Published: September 14th, 2011 at 3:54 pm ET
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UPDATED ***DOCUMENT INACCURATE*** SEE BELOW
Via parasite2006, September 17, 2011 at 2:32 am:
[...]
I downloaded the original analysis report and you can see the core part of this analysis report here:
http://twitter.com/#!/takanori_hirai/status/114666567949746176/photo/1
Please note that this original analysis report shows all figures except those for Cs-134 and Cs-137 with “<” to indicate the actual measurements for substances other than Cs-134 and Cs-137 were below the lower detection limit level given in the list. This means that, in a statistical view, no substances other than Cs-134 and Cs-137 was detected in the soil sample.
So Ulrich is right, and the person who deleted all “<” from the original analysis report without understanding the exact meaning of lower detection limit and created this wrong table below is to blame.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/64948256/Tokyo-Hotspot-soil-analysis
ORIGINAL REPORT BELOW
Tokyo Hotspot soil analysis, September 14, 2011:
- Sample Location: Hachioji, Tokyo, Japan (250 km from meltdowns)
- Sample Date: July 29, 2011
- Test Date: August 31, 2011
- Soil Sample Size (unit): 50 grams
Americium-241 @ 3.7 becquerels per unit (unit = 50 grams)
This measurement must be multiplied by 20 in order to be quantified in kilograms, making the Am-241 content in this soil sample 74 Bq/kg.
Americium-241
h/t Bobby1
Ultimate impact of damage to Japan nuclear reactors still unknown, Washington Post, March 13, 2011:
[...] Plutonium-241 presents a more insidious threat. It is not very toxic, but as it slowly decays, it produces the much more dangerous isotope americium-241.
[Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina, who has spent the past decade studying the ecological consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster,] said concentrations of americium are still increasing in Ukraine and Belarus, where unspent plutonium fuel from Chernobyl dispersed. “It looks like (americium-241) will peak in about 2050 in these areas,” he said.
Published: September 14th, 2011 at 3:54 pm ET
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sending...
Not very toxic. Just plain ol’ toxic.
It will not kill you very much. Just kill you.
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Wikipedia: “241Pu has a half-life of 14 years, corresponding to a decay of about 5% of Pu-241 nuclei over a one-year period. The longer spent nuclear fuel waits before reprocessing, the more 241Pu decays to americium-241, which is nonfissile (although fissionable by fast neutrons) and an alpha emitter with a halflife of 432 years which is a major contributor to the radioactivity of nuclear waste on a scale of hundreds or thousands of years.”
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I think this means that Am-241 primarily comes from the decay of Pu-241, but its half-life is 14 years. Therefore it seems extremely likely that this 74Bq/kg Am-241 in the soil near Tokyo came from a spent fuel pool. I noticed that this story has the record so far on number of views for any story yet on enenews: over 14,000 views. The previous record was a week or so ago for a story o Pu dispersion, can’t remember which one. We just hit over 2000 “likes” on Facebook.
By the way folks, take note of Ulrich’s post, below, in which the following: “No, this is INCORRECT. I saw the original measurement result posted by someone on the Tokyo Radiation Levels Facebook page. It said the DETECTION LIMIT was 3.7Bq for Americium. And they DID NOT DETECT ANY. This means, there is AT MOST 3.7Bq Americium in the sample, but there may be much less.” It would be really bad if this story actually meant to say, “no Am-241 detected in soil sample.” It is hard to tell which is the true story from the chart given above. Given only the chart above, I would tend to think that 74 Bq/kg HAD been found in the soil outside Tokyo. But Ulrich’s post gave me pause, and made me think more critically about it.
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I looked again at the original website from whence this data came, and the evidence is pretty conclusive that Ulrichs is probably wrong, or was looking at something else. These people are not doing charts to show minimum detectable levels, below which they cannot detect; they are producing charts that show what they have actually detected.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/64948256/Tokyo-Hotspot-soil-analysis
So, did we get over 14,000 views of this story because it proves that a spent fuel pool blew up?
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Okay I think I finally found an answer to this conundrum of Ulrich’s. There is an extremely important question about the veracity of this report. I tried to download the report Ulrich looked at, but it wouldn’t happen. Ulrich maintains that the 50-gram equivalent of the 74 Bq/kg figure was merely given to show that this was the Minimum Detectable Activity level (MDA). Therefore, the Am241 showing at 74 Bq/kg was only there to show that below that number, no Am241 could be detected, so the actual level of Am-241 might have been non-existent. So I did a good deal of research to find out what, in fact, IS the MDA for Am-241 using gamma spectrometry. It turns out that ordinary gamma-spectrometric equipment should be able to detect Am-241 down to 1-2 Bq/kg. Most Am-241 in soils is below this level, and comes from the 50s/60s atmospheric bomb tests. There is a method for detecting lower amounts, but it involves alpha-spectrometry “after radiochemical separation and purification.” [Source: Pimple, M (2002) Improvement of Am and Cm Determination in Soil, http://www.eichrom.com/radiochem/meetings/2002/…/MaxPimpl_Presentation.do...
So, looking again at the Tokyo Hotspots site, the gamma spectrometer they were using would have been able to go down to 1-2 Bq of Am241 in the soil before it was below MDA. A finding of 74 Bq/kg is truly significant, and was truly found, and truly indicates a spent fuel pool dispersion source, not a reactor dispersion source. This directly contradicts…
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(Cont’d) This directly contradicts the lying MIT report of July 2011, which flatly stated “it was later established that the fuel assemblies in the pools remained underwater throughout the accident.” (p. 9, Buongiorno, Ballinger, Driscoll et al, MIT-NSP-TR-025 Rev 1 26 July 2011, fukushima-lessons-learned-mit-nsp-025_rev1.pdf) Frankly I can’t believe MIT isn’t ashamed to publish such absolute propaganda drivel as this lying, inaccurate report, but never mind. That’s how the industry operates. They hire brains, and think no other brains than theirs could possibly understand the technical complexity of radioactive contamination.
