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Dan R.D.

13-Year-Old Uses Fibonacci Sequence For Solar Power Breakthrough [19Aug11] - 0 views

hardware.slashdot.org/...e-For-Solar-Power-Breakthrough

solar design innovation opportunities

shared by Dan R.D. on 19 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Dan R.D. on 19 Aug 11
     
    An anonymous reader tips news of 7th grader Aidan Dwyer, who used phyllotaxis - the way leaves are arranged on plant stems in nature - as inspiration to arrange an array of solar panels in a way that generates 20-50% more energy than a uniform, flat panel array. Aidan wrote, "I designed and built my own test model, copying the Fibonacci pattern of an oak tree. I studied my results with the compass tool and figured out the branch angles. The pattern was about 137 degrees and the Fibonacci sequence was 2/5. Then I built a model using this pattern from PVC tubing. In place of leaves, I used PV solar panels hooked up in series that produced up to 1/2 volt, so the peak output of the model was 5 volts. The entire design copied the pattern of an oak tree as closely as possible. ... The Fibonacci tree design performed better than the flat-panel model. The tree design made 20% more electricity and collected 2 1/2 more hours of sunlight during the day. But the most interesting results were in December, when the Sun was at its lowest point in the sky. The tree design made 50% more electricity, and the collection time of sunlight was up to 50% longer!" His work earned him a Young Naturalist Award from the American Museum of Natural History and a provisional patent on the design.
D'coda Dcoda

Plants are dying [06Oct11] - 0 views

fukushima-diary.com/...news-plants-are-dying

contamination plants

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 06 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • In the previous post Column of the Day: brine damage? I reported evergreen plants are dying for some reason. Today, the actual Fukushima worker, Happy20790 tweeted a similar thing. Happy20790
  • Back in April, one of my followers asked me if any trees are dead and turned to be brown around the plants. I checked the tree at that time and it was green, at least at that time. I don’t know when it went dead. It’s not the whole tree but a part of it though..well it’s likely to be radiation..
D'coda Dcoda

Suwa Elementary School radioactivity in Yokosuka Nov, 17 2011 Slideshow Video.MPG - You... - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 19 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • D'coda Dcoda on 19 Nov 11
     
    Comment from Mother who uploaded this video from Japan; "How far is far enough away from the radiation. We all are effected by it though most people would like to deny there is a threat. We need to be informed in order to take proper action in protecting our kids. This is not for panic purposes but for educational purposes. Be aware of your surroundings and behave accordingly. If it needs to be cleaned, clean it. A system of continuous monthly radiation checks needs to be set up in areas where children will be playing and studying. With the spring comes the threat of radioactive pollen that will be blowing from mountain sides and local trees and flowers. We need to come up with a plan right now to protect ourselves in the future. Otherwise we are left with stupid band aids for real problems. How long will it take to decide on one logical plan of action? Gambarou Nihon...What does that mean? Suffer together? OK suffer together while we fight for what is right. It doesn't mean do gamman Nihon and sit back and pretend it isn't happening so let's just pretend to believe the lies and die together."
D'coda Dcoda

