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About the previous post http://fukushima-diary.com/2011/09/news-japan-after-the-typhoon/ I received a message from a reader of this blog. It was to suggest the yellow powder could be plutonium. Here is the explanation. http://sti.srs.gov/fulltext/ms2002705/ms2002705.html source for text below

Plutonium-239 is one of the two fissile materials used for the production of nuclear weapons and in some nuclear reactors as a source of energy. The other fissile material is uranium-235. Plutonium-239 is virtually nonexistent in nature. It is made by bombarding uranium-238 with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. Uranium-238 is present in quantity in most reactor fuel; hence plutonium-239 is continuously made in these reactors. Since plutonium-239 can itself be split by neutrons to release energy, plutonium-239 provides a portion of the energy generation in a nuclear reactor. The physical properties of plutonium metal are summarized in Table 1.

Only two plutonium isotopes have commercial and military applications. Plutonium-238, which is made in nuclear reactors from neptunium-237, is used to make compact thermoelectric generators; plutonium-239 is used for nuclear weapons and for energy; plutonium-241, although fissile, (see next paragraph) is impractical both as a nuclear fuel and a material for nuclear warheads. Some of the reasons are far higher cost , shorter half-life, and higher radioactivity than plutonium-239. Isotopes of plutonium with mass numbers 240 through 242 are made along with plutonium-239 in nuclear reactors, but they are contaminants with no commercial applications. In this fact sheet we focus on civilian and military plutonium (which are interchangeable in practice–see Table 5), which consist mainly of plutonium-239 mixed with varying amounts of other isotopes, notably plutonium-240, -241, and -242.

Disturbing readings from one of Radiation Station Central's HEPA filters after just 30 days of use: 308% of normal background higher. Alpha and beta radiation captured by the filter can be attributed to the triple Fukushima Japan meltdowns, melt-throughs and melt-outs and the decision to begin burning 550,000 tons of radioactive debris in Tokyo from October to March, sending a double dose of radioactive fallout on the Jet Stream over the Pacific to land on America, Canada and beyond. Finding this high a level of radiation is considered dangerous by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Ingested alpha particles can be up to 1,000 times more dangerous than their beta and gamma counterparts.

RAW DATA:5:15 pm INTERIOR SPOT CHECKS OF THREE HEPA FILTERS's AGGREGATE DUST after 30 days of use in Radiation Station (VIDEOTAPED):Waterpik Teledyne HEPA air cleaner/ionizer: ~60 CPM or 138% of previous background higherHoneywell HEPA air cleaner: ~64 CPM or 147% of previous background higherKenmore Plasmawave HEPA air cleaner: ~134 CPM or 308% of previous background higher4:50 pm INTERIOR SPOT CHECK OF HONEYWELL HEPA FILTER: ~96 CPM or 221% of previous background higher4:45 pm 10-minute INTERIOR Radiation Station -- Central background average: 43.5 CPM^

This morning Pieter, Xeni and I (pictured above) set out with Miles, along with father/son superteam Joe and Bryan Moross. The plan was to drop off a few Geiger counters with volunteers and try to cover some some new ground, perhaps near the exclusion zone. But it ended up being so much more.

The day began in Shinjuku around close to 7:30am when we picked up a rental car, this was a large group with a lot of gear so we had a need for two vehicles and the usual Safecast car on it’s own wasn’t quite enough. We wasted no time and started driving north. Depending on where you are in the city, background radiation levels in Tokyo hover right around 50 CPM which is only slightly higher than what we believe they were prior to 3/11 though we weren’t measuring things then so can’t be positive. For our purposes we are assuming the average around the country was 35 CPM which is worth noting before I start mentioning numbers going forward. It wasn’t too long in our trip before we hit our first hotspot in Nasu.

Our first stop was Nihonmatsu which is not too far from Koriyama to meet up with some volunteers in the area and hand out a few new sensors for them to take measurements with. We met at restaurant and of course started measuring things the moment we set foot in the parking lot. Levels were noticeably higher than we’d seen just a few hours prior in Tokyo.

