Tokyo Contaminated & Not Fit for Habitation, Doctor Says
All 23 districts of Tokyo contaminated with radiation, worse than at Chernobyl after the accident, and blood cells of children under ten are showing worrying changes; the WHO, the IAEA & the Japanese government cannot be trusted
In July 2014 Dr Shigeru Mita wrote a letter to his fellow doctors to explain his decision to move his practice from Tokyo to Okayama city in the West of Japan [1]. In it, he appeals to their sense of duty to answer the anxieties of parents in Japan who do not believe the information coming from the authorities. He says “I must state that the policies of the WHO, the IAEA or the Japanese government cannot be trusted.” and “if the power to save our citizens and future generations exists somewhere, it does not lie within the government or any academic association, but in the hands of individual clinical doctors ourselves.”
Mita claims that all 23 districts of Tokyo are contaminated, with the eastern area worst affected - up to 4 000 Bq/kg. (The becquerel is a unit of radioactivity. One Bq is the activity of a quan y of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second.) These findings confirm what the nuclear physicist Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Nuclear Education found in 2012, when he picked up five random soil samples in Tokyo from between paving stones, in parks and playgrounds. The levels of contamination were up to 7 000 Bq/kg; in the US, anything registering these levels would be considered nuclear waste [2].
While practising in Tokyo, Mita also discovered changes in the white blood cells of children under 10.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Tokyo_contam...habitation.php
X-Ray radiation is... light, just a frequency we can't normally see, i.e. photons.
It would likely be completely useless at detecting other kinds of nuclear radiation, which is generally protons and neutrons.
Get Agloco to confirm that if you want a real topical expert.
I guess my arguments with my dumbass sister in law about microwave ovens came in handy, heh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation
1) http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/j...HoeveEES12.pdf
2) http://www.pnas.org/content/110/26/10670.full.pdf+htmlThis study quantifies worldwide health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident on 11 March
2011. Effects are quantified with a 3-D global atmospheric model driven by emission estimates and
evaluated against daily worldwide Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO)
measurements and observed deposition rates. Inhalation exposure, ground-level external exposure, and
atmospheric external exposure pathways of radioactive iodine-131, cesium-137, and cesium-134
released from Fukushima are accounted for using a linear no-threshold (LNT) model of human
exposure. Exposure due to ingestion of contaminated food and water is estimated by extrapolation. We
estimate an additional 130 (15–1100) cancer-related mortalities and 180 (24–1800) cancer-related
morbidities incorporating uncertainties associated with the exposure–dose and dose–response models
used in the study. We also discuss the LNT model’s uncertainty at low doses. Sensitivities to emission
rates, gas to particulate I-131 par ioning, and the mandatory evacuation radius around the plant are
also explored, and may increase upper bound mortalities and morbidities in the ranges above to 1300
and 2500, respectively. Radiation exposure to workers at the plant is projected to result in 2 to 12
morbidities. An additional 600 mortalities have been reported due to non-radiological causes such as
mandatory evacuations. Lastly, a hypothetical accident at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in
California, USA with identical emissions to Fukushima was studied to analyze the influence of location
and seasonality on the impact of a nuclear accident. This hypothetical accident may cause 25% more
mortalities than Fukushima despite California having one fourth the local population density due to
differing meteorological conditions
3) http://darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org:8...=1&isAllowed=yRadioactive isotopes originating from the damaged Fukushima
nuclear reactor in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami in
March 2011 were found in resident marine animals and in migratory
Pacific bluefin tuna (PBFT). Publication of this information resulted
in a worldwide response that caused public anxiety and concern,
although PBFT captured off California in August 2011 contained
activity concentrations below those from naturally occurring radio-
nuclides. To link the radioactivity to possible health impairments,
we calculated doses, attributable to the Fukushima-derived and the
naturally occurring radionuclides, to both the marine biota and
human fish consumers. We showed that doses in all cases were dominated by
the naturally occurring alpha-emitter
210 Po and that Fukushima-derived doses were three to four orders of magnitude
below 210 Po-derived doses. Doses to marine biota were about two
orders of magnitude below the lowest benchmark protection level
proposed for ecosystems (10 μGy·h−1). The additional dose from
Fukushima radionuclides to humans consuming tainted PBFT in
the United States was calculated to be 0.9 and 4.7 μSv for average consumers and subsistence
fishermen, respectively. Such doses are comparable to, or less than,
the dose all humans routinely obtain from naturally occurring radionuclides
in many food items, medical treatments, air travel, or other
background sources. Although uncertainties remain regarding the
assessment of cancer risk at low doses of ionizing radiation to humans,
the dose received from PBFT consumption by subsistence fishermen can
