Fukushima SNAFU

300 tons of highly contaminated water leaked from storage tank

Highly radioactive water has leaked from a storage tank into the ground at Japan’s crippled Fukushima plant, the operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) says.

The ongoing calamity is by far the most serious incident since the clean up operation began at the world’s worst nuclear disaster site since Chernobyl meltdown.

The contaminated water contains at least 80 million Becquerels of radiation per liter, about 540,000 times the normal background level.

According to some reports, the water level inside the leaking storage tank had dropped by about 300cm (10 feet) before anyone noticed.

TEPCO has announced its intention to remove some 1,300 highly irradiated spent fuel rod bundles weighing more than 400 tons from its crippled storage pools later this year.

[It’s hoped that TEPCO will NOT be allowed to do so. Any such climacteric and potentially apocalyptic operation should only be done by an international (non-Japanese) team of competent engineers. Editor]

At least 350,000 tons of radioactive water is currently stored at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

The Internet Mafia has previously censored Public Health Emergency,   global health warnings and any and ALL information posted on this blog concerning nuclear disasters, nuclear energy and the global nuclear mafia. The cabal have also blocked or buried blog entrees on Fukushima Daiichi NPP.

Probability of a Nuclear Disaster by Country

The following probability figures  calculated by FIRE-EARTH on April 8, 2011 still hold!

• Japan (880)³
• United States (865)
• France (855)
• Taiwan (850)
• Belgium, China, Finland, India,  South Korea, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Armenia, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania,  Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain,  Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico,  South Africa, Canada (810)
• Germany, Sweden, Netherlands (800)
• Switzerland  (750)

Notes:

1. The list represents a snapshot of events at the time of calculating the probabilities. Any forecast posted  here is subject to numerous variable factors.
2. Figures in the bracket represent the probability of an incident occurring out of 1,000; the forecast duration is valid for the next 50  months.
3. Probability includes a significant worsening of Fukushima nuclear disaster, and future quakes forecast for Japan.
4. A nuclear incident is defined as a level 5 (Accident With Wider Consequences), or worse, on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). See below.
5. Safety issues considered in compiling these lists include the age, number of units and capacity of nuclear reactors in each country/state, previous incidents, probability of damage from human-enhanced natural disasters, e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic activity, hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, wildfires, flooding…]
6. The  Blog’s knowledge concerning the extent to which the factors described in (3) might worsen during the forecast period greatly influences the forecast. (Last UPDATED: June 26, 2011)

Related Links

• Radioactive Water at Fukushima an ‘Emergency’: Watchdog August 5, 2013
• Nuke Disasters
• Japan Quakes
• Probability of a Nuclear Disaster by Country
• Record High Radiation Found in Fukushima Fish March 1, 2013
• Radiation Record Broken by Fukushima Fish March 18, 2013
• Fukushima Pre-Harvested Rice Contaminated by Radiation September 24, 2011
• Japan Earthquakes, Disasters: Recent History and FIRE-EARTH Forecasts

Also search the blog for dozens of additional entries on “Fukushima.”

What is a lethal dose of radiation from a single Exposure?

Studies of the 1945 atomic bombing at Hiroshima and Nagasaki show that 100 percent of victims whose bodies were exposed to 600,000 millirems (6,000 mSv) died from radiation. About 50 percent of victims who received  450,000 millirems (4,500 mSv) of radiation also died.

(Note: Rem is a unit of ionizing radiation equal to the amount that produces the same damage to humans as one roentgen of high-voltage x-rays.  Source: MIT)

1 rem = 10 mSv  (1 Sv = 100 rem)

Background Radiation in millirems per year (mrem/yr)

• Average background radiation (US):  300
• Higher altitudes (e.g, Denver): 400

“Safe Levels” of Radiation (U.S.)

Limits above natural background radiation levels (average 300 millirems per year) and medical radiation:

• Occupation Limit: Maximum of 5,000  (the limit for a worker using radiation)
• Average Natural Background: 300

[Note: Lifetime cumulative exposure should be limited to a person’s age multiplied by 1,000 millirems, e.g., a 70-year-old person, 70,000 millirems.]

Adults

• Max single dose for an adult: 3,000
• Annual total dose: 5,000

Under 18

• Max single dose for a person aged under 18 years: 300 millirems (whole body equivalent)
• Annual total exposure: 500

Fetal Exposure

• Maximum limit for fetal exposure during gestation period:  50 millirems per month above background levels

Medical

• Single Chest X-ray (the whole body equivalent): 2 millirem

Air Travel

• Coast-to-coast US round trip flight: 12 millirems

*Note:  Radiation dose of about 2,000 millisieverts (200,000 millirems) cause serious illness.

Half-life of some radioactive elements

[NOTE: Half-life is the time taken for a radioactive substance to decay by half.]

• Cesium-134 ~ 2  years
• Cesium-137 ~ 30 years
• Iodine-131 ~ 8 days
• Plutonium-239 ~ 24,200 years

• Ruthenium-103 ~ 39 days [Ruthenium is a fission product of uranium-235.]
• Ruthenium-106 ~ 374 days
• Strontium-90 ~ 28.85 years  [Strontium-90 is a product of nuclear fission and is found in large amounts in spent nuclear fuel and in radioactive waste from nuclear reactors.]

• Uranium-234 ~  246,000 years
• Uranium-235 ~ 703.8  million years
• Uranium-238  ~ 4.468 billion years