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95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist , Politics of Nuclear Energy , Unreliables , Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk . If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be. Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.   On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuc

95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Unreliables, Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk. If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.  On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.” Fortunately, the people who are not a part of the antinuclear community are finally beginning to recognize their own strength and to realize that they do not have to remain silent while the lies are being spread. Here is how a knowledgable commenter responded to the above segment of the article: If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.

On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants. Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.”

From the press release by Akita prefectural government on July 25:A resident in Akita Prefecture alerted the authorities when the bag of leaf compost that he purchased from a local garden/home center measured high in radiation with his portable survey meter. The authorities tested the content of the bag, and it had 11,000 becquerels/kg of cesium.

At the garden/home center (2 locations) the air radiation 1 meter from the pile of the leaf compost bags measured as high as 0.48 microsievert/hr.

The press release is somewhat misleading, as it says the air radiation 1 meter from one bag of the leaf compost is 0.06 microsievert/hr. If you measure in front of the pile of the same bags, the radiation is as high as 0.48 microsievert/hr. Akita's air radiation level (which the prefectural government measures only at 2 locations) is between 0.04 and 0.06 microsievert/hr.According to Yomiuri Shinbun (7/27/2011), these bags were packed in Tochigi Prefecture, and 20,000 bags have already been sold in Akita Prefecture alone.

A tea producer blended the tea with radioactive cesium with the tea without radioactive cesium so that he could sell off his radioactive tea. An operator of a sewer sludge plant knowingly sold radioactive sludge to a manufacturer of garden soil because there was no national government standard when he sold it. Their reason: "It's safer that way, as radioactive cesium will be diluted".Many Japanese consumers seem dismayed to find out that there are people among them who would do such a thing, but there are people like that, unfortunately. And as the article cites one government agency, it is clearly none of the government's business to do anything about it anytime soon.From Tokyo Shinbun paper version (not online; 10/3/2011), extremely quick translation subject to revision later if necessary:

Dilute cesium and sell - blend tea, garden soil - so that the cesium level is below the limitAfter the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident spread radioactive materials, the provisional safety limit was set for variety of foods and goods. If an item tests less than the provisional limit it is considered "guaranteed safe". As the result, there are businesses that mix [radioactive goods] with those made in places far away from Fukushima Prefecture to dilute radioactive materials and sell them. Currently it is not against the law to do so, but the consumers who doubt the safety of the products and the producers who fear further "baseless rumor" damages are voicing concern.Mixing

According to our research, we have been able to confirm instances of goods being sold after diluting the radioactive cesium content - garden soil and green teas.In case of garden soil, sludge from water purification plants and sewage treatment plants had been used as an ingredient of the garden soil before the provisional safety limit for sludge was set. Sludge contains vital ingredients like phosphorus and potassium, and it is mixed with the soil at 10 to 20% ratio to make the garden soil.The safety standard for radioactive materials in sludge was established on June 16, but some water purification plants in Kanagawa Prefecture had sold the total of 4,538 tonnes of sludge to the garden soil manufacturers from April up till June 16.

Survey Finds Radiation Over Wide Area in Japan, Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2011:

The first comprehensive survey of soil contamination from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant showed that 33 locations spread over a wide area have been contaminated with long-lasting radioactive cesium, the government said Tuesday. The survey of 2,200 locations within a 100-kilometer (62-mile) radius of the crippled plant found that those 33 locations had cesium-137 in excess of 1.48 million becquerels per square meter, the level set by the Soviet Union for forced resettlement after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Another 132 locations had a combined amount of cesium 137/134 over 555,000 becquerels per square meter, the level at which the Soviet authorities called for voluntary evacuation and imposed a ban on farming. [...] the latest data point to the possibility that cesium could also be washing away and spreading to other areas, potentially contaminating rivers, lower-lying land and the ocean. [...]

A scare last week in which technicians and observers warned of a possible chain reaction in Fukushima Daiichi’s destroyed reactor No. 2 has now been determined to be a “spontaneous fission incident” – a process of radioactive decay that does not involve a chain reaction.

The fears behind a possible chain reaction centered on the discovery of xenon gas as a possible harbinger of further fuel melts at the reactors – three of which experienced full meltdowns after the plant was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in March. But both the plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) and nuclear physicist Katsutada Aoki have said that the presence of xenon is not an indication that the wrecked fuel in the reactors has re-achieved “criticality” - or a sustained chain reaction of nuclear fission.  "The discovery of xenon in the reactor is no reason to fear anything serious," Aoki, an expert in nuclear engineering who headed the reactor physics division of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, told the Japan Times.

TEPCO said this week that it considered the source of the xenon to be spontaneous fission because technicians had injected boric acid into the reactor vessel to reduce the likelihood of chain fission reactions but was still able to detect xenon. Temperature and pressure data from the unit also showed no change around the time of the xenon's discovery in another indication that chain reactions were not taking place. TEPCO slammed for spreading fear But Aoki criticized TEPCO, saying the utility could have done a better job analyzing the implications of the newly discovered xenon gases and avoided spreading needless fear that a nuclear chain reaction might have restarted. In a confusing and worrying announcement, TEPCO revealed last Wednesday that it found one one-hundred-thousandth of a becquerel per 1 cubic centimeter of xenon-133 and xenon-135 in gas samples from reactor No. 2, saying it might indicate the melted fuel in the reactor could have briefly reached criticality since xenon can be generated through such nuclear fission.