be estimated to result in two additional fatal cancer cases per 10,000,000 sim-
ilarly exposed people
Pay particular attention to the illustration on p.94
4) http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.7314v1.pdfThe triple disaster of the March 11, 2011, earthquake, tsunami, and
subsequent radiation releases from Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant
were unprecedented events for the ocean and society. In this article, the radioactive
releases from this event are compared to natural and prior human sources, with
particular attention to cesium-137 and -134 radioisotopes. Total releases from
Fukushima are not well constrained, with estimates from atmospheric fallout and
direct ocean discharge spanning 4 to 90 peta Becquerels (PBq), but are most likely in
the 15–30 PBq range. This source is smaller than any
137Cs remaining in the North Pacific from global and
close-in fallout from the 1960s. It is of similar magnitude
to 137Cs released to the ocean from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site on the
Irish Sea, though of greater magnitude than fallout that reached the ocean from
the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in the Ukraine. The fate of Cs is
largely determined by its soluble nature in seawater, though uptake in sediments
does occur via cesium’s association with both detrital particles and biological uptake
and sedimentation. A mass balance of Cs supply from rivers and ongoing leakage
from nuclear power plants suggests that sediments will remain contaminated for
decades. This may be one reason why Cs concentrations in benthic fish stay elevated
over predictions, causing fisheries to remain closed near Fukushima and ongoing
concern to the public.
A variety of environmental media were analyzed for fallout radionuclides
resulting from the Fukushima nuclear accident by the
Low Background Facility (LBF) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(LBNL) in Berkeley, CA. Monitoring activities in air
and rainwater began soon after the onset of the March 11, 2011
tsunami and are reported here through the end of 2012. Observed fallout
isotopes include 131I, 132I, 132Te, 134Cs, 136Cs, and 137Cs.
Isotopes were measured on environmental air filters, automobile filters,
and in rainwater. An additional analysis of rainwater in search of 90Sr is also
presented. Last, a series of food measurements
conducted in September of 2013 are included due to extended media
concerns of 134, 137Cs in fish. Similar measurements of fallout
from the Chernobyl disaster at LBNL, previously unpublishe
d publicly, are also presented here as a comparison with the Fukushima incident.
All measurements presented also include natural
radionuclides found in the environment to provide a basis for comparison
5) http://rpd.oxfordjournals.org/conten....full.pdf+html
6) http://www.pnas.org/content/111/10/E914.full.pdf+htmlEven though many studies have shown that radioactive caesium levels in fish caught outside of Japan were below experimental
detection limits of a few Bq kg^-1, significant public concern has been expressed about the safety of consuming seafood from the
Pacific Ocean following the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident. To address the public concerns, samples of commonly con-
sumed salmon and groundfish harvested from the Canadian west coast in 2013 were analysed for radioactive caesium. None of
the fish samples analysed in this study contained any detectable levels of 134Cs and 137Cs under given experimental setting with the average detection limit of∼2Bqkg^-1. Using a conservative worst-case scenario where all fish samples would contain
137Cs exactly at the detection limit level and 134Cs at half of the detection limit level (to account for much shorter half-life of
134Cs), the resulting radiation dose for people from consumption of this fish would be a very small fraction of the annual dose from exposure to natural background radiation in Canada. Therefore, fish, such as salmon and groundfish, from the Canadian west coast
are of no radiological health concern
7) http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es502480yRadiation dose rates were evaluated in three areas neighboring a restricted area within a 20- to 50-km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in August–September 2012 and projected to 2022 and 2062. Study participants wore personal dosimeters measuring external dose equivalents, almost entirely from deposited radionuclides (groundshine). External dose rate equivalents owing to the accident averaged 1.03, 2.75, and 1.66 mSv/y in the village of Kawauchi, the Tamano area of Soma, and the Haramachi area of Minamisoma, respectively. Internal dose rates estimated from dietary intake of radiocesium averaged 0.0058, 0.019, and 0.0088 mSv/y in Kawauchi, Tamano, and Haramachi, respectively. Dose rates from inhalation of resuspended radiocesium were lower than 0.001 mSv/y. In 2012, the average annual doses from radiocesium were close to the average background radiation exposure (2 mSv/y) in Japan. Accounting only for the physical decay of radiocesium, mean annual dose rates in 2022 were estimated as 0.31, 0.87, and 0.53 mSv/y in Kawauchi, Tamano, and Haramachi, respectively. The simple and conservative estimates are comparable with variations in the background dose, and unlikely to exceed the ordinary permissible dose rate (1mSv/y) for the majority of the Fukushima population. Health risk assessment indicates that post-2012 doses will increase lifetime solid cancer, leukemia, and breast cancer incidences by 1.06%, 0.03% and 0.28% respectively, in Tamano. This assessment was derived from short-term observation with uncertainties and did not evaluate the first-year dose and radioiodine exposure. Nevertheless, this estimate provides perspective on the long-term radiation exposure levels in the three regions.
