor Yamamoto said the quantities are so minute that people’s health will not be harmed.
But he recommended that the contamination near the plant should be fully investigated, saying that a study may shed light on how radioactive materials spread in the air.
New leak seen at Japan quake-hit plant
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the plant, said on Thursday that up to 57 tons of contaminated water has leaked from a storage facility, Reuters reported.
The environmental group, Greenpeace, has criticized the Japanese government’s assessment of the contamination level, saying, “Radioactive hazards are not decreasing through dilution or dispersion of materials, but the radioactivity is instead accumulating in marine life.”
“Our data show that significant amounts of contamination continue to spread over great distances from the Fukushima nuclear plant,” the group added.
Greenpeace has also accused TEPCO of covering up the actual severity of the disaster in the Asian Read more…
Super Typhoon Songda Projected To Pass Over Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
So far the only good news to accompany the Fukushima catastrophe has been that for all the fallout, the radiation has been mostly contained due to Northwesterly winds which have been blowing any radioactivity mostly out and into the Pacific (coupled with relatively little rainfall), as well as the dispersion of irradiated cooling water which promptly enters the Pacific after which it is never heard of or seen again (there is at least a several year period before 3 eyed tuna fish feature prominently in restaurants across the country). This may be changing soon now that Super Typhoon Songda, which according to Weather Underground will form shortly as a Category 5 storm with 156+ mph winds, will take a northeasterly direction and 2 days later will pass right above Fukushima. The good news: by the time it passes over Fukushima, Songda will be merely a Tropical storm. The bad news: by the time it passes over Fukushima, Songda will be a Tropical storm. As the latest dispersion projection from ZAMG shows, over the next two days the I-131 plume will be covering all of the mainland. Although judging by how prominent this whole topic is in the MSM lately, it seems that conventional wisdom now agrees with Ann Coulter that radioactivity is actually quite good for you.
From wunderground.com:
And the latest plume projection: Read more…
Atmosphere Above Japan Heated Rapidly Before M9 Earthquake
Infrared emissions above the epicenter increased dramatically in the days before the devastating earthquake in Japan, say scientists.
Technology Review
Published by MIT
Geologists have long puzzled over anecdotal reports of strange atmospheric phenomena in the days before big earthquakes. But good data to back up these stories has been hard to come by.
In recent years, however, various teams have set up atmospheric monitoring stations in earthquake zones and a number of satellites are capable of sending back data about the state of the upper atmosphere and the ionosphere during an earthquake.
Last year, we looked at some fascinating data from the DEMETER spacecraft showing a significant increase in ultra-low frequency radio signals Read more…
Fukushima Reactor 1 melted down, 2 and 3 may have too
Yesterday, TEPCO, the company responsible for running the Fukushima nuclear reactors, released a provisional analysis of the events that occurred in Unit 1, one of the reactors that was active when the tsunami struck. In five stark pages, the report lays out the impact of the tsunami on the facility: water levels that plunged below the bottom of the fuel, a complete meltdown of the nuclear fuel, and extensive damage to the reactor vessel.
The new analysis was enabled by the recent installation of air purifiers that let personnel reenter the reactor control room for the first time. Once inside, they were able to recalibrate some of the instruments that have been monitoring the reactor core; Read more…
Reactor Rupture Could Slow Japan Plant Stabilization
Coolant is escaping through a newly discovered opening in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s No. 1 reactor pressure vessel, a development that could slow efforts to prevent potential further radiation releases from the Japanese facility, Reuters reported on Thursday (see GSN, May 11).
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power learned the container held less water than previously believed following repairs to monitoring equipment this week; the tank’s fluid quantity was roughly 16 feet short of the depth required to fully submerge atomic fuel if the material had remained in its intended position. The six-reactor site was severely damaged in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 20,000 people dead or missing in Japan.
“There must be a large leak,” Tokyo Electric Power official Junichi Matsumoto said to reporters on Thursday. “The fuel pellets likely melted and fell, and in the process may have damaged … the pressure vessel itself and created a hole,” he said.
Ongoing water transfers have successfully curbed the escaped fuel’s temperature, though, and workers would keep pumping fluid into the system, Matsumoto said. The container’s water quantity suggests the rupture is likely several centimeters across, indicating the fuel might have made contact with the air early in the crisis, he said. The vessel’s surface heat level has Read more…
Fukushima Groundwater Contamination Worst in Nuclear History (Video)
Can’t seal Fukushima like Chernobyl – it all goes into sea
Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant?
Confused and often conflicting reports out of Fukushima 1 nuclear plant cannot be solely the result of tsunami-caused breakdowns, bungling or miscommunication. Inexplicable delays and half-baked explanations from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) seem to be driven by some unspoken factor.
The smoke and mirrors at Fukushima 1 seem to obscure a steady purpose, an iron will and a grim task unknown to outsiders. The most logical explanation: The nuclear industry and government agencies are scrambling to prevent the discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan’s civilian nuclear power plants.
A secret nuclear weapons program is a ghost in the machine, detectable only when the system of information control momentarily lapses or breaks down. A close look must be taken at the gap between the official account and unexpected events.
Conflicting Reports
TEPCO, Japan’s nuclear power operator, initially reported three reactors were operating at the time of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Then a hydrogen explosion ripped Unit 3, run on plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (or MOX). Unit 6 immediately disappeared from the list of operational reactors, as highly lethal particles of plutonium billowed out of Unit 3. Plutonium is the stuff of smaller, more easily delivered warheads.
A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a Read more…
March 9.0 Japanese quake set off tremors around the world
The earthquake that launched a series of disasters in Japan in March triggered micro-quakes and tremors around the world, scientists find.
The catastrophic magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck off the coast of the Tohoku region of Japan March 11 set off tremors mostly in places of past seismic activity, including southwest Japan, Taiwan, the Aleutians and mainland Alaska, Vancouver Island in Canada, Washington state, Oregon, central California and the central United States. It was unlikely that any of these events exceeded magnitude 3.
Researchers noted, however, that temblors also were detected in Cuba. “Seismologists had never seen tremor in Cuba, so this is an exciting new observation,” Justin Rubinstein, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey at Menlo Park, Calif., told OurAmazingPlanet.
Part of the excitement of the find is the insight it could add into the inner workings of earthquakes.
“Studying long-range triggering may help us to better understand the underlying physics of how earthquakes start,” explained seismologist Zhigang Peng at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
Quakes where normally quiet
Most of these micro-earthquakes and tremors occurred in places that already had high background levels of seismic activity, including California’s Geysers Geothermal Field and the San Andreas Fault. Some of the quakes occurred in low-activity areas, such as central Nebraska, central Arkansas and near Beijing.
“Seismologists generally think of the central U.S. as relatively Read more…
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