Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised, a enterprising marketer, starts selling Seafood Products, tested as *Radition Free* in the Future... ;)

Such a fishery might contract for Nuke's monitoring equipment in pursuit of such an endeavor. Coming to a Whole Foods near you!

Cesium Free!!!

Nuclear agency reports low, but unusual, radiation across Europe

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/euro....

Low levels of radioactive particles in Europe: IAEA

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/1....

That debris is not radioactive. The debris field consists of the matter that was washed out during the tsunami -- the releases from Fukushima started only few days afterwards.

Of course, the debris is quite harmful regardless. A huge amounts of different poisons and harmful chemicals were washed out with that debris, too. It doesn't have to be radioactive to kill you...

On that detection in Europe, it looks like some medical isotope factory had a major "oopsie" (I-131 is one of the more common medical isotopes). There's quite a chase going on where it came from.

Etika, what is your agenda? After reading your top line of text, I am perplexed. But perhaps maybe not. Huge amounts or cesium...etc, exploded into the atmosphere and floated into Pacific...Debris was just getting started not far off shore.

....

IMO, mass contamination of fish stocks in Pacific. Where do you think?

Ceasium is water-soluable, it is not retained in the debris in water, but is washed off and mixed into the local waters off Japan. And the amount of ceasium per water volume is a lot lower than in Chernobyl fallout from Baltic Sea. How could you get mass contamination of fish stocks in Pacific when there wasn't such in Baltic Sea with larger ceasium concentrations?

If you look at the radioactivity of the debris, you are missing the real risk in them: the non-water-soluable chemicals and eveything else in that debris that remains concentrated and might have a large local impact.

Cesium is water soluble? Didn't teach me that in engineering.

How do you know the debris isn't radioactive? I guess you've measured it?

So many errors in your posts. Sorry, had to break my self-imposed silence on this thread. Back to being silent again.

Then they didn't speak much of ceasium's chemistry in engineering. The pyrophoric property of the ceasium means that any that is released in steam will be either oxide or nitrite form, both of which are very soluable. Specifically, most of the ceasium will be released as ceasium oxide (CsO2), which is a very soluable salt. Any metallic ceasium in water will violenty react, forming mostly ceasium oxide and some ceasium nitride, which is also soluable.

On that debris, let me put it this way: There is no reason to belive the debris is radioactive. I don't know it any more than I know that my chair is not active. Any fallout that has fallen of them has been released as a steam release from Fukushima, which means that they must be water-soluable. Non-water soluable particles do not get out with steam.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21....

Radiation levels in Fukushima are lower than predicted
22:00 16 November 2011 by Chelsea Whyte

The fallout from the radiation leak at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor in Japan may be less severe than predicted.

Radiology researcher Ikuo Kashiwakura of Hirosaki University, Japan, and colleagues responded immediately to the disaster, travelling south to Fukushima prefecture to measure radiation levels in more than 5000 people there between 15 March and 20 June.

They found just 10 people with unusually high levels of radiation, but those levels were still below the threshold at which acute radiation syndrome sets in and destroys the gastrointestinal tract. Geiger-counter readings categorised all others in the area at a "no contamination level".

How did the population of Fukushima prefecture dodge the radioactivity? Gerry Thomas at Imperial College London, director of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, says the answer is simple. "Not an awful lot [of radioactive material] got out of the plant – it was not Chernobyl." The Chernobyl nuclear disaster released 10 times as much radiation as Fukushima Daiichi.

Rapid response

Thomas says the quick and thorough response by the Japanese government limited radioactive exposure among the population. On 12 March, the same day as the first explosion at Fukushima Daiichi, the government ordered the evacuation of residents within 20 kilometres, and asked various institutions to begin monitoring contamination levels.

"They had no faxes, no emails, nothing was working," says Thomas, adding that other countries might not have coped as well with a combined earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant malfunction. "Given the circumstances, they did phenomenally."

The Japanese authorities also removed contaminated food and gave iodine to those who were very young, she says. Radioactive iodine can contaminate the thyroid gland in the body, leading to radiation-induced cancer, but can be counteracted by introducing non-radioactive iodine into the body.

Health researchers will have to keep an eye on radiation levels, however. "There are many 'hotspot' areas where radioactivity has accumulated locally," says Kashiwakura. This is because rainfall deposited radioactivity unevenly. "The Japanese people have a responsibility to continue research on the effect of radioactivity in humans."

Journal reference: PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027761

"19.8 microsieverts per hour in Tokyo air on Nov. 15 — Nearly 200 times normal level — Incineration of radioactive debris suspected"

http://enenews.com/19-8-microsieverts-pe....

Jiji: High radiation levels near Tokyo linked to Fukushima — Rain caused 29,250,000 Bq/m˛ in soil says gov’t — Almost DOUBLE last gov’t test

http://enenews.com/jiji-high-radiation-l....

High Radiation Levels in Kashiwa Linked to TEPCO N-Plant, Jiji Press, Nov. 28, 2011:

The Ministry of Environment said Monday that high radiation levels detected in soil in Kashiwa, northeast of Tokyo, in October are likely to be from radioactive cesium released from Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima [...]