Atmospheric deposition of Pu isotopes from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident has been observed in the terrestrial environment around the FDNPP site; however, their deposition in the marine environment has not been studied. The possible contamination of Pu in the marine environment has attracted great scientific and public concern. To fully understand this possible contamination of Pu isotopes from the FDNPP accident to the marine environment, we collected marine sediment core samples within the 30 km zone around the FDNPP site in the western North Pacific about two years after the accident. Pu isotopes (239Pu, 240Pu, and 241Pu) and radiocesium isotopes (134Cs and 137Cs) in the samples were determined. The high activities of radiocesium and the 134Cs/137Cs activity ratios with values around 1 (decay corrected to 15 March 2011) suggested that these samples were contaminated by the FDNPP accident-released radionuclides. However, the activities of 239+240Pu and 241Pu were low compared with the background level before the FDNPP accident. The Pu atom ratios (240Pu/239Pu and 241Pu/239Pu) suggested that global fallout and the pacific proving ground (PPG) close-in fallout are the main sources for Pu contamination in the marine sediments. As Pu isotopes are particle-reactive and they can be easily incorporated with the marine sediments, we concluded that the release of Pu isotopes from the FDNPP accident to the marine environment was negligible.
http://www.iflscience.com/environmen...lifornia-coast
Fukushima radiation detected off California coast"Most people don't realize that there was already cesium in Pacific waters prior to Fukushima, but only the cesium-137 isotope,” Buesseler said in a press release. “Cesium-137 undergoes radioactive decay with a 30-year half-life and was introduced to the environment during atmospheric weapons testing in the 1950s and '60s. Along with cesium-137, we detected cesium-134 – which also does not occur naturally in the environment and has a half-life of just two years. Therefore the only source of this cesium-134 in the Pacific today is from Fukushima.”
WHOI states that the Fukushima radiation found near California exists in levels lower than 2 Becquerels per cubic meter. The EPA has deemed that levels as high as 7400 becquerels per cubic meter are perfectly safe for drinking water. Even if someone spent considerable time in the water for a year, the radiation dosage is 1000 times lower compared to getting a regular x-ray at the dentist. These levels are deemed much too low to to cause immediate adverse effects in humans who might swim in the water or marine animals who live in it.
What happened to all of the rhetoric from the peanut gallery? Wasn't this stuff supposed to arrive a couple of years ago in quan ies sufficient to kill tens of thousands?
I wonder if any other helicopters are reading four sieverts per hour at 100m.
Fukushima Radiation Found in Sample of Green Tea from Japan
Four years after the multiple explosions and melt-downs at Fukushima, it seems the scary stories have only just begun to surface.
Given that Japan’s authoritarian regime of Shinzo Abe has cracked down on the information flow from Fukushima with a repressive state secrets act, we cannot know for certain what’s happening at the site.
We do know that 300 tons of radioactive water have been pouring into the Pacific every day. And that spent fuel rods are littered around the site. Tokyo Electric power may or may not have brought down all the fuel rods from Unit Four, but many hundreds almost certainly remain suspended in the air over Units One, Two and Three.
We also know that Abe is pushing refugees to move back into the Fukushima region. Thyroid damage rates—including cancer—have skyrocketed among children in the region. Radiation “hot spots” have been found as far away as Tokyo. According to scientific sources, more than 30 times as much radioactive Cesium was released at Fukushima as was created at the bombing of Hiroshima.
“A sample of powdered tea imported from the Japanese prefecture of Chiba, just southeast of Tokyo, contained traces of radioactive cesium 137, the Hong Kong government announced late Thursday evening, but they were far below the legal maximum level.
