Posted on 06/08/2011 6:33:10 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Survey: strontium widespread in Fukushima
Soil samples from around Fukushima Prefecture have revealed concentrations of radioactive strontium.
Japan's science ministry conducted a survey for radioactive substances at 11 locations in 10 municipalities from late March to mid-May.
It says strontium-90 was detected in all 11 locations.
In Namie Town, the reading stood at 250 becquerels per kilogram of soil, while in Iitate Village the reading was 120 becquerels per kilogram. The readings in the other locations were between 2 and 18 becquerels.
Strontium-90 is generated during the fission of uranium in fuel rods in reactors.
With a comparatively long half-life of 29 years, the radioactive substance poses a risk of accumulating in the bones if inhaled, because its properties are similar to those of calcium. If this happens, it could cause cancer.
The ministry says the survey revealed that strontium was detected even in the city of Fukushima about 60 kilometers from the plant, suggesting wide-spread contamination.
It says higher doses of strontium were spread northwestward from the plant, along with other radioactive substances, because of the prevailing winds.
The Nuclear Safety Commission says the detected doses of strontium were minimal, compared with those of cesium found in the region. It says the substance does not pose any immediate health threat.
Doctor Osamu Saito is a radiation expert at a hospital in Fukushima City. He says even though only small quantities of strontium-90 were detected in the survey, it still poses a high health risk because it can accumulate in the bones.
He is urging the government to increase the number of observation points throughout the prefecture, so as to help ease public anxiety.
The ministry says it is considering taking samples from additional locations in the next survey.
Thursday, June 09, 2011 06:02 +0900 (JST)
P!
It’s really bad, but not really, really, really bad.
It’s going to be am interesting 10 years as we see more studies.
We’re going to learn a lot from this.
Yes it is very, very bad.
This is part of a blog post re strontium from a rad technician’s blog:
“Okay, this article is strictly talking about the government’s failing, not TEPCO’s. Because this came up back in March when Sr-90 was detected in other distant towns (which is also mentioned). If there’s Fukushima strontium in remote locations, there’s lots of Fukushima strontium at…well, Fukushima.
And there’s absolutely no defense for TEPCO not performing regular strontium surveys. None. Not even from a public relation’s perspective, because if that Sr-90 is theirs they cannot possibly cover it up.
So hopefully TEPCO will prove to have been surveying since March and the Sr-90 isn’t theirs. Anything else and I’m through with cutting their management any slack.”
http://wormme.com/2011/05/10/whos-been-failing-to-check-for-strontium/
People have remarked in other posts on the ‘dainty’ way that TEPCO would admit to iodine but deny it tests for Plutonium etc.
With the way things are going, I won’t be surprised to find that U.S. Humint is collecting their own samples on the ground in Fukushima.
Oh I just love nuclear power. It is so wonderful..../ sarc.
Gunderson speaks with CNN, says Seattle residents were inhaling 5 charged (hot) particles a day in April!
Video:
http://johnkingusa.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/07/japans-radiation-twice-as-bad/
No mention of what the prior Sr-90 levels were in the soil. Japan has had more than their share of Sr-90 rained down upon them over the years. First there were the two atomic bombs and their fallout. Then they got a fair bit of the Russian/Chinese fallout in the late 50’s into the 60’s. People “downwind” of the Nevada above-ground tests got quite the bit of it in the 50’s and 60’s here too.
We’ve seen Sr-90 levels in children’s teeth go up by a factor of 50 pre-bomb to post-bomb. It’s pretty widespread stuff around the world. Which is what gets me back to asking “What was the background level prior to March 11th?”
By the by, here’s a Time piece from ‘57 on Sr-90 being detected in Japan following US weapons tests in the Pacific:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,824733,00.html
I doubt we’ll learn much more than we’ve already learned. Sr-90 was put into the world’s environment in huge quantities (relative to prior background levels) by above-ground nuke tests in the 50’s and early 60’s. Chernobyl put in a bit more, but orders of magnitude less.
The effects of Sr-90 have been studied intensively since the late 50’s to today. Studies started getting intensive following the spike in Sr-90 levels in the 1956 Japanese rice crop, probably caused by Soviet above-ground weapons testing. So this isn’t Japan’s first issue with Sr-90 levels, either.
Sr-90 is also still used as a tracer in medicine and agriculture today.
