Times: “The worst possible result” revealed at Fukushima

[Delta4Embassy]

Fukushima nuclear decommissioners have no idea how to deal with molten nuclear cores

Times: “The worst possible result” revealed at Fukushima — Plant Chief: Centuries may pass before humans find a way to deal with molten cores — Top Official: “We have no idea” what to do, “the technology simply doesn’t exist… I can’t say it’s possible”
Times The worst possible result revealed at Fukushima Plant Chief Centuries may pass before humans find a way to deal with molten cores Top Official We have no idea what to do the technology simply doesn t exist I can t say it s possible VIDEOS




The reactors are still so radioactive a robot sent in to measure radioactivity "died."

Fukushima 2015 nuclear-news

"TEPCO to abandon the failed robot stuck inside Fukushima nuclear reactor

Fukushima Containment Robot To Be Abandoned Inside, Simply Info Fukushima Containment Robot To Be Abandoned Inside SimplyInfo April 12th, 2015

TEPCO announced that the robot stuck in containment will not be recovered. They will send a team into the reactor building today to cut the cable for the robot and leave it in containment. Entry of the second robot was postponed. TEPCO has not made the data collected by the first robot public yet."

"Robot fails, in effort to inspect inside of Fukushima reactor no 1

Fukushima Unit 1 Robot Dies In Containment During Inspection Simply Info April 10th, 2015
Kyodo News is reporting the robot died inside unit 1′s containment during the inspection. It stopped functioning part way through the inspection."

 

[waltky]

First confirmed case of radiation linked cancer from Fukushima nuclear plant disaster...

Ex-nuclear plant worker in Japan develops cancer
Wed, Oct 21, 2015 - FIRST CONFIRMED CASE: The former manager of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant died two years after the 2011 accident, but TEPCO disputes a link to his death

A former Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant worker has been diagnosed with radiation-linked cancer, Japanese authorities said yesterday, the first such confirmation more than four years after the worst atomic accident in a generation. An official with the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said the ex-employee, who was in his 30s while working at the plant following the 2011 crisis, has developed leukemia. He is now 41 years old, local media reported. “The case has met the criteria” to link his illness to the accident, the official told a Tokyo press briefing on condition of anonymity, adding that other possible causes have been ruled out. “This person went to see a doctor because was not feeling well. That was when he was diagnosed with leukemia,” the official said.

The ministry revealed few details about the man, but said he had worked at a destroyed building that housed one of the crippled reactors. The man, who wore protective equipment during more than a year spent at Fukushima Dai-ichi, will be awarded compensation to pay for his medical costs and lost income, the official said, without elaborating on the amount. Three similar cases of cancer in plant workers are still awaiting confirmation of a link to the accident. There has been hot debate about whether the 2011 accident would lead to a spike in cancer among employees of the plant and those who lived in the surrounding area. Yesterday’s announcement is likely further inflame widespread public opposition to nuclear power. No deaths have been directly attributed to the radiation released during the 2011 accident, but it has displaced tens of thousands of people and left large areas uninhabitable, possibly for decades.

A huge quake-sparked tsunami, which leveled Japan’s northeast cost and killed more than 18,000 people, swamped cooling systems at the plant, sending some reactors into meltdown and sparking a decades-long cleanup. Former Fukushima Dai-ichi plant manager Masao Yoshida died two years after the accident at the age of 58, but site operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has disputed whether his illness was linked to radiation. Yoshida captured headlines after he stayed at his post in a desperate bid to tame the runaway reactors, while his workers battled frequent aftershocks to try to prevent the disaster worsening. TEPCO insisted that it would have taken at least five years and more likely a decade for Yoshida’s esophageal cancer to have develop if radiation exposure were to blame.

Ex-nuclear plant worker in Japan develops cancer - Taipei Times

 

[waltky]

US, agencies monitoring Fukushima radiation...

US States, Agencies Work Together in Tracking Fukushima Radiation
July 02, 2016 = A massive earthquake and tsunami in April 2011 caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan to melt down, releasing radiation into the surrounding environment.

While some of this radiation was released directly into the ocean, most of the radiation went into the atmosphere, where it spread and eventually rained into the ocean. The ocean is full of radiation from natural sources, as well as from nuclear testing in the early 1960s. This radiation circulates throughout the ocean and is ingested by marine life. While scientists had a gauge on levels of radiation in the ocean before the Fukushima incident, they weren’t sure what would happen with the additional radiation from the meltdown.

A worker, wearing protective gear, takes notes in front of storage tanks for radioactive water at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan​

Monitoring the fallout in the oceans can be challenging. The biggest hurdle to testing is the sheer size of the ocean, which makes monitoring and sampling difficult. Another problem is that water is constantly in motion, affected by wind, competing currents and temperature, which can make predictions difficult. International teams of scientists are working to discover how these radioactive particles are traveling throughout the ocean.

Going with the flow

A review, published in the Annual Review of Marine Science, of the condition of the oceans five years after Fukushima was presented at the Goldschmidt Conference in Japan this past week. “It’s a really timely review. This particular group ... of experts ... have produced a really great overview of what has happened ... what is likely to happen and what that means for both environmental and public health,” Jay Cullen, chemical oceanographer and head of the Fukushima InFORM project in Canada, told VOA. Results of the study show radiation levels in the ocean spread much as the models had projected. The main radiation plume from the disaster surfed along currents and reached western North American shores in June 2013. Radiation levels, steadily rising as the plume travels along the coast, are expected to peak before the end of this year. The levels detected, even though they are rising, are very low and do not pose any risk to humans, scientists said.

