Japan Nuclear Disaster Update # 39: Nuclear Explosion at Reactor 3?

[n2doc]

Category: Japan Disaster
Posted on: October 29, 2011 3:20 PM, by Analiese Miller and Greg Laden

The radiation at the Fukushima plants has gone up, rather than down, since June. This may be because contaminated water has become more concentrated due to evaporation. The release of radiation from the plant into the air continues, although a covering over Reactor 1 is almost completed. The release of radiation from the plant into the sea continues, and plankton are shown to be contaminated to a level that raises some concern. Mid month, the plant was measured to be releasing about 100 million becquerels per hour. The reactors are still not uniformly shut down to less than boiling. Additional pumps are being brought in to inject more water. And what goes in must come out, as steam into the atmosphere and effluence into the sea. So this is going to keep going for a while, at least a few more months.

Most of the facilities are too radioactive to enter or to spend very much time in.
TEPCO claims that if there was another earthquake knocking out their current "cooling" facilities at Fukushima, they could return to a state of the plant continuing to emit radiation out of control and boiling off radioactive steam and dumping radioactive water into the sea within just a few hours, so no need to worry about that eventuality.

Even though one of the "hot spots" found in Tokyo turned out to be, rather disturbingly, a small nuclear waste dump someone had in their home, many other hot spots at many localities ofairutside of the evacuation area have been found. It would seem that some sort of winnowing effect is concentrating radioactive material here and there. In at least one case, a rainwater pipe seemed to be the source of high radiation. In another case, in Kashiwa, a drainage ditch has very highly concentrated radiation.

Meanwhile, radioactive material is spreading throughout the region in another way: Radioactive sludge and dirt is being systematically shipped to numerous municipalities for them to put in to their own local dumps, and political pressure is being applied to make sure mayors or other community leaders keep quite about his and allow it to happen. One wonders if the population was warned of this during the initial hearings about whether or not to build this plant. Were the region's municipalities told then that if there was a massive meltdown at the Fukushima plant, individual municipalities would be expected to become radioactive waste repositories?

more
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/10/japan_nuclear_disaster_update_16.php

[spin]

1. I found the article on the Banana Equivalent Dose or BED fascinating ...

It is a much easier way to explain a dose of radiation.

The link is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15288975

[kristopher]

2. At least you are true to your screen name

This article, while somewhat informative for the uninitiated, is rather misleading from a scientific perspective. The "banana equivalent dose" is frowned upon by radiation protection specialists like me. While it's true that bananas contain potassium and, by extension, radioactive potassium-40, humans don't simply absorb all of the radiation that the potassium-40 emits. The body keeps a more or less constant inventory of all the potassium it needs. When you ingest potassium, some of it is retained and the extra potassium is excreted. As a result, some of the "banana equivalent dose" is not retained in the body but passes right through. Because this amount also differs from person to person, it's not a good method of comparison. Comparing it to a known quantity, such as a chest or dental x-ray, would be more scientifically accurate while allowing you to make the same point to your readers.

John Harvey PhD, Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Your link

[spin]

3. Of course a PhD would prefer a system that is confusing to a layman ... ...

It reinforces his view that the fortune he spent on education was worth it. He can befuddle the average person with his depth of knowledge especially when he can invoke terms such as sievert or micro sievert.

It's hard to impress a woman by talking about a measurement in bananas.

Just imagine if you were a radiation protection specialist. Next envision the look of admiration of the woman on the bar stool next to you when you explain what a sievert is.

You can elucidate, "A sievert is generally defined as the amount of radiation roughly equivalent in biological effectiveness to one gray (or 100 rads) of gamma radiation. The sievert is inconveniently large for various applications, and so the millisievert (mSv), which equals 1/1,000 sievert, is frequently used instead. One millisievert corresponds to 10 ergs of energy of gamma radiation transferred to one gram of living tissue." (note: quote source http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/543504/sievert-Sv)

Of course once you have finished your explanation, the women will look at you with glazed eyes. She will then flirt with the blond Adonis on her other side and eventually both will leave the bar to check out his toy car collection.

It might actually be helpful if a system was developed for measuring the danger of radiation that the average person can easily understand.

It will never happen as the Big Corporations really don't want the 'Little People" to understand too much. A little understanding and knowledge is a very dangerous thing when it comes to nuclear power. It could interfere with profits.

Yup, I do try to live up to my screen name. It's fun to spin.

[kristopher]

4. The entire purpose of the false banana analogy is to make radiation seem benign....

...in the service of those corporations you supposedly are critical of. It's interesting you like engaging in "spin" since that term is nothing more than media-speak for "lying".

From your link:

Bananas are radioactive because they contain some Potassium-40. So do many things. But the reason this idea is absurd is that different radioisotopes exist which have different biological affinities. Potassium is uniformly distributed in the body and so can be compared with external radiation. Not so substances like Strontium-90 and Uranium 238 or Plutonium 239 which have high affinity to DNAS and so can deliver their energy where it is effective is causing mutation. Almost all of the potassium 40 radiation is wasted.

