Update on Fukushima: Discussion of High Level Radiation Releases...etc.

Fairewinds Associates, Inc ^ | March 31, 2011 | Arnie Gundersen

[Razzz42]

Gundersen describes the Fukushima plant as stable, but precarious. In this update, he discusses the high levels of radiation (2 Million disintegrations/second being found on the ground as far as 25 miles from the plant site.) He also addresses a New York Times report of hundreds of tons of water being put into the reactors each day. Gundersen points out that all of the water going in to the reactors is being irradiated, leaking out, and polluting the Ocean. He concludes by discussing the differences between the accident scenarios that the nuclear industry previously planned for and what has actually happened.

[Errant]

First, thank you for your willingness to jump in here and help convert this.

If you listen to the video, he mentions 2 million becquerels. I'm pretty sure we're taking a surface area of a square meter.

You were doing well untill you start jumping from sieverts to rems and back about 3 times :). I'd like to back you up a bit:

we have a dose rate of 120 mRem/h. Now 1 mSv/h = 100 mRem/h, so we have 1.2 mSv/h.

So by your calculations of 1.2 mSV/h, @ 24 hours you would receive 28.8 mSV total. That's a little more than half of what I came up with in a single hour? Dosage in mSV is something most people now have an understanding of.

Even using your much lower level than mine, you would absorb 1000 mSV (radiation sickness levels) in 34 days. That's if radiation from the plant immediately stopped and no additional radioactive particles landed.

[Errant]

A milliSievert is one milliJoule of energy diluted into one kilogram of tissue. As such it would not distinguish between warming yourself in front of a fire and eating a red hot coal. It is the local distribution of energy that is the problem. The dose from a singly internal alpha particle track to a single cell is 500mSv! The dose to the whole body from the same alpha track is 5 x 10-11 mSv. That is 0.000000000005mSv. But it is the dose to the cell that causes the genetic damage and the ultimate cancer. The cancer yield per unit dose employed by ICRP is based entirely on external acute high dose radiation at Hiroshima, where the average dose to a cell was the same for all cells. - Chris Busby, Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk

[thepoodlebites]

“Even using your much lower level than mine, you would absorb 1000 mSV (radiation sickness levels) in 34 days. That’s if radiation from the plant immediately stopped and no additional radioactive particles landed.”

Your calculations are correct, 1,000 mSv in 34.7 days, at 1.2 mSv/h. Sorry about the mRem/h vs. mSv/h, I think clearer in terms of mRem/h, like English vs. Spanish. But a more reasonable conversion factor (Cs 137) is 3,000 cpm/mRem/h or 30,000 cpm/mSv/h, giving 0.4 mSv/h. Trying to parse the statement “to the tune of 2 million dps” sounds like a peak reading, not an average over the area. There are probably hot spots downwind that give these readings but my calculations are based on an average over the entire area. My guess is that the dose rates in the area are much lower and that’s why the scary “2 million dps” is used instead of an actual dose rate, ? mSv/h. Give me a well-calibrated detector and a two-way plane ticket, I’ll fly over and survey the area. My results would be both surface contamination and dose rates, average and peak.

[dfwgator]

“Cheer up, we only lost the northern third of Japan.

Two out of three ain't bad.

[Errant]

I’ll fly over and survey the area.

ONLY, if you're not planning on having anymore children! ;)

[D-fendr]

Arnie Gundersen is a questionable source.

[D-fendr]

Arnie became famous on the liberal blogosphere for his March 15th quote:

“This could become Chernobyl on steroids.”

[thepoodlebites]

I’ll fly over and survey the area.
ONLY, if you’re not planning on having anymore children! ;)

Nice try but you receive about 300 mRem/yr naturally, more if you live at high elevation or fly more than average. And if you ever received a CT-scan, that’s about 150 mRem in one shot[1]. Coleman lantern filaments used to read 2,000 cpm (fixed alpha radiation), thorium is naturally radioactive, but the company now uses nonradioactive yttrium.

1. See http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/bio-effects-radiation.html

[CharlesWayneCT]

Gundersen points out that all of the water going in to the reactors is being irradiated, leaking out, and polluting the Ocean.

I don't think it ALL is; there have been reports of huge amounts of water being sent through the condenser units which are designed to handle the radioactive water.

Clearly a lot of polluted water is making it into the ocean, as we see the daily reports of high levels of short-lived radioactive particles; hopefully these will disperse well while they decay to non-dangerous particles.

[Razzz42]

With the cores melted any coolant coming in contact will be contaminated and since the cooling loops are leaking, coolant leaks everywhere beside any contaminant steaming away or gases being given off. Even with no further explosions this amount of contamination could be produced for months while waiting for a cool down.

[Razzz42]

There was about 850 tons of uranium being used and stored with these 4 reactors. If someone said this could be worse than Chernobyl then they wouldn’t be exaggerating.

[D-fendr]

There are some huge differences between these reactors and Chernobyl.

[Justa]

The reactors yes, the open storage pools no. The storage pools contain thousands of times more fuel than Chernobyl’s reactor.

[bvw]

The extremes of hysterical and anti-nuke reporting make it every hard to separate the wheat from the chaff in what is going on there. Your on-site clam and accurate reporting is a great service to all.

[D-fendr]

The widespread effect of Chernobyl was due to an explosion of the reactor itself and the ensuing graphite fire.

[D-fendr]

The storage pools contain thousands of times more fuel than Chernobyl’s reactor.

And.. it's quite different fuel in quite a different state of depletion.

[Justa]

Not really all that different as many of the isotopes remain and additional radioactive isotopes are created. The rods can be reprocessed and re-used and I think the Japanese and the French do this.

I think they’ll have the better part of a year before this is contained.

[virgil]

I won’t be eating any ocean fish for awhile. It reminds me of my dad who was in the army in WWII. He was in some of the amphib landings in the Pacific. He never ate ocean fish for the rest of his life after what he experienced there.

[D-fendr]

I think they’ll have the better part of a year before this is contained.

I have no knowledge to contradict this. It is definitely going to be a lengthy and expensive cleanup. However, I do not believe there will be a Chernobyl on steroids before it is over.

[D-fendr]

I should have added that the Chernobyl disaster was a reactor with fuel used for making bombs, in positive runaway, without proper containment that exploded twice throwing out fragments of the burning fuel core and set fire to several tons of graphite insulating blocks. It burned for 9 days.

I don’t know a possible comparable scenario for this “on steroids” in the case of Japan’s situation.

This is the basics of my reasoning. Thank you very much for your replies and discussion.