This Am-241 level is actual verifiable evidence folks. The number DOES NOT refer to MDA; it refers to actual detected amounts in the soil.
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fecking awsome arizonan!! begs the question about plutonium then doesnt it?
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Some nice persistent gnawing away at the details,
AriZony!! If your thesis, and criticism of the MIT guys
is solid, maybe you oughta try to publish locally.
Lots of Air Force brains around, U of A guys might
pick it up?
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Urlich later gave the correct URL of the site where the original analysis report is posted:
http://enenews.com/alert-americium-241-found-soil-west-tokyo-74-becquerelskg-dangerous-plutonium-241/comment-page-1#comment-131043
I downloaded the original analysis report and you can see the core part of this analysis report here:
http://twitter.com/#!/takanori_hirai/status/114666567949746176/photo/1
Please note that this original analysis report shows all figures except those for Cs-134 and Cs-137 with “<" to indicate the actual measurements for substances other than Cs-134 and Cs-137 were below the lower detection limit level given in the list. This means that, in a statistical view, no substances other than Cs-134 and Cs-137 was detected in the soil sample.
So Ulrich is right, and the person who deleted all "<" from the original analysis report without understanding the exact meaning of lower detection limit and created this wrong table below is to blame.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/64948256/Tokyo-Hotspot-soil-analysis
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i am so staying away from this thread
nice contribution parasite!!
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Hi all,
You can read the whole long debate about the accuracy of this headline below. However, it does appear from the pronuker Diogenes post below that the ‘less than’ signs, < , were left off the chart above for some reason, and that while most gamma spectrometers can detect Am241 down to 1-2 Bq/kg, this one, for some weird reason, could not detect below 74 Bq/kg. Therefore IT IS UNKNOWN whether or not there was Am-241 in this sample, and the headline is inaccurate.
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No, the original analysis report reads “< 3.7 Bq" for Am241 and a figure with a "<" (less than) sign should never be interpreted as a measurement. The figure 3.7 indicate the lower detection limit for Am241, and the "less than" sign is attached to indicate that the amount of Am241 present was smaller than the lower detection limit. Thus, the "less than" sign has such an important meaning that it should never be deleted in reproducing the original analysis report in any form. Someone who created the data table uploaded here http://www.scribd.com/doc/64948256/Tokyo-Hotspot-soil-analysis just could not understand the meaning and importance of a “less than” sign and carelessly deleted all of them.
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ok, so plutonium get’s worse with time and not better?
this is not good news to me… i didn’t know it.
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This is about Plutonium isotope 241, as opposed to isotopes 238, 239 and the whole happy, helpful Pluto-Boy family. (credit to the makers of the adorable Japanese propaganda character “Pluto-Boy”…. adorably deadly, that is). Different isotopes do different things, and do so over different times. So there will be plenty of cancer and illness now, in the near future, and 200,000 years from now!! Hooray for progress with the peaceful atom!! (peaceful because we’ll all be dead)
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Plutonuim-241 has a halflife of 14 years, decaying into Americium amongst other isotopes.
Finding Americium in the top soil at those concentrations already, only makes me speculate what they will find in the decades to come…
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So is Plutonium-241 less harmful than plutonium-243 ? I thought Plutonium was the most toxic and dangerous of all?
. . . whereas Americium-241 is in all of our homes in our smoke detectors (which is why I don’t put them right next to any place I spend a lot of time).
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Plutonium-239 and Plutonium-241 are fissile isotopes, meaning they can be used in reactors. I tried to look up Plutonium-243, but I’m not sure that isotope exists.
As to how dangerous they are, I’m not sure what to believe anymore, but anything spraying out the remains of a wrecked reactor sounds too dangerous to me.
Even if experts say that it is not very toxic.
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Sorry–my mistake, I meant plutonium-239, which has a half-life of 24,100 years. Isn’t this the one that is said to be the most toxic and dangerous?
When I saw the headline, I was wondering if they were saying that the Americium was worse than Plutonium 239 too.
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/plutonium.html
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Quoting the EPA link you’ve provided: “…internal exposure to plutonium is an extremely serious health hazard. It generally stays in the body for decades, exposing organs and tissues to radiation, and increasing the risk of cancer. Plutonium is also a toxic metal, and may cause damage to the kidneys”
Which isotope they’re talking about isn’t clear. I’d try to stay clear of them all if possible.
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Correction:
Apparently Plutonium-241 only decays into Americium-241, not into other isotopes if it is outside of a reactor, as in the topsoil.
Sorry about the typo (plutonuim) in the above post. I’d wish I could edit my own posts.
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It seems to me that if Plutonuim-241 has a halflife of 14 years and decays into Americium and they are already finding it, it must have come from a soent fuel pool. Fuel dosn’t sit in core that long. I wonder how much of three went up exactly.
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it must have come from a spent, make that SPENT fuel pool.
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Either there were TONS more plutonium-241 dispersed than we have any idea of, for Am241 to appear this quickly, or the Am-241 is from a spent fuel pool where the Pu-241 has already been decaying for some years.
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Am-241 is a bone seeker like strontium and plutonium, very long biological half-life.
The americium in smoke detectors is in dioxide form which supposedly passes right through the body.