The discovery was not the first of its kind. The government’s Center for Food Safety found three samples of vegetables from Japan with “unsatisfactory” levels of radioactive contaminants in March 2011, the month that nuclear reactors in Fukushima, northeast of Tokyo, suffered partial meltdowns following a powerful earthquake and tsunami.”
http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/16/radio...tea-fukushima/
Just stop. Look at post #178. Read all of the references provided. Don't post again until you do.
pffft Stanford doesn't have a thing on ecowatch.com.
. Stanford aint on the moonbat rss feed.
Last edited by TeyshaBlue; 03-23-2015 at 07:10 PM.
Fukushima: Thousands Have Already Died, Thousands More Will Die
Official data from Fukushima show that nearly 2,000 people died from the effects of evacuations necessary to avoid high radiation exposures from the disaster.
The uprooting to unfamiliar areas, cutting of family ties, loss of social support networks, disruption, exhaustion, poor physical conditions and disorientation can and do result in many people, in particular older people, dying.
Increased suicide has occurred among younger and older people following the Fukushima evacuations, but the trends are unclear.
A Japanese Cabinet Office report stated that, between March 2011 and July 2014, 56 suicides in Fukushima Prefecture were linked to the nuclear accident. This should be taken as a minimum, rather than a maximum, figure.
Mental health consequences
It is necessary to include the mental health consequences of radiation exposures and evacuations. For example, Becky Martin has stated her PhD research at Southampton University in the UK shows that “the most significant impacts of radiation emergencies are often in our minds.”
She adds: “Imagine that you’ve been informed that your land, your water, the air that you have breathed may have been polluted by a deadly and invisible contaminant. Something with the capacity to take away your fertility, or affect your unborn children.
“Even the most resilient of us would be concerned … many thousands of radiation emergency survivors have subsequently gone on to develop Post-Trauma Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety disorders as a result of their experiences and the uncertainty surrounding their health.”
It is likely that these fears, anxieties, and stresses will act to magnify the effects of evacuations, resulting in even more old people dying or people committing suicide.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/...more-will-die/
Fukushima: the World’s Never Seen Anything Like This
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant No. 2 nuclear reactor fuel is missing from the core containment vessel.
Where did it go? Nobody knows.
The nuclear fuel in reactor core No. 5 was clearly visible via the muon process. However, at No. 2 reactor, which released a very large amount of radioactive substances coincident with the 2011 explosion, little, if any, signs of nuclear fuel appear in the containment vessel. A serious meltdown is underway.
“High-level nuclear waste is almost unimaginably poisonous. Take for example cesium-137, with a half-life of 30 years, which makes up the largest fraction of long-lived radionuclides residing in spent nuclear fuel. One gram of radioactive cesium-137 (about half the size of a dime) contains 88 Curies of radioactivity. 104 Curies of radioactive cesium-137, spread evenly over one square mile of land, will make it uninhabitable for more than a century,” Comments on Draft of Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2013, Physicians for Social Responsibility, May 23, 2013.
As for example, there are 1,090 square miles of land surrounding the destroyed Chernobyl reactor that Ukraine classifies as an uninhabitable radioactive exclusion zone because radioactive fallout left more than 104 Curies of cesium- 137 per square mile on the land that makes up the zone. Scientists believe it will be 180 to 320 years before Cesium-137 around Chernobyl disappears from the environment.
Here’s the big, or rather biggest, problem: Cesium is water-soluble and makes its way into soils and waters as it quickly becomes ubiquitous in a contaminated ecosystem.
“Long-lived radionuclides such as Cesium-137 are something new to us as a species.
They did not exist on Earth in any appreciable quan ies during the entire evolution of complex life. Although they are invisible to our senses they are millions of times more poisonous than most of the common poisons we are familiar with.
They cause cancer, leukemia, genetic mutations, birth defects, malformations, and abortions at concentrations almost below human recognition and comprehension.
They are lethal at the atomic or molecular level,”
Japanese government has made it nearly impossible to obtain information which is not indiscriminately labeled “secret,” and a journalist may face up to 10 years in prison based upon which side of the bed a government employee gets up on any given morning; it’s absolutely true!
a sizeable pro-nuke coterie claim nuclear power is safe and also claim that few, if any, serious human health problems have arisen, or will arise, from radiation exposure. In fact, some nuke addicts even claim a “little radiation exposure” is good.
