Don't worry... Gamera will save us:
Posted on 03/31/2011 1:09:04 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Radioiodine 4,385 Times Limit Found in Seawater near N-Plant
Tokyo, March 31 (Jiji Press)--Radioactive iodine 4,385 times the legal limit has been detected in seawater near the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the industry ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Thursday.
Some 180 becquerels of iodine-131 per cubic centimeter were found in a seawater sample collected on Wednesday afternoon 330 meters off the discharge outlet of the No. 1 to 4 reactors of the plant in Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, the agency said.
The reading was higher than 3,355 times the limit of the radioactive material found at the same spot Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at jen.jiji.com ...
P!
OK! I’ll cancel the Fukushima beach holiday visit!
“The reading was higher than 3,355 times the limit of the radioactive material found at the same spot Tuesday.”
There are days I just cannot stand the ignorance of the clowns in the media.
The limit wasn’t set for that spot, or for Tuesday. There was a *reading* taken in that spot, at that time. That didn’t make it a limit, regulatory policy decrees limits, which exist whether a reading is taken or not.
That said, it is pretty clear now that they’re putting so much water into the plants to get the situation cooled down that they’re bleeding a lot of water outside their catch basins or pools.
You dont expect them to break down simple scientific facts for the average Joe, instead of inflating it way beyond all norms of nonsense, all for the sake of “Network” (an old favorite movie of mine) type viewership ratings, do you? / sarc
You could put a drop of water on the sidewalk, and that would be 1,000,000,000 times more water than found at the site “over normal levels”.
I believe the numbers thrown around with that qualifier are meant for consumption for the ignorant, just to make headlines. I know next to nothing of the area of all things nuclear, and even I can see through this BS.
Wednesday's sampling also revealed cesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years, at a level 527 times higher than the legal standard.
So in 60 years there will still remain 25 % of any radioactive cesium released. We may start seeing the cesium in the milk of Washington State, hopefully at only very, very low levels.
Next up: Godzilla.
Iodine-131 (131I), also called radioiodine (though many other radioactive isotopes of this element are known), is an important radioisotope of iodine. It has a radioactive decay half life of about eight days.
“To understand the details, let’s walk through the design of a dirty bomb similar to what Padilla wanted to build. I’ll assume the same amount of radioactive material as was in Goiania: 1,400 curies of cesium-137. Radiation damage is measured in units called rem, and if you stand one meter from that source, you’ll absorb 450 rems in less than an hour. That’s called LD50, for lethal dose 50 percent. Untreated, you’ll have a 50 percent chance of dying in the next few months from that exposure.
To try do enhance the damage, let’s use explosives to spread our 1,400 curies over a larger area, say a neighborhood one kilometer square. That will result in a radioactivity of 1.4 millicuries per square meter, and a careful calculation shows that residents will get a dose of 140 rems per year. But radiation illness is nonlinear. For extended exposures, the lethal dose increases by the fourth root of time, to approximately 1,250 rems for a one-year exposure and 2,500 rems for a 16-year exposure. So 140 rems per year is not enough to trigger radiation illness, even if you stayed there 24/7 for a decade. Radioactive contamination may be the one case for which the solution to pollution really is dilution.”
I really don’t know how to evaluate this, because I don’t know what the legal limit for cesium-137, or how you convert from rems and curies to bequerels or horsecrapiels, or whatever they’re using to obfuscate the issue.
Anybody know? Is the amount of cesium-137 being released large or small?
Deposition of Fallout Cesium 137 on Forage and Transfer to Milk PDF
This sounds almost exactly like the article from a few days ago, which turned out to be a measurement error.
Thanks. I’m going to get some sleep and see if my brain will reboot, then I’ll give it a go.
In the last incident, the reading was off by two digits(100 times higher.) I think this is more believable(only about 50% higher.) Will see.
Actually, just read the whole report. Very applicable to what we are possibly going to experience. Includes some tips for avoiding maximum radioactive Cesium-137 intake. For example - Wash everything from the fields thoroughly with known clean freshwater. Greenhouses are gonna be the way to go long term, assuming the worse.
“We may start seeing the cesium in the milk of Washington State, hopefully at only very, very low levels.”
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/31/finds-tiny-radiation-milk/
No longer a ‘may’...
To correct myself, that article is about iodine not cesium
Cesium-137 is mostly a product of nuclear fission. I believe it is one of the decay daughters of uranium. It’s presence in the environment is mainly a consequence of nuclear weapons testing and releases from damaged nuclear power plants. I don’t think you’ll find more than very small trace amounts in nature. In 1966, it was of acute concern since we had been setting off atom bombs in the atmosphere up until two year prior.
Cs is chemically similar to sodium and potassium - it is in the same column in the periodic table. It follows the food chain up and like a lot of elements can become concetrated in milk.
Some localized releases have happened from medical and industrial sources (Cs is a useful isotope used, in among other things, gas well logging.)
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