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Well, according to Wikipedia, a small amount of Americium will not pass all the way through the body, but will be absorbed in the liver and in the bones and some in the testicles or ovaries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium#Health_issues
P.S. Reading that wiki article made me think: How do they know all this? Creepy thought!
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How do they know all this……
http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele095.html
something to do with this……
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA&feature=player_embedded
very creepy agreed, all of it, bah!
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I was thinking they must have dissected a lot of bodies to find that out. Meassuring every little body part, cut out in very small pieces to be able to detect the alpha emitters.
That’s the thought that chilled my spine.
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yep, servicemen routine post-mortum analysis. It is what they did with the body of my father.
He saved a man’s life, they were both dead within two years.
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post-mortem = autopsy
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In research articles I have read on 1950s Los Alamos tests on animals exposed to depleted uranium, they collect and kill the animals, then burn each organ separately and subject it to analysis to determine the rad content and areas where the DU acccumulates the most.
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Through ‘research’.
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@Hemisfear311 “Reading that wiki article made me think: How do they know all this?”
Laboratory animal studies on dogs, rats, cats, pigs etc.
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I don’t trust anything I read about how long it takes some ionizing radioactive element or other to pass through the body unless the story clearly states whether we are discussing that element in a soluble or insoluble form. Insoluble forms stay in the human body, machine-gunning nearby cells, for a lot longer.
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Japan needs a strong leader to replace Kan.
I only want to hear one thing come from the new Prime minister of japan’s mouth…
PM:
“Tepco; It has been six months time. If the tent you have erected on site at fukushima does not stop the radiation from being released 100% nationally. It will become your new corporate operations center, for the remainder of the crisis.”
TG For president lulz.
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I bet the reactors would be fixed in no more than three days time…
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…After a tough workout i like to drink a bottle of Gatorade’s Green Cesium.
…Plutonium, Mickey Mouse’s pet dog, glows in the dark…that new 3-D animation stuff.
…Americium, “the land of the free and the home of the brave”.
…To your spouse… “quit the Haarping on me will ya, why don’t you go out’n get a half life so’s you kin quit nagging me to death.
red red wine
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Get a half life!
Hehe good one.
Very inappropriately appropriate remark aimed at trolls and shills, who imo are otherwise best left ignored completely.
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lol@redredwine
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LOL Red
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I am reading THE KILLING OF KAREN SILKWOOD,by Richard Rashke, got it from the library, and am picking up quite a bit of info about nuclear power, plutonium, etc. from it. (Just was reading about americum as indicator of presence of plutonium actually.) The book is also interesting, just as a story.
The very good movie I have already mentioned – SILKWOOD, starring Meryl Streep.
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it was a perfect joy checking this experienced proffesional, unlike the chaps and chapesses i have been checking recently! i would take this guys advice!
Timothy A. Mousseau’s Summary
- University educator since 1991
- University administrator since 2006, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences
- Program Director for the National Science Foundation
- Expert consultant to a wide variety of agencies concerning ecology, environmental science, environmental consequences of low dose radiation.
- Extensive international experience in Ukraine and western Europe; more recent experience in Belarus
SpecialtiesResearch, environmental sciences; higher education; international relations, radiation in the environment, maternal effects, ecological genetics…..
and theres more here!!
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mousseau
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This stuff is all dangerous to me.
Our health and the environments are all at risk.
Don’t you think that, there will be some sort of repercussions from having layers after layers after layers of this?
We need a miracle fix, go where it is safer if you can, hopefully until they find a fix.
We need health care for anyone who needs it, more than ever now.
Shouldn’t we have the health care for the public, we give it to our political officials who are supposed to be working for/by the people.
Shouldn’t the people also have the same health care?
Bernie Sanders: Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege
Interesting article and video
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/health-care-is-a-right-no_b_212770.html
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Sorry, OT, but Bernie Sanders is wrong.
“Right” to health care-”Right” to a job- “Right” to good housing, on and on…Not if you want a constitutional republic where there is any freedom.
If someone’s “right” requires someone else to be forced to provide the “right” it’s nothing but redistribution which can only be enforced by a dictatorship.
Government doesn’t “provide” anything for the public. It can only force one group of people to give it to another at the threat of a government gun.
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They already extort most of our paychecks for military spending – why not have a true democracy and vote for where our taxes go? I’ll chip in for health care for my community a lot faster than I would chip in for more DU weapons for my community! If WE are the government, WE should decide how our taxes are spent; and WE need health care.
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a proper scientist
Birds in Chernobyl Area Have Smaller Brains
“COLUMBIA, S.C., Feb. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Birds living near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have, on average, 5 percent smaller brains, according to research led by a University of South Carolina scientist.
Twenty-five years after the Chernobyl disaster, low-dose radiation has proved to have significant effects on normal brain development, shown by the birds’ brain size. Smaller brain sizes are believed to be linked to reduced cognitive ability, says Dr. Timothy Mousseau, a USC biology science professor who, along with his collaborator, Anders Moller of the University of Paris-Sud in France, led the team of researchers from the United States, Italy, Norway, France and Ukraine”
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/birds-in-chernobyl-area-have-smaller-brains-115915304.html
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Hot damn! I’m about 350 clicks south of Fukushima. I’m going to seriously reconsider leaving Japan.
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“Hot damn” is right! So glad you are going to ‘seriously reconsider leaving Japan’.
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Tepco Says No More Free Lunch! Now Get Back To Work!
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/09/there-will-be-no-free-lunch-for-fuku-i.html
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What a disgraceful way to treat those workers, who are risking their lives, just going to work. They deserve the best food and accomodation that (Tepco) money can buy.
Now the only option they have is to buy their lunches from Tepco as all the shops in Fukushima are closed.