That, however, has been debunked via a recent (July 2015) landmark study concluded by an international consortium under the umbrella of the International Agency for Research on Cancer / Lyon, France where a long-term study for low radiation impact was conducted on 300,000 nuclear-industry workers. The study proves, beyond a doubt, there is “no threshold dose below which radiation is harmless.” Any amount is harmful, period.
However, in sober reflection and retrospection one has to come to the conclusion that far from being a nuclear disaster the Fukushima incident was actually a wonderful illustration of the safety of nuclear power,” Dr. Kelvin Kemm, CEO of Nuclear Africa,
Nobody knows whether Fukushima morphs full meltdown into Mother Earth, although the signposts are not good, and not only that but nobody knows what to do about it. Nobody knows what to do. They really don’t.
The only thing for certain is that it’s not good. Going forward, it becomes a matter of how bad things get.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/...ing-like-this/
Fukushima Radiation in Pacific Reaches West Coast
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency halted its emergency radiation monitoring of Fukushima’s radioactive plume in May 2011, three months after the disaster began.
Japan isn’t even monitoring seawater near Fukushima,
The amount of cesium in seawater that Buesseler’s researchers found off Vancouver Island is nearly six times the concentration recorded since cesium was first introduced into the oceans by nuclear bomb tests (halted in 1963). This stunning increase in Pacific cesium shows an ongoing increase. The International Business Times (IBT) reported last Nov. 12 that Dr. Buesseler found the amount of cesium-134 in the same waters was then about twice the concentration left in long-standing bomb test remains.
Dr. Buesseler, at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Ins ution, announced his assessment after his team found that cesium drift from Fukushima’s three reactor meltdowns had reached North America. Attempting to reassure the public, Buesseler said, “[E]ven if they were twice as high and I was to swim there every day for an entire year, the dose I would be exposed to is a thousand times less than a single dental X-ray.”
This comparison conflates the important difference between external radiation exposure (from X-rays or swimming in radioactively contaminated seawater), and internal contamination from ingesting radioactive isotopes, say with seafood.
Dr. Chris Busby of the Low Level Radiation Campaign in the UK explains the distinction this way: Think of the difference between merely sitting before a warm wood fire on one hand, and popping a burning hot coal into your mouth on the other. Internal contamination can be 1,000 times more likely to cause cancer than the same exposure if it were external, especially for women and children. And, because cesium-137 stays in the ecosphere for 300 years, long-term bio-ac ulation and bio-concentration of cesium isotopes in the food chain – in this case the ocean food chain – is the perpetually worsening consequence of what has spilled and is still pouring from Fukushima.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/...es-west-coast/
I was surfing at Huntington Beach the other day and the ing Elephant's Foot came out of nowhere and knocked me off my board.What happened to all of the rhetoric from the peanut gallery? Wasn't this stuff supposed to arrive a couple of years ago in quan ies sufficient to kill tens of thousands?
I wonder if any other helicopters are reading four sieverts per hour at 100m.
Thyroid Cancer in Children Increases 30-Fold in Fukushima,
http://ecowatch.com/2015/10/15/thyro...f083b-85879165
Exploding Radioactive Waste Warning: Keep It Above Ground
We don’t have to wait thousands of years for disaster to strike.
Early on Sunday Oct. 25, an underground fire caused an explosion in a low-level nuclear waste site in the desert 10 miles from Beatty, Nevada, and 115 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The explosion and fire followed flash flooding that shut down Beatty’s escape routes: US 95 and State Highway 373.
The 80-acre dumping ground, closed since 1992, is run by — get this — “US Ecology.”
The private dump consists of 22 trenches up to 800 feet long and 50 feet deep, and its older trenches have radioactive waste within three feet of the surface, the Las Vegas Sun reported.
Certain types of radioactive material are known to catch fire when in contact with water, so the flooding that struck prior to the explosion may have been its cause. Unfortunately authorities don’t know what sorts of radioactive isotopes are buried in the trenches there. Nor does anyone know either how the fire started or how much radioactive waste burned.