Potentially Radioactive Lumber to Be Promoted with "Eco-Point" Incentive? [16Sep11] - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...-radioactive-lumber-to-be.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 18 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Seiji Maehara, who lost his bid to become the party leader and the prime minister of Japan, has nonetheless landed on a very powerful party position as the chairman of the DPJ's policy bureau.He went to Fukushima, and after visiting with the evacuees from Iitate-mura, he disclosed his party's plan to use the "eco-point" system for residential housing to promote timber from the disaster-affected area.
  • What is the "eco-point" for houses? Well, if you build or renovate your house with energy saving features and alternative energy features (eg. solar panels) the government will give you "eco-points". Then you can use the points at participating stores and buy whatever you want to buy with the points.Maehara is saying the government may entice builders to use the lumber from the disaster-affected area with "eco-points", even if the potentially radioactive lumber has nothing to do with energy saving.
  • Iitate-mura's major industry is forestry. Iitate-mura's mountains and forests have been contaminated with whatever fell on them - radioactive cesium, plutonium, strontium. No one has tested them (if someone did, he's not saying anything), but the contamination should be an order of magnitude bigger than the radioactive firewood from Rikuzen Takata City in Iwate Prefecture.
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  • If Mr. Maehara has his way, the contaminated trees are to be cut from the contaminated mountains and hauled out of the mountains, disturbing the contaminated soil and dead leaves, and made into lumber in a village with high air radiation level and sold all over Japan with "eco-points", in order for the rest of the Japanese to help the villagers.This is "socializing the cost" to the extreme.From Sankei Shinbun (9/17/2011):
  • Seiji Maehara, chairman of the policy bureau of the Democratic Party of Japan, visited Fukushima City in the morning of September 17, and visited with the residents of Iitate-mura in their temporary houses. They evacuated to Fukushima City after the Fukushima I Nuclear Plant accident. In the dialog with the residents, Maehara apologized to them about Yoshio Hachiro, who resigned the post of Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry after his inappropriate remarks concerning the nuclear accident. Maehara said, "His words trampled down your feelings. As a member of the ruling party I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart".
  • The purpose of his visit was to incorporate the demands from the disaster-affected area into the 3rd supplementary budget plan for the fiscal 2011, which will be the budget for the recovery in earnest from the March 11 earthquake/tsunami disaster. Maehara responded to the decontamination request from the residents, by saying "We want to appropriate a large sum for the effort".
  • He also disclosed that he [or his party] is discussing the possibility of utilizing "residential eco-point system" if residential houses are built with lumber from the disaster-affected area. After the dialog with the Iitate-mura residents, he met with Governor Yuhei Sato. Governor Sato pointed out the slow response by the national government, and urged the creation of the recovery fund.
  • Mr. Maehara will go to Miyagi Prefecture in the afternoon to have a talk with Governor Yoshihiro Murai. He is also scheduled to survey the debris clearing operation.To the right-leaning and the US-favoring (and nuke-favoring) Sankei, Maehara is a darling, WikiLeaks or not."Oh it's just outside of the trees that is radioactive. In lumber, there will be no radiation, it's safe" will be the mantra. "Don't you want to help the victims of the accident?" will be another.
  • Iitate-mura's so-called "decontamination" of farmland and houses is expected to cost 200 billion yen, or US$2.6 billion. Part of the "decon" bubble, as Iitate-mura's "decontamination" is to be done by the national government and its researchers (as if they know anything about radiation decontamination on a massive scale), with the help of large general contractors.
D'coda Dcoda

Radiation in Japan: Hot spots and blind spots [07Oct11] - 0 views

www.economist.com/21531522

contamination soil

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 06 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Iitate is located 45km (28 miles) from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant hit by a tsunami on March 11th this year. In the mountains above the town, the forests are turning the colour of autumn. But their beauty is deceptive. Every time a gust of wind blows, Mr Sato says it shakes invisible particles of radioactive caesium off the trees and showers them over the village. Radiation levels in the hills are so high that villagers dare not go near them. Mr Sato cannot bury his father’s bones, which he keeps in an urn in his abandoned farmhouse, because of the dangers of going up the hill to the graveyard.
  • Iitate had the misfortune to be caught by a wind that carried radioactive particles (including plutonium) much farther than anybody initially expected after the nuclear disaster. Almost all the 6,000 residents have been evacuated, albeit belatedly, because it took the government months to decide that some villages outside a 30km radius of the plant warranted special attention. Now it 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. Recently the government said it needed to clear about 2,419 square kilometres of contaminated soil—an area larger than greater Tokyo—that received an annual radiation dose of at least five millisieverts, or over 0.5 microsieverts an hour. That covered an area far beyond the official 30km restriction zone (see map). Besides pressure- hosing urban areas, this would involve removing about 5cm of topsoil from local farms as well as all the dead leaves in caesium-laden forests.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Iitate’s experience suggests the government may be underestimating the task. Villagers have removed 5cm of topsoil from one patch of land, but because radioactive particles continue to blow from the surrounding trees, the level of radiation remains high—about one microsievert an hour—even if lower than in nearby areas. Without cutting down the forests, Mr Sato reckons there will be a permanent risk of contamination. So far, nobody has any idea where any contaminated soil will be dumped.
  • And even if people return, Mr Sato worries how they will make a living. These are farming villages, but it will take years to remove the stigma attached to food grown in Fukushima, he reckons. He is furious with Tokyo Electric Power, operator of the plant, for failing to acknowledge the long-term impacts of the disaster. He says it is a way of scrimping on compensation payouts.
  • One way to help overcome these problems would be to persuade people to accept relaxed safety standards. A government panel is due to propose lifting the advisory dose limit above one millisievert per year. This week in Tokyo, Wade Allison, a physics professor at Oxford University, argued that Japan’s dose limit could safely be raised to 100 millisieverts, based on current health statistics. Outside Mr Sato’s house, however, a reading of the equivalent of 150 millisieverts a year left your correspondent strangely reluctant to inhale.
D'coda Dcoda

