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Radiation Levels Skyrocket at Fukushima
Painting by Jonathan RaddatzRecord high levels of radioactive tritium have been observed in the harbor at Fukushima.
Japan Times notes:
The density of radioactive tritium in samples of seawater from near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant doubled over 10 days to hit a record 1,100 becquerels per liter, possibly indicating contaminated groundwater is seeping into the Pacific, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.
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Tepco said late Monday it was still analyzing the water for strontium-90, which would pose a greater danger than tritium to human health if absorbed via the food chain. The level of cesium did not show any significant change between the two sample dates, according to the embattled utility.
On June 19, Tepco revealed that a groundwater sample taken from a nearby monitoring well was contaminated with both tritium and strontium-90.
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During a news conference Monday in Tokyo, Masayuki Ono, a Tepco executive and spokesman, this time did not deny the possibility of leakage into the sea, while he said Tepco is still trying to determine the cause of the spike.
Kyoto reports:
A sample collected Friday contained around 1,100 becquerels of tritium per liter, the highest level detected in seawater since the nuclear crisis at the plant started in March 2011, the utility said Monday.
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The latest announcement was made after Tepco detected high levels of radioactive tritium and strontium in groundwater from an observation well at the plant.
Indeed, the amount of radioactive strontium has skyrocketed over the last couple of months at Fukushima.
The New York Times writes:
Tokyo Electric Power, the operator of the stricken nuclear power plant at Fukushima, said Wednesday that it had detected high levels of radioactive strontium in groundwater at the plant, raising concerns that its storage tanks are leaking contaminated water, possibly into the ocean.
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The company has struggled to store growing amounts of contaminated runoff at the plant, but had previously denied that the site’s groundwater was highly toxic….
Xinhua reports:
Very high radioactivity levels were detected in groundwater from an observation well at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, said the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) Wednesday.
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The observation well was set up on the Pacific side of the plant’s No. 2 reactor turbine building last December to find out the reasons why radioactivity levels in seawater near the plant remained high. The company said the sampled water could be from the contaminated water that seeped into the ground.
Reuters points out:
Testing of groundwater showed the reading for strontium-90 increased from 8.6 becquerels to 1,000 becquerels per litre between Dec. 8, 2012 and May 24.
BBC notes:
High levels of a toxic radioactive isotope have been found in groundwater at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator says.
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Strontium-90 is formed as a by-product of nuclear fission. Tests showed that levels of strontium in groundwater at the Fukushima plant had increased 100-fold since the end of last year, Toshihiko Fukuda, a Tepco official, told media.
Other types of radioactive materials will continue to pose a hazard for decades. As nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen explains:
The radiation exposures are going up. What you’re seeing is a lot of this stuff is getting revolitalized. It’s in the first couple of inches of dust, and when the wind blows it moves into areas that have been previously cleaned.
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This will go on for decades, as the cesium goes down in to the soil, the roots bring it back up and into the plant structures and the leaves fall on the ground and the cycle continues.
(Some portion of this radiation will hit the West Coast of North America … which may end up with even higher radioactive cesium levels than Japan.)
The bigger picture is that the Fukushima reactors are wholly uncontained … and radiation will continue to spew for decades … or centuries.
Japan Times reports:
A U.N. nuclear watchdog team said Japan may need longer than the projected 40 years to decommission the Fukushima power plant and urged Tepco to improve stability at the facility.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency team, Juan Carlos Lentijo, said Monday that damage at the nuclear plant is so complex that it is impossible to predict how long the cleanup may last.
“As for the duration of the decommissioning project, this is something that you can define in your plans. But in my view, it will be nearly impossible to ensure the time for decommissioning such a complex facility in less than 30 to 40 years as it is currently established in the road map,” Lentijo said.
The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. have predicted the cleanup would take up to 40 years. They still have to develop technology and equipment that can operate under fatally high radiation levels to locate and remove melted fuel. The reactors must be kept cool and the plant must stay safe and stable, and those efforts to ensure safety could slow the process down.
The plant still runs on makeshift equipment and frequently suffers glitches.