Jeffrey Patterson, MD, Physicians for Social Responsibility board member: Chernobyl today is still a mess [...] The levels of cesium in the soil have stayed the same, and in some areas gotten higher. We don’t know why — what’s happening.

Soon after Japan's triple disaster, I suggested that an official cover-up of a nuclear-weapons program hidden inside the Fukushima No.1 plant was delaying the effort to contain the reactor meltdowns. Soon after the tsunami struck, the Tokyo Electric Power Company reported that only three reactors had been generating electricity on the afternoon of March 11.. (According to the initial report, these were the older GE-built reactors 1,2 and 6.). Yet overheating at five of the plant's six reactors indicated that two additional reactors had also been operating (the newer and more advanced Nos. 3 and 4, built by Toshiba and Hitachi). The only plausible purpose of such unscheduled operation is uranium enrichment toward the production of nuclear warhead

On my subsequent sojourns in Japan, other suspicious activities also pointed to a high-level cover-up, including systematic undercounts of radiation levels, inexplicable damage to thousands of imported dosimeters, armed anti-terrorism police aboard trains and inside the dead zone, the jamming of international phone calls, homing devices installed in the GPS of rented cars, and warning visits to contacts by government agents discouraging cooperation with independent investigations. These aggressive infringements on civil liberties cannot be shrugged off as an overreaction to a civil disaster but must have been invoked on grounds of national security.

One telltale sign of high-level interference was the refusal by science equipment manufacturers to sell isotope chromatography devices to non-governmental customers, even to organizations ready to pay $170,000 in cash for a single unit. These sensitive instruments can detect the presence of specific isotopes, for example cesium-137 and strontium-90. Whether uranium was being enriched at Fukushima could be determined by the ratio of isotopes from enriched weapons-grade fissile material versus residues from less concentrated fuel rods.

To whom does scientific debate belong? That was a central question raised by many of the 200-plus people who attended a citizens' forum in Tokyo on Oct. 12, as they criticized the ways in which the Japanese government and radiation specialists working for it are assessing and monitoring the health effects of the ongoing nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The daylong conference, organized by the Japanese citizens' groups SAY-Peace Project and Citizens' Radioactivity Measuring Station (CRMS), featured experts who dispute much of the evidence on which the government has based its health and welfare decisions affecting residents of Fukushima Prefecture and beyond. Organizers of the event were also demanding that the government take into consideration the views of non-experts — and also experts with differing views from those of official bodies such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). The Japanese government has constantly referred to the ICRP's recommendations in setting radiation exposure limits for Fukushima residents.

One of the driving forces for the citizens' forum was a desire to challenge the conduct and much of the content of a conference held Sept. 11-12 in Fukushima, titled the "International Expert Symposium in Fukushima — Radiation and Health Risk." That conference, sponsored by the Nippon Foundation, involved some 30 scientists from major institutions, including the ICRP, the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Although the proceedings were broadcast live on U-stream, the event itself was — unlike the Tokyo forum — closed to the public. Some citizens and citizens' groups claimed that this exclusion of many interested and involved parties — and the event's avowed aim of disseminating to the public "authoritative" information on the health effects of radiation exposure — ran counter to the pursuit of facilitating open and free exchanges among and between experts and citizens on the many contentious issues facing the nation and its people at this critical time.

In particular, there was widespread criticism after the Fukushima conference — which was organized by Shunichi Yamashita, the vice president of Fukushima Medical University and a "radiological health safety risk management advisor" for Fukushima prefectural government — that its participants assumed from the outset that radioactive contamination from the plant's wrecked nuclear reactors is minimal. Critics also claimed that the experts invited to the conference had turned a collective blind eye to research findings compiled by independent scientists in Europe in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in present-day Ukraine — specifically to findings that point to various damaging health consequences of long-term exposure to low-level radiation. So it was that those two citizens' groups, angered by these and other official responses to the calamity, organized the Oct. 12 conference held at the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center in Shibuya Ward. Among the non-experts and experts invited to attend and exchange their views were people from a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, constitutional law and pediatrics. On the day, some of the speakers took issue with the stance of the majority of official bodies that the health damage from Chernobyl was observed only in a rise in the number of cases of thyroid cancers.

