Environment Memo

This is a bit worrying without seeing more data. We’ve been told that back in March the power authority found a neutron beam measured about 1.5 kilometers southwest of the plant’s No. 1 and 2 reactors over three days but that what they found is equivalent to 0.01 to 0.02 microsieverts per hour and that [...]

Japan has raised the accident’s severity rating on the International Nuclear Event scale to a 7 from 5 currently, same as for Chernobyl. How high is 7? Here’s the chart:

The “world’s largest concrete pump” is on the way to Japan, as reported first to be used for pumping cooling water and then later, encase them [the reactors] under tons of concrete.

These guys have it right: … It is wrong to compare internal emitters with external emitters, ie, ingesting radioactive isotopes versus in-flight exposure or background radiation. It is like comparing warming oneself near a fire versus eating a red hot coal. [my emphasis] … They go further into the difference between radiation and contamination by [...]

EPA reports finding trace levels of iodine-131 in drinking water in Boise, ID and Richland, WA. These results are worrying for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the way EPA tries to put these them in context in the report: Even an infant would have to drink almost 7,000 liters of [...]

Jeffrey Immelt, the head of GE, which designed the problem reactors, went to Japan to say that the nuclear industry has had a “safe track record” Some careful wording there, leaving much to interpretation.  There could be some serious trouble coming down the pike inasmuch much as there were resignations from GE back when the [...]

AP reports that The plant operators also deliberately dumped 10,000 tons of tainted water — measuring about 500 times above the legal limit for radiactivity — into the ocean Monday to make space at a storage site for water that is even more highly radiactive. That’s about 2.4 million gallons. That sounds like a lot, [...]

Here’s an interesting take from an opinion piece in Thailand: … If Thailand decides to build nuclear power plants, it is not difficult to predict that attempts will be made to fill pockets and construction quality and safety standards may suffer. … Which helps highlight the question of quality control standards around the world. Are [...]

Bloomberg reports that China will cut its 2020 target for nuclear power capacity and build more solar farms following Japan’s atomic crisis, said an official at the National Development and Reform Commission. The country will reduce its nuclear capacity goal of 80 gigawatts, Ren Dongming, director of the renewable energy development center under the economic [...]

There’s bad news out of Japan about high levels of iodine-131: the level of radioactive iodine in water at the plant hit levels 10,000 times the permissible limit, preventing workers from getting near the water Iodine 129 (half-life 16 million years) might also be of concern, because, as a fact sheet (pdf file here) out [...]

Given problems with spent fuel rods at the Japanese reactor site, experts are saying its time for an accelerated transfer of spent nuclear fuel rods from storage in water-covered pools at reactor sites to concrete and steel “dry” casks. … [and] the federal government should create several regional facilities to store the containers for an [...]

I’m wondering about the possibility of  China Syndrome event happening at the reactor in Japan. Some experts are saying that part of the core may have turned molten, but that At Fukushima, the drywell has been flooded with seawater, which will cool any molten fuel that escapes from the reactor and reduce the amount of [...]

Today the BBC and other news outlets continue to inform us that Workers at Japan’s quake-hit nuclear plant are trying to prevent radioactive water from seeping into the sea. It’s not the H2O that’s emitting radiation, it’s radioisotopes, and there’s a big need to know what they are. It will be a dangerous business to [...]

The Economist has a lengthy article on the future of nuclear energy, which concludes … Distressing though it is, the crisis at Fukushima Dai-ichi is not in itself a reason for the world to change energy policy. The public-health effects seem likely, in the long run, to be small. … The trouble is, it ain’t [...]

We’re seeing reports about detection of low levels of I-131 in US rainwater, such as results discussed here by the Harvard Health Blog. But, what about other radioisotopes? Given detection of plutonium near the reactor in Japan, it would be prudent to also test air and rainwater for plutonium, for example. (Note: Apparently, plutonium is [...]

Now Reuters has a story reflecting  a lot of TVA PR about how safe the Brown’s Ferry Plant is. But a bit of googling will reveal what happened at Brown’s Ferry back in the 70′s when a wiring room caught fire because someone was using a candle, as I discussed earlier today. This would be [...]

It’s really very ironic that TVA is holding information sessions at its Brown’s Ferry nuclear power plant to show how safe things are there. This plant was the scene of a rather serious electrical fire back in the 70′s, made all the more serious by the fact that people were using candles (candles!) around flammable [...]

Health physicists ought to be a really good resource for journalists and others making efforts to learn more and report on problems with the nuclear reactors in Japan Such environmental problems are highly multidisciplinary, and no single area of expertise is going to necessarily have the right answers (and, just as important, the right questions). [...]

There’s acute exposure, and then there’s chronic exposure to radiation. Acute exposure results from short bursts of radiation from an external source and which can cause various maladies or death. Chronic exposure is the long-term problem. Here’s a good explanation of chronic exposure to radiation Chronic exposure can be due to exposure to external radiation [...]

The press continually uses insufficient terminology such as this one today by AP, saying that there’s an urgent mission to stop the plant from leaking radiation True enough, but what’s happening is that particles containing radioisotopes are being emitted from the plant. It’s emission of pollutants of the radioactive kind (radioisotopes). Depending on many factors, [...]

The fear consultants are of course coming out of the woodwork now. They make a lot of money working for the nuclear industry. This is low hanging fruit, I admit, but here’s a good one to analyze to a make a point: Alan Kolaczkowski, a retired nuclear engineer, consulted with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on [...]

Maybe they could use small home treatment units in Japan to remove radioisotopes of iodine from drinking water there. After all, as wikipedia reports Activated carbon does adsorb iodine very well and in fact the iodine number (ASTM D28 Standard Method test) is used as an indication of total surface area. Such approaches would have [...]

This idea could be checked out in laboratories very quickly, and it might be more broadly applicable to other safe materials. Coffee grounds could very well help remove radioactive iodine and other radioisotopes from the drinking water in Japan. EPA states that radioactive iodine combines easily with organic materials in soil. This is known as [...]

The earth’s heat is free, and that might explain why businesses and their lobbyists have not promoted geothermal energy. I don’t know why Japan can’t be exploiting geothermal energy, inasmuch as they are in a “ring of fire.”  This argument by a business-guy in Forbes certainly does not hold water: If it could be done, [...]

It will be important to identify exactly the source of these elevated levels of radioactive materials in sea water off Fukushima It could be from a variety of sources, including deposition of airborne material emanating from the plant, or transmutation of elements in seawater used for cooling that could be running off, back into the [...]