Prof Chris Busby, Aberystwyth

Cesium-137 flow into sea 30 times greater than stated by TEPCO: report
PARIS (Kyodo) -- The amount of radioactive cesium-137 that flowed into the Pacific after the start of Japan's nuclear crisis was probably nearly 30 times the amount stated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. in May, according to a recent report by a French research institute.

The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety said the amount of the isotope that flowed into the ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant between March 21 and mid-July reached an estimated 27.1 quadrillion becquerels. A quadrillion is equivalent to 1,000 trillion...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111029p2g00m0dm016000c.html

From the OP:

The radiation at the Fukushima plants has gone up, rather than down, since June. This may be because contaminated water has become more concentrated due to evaporation. The release of radiation from the plant into the air continues, although a covering over Reactor 1 is almost completed. The release of radiation from the plant into the sea continues, and plankton are shown to be contaminated to a level that raises some concern. Mid month, the plant was measured to be releasing about 100 million becquerels per hour. The reactors are still not uniformly shut down to less than boiling. Additional pumps are being brought in to inject more water. And what goes in must come out, as steam into the atmosphere and effluence into the sea. So this is going to keep going for a while, at least a few more months.

Most of the facilities are too radioactive to enter or to spend very much time in.
TEPCO claims that if there was another earthquake knocking out their current "cooling" facilities at Fukushima, they could return to a state of the plant continuing to emit radiation out of control and boiling off radioactive steam and dumping radioactive water into the sea within just a few hours, so no need to worry about that eventuality.

Even though one of the "hot spots" found in Tokyo turned out to be, rather disturbingly, a small nuclear waste dump someone had in their home, many other hot spots at many localities far outside of the evacuation area have been found. It would seem that some sort of winnowing effect is concentrating radioactive material here and there. In at least one case, a rainwater pipe seemed to be the source of high radiation. In another case, in Kashiwa, a drainage ditch has very highly concentrated radiation.

Meanwhile, radioactive material is spreading throughout the region in another way: Radioactive sludge and dirt is being systematically shipped to numerous municipalities for them to put in to their own local dumps, and political pressure is being applied to make sure mayors or other community leaders keep quite about his and allow it to happen. One wonders if the population was warned of this during the initial hearings about whether or not to build this plant. Were the region's municipalities told then that if there was a massive meltdown at the Fukushima plant, individual municipalities would be expected to become radioactive waste repositories?

[spin]

5. Thanks for the slight insult because of my screen name ...

I always love it when I provoke such behavior. Let me spin some more and see if you will attack again.

My point is that when the U.S. media attempts to report on how serious the situation is at the Fukushima plant and discusses just how grave the situation is, almost everybody tunes out. Therefore the media doesn't bother.

For example from one of your links:

Cesium-137 flow into sea 30 times greater than stated by TEPCO: report

PARIS (Kyodo) -- The amount of radioactive cesium-137 that flowed into the Pacific after the start of Japan's nuclear crisis was probably nearly 30 times the amount stated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. in May, according to a recent report by a French research institute...

The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety said the amount of the isotope that flowed into the ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant between March 21 and mid-July reached an estimated 27.1 quadrillion becquerels. A quadrillion is equivalent to 1,000 trillion.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20111029p2g00m0dm016000c.html

If the average person makes it this far, he probably says, "Gee, that sounds bad." He then clicks on a story about the latest missing blond bimbo or one about the activities of some actress who has violated probation for the tenth time and pissed a judge off.

So when I mention that we need to develop a measurement system that the average person can understand, I am suggesting that if this was implemented the story might have more impact on the general public. Of course the measurement does not have to be in bananas but perhaps it should be in something that at least the average person can comprehend. Perhaps we could use a system similar to the Saffir-Simpson scale used for hurricanes. The article could say something like the radiation release at the Fukushima plant is still at level 3 but may approach level 4. If the core of one the reactors makes contact with the ground water, we could have a level 5!

That way the person I am talking to can discuss the story with other people at the water cooler and they may also grow concerned.

If it wasn't for DU, I would have no idea what is going on in Japan. To me Fukushima Daiichi is a very serious disaster but if I talk to other people and mention that an an estimated 27.1 quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 has flowed into the ocean and that a quadrillion is 1,000 trillion they look at me like I am an alien from outer space. If I just say that there is a really serious problem occurring at the nuke plant in Japan I can't really describe to them how serious it is.

I did try to simplify the problem for my daughter and said, "Well you can kiss Japan goodbye." While that was probably a slight exaggeration, all that happened was that she told me I watch too much news.

Therefore I would point out to you that the current system of measurement makes the situation look benign because no one except the experts understands it.