Tokyo – Takeo Hayashida signed on with a citizens’ group to test for radiation near his son’s baseball field in Tokyo after government officials told him they had no plans to check for fallout from the devastated Fukushima …

Then came the test result: the level of radioactive cesium in a patch of dirt just yards from where his 11-year-old son, Koshiro, played baseball was equal to those in some contaminated areas around Chernobyl. The patch of ground was one of more than 20 spots in and around the nation’s capital that the citizens’ group, and the respected nuclear research center they worked with, found were contaminated with potentially harmful levels of radioactive cesium. “Everybody just wants to believe that this is Fukushima’s problem,” said Kota Kinoshita, one of the group’s leaders and a former television journalist. “But if the government is not serious about finding out, how can we trust them?”

Kaoru Noguchi, head of Tokyo’s health and safety section, however, argues that the testing already done is sufficient. Because Tokyo is so developed, she says, radioactive material was much more likely to have fallen on concrete, then washed away. She also said exposure was likely to be limited.

download or watch the video below: Fukushima radioactive seawater plume = spreading across entire pacific

here is the link to see the plume dispersion: http://www.xydo.com/toolbar/27327691-asr_ltd_-_fukushima_radioactive_seawater_plume_dispersal_simulation

from their website:   “We use a Lagrangian particles dispersal method to track where free floating material (fish larvae, algae, phytoplankton, zooplankton…) present in the sea water near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station plant could have gone since the earthquake on March 11th. THIS IS NOT A REPRESENTATION OF THE RADIOACTIVE PLUME CONCENTRATION. Since we do not know how much contaminated water and at what concentration was released into the ocean, it is impossible to estimate the extent and dilution of the plume. However, field monitoring by TEPCO and modelling by the Sirrocco group in University of Toulouse, France both show high concentration in the surrounding water (highest rate at 80 Bq/L and 24 Bq/L for respectively I-131 and C-137) . Assuming that a part of the passive biomass could have been contaminated in the area, we are trying to track where the radionuclides are spreading as it will eventually climb up the food chain.

Cathode Long “rings of the capital of contaminated food の と の radioactivity terror”, Weekly Asahi, September 23, 2011:

Google Translation Meltdown temperature of the fuel in nuclear reactors in Fukushima in March, therefore, far more than 2000 ℃, had been considered from 4000 ℃ to 3000 ℃. Boiling point, 184 ℃ and iodine, 671 ℃ cesium, strontium since 1382 ℃, radioactive materials are dangerous, but far beyond the temperature was almost entirely vaporized. Even the plutonium, the boiling point is lower than 1400 ℃ 3228 ℃ than molybdenum. If so, of course, strontium and plutonium are particularly significant influence on internal exposure, and was released to the mass gasification, I believe. Translation of Asahi report via Fukushima Diary:

Science journalist Hirose Takashi In March, fuel rods started meltdown in the reactor.They became hot as 4000℃, which is hot enough to make most of the radioactive material evaporated. Especially plutonium and strontium were evaporated, spread around as gas. [...]

SOURCE: Radiation in Japan: Hot spots and blind spots, The Economist, October 8, 2011 [Iitate, 45 km from meltdowns] offers an extreme example of how difficult it will be to recover from the disaster. That is mainly because of the enormous spread of radiation. [...] Outside [the chief of Iitate's village council, Mr. Chohei Sato's] house, however, a reading of the equivalent of 150 millisieverts a year left your correspondent strangely reluctant to inhale. The Hills Crest the hill into the village of Iitate, and the reading on a radiation dosimeter surges eightfold—even with the car windows shut. [...]  Radiation levels in the hills are so high that villagers dare not go near them. [...]

SOURCE: News: Actual Fukushima worker warns to get out of Japan before Spring comes, Fukushima Diary by Mochizuki, October 5, 2011 [Translated Oct. 4 Tweet by] Happy20790 ハッピー

[...] Speaking of the pine, the pollen next year is very “serious”. I have an allergy too.

[Translated Oct. 4 Tweet by] Happy20790 ハッピー

KORIYAMA, Oct. 31 — “Japan still is struggling to figure out how to clean up the mess, exacerbating fears about health risks and fanning mistrust of the government,” reports Yumiko Ono in today’s Wall Street Journal. In fact, government policies may be increasing the spread of radioactive particles: According to the article, “Some experts say some ad hoc cleanup efforts risk spreading radiation further.” For example, Ono says schools “are temporarily storing contaminated soil in holes dug within the school compounds and lined with plastic sheets.”

Of this ‘storage’ method, Kimberlee Kearfott, a University of Michigan nuclear-engineering professor who has served on U.S. government panels for nuclear cleanups, says: Plastic isn’t a long-lasting seal against radioactive substances leaking. If radioactive materials get into the ground water and are concentrated there that could be worse than soil contamination because it could spread rapidly. “This type of shallow-pit burial has not been used in the U.S. since the 1960s.” “This is definitely not a good idea.” Officials at Japan’s environment ministry “concede the task is daunting,” according to the Journal article.

During an interview, Vice Minister Hideki Minamikawa said: “We don’t have experience in this field.” “We’re talking about such a vast area.” “Currently, there are no clear signs yet on what needs to be done to make decontamination a success.”