14 μSv/h from the yellow substance on the roof in Kashiwa Chiba

Awesome.  Wait, no:  Scary!  Fukushima Diary.  Excerpts:

Japanese person measured highly contaminated substance on the roof of her house. The house is located in Kashiwa city Chiba, where is known to be a hotspot. (cf. 192.5 Bq/Kg of cesium from citron in Kashiwa city Chiba)


On 8/9/2012, she blogged like this below,

Around the end of July, I had the professional cleaners wash the roof of our house.

The roof was covered with something like this yellow moss. It was 0.7 μSv/h on its surface.

I took 20g of it by a kitchen knife. Radiation meter indicated it was red zone, 1.2 μSv/h.

I haven’t measured 1.2μSv/h from merely 20g of sample even around here known to be hotspot.

It was totally washed off after cleaning, radiation level was decreased a little bit, 0.4 μSv/h on the surface, but the yellow substance was still with mud in the rain gutter.

I took 3.6 kg of it with the perfect protective clothing (tyvek, gas mask, goggles, plastic gloves).

I packed the clothing soon after taking off the sample, had shower to clean eyes, ears, nostrils carefully.

This is very dangerous, please don’t do it. I can’t take a responsibility if something happened to you.

The radiation level was 14 μSv/h. I haven’t measured higher than 10 μSv/h before. It makes sense why the radiation level is high on the second floor.

We were living with such a thing on our roof..
When I stepped on the roof, I saw the roofs of other houses, most of them were covered with the same yellow substance. Probably the radiation level is high as well.

As reference, in March. 2011, yellow power remained on the street or rain gutters after rain and they measured quite high level of radiation as well. (cf. 2.16 μSv/h from yellow powder)

It is not known what the yellow powder was.

The connection between the yellow powder and this yellow substance is not known either.

Looks like I was right the first time:  Awesome!

Fukushima’s Melted Reactors 500 Days On

The ongoing nuclear emergency continues to surpass Worst Case Scenarios.  Just what we need:  A relentless, overachieving catastrophe.  Veterans Today.  Excerpts:

Dr. Paolo Scampa, PhD, a well-known physicist in the European Union, has prepared a radioactive inventory of Fukushima Daiichi’s destroyed nuclear power plants 500 days after the meltdown of three disemboweled, mangled reactors.



The violent extinction level event occurred Mar 11, 2011. The deadly meltdown and dispersion of radioactive fuel throughout the world is on-going to this day.


Because of the nature of long-lived and short-lived radioactivity, this summation of the radioactive Fukushima inventory is valid for many years. Dr. Scampa’s inventory is current as of Friday, June 29, 2012.


There are 1,946 radioactive products produced by nuclear weapons and atomic reactors according to the Oak Ridge Nuclear Weapons Lab in America.


Fifty-five are considered to be long-lived; 898 are considered to be short-lived but last more than eight days. These nine hundred fifty-three radioactive isotopes are included in this analysis.


Nine hundred ninety-three (993) radioactive isotopes are considered dangerous and undergo radioactive decay within eight days; they are not included in this analysis.

Scampa's analysis is dry, and yet, terrifying.  Here ya go..

The three melted reactors combined in Fukushima Daichi contained 257 tons of nuclear fuel enriched to 3.7% Uranium 235 and divided into 1,496 assemblies, each about 172 kg.



Reactor No. 3 also housed 32 MOX assemblies, reportedly enriched to 6% or 330 kg of Pu239.


In addition, the storage pools of these reactors have at least 239 tonnes of fuel residing there for who knows how long (1,390 assemblies) and 31 tonnes of fresh fuel (180 assemblies).
..
The day of the earthquake their fuel was consumed according to the article cited at an average of 23.35 GWd/t at a rate of 24.07 kg/t for a total of 6.186 tonnes of fuel fissioned.

..
Overall, 9 tonnes of fuel was subjected to atomic fission or activation transformation occasioning a prodigious explosion of radioactivity and radiotoxicity which over time, is several times the amount needed to kill by internal contamination the whole human race.

..
The most remarkable of the volatile elements (elements of which the boiling point is inferior to 1,500 degrees Centigrade and escape above all the first coriums). 37,921 PBq; 1 billion Ci; 18 billion potential inhaled lethal doses.



The official report of the Japanese government to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Association] contains a hypothesis that the emanations of nuclear fuel from Fukushima Daiichi are equivalent to the ones observed at Chernobyl.

We can see by comparing the subsets of figures below that the radioactive particle emission through the air from Fukushima is not only 3.7 times higher than Chernobyl; but, more importantly, 28.3 times more radiotoxic with every breath you take.

So we got that goin' for us; which is nice..  I still can't believe no one talks about Fukushima.  The level of global denial is..  Beyond words.

Activist: Calif. plant could be next Fukushima

Video from CNN, via You Tube.

Lest we forget this is a real possibility, as the plant is already hobbled, and the area is more earthquake prone than first believed.  And yeah, just because San Onofre is offline, doesn't mean a Reactor 4 situation isn't still possible, what with all that spent fuel just laying around..  All to boil water.. Enjoy your Sunday!