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Its a perfect expression isn’t it. When the people of the earth try to use more energy than the sun provides on a daily basis there are consequences.
Fossil fuels have ruined the climate and will make life very difficult for our children, and nuclear fuels are killing the newborn, children and adults today outright.
Indeed: There is no free lunch!!!
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They don’t even give them their last meals???
Besides their pay, they should get meals. The meals should be included as extra hazardous pay.
They are doing a big service by going in the most dangerous area’s. I would like to see the big guys go in there and do that job everyday and live like they do there.
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That news hit me most of all bad news from today and made me remember that one:
TEPCO Has Been Feeding Employees with Fukushima Produce Since March 28
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/07/tepco-has-been-feeding-employees-with.html
How much more humiliation is needed to take Tepco out of power?
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Safe food and water should only be available to everyone
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Not to sound too callus but the workers may die from exposure way before the food might get them. Sadly.
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isn’t ingesting radiation far worse?
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Wow. Speechless. What is the address of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant? Can’t we all send a care package with some cans of food from other countries to send to those workers? That would be a story the MSM would pick up.
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No, this is INCORRECT. I saw the original measurement result posted by someone on the Tokyo Radiation Levels Facebook page. It said the DETECTION LIMIT was 3.7Bq for Americium. And they DID NOT DETECT ANY. This means, there is AT MOST 3.7Bq Americium in the sample, but there may be much less.
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hi ulrich point taken, however the point by the scientist is that this is only the start of the conversion process to americium….
““It looks like (americium-241) will peak in about 2050 in these areas,” he said” from the article taliking about chernobyl so it will be about 100 years for the peak in japan allowing for variables, of course!
thats my take on it!!
peace
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Yes, we have to worry about Americium, but contrary to what the title says, in this particular sample it was not detected. Only Cesium was detected, the rest were all below limit. The analysis was done in a German lab, supposedly not trying to hide anything. The Am detection limit is quite high compared to the others because the gamma radiation it emits has low energy.
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i suppose if you had a link to the article you would have posted it! but your point is well made! i suppose we will have to wait till thet give the plutonium figures before we can work out the possible ameicium contamination estimates….but i suspect strongly that this scientist seems to know his stuff! unlike the “media” scientists….
thanks for the extra info on the isotope!
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I may be missing something but when I click on the header info, one of the charts titled “Spectrum and Activity Analysis” lists a multitude of nuclides along with their (presumably) detected levels; this has been the standard presentation of such data to date. The second nuclide down is Am-241 at 3.7 Bq/unit.
As I said, maybe I missed something but the data as presented seems to support the headline.
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it doesnt seem to be seen on any spectrometer graphs though attached to the article, and theres no mention of plutonium that should be there if americiun was present…the figure is in the chart though?? we would need to see the supporting calculations! errrrr! gotta love enenews!
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Pu might not be there even if Am241 is present if it is from a spent fuel pool decay though right? Of course, they haven’t been reporting much on Pu at all anyway. Maybe the folks on the Tokyo Hotspot Analysis can send you the original calculations? It seems like a rather important point: is the headline accurate or not?
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@arizonan
shall we say from the point of accuracy ” there is some doubt?” lol! i think we need better data….i suspect that the plutonium issue appeaered a little while back and then disapeared with the independant japanese measurer video posted on enenews! it showed a number of isotopes in a set sequence…nothing more has been mentioned on this point and we were not told all the other elements shown on the chart, in the video….. we seem to only get one isotope at a time, more or less…sorry i cant get any more specific or helpful on this one… its annoying!
peace
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oh and i was just thinking that any recent testing from further afield has not shown any plutonium, however there may be traces of historical americium from some earlier source…but if it is fuku americium we should be also getting a plutonium signature on the spectrometers… unless the spectrometer graphs pictures have been doctored? but that would be just toooo paranoid! wouldnt it???
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arclight,
why would there necessarily be a plutonium signature as well if this Am-241 decayed from Pu and was in spent fuel pool? Of course, spent fuel pool would have Pu too I guess. I’m just trying to find out what is true.
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I made a mistake about the thread. It is posted here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tokyo-Kids-Radiation/227762067240468?sk=wall&filter=12
On Sep 1. by Stefan Nus. Here is the link to the results:
http://tinyurl.com/radreport20110902
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@ulrich great link!
wow! heres some quotes from the documentary
the first part might be a bit arty for some, but it picks up! trust me!
“its scary to think that we will live twenty years less than the previous generation.”
And this
“The Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe, it is our fate that the black hole of Chernobyl endlessly swallows up peoples money and health”
A Ukrainian expert provided this synopsis
“since 1991, the Ukrainian population has decreased by 7 million. 12 regions, 73 administrative districts and 293 inhabited places are still considered contaminated. The number of victims of the catastrophy is estimated to be 2,256,000. These are people who require medical aftercare. Yet even before the 20th anniversary, the UN, IAEA and WHO decreed the medical supervision should be reduced or even stopped (arc……bad for business?). I think that’s totally unjustified.”
Watch the rest of this cracking video documentary… this info has to get out…for the kids of japan!!
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H3INoiDn8c&feature=related
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgCydo5Y2sA
Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kzKPaMLaJQ&feature=related
Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeLoZmJWMyw&feature=related
green action japan need our support!!
http://www.greenaction-japan.org/modules/entop2/
as does the children of Chernobyl
return to Chernobyl, video documentary
http://www.youtube…
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…..return to Chernobyl, video documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJQwc954KAg
from this charity
http://chernobyl.typepad.com/chernobyl_childrens_proje/
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a good oirish lad called bono supports this charity too!! sunday bloody sunday!!
