Saturday, April 23, 2011

#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: 154 Terabecquerels Per Day, Every Day

(Correction: The previous estimate was 1 terabequerel per hour, not per day. So, per day would be 24 terabequerels.)

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of radioactive iodine and cesium still spewing out of the plant, Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission now admits.

On April 12 during the joint press conference with Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) where they jointly announced the Fukushima I Plant accident was INES Level 7, the Commission assured the world that said that the release of radioactive materials from the plant had decreased to less than 1 terabecquerel per hour, or 24 terabecquerels per day.

It took the Commission 11 days to go from 24 terabecquerels per day to 154 terabecquerels per day. They say they miscalculated. What else have they, all nuclear experts, miscalculated?

From Yomiuri Shinbun (9:15PM JST 4/23/2011):

The Nuclear Safety Commission under the Prime Minister's Office disclosed on April 23 that the amount of radioactive materials being released from the TEPCO Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was 154 terabecquerels per day (1 tera is 1 trillion) as late as April 5 when the amount being released was considered stabilized.

On April 5, the estimated amount of radioactive materials released from Fukushima I Nuke Plant was 0.69 terabecquerels/hour for iodine-131 and 0.14 terabecquerels/hour for cesium-137. When the numbers were recalculated according to the INES method (converting cesium amount into iodine equivalent), the amount released turned out to be 6.4 terabecquerels/hour (which was 154 terabecquerels per day. Previously, the Nuclear Safety Commission had simply added the numbers for iodine-131 and cesium-137, and announced it was less than 1 terrabecquerel per hour.

 内閣府原子力安全委員会は23日、東京電力福島第一原子力発電所から大気中に放出された放射性物質の量が、放出量が落ち着いた今月5日の時点でも、1日あたり154テラ・ベクレル(1テラは1兆)に達していたことを明らかにした。

 5日に福島第一原発から大気に放出された放射性物質の推定値は、ヨウ素131が毎時0・69テラ・ベクレル、セシウム 137が同0・14テラ・ベクレル。国際的な事故評価尺度(INES)で使われるヨウ素換算値で、ヨウ素とセシウムの合計量を計算し直すと、放出量は同 6・4テラ・ベクレル(24時間で154テラ・ベクレル)となることがわかった。同委員会はこれまで、5日ごろの放出量について、セシウムとヨウ素の量を 単純に合計し、「毎時約1テラ・ベクレル以下」と低く見積もっていた。

Hmmmm. The supposed nuclear power experts of the Committee didn't know how to calculate using the INES method? BS. Because on April 12 when they announced the total emission estimate of the radioactive materials from March 23 to April 5, they did say they converted the cesium amount into iodine equivalent.

Now, there's another interesting (but all too common by now) work of editing out some unpleasant information, no doubt practiced by the 4th column (the media) by themselves for the good of the community (no doubt). The earlier version of the same Yomiuri article (which I found on a Japanese message board) had the following sentence after where the current version ends:

If this amount [154 terabecquerels per day] continues to be released from the plant, it would be the equivalent of INES Level 6. [154 terabequerels per day for 90 days = 13,860 terabequerels.]

3か月、この状態が続いた場合の放出量は、INESの「レベル6」の事故に相当する。

You can simply calculate it yourself to come to the same conclusion, but for the majority of people who wouldn't bother, if they weren't told they wouldn't connect.

The earlier version also had this plausible deniability comment from the Commission that it was nothing more than "guesstimate" and no cause for alarm:

The Commission said "The amount that was being released [as of April 5] is only an estimate; it could have wide variance and fluctuations. The radiation level in the air around the Nuke Plant is slowly falling, and it is not the level that would have immediate [negative] effect on health."

 同委員会は、「放出量はあくまでも推計で、誤差や変動も大きいと考えられる。
原発周辺での空間線量は徐々に下がっていて、ただちに健康に影響を及ぼす線量ではない」としている。

Sure. It is "safe" unless people immediately develop cancer and radiation burn.

But wait, there may be more! (Ah it never ends...and it's taking me a very long time to even write up this post...)

Here's the Nuclear Safety Commission's estimate of the total release of radioactive materials as of April 5. Looking at the chart (I added the English explanation), they did seem to think that after the surge on March 15 and 16 (after the Reactors 3 and 4 explosions) the daily release was hardly more than 24 terabequerels; the lines went flat after March 23 or so:

If it has been 154 terabequerels per day instead of 24 since March 23, that's already additional 4,160 terabequerels by now, which alone would translate into the INES Level 5.

An INES Level 5 "accident" every month, Level 6 every 3 months? Slow and steady wins the race to pass the Chernobyl accident...

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting. Would be good if we could compare this with the amount released at Chernobyl.

Anonymous said...

Keep the good work up. You are a beacon of truth.