Few people understand the debt problem because they can't comprehend just how much a trillion dollars is. If I discuss this problem with someone I usually pull up this site on my computer which shows a neat visual representation.

http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/

[kristopher]

6. Are you saying you were not aware that pronuclear ,,,

..voices have been equating emissions with bananas as a way to minimize the perception of harm from radiation? It is one of their favorite red herrings; after all, what could be more benign than a banana?

I agree that it is meaningless to most people, but this is a forum frequented by people who actually do understand the import of the numbers. As to a way to make it comprehensible to the others, IMO that is more readily done by concrete examples of how it affects peoples lives both day to day in Japan, and in the past in places like Chernobyl.

If you aren't familiar with those reports I invite you to take a glance at my journal.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/kristopher

In the meantime, here is a sample that sadly, does rely on large numbers:

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Volume 1181 Issue Chernobyl
Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Pages 31 - 220

Chapter II. Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe for Public Health

Alexey B. Nesterenko a , Vassily B. Nesterenko a ,† and Alexey V. Yablokov b
a
Institute of Radiation Safety (BELRAD), Minsk, Belarus b Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Address for correspondence: Alexey V. Yablokov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 33, Office 319, 119071 Moscow,
Russia. Voice: [phone]; fax: [phone]. [e-mail]
†Deceased


ABSTRACT

Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas—comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination—revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

<snip>

This section describes the spectrum and the scale of the nonmalignant diseases that have been found among exposed populations. Adverse effects as a result of Chernobyl irradiation have been found in every group that has been studied. Brain damage has been found in individuals directly exposed—liquidators and those living in the contaminated territories, as well as in their offspring. Premature cataracts; tooth and mouth abnormalities; and blood, lymphatic, heart, lung, gastrointestinal, urologic, bone, and skin diseases afflict and impair people, young and old alike. Endocrine dysfunction, particularly thyroid disease, is far more common than might be expected, with some 1,000 cases of thyroid dysfunction for every case of thyroid cancer, a marked increase after the catastrophe. There are genetic damage and birth defects especially in children of liquidators and in children born in areas with high levels of radioisotope contamination. Immunological abnormalities and increases in viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases are rife among individuals in the heavily contaminated areas. For more than 20 years, overall morbidity has remained high in those exposed to the irradiation released by Chernobyl. One cannot give credence to the explanation that these numbers are due solely to socioeconomic factors. The negative health consequences of the catastrophe are amply documented in this chapter and concern millions of people.

The most recent forecast by international agencies predicted there would be between 9,000 and 28,000 fatal cancers between 1986 and 2056, obviously underestimating the risk factors and the collective doses. On the basis of I-131 and Cs-137 radioisotope doses to which populations were exposed and a comparison of cancer mortality in the heavily and the less contaminated territories and pre- and post-Chernobyl cancer levels, a more realistic figure is 212,000 to 245,000 deaths in Europe and 19,000 in the rest of the world. High levels of Te-132, Ru-103, Ru-106, and Cs-134 persisted months after the Chernobyl catastrophe and the continuing radiation from Cs-137, Sr-90, Pu, and Am will generate new neoplasms for hundreds of years.

A detailed study reveals that 3.8–4.0% of all deaths in the contaminated territories of Ukraine and Russia from 1990 to 2004 were caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. The lack of evidence of increased mortality in other affected countries is not proof of the absence of effects from the radioactive fallout. Since 1990, mortality among liquidators has exceeded the mortality rate in corresponding population groups. From 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators died before 2005—that is, some 15% of the 830,000 members of the Chernobyl cleanup teams. The calculations suggest that the Chernobyl catastrophe has already killed several hundred thousand human beings in a population of several hundred million that was unfortunate enough to live in territories affected by the fallout. The number of Chernobyl victims will continue to grow over many future generations.

[spin]

7. No, probably because I rarely visit the Environment/Energy forum ...

I usually just check out any posts about the Fukushima plants that I notice in the Latest Discussion Threads section. That's why I was unaware of the "banana" red herring.

I personally feel nuclear power presents far more danger than most people realize. One thing that disturbs me is that we have 23 reactors in the United States that are the same design as the troubled reactors in Japan and almost all of our reactors are aging.

Our media appears to be largely ignoring the problem in Japan. I realize that the media is driven to make a profit and after time even the worst disasters pale when compared to new stories. Still it seems to me that the 24/7 cable news outlets that devote so much time to covering the upcoming Presidential election and the latest antics of some irresponsible actress could devote a little time to update serious news stories such as the reactor failures in Japan.

In my opinion the media serves the rich and powerful corporations and often avoid coverage of stories that might hurt corporate profits. This might explain the lack of coverage on the ongoing crisis in Japan. However I realize that the Fukushima disaster is a very technical and complicated story to explain. If the story did get the coverage that I believe that it deserves, the media would be accused of pandering to environmentalists.

I did take a quick look at your journal and it obviously contains a lot of interesting information. I will make time to look more at it more carefully in the near future. I also plan to visit the Environment/Energy more frequently.