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Yes, It is a great link, with lots of interesting information, but my point was, no Americium was detected.
(Sorry, I pushed the “Report comment” first by accident instead of Reply)
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as i said your point was taken…t looks like that on the graph, to the left there is the symbols A (then something unrecognisable then the number 220 (which is radon)… i wonder if that was misinterpreted?
found this educational resource, thought i would share it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efgy1bV2aQo
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or it might be Ra for radon? and not A+? ?
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I think in the Main Report, in the Summary Report part, the < sign was ignored.
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i think you did a good job of busting that! nobodies got any info to refute it! another article busted…fair and balanced… thats enenews!
well done ulrich!!
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now i wonder if the possible ddos attack on this thread will stop
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Ulrich,
I think we are discussing two different samples.
The spectrographic analysis from the Tokyo hotspots website, sample A32, with Am-241, looks different
(http://www.scribd.com/doc/64948256/Tokyo-Hotspot-soil-analysis)
from the German spectrographic analysis of a different sample, no Am-241, photo of spectrum here:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uziEgRan2G8)
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No. I downloaded the report; Ulrich is right. The scribd link cut-and-pasted the columns out of the German report, but the ‘<' was very far to the left of the numbers.
It is sample A32, and Am-241 was not detected. The only non-natural source detected was Cs-134 and Cs-137.
Here is the actual report text:
A32 50g Bodenprobe Tokio 29.07.11 86400s
Taken on 29-Jul-2011 at 10:00
Nuclide Activity – Bq/Unit Measured Decay Corrected
Ag-110M : < 0.5 < 0.6
Am-241 : < 3.7 < 3.7
Ba-133 : < 0.9 < 0.9
Ce-144 : < 5.1 < 5.6
Co-58 : < 0.3 < 0.4
Co-60 : < 0.1 < 0.1
Cr-51 : < 7.9 < 18.0
Cs-134 : 590.0 609.0 +/- 31.0
Cs-137 : 740.0 741.0 +/- 38.0
Eu-154 : < 0.5 < 0.5
Eu-155 : < 3.4 < 3.4
Fe-59 : < 0.3 < 0.5
Mn-54 : < 0.3 < 0.3
Na-24 : 0.0 0.0
Nb-95 : < 0.3 < 0.4
Rh-106 : < 3.9 < 4.1
Ru-103 : < 0.7 < 1.3
Sb-124 : < 0.3 < 0.5
Sb-125 : < 2.0 < 2.0
Zn-65 : < 0.7 < 0.8
Zr-95 : < 0.4 < 0.6
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@diogenes was this a 24 hour spectroanalysis?
and well done for the post…that clears it up, i think!
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Yes, 24 hours. It takes a long time to get reasonable counting statistics at these very low rates.
Long long ago, I used to work for a company which made high-resolution germanium radiation detectors which are used for this type of work.
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Yes, thanks, that might clear it up. I still question why most gamma spectrometers can detect Am241 down to 1-2 Bq/kg but the one they were using was apparently much less sensitive than that. But this new chart makes it look like no Am241 was detected; the headline can stay, and people can follow the debate.
By the way, re, Diogenes post below, the microcurie or 37,000 Bq in smoke detectors. IT IS A REALLY BAD IDEA TO BE SELLING THIS CRAP TO THE PUBLIC. Just because you CAN get one at Home Depot, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, and it doesn’t mean smke detectors are safe. Glowing EXIT signs also have radiation, as does fertilizer for tobacco. The vast amount of research opn low-level effects should discourage any rational human being from having one of these things anywhere near them, even if the Am241 is supposedly “contained.” In a hundred years humanity will look on the way we are spreading man-made isotopes around our environment as as an insane, murderous project. There is already substantial research to back this up, but the multi-billion dollar nuke industry and the engineering departments that it funds aren’t paying attention.
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http://www.radiationtruth.org/2011/09/actions-set-for-october-1st-2011/
-the shrills have not got to me -
also in dear ‘ol blighty
http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/
Come on people, wear masks, show your actual real life in the body support
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nice posts!
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Yes, go for it!!
Too bad I can’t be there at Hinkley Point…but I’ll make a visit to Cattenom this weekend, lol
http://www.stop-cattenom.org/
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The face book link for these actions is
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=243481852330015
Maybe Enenews could be the site to co-ordinate mass actions world wide in all countries?
Maybe there could be a bar at the top or a topic thingie so that good people could let others know.
Have a great time at Cattenom, you guys rock with this!
Oh and if it helps, at Hinckley there is free food too
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Thanks Grace. World-wide action is what we need. We need to go on informing people too. The nuke industry has billions of dollars on their side that we do not have, so it is an uphill slog.
You might be able to use this compendium of evidence on associations between low dose radiation, infant mortality, thyroid cancers and other kinds of cancers, at:
http://www.llrc.org/health/subtopic/compendium2.htm
They have amassed considerable scientific evidence in favor of the IEER low dose model and against the ICRC model…
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https://www.facebook.com/groups/113622485391538/?id=156677744419345
CAN is calling for people to contact their local newspapers, to create news items/requests for reports so that google news gets the word wider:)
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International Atomic Energy Agency Adopts Post-Fukushima Safety Plan
GEORGE JAHN 09/13/11 10:49 AM
“VIENNA — A 35-nation meeting of the U.N. nuclear agency on Tuesday adopted a post-Fukushima nuclear safety plan – despite gripes by influential member nations that it to too timid for making compliance voluntary”
“Suggesting that the text was vague and too nonbinding in nature, Luedeking said Germany would have wanted a plan in which member states’ commitments to peer reviews and IAEA oversight of their civilian nuclear programs had been “more clearly and stringently set out.”
“Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Argentina were chief opponents of giving the IAEA more authority to police nuclear safety, said a diplomat from an IAEA member state attending the meeting.”
More here
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/13/international-atomic-energy-agency-safety-plan_n_960339.html
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IAEA Board Approves Action Plan on Nuclear Safety report…..
13 September 2011
(Note to Media: We encourage you to republish these stories and kindly request attribution to the IAEA). yep very kindly
http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC55/Documents/gc55-14.pdf
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tokyo soil samples measured for Gamma ray activity in Germany
radioactive contamination with caesium (Cs-137, Cs-134) from fukushima found in tokyo soil.
Uploaded by bionerd23 on Sep 3, 2011
see 5:25 and 9:45 for the summary of findings!
seen in this video is a gamma spectrum, performed with a high-purity germanium detector.
in a 50 grams sample of soil (drain / gutter of streets) from the sagamihara area west of tokio (250 km from fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant), significant amounts of the synthetic caesium isotopes Cs-137 and Cs-134 were found. these manmade isotopes are from fukushima – unless there was another, yet unknown incident… meaning the contamination spread quite far.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uziEgRan2G8
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yep ulrich was right … no americium… excellent link xdr
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oh and anyone told the washington post? lol! nice one ulrich!! nicely confirmed xdr….quality investigative journalism….cool!!
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@ulrich you can wipe that smile of your face young man/woman/other and read arizonans responce at the top of the blog….its a cracker!! means the spectrometers pics are probaly doctored too!
?? and maybe plutonium?? arghh
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@ulrich you can put that smile back on your face! young man/woman/other and read parasites post above ….lol sorry!
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There was no Am-241 in the sample the German woman in the youtube video tested from Sagamihara west of Tokyo. However, the sample from Hachioji (above) DID have Am-241 in it. Radioactive fallout does not disperse evenly. Two different samples, two different results I think.
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Fukushima Citizens Group Presents Children’s Urine Analysis Results
Sept 15, 2011 by AustralianCannonball
http://australiancannonball.com/2011/09/15/fukushima-citizens-group-presents-children%e2%80%99s-urine-analysis-results/
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I think we can do away with the phrase, “too paranoid”. There is no longer any such thing, IMO
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I realize I’m probably talking to the wall here, but…
Want to find a whole bunch of Bq of Am-241? Walk into any Home Depot, pick up a cheap smoke detector, and look at the box. Somewhere on there it will say, “Contains 1 microcurie of Am-241″. A microcurie is about 37,000 Bq. There are half a dozen of these things in every home in America, and you are under no obligation to do anything fancy about disposing of them. You can just chuck ‘em in the trash.
A smoke-detector source is the recommended way to make a home cloud chamber for your science project:
http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=LzwCn_gZW4Y
So I would say the NRC, at least, might disagree with you that Am-241 is “more dangerous that plutonium”.
Furthermore, you walk around your whole life with about 8000 Bq in internal radiation from Potassium-40 and Carbon-14, just to keep 74 Bq in some kind of perspective (less than 1%).
So yeah, there is such a thing as “too paranoid”, and this thread pretty much exemplifies it.
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From the EPA:
“The human body is born with Potassium-40 in its tissues and it is the most common radionuclide in human tissues and in food. We evolved in the presence of Potassium-40 and our bodies have well-developed repair mechanisms to respond to its effects.”
http://www.epa.gov/radtown/basic.html
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It’s people like YOU that are the part of the source of our environmental issues today.
DiogenesNJ said, (re: radioactive smoke detectors)”…and you are under no obligation to do anything fancy about disposing of them. You can just chuck ‘em in the trash.”
Well you’re not supposed to throw them in the trash where they can wind being incinerated or sent to a regular landfill. In some areas it’s a CRIME to just chuck ‘em.
see: EPA Disposal – http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/smoke_dispose.html
Either a very inconsiderate person or extremely lacking in common sense in my opinion. Whether it’s the little crimes against humanity or the big ones sooner or later they all add up. In general, it shows the overall mentality and disregard for life and the planet that these types of people have.
The non-stop spewing of fallout from Fukishima for over 6 months with no end in sight cannot be compared to natural internal radiation or bananas (potasium-40) or even smoke detectors.
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“…cannot be compared to natural… radiation…”
Of course it can. Radiation is radiation. Your body responds the same way regardless of the source, whether it’s radon, cosmic rays, K-40 or fallout. Only the total dose and its time distribution matters.
We know that cancer risk is linear with dose at high, short-term doses, from studies done on the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The picture is much less clear for low, long-term doses. Molecular biology has come a long way since the 50′s and 60′s. We know more about cellular growth regulation and response to damage, which happens all the time from your oxygen metabolism as well as radiation. The error detection and repair mechanism is the same at the molecular level.
I will refer you to this study:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3580134
which failed to detect any elevated cancer rates in a large population (100,000 people) exposed to an average of nearly 8 times the normal background radiation level.
Also this study:
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/LNT-1995.PDF
which compared lung-cancer rates and radon levels for 1600 counties across the US. Cancer risk went DOWN with average exposure, up to about 4 or 5 pCi/liter of radon. This result has not yet been falsified to my knowledge.
These and many other studies suggest that low-level radiation carries much less risk than most people think.
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So there is no such thing as an isotope. There are no such things as different internal organs. There is no such thing as DNA. There are no distinctions between alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Human beings are just bags of water, and it doesn’t matter is radiation is from potassium from bananas or plutonium.
Utter nonsense.
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@ boobby1 dont forget metal toxicity as alot of these isotopes are metals!