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: 450 Tonnes of Groundwater Per Day Seeping into Reactor/Turbine... - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...-nuke-plant-450-tonnes-of.html

damage

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 20 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Since the end of June when the contaminated water treatment system started the operation, total 50,000 tonnes of groundwater have seeped into the reactor buildings and turbine buildings at Fukushima I Nuke Plant. Now, the total amount of contaminated water (highly contaminated water plus not-so-highly contaminated, treated water) at the plant has grown from 127,000 tonnes at the end of June to 175,000 tonnes as of October 18, according to Asahi Shinbun.Does TEPCO have any plan to stop the flow of groundwater into the reactor buildings and turbine buildings, which just adds to the amount of highly contaminated water to be treated and stored? TEPCO is fast running out of storage space, even with cutting down more trees to make room for the storage tanks.Other than spraying the low-contamination, treated water on the premise, the answer is no. No plan, as TEPCO is running out of money that it is willing to spend on Fukushima I Nuke Plant.From Asahi Shinbun (10/19/2011):
  • It has been discovered that the contaminated water has increased by 40% in 4 months inside the reactor buildings and turbine buildings at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, with the inflow of ground water of about 50,000 tonnes. The flow still continues. TEPCO may run out of storage space for the treated, still-contaminated, water. There is also a possibility of the highly contaminated water overflowing from the buildings if a problem at the water treatment facility and a heavy rain coincide.
  • According to the calculation done by Asahi Shinbun based on the data published by TEPCO, about 450 tonnes of ground water per day have been flowing into the buildings of Reactors 1 through 4 since the end of June when the contaminated water treatment facility started the operation. It is considered that there are damages in the walls of the buildings.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The amount of groundwater into the buildings fluctuates with the rainfall. At the end of September when it rained heavily because of a typhoon, the amount of ground water doubled, and about 7,700 tonnes of water seeped into the buildings in that week.
  • The groundwater would mix with the contaminated water in the basement of the buildings, and this highly contaminated water is being sent to the water treatment facility. After the density of radioactive materials in the water is lowered and salt removed, the treated water is being used for cooling the reactors.
  • When the circulatory water injection and cooling system started in late June, there were 127,000 tonnes of contaminated water (highly contaminated water plus the treated water with low contamination). However, as the result of the groundwater inflow, there are now 175,000 tonnes of contaminated water, a 40% increase, as of October 18. None of the water could be released outside the plant.
  • Concentrated, highly saline waste water after the desalination process is stored in the special tanks. As more water is processed, more tanks are needed. TEPCO is installing 20,000 tonnes storage tanks every month. To secure the space for the tanks the company has been cutting down the trees in the plant compound. There is a system to evaporate water to reduce the amount of waste water, but it is not currently used.
  • The water level in the turbine buildings where the highly contaminated water after the reactor cooling accumulates is 1 meter below the level at which there is a danger of overflowing. It is not the level that would cause immediate overflow after a heavy rain. However, if the heavy rain is coupled with a trouble at the water treatment system that hampers the water circulation, the water level could rise very rapidly.
  • The treatment capacity of the water treatment facility is 1,400 tonnes per day. TEPCO emphasizes that the facility is running smoothly and the circulatory water injection system is stable. However, if the current situation continues where groundwater keeps coming into the buildings that needs to be treated, the water treatment facility will be taxed with excess load, which may cause a problem.
  • It is difficult to stop the inflow of groundwater completely, and TEPCO is not planning any countermeasure construction. Regarding the continued inflow of groundwater into the buildings, TEPCO's Junichi Matsumoto says, "We have to come up with a more compact water treatment system in which we can circulate water without using the basements of the buildings. Otherwise we would be stuck in a situation where we have to treat the groundwater coming into the basements." However, there is no prospect of fundamentally solving the problem.And there will be no such prospect, as TEPCO is now proven to be very good at looking the other way. Over 10 sieverts/hour ultra-hot spot? Not a problem, we will just cordon off the area. What is causing 10 sieverts/hour radiation? Why it's not our problem. How much over 10 sieverts/hour? We don't know because we don't measure such things. High hydrogen concentration in the pipe? Not a problem, we will just blow nitrogen gas. What is causing the high hydrogen concentration? It's not our problem. A worker died after 1 week of work at the plant. Why? It's not our problem, it's the subcontractor's problem...
D'coda Dcoda