Tom Maynard
NY NY

M. Simon said...

The I-131 / Cs131 ratio looks suspicious for a reactor shut down 40 days.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Sorry, correction. 1 terabecquerel was per hour, not per day.

Anonymous said...

5.2 million terabequerels at Chernobyl.

Anonymous said...

We have not learned much from the Chernobyl incident after 24 years. Will Fukushima make it any better?

nader paul kucinich gravel mckinney said...

river STYX in front of Dr Caldicott MD
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
どうもありがとうミスターロボット
dōmo arigatō misutā Robotto

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Anyone know..

- how to calculate the iodine-131 equivalent of cesium?

- whether the INES event scale only deals with the radioactive materials in the air? That's what the Japanese government claim, but I'm not so sure. I do remember seeing how to calculate radioactive materials in the liquid in the INES handbook. (Not that I understood the calculation, LOL.)

Anonymous said...

MIT says 14 million terabecquerels at Chernobyl.

http://www.technologyreview.biz/blog/editors/tags/fukushima/

Anonymous said...

Lawrence Livermore Lab says 4.5 billion curies released at Chernoby. About 166M terabecquerels.

Vi Challenger said...

Great posts - the truth is hard to find nowadays. Thank you and best greetings from Austria

netudiant said...

The bequerel is not a good guide to radioactivity risk, because it does not factor in the half life of the emitter.
Thus the cumulative iodine 131 emissions are much smaller than a similar level of cesium 137 emissions, simply because the iodine will have decayed to near zero in a few months, while the cesium will take centuries.
So there is an adjustment to put everything on a comparable basis. Iodine was set as the standard, so the cesium emissions measure has to be massively raised to show the iodine equivalent.
It should be noted that if the measurement standard had been set for cesium 137, the iodine emissions would have been essentially eliminated and NISA could have noted 0.14 terabequerels/hr of emissions.
Clearly this kind of measure is not very intelligible, much less helpful, to any public observer.

Anonymous said...

How much TBq /day escapes in the water

No one knows

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=480200&page=305


INES User's Manual - IAEA Publications -

http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/INES-2009_web.pdf

For events involving releases that do not become airborne (e.g. aquatic releases or ground contamination due to spillage of radioactive material), the rating based on dose should be established, using Section 2.3.

Anonymous said...

If I buy a new Sony cellphone or some wasabi sauce, will it glow in the dark ?

Anonymous said...

They are always saying they mis calculated!! HA what a lie!! This is really criminal in my mind. There is really no safe amount of Radiation. Tepco and the Japanese Goverment just keep changing the level that is what they call exceptable. Here in the US the flow of information practically STOPED after the first week. The Japanese goverment wanted the flow of the negative reporting to STOP! They did not want the economy to colapse. I think they have not taken care of their people!! I also think our Goverment has not reported this NUCLEAR DISASTER responsibly!!

Anonymous said...

well apparently I said something that they didnt like because my post did not show!!!

Anonymous said...

Its alright to talk about decays, some are short others not.
But my comment is - the radiation at the moment is continuous and cumulative, decays are therefore currently of minor importance.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@Anon with links to physicsforums.com, do you have the link to the "The Times interview" mentioned in the thread?

IQXS said...

KUDOS MATE!
You are doing a grand service here....blessings to you and yours. Promoting your data on Twitter...(◣◈◢)

Anonymous said...

Thank you for doing what you do. Keep up the great work.

MC
Boston Mass USA

Okie said...

Should you have eyes to see.
There is only one place of protection from things that are coming on our world.
Psalm 91.
That place is here.
http://www.yahweh.com

Okie

jcrabb said...

"..readings for iodine-131 at Sacramento in California, or at Takasaki, both suggested the same amount of iodine was coming out of Fukushima, says Wotawa: 1.2 to 1.3 × 1017 becquerels per day.
In the 10 days it burned, Chernobyl put out 1.76 × 1018 becquerels of iodine-131,..

The Sacramento readings suggest it has emitted 5 × 1015 becquerels of caesium-137 per day; Chernobyl put out 8.5 × 1016 in total – around 70 per cent more per day."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20285-fukushima-radioactive-fallout-nears-chernobyl-levels.html


On these calculations, from back in the day, Fukushima is already around 3 times worse than Chernobyl in terms of Caesium and Iodine, not forgetting that Iodine and Caesium caused most of the health risk from Chernobyl

Anonymous said...

Then we need to reassess our view of how the Japanese have managed this situation. If it is indeed true that Fukushima has already released 3x more than Chernobyl, and yet nobody has died, and we have not seen anywhere near the contamination that we have seen with Chernobyl (which continues to present problems) then we must admit that the Japanese are doing something very right.
I think the truth is that, as netudiant says, these calculations are not presenting an accurate picture of the dangers, and depending on your particular bent you will be inclined to believe that Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl, not worse than Chernobyl, or somewhere in between. Hard to imagine that at the present time it is worse than Chernobyl.