The impacts on the ocean of releases of radionuclides from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plants remain unclear. However, information has been made public regarding the concentrations of radioactive isotopes of iodine and cesium in ocean water near the discharge point. These data allow us to draw some basic conclusions about the relative levels of radionuclides released which can be compared to prior ocean studies and be used to address dose consequences as discussed by Garnier-Laplace et al. in this journal.(1) The data show peak ocean discharges in early April, one month after the earthquake and a factor of 1000 decrease in the month following. Interestingly, the concentrations through the end of July remain higher than expected implying continued releases from the reactors or other contaminated sources, such as groundwater or coastal sediments. By July, levels of 137Cs are still more than 10 000 times higher than levels measured in 2010 in the coastal waters off Japan. Although some radionuclides are significantly elevated, dose calculations suggest minimal impact on marine biota or humans due to direct exposure in surrounding ocean waters, though considerations for biological uptake and consumption of seafood are discussed and further study is warranted.

there was no large explosive release of core reactor material, so most of the isotopes reported to have spread thus far via atmospheric fallout are primarily the radioactive gases plus fission products such as cesium, which are volatilized at the high temperatures in the reactor core, or during explosions and fires. However, some nonvolatile activation products and fuel rod materials may have been released when the corrosive brines and acidic waters used to cool the reactors interacted with the ruptured fuel rods, carrying radioactive materials into the ground and ocean. The full magnitude of the release has not been well documented, nor is there data on many of the possible isotopes released, but we do have significant information on the concentration of several isotopes of Cs and I in the ocean near the release point which have been publically available since shortly after the accident started.

We present a comparison of selected data made publicly available from a Japanese company and agencies and compare these to prior published radionuclide concentrations in the oceans. The primary sources included TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), which reported data in regular press releases(3) and are compiled here (Supporting Information Table S1). These TEPCO data were obtained by initially sampling 500 mL surface ocean water from shore and direct counting on high-purity germanium gamma detectors for 15 min at laboratories at the Fukushima Dai-ni NPPs. They reported initially results for 131I (t1/2 = 8.02 days), 134Cs (t1/2 = 2.065 years) and 137Cs (t1/2 = 30.07 years). Data from MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology—Japan) were also released on a public Web site(4) and are based on similar direct counting methods. In general MEXT data were obtained by sampling 2000 mL seawater and direct counting on high-purity germanium gamma detectors for 1 h in a 2 L Marinelli beaker at laboratories in the Japan Atomic Energy Agency. The detection limit of 137Cs measurements are about 20 000 Bq m–3 for TEPCO data and 10 000 Bq m–3 for MEXT data, respectively. These measurements were conducted based on a guideline described by MEXT.(5) Both sources are considered reliable given the common activity ratios and prior studies and expertise evident by several Japanese groups involved in making these measurements. The purpose of these early monitoring activities was out of concern for immediate health effects, and thus were often reported relative to statutory limits adopted by Japanese authorities, and thus not in concentration units (reported as scaling factors above “normal”). Here we convert values from both sources to radionuclide activity units common to prior ocean studies of fallout in the ocean (Bq m–3) for ease of comparison to previously published data.

Title: UCB Milk Sampling Results Source: University of California Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering Date: 1/14/2012 (9:40am)

By integrating all of the milk data we have collected since March 11, we can estimate the total effective dose equivalent (TEDE) one could have received from exposure to fission product isotopes in milk to date. For someone drinking milk at the relatively high rate of one gallon per week, the TEDE could be nearly 1 microsievert, or the total effective dose equivalent for only 12 minutes on an airplane flight or 3.7 hours of the average person’s background exposure from natural sources of radiation.