The ministry said it believes that the contamination was caused by rainwater containing radioactive cesium [...]

The ministry detected up to some 450,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive substances in the soil in Kashiwa, higher than the levels of up to 276,000 becquerels found in the city’s research. [...]

To compare these soil contamination levels to those after the Chernobyl meltdown, a conversion from becquerels per kilogram to becquerels per square meter is used.

“To convert from ‘per kilogram’ to ‘per square meter’, Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission uses the factor of 65.” (SOURCE)

Therefore, 29,250,000 Bq/m˛ of radioactive substances were in the Kashiwa soil.

At Chernobyl, cesium contamination above 1,480,000 Bq/m˛ required migration, 555,000-1.48 million Bq/m˛ was for temporary migration.

Quote:

I'm out of town, and won't post a lot until maybe late Sunday night, but I asked a friend of mine to read the entire thread and have breakfast with me to discuss it. His answer was rather interesting and funny. A PhD in Nuclear Physics (MIT, Stanford and Max Planck Institute), his first reaction was: "They don't seem to or can't understand you. They are classically trained or self-educated in science. Don't they realize that all of you are correct?" Gen's and Etika's last few posts were key to his humble, decrepit and old opinions (he's 64). I'm going to call Arnie Gustafson and see if he'll join us in the thread for a post or two as well. His latest posts on Reactor pool 3 are typical of our differences (yet both sides are correct, I will stress as an old idiot)of opinions. Arnie turned me down for a job many years ago, for which I thank him, maybe he won't remember me!

Nuke, as someone who has learned more about this field than I ever thought necessary, I want to thank you for your posts and your attempts to bring in some expertise to this discussion.

When your time permits, please continue to do so and do not feel 'run off' by the normal discourse that occurs on fora such as this.

Does anyone know anything about what Nuke is discussing as it may pertain to illness, sickness and cancer incidence? When would residents of the Fukushima Prefecture and other areas of Japan experience measurable cancer rate increases? This year? Next?

Measurable, probably, over a 10 year+ timespan.

The problem is that statistically significant and "oh **** me we're all gonna die!" are MILES apart.

Well, I have just been browsing this thread I haven't read in a while and it's, frankly, about as troubling as it can be.

Anything I would post would be idle nonsense, and regarding this subject I don't know anything more than my college Chemistry and Physics classes, so I shall just read the posts and contemplate whether those posting, other than experts, understand the subject or not.

The mere fact that all the experts are very busy, too busy to post or with NDA's, well that says a lot right there.

"The problem is that statistically significant and "oh **** me we're all gonna die!" are MILES apart."

So it is possible that this event may elevate, on a possibly permanent basis, the background radiation and cancer risk for the entire planet, given enough time - perhaps a few years?

That is one possible result I conclude from the thread over the past month or two...

2011-11-03:

“It's going to get really bad from now on over there.”

“…unless one knows what they are pouring borated water into, it could actually be PROMOTING the reaction rather than slowing it down.”

“Looks like I'll be at the site in early December.”

No.

Remember that Chernobyl, which ejected the core material into the atmosphere pretty much "en-masse" (the explosion there was NOT hydrogen outside the vessel, it was the entire thing that blew up) was prognosticated to increase cancer rates pretty much everywhere in Europe and Russia. Wherever the wind blew, it was said, you'd be screwed. Chernobyl was MUCH worse than Fukushima in terms of the actual radioactive mass that was liberated into the environment.

The problem is that it didn't happen and enough time has gone by now that we know it won't. Other than a spike in thyroid tumors the statistical facts are that it did very little in terms of changing mortality and morbidity. Thus the focus on thyroid blocking in this incident because that was one place where there was a clear statistical difference that mattered.

We won't see a statistically significant change globally from Fukushima. There will almost-certainly be some additional cancer incidences among people in Japan, with the most-likely cases being thyroid where the person afflicted did NOT block immediately. Whether there will be baseline increases from cesium and strontium is a much-more-dicey situation -- it's certainly possible, but the impact there will be noted in "hot spots" within Japan itself, with little or no risk of them appearing outside of Japan itself.

As just one example there were a couple of clusters after Chernobyl that ultimately were traced to deposits picked up by trucks that then dropped them somewhere and that wound up in the food supply, but they were small clusters and while statistically identifiable the odds of YOU getting nailed by one were approximately equal to winning the lottery (in other words, yes you can measure it, but that's where it ends in terms of actual public health impact.)

The prediction after Chernobyl was that we'd see a ****load of bone cancer (strontium based) along with cases of leukemia and similar cancers (cesium, which looks like potassium to the body.) It didn't happen, despite the predictions and the fact that Russia didn't evacuate immediately either, so many of the people in the general vicinity at least had the potential to get a really ugly dose.

I'm already old enough and toxic enough (especially after 9/11) that it's incremental, to me.

"A preliminary government report released this month said it will take 30 years or more to safely decommission Fukushima Dai-ichi."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/arti....