“Oh I just love nuclear power. It is so wonderful..../ sarc.”
What is your exact objection to it? Just curious, since anti-nuclear sentiment is moronic. ;-)
Maybe it’s not so bad after all.
Look at the history with Chernobyl, a much worse release of radiation.
There was lots of strontium 90 all over the place.
Well there was hardly an increase in leukaemias.
It turns out the radioactive iodine was much worse, and they only had 9 children die from it. They estimate 9000 cancer deaths will ultimately result from Chernobyl.
So after the scientists review the long term health effects of the disaster, they conclude cancer rates will be up .3% (one third of one percent) over 80 years.
I take the hyperventilating with a grain of salt.
Toxin exposures of all kinds can accumulate in bones and tissue. It is kind of interesting the many ways we can kill ourselves off without knowing it immediately. The awareness of this problem should prevent some Japanese families from watching each other die years before their time. Conservatives may not be tree huggers but we do understand that some environmental problems are not just bad economics but moral concerns. Japan will spend quite a large amount of money to clean this up. Enough accidents could kill nuclear power for accidents are really expensive, but a freak chain of events like what happened in Japan shouldn’t outweigh it’s benefits for now.
Fukushima nuclear plant may have suffered ‘melt-through’, Japan admits
Fuel rods have probably breached containment vessels – a more serious scenario than core meltdown – according to report
Molten nuclear fuel in three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant is likely to have burned through pressure vessels, not just the cores, Japan has said in a report in which it also acknowledges it was unprepared for an accident of the severity of Fukushima.
It is the first time Japanese authorities have admitted the possibility that the fuel suffered “melt-through” – a more serious scenario than a core meltdown.
The report, which is to be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said fuel rods in reactors No 1, 2 and 3 had probably not only melted, but also breached their inner containment vessels and accumulated in the outer steel containment vessels.
Yeah and they apologize for not being honest about how bad it was/is.
But then, they still aren’t being honest about it.
That's a good idea, because if you are hyperventalating, Gunderson says you are inhaling hot particles, and the grain of salt might help with the radiation poisoning. :-)
Ok so you just improved my vocabulary (HUMINT)!
I was wondering if that was part of the purpose of the exclusion zone - if you prevent anyone from entering, you also prevent them from testing in that zone.
I was reading a Japanese blogger’s translation of Japanese officials finally admitting that strontium was detected etc. and I came across this comment on the article:
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/06/now-they-tell-us-series-strontium-was.html
“The problem is the lack of information. They found minute amounts of strontium. Well lets add up those amounts with all the other radioactive materials in the soil to get a TOTAL number of ALL radioactive becquerels per kilogram. They keep handing out one isotope at a time and it’s quite clear that they are all lying.”
This had been bothering me for some time. They know that strontium appears in a known portion to cesium and when they finally, grudgingly admit cesium has heavily contaminated crops, they say nothing about the other obvious contaminants. Until they grudgingly admit much later that strontium is present but they don’t say anything about the other byproducts that would have to be present. And one at a time - grudging admissions to radioactive contaminants but never the ‘Well yes the tea crops were contaminated with the following isotopes: X, Y, Z, A, B, C etc.” So any one ‘revelation’ is downplayed and the sum of the whole cannot be evaluated.
And then there’s this person’s comment:
” For children, this is very bad, because the strontium cannot be purged from the bone once absorbed and incorporated.
So for the Fukushima prefecture, this is a disaster. No parent would want to raise their children in this environment.”
I’ve read that alot tonight - ‘can’t be purged from the bone once absorbed’ and that it can suppress immunity and the energy given off damages tissues and bones etc. Prayers for the people of Japan - Strontium is only one of the contaminants no one would tell them about 2 months ago...
Instead they fiddled and bristled at dire warnings from outside.
I almost wish that Japan's sovereign control over Fukushima were taken away. However, they are just playing PR damage control game and so are ones in U.S.
I had hopes that nuclear energy is more widely used. I don't really live under insane enviros run amok monitoring everybody's daily energy use, even how much hot shower I can take.
1 = within limits
1+1 = slightly above limits
1+1+1 = hmmm, needs more testing
1+1+1+1 = government silence
1, 1, 1, 1, and 1 = slight change in the presentation, nothing to see, move along.
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