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The problems have raised concerns about whether the plant … can stay intact throughout a decommissioning process. The problems have prompted officials to compile risk-reduction measures and review decommissioning plans.
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“It is expectable in such a complex site, additional incidents will occur as it happened in the nuclear plants under normal operations,” Lentijo said.
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The IAEA team urged the utility to “improve the reliability of essential systems to assess the structural integrity of site facilities, and to enhance protection against external hazards” and promptly replace temporary equipment with a reliable, permanent system.
Indeed, the locations and condition of melted Fukushima fuel is still totally unknown. Shimbun reports:
The workers have yet to gain a grasp of the locations and condition of the fuel debris. They have yet to develop extraction equipment and determine removal methods.
Mainichi notes:
Uncertainty over the location of melted fuel inside the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant continues to cast a shadow over plans to remove the fuel at an early date…. Reactor Nos. 1-3 at the plant contained a total of 1,496 rods of nuclear fuel in their cores…. Each fuel rod weighs about 300 kilograms, and a high level of technical expertise would be required when undertaking a remote control operation to cut up and retrieve clumps of scattered radioactive materials weighing a combined 450 tons or thereabouts…. the cores of reactors at the Fukushima plant have holes, and the task at hand is finding which parts have been damaged.
Indeed, the technology doesn’t yet exist to contain – let alone clean up – Fukushima.
Mainichi notes:
In a news conference on June 10, a representative of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy said that bringing forward the plans would be dependent on developing technology, and suggested that the plans might even end up being delayed.
Scientists are considering freezing the ground around the Fukushima reactors. Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports:
The Japanese government has ordered the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant to freeze the soil around its crippled reactor buildings to stop groundwater seeping in and becoming contaminated…. According to a report compiled by a government panel on Thursday, there are no previous examples of using walls created from frozen soil to isolate groundwater being used for longer than a few years. This means the project at the Fukushima plant poses “an unprecedented challenge in the world”.
Japan Times reports:
The panel’s draft report said the government and Tepco hope to create the frozen-soil walls between April and September 2015…. A rough estimate suggests that groundwater seepage into the basements would be reduced from 400 tons [every day] to 100 tons once the frozen-soil walls are built.
Another high-tech solution being proposed: injecting cement into the Fukushima reactors.
And then there are the spent fuel pools, which continue to be one of the main threats to Japan, the United States … and all of humanity.
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I'm hearin' you knocking.
The permian-triassic extinction event..."The great dying," wiped out something like 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestial vertebrates. Wonder who caused that one? :)
Gay marriage casued that event, duh! But that event happened 11000 years ago, as the Earth is only 12000 years old, the bible tells me so. Don't worry, Jesus will fix it.
A funny thing happens when people know they are going to die. They try to make a few things right and do some spiritual house cleaning as it were. As more and more people in Japan come down with cancer, they will sell everything they have. Say sayonara to the JGBs. Anyone who can afford to leave Japan will.
"Anyone who can afford to leave Japan will."
Over the next 20 years, that is certainly true. But I think after a generation of hunkering down people there will simply pretend it never happened. They will suffer their illnesses, which will come out of nowhere, and ascribe such things to the same causes they did before the "disease theory of medicine" came along; to demons, curses, neglect of local deities and shrines, etc.
What might happen is that eventually parts of Japan earn a reputation as "cursed and haunted" and nobody ever lives there.
For a modern description of this process, see "the atomic priesthood":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Force
don't be fooled, the whole northern hemisphere will be wiped out sooner than 20 years. fukushima SFP4 has 85 chernobyls still in it, some 25+ meters in the air damaged and on stilts. and don't forget the 400+ NPPs around the world; they are much more dangerous than a banker, or a jack-booted-thug. here in the us they arent allowed to keep more then a months worth of diesel at any plant.....
Assuming all the storage pools are still intact . . .
Do you trust Tepco to tell the truth about them?
taking my Geiger counter with me on my next visit to the local sushi bar..........
Is the sake still safe?
No.
Fukushima is coming in #3 on Project Censored for 2013.
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/category/top-stories...
Thanks GW and ZH for covering what the fake news outlets won't.
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/NOAA-Declares-Unusual-Mortality-Ev...
basically the pups can't find enough to eat, sardines and anchovies.