(Part 3) Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University Tells the Politicians: "What Ar... - 0 views

ex-skf.blogspot.com/...essor-tatsuhiko-kodama-of.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 29 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Testimony by Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama of Tokyo University continues. He goes back to Minami Soma City where his Radioisotope Center has been helping to decontaminate.We at the Radioisotope Center of Tokyo University have been helping to decontaminate Minami-Soma City, sending about 4 people at a time and doing decontamination work for the length of 700km per week.Again, what's happening to Minami-Soma clearly shows that 20 or 30 kilometer radius [from the nuke plant] doesn't make any sense at all. You have to measure in more detail like measuring each nursery school.
  • Right now, from the 20 to 30 kilometer radius area, 1,700 school children are put on the buses to go to school. Actually in Minami-Soma, the center of the city is located near the ocean, and 70% of the schools have relatively low level of radiation. Yet, children are forced to get on the school buses to go all the way to schools near Iitate-mura [where radiation is higher], spending 1 million yen everyday for the busing.
  • I strongly demand that this situation be terminated as soon as possible.What's most problematic is the government's policy that they will compensate the residents for the moving cost only if their areas are designated as official evacuation zones. In a recent committee held at the House of Councilors [Upper House], President Shimizu of TEPCO and Mr. Kaieda, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry answered that way. I ask you to separate the two immediately - compensation criteria issue and children's safety issue.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • I strongly ask you to do whatever you can to protect the children.Another thing is, what I strongly feel when I'm doing the decontamination work in Fukushima is that emergency decontamination and permanent decontamination should be dealt with separately.
  • We've been doing a lot of emergency decontamination work. For example, if you look at this diagram, you will notice that the bottom of this slide is where small children put their hands on. Every time the rain stream down the slide, more radioactive materials accumulate. There can be a difference in radiation level between the right side and the left side. If such difference occurs and if the average radiation of the slide is 1 microsievert, then one side can measure as high as 10 microsieverts. We should do more emergency decontamination work in such places.
  • The ground right under the roof gutter is also where children frequently put their hands on. If you use high pressure washer you can reduce the radiation level from 2 microsieverts to 0.5 microsievert.However, it is extremely difficult to lower the level to less than 0.5microsievert, because everything is contaminated. Buildings, trees, whole areas. You can lower radiation dose of one place, but very difficult to do that for the whole area.Then, how much will it cost when you seriously do the decontamination work? In case of "Itai-Itai Disease" caused by cadmium poisoning, to decontaminate half of cadmium-contaminated area of roughly 3,000 hectare, the government has spent 800 billion yen so far.How much money will be needed if we have to decontaminate the area 1,000 times as big?
  • Finally, Professor Kodama has 4 demands, although probably due to the time constraint he was able to elaborate only three:So, I'd like to make four urgent requests.First, I request that the Japanese government, as a national policy, innovate the way to measure radiation of food, soil, and water, through using the Japan's state-of-the-art technology such as semiconductor imaging detectors. This is absolutely within Japan's current technological capability.
  • Second, I request that the government enact a new law as soon as possible in order to reduce children's radiation exposure. Right now, what I'm doing is all illegal.The current "Radiation Damage Prevention Law" specifies the amount of radiation and the types of radionuclides that each institution can handle. Now Tokyo University is mobilizing its workforce in its twenty-seven Radioisotope Centers to help decontaminate Minami-Soma City, but many of the centers don't have a permission to handle cesium. It's illegal to transport it by cars. However, we cannot leave highly radioactive materials to mothers and teachers there, so we put them all in drums and bring them back to Tokyo. To receive them is illegal. Everything is illegal.
  • The Diet is to blame for leaving such situations as they are. There are many institutions in Japan, such as Radioisotope Centers at national universities, which have germanium detectors and other state-of-the-art detectors. But how can we, as the nation, protect our children if these institutions' hands are tied? This is the result of the gross negligence by the Diet.
  • Third, I request that the government as a national policy mobilize technological power of the private sector in order to decontaminate the soil. There are many companies with expertise of radiation decontamination; chemical companies such as Toray and Kurita, decontamination companies such as Chiyoda Technol and Atox, andconstruction companies such as Takenaka Corporation. Please mobilize their power to create a decontamination research center in Fukushima as soon as possible.
  • It will take tens of trillions of yen to do the decontamination work. I'm gravely concerned that it might become public works project involving concessions. [In other words, business as usual in Japan where only the businesses and politicians benefit.]We don't have the luxury to spare a single second considering the financial condition of the Japanese government. We must figure out how we really do the decontamination work.What on earth is the Diet doing, when 70,000 people are forced out of their homes and wandering?
D'coda Dcoda