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The way the research was designed for the atomic bomb survivors has long ago been questioned. Get up to date, Diogenes! You can’t determine dose-effect relationship from the atomic bomb studies when the “control” group was also exposed!! Or when “dose” is a mathematical fiction! Rosalie Bertell long ago tore the validity of the atomic bomb survivors study into pieces in her book, No Immediate Danger. This book is a must read for anyone wanting to educate themselves on these issues, but most pronuke scientists don’t have a mind open enough to look at the other side of the argument. Lots of data to also show that in fact the human body reacts VERY differently to internal vs external emitters. You are behind the times. See llrc.org for compendiums of major research over the past 20 years. No one believes the nuke industry lies anymore unless they believe the billion dollar propaganda machine and don’t bother to learn about it for themselves.
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Thanks for the llrc link; I will look at it.
I agree there are problems with the atomic bomb survivor data, but in the high-dose range it’s still pretty much all we have (fortunately).
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I have this to say to all of the “everything is okay” bullsh*tters:
Back it up with action. If you can get a plane ticket to Japan to “ensure” us that everything is okay, please go and come back and reassure us.
Otherwise STFU as millions of people are getting visibly sick all over the country.
No, in fact, stay here and keep posting.
I want to hear this sh*t a year from now-when YOU get sick.
(insert long line of curse words to people deliberately and purposely feeding others bullsh*t).
and to DiogenesNJ how many f*cking times do the scientists have to say that these fuels are a COMBINATION of nuclear toxins? Not just one, not just two, MANY,MANY toxins.
Why does everyone just cling to one and leave all of the others out?
Anyone?
I’m all for trying to help instill hope but not at the risk of some moron telling people inaccurate information that falsely placates a parent to inaction and kills a child.
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“If you can get a plane ticket to Japan to “ensure” us that everything is okay, please go and come back and reassure us.”
Okay. I was in Tokyo for a week less than two weeks ago, where an analytical instruments conference was being held. People are pretty much going about their daily lives without any fuss and bother.
I would say the people who are really doing damage to the planet and their descendents are the ones who, out of ignorance and excessive fears of low levels of radiation, have prevented nuclear power from displacing gigatons of carbon, sulfate and particulate emissions from fossil fuels over the past 30 years. China is building a couple of new coal-fired power plants EVERY WEEK. They will shorten the lives of many more people than Fukushima.
You don’t have to take my word for it. A European intergovernmental study called ExternE assessed the total life-cycle risk of various forms of power generation. The world average death rate from coal (specifically including China, which has much worse pollution controls than the West) was 161 deaths per terawatt-hour produced. China alone was nearly twice that.
Nuclear, including Chernobyl, was 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour — 4000 times less.
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And why didn’t you go to Fukushima while you were there?
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Indeed, they are acting normal, and what else should they do? They have shut down 75% of their nuke plants, they are winning that battle.
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When I said Chinese coal plants will shorten the lives of more people that Fukushima, I meant lives in Japan. Japan is much closer to Chinese coal emissions than we are in the USA. Consider this link:
http://www1.american.edu/TED/chincoal.htm
A couple of quotes:
” The Central Research Institute of Electric Power and Industry in Japan has reported that acid rain from the China mainland will soon be a major problem for Japan. Recent studies in Shimane and Tottori prefectures claimed, “half of the acidic fallout recorded came from China, one-third came from Japan, and one-sixth from the Korean Peninsula”.
“[a report called] The Condition of China’s
Environment, read, “the death rate due to cancer in urban areas had increased by 6.2% and that of lung cancer by 18.5% since 1988″.(3) In 1993, China’s death rate was 664 per 100,000, and the number one cause of death was respiratory disease in agricultural areas. In city areas, the number one cause of death was cancer, and lung cancer accounted for 37 of every 100,000. In addition, in the
northern urban areas of China, the total suspended particle readings averaged 407 micrograms per cubic meter per day, and 251
micrograms in southern cities. Some places read as high as 815 micrograms. The World Health Organization safety guidelines are
set between 60 and 90 micrograms for total suspended particles. ”
Fukuoka, Japan is a little more than 500 miles downwind of Shanghai as the soot flies.
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Diogenes,
Wow you are really here to promote nuclear energy! Amazing! Sad! Cut the BS about coal and carbon and global warming please. We have lots of other alternatives to those, and nuclear power isn’t going to save us. It is killing us, and has been killing us since the 1940s.
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Indeed I am. I am personally convinced that nuclear is as green as wind or solar in terms of risk, and possibly more so when land-use issues are taken into account.
Wind and solar diffuse, intermittent energy sources. I am not against them in any way, but it will take nuclear as well for base load to make a significant reduction in coal burning for lectricity. Why do you think that is BS? Do you have another way to keep our cities lit and hospitals working after dark if the wind dies down?
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Killing ourselves is no way to make a living, high plains atom boy
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do they use a lot of concrete to build or entomb these reactors diogenes?? lQQk below!
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RIP diogenes! And let us know when you find that honest man!
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“…the death rate due to cancer in urban areas had increased by 6.2% and that of lung cancer by 18.5%…”
Smoking in the People’s Republic of China
“there are 350 million Chinese smokers,[1] and China produces 42% of the world’s cigarettes.[1] The China National Tobacco Corporation is by sales the largest single manufacturer of tobacco products in the world and boasts a virtual monopoly in Mainland China.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
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not being argumentative here diogenesnj but…..
China’s Filthiest Export
“China’s export of acid rain is also severely damaging forests and watersheds on the Korean Peninsula and in Japan, where each spring Siberian winds and dust storms spread mercury and other airborne contaminants (such as dioxin and furan from China’s ubiquitous cement kilns).”