Japan faces years of food contamination fears
The damaged nuclear power plant in Japan came a lot closer to a full meltdown last spring than first thought. The company that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant said Wednesday that the radioactive core inside Reactor 1 burned through a concrete containment barrier and nearly reached the soil below.


The nuclear plant was heavily damaged by an earthquake and tsunami back in March. And as CBS News correspondent Lucy Craft reports, many in Japan are worried about what all of this is doing to their food.


Suburban housewife Toshiko Yasuda lives 170 miles away from the nuclear plant. Worried about radiation, she buys little at the grocery store nowadays.

She said: "Radiation-contaminated beef has turned up on the market. Broccoli, spinach and shiitake, too -- all discovered after they were already on sale. So I don't trust the government anymore."


Yasuda worries that even trace radiation might hurt her 8-year-old daughter Aimi. Nowadays, she obsesses over meal preparation, with most ingredients purchased online.


She told Craft she buys eggs and other fresh food from suppliers in distant southern Japan and as far away as the U.S.
For fishermen and farmers across eastern Japan, the public fear of radiation has done more damage to their livelihoods than the radioactive fallout itself.


The port of Hitachinaka is about 100 miles south of the crippled nuclear plant. About once a week, this fish there is tested for radiation. So far they've passed with flying colors. The fishermen here insist that their flounder, octopus and shrimp are safe to eat.


And yet, customers at the neighborhood fish market are down by half since the nuclear accident.


"If consumers are misled by harmful rumors," this fish merchant said, "none of us will be able to make a living."


The government argues that food fears are overblown. It says hundreds of food samples are tested daily for radiation, and few exceed government standards for radioactive cesium.


But with a shortage of radiation testing devices, it's not possible to screen every catch, from every boat. And while the risk may be small, Yasuda says she's not taking any chances with her child.


She said: "Maybe low-level radiation exposure won't give my child cancer. But five years down the road, if she did end up sick, I would be overwhelmed by regret about why I wasn't more careful."


With low-level but widespread contamination of their soil and water, the Japanese face years of uncertainty about what's safe to put on the table.
******************************************************

Next from the WP


Simulation shows deeper meltdown at tsunami-hit Japan nuclear reactor than previously thought

TOKYO — Radioactive debris from melted fuel rods may have seeped deeper into the floor of a Japan’s tsunami-hit nuclear reactor than previously thought, to within a foot from breaching the crucial steel barrier, a new simulation showed Wednesday.

The findings will not change the ongoing efforts to stabilize the reactors more than eight months after the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was disabled, but they harshly depict the meltdowns that occurred and conditions within the reactors, which will be off-limits for years.
The plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said its latest simulation showed fuel at the No. 1 reactor may have eroded part of the primary containment vessel’s thick concrete floor. The vessel is a beaker-shaped steel container, set into the floor. A concrete foundation below that is the last manmade barrier before earth.

The fuel came within a foot of the container’s steel bottom in the worst-case scenario but has been somewhat cooled, TEPCO’s nuclear safety official Yoshihiro Oyama said at a government workshop. He said fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor were the worst damaged because it lost cooling capacity before the other two reactors, leaving its rods dry and overheated for hours before water was pumped in.

The nuclear crisis following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused massive radiation leaks and the relocation of some 100,000 people.

Another simulation on the structure released by the government-funded Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization, or JNES, said the erosion of the concrete could be deeper and the possibility of structural damage to the reactor’s foundation needs to be studied.

JNES official Masanori Naito said the melting fuel rods lost their shape as they collapsed to the bottom of the vessel, then deteriorated into drops when water pumping resumed, and the fuel drops spattered and smashed against the concrete as they fell, Naito said.

TEPCO and government officials are aiming to achieve “cold shutdown” by the end of the year — a first step toward creating a stable enough environment for work to proceed on removing the reactors’ nuclear fuel and closing the plant altogether.

The government estimates it will take 30 years or more to safely decommission Fukushima Dai-ichi.

Wednesday’s simulations depict what happened early in the crisis and do not mean a recent deterioration of the No. 1 reactor. Oyama said, however, the results are based only on available data and may not match the actual conditions inside the reactors, which cannot be opened for years.

Some experts have raised questions about achieving the “cold shutdown,” which means bringing the temperature of the pressure vessel containing healthy fuel rods to way below the benchmark 100 Celsius (212 Fahrenheit). They say the fuel is no longer there and measuring the temperature of empty cores is meaningless, while nobody knows where and how hot the melted fuel really is.

Kiyoharu Abe, a nuclear expert at JNES, said it’s too early to make a conclusion and more simulations should be done to get accurate estimates.

“I don’t think the simulation today was wrong, but we should look at this from various viewpoints rather than making a conclusion from one simulation,” Abe said. “It’s just the beginning of a long process.”
****************************************************************

Recorded at 10 EST.

"Outgassing" Hydrogen Gas? Opinions? to big to be "welding"..

Fissures from the ground around reactor buildings? I figure rubber boots don't last long.