Rusty Harris-Bishop, spokesman for the US EPA’s Region 9 office in San Francisco said in a prepared statement, “No gamma radiation has been detected at this time.” This nuanced remark does not indicate that gamma radiation wasn’t detected. It also artfully dodges questions about alpha and beta radiation.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/...t-above-ground
s getting real
Underground wall around Fukushima reactors started “leaning” — Cracks developing due to rising water levels — Problems seen along almost entire length of sea wall — Trying to make repairs to keep groundwater from surging
http://enenews.com/nhk-underground-w...pairs-keep-gro
Highest concentrations of Fukushima radiation in U.S. waters detected near San Francisco
don't worry you can still eat fish. for now
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wil...-san-francisco
Red Alert! Sharp increase in radiation… at Fukushima” — Levels e 400,000% under plant — Almost 1,000,000,000 becquerels per cubic meter
http://enenews.com/report-red-alert-...-investigating
Declassified U.S. Government Report Prepared a Week After Fukushima Accident: “100% of The Total Spent Fuel Was Released to the Atmosphere from Unit 4”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/declass...unit-4/5495110
Mitsuhei Murata, former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland, Nov 1, 2015:
Japan is laboring under the consequences of the Accident never before experienced by humanity, including the simultaneous destruction and meltdown of three commercial nuclear reactors. Four and half years after the 3.11 disaster, it has been shown that a severe nuclear accident cannot be brought under control by a single state… It is questioned if Japan is in possession of the governability and the capacity needed to cope with the impending crisis. The melted cores of the reactors from Units 1, 2 and 3 remain inaccessible… If the molten nuclear fuel rods are exposed through cracks to the atmosphere due to a mega earthquake or the liquidization of soils on the site that could cause the collapse and breach of Fukushima’s spent fuel pools, Japan’s landmass would become uninhabitable to a large extent…
Some experts now estimate that the wave of radiation from Fukushima will be 10-times bigger than all of the radiation from the entire world’s nuclear tests throughout history combined…
Radioactive Water From Fukushima Is Leaking Into the Pacific
"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Truthout shortly after a 9.0 earthquake in Japan caused a tsunami that destroyed the cooling system of Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan.
While this statement might sound overdramatic, Gundersen may be right.
Several nuclear reactor meltdowns in the plant, which at the time forced the mandatory evacuations of thousands of people living within a 15-mile radius of the damaged power plant, persist, and experts like Gundersen continue to warn that this problem is not going to go away.
"Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed," Gundersen said. "You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."
This persistent problem reared its head yet again in December 2015, when TEPCO was forced to deal with a massive amount of highly radioactive water generated by having to cool the reactors and exposed fuel cores Gundersen mentioned.
TEPCO must now transfer between 200 and 300 tons of groundwater into highly contaminated reactor buildings, having been unable to devise an effective plan for keeping the groundwater from continuing to flow under the plant.
"The fuels are now a molten blob at the bottom of the reactor," Gundersen said.
Shortly after the plant was damaged, TEPCO announced that they had experienced a "melt through," which means a melted reactor core had melted through some layers beneath it.
"There is no way to prevent the radioactive water [from] reaching the western shores of the North American continent and then circulating around the rest of the Pacific Ocean," Caldicott said. "At the moment, it seems like this is going to occur for the rest of time."
"There are no safe levels of radiation for biological systems," she said. "That terminology is used by the nuclear industry to cover their inevitable radioactive releases."
Ramana believes it could still take decades before the plant's radiation leaks are even contained.
"I think this is going to take a couple of decades," he said. "We are still in the early years; it hasn't even been five years since the disaster started. It has been 30 years since Chernobyl and remediation of that site is still [a] work in progress."
Disconcertingly, Ramana does not believe there is a "true solution" to the crisis.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...to-the-pacific
Photo of Deformed Daisies Found Near Fukushima Goes Viral
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1474...s-viral-video/
https://goo.gl/4OXYZo
Last edited by boutons_deux; 01-30-2016 at 11:16 PM.
Radioactive Material Found in Groundwater Below Indian Point Energy Center
A radioactive material has been detected in the groundwater below a nuclear power plant north of New York City.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo (KWOH’-moh) said Saturday that water contaminated by tritium leaked into the groundwater at the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, 40 miles north of Manhattan.
Officials say the contamination has remained contained to the site and there’s no risk to the public.
Elevated levels of tritium were found in two monitoring wells at the plant in 2014. Officials said then the contamination likely stemmed from an earlier maintenance shutdown.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1960...energy-center/
"energy center"?
diluted with seawater to sub-regulatory levels
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...-water-tunnel/Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. plans to construct an approximately 1 kilometer-long undersea tunnel to release treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant out to sea, sources close to the matter said Tuesday.
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