Pasteurized, Homogenized Milk from the San Francisco Bay Area with Best By Date of 12/29/2011 Cs-134: 0.068 Becquerels/liter (Bq/l) ±0.011 [MDA=0.044] Cs-137: 0.075 Bq/l ±0.015 [MDA=0.052] Total cesium is .143 Bq/l, or 3.87 picocuries/l (pCi/l) (1 Bq = 27.1 pCi). The EPA Maximum Contaminant Level for radioactive cesium in milk is 3 pCi/l:

In the money-driven battle over our future energy supply choices, the people who fight nuclear energy have imagination on their side. They can, and often do, invent numerous scary tales about what might happen without the need to actually prove anything.

One of the most powerful weapons in their arsenal is the embedded fantasy that a nuclear reactor accident can lead to catastrophic consequences that cannot be accepted. This myth is doubly hard to dislodge because a large fraction of the nuclear energy professionals have been trained to believe it. When you want to train large numbers of slightly above average people to do their job with great care and attention to detail, it can be useful to exaggerate the potential consequences of a failure to perform. It is also a difficult myth to dislodge because the explanation of why it is impossible requires careful and often lengthy explanations of occasionally complex concepts.

The bottom lines of both Chernobyl and Fukushima tell me that the very worst that can realistically happen to nuclear fission reactors results in acceptable physical consequences when compared to the risk of insufficient power or the risk of using any other reliable source of power. The most negative consequences of both accidents resulted from the way that government leaders responded, both during the crisis stage and during the subsequent recoveries.

Scientists and doctors are calling for a new national policy in Japan that mandates the testing of food, soil, water, and the air for radioactivity still being emitted from Fukushima's heavily damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant."How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House of Representatives. "The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant. There is widespread concern in Japan about a general lack of government monitoring for radiation, which has caused people to begin their own independent monitoring, which are also finding disturbingly high levels of radiation. Kodama's centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country, has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima - and their findings are alarming.According to Dr Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 "Hiroshima-type atomic bombs" and the amount of uranium released "is equivalent to 20" Hiroshima bombs.

Kodama, along with other scientists, is concerned about the ongoing crisis resulting from the Fukushima situation, as well as what he believes to be inadequate government reaction, and believes the government needs to begin a large-scale response in order to begin decontaminating affected areas.Distrust of the Japanese government's response to the nuclear disaster is now common among people living in the effected prefectures, and people are concerned about their health.Recent readings taken at the plant are alarming.When on August 2nd readings of 10,000 millisieverts (10 sieverts) of radioactivity per hour were detected at the plant, Japan's science ministry said that level of dose is fatal to humans, and is enough radiation to kill a person within one to two weeks after the exposure. 10,000 millisieverts (mSv) is the equivalent of approximately 100,000 chest x-rays.

t is an amount 250 per cent higher than levels recorded at the plant in March after it was heavily damaged by the earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), that took the reading, used equipment to measure radiation from a distance, and was unable to ascertain the exact level because the device's maximum reading is only 10,000 mSv. TEPCO also detected 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) per hour in debris outside the plant, as well as finding 4,000 mSv per hour inside one of the reactor buildings.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA)’s daily press conference is ongoing (August 29). The NISA spokesman Moriyama mentions neptunium-239′s conversion ratio to plutonium-239 as 1 to 1. According to the June 6 estimate by the NISA: Plutonium-239: 3.2×10^9 Neptunium-239: 7.6×10^13 So, now it is: Plutonium-239: 7.6 x 10^13, or 76,000,000,000,000 or 76 terabecquerelsThe amount of plutonium-239 has increased 23,000-fold.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) power installations on university and college campuses have surged 450% over the last three years, according to a new database constructed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).A dramatic 40% fall in the installed cost of solar PV systems and the advent of new financing mechanisms, such as solar leasing, has led administrators to invest in renewable, clean solar power as a way of both hedging against rising future electricity prices and reducing campus greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints, the the AASHE says.