Nuclear Power Criticized On Hiroshima Anniversary : NPR [07Aug11] - 0 views

www.npr.org/...cized-on-hiroshima-anniversary

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 07 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • On Saturday, Japan commemorated the 66th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima, but the ceremony was different this year. In March, a massive earthquake triggered a meltdown at the Japanese nuclear plant in Fukushima. The plant continues to leak radiation in the worst atomic accident since Chernobyl. Saturday's ceremony focused on the nuclear attack on Japan in 1945, but the country's ongoing nuclear disaster loomed large.
  • In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, a poll showed that 70 percent of Japanese now want nuclear power phased out. After Saturday's ceremony, anti-nuclear activists took their cause to the streets of Hiroshima. They drew a direct line between the two atomic events separated by more than six decades.
  • "I deeply regret believing in the security myth of nuclear power and will carry out a thorough verification on the cause of this incident," he said. The "security myth" was the Japanese government's pledge that it could control the atom. Officials said the same forces that leveled Hiroshima could be harnessed to power this resource-poor nation. Most Japanese believed it for years.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • At 8:15 a.m. the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima. It killed 70,000 people instantly. As the bell tolled Saturday, most people froze, closed their eyes and put their hands together to pray. Cicadas roared in the trees overhead. Prime Minister Naoto Kan remembered the dead from long ago, then he spoke of Japan's most recent atomic tragedy.
  • One group of activists peeled off and headed to the Chugoku Electric Power Co. The company has been trying to build a plant 50 miles from Hiroshima for the past three decades. Local resident have been fighting the whole time. Saturday, they shook their fists at the granite walls of the company's headquarters. Toshiyasu Shimizu is on the Kaminoseki town council. He says fighting the plant has felt lonely at times.
  • People, including those in the neighboring town, were not interested. But now they see nuclear power as their own problem, so there has been a dramatic difference," he says. After all these years, Shimizu says, he feels like the most of the country is beginning to agree with him.
D'coda Dcoda

Concerns over Falls road fill radiation - Niagra Falls [02Sept11] - 0 views

www.wivb.com/...over-Falls-road-fill-radiation

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 03 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (WIVB) - Tip calls and e-mails to our newsroom spawned a probe into contaminated soil in Niagara County. Now, a state lawmaker is calling for an investigation, and one expert in radioactive waste management is expressing concern. The controversy involves radioactive road fill in Niagara Falls and there are still lots of questions.
  • Contractor David Pfeiffer, who owns Man O' Trees Contracting, dropped a bombshell on the reconstruction of Lewiston Road in Niagara Falls. "The truth is there is a health hazard on that project and it's not being properly cleaned up," said Pfeiffer.
  • He tells News 4 that he's learned that radiation levels, in some spots, are 10 times higher than the normal background levels for that area. Pfeiffer said, "We were told not to chase the radiation, although it is on all of the people's lawns."
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Pfeiffer says his workers have been told to stick to the road job, which is behind schedule and over-budget by millions of dollars already. Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster said, "The project is not a remedial project for removing radioactive materials wherever they're found. It's a road construction project in which radioactive materials that are under the road are being removed, and so there are limits to the bounds of the project.
  • Dr. Marvin Resnikoff said, "When you have levels that are 10 times greater and more, then yes, I'm very concerned about that aspect of it." Dr. Resnikoff is an international consultant with of Radioactive Waste Management Associates who's familiar with the Niagara Falls situation.
  • In my opinion, that material should be taken out now. This material is going to stay radioactive essentially forever. Roads are going to come and go. You know, kicking the can down the road is not going to solve the problem," said Dr. Resnikoff.
D'coda Dcoda