They also showed high levels of radiation. A double whammy.
guess they all died, I remember seeing official numbers at one shelter over a thousand, now 23 total cases of malnourished seal.
This is all just conspiracy theory, until it isn't. Which seems to be happening more and more. Government will lie their ass off when it's politically expedient. They don't give one fuck about the people, as they claim.
For helping Iran, we get you back long time
-Israel
Probably more important than the current digital zero debacle but who gives a fuck we can fix this problem and protect the population with paper dust masks.
Wow.
when lizards start living in the radioactive water then your going to have big problems.
http://enenews.com/new-godzilla-movie-tied-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-cr...
P.S. Since the uneducated serfs cannot read, we will feed them Fukushima, I mean healthy Pacific fish and they will die soon too. These serfs will be replaced by a never ending supply who are dying to cross the border and replace you. signed, With deepest enduring love, Janet Napolitano.
"I, Barack Obama, support the tuna industry. That is why we will be buying tuna with taxpayer money and using it to suppliment the student lunch program in schools around the country!"
and the air at ground zero in Manhattan right after 9/11 was safe too. i read somewhere that when they were taken to court a bond fund offered that their boilerplate wasn't meant to be accurate, and no one took it seriously, therefore it didn't constitute a contractal agreement. hey, i'm a politician and all politicians lie, you ahouldn't have trusted me, its your fault.
...And the prize for the most apposite handle and avatar in the entire blogosphere goes to ...GEORGE WASHINGTON!!.
More stupendous work GW...a global patriot
Thanks, LHU. Here's some eye candy for you:
Insane Photos of the Statue of Liberty Being Built in Paris
Dammit George, while those are some cool photos (thanks), I simply could not stop images of Charleton Heston screaming "Damn you. Damn you to hell" out of my mind. When we watched that movie, we could walk out of the theater, into the light of day knowing that its "just Hollywood." Not this time. Hello Tepco - Damn you. Damn you to hell.
What is the secret of SOYLENT GREEN?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsVQPsiwkBI
This will contaminate the PACIFIC. We are screwed with a Capital S.
Does anyone have readings from Pacific salmon sold at W-mart?
no, but blue and king crabs have gone up 14 and 21% since 2012 when i last check(real over-nighted alaskan), hell even my local rabbits are a third higher compared to my local background levels, scary shit indeed!
edit: who the fuck shops at walmart, seriously....
"Does anyone have readings from Pacific salmon sold at W-mart?"
The Food Lab does extensive radiation in food testing:
http://sccc.org.au/archives/2861
Really - you have to ask?
Oops ... joking about food quality might make me a ...
Bet the fish from that harbor taste great.
I wonder if eating them will give me superpowers?
I think there was a typo:
"The problems have raised concerns about whether the plant … can stay intact throughout a decommissioning process."
Should be 'whether the planet... can stay intact...'.
All in the name of power, money and control, right elites?
I hate to be alarmist, but anyone eating Pacific seafood might want to think twice. You know, of course, that the government stopped checking for radioactivity in Pacific fish stocks right after the accident.
Hillary signed a treaty with Japan right after the quake, to not test any imported food products for radiation. It also included Canada, as they are getting the same fallout on the jetstream as we are.
Add lethal radiation to GMO crops and . . .
The port nuclear sensors have also been turned off. All the containers from Japan are hot.
And food imports from Japan have gone up. Where is all that food going? A large chunk of Fukushima rice is going into Thailand's school lunch programs.
Also:
'Report: Japanese rice “allegedly caused diarrhea” — Officials told not to send any more donated rice — Locals say gov’t is playing with public’s health'
http://enenews.com/report-japanese-rice-allegedly-caused-diarrhea-offici... The Japanese are now growing rice in the immediate area of the Fukushima nuclear plants that exploded and are still leaking: 'Rice planted 10 miles from Fukushima Daiichi — Residents can’t stay in town overnight — “Intended for sale”'http://enenews.com/jiji-rice-being-planted-about-10-miles-from-fukushima... '“Shocking”: Officials make it mandatory to use Fukushima rice in school lunches'
http://enenews.com/shock-officials-make-mandatory-fukushima-rice-school-... 'Video: Radioactivity of 14,600 Bq/m2 in rice paddy soil far from Fukushima plant — Crop to be sold in Japan this year'
http://enenews.com/watch-14600-bqm2-in-rice-paddy-soil-60-kilometers-fro... The Japanese are killing off their own children with radioactive rice. It does get worse.