Map showing the distribution of Fukushima radiation​

Swimming in the ocean for eight hours a day for an entire year, even in the highest levels measured, would give you a dose of radiation 1,000 times smaller than what you’d receive during a dental X-ray, Ken Buesseler, oceanographer and lead author of the review, told VOA. In the U.S., individual states are responsible for monitoring radiation levels in the ocean to ensure the levels are safe for people and marine life. However, the level of monitoring done by states does not meet the level for research. While the testing methods used by states cannot detect radiation at the low levels quoted in the study, states such as Alaska collaborate with researchers and federal agencies, sharing samples and testing results.

Better understanding

See also:

Pacific Ocean radiation back near normal after Fukushima: study
July 4, 2016 • Radiation levels across the Pacific Ocean are rapidly returning to normal five years after a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant spewed gases and liquids into the sea, a study showed Monday.

Japan shut down dozens of reactors after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake-generated tsunami on March 11, 2011 triggered one of the largest ever dumps of nuclear material into the world's oceans. In the days following the quake and explosions at Fukushima, seawater meant to cool the nuclear reactors instead carried radioactive elements back into the Pacific, with currents dispersing it widely. Five years on a review by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, which brings together ocean experts from across the world, said radioactive material had been carried as far as the United States.

A study has found that the seafloor and harbour near the Fukushima plant were still highly contaminated in the wake of the nuclear accident​

But after analysing data from 20 studies of radioactivity associated with the plant, it found radiation levels in the Pacific were rapidly returning to normal after being tens of millions of times higher than usual following the disaster. "As an example, in 2011 about half of fish samples in coastal waters off Fukushima contained unsafe levels of radioactive material," said Pere Masque, who co-authored the review published by the Annual Review of Marine Science. "However, by 2015 that number had dropped to less than one percent above the limit."

But the study also found that the seafloor and harbour near the Fukushima plant were still highly contaminated in the wake of the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986. "Monitoring of radioactivity levels and sea life in that area must continue," added Masque, a professor of environmental radiochemistry at the Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. The research examined radioactive caesium levels measured off Japan's coast across the Pacific to North America.

Fish in Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Cooling Pond​

Caesium is a by-product of nuclear power and is highly soluble in water, making it ideal for measuring the release of radioactive material into the ocean, it said. Although no one is recorded as having died as a direct result of the nuclear accident, tens of thousands of people were uprooted, with many still unable to return home because of persistent contamination. Cleaning up Fukushima and making the area habitable again is a crucial plank of government policy in Japan, with Tokyo keen to prove nuclear power is a viable form of energy production for the resource-poor nation.

Pacific Ocean radiation back near normal after Fukushima: study

 

[waltky]

It's still leaking 300 tons of radioactive waste every day...

Fukushima Radiation Has Contaminated The Entire Pacific Ocean (And It's Going To Get Worse)
Oct 2, 2016 - The nuclear disaster has contaminated the world's largest ocean in only five years and it's still leaking 300 tons of radioactive waste every day.

What was the most dangerous nuclear disaster in world history? Most people would say the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, but they’d be wrong. In 2011, an earthquake, believed to be an aftershock of the 2010 earthquake in Chile, created a tsunami that caused a meltdown at the TEPCO nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. Three nuclear reactors melted down and what happened next was the largest release of radiation into the water in the history of the world. Over the next three months, radioactive chemicals, some in even greater quantities than Chernobyl, leaked into the Pacific Ocean. However, the numbers may actually be much higher as Japanese official estimates have been proven by several scientists to be flawed in recent years.

An energy map provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows the intensity of the tsunami in the Pacific Ocean caused by the magnitude 8.9 earthquake which struck Japan on March 11, 2011. Thousands of people fled their homes along the Pacific coast of North and South America on Friday as a tsunami triggered by Japan's massive earthquake reached the region but appeared to spare it from major damage.​

If that weren’t bad enough, Fukushima continues to leak an astounding 300 tons of radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean every day. It will continue do so indefinitely as the source of the leak cannot be sealed as it is inaccessible to both humans and robots due to extremely high temperatures.

Radioactive Debris from Fukushima approaching North America’s western coast​

It should come as no surprise, then, that Fukushima has contaminated the entire Pacific Ocean in just five years. This could easily be the worst environmental disaster in human history and it is almost never talked about by politicians, establishment scientists, or the news. It is interesting to note that TEPCO is a subsidiary partner with General Electric (also known as GE), one of the largest companies in the world, which has considerable control over numerous news corporations and politicians alike. Could this possibly explain the lack of news coverage Fukushima has received in the last five years? There is also evidence that GE knew about the poor condition of the Fukushima reactors for decades and did nothing. This led 1,400 Japanese citizens to sue GE for their role in the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Dead starfish​

Even if we can’t see the radiation itself, some parts of North America’s western coast have been feeling the effects for years. Not long after Fukushima, fish in Canada began bleeding from their gills, mouths, and eyeballs. This “disease” has been ignored by the government and has decimated native fish populations, including the North Pacific herring. Elsewhere in Western Canada, independent scientists have measured a 300% increase in the level of radiation. According to them, the amount of radiation in the Pacific Ocean is increasing every year. Why is this being ignored by the mainstream media? It might have something to do with the fact that the US and Canadian governments have banned their citizens from talking about Fukushima so “people don’t panic.”

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