Oh and this
“Other studies are pointing to the growing global problem of black carbon (BC) soot from China. As the active ingredient in the haze produced by burning crop residues, household stoves, and vehicles, BC is potentially the second most important global warming gas after CO2 . Responsible for 17% of these emissions, China is the largest BC-emitting country in the world (with Russia and India not far behind). The BC particles are less than one micron in diameter and cause hundreds of thousands of premature deaths from respiratory illnesses each year in China. Moreover, BC blocks sunlight and may be lowering crop yields by 30% for both wheat and rice in China. Regionally, BC emissions may be heating the atmosphere and destabilizing weather throughout the Pacific Rim. “
And theres more…
.
http://www.fpif.org/articles/chinas_filthiest_export
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I’ll see your Chinese manufacturing pollution article and raise you one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
China has a near-monopoly on rare earth production. Rare earths are needed in large quantities for the strong magnets required for wind-tower rotors. Again, because of the low capacity factor, nearly 3x as much rare earth material is needed for wind-tower generation as for the equivalent nuclear generation. The factor may be even higher, because it’s more efficient to build one big generator than many small ones.
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ENE NEWS:
THE TITLE OF THIS ARTICLE IS INCORRECT, AND THIS ARTICLE SHOULD BE EITHER CORRECTED OR DELETED.
As Ulrich pointed out here http://t.co/kexDU63W and here http://t.co/5j2yzsIB and DiogenesNJ confirmed http://t.co/aHMp7lTq , the original analysis report demonstrated that the measurement for Am-241 was below the lower detection limit. This means that AM-241 WAS NOT DETECTED IN THIS SOIL SAMPLE. The person who created this wrong table presented at Tokyo Hotspot
http://twitter.com/#!/takanori_hirai/status/114636265734946816/photo/1
misinterpreted the original analysis report and carelessly deleted all “<" marks attached to that the measurement was below the lower detection limit.
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ENE NEWS:
THE TITLE OF THIS ARTICLE IS INCORRECT, AND THIS ARTICLE SHOULD BE EITHER CORRECTED OR DELETED.
As Ulrich pointed out here http://t.co/kexDU63W and here http://t.co/5j2yzsIB and DiogenesNJ confirmed http://t.co/aHMp7lTq , the original analysis report demonstrated that the measurement for Am-241 was below the lower detection limit. This means that AM-241 WAS NOT DETECTED IN THIS SOIL SAMPLE. The person who created this wrong table presented at Tokyo Hotspot
http://twitter.com/#!/takanori_hirai/status/114636265734946816/photo/1
misinterpreted the original analysis report and carelessly deleted all “<" marks attached to indicate that the measurement was below the lower detection limit.
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well it was a cracking good debate reaching the right conclusion….its right to keep the title and let people find out the conclusions arrived at here…ie german spectrometer test on soil, review of enenews article data by ulrich and any follw up by arizonan.etc it will help to clear any confusion caused and quiten illegal rumours!!
thats my take!!
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I’m with you on this Arclight!
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Glad the headline was changed to show that the table is inaccurate, so no one else has to go through so many hoops to discover that!
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Watched the Indy race at Motegi, south of Fukushima. Throughout the entire broadcast, they never mentioned radioactivity or the name Fukushima. The topic was conveniently skirted by just using “earthquake” and “tsunami” in referance to Danica Patricks concerns. At least she had concern, but they made sure not to interview her at all. Very cryptic to see all of those Japanese faces in the crowd more interested in an autograph than the isotopes they were all inhaling. For what its worth Danica, you never should have come. If you have kids in the future with holes in their hearts or an extra leg or two, dont bitch at anyone but yourself.
Quite a price to pay just to boil water!!
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heavy synopsis there brother pete! thanks for the perspective….ive got goosebumps thinking about the may gay in kiev 1986
GORBACHEV ORDERED SHCHERBITSKY TO GO AHEAD WITH MAY DAY PARADE AFTER CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT
Published Thursday, July 01 2010
Window on Eurasia: Gorbachev Ordered Shcherbitsky to Go Ahead with May
Day Parade after Chernobyl Accident, Late Ukrainian Leader’s Daughter
Says…..
Paul Goble
“Father explained the situation to Gorbachev and said that
there was a great danger of radiation and that it would be better not to
conduct the May Day demonstration in the [Ukrainian] capital. To this
Gorbachev responded,” she said, “panic is beginning in the republic, and
this must not be allowed in any case.’”
“‘If you allow it,’” the Soviet leader told Shcherbitsky,
“put your party ticket on the table…’ You can imagine what this would
have meant for [her] father,” Olga Shcherbitskaya said. It would have
been “like death.” As a result, the demonstration went forward, but it
was kept short and Shcherbitsky left his grandsons at home.”
http://www.lucorg.com/news.php/news/4415
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oops may day lol
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It’s been 10 days, so probably nobody’s listening by now, but here goes anyway.
arclight — with respect to cement/concrete, less than would be needed for the equivalent generation as wind towers.
Constructing a modern GenIII+ nuclear plant takes about 400,000 cubic yards of concrete per GWe:
http://www.ne.doe.gov/np2010/reports/mpr2776Rev0102105.pdf
A 1.5 MW wind tower (68 m rotor diameter) takes an average of 300 cubic yards of concrete foundation on land (more in water). However, the best siting only yields about 30% capacity factor, so you only get 0.5 MW output. So you need about 2000 of them for the same GWe output, ignoring the issue of intermittence and whatever pilings are needed for the resulting network of transmission towers. That’s 600,000 cubic yards, or 50% more.
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