Hear no evil, see no evil,say no evil,
The three plutonium monkeys.
I've stopped eating canned tuna for this exact reason. I have been looking for a good radiation detector that I could use to test cans of tuna, but there are so many isotopes to be worried about, and I am not a nuclear physicist. If anyone has a recommendation, be all means please let me know. I'll buy one for everyone in my family.
For fuck's sake. Who would have thought that the Soviets would be 10x better at containing a core meltdown than those fucking Japs. Every fucker involved with that plant should be caned, stoned, pissed, and shit on, and then mixed in with the concrete they use to entomb it.
"I've stopped eating canned tuna for this exact reason. I have been looking for a good radiation detector that I could use to test cans of tuna, but there are so many isotopes to be worried about, and I am not a nuclear physicist."
You need a really sensitive detector like an HPGe to measure containamtion in food, which costs many thousands and requires the detector to remain submerged in liquid nitrogen.
As another posted sugguested, avoid eating all sea food. As it containmated with high levels of Mercury from Coal burned in China and India. FWIW: I have NOT eaten any seafood since 2010.
2004 EPA restriction on Seafood consumption
http://water.epa.gov/scitech/swguidance/fishshellfish/outreach/advice_in...
I believe the EPA has change it one meal per month, or longer. They may have pulled it from pressure by the seafood industry.
i call BS, my inspector can detect quantifiable contamination in all types of things, even food; levels not isotopes of course but you dont need a germanium detector to find these supposed "low levels" in anything, just time to average it.
But the isotopes are of great importance. Heavy transuranic elements are not the same as lightweight radioactive isotopes!
Good reminder & not alarmist at all. Likely most health-conscious folk had already stopped eating seafood long ago, due to mercury contam. e.g. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/05/21/Your-Tuna-...
I know I miss seafood.
The very small levels of radiation and mercury don't outweight the health benefits of eating fish regularly.
There ain't no level of radiation "small" enough to be harmless.
Plus, it gives off such a pretty glow.
Seriously, it's naive to think the problem ends with Pacific seafood. The stuff was released into the water, into the air, it's been detected all over the planet. It's in the food chain.
diverse rainouts reported in Canada, UK, Netherlands, Ireland.. etc.
here's one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67X5aMsD9Ns
I guess it might be prudent to look at where your fruits and vegies come from as well. I would look to South American sources over California and Mexico. Then again the video was taken in the UK, so even local food sources may be compromized. You also should know that any illnesses that result will be blamed on second hand smoke and global warming.
There are no 'safe' sources of food or water any longer. Only 'less' radiated, increasing due to bioaccumulation and biomagnification.
Yes, it will all be blamed on something else, as they continue to build new NPP's until no one is left to care.
LOL
of course. the cancer medicine industry in the USA would do great until people drop dead.
AFAIK the local foodsupply in europe is not as contaminated (yet). the UK and Ireland? don't know.
Of course the effects are cumulative and the stuff also accumulates in the foodchain. (and we're at the top)
yeah like someone said, the nuke tests are lollypops compared to this (the whole northern hemisphere)
it could get worse from here, and the stuff doesn't stop at the equator.
These shareholders still think this is about capitalism:
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130626_15.html
Of course they're dismissed by the management.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/newsline/201306261605.html
(thnx msmilkytheclown1 on youtube for the headsup)
I listened to Jeff Rense the other day. He's convinced there's something even darker going on than psychopath rich trying to do "god's work" but a wholescale attack on nature (terraforming??).
I fail to see how any elite could live on a contaminated planet (after culling the rest), so he's got a point.
It does not make sense, at all.
"Contaminated" is relative, especially if you're not from around here.
Between this shit and Chemtrails, Big Pharma makes out like banditos!
(Neither of which are real, by the way)
sarc....