Showing posts with label fukushima radiation contamination emergency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fukushima radiation contamination emergency. Show all posts

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Japan Times: “Alarming estimate of cancer fatalities… 1 million extra deaths”

The second part of that headline:  "Nobody mentions krypton and xenon that poured from Fukushima plant, says Gundersen — 2-3 times greater than Chernobyl"  Japan Times via Enenews:
[...]

Experts waved away fears about radiation, cabinet ministers scoffed at comparisons to Chernobyl, and the word “meltdown” itself was effectively scoured from the media.

Some observers, however, were quick to hit the panic button. One of the best known was U.S. antinuclear campaigner Arnie Gundersen, who predicted that the disaster would lead to 1 million extra deaths from cancer.
[...]
Gundersen, a nuclear engineer, says [the official release amount is] an underestimate. He puts the release of cesium at about half that of Chernobyl, and says little attention has been paid to radioactive gases, Xenon and Krypton, which poured out of the No. 1 plant in quantities “two to three times” greater than the 1986 Ukraine meltdown. He is sticking to his original alarming estimate of cancer fatalities.
[...]
Gundersen bases much of his assessment of Fukushima on what he learned from America’s worst nuclear accident, the 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. As an expert witness during the probe that followed, Gundersen said the official estimate of radioactive releases there was also much too low. “You have to remember, we don’t know how much radiation was released. It’s guys like me who have to calculate it.” His assessment upped the official radiation figure for the accident by five times. “I’m dead sure that’s too low,” he says, adding that he believes the true figure could be 15 times higher than the industry estimate.
[...]
He cites the work of Steve Wing, an epidemiologist who says he has tracked 10,000 extra deaths from lung cancer in the first six to seven years after the accident.

“The same gases (Xenon and Krypton) that caused those cancers leaked out of the containment vessel at the Daiichi (No. 1) plant,” he says. “Nobody is talking about it.” He says the gases quickly disperse and are notoriously hard to measure. Other emissions are more straightforward. Plutonium is heavy and does not widely disperse. Cesium is relatively easy to track.
[...]
Future overheard statement heard just about anywhere in the world:  "Nobody told me Fukushima was this serious!  Why didn't anybody do anything?"    "No;  Lots of experts said Fukushima was serious.  You just didn't listen.  .. And now we're all dead.  The End!"

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Fukushima: Reactor 2 Upset Reactor 4 Getting More Attention; Smokes With Rage

Smoke emanating from the ground south of Reactor 2.  I'm sure it's OK..  After all, TEPCO's got it all under control..  Fukushima Diary:

This is not sea-fog.


White gas was observed spouting out from south of reactor2 on 9/4/2012.
It had started already around 10:57 and ended about 11:15. 

Video and close up video (from four days ago) at the link.  Simple question:  What caused the smoke?

Bonus nuclear excitement right here in America:

Senior Advisor: Mystery bacteria growing on nuclear fuel rods have unknown DNA sequence — “Right now we are trying to figure out what they’re using for food”

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Cesium from finished school lunch in Miyagi

Gross.  Fukushima Diary:

In Japan, most of the elementary schools serve school lunch. (Some of the junior high schools do too) Students basically have no rights to reject it or change it to home-made lunch box without a permission, even if the school lunch is radioactive.

In Miyagi prefecture, they measured 12 Bq/kg of cesium from finished school lunch. They mixed all of the food to detect cesium.
On 8/30/2012, it was served in Nakaniida junior high school, Miyagi. (About 130km from Fukushima plant)
It was the mixture of rice, fried chicken, vermicelli salad, miso soup of cabbage, orange and milk.