According to the AASHE Campus Solar Photovoltaic Installations database:• The 137 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity installed on higher education campuses to date is equivalent to the power used by 40,000 U.S. homes. • The market in 2010 for on-campus solar installations was over $300 million in the U.S. • Higher education solar installations in 2010 made up 5.4 percent of the total 956 MW installed that year in the U.S. • Since 2009, the median project size has grown six fold. • Only five states installed more solar in 2010 than the 52 MW installed on U.S. campuses in 2010.

AASHE developed and publicly opened the campus solar PV database with the aim of building on the success of solar on US campuses to date. It enables users to browse installations and stories by type, size and location.

SOURCE: Radiation hotspot detected in Tokyo: reports, AFP, October 13, 2011: TOKYO — [...] Japanese media said researchers found radiation levels of 3.35 microsieverts per hour along a street in the west of [Tokyo] — 220 kilometres (136 miles) from Fukushima — much higher than previously reported levels. [...]

[...] Radiation levels in the area have not fallen since [Setagaya] ward’s efforts to decontaminate it on October 6, and authorities are instructing children to avoid the walkway as they go to school. Setagaya Mayor Nobuto Hosaka told TBS: “I thought the reading must be a mistake when I first heard” [...] Read the report here: AFP: Radiation hotspot detected in Tokyo: reports

The reading is also higher than levels measured recently at Iitate, an area in Fukushima prefecture that has been evacuated. The reading in Setagaya was taken one metre above the ground near a hedge, national broadcaster NHK said, while other parts of the same sidewalk showed lower readings. The reading came after ward authorities said Wednesday that levels of 2.7 microsieverts per hour had been detected on October 6, higher than levels of less than 0.1 microsieverts in other parts of Setagaya according to official data.

The higher readings come as more tests illustrate how far fall-out from the Fukushima disaster have spread, with elevated levels of radioactive caesium recently found as far away as Yokohama, more than 241 kilometers (150 miles) from the plant.

Setagaya ward did not immediately confirm Thursday's reading. "We don't know the cause (of the high radiation levels) yet. We are asking experts to find it urgently and decontaminate the area," a spokeswoman said. She added that the high readings have been shown only in a two-meter long area and below 1.5 meters from the ground. "We also plan to check sand in the ward's 258 parks over one month from late October," she told AFP. Radiation levels in the area have not fallen since the ward's efforts to decontaminate it on October 6, and authorities are instructing children to avoid the walkway as they go to school.

In her Op/Ed column, "Power economy with nuclear energy," former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman is correct that nuclear energy is "a vital part of our clean energy portfolio" and that it demands "a constant focus on safety." However, she misrepresents the true state of facts in asserting that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "has undertaken an exhaustive review of the country's commercial reactors and concluded that they are safe."The NRC's re-evaluation of the safety risk to nuclear plants from seismic events remains ongoing. Even before the March earthquake in Japan, the NRC recognized that updated probabilistic seismic hazard estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey, particularly for the central and eastern U.S., require a re-evaluation of the seismic safety parameters required of licensees.The August earthquake near the North Anna nuclear plant demonstrated that the NRC must accelerate this review and quickly identify those existing plants that should be upgraded to provide a higher margin of safety commensurate with the greater risks now understood to be posed by seismic events.

In fact, the NRC has already concluded that the proposed third reactor at North Anna will be required to withstand ground acceleration parameters that are significantly higher than those required in the licenses for existing units 1 and 2, which were tripped by the Aug. 23 earthquake and remain shut down. Clearly, North Anna units 1 and 2 must be "backfitted" to withstand higher ground acceleration parameters before they are restarted.While nuclear power provides our best current energy alternative to fossil fuels, it must be employed in a manner that ensures the safety of all concerned.