Report: Fukushima worker warns 'get out of Japan before Spring' -Radioactive pollen ver... - 0 views

enenews.com/ation-will-spread-around-again

health contamination plants airborne

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 06 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • 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
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Maybe they need to cut off all the branches and the leaves of cedar right now or glue the pollen so it won’t fly away. Otherwise radiation will spread around again even though they decontaminate. In 20km area, there are countless numbers of cedar. That will be a really hard but we need to do something for it. Who’s in charge of that in the government? I wonder if he/she thinks of that.
  • Mochizuki Commentary
  • [...] Now it’s known that most part of the plume is stuck to the trees or soil in the mountains, where you can hardly decontaminate. [...] Radioactive pollen will set off from the ground and fly to south (Tokyo) again. We take pollen into our lungs or eyes, which causes severe internal exposure
D'coda Dcoda

TEPCO uses low-level radioactive water to spray Fukushima nuclear compound [09Oct11] - 1 views

mdn.mainichi.jp/...20111008p2a00m0na008000c.html

contamination plants water

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 09 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has begun processing low-level radioactive water and spraying it over the compound of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant to prevent fires and the scattering of radioactive dust, the utility announced on Oct. 7.
  • The water comes from the plant's No. 5 and No. 6 reactors, which remain in a state of a cold shutdown, and is being used after the removal of radioactive materials and salt content. The move is aimed at preventing trees felled on the plant compound from catching fire and dust containing radioactive materials from scattering, the utility said. A daily amount of 100 cubic meters of water will be sprayed over the ground.
  • Since the March 11 quake and tsunami, seawater from the tsunami and rainwater have been accumulating in the basement of the reactor buildings and turbine buildings of the No. 5 and No. 6 reactors. Makeshift tanks and an artificial floating island, or "megafloat," have so far accommodated 17,000 cubic meters of this water but they are close to overflowing. TEPCO aims to utilize the remaining water, after it has been purified, to spray the compound. The measure has been approved by the Fukushima Prefectural Government and municipalities in Fukushima and Ibaraki prefectures, according to TEPCO.
D'coda Dcoda

High levels of radiation detected at 2 schools in Chiba Prefecture [26Oct11] - 0 views

mdn.mainichi.jp/...20111026p2a00m0na010000c.html

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 27 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • ABIKO, Chiba -- High levels of radiation have been detected on the premises of two elementary schools here, local education authorities have revealed. According to the Abiko Municipal Board of Education, 11.3 microsieverts of radiation per hour was detected just above the surface of the ground near a ditch in the compounds of the Abiko Municipal Daiichi Elementary School on Sept. 15. The amount was 1.7 microsieverts in the air 50 centimeters above the ground. Soil had piled up in the ditch, which had been damaged by growing tree roots, a situation similar to a residential area of the Chiba Prefecture city of Kashiwa where 57.5 microsieverts per hour was detected. Radioactive cesium amounting to 60,768 becquerels per 1 kilogram of soil was found in the ditch.
  • The amount of radiation 50 centimeters above the ground had declined to 0.6 microsieverts per hour by Oct. 7 after the soil was removed. The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry pointed to the possibility that rain water contaminated with radioactive cesium overflowed from the ditch, soaked the nearby soil and accumulated in it. At the Abiko Municipal Namiki Elementary School, 10.1 microsieverts per hour of radiation was detected near the surface of the ground where sludge removed from its swimming pool had been buried. The school covered the area with a waterproof tarp and piled up dirt on the tarp to decrease the radiation emissions, after which 0.6 microsieverts per hour was detected 50 centimeters above the ground. The two schools have sealed off the areas where high levels of radiation were detected.
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