Reuters: Head of Tepco ‘shocked’ people are concerned about No. 4 fuel pool — ‘Baffled’ by criticism of company’s role in Fukushima disaster

He's right:  It's CRAZY to be worried about an ongoing catastrophe/potential Extinction Level Event.  Crazy, I tells ya..  Reuters, via ENEWS:

The new head of the company at the centre of Japan’s nuclear disaster said on Thursday he was baffled by fierce criticism of the firm where he has worked nearly 40 years and hoped to rebuild public trust but offered no clear idea how to do so.

[...]
At one of the meetings, a moderate earthquake struck and he was quickly peppered with questions about the safety of a badly damaged building at Fukushima full of spent fuel rods.


That was “quite a shock for us,” [President of Tepco Naomi Hirose] said, because the company assumed its reinforcement work has been sufficient.


Fukushima’s spent fuel pool No. 4 has been a source of international concern because they are exposed to the atmosphere after one of the explosions that hit the station tore the reactor building roof off and caused its walls to tilt.
[...] 

His attitude is very comforting, in a clueless rich guy who makes a disaster scenario oh so much worse kinda way, don't you think?  I can't wait for his public reaction when the inevitable happens:  GUUUUHHHHH??   Wuuuuuhhh?  Howdathappen?

Fukushima Update: Some Good(?) News, Some Not So Good News..

Two from Fukushima Diary..  The Good News?  Ok, the kind-of Good News?

[Reactor4] Debris removal was finished, fuel will be taken out soon.

Following up this article..[LIVE] Tepco is removing the upper part of reactor4

Tepco finished the debris removal of SFP4. Now the PCV and SFP4 are completely exposed outside.
They are going to take out 2 of the new fuel assemblies soon.[Link] 

So..  Only 1551 fuel assemblies to go?  This comment is also..  Troubling..

look, I have photos of SFP4 in the top part of reactor 4 building from last year – IT IS GONE.. Spent Fuel Pool Four is no longer part of the building. We can clearly see the top of the reactor (big yellow dome)but where is the fuel pool which should be ABOVE the reactor ???Where is SFP 4 ??

Huh.

Not so good news:  Survey robot died in reactor 3



Related to this article..Robot destroyed within 2 hours in reactor 2



Survey runner robot stopped on the radiation measurement of torus room in reactor3.


From 11:00 to 15:00 of 7/11/2012, Tepco was taking radiation, visual and “sound” data in torus room of reactor3 by using a robot. The atmospheric dose was 360 mSv/h.


Human worker opened the door of the torus room to let the robot enter, it went around clockwise, but the communication was interrupted at the manhole located at the South-East of torus room.
The robot is cabled, Tepco hasn’t verify the cause yet. They only assume the cable might have been damaged on the way. Tepco can’t take the robot back either because the radiation level is too high.


The robot sent radiation and visual data until it stopped but because the sound data is recorded in it, it can’t be obtained until they get the robot back. They were planning to detect the water leaking point by recording the sound data.


They recorded the sound data when they conducted robot survey in torus room of reactor2 as well, but because the alarm of survey meter was too noisy, they couldn’t hear the sound of water flow.

I'd still like to know the circumstances around TEPCO busting ass to clean up Reactor4 much faster than scheduled.  As with all things Fukushima, the bad news still outweighs the good.

Here's The Thing About Fukushima..

I've been bothered by the total, universal lack of interest from Society regarding all things Fukushima.  This is an ongoing nuclear emergency, and..  Crickets.  No global protests, no "It's Day 473"-type broadcasts, much less wall to wall or even continual coverage.  No outrage.  No real reaction.  So very little news, but evidently enough to quench collective curiousity. 

There are many valid reasons for this phenomenon, and I think these reasons are contributive and re-enforce each other, curtailing the drive for knowledge, encouraging silence.  Of those, I'll focus in on Denial.

In the case of Fukushima, Denial due to fear is one part, but Denial due to inability to fully process and understand the implications of this disaster, even a very little bit, is as important than fear.  The continual, contaminating effect of radiation is incomprehensible to a large swath of our population, not to mention the implications of a Reactor 4 catastrophic event.  Or radiation from Reactors 1, 2, or 3 reaching the water table.  These crises loom so large, yet we continue on, oblivious to what could very well happen, and what is happening now.  If I can't see radiation, then it must not really exist, right?  Maybe you can call someone on your cell phone to have them help you figure it out!

A contributing factor to the Global Disaster Malaise that is Fukushima?  Short answer:  People can't wrap their heads around the implications, so they ignore it. 

More implications are becoming apparent.  Soon, there will be more.  And then, those implications will be next to impossible to ignore, anymore..

Chin Up, Fukushima: At Least A Super-Typhoon Isn't Barreling Directly Towards You!

Models for Typhoon Guchol have tracked significantly west, so that's great news!  Now the only thing we have to worry about regarding Fukushima is..  Everything else.  Here's the roundup..

Report: Algae is bio-concentrating radioactive material in Japan cities — Sucking in radiation from walls and asphalt — Strontium may be absorbed most.

Local Official: Radiation dose is increasing with rainfall around Fukushima plant — “I don’t expect level of contamination will decrease this year”





“Oh, very high!!” NHK: Serious radioactivity accumulation causing hotspots in center of large city(Koriyama) up to 300,000 Bq/kg (VIDEO)

(Now They Tell Us) "Miscommunication" Prevented Radiation Monitoring on March 12 Last Year





Happy Summer, everyone!