Anonymous said...

Poses the question: are you a rad tech, or just another one of the millions of perfectly indoctrinated Green zombies?

Seems the latter is the case.

You're seriously throwing the old "OMG! FUKUSHIMA IS WORSE THAN CHERNOBYL!" mantra out there? Really?

You base this on what? Your own expertise or what you pick up, don't understand and make conclusions about anyway?

Do you even know what made Chernobyl so bad?

Here's a little hint:
The graph talks about "released into the atmosphere". What you nutters all forget is that it will be disperesed. Plus I-131 is hardly a factor. Caesium sucks, but it will be dispersed, so it won't be that much a factor. And what all you anti-nukers and "critically thinking" people (no, not really, you're just repeating the retarded Green mantras) always forget is that radiation becomes weaker with distance. That, too, is a significant factor.

Anonymous said...

Fukushima disaster is by far greater than Chernobyl. It 's not only the radiation levels. Russians buried the plant very fast thanks also to the russian volunteer workers. The radiation was spread only through the atmosphere and rainy weather drop it down to Europe and the Balkan mainland.
Fukushima allthough a smaller accident initially due to Tepco's outrageous handling of the situation (backed up by the Japanese and global governments) keeps spitting out radiation.
The main goal of Tepcos officials was to save and salvage the fuels located within the plant, some thousand tons worth 2.5~3.5 million dollars!
They first tried to cool the plant utilizing seawater as well as underground water which was drained to the sea and the aquifer below(not by accident but on purpose). Then they started using more sea water which was drained mainly in the sea. (Supposedly leaking by a 20 cm hole in tha concrete that they could not seal!!!!!)
So Fukuchima radiation has entered the ocean, atmosphere and japan's aquifers and the local and global foodchain for many centuries.
Japan's agriculture is history.
japan's and pacific fishery will also need to be suspended.
While the international atomic energy council was able to find fictitious WMDs in iraq they failed even by now to inspect and produce a descend report on Fukuchima.
The only proper word and action for Tepcos and Japan's ossicials is Seppuku!

Anonymous said...

LIGHT KEEPER, please post all your articles at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ARK/227925563345

so many can benefit from your messages.thank you,from heart.

Anonymous said...

PLEASEEEEEEEE .... PLEASE BURY IT. WE NEED TO GET THIS OVER. PLEASEEEEEEEEEEE JAPAN...DO SOMETHING NOW !!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 11:57pm, no need to be a douche. We all know the importance of getting the facts straight, which is what these commenters are trying to do by piecing together the puzzle. And no, most people are not radiation techs. Are you? If you are, then maybe that explains YOUR indoctrination in support of nuclear power.

Certainly dispersion and distance is important to consider, and most people understand this point, so no need to pound it in so condescendingly.

I know your type. You think you know it all because you repeat some industry factoids and everyone else is below you intellectually. Yet, ironically, it is usually the opposite, simply because your blind faith tends to blind you.

Anonymous said...

Japan's agriculture industry is fine, except for a number of products grown in and around the exclusion zone. Japan's "pacific fishery" is fine, with the exception of some products in the Sanriku area. I would be very interested to see information on how the Japanese drained water into the acquifer. I'm also extremely doubtful that, considering the potential billions that Tepco faces in cleanup and litigation costs, they were primarily interested in saving a few millions of dollars of fuel rods. Regarding burying the reactors, as everyone knows this is not a solution, it is a prolongation of the problem - witness the cracking sarcophagus at Chernobyl that now needs to be rebuilt at significant expense. It needs to be rebuilt because there are highly radioactive products that continue to pose a significant threat. Burying Fukushima when it is not on fire and not producing fission products would guarantee a prolonged ecological nightmare. Because of the volume of fuel in the spent fuel pools, burying the buildings could very well result in the fuel re-igniting, coagulating, and going critical. The best defense against further disaster is proper understanding

Anonymous said...

It is not clear to me how much radioactive water was dumped into the ocean, if the procedure completely ceased, and what's the status of radioactivity in the Pacific Ocean waters. A simple look at the oceanic currents maps and fish migratory routes in North Pacific is more than scary without knowing exactly how this radioactive water is moving and "diluting"...

La terra non ha uscite di emergenza. said...

Tchernobyl 27 kf Cs127 aerial excursion. Fukushima (for the moment) 40 kg...

rich /\ lighthouse said...

where will Tepco be in 4011
where was Tepco in 0011
Fukuoka Masanobu has stated in The One Straw Revolution that all they're really doing is boiling water, reforest the earth and burn wood!

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